《Chronicles of the True Wizard》


 Chapter 1 - Book 1: Prologue

    Sitting in a chair next to the aisle, in the very back row, Felix looked forwards respectfully. He did his best to only occasionally glance down at the child next to him who was having trouble sitting still. Given the couple of hours that had already passed, Felix was impressed and had to clench his teeth to refrain from smirking now that the kid''s energy had hit a breaking point. Felix glanced upwards at the sky to distract himself and marveled at the beautiful weather.


    I almost expected it to be overcast with a light drizzle¡­ given the circumstances. Guess that''s jus-


    Hearing his name, Felix interrupted his train of thought and nodded. He rose from his chair and walked down the aisle and up to the podium, nodding to the previous speaker with a solemn smile on his face as he passed them. Standing behind the podium, Felix looked outwards at the crowd as he waited respectfully for the previous speaker to reclaim their seat. They took their seat and those sitting next to them gently patted them on the back and whispered into their ear. Just one seat down from them Felix made brief eye contact with a man who was having trouble not glowering at Felix. Luckily, his sunglasses made it unclear whether or not Felix had actually seen him so Felix simply slowly looked away, as if he hadn''t.


    Yesterday, Felix had thought about writing out what he was going to say so he would have something to recite but ultimately decided against it. He didn''t want it to seem too robotic but he also didn''t want to get stuck with nothing coming to mind. Instead, he decided upon writing out some general points and structure then just filling in the blanks on the spot. His improvisation was always good enough for his teachers and professors in school, he just hoped the nature of the situation here and now didn''t change that. He briefly flitted his eyes over to the man who was glowering at him, his face full of anger, resentment and jealousy. He could guess at why, and just hoped that they weren''t right.


    He didn''t even necessarily want to do this himself, but this wasn''t something you could refuse. He was specifically called on, by name, and though he didn''t care much what anyone thought, he didn''t think it would be right to say no. He didn''t even want to attend at all, but that too, seemed wrong. Luckily this would be the extent of his participation, once he was done with this, he could go home. His eyes unintentionally glanced at the child who was now attempting a handstand on his chair, in the back row so that no one else noticed, causing Felix to unintentionally grin. Catching himself almost immediately, he quickly turned his grin into a warm, nostalgic smile, or at least tried to.


    "I first met David back in high school, though it was just in passing. I''m a bit of a loner, if you didn''t already know, so I didn''t really talk to him or anyone else. It was simply by chance that we ended up attending the same post secondary institution, even luckier for me that we ended up in the same class for our first period. I didn''t recognize him at first, he wasn''t really anyone I would have said I knew at the time. He immediately recognized me though, even though I barely remembered his face, let alone his name. He sat next to me, right at the back next to the aisle, not because he recognized me, but because he wanted to sit in the same place I did. The seats would cause the least disturbance and be the easiest for us to leave."


    "That was one of just a couple of classes I attended that entire term and yet, as soon as a group project was ever proposed, David came right to me. To this day, I don''t know why. Maybe he came to me first out of pity, maybe he really wanted me in particular for some reason. Whatever it was, for the rest of the year we paired up in every class we shared. At first I didn''t mind, but I didn''t overly care. As time went on, I came to really appreciate this arrangement. I came to dislike a lot of people I met, most of them even. David¡­ David was different though, I came to really like him."


    "The next year, we decided to become roommates, an arrangement that continued throughout the rest of our schooling. Our partnership in group activities continued, though the overlap between the classes we both took shrank as the years passed. He attended parties and made friends, went out often and socialized. I did not. I spent all of my time in my dorm, enjoying the solitude. Contrary to what you might expect, given the dichotomy between our lives, we didn''t grow apart but rather became good friends. In fact, he was my best friend, though given how social he was I doubt I held the same title for him."


    "After school, I moved across the country and settled down. I didn''t really make any effort to keep in touch with anyone, but it didn''t matter. David was more than happy to carry the friendship on his back. Over the years he flew out multiple times to see me, popping in for visits, taking me out to dinner and keeping up with me and my life. I knew about his life too. I know he had gotten married, he told me about it when he was thinking of proposing. He didn''t bother inviting me to the wedding though because he knew I didn''t enjoy those kinds of things. He was considerate like that. He talked to me about his kids but he never pressured me to meet anyone."


    "I liked him because he was smart, but that was far from his only trait. He was also considerate, in a way where he knew what other people felt, what they wanted and what they needed and did his best to accommodate. I often felt like the devil on his shoulder, advising him to be more selfish when he only thought about those around him. That''s just who he was though. To this day, I don''t know why he liked me or spent so much time with me but I am extraordinarily lucky he did so. He kept himself in my life, and in turn kept me in his"


    "So when he asked me to speak at his funeral, I was confused and honored but above all, nervous. It''s not something I felt often, but I was nervous because I was worried I wouldn''t be able to say anything that would truly convey his character. How do you describe a man that meant so much to so many, was selfless to a fault and considerate beyond measure? Well, you do your best and take solace in the fact that everyone else in attendance, already knows what you''re trying to say. You''ve all known him to some extent or another which makes my job easy, all I have to do is talk about him and let your own memories of him rise to the surface."


    He thought about calling for a moment of silence but realized how torturous that would be for the child that was already struggling to sit still, so decided against it.


    "Those memories, hold on to them. I''d bet they remain some of the happiest you have for some time to come and I know I will cherish mine until the day I die. Thank you."


    Bowing his head, Felix left the stage, marking the end of the event as a whole. People slowly rose from their seats, some stretching other''s making their way over to offer their condolences. Felix walked towards the aisle but the man who had glowered at him earlier, a man he had never met before, walked up and stopped him. His aggressive expression was completely gone and instead his face was covered in an amalgamation of tears and snot. Before Felix could stop him, the man pulled him into a hug and cried on his shoulder for a few seconds.


    The man pulled away from the hug and nodded to Felix, "Good speech."


    Felix nodded with a polite smile then walked past him. Instead of heading back to his seat, Felix headed straight for the street so he could pick up a ride and head back to his hotel. Once again he was stopped, this time by a much furrier and more welcome interruption. David''s border collie, Ace jumped into Felix''s arms, completely uncaring that it''s size might be an issue for some people. Felix''s foot fell back a step to stop himself from falling as he reached down to hold Ace on his chest while he scratched his head. Ace''s tongue lapped at his face for a few moments before Felix sat down against a nearby tree placing Ace in his lap.


    A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.


    He wanted to leave but he also didn''t want Ace to try and follow him so instead Felix just sat there and enjoyed the moment. About half of the people in attendance started getting into their cars or calling themselves rides while the other half offered their condolences to David''s partner. It took them a few minutes to break away, but once they did, David''s partner walked right over to Felix. He expected them to take Ace from him but instead they sat down against the tree next to him and casually laid a hand on their own dog.


    Felix looked back at the crowd they had escaped and smirked when he saw them at a loss for what to do now.


    "Shouldn''t you get back to them? Seems like there are more people that want to talk to you."


    "Fuck''em. It''s a bunch of people I barely know that just want to offer their condolences. I appreciate it, but I don''t really want to hear it right now. Everyone we were actually close to is already heading back to our house now for dinner. You''re welcome to join us if you''d like? You can finally meet the kids."


    "No thank you, I appreciate the offer. Don''t let me keep you, if you need to get home to your kids."


    "Nah, those guys are over every weekend. Jacob, you already met and the rest of them, they''re closer than aunts and uncles to the kids. They have keys and they can let themselves in, they''ll be fine."


    "Who''s Jacob?"


    "I saw you guys hugging after your speech?"


    "Oh. Yeah¡­ He kind of just walked up and hugged me. I thought he hated me. When I walked up to the podium he glowered at me, I assume he wanted to be the one up there?"


    "Yeah. He was mad when he heard David had specifically requested you because he''d never heard of you. He''s a big softie though, started crying almost immediately."


    "You didn''t want to bring your kids?"


    "Too young. You saw the kid trying desperately to sit still next to you? I didn''t want that to happen. Before I get back to them, I think I want to just talk with you, reminisce if that''s alright."


    Felix nodded, "Of course. Is that why you sent Ace over to stop me from leaving?"


    "You noticed that?"


    Felix just shrugged, "David used to use the same trick."


    "That''s where I got the idea from¡­ Every time someone tells me their sorry, it just reminds me he''s gone. Instead I want to reminisce about his life, maybe even learn something new about him."


    "I''m sure you know him better than I do at this point."


    "Maybe. You''ve known him longer though¡­ You know he never told me he was sick."


    "Yeah. He stayed with me for a week or so when he found out. He said he had to figure out what he wanted and didn''t want to worry and stress you. We talked it through many times, though I was mostly there to listen. In the end he decided not to tell you and to instead make the time he had left the best he could. Then, when he finally succumbed to his illness, he would disappear into the night, like a superhero. With the inevitable looming over your heads, he didn''t think it would be as easy to enjoy yourselves."


    "Yeah, he used to say you were the most emotionally stable person he had ever met. That no matter what happened, you''d be fine. I wish I could do that. When I found out, I was mad, at first. I think it was just shock. I hadn''t noticed anything and I was mad at myself for that. He also didn''t tell me so I was mad at him too. Looking back, I think he did the right thing. The last few months were the best of my entire life. At the time, I stupidly thought that he had changed his mind about doing the things I''ve always wanted to. When he finally¡­ I was mad he wasn''t more selfish."


    "He said he realized he would get more out of making you happy than completing whatever nonsense was on his own bucket list."


    "Of course he did." A couple of tears trailed down their face as they continued, "He timed it well too. Had conversations with the kids, warned them. When it finally happened, they ended up taking it better than I did."


    "He also didn''t want to waste money on medical expenses and leave you broke in the end, he wanted you to understand that. The doctors said anything they could do would give him a few weeks at most and he decided the price was just too high. He told me it was between stalling the inevitable and his family living comfortably for the rest of their lives. Wasn''t exactly a hard choice."


    "I don''t agree with that decision, but I get it. I hope I would make the same decision, in the same situation. Anyways, thanks for being there for him, when I couldn''t."


    "Of course."


    They wiped the tears from their eyes then returned their hand to the back of Ace''s head, scratching behind his ears.


    "I heard your own dog passed away recently. I''m sorry to hear that."


    "Thanks."


    "You planning on getting another sometimes soon?"


    "Sometime soon, yeah. Not sure when. Haven''t thought about it that much but maybe in a month or two."


    "It''s funny. David used to say Ace liked you the best even though he lived with us and saw you a couple times a year. I didn''t think it was possible, didn''t totally believe him. What''s the secret? Bacon in your pocket?"


    "Not quite. I don''t think he likes me more¡­ maybe he just doesn''t see me as much so it just looks like that."


    "Maybe¡­ I heard your parents died when you were in school with David. I''m sorry to hear that."


    Felix shrugged, "Is what it is. They set me up financially, with their life insurance policies so it ended up being sort of ok. I wasn''t just abandoned."


    "He told me¡­ Do you still think about them? Miss them?"


    "No, not really. I think about them occasionally and I miss them but not often and not much. More importantly, not the way you''re asking. It''s not a sad thing anymore, it''s been too long and that''s just not me. I''m sure you''ll get there too one day, it might take you a bit longer but you''ll be able to look back with fondness instead of just¡­ heart ache."


    "So you were just born as an emotional rock? It''s not something I can learn? Sorry if that''s-"


    "I''m sure you could learn it too, but yeah I was born this way."


    "Did you cry¡­"


    "David or my parents?"


    They shrugged, "Either?"


    Felix hung his head, "No. It helps that I was very prepared for both. I knew what was coming."


    "Do you ever cry?"


    "Yeah, sometimes. Maybe I''m just used to death at this point."


    They nodded then sat in silence for a few minutes while Ace rolled over to provide access to his belly.


    "It really didn''t bother you that he would just show up randomly? I heard you preferred being left alone and I know he didn''t call ahead or even tell you he was coming sometimes."


    "Nah, I didn''t mind."


    "Does anyone else in your life do that? Family, a girlfriend or boyfriend maybe?"


    "Just him. There isn''t really anyone else anyways."


    "Oh, right. Sorry."


    Felix shrugged, "I prefer it that way. As for dating, I just haven''t found the right person."


    "Well, now you''ll be alone and uninterrupted forever I guess."


    "Yeah¡­ You know I''m still gonna miss him, right?"


    They nodded, "Me too." After wiping their nose on their sleeve, they continued, "So what did you guys do together? Tell me about him."


    The two of them continued to shower Ace in attention while they reminisced about David''s life and his part in their lives. By the time they had finished, everyone else at the funeral had long since given up on offering their condolences and had left. The two of them along with Ace were the only ones visible in the cemetery, sitting in the shade of a large tree as the sun started to lower itself towards the horizon.


    "So what do you do at home all the time, always alone, if you don''t mind?"


    "Not at all. Mostly reading, watching tv. Go to the gym every day. I enjoy learning so sometimes I spend a few months teaching myself something."


    "David used to say when you got into something, you would be absorbed. Is it true you read a 6 million word book series non stop in a month?"


    Felix shrugged, "It wasn''t quite a month, just over three weeks if I recall correctly. Otherwise yeah, I spent 14 hours a day reading for over three weeks."


    "I guess you didn''t get bored or tired of it part way through?"


    "Not really. I mean I wouldn''t have done it if the series sucked or was boring."


    "I guess that makes sense¡­"


    After a few moments of silence while David''s partner tried to think of anything else they wanted to ask, the two of them rose to their feet, carefully placing Ace on the ground. S~ea??h the N?velFire(.)net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    They offered their hand to Felix, "Well, I know we had met before, in passing, back when David and I first started dating but it''s nice to actually talk to you. I''d heard so much about you, and I know you meant a lot to him."


    Felix smiled and shook their hand then watched as they whistled and Ace followed them towards the street. They stopped and turned just a half dozen meters away, "You said you didn''t know why he carried the friendship, put in so much effort. I didn''t get it either, I knew what he had told me but I didn''t understand it. I still don''t totally get it, but I think I''m starting to."


    With nothing more to be said, they walked to their car and opened the passenger side so Ace could hop in then walked around and waved to Felix before disappearing into the car themselves. After they drove off, Felix looked back at the cemetery one last time then walked over to the street and called himself a ride back to his hotel. . . . . .

 Chapter 2 - Book 1

    Ding Welcome to the Multiverse. I am The System. You are a part of the 256th universe to be integrated into the multiverse. Please wait while I transfer you to a preparation room before the tutorial begins.


    ¡­


    After 5 hours of snoring, loudly, Felix stretched out and rolled around in bed.


    Good Morning. I know you are awake. You appear to have slept more than is commonly recommended for your particular race. You should likely get up now.


    Felix tried to open his eyes but failed due to the bright white of the room.


    "Mind turning down the lights a little?" he asked.


    Felix tested the waters by squinting one eye open and noticed the room was now bearably bright instead of scorching.


    "Either this is a dream, I was kidnapped or¡­" Felix stated aloud to the empty room, then finished with a hint of trepidation, "something else?"


    "I am The System, you are a part of the 256th universe to be integrated into the multiverse. Try pulling up your status screen."


    "So ''something else'', got it. So our- sorry, my universe? Has been¡­ or is being¡­ integrated into a- sorry, the multiverse?"


    "Correct."


    "What does that mean? I understand the words and the sentence¡­ What does it mean though?"


    "Your universe was previously detached from the greater multiverse. The multiverse is a collection of universes that have been combined into one, greater whole, over a long period of time. Previously, your universe was left to naturally progress on it''s own, now as part of the multiverse, your universe will be overseen by me, The System."


    "What¡­ What will change from a day to day perspective? Is everything the same except now you are god?"


    "No. Your universe had almost no mana within it previously. It was also void of many other substances that can be found in the rest of the multiverse. As part of the integration you will progress through a tutorial which will help acquaint you to your new reality. You will find things that previously limited your race have been eliminated. You will also have access to a status screen and will gain experience from various activities. The status screen is my best estimate of your current abilities. The status screen and the stats do not affect you, they represent you. Changes in your stats will not directly change you, the stats only change to reflect changes within you."


    "Limits¡­ Mana?"


    Show status screen Felix thought.


    Name:Felix KadeFREE0Level:0STR12Class:???DEX9Race:[F - Common] HumanAGI8Profession:???PER9Health:90/90VIT9Mana:160/160INT16Energy:110/110END11


    "Huh, Human, Common, yeah that tracks¡­ Sweet working out has finally paid off, fair, fair¡­ Hey System, what are the average stats for humans?" Felix asked.


    System: "The entirety of the human race averages out to about a 10 in every stat"


    "Yeah, that''s what I thought. Also fair¡­ Oh sweet I always figured I had a pretty high IQ, never really had enough of an ego to go get it tested though. Nice to know¡­ Perception below average, probably the glasses. Oh btw, do I need to speak out loud to you?" Or can you read my thoughts?


    We can communicate in whichever method you would prefer Felix heard directly in his head.


    Kinda creepy¡­ nah this is more efficient, also who cares you know everything about me anyways. It''s not like there''s anything to hide.


    Correct.


    So Mana, experience¡­ Is this a video game?


    No. Though you will find many similarities.


    Does everyone go through a tutorial? What about children? What happens when you die?


    Yes, if there is anyone in specific who''s status you would like to be aware of, you may send a request to them. They do as well. I cannot answer that.


    I see¡­ There''s no one. My only real friend died a couple months ago.


    If that is all, you may want to check your message logs.


    Show message logs.


    Welcome to the Multiverse. I am The System. You are the 256th universe to be integrated. Hold tight while I transfer you to a preparation room before the tutorial begins.


    You have 1 hour in this room to choose your class and ready yourself for your tutorial


    You have 15 minutes in this room to choose your class and ready yourself for your tutorial


    It appears that one of your tutorial members is not ready. Please stand by.


    It appears that one of your tutorial members is not ready. Please stand by.


    It appears that one of your tutorial members is not ready. Please stand by.


    We have waited the maximum of 4 hours for all participants to be ready. The tutorial will begin now. Good luck!


    It has now been 1 hour since the tutorial began. You may want to wake up now.


    It has now been 2 hours since the tutorial began. You may want to wake up now.


    It has now been 3 hours since the tutorial began. You may want to wake up now.


    It has now been 4 hours since the tutorial began. You may want to wake up now.


    Good Morning. I know you are awake. You appear to have slept more than is commonly recommended for your particular race. You should like get up now.


    This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.


    "Oh shit." Felix cringed.


    Am I in the tutorial now? He thought.


    You remain in the preparation room as you have not chosen a class. I have attempted to rouse you without physical contact but it appears that may have been impossible.


    How long has the tutorial been running now?


    4 hours and 23 minutes


    Oh shit, well¡­ hope I didn''t miss anything too important.


    Felix looked down and finally noticed that he remained on his own bed curled up in his own sheets.


    Wait, my bed came with me?


    It has been determined that it is safest if I transport everything that is directly touching the participant. As there is nothing of value on this planet before the integration, bringing things into the tutorial has been deemed, a non-issue. It has also become increasingly challenging to determine what the different races consider clothes. Even parsing your every thought, feeling and emotion I have had complaints about missing clothing in the past. This new method has resulted in a 14.8% increase in satisfaction.


    That is not insignificant. Moving on. Class Selection


    A screen with 3 basic categories appeared in front of Felix: Physical, Magic, Healer. Felix immediately chose Magic, as the other choices were evidently inferior. Who learns that magic exists and doesn''t at least explore it? The magic category expanded to reveal Caster.


    [E - Common] Caster


    The caster is the base form for most classes that cast spells with a focus on non healing spells.


    +2 DEX per level


    +2 PER per level


    +3 INT per level


    +3 FREE per level


    Well, that''s an easy choice. Hey System, once I select this class, will you dump me into the tutorial immediately?


    Yes.


    What else can you tell me about stats, You, mana, anything really?


    Stats or attributes are numbers that quantify different aspects of your person, they increase when leveling up dependent on your class or profession. Often including some free points that may be allocated. On a basic level, strength is the power you with which you can move your body, dexterity is the precision with which you can move your body and agility is the speed with which you can move your body. Perception is the efficacy of your senses. Intelligence is the speed and efficiency of your thoughts and dictates the size of your mana pool. Vitality is indicative of how much you can recover from and how quickly you can recover from it. It also dictates your health pool. Endurance is indicative of how resilient you are and changes how much damage you take from a hit. It also dictates your energy pool.


    I am The System, I see all, I know all, I control everything. Mana is a resource typically used with magic. It is commonly believed to be the base form of all matter, energy and other in the multiverse. Energy is a resource consumed throughout the day and when performing particularly intense physical activity. Health is about how much damage your body can take and recover from. You will have to discover anything else you wish to know yourself.


    Alright, thanks System. Tutorial Screen.


    Tutorial Status


    There are 99,153/100,000 people.


    There are 123 days, 20 hours remaining.


    You have completed 0 dungeons.


    You have helped kill 0 world bosses.


    You have captured 0 forts.


    Oh nice, that worked. I guess that means there are multiple tutorials. What''s the environment or setting for my tutorial?


    Correct. The tutorials are designed to best acclimate newly integrated individuals into the multiverse.


    Alright well, guess there''s not much left to do here¡­ Felix looks down at the bed he is still lying in. Shit this is likely the last time I get to use an actual bed for a while. Damn¡­ WAIT, System, can you send my bed and shit back to my house where it was please?


    Anything in this room that you are not in physical contact with will be placed in your inventory.


    Felix rolled to the edge of his bed and stood up.


    That works I guess, thanks. Select Caster.


    A screen appears in Felix''s vision asking him to confirm his class choice.


    Hell yes I want to cast spells. Confirm


    "WAIT I FORGOT I''M NAKED" Felix screamed into the tranquil forest around him. His only response was a distant howl.


    "Shit shit shit, fucking hell."


    Inventory


    Inventory


    2500 Tutorial Credits


    [E - Common] Inferior King Bed


    [E - Common] Inferior King Duvet


    [E - Common] Inferior Pillow


    [E - Common] Inferior King Bed Sheet


    [E - Common] Tutorial Weapon Selection Box (Caster)


    Tutorial Mana Bolt Spell Book


    I could wear the bed sheet, but I don''t wanna ruin it. SHIT. Ok I gotta find some gear.


    Felix summoned the Weapon Selection Box from his inventory with a thought. A small white palm sized box appeared in his hand as a System screen appeared in front of him.


    [E - Common] Tutorial Weapon Selection (Caster)


    Warning: This action is irreversible.


    Orb


    Wand


    Staff


    I don''t really want to hold anything in my hands, I feel like it would just get in the way. Wand seems the most useable. Select Wand.


    The box vanished and in its place a foot long, mostly straight, wooden stick rested in Felix''s hand. Felix visually examined the wand causing a System screen to pop up.


    [E - Common] Tutorial Caster Wand


    A wand designed for the Caster class in System run tutorials for newly integrated universes. A wand aids in aiming your spells.


    Well that''s lame.


    Felix stowed the wand in his inventory and summoned the Mana Bolt Spell Book with a thought. A small palm sized journal of only a few pages appeared in his outstretched hand.


    Not a complicated spell it seems.


    Opening the book, Felix was presented with a short paragraph on the first page and a geometric pattern on the next.


    Welcome to the multiverse. Mana Bolt is one of the most basic spells in the multiverse and is widely considered to be the ideal starting spell for any caster. The spell forms a simple dart of solid mana and launches it forwards. The mana cost is quite low as is the effect. Don''t point it at yourself!


    That was dumb. What the hell am I supposed to do with this? I guess I do have mana, that seems like a decent place to start from I guess¡­ Great so I am stranded in the middle of the woods, buck naked, with no way to defend myself unless I sit here close my eyes and try to manipulate the metaphysical. Awesome.


    As if in response to Felix''s complaints a large fox the size of an adult german shepherd prowled around a tree a dozen meters in front of Felix. The fox introduced itself with a wolf like growl before racing towards Felix.


    Oh come on.


    All free points into agility, wait I did get free points from choosing Caster¡­ right?


    Felix summoned his wand, the only weapon at his disposal into his right hand and crouched down. Just a few meters from Felix the fox bounded into the air with its jaws aiming to wrap themselves around his neck.


    Felix jumped to the side as best he could managing to save his neck but still ended up scoring himself a deep gash on his thigh. He turned and stabbed his wand into air, just above the fox''s eye.


    The fox quickly recovered and pivoted. Felix tried to step back but tripped when he felt pain shoot through his thigh, falling to the ground and smacking his back against a tree instead. The fox pounced, looking for another bite and Felix lacking a better option, desperately tried to block it with his arm. Felix dropped the wand as the Fox clamped down causing searing pain to shoot through his arm. He scrambled to pick up the wand with his other hand then stabbed the Fox''s eye repeatedly as it held itself tightly to his forearm. On the second stab the wand broke and Felix jammed the remaining nub into its nostril.


    Ding You have slain [E - Common] Fox (Lvl 4)


    Ding You have gained a level in [E - Common] Caster


    Felix lay against the tree and carefully removed the fox jaw from his arm. The mangled corpse dropped to the ground and Felix breathed to let the adrenaline pass.


    Ok I need somewhere safe to rest and figure out this stupid Mana Bolt. Hopefully the wand isn''t necessary. S§×arch* The NovelFire.net* website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    Felix summoned the bed sheet from his inventory and ripped off strips to tie his thigh and forearm wound as best he can. He put the remaining sheet in his inventory then also stowed the corpse of the fox he had just barely slain on a whim.


    Oh man, I really didn''t want to ruin my sheets. Status.


    Name:Felix KadeFREE3Level:1STR13Class:[E - Common] Caster (Lvl 2)DEX14Race:[F - Common] HumanAGI12Profession:???PER14Health:38/100VIT10Mana:230/230INT23Energy:96/120END12


    One more scratch from a fox and I might bleed to death. My health is way too low for comfort. All free points to Vitality. Huh, I got an extra point in each stat, maybe from leveling my race? Not sure how that happened. No complaints here though. . . . . .

 Chapter 3 - Book 2

    A handful more fights like that and I''ll run out of energy too. Hey wait a minute, I don''t need glasses at all now. That''s convenient, considering I left them on my bedside table.


    Felix placed the fox corpse in his inventory and used the tree to pull himself up, careful not to aggravate his leg or arm wounds. The wounds seem to have stopped bleeding for now and Felix definitely didn''t want to change that.


    Open Map?


    In front of Felix appeared a large map with only a small circle revealing itself. In the blackness of the unknown just to the north west of Felix was a small white dot. Lacking better options, a common phenomenon for him it seemed, Felix began limping towards the dot.


    Pulling up the map every few hundred meters Felix made his way to the unknown waypoint. After just a few dozen meters of limping another fox jumped out from behind a tree and began chasing him down. Unfortunately 12 agility is not enough to safely outrun a large fox, especially not with a leg injury.


    Felix ran as fast as he could gritting his teeth against the pain shooting up his injured leg every other step. As the fox cut it''s distance to its prey down to about two hundred meters Felix spotted the waypoint in front of him. It was a hole in the side of a large stone sloping downwards like a burrow.


    There was an archway engraved around the hole in geometric patterns. However, Felix didn''t notice anything as he dove through the archway and smacked his hands where the handle would have been on a large wooden door.


    Shit shit shit. Come on.


    Puzzle Dungeon C


    You have found a dungeon. Would you like to enter?


    Yes


    No


    YES YES YES.


    Felix found himself lying, face down, on the stone floor of a well lit corridor. Pulling himself up he looked around. Behind him hung a wooden door, identical to the one he used to get here. In front of him lay a long corridor ending in a fork.


    Touching the door behind him Felix confirmed his suspicions.


    Puzzle Dungeon C


    Would you like to leave the dungeon?


    Warning: You will be unable to retry this dungeon.


    Yes


    No


    No.


    Well shit. I guess it''s kind of exciting. Also, thank god this is not a combat dungeon or something like that. First things first though. I need to figure out how to cast this stupid Mana Bolt.


    Felix sat down and closed his eyes, based on all the fantasy he had read, he imagined a pool of blue liquid just behind his navel. He tried pulling a small thread from this pool and directing it into the shape of the spell form from the spell book.


    His stomach grumbled, possibly in response to his attempted manipulation. Nothing else happened.


    What the fuck am I supposed to do?


    After stubbornly trying and failing to summon arcane power for the majority of two hours Felix decided to just see what the dungeon had to offer. He got up and noticed his thigh was no longer complaining quite as loudly as before. Checking underneath his bandages, he noticed the wound was scabbed over now.


    Checking his arm he found it mostly healed as well.


    Vitality is awesome.


    Felix stowed the bloody bandages in his inventory and started down the corridor with only a barely noticeable limp now. Reaching the fork at the end of the hallway he looked left, then right. Both forks visibly ended with a fork.


    Felix went left for no particular reason. Coming to another fork he went left again. Felix followed the winding corridors at random until, finally, a room broke the monotony of the maze.


    The room was entirely empty other than a large fountain in the middle and a table to its right. On the table lay a modest feast with enough food for 5 people to stuff themselves. The food itself was simple, some roast bird that looked like it could be chicken, fish, vegetable dishes and grains.


    Is this supposed to be a rest room?


    Felix sat at the table and ate as much food as he could. He also cured his mild dehydration he had been dealing with since he had woken up by drinking from the fountain. Finally he used the fountain to bathe himself. He carefully inspected his wounds for any signs of discoloration indicating infection of some sort. S§×arch* The N?vel(F)ire.¦Çet website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    Satisfied he wasn''t going to die, Felix summoned his bed in the corner of the room and slept. He was surprisingly tired given he woke up only a handful of hours ago. Likely due to the spikes in adrenaline and the wounds healing themselves, and only partially a food coma setting in from stuffing himself.


    Felix awoke some time later. Nothing in the room had changed except that the food on the table had replenished itself where Felix had taken his fill.


    Felix stowed his bed and drank as much as he could. He then stowed all the food on the table in his inventory, hoping it wouldn''t rot in there. He immediately realized his leg wasn''t sore at all and stopped to check his wounds. They were completely gone without even a trace of a scar.


    Felix made it to the first fork and was about to turn down the path he hadn''t taken yet when he stopped.


    Map


    Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.


    Nothing happened. It seemed like his map was disabled within the maze.


    That would have made this too easy. I should start mapping the maze myself shouldn''t I? Then I''ll know how to get back to the rest room, or the nearest one if there are multiple. Plus it should save a lot of time.


    I have no writing utensil and barely a page of paper to write on. I do have 23 int though¡­ I haven''t used a mind palace since studying back in university. Let''s see if I remember how this works.


    Memory palaces aren''t really designed for drawing out a shape and remembering it perfectly. However, I should be able to encode the turns I took to get here then just reverse them to get back. Then maybe I can figure out something better tomorrow.


    Recalling the house he grew up in Felix mentally walked through his palace once, twice then a third time just to be sure he remembered. Then, he set out, this time every time he took a turn, he placed the turn in his palace at the next location.


    For a memory palace to work effectively, usually Felix would exaggerate the information and make it ridiculous and therefore more memorable. Unfortunately, visually exaggerating a turn was difficult. Luckily his 23 intelligence seemed to make up for that. Felix followed the corridor and recorded his turn at every fork, only having to turn back and restart a half dozen times, until he reached the 100th fork.


    Then he turned back and retraced his steps back to a previous fork and tried a different route. He continued this for a few hours until he finally decided to head back. He made it all the way back to the rest room and found the table remained empty, no new food had been replaced.


    He sat down and pulled out a cooked fish fillet and made a salad. He quickly ate his meal and quenched his thirst. Then he set out again and continued to try different paths stopping at 100 recorded forks then trying again.


    Finally after multiple hours of trying different paths Felix came across a room. Inside the room was completely empty except for a single chest at the far end. The floor was made up of a grid of tiles and looking closely Felix noticed two of the tiles were glowing.


    Walking into the room, every time Felix stepped on a tile, the tile began to glow as well as all 4 adjacent tiles.


    I recognize this, always loved these puzzles.


    This was a fairly common puzzle in video games. It was simple enough, some of the tiles were lit, then he needed to press the correct tiles to turn them all off or on. With that in mind, Felix walked over to the lit tiles careful to step on each tile he crossed twice to keep the floor state unchanged.


    Felix quickly depressed all of the glowing tiles. From there he stepped on tiles around those and quickly managed to put out all of the tiles. An audible click sounded from the end of the room and the tiles stopped reacting to Felix''s steps.


    Felix excitedly walked over and opened the chest. Inside he found a dagger, picking it up and inspecting it, it looked like a simple cutting tool.


    [E - Common] Tutorial Dagger


    A dagger, the preferred weapon of many. A simple cutting tool useful for all kinds of things.


    Felix, only slightly disappointed, stowed the dagger in his inventory and continued his search. He backtracked and continued to try different forks for about 5 hours by Felix''s estimate when he came across another room.


    This room had almost the same layout as the last except there was no chest on the far end and a grid of tiles laid out in front of the empty space. This time, the tiles were smaller and there were two different kinds of tiles. Some were glowing while the others were evidently stone like the rest of the dungeon.


    The glowing tiles were laid out in a grid amongst the normal tiles such that none of the glowing tiles were touching each other. The standard stone tiles formed paths to walk around the glowing tiles without stepping on them.


    As soon as Felix stepped into the room all the glowing tiles dimmed. Then three of them lit up for a few seconds, then dimmed again. Felix waited a minute or so in case something else happened before doing anything.


    Memory game? Simple enough.


    Felix walked along the stone pathways and stepped on each of the tiles that had previously glowed. Upon stepping on the last one, all of the tiles glowed briefly then dimmed. Then after a second 5 tiles lit up for a few seconds then dimmed.


    Felix continued to repeat the same pattern shown to him until there were 20 tiles lit, then the game changed. As soon as Felix recreated the pattern, the tiles all glowed then dimmed. Then the tiles started to light up in a sequence, each one going dim before the next lit itself. Twenty one tiles lit before finally they stopped.


    Felix of course, recorded the coordinates in his memory palace and recited them perfectly.


    This game continued until the sequence was 50 tiles long. Then they started to demonstrate the sequence faster, then a lot faster. At 96 tiles to the sequence, Felix could feel himself reaching his limit. He just couldn''t record the tiles in sequence that quickly.


    He barely managed to recall the 100 tile sequence when all the lights lit up, hopefully meaning he got it correct. At the end of the room the low rumble of stone on stone presented a chest raising from the ground. A short moment after the chest stopped it produced an audible click sound.


    Felix walked over to open the chest. This chest was nicer than the last one, more ornate with fancy engravings and gold trim. The last one was a simple wooden chest you might have at the end of your bed, in the medieval ages.


    Felix opened it to find a pair of boots. Pulling them out of the chest, he inspected them. The boots were made of a soft brown leather and reached just above his ankles. The soles appear to be made of some hard black material. The real strength of these boots however, surprisingly was not style.


    [E - Special] Traveler''s Boots of Sole Defense


    Doubles your walking movement speed.


    These boots are enchanted to prevent all damage and status conditions originating from below your feet. These will completely negate everything in the E tier or below and lessen the effect from any grade above E tier.


    Lessening damage or status conditions above the E tier may damage the boots, permanently.


    Sitting on the chest Felix slipped the boots on his bare feet. Astonishingly, even without socks, these were the most comfortable Felix''s feet had ever been. The boots fit perfectly, as if they were magically molded to his feet.


    Couldn''t have been pants? The movement speed thing is nice but I''m not sure how useful the rest of the enchantment is.


    Felix stood up and tried to stow the chest in his inventory, unfortunately he couldn''t even move it. Giving up, Felix took one step and tripped barely saving his nose from breaking at the expense of his palms.


    Doubles your walking movement speed, right. Baby steps then.


    Felix carefully stood up and took another step towards the exit. Prepared this time, he managed not to fall. He circled the room a few times before getting the hang of it then set out. He checked a few more branches of the dungeon before deciding to just head back for the night.


    Felix made it back to the rest room in less than half an hour.


    I take it back, these are way better than pants. I love these boots.


    Felix found the table completely refilled and stuffed himself before stowing the rest in his inventory. He quenched his thirst and retrieved his bed. Before sleeping however, Felix wanted to test an idea he had earlier.


    The System said the stats are a representation of the real world, theoretically, I could work out to increase my stats then.


    Felix ran through a basic routine of body weight exercises then ran a short distance down the current dungeon branch he was exploring before heading back.


    No change, guess I can keep it up for a few weeks and if it still doesn''t change I can give it up then.


    He cleaned himself off in the fountain then fell asleep a short moment after crawling in bed. . . . . .

 Chapter 4 - Book 3

    Waking up the next day, Felix stowed his bed and found the table still empty so he pulled a meal out of his inventory and scarfed it down before heading out for the day.


    Felix spent the entire day exploring paths. He encountered 3 more rooms with similar puzzles inside, 2 with the lights out puzzle and one with a pipe puzzle. He turned tiles with channels carved in them until a liquid flowed through the channels and filled all of the holes at once. None of the rooms he encountered were remotely as hard as the memory test he got his favorite boots from, and the rewards paled in comparison.


    From the three puzzle rooms, the best thing he found was a water canteen. The other two contained a maul and a great sword and neither of them were magical.


    He made it all the way back to the rest room where he repeated his simple workout routine then filled his stomach and inventory. Felix washed up in the fountain and filled his canteen then pulled out his bed. He slept for an unknown period of time and was awoken by a System message.


    Ding You have demonstrated sufficient proficiency to unlock the General Skill: [Memory Palace (Special) Using the mental map of a location you are familiar with you can memorize a plethora of abstract information. This skill allows you to construct a Memory Palace from scratch, using this mental map to store information directly. Visiting this Memory Palace you can retrieve any of the information stored within. This skill can be upgraded. The capacity of your memory palace is dependent on your intelligence, the size of your palace and the general capacity of the user. You may reconstruct your palace at any time by first destroying your current palace. Any memories left behind upon destruction will be lost.]


    General Skill: Memory Palace


    This skill is incompatible with your class and profession.


    Do you accept the [Special] skill Memory Palace as a General Skill?


    Yes


    No


    Hell yes I do.


    Felix patiently waited a whole minute, anticipating something to happen.


    Guess I have to construct something then. I could go with my childhood house, but that doesn''t seem very efficient and the skill doesn''t say the new palace has to be familiar. I could also go with a computer file system, but that''s essentially just a dictionary to look up a location, it would save me the walking time, but its my head, why would I have to walk around. Also I don''t want to turn into a robot.


    A computer file system is interesting though, I could go with a similar concept. A building with a directory to look up the exact location then simply go there to retrieve it, sounds familiar. Maybe I could even get a librarian.


    With a plan in mind Felix retrieved his bed and laid down closing his eyes. He thought back to his university library but decided against using that. Instead he went with something a little more fantastical and awe inspiring. He pictured a building with a large reading space in the middle that held tables to sit at. On each of the sides and at the back lay shelves of books on this floor and on the five balconies above that.


    The reading space in the middle was completely open with high ceilings. Looking up from the middle, he would see multiple railings stacked on top of each-other. Felix spent quite a bit of time customizing the pillars holding the balconies to be just right. He made the ceiling a large skylight that cast light from a sunny blue sky above throughout the library. He made ornate railings on the balconies and geometric patterns in the tile floor.


    After half an hour of tweaking Felix was satisfied but unsure of what to do next, luckily the skill prompted him.


    General Skill: Memory Palace


    Would you like to construct this palace?


    You may modify small things within the palace once it is created. Large changes may damage the memories stored within if not handled carefully.


    Yes


    No


    Felix was about to accept but stopped himself to add something he had forgotten. A large desk right at the front for a librarian and a directory. Finally done, Felix accepted. Immediately Felix felt slightly dizzy as the library suddenly solidified. It morphed from a thought to a reality, or at least it felt real to him. After just a few short moments it was done.


    Felix found himself standing inside the exact library he had visualized, except it looked and felt like he was actually there. He reached over and ran his fingers over the lacquered wood grain of the desk. Walking over to the large open space in the middle he approached the biggest table which sat right in the middle of the library. The table dwarfed the study desks around it and looked like a table that might be found in a war room.


    On the table Felix found a large paper map depicted the paths he had already walked in the dungeon. On it he found all 5 puzzle rooms he had already explored as well as the rest room he was currently in. It even had a small triangle for Felix''s position, which he hoped moved and wasn''t stuck there considering this was memory paper and all that.


    Well that is incredibly convenient.


    Felix stood up and opened his eyes, and decided to try something on a whim.


    Map.


    Instead of The System map, in front of him appeared a screen depicting a paper map just like the one on the table in his Library.


    Huh, I cannot lie, this might be the coolest thing I have ever done. Although I still haven''t cast a spell yet so that might change. Actually, did I do this or did The System? Maybe it was me with assistance from The System? That seems most likely if things like stats are only a representation of the real world. Didn''t really feel like I did much more than mentally architect the place.


    Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.


    The excitement of his new skill kept Felix up for almost an hour before he managed to fall asleep.


    The next morning, day? Felix had no idea what time it was so, when he woke up, Felix pulled out a meal from his inventory as the table remained empty. He scarfed it down then drank from the fountain. He made sure his new canteen was filled before setting out for the day.


    Felix decided to try venturing out much further now that he had a functioning map thanks to his new skill. He walked, almost faster than he could run thanks to his boots, down the branch of the dungeon he had last explored.


    It felt odd not manually recording the forks he took but he pulled up his map and willed it into the corner of his vision and it seemed to be keeping track automatically. Once Felix had ventured out twice the distance he allowed himself to before, he started to encounter more puzzle rooms.


    He managed to find another dagger before he found the second best reward yet. In a chest, Felix found a small map of a chunk of the dungeon around the room. As soon as he picked it up his map copied it down and filled in that area.


    He continued on heading to only the rooms on the revealed part of the map and found more small maps, and another dagger.


    It''s like the system thinks I am going to sacrifice someone, what the hell am I supposed to do with all these daggers? I am a caster System, remember?


    With the map chunks appearing in chests now, the exploration of the dungeon went much faster. Felix managed to avoid thousands of dead ends. Other than maps he managed to find 4 daggers, 2 canteens and a hat with no enchantments whatsoever.


    Felix managed to fill out nine times as much of his map by the end of the day compared to when he started this venture before he headed back to the rest room. Felix decided to just get his run in now and ran all the way back to the rest room. He repeated the rest of his simple workout routine and filled his stomach then inventory from the left overs of the ever reappearing feast. Finally he bathed himself in the fountain, but before he could sleep Felix decided he had had enough. S~ea??h the N?vel(F)ire.¦Çet website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    Time to cover my junk.


    Felix thought about using the rest of his bed sheet but decided against it.


    That would look way too similar to a diaper.


    Instead, he pulled out the fox corpse and laid it out on the now empty table. He pulled out one of his seven daggers and skinned it to the best of his ability, which wasn''t much. After plenty of fiddling and a few cuts that would hopefully heal overnight, Felix managed to produce a mostly intact fox pelt.


    He washed it in the fountain and left it to dry overnight as he retrieved his bed and slept.


    Felix woke up and used some strips of bed sheet to tie the Fox pelt around his waist.


    I am undecided on whether this is actually any better than before. I guess if I encounter any actual people it would be.


    Felix pulled out a meal from his inventory, filled his canteens and left for the day. Today he decided he would travel down a single path for about 7 or 8 hours before heading back. That should have him travel about twice his current radius. Accounting for dead ends along the way and the perfect route on the way back that should take at most 12 hours.


    He also decided he would run for as long as he could today then walk until he could run again. He might as well get in some more training, even if it wasn''t doing anything, figuring that out now could save a lot of time later.


    He ran through the area he had already discovered before having to walk again. Over about 3 hours since passing through the area he had already mapped, Felix encountered 3 rooms with simple puzzles rewarding another dagger, a canteen and another hat before he reached a room unlike the others.


    He turned a corner and at the end of the corridor he saw a room that was easily four times the size of any of the others, which had been fairly consistent in size. In the center of the room lay a large altar. The rest of the room appeared to be empty, even the tiles on the floor seemed mundane. Approaching the altar Felix found it blank. He carefully reached out and touched it.


    Puzzle Dungeon C


    You have demonstrated sufficient skill to be tested. Would you like to take the test?


    Warning: Should you fail, you will need to begin demonstrating your skill from scratch before being offered another test.


    Minimum Reward: Dungeon Map


    Yes


    No


    I am assuming this is going to be similar to the tests in the rooms then. Might as well, not like I''ll get any better at memory and lights out tests. Yes.


    The surface of the altar shifted under Felix''s touch to reveal a set of symbols Felix didn''t recognize. The wall Felix was facing, past the altar, shifted as well until it was covered in the symbols.


    Felix quickly closed his eyes and entered his memory palace. He immediately ran to the table in the middle to search for a pen and paper. As soon as he got there though, he noticed a piece of paper next to the map, on it lay what appeared to be all the symbols from the wall.


    Oh System, thank you for blessing me with this skill.


    Felix opened his eyes and found the wall in front of him blank. He decided to try and make this easy for himself and tried to remember the paper from the library with his eyes open. Focusing for a moment, he managed to have the paper appear in his vision in front of him. Willing it to the side he began tapping the symbols in order. For every symbol he tapped, the corresponding symbol appeared on the wall, as if he were typing them out.


    After filling the entire wall with the contents of the sheet, Felix looked up and found them all glowing.


    Hopefully that means they were all right? My palace is based on memory and memory isn''t perfect.


    Felix dismissed the sequence of symbols from his vision as he heard a the low rumble of a chest appearing. Walking around the altar Felix opened the chest to find a stack of large papers.


    I knew the maze was big, but this is kind of ridiculous, no?


    Felix pulled out the pages and looked at them one by one before stowing them in his inventory. Each page depicted a different section of the dungeon labeled with a coordinate on the back of the page. The puzzle rooms on each of the sheets glowed different colors.


    Comparing this to his current map, the room he was currently in glowed purple and the one he got his boots from glowed blue. The rest of the rooms he had explored glowed green. There were also rooms further in the dungeon that glowed red. The entrance and rest room glowed white as well as another area a few hours from the purple test room.


    Felix''s memory map copied down the entire map including the colors and shaded in the areas he had already explored.


    The other white glow has to be the exit. Now that I know where it is though and I have a complete map I can hit all the other rooms and collect the loot.


    Looking at his map he saw somewhere in the neighborhood of over a thousand green rooms and not a single other blue room.


    Or maybe not. I''ll just check out the red rooms then head out. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 Chapter 5 - Book 4

    With a plan in mind, Felix headed to the nearest red room which was only a few hours away. He ran as much as he could on the way there before having to walk again, which was almost the same speed thanks to his boots. He passed by 4 different green rooms with familiar puzzles before finally reaching the red room.


    Felix stood at the edge of the corridor that opened up into the red room. The room was about 5 meters wide by 10 meters long with 50 square tiles, a meter to a side, making up the floor. The walls appeared to be made of old discolored stone and were almost entirely smooth. At the other end of the room lay another corridor.


    On the wall to his right, Felix noticed an engraving every meter, barely legible from this distance, right at chest height.


    Well no enemies, thank god. Maybe red isn''t a bad color in the multiverse, maybe this room will shower me in loot.


    Felix didn''t believe that for a second. If The System had the status screen represent your actual stats, and it was in English, why wouldn''t it use his interpretation of colors for the map.


    With the thought, red is bad, in his mind Felix took out a dagger and threw it onto the tile in front of him. Nothing happened. Next, he reached out with his foot and slowly shifted his weight onto it. Nothing happened. Next he backed up back into the corridor and tried the tile to the right of the one he just tried.


    Felix opened his inventory and pulled out the maul he could barely lift. He placed it on the tile in front of him and slid it over to the right. As soon as the weight of the maul reached the other tile Felix stumbled back into the corridor as he felt a sudden buzz in his head. The buzz came paired with an itch spreading itself through his whole body.


    Felix heard a loud boom on the side of the room and quickly opened his eyes to inspect the source. The wall opposite the engraving had a large black scorch mark with tiny dancing flames around the edges. The flames quickly dissipated.


    Felix''s eyes filled with glee.


    I was right all along, this room is gonna shower me with loot.


    First things first though, the buzz and the itch. Felix reached forwards and pulled on the handle of the maul so that it rested on the tile in front of him. After a few moments he pushed it back onto the tile to it''s right again.


    This time Felix managed to keep his eyes open as a small ball of fire bolted across the room right above the maul. Felix felt the heat of the flames passing by as well as the same buzz in his head and itch in his body, though much more tolerable this time.


    The sensations were not part of the trap, they were more like there was something he had been missing. Like a new sense waking itself up coupled with a limb waking up after having been asleep, forever. It felt like there was something that used to be a part of him that he had forgotten about and now he was getting reacquainted with it. The buzz and the itch were like goosebumps and excitement, his heart raced but there was something more to it. That was just his physical reaction, he felt most of the feeling originating from somewhere within him, somewhere deeper.


    Okay so three things I need to accomplish before leaving this room. Now that I have direction I can learn to use mana, I hope. Then I need to be able to cast at least Mana Bolt or Fire Ball before leaving this dungeon, might as well figure it out in this room where I can compare my Fire Ball to the trap''s. Finally, I want to find the source of mana powering this trap, if possible.


    Felix, carefully pushed and pulled the maul, setting off the trap three times. Each time he immediately closed his eyes and tried to hold onto the feeling spreading through his mind and body. The buzz in his head and itching in his body dissipated but the source of the feeling in his body remained. Now he could detect a slight feeling from the Fire Ball when the trap triggered as well as an even fainter feeling from below the tiles.


    After triggering the trap thrice and focusing inwards Felix could feel multiple things below the tiles in the room even with his eyes open. Felix sat down cross legged in the corridor and closed his eyes. He had meditated a few times before the integration, but never really felt the benefit so he had given it up fairly quickly. Here though, it felt appropriate.


    With his eyes closed Felix focused on the things he felt below the tiles. He quickly realized there were multiple objects below the tiles. Ten of them, in a line down the middle of the room. One underneath each row of tiles. As he focused, the feeling became clearer and each object below the tiles focused into distinct objects rather than one large fuzzy amalgamation.


    Changing tacks a bit, Felix focused within his own body. He figured he should have a mana pool somewhere in there. It took him almost ten minutes to realize the mana pool wasn''t in a specific location, it was spread evenly throughout his body. He was like a balloon filled with the stuff.


    In his body, it was much fainter then the objects below the ground. His mana pool was closer and easier to sense as it was within his body but the objects below the tiles were still noticeably denser, despite their distance.


    Felix took a deep breath to calm his excitement, then another. He began trying to move his mana. He was assuming this was mana, what else could it be?


    Ever slightly, he felt the mana in his body slosh around, like he had nudged a glass full of liquid. Along with the slight movment, Felix felt his previous anticipation reach a crescendo. He felt like he had rediscovered a part of himself and found something he had been missing his entire life. Even just the slight manipulation was enough for him to feel like he was doing exactly what he was supposed to be doing. He assumed all caster''s would feel the same thing when they first used mana, now that mana had been introduced to their universe.


    I can barely slosh it around and this stupid book wants me to shape it? Well, the confidence is appreciated.


    Felix opened his eyes and retrieved the maul. He walked down the corridor and around the corner before checking that he could in fact, still feel mana. He managed to run most of the way back to the rest room. He passed multiple green rooms from which he could feel a very slight trace of mana.


    The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.


    Making it all the way back Felix completed his workout routine faster than he ever had before, partly because he had completed the run getting back here and partly due to excitement. He then stuffed himself and his inventory from the food that had replenished itself. At this point he had about 17 servings of food from the table stored in his inventory.


    He quickly bathed and refilled his canteens in the fountain before sitting himself down on the floor, cross legged, and closing his eyes. Felix spent hours sitting on the stone floor with his eyes closed sloshing his mana around and getting used to the feeling.


    He was so focused that he hadn''t realized how tired he was. When he eventually opened his eyes, he simply laid down and fell asleep right on the floor where he sat. When he woke up, he quickly ate and drank before sitting back down and starting again. After a few hours, that Felix could only measure in progress, he had managed to move his mana deliberately. He could clearly see the mana in his own body and could move it around pretty easily.


    He was like a storm over the ocean creating waves in the mana within his body. He began to focus on pulling out a small thread. A few hours later he had succeeded. He managed to pull the mana out of his body in threads. They dissipated quickly but they existed, he could feel them and could have sworn he could almost even see them.


    Felix decided to get up and go back to the red room now. He opened his eyes, stood up, and was presented with a System message.


    Ding You have demonstrated sufficient proficiency to unlock the General Skill: [Meditation (Common) Focusing your mind, you have begun your journey on the path of meditation. You have begun to release stray thoughts and focus on a particular task, ignoring distractions. This skill can be upgraded. Your Mana, Energy and Health restore themselves at an increased rate while meditating (x1.5)]


    Ding You have demonstrated sufficient proficiency to unlock the Class Skill: [Meditation (Common) Focusing your mind, you have begun your journey on the path of meditation. You have begun to release stray thoughts and focus on a particular task, ignoring distractions. This skill can be upgraded. Your Mana restores itself at an increased rate while meditating (x1.5)]


    Skill: Meditation


    This skill is compatible with your class.


    Would you like to accept the [Common] skill Meditation as a General Skill, Class Skill or Neither?


    General Sear?h the N?velFire.n§×t website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    Class


    Neither


    Wait the general skill is strictly better? General.


    It seems like skills can be either profession, class or general. If the skill suits your profession or class it will be compatible. Everything else has to be a General Skill, that makes the General Skill slots much more valuable. Maybe I should have taken that as a class skill. Though, if this is true, it also likely means that my upgrades would have been locked into ones that suited my class. Also, I want that health regen.


    Wait a minute, if it regenerates energy, can I meditate instead of sleeping? I''ll have to test that out tonight.


    Felix began his morning run, this time towards the red room he had visited yesterday.


    He got to the room and it was exactly as he had left it except that the scorch marks on the left wall had disappeared. Felix retrieved the maul from his inventory and almost dropped it, forgetting how heavy it was.


    First things first, he wanted to confirm something today. He slowly pushed the handle of the maul onto the trigger tile and focused on the object below the first row of tiles. Today, looking closely at the Fire Ball he realized this was too small to be called a Fire Ball and was more like a Fire Bolt. This time, having practiced, though still almost too fast to detect, he could feel the mana rise through the object, run along the tiles and into the engraving.


    After a single triggering of the trap, he couldn''t be sure it was depleting itself though, so he triggered it again and again until he was certain. The object under the first row was in fact depleting itself every time the trap was triggered. Felix continued to activate the trap in the first row until the object was completely depleted.


    Now he could walk on any of the tiles in the first row without the trap triggering at all. The tiles still depressed, but no Fire Bolt was summoned. He quickly walked over to the engraving on the right wall and paid close attention to the object below him in case it refilled. He examined it closely before scurrying back into the safety of the corridor.


    He closed his eyes and found the page with the Fire Bolt engraving in his memory palace and filed it away on the appropriate spell shelf in the library. Felix had found out yesterday that he does not remember everything perfectly, forever. The large table in the middle acts as his short term memory and only has so much capacity, the size of the table. With the map currently occupying most of the space, there was only so much capacity left.


    Yesterday on a whim, Felix had decided to check his memory for the list of symbols from the purple test room. Except he couldn''t find it anywhere. It seemed like, any memories Felix deemed unimportant disappeared after some time. If he wanted to keep something, he had to file it away. His library did do this automatically based on what he deemed important at the time, but with the Fire Bolt, he wanted to be certain he remembered the engraving.


    As Felix exited his library, he noticed the object under the first row seemed to be at capacity to trigger the trap again. To confirm, he used the maul, and sure enough, a Fire Bolt shot across the room over the first row of tiles.


    Now that I know the object under the tiles is depleting itself it seems safe to call it a Mana Battery. They seem to also be refilling somehow. Either there''s a spell under them that is pulling the ambient mana, or they do it automatically. Wait, is ambient mana a thing? It must be, right? Crossing fingers for automatically. Though having that spell would be kind of cool, I could maybe even attach it to myself to increase my mana regen or use it to power traps or wards, if those exist. I changed my mind, crossing fingers for ambient mana collecting spell.


    After a few minutes of trying, Felix could barely sense the ambient mana all around him. Though, he still couldn''t tell if The System or dungeon was manually refilling the batteries or if they instead replenished themselves using ambient mana.


    Time to find out for sure.


    Felix had multiple ideas for how to get at the mana batteries below the tiles. His best idea could be summed up as, smash the tiles using the maul. Acting on his brilliance Felix tried to lift the maul over his head. After failing a few times he reached his hand right under the head of the maul and lifted it. Then when it was above his head he adjusted his footing then quickly slid his hands down the handle and swung as hard as he could.


    A loud boom thundered through the corridor and Felix''s arms shuddered from the impact. Felix himself was knocked over and had let go of the maul. Picking himself back up he examined the tile and found a few cracks along its surface. He repeated the process, this time more prepared, he even managed to hold onto the maul.


    After dozens of swings, he finally managed to break through the tile. Careful not to cut himself he stowed the broken tile pieces in his inventory. Under the tile lay a small hole containing a palm sized hexagonal gem stone. Felix carefully picked it up and underneath there was no collection spell. Holding it in his hand he could feel it replenishing slowly from the ambient mana.


    [E - Uncommon] Mana Battery (12/250)


    [Small][Fast]


    A battery containing mana. Slowly replenishes itself using ambient mana.


    250 mana is small? What the hell is the capacity of a big or ginormous battery?


    Felix continued the process of draining the battery before smashing the tile with the maul and retrieving the battery for each row in the room. In the end, he ended up with 9 [E - Uncommon] Mana Battery (Small). Unfortunately, he had damaged one of the batteries when he smashed the tile above it, luckily it''s mana only dissipated and it didn''t go out in a fiery explosion or anything like that.


    I guess a red glow really does mean loot. . . . . .

 Chapter 6 - Book 5

    Once it had been completely obliterated by Felix''s maul, Felix decided he was finished with the room. He quickly checked him map for the next nearest red room and headed over there. He managed to run all the way there, thought it was only half an hour away.


    This room was much more mundane. Looking inside it looked similar to the previous red room, however, upon testing the tiles the trap was much simpler. It was a pit trap, the tile would fall and underneath was a pit a few meters deep. Sear?h the Novel?ire(.)ne*t website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    Lame.


    Felix checked 10 different red rooms before deciding to head back. There were 3 magic trap rooms that he retrieved the batteries from. In total, he managed to snag himself 25 batteries from the rooms.


    Great now if only I could do anything with mana.


    Felix headed back to the rest room. Looking at his map he only had 3 more red rooms to check before he could leave the dungeon satisfied. Which meant 1 more day to figure out how to cast a spell to defend himself outside.


    Felix quickly ran through his bodyweight circuit and filled his belly, storing the extra food in his inventory. Then he retrieved all the mana batteries and spaced them out on the now empty table. He filled his canteens and began his mana practice. He had decided at this point to add mana practice of some kind to his nightly routine right after working out. He thought about practicing his mana during his workout, but he wasn''t quite comfortable enough to try that out yet.


    By the time Felix''s energy was completely filled, as it appeared he could meditate instead of sleep, Felix had managed to keep three different threads active outside his body for a whole minute before they dissipated.


    Felix decided to go check out the last 3 red rooms before finally sitting down and figuring out how to cast a spell. As he ran through the corridors he decided to try and hold the threads outside his body while he ran. He checked all three remaining red rooms only finding mundane spike, blade and pit traps. He ran all the way back to the rest room, only mildly annoyed at wasting his time.


    By the time he got back he had managed to keep five threads active while running.


    That''s a really good sign, if running had been a serious distraction, casting spells in the middle of combat would have been impossible.


    Felix sat down once again and this time summoned only a single thread. He mentally pulled up the memory of the Mana Bolt spell form he manually filed away earlier in his library. He set it to the side and tried to shape his thread like the spell form. After only a few hours he got close. The thread was in the exact shape, but it wasn''t exactly still. The thread appeared to be squirming around as if dancing to the tune of an invisible wind.


    After many hours, Felix finally managed to have the thread shape itself exactly like the Mana Bolt spell form. It was completely stable and unmoving and he had even managed to even it out so that it was no thicker in any one part then another.


    I am basically a prodigy, only taking dozens of hours to cast the most basic of spells. Now to solve the simple problem of, if I made the shape, why the hell isn''t it casting?


    Felix spent another hour forming destroying and reforming the spell form with mana threads until he decided to take a food break. He tried creating multiple spell forms but as soon as he tried to create the second, the first one fell apart. He didn''t quite have enough focus to hold them both steady and keep them from dissipating.


    Felix ate from his inventory and drank from the fountain. He ran and did his daily exercises while forming the Mana Bolt spell form. He managed to form the stable spell form from scratch in just a minute now. Still too long for combat, but much better than the half hour it had taken him initially. He thought about trying the Fire Bolt spell form but decided if something went wrong, he was less likely to kill himself with the Mana Bolt.


    With no better ideas in mind, Felix pulled out and read the Mana Bolt spell book again.


    Welcome to the multiverse. To cast a spell, simply shape your mana into the spell form listed on the next page. Once complete add enough mana and the spell will cast. Don''t point it at yourself!


    How the hell did I miss that before? Was this always there?


    Felix felt the sudden urge to smack himself. He groaned and formed the spell from a mana thread then pointed it to the side. Finally, he carefully pushed mana as best he could through the thread and into the spell form. As soon as he did the spell form, where it was connected to him, inflated and popped while his mana pool on his status sheet went down. He could even feel the mana in his body slightly deplete. He checked and confirmed that he had consumed twelve mana points.


    He formed the Mana Bolt spell from mana threads again and made sure it was stable. This time he held on as tightly as he could to every part of the spell form to make sure it didn''t inflate and pop again. He wanted the mana to spread itself evenly throughout the spell form, at least that was his theory. He slowly pushed mana as close to a single point as he could get through the thread. He made sure it spread itself evenly then he pushed another point of mana. He lost hold of it at 7 points and it popped again. He tried again and managed to get to 8 points this time.


    He repeated this process, making sure to point the spell perpendicular to himself as he wasn''t sure which end it would fire from he could currently only form the spell form a short distance from his body. Finally, after using up over half of his mana pool, Felix saw a small white dart in size and shape with a slightly blue trail shoot out of the spell form to his right.


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    Ha. That was awesome. Also tedious. I am happy I finally got here, but I also know I''m pretty stubborn. How are casters surviving in the tutorial if it takes days of practice to cast the most basic starting spell? Even then, it takes me three minutes to fire a simple Mana Bolt. Maybe I just suck at this. Even if I do, it''s magic, it''s cool and I love it. I''m definitely not gonna stop practicing, even if I do suck ass at this whole thing.


    Felix practiced for a little over an hour managing to point the spell forwards every time and got the entire cast down to just over a minute. The longest part, taking up easily 90% of the time, was forming the spell with the thread. Pushing mana into it was fairly quick once he got the hang of holding it stable.


    Referring back to the spell form in the book, Felix then spent an hour refining the shape of the spell form he created. He decided to check again on a whim, and noticed that the spell form in the book was not even in thickness, there were thinner and thicker parts. He had initially practiced forming it with a uniform thickness but that was wrong. The practice doing so, even if it was wrong, was still very useful though.


    Modifying the spell form Felix managed to get the cost for casting the spell down to just 7 mana which was less than half of the 15 mana it took for his first cast. The effect of the spell didn''t even appear to be any lesser. It seems like Felix had been wasting mana with some part of the spell form that didn''t need as much mana before.


    Maybe it was the visual effects or something.


    Satisfied he had a decent handle on casting Mana Bolt, he decided that he needed to test the effects of the spell. However, the only way he had to test the damage was to shoot himself.


    Not trying that anytime soon. I guess I can shoot it at the water in the fountain and see what happens. Then I can try it on the fox meat from the body. I don''t trust my amateur skinning abilities enough to eat it anyways.


    Walking over to the fountain, Felix readied and fired a Mana Bolt into the water. The bolt shot through the air struck the water and passed through right to the bottom of the fountain. The splash the bolt made was minimal and there was no perceptible damage on the bottom of the fountain either.


    The lack of a splash might just be the shape of the spell, and the fountain is probably pretty durable. I hope.


    Felix pulled out the skinned fox carcass and placed it on the table. Stepping back a few feet he fired a Mana Bolt at it. He missed. He stepped forwards a few feet and fired again. This time, he managed to hit it. He walked over to the table and inspected the carcass finding a small hole in the flesh penetrating almost the length of his finger.


    Okay I need to work on my aim. This spell does seem capable of doing damage, to foxes at least. Not sure about anyone wearing full plate armor. For that I would probably need something that doesn''t rely on penetration, maybe something with a little¡­ fire?


    Felix managed to construct the Fire Bolt spell form on his first try. It was somewhat similar to Mana Bolt, which helped a lot. This time he paid special attention to the thickness of the lines throughout the spell form so he didn''t blow his entire mana pool. Felix knew, from the number of times the trap could trigger before depleting the mana batteries, that the spell should cost about ten mana.


    He knew which direction this one faced as the engraving pointed outwards so he didn''t have to test it. He slowly pushed five mana in, then proceeded with a little more bringing it to eight, then to ten. It still didn''t cast. He slowly added mana until finally, at fourteen mana, a Fire Bolt shot through the air.


    This time, a small ball of fire shot out of Felix''s spell. He managed to get a good look at it as it formed in front of him. In comparison to the Mana Bolt, the Fire Bolt was more a ball and less a dart. It was almost double the volume and it traveled much slower. It was still fast, but it was much less reminiscent of a bullet, which the Mana Bolt had been.


    He figured this was probably due to the thickness of one of the lines in the spell form, but he wasn''t going to compare and modify either of them now. It still took a whole minute to cast Mana Bolt with abysmal aim and almost 2 minutes to cast Fire Bolt. Most of the difference in time was because of his familiarity with the Mana Bolt spell form. If he just cast the Fire Bolt a few times, he could probably get it down to a minute or so as well.


    At this point Felix decided to try exercising while he cast the spell at the wall. He needed to get his exercise routine in and it would be good practice if he needed to defend himself once he left. He also decided to alternate between the two spells so he could do so outside if he needed a specific spell. Felix did his pushups and almost burned his hand before figuring out how to aim somewhere he wasn''t looking. When he was done he looked up at a bunch of random scorch marks on the wall in front of him. His aim while not looking was, unsurprisingly, far worse. The other exercises proved less difficult.


    By the time he started his run, his aim was less dangerous to anyone around him and he was fairly confident he could hit a still target about a meter across from 5 meters away. So still useless in combat. Adjusting to aiming while running took much less time than Felix expected, though it might be because his aim was so bad, it couldn''t have been much worse.


    His cast time however, had decreased significantly. He managed to get Mana Bolt down to just thirty seconds while Fire Bolt lagged behind at just forty. The biggest thing he needed to fix at this point was his aim. Felix picked up the batteries from the table which were all full by now and headed to the first red room he had found.


    There he positioned himself on the left end of the room and aimed at the engraving with Fire Bolt with the obliterated tiles between him and the target. This was the first time he had completely depleted his mana, and it sucked. It felt like he had drained his body of fluids and he was a husk but once again the feeling was less physical and instead originated from somewhere else inside of him. Fortunately he had Mana Batteries to replenish himself, unfortunately he had no idea how.


    After fumbling around with the batteries for a few minutes, he figured it out. It was pretty intuitive really, he felt the mana inside the battery and pulled it out. The part he had trouble with was pushing it into himself efficiently. He started with a small amount and got about half of it inside of himself while the rest just dissipated. He found that he had to purposefully direct it into his body then to his torso before he could let it go.


    Once it started though, it was pretty fast and the rest of the mana would follow suit. It took a little effort initially to direct it then he could mostly just generally pull on the mana in the battery and it would guide itself to his torso. It reminded him of water cohesion, once it had a path, it just followed it.


    With his mana pool replenished he continued to fire at the engraving. After about an hour, he moved one row down to the next engraving. He left all the mana batteries he had expended on the floor so they could recharge as he went.


    At the fifth row of tiles, all of his shots landed within six inches of the engraving. He took a break for a meal from his inventory and collected the batteries that had filled themselves from the first row of tiles in the room. He continued all the way to the last engraving where he managed to get all of his shots within three inches of the engraving. A six inch diameter was decent enough on a still target. . . . . .

 Chapter 7 - Book 6

    By the end of his aiming practice, Felix managed to get his Fire Bolt cast time down to just 15 seconds or so. He tested Mana Bolt and, after a few tries, managed to cast it in similar time as well. He collected all the batteries and ran back to the rest room. He practiced alternating the construction of both spell forms along with his aim while running, which was still pretty bad. It helped that the spell form didn''t bounce up and down with his body while he ran, but his eyes did.


    Felix made it back to the rest room and quickly emptied the table of food then filled his inventory. He placed all the batteries on the table then quickly performed his workout circuit while practicing his spell form construction and aim. He bathed and summoned his bed from his inventory. He had thought he could replace sleep with meditation since it restored energy, but his body was telling him that he was dead wrong. He fell asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow.


    When Felix woke up, he collected all the batteries and his bed. It was time to leave the dungeon. Felix headed over to where the exit was located on his map without issue. When he got there he was greeted by an identical wooden door to the one that hung at the entrance. He touched the door.


    Puzzle Dungeon C


    Would you like to leave the dungeon?


    Warning: You will be unable to retry this dungeon.


    Yes


    No


    It''s not worth collecting the thousand daggers, as tempting as that sound. I feel like I''ll miss out by staying here that long. I haven''t even gained a single level in here. Yes.


    Congratulations!


    You have completed Puzzle Dungeon C.


    The nearest unclaimed fort will be revealed on your map.


    Calculating Bonus Rewards.


    +4000 Profession XP


    Error: No Profession found.


    You will be returned to the entrance in 3 seconds.


    WHAT. Oh god I could have gotten so much XP for my profession. I wasted so much time. shit shit SHIT.


    Felix found himself in a hole in a rock staring out at the forest where a large fox had chased him just a few days ago. Maybe a week. Thankfully the fox seemed to have moved on by now.


    I really need some way to keep track of time¡­


    I. am. an. idiot. Tutorial Screen.


    Tutorial Status


    There are 91,394/100,000 people.


    There are 115 days, 3 hours, 5 minutes remaining.


    You have completed 1 dungeon.


    You have helped kill 0 world bosses.


    You have captured 0 forts.


    More people survived than I would have expected. It''s been over 8 days, and I can barely cast spells to defend myself. Maybe I should just take up the great sword. Or daggers, maybe the dungeon was trying to tell me something.


    Unwilling to dwell any further, Felix opened his map. On the map, which had returned to the System map instead of his paper version from his library, there was now another white dot way out to the south west. The area for almost a mile around the dungeon had also been revealed. The dungeon lay on the border between a large mountain range to the north and a forest to the south.


    With nothing better to do Felix headed towards the unclaimed fort. It helped that he loved completing quests and the tutorial screen looked like a big quest to him, or an achievement tracker, which was even more enticing.


    Walking to the south west the forest got gradually thinner to the point where he didn''t encounter any large foxes on his first few hours of travel. He did see lots of birds which he promptly tried to shoot down with Mana Bolts to practice his aim. The only one he managed to hit was sitting perfectly still on a tree branch, and he had aimed at the one next to it. Only slightly miffed, Felix continued walking towards the white dot on his map.


    After five hours, he checked the tutorial screen. This time, Felix was fairly certain another fox wasn''t going to ambush him so he decided to run and practice his spells. He didn''t run before this because he didn''t want to exhaust himself if he was going to have to fight. He ran and practiced, shooting at a bird whenever he saw one or just trees when he didn''t. He traveled for almost fifteen hours when he finally reached the edge of the tree line.


    He had encountered a single fox that tried to run him down while he traveled. He had shot a Fire Bolt at it and missed horribly hitting the ground. The fox saw the fire though and scurried away, so mission accomplished, sort of.


    When the sky finally blackened, Felix didn''t want to encounter any nocturnal predators so he decided to meditate to replenish some of his energy then keep going. He meditated for two and a half hours, while practicing with spell forms, before continuing on his travels once again.


    With confidence he could at least scare off a fox if he encountered any, Felix decided to perform his standard bodyweight workout routine. He then jogged and meditated in repetition for another nine hours before he caught sight of three huge mountain peaks towering over the rest of the mountain range way in the distance but directly in front of him. Checking his map, he confirmed that was probably where the fort was.


    He continued to travel for another six hours through plains, passing by a huge number of boars, none of which seemed to pay Felix any mind. Eventually he realized the entrance to the fort he was heading towards definitely was not on this side of the three mountain peaks. Checking his map he found the outline of a road heading out of the mountains.


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    Seems like a safe bet for the entrance to a fort.


    He changed direction so he was heading slightly left towards the road.


    Three hours and one successful hit of a flying bird later, Felix stood on a dirt road looking up at the ruined walls of a small town, maybe even city, nestled in the valley between three huge mountain peaks. At the back of the fort a large Victorian castle peaked over the other buildings. Most of the fort was obscured by the mountains on both sides, but it definitely looked like a rugged medieval castle town.


    Felix walked the road up the mountain and made his way into the fort. The fort had a stone ramp easily 20 meters wide leading up to a bridge with stairs on one side for pedestrians. The bridge was a long flat stone walkway that led between the two mountains to either side and into the valley.


    Walking down the walkway, Felix noted that there was enough housing to house at least a few thousand people, with families of three occupying the houses, at least tens of thousands. And that is excluding what was evidently once shops and warehouses as well as the massive Victorian style castle towering over the town way at the back.


    Felix walked through the town admiring the large stone brick construction which appeared modern because the bricks sported a perfectly uniform size and shape, likely due to the assistance of magic. All of the buildings were shells of what they must have once been. The roofs were missing from every building he passed and the walls, which were in the best state, were crumbling. The layouts of the buildings were obvious from the rubble, but none of them were in a habitable state. There was vegetation growing over everything that gave the whole town a very fantastical vibe. Felix figured it must have been a few thousand years since it had been abandoned, though it was in better condition than he would have expected.


    He eventually made it to the castle, which was in a much better state compared to the rest of the town and even sported its own wall around the compound. The roof and most of the walls were completely intact making this the only currently livable building. Heading through the gates Felix noticed that the castle grounds contained at least four buildings. There was the main building, one that looked like a stable and two others likely for staff and guests Felix guessed.


    He walked through the empty arched doorway at least ten meters tall with rotted hinges on either side and walked into a massive open room with pillars supporting the ceiling along either side. There were small piles of dust and rot along the foot of the walls and pillars, that had likely once been a banner or art of some kind. Heading to the stairs at the back he headed up to a similarly open room with shorter ceilings. At the back and in the middle of the room lay a huge chair with a smaller one to its left and right.


    Felix sat on the throne.


    Who could lay their eyes on an abandoned throne and resist the urge to sit in it. Not me.


    Fort Capture


    Would you like to claim this fort?


    Yes


    No


    You have no warnings or additional info for me? Just a seven word yes or no? Sure why not I guess, it''s a decent a place as any to set up for a while. I need to practice my spell casting and do some self directed research into spell forms. Yes.


    Congratulations!


    You have claimed a fort. You may manage your fort from this throne at any time.


    Alrighty then. Let''s see what I can manage.


    Felix was immediately bombarded with options. He skimmed over them but they seemed fine to him so he left them as is. He only meditated while traveling and his body still needs sleep every once in a while but he decided to go explore at least the castle before going to sleep


    Felix walked around and peered through countless doorways. He found more rooms in this castle than he would ever know what to do with. After a few hours he headed to the large room that was once the bedroom. He was only able to identify it because it had a large bed sized discoloration set against one of the walls. Felix summoned his own bed and slept for almost seven hours.


    The next day Felix performed his basic workout. He ran through the town exploring a different area from yesterday and aiming his spells only at stones that were already damaged. Then, he looped back around to the castle and explored the open areas a bit.


    He managed to find a fairly open field within the castle''s wall that seemed like a good place to practice his aim. He retrieved some loose bricks from the buildings around him and set them up as targets on a window sill.


    He moved himself to about 25 meters away and began firing his spells, alternating between the two of them. His shot on the flying bird the other day was definitely a lucky shot. He managed to hit the stones every time, but not always dead center. Once he had knocked all of the stones off the window sill, he went and found smaller stones and set those up.


    He continued this for about five hours before he decided to try something he had wanted to do but was hesitant about before now. Comparing the spell forms for the Mana Bolt and the Fire Bolt, there were a lot of similarities. Starting from the outside of the spell, they had the exact same shape up to a point.


    Felix knew the Mana Bolt was fired a lot faster and he was hoping if he could find the similarities between the two he could adjust the Fire Bolt to be faster as well. The outer ring on the Fire Bolt was only slightly thinner than the one on the Mana Bolt. Needing to start somewhere, Felix decided to try increasing the thickness of the line by 50%.


    He pushed mana into the spell and fed it almost twenty points before the entire spell exploded. The Fire Bolt was summoned, but when it was propelled, the entire ball exploded outwards in a cone. S§×arch* The N?vel?ire.net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    Well I guess that might be useful if something gets really close to me, or if I can cast spells from much further away. I''ll call this¡­ Fire Blast?


    Felix tried again this time with 10% increased thickness. The Fire Bolt traveled faster for about five meters before it fell apart. It seemed as though the small bolt of fire could only handle so much power propelling it. It reminded Felix of a water balloon whereas the Mana Bolt seemed more like an actual dart or a bullet. It was solid whereas the Fire Bolt is more like a balloon of fire.


    Well that was a failure. I''m definitely gonna need to get my hands on some sort of spell primer or something. That did remind me of something I should be practicing though.


    Up to this point Felix had been constructing the spell forms just a few inches from his body, usually his hands. Felix began constructing the spell forms further and further away from him. It was fairly easy up a few meters where it became much harder. Felix kept pushing though and while he practiced his spell casting range he also fired them at targets. As expected, firing spells from that far away severely hurt his aim.


    Felix continued on for another five hours then ran his workout circuit again. He ate and drank from the reserves in his inventory and continued to practice throughout the day and while meditating every other night. The mana batteries were the only reason he managed to keep up. Otherwise, he would have run out of mana and had to wait for his pool to slowly refill. The batteries refilled much slower here compared to the dungeon, but it was more than enough for Felix currently. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 Chapter 8 - Book 7

    Two days of training later Felix was rudely interrupted by a message from The System.


    Tutorial Announcement


    Tutorial Grace Period Ending.


    In one hour the level of the beasts in the tutorial will begin to grow. They will become more aggressive and increase in level as they fight and gain experience for themselves throughout the rest of the tutorial. You have been given 10 days to get situated, don''t get too comfortable though, or else your level will fall behind the beasts.


    Oh goody, more deadly enemies¡­ I guess I wouldn''t want them to all stay low level though, then what would I fight? Not like I am doing any fighting now, but I will need to go gain experience soon.


    Felix was about to go right back to training when he decided enough was enough.


    I really gotta go gain some experience. I am sitting here casting spells at targets day in day out but I feel like without any combat experience I am gonna end up weak in some aspect I never thought of.


    Felix headed out of the town and into the plains. It took almost an hour to get to where he wanted. Close enough to a boar so he could fight them while far enough from others so he wasn''t fighting multiple at once. Also, far enough so that if they when berserk in a few minutes when The System removes the grace period, he should be able to get out.


    Felix waited a few minutes, then a few more. Nothing perceptible happened. Felix decided to just start fighting and see what happened. He fired a Mana Bolt at one of them about a hundred meters away. He missed. The boar didn''t even notice. Frowning, Felix carefully skulked closer until he was only fifty meters away then fired another Mana Bolt and began preparing a Fire Bolt as fast as he could.


    This time the spell hit, and the boar definitely noticed. The boar raised its front legs into the air and squealed a battle cry. Luckily none of the other boars seemed to care. The raging boar turned to face Felix and began charging. Felix managed to hit it right in the snout with the Fire Bolt he was preparing then dove to the side to dodge the incoming charge.


    Felix quickly stood up and began preparing another Fire Bolt. He figured the extra mana that went into it hopefully meant more damage. He had to dodge another charge before firing again. After the second charge, the boar decided to change tactics and tried to gore Felix with it''s horns. Felix dodged back and fired his finished Fire Bolt right into it''s face.


    The boar, clearly very upset by this, then tried to jump onto Felix who barely managed to dive to the side. Felix rolled away then to pulled himself up as fast as he could and pushed mana into another Fire Bolt. At this point the boar seemed to have had enough as it tried to run away. Felix just barely managed to hit it in the rear, which was, thankfully, enough.


    Ding You have slain [E - Common] Boar (Lvl 6)


    Ding You have gained a level in [E - Common] Caster


    Free points into Perception. That should help my aim, hopefully.


    Felix stowed the body of the boar in his inventory and filled his mana pool using a battery. He found another boar and hit it with a Fire Bolt.


    After a handful of boar slain, the fights had started to get too easy. Now that he knew they would either charge, gore or jump he could easily predict their intentions based on body language and simply avoid them. He managed to finish off 5 boars with the highest being Lvl 9, one at six, two at eight and one at seven.


    Felix also willed the notifications to be more compact so he didn''t have to scroll through so much useless information.


    Ding You have slain 5 [E - Common] Boar (Lvl 6-9)


    Ding You have gained 4 levels in [E - Common] Caster


    Five points in vitality and seven in endurance.


    The biggest limiting factor for Felix at when he fought the boars was endurance. He had to stop for an hour to meditate before the could finish off the last boar. After besting 5 of them, the limiting factor was their levels. They were simply too low or too stupid to be worth it. If he had an area attack he could group them up but as it stood he doesn''t even know where to begin looking for one.


    Name:Felix KadeFREE0Level:3STR16Class:[E - Common] Caster (Lvl 7)DEX26Race:[F - Common] HumanAGI16Profession:???PER29Health:200/200VIT20Mana:400/400INT40Energy:193/220END22


    Not bad. It does seem like working out had an effect. Unless something weird is happening with the stats per level, it seems like I gained 1 strength, 2 agility and 1 endurance. Guess I''ll keep working out then. Maybe I should try wrestling with a boar. Also it seems like my race Level, is just half of my class level. Maybe it''s a combination of my class and profession. That seems most likely. I really need to find a profession. Until then, I need to find something with a higher level than these stupid things.


    Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.


    Felix decided to open his map. This was the first time he had opened it since before claiming the fort, doing so had revealed a large part of his map around it. To the south there was another dungeon. To the north a big red skull in the mountains. Now that the grace period had ended, there were also level indicators on the map. The plains outside of the fort indicated levels 5-9. The mountains just behind and around the fort were only 6-12.


    I really do not feel like climbing a bunch of mountains just to fight something that''s only level twelve at most. Guess I can check out the dungeon, if it''s another puzzle dungeon I''ll save it for when I have a profession.


    With a plan in mind Felix went back for a full nights rest before setting out.


    Luckily, halfway to the dungeon, there was a stream. Felix bathed and filled his canteens as he passed. There were a few boars drinking from the stream a few dozen meters out, but they didn''t seem to even notice the bathing human.


    Felix continued to travel south, running while practicing his spell form construction and aim of course, until once again he found a large rock. Once again there was an arch engraved around the doorway but this time, instead of geometric patterns, it depicted many carvings of different creatures in battle. Felix smiled.


    This seems like exactly what I am looking for.


    Felix walked up to the door and was greeted by a system screen.


    Combat Dungeon C


    You have found a dungeon. Would you like to enter?


    Yes


    No


    Yes.


    Felix instantly found himself in a cubic room with walls, ceiling and floor made of some indistinct mostly grey but slightly blue material. The light in the room seemed to come from everywhere evenly as Felix cast no shadow.


    Combat Dungeon C


    Choose your difficulty.


    -5 ~ -2 Lvls


    -1 ~ +1 Lvls


    +2 ~ +5 Lvls


    The highest.


    Combat Dungeon C


    Would you like to claim your reward in this dungeon?


    Note: You may claim the reward in this dungeon once. The maximum reward tailoring level is 19. This level increases based on how many Combat Dungeons you have completed and claimed.


    Yes


    No


    No.


    That implies I can repeat this dungeon right? I might as well only claim at Caster Lvl 19 then.


    A few moments later the wall in front of Felix disappeared and he walked out into the large circular floor of an arena. The arena was a large circle hundreds of meters in diameter. The circular bounding wall seemed to be made of the same indistinct material as the room he had just walked out of and the floor was made of what looked and felt like packed sand. The circular arena ended with a uniform ceiling a few hundred meters up. There was no one in the entire arena except him. Felix spent the time before something appeared preparing a Fire Bolt and failing to prepare a second. After a few moments the wall across from Felix disappeared and five spotted dog like animals started slowly walking out of the opening.


    Felix looked at one of them and to his surprise managed to identify it.


    [E - Common] Hyena (Lvl 10)


    Looking around he found them all at levels nine or ten. Before they could approach him he fired off the Fire Bolt he had prepared. The Hyena he aimed at dodged quickly to the side but luckily the Fire Bolt had managed to hit the one behind it. The Hyenas sped up to a jog and split up to his left and right trying to surround him. Felix prepared a Mana Bolt, being a much faster projectile he hoped it would be nearly impossible for them to dodge, and pulled out a dagger from his inventory. He had 26 dexterity and he planned on using it, just in case.


    He managed to get off two Mana bolts by the time they started to circle him. He took out the one he injured earlier and managed to injure another. It seemed he was right about using the faster Mana Bolt, they didn''t even have time to react when he shot the spell.


    Felix turned and began running left, where there was only one more hyena left, and to keep his distance from the larger group on the right. He fired off a Mana Bolt at the only one left on that side. He hit it right in the head and it tripped and fell over. Felix dashed towards it as fast as he could to finish it off with his dagger. He looked over his shoulder as he ran to the other group of three hyenas and realized he wasn''t going to make it before they cut him off.


    Felix decided to go for a long shot and threw his dagger at the downed Hyena. He astonishingly, managed to hit it and it stopped moving. Felix replaced the dagger with another from his inventory and ran away from the other three as fast as he could. He managed to fire off and hit two Mana Bolts at two separate Hyenas in large part because they ran in a straight line at him.


    Felix prepared a Fire Blast but before he finished it the uninjured Hyena reached him and tried to bite his leg. He yanked his leg away as fast as he could almost tripping himself and earning himself a gash on his thigh from the Hyenas teeth. He returned with a stab of his dagger that the Hyena easily dodged.


    At this point his Fire Blast was ready so he pushed his mana into it and fired it right at the Hyena as it went for his other thigh. A large fiery explosion blasted the Hyena in the face causing it to trip over its own legs.


    The other two Hyenas had caught up and were just a meter away. Felix didn''t have time to prepare another spell so he summoned another dagger into his other hand. He threw one dagger at the Hyena on his left and met the one on his right with the other. The Hyena managed to bite into his thigh but before it could rip the flesh away Felix drove his dagger into it''s neck.


    Ding You have slain 5 [E - Common] Hyena (Lvl 9-10)


    Ding You have gained 2 levels in [E - Common] Caster


    Put them all in agility. These things were almost too fast for me.


    Felix sat down and gritted his teeth through the screaming pain coming from his bleeding thighs and began meditating.


    You know what might have saved me decent amount of health there? Pants.


    Combat Dungeon C


    Round 2 will begin in 30 minutes.


    Start now?


    Yes


    No


    No.


    When thirty minutes had passed Felix was not fully recovered but in a better state than before. He meditated for the health regen, less for the purpose of gaining health and more for the purpose of closing his wounds. It worked and he was no longer at risk of bleeding out.


    Felix quickly scampered around the room and retrieved his daggers and stored the Hyena bodies in his inventory. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .


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 Chapter 9 - Book 8

    Similarly to how the last fight started the wall opposite where Felix entered the arena disappeared. After a few moments, a bear slowly lumbered it''s way out. Felix already had a Fire Bolt prepared and he held a dagger in each hand just in case.


    [E - Common] Bear (Lvl 11)


    Seems a little smaller than what I would expect a bear to be. Maybe it''s low level means it''s young? Oh great so I am about to kill a child, lovely. Does that mean the Hyenas were all children as well? I mean that would make sense, I don''t think even with my stats I should be able to take out five full grown Hyenas. I''ve watched discovery channel.


    As soon as the spell was ready, Felix shot a small ball of fire towards the creature and scorched the bear''s snout. He immediately began preparing another Fire Bolt as the Bear started running at him. Felix ran in the opposite direction and threw his daggers at the bear''s legs to try and slow it down. He managed to land one of them in its foot but the bear only stumbled for a single step then seemingly forgot it was there.


    Felix''s legs were still sore from the injuries he sustained in the last fight. Every step brought pain but not agony and thankfully his legs weren''t actively bleeding. He summoned a couple more daggers and threw these two at it''s face. He only managed to hit one of them but he managed to hit it in the eye. The bear stopped running to paw at its face earning it a Fire Bolt on the other side of its head.


    Felix was pretty sure there was some sort of critical hit bonus for head shots at this point because the Boars and Hyenas took less hits to go down if he had hit them in the face or snout. Felix prepared a Fire Blast and threw every dagger he had to try and slow the bear down and buy himself time.


    The Bear, now just a few meters away from Felix, rose to its full height on its hind legs and lifted it''s claws into the air. Felix dove to the side and positioned his spell form right in the bear''s face.


    Ding You have slain a [E - Common] Bear (Lvl 11)


    The bear''s body fell right on top of Felix trapping his legs. Felix stowed the corpse in his inventory, retrieved all of the daggers he had thrown and pulled out a battery. Felix sat down and began meditating.


    Combat Dungeon C


    Round 3 will begin in 30 minutes.


    Start now?


    Yes


    No


    No.


    After thirty minutes had passed Felix stood up and faced the opposite wall where he knew his opponent would come from. Felix prepared a Fire Bolt, as his highest damage spell, possibly behind Fire Blast, as it was his safest bet. Felix had fully restored his mana thanks to the battery and managed to restore his health to about three quarters thanks to meditating.


    Once again a section of the wall simply vanished. Felix waited for something to walk out and silently hoped for something a little less mundane. So far he''d only fought earth creatures. He wasn''t sure if The System was choosing those on purpose for acclimation purposes or if he was just lucky so far. They were easier to fight since he knew what they could and couldn''t do, but they were less interesting.


    Before Felix saw the next challenger, he smelt it. The pungent smell of chemicals crept out of the dark opening into the arena followed by small clouds of purple gas. Worried the enemy might initiate with a ranged attack Felix began to strafe side to side as unpredictably as he could, just in case. He was proven right a few moments later when a slimy pink tongue shot towards his location just a moment ago.


    The tongue retracted and a large purple and white toad jumped out of the gathering fog landing in the arena with a loud boom. The toad was almost 3 meters tall and equally as wide. Felix wasn''t even sure how it moved, let alone jumped, given how large its body was.


    [E - Uncommon] Toxic Swamp Baron (Lvl 13)


    Well shit, I don''t really have any way of dealing with toxic gas. If it manages to fill the entire arena, I won''t be able to breathe and it also might be flammable. Meaning, my highest damage spell is out.


    Testing his theory, Felix set loose his prepared Fire Bolt at the Toxic Swamp Baron and aimed low so it passed through the toxic fumes spewing out of the toad. As soon as the Fire Bolt got near the toxic fumes, they ignited. In a series of small explosions, all of the toxic fumes were consumed around the toad. Unfortunately the small explosions and fire didn''t seem to affect the toad much at all.


    Well shit. Either I land a Fire Ball in it''s mouth where it''s hopefully less fire proof or I just slowly whittle it down with Mana Bolts. The only issue with that is, I think that tongue is going pull me into his mouth long before I manage to do any real damage. It''s too fast for me to reliably dodge it every time. All of that is assuming it doesn''t do anything else like jump on me.


    Felix started running to the side around the arena and circling the toad as he prepared and fired Mana Bolts as fast as he could. After three or four Mana Bolts, Felix had to prepare and fire a Fire Bolt to get rid of the toxic fumes that kept trying to fill the arena. Felix had been successful in dodging the tongue four times now. It was easier than Felix thought it would be because luckily for him, the Baron had a tell.


    Whenever the Baron shot it''s tongue, it leaned forwards slightly and tensed the underside of it''s jaw. Felix saw the Baron tense once again and he strafed back. The tongue missed again and Felix continue running in the opposite direction.


    Getting sick of having his prey run circles around him, the Baron lifted it''s massive body and jumped into the air. Due to the lighting of the arena coming from all directions, the Baron cast no shadow. Felix assumed it was aiming to land on him or right nearby so he ran as fast as he could in a random direction. S§×arch* The N??eFire.¦Çet website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    He prepared a Fire Blast to get rid of the fog and hoped the extra umph would help push the fog away. As he ran he pulled out two daggers. He doubted the daggers would injure it much considering how it bathed in minor explosion earlier but he was better off with them in his hands and not needing them than otherwise.


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    That jump was definitely some System assisted bullshit, how the fuck can something jump that high when it''s that fat. Fucking skills.


    The Baron fell with a deafening boom right where Felix had been just a few seconds ago and its jaw tensed. Felix tried strafing but from this distance, there was no chance. Felix quickly positioned his Fire Blast spell form as far in front of him as he could and readied his daggers to stab into its tongue. As soon as he was hit he pumped mana into the spell form and stabbed down into the slimy appendage rocketing him into the Baron''s mouth.


    Felix didn''t trust his reaction time with the spell given how fast the Baron''s tongue was so he hoped that if he just fired it now, the timing would work out. The spell fired off into the Baron''s open maw and the gas inside exploded. The timing could have been better if the spell was inside the Baron''s mouth, but Felix wasn''t complaining.


    Felix felt the heat wave from the ignition as he was pulled into the Baron''s waiting maw. The entrance immediately shut and the smell of chemicals and mold grew stronger. There was no light, but Felix didn''t doubt it was filling its mouth with fumes to slowly poison him to death. Lacking better options, Felix wrestled with the tongue trying to free his hands.


    He managed to break one hand free and as soon as he did, he summoned the great sword and stabbed upwards with all his strength. In hind sight, a dagger might have been better as Felix was not used to handling a heavy weapon in combat.


    Ding You have slain a [E - Common] Toxic Swap Baron (Lvl 13)


    Ding You have gained a level in [E - Common] Caster


    Felix held his breath as long as he could as he sawed through the appendage he was still stuck to. He finally managed to cut himself free and then used the great sword to pry its jaw open. Felix pulled himself out and ran free of the remaining fumes.


    Felix gasped for fresh air and took a quick peek at his health. He had around 25% health left, but it was still dropping fairly quickly. Felix scrambled to start meditating to try and counteract the poison. His health was going down slower but it was still dropping. At 15% health Felix was worried, at 10% he put his 3 free points into vitality, just in case.


    Not knowing how long the poison would last was the worst part. He didn''t know if it was close to subsiding or if his efforts were futile from the start. If it lasted an hour he was done for. He tried to exhale and empty his lungs, in case there was any poison left lingering in them, something he probably should have started with.


    Felix growing desperate, tried imagining his body cycling its energy through him. All throughout his body, accelerating his metabolism and aiding his immune system. He imagined it empowering his cells and enriching his blood to help clear out the foreign substances.


    After a few minutes, he quickly peeked at his health. He was sitting at an uncomfortable seventeen health out of two hundred and fifty. After watching it for almost a minute Felix sighed in relief as his health seemed to have stopped decreasing.


    He had no idea if his imagining the energy in his body and trying to cycle it had helped at all. The System didn''t seem to recognize it as a skill, or more likely, he just hadn''t shown sufficient proficiency with it yet. He was pretty sure some of his energy was consumed but he wasn''t certain as he was a little preoccupied and hadn''t thought to check it before he started.


    Even if it did go down though, it probably had nothing to do with his efforts and was simply used by his body to fight the poison on it''s own. Whether or not it worked or had any tangible effects, it made Felix feel better and helped distract him so that had to count for something. He resolved to experiment with it more later on.


    Felix quickly opened his eyes to check on the state of the arena. He needed to keep meditating to regenerate some of his health but he was worried some of the remaining toxic fumes might be spreading. He quickly shot Fire Bolts at all the remaining pockets of gas he could see then sat back down to continue meditating. Just before he did so, he noticed a screen he had missed.


    Combat Dungeon C


    You have successfully completed 3 rounds. Would you like to continue, change the difficulty or exit the dungeon?


    Continue.


    Change Difficulty


    Exit


    Felix saw no timer and therefore no reason to do anything with the screen just yet. He resolved to meditate until his health was at least half full. He also pulled out a battery to top up his mana, just in case.


    As he always did when he meditated, Felix practiced his spell form construction. It was difficult to practice his aim when his eyes were closed so he didn''t actually fire the spells. Even so, he noticed a marked improvement in his construction time.


    Once his health was half full he timed a few full casts of Mana Bolt and Fire Bolt. He hadn''t timed them in a while as he had no need to for combat, they took as long as they took and timing it wasn''t going to change that. He clocked the full cast time of both spells at just five seconds, which was a huge improvement from when he last measured it.


    Five seconds was still a really long time in a battle. A good archer could draw, pull, fire, hit, and probably kill Felix in that amount of time. In that situation, he was probably dead anyways though, considering he remained essentially buck naked with boots and a fox pelt wrapped around his unmentionables.


    I really need to find something to wear. I also need to figure out some sort of defense. Those two could be the same thing, but I would prefer to wear clothes instead of armor. Armor is heavy and would probably get hot. What I really need is some sort of mage armor or something like that, and robes. Ugh, I just need clothes.


    Felix carefully collected all of his belongings from the arena floor. He didn''t bother trying to fish his daggers out of the Baron''s tongue and just stowed the whole body in his inventory. He could deal with it later.


    Felix had more reasons to leave now then he had to stay. He needed to regenerate his health and wanted to work on Fire Blast. He wanted to try messing with the amount of mana and thickness of the rest of the spell form. Fighting the Hyenas he realized he didn''t really have anything except single target spells, unless you counted his melee range Fire Blast.


    Theoretically he should be able to produce more fire, then with a similar push to it or maybe even with a bigger outer ring he could theoretically create a spell that spewed a cone of fire. At least that was the theory and he was hoping it would work.


    He also wanted to find more spells to work with but had no idea where to even start on that.


    Exit.


    Combat Dungeon C


    You have successfully completed 3 rounds of +2 - +5 difficulty. You chose not to claim rewards.


    Congratulations.


    Felix found himself back in the expansive field outside the rock that held the dungeon''s entrance. He quickly scarfed down a meal from his inventory and downed a canteen then began running back. He was already pretty tired but he didn''t want to camp out here in case the animals had gotten significantly more aggressive since the grace period had lifted.


    Felix ran north stopping at the stream to bathe and refill his water supply. There were no boars drinking from the stream this time so he didn''t get to test their aggression. He did however pass a boar almost three quarters of the way back to the fort. It didn''t seem any more aggressive than it had before.


    [E - Common] Field Boar (Lvl 9)


    I guess even with their aggression unbound, boars just don''t fight each other much and with nothing else here to fight I guess they don''t get to see much XP. It''s sad they aren''t really worth fighting anymore. I guess they can still be a decent food supply. Also why is it a Field Boar now? Either my perception attribute is high enough now to see that or it has to do with my class being the same level as it is. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 Chapter 10 - Book 9

    Felix made it back to the fort and quickly ran through his workout routine, which he had barely enough energy to complete. Checking the tutorial screen it had only been about thirty hours since he had left for the dungeon.


    After completing his workout routine Felix promptly dropped himself into his bed and fell asleep almost immediately. Some time later, Felix''s slumber was rudely interrupted.


    All Forts Have Been Claimed


    All forts in the tutorial have been claimed. Their locations and requirements will now be displayed on your map. You may inspect them to view their set disposition and requirements for admission.


    Felix had claimed his fort and had no interest in joining another fort so he promptly went back to sleep.


    Felix woke up some time later and began experimenting with the Fire Bolt spell form in the field outside the fort. He didn''t want to accidentally ricochet a rock into himself and figured an open field was the safest place to experiment, just in case his modifications were more explosive than he was expecting.


    He already knew that increasing the thickness of the outer ring by 50% spewed the summoned fire out in an explosive cone. Now, he wanted to try increasing the thickness of some of the other lines in the hope that he could summon more fire.


    First he compared the spell forms of the only two spells he knew. He assumed whatever lines were converting mana into fire, or summoning it, would not be on the Mana Bolt spell form. He gradually tested changing the thickness of each of the lines that were unique to the Fire Bolt spell form. The majority of them had no apparent change at all. One of them changed the shape entirely, compressing the spell so that it was so round, it looked like an orange marble instead of anything made of fire.


    Unfortunately that did not make a Fire Ball that exploded when released as he had hoped it might. The orange looking marble simply degraded to fire instantly and lost most of it''s momentum as it fell to the ground only a few meters away. After running through three entire mana batteries, Felix managed to find the combination of lines he was looking for.


    Felix began gradually increasing the thickness of the lines to test the limits of how much fire he could create. He managed to blow through an astronomical amount of mana before he realized more fire was being summoned, but something was wrong with the spell.


    Inspecting his modified version of the spell form he noticed that the line he was playing with didn''t fit the spell around it anymore. All of the lines running to the one he was increasing in size were still as small as they were originally. It looked like a small thin pipe leading to a massive sewer drain. Felix could only describe the connections between lines of vastly different sizes as janky.


    It stood to reason that the lines surrounding the one he wanted to grow, would also have to grow, at least on one end. This would make the difference between the thickness of lines more gradual and not entirely sudden. It seemed obvious in hind sight, but Felix hadn''t wanted to mess with more than one line at a time.


    I really should stop thinking of these as lines, they are more like symbols or runes or something, at least, some of them are. A lot of it, really is just lines. Until I know the difference though I guess it can all just be lines. For now. I really need to find something like a spell form for beginners textbook or idiot''s guide to spell forms in the multiverse. Spell Formations for Dummies. Spell Formations 101.


    Felix managed to increase the amount of fire generated well beyond what he had initially wanted. Unfortunately there was a fine line between generating fire and fire spilling out of his spell all over the place. At a certain point, generating more fire simply resulted in it leaking out. Some of it just disappeared and some of it started falling out in random directions. If Felix kept pushing it, he found that the entire thing would fall apart and the fire would just drop to the ground.


    Felix consumed the mana from his batteries as he fine tuned the spell form. The most fire he could generate without adverse effects was almost nine inches in diameter. Next he began increasing the thickness of the outer ring. The 50% increased thickness he currently used wasn''t enough to do anything more than splash a little fire around in front of him with most of it just falling to the ground.


    Increasing it further caused the spell to blast a hole through the ball of fire. Almost as though the force generated by the spell was concentrated right in the middle and wasn''t designed for something so big. At this point Felix tried something that he was surprised he hadn''t already tested, just making the whole spell form bigger.


    He didn''t change the relative size of any of the lines in the spell form just yet. Increasing the size did exactly what he expected, the entire spell was bigger. The bolt generated was bigger, but it was launched at about the same speed so it had a much shorter range before it slowed down and fell apart.


    The down side to just making it bigger, was that it cost exponentially more mana to activate the spell form and cast the spell. A normal Fire Bolt cost Felix about fourteen mana. Increasing the size of the entire spell form by 50% cost about fifty mana, almost three and a half times the amount of mana.


    To launch the maximum amount of fire Felix managed to generate, he figured he would need to increase the size of the spell form by about six times. Felix doubted he could cast that spell at all without blowing through at least a dozen batteries.


    It took Felix a while to test how big he could make the spell before it consumed more mana than he had in his pool. He had to drain mana batteries constantly between casts.


    I really hope there are no adverse effects to pulling the mana from mana batteries into my body. Hopefully they aren''t addictive like a drug or something. I don''t feel withdrawals or anything if I don''t use them but maybe I should go a few days without them at all just to see if I feel anything. Eh, some other time, got too much to do.


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    The biggest version Felix tested consumed five hundred mana leaving him with a meager ten mana to his name. The effect of the spell was, not as big as he expected for five hundred mana. It was a large cone of fire but it was not large enough that he could hit a bunch of enemies without being really close to them. It only traveled a meter or so and spread out a meter or so in width before dissipating. Also the cast time was abysmal. Instead of the spell form construction which only took marginally longer, the majority of the cast time was spent pumping mana into the spell once the spell form had already been constructed.


    Well that was basically a waste of time and a ton of mana. I learned some things but I don''t have any new spells that are usable in combat, or very useful at all for that matter.


    Slightly dejected Felix ran through his workout circuit. He ran through the ruins of the fort noticing the clouds gathering in the sky.


    This will be the first time it rains since the tutorial started. Wait probably not, I did spend over eight days in a puzzle dungeon. Hopefully the rain doesn''t start for a few hours so I can finish my run.


    I am assuming that is rain and that the weather is similar to earth''s but this is almost definitely not earth. I also don''t know what season it is. It doesn''t feel cold but maybe my endurance or something is making me not feel it. There is no frost but the seasons could just change instantly for all I know.


    What if it''s toxic or acid rain, that would suck.


    Felix finished his run around the fort and headed back to the castle. Felix still had some energy left so he decided to experiment with energy. It''s possible it would all amount to nothing, but Felix liked reading cultivation novels pre integration and figured he might as well try manipulating the energy in his body. It wasn''t like he would kill himself doing so, he hoped.


    There is probably a multiverse standard for date and time but in the tutorial and on earth we will probably all refer to the years as BI, before integration and AI or maybe PI for post integration? Seems too easily confused with pre integration. Wait this is the 256th, is it 0A256I for the rest of the multiverse?


    I should also see if I can upgrade my meditation at some point. Ugh, there are so many things to do. I gotta grind levels, find all the dungeons, experiment with spells and hopefully doing all that I will be strong enough to fight some world bosses. I may die in the process, but I really want to do everything in this tutorial or at least try everything.


    Luckily, I can probably try upgrading my meditation whenever I meditate to regenerate, that does cut out some spell form construction practice though.


    Felix sat down in the court yard and closed his eyes. First things first, he needed to figure out the base amount of energy he consumed. He did not begin meditating as that would restore energy, but he did need a baseline and this seemed like it would result in the most stable loss.


    Felix checked his energy then pulled up the tutorial screen and waited for five minutes. He did nothing but wait so as to not affect the result. After 5 minutes his energy hadn''t changed. Next he focused as much as he could on the feeling of the ground beneath him. He wanted to eliminate the possibility that simply focusing on anything at all consumed energy.


    After five minutes his energy had decreased by a single point, well within margin of error. Next he began trying to move the energy around his body. He tried cycling it around his body as fast as he could manage. After five minutes he expended a single point, meaning he consumed no extra energy. However, he thought he felt different, maybe.


    He tried pushing the energy into the cells of his skin and muscles. After five minutes, he had consumed a single point of energy. He thought his skin felt different, maybe.


    I was probably imagining any differences I detected. I guess it makes sense considering I couldn''t touch mana until I knew what it felt like. I guess I was hoping that because I consume it throughout the day it might be easier to interact with.


    Slightly dejected he had wasted a bunch of time, Felix stood up and headed back towards the castle. As he stood up, he immediately noticed his body felt faster, ever slightly. The difference was very minimal such that an observer likely wouldn''t notice. To someone who lived in the body though, even a subtle difference was noticeable.


    Felix walked aimlessly out of the castle grounds and through the town. As he walked he slowly cycled his energy. The cycled it throughout his body and through his legs. As soon as he did so, he walked into the side of a building as he was distracted and not paying much attention.


    He got back on the road, planned his route this time down a long and straight road, then he cycled energy through his legs. He began walking down the road then suddenly broke into a run.


    I think I am faster but I am not sure, or maybe it''s just less taxing? The drain on my energy is a lot higher though. I am going to have to test racing down the street and timing myself with and without it, later though. I just realized something more pressing. I need to find the line between walking and running.


    My boots double my move speed when I am walking, the question is, what is considering walking? I always thought it was something along the lines of your two feet are always on the ground. If that is the case, then I can just "walk" as fast as I want and the boots will double it. Unfortunately, this is probably going to result in a lot of falling on my face before I figure out the limit.


    Felix began walking, then he sped up gradually increasing his speed and paying attention to his feet. He tripped and almost broke his nose thrice as he accidentally lifted both feet off the ground and his speed suddenly halved. It took an hour or so of practice but he managed to get his speed walking with the boots to about 180% of his running speed, meaning he could speed walk faster with the boots than he could run without the boots. S~ea??h the N??eFire.¦Çet website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    Alright well at least I managed to do something that worked today. The information I got from experimenting was nice, but it is a lot more satisfying when something actually works. Theoretically this should increase my traveling speed overall by 80% and it''s almost as taxing as running so it should be fine to replace running entirely when traveling long distances. I should have compared energy expenditure to see if that improved as well, I''ll have to check next time I travel to the combat dungeon.


    Maybe I''ll head over there tomorrow. Actually I need to look into some sort of defense and area attack before I go back. I could just run a lower difficulty, grind that for a while and claim the reward at level 19, but that seems super boring. The difficulty I ran was decent fun but maybe a little too close for comfort, at least without more tools at my disposal.


    So where the hell do I start on that?


    Felix walked back to the castle as he ruminated over his options. He could continue trying to figure out something with energy but that might take forever considering he was figuring it out without any direction at all. He could also just practice his spell form construction. He was close to being able to prepare multiple spells at once, he could feel it, but not that close. He was at least a full few days of practice away, at minimum. . . . . .

 Chapter 11 - Book 10

    Felix turned the last corner to get to the castle compound and saw something he hadn''t seen since before the integration. A man and a woman stood just outside the gate into the castle compound. They appeared to be arguing with each other, though it was hard for Felix to tell from this distance.


    [E - Common] Human (Lvl 3)


    [E - Common] Human (Lvl 4)


    Felix got within ten meters of them before they noticed him. He didn''t manage to catch much of their argument, not because he couldn''t hear them, but because they kept interrupting and talking over each other. Their bickering made it impossible for Felix to follow the conversation, but it had something to do with them taking a risk and being in danger, or something along those lines.


    As soon as they noticed Felix approaching they quieted down but couldn''t help themselves trying to get the last word in using hushed tones. Since neither of them seemed like they wanted to start the conversation, Felix did. He didn''t have time for a staring contest.


    "Hello" Felix said. "Oh and welcome, I guess?" he added after a few moments.


    "Hi", "Hello" they said, almost in unison. Felix waited a few seconds as they looked at each other seemingly deciding on who would speak.


    "I''m Noah and uh," he looked at her to see if she wanted to introduce herself then, after a moment, continued "this is Amelia. We were wondering what your requirements are for becoming a citizen of your fort. This is your fort right or could you¡­ take us¡­ to your leader?"


    Felix cringed at that and said "Yeah of course, you are welcome to join." He gestured to the plethora of broken down buildings that made up the town, "You can take whichever you''d like or you can stay in the castle, there are way more rooms than I know what to do with in there. If not permanently then at least for tonight since," he gestured at the dark cloud filled sky.


    "Oh no no, we can find a house we''ll be fine." Amelia responded and glanced at Noah to preemptively shut down any complaints he may raise.


    "Seriously, there are like a hundred rooms in there and none of the buildings in the rest of the fort have roofs. Just take a room at least for the night, if you don''t want to move in that''s cool but you can figure that out tomorrow. At least sit out the rain. Up to you, but it really is no trouble." Felix insisted.


    "Thank you we will choose houses tomorrow." Noah said quickly, to cut off any more protesting from Amelia.


    "Sure thing. Welcome to the fort without a name as of yet, population of three now. I know it''s a mouthful, we can vote on a new name tomorrow and update all the road signs." Felix said smiling.


    They immediately looked at each other at that and Amelia cocked her head. "Really, it''s just you? and you really don''t have any requirements to join, seriously?"


    "Yeah" Felix replied then added "Wait why? Should I have requirements?"


    Amelia looked a little taken aback as she said "It''s totally up to you, it''s just uh, unique is all. All of the other 8 forts on the map have class level requirements. When they were first revealed, there were five with class level requirements. Then three of them quickly added requirements as if they didn''t know they could or didn''t know their location would be shown. You are the last one left so we figured we would just ask."


    Surprised, Felix pulled up his map to check the class level requirements of the other forts. They didn''t seem too bad, most only required a class level of five and the highest was only seven.


    "The requirements are pretty low, you could just grind out some animals and head to any of the ones with only level 5 required. Especially if you didn''t choose caster as your class." Felix offered.


    Both of them raised an eyebrow at the caster comment but didn''t respond to that, instead Noah meekly said, "Yeah, we were kind of hoping to focus on our professions instead?" Clearly trying to gauge Felix''s reaction.


    "Oh cool, you guys already have professions? I haven''t been able to find one yet." Felix said. They both released the tension in their bodies and smiled in relief. Apparently that was the reaction they hoped for.


    The author''s narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.


    "Why didn''t you just pick one up in the prep room? Just didn''t like any of them?" Amelia asked.


    "Wait what? I wasn''t offered any, I just chose my class and was kicked out." Felix responded in bewilderment.


    "Huh? In all our prep rooms The System explained the tutorial to us, let us pick our classes and professions then some basic equipment. Then for casters it helped with adding their spell to their spell list, for fighters it gave basic tips on weapons stuff like that. Then we all had to wait for someone until The System finally let us go after a few hours. Was yours not like that?" Amelia inquired.


    "Yeah, funny story I was the guy you all waited for, sorry about that, I was asleep at the time. I woke up to The System dinging in my head and it told me to pick a class. I asked some questions it answered then I picked a class and was dropped in the middle of the woods." Felix explained.


    "Oh shit, how did you sleep through all that and uh¡­ is that why you''re naked?" Amelia questioned.


    Felix blushed a little as he realized for the first time he was essentially naked. It was difficult to remember because he had gotten so used to it.


    "Oh yeah, uh sorry about that. I sleep naked and I was dragged here with just me and my bed. Also you mentioned spell list, what is that?" Felix queried.


    "Not sure, we were camping with a group of people since pretty early on and we just compared our tutorials. A few of them are casters. If you really are serious about the no requirements thing then we can go tell them and you can ask them when they move in." Amelia offered.


    "Yeah of course, sounds good. I guess if all the other forts have class requirements we can just become a profession focused fort. For everyone who doesn''t want to fight and anyone else I guess. Just don''t hurt people or steal things, that''s all I think. For now at least." Felix said.


    "I think if you leave the requirements as open and the disposition as friendly, eventually people will flock. Some of them are probably just worried it''s a mistake or something. They should realize sooner or later." Amelia explained, then added, "you could also set a note on the town to say ''profession friendly, all welcome'' or something like that¡­ just if uh¡­ you wanted to."


    "You can do that? Cool, yeah sure I''ll fill it in tonight." Felix suggested.


    Felix felt a few cool droplets on his head and gestured towards the castle, "Here follow me, I''ll show you around and we can get out of the rain."


    Felix walked around them and through the compound to the main castle building. He led them through the main hall and up the stairs. As he climbed the stairs he asked, "So what professions did you two go with?"


    "I''m a builder. It''s a starter profession but I work in construction basically. My dad used to teach me and I always liked it so, it seemed like a good fit." Amelia replied.


    "I was a civil engineer and I chose a profession along those lines. I''m a¡­" Noah trailed off.


    "He chose city planner" Amelia finished for him.


    "Yeah" Noah said.


    "Oh sweet any interest in planning out this fort for me? If we really are going to have people coming in droves a good plan would really pay off." Felix hoped.


    "Uh¡­ yeah, I would love to. That would be great¡­ uh¡­ thank you." Noah said a little excitedly. S~ea??h the n?velFire.net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    "Wait a minute, your professions are a little too convenient, did your camp elect you two to scout the fort out because you have the most attractive professions to someone who owns a town?" Felix accused.


    "Uh, kinda yeah." Amelia said after a few moments then quickly added, "we didn''t mean to trick you or anything we just figured we had the best shot at convincing you we could be useful."


    "Oh hey, I don''t care at all, and you definitely don''t need to convince me that individuals focusing on their professions are gonna be useful." Felix assured then further explained, "How the hell are you supposed to run a functioning town otherwise? Viking law? Plus, it''s just upsides for you too, isn''t it? Noah here get''s to be the only¡­ or the chief city planner for the whole fort and you, Amelia, get to be the chief builder, lead builder, executive super builder supreme or whatever you want to call yourself. Now they all have to bow down to you."


    They both looked at each other and smiled before Amelia made certain, "Really¡­ I can be the lead builder for the town? What if someone else is more qualified?"


    "You two are the first people I have seen in almost two weeks and the first two citizens of the town, as far as I am concerned you two can pick whatever job you want. If someone else is more qualified they can just advise you or something. We can figure it out later." Felix reassured.


    "Anyways any of these doors lead to empty bed rooms, there is a lot of dust in some of them but take your pick, I''m sleeping in that one over there. I''m gonna go set a note for the fort then sleep. Feel free to explore." Felix invited.


    Felix walked over to the throne and opened the fort management screen. He found the custom note setting and wrote: ''Profession friendly town, open to anyone. Feel free to come by and check it out.'' With that done he opened a different setting he had skimmed past when he first opened the screen and set the laws for the settlement: ''Be respectful. Don''t hurt people. Don''t steal.''


    Felix was satisfied with that for now. If needed he could make it more in depth later on. The setting also said that people could see it from the map so hopefully it would discourage anyone who just wanted to steal or something. Apparently, for the tutorial, The System helped enforce the laws too. Things like be respectful though were more like guidelines and did nothing because they were too up to interpretation. The other two clauses, when violated, would cause The System to mark the offenders visibly, allowing them to be dealt with.


    Finally Felix retired for the night snuggling into his cozy bed with all of his bedding, mostly intact.


    I may not have brought clothes, but it just may have been worth it so I could bring this bed with me. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 Chapter 12 - Book 11

    Felix woke up in the morning and ran through his workout routine and run. By the time he finished, Noah and Amelia were no where to be found. Felix figured they were still sleeping so he went to practice spells in the court yard. He wanted to go grind the combat dungeon to the south, but he wanted to let them know before he left. Also he hoped he might be able to convince them to start work on developing his town while he was out.


    Today he practiced trying to construct two spell forms at once. He wasn''t quite there yet, he could construct one spell form and hold it stable. When he tried to hold one while constructing a new spell form, the construction of the second spell form took too much of his focus, which caused the original spell form he had constructed to fall apart.


    He figured he should be able to make holding a spell form second nature or decrease the concentration required to construct a spell form, ideally he did both.


    After a few hours of training Noah walked out of the castle into the courtyard.


    "Good morning, you guys sleep ok?" Felix asked.


    "Yeah, very well thanks. Being inside again is¡­ comforting." He responded, then after a few moments continued, "If you don''t mind, what are you doing?"


    "Practicing casting spells. I do it whenever I have free time. I am hoping to be able to cast two spells at once." He replied.


    "Oh I thought you just cast spells out of your spell list, didn''t realize it required anything. I am pretty sure that''s what all the casters we camped with did." Noah said.


    "I don''t have a spell list, I''ll have to look into that and see about using it later on if it''s better."


    "I see. We were wondering if you wanted to talk about our professions, the future you''re imagining for the town and bringing people from our old camp here? If you have the time." Noah asked.


    "Yeah sure sounds good to me. We can talk in the throne room, since that''s where managing the town happens." Felix responded. They walked up into the throne room where they found Amelia loitering about.


    "Do you mind if I pull out some chairs? I had to make something to level my profession and I didn''t want to start with a house yet so I built some furniture. Not much use for camping in the woods though." Amelia asked.


    "Of course you can, feel free. I''m gonna see if there is anything to help with planning the town on the management screen." Felix replied.


    Felix walked over and sat on the throne. Opening and scrolling through the management screen he found exactly what he was looking for. Actually, reading through the description, it was better than what he had hoped for.


    A miniature replica of the entire town was projected into the air in front of the throne. It also encompassed an area of about a kilometer or so outside the mountains in every direction. Using the console from the throne, Felix zoomed in until the buildings inside the town were visible.


    "That is awesome." Noah said in awe.


    "This should make it easier to plan out the town. I''ll be honest I don''t have any experience with this so if you could tell me what we should do or give me recommendations, that would be much appreciated. My initial thoughts are start with basic housing. If we could fix up a warehouse or something like that, people can sleep there until we get houses fixed. They could also stay in the castle, but I don''t know how many people there will be so I can''t say if they will all fit." Felix explained.


    He continued saying, "At the same time we should start building out farms just outside the mountains in the plains, if we can, I know nothing about soil. Then people can move into houses and the food from the farms can be stored in the warehouse. I figure we can figure out where to go after that when we get closer to it becoming a reality. At least those are my initial thoughts, you''re the expert though, what do you think?"


    "That seems reasonable. We should probably designate an area as residential then we can make the houses there. I like towns that are split into sections myself, but we can definitely do something where it is all jumbled together if you''d prefer that." Noah offered.


    "Nope, sections sounds logical and makes the town easier to navigate, I definitely like that. You can choose where the residential section should go, I don''t really care. Whatever you think makes the most sense is fine by me." Felix replied.


    "Ok if you''re alright with that then I think storage and industry should be closest to the castle. Then houses off to the right in the little pocket area between these two mountains. Then the commercial area can go right on the front edge of the town near the entrance. Downsides are transporting goods from farms is a pain, but it makes shops the first thing visitors will see. Putting the residential section here pulls it to the side away from the main thoroughfare and transporting of goods." Noah explained.


    "Sure sound great." Felix said, then turning to Amelia, "You good with all that?"


    "Doesn''t matter to me. Any amount of building helps with my profession and it''s all pretty similar anyways." She replied.


    Felix messed around with the management screen and had the different sections all colored in with an overlay. Then he found a setting so he could give permissions for others could plan things out and make changes on the map, and they could do it on the map directly, they wouldn''t need to use the throne. He gave Noah permission.


    "Now you should be able to change things on the map from here. Though, I don''t know how." Felix shrugged.


    "Oh cool thank you. Uhm, are you ok with us bringing anyone who wants to come from the old camp back here?" Noah asked.


    "Yeah of course, anyone is welcome. Would also probably make building easier so it isn''t just Amelia trying to finish everything herself. I''m planning on grinding some class levels in the dungeon to the south, do you guys need anything from me before I do that? If I am not here or even if I am, Amelia I take it you go to Noah to figure out what to build next. If there are any problems I should be back in a few days so hopefully you can wait, otherwise I trust you two to figure it out. I officially knight you two, co-mayors, while I''m away." Felix said.


    "Uh, thanks. What happens if you die?" Noah asked.


    "Not sure, let me see if I can set a successor, then hopefully The System will notify you." Felix went over to the throne and found a setting to do just that. He set Noah as the successor.


    "Alright, I set Noah as the successor, I figure you''re the city planner so it makes the most sense. So, if I die, good luck." Felix smiled.


    "Uhm ok then, please don''t die. If another fort decides to try and conquer us, I don''t want to be responsible for their lives." Noah explained.


    "You think forts are going to try and conquer each other? Actually yeah, that will likely happen. Didn''t really think of that. Guess we should start repairing the wall around the town when we get a chance." Felix said, then after a few moments of silence he continued, "Ok, I am off to the combat dungeon, you guys are going to go bring anyone who wants to back here, right? They can stay wherever they want in the castle. Don''t burn down the town or anything while I''m gone." Felix finished as he walked down the stairs and out of view.


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    "Oh by the way, if you wanted, I brought a bath robe into the tutorial. I don''t need it and well¡­ you know, if we''re bringing people back here and you show up¡­" Noah said.


    "If you really don''t need it, I would really appreciate that. I really don''t want to be naked, I swear. I just hadn''t found anything yet." Felix explained.


    Noah gave Felix a soft white bathrobe from his inventory and Felix put it on immediately. It was a little too big as Noah was over half a foot taller than Felix, but it was definitely better than nothing. S§×ar?h the NovelFire.net* website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    Now that I have a robe, it''s like I am a real wizard.


    This town stuff is great, hopefully this means shit will happen while I''m gone. Also hopefully I can allocate things for them to do while I''m gone so I can focus on things I want to do. I wonder if any of the caster''s they are bringing will have spells I can leech off them, I hope so.


    Felix spent the rest of the day speed walking to the combat dungeon. He stowed the robe before heading out as he didn''t want to damage or dirty it, they were his only clean and, relatively, presentable clothes. He stopped at the stream to fill his canteens, bathe and wash his fox skin briefs. He made it to the dungeon in half the time, meaning he still had a few hours before nightfall. He didn''t need the daylight for anything, but the time saved was more time to grind, so he went inside.


    Let''s do the highest difficulty again. Any chance you can use more fantastical creatures? Things from earth are a little boring. I want to see and experience new things. Also, no I will not claim my reward this time.


    Felix didn''t expect that to work but he figured he would give it a shot. Something other than just an open arena would be more interesting and be easier on someone without great defense. He could get cover, high ground, be sneaky and other advantages.


    Affirmative. Recalibrating, one moment please. Warning: Battlefield complexity is increased from class Lvl 10 onwards. Felix heard in his head.


    Huh, sweet.


    After a few short moments Felix found himself inside the same arena as before. Instead of an empty circle, the arena was filled with a vast forest much thicker than the one he was dropped in at the start of the tutorial. The trees seemed too tall to fit within the ceiling of the arena from last time, but he couldn''t see the ceiling through the leaves this time, for all he knew it was taller this time to accommodate. The floor was indistinguishable from a forest floor this time as well. The walls extended out from the wall where he exited to either side though he couldn''t tell if the arena was the same shape as before.


    Felix carefully ventured through the forest, careful with every step not to trip. He stepped over roots and around trees for just over a minute when he spotted a ramshackle wooden tower. The entire construction was made of minimally processed logs with uneven cuts on either end. The foot print of the tower was a square three meters to a side and stood just over ten meters tall. On each level sharpened wooden stakes stuck out at different angles though Felix wasn''t sure what melee creature they defended against at that height. On the top two levels there were logs missing in the walls that functioned as arrow slits.


    Walking around the base of the structure were goblins. They averaged a meter tall and their skin only had a slightly green tint. They were thin, wearing raw animal hides and wielded spears and shields. Creeping around the trees to stay out of sight Felix prowled closer. Looking closer at the hides the goblins on watch duty wore, Felix managed to figure out what the spears mounted around the structure were defending against. The hides they wore were all from monkeys. Mounted on spears around the base of the structure were heads belonging to what Felix would describe as sabretooth monkeys. A lot of the heads were evidently fresh as they still dripped blood from the severed end.


    [E - Common] Goblin Warrior (Lvl 15)


    I thought I chose the harder difficulty, as in +2 - +5. Why are we starting at +5. If there are any more stages than this then this should be a higher difficulty. Unless there was a difficulty higher than before that I accidentally chose. Also possible the difficulty ranges changed either because I hit caster 10. It did change the arena. Maybe it adjusted the ranges to better suit me? Probably changed because of my level, damnit, I should have let it show me the screen. Oh well.


    Ok, so it''s a goblin outpost of some kind. There''s an unknown number of them inside with some that are likely archers or mages considering the arrow slits. My best bet is likely luring them out then picking them off as they come out. I need to make it so the exit funnels them out slowly, if ten of them walk out at once, I''m screwed. Also I need to make it so they can''t just use the arrow slits to pick me off.


    I could try to smoke them out but then I''m gambling on them not having a chimney or some way to vent it out. Considering the monkey attacks, if they do have a vent on top, it has to have a trapdoor they lock. If I could get up there and lock it from the outside that would work, but I have no way of getting up there, I definitely cannot climb one of these trees. There are other issues though, I would need to light a large bonfire within the first floor of the building, that means I have to get in. I could try to light the outside but it is difficult to light wood by itself. With a camp fire for example, you always need to start the fire with kindling and build it up until you can throw a log in, even then it doesn''t light sometimes. Any wood that is freshly cut will never burn, it''s way too wet. So where would I get kindling? I could use a whole lot of tree sap, but I would need a lot.


    So it''s back to luring them out. It''s either the carrot or the stick. If I threaten them it''s either fight or flight. They may try to turtle themselves inside the building and I do not have the resources to solo siege that building. So I''m left with the carrot. I have many corpses in my inventory, I could make a roast to try and lure them out. The question is why wouldn''t they just try and steal the food and bring it back to eat it? I need to seem like I am protecting the roast so they send a hunting party, then I either run in and kill whoever is not in the hunting party, hopefully the weaker ones, or set a trap for the hunting party and take them out. I don''t think I can lure them far enough away to keep the hunting party from running back to protect the others. I don''t have poison of any kind, that would have been great. So I need to trap the hunting party.


    If they see the trap coming or it doesn''t kill them right away they will either call reinforcements or notify the others to turtle. Having them summon more reinforcements out of the tower would be nice but I can''t risk them turtling. I could make it seem like the trap is unmanned, but would they be smart enough to realize it wasn''t there just a day ago? Gambling on that could cost my life so let''s assume the worst, that they''re very intelligent. They could also have protocols for everyone else to turtle while a hunting party is out. That wouldn''t even require high intelligence, it''s just common sense. Is there any other reason to leave? Going to the bathroom, but they may just use a bucket then empty it once a night from the roof. Seems like my best bet here is to wait until they sleep then try to take them out stealthily. My Mana Bolt doesn''t make too much sound but it likely won''t kill them outright, they could just scream for help.


    I guess I have daggers, ugh. So I wait for night, take out the guards one by one then try to catch them all sleeping and take them out too? That''s so lame though. I wish I knew more about magic so I could craft some cool spell to handle this. Like a sleeping gas then pour it in from the top. What if they don''t have a night watch? What if they just lock the door and sleep? Seems silly but humans do that at cabins, cottages and their own homes all the time. Homes have police nearby and alarm systems, but they didn''t always. Cabins and cottages often don''t. If they aren''t expecting an assault they may do that. So how do I get in if they do? It''s most likely barred with a log so I could blast it off with a well positioned spell but that would be really loud.


    Last option is somehow take down the whole structure. If I could take a tree down on top of it that would be great, but I don''t think that''s happening anytime soon. Actually, what if I slowly take out the ropes holding all the logs together? Hopefully the building collapses entirely or they evacuate while repairs happen just in case.


    Felix waited for the guards to finish their rotation and sit back at the front door. Having observed them for a little while, he knew they shouldn''t perform another scouting rotation for at least ten minutes. He had spent time covering himself in the best camouflage he could manage using mud, sticks and leaves. He figured there might scouts on the top floor as well as the guards so he did his best to hide himself and move slowly. He managed to make it within touching distance of the building without alerting anybody. Either scouts on the top floor didn''t exist or were lazy.


    The building was held together with hemp ropes tying everything together. The logs making up the walls of the ground floor were stuck into the ground at least a foot each. The next floor though, had no ground to stick logs into. The logs of every floor above the second were held together using the ropes alone.


    I could cut those using mana bolts, would they notice though? Probably, it would reverberate through the wood. Agh, this is all too complicated. I have to be over thinking this. Let''s just go with the plan the most likely to succeed and figure it out from there. Also, screw the carrot, I''m not wasting a boar body on this. . . . . .

 Chapter 13 - Book 12

    Felix skulked back into the forest and out of sight then wrapped around to the front of the structure. Remaining behind the trees but close enough that the guards or any scouts would be able to see smoke, he piled the largest pile of leaves he could find. Then he lit the pile and quickly walked back and hid behind a tree.


    As he had hoped, one of the guards on duty left to check the smoke while the other stood guard. As soon as the guard walked out of sight of the other Felix stepped out from behind a tree and hit the goblin with a modified Fire Blast in the back. This one had the fire minimized but the out ring size and thickness increased. The spell, from this close, launched the goblin forwards a few meters into the bonfire.


    The goblin screeched as it quickly burned to death.


    Ding You have slain [E - Common] Goblin Warrior (Lvl 15)


    Ding You have gained 2 levels in [E - Common] Caster


    As soon as the first goblin started screeching, the other guard immediately ran from his post to check out the commotion as well. As soon as he saw the goblin corpse in the fire he started laughing at it.


    That makes me feel better about killing you, asshole. Thanks.


    Felix hit this goblin with the exact same modified Fire Blast as the first. The goblin warrior fell into the fire and screeched just the same as the last.


    Ding You have slain [E - Common] Goblin Warrior (Lvl 15)


    Ding You have gained a level in [E - Common] Caster


    Shortly after this goblin screeched, Felix peeked out from behind a tree and watched as three more goblin warriors exited the building. Two of them left to figure out what was going on as the other one stayed behind and guarded the door. The fire raged on behind Felix as they approached. A fire fueled by a pile of leaves and twigs does not burn long enough for all of the goblins to be burned in it, but Felix planned ahead. He gathered five piles nearby just in case, then just after the first burned alive he refueled the fire using one of his spare piles. He did the same after the second but used two piles this time to buy time for the goblins to exit the building.


    The two goblin warriors walked right up to the fire just as the other ones had before. Felix popped out and shot one of them into the fire then ran as the other one searched for what happened. He spotted Felix and chased him around the fire. He was not very fast at all though. Felix charged up another of the same modified Fire Blast then slowed down and ran closer to the fire. The goblin chased him and, as planned, ran close enough to the fire that Felix''s fire spell launched the goblin into the fire.


    Wow, I REALLY over thought this. They are mentally and physically slow.


    Felix walked back to his vantage point after refueling his bonfire to see what the other goblins were up to. What he saw was, no goblins at all. They had all turtled inside.


    Ding You have slain 2 [E - Common] Goblin Warrior (Lvl 15)


    Ding You have gained a level in [E - Common] Caster


    Shit, well at least I got four of them. There is no way their archer''s aren''t just waiting now, right?


    Felix walked through the trees back to the goblin outpost, hidden behind the last tree between him and the outpost. He pulled out the remaining meat from the skinned fox corpse and put a hat on it, then he stabbed that with his great sword. He slowly moved the corpse out from behind the tree using the great sword. As soon as the corpse was six inches out the great sword flew out of Felix''s hand. Looking towards where it landed, he saw 5 arrows stuck in the skinned fox corpse all within an inch of each other.


    So they make up for everything else with insane dexterity, got it. Five shots means likely five archers and there were five warriors with one left now. There could be more of either but that seems unlikely because it would too difficult for this dungeon, I hope. There could also be other types of goblins. I really hope there aren''t any goblin assassins. What to do now. If I show any part of myself I get hit instantly by a handful of arrows. Actually, their perception must be pretty bad if they shot that, if I gamble on their only being five I could pull the same trick then I have a small window while they reload.


    First things first, I need to be able to see them without them seeing me, I need a mirror. Next I can pick them off through the arrow slits as they try to hit me. Is my aim good enough to pick them off? Definitely not, at least, not without hours of trying. Could be good practice though. I could also try to bait them to fire through all their arrows but for all I know they have thousands stocked. Alright new plan, I take out the warrior then try to get them out from behind the arrow slits.


    Felix ran back into the forest, away from the outpost and collected as many leaves and twigs as he could and stowed all them in his inventory. Then he ran back to his tree, retrieved his great sword hat and skinless corpse, then pulled out a boar corpse. He hung the corpse out from the tree and braced himself to hold it. Once again five arrows fired from the top floor of the outpost. Felix held the corpse steady and waited, three seconds passed and then five more arrows fired.


    Now that he knew the timing between reloads, Felix pulled the corpse back behind the tree. He readied himself then stuck the corpse out and immediately five arrows thunked into it. He quickly jumped out from behind the tree and ran, after two seconds he pulled the boar''s corpse out and crouched underneath it. Five arrows thunked into the corpse just over Felix''s head. He stowed the corpse and speed walked towards the tower as fast as he could. S~ea??h the N??eFire.¦Çet website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


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    He shielded himself with corpses and ran, switching every three seconds or so until he made it to the door. The archers couldn''t hit him from this angle thankfully. As expected the door was barred in some way. Felix prepared the spell construct for the same modified Fire Blast he used to push the goblin warriors into the bonfire and positioned it right behind the door. He stepped aside then pumped mana into the spell to try and push back whatever was barring the door. He heard a crash then pushed against the door and found it give an inch before being pushed back. He prepared another of the same spell and fired it blasting the last goblin warrior, trying to hold the door, back into the room. Felix shoved into the room and stabbed a dagger into the warriors throat.


    Ding You have slain a [E - Common] Goblin Warrior (Lvl 15)


    At this point Felix knew there were two things that could happen, the archers or someone else could come down and charge him or fire at him from the ladder opening at the center of the room. The other option was what ended up happening, no one came for him, they were going to wait for him on their floor. Unluckily for them, he was never going up there. Felix pulled out all the leaves and twigs he had stored in his inventory and piled them together. He had collected enough to fill most of the empty space in this room thanks to his inventory. The rest of the room was empty so Felix didn''t have to worry about anything valuable burning. He lit the bonfire then walked outside, hugging the wall, and barred the door using biggest thing in his inventory, the giant toad corpse. He stood next to the corpse and kept his hand on it.


    Felix looked up to the sky and watched. After almost five minutes smoke began pouring out of the arrow slits on the top floor. After ten minutes Felix was slightly worried. There was evidently no chimney as the smoke only poured out of the arrow slits and seeped through the cracks here and there in the building. After another few minutes, Felix heard banging on the door he had barred. Five minutes later, Felix got the notifications he was waiting for.


    Ding You have slain 5 [E - Common] Goblin Archer (Lvl 17)


    Ding You have gained 2 levels in [E - Common] Caster


    Felix waited for the round end notification but, after a few minutes, nothing came. He stowed the toad corpse in his inventory and waited. When no one came out of the building he realized he would have to go back in and find them.


    Whoever is left managed to survive, they''re either smarter or just luckier. Also possible there is no one left in there and the rest of the round is elsewhere in the forest. That seems unlikely though considering my last run of this dungeon. I don''t want to just go in there without knowing where they are because they could just ambush me coming through a doorway. The least I should do is wait for the smoke to dissipate.


    Felix left the corpse just in case and sat down to meditate. He hadn''t taken any damage thus far but he had expended some energy and a lot of mana, he might as well be as prepared as he could be.


    After half an hour or so, the smoke had mostly cleared and his mana was fully replenished thanks to a battery. There was barely any smoke pouring out of the arrow slits anymore so Felix hoped that he would be able to see and breathe at least somewhat. He stood up and stowed the toad corpse back in his inventory.


    Felix opened the door to the outpost and peered inside. The room was filled with ash and a grey haze. It wasn''t impairing Felix''s vision or breathing much so he ventured inside. He prepared a modified Fire Blast to knock someone off their feet figuring it was his safest bet against all kinds of enemies at melee range and carefully climbed to the second floor. The haze got slightly worse but the effects were still negligible. This floor was laid out with what appeared to be tables and chairs. The furniture was too small to be used by anything but small children, or goblins, but Felix still stowed them in his inventory, as he figured he might as well.


    On the next floor there were multiple beds of a similarly miniature size as the furniture from the previous floor. There were eleven beds total with five on one side, five on another and one, bigger than the others, separated and off to the side.


    If I killed five warriors, five archers then the last one probably belongs to this bigger bed. Must be the leader then, likely the strongest one. Please don''t be an assassin.


    Felix took all the beds and continued onwards to the next floor. The fourth floor was the first one with arrow slits around the room. There were three archer corpses in this room and one warrior. He stowed them and their weapons, which lay strewn around them, in his inventory. The equipment was likely too small for anyone to use, but he didn''t want them to go to waste. Given there was only one more floor, Felix double checked the spell he had prepared, pulled out two daggers just in case, and carefully climbed to the next floor.


    The smoke was immediately thicker making it hard to see through and started to burn Felix''s lungs. He could only see a few feet in front of him as he walked around, dagger and spell at the ready. As he skulked around he quickly noticed the smoke grew much thicker in one direction. As soon as he noticed this, he also noticed a slight breeze in the room, he walked in the direction of the breeze. Suddenly, the smoke completely dissipated as Felix walked into what felt like a storm.


    [E - Common] Goblin Shaman (Lvl 20)


    Sitting on the floor in front of Felix sat a Goblin wearing a hide loin cloth and bearing tattoos covering the majority of their diminutive body. They lay on the ground with their legs raised vertically against the wall. Felix could also sense them pumping mana into a spell form hovering just above them. At first Felix flinched and almost dodged to the side preemptively, but then he realized they were constantly and consistently pumping mana into the spell form.


    They are channeling the spell, that is so cool. I''m kind of annoyed I didn''t think of trying that with my spells. I could make a Flame Thrower or a Mana Bolt turret, maybe, or it would just make a giant dart or something. Also, are they meditating? I guess different cultures? Is the logic that the blood leaves the legs and rushes to the brain?


    Felix''s mana senses are not quite good enough to be able to read the exact spell form from a spell being cast. He saw parts of the spell form but the finer details were initially unclear. Given the goblin Shaman didn''t notice him yet, he spent a few moments focusing on the spell form in an attempt to mentally record it. After a few minutes, he could see it clearly enough that he could likely reconstruct the general form then figure it out from there. Luckily this spell appeared to be fairly simple, if it was complicated or had really minute details, he wouldn''t have been able to read them at all. He was not well versed enough in spell forms to be able to tell what the spell did just from the spell form, maybe one day he could, but for now, Felix had a good guess based on the situation.


    Well I feel bad just killing them like this, but they are higher level than me and I don''t want to try fighting them honorably. Oh well. Maybe they will have the Gust spell book on them.


    Daggers in hand, Felix walked right up to the Shaman and sunk knives into their neck. Their eyes shot open and the spell immediately dissipated. They fumbled their hands around their throat briefly before finally bleeding out with a slight shiver a moment later. . . . . .

 Chapter 14 - Book 13

    Ding You have slain a [E - Common] Goblin Shaman (Lvl 20)


    Ding You have gained a level in [E - Common] Caster


    The System conjured them¡­ they''re dungeon monsters¡­ That was disgusting, physically, emotionally and morally.


    Thankfully, the looting the Shaman''s corpse caused Felix to notice something, distracting him and answering a question that had bothered him for a while. Shortly after placing the Shaman''s corpse in his inventory, Felix opened it to take stock. He noticed a bunch of items he didn''t place in there himself. After pondering it for a few seconds, he realized where the items had come from.


    So that''s what happens to someone''s inventory when they die? Their inventory is added to mine if I stow their corpse. I wonder what happens if I just leave their corpse there, would it get expelled around them after a while? Oh shit I should collect the corpses of the burnt warriors then,


    Combat Dungeon C S§×ar?h the novel(F~)ire.net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    Round 2 will begin in 30 minutes.


    Start now?


    Yes


    No


    No.


    The slight delay is getting me a little worried, but it''s probably so that it can determine if you are in a safe spot. If you suicidally jump into a fire, you probably shouldn''t win the round.


    Felix quickly left the building and collected the charred Goblin Warrior corpses, then went through his inventory.


    Seems like they didn''t have much on them, most of their swords and shields burned away. The shaman carried enough rations for each of them for five days and fourteen monkey corpses. He also had Mana Bolt and Gust spell books. I wonder why they don''t have much on them. Probably just dungeon shenanigans.


    Man I really have to claim soon, hopefully I don''t end up overshooting it and getting 20 in this dungeon run. Also I have 21 free points, guess I put them into intelligence. I think that increases my damage, I hope that''s how it works. If not, mana is great anyways. All free points into intelligence.


    Felix inspected his character sheet for the first time in a while.


    Name:Felix KadeFREE0Level:8STR20Class:[E - Common] Caster (Lvl 17)DEX51Race:[F - Common] HumanAGI25Profession:???PER54Health:246/280VIT28Mana:828/960INT96Energy:214/260END26


    No more stats from working out this time. Maybe I should adjust the intensity and tailor it to specific stats I want to level. I''m not sure that the individual points I''m working towards are going to matter much, but I do like seeing progression. Also those mana batteries seemed huge when I got them, now they seem kind of small. Damn, maybe I should look at modifying spells again, I probably have the mana to support it now.


    My stats would be crazy if I could also be leveling a profession. I really need to find one.


    Felix walked back to the outpost and meditated outside until the next round started.


    After almost a half hour of meditating Felix heard a loud shrill shrieking sound coming from the trees. His eyes widened and he scrambled to get into the outpost. He made it inside and barred the door with a log then quickly climbed to the fifth floor as fast as he could. The smoke was luckily almost entirely dissipated by now. Felix prepared an amped up Fire Bolt as he ran. He made it to the fifth floor and as he''d feared one of this round''s enemies had already made it inside.


    [E - Common] Saber-tooth Monkey (Lvl 18)


    He drew the one spear and shield he had looted from the previous round. The pair was small on him, but it was workable. Felix really did not want to have to get close to the Monkey. It was currently screaming with its arms stretched out threateningly and claws bared. Its claws were at least two inches long and it''s fangs four. Felix released his prepared spell and backed up.


    The Monkey recoiled when the small ball of fire washed over its face. It clawed and patted at it''s head as it jumped up and down, Felix didn''t waste the opportunity, he quickly lunged forwards and stabbed towards the Monkey''s throat. The monkey was too fast though and it quickly jumped aside. It snarled again and lunged for Felix''s throat with its fangs. Felix panicked and hid behind the shield, which turned out to be the correct move as it also tried to slash at his chest with it''s claws. Felix dropped the buckler as the monkey held on and was fairly heavy. As the Monkey fell to the ground, Felix stabbed again with his spear. The Monkey easily jumped away.


    Then Felix pulled the ace out of his sleeve and pumped mana into the Fire Bolt spell form he had been preparing. He had it positioned right behind the Monkey''s head so it didn''t see it in time to dodge. Luckily that was enough to kill the creature.


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    Felix quickly stowed the corpse with a touch then closed the trapdoor in the ceiling and barred it as best he could. Then, he ran over to an arrow slit in time to see Monkeys swinging around in the trees around the outpost. Every few swings they would hurl stones at the outpost.


    At least it''s not dung.


    Their aim was not particularly good but they made up for that in raw speed. They hurled rocks and swung around so fast it was hard to track. Unfortunately that meant Felix''s best shot was to use the lower damage Mana Bolt due to it''s superior speed. Felix began preparing a Mana Bolt spell form, and decided to make it twice as big in every dimension, as he hid behind the wall. It would cost eight times more mana, but Felix should be able to handle it for a little while, plus it would make every hit count for more and hopefully speed up the outcome of the fight. As soon as it was ready he peered out the slit and tracked one of the monkeys as it swung. He aimed his shot ahead of the monkey and fired. A loud screech confirmed he had hit the monkey, though Felix wasn''t sure where on the monkey he had hit it.


    Felix continued to hide behind the wall before peeking out and trying to hit the monkeys as they swung. Luckily, their swinging on an arch was predictable. He estimated that he had managed to hit about 60% of the time. He wasn''t entirely sure how often he was hitting them as they were all constantly screeching, not just when he hit them. His perception was high enough to mostly keep track of them but often they swung through leaves and behind trees.


    Felix started to run low on mana so he hid and pulled out batteries, though he didn''t risk meditating as his senses would be too cut off. He tried pulling mana from two at once but replenishing his mana pool didn''t happen any faster. He needed to go through almost four full batteries to replenish his mana at this point.


    As he was pulling from the batteries two of the monkeys landed on the roof and clawed at the trap door. Felix kept his eye on the trap door as he continued to try and pick off the monkeys who still swung. Luckily, the outpost was designed to deal with the monkeys so they couldn''t just swing on to the side of the building and rip open the arrow slits.


    Thankfully I didn''t take down the building.


    Suddenly one of the logs of the trap door was ripped off and Felix watched as a monkey try to stuff his head in the gap. Felix jumped at the opportunity, literally, and stabbed a spear into it''s eye as deep as he could.


    The rest of the trap door was quickly ripped away and the corpse of the monkey who stuck his head in prematurely fell to the floor. The other one swung down into the room hanging from the opening with its feet and jumped at Felix. As fast as he could Felix pulled out his great sword, because he wanted as much reach as possible to keep it away, and stabbed at the monkey. The monkey managed to claw the sword to the side saving it''s own life but earning itself a cut on its hand.


    As soon as it landed just in front of Felix, it jumped at him again. Felix released a supersize Mana Bolt right into it''s face as it was in the air and held the great sword blade in front of his chest to protect himself. It seems like this was one he had hit before as it died as soon as his spell hit. It''s body continued on and landed right on top of Felix, knocking him over.


    Felix quickly stowed the corpse and scrambled over to the corner so the remaining monkeys couldn''t see him through the trap door. He prepared a supersize Mana Bolt and aimed the spell form right at the edge of the hole ready to go. After a dozen seconds or so Felix heard a monkey land on the roof and got ready, but even prepared, his reaction speed was too slow. The monkey swung through the opening at top speed. Luckily it swung in at random so it ended up swinging to the side of the room.


    Felix pulled out the Goblin Warrior''s buckler and started preparing the same spell again. He had stowed the great sword, which was much too unwieldy for him to use, especially in one hand, and pulled out a dagger instead. The Monkey quickly jumped off the wall and lunged at Felix who curled up as much of himself as he could behind his shield.


    The monkey smacked against the shield and tried to claw over it managing to land a swipe of it''s claw on Felix''s cheek but earning itself a dagger to the eye in return. It quickly jumped back off the shield and Felix finished it with a point blank supersize Mana Bolt through it''s head.


    Felix quickly stowed the corpse but kept the shield equipped because he was pretty sure there was at least one more. He quickly peeked out the window but didn''t see any movement so he put his back to the wall and trained his eyes on the hole in the roof. He began preparing a Fire Blast that was three times bigger in all dimensions with an even thicker outer line. He was trying a different strategy this time, even though Mana Bolt traveled much faster, Felix''s reaction time wasn''t quite good enough to catch them from range this close up.


    Felix was ready for the monkey to swing from above, so he was surprised when he heard scratching below him right before a monkey swung down from the roof through the hole at the same time as one leapt from the floor below. Felix held out his shield even it was too small to defend against them both, it did make him feel safer. He immediately cast his prepared spell as he didn''t trust his reaction speed and luckily, both of them jumped at him and into the spell.


    Ding You have slain 7 [E - Common] Saber-Tooth Monkey (Lvl 18)


    Ding You have gained 2 levels in [E - Common] Caster


    Thank god I only gained two levels, that means if I only gain one on the next round, I won''t miss claiming in this level bracket. Fingers crossed.


    The two monkeys were completely charred, even more than the warriors he had pushed into the bonfire earlier. He looted all of the corpses, sat down and meditated with batteries to begin regenerating mana.


    Combat Dungeon C


    Round 3 will begin in 30 minutes.


    Start now?


    Yes


    No


    No.


    Seems like the kill notifications only pop up when I''m safe. I guess it could be in the middle of combat if I''m not overly in danger, like with the boars. I guess that makes sense, it doesn''t want to distract you. I could see that getting confusing though if you aren''t sure if someone is dead then you don''t get a kill notification and you don''t know if they died or you are still in combat with someone.


    After half an hour Felix sat at half health and full mana, thanks to the mana batteries, with most of his energy.


    He waited around for another half an hour expecting something to happen when he finally decided to just explore. He left the outpost and carefully paid attention to his surroundings as he walked further into the forest. Just a few hundred meters away from the outpost Felix came across a large opening in the side of a rock. Felix had almost walked by it because the cave was completely overgrown with moss and fallen leaves making it difficult to spot.


    Why would there be a random cave in the dungeon generated forest? I don''t really want to just walk in there, I won''t be able to see anything and I don''t really have a great source of light. Speaking of, how do I not have a simple light spell by now? I can hold a Fire Bolt, but then I can''t cast anything. Guess I have to try to smoke whatever is in there out.


    Felix quickly ran around collecting as many leaves and branches as he could in his inventory. Then he pulled out the Gust spell book and quickly memorized the spell form, making sure to file it in his mental library. Then he set all the leaves and branches down in a big pile in the opening of the cave. Before lighting the fire he constructed the spell form for Gust and filled it with mana. It took him a few tries to get the channeling right with how much mana he had to push into the spell form and making sure his consistency was right. Once he was at least capable of casting the spell, he lit the pile and channeled Gust into the cave.


    Over twenty minutes later, Felix almost gave up when he heard the sound of a loud roar and thunderous steps echoing from deep inside the cave. He quickly ran away from the cave and hid behind a tree. The sound of steps stopped echoing and Felix heard another roar. He quickly peeked around the tree. . . . . .

 Chapter 15 - Book 14

    [E - Common] Cave Troll (Lvl 22)


    Oh shit, I really hope this only gives me one level. Also this thing is gonna take a thousand Fire Bolts to kill. If it''s like trolls from fantasy, it regenerates pretty quickly, so should I just use giant supersized spells? They take longer, but the question is about damage per second. Ok mental napkin math time, I can cast a standard Fire Bolt about every four seconds, the cast time goes down slightly if it''s smaller and goes up slightly if it''s bigger. If I make the spell half size, the total damage I can put out, assuming the damage scales about linearly with the amount of fire, is around double. However, the damage per second is about 36% of what it normally is.


    If I double the spell form dimensions, The total damage output is half as much, but the damage per second is over triple. So as long as I make the total damage higher than it''s health bar, I should be fine. So, I need to maximize the damage per second while still having the total damage output be high. It would be really nice to know the damage numbers of my spells, I guess I can fire them at people and get them to tell me how much damage it did. Another thing I need to do at some point, great.


    Back to the Troll, I don''t think a single spell will take it out considering the spell form starts to leak and fall apart the bigger it is. I can cast a spell one hundred seventy percent bigger exactly three times, that makes the total damage a third of what it could be if I hit it with eighteen normal Fire Bolts. The damage per second is over five times higher though.


    That means I would be betting on it having less than six normal Fire Bolt''s worth of health. That should be between two and three times the health of the overgrown toad from last time I was here. That sounds about right. Well, if not hopefully I can get away and recharge mana, then I can try with a different number. All free points into agility. Just in case. Oh also I think head shots count as a critical hit, hopefully it''s slow. Well here goes some mental napkin math that I am suddenly feeling a lot less confident about.


    With a plan in mind and rough math to back it up, Felix quickly prepared the first spell behind the tree. He popped out and fired just as the Troll started to smack a tree nearby to scare away the intruder and managed to smack it right in the side of the face with his Fire Bolt. Fire poured over its face as it roared as it quickly turned to search for the assailant. Felix didn''t bother hiding and just ran instead. Turns out, the troll was slow, but still just as fast as Felix.


    Stupid long legs.


    Felix quickly spun around and fired again hitting it in the face again, then switched directions and ran to the side. When the Troll opened it''s eyes again it ran forwards a few steps before realizing Felix wasn''t in front of it anymore and then turned its head and searched for him. By the time it found him, Felix had already fired the last Fire Bolt, so the Troll turned its head right into the Fire Bolt. Felix waited in anticipation and after the fire washed away, the Troll was still standing but it wasn''t looking good. It swayed on it''s feet a little and looked exhausted.


    Shit it''s still alive. It looks too hurt to give up now. Melee caster time? Ugh.


    Felix pulled out and threw daggers as fast as he could leaving only one dagger left in his inventory, just in case. He pulled out the great sword and charged the Troll as it swayed on it''s feet then swung as hard as he could into it''s knee. He figured if he couldn''t kill it he should at least be able to slow it down. Felix barely managed to scratch it''s stony skin but it seemed that was enough.


    Ding You have slain a [E - Common] Cave Troll (Lvl 22)


    Ding You have gained a level in [E - Common] Caster


    Oh thank god. It must have been at like ten health, I''m pretty sure I barely did anything with the daggers or the sword.


    Combat Dungeon C


    You have successfully completed 3 rounds. Would you like to continue, change the difficulty or exit the dungeon?


    Continue.


    Change Difficulty


    Exit


    Exit.


    Combat Dungeon C


    You have successfully completed 3 rounds of +6 - +9 difficulty. You chose not to claim rewards this time.


    Congratulations.


    Felix immediately pulled out batteries and drained them as fast as he could. He was almost out of batteries at this point.


    I got to look into getting, or even making, bigger mana batteries.


    I wonder if the Goblins were all only five levels up because the difficulty of the encounter as a whole with the outpost and the archers was meant for a party at level 16? Also it seems I did accidentally choose a higher difficulty than I intended, oh well. It worked out pretty well honestly. I have half health, that''s health to spare if you think about it¡­


    Ok, do I go back in now and claim the reward? I think I should prepare as best as I can then claim, so I can push for the best reward I can get. Hopefully I don''t level on the way back. Oh shit, I really hope I am not right on the cusp. I will just have to avoid hitting or killing anything.


    Felix ran back to the town stopping at the stream to drink, bathe and fill his canteens. He made it back slightly faster due to the increase in agility. When he was just under a half hour away, he pulled out the bath robe he had been graciously gifted and put it on. There should be more people in the town now and he didn''t feel like giving them all the first impression that he was some kind of pervert, two people were already more than enough.


    As he was approaching the town, Felix immediately noticed a new addition just outside the town, or at least, one in progress. People were currently working on preparing land for farming. Felix smiled at the progress and continued on into the town. It had been almost a day and a half already, mostly due to travel time, but he wasn''t expecting the new citizens to have started any work yet.


    Walking through the town he was initially disappointed when he didn''t see any progress being made, but then he checked his mini map and was reminded that this was the commercial district. The area he was in was coloured in a green overlay with a border. Just below his mini map it read: "Unnamed Fort: Commercial District."


    This narrative has been purloined without the author''s approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.


    That is awesome. We really need a name for the town/fort though, in fact, if it appears on the map like that, this is priority number one. It makes it so that people who see the fort on their map have a named location, a waypoint. It also gives them something easy to refer to it as in conversation with other people. If it''s a good name, it will keep it on their minds and encourage them to check it out too.


    Felix made it through the commercial district and into the purple overlay of the industrial district. Close to the edge of this district next to the castle Felix saw where the real progress had been happening. A large chunk of buildings had been completely removed and it looked like their minimally damaged bricks were being salvaged to create a really big, long building. It took up the space of three small city blocks and the walls were halfway constructed already. There were clearly more people than Felix had even hoped for working on it''s construction.


    Felix wanted to go check it out but he figured he should check in with Noah and Amelia first, if she wasn''t currently working on the warehouse. With that in mind he made it to the castle and went inside. Inside the compound there wasn''t anybody in the courtyard, but inside the castle Felix found dozens of people walking around. They all seemed like they had somewhere they needed to be, which was impressive to Felix, he expected people to just be loitering about.


    Felix walked up to the throne room where he expected Noah to be but couldn''t find him anywhere. He walked back down stairs and decided to just try and find Amelia, the only other person here he knew. He assumed she would be at the warehouse construction so he headed there.


    He made the short trip out to the warehouse and walked around looking for Amelia. He saw pairs of people pulling stone bricks, salvaged from the fort''s ruins, out of their inventory then carrying and placing them. The bricks looked like they must have weighed four hundred kilograms at least, making lifting and placing them a feat that would have been impossible pre integration. It was an odd sight, considering this would have been impossible just a couple weeks ago.


    As he walked around the partially constructed building he spotted a large pile of bricks that had been salvaged from other buildings. Next to that he spotted a large pile of logs. He wondered if those were for the roof of the building, for posts and supports, for the scaffolding, or all three. Both piles were being filled by people occasionally and the bricks were being used actively to construct the wall. After walking around for a while and not being able to spot her he decided to just ask someone.


    He walked up to someone at random and asked, "Do you know where I can find Amelia?"


    They simply pointed towards the west then continued working so Felix shrugged and headed in that direction. He passed into the residential district and would have turned back to ask for more specific direction had he not passed people using logs as rollers to transport bricks in the opposite direction he was heading. They used a handful of logs as a platform pointing in the direction of travel then had logs as rollers beneath that. Whenever the platform passed over a roller, two men would quickly lift it over the platform and place it in front of them.


    Why the hell don''t they just use their inventory? Is there a weight limit I just haven''t encountered yet? Maybe it''s just a size limitation? I''ll have to look into that.


    They managed to transport an impressive thirty bricks at about walking pace. The pace as well as the contraption would have been impossible pre integration given the sheer weight of the brick and the logs. Felix was sure he would have trouble lifting either and didn''t think the logs should be able to hold all that weight. He figured the logs were stronger for some reason, maybe they leveled, and the people just got strength from their professions. He only got strength from race levels and working out, which didn''t amount to very many points.


    He finally made it to a massive operation of deconstructing old buildings in the residential district. The useable bricks were loaded onto a platform of logs and the unusable rubble was rolled elsewhere on a densely packed platform of more logs. He spotted Amelia directing the operation, pointing people to which buildings they could start disassembling. In between that she consulted with Noah who, conveniently for Felix, stood right next to her.


    He approached the pair of them, "How goes the city building? You guys have gotten a lot more done in less than two days than I ever expected."


    They both turned around and jumped a little in surprise before quickly composing themselves.


    "Yeah we''ve actually have almost fifty citizens now and twenty of those took builder as their profession. Quite a few of them didn''t choose anything in the preparation room, then when we were talking about building out the city, they decided to help. We also managed to get a few farmers who are currently working on our first farm. Everyone else is trying to work on their professions as best they can in the castle." Noah explained.


    "When we camped out in the forest, we didn''t have anything to level our professions with so a bunch of us just made furniture. It''s rough, and only possible with skills, but we made a lot of tables and chairs. Everyone who needed one for their profession got to take one, first come first serve. All the architects, alchemists and other professions basically." Amelia added.


    "Oh cool. The warehouse looks like it''s coming along well, it looks great so far. Wait a minute, all those people who didn''t choose a profession, how did they choose builder now?" Felix inquired. sea??h th§× N??eFire.¦Çet website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    "You just open the profession selection screen? I guess you slept through that, sorry. You can even open it when you already have one cause you can choose a replacement or upgrade your current one. They only ever show you five options, but they are tailored to you for the most part. Oh also if you haven''t, you should also have a class selection and skill selection screen. Class is the same as the profession, the skill is only different in that it shows fifteen skills, five for each of profession, class and general. Have you really gone all this time without any skills? What level are you anyways, if you don''t mind, I still can''t actually see your level." Noah responded.


    "Shit, thanks. I managed to get rewarded two skills from showing proficiency with things but otherwise I don''t have any. Man it''s like the spells all over again. I am level nineteen in Caster and nine in General. I wonder if it''s a setting to let you see it or if your perception just has to be higher or something, I can usually identify creatures higher level than me." Felix said.


    They both looked wide eyed at him after that.


    "Holy shit, you might be the highest level in the whole tutorial right now. I can''t imagine someone else having leveled that quickly." Noah blurted out.


    "I doubt it, it wasn''t that difficult at all, plus without a profession I feel like I am already so behind where I could be. I completed a whole puzzle dungeon which seem like they are designed for professions. They give loot and experience and everything, I did the whole thing without a profession. Now I can''t redo it, so I wasted it." Felix explained.


    "Wait, there''s a dungeon specifically for professions?" Noah asked excitedly.


    "Yeah it''s a puzzle dungeon, east-north-east of here. There are some trap rooms but there was no combat. Though the forest around it had some beasts in it, but they were low level." Felix explained.


    "Can you share your map with us? I know quite a few people who would love to try that dungeon out." Noah inquired hopefully.


    "Uh yeah sure¡­ how do I do that?" Felix asked.


    "You basically just will it or think it and then I can accept it. Also you can share it with the entire town if you want. Then the citizens can choose to participate and if they do, they contribute their map but they also get the updates from everyone else." Noah explained.


    "Huh, let me go do that, that sounds awesome. I really need to go through the town management screen entirely at some point. Oh also, what should the town name be?" Felix asked.


    "Up to you, you are the town leader. If you are asking for ideas, just do something like Felix''s town, or Felixopolis." Noah said.


    Felix groaned at that and thought about names as he walked back to the castle. . . . . .

 Chapter 16 - Book 15

    He sat on the throne, pulled up the screen, then enabled the map sharing. He input his map and set it to have the towns and his map update each-other. He also chose to notify any residents so that they could also join. He sat and watched the participation number for a minute or so and it quickly jumped to the mid forties.


    He opened the name section and stared at it for a while before settling on: "Tripeak-Valley." It was a little on the nose, but it was the best he could come up with.


    With all that done he started sifting through the menu. He only got through a few options before getting bored and deciding to leave it for anther time. That or maybe Noah could tell him about any important options in the future.


    With that out of the way, Felix left the throne, because it felt weird to him to just hang out sitting in it, and sat on his bed in his room.


    Open Profession Selection.


    A screen with a list of five options appeared to Felix.


    [E - Common] Farmer: Manage crops, plant and harvest a variety of plants. Skills aid in harvesting, sowing, managing and protecting your crops. Evolutions include specializations in specific plant types, high yield, high quality and plant breeding. +3 END, +2 STR, +2 AGI, +3 Free per level.


    Plant breeding? Cool but, nope.


    [E - Uncommon] City Planner: Plan the direction of a settlement or a portion of one. Designate districts and the locations of specific buildings. Skills aid in planning, foresight and adapting to the evolution of a town. +3 PER, +3 INT, +2 AGI, +3 Free per level.


    Personally, boring. Nope.


    [E - Uncommon] Enchanter: Inscribe enchantments for a variety of effects. Skills aid in inscribing, planning, safety and stability. Evolutions include focusing on equipment, exotic, household items and combat. +3 DEX, +3 INT, +2 PER, +3 Free per level.


    Oh that''s interesting, might come back to that one.


    [E - Rare] Mayor: As the leader of a settlement, you guide the people and choose the direction of the town. This class levels based on the progress of your town and can even be upgraded as your settlement evolves. Skills aid in planning, leading and managing the town and it''s residents. +4 INT, +3 PER, +6 Free per level. S~ea??h the ¦ÇovelFire.¦Çet website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    Definitely not.


    [E - Special] Arcane Engineer: A profession that focuses on spell form construction, enchanting and the creation of magical contraptions. With skills that can aid with discovery, creation and safety. Evolutions include specializations in any of the focused fields. +4 DEX, +4 INT, +3 PER, +5 Free per level.


    Yup that is definitely the one. I did not think I could get spell form construction in a profession, thought I was going to have to do enchanting. Also those stat bonuses are sweet, but now my stats are going to be even more lopsided. I really need to find a better way of working out or find some other way to increase my other stats.


    With his profession chosen, Felix decided to check out some skills he could.


    Open Skill Selection.


    A screen with a list of three options appeared to Felix.


    General: [Speed Walking (Common) Walking quickly as a means of traveling. You travel quickly opting not to run or walk, but rather choose something in between the two. This skill can be upgraded. Your form is corrected while speed walking.]


    Uh, I don''t want The System messing with that kind of thing. I''d rather work on it myself, seems like a crutch to me. I would much rather skills that do things I couldn''t on my own. Also, I don''t want to waste a skill slot on this.


    Caster: [Meditation (Common) Focusing your mind, you have begun your journey on the path of meditation. You have begun to release stray thoughts and focus on a particular task, ignoring distractions. This skill can be upgraded. Your Mana restores itself at an increased rate while meditating (x1.5)] Note: Accepting this skill with remove your General Skill: [Meditation (Common)] as these two skills conflict.


    I''ve already seen this one, and chose the alternative.


    Arcane Engineer: [Spell Form Memorization (Common) This skill allows you to remember spell forms that you have seen. Memorizing spell forms is essential if you want to create your own eventually. This skill can be upgraded.]


    I have something way better than that already.


    Wow, those sucked. I guess I need to find Puzzle Dungeon A or B so I can grind this profession. Then maybe I''ll get offered some better options. I''m also not being offered class skills much, I wonder if it''s because I haven''t used my spell list at all. Maybe I need a new class but maybe I can just evolve this one¡­ hopefully.


    I''ll just focus on training for the combat dungeon reward run. I''ve got a few things I want to try and get done for that. First, channeling Mana Bolt and Fire Bolt, either I get rapid firing spells, or I might be able to create a Flame Thrower spell. Second, I am really close to being able to double cast at once and that would be huge, channeling Gust and constructing another spell feels like a good stepping stone to get me there. Lastly, even though it likely won''t help in the dungeon run, I want to see if I can use Gust to travel faster, like a sail boat creating it''s own wind.


    Felix didn''t want to practice his spells in the castle and risk damaging it, so instead he went down to the courtyard. Felix sat down and began meditating, he focused on what was different about Gust that let him continuously channel mana into it. He figured if he compared the three spell forms he knew, looking for something that was the same or similar in both Mana Bolt and Fire Bolt but different in Gust, he might be able to modify the former spells to be channeled. That was the hope anyways.


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    Felix decided to try something slightly different this time. He entered his Memory Palace and walked up to the large table in the middle of the room. He pushed the contents of the table to the side and willed a stack of paper into existence. At first he also made a writing utensil, then quickly dismissed it because he figured he shouldn''t need it. He placed three pages at the far end of the table and made the three spell forms he knew appear on them. Under each of the three spell forms, Felix started to individually dissect the spell forms onto pages. He ended up with three columns, at the top was the spell form for a spell, under that was a long line up of pages each containing and individual parts of the spell form.


    Now Felix sorted the pages and compared them. He had to redo some of them as he realized it could be split further, and some he realized he had split too far until it was meaningless. Once he was pretty sure his dissections were as accurate as he could make them, he started labeling what the pieces might do based on what he saw and felt from the spell. He listed the possibilities on the corners of the pages and then started crossing out options as he compared the two lists.


    Some parts were easy, he already knew which component was the "push" in both Mana Bolt and Fire Bolt. Gust had a similar component, but it was different. He knew which was the shape and element components of both Bolt spells from his previous experimentation. The Gust spell form was very simple which was both a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, there was less to dissect and understand, on the other it made knowing which part to integrate and how to integrate it into his Bolt spells that much harder.


    If the Gust spell form had an element or shape component, he would be confident he could swap some of its components into Fire Bolt and Mana Bolt and test it out, but it didn''t. Instead, the Gust spell form consisted of little more than the push component of the other two spells, slightly modified. There were only three components Felix separated it into. The other two spells, had many more than that.


    To be absolutely sure, Felix decided to test the components he had dissected. First he constructed a Mana Bolt replacing the shape component with the one from Fire Bolt. Then, he left his library and tested it outside. He tested and refined his spell form components until he was pretty confident he had them separated and identified correctly.


    Now came the more difficult step, trying to swap components from Gust into his other spells. He managed to create a Fire Bolt that launched a small ball of fire, then kept pushing creating a small gust behind it and a Mana Bolt with similar effects. While a useless spell, it did provide useful information, if the ring of Gust only pushed a small area alone, one of the other components was a targeting component.


    If he knew which component was targeting, that only left the channeling component. The obstacle now, was how to attach that component to the fire and shape components of the Fire Bolt spell, and how many times. The component for channeling, Felix was fairly certain, was an open mana channel. On the other spells, Felix pumped mana into the spell through a mana channel, when there was enough mana, it sealed and the spell cast. On the Gust spell, the mana channel was designed to be constantly open. This was a simple enough modification, but he needed to attach mana threads to multiple parts of the other spells. There were two open mana channels on the Gust spell, which made Felix realize he was casting it wrong as he constructed it and only had one thread attached to it.


    Felix spent over an hour figuring out how to construct the spell form with multiple threads attached before he landed on the most effective way so far, to construct it in the middle of the thread, then hold onto both ends. Pushing mana through both ends simultaneously and consistently, such that he pushed the same amount at the same rate through both took another hour. However, the modification made the spell much more effective.


    For Fire Bolt, things got more complicated. Felix added two open channels to the outer ring of Fire Bolt, to imitate Gust, and he left the targeting component to piggy back off the outer ring, as it did in Gust. The rest of the spell, Felix wasn''t sure what to do. He started with one open channel on the shaping and the fire component of the spell. Then he had to figure out how to construct the spell form at all. It now had four open ends.


    Why am I using threads at all, in theory I could just will the mana into the shape I want, right? The threads were mainly for practice when I initially learned to control mana, but using them to construct spell forms seems like it will just hinder me in the long run.


    With that thought in mind, Felix spent the next two days willing mana into spell forms, instead of weaving them with threads. He still used a thread to pull some mana out of his body and into the air, but then he willed the mana from the thread into the shape directly instead of maneuvering it as a thread. Mana reacted like a liquid or a gas so there was no reason for him to think of it as a solid thread, which took him embarrassingly, almost a whole day to realize then internalize. He was slower initially, but after a day and a half of practice, his spell form construction was much faster and required less focus.


    This alone should make it possible to cast two spells at once, not having to weave the threads where they need to go and pathing around the spell form already saved me a ton of time. It also requires so much less focus. I might even be able to get three at once at this point.


    With that out of the way Felix could go back to trying to create a Flame Thrower spell. He modified the spell form to have four open channels then cast it. The resulting spell created a tiny Fire Bolt and launched it, a very short distance, then another fired almost immediately after the first that consisted of little to no fire. He quickly realized his error, but instead of fixing it, he tried something different. He added another open channel to the fire component. This would make it so that he channeled mana into the fire component twice as fast as before, which should allow him to fill the ball before it launched. In theory he could, and should, just vary the amount of mana he pushed down each channel instead of keeping them all the same rate. This was just the fast and simple way of testing this, then he could practice the right way later on.


    This time was mostly the same, but he realized another issue, the outer ring was being channeled, meaning it constantly pushed instead of creating one burst then waiting for the next Fire Bolt before releasing another burst. He made it so that the outer ring was no longer channeled but instead he detached it from the rest of the spell. Now he could fill it and it would launch the summoned Fire Bolt then he could wait till the next was finished before constructing and filling the outer ring again. This was almost like casting two spells at once, except the complexity overall was only equivalent to a single spell, so it was only marginally harder than casting a single spell. The results were mostly what he hoped they would be, a rapid fire Fire Bolt. He had some work to do to tune the spell form, work on his aim and vary the rate of fire if needed, but it was a great start and would already be useable in certain situations in combat.


    He made the same modifications to Mana Bolt and, with a little tinkering, managed to create a rapid fire Mana Bolt as well. With that accomplished, he practiced the right way of increasing and decreasing mana flow to the spell forms, simply willing more or less mana to flow through specific channels. At the same time, he worked on distributing the mana through the spell form consciously. This made it so the spell required much less concentration to keep stable as it didn''t try to inflate on one end. He also stopped visualizing the mana coming from his body into spell forms as a thread. He realized visualizing the width of a thread was limiting his speed. He also figured visualizing by itself was likely also limiting him, but that would require a lot of work and only result in marginal benefits right now when his spells were so simple. He spent a half day practicing until he was finally satisfied. . . . . .

 Chapter 17 - Book 16

    The next day he turned his attention back to Flame Thrower. Prior to his tangent with rapid firing spells, he realized the issue with his previous attempt was that it didn''t need a shaping component at all. He should be able to simply summon and push fire out in a constant stream. He entered his library and tinkered with the spell form on paper until it was less awkward looking. Without the shaping component, it looked like a chunk of the spell form was simply missing, which was accurate. He increased the size of the fire component to compensate for the missing portions then adjusting the surrounding components and connections to better fit the new spell. Finally, he tested it out.


    Pushing mana into the spell, a stream of fire poured out in front of Felix. The spell worked exactly as he had predicted. He managed to add some leaks into the spell form as well as some pain points, where he felt the mana pushing against the spell form, but he quickly ironed out the kinks. The spell was admittedly awesome, with one small downside, it guzzled mana. It took about eighty mana per second to cast the spell, which meant he could currently cast the spell for a grand total, of thirteen seconds.


    With all that done, he decided to try something that he figured should now be possible with all his work on spell form construction. Ultimately, it took him three tries to construct and cast three Fire Bolt''s at once. He practiced for an hour or so until it didn''t take his entire focus and he could do it with three different spells.


    Well that was relatively painless. All those improvements I made practicing channeled spells just doubled their returns. I was expecting to practice this for at least a few days. Now all that''s left is trying to use Gust to run faster, which is likely going to result in a lot of tripping, hooray.


    Felix left the town towards the field so he had lots of open space. He passed by the warehouse on the way and saw that not much progress had been made since he last saw it, the walls looked higher, but Felix wasn''t certain. There also didn''t appear to be anybody actively working on it.


    I can''t really complain cause it''s not like I''m paying them, although maybe I should be? Whatever gets done is a bonus anyway, it''s not like I need this stuff to get done at all, it''s just a nice to have.


    Running with Gust pushing him was easy, but that was just a small tailwind, what he wanted was to overcharge the spell to drastically increase his speed. He positioned Gust behind him pointing forwards and up at an angle then doubled the spell size but the effects were negligible compared to the normal spell. It took him a while to realize the issue. The targeting of the spell was way too big so he ended up with a large wind all around him but that wasn''t helpful at all. He tinkered with the spell form replacing the targeting component with the Fire Bolt spell''s targeting component. It was better, but dangerous this time, it felt like he might blow a hole open in his back if he increased the power anymore because the target was too small.


    Next he worked on finding the balance between the targeting component of Gust and Fire Bolt, something right between the two should be ideal. Once he found the right balance then he upped the power in the spell. Over the course of the rest of day he found a good method of traveling, he would use the modified Gust behind him with a normal one in front of him to reduce air resistance. One of the biggest increases was giving up on the boots movement speed. He had been trying to maintain having both feet touching the ground at all times for the movement speed increase but it got too complicated. Once he let go of that, he started flying.


    It looked like he was running on air, with each jump he flew forwards multiple meters. To Felix, it felt like he was skipping which was a little awkward, but ultimately worth it he decided. He was moving almost five times faster than his top running speed. He couldn''t fly quite yet as he didn''t have enough control over the wind and he definitely didn''t have enough mana.


    As it is, he barely had enough mana to make it to the combat dungeon, draining almost all of his mana batteries. Then he would have to let them recharge before making the trip back. It did save a lot of time though.


    The idea of flying with Gust did give him an idea though, he should be able to both slow his fall and jump really high with Gust. It only took him an hour to figure out both. First, he adjusted Gust to remove the channeling and instead turn it into a burst focused in an area slightly bigger than his body. He adjusted the strength and tested it by jumping off of floors without windows in the castle. He jumped first from the second floor, a fall that wouldn''t even hurt him with his new stats. Then he tried using the exact same spell, with a bigger burst to jump. With a little practice, he managed to jump back to the floor he started from.


    The hardest part was the timing, when to use the spell to get the maximum effect and not throw him off. It took many times more mana and force, but it was doable. He then moved up as he tuned the spell. He managed to make it to about three stories with a jump that cost an insane amount of mana and required multiple pushes with the non channeled Gust in the air. Theoretically, he could fall from much higher, but didn''t test it now. Worst case scenario, if he didn''t get the force exactly right the first time, he would just hit himself multiple times until he slowed to a safe velocity.


    Finally, Felix had accomplished everything he planned on before claiming rewards in the combat dungeon so he decided he would head there first thing in the morning. Before sleeping for the night, Felix checked his notifications. He had muted them before training as they started to annoy him while he was focused on training when most of the notifications were people joining his map. Thinking about it now, he set those to never show. He could change it back in the future if he needed to, but he couldn''t think of any reason why he would. He did have other notifications though, going through them, he made sure the repeated ones were collapsed into one summary notification.


    Ding You have gained 13 levels in [E - Special] Arcane Engineer


    Holy shit, I guess I must be doing something right. I suspect this is mostly catch up experience in a sense. As in, I show the proficiency of someone at a much higher level, then I gain experience as if I was at that level. Sort of how, I assume, killing a higher level monster works. I gain more experience for killing them over lower level creatures since the experience they award is meant for someone at their level. Anyways, that''s a lot of free points. Intelligence to 200, 2 in Strength, 4 in Vitality, 1 in Endurance and the rest in Agility, for the nice round numbers.


    Name:Felix KadeFREE0Level:16STR30Class:[E - Common] Caster (Lvl 19)DEX115Race:[F - Common] HumanAGI59Profession:[E - Special] Arcane Engineer (Lvl 13)PER105Health:400/400VIT40Mana:1632/2000INT200Energy:127/350END35


    Wait a second, why is my race F tier? I didn''t even know F existed, I thought E was the lowest. Ugh, probably something I missed in the pre tutorial course thing, I''ll ask Noah when I get back.


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    He quickly timed his spell form construction for each spell at less than a second, some were faster than others, but he didn''t have a clock accurate enough to measure exactly. Overall, Felix had gotten even more done than he had hoped within the past few days. He went to sleep that night more than satisfied with his progress, but not with the goblin rations he was left with at this point.


    The next morning, it took Felix almost two hours to get to the dungeon with his new traveling method. As soon as he arrived he spaced the batteries he had expended around him and meditated. He made sure to use as much mana from batteries as he could so his own mana pool once he got there, was mostly full. Meditating for a brief few minutes until his mana was full allowed the batteries to refill themselves to about seventy percent. He decided that would be enough so he reached out and touched the door.


    Combat Dungeon C


    You have found a dungeon. Would you like to enter?


    Yes


    No


    Yes.


    Felix found himself in the same cubic room as the first time he entered the dungeon.


    Combat Dungeon C


    Choose your difficulty.


    -2 ~ -5 Lvls


    -1 ~ +1 Lvls


    +2 ~ +5 Lvls


    +6 ~ +9 Lvls


    +10 ~ +15 Lvls


    I guess now it shows the difficulty that I picked last time. Seems kind of cruel for me to say "Highest" last time and it chose an option I hadn''t even seen. It should know my intentions, unless the dungeon isn''t reading those at all and just heard the keyword, "Highest." That''s probably it, damn. Now the question is, can I go even higher and pull off that top difficulty, I could probably ask for even higher than that, but that sounds insane? I do have a lot more tools and a good amount more stats from my profession but I''m still worried I''ll fight something like the troll and just run out of mana. Even worse than that would be a swarm of something at level 32, if they are significantly faster than I am, I am fucked right? Same as last time for difficulty.


    Combat Dungeon C


    Would you like to claim your reward in this dungeon?


    Note: You may claim the reward in this dungeon once. The maximum reward tailoring level is 19. This level increases based on how many Combat Dungeons you have completed and claimed.


    Yes


    No


    Yes.


    Combat Dungeon C


    Warning: You have selected the difficulty: +10 ~ +15 levels above your own. The encounters will be deadly to a party with an average level of 19. Proceed with caution.


    Note: Rewards will be tailored to level 19 independent of levels you may gain throughout the dungeon.


    Calibrating, one moment please.


    Oh SHIT, well I guess "same as last time" means give me the highest one? That is really dumb, can we get the AI upgraded on this dungeon, it seems to be broken. I really need to be explicit and just use the numbers next time, maybe if I say it out loud it can save resources on reading my mind? Oh well, nothing to do about it now, except die I guess. Also, now I know it''s designed for a party. It is kind of annoying that it will tailor to 19 even if I level higher than that, but I guess that''s what I expected. Does that mean it judges my feats as if I was level 19 as well? That doesn''t make much sense, maybe there is some rule or something it has to follow? It''s The System though, why would it have to?


    After a few moments for Felix to accept his fate, the wall in front of Felix disappeared. Through it he saw a bleak sight, a field stretched out before him in all directions full of dead plants with a small town a few kilometers away right in the center. The night was lit by the light of a full moon peering through misty grey clouds above. Felix realized everything looked grey and washed out because of a hazy fog hanging low over the area.


    With no other indication of where he should head, Felix started towards the town. He constructed and held a Flame Thrower, a concentrated Gust and a large Mana Bolt, just in case. He was more focused on surprise melee attacks. If he encountered a ranged target, he hoped his spell form construction and general casting time would be fast enough to retaliate at this point. He made it all the way to the town with no issues and eerily, no sounds other than himself, the crunch of dead grass beneath his feet and the whistle of the wind.


    He walked into the town and looked around but didn''t find anything so, he continued all the way down the road to a clearing surrounding a fountain that Felix guessed was the center of the town. Felix walked up to the fountain and looked around. The whole town looked abandoned, there was no movement and the buildings, roads and fountain all showed the initial signs of decay. Felix waited for a few minutes until finally something happened.


    Peering through the haze in front of him, Felix spotted movement. He waited a few minutes, finally realizing, whatever it was, was approaching him, very slowly. Finally out of the haze a humanoid figure appeared, followed by a lot more.


    [E - Common] Human Zombie (Lvl 27)


    Looking to his left, then his right, he saw the exact same thing, and finally behind him as well. The zombie horde approached, excruciatingly slowly, from all directions. Felix was trapped but he had a decent amount of time to think. sea??h th§× N?velFire(.)net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    They''re only level 27, meaning there are likely a ton of them and their stats have to be able to injure me otherwise they wouldn''t be a threat to a party of level 19s. They might not be as slow as they look, it''s possible they are much faster in combat. More than likely, their strength and numbers are the issue. My best bet is likely to burn them, assuming earth zombie logic applies. I can''t let them keep surrounding me though, I need to get out of here and draw them to follow me so they group up. Then I can conserve mana. My Flame Thrower spell only reaches about fifty meters so I likely can''t get them all in one quick burst. . . . . .

 Chapter 18 - Book 17

    With the intention of grouping them up, Felix waited until they were just a hundred meters away down each road then jumped with a burst of wind on top of a nearby building. All the zombies looked up at him and continued walking. The portion of the horde next to the house he was on began ripping the building apart under him.


    Well, if they are this determined, that makes getting them to follow easy.


    Felix ran and jumped from building to building towards the edge of town. He made sure not to run too fast so as not to lose them. It was fairly trivial using his new Gust jump to make it across the larger gaps in roofs. The hardest part was trying not to fall through the roofs. A few buildings back, his foot had sunk right through one of the roofs and he almost fell into the building but managed to catch himself with a burst of Gust to push him back out. He made it all the way to the edge of the town but he never made it out of the horde, there were zombies directly below him in the street the entire time. At the edge of town, looking out over the field, the zombie horde continued into the field for a few hundred meters into the field, and there were holes everywhere. It seems like the field used to be a mass grave or cemetery with no tomb stones or markers of any kind.


    That''s a lot of zombies, there is no way I get experience for all of them, right?


    Seeing how many zombies there were, Felix began running around the edge of town on the roofs of buildings. He wrapped around the town to try and group the zombies together in the town as tightly as possible. He continued around the edge of the town until there was no empty space between the buildings in the town. There were still zombies outside that didn''t fit inside the town, so he ran to the buildings in the middle of the town and let the zombies tear down the buildings he stood upon. He continued getting the zombies to destroy buildings as he spiraled outward until they all fit into the town. Finally, with all the zombies grouped together how Felix wanted them, he ran to the edge of town where, he had noted earlier, there were two stone brick buildings which should be harder for the zombie horde to dismantle.


    He jumped off the building and stood just a meter outside the town, in the field facing the horde. As the horde approached, he waited for them to get within a few meters and unleashed a Flame Thrower into them. It didn''t hit all of them so he quickly dropped his Mana Bolt construct then constructed and fired another Flame Thrower. With both of them side by side, he melted through every zombie walking down this road. Felix was running out of mana quickly, so he pulled a mana battery out of his inventory and right between his teeth. He pulled from it as fast as he could, but quickly realized there was no way he could maintain this. He looked towards the nearest road to his right and ran so that the zombies didn''t start to exit the town and surround him.


    He consumed the entirety of his mana battery then hopped back on to the buildings and ran to the middle most building and let the zombies continue to tear it apart.


    My best bet at this point, is to minimize a Fire Ball turret and spam tiny Fire Bolts. I did the math before fighting the troll. The maximum total damage output for a Fire Bolt is around a quarter size for each dimension in a spell construct. If I make three Fire Bolt turrets, I''m just gonna say quarter sized to myself even though it''s quarter cubed because of volume, quarter sized. I am making the assumption that damage per second is irrelevant and that they don''t regenerate at all, but those seem like sane assumptions.


    Felix decided to just fire from on top of the buildings so that he could hopefully hit them in the head, which he hoped counted as a critical hit. In this fight, every point of mana and damage, counted. From the roof tops he constructed three quarter sized Fire Bolt turrets. He aimed and fired each one down into the horde. It took him a minute of trying to be able to independently aim the turrets, but once he could, he spread his fire throughout the horde.


    He jumped from roof top to roof top, avoiding big jumps he would need to waste mana on as he rapid fired on the zombies. He used two turrets to spray the zombies and one to focus down individual zombies before moving on to another. He had quickly noticed that if he only hit one a few times, it would live then eat the bodies of it''s dead-again brethren and heal. He ended up dropping one of his turrets in favor of having a normal Fire Bolt prepared to finish off stragglers that lived through the sweeping fire from his two turrets.


    Felix ran down the streets killing the zombies as he went and consuming mana batteries as needed. After clearing out two streets he looked down another and noticed some of the unharmed zombies consuming the corpses and he watched as their levels increased before his eyes.


    Well shit, I guess I need to fully incinerate the corpses?


    He launched a Fire Bolt at the ones he saw consuming but as it was, the pile of bodies was too big and there was no way he could cover every side. Felix still killed all of them so far with a single normal Fire Bolt so he wasn''t too worried about them becoming too strong for him to kill. He would just have to circle the body pile and spiral outwards killing all the ones consuming when he saw them. If any managed to hide from him long enough to become super strong, he would just have to deal with them at the end.


    Three hours is how long it took Felix to kill most of the horde. He was down to his last two mana batteries but there were only a small group at the edge of town and a handful left he had to run around and track down. He led the small group away from the town into the field then ran off to chase down the stragglers.


    [E - Common] Human Zombie (Lvl 53)


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    Holy shit, I really hope this thing isn''t impossible for me to kill.


    To be safe, he stood at maximum range and incinerated the zombie completely with Flame Thrower. He hunted down the last four in the town with similar high levels. Finally, with just the small group he led into the field left, he ran back out to them and killed all of them except the lowest level zombie in the group. He then used high powered Gusts to isolate that zombie from the other corpses out in the middle of the field. Finally he sat down, spaced out all his batteries and meditated while using multiple Gust spells to keep the zombie from moving. It wasn''t too difficult, considering it only wanted to move in a single direction. Once he figured out the right angles, he used two channeled Gusts to hold it, then a single burst with a third Gust whenever it started slipping out. S§×ar?h the N?velFire(.)net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    His regeneration with the Gust spells active was small but still positive and the advantage was that he could be completely fresh for the next round, and he likely wouldn''t get this opportunity in round 2 to prepare for round 3. He was also really hoping that his performance wasn''t being measured in time taken cause then he would be docked a lot of rewards for this.


    Once his resources and batteries were full he collected everything and ran into the middle of the town, to the fountain, bringing the struggling zombie with him. He drank from the fountain, prepared himself then executed the zombie he was holding.


    Ding You have slain [E - Common] Zombie Horde (Lvl 32)


    Ding You have gained 6 levels in [E - Common] Caster


    Damn that was a lot of levels, I guess considering how many I killed it should have been more? I guess the whole thing is considered a single entity. All free points to Agility.


    Combat Dungeon C


    Round 2 will begin in 30 minutes.


    Start now?


    Yes


    No


    Yes. Feels good to finally say yes to that, even if I stalled the last round out.


    Felix watched as the droves of zombie corpses instantly turn to dust and blew away on the wind. Felix waited for something to happen before deciding on just walking out to the field in case something was out there. As he walked, he chose a path with multiple turns so that if a ranged monster chased him, he had turns he could make to avoid projectiles. He made it to the edge of the town before spotting his opponents, or opponent if these were considered a single entity as well.


    [E - Uncommon] Skeleton Champion (Lvl 35)


    The champion was almost twice Felix''s height and much thicker. It wore armor made of bone plating with an animal''s skull as it''s helmet, a ram, Felix guessed based on the horns. In it''s right hand was a massive cleaver, unsurprisingly, made of bone with a long femur for a handle and a head carved out of some colossal creature Felix had no hope of identifying. Flanking it were two skeletons to each side, four total.


    [E - Common] Skeleton Archer (Lvl 32)


    The Skeleton Archer''s had bows made of what appeared to be ribs. As soon as Felix noticed and identified them, they noticed him as well. The Skeleton Champion seemed oblivious at first but quickly realized what was happening when the archers to either side of him drew arrows and fired at Felix. Luckily Felix quickly noticed what was happening and managed to duck behind a building to his side. As soon as he heard all the arrows thunk into the road, he channeled Gust pointing upwards and held the spell right behind him and ran into the town.


    The spell turned out not to be necessary as he had planned the route for this exact scenario. The sounds of clattering bones on the cobblestone road kept Felix from looking back to check if the party of skeletons remained in pursuit. He looped around buildings a few times to try and pick off the archers but only managed to hit a single Fire Bolt, which was unfortunately, not enough to kill the archer it hit.


    After unsuccessfully trying to take one of the archer''s out without getting hit, he decided to try something riskier. He hadn''t gotten hit yet, but he had also only landed a single hit on any of the enemies. Felix planned his path and looped around a town block. Felix noticed the skeletons seemed to not always be aware of which direction he went. If he managed to get far enough away from them, they started to look around for him. They could definitely see him if he was in front of them and he determined it had nothing to do with sound. When he walked quietly they pursued without issue, but if he was far away from them and around a corner, they had no idea where he was no matter how loud he was.


    Once Felix made it around the block and this time, he ended up behind the Skeleton party. He cast three spells at the same time. Right in front of him, he placed an over powered channeled Gust spell pointing off to his left side. In front of that he placed two Flame Thrower spells directed at the two pairs of archers, as they seemed to move in pairs.


    All five skeletons turned around as soon as the Flame Throwers were cast. At once, all four archers fired arrows at Felix and dove to the side. He managed to hit them all, but he wasn''t sure how many, if any, he managed to kill. The archers managed to hit Felix with two arrows. Luckily his Gust seemed to have worked as one grazed his left thigh and the other pierced right through his left shoulder. Without Gust, the one in his shoulder would likely have gone through his heart and the one in his thigh, judging from how far the one in his shoulder was redirected, was likely aimed at the artery on the inside of his leg.


    Felix ran back, winding through the buildings as soon as his spells were cast. The wound on his thigh hurt with every stride, but luckily the hole in his shoulder distracted him from that pain, with more burning pain. Felix thought that the bleeding might kill him since he saw his health declining as he ran. He quickly cauterized the wounds with Fire Bolts as he ran, which turned out to be a terrible idea as he instantly fell to the ground. He heard the clattering of skeletal feet and cast three consecutive gust spells in a line in front of him all pointing downwards as two archers turned the corner and fired at him. Both arrows buried themselves into the road halfway between them as Felix scrambled to get up and run. The archers managed to fire off two more volleys as Felix regained his feet, but neither of them managed to hit Felix. They were getting closer though as it seemed like they were slowly compensating with their aim.


    Felix ran through the streets taking the most winding path and narrowest streets he could find. After running for a few minutes he used Gust to jump on to a building and started running a different direction. He could hear the clattering of their foot steps and, based on the direction, they seemed to have lost his trail. . . . . .

 Chapter 19 - Book 18

    I need to take out the archers then figure out the champion. It seems too slow to put up any kind of fight, but there has to be some kind of trick to it because there is no way that thing will just let me kite circles around it, not at that level. I am pretty sure I now how they can see me though, they only have heat vision, or sense. It makes the most sense because they only turned when I cast Flame Thrower even though I was right behind them. I guess it makes sense they can''t hear without ear drums or see without eyes, but I wonder how they can sense heat. Heat vision for humans, in thermal cameras, is just infrared light. Probably just a spell or some other magic¡­ or System fuckery.


    Regardless of how, if it''s true, I should be able to make it harder for them to see me with a Gust spell.


    Felix cast a low powered Gust in front of him blowing on him. Then he carefully walked to the roof of the building next to where he heard foot steps. He made sure as he walked to approach it from the front as much as possible, so that hopefully, the Gust could keep them from seeing him as long as possible. He peered over the top of a building and saw only three skeletons, with one being the champion. None of them had noticed him yet and he targeted two over powered Fire Bolts, one just in front of either archer before ducking back behind the lip of the roof and firing. He heard clattering as his spells hit but didn''t want to risk an arrow to confirm anything. He ran over the roof tops, away from the skeletons and reversed the direction of the Gust spell he kept channeled to cool him down.


    As he jumped just two buildings away from the skeletons, he heard a loud crash and peeking over his shoulder, the building he had fired his Fire Bolts from collapsed. Felix kept running as more buildings behind him collapsed. After he gained enough distance to be comfortable he looked back and saw the rubble of dozens of buildings. Just past the rubble he saw two piles of bones on the ground.


    I guess the other two died from the Flame Throwers since they are nowhere to be found. Seems like I got all the archers then, and luckily it seems like the champion doesn''t know where I am, yet. It seems to just be destroying everything and hoping. I guess I should try hitting it and see what happens. sea??h th§× N?vel(F)ire.¦Çet website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    Felix walked hopped over to the roof of a building where he could see the Skeleton Champion and fired an over powered Fire Bolt. The ball of fire arced through the air and hit the champion right in the side of the chest just as it was turning towards the new source of heat it sensed. The Fire Bolt seemed to have no effect, other than to alert the champion of Felix''s location. As soon as it saw Felix, it charged through the ruins of buildings standing between it and it''s prey. Felix ran towards the edge of the building he was standing on but didn''t quite make it before the building started to collapse below his feet. He cast multiple bursts of Gust under himself to push him to the next building over and barely managed to grab the edge and scamper onto the roof.


    He immediately dove forwards again as the champion threw his axe into the wall just below and between Felix''s legs. The axe buried itself into the wall of the ruins, which miraculously managed not to collapse. Felix ran as fast as he could, with the help of Gust, across the roof tops and even switched directions after a few houses. The Skeleton Champion retrieved it''s axe and kept destroying buildings around where it last saw Felix as it seemed to have lost his trail, for now.


    How the hell am I supposed to kill that thing, my Fire Bolt didn''t seem to have any effect whatsoever. It''s wearing full plate armor, maybe I need to break that first before hitting the champion itself? Maybe fire just isn''t effective against him at all? I feel like it would take forever to rip through his armor with a Mana Bolt. Even then, I might make it through the armor, but then what if the Mana Bolt doesn''t hit him, he is a skeleton, so what if it just passes between his bones?


    I think I need to try and hit it with a Flame Thrower for a few seconds. How the hell do I get and stay in range long enough for it to have an effect? The other possibility is to try and crush it with rubble, but seeing how easily it''s throwing around and tearing apart the buildings, I would need a lot of rubble. Traditionally, skeletons are weak to bludgeoning, I do have a maul but I don''t know if I can get enough power to do much with that, unless¡­


    With an idea in mind, Felix found himself the perfect location and pulled the maul out of his inventory. The Skeleton Champion had stopped it''s rampage after a couple of hours and was now prowling the town, randomly destroying ruins along the way. Felix waited atop a building along the path the champion was currently moving and made sure to keep himself relatively hidden to the champion''s heat sense using Gust. Felix waited patiently for the Champion to move into position just below him.


    Well this might be the dumbest thing I have ever done. Hopefully, if this doesn''t work, I can escape with my life so I can try something else later.


    As soon as the champion walked just below Felix, he jumped off the building as high as he could with an assist from an instant Gust. With the maul hefted above his head he prepared a Fire Bolt with no outer ring, and a concentrated and severely over powered instant Gust and a Feather Fall spell, just in case.


    The champion looked upwards too late as Felix swung down with the maul as hard as he could manage. At the same time, he cast the instant Gust behind and the stationary Fire Bolt in front of the hammer head just before it connected with the Skeleton Champion''s head. The Fire Bolt burst, showering the champion in flames just before the head of the maul smashed into the top of it''s helm with a loud crack.


    The Skeleton Champion collapsed under the hit and Felix immediately cast his Feather Fall under himself. Felix jumped to his feet and starting casting two Flame Throwers into the Skeleton Champion along with a Gust behind himself so he could gain as much distance as possible. He was running low on mana at this point so if the Skeleton Champion wasn''t dead yet, he was going to have to run away and try again later.


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    Sure enough the Skeleton Champion rose to it''s feet as Felix began running. Risking a look over his shoulder, Felix saw only a small fragment of the champion''s helmet remained and it sported a deep web of cracks along it''s bare skull. Some shards of bone had even begun falling from it''s skull leaving holes in it''s ivory visage. There were also char marks sprayed over the exposed bones and the ones making up it''s armor.


    Felix ran as he fired Fire Bolts randomly behind him with his third spell, using his other two to keep himself running as fast as he could. The Skeleton Champion managed to rise to it''s feet and hurled it''s axe straight at Felix with it''s entire body. Felix dropped all his spells and immediately and used three instant Gusts to slam himself out of the way of the axe and right into a wall.


    Felix fell to the ground and scrambled to regain his footing as the Skeleton Champion charged at him. Felix cast one instant Gust knocking himself over and two over powered Fire Bolts into the charging skeleton. They left charring on the armor where they hit, but otherwise seemed to have no effect whatsoever. Felix ended up knocking himself onto the ground but managed to just get out of the way of the charge. Felix slammed as many Fire Bolts as he could into the champion as he tried to scramble to his feet once again.


    The champion managed to recover from barreling into a wall and began stumbling in Felix''s direction.


    I really hope charging into a stone wall is actually hurting it. Quick aside, please die.


    Felix made it to his feet and began running with the help of Gust and continued to volley Fire Bolt''s behind him.


    Ding You have slain 4 [E - Common] Skeleton Archer (Lvl 32)


    Ding You have slain a [E - Common] Skeleton Champion (Lvl 35)


    Ding You have gained 5 levels in [E - Common] Caster


    Combat Dungeon C


    Round 3 will begin in 30 minutes.


    Start now?


    Yes


    No


    No.


    Felix sat down and dumped a small pile of mana batteries into his lap then began pulling from them sequentially as he meditated. His health was about 30% full having taken hits from slamming himself into the wall and the shots from the archers. With no better way to regenerate his health Felix meditated.


    I wish I could find health potions or something, do those even exist? or maybe a healing spell. That would be nice.


    After a half an hour, Felix''s wounds were closed, but still vulnerable. If he got hit near either of them, they would definitely open back up. At least his mana was full thanks to draining mana batteries the whole time.


    I''ve gotten marginally faster at pulling mana from the batteries, but I know I can be much faster. As it stands, how could someone with ten or even a hundred times my mana pool pull any useable amount of mana out of batteries? I''ve been thinking about this for a little bit now, I think it might be time to try it soon. I wanted to wait till I got my hands on a mana primer, which will likely happen in the next puzzle dungeon, I hope, but I might need to start the planning in case that doesn''t happen. Basically, I''ve read about mana cores and channels in fantasy, I should be able to pull off something similar. Issue is, I don''t want to screw myself in the future by planning out a shitty arrangement of channels or misplacing my core or something like that.


    Felix stood up and Gust jumped on top of one of the last few buildings with an intact roof in the area. He made his way across the roof tops around the town looking for his next opponent. He looked out to the field, expecting them to spawn there just like the last two did. He spent a half hour looking for anything but didn''t manage to find anyone or anything anywhere. Eventually he decided to head back to the fountain in the middle of the town.


    On his way over he jumped onto a roof top which collapsed immediately. He managed to catch himself with a Gust spell and grabbed onto the top of the wall. In doing so, he reopened the wound on his shoulder which immediately started bleeding. He pulled himself back onto the top of the building and kept moving in the same direction, this time with more care where he stepped.


    Felix made it across just two buildings before he heard the scratching of a fast moving animal approaching from just a few buildings away.


    Oh how lucky, you only show up just after I injure myself. Either you are really lucky, or-


    [E - Common] Vampire''s Thrall (Lvl 35)


    Ah shit. There are probably more than one of them, which means they are all gonna be able to track me down. Which means, if I don''t get rid of this one quickly, they are going to swarm me.


    Felix ran at the enemy that appeared before him, sped with the help of Gust, while he cast two Flame Throwers directed at the thrall from either side. As soon as he was within range the thrall jumped forwards and Felix jumped backwards to maintain distance while the thrall was soaked in flames from both sides. Just over a second later, the thrall hit the ground, rolled like a rag-doll then lay unmoving, having left a trail of black charred skin in it''s wake.


    Felix ran as fast as he could manage across the tops of the ruined buildings towards the city center. He encountered two other thralls on the way, both of which ended in similar fashion to the first he had encountered. At the center of the town with the fountain, two more thralls rapidly scrambled through the streets clawing their way towards the scent of fresh blood. One of them was currently on Felix''s left and the other was slightly farther away, across the courtyard in front of him.


    Felix charged at the one on his left with three Flame Throwers, intent on finishing this one off as quickly as possible before having to deal with the other. As soon as he confirmed the kill, Felix turned to meet the other thrall as it jumped over the fountain and dove for Felix with a crazed expression plastered on it''s face.


    Felix dove to the side while casting two instant Gusts to shove the thrall down, out of the air and in the opposite direction of Felix''s dive. Then, he cast three Flame Throwers drenching the thrall in flames.


    Once Felix was certain it was dead he dragged himself to his feet and carefully looked around before cauterizing his wounds and washing off the remaining blood in the fountain.


    I am pretty sure they only went crazy because of the open wound. They would probably have been much smarter if it weren''t for that, lucky me I guess. Normally I would leave it open for the rest of the encounter to keep them all crazed but, I was losing way too much health from the bleeding. I lost a fifth of my health and they didn''t do a single point of damage to me.


    Judging from the previous rounds, there may be more of those, but more likely all that''s left is the boss. If they were the thralls, it''s probably the vampire that turned them. A full blown vampire probably isn''t going to go crazy over a little blood and they''re probably much stronger. Hopefully they burn just the same though. . . . . .

 Chapter 20 - Book 19

    Once Felix was all washed up he looked around for any signs of an approaching enemy but found none. Felix was about to drink from the fountain when he noticed the water in the fountain still had a slight red tint to it. He watched as the blood in the water was slowly diluted until it was undetectable. Felix leaned forwards to take a drink and saw the reflection of a young man, maybe even a teenager, in the fountain casually walking towards him.


    [E - Uncommon] Young Vampire (Lvl 42)


    That''s oddly coincidental, either it really is a coincidence, or this guy is an idiot. He waited until the blood was all undetectable, didn''t he? I only have about a third of my health left, I don''t really want to gamble it, but I guess I can keep that in my back pocket, just in case.


    "I was really hoping the thralls would either weaken you, or feast and grow stronger. However, you don''t seem to have suffered quite enough. Not yet." The Young Vampire said as he licked his lips then lunged forwards and started running across the courtyard at Felix.


    Felix cast two Flame Thrower''s at the vampire from either side causing him to quickly jump back then to the side to continue his pursuit.


    So he''s smart enough and definitely fast enough to dodge.


    The vampire got within melee range very quickly because it was much faster than Felix was. The Young Vampire quickly grabbed Felix''s Throat with both hands and lifted him into the air. Felix cast a Flame Thrower into the vampire''s face, an instant Gust to push himself back and a Fire Blast with a large outer ring to blast him away. It all happened at once, the vampire was drenched in flames and knocked back with a Fire Blast to his chest which loosened his grip just enough for Felix''s Gust to completely separate them. The vampire''s claw like nails still managed to open a bloody gash on Felix''s neck as they separated though.


    The effects were immediate. Felix got to his feet a couple meters away from the vampire and looked up. The vampire was rushing him and running right into the Flame Thrower, completely ignoring it. It''s body language was the same as the thrall''s, crazed and single minded. Unfortunately, this vampire was almost twice as fast as the thralls.


    Felix cast a massive instant Gust to push himself back as far and as fast as he could manage while casting another Flame Thrower to join the first in showering the vampire during it''s reckless pursuit. Felix fell onto his back from his gust but kept the Flame Throwers firing towards where the vampire should be. He pumped as much mana as he could into the spells and tried to force more into them, he silently wished he had made them bigger. Suddenly, Felix felt the spells grow, just as he had wanted, and accept exponentially more mana.


    Ding You have slain 5 [E - Common] Vampire''s Thrall (Lvl 35)


    Ding You have slain a [E - Uncommon] Young Vampire (Lvl 42)


    Ding You have gained 5 levels in [E - Common] Caster


    Ding You have gained 4 levels in [E - Special] Arcane Engineer


    Doesn''t seem it was even necessary. Why the hell didn''t I try that before? You can modify spell forms while they''re being channeled? I guess anything more complicated than just changing the size might cause the spell to crumble, or explode. I''ll have to test it more later.


    Ding You have reached the prerequisite race level for a minor evolution. Please stand by¡­ Complete.


    Felix opened his eyes a second later and didn''t immediately notice anything, other than the fact that his wounds hadn''t just closed, but were completely gone.


    Combat Dungeon C


    You have chosen to claim rewards, you will not be able to continue further rounds.


    You have successfully completed 3 rounds of +10 - +15 difficulty.


    Congratulations.


    Combat Dungeon C


    Calculating Rewards


    Bonuses:


    Difficulty


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    Solo


    Reward Tier: Highest


    Huh, I got a bonus for time? I stalled out the first round though? Does that not count, or was I still faster than expected even with that? Highest reward tier though, definitely can''t complain. Unfortunately it will be tailored for Lvl 19 and now I am Caster Lvl 35. Hopefully it''s still useful to me. It''s kind of annoying I need to complete bonuses at a difficulty tailored to my level, then the rewards get maxed out at 19. It seems like, even if I walked in here at Lvl 100, I would need to beat a much higher difficulty, and do it fast, and struggle in general to get the highest reward tier. Then it would still be tailored to a Lvl 19 character, which would make it essentially useless. I should really go hit the next combat dungeon soon, since my level is already so much higher.


    Combat Dungeon C


    Rewards


    [Epic] Tutorial Spell Book


    [E - Special] Traveler''s Pants of Protection


    [E - Special] Traveler''s Shirt of Protection


    [E - Arcane] Skill Test Cube: Mana Control


    100,000 Tutorial Credits


    Felix was transported to a room not dissimilar from the pre tutorial preparation room. In the middle of the room there was a simple wooden table with five items laying atop.


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    Felix got to his feet and immediately noticed his body felt different. He felt, heavier but also more in control of his own body. He felt stronger, like he had been trying to move underwater but now he had surfaced. He also felt more dexterous, like he had been trying to perform dexterous activities with big gloves on, but now he had removed them.


    Woah, weird. It''s like my body and everything is just better, like qualitatively more? I don''t know how to describe it. Increasing my stats, I can punch harder, but it was like I didn''t have full access to everything, and now it feels like I do.


    Felix stood up and got distracted by the table in the center of the room.


    Finally, pants.


    Felix identified the items one by one.


    [Epic] Tutorial Spell Book


    A book containing spells appropriate for the tutorial.


    [E - Special] Traveler''s Pants of Protection


    Doubles your walking movement speed.


    These pants are enchanted to partially resist incoming physical and magical damage.


    Lessening damage or status conditions above the E tier may damage the pants, permanently.


    [E - Special] Traveler''s Shirt of Protection


    Doubles your walking movement speed.


    This shirt is enchanted to partially resist incoming physical and magical damage.


    Lessening damage or status conditions above the E tier may damage the shirt, permanently.


    The pants were a simple brown color with no pockets. They were made of a soft cotton like material that was thicker than Felix expected, almost as thick as leather. The shirt was a simple white cotton shirt with long sleeves and three buttons starting on the collar.


    [E - Arcane] Skill Test Cube: Mana Control


    A skill testing cube to test mana control.


    AKA: Puzzle Box, Enigma Cube etc.


    100,000 Tutorial Credits


    Placing this item in your inventory will cause it to disappear and you will gain the designated number of credits.


    Felix placed the simple palm sized disc at the end of the table into his inventory, gaining 100,000 Tutorial Credits. Then he removed his makeshift underwear and put on his new pants. The pants were extraordinarily comfortable and unexpectedly breathable, in a similar fashion to his boots. They fit relatively tight, in a tailored way, rather than a skin tight way. As soon as he fastened them around his waist, the pants and the boots both glowed briefly. Identifying the pants again, something had changed.


    [E - Special] Traveler''s Pants of Protection


    Doubles your walking movement speed.


    These pants are enchanted to partially resist incoming physical and magical damage.


    Lessening damage or status conditions above the E tier may damage the pants, permanently.


    Set Effect (2): Injecting mana into this item will cause it to regenerate from almost any damage and clean itself.


    He identified the boots and the same set effect appeared on them as well. Felix excitedly picked up the shirt and put it on as well. The shirt, like the boots and pants, were comfortable, breathable and fit perfectly. It fit loosely and hung with plenty of room around his arms and chest, more due to the style than the fit, as it closed itself snugly around his waist and wrists. As soon as he had it on, all three pieces glowed. He identified the shirt.


    [E - Special] Traveler''s Shirt of Protection


    Doubles your movement speed.


    This shirt is enchanted to partially resist incoming physical and magical damage.


    Lessening damage or status conditions above the E tier may damage the shirt, permanently.


    Set Effect (2): Injecting mana into this item will cause it to regenerate from almost any damage and clean itself.


    Set Effect (3): Walking restriction removed, combined bonus increased to 10x. The combined bonus is only applied outside of combat. In combat, your speed is reduced to 2x.


    Warning: Your agility, intelligence and perception will dictate how well your body, senses and mind can process and react to your movement speed.


    Holy shit. This is insane. I am going to be so fast. If I run at full speed¡­ I''m going to kill myself running into a tree, aren''t I?


    Felix picked up the Spell Book and stowed it in his inventory. This one was much thicker and bigger than the Mana Bolt and Gust Spell Books. He quickly flipped through the pages, not reading any of it then stowed it in his inventory. He was excited to open it up and start learning more spells, but he would have time to go through it later.


    Finally, Felix picked up the oddest item on the table, the puzzle box. It was a simple palm sized cube made of a reflective, almost black material with slightly rounded edges. It was cool to the touch but other than that, Felix couldn''t discern anything from it. Shrugging, he placed it in his inventory.


    Combat Dungeon C


    All Rewards Collected


    Would you like to leave this room?


    Warning: You may only remain in this room for a maximum of 15 minutes.


    Yes.


    No.


    Yes. It''s not really worth meditating in here, assuming the boars and what not are still low level¡­ Maybe I should have.


    Felix found himself outside the stone archway around the entrance to the dungeon. He turned around and touched the door but nothing happened.


    Well shit, my free grind spot is gone. Guess I have to go hunt down the other dungeons in the tutorial.


    Felix found himself looking out across an almost pitch black field. It was clearly night time, but any light the night sky may have offered was hidden behind the thick layer of clouds. Felix took some time gradually increasing his walking speed to get used to his new Traveler''s Set.


    I can barely see, I probably wouldn''t be able to if my perception wasn''t so high. I really hope it doesn''t start raining. I figure if I am running full speed with the Traveler''s set bonus, rain drops would feel like bullets. Oh shit, what about bugs?


    Felix walked north, slowly, which meant he was traveling really fast. Almost twice his previous speed, while he tested out using Gust as a shield against any small stationary objects that could now kill him. Turns out, it was unnecessary, whether through System intervention or something else, Felix saw droplets of water, as it had started raining, pushed to the side as he passed by them. With renewed confidence, Felix pushed his speed gradually higher. Though he didn''t even reach his maximum speed before he spotted the entrance to his fort nestled in the edge of the mountain range.


    He redirected himself slightly towards it and headed inside. He couldn''t see much so he decided to just head straight to his room and call it for the night. . . . . .

 Chapter 21 - Book 20

    Felix woke up, just three hours later. He felt completely rested so he decided to get up for the day. He looked out the window and saw the inky black of night still held so he decided to start going through his new spell book. He had skimmed through the pages when he had picked up the book up so he could check if his Memory Palace skill managed to remember the entire thing. He had wanted to test that for a while now, but didn''t have access to any books big enough to do so.


    He entered the library in his mind and looked for the book in his short term memory. He found that most of it was there, but some of the details were missing. Some of the pages were fine, others had blurry lines in place of the words and most of the intricacies of the spell forms were missing.


    Not quite. I wonder if I could practice so I could eventually pull that off, or maybe I could find a spell to scan books, then I wouldn''t even have to open them? Could I make that spell? No idea where to start on that now, but hopefully with more spells I can eventually figure something like that out.


    Felix returned his consciousness to his body, pulled out the spell book and began reading under the light of a sustained Fire Bolt. There were a grand total of nine different spells listed in the spell book. Felix went through and memorized each and every one of their spell forms. There were also descriptions of the effects and some of the uses of the spells, all of which Felix found useless. The spell names were very self explanatory already and the listed uses were just the obvious ones.


    I guess it kind of makes sense that the Spell Book only has a rarity. The spell form itself probably doesn''t change between tiers in order to cast the same effect. Something in the way you cast it and how much mana is used could, but the spell form itself would probably remain consistent. The rarity is probably based on which and how many spells are in the book. S§×arch* The ¦Çov§×lFire .net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    The spells the book contained were ordered from simplest to most complex. The first two Felix was happy about but not overly excited for. Heat and Light were simple utility spells it seemed. He could already achieve the general effect of the spell using Fire Bolt, but the added control provided by Heat and safety provided by Light were nice.


    The next spell, had Felix more excited. While the effect was extremely similar to what he could already do, the addition of a new element that was obviously useful was the main attraction. Force Bolt was essentially Mana Bolt, but used raw force, it seemed.


    Cool was the exact opposite of Heat in effect, but its spell form was more complex. Given a small area, Cool would consume mana to lower the temperature. Felix figured the added complexity had something to do with entropy or something like that, but figured he could investigate it later on.


    Spark was cool because it involved electricity, but was useless otherwise. The spell had two spell forms that needed to be cast, then it would create a spark between them. The further apart they were, the higher the mana requirement to generate anything. Felix noted that, oddly, the spell forms were channeled.


    Thunderclap was a novelty because it generated pure sound, but Felix didn''t see many uses for it right now. Launch was the exact opposite, it was very similar to spells he had already seen but with a different targeting component. He saw many uses for both launching objects at high speed and in the new targeting component which seemed to target objects directly.


    Jump and Feather Fall were much more refined and effective than his versions using Gust, which were already incredibly valuable additions to Felix''s repertoire. They also used a different target component in their spell forms, which was exciting in it''s own right.


    Finally, the last spell in the book had the most complicated spell form and was the most exciting for Felix. Mana Shield let the caster channel mana into a spell form which generated a disc of mana in front of them.


    Finally, some kind of defensive options, well, option. Time to experiment.


    First, Felix entered the library in his mind and made sure the spell forms and notes on each spell were filed away so he always remembered them. Then, he began experimenting.


    Felix began with Mana Shield as it was easily the most exciting for him. It took him a quarter hour just to cast the spell as its spell form was so complicated. Once he did, he was thoroughly disappointed. The spell did exactly as it said, it made a disc with a diameter of almost Felix''s height, made of solid mana. It hung in the air with its center about a foot from Felix''s navel. No matter where Felix cast the spell, it appeared in the exact same location. As he walked around the room, it followed him as long as he channeled mana into it, otherwise it would dissipate.


    Felix tested shooting Mana Bolt''s at himself, but to the side. That way it would hit the shield, but if the shield failed, he wouldn''t be hitting himself. The shield dissipated the instant the Mana Bolt hit it, but not because of the spell. Felix cast the shield again, and hit it with a Mana Bolt, but this time he was expecting it. As soon as the Mana Bolt hit the shield, Felix needed to replenish the mana. The first time it hit, he hadn''t been expecting the mana in the shield to vanish causing a void of mana to pull on Felix''s mana pool to replenish the spell. It cost almost triple the mana Felix needed to cast a Mana Bolt, just to block one.


    It wasn''t perfect, but Felix already had some ideas to try and make it more efficient, and it was the only defensive option Felix had. After experimenting with hitting the shield using all of the spells he knew, with no unexpected results, Felix moved on to testing other spells. Heat, Cool and Light did exactly what he expected. He replaced Fire Bolt with the Light spell as his source of light, which was much more efficient.


    A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.


    He didn''t want to test Thunderclap in the middle of the castle, in the middle of the night, so he held off on that one. Frankly, he didn''t want to test it at all, he was worried about his own ears, but he knew he should at some point. He couldn''t effectively test Jump, Feather Fall or Launch in his room and it was still too dark to see outside.


    Felix played with Spark for a bit, and got used to it, before growing bored. He didn''t really see any use for spark currently so it was more of a novelty than anything else.


    Lastly he tested out Force Bolt. First he cast the spell without it''s outer ring so that it wouldn''t fire. The spell created a small ball of a translucent material with a slight blue tint that looked like water. Felix touched it and it rippled slightly but otherwise did nothing, to Felix, it felt a little but like poking a water balloon. Felix shrugged and just let it drop to the ground. As soon as it hit the ground, it created a small explosion, like a tiny grenade, with no fire. Felix jumped back more in surprise than any effect the Force Bolt''s explosion had.


    Huh, well that''s interesting. Not sure what to do with that, I don''t really want to swap force into my other spells if that''s what a small ball does. I guess that makes sense though, force is like mechanical energy, in a little ball, what else is it supposed to do? I always thought of force as a solid though, like a force field, but I guess that''s what Mana is? Mana Bolt and now Mana Shield are basically that, a solid object. I haven''t really tested how much it takes to get through it though so I don''t know how effective it is.


    Felix didn''t want to go outside just yet and potentially wake people up with light and sound so he decided to put off further testing of his new spells until later. For now he entered his mental library and began splitting the spells into their components. He didn''t do any more than basic dissections as he would need to test the components to go any further.


    With that out of the way, he exited his mind and put away the Spell Book and pulled out the [E - Arcane] Skill Test Cube: Mana Control.


    What is Arcane rarity? That doesn''t fit on any rarity scales I have ever heard of. Maybe it''s like unique? Maybe it isn''t a part of the rarity scale at all and it just means it''s magical? Another question to ask someone. I don''t think Noah or Amelia would know this one though.


    Felix inspected the cube in the light of his Light spell but couldn''t discern anything interesting. It was a featureless reflective black cube. Ironically, the most interesting part of the cube, to Felix, was that it didn''t show any fingerprints whatsoever.


    Well, it''s a mana cube, guess I should try that.


    Felix pushed a small trickle of mana into the cube which immediately caused a blue circle with a slight glow to appear on one side. Felix likely wouldn''t have even noticed it if the room weren''t as dark as it was. He flipped the cube over and examined the circle. There was nothing interesting or unique about the circle other than that it now existed, where it hadn''t before. Felix could vaguely sense the circle with his mana senses as well.


    Felix couldn''t figure out what else he was supposed to do so he pushed mana into the circle. The circle glowed bright blue before it suddenly stopped accepting mana. It was like it had closed itself off. Felix stopped and waited and it returned to it''s previous muted glow. He tried again and the exact same thing happened. He let it reset then he very slowly pushed mana into the circle with his eyes closed and his mana senses fully focused on the box.


    He thought the ring was growing slightly outwards but he wasn''t quite sure. He focused on the ring growing and tried to sense any changes in it''s size. It was definitely growing, slightly, sort of. Felix sensed the mana spreading itself out from the circle, creeping outwards. He payed attention to the edge of the circle, where it was creeping outwards and ran his attention around the circle. Felix had to shift his focus all the way around the circle twice before finally noticing a slight divot in the growing ring. It was so small, Felix though he imagined it at first, but after confirming, he was certain it was there.


    Everywhere else, the ring grew at the same rate, in this one spot, it slowed down slightly for some reason. Felix focused and tested over and over again. Luckily, growing the ring took a negligible amount of mana. Finally, after some unknown amount of time, Felix could finally see what was happening, barely. The ring was growing because there were thousands of tiny channels around the edge of the circle running outwards. The divot, was caused by a slight detour in one of the channels, it bent slightly to the side then back again, a tiny kink.


    Knowing what was happening, Felix pushed mana into the ring, flooded the channels and pushed slightly harder on the one channel with the kink in it. After a few tries to make it perfectly even, the mana pushed right past and the ring continued to grow, until the next tiny divot in a channel.


    Knowing what to do now, and being able to see, Felix felt like he blew right through this side of the cube. At first he planned out and memorized where he needed to push more or less, eventually that became too difficult. There were too many channels and there were points at which two channels that required more mana surrounded one that required less mana. If his offsets were off just slightly, it was doomed. Eventually he just started moving very slowly and sensing what was happening, adjusting it in real time. There was another hiccup when he didn''t realize the circle that started at the center, needed to morph into a square to fill the whole side. Each and every channel needed to reach their corresponding edge at the same time.


    As soon as it was complete, the side he was working on retained its mana making the whole side glow. At the same time, a circle in the center of a different side began glowing slightly.


    This side took a miniscule amount of mana, glowed, then closed itself off from any more mana. Felix was confused for a while but he eventually realized he was supposed to control the mana he pushed into the ring after it closed. Starting with the same principal as the last stage, he spread it outwards. There were no channels on this stage so Felix spread it outwards. He only had a trickle of mana to work with and he had to spread it out over the entire side of the cube.


    The hard part was getting used to controlling the smallest unit of mana possible, then getting used to controlling an even smaller amount, all at once. As the mana spread out, there was more and more mana to individually control. In the previous side of the cube, there were a set number of channels, a few of them split and diverged, but he could add mana to compensate. With this side, the mana slowly spread out and naturally thinned itself causing there to be more and more mana he had to individually control. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 Chapter 22 - Book 21

    Once Felix had evenly spread just a trickle of mana through the entire side, causing it to glow, another side started glowing with a circle in the middle. This time, the circle in the center of the side had a small hole in it. This side also had a small point glowing on it completely separated from the circle in the middle. Felix figured he had to complete the circle with the tiny point so he started moving it around. There was only one way for it to go so he moved it in that direction. As soon as he did, the glowing point disappeared from sight. He could still feel it, it was still there, it just wasn''t visually represented anymore.


    Felix continued to move the tiny point of mana wherever he could but very quickly it fell into a small hole he couldn''t move it out of. The original point reappeared visually, and he restarted the side. Felix quickly realized there were small traps throughout the pathways where the point of mana he was controlling would get stuck. With no way to see the traps he simply started to memorize them as he went and avoided them in future. That turned out to be a futile notion, as the traps and pathways changed every time.


    His only tool was the unit of mana which was smaller than the smallest unit he had individually controlled on the last side. Without any better options, he started spreading out his trickle of mana as much as he could, which was not much, so he could map and test the paths as he went. Slowly, as he progressed further, he had to spread it out further and further. The traps were essentially just dead ends that cut themselves off, if the mana was blocking the trap door though, it couldn''t close. Felix had to spread the mana so it could reach all the way down to the end of the path without getting it trapped. Eventually he kept spreading it until he could map multiple paths at once and it became much easier. He could get about three quarters of the way through very quickly without issue.


    Once that side was complete, another side opened itself up. There was only a single point and nothing glowed but, at this point, Felix''s senses were so tuned to minute amounts of mana, that he sensed it appear instantly. He moved it around and found multiple pathways. He was worried about more traps but didn''t find any. It was a simple maze. He shot the mana around as quickly as he could and used his memory palace to map the labyrinth. It was massive, as the channels and unit of mana were minuscule, but he finished it fairly quickly.


    The next side had many tiny points of mana spread throughout it. Felix moved them at random and quickly found that some of them were completely trapped. As he moved the ones that weren''t trapped, others freed themselves. It was like a co-op video game, press a button with one character and open a door for another. Except the characters were mana, everything was hidden visually, and there were a lot of characters. Felix mentally mapped the opening and closing of paths with the mana carefully. Once he had everything he could mapped, he entered his mind palace, solved the stage step by step on paper in reverse, then repeated his mapping and solving all the following stages.


    The final side lit up with a circle of mana. Felix tried moving it before remembering how the first two sides started. He pushed mana into the circle and it spread out at random through the side of the cube. Once it was filled the side stopped accepting mana. Felix waited for something to happen but nothing did. He moved the mana around randomly but nothing happened. Thinking back to the first two stages he figured he would just manipulate it until it was evenly spread out.


    It was difficult because some areas were thinner than others, meaning the mana had to be compressed so that the amount of mana was consistent across the entire side of the cube.


    Felix sat cross legged with the cube in front of him. He looked around for the first time in a long time and saw nothing. He sat alone, with the cube, in an empty abyss. At first he thought it was just night time with no lights but he realized, looking down, he could see himself and the cube perfectly without any light. Felix cast a simple Light spell and immediately noticed, something was wrong.


    The small ball of light appeared where he cast it, but he could see the mana flowing out of his body, forming the spell and casting. He could see the mana being expended to create light. The light also didn''t reveal anything. He, his clothes and the cube looked brighter in the light but there was no floor revealed beneath him. On the other hand, the cube glowed, on all sides. Felix knew the mana should have been hidden on a few sides, but it wasn''t, he could see it all.


    It was at this point that Felix also realized, the cube was floating in the air. Felix carefully tried to stand and was surprised to find something below him. He was half expecting to find himself floating even though he could feel the floor beneath him. Felix took a few steps and found nothing change whatsoever.


    What the hell is happening?


    Felix reached out to touch the cube and it shot into his hand immediately.


    That''s new.


    Felix focused on his senses. He could feel the cube in his hands, that made sense, he could feel his eye lids touching each other, except his eyes weren''t closed at all. He could feel the floor beneath him, but he felt himself sitting on it, not standing at all.


    Ah, I''m still meditating.


    Felix opened his physical eyes and felt his mind rushing back into his body. He looked around the bed room and found everything to be as he expected. The sun shown brightly through the windows lighting up the room. Felix struggled to stand up as his legs were slightly numb.


    Ding You have successfully upgraded the General Skill: [Soul Space Meditation (Rare) You began your journey on the path of meditation by focusing your mind. You have stretched the idea of focus close to it''s limit. You completely eliminate stray thoughts to focus on a particular task, removing all distractions. When you meditate, you enter a metaphysical space within your own soul. This place does not exist. Anything that is relevant to the task at hand can be represented in your soul space, based entirely on your senses and how you see the object. This skill can be upgraded. Your Mana, Energy and Health restore themselves at an increased rate while meditating (x5). The passage of time while within your soul space is altered based on your Intelligence. (Current dilation: 77.34% normal time)]


    Woah that meditation upgrade is huge and I think I know how to upgrade it to the next stage as well. At least, I know how I want to try upgrading it next. It''s nice having some direction.


    [E - Arcane] Skill Test Cube: Mana Control


    Congratulations!


    You have completed a Skill Test Cube: Mana Control


    Would you like to collect your rewards?


    Yes.


    No.


    Felix looked down at the cube in his hand. He had completed all sides of the cube. He turned it over in his hand and inspected the sides of the cube. From every visual indication, the cube was complete. From Felix''s mana senses, something felt wrong, like it was still incomplete. All of his solutions to the six different faces of the cube felt crude whereas the cube itself was a sleek masterpiece in every way. Something was wrong.


    This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.


    No.


    Maybe Felix was wrong, and in the future he would just claim it, but for now he would leave it as is. He did really want an Arcane rarity reward, but he wanted to complete the cube and complete it right, even more. Felix pulled up the tutorial screen in complete shock


    Tutorial Status


    There are 87,970/100,000 people.


    There are 93 days, 20 hours, 2 minutes remaining.


    You have completed 2 dungeons.


    You have helped kill 0 world bosses.


    You have captured 1 fort.


    I was working on that cube, for nine days. Actually maybe even longer depending on when Meditation upgraded. I do feel hungry, thirsty and a little tired, but not nearly as much as I would have expected. Probably the minor evolution and the fact that I was meditating the whole time. Still, it sounds insane.


    Felix pulled out two canteens and a Goblin Ration. He expected to eat more, but either his body was much more efficient, or meditating consumed a minimal amount of energy, likely both. Felix used the first set effect from his shirt, pants and boots for the first time. He pushed mana into them and they cleaned themselves off. He was mostly doing it for the smell because they still looked fine otherwise.


    That will have to do, I don''t have any way of cleaning myself off really. Wait a minute¡­


    Felix removed the shirt he had equipped, wet it with a canteen then used the make shift wash cloth to scrub himself down. Once he was done, he put it on and pushed mana into it. The water and all the accumulated grime slowly disappeared.


    That''s probably the best I can do for now. We don''t exactly have running water.


    As fresh and clean as he could manage, Felix left his room. He walked through the interior of the castle, which was entirely empty. It didn''t strike him as odd at first until he remembered all the people that were staying here before. He walked downstairs, outside and through the castle grounds without seeing anyone else. As he approached the gate to leave the castle grounds, he began hearing people and construction sounds.


    He exited the gate and walked towards where he knew the warehouse was and found it had been completed with a roof and everything. Felix saw a massive wooden door on the wall facing him wide enough to fit at least two carts. Following the loudest sounds, he walked by the warehouse and towards the residential district. Walking through the industrial district, there were some buildings that were complete, but not many. There was what appeared to be a forge, judging from the smoke billowing out of the chimney, and a few other unidentifiable completed buildings. S~ea??h the Novel?ire(.)ne*t website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    As he got closer, the noises from construction grew louder. Walking into the residential district, Felix was astonished at both how many people and how many usable houses he passed by. Once he passed into the residential district, he didn''t see a single house in ruins. Most of them were ruins that were patched up to be functional, but some were complete houses where the only indication that it was ever in ruins was the slight discoloration differentiating new vs old stone bricks.


    There were people passing by on every street making it felt like a real city. He walked through most of the district and saw that some of the houses further in were still in ruins. A lot of the plots of land were completely empty as well. Looking at his map, Felix noticed something he definitely was not expecting. Some of the empty plots of land and ruined buildings, were up for sale by auction.


    As he continued walking, the plots of land for sale got bigger and more expensive the closer to the outer edge of the fort they got. It started to feel a little like a gated community to Felix. Not all of the really expensive ones were for sale, some were owned by different residents. As the leader of the fort, Felix could see the names of the people who owned the plots, but he didn''t recognize any of them. Felix looped around and walked towards the commercial district of town.


    There was some construction happening in the residential district, but there weren''t nearly enough people to have built as many homes as Felix had seen in such a short time, even with levels and stats. He walked into the commercial district and walked by even more people than he had in the residential district. The streets were effectively packed and most of the buildings were either still in ruin or had been patched to be useable. Even the ones in complete ruin though, appeared to be in use. About half of the buildings were a work in progress and were not trying to sell anything, the other half were trying to sell everything. There were people trying to sell all kinds of weird things they had picked up along the way.


    Felix walked around for a while admiring the useless goods on sale. He walked by a grass store, a rock store, bark store and many more useless goods that apparently nobody wanted. He did walk by some people trying to sell food, but none of it was very appetizing.


    Eventually Felix gave up and decided to just ask someone where Noah or Amelia were. On a whim, he opened his map to see if maybe he could find them somehow. The first thing he noticed, was that his map in his current general area was almost entirely filled. All the way to the west coast, the south coast and far into the forest were completely revealed. The second was that, he saw a marker for a bunch of things on his map. There were markers for lumber camps, mines and farms all around the outside of the fort and in the forest.


    There was also a marker for Noah just a few blocks away, so he headed over there. He turned the corner and Noah immediately spotted him and came running. Felix slowed down so he wouldn''t accidentally run into Noah. He was already walking very slow to minimize the chances of hitting anyone as he wasn''t precise enough with his new set''s movement speed to dodge the random movements of people in a busy street.


    Noah addressed Felix as soon as he was close enough to hear him, "Oh, finally you are back. Quick, follow me."


    Felix walked along side Noah as he led him down a few blocks. Noah led them to the front of one of the few finished buildings in the entire commercial district. It was also the biggest building, other than the warehouse, he had seen that was clearly built from scratch. It was a massive white building made of what appeared to be marble with decorative pillars around the front.


    "This is the marketplace and auction house, or it will be. We need you to buy nodes for each and place them in here. Only you have permission to do that right now." Noah gestured to the building.


    Felix walked in alongside Noah.


    "This side will be a marketplace, The System prices the goods and even supplies some of them." Noah explained, "This side is the auction house, where you set a price for a good and people can bid on it. The System and the town take a tax, but it''s tutorial wide, so other markets and auction houses in the tutorial can buy and sell with each other."


    "Oh sweet, I gotta run back to the throne then I guess. Be right back." Felix turned around before Noah stopped him.


    "WAIT! You can buy buildings and nodes from anywhere in the city, I can pull up and see the screen, but I don''t have permission."


    "Oh shit, sweet. One second."


    Buy Buildings?


    A screen appeared in front of Felix with a bunch of options for buildings. Simple things like wooden shacks and shops appeared. A small notice appeared that the wooden buildings were upgradeable but their upgrades would be locked until the town upgraded.


    I didn''t even know the town/fort could upgrade. Wild.


    Felix scrolled to the Auction and Marketplace nodes, each of them cost only 1000 Tutorial Credits. He bought enough to fill the empty booths on all of the walls of the building, then walked around and placed them. The nodes appeared to be simple discs that fastened themselves in some unknown fashion to the desk. To use them, all you had to do was touch the disc.


    "That''s awesome. Any other buildings we should be buying? Also how did I buy those, my credits didn''t go down at all?" Felix asked.


    "The fort''s coffers. The fort makes money from taxes on all transactions happening in the town. That brings me to another thing I need you for, we have started selling buildings and plots of land at auction, then building houses and shops based on who paid the most. We are buying materials from miners and lumberjacks, but we don''t have access to the town coffers, so we have just been giving them an ''I owe you'' and keeping a tally of how much we owe them. I need you to approve the purchases or give Amelia or I permissions."


    "Oh shit, my bad. I guess I have to go to the throne for that one."


    "I''ll come with you, I want to talk with you about the next focus for the town." . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 Chapter 23 - Book 22

    Felix walked as slowly as he could so as not to speed by Noah. He thought about removing his shirt to deactivate the set bonus, but thought that might be too weird.


    "I see you managed to find yourself some clothes."


    "Yeah, finally. Anything interesting happen while I was gone?"


    "Some thugs tried to declare a siege, but I think it failed. They yelled at us, screamed at the air for a bit then left. It did make us start thinking about defenses though. A lot of the population has run through the puzzle dungeon already and some of them specialized. We now have a good chunk of builders that are specialized in siege defense, a few on offence. Lot''s of other random professions too. We are working on getting shops up and running for all of them."


    "Why not just use the marketplace and auction for all that? Oh wait, taxes?"


    "Exactly, the marketplace and auction house charge three taxes, city taxes for the origin and destination, plus a System tax for managing the shop. Local shops only have the city tax applied to them."


    "Oh sweet. How did you guys get so many buildings finished so quickly?"


    "Mostly profession skills. Builders got skills to give them a bigger inventories for building materials, that was huge. Then skills for stuff like more endurance or more efficient building. Some skills that allow you to build stuff that you have built before instantly, for an increased energy cost. Then we had a chef manage to create foods that increase energy regeneration, we, the city, have been buying food directly from him. Then there are the miners, lumberjacks, blacksmiths, stone cutters an so on that all got skills themselves, not to mention levels and stats. It''s all compounding to make things much faster than I thought possible. It''s been great for my leveling though so, no complaints."


    "I wasn''t expecting much in only 120 days, but now, we might have a functional town and economy within a week or two. What will all the builders, lumberjacks and others do once the buildings are finished? I expect people won''t want to build anything when we are a week out from the end of the tutorial?"


    "Most of them bought some of the plots of land in the residential district and are planning personal projects. Basically, they are gonna build up levels and skills helping us, then work on a masterpiece or something to push levels and target better class upgrades."


    "Oh cool, I guess that makes sense. Kind of sucks to not be able to bring it with you though. Unless The System lets them do that somehow. Oh by the way, I''ve been meaning to ask, what are we doing about water and sewage?"


    Noah bent over laughing, "You didn''t notice yet? We don''t have to use the bathroom since the integration, The System just cleans it up until we get to our minor evolution, at which point you won''t need it to clean up. Something like at level 25 race your body gets a minor upgrade to handle the stats, skills and so on. Then at race level 100, you upgrade it fully. Apparently not all races need a minor evolution, just the ones that start at F tier. Oh and water, at first we got it from mountain streams and snow, we are working on wells though. We had a few merchants abuse their skills to mark water as a sellable good and transport a ton of it at once. They got a ton of levels from the volume of sales, and we had cheap transport for a necessity. Helped the farmers a ton."


    "Uh, I have no idea how I didn''t notice that before, now that you mention it though, seems a little obvious. That does make it easier though, not needing to think about sewage. I was wondering about F tier and the race evolution though. I guess that makes sense. I don''t think I could handle my set bonus without the race evolution."


    "Oh shit, you already hit race level 25? You must have found a profession you liked then? Wait, you have an equipment set already? What does it do? Also you don''t look any different¡­"


    "Its just movement speed while traveling."


    "That''s still super useful though."


    "Yeah it is, hard to control sometimes. How are the farms doing by the way?"


    "No one has harvested anything yet, but it looks like it will happen in the next few days. None of the farmers are sure if their crops are growing so quickly because of the tutorial or skills or something else."


    "Well that is convenient, is anyone still sleeping in the warehouse?"


    "Nope, the city owns some of the houses and rents them out in the residential district, that let us move everyone out. The warehouse is mostly stone and building materials right now."


    Felix hopped on the throne and found the financial section of the management screen. The first thing he noticed, was that the coffers held a massive 5.5 Million Tutorial Credits. The second thing he noticed was that the current tax rate was at 15%.


    Felix looked around the screen at Noah, "How much have we promised to people so far?"


    Noah pulled up a screen, "2.75 Million Tutorial Credits."


    "The amount of money made on taxes is also going to go up because of the marketplace, auction and all the stores being set up too, right?"


    "Yeah quite a bit I suspect."


    "Any issues with my lowering the tax rate?"


    "Uh, well if you want to do that, you probably need to lower your salary."


    "I have a salary?" Felix flipped through screens until he found his salary screen. The salary for the leader of a town was set, by default, to 50%. If Felix approved the transactions Noah had already promised, the rest would be reserved for him to claim. He also found a salary for Noah and other people employed by the city he didn''t know which were all at 0%.


    Felix claimed his salary, then set his own salary to the lowest possible value, 1 Tutorial credit a year. Then he donated the entirety of the salary he claimed back to the city coffers. Finally, Felix set the permissions to allow Noah to request a withdrawal, it would notify Felix and he could then approve it from anywhere. Felix could just let Noah take from the coffers directly, but he was slightly paranoid of embezzling or stealing. Worst case, if he was in a fight, Noah would have to wait a few hours for approval, which shouldn''t be an issue.


    This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.


    "What should I set your and all the other people we employ''s salary to?"


    "Uh, that''s up to you. We''ve been using the Tutorial Credit as about equivalent to a dollar for now."


    Felix thought about setting the salaries to some set amount per month, but figured making it a percent, at least for Noah, would make it so he was incentivized to make the city wealthier, not that it mattered. He set it at a couple percent of the city''s overall income.


    "Well, I also don''t know what any of these other people do, you can set their salaries then it will ping me for permission."


    Remembering something Noah had said earlier, Felix flipped through to a siege screen. He read through a log of the exact same message repeated over a hundred times within a single minute.


    Siege declaration failed. Attacker''s level is too low to declare a siege on this fort. Highest level attacker must be at least half of the level of the fort''s leader.


    That''s convenient, would have been a real pain if the fort was sieged while I was in the dungeon. Would I have even been notified?


    With nothing else to do, Felix hopped off the throne. Noah pulled up the city projection which now showed all of the new buildings and the plots of land for sale.


    "So city defenses? We start with repairing the wall I assume?" Felix said.


    "Yeah that''s what I was thinking. We can get all the siege specialized builders working on that. Now that we have the marketplace, some harder to obtain materials should be accessible so the industrial district is gonna be a big pull now. We had things like alchemists and engineers that couldn''t do much other than the dungeon without the marketplace."


    "Oh what do we need to upgrade the town by the way?"


    "Nothing, you just need to say ''Yes'', I think. Then, for the next upgrade, you have to pick the upgrade path."


    "How do we upgrade it then?"


    "Just go to the upgrade screen on the console."


    Duh.


    Felix hopped back on the throne and found the upgrade screen.


    Tutorial Fort Upgrade


    Congratulations!


    Your fort has met all requirements to be upgraded to a Minor Town (Tier 2).


    Requirements:


    Population of 1000+


    Housing for 50%+ of population


    Leader Level 10+


    100,000 Tutorial Credits (Consumed)


    Would you like to upgrade now?


    Yes.


    No.


    Yes.


    Tutorial Fort Upgrade


    Option Select


    Please select a new building as a reward or an existing building to be upgraded.


    Warning: This choice will affect future fort advancements.


    Possible Options:


    [E - Common] Barracks


    [E - Special] Castle (Existing)


    [E - Common] Warehouse (Existing)


    [E - Uncommon] Laboratory


    [E - Uncommon] Auction House


    I kind of hate the idea of upgrading the castle. I don''t spend much time here, so who would even use the castle and for what? It probably won''t benefit the city itself much. It is the highest rarity though, by a fair margin. Ah, screw it, Castle. Worst case, it can be used as a laboratory for the alchemists and other professions.


    Felix squinted as it was suddenly brighter, he looked around and realized he was standing outside next to Noah. Turning around towards the castle Felix almost regretted his decision. The castle had the same general structure as before, with the wall around a court yard, large towers and more space than Felix had any use for. After the upgrade though, it was bigger in every respect.


    The wall was completely repaired and at least four meters tall, made of smooth stone bricks. The castle had three towers now, instead of one and they looked solid, unlike the one on the castle before the upgrade. The main building looked to be two stories taller than it was before, with the other buildings having grown a story each. The castle appeared to be made of smooth stone bricks, that looked like what the bricks from the ruins might have looked like in the city''s prime. There were also many banners hanging around from the castle that were white with thin blue stripes running down the sides. In the middle, there was a simple logo depicting three peaks, in a dark grey, rising up around a castle in blue, surrounded by a thin blue ring.


    Oh man, it looks great. Ugh, what would the laboratory have looked like, how useful could that have been. Agh, I feel a little bad I chose the selfish route. Is what it is at this point, let''s see what''s needed for the next upgrade, hopefully that changes the direction a little. S§×ar?h the n?vel_Fire.¦Çet website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    Felix looked at Noah sheepishly and shrugged before running towards the new throne room. He ran up to the gates, then through them when they opened for him automatically. He ran through the courtyard which was now filled with neatly trimmed grass and a well manicured garden of trees and hedges. The front door, instead of being an open doorway was now a two and a half meter tall wooden door with steel bands holding it together. Felix pulled on the right door barely managing to open it wide enough for him to slip through. He entered into a an empty room that spanned almost the entire floor plan of the building. Running down the middle was a long dark blue carpet with thin white stripes down either side. Next to the carpet, on either side, pillars were placed at even intervals each hosting another banner. Felix quickly ran to the back and up the staircase to the next floor.


    The next floor appeared to be a banquet hall with a massive table spanning the majority of the main room. Felix ignored it and ran past to the next floor, which contained the throne, a vault and some other rooms. There was an entire other floor which Felix suspected would be a floor mainly for bedrooms.


    Felix wasted no time, sat on the throne, and flipped back to the upgrade screen.


    Minor Town Upgrade


    Congratulations!


    Your town has met all requirements to be upgraded to Major Town (Tier 3).


    Requirements:


    Auction House or Marketplace


    Population of 5000+


    Housing for 75%+ of population


    Leader Level 25+


    1,000,000 Tutorial Credits (Consumed)


    Would you like to upgrade now?


    Yes.


    No.


    Yes.


    Minor Town Upgrade


    Option Select


    Please select an upgrade path for the fort.


    Possible Options:


    [E - Common] Militaristic


    [E - Common] Trade


    [E - Uncommon] Empire


    [E - Rare] Fortress


    [E - Special] University


    The fact that there are two separate combat options being offered to a town focused entirely on professions is a little worrying. The other forts are probably being offered a combat focused path based on the direction some of them seem to be heading, likely with a higher rarity too. Can I get more information on University?


    Minor Town Upgrade


    [E - Special] University


    You have met the requirements for a Special upgrade path.


    Requirements:


    Special grade building suitable to be a University.


    75%+ of population with a profession level higher than their class level


    2,500,000 Tutorial Credits (Consumed)


    Warning: The selected Special grade building may be altered during the process.


    Would you like to upgrade now?


    Yes.


    No.


    Holy shit this is going to cost almost all the credits in the coffers. It seems like a great option though. The trade path would be great, to maximize on the expansion of the town and leverage all the money the town will likely make from profession focuses. However, this town is focused on progressing professions, not just becoming rich. A university would, hopefully, support learning and growth, and hopefully also have facilities for research, alchemy and engineering. Yes. . . . . .

 Chapter 24 - Book 23

    Felix once again found himself outside the once castle, now university standing next to Noah.


    "You upgraded again? I just walked in the door, now I''m here."


    "Yeah, I was feeling guilty about the castle upgrade¡­ it was the highest rarity. Now though, it was all worth it." Felix turned around and gestured at the University. "Welcome to the University."


    "A university? How does that work? Who is qualified to teach?"


    "Great questions¡­ I have no idea. Hopefully it works out though, because I may have spent all of the town''s credits on it."


    Looking at the building, not much had changed. The buildings surrounding the main building had grown slightly, likely to support classrooms or workshops. The materials making up the buildings included more marble. There were also training grounds and sparring areas in the courtyard. Finally, the logo on the banners now had a graduation cap on the Castle.


    Not bad. Alright, now to make sure I don''t have to teach a class, because I did not even think of that possibility.


    Felix jogged, which was ridiculously fast because he forgot about his set bonus active, into the University. The bottom floor was now narrower, still many meters wide, with rooms lining either wall. Walking up to the second floor, the banquet hall was replaced with more rooms all over the floor. The next floor was once again, a bunch of rooms, though these were much bigger than the previous floor''s rooms, judging from the spacing between the doors. The last floor held multiple picnic tables scattered around the room that could hold up to three people on a side.


    Where the hell is the throne?


    Felix opened his map hoping to find the layout of the University. He found the throne on the map in the top room of the highest tower. He navigated to and opened the door leading to the bottom of the tower and ran up the stairs which, even with his improved endurance, winded him. He made it to the top of the stairs which ended at a simple wooden door. Looking down, the center of the spiral staircase was empty and falling would certainly be deadly, at least right now without casting Feather Fall. He opened the door and entered a large office.


    The office was bigger than Felix was expecting, about 10 meters across. The room was circular with book shelves lining the back half of the walls. There was a sitting area with two couches and a coffee table right in front of the book shelves. On the other side of the room lay a large wooden desk with a comfortable lookin leather chair behind it. The wall behind the desk was completely empty. The room had only one large window across from where Felix stood at the door and between the book shelves and the desk.


    Felix walked over and sat at the desk before opening the management screen. He flipped through and found a dizzying amount of new screens. He opened the more notable screens, starting with the upgrade screen.


    Major University Town Upgrade


    Your town has not met the requirements to be upgraded to Minor City (Tier 4).


    Requirements:


    Population of 12500+ [5014 | 40%]


    50%+ of population at profession level 25+ [13% | 46%]


    15,000 total profession levels gained since choosing upgrade path [2 | 0%]


    Leader Level 50+ [26 | 52%]


    25,000,000 Tutorial Credits (Consumed) [156,250 | 1%]


    Holy shit, that is a lot. Seems like it could be doable but not any time soon. It''s using my race level? That''s annoying. Also, the 46% is misleading, as the population grows, that number will likely go down. The only way we can manage that tutorial credits requirement is if we get an injection of credits into the economy sometime soon. I think I remember reading that you can sell things to the marketplace and The System will buy them, maybe that''s the answer. On to the next screen.


    Major University Town: Minor Upgrades


    As a special function of the University upgrade path, specific minor upgrades can be researched for a cost in credits. Upgrades are tailored to the current upgrade path. Some minor upgrades may unlock other minor or major upgrade options in the future.


    Upgrades:


    Cheaper System led classes.


    Lower System tax rate on Auction and Marketplace goods.


    More profession course options


    More specific course options


    Buy specific System led class or profession courses


    More esoteric subject matter in System run courses


    Lower course required material costs


    Next, Felix set the permissions to allow Noah to purchase minor upgrades, with approval, and to allow others to do the same. With that handled, he opened the course purchase screen.


    Major University Town: Courses


    As a special function of the University upgrade path, specific courses can be bought and made available.


    Courses:


    Siege Offence


    Siege Defence


    Intermediate Alchemy


    Intermediate Commerce


    Intermediate Trade


    Intermediate Construction


    Construction: Decorative


    Construction: Functional


    ¡­


    Felix scrolled through a lot of courses but he wasn''t sure what the town needed so he just added Noah to the permissions and let it go. He wanted to check out the library and courses that were available, but he doubted any of them would help him.


    If the courses on sale are intermediate, beginner is probably available. Beginner and intermediate caster courses likely are not just handing out a bunch of spells, that would be ridiculous and undermine searching for spells at all. If they don''t give spells, why would I bother with them at all?


    To be sure, Felix checked the curriculum for the beginner Caster course. The most advanced topic they covered was how to position in your party as a caster. Felix definitely didn''t need that.


    Felix closed the management screens and opened one of his own.


    Open Class Selection.


    Class: [E - Common] Fighter- Class: [E - Rare] Assassin- Class: [E - Common] Druid- Class: [E - Common] Ritualist-


    No point reading any of those. Hah, Assassin, I use too many daggers it seems. Open Profession Selection


    [E - Common] Farmer- [E - Uncommon] City Planner- [E - Uncommon] Enchanter- [E - Rare] Mayor-


    Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.


    Nothing new it seems. Open Skill Selection.


    General: [Speed Walking (Common)- Caster: [Meditation (Common)- Arcane Engineer: [Spell Form Memory (Common)-


    Caster: [Bond Familiar (Uncommon) Bond with a creature to gain effects dependent on the creature. The strength of your bond with the creature and the level of the creature affect the strength of the gained effects. Large level differentials could result in a bond breaking entirely. You and the creature will affect each others advancements. This skill is upgradeable.]


    Caster: [Summon Familiar (Common) Summon a creature to gain effects dependent on the creature. The strength of your bond with the creature and the level of the creature affect the strength of the gained effects. Large level differentials could result in a bond breaking entirely. You and the creature will affect each others advancements. This skill is upgradeable.]


    Caster: [Bond Mount (Uncommon) Bond with a mount to ride them, greatly increasing travel speed. The strength of your bond with the creature and the level of the creature affect it''s movement speed when traveling. Personal equipment movement speed modifiers do not affect the speed of a mount. Large level differentials could result in a bond breaking entirely. You and the creature will affect each others advancements. This skill is upgradeable.]


    Caster: [Summon Mount (Common) Summon a mount to ride them, greatly increasing travel speed. The strength of your bond with the creature and the level of the creature affect it''s movement speed when traveling. Personal equipment movement speed modifiers do not affect the speed of a mount. Large level differentials could result in a bond breaking entirely. You and the creature will affect each others advancements. This skill is upgradeable.]


    General: [Scan Literature (Rare) Hold your hand on the surface of a book for 100 seconds, reduced by Intelligence and Perception, increased based on rarity and grade, to scan the entire contents of a book. This skill requires you have some way of memorizing, transcribing or storing the scan of the book. Some books may resist being scanned in this way. Some details, such as those in creeping ink books, auto-updating tomes, and sentient books will be lost. This skill is upgradeable. (Current scan time: 27 seconds)]


    Ok those are interesting. Mount is useless, I definitely travel faster without it at E grade. Bond familiar seems interesting. Summoning one is cool, but I really like the idea of finding some creature in the wild naturally bonding with it then forming a bond with it and traveling together. Scan Books is awesome, I can finally fill out my mental library. It was feeling kind of empty up there.


    Felix accepted the Bond Familiar and Scan Literature skills. He had already confirmed earlier that he could remove skills at will, which would reset their progress. As soon as he accepted the skills, he knew how to use them, almost instinctually.


    Time to plan out what I''m doing next. I want to check out the marketplace and dump some of my garbage off, hopefully The System give me something for it. I can also look for materials and maybe look at leveling my profession, though that may need to wait for a puzzle dungeon. Next I want to go see a world boss in person. I have no intention of fighting it, I just want to see one to get a feel for where I need to be to fight one, eventually. Lastly I want to hit all the dungeons, I should plan out a route to hit the ones I know of so far, hopefully my map is more filled in by then. I also have a spell in mind I want to mess with before I go which might make travel even easier.


    Felix got up from his desk and headed down to the marketplace. He ran into Noah, who he had completely forgotten about, on the second floor.


    "Oh hey, do you need anything else from me? I gave you permissions to purchase courses and minor upgrades in the University. I set most permissions to request and I also managed to make it so you can request permissions if you happen to need any when I am not here." S§×ar?h the N?vel(F)ire.¦Çet website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    "I think that covers everything then, are you leaving right away?"


    "No, I am going to go check out the marketplace stock and look at some courses potentially, then I''ll head out."


    "Mind letting me know when you do head out, just in case I have something else?"


    "Sure thing."


    Felix squeezed his way into the auction house and market place building, which was currently packed. He waited for an auction house node first, as it may inform his decisions at the marketplace. When he finally managed to get his hand on a node, he was sorely disappointed. The only items on auction right now were random corpses and garbage that people were testing to see if they would sell at all. Similar to the market he had walked through earlier.


    Felix waited again, for even longer this time, until he finally managed to get access to a marketplace node. This time, he was much less disappointed. The System was supplying a lot of materials. Wood, stone, metal ingots, herbs, food and even water were being sold. With items that were harder to gather having a higher cost. Felix first found the sell tab and sold all of the corpses, goblin weapons, hats and other garbage. He made a total of 2,275 Tutorial Credits.


    Not bad for a bunch of garbage in my inventory.


    Next he purchased eight canteens, he thought about rations, but he still had a bunch of goblin rations left and he was eating a lot less after the minor evolution. Next he looked for materials for him to start working on his profession. He didn''t find anything. It definitely didn''t help that he had no idea was he was looking for. Felix had already checked for an enchanting or magical item engineering course but found nothing like that at the University.


    Guess I need to just try puzzle dungeon''s at this point. Damn.


    Felix left the overcrowded building and headed back to his office in the university. He never made it though, he got distracted and instead headed towards the library. The library was full of books that were almost entirely useless. The books were designed to be introductions and super basic overviews of just about everything. Felix opened his map and walked through the library placing his hand on the books for 27 seconds at a time, one by one.


    Not as much of my map as I had hoped was revealed just from other citizen''s maps. There is another dungeon and a world boss though. If I then keep heading in that direction, I can hit the town there and see about updating my map from theirs maybe. Ok enough scanning, spell experimentation time, please work the way I hope you will.


    Felix memorized his spot in the books, then headed over to the main building and up to the third floor, with the biggest rooms. Earlier, looking at his map, he had seen some of these rooms marked as labs. He chose one and entered. The door had a simple lock on it and seemed like a normal room from the inside. The walls were made of smooth stone bricks, exactly as expected, with no windows.


    Seems simple enough.


    Felix sat down, entered his mental library and walked to the large desk in the middle.


    Hey wait a minute, why do I need to walk around, this is my mind, right?


    Felix willed himself onto the second level and instantly appeared there. He almost fell over from disorientation as there was no warning whatsoever. He was simply somewhere else instantly. Felix spent a few minutes getting used to it. He got over his initial disorientation very quickly, then it was just a matter of making it seamless.


    Felix stood at the desk in the middle of the room and placed the Mana Shield spell form at the center of the table.


    First things first, I want to remove the weird location component that''s keeping it right in front of me at all times. Then I can go from there.


    The spell form laying in front of Felix was easily the most complicated spell form Felix had ever seen. He got to work dissecting it into as many components as he could identify, then he worked on trying to identify the individual components and what their functions might be. Ultimately it was almost impossible to know what some of them did as he couldn''t easily remove them from the spell form or fit them into another.


    Comparing the spell form components to those from Mana Bolt resulted in enough similarities for Felix to make educated guesses as to the functions of different components. Unfortunately, guesses were not enough for him to start manipulating the spell forms. He stared at lines he wanted to remove and was unsure if they were just connecting lines, or if they mattered for either component they connected.


    I just don''t have enough information right now. Guess I just try and hit the dungeons then go from there.


    Felix left the room disappointed he hadn''t even cast a single spell and checked his map to find Noah. Felix confirmed Noah didn''t need him for anything then informed him he was heading out again. . . . . .

 Chapter 25 - Book 24

    Felix ran out of the town, careful to limit his speed so he didn''t hurt anyone, himself included. He headed directly towards the world boss to the south east, and conveniently on the way to the only other dungeon he knew about.


    Felix sped through the plains only tripping a single time and losing a sliver of health. As he approached the south shore of the continent, the plains abruptly ended where a sandy beach began just on the horizon. As Felix approached the beach, he saw the figure of a large animal, though he couldn''t identify it in any way as it seemed to be curled up and sleeping. Felix approached until he could identify it.


    [E - Special] Griffin (Lvl 87)


    87? That''s not too bad. I shouldn''t be able to see it''s level though if it''s that high, maybe The System let''s you because it wants you to be able to plan things out a little bit? I know if I do, it will kill me before I can blink, but I really want to hit it.


    Felix decided not to commit guaranteed suicide, and instead just risk potential suicide. He approached until he felt he could accurately judge the creature. It was aptly named world boss, with a full height of about fifteen meters and length of twenty, by Felix''s estimate. It was covered in light brown feathers with sandy colored stripes.


    Felix was satisfied with his estimation and disappointed he couldn''t do any more. Though he assured himself he''d be back to fight it some day soon. Felix ran north along the shore up to the edge of the forest then east towards the next dungeon he could find. As he ran, he finally encountered wild enemies with levels in the double digits, though none high enough for Felix to bother with. There were a lot more than Felix was expecting though, wolf packs, flocks of birds, bears, deer, and those were just the ones he encountered running along the edge of the forest.


    It took Felix a few minutes to locate the dungeon as it was overgrown with vegetation, but he finally managed to spot it by falling into the entrance as he stared at his map.


    Quest Dungeon C


    You have found a dungeon. Would you like to enter?


    Yes


    No


    Huh, a new type of dungeon, interesting. What the hell does a quest dungeon entail? Yes.


    Felix looked around at a massive jungle, similar to the one he found himself in in the combat dungeon when he fought the Goblins, Monkeys and Troll, except bigger in every way. After a few seconds a screen appeared in front of Felix.


    Quest Dungeon C


    A Monster plagues the people of the Caregarr Forest.


    (1/6) Gather information


    Felix walked through the jungle stepping over massive roots and around skyscraper sized trees. He made it through the jungle with the help of his Cool spell, to regulate his own body temperature and cool the water in his canteens. Finally, he climbed through roots and around a trunk wider than a typical house causing a massive forest village to come into view.


    The buildings of the village were all built on the sides of three massive trees, with bridges and walkways connecting the trees together and a spiral walkway around each tree connecting all the doors on the same tree together. The trees were growing over a massive valley that looked like the ground had been forcibly torn in two. Around the entire village hung a thin wall of vines.


    Felix walked up to the one visible bridge leading from the ground into village and approached the two guards. Both guards were about two and a half meter tall lizard men. Their physique gave away their strength focused classes and each held a wooden spear and shield. One of them was covered in dark green scales with a smattering of light green, the other in red scales with a few symmetrical spots of white.


    [E - Common] Caregarr Drakene (Lvl 38)


    The one with red scales approached Felix threateningly "State your purpose."


    Uh.


    "I hear there is a monster plaguing the people of the forest, I¡­ have been sent to deal with it."


    The lizard man''s eyes briefly flashed surprise and the other scoffed. "I am not sure who sent you, but we can handle the monster ourselves. I will lead you to the tavern, The Tipsy Tree, so you can rest, but forget about the monster, it is our village, we can deal with it ourselves."


    Felix nodded, "That would be much appreciated, thank you."


    Felix followed the guard up the bridge, through the vines and into the village. They walked up to the first level of buildings on the closest tree and the guard led Felix down a walkway just past a handful of rooms before slipping into a large wooden building. Felix followed into a tavern that appeared as expected except, bigger as it was built for a larger species.


    The tavern was entirely empty and the guard led Felix up to the bar and rapped on the counter, "Borrugra, you in there? There''s a human here to deal with the monster."


    A pink and green scaled Drakene walked through a curtain from the back. She and the guard traded a nod then he walked out of the building.


    "So, you''re here about the monster. Follow me into the back."


    Hmm, well hopefully they don''t just kill me on the spot. I assume they have classes and professions just like me which would mean they are a much higher level than I.


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


    The Drakene led Felix past a curtain and through a simple kitchen into a small sitting area. Felix settled himself into a floor cushion across from the Drakene.


    "Sorry about the guard, the elders of the village have been saying they will handle the monster for a few generations now. Everyone who tries to handle it themselves ends up disappearing and the guard have launched attacks but they''ve never even seen the damned thing. Most, in the village, have grown up with it and don''t think about it much."


    Suddenly, she clenched her fists, which looked painful with claws, and looked away, "Last week, Gavren, a Drakene¡­ I knew, disappeared. He didn''t even go looking for it, he was just taken. Every Drakene that has ever tried to go after it on their own just vanished, so I was hoping an outsider might be able to find it. The guard who led you here is my cousin, he agreed to help me sneak someone into the village if I could find them. You can take everything I own if that''s what it takes, I just need it dealt with, please."


    "I''ll see what I can do, but I''m lower level than everyone I''ve seen here so far, I''m not sure if I''ll be able to do what you all couldn''t"


    "Just try¡­ please. Someone disappears about every 9 days unless the schedule is disrupted by someone going out and looking for it. Since Gavren disappeared a couple days ago, just last week, you should have 7 or so days until it comes hunting. If you can find it before then, great, otherwise you might have to go looking before it takes someone else. In the meantime, you can stay here and talk with the Caregarr Drakene, just don''t mention you''re here to hunt it, it''s a matter of pride for most."


    "Thanks, I appreciate that. I guess I''ll go asking around, see what I can find. Are there other monsters I can go hunt to level around here as well?"


    "There are some, but you have to venture out pretty far from the village to find them. You might be able to convince the guard to hunt with you, you''ll need them. The monsters are mostly higher levels, in the mid 40s or so."


    "Thanks, I''ll look into it."


    "Here, I''ll show you to your room."


    After seeing the room Borrugra kindly offered, Felix wandered out of the village to try and find something to hunt. He left the village the same way he came in, through the wall of vines and down the walkway. He ventured out into the jungle and managed to wander all the way to the edge of the dungeon without finding any living creatures at all.


    I wonder if there is anything here, or if it''s empty and the Drakene''s minds are being affected by System fuckery. I''ll ask the guards. Otherwise I''ll ask around the village and see if there''s a mage or something so I can try and work on my profession. Worst case, I guess I can finally come up with a new workout routine. Kind of annoying to be stuck in here for a week, especially if I can''t really do anything.


    Felix made his way back to the village and into the inn. He asked Borrugra about any mages that might be in the village with knowledge of enchanting or magic item creation. Unfortunately, the only option she knew of was one of the elders, who specialized in ritual magic, who likely wouldn''t be able to see him anyways.


    It was still a few hours until The Tipsy Tree would start filling up so Felix went out to socialize with the people of the village. He was told the guards would definitely be at the tavern later, as they were every night, and it would likely be easier to convince them to bring him on a hunt if they were mildly intoxicated.


    A little while later, Felix wandered across the walkways connecting the village together. Most of the buildings were closed and appeared to be simple homes but some were open on a side with visible wares. Nothing was of particular interest to Felix, he saw spears, shields, herbs, Drakene furniture, and a lot of raw meat. He was tempted to buy some seasoned skewers of raw meat as it smelled delicious, but he already had plenty of rations left from the goblins, and he knew he could hunt for meat himself.


    He talked to anyone who seemed open to it, shopkeepers mostly, about the monster and the village. He didn''t really learn anything though. Everyone seemed to have just accepted the monster for what it is, they didn''t even seem to show much fear. It seemed like the village in general believed that if they stayed in the village and didn''t go looking for it, they likely wouldn''t be next. It also took anyone who was out of their homes at night, making them feel safe if they weren''t breaking the unofficial curfew and skulking through the night.


    The only thing he learned from talking to the Drakene, was that they could come in any combination of colors. Apparently there were also chromatic metal Drakene, with scales that looked like different metals. Even rarer were scales with a mirror like finish. He didn''t see any chromatic Drakene himself, but the Drakene were prideful and upon encountering an outsider, quite a few of them took it upon themselves to tell him about themselves.


    Interestingly, they didn''t seem to consider themselves related to dragons, instead it seemed like they revered dragons as gods. Felix tried to inquire more, but they didn''t want to talk much on that particular subject. He did hear about how the spear is the superior weapon, magic is only for weak fools, except the elder who practiced it, and that the length of a Drakene''s claw was indicative of their masculinity. Though he wasn''t so sure about that last one.


    Back at The Tipsy Tree, Felix waited until a group of guards came and sat at a table near the door. He wouldn''t have recognized them himself so luckily Borrugra agreed to point them out for him. Felix waited patiently for them to be buzzed, but not quite drunk enough to forget anything they agreed to, then he bought them a round of drinks to begin the courting.


    It didn''t take long for them to agree to take him on their next hunt, which was luckily tomorrow at dawn. They were prideful and Felix used that to his advantage, letting them go on about how they needed to show him how it was done. After making fun of his being a caster for a while, they told him to show up at the front gate before dawn or else they would leave without him.


    Felix bid them farewell for the night after buying them all another round, both in gratitude and to buy him more time tomorrow morning as hopefully they slept in a little longer. Felix headed up to his room for the night, ate a ration and checked his quest status before heading to sleep for the night.


    Quest Dungeon C


    A Monster plagues the people of the Caregarr Forest, hunting them, at night, every 9 days or so. The monster has hunted the people for generations and rarely eats people from within the village, mostly hunting those that risk the outside. There is an unofficial curfew to keep people from being taken and most believe this keeps them safe.


    (1/6) Gather information [Complete]


    (2/6) Wait for the monster''s next hunt Sear?h the novel(F~)ire.net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    The next morning, Felix headed out for the day. It was just before dawn and the sky was still dark. Felix rushed to the entrance of the village, worried he might be late, even if the guards were drinking all night. He made it to the entrance, where he had met the two guards yesterday. He was just on time as there were six guards already there.


    Luckily, they weren''t waiting for him, they were waiting for another guard who arrived just a minute later. Felix followed the guards as they sped through the forest, he was only able to keep up with them thanks to his set bonus increasing his movement speed. Before heading out they made it very clear that he was not to interfere until they had hunted enough to sustain the village.


    Felix also found out that their prey were exclusively large birds that lived in the jungle, which was odd to Felix considering they all wielded wooden spears and shields. They ventured about halfway to the edge of the dungeon judging by his map before they spread out to hunt for the birds. When he asked how they would know when one was found, they said he would know. . . . . .

 Chapter 26 - Book 25

    Just a few short minutes later, Felix knew exactly where he needed to go. A shrill screech echoed through the jungle and Felix ran towards it. Arriving at the source of the screech, Felix observed as the Drakene guards gathered next to the one that had found a large rainbow chicken.


    [E - Common] Caregarr Parroukan (Lvl 42) S§×ar?h the Novel?ire(.)ne*t website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    What stood in front of a small legion of Drakene guards was, what appeared to Felix as, a lean, muscular, horse sized chicken sporting the colors of a parrot. When it screeched, its beak split in four, in both the horizontal and vertical directions.


    The Drakene guards didn''t assume a well structured defensive wall as Felix would have expected with spears, but instead surrounded the Parroukan from all side, like individuals instead of a team. They quickly proved their experience when the bird charged at one of them beak first. If they had made a wall, they may have landed a few strikes on the bird, but one of them would definitely be dead.


    The bird charged at the Drakene with mostly dark green scales from the entrance to the village. He dashed to the right and the bird''s charge veered to follow just before the Drakene jumped into the air so the Parroukan charged into a tree. The rest of the guards were already following the Parroukan as it charged allowing them to be right behind it, ready to strike, as soon as it collided with the tree.


    They all stabbed at once in different locations quickly disabling the overgrown colorful chicken and causing it to fall over. They quickly finished it off and one of them stored the body in their inventory before running back into their loose formation. After a tense moment of faint footsteps, another two Parroukan dashed out from behind trees and independently charged at different guards. Clearly having practiced the maneuver many times, the guard''s dealt with two Parroukan even easier than they had one. Instead of having the Parroukans charge into trees, the Drakene they were focused on, steered the charges into each-other.


    The Parroukans collided and fell to the ground. The guards quickly finished those off, stowed them in their inventory and ran back into a loose formation which really just consisted of staying far apart. After a silent minute the guards relaxed and convened in the center of the small clearing before splitting up again to hunt for more. This time it was much further away, well beyond the range of the last one''s screeching. When Felix arrived, before anyone else, he watched as the guard danced around the Parroukan, not even attempting to fight it, they just stalled.


    This process of hunting Parroukan and those that ran to their aid continued until the guards managed to collect almost fifteen of them. Then they waved Felix over from where he was observing.


    "Ok, we''ve hunted enough of them now to feed the village for a little bit. Now we can mess around. What spells do you have, what can you do? I need to figure out how to integrate you into the formation and how to work around you." The guard with the green scales explained.


    "Oh don''t worry about it, if you can find one for me then just stall and I can run to you. I should be able to kill the first one myself then can you guys take over when more come to help?"


    The guards looked at each other in confusion with singular raised eyebrows. The one with dark green scales, the leader it seemed, turned back to Felix, "We can¡­ we won''t be able to save you from dying though. You do realize their levels are in the low to mid forties, right? We can hold it off while you hit it, we don''t mind, really. I know we make it look easy, but we have been hunting these things since we were born, it is harder than it looks, I promise."


    "No thanks, I should be fine. Hopefully it doesn''t kill me, but if it does, oh well I guess. I just can''t seem to find them on my own."


    "Alright, if you change your mind, try to do so before you engage. It will be hard to take over in the middle of fighting it."


    They all split up to find more birds, with some of them shaking their heads when they thought Felix wasn''t looking. Almost a half hour later, Felix heard a screech and ran towards it. With his full speed, he got there just a minute or so later. It was the leader, maybe captain, of the guards who spoke to Felix earlier that had found it.


    [E - Common] Caregarr Parroukan (Lvl 42)


    Felix ran forwards and shot the Parroukan with a simple Mana Bolt to get it to focus on him. The Parroukan turned to him in rage and charged, which is exactly what Felix expected. The overgrown rainbow chicken ran at him and he did his best to steer it into a tree. Unfortunately, he didn''t manage to steer it into the center of the tree, so it grazed off the edge before stopping itself. Felix hit it with another Mana Bolt just to make sure it knew who it was fighting and to make it a little angrier. The Parroukan charged again and this time Felix prepared himself and positioned directly between it and a tree. Felix didn''t even need to steer it so he ran backwards towards the tree keeping an eye on the Parroukan.


    Playing chicken with a giant chicken, was the name of that game a double entendre this whole time?


    Felix jumped slightly early and slightly too high. The Parroukan almost managed to stop itself, instead turning itself to the side and taking the brunt of the impact on it''s side with the wing. Felix quickly cast an instant Gust he wasn''t expecting to have to cast, and shot himself downwards at the Parroukan. As he shot towards the Parroukan''s back, he prepared three giant Mana Bolts that were thrice the size they normally were and positioned them with two for the bird''s brain and one for the spine.


    Ding You have slain a [E - Common] Caregarr Parroukan (Lvl 42)


    Ding You have gained a level in [E - Common] Caster


    By the time Felix''s hand reached the back of the bird, he stowed it into his inventory, keeping his fall from being interrupted and cast a quick feather fall to catch himself.


    If that looked half as cool as it did in my head, then that was awesome. I wasn''t expecting to kill it so quickly but I guess I did get off two headshots, not sure if the neck one is a critical hit.


    It took the other guards just over a minute to reach Felix, followed shortly afterwards by one Parroukan which the guards quickly dispatched.


    If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    The guard with the dark green scales approached Felix after the fight, "Not bad kid. Your timing and aim when baiting is very sloppy. You also used a spell and used it to jump way too high, and you run stupidly fast but you''re reactions are slow. However, you might do more damage than anyone I have ever seen. It takes all five of us, who are much higher level than you are, spearing it, with skills, sometimes multiple times, just to take one of them down. Also, did you cast three spells at once? I did not know that was even possible."


    "Most of that is fair, what''s wrong with using a spell to jump though?"


    I used the wrong spell out of habit, now that I have a jump spell I don''t need to cast a modified Gust. He wouldn''t know that though.


    "I am pretty sure you could have cleared the Parroukan on your own, but it''s also more efficient to just jump to the side so you don''t have to fight gravity."


    "I''m pretty sure I can''t jump that high myself but yeah jumping to the side would have been more efficient."


    "I changed my mind, you definitely can. Do you have any physical skills? I know you are a caster, but in my mind that makes it even more important to avoid getting hit since you have lower Vitality and Endurance. You could learn dodge, jump or something like that and use energy to get out of the way. I know you have mana and you could use a spell, but what happens when you run out of mana? You aren''t doing anything with your energy anyways, might as well use it."


    "You don''t have to convince me, but how do I get a physical skill? I check my Skill Selection screen pretty often and I have never been offered anything like that."


    "That''s not the only way you know? You can also be taught a skill. I get bonuses and experience for teaching skills from my profession. I''m a trainer. My name is Alrik by the way, I''m the captain of the guard."


    "Felix, pleasure. I did not know that. I am very interested though if you are willing, I tried to use my energy to do something but never could quite figure it out. Do you want the body by the way?"


    "Nope, that was your kill. We have enough already. If we helped I would have taken it, but not when you killed it entirely yourself."


    Felix and the guards headed back to the village where the rest of the guards split off. Felix followed Alrik to a large open circular area of the walkways. There were no buildings, the walkways that roped around the trees and through the village simply expanded to create a large fenced in area, like a sparring arena. On one side of the area stood a handful of target dummies, the only thing in the entire area other than Felix and Alrik.


    "Alright, I''m gonna need you to trust the process here and not question it. We''re gonna start with a spear skill, then I will teach you whatever movement skills you want."


    "Alright, you are the trainer, I trust your judgement."


    "First things first, watch exactly what I do and replicate it."


    Alrik pulled out his spear and stepped into the center of the sparring area. He proceeded to, glacially slowly, lunge forwards, stabbing his spear into an imaginary target. He did it three times with his body appearing to move identically to Felix''s eye. Then he handed a spear from his inventory to Felix and stepped aside.


    Felix took the spear and walked forwards to where Alrik was standing. Felix replicated the movements as best he could, stopping himself a few times to restart until he was mostly satisfied. He repeated the series of movements thrice with minimal adjustments, then he looked over at Alrik, who was silently giggling.


    "Ironically, you are being held back by your high dexterity and memory. You are almost perfectly replicating what I did, but you are not adjusting the movements to your own body. You seem to be overextending yourself in a lot of the time because you are shorter than I am. Try again but this time, close your eyes and pay attention to your body, listen to it. Adjust the general movements, when you feel overly stretched, shorten the movement a little bit. It''s also not just about height, it''s also about ratios of limb lengths too. So, if you feel like you are awkwardly holding back, stretch out further. As you adjust, I''ll try to push back on the problem areas I see."


    Felix spent a few hours having his form adjusted before Alrik was satisfied, "Ok, close enough. Now the hard part, this skill is not just a physical skill and that''s why we started with it. Anyone can stab a spear and you can get really great at the technique but you would always be missing something. Everyone has an energy pool, most believe that it''s your stamina, which is partially true. Energy is a resource your body has and can be used, it can be used passively, like stamina, or actively. That''s what I am going to try to teach you with this skill."


    Alrik walked up and placed his claw on Felix''s shoulder causing Felix to feel a warm itch crawl it''s way into his body as if like Alrik was heating up the area with little tendrils of warmth. His shoulder, the muscles beneath it, and slowly, the rest of the area around it began to twitch and spasm slightly.


    "I am pumping my energy into you. I want you to first try and push it away, try and hold your muscles still, stop the twitching."


    Felix tried to hold himself perfectly still, to resist the urges, but ultimately kept failing at it. Almost an hour passed as Felix fought his own cells before he finally decided to try and treat energy like it was mana; he started to visualize holding and controlling the energy. As soon as he did, he didn''t need to fight his own body anymore, as it simply didn''t want to twitch and spasm against his will anymore.


    "Perfect, now that your cells aren''t eating the energy and wasting it, you are going to try and move your own energy through your body as you strike with the spear. Push it into your legs, core and arms as you strain them."


    Felix picked up his spear and walked back to the center of the sparring area before slowly executing the movements for the spear skill. Once he was confident he had the motion memorized, he slowly pushed a trickle of energy into his legs and ankles. He wasn''t sure but he suspected his ankles would need some energy if he wanted any stability.


    He repeated the strike, incrementally adjusting the energy in his legs until he was confident enough to add energy to his core then his arms, incrementally adjusting everything until it felt right. Finally he started to speed up towards an actual strike, rather than what looked like yoga.


    He continuously adjusted the amount of energy he pushed into his cells incrementally as he increased his speed to keep his body stable and balanced. After hundreds of iterations and almost all of Felix''s energy pool, he felt like he had the movements down.


    Ding You have demonstrated sufficient proficiency to unlock the General Skill: [Piercing Spear Strike (Uncommon) Lunging forwards with precision and ferocity, you strike your opponents with your spear. You have incorporated fine energy control to enhance your muscles increasing the speed and strength of your strike. This skill can be upgraded. This skill can consume a variable amount of Energy to proportionally change the output damage, with a base consumption of 25]


    No. That''s satisfying to know I was doing something correctly.


    Felix turned to look at Alrik who stood up from the edge of the sparring area and approached him, "Not bad, that was a lot faster than most people I''ve taught. Plus, most of them fall on their faces or sprain their ankles the first time they push energy into their legs. Glad you managed to figure that one out, guess that''s what happens when you actually have some intelligence I guess. Now that you have energy in general figured out, you can use it to dodge, jump and run. You can figure out jumping and running on your own, then ask a guard to practice dodging, they''ll use a blunt spear and you dodge, good for both of you. You may be fast now, but you should still work on running to be more efficient."


    "Makes sense, thanks for all your help."


    "Couple of things, your body is not perfectly energy efficient by default. If you get really good at using energy in the right ways, you can be offered a buff or overcharge skill, if you do, you should take it. They are some of the best skills for anyone. The rest you will figure out on your own."


    "Good to know, thank you again."


    "No problem. If you need anything else, I can usually be found in the guard house."


    Felix and Alrik parted ways, heading in different directions. Felix headed towards The Tipsy Tree where he had Borrugra pluck and cook the Parroukan corpse for him. She was happy to do it when he offered her half of the meat. He kept the feathers for a future project. . . . . .

 Chapter 27 - Book 26

    The first thing I''ve already figured out, using energy makes you tired and hungry. I suspect I''m going to be sleeping almost every night again and eating a lot more. I''m not sure I want to get any energy based skills. It isn''t too hard to manually manipulate the energy so why would I waste the slots. This is pretty sweet though, this allows me to solve a lot of problems that fall mostly under exercise and mobility. My morning workouts can now alternate between an energy starved workout and an energy overcharged workout.


    Before I couldn''t really strain my muscles strength or endurance in any reasonable amount of time, now I can limit the energy to my cells which should make me more efficient. Then I can increase the energy to my cells to really strain my muscles to their limit. This does mean I need a more effective way to regenerate energy though, my pool is tiny.


    Mobility wise, I don''t need to rely on gust anymore, I can still use it for jumps that would take a huge amount of energy or to run faster, but this seems like a better use of resources. I am going to need to put more points into endurance at some point though.


    Felix ate what he would normally consider four entire meals of Parroukan before heading out into the forest. He first worked on infusing energy into his legs to jump higher. The process was almost entirely figuring out how much energy he needed to jump specific heights as the manipulation was the same as the lunge from the spear strike. Once he was mostly used to it, he removed his shirt, pants and boots and started running around the forest jumping up onto roots and branches of small trees.


    Without expending a massive amount of energy and likely tearing the muscles in his legs, he could jump almost four meters vertically. Running with energy was very easy when he just pushed energy into his legs, ankles and core.


    There is no way this is efficient though, when I''m running I am not straining every muscle equally and constantly. I should be pushing energy into muscles proportional to how much I use them and only when I use them.


    In reality, this was much harder than it sounded. There were a lot of muscles involved even in simple actions like running and all of them were being strained to a different degree. Felix also incorporated this into jumping, though there was much less effort required to time the energy compared to running.


    The timing was complicated not just because of the muscles being used at different times. Felix quickly discovered that his muscles didn''t instantly consume energy so he needed just a moment of lead time, requiring him to preempt their use. When jumping, his muscles were also sore right afterwards so he pushed a small amount of energy trailing the expenditure to promote their recovery.


    Felix spent the rest of the day working on his running and jumping throughout the forest. He had figured out, earlier this morning when hunting with the guard, that the forest was actually completely empty. He was incapable of finding enemies in the forest because they spawned specifically for the guards when they went looking for them. Clearly anything other than pursuing the quest was discouraged, though Felix suspected the fact that Alrik was a trainer was intentional. As for the monster, Felix hadn''t found it yet so he wasn''t too worried. Considering the quest told him to wait and there were at least 4 more steps to it, he figured it was probably fine for him to be running around, plus it was still day time.


    After a full day of training, Felix redressed and walked back to the tavern then slept the longest he had in almost a month. He spent the entirety of the next day refining his general acrobatic ability using energy. Halfway through the day he remembered that there was a lot more involved in moving than just his muscles. It was obvious in hindsight, but he hadn''t thought of pushing energy into his spinal cord and nerves. Considering his nervous system was attached to his brain he also infused it with energy, a cautious trickle at first which gradually increased to a flood when he realized his energy infusions were increasing his stats.


    He began testing until he could increase every stat, except endurance and vitality. It wasn''t by much at first, around ten percent, but it was an exciting proof of concept. He had to eat and nap every few hours, but his practice was paying off very quickly. He kept his brain, eyes, ears and nervous system constantly buffed with energy, which increased his intelligence, perception, dexterity and agility then pushed mana into his muscles when they were being used as there was no reason to waste energy buffing strength when he wasn''t using it.


    At night Felix sat and drank with some of the guards. Alrik was busy and apparently he rarely drank, but the rest of the guards he hunted with were present.


    "I never got the appeal of magic, why would you want to be limited by so much random bullshit, stand far away, have to avoid every hit or else die. Instead, you can hold a spear, run around, take a hit and hit back, it''s fun and exhilarating. The other day though, you made me rethink magic. We hunt as a group because none of us can kill a Parroukan in one hit, we could run around them and slowly take them down, but then it''s friends will show up and any of us would get overwhelmed."


    Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.


    "Yeah, me too. Honestly, the thought that with magic, I''d be fighting someone and I''d be just one mistake away from losing¡­ it''s exciting. It feels stupid to make that gamble, be that¡­ fragile. Obviously everyone makes mistakes, but it would be exciting. Constantly having your life on the line, always pushing yourself to survive in every fight. I don''t know that I could do it, but the idea is exciting."


    "I could do it for sure, I mean I never get hit anyways, but I don''t need magic to kill an enemy with one hit."


    "Oh really? Coming from the guy who almost died on his first Parroukan hunt, needing the captain to come and drag his ass out."


    "That was years ago."


    "What about last week, Brask, when you-"


    "OKAY, I''m just saying¡­ I think I could do it."


    "And what do you mean you could kill them in one hit, you can''t even hit us when we spar."


    "Can''t kill something you can''t hit."


    "True that."


    Brask blushed as he chugged his ale and the rest of the guards laughed.


    Some things don''t change at all.


    Suddenly, all the Drakene at the table stood, first those across from Felix then those next to him a moment later. They all turned to face the door then started to sit back down when Felix turned to see who had just entered.


    Walking into the tavern, in a long brown robe was a very saggy Drakene of about average height covered in brilliant chrome scales with one curling horn and one stub. Felix could have sworn their eyes flashed in his direction too quickly to be a natural glance before looking away just as quickly. They walked confidently towards the bar, knowing everyone was watching them.


    [E - Uncommon] Chromatic Drakene (Lvl 53)


    The guards at Felix''s table were all sitting again but with a new found tension. Their posture excellent, which was impressive considering their drunkenness. They were all trying to sneakily glance over at the new arrival who was ordering something from Borrugra.


    "Who is that?"


    "That is elder Arzime, the ritualist."


    "She''s the oldest one."


    Before anyone could add to the whispered descriptions, Drakene elder Arzime walked over to their table with a large tray of mugs.


    "A round for the guards'' finest?" Arzime said as she placed the tray down on the table in the empty spot the guards rushed to make, before picking up a mug herself.


    "I just wanted to extend a warm welcome to the visitor I was hearing about. I trust that everyone has treated you with kindness, and I wouldn''t be much of a role model of the Drakene code myself if I didn''t come to personally welcome you to the village. I hear you are an impressive caster, I should wish to observe this for myself, maybe some time next week, if you intend to stay that long?"


    "I definitely feel welcomed, thank you. Sure, sounds good to me, I will come find you a week from today."


    "Excellent, well gentlemen, I am getting rather old and I don''t tend to stay out and drink much these days, you all have a good night, don''t drink too much, and good luck on tomorrow''s hunt."


    Then she turned around, finished her mug in a single swig then placed it on a random table as she walked out of the bar. Only a few minutes after the door had closed behind her did the atmosphere return to it''s normal rowdy state.


    Felix was the one to break the awkward silence at their table, "What is the Drakene code?"


    "More like the Drakene Dogma if you ask me." Brask said.


    "Shut up, you shouldn''t say things like that, you know they look down on that."


    "We all think it."


    "Shut up."


    "The Drakene Code is a set of fundamental laws the entire race follows. To be honest, we don''t know if the entirety of the Drakene race across the multiverse follows the same code, but that''s the idea. The original Drakene came up with a set of rules or laws that they passed down throughout the entire race as we spread throughout the multiverse. Theoretically, the first rules are all the same, the rest vary based on your integration and ancestors in general."


    "What are the rules?"


    "Everyone should be treated equally, we are led by the three eldest Drakene, we are allowed to have our own laws but they are always beneath these, welcome everyone and treat them with kindness, within reason."


    "Don''t jail or constrain people, execution or banishment are acceptable punishments, never containment."


    "Those are the main ones that supposedly came from the original Drakene tribe."


    "There are more specific laws for our village but not much, don''t steal blah blah blah."


    "There could be more, but the code is only passed down to the council and they enforce it. There could be more but that''s what we know."


    "That doesn''t seem right, the rules seem reasonable to me, but keeping the original list secret is weird, isn''t it?" Felix asked.


    "Yes, yes it is, but don''t question it, don''t question anything, just believe it. It''s the truth, gotta be cause the elder''s said it." Brask ranted, getting loud enough towards the end for the guard next to him to try and physically shut him up.


    "Don''t you humans have something similar?"


    "Not that I have ever heard of. We have some common laws, but those are mostly based on our shared moral values, even then though¡­ nothing so set in stone." S§×arch* The N??elFir§×.net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    "Huh, whatever works I guess, just seems uncivilized I guess. No judgement, glad it works for you guys."


    Felix shrugged, "Well I will see you all tomorrow, don''t drink too much or you might sleep in."


    "You are leaving now? You don''t even drink, why do you have to sleep early?"


    "I am a simple man, I feel tired, so I sleep. I''ll see you all bright and early tomorrow morning."


    The guards waved him off and ordered more drinks.


    "He''s probably just going to vomit all the food he just ate. There is no way a tiny little human like that eats more than the rest of us combined, where would it even go? He was probably just trying to impress us and now he has to deal with the consequences."


    "I don''t know man, maybe that''s how he restores his mana, do you know how magic works? Maybe the food is a sacrifice to the god¡­"


    Felix faintly heard with his lightly buffed perception as he walked into the back to sleep for the night. . . . . .

 Chapter 28 - Book 27

    The next morning Felix arrived fifteen minutes earlier than he had last time for the hunt, to be sure he made it on time. Lucky too as the rest of the guard all arrived early this time.


    The same procedure followed as last time, though they were less skeptical of Felix and actually walked with him between the fights. He still wasn''t allowed to participate during the first couple of fights, something about Drakene law for this village and whatnot.


    Once they had collected the necessary Parroukan though, Felix was allowed in.


    "Ok, same thing as last time, except I am only going to use a single spell in the fight. I might use it multiple times, but all my jumping and dodging will be using energy. No wind or fire spells, only Mana Dart."


    "You should be fine, worst case you should be able to kill it before it kills you."


    "Well I fucking hope so."


    The guards chuckled as they spread out to find the next prey. Felix walked to try and stay in the middle of where everyone else was searching so he could be the first to respond to any of them. Just a few minutes passed before a familiar call pierced the ambience of the forest and hit Felix''s ears. He dashed and vaulted through the forest at the full speed his Traveler''s set would allow to reach the Parroukan before anyone else.


    [E - Common] Caregarr Parroukan (Lvl 44)


    Felix shot a mana dart next to the Parroukan''s head to grab it''s ire and take over for the Drakene guard that had found it. He quickly cycled his energy and infused his brain, spine, nervous system and eyes to buff his intelligence, dexterity, agility and perception respectively. All his practice yesterday had manifested itself in his pushing his stats by about fifty percent when infusing his cells. He had managed to push it further in testing, but it required a lot more energy and damaged his body.


    The Parroukan did exactly as expected and charged Felix. With his experience from last time, Felix had positioned himself directly in front of a tree just in case he missed. As the Parroukan closed the distance Felix leapt upwards towards the tree and jumped off of it back towards the Parroukan with a trajectory aiming above its head.


    Even with his buffed agility, Felix jumped too early. If he hadn''t used the tree, he might have timed it properly. As it was, the Parroukan saw Felix jumping upwards and mid charge it jumped into the air flapping it''s wings to try and catch him in it''s beak.


    Felix panicked and buffed all of the muscles and bones in his body then started constructing the biggest Mana Bolt he ever had. The beak grew dangerously close and Felix reacted on instinct, slapping the beak as hard as he could. With his energy buffed body, he managed to rocket himself to the side and right into a tree.


    The Parroukan''s head was knocked to the opposite side right before catching a massive Mana Dart through it''s ear.


    Ding You have slain a [E - Common] Caregarr Parroukan (Lvl 44)


    Ding You have gained a level in [E - Common] Caster


    Felix fell to the foot of the tree he had struck and barely managed to catch himself with a instant Gust. Rushing it, he made it too big causing his body to jump a few centimeters in the air just before collapsing in a pile on the ground. It was only later that he remembered he now had a dedicated Feather Fall spell.


    Well that was rough. I think I might have dislocated or sprained my shoulder and I definitely exhausted, well, everything.


    Felix righted himself against the tree and looked up to the see the guard that had found the Parroukan talking to Alrik who was failing to suppress a chuckle.


    After a handful of minutes waiting, it appeared as though no more Parroukan were coming to aid this one and Alrik walked over to Felix.


    "I heard you tried to do some fancy shit and paid the price for it."


    "I thought it would be more efficient to make two jumps with less force rather than blow a ton of energy and strain my muscles in one great leap. So yeah, fancy shit, I guess."


    "Yeah it may be more efficient, but timing, predictability and giving your opponents time to react are usually much more important. It''s probably most efficient to cast tiny spells thousands of times right? At least that''s how it is with our spears, but that''s not what we do because that gives the opponent way too much time to either defend themselves or kill you. You probably already know this though, with all that intelligence."


    "I appreciate the advice anyways, you never know what you don''t know and there is always a chance anyone could miss something. Except maybe The System, who knows with that."


    "Fair enough, I mean, that is why I keep explaining this shit, but most of the guards groan and complain and aren''t wise enough to realize that."


    "That tracks. I think I might have to sit out on the rest of the hunt though, if that''s alright."


    "Of course, we are gonna go find a few more before heading back, I hear we need to humble Brask, again. You good to make it back or do you want an escort?"


    "I should be fine, just a little banged up but it''s mostly superficial."


    Alrik nodded before spreading out into the jungle with the other guards to continue their hunt.


    Felix closed his eyes and meditated, without bothering to fix his posture or sit in anything close to a proper form.


    Having reflexively buffed all of his muscles and bones as much as he could, Felix was sore. He didn''t think he had injured himself anywhere, but he was dangerously low on energy, just under seven percent, and his entire body ached.


    He meditated for almost thirty minutes before deciding to head back to the village. He wasn''t worried about being in danger, as he was almost certain at this point that the monsters spawned on demand when the Drakene looked for them, rather he needed to sleep.


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    Felix rose to his feet and retrieved his kill before limping and waddling, with the speed of a sprinter, back to the village, stumbling only a handful of times. He was used to his Traveler''s set movement speed at this point, but not while limping.


    He laid down in the bed he was borrowing and forced himself to stay awake long enough to eat before passing out.


    When he awoke, Felix filled the ravenous hole in his stomach before handing over the fresh Parroukan corpse to Borrugra, with the same deal as before. After stowing the freshly cooked meat and plucked feathers, Felix entered the jungle. S§×ar?h the ¦ÇovelFire.¦Çet website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    Felix was still slightly sore, but had mostly recovered with the most notable exception being his energy sitting at just seventy percent. He tested the mobility of his shoulder, then continued to practice the timing for infusing his cells.


    Yesterday, he realized his approach to using energy had a big weakness. In the forest, running and jumping around, he has time to react to roots and trees, to prepare ahead of time. In combat, he has to react to the enemy and when reacting, he doesn''t have time to prepare and direct energy to where he needed it. Trying to perfectly predict his enemies would be too prone to error. If someone surprised him once, that mistake could kill him. Instead, he needed to be prepared for anything.


    Felix''s theory was that he could circulate his energy within his body constantly or spread his energy throughout his body so it was always where it needed to be. The latter option was significantly better when he didn''t need a lot of energy. If he ever needed to use more energy in his legs than he had stored there, he was screwed. With the former option, he had all of his energy at the ready when he needed it, but he needed to wait for it to cycle. If he could cycle it fast enough it wouldn''t matter, but then he had to maintain that speed.


    At some point in the future, he wanted to have it treated just like he planned to with his mana, with a core and channels to funnel energy wherever he needed it to be. That endeavor would take a lot of planning and required a much deeper understanding of mana and energy though, so he implemented one of the other options in the meantime.


    First, he suffused his entire energy pool throughout his body as he vaulted through the forest. He purposefully searched for more acrobatic feats, with taller roots to jump over and more trees to dash between. Felix quickly realized he would never have enough energy for a large jump though, like jumping over a Parroukan. His energy was spread too thin.


    Next he tried cycling the energy around his body in a loop. The energy traveled around and around until he used some of it. Unfortunately that meant that his reaction time was dependent on the speed he could cycle the energy. When he needed to jump, his muscles also took time to saturate with energy, which he knew. Not having energy at the ready meant he couldn''t prepare them ahead of time before the actual push.


    Ultimately, Felix decided to implement a combination of the two. He split his energy and spread about a quarter of it through his body. Another quarter of it, he cycled around in a loop. When he needed to jump or react to something he started infusing his muscles with what was there and waited for cycling energy to come around. The other half of it went to permanently buffing his perception, intelligence, dexterity and agility. He didn''t need to buff his dexterity at all times, but it was a side effect of buffing intelligence and agility, which he did want active at all times.


    Felix spent the rest of that day and the next practicing using energy to buff various actions. He sparred with guards, practiced dodging their spears and ran through the forest, testing his reflexes and acrobatics respectively.


    After having sparred with the guards Felix was roped into drinking with them again at the tavern. They promptly drank multiple rounds as Felix ate the equivalent of multiple meals.


    "So what''s up with Arzime, she''s only level 53. I would have thought one of the elders would be a higher level."


    "She''s an elder because she''s old, like really old."


    "Reeeeeeeeaaaaaallyyyyy old." Brask insightfully added


    "No one really knows much about it, but our tribe moved into this wood, and specifically here, something like a few hundred thousand years ago. She was there when they moved."


    "There is no way she''s that old, you slithering baffoon."


    The guard punched the other across the face then went right back to speaking as if nothing happened. Something which, Felix had learned, was not an uncommon occurrence among the Drakene. Apparently it was a cultural thing but luckily, none of them had tried to hit him in conversation, just yet.


    "Anyways, maybe it was only tens of thousands, but she was the apprentice of the elder way back then."


    "Some say they had a torrid affair, which was controversial to say the least, considering she would have been just a few decades old and the elder a few thousand, minimum."


    "That''s just a stupid rumor you shouldn''t be spreading around, lest you get taken by the monster."


    "Ah shut up, it''s a rumor sure, it also makes for a great story."


    "Anyways, whether or not that happened, the tribe eventually split up, for whatever reason, with Arzime and a small faction splitting off into the forest to start their own tribe."


    "So she''s been the leader of the tribe since the beginning."


    "She''s sneaky and conniving and one of the nicest people I''ve ever met. Like a mother to the whole village."


    "She''s done some wild things, like creating a massive conspiracy to throw a birthday party for Alrik when he didn''t want one a few decades back."


    "That was wild. None of us had any idea what was happening, no one suspected a thing until suddenly we found ourselves in the middle of a party."


    "I mean, I knew what was happening." Brask grumbled into his mug, just loud enough for the rest of them to hear.


    "You were like, 5 at the time. What do you mean you knew?"


    "Why isn''t she a higher level then? If she''s that old and that skilled, why is she only level 53?" Felix inquired.


    "Not sure on that one. Most of us have wondered the same thing. Some people say she hides her true level to seem more approachable and so she doesn''t intimidate people when she walks down the street. Some say she is too busy taking care of all of us."


    Or The System limited it because it needs to keep the dungeon at a specific level.


    "Interesting. Ok off topic, why are all of your clothes so bare and plain? You hunt Parroukan every few days and their feathers are beautiful, why doesn''t anyone wear anything colorful or interesting? Or just more than underwear? Is that just Drakene culture?"


    "Why would I wear something bright and colorful or any bigger than this? It would take away from and cover up the brilliance of my scales, which are very popular with the ladies, if you know what I mean."


    "Hah, you think the ladies care about your dull green scales? They love the luster of my brilliant blue."


    "Hey woah woah now, when was the last time you even talked to a lady, huh? They are magnetized to my frosty whites and you know it."


    "Oh really, wanna bet?"


    "The standard? Actually, let''s make it two wages this time."


    "Deal."


    I think that''s my cue for the night.


    Felix quietly got up and left without any of the guard being the wiser.


    Just over two days left until the monster usually strikes. I think I can swing one more hunt tomorrow morning, then I''ll start looking for it tomorrow night. I have a sneaking suspicion the monster might decide to strike a couple nights early. Agh, I never got the chance to ask, what the hell do they do with the feathers then?


    The next morning, Felix was the first to show for the hunt once again. There were late comers in the form of both the blue and white scaled guards from last night, the ones who initiated the bets.


    Alrik led the pack into the jungle and the two late comers dragged behind near where Felix was and started whispering to each other.


    "I guess it''s a tie, once again?"


    "Not so fast. She invited me back to her place, where things started to heat up, when her roommate walked in¡­ and well, one thing led to another."


    "What? That did not happen, I do not believe it. Bullshit. What was her name?"


    "I don''t kiss and tell, I am a gentleman don''t you know."


    "Hah, uh huh. How about this, double the bet, whoever can find more Parroukans wins."


    "You know I can''t afford to give you 4 wages."


    "Oh I see, I get it you are just-"


    Felix promptly dashed off to the side to avoid listening in on the rest of their conversation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 Chapter 29 - Book 28

    Felix waited as the initial part of the hunt went exactly as it always did. Afterwards they agreed to find a Parroukan for Felix to fight, which only took a few minutes. As before, Felix was the first to make it to the fight due to his equipment''s ridiculous movement speed buff.


    [E - Common] Caregarr Parroukan (Lvl 46)


    Is there a pattern here? Why are the Parroukan''s I''ve been fighting exactly 2 levels higher than the last every time? That''s just luck, right?


    Felix positioned himself exactly where he wanted to be, far away from any trees. Felix had Alrik agree with him fighting this one differently from the last ones. Felix wasn''t going to kill the Parroukan right away, instead he was going to use it to practice his reflexes and energy infusion. If and when more Parroukans showed up to aid this one, Felix planned on testing his reflexes against them all.


    The Parroukan, as always, charged at Felix. Felix waited until the last second and jumped off to the side. When going for the kill shot, he needed to jump over it to get in range of it''s head, when practicing reflexes and timing, it was much more efficient for him to side step it.


    Felix was slightly early, but less than he expected to be. He was leaning towards being earlier than he thought and adjusting marginally from there because being too early was a mistake he could survive.


    The Parroukan finally managed to come to a stop then, turned around to charge at Felix again. This time he was still slightly early, but closer than before. He didn''t want to get too close as he was pretty sure the Parroukan would kill him if he tripped or something else.


    After practicing on a few dozen more charges Felix killed the Parroukan.


    Ding You have slain a [E - Common] Caregarr Parroukan (Lvl 46)


    Ding You have gained 2 levels in [E - Common] Caster


    I wanted to practice more but I''m already so close with my timing that getting any closer is going to get too dangerous. Also I thought more would have shown up by now. I should practice against something that isn''t going to instantly kill me, but is still high enough level, and has enough agility, to be fast and thus challenging. Maybe if I figure out a better defensive option than mana shield I can practice some more.


    Once again, no other Parroukan showed up in defense of this one, even after waiting a quarter of an hour. Felix retrieved the body.


    Guess there just weren''t any nearby, huh.


    Felix hung around as the rest of the guards fooled around with the Parroukan for a little while then headed back to the village with them. Today was a specified training day for the guards so Felix planned on sparring with them.


    Felix spent the day practicing his reflexes against the guards, who were excellent practice considering, even buffed, Felix''s agility was significantly lower than theirs. He was barely managing to dodge their spears when he did dodge them, which he often didn''t.


    Battered and bruised Felix ran out deep into the jungle, right to the edge of the dungeon to sleep.


    The next morning Felix opened up his quest screen.


    Quest Dungeon C


    A Monster plagues the people of the Caregarr Forest, hunting them, at night, every 9 days or so. The monster has hunted the people for generations and rarely eats people from within the village, mostly hunting those that risk the outside. There is an unofficial curfew to keep people from being taken and most believe this keeps them safe.


    (1/6) Gather information [Complete]


    (2/6) Wait for the monster''s next hunt [Complete]


    (3/6) Find the monster yourself or using bait


    Ran back to the village and headed over to see Borrugra. He had her pluck and cook half of the Parroukan corpse for him. Either she didn''t notice or didn''t mention that he didn''t sleep in the tavern that night.


    He spent most of the day talking to people he found throughout the village. No one seemed to have been taken last night, unless they weren''t noticed yet. No one even noticed anything off or strange occurrences of any kind, sight or sound.


    Maybe I was wrong. Guess I''ll find out later today, I am pretty sure I know some of what is going on, but I won''t be sure until later. In the meantime, I need to come up with a way of convincing Alrik to- actually, I think I''ve got it. If things today play out the way I think they might, I need to start preparing.


    Felix cast the faintest blue Light spell he could and held it just above his head, barely perceptible in the daylight peeking through the trees. He then continued what he was doing, walking around the village and talking to everyone he could except now he didn''t bother asking them about last night, he simply wandered around and made small talk with as many people as he could. He made specifically sure to walk to everywhere within the village, within a few hundred meters of everything and everyone he could. As he passed by people, he moved the faint blue light around a little, just wiggling and swinging it around.


    On his walk back to the tavern, he spotted elder Arzime who appeared to be loitering around walkways nearby talking to random shopkeepers. As Felix approached, she quickly disengaged from her conversation to approach him.


    "Ah, I''ve been looking for you. As you know I want you to feel welcome, as a role model of the Drakene Code, so I made you something."


    Damn, exactly as I expected.


    "Oh I already feel so welcome in the village, you really didn''t have to."


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    "I insist, it''s just a small thing. Please, take it, I hope you will look back fondly on your time here and if you ever become a powerful sorcerer, you will remember our humble tribe."


    She reached her hand out and produced a wooden ring. The ring was glazed with some sort of reflective coating and had brilliant blue and green colors embedded within.


    [E - Uncommon] Ring of Energy and Mana


    This ring increases your mana and energy by 50 points.


    "Of course I will. Wow this is excellent, thank you so much. I really appreciate it. If I ever become a true powerhouse, I will be sure to remember my time here."


    Felix took the ring and Arzime smiled, nodded and walked off, "I will see you in a few days, yes?"


    "Of course, I am greatly looking forward to it."


    As soon as she walked far enough away, Felix checked the time.


    Damn, still a few hours left.


    Felix turned around and walked back towards the guard house. He walked inside and right into Alrik''s office.


    "I lied to you. I''ve been here looking for the monster the whole time, I wasn''t just passing through. I found the monster, and I''ve set my trap. Tomorrow, I will present it to you. I respect you, so I came to see if you want to help and share in the credit, I don''t want to make you look¡­ incompetent."


    Alrik laughed, "I knew that, I am the guard captain you know. This isn''t the first time someone was taken then a loved one got upset and hired someone from outside the village to help. Rarely are they so confident though. Don''t worry about me, if you can catch the monster I will be more than happy, I don''t care that much about my reputation, we Drakene are not that prideful, or at least I''m not. I am curious though, how do you plan on catching it where we have all failed."


    "Ah well that is exactly how I came up with my plan, I thought about what can I do that none of you can? The answer is magic. Earlier today I walked around the village and cast a spell to place magical trackers on everyone. Tonight I will lie in wait just outside the village, as soon as someone is in distress or takes any damage, I''ll know."


    "I''m not sure how I feel about you casting a spell on every one of our citizens. I guess if they didn''t even notice it, since no one has come to complain to me, it''s fine. Not a bad plan, good luck. I guess if you do find it, and you need help taking it down, you are welcome to recruit some of the guard, they should be in the tavern tonight, as always."


    "Thank you, I appreciate the thought, but I won''t need them. I killed the Parroukan in one spell, remember? I can definitely manage this one, plus I wouldn''t want any of the guard to get hurt when they don''t need to."


    Alrik frowned, "I see, well, good luck, for your sake and ours."


    Felix left the building and walked back to the tavern.


    Well that sucked. Even if he is a dungeon construct, I did like him. Luckily I think he mostly bought it, even if my acting was poor. The way I conveyed the general message should obscure it enough that it doesn''t matter. I wish I had thought of something better than arrogance though.


    Felix waited around the bar for the guards to show up for the next part of his, completely on the spot made up plan. Felix waited until the guard he wanted showed up but almost went with his back up when his original target walked into The Tipsy Tree.


    "Ah Brask, perfect, just the Drakene I''ve been looking for. Let me buy you a drink."


    "Uh, ok thanks."


    Felix walked up to the bar and pretended to order something but instead grabbed the drink he had already ordered fifteen minutes ago for just this occasion. He handed the mug to Brask who took it and immediately took a swig.


    "Woah, what is that. It''s really strong but really good."


    "Oh it''s something a little higher end, I just appreciate you and I think everyone takes you a little for granted."


    "Yeah they kinda do, don''t they?"


    "In fact, I even got you a gift, it''s not much, but it''s all I had. I hope you like it. But careful, I don''t want the other guards to see that I got you something before I find something for them, don''t flaunt it."


    Felix reached out and placed the ring Arzime had given him onto Brask''s finger.


    "Oh wow, thanks Felix I really appreciate that." He proceeded to finish the entire mug, so Felix produced another of the same stuff and handed it to him.


    "Well I''ll be honest, I''m not buttering you up just cause I like you, I need some help. I set up a trap for the monster, tonight, but I don''t think I can handle it. Since you are one of the most capable of the guards and Alrik can''t leave the village undefended, I was hoping you could help me out."


    "Ah, I see. I thought something might be up, I''m pretty smart about these things you know. Makes sense you would come to me with this, I can handle it for sure. Where will the monster hicc gonna be?"


    "Out in the jungle." Felix opened his map and pointed to a random point in the jungle, "I didn''t want anyone in the village to get hurt so I set the trap here."


    "That''s smart, something I would have thought for sure." Brask leaned forwards and whispered loudly in Felix''s ear, "Don''t worry, I''ll handle have this one." Sear?h the ¦ÇovelFire.¦Çet website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    Brask patted Felix on the back then stumbled out of the tavern.


    Felix walked over to the guards usual table and sat down.


    Alright that should do it. The hardest part is gonna be the timing. Hopefully I am right about all this though. It makes sense, but I do tend to way over think things. It is possible the ring was just a gift and the monster is real. She just seemed so suspicious and¡­ off.


    First, the monster takes out dissenters. What kind of unintelligent beast targets people based on their ideals and political beliefs, but maybe it''s just luck or something directing a beast. Second, one of the elders comes to welcome me to the village, not two or three of them, only one. Even though she claims it was part of the Drakene code, wouldn''t the others welcome me if it was so important? When she does, she slyly asks if I am going to be staying for a while by creating plans a week from now. Why not any time sooner than that, again it could be her schedule and maybe I''m overthinking it.


    When the guards mentioned she was cunning and capable of creating grand conspiracies for something as simple as a surprise party. I suspected she might be the monster herself or directing a beast somehow¡­ probably rituals. If she was behind everything and is as cunning as they say, it would make sense for her to take me out, and take me out a night early just to make sure I didn''t suspect anything. When I wasn''t around the night before the monster was supposed to attack, she sought me out the next day.


    Now her plan is thrown off, she planned on taking me out a night early but she couldn''t find me, so now she has to be sure she gets me. She creates a simple ring that she can use to track me somehow and presents it to me as a gift. She probably suspects or knows I am searching for the monster, as Alrik did. Who, I unfortunately had to lie and be a dick to, since he likely reports everything to the council or her directly as part of his job. If I convince him I don''t need the guard, he will either report that he offered and I arrogantly refused or leave it out as irrelevant. Hopefully he''s not in on it too, that would be a pain in the ass.


    As I can do with most people that are a citizens of my fort, she can probably track every Drakene within the village. So now she has tracking information on everyone, me and the Drakene, or so she thinks. That''s why the bait needed to be outside the village, so the tracking doesn''t work. Hopefully she doesn''t have tribal tracking that lets her see their location anywhere, cause she likely won''t fall for it if she doesn''t think I am alone. That''s the other reason Alrik needed to report that I wouldn''t use the guards, even though I need them to witness the event if it does play out the way I think it will.


    Hopefully I am not just overthinking everything. Worst case scenario, I am and none of that is true, in which case Brask is just good bait. . . . . .

 Chapter 30 - Book 29

    Felix talked to Borrugra, got some paper from her to write down a message and told her to pass it on to the guards in an hour. Then he ran out of the tavern after Brask.


    He found Brask half way out of the village with his spear in hand stumbling down the walkways. Felix tailed him easily, as he was very drunk.


    I might have mixed those drinks a little to strong. It''s hard when you don''t drink yourself and you don''t know how resistant their endurance makes them. Oh well, should work out fine.


    Brask made it all the way to the spot Felix had pointed out on the map and proceeded to look around for the monster. After not managing to immediately find it, Brask sat down against a tree root and fell asleep within a few minutes.


    Way too strong.


    Felix only had to wait a half hour before, from the edge of jungle a massive quadruped beast made of shadow walked out. It resembled a panther but was bigger than the Parroukan and its body mutated itself and morphed as it moved, like a dark billowing cloud.


    Ah, shit. It''s an actual monster.


    Felix concentrated on the beast as it walked over to Brask, looked down at him them looked around the area. After almost a minute of looking around, it picked him up in its maw then ran towards the village.


    Uh, maybe not? Maybe I couldn''t identify it because it''s an illusion or something¡­ I hope.


    Felix ran after the beast, trying to be as stealthy as he could manage. He almost lost it a few times but luckily he could vaguely sense the mana radiating off of it. As they approached the village, the beast shrunk down as small as it could while still carrying Brask and become almost entirely translucent. He followed it back to the walkway leading into the village but it avoided it completely and instead, it ran around the walkway and into the chasm below the village.


    As soon as it jumped down, Felix turned around and used Flame Thrower to write a quick message in the ground in front of the walkway, so that anyone leaving the village would see it.


    He peered over the edge of the chasm and watched the beast dash down into a cave he wouldn''t have otherwise noticed on the far side at the bottom. Felix waited a few minutes then pursued the beast into the chasm, using feather fall to make his way down slowly, far away from the cave. He made it to the bottom and crept along the wall towards the cave.


    I should get some stealth and scouting skills, or spells. Ooh an invisibility spell would be nice.


    He peered into the cave but saw nothing from the outside as the cave curved downwards and off to the side. Felix used Flame Thrower to char a massive arrow into the ground that pointed into the cave then crept inside. He paid particular attention to the ground, walls, ceiling and his mana senses and managed to detect a few magically triggered traps which he easily dismantled. They didn''t contain any interesting spells, just Thunderclap to warn the occupants it seemed.


    Coming around the bend Felix looked into the cave and saw essentially what he had expected. The cave opened up into a large open chamber. In the middle of the chamber was a large ritual circle drawn in chalk with candles placed around the outside. Brask was laying, still asleep, in the middle of the circle. On the far end of the circle stood the brilliantly scaled chromatic Drakene elder, Arzime. She appeared to be grinding something in a mortar and pestle facing away from the cave''s entrance.


    What a surprise¡­ who ever could have seen this coming¡­


    Felix backed up to make sure he wouldn''t be seen then opened up the quest screen.


    Quest Dungeon C


    A Monster plagues the people of the Caregarr Forest, hunting them, at night, every 9 days or so. The monster has hunted the people for generations and rarely eats people from within the village, mostly hunting those that risk the outside. There is an unofficial curfew to keep people from being taken and most believe this keeps them safe.


    (1/6) Gather information [Complete]


    (2/6) Wait for the monster''s next hunt [Complete]


    (3/6) Find the monster yourself or using bait [Complete]


    (4/6) Figure out where the people are being taken [Complete]


    (5/6) Find out why the people are being taken [Complete]


    (6/6) Solve the monster problem for the Drakene


    Well, hopefully this ritual isn''t ready right away. I just realized it''s going to take forever for the guards to make it down here.


    Felix ran back out the cave and into the chasm. The guards seem to have gotten some of his message as they were standing at the edge of the chasm. Felix quickly wrote a message into the ground with Flame Thrower.


    Quiet. Jump.


    The Guards looked at each-other but none of them jumped, a few of them even stepped back from the ledge. Suddenly, one of the Drakene jumped over the edge into the chasm. As they fell Felix recognized them as Alrik. He quickly caught him with a Feather Fall spell and lowered him to the ground as quietly as he could. Having seen Alrik survive, the others started jumping down as well.


    Alrik approached Felix but he quickly shushed him and pointed towards the cave. Alrik''s eyes widened then he steeled themselves before he nodded. Felix led the guards into the cave alongside Alrik. As they walked, Felix began to hear chanting coming from inside the cave. They turned the last corner and walked into the chamber where Brask was floating in the middle of a ritual circle as Arzime chanted with her arms in air. Sear?h the ¦Çov§×lFire .net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    Felix sensed a massive amount of mana pouring itself into the ritual and congregating in the middle into Brask. Much fainter, he sensed a trickle of mana and energy intertwined being sucked out of Brask and pouring itself into Arzime.


    So that''s how she''s lived so long.


    Alrik had clearly seen enough as he rushed in and charged Arzime with his shoulder. Felix walked forwards and manually tore the mana out of the ritual then dissipating it as much as he could so it didn''t explode. The mana and energy Felix had felt stopped trickling out of Brask as he fell to the ground. The rest of the guard rushed in and two of them walked forwards to treat and then carry Brask away


    Turning his head Felix saw Alrik punch Arzime then manacle her hands together. He approached them and Alrik turned to him, anger covering his face and a single tear leaking out.


    "Can you identify the ritual? Do you know what it does?"


    "I am not certain, but I am pretty sure it is transferring life force, making her live longer." Felix said solemnly.


    Alrik lowered his head in a half nod, "Thank you."


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    Felix nodded.


    At this point, Arzime recovered enough from her punch inflicted daze to begin screaming, "YOU DON''T UNDERSTAND, IF YOU DON''T LET ME FINISH THE RITUAL, WE ARE ALL GONNA DIE."


    "The hell are you talking about." Alrik growled into her face as he shook her roughly.


    "THE RITUAL NEEDS TO BE PERFORMED REGULARLY, IT PROTECTS US. YOU THINK I WANTED TO DO THIS, I HAD TO DO IT."


    Alrik looked back at Felix, a mix of confusion and anger written on his face, "She''s telling the truth. Guard captain skill"


    Felix walked forwards, "Arzime, what does the ritual do?"


    "IT PROTECTS OUR VILLAGE."


    "Who taught you the ritual? Who told you to perform it?"


    "PLEASE JUST LET ME FINISH, I HAVE TO FINISH IT."


    Alrik shook her again, "Answer the question."


    "Rhuz, my beloved."


    Alrik turned to Felix, face painted with more confusion than anger at this point. Preempting his questions Felix answered, "You ever hear that rumor that she was involved in a torrid affair with the elder of the previous tribe yours originally split from?" Alriks eyes widened slightly and Felix continued, "Just a guess, but he probably told her that, lied to her and never told her the truth. He died somehow and she''s been carrying on the legacy ever since, casting the ritual but not knowing what it was actually doing."


    Or it really does protect them and I just fucked them all over, guess I''ll find out soon.


    "So she has been sacrificing one of our people, every nine days, for millennia, because she believed a lie?"


    Felix shrugged, "Love is a powerful drug, even beyond the grave."


    Quest Dungeon C


    A Monster plagues the people of the Caregarr Forest, hunting them, at night, every 9 days or so. The monster has hunted the people for generations and rarely eats people from within the village, mostly hunting those that risk the outside. There is an unofficial curfew to keep people from being taken and most believe this keeps them safe.


    (1/6) Gather information [Complete]


    (2/6) Wait for the monster''s next hunt [Complete]


    (3/6) Find the monster yourself or using bait [Complete]


    (4/6) Figure out where the people are being taken [Complete]


    (5/6) Find out why the people are being taken [Complete]


    (6/6) Solve the monster problem for the Drakene [Complete]


    (Bonus) Find a diplomatic solution. [Complete]


    (Bonus) Discover the truth. [Complete]


    (Bonus) Do not let any Drakene die. [Complete]


    Thank god, or The System. That would have sucked if I was wrong and the ritual really was protecting the village.


    Quest Dungeon C


    You have completed the quest.


    You have successfully achieved all normal and all 3 Bonus objectives.


    Congratulations.


    Quest Dungeon C


    Calculating Rewards


    Bonuses:


    Diplomacy


    Truth


    Lives Lost


    Reward Tier: Highest


    Quest Dungeon C


    Rewards


    [E - Special] Gem of the Forest


    [E - Special] Amulet of the Gems


    [E - Special] Energy Wraps of Defence


    [E - Rare] Parroukan Feather Enchanting Quill


    [E - Rare] Jungle Wood Shield


    [E - Uncommon] Jungle Dagger


    [E - Uncommon] Jungle Spear


    [E - Common] Steel Longsword


    500,000 Tutorial Credits


    Felix found himself in a familiar, evenly lit room with indistinct slate grey walls and a slight blue tint. In the center of the room there was a long table that held all of the loot that had just been listed to him.


    First, he retrieved the Credits which were contained in a simple disc. The longsword was nothing special and he stowed that as well. The jungle spear and dagger were both made entirely of wood, with handles made of a vine wrap. They didn''t hold any enchantments, but they appeared sharper than the longsword was despite their material.


    The shield had a simple durability enchantment on it, nothing special.


    A lot of this is essentially garbage to me. I guess I can sell them for some amount of money.


    The first interesting item Felix identified was the familiar deep blue feather, the Enchanting Quill.


    [E - Rare] Parroukan Feather Enchanting Quill


    Though it provides no benefit towards enchanting whatsoever, a Parroukan feather is widely considered to be a rather beautiful shade. This feather has been modified to create an excellent enchanting quill.


    This quill has [E - Rare] level precision and manographic ability.


    I hope that''s good, guess I''ll find out eventually, hopefully I come across a puzzle dungeon soon.


    Felix was tentatively excited about the quill, but didn''t know enough about enchanting or quills to know how excited he should be.


    The next item on the table was a big pile of white cloth strips.


    [E - Rare] Energy Wraps of Defence


    Cloth wraps, once the property of a powerful monk. After countless centuries of use, these simple strips of cloth have been imbued with their wielders abilities.


    When energy is cycled through the wraps, they harden to be essentially indestructible within the E grade.


    Felix picked up the cloth strips and wrapped them around his arms. He thought about wearing one or both of them around his torso, since they didn''t seem to restrict where they were equipped, but they didn''t cover enough for him to be satisfied. Around his arms, they covered from the base of his fingers to half way up his bicep, which was much more useful.


    The last item on the table was a combination of the two listed items. Felix had suspected they worked together, but he didn''t expect them to come together and essentially be a single item. The item was a simple thin silver colored chain with a circular silver pendant hanging off of it. The pendant had 3 slots in it, with one of them containing a brilliant green gem, reminiscent of an emerald, though Felix had no idea what it was made of.


    [E - Special] Amulet of the Forest


    A pendant with three slots intended to imbue the wielder with the effects of the gems slotted within.


    Forest: While equipped, your maximum energy pool is increased by 50%.


    Holy shit. I get to upgrade it with even more gems and it''s already the best item I own, well¡­ these boots are insanely comfortable.


    Felix equipped the amulet and found that he didn''t even feel it hanging off of his neck. The pendant seemed to hang, unnaturally, in such a way that it would never interfere or get caught on anything.


    Quest Dungeon C


    All Rewards Collected


    Would you like to leave this room?


    Warning: You may only remain in this room for a maximum of 15 minutes.


    Yes.


    No.


    Yes.


    Felix found himself outside in the dead of night, though it was only about 10 pm he judged from the tutorial screen.


    Tutorial Status


    There are 82,927/100,000 people.


    There are 84 days, 0 hours, 24 minutes remaining.


    You have completed 3 dungeons.


    You have helped kill 0 world bosses.


    You have captured 1 fort.


    Wow, there are a lot more people still alive then I thought there would be.


    Felix almost took a single step to the south when he was stopped short by a System screen.


    Congratulations


    You have successfully completed three dungeons. You have completed one dungeon of each type.


    The location of all dungeons will be marked on your map.


    Oh shit, that''s incredibly lucky. Doesn''t really change my plans much, just makes it so I don''t have to look really hard or pay for my map to be revealed.


    Opening his map, Felix saw icons on each of the dungeons he had completed thus far. The combat dungeon icon was two swords crossed over each-other in red, the puzzle was a blue puzzle piece and the quest dungeon was a yellow question mark icon. Panning his map around, he counted six white cave symbols marking the rest of the dungeons.


    Woah, that is useful, there is at least one dungeon in the middle of the ocean. I don''t know how I would have found that one. Maybe that''s why The System reveals them at all, cause some of them are really hard to find and if you are hunting them down it wants to reward you. Maybe it will do the same thing with world bosses, though it probably expects an entire fort or multiple teaming together to take them down. Maybe it just reveals their locations to everyone. Realistically, this shouldn''t be set in stone though, it can probably just change things on the fly, hopefully. I don''t want an announcement to cause people to rush and try to kill a world boss, either being too hasty and killing themselves or stealing my kills. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 Chapter 31 - Book 30

    Felix continued onwards towards the fort on his map to the south, sitting right in the middle of a small peninsula. Checking the town''s icon from his map, there were no requirements to enter nor was there any note.


    Felix ran south, now starving his muscles of energy. At first he tried supplying them with no energy, and it went horribly, all his muscles were exhausted, he couldn''t even move them. He felt like that should have been obvious. After that realization, he simply restricted the amount of energy his muscles pulled as much as he could without having them simply fail.


    He was slower than he normally would be, but with his Traveler''s set, it wasn''t a huge deal. If his estimations were correct, he would still arrive in just under two hours.


    Approaching the peninsula, the forest completely gave way to a sandy beach stretching to either side. Felix followed the edge of the water, which was much rougher than he was expecting, towards the village. The beach next to him being his by a barrage of massive waves at a semi regular interval with very little between them.


    As Felix approached the town, he was surprised to see that the fort consisted of a single visible building in the center of the peninsula. The building appeared to be a massive tiki bar. All around the bar among the palm trees, were people laying in the sand, dancing and just generally vacationing. The tiki bar also emanated a cheerful song that fit in very well with the aesthetic. The entire place was lit up by a combination of luminescent bugs flying around, torches and the moon. Despite it being the middle of the night, it was well lit.


    Felix approached the bar, at a semi normal pace, so as not to frighten anyone. He walked up to the bar and took a seat on one of the bar stools. The inside of the tiki bar was exactly what Felix expected with bottles on shelves spanning the entire visible interior. The only unexpected thing about it, was how massive it was. The tiki bar was the only building in sight and it looked like it might be able to serve a few thousand people.


    Where did they get this much furniture and more importantly, this many bottles of alcohol? These can''t all be from the profession dungeon can it?


    Just a short minute after Felix had sat down, a man appeared in front of him so quickly, Felix didn''t even see him coming until he was a few meters away. The man looked exactly like Felix expected, tall, tan, blond and blue eyes. He wore a short sleeve tropical button up, with none of the buttons attached, board shorts and flip flops.


    [E - Common] Human (Lvl 30)


    Woah, that is by far the highest level human I have seen yet. Wait, he''s higher level than I am, what gives?.


    "Hello, welcome to the Tiki Kahuna, what can I get for ya?"


    "Uh, hi. Sorry I don''t drink, I was just stopping by this fort to check it out and uh-"


    "Woah dude, your level is insane, you must be like¡­ suuuuuper strong."


    He grabbed some bottles and started working on something under the counter that Felix couldn''t see.


    "Not really, actually kinda, I guess. I mean you''re higher level than I am."


    "Eh? Sorta, you have a class right? Some kinda monk with those arm wraps?"


    "Caster actually, why?"


    "Oh nice, magic is dope. I don''t have a class at all. You said you are new here, let me show you ''round."


    The man put a drink he was preparing on the counter and pushed it towards Felix. It was a colorful drink in a half coconut with a straw.


    "It''s virgin, I promise."


    The man hopped over the bar and landed right next to Felix''s stool, then started walking away. Felix grabbed the drink, stood up and followed as he continued, "When I got here I was offered a bunch of classes, as we all were. Thing is, I took an oath of peace back before the integration, I''m a pacifist, I refuse to harm any living being on purpose, no matter what."


    He continued, "I refused all of the classes, many times, until eventually The System agreed to offer me an alternative. I get two profession slots, but I can''t cause harm to any leveling creature, ever. Which was basically the oath I had already taken, so it was a no brainer. I picked up bar tending as my first profession then got dropped right next to the fort here. Before it was a series of shacks laid out around the beach. Someone else had already claimed the fort but then they gave it up for some reason. I claimed the fort and eventually, after some work managed to pickup my other profession, resort manager. So now I just hang out here all day and manage the resort. I tend the bar and I get levels and experience for both professions."


    "Oh wow, that''s awesome. Aren''t you worried someone is just gonna kill you though? You know, because you can''t fight back?"


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    "Nah, I''m not helpless. I get tools to defend myself and run away just for being a pacifist, The System will protect me somewhat, and I''m pretty fast. I got stacking skills to get places fast so I can keep everyone happy from both professions. I just can''t do any harm to them no matter what. System even said if I try to find a loop hole, it''ll smite me. Not too worried though, I am very happy with how it all turned out."


    "Ah that makes sense I guess. So you turned all the shacks into one massive bar? Where did you get enough alcohol to fill the whole place up?"


    Felix took a tentative sip from the glass, now that he was pretty sure it wasn''t poisoned. It was delicious, a fruity concoction but not too sweet. It was all kinds of flavors, and Felix swore the taste changed every time he took a sip.


    "Well, I hit the puzzle dungeon at some point, did pretty well and got rewarded a huge stockpile. Then I paid people to take the bartender profession temporarily and run the puzzle dungeon. Some of them kept the profession and they help me tend bar." sea??h th§× N?velFire.n§×t website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    At this point they had walked along the edge of the water, on the same side Felix followed to get here. The massive waves crashed just as they had before, with one small difference. Felix saw from further north, they were being surfed.


    "We also got a lot of surfers."


    "I can see that, where are the waves coming from, they don''t seem natural. Is it some crazy skill?"


    "Hah, I wish. Nah, there''s a world boss somewhere out that way that seems to just thrash around. Someone tried to swim out to figure it out one time, they saw the icon on their map and turned right around."


    "Good to know."


    "Anyways, what have you been up to. You must be some kind of killing machine, or did you max out your profession?"


    This guy talks like we''ve been friends forever and are just catching up. I guess it''s part of the whole resort manager thing, make everyone feel welcome. Honestly, I really like this guy, it definitely helps that it is literally impossible for him to stab me in the back, ever.


    "I own the fort way over to the north west. Mostly just hit dungeons that''s all, I''m gonna try to complete them all."


    "Oh shit, going for all the achievements then? Well, if your fort decides to take out some world bosses, could you leave this one be? or at least save it for last. Hey you''re that profession town, right? Any chance you guys have any brewers or something?"


    "Yeah I can hold out on this one for you. I''m not sure- OH SHIT, one second."


    Felix quickly opened his menus and pulled up the requests for withdrawals and payments from the fort. He quickly skimmed and approved them all seeing no red flags.


    Shit, sorry Noah, I promise to open this at least once a day from now on. Or at least try to.


    "Sorry, I''ll ask when I head back. You should be able to buy things from the marketplace though, most of the people in my fort are selling to the auction house or, more commonly since there aren''t many buyers, the market place."


    "Yeah I''ve been buying a good bit from both, but taxes are rough, you know? I have the taxes set to 0, cause I make more than enough from the bar, plus everyone hates taxes. Man, some of these forts though, have their taxes set at 20%, there was one set at 50%, once I saw that, I refused to buy from them ever."


    "That is ridiculous, I have mine at 5% since we need income."


    "That''s super reasonable though, especially if you use the money to improve the place and whatever."


    "Well, I hope most people agree with you. What''s with the people who live here, is it just a constant party? Do they even level?"


    "Most don''t level at all, just hang out and relax. Eat good food and chill. Everyone sleeps on the beach, under the stars and you get enough credits to feed yourself every day for about half the tutorial."


    "That''s wild, I wish there was an easy form of transportation. I am sure a lot of the people working on their professions over in my fort would love to come and chill here for a while."


    "Well hey, you''re the magic man, if you figure it out, you are definitely welcome to put a train station or a portal or whatever here. Everyone is welcome, most buildings aren''t but I think I can make an exception for something like that. It would have to become part of the resort cause I have to own it for it to go on the land. If you don''t want that it could go right on the edge of the resort to the north, then it would just be a short walk. We can figure it out later if it comes up."


    "Sounds good, where are your auction house and market place nodes? I got some things I want to unload then I gotta get back to dungeon hunting."


    "Oh sure sure, they''re at the bar, come on. Oh I''m Mike by the way."


    "Felix."


    You know, I was kind of expecting Brody or something, Mike doesn''t really feel like a surfer dude kind of name.


    Mike led Felix back to the bar and took his coconut glass and insisted the drink would be free before pointing him to the nodes.


    "Good luck, and if you need a vacation, we''re always here."


    Felix listed the jungle shield, dagger and shield on the auction house as well as the great-sword and the maul. He found the long sword more useable than the great-sword and figured he wouldn''t be able to overcome his lack of stats with a bigger weapon. He had no use for the spear or shield and the daggers he had were enough. He figured he was better off with credits to buy something useful. He set all of the auctions at five days.


    With that taken care of, Felix guiltily double checked the withdrawal requests again and found it empty, then headed out towards the north. The next dungeon was far, about the same distance from Quest Dunegon C back to Tripeak-Valley. Between Felix and his destination were four separate forts, requiring detours of varying lengths.


    Felix was curious about the other towns but not curious enough to check them out. He would have stopped through one of them which was only a tiny detour, but it was listed as not accepting anyone, visitors or citizens. He would head directly by it anyways so he would get to check it out, just not from inside.


    Felix headed back out of the peninsula into the forest. He ran at his energy starved speed, consistently checking to see if he could decrease the energy flow every ten minutes or so. He didn''t end up decreasing it a single time, so he figured it would take a lot longer to increase his muscles'' energy efficiency.


    The forest was incredibly boring. It was exactly as he remembered it, except now it had the occasional wolf or bear at about level fifteen. He figured there were probably more animals around, they likely just avoided him either due to his speed or higher level. He did hear them sometimes, though it was difficult with the wind rushing by his ears at the speed he ran. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 Chapter 32 - Book 31

    About halfway through the forest, Felix had to make a detour of a few kilometers to avoid grabbing the attention of a world boss. He almost ran right into it but luckily he pulled up his map and saw the icon fast enough to divert himself. He stealthily walked by, just close enough to identify it.


    [E - Special] Royal Elk (Lvl 86)


    Thank System I saw the icon and didn''t just run into that thing. Not sure how I''m gonna fight that, it definitely has the advantage in the forest, despite it''s size. Maybe I drag it out? Or just burn the whole thing down, that seems kind of evil though.


    Felix continued to head north, only slightly diverted by the Elk. The rest of the journey through the forest was an uneventful hour or so. He caught a brief glimpse of the town near the elk, the one that wasn''t permitting even visitors. As far as he could tell, the entire town was made up of a single long wooden hut.


    Further north, the forest ended abruptly with the trees as thick as ever, creating the semblance of a wall. Almost as if the forest had been cut right in the middle, rather than a natural transition between the biomes. Past the forest lay a desert to the north. To the west, there was a mountain range, similar to the one north of Tri-Peak Valley. Felix suspected they may be one in the same but hadn''t revealed enough of his map to confirm one way or the other. Opening his map, which he was doing much more frequently after the Elk incident, Felix spotted another world boss icon he would need to run around.


    I am not looking forward to running through the sand.


    Running through the desert, Felix didn''t need to approach the world boss at all because it was far enough from his path, and decided against doing so. He saw, from a great distance, a massive worm jumping out of the sand to catch a bird flying above it.


    If that''s not the world boss, then I don''t think I can fight anything here.


    Felix detoured far away from it, just to be safe, and managed to catch a glimpse of another fort that didn''t allow anyone to enter, to the east. It appeared to be built around an oasis though he couldn''t tell much else from this distance. S§×arch* The Nov§×l?ire.n(e)t website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    Maybe they have a limited water supply. Although you can just buy water from the marketplace nodes¡­


    Felix ran through the desert and actually encountered some higher level enemies, though not high enough for Felix to bother with. Some human sized scorpions, hyenas, coyotes, snakes, birds and foxes. They were all about level 30, so he mostly just kept running even if they tried to fight him. None of them chased him for very long anyways. He was surprised he was able to see them all so well, considering it was the middle of the night. Through a combination of the perfectly clear night sky, bright full moon and Felix''s high perception, he found it only negligibly difficult to see.


    Felix finally found to the dungeon, which would have been almost impossible to find without the map icon. It was almost buried in sand, in the middle of the desert, at the bottom of a large dune. Felix waded through the sand and into the hole, placing his hand on the door.


    Quest Dungeon B


    You have found a dungeon. Would you like to enter?


    Yes


    No


    Another Quest dungeon, bummer. Hopefully I get another gem though. Yes.


    Quest Dungeon B


    Refugees are struggling for survival in the ancient ruins to the north east.


    (1/5) Figure out what happened


    Shorter than the last one. Hopefully there''s no artificial wait timer on this one. Actually, I probably could have figured out the last one without waiting. It was just easier to wait. I wonder if I was supposed to- or rather if most people wait in that one.


    Felix ruminated over alternative ways of solving the last dungeon as he walked. Luckily the ruins were easy to spot, consisting of massive buildings made of limestone and sandstone. They were all constructed in a similar style, with many cylinders all pressed together and intersecting. The buildings were laid out such that each one had ample room between them, as if they were all their own independent buildings rather than a collection of buildings.


    Felix approached the nearest one and walked through the empty doorway into a large room with piles of sand against the walls. He walked through the building and followed the hallways, that seemed to ascend and descend at random, into other large rooms. He quickly realized the buildings he saw outside were all connected by the hallways as he had definitely seen more rooms than could be contained in the building he had entered.


    The rooms were mostly empty, other than piles of sand, but were laid out such that their function was mostly obvious. There were rooms intended as bedrooms due to their size and layout. There were others intended as large eating or gathering areas, with a handful of now empty basins against the side of the room placed under spouts stuck in the wall.


    It was in about the fourth building where Felix saw two javelin wielding guards sitting against the wall exhausted and half asleep.


    Struggling for survival is right. There is no way these people last a week if this dungeon takes as long as the last.


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    [E - Common] Slave of the Sands (Lvl 13)


    Felix approached the guards who moved for their weapons and tried to stand, before collapsing and giving up. Felix shrugged and opened the door, an odd sight considering this was the only door he had seen in this entire city thus far and it was made of wood. He entered a room that was completely cleared of sand with a woman in a long flowing dress made of thin materials that did a poor job of being clothes as they didn''t really cover anything. Underneath she wore a bright blue bikini or underwear. Felix wasn''t sure as the entire outfit looked like something a woman might wear walking along a beach.


    She wore gold jewelry on her fingers, wrists, navel, neck and ears. She lay draped over a raised, velvet sofa on her side.


    [E - Rare] Queen of the Sands (Lvl 52)


    "Guards, who is this peasant and why is he unannounced?"


    After a short moment of silence she continued, "Ugh, these slaves are so useless. All they do is complain about not having enough food and not having enough water. I too am struggling here, I barely have enough water for my baths. Honestly, despicable. Who are you and why are you bothering me in the process of rebuilding my empire."


    Oh no, please can I just kill her? This is ridiculous, please don''t make me help her.


    "I apologize for the intrusion, your excellency?"


    "Acceptable moniker. I will be merciful and hear you out, despite your inferior sex, continue."


    "Thank you. I''m just traveling through and heard about the plight of your people and was just wondering if I might be able to offer my assistance."


    "What can you do? Useless miscreant. Unless you can give me back my kingdom, my empire, you are trash, begone."


    "Your empire was stolen from you?"


    Sigh "Yes, I was queen of the oasis. The only habitable location in the entirety of the desert. I had thousands living graciously under my rule. One day, my dastardly husband stabbed me in the back and sided with the rebels. They violently ousted me from my throne and my land, I barely survived with my life. Brutish, violent, backstabbers, that''s all men are. Those loyal to me followed as we traveled to seek refuge, somewhere to be safe. As you can see, we did not in fact find shelter, instead we find ourselves here, in this dump."


    "I see, what a tragic tale. If you were to have food and water for your people, would your woes be quelled in the slightest?"


    "Food and water? Why? I have more than enough of those things. I want my land back. I want my throne back. I must rule. You men don''t understand, but it is I, the chosen of the gods, who must rule the people. If I did not rule, they would be doomed. That is why a man has never been chosen. The only man I thought was worthy of my presence proved once again, that men are truly only fit to be slaves."


    "I see. Thank you for your candor. I will leave you be now. If I may ask, where are the rest of your slaves?"


    "Down the hall in one of the rooms, I don''t know and I don''t care as long as they come when I call and do what they are told."


    Felix bowed and quickly left the room. He closed the door behind himself and noticed the guards had managed to pull themselves into a sitting position again. He felt bad for them, so he pulled a canteen and some Parroukan out of his inventory and offered it to guards. They both looked wide eyed at the canteen then one of them mustered up the strength to slap his hand away.


    "We live only by the mercy of The Queen, we will never betray her. Take your offerings somewhere else, we don''t need them."


    Felix stowed his offerings in his inventory and walked down the hall. The second room he checked was filled with people lying all over the ground. They seemed to be in a similar state to the guards outside the chamber. He walked around and offered a canteen but not a single one of them accepted it. Spouting similar beliefs to the guards.


    Quest Dungeon B


    Refugees are struggling for survival in the ancient ruins to the north east.


    (1/5) Figure out what happened.


    (2/5) Talk to the Queen. [Complete]


    (3/5) Travel to the Oasis.


    (4/5) Talk to the King and the rebel leaders.


    Oh nice I get to see most of the objectives. I guess I go talk to the king and figure out what she lied about in her self righteous tale. Wait, she never told me where the oasis was. Damn.


    Felix questioned the people and had to ask almost a dozen of them until someone gave him a single word answer, right after trying to spit on him without managing to produce any saliva.


    Felix left the building and headed directly west. He wanted to make it to the oasis before morning as it was still relatively cool and rather pleasant, something he doubted would remain true during the daytime.


    Luckily the oasis was only an hour or so travel, for Felix, to the west. He arrived before dawn which meant the journey was relatively pleasant, with only a slight chill and no need for spells to regulate temperature.


    The oasis consisted of a series of small interconnected lakes, surrounded by greenery on all sides. It was idyllic and seemed completely out of place for the desert, as if it was ripped out of a fairy tale and dropped here. Built on the oasis, was a large mansion made of gilded white marble. The only other buildings were tents laid out around the back, behind the mansion.


    As Felix approached the oasis he began hearing music emanating from the direction of the mansion. As he approached the lonely building, he noticed the flickering of fire light and the sounds of dancing, singing and people generally having a good time.


    Alright, this one seems pretty simple, maybe I can speed run it. Those people are suffering and they refuse help, these people are happy and joyous, they''re gonna have some other issue they need resolved, I need to fix both at the same time? The issues are gonna seem to contradict each-other initially and I need some compromise or something. The easy way will be through violence and the bonus objectives diplomacy or something. Fingers crossed that''s all it is.


    Felix continued onwards through the oasis and into the party. What he saw was essentially what he saw at Tiki Kahuna, but with more partying, drugs, alcohol and general delinquency. Felix wormed his way through the people throwing bottles, tearing down tents and running around naked to make his way into the mansion.


    This place might be worse than the queen''s slaves thirsting themselves. Where is the stupid King.


    Felix walked into the mansion which was, unfortunately, the heart of the party. He squeezed through people dancing and brushed off people trying to drag him into the festivities and tried to make it up to the throne room. He managed to make it through the entire building but didn''t manage to find anyone resembling a king or a leader of any kind.


    I kind of assumed they would be easy to find, since they are the objective of the quest. I really hope they are at least identifiable in some way. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 Chapter 33 - Book 32

    Having checked the entire building, and hating every second of it, Felix graciously jumped out a window followed by drunken cheers. He cast Feather Fall to catch himself and spotted a red tent right on the edge of the oasis on his way down. All of the other tents were a simple brown cloth with no dye.


    This better be it, or else I''m leaving and siding with the queen. We will bring violence upon these miscreants. Not actually, but I will leave, fuck this. I hate parties, especially ones like this.


    Felix ran through the tents and away from the party, to the tent on the very edge of the oasis, the only one dyed a vibrant color. The tent''s flap was already open with two people sitting inside across from each-other playing cards, drinking and laughing. On one side was a very identifiable king. He wore a crown and royal looking robes, he even had a scepter leaning against his chair. The other was a beautiful woman with light brown, tanned skin and dark brown hair wearing loose fitting robes akin to what someone would wear to travel through the desert.


    [E - Rare] King of the Sands (Lvl 47)


    [E - Common] Human of the Sands (Lvl 43)


    Felix walked through the opening, into the tent and stood in the entrance, waiting for them to finish laughing before making his presence known. After almost a minute of drunken laughing Felix decided they were aware enough, "Hello, I am Felix. I presume you are The King?"


    The king was almost startled out of his chair, before recovering, "I am, well met Felix. Come, join us."


    The king went to find a glass as Felix sat down, "No thank you, I don''t drink."


    "You don''t drink? Why the hell not? What else would someone do around here?"


    "I don''t like the taste of alcohol. I''m a traveler, I just arrived." Felix, slightly annoyed the king didn''t introduce her, not because of her beauty but rather simple manners, turned to the woman and held out his hand, "I am Felix, pleased to meet you."


    She smiled, "I''m Aleandra, welcome to the oasis."


    "Thank you. I spoke with The Queen before coming here and she¡­ uh, well, she told me a grand tale, which I am pretty sure is almost entirely bullshit. I would like to hear your side of the story, if that''s alright."


    They both laughed and the king began, "Ah, she really is set in her ways."


    Aleandra responded, "Unfortunately so. That''s where this all started. For a few thousand years now this oasis had been ruled by a matriarchy, with the title of Queen passed down from mother to daughter. The King is merely for breeding purposes and dealing with the finances, politics and other minutia. All of the other citizens, sorry not even citizens, everyone else is considered a slave to The Queen. They do whatever it is she asks of them, because it is her divine right to rule or something like that."


    She continued, "Some of the slaves believed that if The Queen prospers and is happy, they will prosper and be happy, even though they are slaves. The rest of us were sick of being treated like trash. Even though here, water is in abundance, she would restrict the amount of water we could drink to maintain her control over us. I managed to convince The King here of our plight and together we led a mostly peaceful rebellion."


    "We didn''t mean to hurt anyone and we specifically avoided it wherever possible, the only violence that occurred was accidental. We stormed the castle with makeshift shields and forced her out, though note we never even touched her, we simply filled the rooms with a foul odour until she ran off herself. Her and her most loyal slaves left and the rest of us decided to live in a community, where everyone has access to water, food and solid shelter." She finished.


    The king sighed, "Unfortunately, these people have been overworked and treated as slaves their entire lives. Now that we''ve won, all they do is party and have fun."


    "It''s only been a week, it will get better." Aleandra pleaded.


    "You''ve claimed already. This is better than torturing people, it is, but it''s not sustainable."


    "I know." She pouted.


    "Alright gotcha. So you guys want to be free, not slaves. She wants her ancestral land and title and to abuse people and she even has a group of people that are happy to be abused with her now¡­ Do you know the ruins to the east she''s currently living in?"


    "We know of them. We''ve hosted many scholars passing through to study them." The king responded.


    "Would you be willing to move in and live there? If there was water of course."


    "I guess? Why though?"


    "Well, you get solid buildings which require some cleaning and repairs, but it''s a better start than trying to build solid shelter here."


    "No no, I mean why do you want us to? What does it matter?" Aleandra clarified.


    This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.


    "Ah, well I was tasked with helping the Queen, even if I despised her after a single conversation with her. From what you''ve said, I like your cause more, so I''d like to also help you."


    Plus you know, quests and rewards.


    "I see. Well, if you can miraculously make water appear in the ruins, I will try to convince the people to travel there. I don''t see how that could possibly happen though, this is the only source of water for hundreds of kilometers, at least."


    "I think I know how, you haven''t really explored them much have you?"


    They both shook their heads, "Why?"


    "Ah, no reason. I will be back in¡­ hopefully less than a day. Good luck with getting people to work."


    Ok please tell me I can make it back to the ruins before the sun rises and makes it unbearably hot. I don''t wanna blow a ton of mana trying to keep myself cool.


    Felix stood up and walked towards the exit for the tent, "Oh, one last thing, are there any other problems you guys have been facing recently?"


    They looked at each-other quizzically before Aleandra answered, "Not really, I can''t think of anything?"


    "There are the scorpions I guess, but they aren''t too bad?" The king added.


    "Scorpions? Tell me about that."


    "There have been a lot more scorpions in the oasis, that''s about it?" Aleandra shrugged. Sear?h the novel(F~)ire.net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    "Alright thanks. Start rallying people, when I get back I want you all ready to move."


    Felix left before they could respond.


    I have no idea if the scorpions are at all relevant, but I figure more information can only be helpful.


    Felix refilled his canteens in the oasis then ran as fast as he could, with energy buffing his agility to try and beat the morning sun, back to the ruins. He didn''t even bother talking to the queen and just hoped her stubbornness would hold once he got the water running.


    He searched in and around the buildings for the pipes he saw in the walls earlier and hoped they lead to an aqueduct somewhere. He followed the pipes to a central location and managed to find an entrance to a tunnel that led underground.


    Thank System. This place once had water and the oasis is the only source of water now, I kind of just hoped these might be repairable. I am assuming this leads to the oasis and the scorpions or something have just been blocking it with a massive nest? At least, I hope it''s that simple. Maybe the scorpions have nothing to do with it at all. Time to find out.


    Felix headed into the tunnel and cast light right above his head to shine outwards into the tunnel. He followed the tunnels and channels, always choosing the direction where the channel was the thickest. It didn''t take long before Felix encountered the first scorpion. He was already very far from the ruins because he was moving quickly as he really wanted to be done with this dungeon as quickly as possible.


    [E - Common] Desert Scorpion (Lvl 4)


    Are you kidding me. This means there are going to be thousands of these stupid things, doesn''t it?


    Felix dispatched the occasional scorpions he encountered with minimized Mana Bolts to preserve mana. Eventually the density of scorpions got too high for him to handle them with one off spells so he cast one, then two and finally three Mana Bolt turrets as they became necessary. Eventually he had to transition to minimized Flame Throwers and move slowly to ensure he didn''t get overwhelmed. At this point he sought out the most scorpion dense areas as he figured they would lead to their nests. Before he found anything resembling a nest, he came across something else.


    [E - Uncommon] Desert Scorpion Brood-Mother (Lvl 50)


    Gross.


    Felix continued to roast the swarm but switched two of his spells to Fire Bolt turrets as he backed away and launched countless balls of fire into the Brood-Mother. It stopped moving after a few moments but Felix didn''t get any kill notifications. Though, he was pretty sure it was because the battle wasn''t over with the swarm yet.


    He continued to roast through massive swaths of scorpions and had to stop twice to refill his mana before he encountered two more Brood-Mothers which he dealt with in the same way as the last. Finally, the swarm started to noticeably shrink. The Brood-Mothers were laughably easy to deal with because they were surrounded by their spawn, essentially unable to move. Felix figured they likely had high agility and dexterity with their tail and just couldn''t break free to effectively fight back.


    Ding You have slain 5208 [E - Common] Desert Scorpion (Lvl 3-4)


    Ding You have slain 3 [E - Uncommon] Desert Scorpion Brood-Mother (Lvl 50)


    Ding You have gained 5 levels in [E - Common] Caster


    Felix cleared all of the live scorpions he had come across and found the nest, which was a massive pile of dead scorpions and what looked like eggs. He promptly roasted those as best he could. Finally, he was about to clear out the leftover remains of the nest in the hopes that there was water on the other side to run through the aqueduct once again, when he stopped himself.


    Oh shit, I should probably figure out if this dungeon has some kind of trainer in it. The last had an energy trainer and gave an energy gem. There are two more gem slots, it''s possible this dungeon gives another gem and has another corresponding trainer. Maybe it doesn''t, but I should probably check nonetheless. Damn, I really wanted to be done with this, hopefully it''s as useful and worth it as the last one.


    Regretfully, Felix turned around and ran back out of the aqueduct and into the ruins. He immediately turned to the west and ran as fast as he could. At this point the sun had risen but the temperature hadn''t heated up to scorching levels yet.


    He managed to make it back to the oasis without too much discomfort and ran by piles of people sleeping in the mess of their own proclivities out in the open. He ignored all of it and ran to the red tent at the back. The flap was still open and the king was still drinking at the table, though Aleandra was no where to be found.


    "Decide to head to the ruins later tonight when it''s cool again? That''s a good call. I''m not sure how you are expecting-"


    "No I was just there and I came back, I got the whole water thing handled. I got something else though. Are there an-"


    "What do you mean you went there and back? You have it handled?"


    "I ran back to the ruins, found an aqueduct and cleared out three scorpion Brood-Mothers. All I have to do is clean out the nest itself, which is blocking the water, maybe some scorpions on the other side, and it should work. I hope."


    "I see¡­ I hope it works as well I guess. What is it you need?"


    "Does anyone in the oasis have a profession of trainer or teacher or something like that?"


    "Uh, no one I can think of¡­"


    "I see, than-"


    "Oh wait, there''s this guru guy, I have no idea what his profession is, but we just call him guru."


    "That works, where do I find him?"


    "Go north, you should see a big rock. He is usually sitting on top of it."


    "Really? He''s a guru and he sits atop a rock in the middle of the desert all day?"


    "Yeah. Never really talked to him, but we''ve hosted some travelers on a pilgrimage to meet him."


    "I see, thanks."


    Felix left the tent and filled his canteens before reluctantly turning north and heading into the desert. . . . . .

 Chapter 34 - Book 33

    Why couldn''t he be the guru who enjoyed air conditioning. I swear this guy is gonna tell me some bull shit about needing to embrace suffering.


    Sure enough, a half dozen kilometers north, Felix encountered an old looking man, sitting on a rock. Felix was pumping mana into two separate Cool spells and held the remainder of his bed sheet around his head to mitigate the effects of the scorching sun.


    "Hello there, I hear you are guru? or the guru?"


    The man rose to his feet and looked down at Felix, "I am guru, you may call me guru."


    Is this a joke?


    "What is it you seek?"


    "I was hoping you could teach me something."


    "I can teach you many things, what do you wish to learn?"


    "Uh, not sure. The last guy I talked to taught be about energy and how to manipulate it to do some cool stuff. You got anything like that you can teach me?"


    "I have nothing to teach you when it comes to energy. I am guru, I train my soul to reach and become my true self."


    "Can you teach me soul stuff?"


    "I would be happy to. Come up here and sit next to me."


    As cool as soul training stuff sounds, this better not be bogus. I wonder if I''ll take damage from getting sunburnt. Can I get skin cancer? Will it kill me?


    Felix hopped on to the rock and sat next the guru.


    "What do you know about the soul?"


    Considering I wasn''t sure it existed a month ago, actually a minute ago.


    "All living things have souls, it''s what makes them alive. It''s who they are? Even if you could animate a body, without a soul it would either be a robot, a golem or wouldn''t function at all?"


    "Yes, this is all true. You are a caster, yes?"


    "I am."


    "Good, you know about mana then. All around you there is mana, in all things. In some places there is a lot of mana, in others there is very little. The interesting question is, why can''t we see it? It doesn''t affect anything unless someone like you or I touches it. The answer is that it is folly to think there are only three or four dimensions just because those are the ones we see. There are very likely many more, but honestly, I have no idea. The leading theory is that mana exists everywhere, but it mainly exists shifted slightly in the fifth or sixth dimension, and something needs to reach out for it to move it into our dimension or do something with it."


    "I have no idea if that is true, that is what some people say. What does this have to do with souls? Take everything I just said and put soul-matter wherever I said mana. That''s the theory on souls. Souls are a tiny droplet from an ocean of soul-matter or consciousness that exists all around us. When we, or anything, dies their soul is dropped back into the ocean. When someone is born, their soul comes from the ocean. This is where dreams come from, and memories that you never experienced. You soul is made from pieces of other souls that have existed. Or that''s what I have been told. I''m not sure how much of that I believe."


    "Here is what I do know, I have a soul, I can see it and I can feel it and even sometimes, I can touch it. Here is what I have been taught, and learned over the years, that I am confident is mostly accurate. Souls, at least for us sentient living things, though I can only confirm this in myself, have layers. Our souls have a core soul, this is your identity, who you are, it consists of all of your experiences, it is your personality. It also contains a portion of your stats, but it doesn''t hold a part of your intelligence and strength, it holds the other stats. Apparently, The System used to display these on our sheets, but then it stopped because it wasn''t useful. They don''t really change and The System cannot accurately estimate them anyways. These stats were displayed as wit, creativity and so on."


    "The core soul is the one thing, that I know of at least, that The System has no control over, at all. It cannot touch it or move it or even really read it. The next layer contains your other stats, sort of. It also contains most of your memories. The core soul consists of experiences, this is things that have affected you significantly. The rest of your memories, the boring stuff, is held in the second layer. The stats it holds, part of your intelligence, endurance and what not. We know this because there have been liches that have transferred their core soul and the second layer to another body."


    "Basically, I can move your soul to a new body, it can be the body of an A grade behemoth, but you wouldn''t have a million strength, your soul can''t handle moving that much, you can''t handle controlling it''s body. You would be limited to the most strength your soul can handle. When we level up, The System helps sift our experiences and strengthen the second layer of our soul so we have better control over the limits of our bodies. Then there are a bunch of other random layers. The number varies based on the person, but you can have heavily emotional layers, many thought layers if you are constantly lost in thought or being berated by stray thoughts. You can have a bunch of random crap all around it."


    "These layers are not useless though, beyond the second layer, the layers all serve to protect your soul. There are things that can attack your soul, things like curses and some nasty branches of illusion magic that manipulate your emotions and experiences. You can also strengthen your soul to have better control over your body, theoretically you could gain stats, but I have never heard of anyone doing so without The System''s help. What you can do is gain better awareness of your body."


    "Instead of increasing the connection from your soul to your body, we can increase the connection from your body to your soul. There are a lot of things you just can''t feel because you don''t experience them. This is one way of doing so. Imagine feeling the blood pushing itself through your veins. Imagine feeling your organs as they move and even, one day, individual cells as they perform their functions throughout your body. If we can feel them, we can also control them, to some extent."


    "If you get really good, you could tell your heart to simply stop, if you wanted to. At least, that''s the theory. You can also increase the size of your soul, add layers, strengthen what''s already there. You could form your own soul into something truly unique, powerful."


    Woah. That was a big dump of information. I wonder if this guy is just so alone out here he relishes talking to anyone. He seems passionate about this, which is great, but that was a lot. He did seem to be pretty open about what he can know vs what he''s been told but still, I can''t know if he''s right about any of it.


    Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.


    "Uh ok, sounds good I guess. How do we do that?"


    "Easy. Remember I told you there was soul matter or consciousness all around us? You can take hold of some of that and slowly incorporate it into your own soul. You can also compress your soul, essentially solidifying the outer layers. You can also organize your soul, or take control of the outer layers and shape it all however you desire. You can also peer into your true soul and witness the past and discover who you really are. These are all valid. It is possible you already suffer from too many stray thoughts and emotions and you do not want more, so instead of growing your soul with ambient consciousness, you take control of the outer layers and compress them."


    "It is also possible to remove layers, though it is often not recommended as you can go too far or leave yourself vulnerable. If you know what you are doing, you will know to ignore this warning, if you are just thinking it might work or might be cool, do not do it."


    "I see. I appreciate the warning. How do I even see my soul though? Honestly, I didn''t know they existed until a minute ago, and I''m still not sure they do."


    "Easy, I will attack your soul, and you will feel it."


    "Woah woah woah-"


    "I am barely going to slap it, don''t worry."


    "I''m not sure I-"


    A few minutes passed as the Guru closed his eyes and furrowed his brow. Felix was starting to get uncomfortable under the heat so he barely noticed a slight tickle spreading through his whole body but originating from no where. He simply felt it everywhere. It was similar to when he first felt mana.


    "Try to focus on where it is coming from."


    Felix felt another tickle coming from inside again, except this time it was like it was the dullest pain. He tried to focus on where it was coming from but couldn''t seem to pinpoint it.


    "Ok try focusing on where you feel it. I know it feels like everywhere, but focus on something like your hand, is it actually in your hand?"


    Felix felt another slight wave of pain and focused on his muscles. He felt pain everywhere but he realized he did not feel it in his muscles, it was not everywhere. He systematically went through his body until he realized he didn''t actually feel the pain anywhere, in his body. Now when he focused on the pain, he knew it wasn''t in his body, it was somewhere else.


    Slowly, as Felix focused, the shape of his soul came into focus.


    "Ok, please stop slapping me now."


    "If you become really high level in soul manipulation, you can create a soul space."


    "What is a soul space?"


    "Oh you haven''t heard? Huh. Once you are around the A grade moving into the S grade, you can create a small pocket in your true soul where you can store things. It''s better than your inventory because you can store things that do not exist, things that cannot be stored. Be careful with living things though, if they are stronger than you in soul, they may take over, you, your true self, possess you and destroy you from the inside."


    "I see."


    Not sure I see. What''s the point of that over my inventory? Maybe there are more things I''ll come across that can''t be stored.


    "Of course you can also store things to increase your stats and give you inherent abilities."


    Way to bury the lead there guru.


    "Ah, that seems useful."


    "How have you not heard of soul spaces? Has no God offered you a pledge yet?"


    "I have no idea what that is, so no?"


    "You must originate from¡­ Did you just get integrated?"


    "Yeah."


    "How did you escape the universe during the grace period?"


    "I didn''t, this is a dungeon."


    "This is a what?"


    "A dungeon, we are in a dungeon. This is a dungeon."


    He can''t even hear me, I''ve been wondering what would happen if I did that. Rather anticlimactic, I was kind of hoping for some paradigm shifting realization.


    "Trade secret."


    "Ah I see, fair enough since it must be something very powerful."


    Felix closed his eyes and focused on his soul. It took him nearly a half hour to clarify it''s outline before he started to do anything with it. He first tried to reach out and hold onto some of the ambient consciousness. It took almost two hours, but he managed to move it and hold onto it. He made sure he could press it into his soul then let it go.


    "Alright, have you got anything else you can teach me or tell me about souls? Any pro tips or tricks?"


    "Find what works for you, have a goal in mind with soul cultivation, refinement, forging whatever you want to call it, and figure out how to get there. You want better defense? Harden your soul, grow it or take control of it and shape it into a wall. If you want body awareness and control, work on defining and controlling your soul first."


    "I appreciate your teachings. Thank you guru."


    "My pleasure."


    Felix hopped off the rock and ran back to the ruins. Using his map, he ran in a perfectly straight line. He maintained two Cool spells targeted directly on top of himself the entire time. Without them, he wouldn''t have been able to sit atop the rock with guru for so long. As it was, all of his exposed skin was sunburnt, on the back of his neck and arms mostly. He had even taken almost a hundred points of damage.


    Back at the ruins, Felix ran into the aqueduct but stopped right as he passed through the entrance. He sat down, drank two full canteens then pulled out a few mana batteries and began meditating.


    Once he was mostly recovered, he set out into the aqueduct towards the nest. He reached it without issues with only a small swarm of scorpions remaining from his last clear. He began burning away the blockage with Flame Throwers. Instead of burning a hole all the way through, he focused on heating the whole thing up, weakening it and hopefully causing it to catch flame and burn independently. It did not catch flame at any point, however it did burst open allowing a massive wave of water to rush through the tunnel.


    Felix was carried away by the torrent of water and thrashed into the walls of the tunnel taking just over half of his health in a few seconds. Felix quickly enforced his whole body with energy hoping to increase his durability somewhat. In a last ditch effort Felix took a gamble and cast Mana Shield. He didn''t have much time to think of a great solution so he just hoped it would dull the impact between him and the wall.


    He was being whipped around in every direction, when suddenly he fell to the ground, no longer completely submerged. His mana was dropping rapidly at around a hundred per second. Felix sputtered water out of his lungs and recovered on the ground in the aqueduct. Looking around him, he was surrounded by water gushing past him. His Mana Shield was parting the sea for him and keeping him safe. Felix quickly pulled out mana batteries to try and keep up with the drain from his shield.


    I really should have expected that, I didn''t really think there would be that much water built up, but I should have known it was a possibility. It''s really lucky Mana Shield works the way it does though. I thought it might transfer the force of something pushing against it onto me, like if someone whacked it with a hammer, I would get sent flying, but that''s not the case. I feel nothing even though it''s holding back tons of water. This spell is much better than I thought. It''s also really promising for some things I want to try out later on.


    Ten seconds passed, then twenty, the amount of time he could have held out with only his own mana pool. Finally almost a minute later there was a pocket of air appearing at the top of the tunnel. It was another thirty seconds or so until the water resembled river rapids, which was still potentially deadly, but much more manageable.


    Felix made his way to the side of the tunnel where there was a walkway, likely built for maintenance, like clearing out Scorpions when they start building up. Felix dropped to the ground and meditated to replenish his dwindling mana. Once his pool and the batteries were mostly restored, he followed the tunnel past where the nest was. He could only tell where the nest had been because of his map as the torrent of water had washed away any sign the nest had existed.


    I thought scorpions didn''t nest or form herds. Maybe it''s the Brood-Mother''s that have an ability to gather them and make them act like a swarm. They aren''t very coordinated anyways, they mostly hinder each-other. I''m pretty sure a lone Brood-Mother would be much harder to deal with than one that''s stuck because the swarm has them jammed into a tunnel.


    Felix continued walking down the tunnel and judging from his map, he was about three quarters of the way towards the oasis. He saw the occasional scorpion corpse but none that were alive. After a few more minutes of walking through the tunnel Felix peered around a corner and ended up face to face with a Scorpion Brood-Mother. . . . . . sea??h th§× n?vel_Fire.¦Çet website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.

 Chapter 35 - Book 34

    The scorpion had a much higher agility than Felix and reacted much quicker, readying and striking with it''s tail driving it towards Felix''s chest. Felix barely had any time to react and instinctively reached up to block the tail with his arms. He barely managed to get his hand in front of the stinger and cycle energy into his arm bands. His bandages were enough to prevent the strike from ripping through him, but not enough to prevent Felix from being shot back across the tunnel and into the wall on the far side.


    He quickly cast three over sized Flame Throwers and roasted the scorpion with all the mana he had left. It was completely overkill, but he only had about forty health left and he was a little rattled.


    Ding You have slain an [E - Uncommon] Desert Scorpion Brood-Mother (Lvl 50)


    Ding You have gained a level in [E - Common] Caster


    Felix quickly surveyed the area then sat down and meditated.


    I really need to find some health potions or a healing spell or something.


    Felix decided to try something he suspected might work, but hadn''t had the opportunity to test until now. He cycled his energy and focused on his wounds and immune system. Focusing on his immune system was easier said than done as it wasn''t a single organ but rather a complicated system. He focused on the organs he knew were a part of the immune system and tried to push energy to them. He knew he was missing some of them, but he hoped that through soul work or simply reading a book, he could figure it out later.


    He sat there meditating for almost three hours but he managed to completely regenerate his health and mana pools. That meant that he had increased his healing rate or health regeneration by almost three times.


    That worked out better than I expected, it did consume tons of energy though. If I didn''t have this Amulet of the Forest, I would have completely run out.


    Felix quickly ran through the rest of the tunnel which ended in a massive grate right near the oasis, judging from his map.


    Ugh, now I have to run back to the ruins then immediately back here. This dungeon has so much running around, I hate it. This would probably take a normal party the same amount of time as the last dungeon or similar at least. Talk to the queen and travel to the oasis, talk to the king, wait till at least night fall to travel back here, assuming they figured out the aqueducts it would probably then take a day or two to clear it out. I have a lot of area spells and batteries so clearing out a swarm is right up my alley. Plus they have to clear the entire distance from the oasis to the ruins, the travel time alone, without fighting anything is almost a day at a normal pace. Then back to the ruins, another day, and to the oasis, one more. All that is assuming they figured out the aqueducts right away. I guess it might be faster if you decided to attack and invade the oasis with the queen.


    Felix made it all the way back to the ruins. He walked through the buildings and saw no sign of water anywhere. Worried it hadn''t worked he checked more basins and followed their pipes. Luckily, there was a closed valve hidden away behind the walls. He turned it open for an instant then closed it again. He walked back into one of the buildings and saw a droplet of water in one of the basins.


    Thank goodness.


    Woefully, Felix walked into the queen''s chambers. At this point Felix was pretty sick of this whole thing, but he needed the queen to cooperate, so he made an effort to appease her, though his tone still leaked some facetiousness.


    "Oh great Queen of the Sands, I have bargained with your traitorous husband and the rebel leader Aleandra and they have agreed that you may take back your rightful rule of the oasis. In exchange they will come live here, in exile for their crimes."


    "Aleandra? That traitorous wench, using her feminine charms to trick the idiot men. That she would stoop so low, femininity was always meant to keep men on a leash, to rule over them. Despicable. This is an acceptable solution though, they will suffer here for eternity as I was made to over these last few decades. Come nightfall in a few hours, we will depart to reclaim our home land."


    "Excellent, I will go inform them that they must vacate the land immediately."


    "Good. You have done a good thing here. You should be rewarded."


    I mean I definitely won''t compla-


    "You will be my newest slave, once the reclaiming of my palace is complete. You seem to have talents that make you effective."


    Of course, I should have known.


    "Oh of course my liege, I would be honored to serve the rightfully chosen grand ruler of the sands, chosen of the Gods, Queen over all."


    "Excellent."


    Of course, by that point I''ll be out of this stupid dungeon. If I didn''t suspect it would affect my rewards at the end of this, I might seriously consider trying to assassinate her.


    Felix turned around and rolled his eyes before leaving as quickly as he could. He ran as fast as he could back to the oasis and straight to the red tent at the back. As he ran through the oasis, he noticed the water level was noticeably reduced. It shouldn''t affect the living conditions much, but it was obvious. The flap was open once again and both Aleandra and the king were inside once again.


    "I got the water flowing again and I convinced the queen to come back tonight. Can you guys mobilize to move tonight as well, when it''s not unbearably hot?"


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    "There''s water in the ruins, right now? That was too fast, how can we be sure?" The king asked.


    "Yeah, how are we to know you aren''t trying to trick us? That seems much more likely." Aleandra added.


    "Did neither of you notice the water level drop all of a sudden?" Felix responded incredulously.


    "Yeah, but that could be from anything." The king replied.


    I get it, I do. You can''t mobilize your people unless you are certain, but really? I just want to be done with this shit.


    "Alright, what do you need to be convinced?" Felix inquired.


    "One of us will have to verify your claims, then we can talk about moving. Unfortunately, that likely can''t happen tonight." Aleandra answered.


    Oh no please don''t make me stay here another night, I will drag one of you there if I have to.


    "Alright how about this, I will carry The King there, he can verify and we can be back within an hour or so. Does that work?" Felix asked impatiently.


    "I''m not sure I want to be carried, plus the desert is scorching this time of day." The king pouted.


    "If he can get you there and back in an hour, though I doubt that, then I guess we might be able to move out tonight." Aleandra thought out loud.


    "Alright¡­ this is highly unusual." The king said as he stood up.


    Felix impatiently walked forwards and lifted the king in a bridal carry, then turned to Aleandra, "Start getting people ready to move, if we aren''t back in an hour or so then no worries. If we are, we leave tonight."


    Felix ran out of the tent without giving her a chance to respond. He ran at his top speed right away as he figured the king should be fine with his high level. When they got to the edge of the oasis, Felix cast his usual Cool spells but targeted the effect on both of them. Buffing his strength with energy made it so that carrying the king didn''t slow his speed at all, making the total travel time to the ruins just twenty minutes.


    Felix ran the king into the aqueduct without slowing at all to make sure the queen didn''t see him to make sure they didn''t get caught up in petty drama. He put the king down and led him right to the edge of the, less rapids and more stream, within the aqueduct.


    "Wow, this is from the oasis? There were tunnels under the desert this entire time? This is amazing."


    "Yup."


    "These ruins are beautiful too, they are massive and the architecture is magnificent. I had never been here myself, only heard about them second hand, what a sight to behold."


    "Uh huh."


    "You know, I''m surprised you offered to carry me."


    "You are higher level, more likely to be able to handle the speed."


    "I see, you weren''t even tempted to carry Aleandra instead?"


    "Huh? Oh, no. Well, she is beautiful but frankly, not interested."


    "Why not? Oh apologies, are women not your¡­ uh, preference?"


    "Oh they are. Looks are just one of the last things I look for in a partner. Plus I am a little too focused on other things to be thinking about that right now."


    Also, she''s a dungeon construct. She won''t exist in a few hours.


    "I see. If you don''t mind, what are you looking for?"


    To get out of this damn dungeon. Ugh, I don''t feel like sharing, but the fact that this guy wont exist in a few hours when I leave makes it a little less appalling. Also if it get''s this show on the road and keeps him happy¡­


    "I want someone better than me in every way. Smarter, more creative, more ingenuity, more drive, more mature, more spiritual, kinder¡­ Everything. I want someone who challenges me at every step¡­ in a friendly way."


    "That sounds like a dream. I thought I had that once you know, with the queen. I thought she had it all figured out. What a fool I was, she''s more brainwashed than I or any of her slaves are."


    "Normally I wouldn''t ask, but now that we are sharing, did Aleandra sleep with you to convince you to turn on the queen?"


    The king burst out and doubled over in laughter, "I suppose that is how it looks, isn''t it? No, let''s just say, men are not her preference."


    Felix chuckled, "I didn''t even think of it, honestly you just seemed too old for her in my eyes. I guess with levels and whatnot that may not even be true and frankly shouldn''t matter. The queen accused her of being a harlot and sleeping with you so you would betray her."


    "Ah, I guess that''s reasonable for her, but no, unfortunately I was simply brainwashed into being complicit in what I now see as atrocities. Honestly, being brainwashed may have been preferable, I think there are some truths I would have preferred not to know. Ah and you mean the white beard? I just always looked up to my predecessor who sported a similar mane, I thought it was manly and regal. My evolutions made it a reality."


    "I disagree, I think all truths are worth knowing. I would rather be miserable and aware, than happy and ignorant." S§×arch* The Nov§×l?ire.n(e)t website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    Though honestly, I don''t think you have to be miserable ever, you can work yourself out of it and will ultimately be happier than you would have been had you remained ignorant. Not sure I want to have a philosophical discussion with a dungeon construct right now though. I think it''s time to get this show on the road.


    "I see, maybe one day I will agree, but right now, even though no one blames me, I just feel guilty and shitty."


    "Don''t punish yourself, redeem yourself. It''ll be healthier for you and your people. Sorry to cut this short, but can we head out?"


    "I¡­ yes, we can. Are you cooling us down by the way?"


    Felix walked over and picked the king up the same as before and started running out of the aqueduct and west.


    "Yeah, I''m casting spells to keep the heat bearable. Honestly it''s more for me than you."


    "I appreciate it anyways."


    Felix ran a little faster this time, pushing more energy into his limbs. He was already sure he was going to be back before the hour he had initially expected, but now he was trying for less than forty five minutes.


    Felix made it back a minute earlier than he was hoping, though he expended a lot of energy pushing his muscles. He ran into the red tent to find Aleandra sitting around.


    "You''re back already?" Aleandra asked in disbelief.


    "Have you mobilized the people yet?" Felix retorted.


    I feel like a dick making them rush the move like this, but they are slaves, they don''t own much. Also dungeon constructs, does that change the morality? Never mind, I don''t care I just want to be done.


    "He speaks the truth about the water. There are tunnels running from right underneath us all the way to the ruins. He brought me down there and there is more than enough water." The king explained.


    "Hurry up, we only have a couple hours until sunset. The queen will probably leave right away considering how eager she is to reclaim her land."


    Although she''s so full of herself, maybe she delays it just so people wait on her? I hope not.


    Aleandra rose, "I''ll go get people moving."


    "If you need any help, just let me know." Felix offered


    Over the next two hours, Felix ran around the oasis and helped Aleandra to get people moving. He helped with everything from helping them collect their things to digging up some fertile earth so they could grow food. There was already a ton of organic matter in the aqueduct from the thousands of scorpions, but they agreed to retrieve it later to fertilize the soil.


    The sun set, and the temperature in the desert dropped drastically. The entirety of the rebellious slaves walked in a crowd following Aleandra and the king who followed his map. Felix ran back to the ruins to lead the queen.


    Her slaves formed a tight formation and carried her at the center in a palanquin. Felix led them in a big arc off to the side so that they would avoid running into the other group, who he also had walking in an arc. Additionally, to avoid any form of confrontation, Felix was channeling Gust spells across the queens group making it seem like there was a minor sand storm. The queen arrogantly declared that no simple storm would stop her from reclaiming her divine right and the sand obscured any sight of the rebellious slaves and her husband. . . . . .

 Chapter 36 - Book 35

    Once they made it to the oasis, the Queen was carried around in her palanquin and was screaming at the damage that had been done from all the partying. Her slaves had already begun cleaning the place up when Felix slipped out and ran back to the ruins.


    Last time I have to make this trip, please.


    He made it there without issue and ran straight to where he knew the valves were. He opened them all up and water flowed into the basins in the ruins through the pipes in the walls.


    Quest Dungeon B


    Refugees are struggling for survival in the ancient ruins to the north east. The queen has been abusing her people for generations and ruling over the only source of water in the desert. Some of her slaves had finally had enough and, with the help of her husband, The King, they rebelled, forcing her from her land. Now the people of the oasis are happy, but The Queen and her loyal followers are at risk of dying.


    (1/5) Figure out what happened. [Complete]


    (2/5) Talk to the Queen. [Complete]


    (3/5) Travel to the Oasis. [Complete]


    (4/5) Talk to the King and the rebel leaders. [Complete]


    (5/5) Find an acceptable solution. [Complete]


    (Bonus) Find a diplomatic solution that satisfies all. [Complete]


    (Bonus) Solve the scorpion incursion. [Complete]


    (Bonus) Do not let anyone die. [Complete]


    Quest Dungeon B


    You have completed the quest.


    You have successfully achieved all normal and all 3 Bonus objectives.


    Congratulations.


    Quest Dungeon B


    Calculating Rewards


    Bonuses:


    Diplomacy


    Incursion


    Lives Lost


    Reward Tier: Highest


    Quest Dungeon B


    Rewards


    [E - Special] Gem of the Sands


    [E - Special] Cloak of the Explorer


    [E - Mythic] Flask of Adventurous Refreshment


    [E - Rare] Earrings of Insight


    [E - Uncommon] Glass Edge Rapier


    [E - Uncommon] Longbow of the Sands


    [E - Uncommon] Glass head Arrows (x250)


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    Felix found himself in a very familiar reward room. He approached the table in the center and stowed the Credits. He quickly checked his current credit total and noticed it was higher than he expected. He realized that some of the items he had listed at the auction must have sold.


    Oh SHIT.


    Felix quickly opened his expenditures screen and skimmed through them, approving everything.


    I guess it''s only been a day, still. From now on, every night.


    The arrows were cool, but useless to Felix as were the bow and rapier. None of them held enchantments, but did appear to be of supreme quality, to Felix''s untrained eye.


    More money for me I guess. Oh shit, I probably should have looted the scorpion bodies, at least the Brood-Mother''s. They probably could have been used for some cool armor. Oh well, too late now.


    The next item on the table was a pair of small dangly silver earrings with a little blue stone inset into them.


    [E - Rare] Earrings of Insight


    A set of earrings imbued with the ability to detect the true intent of those the wielder converses with.


    While equipped, these earrings will convey to you the general feelings and intent of the other person. If they are lying or hiding something, the earrings may know. Only the strongest of deception abilities and some magic items may be able to thwart the earrings.


    My ear''s aren''t pierced though.


    Felix picked them up and held one up to his ear, about to force it through when it simply hung off of his lobe. The post simply disappeared and the earring clamped itself in place. He held the other earring to his other ear and the same thing happened.


    Well, that''s a relief. I guess peoples ears probably seal over when they heal. Maybe an evolution can will them not to? Not sure how that works though, I''ll have to ask Noah or someone. The king did mention something about willing his evolution to do what he wanted.


    Following the earrings, there was a simple leather flask. The flask was made of a brown leather with a simple design on the side and a cork attached by a cord so it wouldn''t get lost. The design on the leather was some abstract combination of angular lines that looked cool, but didn''t seem to depict anything in particular.


    [E - Mythic] Flask of Adventurous Refreshment


    A flask that contains no liquids and all liquids. Flasks similar to this are rumored to have existed in ancient times created using methods that have been lost to time.


    Channel mana into the cork to randomly choose a liquid. The liquid is random but will incur no benefits or detriments, no potions or poisons will be found in the flask. Channel mana into the flask to fill it with the chosen liquid. This may be used infinitely. You must drink the liquids produced, they cannot be poured out of the flask except into another drinking vessel. Upon refilling the flask, any liquid that originated from the flask will disappear unless it has been ingested.


    A Mythic rarity item? Definitely wasn''t expecting that. Maybe it''s cause it has no combat benefit? I also don''t know how long I will need to keep drinking, I am sure some evolution is going to make it unnecessary. This item is more like a fun party trick than anything else. I guess if I find something really tasty I can just never reroll it.


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    Felix channeled some mana into the cork, opened the bottle and sniffed it. He immediately smelled some sort of awful rotten smell coming out of it. He closed it and rolled it again. He randomized it until he smelled a combination of apples and cinnamon carried by the steam of a surprisingly hot liquid. He filled the flask just a smidge and took a sip of a delightful tea.


    This thing is awesome, and realistically I can just roll past the foul ones.


    Next on the table was a black circle. Felix pinched the circle and picked up the cloak which was made of the thinnest material Felix had ever touched or seen. It was very soft, almost like silk, but not as slippery, like cotton or wool sewn with microscopic threads.


    [E - Special] Cloak of the Explorer


    A cloak made of a special material designed to perfectly regulate the temperature, no matter the conditions.


    Within E grade conditions, while equipped, this cloak will perfectly regulate the climate around you. It will prevent you from feeling warm or cold and keep the temperature around your body within the desired range.


    As a property of the unique material used to create this cloak, if damaged, this cloak can completely regenerate itself if mana is channeled into it.


    WARNING: The amount of mana required to regenerate cloth is very high.


    Felix put it on and found it was essentially a hooded poncho. The cloak had massive holes for his hands to pop through but no sleeves, just an excess of material on either side. The cloth reached right to his wrists on either side and hung to the midway point on his thighs. Felix found it perfectly breathable and comfortable in every way and it didn''t restrict movement at all. It also attached to itself in the middle when Felix touched the two sides together. If he pulled them apart, they simply detached.


    This might be my new favorite item. Oh it''s so soft, so comfortable. Best of all, I never have to deal with the stupid heat of the desert again. At least within the E grade.


    The last item on the table was a gem the same size and shape as the Gem of the Forest he currently wore around his neck. This one was a deep red color though it glimmered slightly orange in the light.


    [E - Special] Gem of the Sands


    A gem with abilities that can be granted to the wielder when slotted into it''s corresponding item.


    Sand: While equipped, your maximum health pool is increased by 50%.


    Felix picked up the gem, separated his cloak and brought the gem close to the amulet where it simply snapped into place, like a magnet. Felix checked the Amulet again and noticed the name had changed.


    [E - Special] Amulet of the Forest & Sand


    A pendant with three slots intended to imbue the wielder with the effects of the gems slotted within.


    Forest: While equipped, your maximum energy pool is increased by 50%.


    Sand: While equipped, your maximum health pool is increased by 50%.


    One more and hopefully it will have some cool set effect.


    Quest Dungeon B


    All Rewards Collected


    Would you like to leave this room?


    Warning: You may only remain in this room for a maximum of 15 minutes.


    Yes.


    No.


    Yes.


    Felix found himself in the middle of the desert at night, just as he had left it.


    Managed to complete that one in less than a day. Thank goodness too. The king was an ok guy I guess. Onwards to the next dungeon.


    Felix opened his map and saw that the closest dungeon was in the middle of the ocean. He thought about heading towards it but decided to come back to it later in case it was at the bottom of the ocean instead of on an island. The next closest one was all the way in the north east corner of the square tutorial map. There was also a fort on the way.


    Felix thought about camping for the night but figured he should get out of the desert first. If the town was friendly he could camp there, but if they weren''t he wanted to be fully rested before visiting. He checked their note and entry requirements on his map.


    The entry requirements were just a class at level 22 and this was the first of the forts he had checked that had a note on it: "Open to the strong. Level requirement increases weekly. We will conquer the tutorial." It was also the first fort other than his own with a name: "Icewatch."


    Oh no, I have a bad feeling about this town.


    He ran through the desert and passed by a handful of critters, in the same level range as before, at about 30. The desert disappeared behind Felix as the sand gave way to snow with evergreen trees peaking through the otherwise undisturbed white blanket. The trees were not quite as big as the forest Felix was dropped into at the start of the tutorial, but the trees were still bigger than any he had seen on earth before the integration. The trees were also more spread out, with the sky visible everywhere within the forest, unlike the seamless tree cover in the forest to the south.


    Felix was enjoying the cool night breeze as he ran through the desert, but here in the snow it was slightly too cold on his face. Felix pulled up his hood, which gave ample room for his head because it lightly draped towards his shoulders instead of hugging his face like some hoods.


    It''s kind of odd to have such drastic biomes so close together. System fuckery.


    Felix saw another icon on his map for a world boss but he decided to leave this one be. If he accidentally caught it''s attention, he would surely be dead, with low energy and health. He needed to sleep.


    He could just sleep in the snow with his cloak, which would be the most comfortable, but ran the risk of some creature finding him. Given his low overall health being a caster, a creature could kill him if he wasn''t careful. The other option was to sleep on a tree branch. He was worried about falling and it wasn''t immune to creatures, but he could stay low enough that it wouldn''t hurt him and some of the branches were about thick as he was tall. He thought about tying himself to the branch, but they were much too thick for that.


    Felix detoured away from the world boss and the town, just in case, and climbed a tree. The bark on the trees was proportionally big, so holding onto it to climb was painless. He made it to a lower branch and laid down on top of it. It was relatively rough, but his body was much more durable than he expected. He could barely feel the bark underneath him and he quickly fell asleep.


    The next morning, he woke up and saw a creature sleeping on the branch next to him.


    [E - Common] Squirrel (Lvl 18)


    Jeez, high level squirrel, this thing has probably seen some shit. Done some shit.


    Felix hopped off the branch and cast Feather Fall to catch himself then continued on towards the fort. He decided not to bother checking out the world boss because it was out of the way at this point and he would see it when he came back to kill it anyways. . . . . .

 Chapter 37 - Book 36

    Felix ran to the village with his body energy exhausted as much as possible. He felt much better after having slept and figured he wasn''t in any rush. The fort was the most developed he had seen, other than Tripeak-Valley, which reminded him to check the expense requests and approve them.


    The fort lay on the top of a hill and was surrounded by a palisade of sharpened logs, or branches in this forest of gigantic trees. Felix lowered his hood and approached the entrance that was flanked by two guards wearing animal skins that hid any armor they might be wearing underneath. They also each held a sword and shield.


    [E - Common] Human (Lvl 24)


    [E - Common] Human (Lvl 23)


    "Halt. State your purpose."


    "I''m just vi-"


    Would they let me in if they thought I was just visiting?


    "I''m thinking of moving towns. I want to be strong so Icewatch obviously caught my eye." Felix declared with a slightly gruff voice.


    "Excellent choice. You will need to go on a hunt with Broxus to see if you can keep up. If he likes what he sees, you''re in. Luckily, he should be heading out for his hunt today in a half hour or so."


    The guard pointed in the town at the biggest wooden building in the entire place that resembled a longhouse, "Head over to that building and tell anyone you meet that you are hunting with Broxus today."


    Felix nodded, then saluted to the guard and walked towards the building he had pointed out. One of the guards saluted him back, the other hit himself on the head with his shield trying to salute.


    I don''t know why, but I just felt like saluting was right. That was great though, I''ll have to do that more often when someone has something in their hand.


    Felix walked into the longhouse and found the inside consisted of multiple long tables running parallel with the building. There were benches along the sides of the tables and people sitting around them randomly. They seemed to be mostly eating large dishes of meat.


    Felix asked a random person where Broxus was and they just jerked their head towards the end of the longhouse. Looking in that direction, Felix almost smacked himself.


    Of course he''s at the royal table looking over his subjects.


    Felix walked over to the table at the end of the longhouse running in the opposite direction to all the others, with everyone who currently sat there on one side facing the rest of the room. In the center of the table, in the biggest chair, was a large man almost seven feet tall with thick brown hair covering his head and face. He wore metal armor visible on his shoulders, with the rest hidden by the hide of some animal. Leaning against his side was a large great-axe.


    [E - Common] Human (Lvl 28)


    Next to him was a thin blonde man, taller than average, wearing animal hide as armor with a bow slung over his shoulder.


    [E - Common] Human (Lvl 27)


    On the opposite side was a buff woman with black hair wearing metal armor, hides, with a huge tower shield on her back.


    [E - Common] Human (Lvl 26)


    Lastly, next to the woman on the far end of the table, was a short man with short light brown hair and trim beard wearing a large animal hide like a coat with a staff at his side.


    [E - Common] Human (Lvl 25)


    The man in the middle, with the battle axe, the highest level and who Felix assumed was Broxus finished his drumstick before looking up at Felix, "Have you come to join Icewatch?"


    "Potentially. I was told I need to go on a hunt with you."


    "Yes, we must see if you are worthy of joining us. Pull up a seat."


    Felix carried a chair over from the side of the room and placed it across from Broxus. He pulled out some Parroukan and began eating.


    "So Newcomer, Icewatch only accepts people who raise the bar. We want people that are strong and will continue to work on getting stronger. It keeps everyone motivated. We hunt about 25 creatures a day, so you are going to have to keep up. On a good day we may even take on 30, it depends on how quickly we can find them. You are probably going to want to wear something warmer than that. We can lend you some hides if you need them."


    "No thanks, I''m perfectly comfortable. Should be able to keep up, but let me know if you feel like I''m holding you back."


    "Oh I will. If you start freezing out there, we are leaving you behind. What class are you? Need to figure out how to adapt."


    "Caster."


    "Alright, should be fine. You focus on damage, right?"


    "Yup."


    "Ok, talk to Lucas over there, the one with the staff. Lucas, are you done eating?"


    Lucas stood up, grabbed his staff and walked around the table, "Come on, we can figure out how to best fit you into the hunting party while Broxus finishes eating."


    "When I''m done, we''ll find you at the gate."


    Felix followed Lucas outside and towards the gate to the fort. They left through the gate and stopped just outside of it.


    "Alright, so I''m also a caster, but I''m focused on healing right now. I''m gonna use Mana Bolt and fire at some trees, I want you to do the same thing I do after me."


    Lucas turned around and started firing Mana Bolts at the tree in front of him. He raised his staff and fired one Mana Bolt about every four or five seconds. His other hand made a twirl in the air and he uttered some incomprehensible gibberish every time he cast. The Mana Bolt was mostly accurate in that it hit the tree but veered off just slightly in a random direction every time. He kept firing for a few minutes.


    Considering how ginormous the tree was, Felix was appalled by the display. He felt the spell being cast and every time, it formed very slowly, and almost robotically. The mana also seemed to stall for a while doing almost nothing before forming right near the end.


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    Is that the fastest he can fire? Those are bog standard Mana Bolts too. How do you kill anything? You can''t even hit very accurately, I guess if you focus on healing¡­


    Lucas finished and turned to Felix, "I''m pretty high level and I practice every day, so don''t feel bad if yours aren''t as fast or accurate as mine. I do need to judge where you''re at though. I have one healing spell that I use mostly right now, but I still do a lot of damage and I only got it recently. So I was focused fully on DPS before that."


    Oh god. Can you not see that I''m a higher level than you? What do you mean you are ''pretty high level''.


    Felix walked forwards to about where Lucas had stood. He faced the same tree and Lucas stood off to the side of Felix. Felix was tempted to completely blow Lucas'' display out of the water but decided it was probably better if he looked somewhat normal, at least what this guy would think of as normal. He was about to cast something then realized it was probably not normal to cast without a weapon.


    I don''t have a wand or anything, I can''t ask to borrow his. Oh shit, are there any sticks nearby? No. What''s in my inventory¡­ the rapier will have to do.


    Felix pulled out the Glass Edge Rapier from his inventory and a brilliant silver rapier with a simple cross-guard and a translucent edge appeared in his hand pointed toward the tree. He wanted it to look like a magic item so he cast a tiny Light spell right at the tip of the rapier at the same time as he cast a slightly larger Mana Bolt. The Light spell refracted through the glass edge which, admittedly looked like a really cool cosmetic effect.


    He fired the bolt at the tree and silently counted to cast the next one. He dimmed the Light spell slightly and waited three seconds, before brightening it and casting another Mana Bolt. He aimed this one slightly off to the side this time so he didn''t seem too accurate, but still more accurate than Lucas. He continued this for a few minutes before Lucas stopped him.


    "Wow, you are really good. That rapier is super cool it must do some crazy things. You cast really fast, and your Mana Bolts look like they do more damage. Also you didn''t even use verbal or somatic components. Do you have some kind of spell casting speed skill and damage skill? They must be at least Rare."


    "Uh, something like that."


    "It''s cool, you can show me when you get more comfortable with the village. Here, I''ll show you mine, just tell me if you have a different skill or the same one but better."


    "Uh, sure."


    [E - Uncommon] Speed Casting


    All the spells in your spell list cast 10% faster.


    This explains a lot. I was wondering why I didn''t get offered more skills but at this point I can assume it''s cause I have nothing in my spell list. Also his weird casting where nothing happens for like 4 seconds then it almost instantly casts, is this how spell list spells work? I bet The System is shaping the mana and casting the spell on behalf of the person, they just choose the spell. I wonder why more people don''t just do it the way I do, it''s not that hard. Just took a little practice.


    "Uh, same thing but my rapier also gives me casting speed boost."


    "Woah, that''s awesome, how do I get an item like that?"


    "It''s from one of the Quest Dungeons."


    "Oh we have one of those up north east from here. I haven''t had time to run it yet, Broxus wants us to hit level 50 first in case the gear is better, then he wants to try for a world boss. He figures we need more people but he thinks the 100 strongest in the fort can take it. I''m pretty sure we are gonna need at least 300 to even stand a chance. Have you seen one? There''s this yeti to the south, that thing is huuuuge I don''t know how we are even supposed to fight that thing at all, and it''s level is so high."


    Fear.


    Woah that was not what I was expecting from the earrings.


    Lucas'' eyes went wide suddenly, "Oh shit, almost forgot. For the hunting, we have Sophia who tanks em, Broxus goes in from the side, we hit it with James from the other side. Try not to hit Sophia or get in Broxus'' way and we should be fine. If you get hit, I''ll try to heal you up, so stay close."


    "Sure thing."


    "Alright, Broxus should be here soon."


    As if on cue, Broxus walked out of the gate with Sophia and James in tow.


    "Ready to go?"


    "Yes sir." Lucas responded.


    "So, how''s he look?" Broxus asked Lucas clearly intending Felix to overhear.


    "He casts faster with bigger hits than me."


    Awe.


    Huh, I''m not even directly talking to him.


    Broxus looked at Lucas incredulously, "Good"


    Disbelief. Impressed. Slight incredulity.


    Maybe I should turn that down somehow, if I can.


    It took almost fifteen minutes for Broxus to find a large moose.


    [E - Common] Moose (Lvl 30)


    Felix expected them to sneak up on the moose but instead Broxus ran at it full speed and his party struggled to catch up with him. The moose noticed the large man running at it aggressively flanked by three other humans but instead of running away as Felix expected, the moose turned towards Broxus and charged at him.


    Felix caught up with Lucas effortlessly and stood near him waiting. Sophia was still running into the moose''s path and Broxus was preparing to¡­ do something as the moose had almost reached him.


    Instead of allowing the moose to gore Broxus, he dove to the side and rolled away revealing Sophia behind him who held her shield in front of her prepared to take the strike.


    Why would you even try to tank the strike? Just let it run into a tree, or into nothing. It''s unnecessary, isn''t it?


    The moose lowered it''s head and collided with Sophia''s tower shield then swung it''s head upwards, trying to throw her. It succeeded and she flew back a few meters but rolled to break her fall in the snow. As soon as she was thrown, Broxus started running back towards the moose but stopped once he was within a few meters.


    Lucas and James both prepared shots, the former fired a Mana Bolt and the latter an arrow. Felix quickly cast a slightly larger Mana Bolt at the tip of his rapier with a bright Light spell, to not be left out. His Mana Bolt fired and hit the moose in the neck a full second before Jame''s arrow hit it in the thigh and two seconds before Lucas'' Mana Bolt grazed it''s belly.


    The moose turned around to look for a new target so Broxus yelled to get it''s attention. Sophia got to her feet as quickly as she could and charged at it from the other direction. Broxus was running in circles to keep the moose away and Sophia ran at it. Felix looked at James and Lucas who were readying their next projectile but holding them waiting.


    Sophia got into range of the moose and seemed to use some sort of taunt because it immediately turned towards her and started running. As soon as it did, Broxus followed. The moose reached Sophia and rose to it''s hind legs to try and trample her. Broxus swung with his axe, James loosed an arrow and Lucas was a few seconds into his next Mana Bolt cast. Felix quickly fired off another Mana Bolt, but made sure to hit it in the belly instead of the neck.


    Holy shit. They all wait for Sophia to make an opening by tanking a strike then hope they hit something. Broxus takes something like three whole seconds to swing the stupid axe and even then it doesn''t seem to be doing that much. It''s definitely doing more than Lucas or James are though. Lucas barely hits it and James is accurate, but the arrows barely sink into it''s flesh.


    This pattern continued for just over four minutes until the moose was finally taken down.


    "Not bad kid, you are gonna have to step it up though. I wanna really see what you can do."


    Impressed. Lying.


    On second thought, maybe I won''t turn it down. It''s nice having affirmations.


    "I''ll try my best."


    "Alright let me let you in on a you a pro-tip, you want your profession to be something easy to level and related to the things you hunt. For me, it''s skinning, for Lucas it''s cooking, for James it''s butchering. Lastly, Sophia tans the hides. It makes it so we can keep up with our professions as we hunt. Everyday we hunt, then level our professions. That''s how you stay ahead of the curve."


    They really can''t see my level, can they?


    Broxus stowed the corpse in his inventory, "Sophia, status."


    "85%" She responded instantly, definitely expecting the question.


    "Not bad, we can probably do another two then have Lucas heal you up, sound good?"


    She simply nodded in return.


    Broxus started walking away but turned his head over his shoulder to look back at Felix, "As you can see, we move pretty quickly so try not to feel overwhelmed, but don''t worry too much, that last one was about the average level we usually fight. They rarely get more than 5 levels above me, if they do, we might just leave it be depending on when we find it in the hunt. Those guys can be rewarding but the battle is tough."


    Felix suppressed a groan and a look of fear and disgust.


    You fight 25 of these things, it took you five minutes to kill it with my help, it takes almost fifteen minutes to find them. All in all, you can take one out every twenty minutes on average. In eight hours, assuming you hunt for eight hours, level your profession for eight then sleep for eight, you can take out 24. I guess that adds up. She took 15% of her health fighting that thing then you need to heal. So really, it should only be 25 on the best of days. Still, average level 30, 25 a day, you should be a much higher level, right?


    Felix continued to follow them around for another three hunts before they stopped to heal Sophia. They encountered one more moose and a white wolf. The white wolf wasn''t as strong or durable as the moose, but was faster, so James, Broxus and Lucas hit it less often. It took even longer to kill. . . . . .

 Chapter 38 - Book 37

    Stopping to rest, Lucas repeatedly cast his healing spell and the rest of them stood around talking. Felix had already tried to copy down the healing spell formation, but quickly realized Lucas wasn''t casting any spell at all, he simply chose the spell in his spell book then The System gobbled his mana and manually healed her somehow. There was no shaping mana into anything, at all.


    "You''ve been keeping up with us pretty well. You were a little shaky with the first moose, but you''ve really stepped up since then. I think you could definitely become pretty strong one day. If you keep it up, I think you would make a really great addition to the town. You gotta keep up the hard work every day though." Broxus explained.


    Minimizing. Lying. Minimizing. Truth. Genuine belief.


    This thing hasn''t been useful yet in doing anything but making me feel good. I could already tell all of these things by myself. Then again, this guy is not hard to read. I guess making me feel good is useful in some ways, not sure I need it constantly feeding my ego though. I probably just need to talk to more people.


    "I really appreciate that Broxus, thanks."


    Broxus smirked and nodded then walked over behind some trees to take a piss.


    "Don''t worry, he''s just giving you a hard time so you don''t get lazy. He''s really impressed, I can tell." Lucas reassured.


    "Thanks, I''ll keep working at it, I promise. By the way, is his real name Broxus? I''ve never heard a name like that before."


    Lucas rose to his tip-toes, leaned in to Felix and whispered, "Nah, his real name is Brock, he asked us all to call him Broxus around the first week."


    "Ah, I see, secret''s safe with me." Felix winked.


    Lucas smiled and nodded.


    Alright what else do I want to learn from these guys? I think they answered most of my questions, except the experience and level thing.


    "Hey Lucas, how often do you guys level?"


    "Well, recently it''s been about 40 creatures, so a level in just under two days or so. It used to be less when we were lower level, but not by much. It used to be much lower before James joined us, but then we couldn''t kill them as quickly or safely."


    "Wait, when you guys hunted as three, how many kills did it take to level, approximately?"


    "About half as much as it does now, so 20 or so. But, it took us much longer to kill them and we had to take many breaks. I didn''t get to save mana for healing cause I was using most of it trying to take stuff down. So it took us just over two days to level, and that was around level 20 ish. Overall, it''s faster now."


    Oh my god, you guys are absolutely fucking yourselves by fighting in a group, the experience sharing is so bad. Remind me to never team up with anyone, ever. I guess it makes sense cause the risk level goes way down. These guys are never in danger. I feel like my life is on the line every damn time I fight. Honestly though I would never trade positions, this is so incredibly, mind numbingly, boooooooring. Do I stick around for a bit or just dip now? Oh one more question, actually two.


    It looked like Lucas still had some healing to do so Felix asked him another question he was wondering, "What''s up with the ''conquer the tutorial'' thing on your forts note?"


    "Oh, Broxus wants to try to take on a world boss and conquer as many forts as he can in the tutorial, those are his two main goals. He''s just hoping to recruit like minded people."


    "You can conquer another fort?"


    "Yeah, that''s how Broxus got this place. Some weakling had control of it when Broxus showed up and declared it was his, the guy fought him and lost. I suppose it would get more complicated with more people but that''s the general idea."


    "I had never thought of that. Last question, I promise, can you guys see my level when you identify me?"


    "I don''t mind the questions, don''t got much else to do while healing Sophia." Sophia waved and smiled before Lucas continued, "Plus I''m hoping you''ll share some of your skills and other secrets at some point, so tit for tat. Uh, nope, can''t see your level. I just see two question marks. Don''t worry about it, you shouldn''t feel bad for being a lower level, and Broxus doesn''t mind if people hide it. He says you should own it and be confident in the work you''ve done, but I get some people are just more private than others. Normally you can only hide it from people lower level than you and something with perception though I don''t know the numbers on that, we just figured your cloak was hiding it, looks super cool by the way." Lucas gave him a thumbs up.


    Oh how tempted I am to reveal my level. I''m happy I didn''t change those privacy settings though, these guys might have been mad or something if they found out I was a higher level. I definitely like being anonymous and hidden. They all seem to think they are undoubtedly the top shit. I guess I can see why with how hard they work and how relentless they are. I don''t know if I''m lucky or have more ingenuity or just raw talent. Guess we''ll find out at the end of and after the tutorial if there''s anyone else like me. Oh man, what happens after the tutorial? Do we get dumped back on earth? Will it be the same?


    "I appreciate your understanding, Lucas. Look I''ll be honest, you guys are very impressive with how much work you put into it, but you guys work way too hard for me. I don''t think I can keep going for 16 hours a day then sleep and repeat, it''s just too much."


    "Hey I get it, no worries. We are usually going for about 20 hours at a time by the way, then only sleep for four. Once you hit your minor evolution at level 25, you don''t need to sleep as much. You want me to let Broxus know or do you wanna tell him yourself? He''s gonna be pretty disappointed, but he should get over it."


    The subtle condescension is getting a little grating. I''m tempted to ask about evolutions, since I missed the stupid tutorial explanation thing, but if I keep talking to these losers much longer, I am going to do something stupid like reveal my level. What if I just cast three full speed, full power Mana Bolts to take out a moose, Lucas'' head would probably explode if I did.


    "You tell him, I''ll just slip out."


    Felix turned and left. He ran slightly faster than the fastest he saw any of them ever run, which was extraordinarily slow. Felix was tempted to run full speed and just vanish from in front of their eyes, or fire off a bunch of Fire Bolts from everywhere to screw with them but decided it wasn''t worth it.


    The only threat these guys pose, is that they may kill the world boss before I get a chance to. Let''s say they speed up a little and manage to pull off three levels every four days. We have eighty days left, leaving time some wiggle room, they max out at level eighty. The leveling should slow down though because the forest critters won''t be able to keep up. They''ll definitely fall behind if they don''t seek out better equipment, though maybe they just buy it from taxes? I didn''t check his tax rate.


    The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.


    So, do I think that party at level 70 ish plus a bunch of level 60s will be taking out a world boss? Probably not? I hope not. It would be nice to have an idea how many people are intended to take it down. Maybe The System told us in the explanation part I slept through. Still not sure I buy The System not being able to wake me up. Couldn''t it have just blasted me with an air horn? S§×ar?h the nov§×lF~ire.net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    Felix ran to the north east, straight to the dungeon marking on his map. He encountered moose, wolves, grizzly bears, deer, snow leopards and lynx on the way there. All around level 30 ish.


    I wonder if that''s what this zone will stay at or if Broxus is influencing it. Maybe it grows naturally all by itself. That seems more likely, Broxus'' influence, if it exists, is probably negligible at best.


    Felix found a large stone right where the map said it would be. As with all the previous dungeons, there was a small tunnel leading into the rock with a door at the end of it. Before touching the door, Felix quickly approved all the Tripeak-Valley''s expenditures.


    Quest Dungeon A


    You have found a dungeon. Would you like to enter?


    Yes


    No


    Seriously, again? This should be the last one, right? Yes.


    Quest Dungeon A


    Three tribes have lived harmoniously in The Shivering Expanse for generations. Just yesterday, something has gone terribly wrong. Now, tensions are growing between the tribes and war is on the horizon.


    (1/5) Figure out what happened.


    Seems kind of similar to the last one.


    Felix peered out of his warm and comfortable cloak into a roaring blizzard. He could only see his own body and not much else. Luckily, peering at his map for direction, all three tribes were pinned. Felix headed for the closest one.


    The wind was violently pulling Felix from side to side cause him to have to fight against it every step. Every minute or so, it would completely change directions and he would stumble trying to readjust.


    I really hope the wind doesn''t tear my cloak. I know it''s a magic item, but it''s so thin I instinctively doubt it.


    Felix spent a half hour fighting the storm on his way to one of the three tribes. He knew he had arrived when he walked right into the side of a wooden building. He patted his hands along the wall to keep track of the building and made his way around it to try and find a door. He turned the corner but found no door, he did however, manage to just make out a few more buildings just a short ways off from the one he was at now. He circled around to the next side but stopped short and decided to head for a different building.


    He had just gotten a glimpse of a larger building with orange light flickering in the windows. None of the other buildings he could see seemed to have lights on. Felix headed for the building and when he was just a few meters away the door opened and two men in hides hurried out and practically carried Felix inside.


    "The hell do you think you''re doing out there. Did you not notice the blizzard? Were you trying to kill yourself?" A female sounding voice said.


    "Oi, leave him alone. He''s probably frozen to the bone. Come, bring him to the fire, thaw him out lest he catch a cold." The man carrying Felix on his right said.


    Felix tried to shake off the men pulling him towards the fire, "Uh, I''m fine thank you. The weather just doesn''t bother me. I mean the wind is a pain the ass and I can''t see anything, but otherwise it''s fine"


    The men let him go and Felix lowered his hood then scraped away the snow that stuck itself to his brows and lashes so he could see again. Looking around the room, there were about two dozen men and women and just a few children all sitting around a roaring fire set in the center of the far wall. Above the fire hung two large axes with their handles, intricately carved bones, crossed over each-other. All of the people in the building were around level twenty, with the highest at twenty four.


    Maybe I should wear a mask, the hood is open. Alright let''s get this show on the road.


    "I hear you were living peacefully for generations with two other tribes and that something went wrong. I''m here to fix it. So, what happened?"


    "The Horde stole the Frozen God''s Mercy, that''s what happened!" Someone suddenly exclaimed.


    "It must have been The Frostmyre Tribe, they are all sneaky little devils."


    "They teamed up to take us down, that''s what happened."


    "Oi, we''ve been friends for generations. They are both practically family, don''t go accusing them of dooming us all."


    "Yer just saying that cause you got the sweets for Ralph."


    "What if they didn''t take it and the Frozen God took it back. He''s mad at us, that''s why the blizzard''s here, we are being punished! We must atone for our sins and pray for salvation!"


    "Oh he''s mad alright, he''s mad cause The Frostman Horde stole his damn item."


    "That item was a gift."


    "Oh really? Did he hand it to you himself?"


    "No, she didn''t, but why else would it have stayed here for so long."


    "I don''t know, it''s a god they probably forgot or had to take a shit. Now that they are done they picked it back up and moved on with their lives."


    "Oi, there are children in the room, watch your damn language."


    "Oh, sorry. I¡­ didn''t mean to."


    "It''s ok, just try to pay attention in the future."


    "So we''re all agreed then? We sneak in and kill both The Frostman Horde and The Frostmyre Tribe as they sleep? The new guy is wearing all black, he looks like he could handle some skullduggery."


    "Woah now hold on a minute, who is talking about assassinating anyone?"


    Anger. Bitter. Fear. Anger. Shock. Fear.


    Suddenly it seemed like everyone had something to say. Felix had the intelligence and perception to hear all of it, but not to sort through who had said what. He decided to try out a spell he hadn''t tried yet, Felix cast a half size Thunderclap. It wasn''t quite loud enough so Felix risked it and cast it at normal size but as far away from himself as he could, with his own hands over his ears.


    A loud bang emanated through the wooden building and shut everyone up, except for the kid in the corner who was still whispering their newly learned curse-word to themselves.


    "Alright so, you guys had an item from some Frozen God that you shared and someone stole it? What was the item, how did you share it and who is the Frozen God?"


    After a moment, one of the men who carried Felix into the building answered, "The Frozen God''s Mercy is a Divine quality staff that was planted in the ground right in the middle of the three tribes. The staff created a safe area a few kilometers across where the cold didn''t exist. We split the area into four parts. A small circle around the staff was dedicated to be a park, a place for kids to play and a meeting place for the tribes. Then the ring around the outside was split in three, one for each tribe to grow food. That''s were we would normally weather storms like this, no matter what, it was always warm around the staff. Even if the sky raged down upon the land, no matter how great the storm, around the staff it never rained and the sky was always clear."


    "No one really knows where the staff came from, but it rested in the same place for millennia. Yesterday, the staff disappeared. We normally have guards guarding the staff, one from each tribe at all times, but they are missing as well."


    They have to be manipulated by The System to be more open right? There is no way a tribe of people who is currently on the warpath and is suspicious of the other tribes is spilling all their problems to some random visitor, right? Same with the other dungeons. Though, I kind of expect the queen would have complained to anyone who would listen regardless. I guess the mercenary thing made Borrugra talk. Maybe it''s just these guys?


    Felix checked his quest screen.


    Quest Dungeon A


    Three tribes have lived harmoniously in The Shivering Expanse for generations. Just yesterday, the divine treasure that kept them all safe disappeared. The tribes seem to be blaming each-other and war is on the horizon.


    (1/6) Figure out what happened.


    (2/6) Talk to The Frostman Horde.


    (3/6) Talk to The Ivory Axe Clan. [Complete]


    (4/6) Talk to The Frostmyre Tribe.


    (5/6) Find the Frozen God''s Mercy.


    "Gotcha. Is this your entire tribe?"


    The one who explained the item to Felix nodded.


    "Alright, I''m going to ask you one by one." Felix walked up to the person nearest him. "Did you steal the staff? Do you know where The Frozen God''s Mercy is?"


    "No." They responded.


    Truth.


    Felix walked around the room and, from everyone, got some variation of ''no'' with a feeling of truth from his earrings.


    "Alright, I''m off to talk to the other tribes. Don''t kill anyone or go to war just yet."


    "What do you mean, the blizzard is strong as ever right now?"


    "Yeah, I''ll be fine."


    Felix pulled up his hood and left the building before anyone could stop him. . . . . .

 Chapter 39 - Book 38

    The journey to the next tribe on the map was similarly annoying, fighting the wind''s ever changing directions. He eventually found a town made up of many hide tents with holes in the tops. He planned on looking for one with smoke rising from it, but he couldn''t judge them from afar, and they all seemed too small to contain more than a few people.


    Felix eventually just opened the flap on the largest tent right at the center of all the others. Inside he found what he thought were humans but not quite. They had hair or fur all over their bodies.


    The inside of the tent was more spacious than Felix was expecting as the ground was dug out almost five feet down.


    "The hell are you doing, it''s a blizzard out there, don''t you know."


    Felix stepped inside, closed the flap and carefully stepped down the stairs into the room. It was circular, about three meters across, with the only things in the room being people, a fire and the stairs to get in. On the fire was a cooking pot and around it sat five hairy people.


    "Hello, I am a traveler and I''m here to find the Frozen God''s Mercy and return it to the tribes."


    "Why wouldn''t you just steal it? Why would we believe you want to help us?"


    "Uh, I don''t know¡­ I don''t want it?"


    Another of them chimed in, "I mean I''ll take any help I can get. I''d much rather be laying in the park than here huddled up with you lot. It smells awful and I''m tired of pretending it don''t. What do you need from us?"


    "How many people are there in this tribe?"


    "24. Actually, 23 now."


    "Alright, now I''m going to ask everyone, just to be sure, did you steal the staff? Do you know where The Frozen God''s Mercy is?"


    Felix asked everyone in this tent then moved on to each of the tents he could see until he had asked 23 hairy people. He had to go scour for the last tent which was built slightly further away from the center tent than the rest, which Felix found very annoying.


    Felix trudged through the snow and fought the wind over to the last tribe. His map indicated that he had arrived when he found himself in front of a large ice wall with a closed gate in front of it.


    Well shit, I can''t just jump the wall cause then the wind is gonna send me off into no where. I can''t get them to open the gate cause there probably isn''t anyone manning it right now and I really don''t wanna wait out the storm. Oh god I know what I have to do, I am acknowledging now that this is gonna be really stupid.


    Felix walked all the way up to the wall and waited for the wind to change directions. As soon as it did, he cast mana shield and faced the wind head on. Then he cast jump with much more mana than necessary and flew twenty meters into the air, twice as high as he needed to get over the wall. He cast Gust repeatedly to try and push himself inside the wall and cast Feather Fall to catch himself once he was over.


    Inside the wall, it was like the storm didn''t exist. It was still windy and some snow made it in, but the majority of the village within the wall was under an overhang of ice attached to the mountain above. The drastic difference in climate from having the wind alone blocked, was very welcome.


    The houses in this tribe were all inset in the ice. There was no more than a few wooden doors and a couple windows to indicate there was anything here at all. Felix walked up to the door that was flanked by the two windows with light flickering through them and knocked on the door.


    Nothing happened for a couple minutes so Felix knocked again. He was about to knock again, harder this time when the door opened right in front of him. Standing in the doorway was a four foot tall humanoid with pale blue skin and white hair tied in a bun. They sported dark blue tattoos crisscrossing along their bodies. The one holding the door open wore leather pants with white fluff sticking out from the waist and ankles and brown leather boots. They didn''t wear anything above the waist.


    The one holding the door looked back over their shoulder, "See, I told ye thereby somebody knockin at the door."


    "Well where the hell did they come from?"


    "How am I supposed ter know that?"


    "Ye aren''t, yer supposed to let em in and close the damn door so we don''t freeze our damn asses off."


    The small humanoid pulled Felix into the room and closed the door behind him. Felix looked around at a large room with a ceiling much taller than he expected at around two meters. Inset into the wall on the far side of the room was a fire place made of stone. All of the walls around it were a single block of ice, as if everything in here was dug out of a glacier without adding anything back afterwards.


    Looking to the right and left through doorways on either wall, Felix realized the entire village was a single interconnected building.


    "Uh, hello. I am a traveler and I am hoping to help the three tribes find The Frozen God''s Mercy."


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    "Aren''ya glad I heard em knocking now?"


    "I was glad before when it turned out he existed. Just cause I didn''t believe you doesn''t make you the god king emperor supreme of the universe for being right you know."


    "Oh, doesn''t it?"


    The other humanoid was similar in appearance except they had wider hips and wore their hair down around their shoulders. They wore the same thing as the one who opened the door, with no top, which was thoroughly confusing for Felix.


    I''m pretty sure that one is female, the voice and hips give it away. They uh¡­ have no breasts though? So either, females of this race don''t have mammary glands, have them somewhere else, or that one isn''t female. I can''t just ask them can I? I guess it''s a dungeon construct so-


    "Yer wonderin if she''s female? She''s. First time you''ve seen one of us Frostmyre is''t? Always the same reaction with you mammalians. Go ''head, ask us how birth and child care works."


    "I was wondering, but no thank you. I just wasn''t sure if I should refer to her as a her. I think I can live a happy life never knowing any of the rest of that though."


    "All knowledge is useful, but suit yourself."


    I agree, but I would much rather read a book than ask them.


    "Anyways, moving on. I need to ask you all point blank if you took the staff. How many of you are there in this tribe?"


    "Er, 34 now is it?"


    "Yep."


    Felix proceeded to ask them one by one the same questions he had already asked everyone from the other tribes. The building consisted of single hallway running along the outer wall and rooms attached to that the whole way down. Some of the rooms were segmented off with doors that contained entire apartments with sub rooms inside of them and others were completely open.


    Feels like walking around an airport or something. It''s kind of cool.


    Alright so I asked everyone and my earrings confirmed that no one took the staff and no one knows where it is. If that''s the case, then something outside of the tribes must have taken it I guess.


    To be sure, Felix opened his quest screen.


    Quest Dungeon A


    Three tribes have lived harmoniously in The Shivering Expanse for generations. Just yesterday, the divine treasure that kept them all safe disappeared. The tribes seem to be blaming each-other and war is on the horizon. sea??h th§× N?vel(F)ire.¦Çet website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    (1/6) Figure out what happened.


    (2/6) Talk to The Frostman Horde. [Complete]


    (3/6) Talk to The Ivory Axe Clan. [Complete]


    (4/6) Talk to The Frostmyre Tribe. [Complete]


    (5/6) Find the Frozen God''s Mercy.


    Still haven''t figured out what happened. Guess I go to the scene of the crime.


    Felix left the complex and had the Frostmyre open the gate for him so he didn''t have to jump and headed towards the geographic center of the three tribe markings on his map.


    After another fight with the wind, Felix found himself where he was fairly confident the staff had been. As he walked, there was grass underneath the snow instead of ice, dirt and rocks like there was everywhere else. He wasn''t sure the exact location of the staff, but he was at least near where it would have been.


    Felix took a long drink of hot cinnamon apple tea from his flask as he pondered the issue at hand.


    How the hell am I supposed to track this stupid thing down? I guess if it''s a normal person, they don''t have this cloak so they probably wait out the blizzard with one of the tribes. Once the blizzard passes most of the evidence here would have been blown away or covered over. The tribes probably start fighting at that point, at least the ivory axes do. Then they would have to figure out what happened and keep the tribes from fighting. So what the hell else could you possibly find that would point you in any direction? I hope it''s not some anecdote I have to wait to hear about. Maybe then they can track a path of melted ice beneath the snow? Not sure I have that option unless I wait out the blizzard.


    Ok different track, I am a divine magical staff with a crazy effect. I have to be consuming ridiculous amounts of mana right? I mean, I guess it could just be System fuckery. Ok I can work with it consuming mana.


    Felix double checked that he was standing where he wanted to be on his map and closed his eyes. He walked in an outward spiral and tried to feel the mana around him. He walked around in a circle over and over again and even restarted a few times because he figured he must have missed something. Eventually, once his loops were almost a kilometer in radius, he felt the mana change. He double checked the distances to be sure.


    I should have guessed, it''s divine, it has a massive area of effect. It consumed the mana in a huge radius. I should have started way out here. Well, those are a few hours I will never get back.


    Felix walked in a circle around where the staff should have been. Now that he knew what to look for, he immediately noticed it. What he felt was the ambient mana all flowing in one direction. It was slight, but it was like it was still trying to even itself out and fill the void where the staff had been. The staff was carried out in a direction, which meant the mana was generally flowing inwards along the path. It was similar to the wake of a boat. Except this boat was multiple kilometers across so the mana was still recovering almost a day later.


    I wonder if the mana is causing or making the blizzard worse than it would normally be. I''m assuming the trainer here will be a mana trainer, maybe they can tell me. I really should have asked for them earlier. Maybe this was better, find the staff sooner so I can keep the tribes from massacring each-other?


    Felix followed the path of mana away from the villages. If ever he veered off to a side, he felt the mana unilaterally flowing in one direction so he moved with it. If he felt it flowing towards him from both sides, he was on the right path. Having the ambient mana as a guide was the only way this was possible given the blizzard constantly trying to push him around in every which direction.


    Felix followed the path of converging mana for about ten kilometers before it led him into a cave.


    I swear if it''s a yeti in there, I am not going to be happy with your creativity Mr. System. Wait, does The System come up with these scenarios itself or is it recreating situations that have happened in the past?


    Felix almost turned around when he got to the cave because the ambient mana stopped converging and instead flowed into the cave. Ultimately, he went inside because as he approached, he realized just how fast it mana was rushing into the cave. Instead of the casual flow he tracked all the way here, the mana flowing the cave was being pulled actively, like the air leaving a balloon. There was a void inside the cave, and the ambient mana was being pulled to fill it.


    Well, the staff is almost definitely in there.


    Felix cautiously walked into the cave, careful to watch for any movement. It was relatively easy to find the staff, even though the cave was a massive open cavern with rock formations everywhere, as he just had to follow the mana. . . . . .

 Chapter 40 - Book 39

    Felix crept through the cave and finally managed to spot some kind of creature. Luckily, it appeared to be sleeping.


    [E - Uncommon] Gralgore (Lvl 51)


    The creature was hard to make out as it was dark in the cave and it appeared to be almost entirely black. Felix decided to get a few free shots off before he cast Light so he could get some free damage. He walked around to find himself a good vantage point on a rock formation a decent distance away and fired off his first volley.


    Three Fire Bolts shot out from around Felix, all three of them thrice sized, at the lumbering black form he had identified as a Gralgore. As soon as he had released the spells, he started casting Light so he was less blind. As the Fire Bolts flew, just before they struck home, they illuminated its form.


    The Gralgore was covered in black fur with two sets of sharp horns, two on its head and two extending out from it''s jaw. It''s body looked like either a giant furry lizard or a short legged bull with long fur. Overall it was about twice the size of a large bull in overall mass.


    The Fire Bolt''s struck it in the side startling it. The Gralgore quickly rose to it''s feet and turned towards Felix then immediately charged with no warning. It struck the rock formation Felix was crouched on top of and caused it to break in half and fall over.


    How the hell is it that strong? That rock formation was as thick as I am tall, fucking hell.


    Felix found himself falling to the ground, away from the Gralgore which seemed to be recovering from it''s charge. Felix quickly cast Feather Fall on himself causing the rest of the rock formation to fall to the ground. Slowly floating to the ground, Felix had a clear line of sight to the Gralgore. Feather Fall was draining slowly his mana and the Fire Bolts had cost a ridiculous amount when he upsized them so he was starting to risk running out of mana. Currently he was sitting at about 65%.


    Felix shot another Fire Bolt, the same size as the last ones, into the Gralgore''s head, as he fell. The Fire Bolt struck the Gralgore as it was backing up, which seemed to really anger it. It looked around then charged forwards. Instead of going straight as Felix expected, this time it turned to the right and started to run away.


    Son of a bitch.


    Felix cast jump with far more mana than he should have and rocketed himself forwards, towards the fleeing Gralgore, at an angle. He cast another three Fire Bolts at triple size and fired them at the creature. Aiming at a moving target was difficult, aiming at a moving target while rocketing through the air was almost impossible so, Felix missed every shot. He waited till he was close to the ground to cast Feather Fall again as he now had less than 10% of his mana left.


    Seriously? It ran away? That is annoying as shit. Maybe this is a level 50 thing. The Scorpions never had a chance to run, maybe they would have if I didn''t kill them so quickly. Now I have to start thinking about executing things, ugh. Oh man I really hope the world bosses are exempt from this. I do not want to run around the desert chasing a giant worm.


    Felix found himself a much bigger rock formation to sit on and drained some Mana Batteries while meditating. As soon as his mana was full, which was only a few minutes with batteries, Felix began hunting for the Gralgore.


    He walked in the direction it had run and channeled a Light spell above his head. He weaved through the rock formations ready at any moment for the Gralgore to pop out and charge him.


    I am 100% certain that charge will pancake my ass whether or not I use Mana Shield. I am kind of worried I''m going to find it cowering in a corner or something, not sure I have the stomach to kill something when it''s like that.


    Felix walked around some rocks and spotted the Gralgore. It was casually walking around as if it hadn''t almost been killed just a few minutes ago. Felix lobbed three Fire Bolts at it, luckily it was barely moving and it looked almost like it was grazing. Felix''s Fire Bolts were only twice sized this time as he was worried about running out of mana again, even if it would do less damage up front, it would be more mana efficient.


    The three Fire Bolts struck it in the side and it, just as before, jumped up and immediately charged in Felix''s direction.


    The hell, how did you not die? Why would you run away if you had that much health left? Wait a second¡­


    [E - Uncommon] Gralgore (Lvl 50)


    This is a completely different one. Sack of shit.


    Felix had positioned himself on top of a much thicker rock formation this time, so thick it was essentially part of the cave structure itself. The new Gralgore struck the wall and caused it to reverberate under Felix''s feet. The reverberations threw Felix off balance and knocked two of the Fire Bolts he had fired off target. Luckily, the third had just barely hit the Gralgore on it''s hind leg.


    Felix caught himself and quickly cast two double size Fire Bolt turrets. At the same time, he cast a series of individual Fire Bolts and was ready at any moment to switch them out for something defensive if need be. He managed to hit about three shots from each turret when the Gralgore started to stumble away.


    Not this time.


    Felix fired off as many Fire Bolts as he could in it''s direction, not wanting to risk another one of them getting away.


    Ding You have slain an [E - Uncommon] Gralgore (Lvl 50)


    Thank System. I was worried maybe they started running when they still had half of their health left. Still have that first one that got away.


    Felix continued scouring the cave and specifically avoided where the felt the staff was. He didn''t want one of these things charging him from behind when he went to retrieve it. Felix managed to find two more Gralgore, one which he thought was the one that got away as it was also level 51, but it was not. The other was level 52 and Felix baited it into charging into a wall then prepared himself to pepper it with Fire Bolts. As he was about to hit it he saw, out of the corner of his eye, a Gralgore charging at him from behind.


    He felt pretty safe being a couple meters off the ground on a very thick formations until the Gralgore leapt into the air. Felix panicked and dove to the side while instinctively redirecting his Fire Bolts at it. He managed to hit it with a single shot.


    The author''s narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.


    Ding You have slain an [E - Uncommon] Gralgore (Lvl 51)


    Ding You have gained a level in [E - Common] Caster


    Oh you sneaky son of a bitch.


    The corpse of the Gralgore was hanging off the wall where Felix once stood, it''s horns nailed in halfway deep. Felix quickly turned back to the level 52 Gralgore he had been fighting, who luckily hadn''t tried to run away yet. Felix cast as many Fire Bolts as he could at the biggest size he could manage to execute it.


    Ding You have slain an [E - Uncommon] Gralgore (Lvl 52)


    Ding You have gained a level in [E - Common] Caster


    Felix sat down and meditated with batteries to restore his mana. He was so close to the staff at this point, he could feel himself fighting it for mana. It was pulling on the mana in his batteries as well as the ambient mana and Felix fought it on both fronts. It wasn''t too difficult, he suspected because of the distance, but it was still noticeable.


    It''s like training weights. I should enchant something like that. I probably can''t give it divine level mana pull, but I can place it much closer to me, and I can place multiple of them.


    When he was done, Felix quickly checked his stat sheet. He hadn''t done it in a while because it wasn''t super relevant, he could feel himself getting stronger and that was what mattered. It was still nice to see the numbers going up though.


    Ooh, I know I shouldn''t, but I''m gonna put 84 free points into intelligence to get it to 400. The nice round number is just too satisfying to pass up.


    Name:Felix KadeFREE4Level:32STR49Class:[E - Common] Caster (Lvl 47)DEX204Race:[E - Common] HumanAGI96Profession:[E - Special] Arcane Engineer (Lvl 17)PER190Health:823/855VIT57Mana:4000/4000INT400Energy:538/855END57


    Looks like I gained some stats from working out. I guess energy cycling and buffing all the time upped them a little too cause all of my stats are up by a few more points than they should be. Oh well, not gonna complain about that.


    Felix got up and thought about putting the Gralgore bodies in his inventory but decided against it. They didn''t look like they had many useful materials and he suspected their meat would be really tough.


    Felix followed the rush of mana deeper into the cave until he finally found it. He crested over a larger rock formation and saw an almost glowing ball of orange-yellow light. Attached to the ball was a long metal rod. The staff lay on the ground in the middle of a large clear area in the cave, the first cleared area Felix had seen. Circling around the staff, as if guarding it, was another Gralgore.


    [E - Rare] Alpha Gralgore (Lvl 59)


    Oh lovely.


    Felix didn''t have much to work with if he wanted to bait it''s charge into something like he had with the others, considering the entire area around it was cleared out. From where Felix was standing, his accuracy would be mediocre at best but he definitely wasn''t going to get on the same level as the Alpha Gralgore and let it charge him.


    He decided he would just go for it. Felix cast two double sized Fire Bolt turrets and at the time, repeatedly cast one regular Fire Bolt, also double sized. He showered Fire Bolts of different sizes down on the Alpha Gralgore who, as soon as it noticed the first one flying, jumped between Felix and the staff to protect it. Felix figured he was only hitting the Gralgore with about a quarter of the Fire Bolts he fired, but most of them were head shots. Although he wasn''t sure if head shots were doing any extra damage against a creature that used it''s head to attack.


    After taking a barrage of small Fire Bolts, the Alpha Gralgore decided to change tactics. It turned around, grabbed the staff in it''s mouth and started running in circles.


    Really? This is just annoying. How am I supposed to hit this thing now? Maybe I can probably hit it with Mana Bolt cause that spell is so fast, but it does a lot less damage.


    Felix started tracking the Gralgore as it dodged and weaved then cast a triple sized Mana Bolt where he thought it would be. He missed on his first attempt but managed to hit it thrice consecutively right afterwards. He missed his fifth shot but managed to hit his sixth, and last, Mana Bolt before the Alpha Gralgore panicked and started running.


    Apparently, this was a dead end in the cave because the Gralgore started running, with the staff still in it''s mouth, in Felix''s direction, but not at Felix. Felix fired off three double sized Fire Bolts as it ran but only managed to hit it with one of them, leaving him with just 40 mana left in his pool.


    Felix repeatedly cast half sized Fire Bolts and fired them in the general direction of the Gralgore. They only cost a couple mana points each and they were overall more efficient on total damage output.


    Ding You have slain an [E - Rare] Alpha Gralgore (Lvl 59)


    Ding You have gained 4 levels in [E - Common] Caster


    Holy shit I almost completely ran out of mana there, single digits left. Also it''s crazy to me how much of a difference higher level enemies make in terms of gaining experience. I barely gained a level when those first ones were 5 levels up on me, this one was 12 up and I gained 4. I guess it makes sense considering how much harder they are to kill, especially for someone like Broxus'' party, man they would all be dead.


    Felix pulled out a mana battery and drained it as he stepped down from the rock formation he was standing on and walked over to the Alpha Gralgore''s corpse. He picked up the slobbery staff and wiped it off on the Gralfgore''s fur. The metal rod was round and silvery with tiny art engraved all over it depicting a god being worshipped and punishing people. The sphere at the end was glowing so brightly Felix couldn''t look directly at it this close up.


    He was curious to feel what was happening internally with the mana but unfortunately it seemed like it really was something he couldn''t quite figure out. Either it was the System manually consuming mana and creating the effect or it was some other kind of spell or enchantment he didn''t know about yet.


    [E - Divine] The Frozen God''s Mercy


    A staff imbued with the everlasting mercy, towards those of the Shivering Expanse, of the one known as The Frozen God.


    The climate in a very large area around the staff will always be moderate and pleasant with no rain or clouds whatsoever in the sky above.


    WARNING: This item will self destruct outside of the Shivering Expanse.


    That makes sense. Still a cool item, and the first divine item I''ve seen. How''s that work, is divine better than legendary, arcane and mythic?


    Felix continued to drain mana batteries, which was much more difficult with the staff in his other hand. It was doable, but much slower. Felix had to actively focus and fight the pull from the staff at all times. Once his mana pool was full, Felix began fighting the staff for the ambient mana around it. He couldn''t prevent it from pulling in mana altogether, but as he practiced, he could hold larger and larger quantities back from the staff. He figured the pull of mana from an item was likely far less than that of a sentient being, which was the only reason this was possible at all. . . . . . sea??h th§× N?velFire.n§×t website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.

 Chapter 41 - Book 40

    As Felix walked out of the cave, the blizzard was still raging on but the staff completely parted it. At most Felix felt a warm, pleasant breeze on his face with the hood of his cloak down.


    Ah, this is satisfying after fighting that stupid storm for so long.


    Felix kept the staff out and practiced fighting it for control of ambient mana until he was about two kilometers away from any of the tribes. He didn''t want to give it back just yet as it would end the dungeon and he still had one more thing to do. Felix stowed the staff and the blizzard blasted it way towards Felix from all sides.


    He trudged through the storm for a kilometer, free from deep snow right up until the edge of the staff''s radius when he had last wielded it. From then on, he fought the storm and plowed through the snow. He was pretty sure the storm was starting to die down as he didn''t have to fight nearly as hard as before. He made his way to the nearest tribe, The Ivory Axe Clan and walked up to the biggest longhouse, which he could now see looked like an upside-down boat, and entered.


    "Oh you''re back, any news?"


    "Yeah. I am 100% sure neither of the other clans took the staff."


    "You can''t be implying that one of us-"


    "No you idiot, The Frozen God rescinded it''s favor. We are truly doomed"


    "WOAH, hold on. I know where it is, I just need to go get it. A wandering Alpha Gralgore found it and ran off with it." Felix interrupted the frenzy before it started.


    "Are you sure it was a Gralgore?"


    "Yeah, why?" Felix responded.


    "Those things are crazy. Don''t bother trying to retrieve the staff, if an Alpha Gralgore has it, there is no way to get it back. Avoid it at all costs."


    "They can''t be that bad, can they?" Felix said suppressing a smirk.


    "Gralgore are not pack animals, they constantly fight each-other which makes them high level. They also constantly seek out sources of heat. I''ve heard that when they catch their prey, they rip them open with their horns then roll around in the warm entrails." sea??h th§× ¦ÇovelFire.¦Çet website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    That is disgusting, I am hating these things more and more.


    "I''ve also heard they eat rocks, that''s why they don''t bother eating their prey. The rocks also makes their meat toxic."


    Good think I didn''t take any of their corpses and try to eat them.


    "I''ll keep that in mind. Anyways, do you know of anyone with a trainer or teacher profession? Something like that?"


    "You probably want to talk to The Frostmyre Tribe, they''re the smart ones. They help the rest of us with stuff when we need it."


    "Thanks, I''ll go talk to them."


    Felix left the long house. The blizzard had calmed down and was now more like a slightly windy snowfall than a blizzard. Felix hurried over back to The Frostmyre Tribe and jumped over the wall. It was much easier this time as he didn''t need Mana Shield to block the wind as it was much milder. He walked right up to the main wooden door and knocked. This time, it only took a few seconds for a Frostmyre to open the door.


    "Oi, it''s you. Was the mammary and birthing question bugging you that badly? I get it, look it''s pretty simple w-"


    "WOAH. No. Not that."


    Never that.


    "I''m looking for someone with a teacher or trainer kind of profession. I was told you guys are the smart ones."


    "Ye came to the right place. I think Ezarti has something like tutor or mentor. Follow the hall all the way that way, she should be the last door on the right." The Frostmyre pointed off to his right.


    "Thanks."


    Felix walked away before they had a chance to mention birthing again.


    He knocked on the specified door and a very Frostmyre looking female Frostmyre, he wasn''t very good at differentiating them yet, answered the door.


    "Ezarti? I hear you have the tutor or mentor profession?"


    "That I do."


    "I was hoping you might be willing to teach me something. Anything really."


    She opened the door wide and stepped aside so Felix could step into the room. Inside was a large room with two doors, other than the one Felix walked through, and a table with two chairs in the middle of the room.


    Ezarti walked over and sat down at the table and Felix walked over and sat across from her. He hoped that that was what she wanted him to do as she didn''t indicate anything to him. After a few silent moments she finally spoke.


    "What do you know about mana?"


    Sweet, it is a mana trainer.


    "Well, I''m a Caster-"


    "I didn''t ask your class, I asked ''What do you know about mana?''"


    Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.


    Uh, I wasn''t done. Alright, to the point, I kind of like that. Still, could be a little more polite.


    "Mana exists all around us at all times, potentially shifted in a higher dimension, denser in some places, sparser in others. Mana can be used to cast spells by shaping it into spell forms."


    "Yes mana exists all around us, likely shifted in a higher dimension. Mana is consumed to cast spells and in theory can be shaped to cast a spell, but I''ve never heard of anyone doing so. Theoretically there are also mana currents, the ambient mana moves in patterns and can be effected. Like currents in the ocean, but their direction is entirely random and moves in at least three dimensions. It is unlikely we will ever be able to sense this in any way let alone confirm it happens at all."


    I have. I could feel the ambient mana moving to fill the wake from the staff and then being sucked into the staff.


    "You mentioned a lot of highly theoretical aspects but missed one of the most important aspects. Mana is one of the base building blocks of the universe. All things can be created from mana, and can be deconstructed back into mana. However, it takes an absolutely massive amount of mana to create matter, that is why the vast majority of spells you see move objects or create energy. It is much more doable."


    Felix nodded, "Do you have any other highly theoretical aspects, I find those rather interesting."


    "Yes, well most of them haven''t been proven as far as I''ve seen. Possibly some of the gods or the top research institutes have but it wouldn''t be useable information for any of us. There is a theory that mana affinities can be created manually, though no one has been able to do so. There is a theory that mana can be manually shifted from a gas to a liquid or solid and back, we know those states exist, we just don''t know of people shifting it. Those states simply occur naturally. That mana can be turned into stamina energy, many about mana having different states separate from matter, like agitated, calm, spinning etc. Though agitated and calm may also be related to the theory of mana temperatures, representing hot and cold respectively. That mana can only exist with it''s counterpart, anti-mana. You can theoretically create mana as long as you create an equal amount of anti-mana at the same time. Those are the reasonable theories. Some ridiculous ones include souls being made of mana, mana being conscious, mana being pieces of the true god who created the universe. Those are most likely garbage though."


    "Just fun to think about, thank you."


    "Let''s move out of the realm of the theoretical. While we may not be able to intricately control mana, we can move it around a little bit. At first it will feel uncomfortable, like you''re straining yourself in a way you''ve never felt before. With practice you should be able to eventually control mana more intricately and that feeling should pass. As it is, only the top scholars who are millions of years old and have dedicated their lives to the craft can shape mana to cast any spells at all. Even they have no hope of ever casting complicated spells. So-"


    "Sorry, but why is that?"


    "Well, this is also theoretical, but everyone seems to be born with a limit on how much they can control mana, and a learning rate. No one knows if it is a hard limit or soft limit or what goes into calculating it. As you practice, you will approach this limit asymptotically but those with a high learning rate will do so much faster than those without. People have been experimenting with babies for years to try and increase their learning rates and limits. As it is, it seems like everyone is simply born with some numbers which decide these things."


    "Experimenting on babies?"


    "You humans are so squeamish, it''s mostly changing the environments they are raised in, having them start mana control practice younger with differing techniques."


    "Ah, I see. Sorry. I interrupted you, please continue."


    "Yes well, as I was saying, You should begin trying to move your mana around in your body. Try to feel it, separate it from yourself and recognize it within you. If you get really proficient with this, you can start to sense general things about the ambient mana, like drastic changes in density for one."


    I''m starting to think I might be unique. Either very unique, or her information is way out of date. Maybe both.


    "I have another question. Do you know anything about mana cores or channels? I will continue trying to sense my mana while we talk and I''ll let you know if I figure it out."


    "Well, at least this isn''t quite as theoretical. High grade beasts and monsters, especially those with magical inclinations, tend to grow a core within themselves. At first it was believed these were beast cores and had nothing to do with mana. High tier individuals kept coming across them and eventually they were researched. It was then discovered that they are in fact made of mana, this is one of the naturally occurring sources of mana in a solid state. There have been conjectures that there are many more cores than those we find, but their mana is not held in a solid state so it vanishes once the creature is killed. Channels run throughout the body of the creature to guide the mana from the core to where it needs to be. This is most common in creatures with organs that use mana, they essentially have a mana based circulatory system of some kind. Exactly how they function is currently just a topic of research, you would have to ask an expert in the field."


    "Are the mappings of channels always the same?"


    "No, of course not. The mana organs in these creatures very wildly. I have also not heard of any kind of pattern to them whatsoever."


    "I see."


    "How is moving your mana coming along."


    "Oh uh¡­ I think I can move it a little bit. So I can continue to pursue this after I leave, what are some other exercises or things you might teach after this?"


    "Sense mana, move mana and the nature of mana. These things alone will help tremendously for anyone using mana."


    "Why does intelligence increase the size of our mana pools? They seem mostly unrelated? At least more unrelated than vitality or energy."


    "Yes it does seem curious. When you had say, a hundred mana, did you feel almost ten times smarter than a normal human?"


    "No not really, as it is I definitely don''t feel 40 times smarter either, why is that?"


    "This is a well known flaw or oversight in The System''s grand design. Essentially intelligence is an awful term and what it represents is very abstract. The actual intelligence of a person is often judged in interpersonal relationships by their ingenuity, creativity, wit, ability to control emotional responses and much more. Most of these are considered personality stats. They exist in your true soul or core soul. The System cannot manipulate or help you increase them, they help define you as a person and can only change by your own hand. The intelligence stat tends to help with memory, general speed of thought, processing speed of your senses, bodily coordination along with dexterity, and simple problem solving like math calculations. It will not allow you to make more abstract connections between things, it will not make you the greatest detective of all time or let you internalize and understand the universe itself."


    "As for why it is correlated with mana, your guess is as good as mine. Your spell damage also scales with it, to a point, but I have never found a satisfying explanation as to why. Say I cast a Mana Bolt, it looks identical to one I cast with double the intelligence, yet the latter does twice the damage. It could be The System manually changing things, or it could be that intelligence measures some kind of focus, improvement in mana quality, purity or something else entirely that results in more damage. Many have tried researching this, by creating something with mana, containing it, then increasing their intelligence and creating it again. Comparing the two object though, no known differences have been found. It is also nearly impossible to restrict all the confounding variables. Furthermore, containing an initial cast perfectly for a long period of time is usually something only possible by using restricted or unique magical items." . . . . .

 Chapter 42 - Book 41

    "Have you heard of Skill Test Cubes for mana?"


    "Yes, in fact I have an uncommon one. Why?"


    "Ah, just curious. What do their tier and rarity mean?"


    "The tier is the tier of the item stored inside and the rarity is the difficulty, for the most part. However, these are somewhat related. An uncommon cube can contain an item of uncommon quality or lower. The difficulty of cubes are¡­ complicated to measure especially at higher tiers. Also some of the higher tier cubes are not cubes at all and can have hundreds of sides, or so I''ve heard. Some of them can require multiple sides to be completed at once. Skill cubes are an oddity in the multiverse because mana skill cubes are basically an entirely different from a strength skill cube which is entirely different from an energy skill cube and so on, yet they share a name. Back to the difficulty issue, essentially, a higher grade individual bought up hundreds of mana cubes of different rarities. They found that, in their experience, the B and C grade cubes were similar in difficulty per side to the lower tier cubes but they were just more. If the E tier cube had a maze, the C tier one would also have a maze but it would be hundreds of times bigger. To solve it they didn''t need anything new, they could have solved it in the E grade, it would have just taken years per side."


    "Also not all cubes test the same thing, just because they say mana, one could be mana control, other speed, another power or some other higher level concept. They could test something that is true about mana that none of us know about because almost all of them were created by The System or The Ancients."


    "The Who?"


    "Those who came before and eventually created The System. No one really knows anything about them, but you will hear a lot of things attributed to them that no one can prove. They are essentially a popular legend throughout the multiverse. Really, we just have some artifacts that no one, even The System, has any idea how to create. It''s admitted it before, that some things and some items are beyond it entirely. Frankly, they could come from anywhere like a parallel dimension for all we know."


    "Woah, those items must be awesome."


    "Oh, one more thing about skill cubes. The other thing that makes them unique, The System is bound by rules, one of which is that the reward must fit the accomplishment. All that means is that you can''t get a super legendary magic item from a random dungeon you ran on easy mode. That seems reasonable, but there is a flip side. No matter the difficulty you choose, on some dungeons, the reward level has an upper limit. To get around this, The System can give out a Skill Cube. Essentially, it''s value is none while closed and the reward inside is based on the accomplishment of opening the cube, not whatever you did to get the cube in the first place. Some very high tier individuals might personally train their children from birth, who gain no levels at all, then they go out and start leveling but have the proficiency of someone much higher level than they are. They tend to be dropped a lot of skill cubes. Their high proficiency means they can open the skill cube and then The System can reward them with something valuable, instead of useless junk."


    "Ah, that''s odd that The System has rules like that, why not just do whatever it wants?"


    She shrugged, "That''s how it was created. That''s all we know really. Oh, I can retrieve my Skill Cube for you, if you would like to see it?"


    "Sure, I would appreciate that."


    Ezarti stood and stepped into another room.


    I''m kind of tempted to blow her mind just to see how she reacts. It wouldn''t even entirely be for my ego, I might also get more information out of her. I think it''s likely smarter to keep to myself, but she is just a dungeon construct, I don''t think she''ll remember me or even exist after I leave.


    After a moment, she came back and placed a cube on the table in front of Felix. The cube was almost twice the size of Felix''s and it was made of some sort of dull grey metallic material.


    [E - Uncommon] Skill Test Cube: Mana Control


    A skill testing cube to test mana control.


    AKA: Puzzle Box, Enigma Cube etc.


    "Feel free to try it out. This one was a gift from my husband a few years before he died. I finally managed to open it just last year but I keep it around for practice. Opening this is one of the things I am proudest of accomplishing in my life."


    Felix reached forwards and picked up the box, "Do you have any tea cups by any chance?"


    "Uh, I believe so, let me go check." She once again stood and left to another room.


    As soon as she entered the other room, Felix pushed mana into the skill test cube. The sides of the cube were like the baby version of the one he owned. There was a maze, but with the amount of mana Felix was allowed to start with, he simply spread the mana out filled the entire side and found the end almost immediately. The other sides were slight variations of the first side, though no more challenging, just a different layout. It took Felix under a second to complete each side.


    The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.


    Presumably because the cube had been opened before, instead of a dialogue box popping up, the cube simply opened on one side. Felix peered into the cube and found a note inside. He reached inside with two fingers and pulled the note out. The note read:


    "If you are reading this, I just want you to know how amazing you are. I never would have been able to open an uncommon cube. I know you doubt yourself sometimes, but I hope that this will prove to you, over and over again that you are great at what you do. I will always love you, Kandru."


    Felix carefully replaced the note back into the cube and closed it. He made sure it looked exactly as it did before and then made sure to completely empty it of his residual mana.


    "You said tea cups, I assume you want the pot and hot water as well?"


    "No no, just the cups."


    "Uh¡­ Ok then." She walked into the room using her hip to open the door and sat back down across from Felix, placing the cups of tea down between them.


    "Cool isn''t it? You start by pushing mana into it, once you can manage that. The fun really starts, I won''t spoil it for you though. As long as you keep practicing, you should be able to complete a cube like that in a few years, a decade if you are particularly inept, but a decade isn''t that long, I assure you the time flies. You''ll get there in no time."


    "Wow, that sounds impossible now. I can''t wait till I get to that level. It''s exciting, having a puzzle in your hands, with something great inside and all you gotta do is prove yourself to get it."


    "It is a great feeling."


    Felix took out his flask, channeled mana to fill it then poured it''s contents out into the two tea cups.


    I really hope our taste buds are somewhat similar.


    Ezarti tentatively reached forwards and picked up one of the cups. Felix reached forwards for his cup and took a sip. S§×ar?h the nov§×lF~ire.net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    "I am kind of just assuming your race isn''t allergic to apples or cinammon?"


    "No, we can digest anything yours can and some, but uh¡­ do you just keep hot tea in your inventory at all times?"


    "Something like that. Anyways, tell me about your husband, what was he like?"


    Ezarti took a tentative sip of her glass, "Oh, this is delightful. My husband? Oh, well¡­"


    Felix spent the next hour or so listening to Ezarti reminisce about her husband.


    With everything he had wanted to accomplish in the dungeon complete, Felix stood outside the Frostmyre complex and walked towards the other tribes. He asked the Frostmyre to meet him where the staff was supposed to be, so they were walking along just behind him. Felix split off and ran towards The Frostman Horde then to The Ivory Axe Clan to inform them as well.


    It was no longer snowing or even very windy at all. The sky was still blanketed by a thick layer of dark grey clouds giving The Shivering Expanse a gloomy vibe. The horde were perfectly agreeable and agreed to head out right then, the axe clan on the other hand were an issue.


    Felix arrived in their village to find them all running around from building to building with something clearly going on. Felix walked up to a man, who seemed to be coordinating them, standing in front of the largest central longhouse. He was fully equipped with armor and many axes hanging from anywhere he could.


    "What''s going on?"


    "Ah, the traveler. We appreciate you figuring out what happened to the staff. We can''t survive without the staff you see, so we are going to go and retrieve it. We stand a decent chance if the whole clan works together. We''re just about to go see if the Frostman or Frostmyre could lend a man or two. We could never ask you to put yourself in danger, we appreciate everything you''ve already done. We just ask that you please point us in the direction of the Gralgore. We''ll handle this one ourselves."


    At least they don''t intend to kill the other tribes.


    "Good thing I caught you then. I asked the other two tribes to meet me where the staff should be so I can explain what happened. You can make a speech to recruit them then. I do have one request, let me explain what happened before you try to recruit them, I want to make sure everyone knows what they are getting into."


    "Excellent. Of course, we don''t want to trick anyone."


    Well this is gonna be fun.


    Felix walked, with a small army of axe wielding warriors in tow, towards the center of the three tribes. When Felix arrived at the park, the Frostmyre were already there and the Frostmen were just arriving.


    Felix walked over to the center of the park, and stood on the small mound that once held The Frozen God''s Mercy, "Welcome all three tribes of The Shivering Expanse. Just over a day ago your divine treasure, the staff that brought life, joy and sustenance"


    life and sustenance cover the same things, shit.


    "to your people, was stolen. Though you all had many theories"


    Mostly the axe tribe.


    "what really happened is that an Alpha Gralgore wandered out of it''s cave and took the staff."


    Shock and fear rippled through the crowd, confirmed by Felix''s earrings.


    "Thank you, traveler. This is why the axe clan has decided to send all we''ve got to-"


    "Woah hold on, ther-"


    "head out and slay the beast."


    Son of a bitch.


    Felix pulled the staff out of his inventory and stuck it in the ground in front of him. Immediately, the clouds above their heads vanished revealing the setting sun and the snow melted rapidly revealing the grass beneath their feet. The grass was frozen and likely dead but suddenly began to thaw and grow greener by the second, coming back to life before their eyes. Flowers grew and bloomed all at once and a warm breeze whistled through the crowd.


    Suddenly, Felix noticed something was wrong. A few of the Frostmyre were looking away, shielding their eyes and one of them turned to the side to start vomiting.


    Oh no, can they not handle the temperature? I thought they also shared the park area? Maybe they just grew food her-


    Felix noticed they were all looking in the same direction, even the Frostman and Axe clansmen. He looked down at the ground beneath him, where all their eyes avoided. All around him, lay the entrails of the three guards who had been guarding the staff when the Gralgore found them. The Gralgore had done what it was known for and rolled around in their open corpse, spreading them out all over the park.


    A combination of the sight and smell finally reaching Felix''s nose caused him to gag. He looked away and cast Gust to redirect the smell away from anyone.


    Oh right, the guards. I didn''t even think about where they would be. Well, my heroic speech got cut short and the big reveal kind of got tarnished by the dead people. Maybe I''m just not fit to be the public hero people look up to, oh well I gave it a shot. It''s not that''s something I really ever wanted anyways. At least it happened in a dungeon, so no one except The System and I will remember this. . . . . .

 Chapter 43 - Book 42

    Quest Dungeon A


    Three tribes have lived harmoniously in The Shivering Expanse for generations. Just yesterday, the divine treasure that kept them all safe was stolen by a wandering Gralgore. The tribes seemed to be blaming each-other and war is on the horizon.


    (1/6) Figure out what happened. [Complete]


    (2/6) Talk to The Frostman Horde. [Complete]


    (3/6) Talk to The Ivory Axe Clan. [Complete]


    (4/6) Talk to The Frostmyre Tribe. [Complete]


    (5/6) Find The Frozen God''s Mercy. [Complete]


    (6/6) Return the staff to the tribes. [Complete]


    (Bonus) Keep the tribes from going to war. [Complete]


    (Bonus) Slay the Alpha Gralgore. [Complete]


    (Bonus) Do not let anyone die. [Complete]


    Quest Dungeon A


    You have completed the quest.


    You have successfully achieved all normal and all 3 Bonus objectives.


    Congratulations.


    Quest Dungeon B


    Calculating Rewards


    Bonuses:


    Diplomacy


    Monster Slaying


    Lives Lost


    Reward Tier: Highest


    Quest Dungeon B


    Rewards


    [E - Special] Gem of the Frost


    [E - Special] Angel''s Ring of Healing


    [E - Special] Major Restrictive Equipment


    [E - Rare] Shivering Ivory Axe


    [E - Uncommon] Frozen Wand


    [E - Uncommon] Steel Plate Armor


    [E - Uncommon] Frost Dagger


    500,000 Tutorial Credits


    Felix found himself exactly where he expected, in the reward room. Felix quickly collected the credits from the table. The next two items were aesthetically cool with no enchantments, making them essentially just credits for Felix.


    The next item on the table looked like a half meter long icicle.


    Finally a weapon. I kind of have a bad feeling though.


    [E - Uncommon] Frozen Wand


    A wand made of pure ice.


    Spell-list spells cast while wielding this wand have 10% reduced cast speed and 10% increased damage. Effects doubled for ice spells.


    Yup, this isn''t part of the tailored equipment. Oh well, more credits for me. The System has probably realized these won''t ever be useful to me so it doesn''t bother when it''s tailoring the equipment. With all the quest dungeons it''s seemed like the lower rarity loot is random, while the highest two rarities are tailored. I wonder which is due to the bonus rewards.


    The next item on the table was a large hand axe with a shaft made entirely of intricately carved ivory. The blade appeared to be simple steel but had frost coating the blade.


    [E - Rare] Shivering Ivory Axe


    An axe passed down for generations, originally crafted by two men who considered each-other brothers, originating from rival clans. This Axe carries with it their bond, and collective fury.


    Swinging this axe consumes mana to coat the blade in icy spikes that dislodge within your victim. Swinging at the air will spray icy spikes in a cone in front of you.


    Maybe the higher rarities aren''t tailored¡­


    Felix picked it up and swung it around a few times. The mana cost was minimal and the axe sprayed icicles across the room. Unfortunately, the enchantment was System fuckery rather than something Felix could learn from.


    Cool item. I hope it sells well.


    The next item on the table was a pile of multiple items. It consisted of strings with hooks on either end, cuffs, a full body suit along with some other random components.


    [E - Special] Major Restrictive Equipment


    A set of equipment designed to strain a human body to the limit of the E grade. S§×ar?h the N?vel?ire.net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    Wearing this equipment will resist all bodily movements by a variable amount. Channel mana into individual pieces to increase their resistance and pull mana out of them to decrease it. Resistance range is 300 to 2500 Strength.


    I definitely do not have 300 strength and I don''t think screwing with energy is going to get me there. I guess I hold on to this for a while, I would rather have it with the higher level too because then I can presumably use it for longer.


    The next item on the table was a gold ring with a small ruby heart embedded into it. Silver wings extended out from both sides of the gem.


    [E - Special] Angel''s Ring of Healing


    A ring serving the function of a guardian angel. The ring will heal and protect its wielder.


    This ring contains the equivalent health of a single [E - Uncommon] healing potion (500 health). The healing effect can be applied simply by willing it. It takes 24 hours for the ring to recharge from empty. Additionally, while equipped, this ring will prevent a single death, instead restoring you to 500 health and destroying itself.


    I was just thinking I needed to find some kind of healing potion. That extra bit is also nice to have. I definitely don''t want to be in the situation where I need it, but I guess it is there. I wonder what happens if I get beheaded or something.


    Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.


    The last item on the table was a gem with an identical size and shape to the gems currently slotted into his amulet. This gem was a deep blue color that glimmering in the light, reminiscent of a clear ocean.


    [E - Special] Gem of the Frost


    A gem with abilities that can be granted to the wielder when slotted into it''s corresponding item.


    Frost: While equipped, your maximum mana pool is increased by 50%.


    Felix separated his cloak and brought the gem up to his amulet, where it jumped into it''s socket on the amulet. As soon as the amulet was complete, it started glowing a bright golden color. Felix dropped it back to his chest and covered his eyes. After a few moments, Felix opened his eyes and looked down. The amulet was now a white metal swirling around three gems. The gems were only visible through the small gaps in the metal that contained them. Inspecting the Amulet, Felix noticed that more than just the name had changed this time.


    [E - Legendary] Amulet of the Wild


    A pendant with three gems of mystical power embedded within. Together, the three gems compliment each-other perfectly, forming a unity more powerful than any individually, or even their sum.


    While equipped, your maximum health, mana and energy pools are doubled. Additionally, all of your stats have a minimum set to half of your highest stat.


    Uh¡­ This item is ridiculous. Holy shit. I know this is going to encourage bad habits, but man, right now I just don''t care. From now on, all my points are getting dumped into intelligence. Speaking of which. All free points into intelligence.


    Quest Dungeon B


    All Rewards Collected


    Would you like to leave this room?


    Warning: You may only remain in this room for a maximum of 15 minutes.


    Yes.


    No.


    Yes.


    Felix looked out at a starry night sky through the tops of the gigantic trees that marred the otherwise pristine, snowy landscape.


    Wait a minute, I can probably hit 300 strength with energy buffs now. Man, The System must have planned this all out. Oh also, now I''m done with quest dungeons. That means all that''s left is raw leveling, with just a smidge of learning.


    Peeking at his map, the next dungeon was straight to the west about five hours of travel away. Felix was eager to get there, but decided he should probably sleep first. He quickly approved the backed up expenditures then climbed up into a tree, which was noticeably easier due to his increase in stats, and laid down on the lowest branch.


    Felix woke up right as the sun was rising over the horizon. He decided to check the tutorial screen to see how much time he had left and just in case anything had changed drastically.


    Tutorial Status


    There are 80,341/100,000 people.


    There are 80 days, 17 hours, 3 minutes remaining.


    You have completed 5 dungeons.


    You have helped kill 0 world bosses.


    You have captured 1 fort.


    I feel like that''s more than enough time, but at the same time¡­ maybe not?


    Felix pulled out his flask and decided to reroll it. He was enjoying the tea, but he wanted to try something new. He settled on a fruity slushy drink reminiscent of the drink Mike served him back at Tiki Kahuna, though not quite as good.


    Felix ran through the snow straight to the west.


    I really hope this one is a puzzle dungeon. I really need to work on my profession, it is falling way behind. Also if it is, I should be able to take on a higher difficulty combat dungeon.


    The trees became sparser until eventually there were no more and bare snowy plains stretched out in front of Felix. Just beyond the snow, Felix could barely make out some kind of dark green and brown biome. As he got closer to it, he realized what it was because of the stench carried by the breeze.


    Swamp. Gross.


    Unfortunately, the dungeon he was looking for was a half kilometer into the swamp. Felix trudged through the murky swamp water and mud covered ground. He weaved around trees for half a kilometer before he managed to find the stone that contained the next dungeon buried in tree roots and moss.


    Puzzle Dungeon A


    You have found a dungeon. Would you like to enter?


    Yes


    No


    Oh score, exactly what I was looking for. Yes.


    Felix experienced a nostalgic sense of deja-vu looking down the nondescript corridor laid out before him that ended in a simple fork. Felix walked down the corridor and stopped at the fork looking left and right. Looking to his right, the corridor ended in a left turn, looking to his left, he was surprised to see a door.


    He walked up to the unexpected sight and cautiously opened the door. Inside, he saw a very familiar looking rest room with some slight differences. In the room lay the same fountain and table filled with a feast Felix had expected. On top of that though, there were also five doors leading off of this room which were not in the last dungeon. Felix opened them one by one.


    The first room was a large room with desks all the way around and a table in the middle. The desks had clamps of all different kinds, magnifying glasses and other miscellaneous tools for tinkering. The next room was what appeared to be a weapons testing facility. There was a half wall with a hole in it and a window on top of that. On the other side of the wall, through the window, there was a single target dummy. The third room had a single desk spanning one wall with a different set of tools from the first room. The fourth room was completely empty but the walls were made of a slick black material. The last room was simply a long corridor.


    I know I''ve spent most of my time recently in dungeons, but this one feels different. The quest dungeons were indistinguishable from the outside world, this one feels like a dungeon. Nothing to do but get started.


    Felix excitedly ran out of the rest room and through the corridors jumping off of walls to change directions. With his memory skill mapping the paths for him, he just ran. After running in a random direction for 10 minutes, he turned back and started mapping out a radius from the rest room. It wasn''t long before he found his first room. Judging from the map of the last dungeon, this room was most likely a green room.


    Now that I have a profession though, these are probably very different. Not sure how much of my experience in the last dungeon will translate to this dungeon.


    The room was square with walls that were about 10 meters to a side. In the middle of the room, was a workbench with tools similar to those found in one of the rooms Felix explored off of the rest room. On the table was a simple, common longsword. Across the room from the door Felix entered from was another longsword on top of a pedestal on the left side with an empty slot for another to it''s right. To either side of the room, covering the walls, were more longswords. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 Chapter 44 - Book 43

    Felix walked up to the workbench and examined the longsword.


    [E - Common] Longsword


    A simple longsword. The chosen weapon of many warriors.


    Felix walked up to the pedestal and identified that longsword.


    [E - Rare] Enchanted Training Longsword


    An enchanted longsword. This longsword was not enchanted through manography.


    Huh?


    Felix walked over to the wall and picked up a random longsword, which he immediately noticed felt odd.


    [E - Uncommon] Enchanted Longsword


    An enchanted longsword. This longsword has been enchanted to be 9% lighter.


    Felix began identifying longswords on the walls at random.


    [E - Uncommon] Enchanted Longsword


    An enchanted longsword. This longsword has been enchanted to be 7% more durable.


    [E - Uncommon] Enchanted Longsword


    An enchanted longsword. This longsword has been enchanted to be 8% heavier.


    [E - Uncommon] Enchanted Longsword


    An enchanted longsword. This longsword has been enchanted to swing with 5% additional force.


    [E - Uncommon] Enchanted Longsword


    An enchanted longsword. This longsword has been enchanted to heat the blade as it''s swung.


    Felix swung the last longsword he had examined to test the blade heating up and mid-swing, noticed something he hadn''t ever noticed before. A geometric pattern, not unlike a spell form glowed orange when he swung. Swinging the blade harder and faster made it glow brighter and it disappeared as soon as the blade was still for a moment. Looking closer at the blade, Felix realized the pattern wasn''t disappearing, it just wasn''t glowing. The pattern was very finely engraved into the blade of the sword.


    I think I understand what I am supposed to do. I wonder if I can take all these swords with me though?


    Felix tried walking out of the room with one of the longswords but it simply would not leave, as if it had hit an invisible wall. He tried to place it In his inventory but it simply reappeared on the wall from where he had taken it and the one in his inventory vanished, though Felix wasn''t sure if those two were one in the same.


    Guess not.


    Walking over to the table he began drawing out the enchantments from the blades. Felix''s drawing ability was mediocre at best. His dexterity made it so that his lines were as straight as he wanted and the drawing was as sharp as he could ever hope for. His perception made it so that he could see every fine detail on the sword. Somewhere between the two, despite his intelligence, there was a disconnect. Lines were simply too long proportionally, angles too sharp and curves too tight. Felix scrapped his first attempts at the first sword many times. Luckily the dungeon supplied seemingly unlimited paper.


    Eventually, Felix got sick of screwing up his drawing and decided to try something he wasn''t sure would work at all. With enough practice his drawing skills would get better and his perception and what he saw would match his dexterity and what he drew, for now though, Felix needed training wheels. sea??h th§× N?vel?ire.net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    Felix pulled out a thread of mana as thin as he could and traced the enchantment on the longsword. He scrutinized every detail until he was satisfied, then he lifted it over onto the page. With his high dexterity, he simply traced the feeling of where the mana was, which was a sense Felix was very proficient with.


    When it was complete, Felix simply pulled the thread back into himself and examined the page. It was as flawless as he could currently manage.


    Felix initially thought about just memorizing the enchantment forms and cataloguing them in his Mind Palace but realized he would eventually have to draw them onto the sword anyways. Getting some practice in now didn''t seem like a bad idea to him. Given that he was gifted a quill as an enchanting tool, he assumed drawing of some kind was a necessary skill. Due to the similarities between the spell forms Felix was already seeing, he assumed these needed to be just as precise so, his mediocre drawing capabilities were not going to cut it.


    With his new tracing technique, Felix was confident his enchantments would be as precise as he could manage with his current stats. He briefly tried overlaying his memory of the enchantment in his vision then tracing that but found it was much harder to precisely trace than the mana was. For some reason, having the enchantment he was tracing in his vision was much harder than coordinating his two senses. Ultimately though, he could first trace out the enchantment in his Memory Palace, then form that enchantment with mana and finally inscribe that into an object. It was a lot more steps that he''d like, but the time it took him to trace it out with mana was negligible and overall it was great practice so, he wasn''t too bothered.


    Well, I see almost a hundred different longswords with a hundred different enchantments. Time to memorize and catalogue them all. Then trace them out for practice.


    Felix memorized and catalogued every enchantment on every longsword in the room, except the one from the pedestal and the plain one. He made sure to record the enchantment''s effects from identify on the same page then sorted them in his Memory Palace library. Finally, Felix began tracing out the enchantments from memory, as that was likely how he would be enchanting in the future.


    Felix traced out every enchantment at least a dozen times. There were only a half dozen or so enchantments in total, they simply varied in strength. The 5% increased durability when compared to the 9% increased durability enchantments were almost identical, with some small, specific changes.


    This novel''s true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.


    Felix walked over to the pedestal and took the longsword from it. He swung it, weighed it, smelled it and examined it in every way he could fathom. He tried looking for the enchantment script on the blade, but couldn''t find any whatsoever, not that he expected there to be any he just figured he should give it a shot. He picked up the unenchanted longsword on the table and examined it in the same fashion.


    With a general idea of the enchanted longswords abilities Felix compared the differences he could feel between it and the normal longsword. Lastly, Felix began picking and choosing swords with similar properties to what he had detected on the pedestal sword.


    He was fairly confident the blade had increased durability as it exhibited an odd property where it was slightly stiffer than the unenchanted blade. This stiffness gave it the illusion of seeming heavier, something Felix had noticed about the simple durability enchanted blades in the room. The blade also seemed to cool itself down slightly when it was swung. It also felt marginally lighter, and increased the force of it''s swings.


    Felix sat down at the table and began trying to fit all the enchantments he had picked out together. The enchantments were entirely self contained and individual geometric patterns. For the goal of replicating the blade from the pedestal, Felix had to somehow combine them all into a single enchantment.


    He started by figuring out which parts of the enchantments were common amongst all of the ones he had chosen. He figured there had to be some part of them that collected mana from ambient, as he didn''t feel it drawing mana from his body. Additionally, he identified some commonalities between the weight lessening enchantment, the stronger swing enchantment and his force bolt spell form. He assumed this meant that both of those enchantments likely converted mana to force in some way before directing it somewhere.


    If he wanted to keep the enchantment forms as in tact as possible, he would need a four dimensional surface on the blade. Immediately scrapping that idea, Felix decided which parts to modify and which to leave exactly as they were. He settled on constructing the enchantment by putting all of the common components at the base of the blade in the middle. Then he would have a long channel that ran down the center of the blade and split off into individual effects.


    He felt like he was completing a puzzle and building a factory at the same time. He completed his initial design on paper before placing the unenchanted sword into the clamps on the table.


    I only have one unenchanted blade, hopefully this works out ok. I''m pretty confident in the enchantment I created, but I also know just about nothing about enchanting so, I wouldn''t bet on it. Speaking of which, how do I use an enchanting quill?


    Felix toyed with the quill provided on the table trying to figure out how it worked. He didn''t want to use the one he was rewarded with in case he managed to break it, or it screwed up the enchantment he was trying to replicate exactly. He eventually figured out, he had to channel mana into the quill as he drew with it. The quill would use the mana to score a line into the surface he drew on.


    Felix tested the amount of mana he should be channeling first on the table top before trying anything on the sword. It required more mana than he expected, but not enough to surpass his passive mana regeneration. Engraving the enchantment carefully onto the sword, Felix quickly realized he could push more mana to increase the thickness of his lines. Unfortunately, that also increased their depth so, he had to lighten the pressure his hand applied to compensate.


    After almost a half hour of careful tracing, Felix was satisfied with the blade. He picked it up and swung it around, then immediately dropped it. The blade shattered as soon as it hit the ground, luckily his pants protected him from any sharp shards of metal.


    When Felix had swung the blade, the force applied, among other problems, was unbalanced and made it feel like the other end was dragging through molasses. The fact that it shattered when he dropped it, likely meant the durability enchantment wasn''t working the way he intended. He might have suspected the cooling enchantment being too strong, if he had felt a significant amount of ambient mana being pulled into the blade. As it was, the blade used very little.


    Well that was a resounding failure.


    The shards of metal along with the remaining handle and cross guard from the attempt vanished and a new blade appeared on the enchanting table already set into the clamps.


    [E - Common] Longsword


    A simple longsword. The chosen weapon of many warriors.


    Oh thank god.


    Felix went back to the drawing board and began iterating on his combined enchantment. After many dozens of attempts, only one failed more spectacularly than the first one had. He had managed to make a blade pull mana from his body, which promptly caused the blade to freeze solid and then launch itself off of the handle entirely.


    Ironically, he was fairly certain he had the right approach initially with a main mana carrying channel that split off into enchantments that drew mana from that. Unfortunately, his execution was abysmal but, it was slowly improving.


    Initially the enchantments were completely unbalanced both compared to each-other and at either ends of the blade. He eventually started to create longswords with individual enchantments to compare them to the example blades. He enchanted blades with his combined enchantment except he removed the extraneous effect. If it felt identical without the extra effects he could work from there to reincorporate the enchantments together.


    Once he had perfected the enchantments individually, he started to combine them together. He started by combining the enchantments in pairs. Once he could combine all of the enchantments with each-other, he went back to the drawing board to redesign his overall enchantment with everything he had learned so far.


    He practiced combining three enchantments on a single blade before finally attempting his combined enchantment again. Having made swords with each of the individual enchantments along with all possible pairs, he was able to identify issues with his final enchantment that he wouldn''t have otherwise seen.


    Felix had just enchanted his best attempt yet, but it was still off. Swinging the example sword from the pedestal just felt more natural, cleaner. Swinging his sword felt off. Unfortunately he couldn''t seem to identify why. He dropped the sword causing it to disappear and a brand new blank longsword to appear on the workbench. He enchanted three more swords with his fully combined enchantment hoping the difference was just in his application.


    Unfortunately his enchantments were still slightly off. It was his best attempt though and he didn''t think he could make it much better so he placed it on the pedestal next to the example sword. The sword glowed briefly white, then green and finally blue a few seconds later.


    Ding You have gained 3 levels in [E - Special] Arcane Engineer


    All free points in Intelligence.


    Right in front of the pedestal, a chest appeared and was pushed out of the ground. Felix walked up to and opened the chest. Inside he found a book.


    [E - Rare] Eramith & Edelis: Enchanting Basics


    A book written by a collection of master enchanters detailing the basics of enchanting intended for their personal apprentices. This version was later edited for general consumption by The Edelis Enchanting Department of The Eramith Academy.


    Well, that would have made things a lot easier.


    Reluctantly Felix decided to head back to the rest room for now as he didn''t want to attempt another enchanting room until he had at least read through some of the book he had just acquired. He quickly made his way back to the rest room and ate all of the food on the table.


    This used to be about 5 days worth of food, now I finish it in a single sitting. Hopefully I don''t get too fat. . . . . .

 Chapter 45 - Book 44

    Once he was done eating, he pulled out and opened the Enchanting Basics book.


    It is very odd that everything I have encountered has been in or spoken English. There has to be some sort of System fuckery there.


    Felix was surprised to find that the book appeared to be hand written. He suspected the book was duplicated by The System or a skill, but it had definitely been transcribed by hand originally. Luckily, master enchanters had impeccable penmanship through a combination of their ridiculous dexterity and their continuous practice drawing out enchantments.


    Though it was impeccable, their were stylistic differences which made it easy to see where the original manuscript had been modified, even if the text had been shifted around through magic. Felix often found himself confused until he read the annotation by the Edelis enchanting department which clarified things dramatically.


    Reading the book, it seemed like the original intention was for the reader to have a lot of enchanting experience and apprenticeship. Likely performing the most basic tasks, the equivalent of getting coffee, for the master enchanter they would pick up on customs, traditions and terms. When they would finally be given the original version of this book, he suspected they would have understood it much better than he did.


    The enchanting department also needed a textbook for their students. They modified a book they knew had quality content to provide a glossary, appendix and annotations. The glossary clarified some of the terms enchanters had coined for their craft. The appendix held diagrams and visual representations of things to make them easier to understand. The annotations helped clarify esoteric concepts and generally confusing sentences and paragraphs.


    Even with all the help provided by the Edelis enchanting department though, Felix still struggled to understand some of the concepts. He often had to reread many of the chapters and sections and still felt like he didn''t have a great grasp of some things. The issue wasn''t that the concepts were difficult to understand, it was that Felix thought the book was poorly written. It was entirely grammatically correct, it was just not concise at all.


    There were tangents all over the place that didn''t seem to have any relation to the chapter they were contained inside of. There were also a lot of random theories that connected to some higher level concepts that were sometimes written in the appendix as: "ignore".


    There was an annotation at the start of the book that explained, the more advanced concepts couldn''t be described because that would likely increase the rarity and grade of the book. That was also why it couldn''t show any actual completed enchantments in the book. They showed the base components of enchantments but nothing more. Everything else was loosely referred to but even descriptions were avoided.


    This would probably be a lot easier to understand if I could actually enchant something.


    The chapters he understood the best were the enchantment combining section. There were chapters on sharing the mana between multiple enchantments, laying out the enchantments and specific patterns that could be followed. They relied on a lot of concepts from earlier in the book that he hadn''t quite fully grasped but, he had just worked on doing exactly that so it made the concepts a lot less abstract. He even suspected he could majorly improve his attempt at replicating the example sword''s enchantments were he to try again.


    Felix wanted to practice enchanting more and he knew one of the rooms attached to the rest room was an enchanting room, but he didn''t have any materials. He had a handful of items in his inventory he could try enchanting, but he didn''t want to accidentally ruin them. He thought about enchanting the arrows one by one, but decided he would wait until he had some more experience so he would get more value out of the enchanting.


    Felix stowed the book and headed out to continue his sweep of the labyrinth around the rest room. He encountered a similar room to the last one with five breastplates, four enchanted and one plain one with an empty pedestal on the far side. Felix assumed he had to combine the enchantments together onto the plain breastplate.


    Enchanting a breast plate was easier in the sense that it had better surfaces to work on, but it was much harder in the sense that it was bigger. The enchantments had to all be balanced with each other and there were many more enchantment nodes needed to create a coherent effect.


    The book had labeled the nodes as something else with a difficult to pronounce word that Felix didn''t bother remembering. The most basic of enchantments consisted of a source, channel and nodes. The source retrieved mana in some way, either from the wielder, a battery or ambient. There were more complicated sources like the target for a sword or inline buffers, conversion of some energy sources into mana and other wild things, but none of them were detailed in the book.


    The channel was the highway that delivered mana to the nodes, which contained the effects. The channels had different shapes to help distribute mana evenly as well as ways of splitting mana out to different nodes and keep them properly fed. There were also shapes to combine mana evenly into a single channel. Things only got much more complicated from there when multiple sources need to be split and combined to deliver the correct amount of mana to each node or mana had to be balanced.


    The nodes were the effects, simple as that. They consume mana to do something, usually converting mana to some form of energy. The complexity was introduced when the nodes needed to be combined to perform effects that individual nodes couldn''t accomplish alone, not to mention sometimes they interfered with each-other. It also complicated the channels because an enchanter had to contend with nodes consuming mana from the channels, like when the toilet is flushed making the shower water scalding hot. The channels needed to be able to keep up with the nodes and balance the mana delivered to them at all times. sea??h th§× n?vel_Fire.¦Çet website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    Felix placed his best attempt on the pedestal and it flashed white, green then blue, the same as last time. A chest appeared once again and Felix opened it to reveal about a hundred identical wooden daggers.


    Stolen story; please report.


    Ding You have gained a level in [E - Special] Arcane Engineer


    [E - Common] Training Dagger


    A blunt wooden dagger intended for training purposes.


    I knew these dungeons gave a ton of materials, but still, this seems like a lot. The last puzzle dungeon I was in had over a thousand green rooms, that would be more daggers than I have time to enchant. Hopefully it doesn''t just give me more materials than I could ever use.


    The next room Felix found surprised him. He expected more enchanting but instead found a table with a quill and a single sheet of paper. On the paper there was an incomplete spell form diagram. Felix examined it and added a few simple lines to complete the diagram to the best of his knowledge before the diagram glowed once. A chest appeared and Felix opened it to reveal a single folded sheet of paper.


    [E - Uncommon] Enchantment Node


    This piece of paper details a single enchantment node.


    Huh. I wonder if I had accepted and remembered that stupid word from the book if it would have been named differently. It seems like The System modifies everything to better fit our understanding of them. I wonder if that''s just for the tutorial or if that will always be a thing. It''s probably based on intention I would assume. If you want to be understood you will be, it doesn''t make sense for it to decode ciphers automatically if something is written in code. Unless it does, that would kind of suck. I''m sure people would come up with some other way of hiding things in that case.


    Felix unfolded the piece of paper and saw a drawing of some kind of symbol that vaguely reminded him of the durability node, though he wasn''t quite sure why.


    Felix moved on to the next room and found another enchanting room. In this one there was a damaged enchantment on one greave in a set. He had to fix the enchantment by modifying it to work around the large gash that had broken it. The enchantment had to function the exact same way so that the greaves still functioned as a pair effectively. He was rewarded with another folded node.


    The next room was a spell form room where he had to modify a spell form to replicate the effect being demonstrated, which was a simple push. The room was trivial for Felix who just felt the example spell and drew it into the sheet perfectly. There were a lot more lines missing from the starting spell form than he had expected. He was rewarded with 20,000 Tutorial Credits.


    Felix managed to run through almost 40 rooms before he decided to sleep for the night, netting himself 2 profession levels. He managed to find more Training Daggers along with Training Bucklers and Bows as well as 2 channels, 2 sources, and 3 nodes. From the spell form rooms, he found something new. He was rewarded with blank spell scrolls. They allowed him to use an enchanting quill to etch a spell form onto them for a single cast, which was entirely useless to Felix though he imagined incredibly valuable for most. He also found many spell components, though some he knew and the rest he couldn''t identify. He was hoping to find a spell form primer, but wasn''t so lucky.


    Felix slept in the rest room and drank some of the fruity slushy drink from his flask. The next day he decided to try and apply some of the concepts from a section in his enchanting book. He settled on the channels chapter of enchantment. Yesterday, he looted a simple braid channel and a load balancer. The load balancer was not a channel in and of itself, but it was a useful component for channels to function, ensuring that the inputs were distributed evenly amongst the outputs.


    In his previous attempts, Felix had varied the size of the nodes along the blade to accommodate the amount of mana being pulled into them. This was a functional solution, but it had flaws. From reading the enchanting book, Felix learned that making the node smaller tended to make it less stable which meant varying the size of the nodes was not the ideal solution. Felix thought it might be based on dexterity, that small nodes were more prone to flaws and required a higher dexterity to work. A minor flaw on a normal sized node was much bigger relative to the size of a miniaturized node.


    Felix practiced different enchantments with different nodes on bows as they were the longest item he had, meaning the braided channel and balancers would have the greatest effect on them. He also decided to design some enchantment layouts that he didn''t think were ideal by any means, but would maximize the need for balancers and better channels on the bucklers. He enchanted 50 bucklers and 25 bows before he was satisfied.


    After that he decided to go and explore a few more rooms before sleeping again. He wasn''t particularly tired as he was only keeping up his standard mind and nervous system energy buffs rather than buffing his body to run around. At this point, Felix constantly had the mind and nervous system buffs going along with some of his senses which kept his dexterity, agility, perception and intelligence buffed by about 45%. Felix''s goal was to get the effects to at least 50%. It had been steadily growing as he used his energy, but he still felt like there was something missing. With the steady growth, whether or not something was missing at all, Felix should hit his goal in a week or so.


    Felix managed to knock out another 10 rooms before deciding to head back to sleep. He found a channel splitter and merger as well as an ambient source, which he already knew from analyzing existing complete enchantments. This ambient mana source was slightly different but he had no idea what the differences between the two, he now knew, were. He also found 4 spell components whose purpose was a complete mystery along with another 30 or so spell scrolls. Felix went to sleep rather disappointed with his meager loot. He was happy for the marginal increases, but he really wanted some kind of direction on spell forms so he could work on that as well.


    Ding You have gained 2 levels in [E - Special] Arcane Engineer


    Felix woke up some time later, starting his day with the mystery fruity drink from his flask and the replenished feast from the table in the room. Felix decided, over his lavish breakfast, to just explore as many rooms as he could until he either found a book for spell forms or three days had passed. He didn''t want to waste time fumbling in the dark with spell forms if he was just going to get a book for it eventually. He also wanted to work on it during this dungeon so he would have some new spells to play with in case the next dungeon was a combat dungeon.


    If he didn''t get a book or something like it after three days, he was just going to have to figure it out himself. He had managed to gain 9 levels in his profession, which meant his mana had finally crossed the 10k mark at some point. The milestone felt bigger to Felix than it actually meant. There was no specific benefit to 10k, it just felt good to see the big number and it was a massive difference when compared to where he started. Of course, his mana was being doubled by the Amulet of the Wild, so he didn''t technically have 10k mana yet as the amulet would eventually be replaced. Still, seeing the number was satisfying in it''s own right.


    He hadn''t managed to find the blue room yet and also hadn''t found the test room yet, at least he didn''t think so. It was possible he did find the blue room and just performed poorly, but he was choosing to believe he hadn''t found it yet as none of the rooms had stood out as particularly difficult. . . . . .

 Chapter 46 - Book 45

    Three days later and Felix hadn''t found anything resembling guidance on spell form creation whatsoever. He managed to find a bunch of nodes, channels, sources, and spell form components on paper but, he was pretty sure he was getting duplicates, or more accurately variations. He hadn''t tested them all yet, but a lot of the components he was filing away were eerily similar to each-other. For now he was mentally sorting and filing them all into a single section. Once he had tested their functions, he would file them in a more organized way that he was still working on figuring out.


    He was likely going to have to have everything filed with ids or something then create multiple index books referring to them. There were just too many things he wanted the components sorted by. Number of connections, difficulty, category, element, function and more. Since his library wasn''t a 7th or more dimensional structure, he was just going to have to have multiple reference texts to find them. There was simply no way to sort them by multiple different properties at once. That was also excluding the fact that some would need to be filed in multiple sections.


    The other rewards he got from the rooms were about 70% materials and 30% components overall, though it had started around 50% each. Felix suspected the components were slowing down as he was getting close to acquiring them all. He hadn''t gotten any exact replicas, but some were getting very close. From the spell formation, rooms the only material rewards he was getting were spell scrolls. The material rewards from the enchanting rooms did get more interesting though. He looted a ton of training items but there was more variety now, along with the ones he had already picked up, he also found: swords, chest-plates, boots, gloves, pants, shirts, cloaks, helmets and rings. He also found 5 common enchanting quills and 2 uncommon enchanting quills. Unfortunately neither held any effects and were simply basic enchanting quills.


    Leather and cloth posed an interesting challenge to enchant, which he discovered in some of the rooms on the second day. Not only were they flexible, meaning they had to be properly secured, but the material also didn''t engrave well, meaning the enchantments he put on them couldn''t be too intricate. The work around for this was a chapter in his enchanting book he had skimmed over on his initial read, material inlays. Rather than relying on the rigidity of the material being enchanted, an enchanter could inlay a material into the object so that the enchantment was less likely to be damaged or distorted. Felix wasn''t planning on practicing that on his own any time soon, mostly because he didn''t have the materials to do so.


    Felix had barely made it to his self imposed deadline on the third day. He had almost given up after two days of running through the same boring walls into similarly monotonous rooms but he had resolved himself initially to three days so he persevered. He was actually rather surprised he hadn''t encountered any trap rooms though, he was barely 20% of the way into the dungeon and he was still relatively close to the rest room judging from his map. He figured most people probably just went down a single path to make it easy to travel back to the rest room meaning they would encounter trap rooms relatively early in their exploration.


    Felix went to sleep that night, excited to do anything other than exploring the labyrinth the next day. After washing himself in the fountain, eating and drinking Felix was ready to start tinkering with spell forms. To start, he laid down on the ground and entered his Memory Palace. At the large desk in the middle of his library, Felix pulled multiple of the smaller desks over to surround himself with all of the spell components and completed forms he had ever seen.


    Picking up one of the simplest spell forms he could find, Gust, Felix began to identify and dissect the spell form. In his previous attempts to do this very thing, Felix had fallen short because he didn''t know where one component in the spell ended and another began. Meaning he also didn''t know where to cut, and where he could modify the spell form when he wanted to splice together something brand new. Now, Felix had specific spell form components separated from spell forms. He could identify the components he knew in existing spell forms and remove those components making the process of dissecting and testing much easier. As if someone had lit a candle in a dark cave, he was now able to see just a few steps in front of himself.


    Felix spent the first half of the day dissecting components out of spell forms and theorizing on what they might do. He also created a huge set of spell forms he wanted to test and prioritized the list to best identify individual components. If he managed to successfully identify all the components, he could actually start working towards making any spell he could dream of. As it was now, he could only make spells from the scraps of other spells, iterate and modify them in minor ways.


    The rest of the day, Felix spent in the completely empty room connected to the rest room and tested out all kinds of spells. He was only using a tiny amount of mana by minimizing the experimental spell''s size as much as he could. Ultimately, this made it take much longer than it would have otherwise. He almost gave in to casting the spells at normal size, when he accidentally lit himself on fire. He had accidentally combined a self targeting component with a fire node resulting in a minor fire being started right on top of himself. He only managed to burn away 10% of his health before he stopped it, but it did reinvigorate him to push through his original, agonizingly slow, but safe, testing methodology.


    By the end of the day, Felix had managed to identify about a quarter of the spell components he had looted from the dungeon so far. Though a disappointing proportion, Felix had managed to figure out how to connect most of the components together which meant he should be able to create some of the simplest spells on the fly, given a few minutes. It was useless in combat currently, but if he could make it instinctual, he would be able to invent spells to fit the situation perfectly, every time. At least, that was his goal.


    Felix laid down in his bed to sleep for the night. S§×arch* The N??elFir§×.net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    Ding You have gained 9 levels in [E - Special] Arcane Engineer


    Holy shit. I feel like I''ve barely got anything done today. Why did I gain 9 levels?


    The next morning Felix managed to accept the hard truth of the rest of the dungeon. He was going to be stuck with running the rooms and practicing enchanting almost entirely. It wasn''t entirely a loss for his spell formation work though as he was already seeing a lot of similarities between enchanting and spell formation. He suspected he could incorporate enchanting components into spells, or vice-versa, down the road.


    With that in mind, Felix set himself the goal of clearing every room in the dungeon. He was already loosely planning on doing so, but he needed a hard set goal in his mind to help him through the monotonous slog of completing over a thousand rooms with very similar puzzles.


    That day, on the second room of the day, he found the test room.


    Puzzle Dungeon A


    You have demonstrated sufficient skill to be tested. Would you like to take the test?


    Warning: Should you fail, you will need to begin demonstrating your skill from scratch before being offered another test.


    Minimum Reward: Dungeon Map


    Yes


    No


    Nope.


    Felix left the room, mentally marked it on his map and continued on with other rooms. He wasn''t sure if the test room was in a specific location when he entered, or if a normal room turned into a test room once he demonstrated proficiency, but he was hoping that once he found it, it would stay put.


    He really wanted the dungeon map with the rooms all marked on it so he could cross them off one by one and spend less time running through the halls, but he didn''t feel like he was ready yet. He might not ever feel ready, but the longer he waited, the better off he''d be.


    The author''s content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.


    After the fifth room that day, Felix started to optimize as much as he could. Firstly, he split the dungeon into a grid and on each day, he would clear one square of the grid before heading back and sleeping. Secondly, he stopped buffing his intelligence and dexterity while traveling between rooms, then re-enabled them in the rooms. He also stopped buffing his strength and endurance while in the rooms where previously he had kept them going for convenience. This resulted in his sleeping for only 8 hours every 40 hours. This meant he cleared two grids each time he was out and missed one feast, but it also cut his estimated time to clear the dungeon greatly.


    After four days, Felix realized he was clearing the rooms much faster than before and he managed to clear three imaginary grid squares before sleeping for the night. On the 6th day of his meticulously clearing the dungeon, he felt the boredom fade away almost entirely as the routine had set in. He was now completing rooms almost entirely on auto pilot which gave him plenty of time to do other things. At first he tried to optimize his energy cycling but didn''t make much progress as it was already pretty good. He theorized a new method of cycling his energy but it was so drastically different, he didn''t want to risk interrupting his routine.


    He then started to try and enter a semi meditation as he ran and completed rooms. At first, he could do it somewhat while traveling but was interrupted whenever he completed a room. As he practiced, he managed to stay in a partial meditation at all times, though the depth varied, reminding Felix slightly of sleep cycles. It wouldn''t be possible to maintain it in normal combat and he wasn''t getting the full effects of the increased regeneration, but it was better than nothing.


    The next thing Felix experimented with was manually regenerating his mana. Up to now, Felix had simply let his mana regenerate by itself. When Felix was following the trail of the Divine tier Frozen God''s Mercy, he thought he might be able to do something similar, manually pull on the ambient mana to regenerate faster. First, Felix drained some mana with random spells, then, as he was walking in his partial meditative state, Felix tried pulling on the mana around him. He imagined pulling it into him and finally into his mana pool.


    At first he thought it was working swimmingly, his mana was regenerating much faster. He started experimenting with imagining a void inside of himself, a blackhole, then finally spinning his mana internally and the ambient around him like a vortex. The first two didn''t seem to do much other than being a mental aid. The last option he tried was way more effective than he expected though. His mana was restoring itself almost ten times faster than normal.


    After completely emptying and filling his mana pool once with the vortex method, to push his new found ability to the limit, Felix realized something was wrong. As he depleted his mana pool using random spells. he noticed his spells were off. The spells were harder to cast, with some of them failing, something that hadn''t happened to Felix in almost a month. They also had some odd effects, some of them were simply off aim, other times the spells he shot split into two, or shattered before hitting anything. There were odder effects too, like spells that changed color and spells curving in mid air.


    When he first noticed it he was fascinated and experimented with a variety of spells before fear set in. He didn''t use his mana at all for the rest of the day, but it seemed perfectly normal that night when he tentatively tested it again. He resolved to only use the method of regenerating his mana faster when the spell he was casting didn''t matter, like Gust, he was out of combat, or before sleeping for the night, at least until he figured out what was going on.


    On the 8th day of running through the rooms, Felix finally found the blue room, at least he assumed it was the blue room. He walked into a room that was much larger than any of the previous rooms he had tried before this. Just a few meters into the room was a podium, beyond it the room grew horizontally giving it a conical shape, with the podium at the tip.


    Felix walked up to the podium and placed his hand on it. In front of him, floating in the air, a spell form appeared made of light, similar to a hologram though, Felix suspected illusion was the more apt name. On the podium, beneath his palm, three small drawings of shields appeared with enchantments drawn into them. Felix lifted his palm and examined the enchantments. He was pretty sure the spell form was some sort of fire spell as he recognized the fire node, though he wasn''t sure about the rest of it.


    Looking down at the enchantments, one of the shields was enchanted with a lot of durability and force, making it effectively heavier. Another was enchanted to heat up every time something was blocked. The last one, Felix had trouble identifying. He recognized the cooling effect node and saw the channels running from them into what he assumed were sources, though not any he had ever seen before. He mentally recorded all of the enchantments then touched the last shield with the cooling nodes.


    In front of him, a gout of flame fired from the right side at the far end of the room towards a shield that had just appeared. The spell appeared to be a Flame Thrower, though it was much more effective than the one Felix had created. Instead of spraying out around the shield, the flames were simply swallowed as frost grew along the edges and crept inwards on the shield.


    Oh man that source is insane, it consumes the mana of anything it blocks I guess. Gonna file that one away as Vampiric Source. It also means the Flame Thrower it showed me sends mana with the flames instead of just converting it all right away like I''ve been. Probably to extend the range, if I had to guess, but it also opens up the possibility of the spell being eaten by an enchantment. It''s also possible that spell form was modified to make it convert less mana than it should, intentionally suboptimal for the purpose of the test.


    Felix quickly tried casting the new Flame Thrower for himself but realized it consumed a ridiculous amount of mana, almost 10 times as much as his, for effectively just a longer range. He filed that spell form away for modification at a later date. This also made Felix realize that he could simply cast the spells he couldn''t identify to figure out what they did, though there was always the chance the spell was designed to light the user on fire.


    The next spell was a simple mana shield and the enchantments on the podium were displayed on swords this time. There was an extra forceful swing, a heated blade and a durability enchanted blade. Felix specifically looked for a vampiric source as he suspected that would rip through a mana shield easily, but didn''t find any. He selected the extra forceful swing enchantment right after mentally recording the enchantments as well as the spell forms. He also made sure to pay special attention to how effective the enchantment appeared and recorded that too in his mind.


    Not only did he estimate quantitative values, but he also realized there was nothing stopping him from recording the entire memory onto a page in his library. After all, his Memory Palace was a library because he chose it as such, it didn''t have to be restricted to what could appear on paper with ink. He also realized he might have to change his mental library to contain crystals containing entire memories at some point, or maybe leave the books but have them project memories when opened.


    The next spell Felix had to cast to identify, but it didn''t appear to do anything. He did recognize the cold node so he chose the heat and durability enchanted breastplate. The spell was cast into a wall of water and fired icicles. When Felix had cast it, he didn''t have water in front of him, so it simply uselessly froze the air. Felix had run through 20 choices in the room before things got more complicated. The enchantments started to become very similar and overlap.


    At 40 choices, the enchantments appeared to have the same effect, but had different executions. The sources, channels, sometimes nodes and overall layout differed, but the effect was conceptually identical. Felix was spending more and more time deliberating, trying to analyze the enchantments, sometimes having to simply choose the most stable enchantment of three identical enchantments. At 60 choices, some of the enchantments were the same, with each of them containing a slight flaw. The flaws were in different places and Felix had to choose which one would affect the outcome the least. He had gone from choosing the best option, to the least bad option, something that irritated him greatly.


    At 80, the spell forms and enchantments were partially obscured. Sometimes it was the nodes, other times the channels, Felix just had to make a best guess. At first he had found it easier as he had less to scrutinize and compare. After a few choices though, the parts that were obscured differed from one to the other. On one, the nodes would be obscured, on another the channel and on the last one the sources.


    Occasionally throughout the test, the spell forms and enchantments flipped. Felix had to choose the best spell instead of the best enchantment, which was much harder with Felix''s limited understanding of spell formation. With each selection, Felix was becoming less confident until he was essentially just guessing on the last 5. At 100 choices, the test ended causing a chest to appear with a familiar rumble of stone grinding against stone just to the side of the podium. The chest made an audible click sound and Felix walked over and opened it. . . . . .

 Chapter 47 - Book 46

    Inside, Felix found a cube about half a meter to a side made of a uniform lustrous silver metal and a ring made entirely of what looked like a deep blue sapphire.


    [E - Uncommon] Diving Ring


    This ring increases your swim speed while completely submerged in water as well as protecting your lungs from water pressure.


    Felix picked up the ring and put it on. Felix tried to put it on his middle finger but it was slightly too small. It fit perfectly on his right index finger though.


    This is perfect for at least getting to the two underwater dungeons. A little too perfect, almost as if it was tailored for exactly that purpose.


    [D - Epic] Skill Test Cube: Mana Control


    A skill testing cube to test mana control.


    AKA: Puzzle Box, Enigma Cube etc.


    Wait what? Is that a mistake? It''s D grade? This is one of those System finding a loophole in it''s own rules thing, isn''t it? I don''t feel like I did anything particularly special on that test. I wonder if the cube even counts towards the reward or if it''s just bonus. Uncommon makes sense to me for how I felt I did on that test, so that would make this extra. Maybe I got rare though and got this instead of a rare item?


    Felix reached in and tried to pick up the box but found he couldn''t lift it. He squeezed the sides of the box, but he couldn''t get a good enough grip on it. He tried stowing it in his inventory, but nothing happened.


    There is no way The System gave me something that I literally can''t pickup right? It has to just be heavy, not that you literally are not allowed to interact with things in a higher grade right? That sounds dumb, plausible but I think it would be dumb. Please, oh great System.


    Felix looked through his inventory and finally pulled out the Shivering Ivory Axe. He buffed his strength as much as he could with energy and tried to use the blade of the axe to get under the cube. He managed to get an edge of the box off the ground by just a centimeter or so then he used the axe and his hand to try and lift the cube. With his strength buffed by almost 70%, he barely managed to lift it off the ground and definitely couldn''t move it.


    Why am I trying to lift it at all? I should just solve it on the spot, if I can. I should at least attempt to solve it. I really hope the contents aren''t as heavy as the cube is.


    Felix sat down in front of the cube and pushed mana into it. Unlike his previous cube, all of the sides had a ring in their center light up. Felix started with the top side and pushed mana into the ring in the center. He felt the mana soak into the cube and spread out on the side in some sort of pattern. The cube didn''t stop soaking up mana so he kept pouring it in and assumed it was just because of the grade. As he pushed mana into the cube, he also explored the pattern he was helping to fill. It had a large circle on the outside and some sort of geometric pattern within that all converged on something in the center of the ring. The whole pattern seemed awfully familiar to Felix.


    HAH. Sneaky.


    Felix realized what was happening, the pattern was a force spell form. He quickly confirmed his theory, checking each side and noticed that they all contained the same pattern filled with mana. Felix quickly drained the box of all mana, filling his own mana pool up slightly past the limit before dumping the rest into the atmosphere. Filling past the limit didn''t seem to affect him though, so he didn''t worry about it for now. After draining a ridiculous amount of mana, more than Felix had ever seen in one place, Felix reached forwards and picked up the cube.


    It was still heavy at a few hundred kilograms, but it was possible to lift and move it. It was also possible for Felix to place it in his inventory. He decided he would figure out and finish solving the box later. He was excited to find out what was inside and slightly perplexed at it''s grade and rarity, but he still had his routine and his schedule he wanted to maintain. He argued back and forth with himself until he finally caved and decided to attempt the cube for a maximum of a half hour tonight right before he slept.


    Later that day, he found his first trap room of this dungeon, unfortunately it was an entirely mechanical trap with enchanted spikes. The enchantment would normally be cool, but it was basic and Felix had seen all of it''s components before. He simply left the room the way he came and moved on. In the previous dungeon, the trap rooms didn''t actually hold a reward for completing them, he was assuming these ones didn''t either.


    He found another 7 trap rooms which he ignored as they were simple mechanical traps with basic enchantments.


    That night, Felix sat on the floor with the D grade puzzle box in front of him. He pushed mana into it and tried to figure out what the puzzle was. He moved his mana around the inlaid spell form and realized there were some extra lines around a single part of the spell form that weren''t used in the original spell.


    Ah shit. I was supposed to reverse the spell direction so that instead of resisting every force, it aided every force. Considering this thing takes way more mana than I have, I''m just gonna have to fill it with as much as I can every night and hope it fills eventually. Maybe I''ll use my vortex thingy to pull ambient mana and fill it with that. Only after I figure out what''s going on with that mana though.


    Felix didn''t have anything else to do so he emptied his mana pool, stowed the box and slept. After ten days of clearing as many rooms as he could, he had finally cleared every room in the dungeon except the testing room. It had taken him much less time than he had expected, he had been in the dungeon for a total of 16 days instead of the 3 and a half weeks he expected. He headed back to the test room, excited to finally be done with this dungeon.


    In the testing room, Felix found two podiums and nothing else. He walked up to the one on the left and placed his hand upon it. Just past the podium, a tower shield appeared laying on the ground. A few moments passed and a pillar made of stone descended rapidly from the ceiling, like a hydraulic press down on the shield. The shield collapsed immediately and was crushed under the pillar. An enchanting table with an identical tower shield rose from the ground with a low rumble to Felix''s left. Felix lifted his palm from the podium and noticed text had appeared on the podium.


    "3 attempts remaining."


    Felix walked over to the enchanting table and looked at the shield. He spent almost an hour pondering the enchantments to try before finally picking up an enchanting quill.


    Many hours passed as Felix enchanted the shields. After he had enchanted the first one and tried to place it under the pillar, the dungeon asked if he would like to proceed with only a single submission. Felix declined and enchanted two more shields. He submitted them all for testing and stood at the podium nervously watching.


    The first shield lay there as the pillar descended and smacked down on the shield with a loud ringing sound. Felix flinched when the pillar hit but opening his eyes, he sighed in relief as he saw the shield appeared to be undamaged. He definitely wasn''t expecting it when the pillar descended again a few seconds later even faster this time. Felix jumped backwards as the shield shattered like glass.


    I guess pure durability through hardness isn''t the best option. Good to know. I wouldn''t want to enchant my breastplate and have it explode into a million sharp pieces while I''m wearing it.


    Felix expected it to shatter, but also thought there was only one descent with the pillar. He had thought for some reason he had to enchant three completely different enchantments and have them all survive. Looking down at the podium, he realized he was completely wrong.


    "2 attempts remaining. Best score: 1"


    The second shield was moved under the pillar and Felix was startled again as the pillar smacked down on to the shield. It rose slowly to reveal an undamaged shield then descended again even faster. The shield remained whole and undamaged. On the third strike, the shield was slightly deformed around the edges, but mostly intact. The fourth hit, the shield was noticeable bent but still mostly functional. On the fifth hit, the shield completely folded in half and gained a large hole right in the middle.


    "1 attempts remaining. Best score: 4"


    Huh, that was more of an experiment. I wasn''t expecting that one to work so well. I think I need to do a lot more testing with the vampiric source. All I did was attach them to some force enchantments to resist the pillar. I didn''t think it would generate enough mana to resist it at all, but it seems to have worked well.


    The last shield appeared under the pillar and was smacked with a loud clang. Felix managed not to be startled this time by the pillar. The shield remained undamaged after the first, second and third strikes. On the fourth strike, Felix flinched as he watched the shield completely flatten itself then spring back into it''s original shape a moment later. It remained undamaged, but failed the test anyways.


    This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.


    Yeah I wouldn''t want to be behind that shield. I knew the shield would survive, but I didn''t even really think about whether it would protect a person well, which sounds really stupid now that I think about it. Watching that fourth strike though, you would be a pancake for sure behind it. Mental note, full elasticity also not a great idea for a shield.


    I''m relatively happy with four hits though, that seems reasonable.


    Felix walked over to the other podium and placed his hand upon it. A slow rumble accompanied a large table with sheets of paper on it into the room on Felix''s right. In front of the podium, an illusion created without a spell form Felix could sense appeared. The illusion depicted a javelin begin fired out of a spell form. To Felix''s right, a table rumbled through the floor holding large sheets of paper and a quill with everlasting ink. Under his palm, instructions appeared.


    "Recreate the spell as best you can. 1 attempt."


    Felix walked over to the table and quickly drew out a simple spell form that would create a mana javelin and fire it straight forwards. It was a simple modification of Mana Dart, simply swap out the shape component and increase the pushing force. He had even tested and cast a very similar spell to this when he was experimenting with spell forms earlier in the dungeon.


    Felix took the piece of paper and placed it on the podium. The paper disappeared and next to the illusion, Felix''s spell fired parallel to the illusory javelin. Comparing them side by side, Felix noticed his javelin was bigger, the shape was slightly off and it fired way too fast. He had increased the force of the initial fire too much. Luckily it seemed to do the trick as the illusion changed as well as the text on the podium. The illusion now showed a large ball of fire being used to block icicles by swallowing them.


    "Recreate the Pocket Star spell as best you can. 2 attempts."


    Pocket Star, what an odd spell.


    Felix walked over to the table and spent a solid half hour on his first attempt. He drew out a simple spell form that would create a large ball of fire and continue to channel fire into the ball to feed the star and sustain it''s temperature. He realized half way through drawing that he didn''t really need to worry about mana costs or efficiency, because it wasn''t like he was the one that had to cast it. He oversized everything about the spell, except for the shape. The sun would appear the same size, but it should burn brighter, hotter and be more stable overall, all while costing maybe a 100 times more mana, by Felix''s rough estimates.


    He walked over to the podium and placed the drawing upon it. He figured if he was supposed to submit both attempts at once, it would warn him again. The paper instantly disappeared and the number of attempts remaining, written on the podium, decreased.


    Felix watched as his Pocket Star appeared next to the illusion, similar in size but much brighter. Even the color of the fire was noticeably lighter. Felix watched as an icicle was fired at both of the stars. As expected, the icicle melted as soon at it got close to the star. Felix was relieved for just a moment, before another icicle fired. This time the icicle got closer, but still melted before fully passing through. 7 icicles were fired before finally, one of them passed through Felix''s Pocket Star, but didn''t make it through the illusory one.


    Felix walked back over to the drafting table. He had an idea, inspired heavily by the name of the spell. Once he was finished with his new iteration, he walked over and submitted the spell. He could have simply made it consume another 100 fold more mana, but he didn''t want to start relying on "just more mana" in all situations and he suspected it might cause it to fail as it would just be too different. S§×arch* The Novel?ire(.)ne*t website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    Felix watched as once again, 7 icicles were fired into both the illusory and Felix''s rendition of the Pocket Star spell. This time, all 7 icicles made it into Felix''s star, but none of them made it out. There were another 3 shots that were all swallowed entirely before the illusion changed to the next spell.


    That looked way better and was overall way more efficient. In fact, that second iteration might actually be a useful spell with some tweaking in the future.


    Felix had added a force component that simulated the gravity of a star, pulling everything around it inwards. This made it so that the fire and heat spread less, making it burn more efficiently, and also made it so that projectiles would get pulled in and sometimes trapped. He also added a bit of spin to the force and the fire because he liked the idea of a vortex, though he didn''t think it added anything more than aesthetic value to the final outcome.


    The illusion in front of Felix now depicted what looked like a firework, it even included a small explosion sound at the end. The particles shot out of the explosion were a random spattering of the primary colors and luckily didn''t produce a shape of any kind, simply shot out in all directions producing a ball of rainbow lights.


    "Create a firework spell. 1 attempts."


    Only one attempt, damn. Going to half to cast this one myself till I get it right.


    Felix walked over to the drawing table and pondered the problem. After 15 minutes of thinking, Felix had a few things he wanted to test. First he tested casting light on Mana Dart. It worked about as he expected, with some tweaking he could have the dart itself emanate light. Next he tested a bunch of things to create a timed explosion, but couldn''t quite get it right. He moved on from that for the moment and began testing some other things. He managed to produce a bunch of tiny balls of mana, like ball bearings of solid mana. However, he suspected there was a way to make the shaping component of the spell much more efficient than just slapping together a bunch of tiny spheres in one outer ring.


    He also managed to cast light on multiple objects and had the tiny spheres split into three, with a different color of light coloring each of the groups. He eventually decided to go with the crude solution of simply surrounding all of the tiny spheres in a bigger sphere and targeting a force node right in the middle. If he could tune the outer sphere to be a thin layer, he could time how long it took for the tiny balls to bore themselves out. Hopefully they maintained enough force to not simply spill out. Finally, he had the outer ball launched forwards.


    He tested casting the spell himself, which took a long time as this was an extraordinarily complicated spell. There were dozens of nodes which meant a ton of connections to hold the whole thing together and a lot of luck to keep it all stable. It was like casting many spells at once, just in a single drawing.


    Felix spent almost 30 minutes trying to cast it for his first time, which was a significant disappointment. The outer ball never broke, meaning it simply hit the far wall and fell to the ground with all the tiny spheres within. Felix spent a few hours tuning the thickness of the outer shell to best approximate the timing of the illusion before drawing out his final iteration on a sheet of paper and submitting it.


    He watched with bated breath as both spells fired off into the air. He immediately noticed his was bigger, less accurate and visibly contained a multitude of lights, whereas the illusory one was a perfect projectile until it reached the apex of it''s flight path. Both of the spells exploded and Felix found his version, especially side by side with the illusory one, disappointing overall. His particles did not form a nice circle in the air when they finally made it out of the outer shell he had created, which was slightly later than the illusory example. His spell was also poorly mixed with large chunks of individual colors traveling together.


    It wasn''t a terrible display, but Felix was disappointed his looked so different from the example, and so bad. He would have been ashamed to use that spell if, say Mike, king of partying, asked for magical fireworks. He would rather just launch Fire Bolts into the air.


    The dungeon seemed to be happy, or at least satisfied with his spell though as a chest rose from the ground between the two podiums.


    Felix opened the chest to reveal a massive stack of papers which he quickly looked through to update his own mental map.


    How the hell did I manage to miss rooms? I mean, there are like a thousand, but I had a map. Oh well.


    Felix was annoyed but he had enough energy to quickly run to the handful of rooms he had missed throughout the dungeon, most of them sat between the squares of his imaginary grid. They provided nothing new to him, but he did want to have it all completed.


    Finally, with all of the lights on the paper map extinguished, Felix headed for the exit. He hadn''t left anything in the rest room as he still brought his bed with him everywhere out of habit and paranoia. It was also still before noon, meaning if he wanted to get in another sleep and feast, he would be sitting around for over half a day.


    Puzzle Dungeon A


    Would you like to leave the dungeon?


    Warning: You will be unable to retry this dungeon.


    Yes


    No


    Yes.


    Congratulations!


    You have completed Puzzle Dungeon A.


    Calculating Bonus Rewards.


    +10000 Profession XP


    Completionist Bonus: [E - Epic] Amphibian''s Belt


    Performance Bonus: 10,000,000 Tutorial Credits


    You will be returned to the entrance in 3 seconds.


    Ding You have gained 10 levels in [E - Special] Arcane Engineer


    Oh shit, my profession surpassed my class in level, wild. All free points into intelligence.


    Name:Felix KadeFREE0Level:52STR390Class:[E - Common] Caster (Lvl 51)DEX390Race:[E - Common] HumanAGI390Profession:[E - Special] Arcane Engineer (Lvl 54)PER390Health:7784/7800VIT390Mana:13486/15620INT781Energy:6453/7800END390


    Also, why didn''t I get a performance bonus last time? I felt like I did way better that time. Maybe the error of having no profession just bugged it out? I mean it is The System, I kind of hope it doesn''t have "bugs". Not complaining about that ridiculous amount of credits though, I''ll have to ask around see how much other people got, it seems high but maybe that was less than average?


    Wait a second, where''d my belt go? . . . . .

 Chapter 48 - Book 47

    Felix found himself back in a swamp. Felix was relieved when he tried to summon the belt from his inventory and it appeared in his hand.


    [E - Epic] Amphibian''s Belt


    While equipped, all movement speed increases that apply on land or in the air, also apply while swimming.


    Well that''s pretty useful, almost like it knew where I was going next. Speaking of which, I was planning on heading to the next dungeon way on the west end of the map, but now I think I should probably back track to the one in the water next to the desert. If I don''t head back there now, I''ll have to travel across the map for a single dungeon, which does not seem worth it at all. The only question is, do I go around the water as much as I can or do I take the straight path which requires more swimming.


    Felix figured he would decide later, the dungeon he was heading towards was almost directly south which meant he had to travel through a lot of swamp. He debated going around it, but ultimately decided it wasn''t quite worth it. He ran as mindlessly as he could, trying to distract himself with anything. At the moment he was emptying his entire mana pool into the D tier puzzle cube.


    Once that was complete, he pulled on the ambient mana as much as he could, spinning up a vortex and everything. Once his mana was full, he started pushing it into the box. About halfway through his mana pool, he realized he was being incredibly inefficient. He starting pulling ambient mana to regenerate his mana as he pushed mana into the box. He realized he was still doing this stupidly and decided to remove the middle man. He pulled the ambient mana directly into the box, so he didn''t need to act as a conduit at all.


    The box was heavy, but the spells on the sides were making it feel lighter as they gained mana. He was directing the mana into the correct configuration to reverse the spell''s original effects making it so that the spells aided in moving the box whenever something tried to move it.


    Unfortunately, Felix didn''t manage to completely fill the cube before he reached the waterline.


    The landscape is so weird. The swamp just ends where the ocean starts, there is barely anything between them. No beach or cliffs or anything. I don''t even think this would have been possible back on earth.


    Felix stowed the puzzle cube in his inventory and dove into the water. Along the way, while he was distracting himself from the smell of the bog, Felix had decided to swim the rest of the way to the dungeon. It was far, but he had the belt, lots of endurance and a massive pool of energy. He didn''t suspect he would have any issues with swimming there. He thought about creatures lurking in the deep, but he figured, and hoped, they would simply be too low level to matter.


    Felix had never been a great swimmer, but he did know how to swim due to his spending his summers at a family cottage for most of his childhood. The water was a little cold, but not unbearably so, even for a normal human before the integration. Surprisingly to Felix, the water was only slightly salty, nothing like the ocean from earth.


    He decided to start practicing his underwater combat and testing out spells just in case. First he held his breath and dove down so he could measure how long he could hold his breath. Luckily, it seemed he was capable of holding his breath a lot longer than he suspected he would have been able to before the integration. He hadn''t checked the tutorial screen just yet, but it had definitely been over a minute or so as he still wasn''t feeling anything yet.


    For spell options when submerged, he had the obvious Mana Bolt which should function fine, but he also wanted to test out other options as well. First, he tested icicles. He fused a cooling node with the shape component of a Mana Bolt with an outer ring to launch it forwards. He found that he needed to use a lot of mana just to freeze the water, otherwise it mostly worked. He had to increase the size as well, as a Mana Bolt sized Icicle was just too small to do much. It was also much less accurate than he hoped for.


    Ultimately he settled on spinning the icicle before he shot it, it was much more accurate, but it also consumed a lot of mana. After than, he applied his learnings back to Mana Bolt and just decided to use that instead. With a similarly sized, spinning Mana Bolt, even if the icicle dealt twice the damage, the Mana Bolt would be more efficient and accurate. The icicle just didn''t come out perfectly shaped every time, which meant it tended to wobble or veer to one side. Even comparing his spell form against the icicle spell he had found in the dungeon, both had similar issues even though their forms were completely different.


    Felix found the limit of his breath at almost a half hour if he wasn''t pushing himself. If he swam as fast as he could, while buffing himself with energy, it would be 5 minutes or less. That meant 5 minutes was his limit for underwater combat unless he dragged his enemy up to the surface.


    Luckily for Felix, none of the creatures he encountered this close to the surface were particularly aggressive, or high level. He saw some hovering in the mid thirties to forties, but nothing higher than that. He suspected the real powerhouses were deeper down and further from the mainland.


    This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.


    Referring often to his map, Felix swam in a mostly straight line. Once he had arrived, he swam himself on top of the icon on his map, or as close as he could get. Felix took a moment to cycle his energy as efficiently as he could, providing just a trickle of energy to his muscles, almost starving them but not quite. Then he took a couple deep breaths, filled his lungs, and dove straight down.


    He quickly cast Mage Light as bright as he could, as he was expecting it to get dark quickly. He also cast a Gust spell with the wind node replaced with a force node to push himself through the water even faster. As he descended, his visibility deteriorated, his speed decreased and he started to grow worried he wouldn''t be able to find the dungeon.


    [E - Uncommon] Sea Serpent (Lvl 48)


    Holy shit, other than the world bosses, that thing is the highest level I have seen outside of the dungeons. It''s almost big enough to be a world boss too.


    Felix didn''t bother trying to fight it as he was worried enough about finding the dungeon and the serpent didn''t even seem to notice Felix as it swam by.


    Felix swam past a handful of other creatures of the sea as he dove, finally reaching the bottom almost ten minutes later. He searched around the sand looking at his map and trying to find the dungeon. He figured if he didn''t find it in about 9 minutes or so, he would have to ascend. Luckily, Felix spotted a faint glow from off to his left. As he approached, he realized the dungeon was nestled in a sea cave.


    Really? Not only is the dungeon at the bottom of the damn ocean, but it''s also hidden in a cave? Why though?


    Felix swam to the door and placed his palm upon it.


    Combat Dungeon B


    You have found a dungeon. Would you like to enter?


    Yes


    No


    Yes.


    Felix immediately found himself in a familiar cube which was luckily, filled with air. He blow dried himself with a simple Gust spell and channeled mana into his clothes to clean them.


    Combat Dungeon B


    Choose your difficulty.


    -2 ~ -5 Lvls


    -1 ~ +1 Lvls Sear?h the novel(F~)ire.net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    +2 ~ +5 Lvls


    +6 ~ +9 Lvls


    +10 ~ +15 Lvls


    10 to 15.


    Combat Dungeon B


    Would you like to claim your reward in this dungeon?


    Note: You may claim the reward in this dungeon once. The maximum reward tailoring level is 44. This level increases based on how many Combat Dungeons you have completed and claimed.


    Yes


    No


    Yes. Shit I forgot about those. Only level 44 kinda sucks. That also means the next one is gonna be level 69? Actually that''s not too bad, that''s just shy of where I am hoping to be for the world bosses.


    Combat Dungeon B


    Warning: You have selected the difficulty: +10 ~ +15 levels above your own. The encounters will be deadly to a party with an average level of 44. Proceed with caution.


    Note: Rewards will be tailored to level 44 independent of levels you may gain throughout the dungeon.


    Calibrating, one moment please.


    Oh wait, please don''t tell me this is gonna be 10 to 15 above level 44 right? I thought the last dungeon was tailoring it to my level, but it could have been tailoring it to the reward level. That would mean a party of level 19s taking on the Vampire. While I don''t see that happening, The System also said it would be deadly.


    Felix looked around at the ice cave he found himself in. All around him, the cave was made of almost a solid chunk of ice with a blue white color. The ground was mostly gravel with a smattering of puddles and chunks of ice. Felix turned around and found a solid wall of ice behind him. With no other options, Felix walked forwards into the cave. The cave was huge at almost 200 meters in width and equally as tall. The light peered through the ice around him, giving everything in the room a cool blue hue.


    Felix walked a few hundred meters and noticed the cave getting slightly darker when suddenly something glimmered over in the corner of his eye. Felix turned towards the reflected light and saw a long scaled serpent like thing jump out from a hole in the wall.


    [E - Uncommon] Selefin (Lvl 62)


    From all around Felix, Selefins dove off their perches on the walls and ceilings. Like ribbons, they fluttered to the ground before bouncing off and forming a perfect arc in the air. They were long 6 legged creatures with beautiful chromatic scales all along their backs. Their stomachs were a soft light blue fur and they had fins starting on their head and neck running down their backs to the end of their tails.


    As they bounced through the puddles on the floor of the cave, the water sprayed in every direction creating an icy cold mist that filled the cave. The Selefin''s scales along with the mist they created, reflected the light peering through the ice all around the room creating an almost blinding display of rainbows and flashing light.


    The light show would have been a beautiful sight were it not for the fact that the Selefins were currently trying to attack Felix whilst distracting and blinding him with it. They tried to score glancing blows with the claws they had used to hold themselves on the ice. Felix managed to block most of them with his Energy Wraps and Mana Shield, but they were starting to get into formation, attacking him more persistently, from more directions, faster.


    Felix started running towards where he remembered the edge of the cave to be. He figured if he could at least get a wall behind him, he would have one less angle to defend. Effectively blind, Felix almost tripped as his foot slid down the ice wall. He quickly recovered and swung his arm out to block a claw using the momentum to spin himself around, back to the wall.


    The drive by attacks were interlaced now with the Selefins swinging their tails into the water and spraying Felix with an icy slush. Their coordination was impressive as one attacked him directly while another blinded him with water or light. . . . . .

 Chapter 49 - Book 48

    Felix couldn''t see them very well, not until they were right next to him where he could barely react fast enough to block and dodge, let alone hit them with a Fire Bolt. He prepared something he had wanted to try since the failure of a Firework spell attempt back in the dungeon.


    Prepare yourselves you annoying land, ice fish things, for The Reverse Pocket Star. Wait that''s awful and inaccurate, I''m just reversing the force component, it''s not cold or anything. The Exploding Pocket Star, I think I need to drop the whole star thing. The Super Nova, that sounds too cool, I don''t think this will be that cool. Hand Grenade? Contact Bomb? Agh, naming is hard.


    Felix create a large ball of fire wrapped in a shell of mana with a lot of force packed right in the middle. The disadvantage to their impeccable coordination, was that Felix knew exactly when to expect one of them to appear right next to him.


    They really should incorporate bluffs into their battle plan. It wouldn''t be full proof, but I would probably have to consider conserving mana.


    A Selefin dove through a wave of icy water, fangs ready to sink into flesh but instead it found a small ball of mana stuffed into it''s throat. With Felix''s wraps, he wasn''t worried about it biting down but he was worried about blowing up the tips of his fingers. He planted the spell as deep as he could before yanking his arm back. He realized his timing was completely off, and the contents would have fizzled by the time the shell disintegrated so he instead destroyed the mana shell manually.


    Ding You have slain an [E - Uncommon] Selefin (Lvl 62)


    Felix was right, the spell was not cool enough to be dubbed, The Super Nova. The Selefin''s head remained attached, and outwardly there was no indication of damage, except for some slight stretching of the skin at the base of the skull and a couple of missing scales. The spell did however, kill it completely.


    Now I tune the timing better and hope it also kills from the outside too.


    Felix was shoving about 25 Fire Bolts worth of fire into the middle of the bomb, with the force acting as the delivery mechanism more than anything.


    This really isn''t that much better than Fire Blast, is it? This is more unidirectional, so I don''t have to aim it, which I don''t think I could do against these things anyways. I just wish I had a way to stick the spells then explode them later on.


    The next Selefin to directly attack Felix, this one with it''s claws, was met with a shrapnel bomb made of many Mana Bolts backed by a wallop of force. Felix also cast part of a dome behind it to make sure everything was directed away from himself.


    Ding You have slain an [E - Uncommon] Selefin (Lvl 62)


    That one was decent. I guess if I needed to do mostly physical damage that would be fine. Although I would almost rather just create giant arrows or javelins, or a sword, that could be fun. Then I have to learn to use it though. Damn, this is probably better for now.


    Felix tried a spell with pure force, and ripped a hole right through one of their chests.


    Ding You have slain an [E - Uncommon] Selefin (Lvl 62)


    Next he tried some variation of Lightning Touch, though he needed a lot more mana than he wanted to accomplish anything of value. He didn''t even kill the one he hit, at first he had to hit it on it''s tail again right as it jumped away.


    Ding You have slain an [E - Uncommon] Selefin (Lvl 62)


    He avoided ice and cold for now as he didn''t think it would have any effect on these enemies as well as light, he figured they had some way of seeing through the light or avoiding being blinded.


    Wait a second, how did they reflect enough light to almost blind me in here. That doesn''t make any sense, conservation of energy and all that. So either System Fuckery with a skill, or¡­


    Felix confidently rose to his full height and walked forwards, away from the wall. He fired a blast of force to his left then followed it with a Fire Bolt.


    Ding You have slain an [E - Uncommon] Selefin (Lvl 62)


    He used the force blast to bore a hole through the water and mist. His Fire Bolts were also improved from his time in the dungeon. Now he always made them hotter. Instead of making them bigger with more fire, he kept the size the same. He also used a touch of force to hold them together and a touch more to launch them faster. Finally, he spun them, just for good measure. It cost almost double the mana, but it seemed appropriate considering his base Fire Bolt still only cost 10 mana. With his current mana pool, that was over 1500 casts, which he didn''t see himself needing anytime soon. Sear?h the N?vel(F)ire.¦Çet website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    Felix raised his arm and fired of another pair of spells without looking. He realized they were creating light somehow, because there was definitely a lot more light now than there before they had started prancing around, even if it was reflected and concentrated. The light had to either be a skill, part of their bodies, or a spell. He wasn''t sure which it was, but it was definitely using mana, Felix could sense them as they danced around him.


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    Ding You have slain an [E - Uncommon] Selefin (Lvl 62)


    They could have just stopped creating light, but considering they didn''t use any feints, it didn''t seem they were quite intelligent enough to figure that out.


    The cave was much darker now, and their coordinated efforts much less effective with only three of them left. They put up a valiant effort, but they didn''t have enough of them left to really put up any kind of a fight. It seemed that their intelligence was also too low to try and run away, or the dungeon compelled them to keep fighting. The pack animals without a pack were hunted down and slaughtered rather quickly, with Felix firing out three spells almost at once.


    Ding You have slain 3 [E - Uncommon] Selefin (Lvl 62)


    Ding You have gained 7 levels in [E - Common] Caster


    All free points in intelligence. Man, I am going to take this amulet off in D grade or sooner, and be soooo much weaker. I feel like I should add points to something else, balance things out, but it is just too satisfying to see all my stats going up at once. Merh, just have to deal with that when I get to it.


    Combat Dungeon B


    Round 2 will begin in 30 minutes.


    Start now?


    Yes


    No


    No.


    Felix dried himself off with gust and some light heat, then sat down and meditated, pulling mana, but not as fast as he could as he didn''t want his spells to misbehave. After 30 minutes, Felix sat attentively waiting for something to happen, movement, sound, a glimmer of light or something more nefarious, like an arrow or ball of fire.


    He waited 20 minutes as nothing came his way, then he shrugged and continued meditating. He fully regenerated his mana and the modicum of health he had lost, mostly from the cold, in just under 3 hours, giving him a few minutes to think up some new spells.


    While meditating he focused on his senses as much as he could. He also successfully opened his eyes, which he didn''t think was possible previously. His meditation was about focus though, so it felt the same to Felix whether he was focusing on his mana or his senses.


    Once Felix was fully restored, he rose to his feet and continued walking through the cave. As he walked, the cave grew darker, with some solid stone making up the wall and ceiling now, interspersed with the ice. There was still a minute amount of light mostly from the cave where Felix had come from but barely enough to navigate by.


    Felix prepared himself for something to jump out and cast a very bright Light spell right above his own head. Lo and behold, a mass of black fur the size of a car with demonic wings and horns shot itself at Felix the instant the light appeared.


    Felix dove to the side with an energy buffed jump, getting him out of range of the whole of it''s body and wings. He turned around to see a four legged, muscular bat. It was covered in black fur, except for it''s leathery wings which included vicious claws halfway across them. Overall it reminded Felix a little of a wolf crossed with a bat.


    [E - Common] Vuloxator (Lvl 68)


    Felix shot a Fire Bolt at it and was surprised to see it launch itself at incredible speed to the side, using it''s wings to glide out of it''s jump and settling in the middle of the far cave wall, using it''s claws to anchor it there.


    Time to test a new spell I guess. Mana Bolt is fast, but it doesn''t do that much damage. As much as I hate naming, Mana Arrow and Mana Javelin for the bigger variant seem appropriate and don''t sound too bad.


    It took Felix a few tries to get the spin right so that the projectiles didn''t veer off to the side, but eventually he was firing projectiles of mana at insane speeds, faster than Felix could track. Unfortunately, his aim was still pathetic, so he had only hit one of them in the leg. Another two had joined into the fight as well, launching themselves off their perches at Felix, trying to tackle him. With one them having an injured leg, there were only two that could continue the assault.


    The Vuloxators were not nearly as coordinated as the Selefin''s, Felix suspected the latter were pack hunters and the former were solo hunters that the dungeon stuck together for the fight. Either way, Felix was getting sick of jumping off to the side so he decided to test some more spells. When he next heard the explosion that came from one of them launching themselves, he summoned a Mana Shield and turned to face it head on.


    The Vuloxator crashed into the Mana Shield, clearly not expecting it to hold strong as it scrambled to find purchase on the slick surface. Felix simply fired a Mana Javelin up through it''s head and stepped away from the corpse.


    Ding You have slain an [E - Common] Vuloxator (Lvl 68)


    The other two were not nearly smart enough to hold back, reevaluate or change tactics, so Felix simply finished them off in the same way.


    Ding You have slain 2 [E - Common] Vuloxator (Lvl 68)


    Ding You have gained 4 levels in [E - Common] Caster


    Combat Dungeon B


    Round 3 will begin in 30 minutes.


    Start now?


    Yes


    No


    No.


    Felix had expended a lot of mana tanking the Vuloxator with his shield, but not more than about 20% or so of his pool. His pool was just so massive, what would have once been a large expenditure, now meant little to him.


    He had sustained some minor scrapes when he dove away from their attacks. That usually wouldn''t have harmed him with his endurance, but he had jumped hard and fast with energy buffs. Felix sat down and meditated, attentive to his surroundings but managed to meditate until he was completely recovered once again.


    Felix continued walking down the cave in the same direction as before, with his Light spell above his head from the start this time. He didn''t encounter anything throughout the rest of the cave though. He eventually dropped his Light spell as the cave opened up onto a massive sheet of ice.


    While on the one hand, it''s nice to see the sky and get out of the cave, on the other, a sheet of ice is just bad news all around. Fuck it, nothing is ever gonna happen if I sit here, and I''ll lose the potential speed or time bonus, if I haven''t already.


    Felix carefully stepped out onto the ice, ready to jump back at any moment. There was a pristine layer of powdery snow about an inch thick blanketing the ice, the only reason Felix knew it was ice was that it was almost perfectly flat. There were however, small craters partially covered in snow interspersed through the otherwise barren landscape.


    Felix walked out further and looked back. The cave was a small hole at the bottom of an endless cliff wall that stretched out in every direction. He couldn''t make out the top or either end of it and it was completely vertical, made of stone with massive glaciers hanging off of it. . . . . .

 Chapter 50 - Book 49

    Felix continued to walk along the sheet of ice making it a half kilometer out before he heard a rumbling sound moving rapidly, coming from below the ice. Felix readied a jump spell as oversized as he dared, which was just over 3 times the effect. The rumbling vanished and everything was still and quiet, with just the slight whistling of the winter wind grazing Felix''s ears.


    Just as Felix started to turn around and doubt his sanity walking out on to the ice, a loud boom sounded from a hundred meters or so to his left. He flinched and jumped away on instinct launching himself much faster than he had hoped for causing him to scramble in the air to right and catch himself with Feather Fall.


    Rolling himself over he looked back and saw a gigantic bony water creature that slightly resembled a whale. It was covered in large white scales with two sets of fins on either side that were long enough to be wings. Crowning its horrifically bony head, covered in teeth and spikes, was a long horn with a wide base. Instead of looking like a horn attached to an animal, like a unicorn might, this horn was simply part of it''s skull that stuck out of the front of it''s head. Similar to the horn, the Macerodos had bone spikes protruding all the way down it''s back, angled backwards. Overall it was about 25 meters from the tip of it''s horn to the end of it''s tail so essentially a gargantuan dinosaur whale.


    It had jumped through the ice, leaving a gaping hole behind it and splashing water all over. Currently it was traveling in a beautiful arc high into the air with a slight spin. It landed over a hundred meters away, horn straight down, and crashed right through the ice back into the sea below. There were now two craters of ice surrounding large holes with a slippery, wet sheet surrounding them.


    [E - Uncommon] Macerodos (Lvl 75)


    It''s worse than I expected. I need to find a flying spell or broom or something, ASAP.


    Felix ran away from the two craters and heard the rumbling from below rushing towards him, then passing right by him as it moved many times faster than he was. The rumbling vanished for a few moments, almost half a minute, before the ice shattered a hundred meters ahead of Felix. The Macerodos soared high into the air, spraying Felix with water, straight over his head, landing directly behind him and crashing back through the ice.


    Felix began running back across the ice as far away from the four openings as he could get. Once again, the rumbling rushed towards him, passed below, then raced ahead before it disappeared. Felix ran to the side making sure to stay away from the holes that already existed. The Macerodos crashed through the ice, about where Felix expected it to, and soared through the air along the same line as the rumbling sound that preceded it.


    Huh¡­


    This time, Felix ran about a hundred meters away from one of the holes in the ice and planted himself, paying attention to his surroundings, and waiting. This time, the rumbling passed right below Felix towards the hole he was closest to. Felix made sure he had grip with his feet, which was completely unnecessary as he just now noticed, his boots gave him perfect grip on the slippery surface of the ice. He remembered that they nullified all status conditions, or rather, he didn''t realize this would count. Certain he wouldn''t slip, he prepared an oversized Jump, instant Gust and a variant of it with force that was spread out a little bit, he called Push.


    Time to figure out what it does when I''m near a hole, instead of running away from it. If I just keep running, it''s gonna keep doing the same thing over and over and I''m not sure what to do to stop it.


    The Macerodos jumped through the hole Felix was watching this time, instead of making a new one. This time, it soared through the air, much higher this time and straight towards Felix. Judging from it''s trajectory, it was trying to land directly on top of him. Felix cast his jump to the side and both of his other spells, one to propel him further, and one to survive the landing. The Macerodos punched a hole right through the ice where Felix had leapt from and disappeared into the depths once again.


    Well, time to try something.


    Felix ran almost a hundred meters away from the nearest hole in the ice and began casting. First, he cast a channeled cold spell directly into the ice. Next, he tried something he had theorized but wasn''t quite sure about, he cast a slightly modified durability enchantment directly on the ice. He noticed that enchantments and spell forms were very similar in structure, where spell forms were mostly temporary while enchantments were simply more permanent. He hoped that modifying an enchantment to be able to cast it as a spell would have a similar effect to the original enchantment.


    Unfortunately, his current knowledge of spell forms limited his effect to a big circle. He would have much rather expanded outwards with tendrils of durability so that the enchanted ice didn''t simply separate from the ice around it.


    Finally, he cast a disc of solid mana on the ground above the ice, he hoped it would last long enough when he dove out of range to accomplish his goal.


    Felix heard the familiar rumbling once again pass right below him before vanishing for a few moments. As soon as the rumbling stopped, Felix stopped channeling his cold spell and durability enchantment and hoped their effects would last long enough. He cast a Jump spell, prepared a Gust spell to catch himself and prepared a massive Force variant of Gust.


    The Feather Fall spell only targeted the caster and Felix wasn''t quite sure how to target a different creature yet so he fell back on the spell he had created before he learned Feather Fall, with some improvements. His original spell used to use a Gust spell without the channeling and with the area of effect reduced but overpowered to deliver a big blast of soft and cushy wind. This time, Felix swapped out the wind node with a force node and made the area of effect much bigger. He suspected the force node would make the spell much rougher and potentially minimally harmful, but he wasn''t planning on using it on himself.


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    The Macerodos jumped through the hole nearest Felix''s position and soared through the air, directly towards Felix, exactly as he expected. Felix waited for the creature to pass the apex of it''s jump, until it was about on top of him. He cast his force Feather Fall on the creature and jumped to the side, catching himself with his modified and prepared Gust spell.


    Felix looked back and watched the creature''s fall expectedly. Firstly, he noticed that the Macerodos'' fall didn''t appear to be affected at all from his spell. It crashed down into the disc of Mana Felix had cast and kept channeled. The spell form for the disc remained close to Felix, but there was a tendril of mana connecting it to the physical construct which allowed it to be much further than Felix''s spell range. He didn''t know that was how it would work, but he was glad it did work that way.


    The tip of the Macerodos'' horn pierced through the disc of mana instantly, causing it to implode inwards at the point of impact. At the same moment, Felix doubled over in pain as he felt almost half of his mana ripped out of his body all at once. He felt a sharp, throbbing pain all over his brain, throughout his body all originating from his soul. He had experienced soul pain before, so he could become aware of it, but that was in a controlled environment. This was uncontrolled and intense.


    Felix tried to forced himself into a meditation, focusing solely on his mind, body and soul and trying to eliminate the distraction that was the pain he felt. He found himself in the empty void that was his meditation space and felt the pain dampen. As quickly as he could manage, Felix started to assess the damage. Starting with his mind, it appeared like nothing in particular was wrong, it was simply a migraine that he hoped would disappear with time. His body on the other hand felt like it was bruised all over. He was sore everywhere, he could feel it in his skin and muscles all the way down through his bones. Unfortunately, the best he could do was activate his ring and empty the entirety of it''s healing effect into himself.


    Finally, he examined his soul as best he could with his limited awareness. It seemed like parts of his soul, the outer layers, were essentially pulled with the mana out of his body then they snapped back to him like an elastic when they couldn''t stretch further. There didn''t appear to be any permanent damage as far as he could tell, at least nothing drastic but he didn''t have a ton of time to spend scrutinizing it right now.


    Before leaving his meditation space, Felix checked how much mana he had left. Opening his status screen, Felix''s heart dropped. His mana was still dropping rapidly, though the rate was steadily slowing down. He focused his attention inwards to his mana to try and follow the mana to figure out either which spells he was still maintaining, or why it was dropping. He quickly noticed the problem.


    Normally, Felix''s mana pool floated around inside of him roughly in the shape of his body with more mana concentrated towards the center of his torso and the rest thinning out from there. Now, Felix''s mana was lopsided towards his left side and appeared to be actively leaking out of his body.


    Felix quickly grabbed hold of it all as best he could and shoved it back to where it should be. He didn''t have time to do it carefully right now as he felt the rumbling below his feet through his meditation space because, in his desperation, he only made it part way into a meditation. Felix also grabbed as much of the mana around his left side as he could and held it inside of him so it would stop leaking out. He felt like he was holding a big sheet of metal over a hole in the side of a boat.


    Felix left his meditation space and instantly prepared a Jump spell and modified Gust spell to catch himself. He watched the Macerodos jump back through the hole it had just made and he jumped as far away as he could. As he leapt, Felix tried to cast a force spell to propel himself further in the air, but found he couldn''t quite manage to cast another spell while holding his mana inside of him and keeping it from leaking so he waited till he was airborne and tried again. Now with the jump spell gone, he sequentially cast spells that propelled him further then caught himself with a burst of cushy air, landing on the ice in a dead sprint.


    The ring had helped a lot as the pain had dulled to simple soreness now and not the incessant throbbing that had penetrated his everything. He was still only sitting at around 15% health as the ring really didn''t heal that much, but it helped a lot with the pain.


    Ok, new plan. Also I need to experiment more with Mana Shield and variants of it because I clearly do not understand it well enough right now. Actually, just mana in general and the body, I need more books. Maybe I can buy some for the university when I get back, until then that spell, and anything like it is grounded.


    Felix slowed to a jog and waited for the rumbling to catch up to him, which didn''t take long. He felt the rumbling pass by a dozen or so meters to his right before the creature broke through the ice in front of Felix, soaring through the air along the same line the rumbling traced just a moment ago. It crashed through the ice about 25 meters behind Felix.


    I could just shoot it but I really don''t want this stupid thing to just run, or swim, away. I think I had the right idea before, just the wrong execution.


    As before, Felix stood near one of the holes the creature had just punched through the ice and prepared two identical spells. He waited as the rumbling passed directly below him towards the hole then vanished for a moment followed by the Macerodos jumping directly through it.


    Felix once again waited for it to reach the apex of it''s jump, casting his spell as soon as it got there. He cast an overpowered Push spell, even though the Macerodos was about 30 meters away from Felix, mostly above him, the spell seemed to have some of the effect Felix was hoping for.


    Felix cast Jump to get out of the way, then modified Gust once the Jump spell form dissipated to catch himself. He kept his eyes over his shoulder, watching the creature as it fell at an angle this time. He waited until he thought the timing was right and cast the other Push he had prepared, further rotating the creature. He had slightly overpowered the spells, trying to compensate for the distance and mass of the creature. He was hoping for the creature to land on it''s side, instead it seemed like it might land angled backwards a little bit, slightly on it''s tail.


    Felix watched as the Macerodos smacked the solid ice below landing on it''s tail before the rest of it''s body came swinging down. The powdery snow below it got thrown everywhere making visibility difficult.


    Felix prepared two thrice overpowered Fire Bolts and waited for the snow in the air to settle. He got impatient and fired one of them in it''s direction, immediately replacing it.


    The snow settled somewhat, but not entirely as the Macerodos made a ruckus, using it''s massive wing shaped fins to shuffle towards the nearest hole in the ice. Felix chased after it casting Fire Bolts as fast as he could. It was essentially impossible to miss as he was relatively close to it and it was massive. It took Felix only 4 Fire Bolt''s to receive a kill notification.


    Ding You have slain an [E - Uncommon] Macerodos (Lvl 75) S~ea??h the NovelFire.net* website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    Ding You have gained 5 levels in [E - Common] Caster


    Oh thank System. I definitely don''t have the mana to throw it off balance again. Stupid mana leak, how the hell am I gonna fix this. All free points into intelligence.


    Felix didn''t bother scrambling to store the corpse as he figured it was much too big anyways. . . . . .

 Chapter 51 - Book 50

    Combat Dungeon B


    You have chosen to claim rewards, you will not be able to continue further rounds.


    You have successfully completed 3 rounds of +10 - +15 difficulty.


    Congratulations.


    Combat Dungeon B


    Calculating Rewards


    Bonuses:


    Difficulty


    Time


    Solo


    Reward Tier: Highest


    Sweet.


    Combat Dungeon B


    Rewards


    [E - Epic] Mask of the Recluse


    [E - Epic] Ring of the Sensible Hunter


    [E - Epic] Skill Upgrade: Scan Literature


    1,000,000 Tutorial Credits


    In a very familiar room, Felix walked forwards and retrieved his rewards from the table, starting as always, with the Tutorial Credits.


    Tailoring to higher level means more credits? Sweet.


    Touching the next item, another non descript palm sized disc, Felix didn''t even have the chance to identify it.


    Ding You have successfully upgraded the General Skill: [Scan Literature (Epic) Scan the entire contents of any form of literature that remains within 4.42 meters of your person (increased based on perception) for more than 10.6 seconds (decreased based on your intelligence, increased based on rarity and grade). This skill requires you have some way of memorizing, transcribing or storing the scan of the book. Some books may resist being scanned in this way. Some details, such as those in creeping ink books, auto-updating tomes, and sentient books will be lost. This skill is upgradeable.]


    HAH. That is kind of ridiculous. I had been sad about my Mind Palace library being so bare, now I just have to walk through a library and suddenly, I have it all.


    The next item on the table was a ring made of a dark brown wood with a slight red tint to the grain.


    [E - Epic] Ring of the Sensible Hunter


    While equipped, the parts that have any value in an E grade corpse you examine for more than a few seconds will glow with distinct colors. Parts of the corpse that may be hidden will still appear and focusing on a specific color will hide the others. This glow is only visible to the wielder of the ring.


    Huh, that''s cool I guess. I expect and hope it matters more the higher level the prey are. Kinda wish I had this before leaving the Macerodos corpse behind, oh well.


    Felix equipped the ring which fit snuggly on his left index finger.


    I wonder how many rings I can equip. I am sure it''s not 10 or more, that would be insane, maybe 4? I have the angel ring on my right ring finger, diving ring on my right index finger and the hunter''s ring on my left index finger. That would leave my left ring finger? Why do the rings only fit on those fingers though?


    The last item was a completely white mask with no features whatsoever.


    [E - Epic] Mask of the Recluse


    While equipped, the wielder''s level when identified is reduced to the desired value. The wielder also appears less interesting, to any that gaze upon them. Finally, the wielder may choose to change the appearance of their face to a random one. These effects only apply to those that are the same or lower level to the wielder. This mask is invisible to all while worn.


    Channel mana into the mask to increase the visible level and pull mana from the mask to decrease the visible level. Tap both temples twice to randomize your appearance and once to disable this effect.


    Huh. I can''t even be mad that The System called me a recluse, I love this thing. This will make it so my level isn''t unknown anymore it is simply a normal value. Though I suspect when I run through town at speed I will be plenty interesting.


    Seems a little odd these weren''t tailored to combat rewards like the last one was, but I''m not complaining.


    Combat Dungeon B


    All Rewards Collected


    Would you like to leave this room?


    Warning: You may only remain in this room for a maximum of 15 minutes.


    Yes.


    No.


    No. Time to try and fix this stupid hole in my mana.


    Felix spent about 5 minutes trying to get his mana to stop leaking out of him without him manually holding it still. Unfortunately, he couldn''t figure out any way of doing so. He did manage to optimize how much he held to make sure it didn''t leak and managed to cast three spells concurrently while he held his mana inside of him. Without holding his mana, the last time he checked, he could only cast three at once so he suspected he could now potentially cast four were he not preoccupied.


    He spent the last 10 minutes in the room draining all of his mana batteries to try and replenish some of his mana.


    Felix watched the timer for the tutorial count down and waited for the last second before trying something new. He inhaled as deeply as possible and held his breath just in case, then jumped into the air and cast a large sphere of mana around himself about two meters in diameter. He removed the connection with the sphere from the spell form so it couldn''t yank on his mana and just hoped that he had shoved enough into it to work.


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    Suddenly Felix felt as though the gravity had multiplied and he fell to the ground on his back, except his body smacked against the sphere instead of the ground. Felix recovered quickly and looked out of his mana construct at the ocean rushing by.


    It stuck me outside of the cave? Maybe the sphere wouldn''t fit in the cave so it stuck me the closest it could get? Shit, I wanted a minute to tune this thing. Oh well, guess it''s time to learn how to fly.


    Felix and his ball of mana rocketed upwards through the sea for some period of time before the light suddenly brightened and the sphere of mana with Felix inside was launched into the air. Felix ripped the mana sphere apart, reabsorbing as much of it as he could and cast Feather Fall to lower himself to the surface of the water at a much slower speed. As he fell, he tested out a few variation of Gust to push himself in the direction he was trying to go.


    He settled on a channeled force variation with much more power than the standard one which made him essentially fly, or glide, as he was slowly descending. He channeled more mana into Feather Fall making his descent even slower and then some into the force spell to increase his speed.


    He didn''t get very far, but he saw a small sliver of land on the horizon. As he was a few meters above the water still, he cast another sphere of mana around himself and dropped to the surface. Felix spent 20 minutes or so experimenting with different spells and positions to get it so that the ball didn''t spin as he traveled.


    He spent another hour trying to make it work before giving up and just creating a plane of mana and surfing on it. He had to fiddle with the amount of force propelling him and his balance for 10 minutes or so before managing to find a good rhythm. It was immensely helpful that the water was relatively calm.


    Felix guided himself to the north west, towards the second to last dungeon. He stopped on a small peninsula off of the swamp biome that was luckily covered in sand. Due to the ocean breeze, it didn''t overly smell like butt from the swamp either, making it a perfect stopping point to camp for the night.


    Felix wasn''t too worried about anything harming him while he slept because he was a much higher level than anything or anyone else he had seen so far. He found an open area on the sand where he could sleep and set himself up for the night. He did not pull out his bed or bedding though as he didn''t want it to get wet, sandy or damaged from anything.


    Before he slept, Felix sat down and fiddled with the Mask of the Recluse. He set it to show him at level 35 with a random face. Not too low to be underestimated, but not so high as to stand out, at least he hoped. He was guessing based on the highest level he had seen other people at so far.


    Next, he started meditating, fully entering his soul space this time, to properly evaluate the damage to his soul. His soul was mostly just tender and sore, not actually scarred or wounded in any way. The outer layers of his soul around his left side were looser, they were less attached to his soul and didn''t feel as dense as the rest. It reminded Felix of a bump that might appear if someone had hit their head.


    Remembering his one lesson in souls, Felix pulled on that side of his soul and compressed it as much as he could. He expected doing so would be painful, but rather it felt satisfying in a way he couldn''t quite compare, mostly because it was a feeling originating from his soul. He didn''t want to leave everything else behind so he worked on compressing his entire soul at once, which was a slightly uncomfortable feeling all around. When he compressed the injured parts of his soul back to where it normally was, it felt satisfying, pushing any harder was like flexing a muscle causing slight pain.


    Felix compressed his soul and held it for 5 hours. He wasn''t timing out a specific amount of time, he just held it until he was tired and decided to sleep. After the first 30 minutes, holding his soul compressed didn''t take much focus so he pulled out the D tier cube and started funneling ambient mana directly into it as fast as he could. His concentration slipped a few times, but he almost immediately caught himself and hoped it wouldn''t make too much of a difference to the results.


    When Felix grew tired that night, he stopped meditating, stowed the D tier cube and laid back on the sand. His soul felt much more even, though he could still feel the soreness on his left side. Either due to natural healing or because his soul compression helped somehow, he also noticed his leaking mana had mostly been staunched. His mana regeneration now completely surpassed the rate he was leaking mana, which meant he could sleep without worrying about waking up completely empty. Admittedly, he wasn''t sure what would happen if he ran out of mana while he slept, he figured nothing, but for all he knew it could spell imminent doom.


    Felix woke the next day to the sun rising over the horizon. His soul was tender but barely noticeable with no soreness and his mana had completely stopped leaking as far as he could tell. With full resources, he set out for the day.


    First, he constructed a plane of mana about 6 feet to a side, then manually removed mana from it to make a rough oval shape. He placed his make shift surf board on the the edge of the water so that the back was still in the sand and stood atop it. With no buoyancy, it immediately sunk, but he leaned backwards to tilt the nose out of the water. Finally, he cast a force variant of Gust to push himself along and launched off of the beach.


    From where he was, it was a straight shot north-west to the next dungeon, once again, in the middle of the sea. Felix wasn''t looking forward to diving down and searching again but he figured he had no other choice to find the stupid thing. He had a few hours of relative inactivity just trying to remain upright so he pulled out the D tier cube and funneled ambient mana. It was much faster when he was moving as well because he didn''t completely deplete his surroundings.


    The sea was rougher than yesterday, making surfing, especially on a crude board with a kook surfer, much harder. Felix had to right himself on the board with spells multiple times throughout the journey which, every time, slowed down how quickly he could funnel ambient mana into the cube. He hoped it was almost complete as it was taking an astronomical amount of mana to open.


    Note to self, don''t dump mana out of anything until you are very sure what you are doing or, you have a place to store it all temporarily.


    Felix was getting close to the dungeon, about a kilometer away judging from his map.


    [D - Epic] Skill Test Cube: Mana Control


    Congratulations!


    You have completed a Skill Test Cube: Mana Control


    Would you like to open the cube? sea??h th§× N??elFir§×.net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    Yes.


    No.


    The screen appearing in front of his face caused Felix to miss a wave that caught the nose of his board and sent him face first into the sea.


    Fucking hell. No.


    Felix righted himself and surfaced coughing up sea water from his throat. He spotted the cube he had accidentally thrown and swam over to retrieve it.


    I can''t open this while treading water, what if it''s a book or powder or something. Ugh, I guess I find the dungeon, complete that then I can worry about the cube later. . . . . .

 Chapter 52 - Book 51

    Felix swam over towards where the icon was on his map and a few hundred meters out, he saw it. Just a handful of meters beneath the surface was a large stone with a familiar cave entrance bored into the side. Around the entrance to the cave were familiar engravings depicting combat.


    Felix swam over, dove down into the cave and placed his hand on the door.


    Combat Dungeon A


    You have found a dungeon. Would you like to enter?


    Yes


    No


    Yes. Last one.


    Combat Dungeon A


    Choose your difficulty.


    -2 ~ -5 Lvls


    -1 ~ +1 Lvls


    +2 ~ +5 Lvls


    +6 ~ +9 Lvls


    +10 ~ +15 Lvls


    10 to 15.


    Combat Dungeon A


    Would you like to claim your reward in this dungeon?


    Note: You may claim the reward in this dungeon once. The maximum reward tailoring level is 79. This level increases based on how many Combat Dungeons you have completed and claimed.


    Yes


    No


    Agh, 79. I was hoping it was just +25, so 19, 44, 69 but its +25 then +35? That''s so high. Oh man, it''s not like I have time to come back either. I could run it multiple times without claiming but honestly, I am getting sick of dungeons. Fuck it. Yes.


    Combat Dungeon A


    Warning: You have selected the difficulty: +10 ~ +15 levels above your own. The encounters will be deadly to a party with an average level of 44. Proceed with caution.


    Note: Rewards will be tailored to level 79 independent of levels you may gain throughout the dungeon.


    Calibrating, one moment please.


    Wait¡­ huh? Oh my System, I am an idiot. It''s tailored to the difficulty level, not my level. Why did I assume that this whole time. I COULD HAVE CLAIMED COMBAT DUNGEON C SO MUCH SOONER. FUCK.


    Felix recoiled at the awful stench that permeated the thick wet air of the swamp he suddenly found himself in.


    Fucking swamp, did it have to be this?


    Felix didn''t have to trudge through the ankle deep water and mud for long before he encountered the first round of enemies. CAW He looked up and spotted a murder of crows circling above him.


    [E - Uncommon] Rot Crow (Lvl 78)


    Oh lovely. S§×ar?h the n?velFire.net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    Just a moment or so after Felix looked up, one of the crows dove down towards him. It didn''t dive all the way down, staying a few meters above him, but it did spit a nasty green smoking globule at him.


    Felix pivoted left to dodge it before trying to hit it back with a Fire Bolt. He completely missed because the crow was simply too fast. When it dove down and got closer, Felix noticed that these crows were much bigger than any crows he had ever seen. Felix suspected it was bigger than any living, flying creature on earth, though he had no idea.


    Alright Mana Bolt it is. I really wish I had a faster spell, like a lightning bolt, or a laser.


    With some simple modifications, the first spell Felix had ever learned was bigger, zipped through the air much faster and appeared to deal much more damage. Felix had increased the size of the dart and added a lot more force behind it making it much faster. He had tried leaving it small, expecting it to be really fast, but it was too unstable and got knocked around by the wind.


    Felix knew what to expect from them now so he simply waited for one of them to dive bomb him. He blocked it''s spittle with a Mana Shield, which was not attached to his mana pool, just a solid disc of mana so he didn''t have to risk touching it. Unfortunately, the disgusting projectile ate a hole right through his disc of mana. On the other hand, the Mana Bolt he fired struck the body of the crow.


    It didn''t immediately die, but it''s flight path was interrupted and it flew into a tree a few hundred meters away. Felix didn''t get the chance to finish it off as another crow attacked.


    Felix didn''t bother trying to block their projectiles anymore and simply completely avoided them where possible. When they got too close, he diverted them with a burst of force.


    It took him almost 30 minutes to take them all out as it seemed they became reluctant to attack him after losing a few of their murder. They did try and coordinate attacks, once, but it didn''t have much of an effect on Felix as he simply diverted both projectiles and took them out faster.


    Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.


    Ding You have slain 12 [E - Uncommon] Rot Crow (Lvl 78)


    Ding You have gained 8 levels in [E - Common] Caster


    I wonder if that would have been easier or harder in a group. I suspect they would be nearly impossible to hit for most people. Are you supposed to trap or catch them?


    Combat Dungeon A


    Round 2 will begin in 30 minutes.


    Start now?


    Yes


    No


    Meh, Sure? I didn''t really expend a ton of mana there, still have over half left.


    Felix looked around but didn''t find anything resembling a creature of any kind.


    Man, I don''t wanna go searching for this stupid thing, please just come to me. Hmm¡­ I could¡­ It would be pretty stupid, but on the other hand, I don''t have to trudge through the swamp for hours. Fuck it.


    Felix cast multiple Thunderclap spells with his ears covered to try and draw his next opponents out of hiding. He continued to cast his beacon spell and hoped it attracted something. Normally this would be a terrible idea, but he was pretty sure the only enemy or enemies in this entire dungeon would be the enemies for round 2. There weren''t even any bugs in here as far as Felix had seen.


    After a few minutes of trying to attract his enemies, Felix spotted something moving in the bog to his left. All of a sudden there were subtle, unnatural ripples in the water winding their way towards Felix. He pretended not to notice but silently prepared a jump spell and visually marked an area he hoped was stable enough to land on.


    The creature was trying to stalk Felix suddenly burst out of the water towards him and he instantly leapt away. Turning around he saw the body of a massive snake with mostly black scales broken up by dark green spots from head to tail. It was about as wide as Felix was tall.


    [E - Uncommon] Giant Swamp Pygeatrix (Lvl 85)


    I feel like that was a pretty sharp jump in levels, hopefully this is the only one of these things.


    The serpent slithered around a tree and out of the water. Felix couldn''t even begin to guess how long it was as it was coiled around multiple trees with it''s tail still submerged. He looked to his left just in time to jump back as the snake lunged for him, mouth agape, fangs out.


    Felix fired off a few Fire Bolt''s at it''s body as it flew by him but they all seemed to brush off of it''s scales with minimal effect. There were no signs whatsoever that it had been hit once the fire dissipated.


    Well shit, so it''s either Mana Bolt, though that also probably won''t do much. Ah shit, it''s time to do something really stupid, isn''t it?


    The snake coiled back around a tree to Felix''s right and tried to wind itself behind him so it could strike without being seen. It might have worked too, as the sheer length of it''s body made it confusing to find the start and end, like a long tangled rope. Unfortunately for the Pygeatrix, it''s venom was either made from or enhanced with mana, so Felix could sense it oozing out of it''s fangs.


    Felix waited for it to strike again and prepared one of his new favorite spell forms, the fire bomb. He packed in a lot more fire than a normal Fire Bolt, over 15 times as much. He also made the shell as thin as he could without it instantly blowing up as he wanted it to detonate around it''s head, or as close to it as he could get.


    He felt the serpents fangs moving quickly from his right and slightly above him so he cast the spell and prepared to throw it as he jumped away. The serpent struck from exactly where Felix expected and he threw the little ball into it''s mouth and jumped. Unfortunately, he was nervous and threw it too early so, it exploded before being swallowed. He hoped it had still done some damage, but he didn''t expect it to do much, if any from outside.


    He sensed the serpents head recoil and swing back around a different tree, sling-shotting around it to strike from his left just as he landed. Felix shot himself backwards in mid air with a blast of force dodging it''s strike. Unfortunately, he didn''t have time to create another bomb this time so he would have to wait for the next strike.


    This time the snake took it''s time winding itself around trees, through the bog, even through the mud trying to confuse it''s prey. Felix created another fire bomb and mentally tracked it''s fangs. The snake tried to sneak up very close to Felix, just a few meters behind him from the branches of a tree. Felix slowly turned towards it which caused it to strike early to try and maintain the element of surprise it thought it had.


    Felix shot the fire bomb this time with a blast of force right into it''s gullet and jumped back. The bomb exploded right were Felix hoped, just behind it''s skull. The snake''s strike, along with the shock from the bomb, sent it''s head right into the ground. Felix wished he could do something, but when it''s maw was filled with dirt, he didn''t have great options to damage it from the outside.


    Felix darted away through the bog trying to escape the web of it''s body. He could have sworn it was endlessly long as every time he darted around a tree, he found more of it''s body. Eventually, Felix escaped, finding a large clearing in the bog surrounding a lonely tree in the middle. He didn''t have time to examine it as he felt the snake''s fangs approaching rapidly from behind him.


    He started creating another bomb, twice as dense this time, and slowly turned around waiting for it to strike. He felt it moving towards him fast, just behind a tree on the edge of the clearing. He was ready for the strike, but not for the tree to explode in a shower of splinters as the snake dove through it. Felix panicked and threw the fire bomb then dove to the side, which was more like a horizontal high dive with his jump spell.


    Felix quickly caught himself with a force spell to slow down and a Gust spell so he didn''t scrape his body along the ground with his remaining speed.


    Ding You have slain a [E - Uncommon] Giant Swamp Pygeatrix (Lvl 85)


    Ding You have gained 3 levels in [E - Common] Caster


    Combat Dungeon A


    Round 3 will begin in 30 minutes.


    Start now?


    Yes


    No


    No.


    Felix dropped to the ground and began meditating. He really wanted to examine the body with his Hunter''s ring, but he was running low on mana and didn''t want the next enemy to catch him off guard and helpless. He pulled the ambient mana as fast as he dared, without screwing up his spells and drained mana batteries to supplement his regeneration. He managed to regenerate to about 80% of his maximum mana which he figured was probably fine, he rarely needed his entire mana pool in a fight. . . . . .

 Chapter 53 - Book 52

    Felix watched the clock and stopped meditating a minute before the round started. While waiting for the last minute, Felix looked over at the snake''s corpse. He focused on it for a few seconds causing something to glow around it''s mutilated head. He went over to inspect it but unfortunately, it was broken. He found little shards of glass or crystal all over the place but they stopped glowing when he focused on them making him think it was valuable, when it was whole.


    Damn, do I really need to try and preserve my enemies now? That''s so lame.


    Felix bent over to pick up another shard when a root shot through the ground, spraying up wet mud and wrapping itself around Felix''s ankle. He looked up and saw the ground tearing itself up to reveal roots spreading out from around the creepy and twisted tree in the center of the clearing.


    [E - Rare] Agzara the Vile Cypress (Lvl 90)


    A fucking tree. How am I supposed to kill that thing. How is it even¡­ not alive¡­ but like¡­ moving?


    Ideally I would love a chainsaw spell or something, but I don''t think I''ll be able to create something like that for quite a while. That would require a lot of complex shapes plus movement spells. Making something like that on the spot and making sure the whole thing doesn''t fall apart or break, I don''t see how that could even be possible. It would take forever just to create the spell form, and the shape is probably done manually. Maybe spells like that just don''t exist?


    Lighting it on fire is probably impossible since it''s still alive and full of water, I would need an absurd amount of fire. Hopefully it has health, cause if it doesn''t, I''m pretty sure I would have to cut it all the way down then dig up all it''s roots.


    Felix dodged and blocked roots from every direction. Unfortunately his arm wraps were mostly useless as the roots almost exclusively tried to grapple with his limbs. Felix cast quick, detached, mana shields to block the roots he couldn''t dodge as he made his way towards the tree. As he did so, the roots grew thicker and denser but were less mobile.


    Halfway there, the roots folder over themselves, completely ripping themselves out of the ground so that the thin and nimble ends could continue to harass Felix.


    I really need to find a way to make blades, I wish I could cut these stupid roots.


    Felix tried to cut some of them off with Mana Bolts but only managed to land glancing blows as they twisted over each-other to try and capture their prey. As Felix drew closer to the tree, the roots closed in, shrinking the space around him until eventually he had to cast Flame Throwers to create an opening and back off.


    I don''t really have the mana to just push through and incinerate the roots. I have no blade spells to cut the roots, which would be much more efficient. I could try and freeze them, but that doesn''t sound very effective or efficient. I''m not even sure if an exploding Firebolt/Firebomb would do much, it doesn''t pack a ton of force and these things are pretty tough. Ugh, I could back off and try to make a spell I guess, kind of boring though, guess it''s a good opportunity though.


    Felix blocked and dodged his way to the outside of the clearing where the intensity of the root''s attacks waned as they grew thinner and weaker. Just outside the clearing, past the tree line, the roots couldn''t even reach Felix. He was completely safe.


    Felix started to experiment with spells, launching them at Agzara. Unfortunately, nothing he fired had landed on the tree itself as roots shot up from the ground and wove themselves into a dense wall to block every spell leaving nary a scratch on them. He tried many variations of fire, cold, wind, sound, force and mana spells but their effects ranged from nothing whatsoever to maybe the tree took some damage.


    Eventually Felix had run out of spells to try and didn''t want to waste too much mana so he decided to try and create a new spell. First he tried to make a saw of some sort, he created a disc of mana and manually shaped the outside to have sharp teeth. Then he drew out a spell to spin it quickly as it launched. It managed to do some damage, but it got stuck in the roots without cutting all the way through, was unstable in flight and cost way too much mana.


    Felix iterated on the saw spell for a while but didn''t manage to create something he was satisfied with so he decided to scrap it and try something else.


    I know I said I would need an absurd amount of fire and that I didn''t have enough mana, but I don''t really see any other choice at this point. I''ve got to at least make this as efficient as possible. If this is going to work at all, I need the fire to be really hot, and I''m going to need a lot of it.


    Felix sat down in a meditative pose and drew out a Pocket Star spell form in his Mind Palace with some modifications. First, he greatly expanded the channeling components of the spell to allow it to handle a lot of mana. Second, he changed the ratio of force pulling inwards and spinning to fire to be about 3:2 instead of 1:2. Casting the spell took a lot more mana to get going than before, almost 75% of his pool then he started to pull on the ambient mana as much as possible to fuel the Pocket Star directly. He kept it as far away from himself as he could, even though his cloak was keeping him cool.


    He kept the star spinning and manually pulled mana into it, using the vortex imagery he wouldn''t use on his own pool. He grew the star manually as his mana pool regenerated passively. The extra force he was applying ensured that the star stayed a similar size and simply grew hotter and denser to a point. Once Felix''s mana had fully regenerated, he stood up and held the star in front of him. It was almost too bright to look at, so he moved it off to the side.


    I don''t want to just throw this thing at it, as cool as that would be, that would be too inefficient and Agzara might deflect it. I wonder if the tree is possessed by a soul or it grew it''s own by leveling? Anyways, ideally I use this as a source and launch super hot Fire Bolts from it. The real question, is how do I go about that? Time to potentially kill myself¡­


    First, Felix tried to simply shove some of the fire out of it with force, unfortunately that didn''t seem like it would work. He didn''t use enough force to destabilize it, but he could tell that''s what would happen if he used any more. The next thing he tried was much more successful. Instead of fighting the spell, he tried to pull a thread of the fire from the star as it spun, like a ball of yarn. Since the fire was entirely fueled by mana, he could still feel it and somewhat influence it. He simple diverted a small thread into a Fire Bolt off to the side and then launched the Fire Bolt.


    Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.


    His first attempt exploded before he tuned the amount of force required to keep the Fire Bolt together in flight. Eventually, after he expended half of his massive mana pool, Felix managed to create superheated Fire Bolt''s fueled from the Pocket Star spell he sustained off to the side.


    He launched one of them towards the tree and once again, the roots wove together to defend Agzara, except this time, it incinerated a hole right through them. They continued to weave together a defense, creating almost 4 walls of roots before the Fire Bolt burnt out.


    Holy shit. That was way better than I was expecting. This might be the best combat spell I have come up with myself. Why would I ever use Fire Bolt from now on? Other than the fact that this costs a metric fuck ton of mana. I think I''ll dub these, Star Fueled Fire Bolts. I don''t think they are quite Star Bolts as I hope one day I will be able to create and launch Pocket Stars by themselves, but they are more than Fire Bolts. Also, I''m not sure if they are quite Fire Balls yet. I always imagined those being more explosive. Plasma Bolt? These aren''t plasma though, are they?


    Felix continued to launch Star Fueled Fire Bolts at the tree, incinerating the roots that came to it''s defense piece by piece. Unfortunately there were roots everywhere under the tree. No matter how many Felix burned through, more dug themselves up to replace the ones that were lost. At a certain point Felix had gotten a little too overzealous and pulled too much from the star, luckily he immediately felt it destabilizing and managed to hold it together. This necessitated him taking a break to grow and stabilize the star though.


    Luckily, Felix didn''t see any of the damaged roots regenerate themselves while he was preoccupied. He also spent some time regenerating his own mana pool as he was running low from the Star Fueled Fire Bolts and keeping the Pocket Star Fueled. While most of the mana came from him sucking in the ambient mana, he was also supplementing it with his own mana as it required an astronomical amount to sustain.


    Felix continued his assault on Agzara''s defenses, a little more carefully this time. It took him almost an hour to get through all of the roots until it couldn''t mount much of a defense anymore. He also started to slowly move inwards, using the Pocket Star to swallow some of the roots that tried to attack him as he moved. They simply acted as fuel, slightly lessening the amount of mana required to sustain them.


    Felix got much closer to the tree than he had last time, standing just a dozen or so meters away. It turned out, Agzara also had other defenses it could mount against enemies this close to it, it swung it''s branches down at Felix, similar to the roots. The branches were much slower, but swung with a lot more power than the roots. Felix was worried they might tear through his star, especially when some of them were equally as thick, so he didn''t try to swallow them. Luckily, he dodged them fairly easily because they were quite slow. Also, when he got within just a few meters of the tree, the branches became much less troublesome as they couldn''t quite bend themselves far enough to attack him directly.


    I almost feel bad for it, but at the same time, I kind of want to see what happens.


    Felix slowly brought his Pocket Star around until it was front of him then cast an unchanneled Mana Shield between him and it to protect himself from any debris. Finally, he slowly pushed the star into the trunk of the tree.


    At first, the Pocket Star simply incinerated a hole through the tree and Felix was disappointed. Once it was almost entirely inside the tree however, it suddenly caught something and exploded outwards in flame, engulfing the entire thing. It all caught fire, creating an awful black acrid smoke along with steam to roll out from the tree as it burned down. Felix ran away from it while his shield blocked the burning splinters and charcoal that occasionally got launched from the pyre. The rest of the tree collapsed to the ground, the branches falling and the leaves vanishing in the heat.


    I guess I won''t be harvesting much from that corpse. Ah well, I guess the ring will be much more useful for the World Bosses.


    Ding You have slain [E - Rare] Agzara the Vile Cypress (Lvl 90)


    Ding You have gained 4 levels in [E - Common] Caster


    Combat Dungeon A


    You have chosen to claim rewards, you will not be able to continue further rounds.


    You have successfully completed 3 rounds of +10 - +15 difficulty.


    Congratulations.


    Combat Dungeon A


    Calculating Rewards


    Bonuses:


    Difficulty


    Time


    Solo


    Reward Tier: Highest


    Combat Dungeon A


    Rewards


    [E - Epic] Wand of Lightning Bolts


    [E - Special] Rod of Escape


    [E - Special] Mind, Body, Mana


    10,000,000 Tutorial Credits


    That is a lot of credits, and yet half of the amount needed for a fort upgrade. Though I don''t think those are supposed to be funded by a singular entity.


    Felix looted the credits then looked towards the first actual item on the table. It was a leather bound book with what looked like the Vitruvian man on the cover, except the figure was only the shape of a human and was a part of a simple spell diagram around it. Inside the body lay multiple geometric drawing, like a runic medical diagram.


    [E - Special] Mind, Body, Mana


    A book containing the life''s work of one Ahedorya. She spent her entire life researching mana and it''s interactions within the bodies of living creatures.


    Huh, cool. I''d been hoping for more info on mana, I''ll take it.


    The next item on the table was a simple wooden rod. Felix might have considered it a stick, were it not perfectly cylindrical. It was about the length of a ruler and completely plain, with no distinguishing features.


    [E - Special] Rod of Escape


    Break the rod to launch yourself in the direction you are facing at extreme speed with a safe landing. This item may only be used once.


    Another one of those: I''m glad I have it, but I hope I never have to use it.


    Felix stowed the rod in his inventory and looked towards something he was rather excited about. The next item was another wooden stick, however this one, was blackened like it had been charred. It was much more natural looking, being slightly, curved and shrinking towards the point, rather than perfectly uniform in shape like the Rod of Escape. Wrapped around one end of it was a simple brown leather strip forming a handle, a stark contrast to the pure black of the rest of the wand. Overall it was just over a foot long, longer than a typical ruler but not quite unwieldy.


    [E - Epic] Wand of Lightning Bolts


    [Wand][Weapon]


    A wand crafted from the remains of a great tree that was struck down by lightning. The wand now only casts a single spell, a remnant of it''s creation.


    Channel mana into the wand to cast the Lightning Bolt spell. S~ea??h the nov§×lF~ire.net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    That''s rather simple, can''t complain though. I guess some might see it as a downside that it can''t be used to cast normal spells, but I wouldn''t ever use it for that anyways. I just want to learn the spell inside of it. Although who knows, maybe you can use it for normal spells too.


    Combat Dungeon A


    All Rewards Collected


    Would you like to leave this room?


    Warning: You may only remain in this room for a maximum of 15 minutes.


    Yes.


    No.


    Yes.


    Felix held his breath and a second later was submerged in the sea. He swam to the surface, which was just a few meters above him and then towards the shore of the sandy area, as far as he could from the swamp. . . . . .

 Chapter 54 - Book 53

    This area of the map was almost entirely a beach, with palm trees dotting the landscape and soft sand covering the ground. Felix laid down in the sand and was tempted to read through the book he had just gotten, but instead pulled out the D tier mana cube and opened it. He simply had to touch the cube for the screen to reappear.


    [D - Epic] Skill Test Cube: Mana Control


    Congratulations!


    You have completed a Skill Test Cube: Mana Control


    Would you like to open the cube?


    Yes.


    No.


    Yes.


    As soon as Felix answered, the cube vanished and in his hands lay instead, a book.


    [D - Epic] Odamoran''s Spell Formation Primer


    A book detailing the basics of spell formation written by Odamorn.


    The book was incredibly heavy, weighing multiple hundreds of pounds if Felix had to guess. The cover was dark treated leather inlaid with blue spell diagrams, though not any Felix recognized. He tried creating one in the air to cast it, but it didn''t seem to do anything so he assumed they were decorative. Sear?h the N?velFire(.)net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    I think I''ll start with Mind, Body, Mana because it might be able to better inform me about what spells I want to craft and how to craft them. Hopefully it also talks about mana in general.


    Felix swapped the books and cracked it open. The text inside appeared to be hand written with a quill as the slight depression of a writing utensil was visible in just the right light. Either it was the original, or The System had created a perfect replica, to Felix''s eye.


    Mana is widely considered to be one of the fundamental building blocks of the universe. It is ever present and infinitely useful, furthermore, it exists within every single thing and is a part of every single living thing. Even those that have evolved their race into one without a mana pool, will have some amount of mana that responds to their will so that most enchanted items remain usable.


    Despite these facts, the interactions and the study of it''s existence within us in comparison to the rest of reality is considered to be a niche subject with minimal uses. This is demonstrated perfectly by the grade and rarity of this very book. I originally wrote the draft for this book intending it to be the peak of my own grade with a top rarity. I had even collected the rare materials that would comprise the pages, binding and cover for the final product, when The System, in it''s infinite wisdom, declared my entire life''s work to be of the E grade, with a Special rarity.


    I have since reevaluated and acquired simple E grade materials for the final product. I once hoped for this to be the pinnacle of me, my greatest accomplishment and my legacy. I still hold on to this hope, but now I hope that instead of the highest of academia finding value and continuing my work, I hope that this information is accessible to anyone who might seek it out. I hope it brings value to one beginning their own journey in some way. Ironically, as I write this, I am starting to think this may be even more fulfilling to me than what I had initially set out to do. Good luck, and should you, the reader, find this around the ??? integration and should you find value in my research, come find me at ??? if you can. I would love to hear about your journey.


    In order to keep this book in the E grade and the rarity relatively low, I have opted to remove the specifics such as individual names and locations from the case studies. I hope that this does not detract from the lessons. I have left the date of writing as well as my likely location as a desperate hope that someone might tell me they found this book of value.


    Felix read back the last two sentences twice to be sure.


    Were parts of that redacted? Why? How am I supposed to find her now? Not that I have a strong urge to do so, I still feel like it would be nice to tell her I found it valuable if I ever came across her. Maybe I could have sent her a letter or something. That must be a thing, right?


    Felix couldn''t come up with any valid reasoning so he shook his head and refocused on the book. The start of the books actual content, after the forward was labeled, "Part 1."


    Within the bodies of all living things lives a pool of mana. This mana belongs to the creature it resides within and is in some ways, attuned to them. This is technically incorrect as mana cannot be attuned to a sentient being, but it is more receptive to that creature''s commands. More accurately, the mana has an affinity for that creature. The mana all around us, is more fickle and harder to control. It may or may not listen to the command of a sentient creature, most often it will follow the general command but deviate in the specifics. This does not mean it will cast a different spell, but rather that the aim of the spell might deviate from the intended target, or the spell form might fail.


    You might be wondering how one could have possibly tested this, which is an excellent question and transitions us nicely to our first and shortest case study.


    A few years ago a group of Caster derivatives wanted to cast a massive spell that one of them had created and managed to add to their Spell List. Unfortunately, the amount of mana required was astronomical, so they embarked on one of the most dangerous experiments I think I have ever heard of. They created a ritual to pour mana from multiple mana batteries to fuel the Caster standing in the middle. These Casters were unpracticed in ritual creation and hasty in their execution. The mana batteries shattered in the middle of casting causing the ambient mana and some of the mana from the onlookers to be sucked into the ritual fueling the spell being cast in the middle.


    Unfortunately, due to the motley of mana being funneled through the caster in the center, the spell ultimately failed. Fortunately, it did not fail violently, simply being slightly off from the desired effect, which with a spell that massive, rendered it unusable. The ritual they designed was later used to study the effects of pulling ambient mana into a Caster to replenish their pool as well as the odd effects of doing so too quickly. Luckily, none of the oddities are permanent as simply waiting a day or so will cause it to be indistinguishable from the mana that normally fills one''s pool.


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    My working theory, having tested this myself, is that the mana within an individual''s mana pool listens to it''s host. It is in tune with their will so to speak. When their intent is made clear, it responds, at least much faster and more accurately when compared to ambient mana. Unfortunately, the value of this discovery is not terribly useful as using ambient mana in a spell other than a ritual or enchantment is nearly impossible and essentially useless outside of research purposes.


    Felix finished the first chapter which went on to discuss some of the possible effects of ambient mana on spell casting, mostly consisting of altered aim, which Felix had personally experienced. Once he had finished, he sat himself in a meditative pose and held the book in his hands. He entered a meditation and created a vortex of mana to regenerate his own mana pool. Now that he understood what was happening with his mana when he did so, he felt much more comfortable using it. Unfortunately, he found that he couldn''t pull the book into his Meditation''s Soul Space while he was focusing on pulling the ambient mana.


    Once his mana pool was full, he easily pulled the book in with him, which was now completely useless. He didn''t even need the physical book as he had a copy in his mental library from his Scan Literature skill. He still enjoyed the atmosphere of the beach and the setting sun though, so he continued to read the physical book in reality.


    Our next case studies explore attempts at unnaturally or forcefully, depending on your own philosophical view, expanding the mana pool of sentient beings.


    The first one, in a similar fashion to the last case study we just looked at, involves the use of a ritual to force mana into a being in an attempt to stretch their mana pool. A ritual was set up to have multiple other individuals pour mana into it and force that mana into a singular target. In this case, the subject''s mana pool expanded past it''s limit but quickly leaked or dissipated out of them. No matter how many times it was repeated, the subject could not hold onto the extra mana within their pool. On their status sheet, the number increased past the limit but still displayed their maximum, verified by multiple observers.


    No permanent effect was found on the subject at any point afterwards. Their mana pool returned to normal and they did not seem to suffer any notable side effects from the experimentation.


    A later case study performed the same experiment but this time the sources of mana were rotated out to maintain the increased mana in the subject for an extended period. This experiment managed to successfully increase the subjects mana pool by 0.25% by flooding them with 200% increased mana for about a month. Maintaining the increase required around 6225.6% of the subject''s maximum mana to be forced into their pool over the course of every day.


    Due to the ridiculous cost for meager returns, this method has not been used extensively as far as I have ever heard. Were there to be a more effective method of flooding one''s pool with mana, such as a specific environmental situation or unique dungeon, whomever encounters such a thing would be strongly encouraged to take full advantage.


    The most common method of increasing an individuals mana pool outside of their statistics and skill that continues to be used extensively to this day, is soul cultivation.


    Through specific soul manipulation techniques, often dubbed cultivation, a sentient being''s mana pool can be permanently expanded. This is a well known phenomena that has been well recorded multiple times. It will often result in a specific racial trait or skill being unlocked, but not necessarily. This method is often slow and cumbersome, but it is known and cheap.


    This well known phenomena does point to some interesting theories however on where the cap for an individual''s mana pool comes from. This implies that it might have something to do with ones soul in some way or another, though it is possible the soul cultivation is having an unknown tertiary effect on another aspect of a sentient being that results in their maximum mana pool increasing.


    Felix continued to read through the case studies in the rest of the first part of the book. They explored the rather mundane and uninteresting effects of thick and thin mana environments on sentient creatures of varying reliance on mana. They also had some horrific experiments where creatures of varying mana reliance were force fed mana, with some of them exploding and others evolving and upgrading their race. Although miraculous, many of the race upgrades resulted in the creatures slaughtering the researchers though. The final section of the first part of the book, which Felix found particularly interesting, was an anecdotal reflection of sorts.


    Looking through all of the case studies in this section, one would be correct in wondering, why the effects of similar experiments varied wildly from one to the next. Unfortunately, without measurements or even anecdotal notes on the mana being used in the experiments, all we can do is wildly guess and conjecture. Most of these experiments happen as the result of a particularly ambitious group of individuals and none of them have been overseen by a proper research body. Some of these experiments must have happened at larger and well established institutions, likely with a plethora of recordings to make informed conclusions. Unfortunately, this information is usually tightly guarded. It is my wish to one day explore and hypothesize upon the results of said experiments, should I ever be allowed to read about them.


    The rest of the first part of the book was an appendix of sorts to the first part with random individual experiments listed. These were uninteresting and simply included for reference, similar to a textbook. They consisted of the interactions between every imaginable part of a sentient creature and mana. Hair, eyes, bones, muscles along with every other part Felix could think of had some note, experiment or case study. He understandably skimmed through this section as the majority of it was irrelevant.


    It did remind him of something he had neglected for a while now, his hair. It was getting to the point where Felix couldn''t ignore it any longer. He pulled out the Uncommon Frost Dagger he hadn''t had a chance to list at the auction house yet and did his best to shave his face. Luckily, the hair seemed to grow with him, as he grew more durable so did it, meaning it wouldn''t fall off or singe too easily. However, the hair at the ends were grown when he was much less durable, meaning the hair was much harder to cut close to his face. It took him a half hour and much blood to finally be happy with the result and luckily, the cuts sealed themselves very quickly with his vitality.


    He wanted to shorten his hair, but he didn''t have a good way of doing so at the moment without looking ridiculous. He decided he would get someone else to do it, or go bald if it got too annoying. Luckily it wasn''t too long yet, it was growing faster thanks to his increase in stats, but not exponentially so. It was only growing a few times faster than normal if Felix had to guess.


    The sky was just beginning to fully darken so Felix quickly completed his nightly ritual of approving the expenditures in the town. The longest he had gone since the last time he forgot was 48 hours when he was staying awake that long in the puzzle dungeon, which wasn''t ideal but also wasn''t nearly as bad as the week or so where he had forgotten in the first quest dungeon.


    With that done, Felix shut his eyes and fell asleep on the beach beneath the stars. . . . . .

 Chapter 55 - Book 54

    The sun woke Felix the next morning rather early but, he felt fully rested so he didn''t mind. The last dungeon was on the far west end of the map around a third of the way down from the top edge. If he ran straight there, he would run right through another fort so he figured he would stop by and catch up on the current happenings of the others in the tutorial. Communication to date between the forts had been non existent, so he was mostly curious about the people living there, how they were faring, and most importantly, their levels.


    As Felix traveled further inland, the sand gave way to grass and the palm trees grew denser, though the whole area still retained a very tropical island vibe. He ran past the cove that marked the end of running west and turned towards the south running for a few kilometers before the sunny sky darkened. Felix looked up expecting a massive rain cloud but was instead greeted by what he assumed, hoped, was a world boss. Luckily, his map confirmed it as such.


    Flying above Felix, casting a massive looming shadow, was a bird with large feathery wings and two streaks of red trailing from it''s tail. The creature had massive talons and blue feathers covering it''s head from the neck up. It was hard to judge due to the lack of light hitting the underside of the creature and it''s distance from Felix, but he estimated the bird was about a few hundred meters across with talons and a beak far longer than he was tall.


    [E - Special] Tropical Roc (Lvl 89)


    Luckily for Felix, the bird seemed to pay no mind to the tiny creatures bound to the earth. He ran onwards to the south towards what his map insisted was a fort. He was surprised to find a lack of any creatures around him though he figured they might all just be hiding with the roc currently roaming overhead.


    Felix traveled further south over the sand and through the palms, sticking close to the shore as a function of speed and it being the shortest path more than anything else. He finally arrived at what was marked as a fort on his map, though what he found was rather disappointing.


    In front of him standing tall was a rather large wooden shack made of palm trees with some stone pillars for support. The building itself was large and impressive for a beach hut, it was however, completely alone.


    Huh?


    Felix opened his map and inspected the town. It''s name was "Bastion of Hope."


    How cheesy, gross.


    It''s note, was somehow worse, "Welcome one and all to the Bastion of Hope. Anyone is welcome but you must be willing to stand the line, listen to orders and be willing to defend the final frontier with your life."


    Uh. This shack is the final frontier? Someone had a little too much fun with this one. I mean, I am already here, might as well knock.


    Felix walked up to the shack, quickly set his mask to level 42 and made sure it changed his appearance, then knocked on the surprisingly sturdy front door. Within a few seconds, the door swung open to reveal a large man, well over 6 feet with a strong focus, whether in stats or just aesthetics, on strength. He wore leather armor tightly strapped to his chest with a spear at the ready in his hand.


    [E - Common] Human (Lvl 32)


    "Oi, who goes there?"


    "Was it the wind again?" Another voice, whose owner was out of view, chimed in from within the shack.


    "Oh, uh hello. Are you looking to join the Bastion of Hope?" The man who opened the door completely ignored the other individual from within the shack.


    "Just visiting. Is it just you two?" S§×arch* The N?vel(F)ire.¦Çet website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    "Harold, how the hell didn''t you see him? You were supposed to be watching?"


    The man holding the door turned his head to respond, "I don''t know, I looked out just a couple minutes ago. He wasn''t there, and now he is. I don''t know what to tell you.


    "Well he seems friendly enough and he''s already at the door, might as well let''em in. I don''t really wanna get up."


    "That''s not protocol though¡­"


    "So? Who cares. He''s the first person we''ve seen in ages. Please don''t make me get up."


    The man holding the door open, apparently named Harold, stepped aside gesturing with his spear hand for Felix to enter. Inside the cabin lay some simple furniture that screamed vacation home to Felix, designed entirely for comfort rather than fashion. There were two couches a table with some cards and a fire place with scarcely anything else.


    Harold finally answered Felix''s question, "No, we''re just on shift to guard the surface, though not much ever happens up here, mostly a vacation."


    "I mean we deserve it after last week. Shit was crazy." The other man that Felix could now see was lying upside down on a couch with his head hanging off the seat and his legs sprawled over the back. Suddenly, his eyes widened and he scrambled, fell off the couch onto his head causing his legs to flip over him. He righted himself then looked right at Felix, "Where in the hell did you come from? How''re you such a high level?"


    Shit, 42 is really that high? Damn it.


    "Oh you know, just wandering around fighting anything I can and skinning them." Felix shrugged.


    They looked at each-other clearly not convinced before they seemed to realize they didn''t actually care.


    The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.


    "Well, I''m sure the commander will want to try and convince you to settle down here herself, considering your level. What class are you?" Harold asked.


    "Caster" Felix responded with trepidation.


    As Felix had feared, they looked at each-other confusedly before shrugging.


    "Well, come on I''ll escort you to her, now that I''m up and all that." The other man gestured for Felix to follow, "I''m James by the way."


    "John, pleasure." Felix came up with a random name as he decided that if his face was disguised, his name probably should be too.


    James opened a door and walked into a small room that was about the size of a large closet or small bathroom. The sole thing in the entire room was a staircase in the floor leading downwards. James began descending and Felix followed.


    The wooden steps quickly gave way to carved stone as they descended into a cave system. James pulled out a palm sized crystal that began glowing with light as he continued walking. Felix was astonished at how far they descended, though he wasn''t sure just how far it was when the cave turned, twisted, ascended and descended constantly, it just seemed to go on forever. It was also exacerbated by the fact that Felix was limited to Jame''s speed and couldn''t walk or run as quickly as he would normally.


    Finally the cave opened up to being a few meters wide and forked off in multiple directions as they walked. Without a guide confidently walking through or a map, Felix was certain someone could have gotten lost in here for months.


    As they walked, Felix started to hear the hustle and bustle of people echoing through the cavern. They passed by multiple caves that contained people going about their lives. Felix saw what appeared to be a cafeteria, a lounge and multiple caves that were closed off with curtains. He suspected at least some of the closed off caves were private quarters, if not most of them.


    As they traveled further inwards, Felix noticed the functions of the caves he glanced into became more utilitarian and militaristic. There were sparring rooms, currently in use, as well as war rooms with maps and flags and even rooms that contained platoons that were apparently practicing marching drills, or something like that.


    James was unfazed and unwilling to explain anything. He seemed to just want to finish delivering Felix so he could return to his couch. The sounds of battle echoed faintly through the cavern as Felix noticed small spots on the walls and floors painted with blood stains. Felix also noticed James started straightening his back as he walked with more purposeful steps. Finally, James approached a blonde woman with short hair and dark leather armor.


    [E - Common] Human (Lvl 40)


    "Commander" He stood straight and saluted.


    "Private." She nodded.


    "This is John. He came knocking on the surface just a few minutes ago. He says he''s just visiting, but we figured you might want to speak with him personally."


    She furrowed her brows at that comment until she looked at Felix for a few moments and nodded in understanding.


    "Yes, thank you private. Return to your post, I will handle this."


    James nodded then walked off. The blonde woman turned to Felix and held out her hand with a very nonchalant and casual manner, "I''m Emma, pleasure to meet you."


    Felix shook her hand, making sure to hide his strength, and nodded, "John."


    "So John¡­ I have to ask, how are you such a high level? I was pretty proud of finally hitting level 40 just a couple days ago, now you come along with 2 whole levels on me."


    I need to reveal something otherwise she''s not gonna believe anything I say.


    "I''ve been trying to hit as many of the dungeons as I can. They seem to give great xp. I hit anything I can along the way and grind out my profession in whatever down time I have left. Just hit 42 on the way over here in fact."


    She nodded with reluctant acceptance then sighed, "Well, welcome to the Bastion of Hope, the final frontier."


    Felix raised his eyebrow at that but she seemed to be entirely serious.


    "I get it, you are wondering what we are the frontier of, or bastion against. Let me show you."


    She walked down the cave, the same way Felix had come from and turned off into a cave a few hundred meters from where she was initially. He followed her inside, with great reluctance as the smell emanating from the cave she led him down, was vile.


    Inside the cave there were multiple piles of corpses of what appeared to be moles crossed with ants. They had the noses and claws of moles as well as the fur, but they also had two sets of back legs behind the claws, giving them six in total. Finally, they had large pincers on their heads and the body shape of an ant.


    "Mole-Ants, the scourge of humanity."


    Felix was trying his best to keep himself from expelling his breakfast, holding his jaw shut tightly and holding some scraps from his bedsheet over his nose. Emma seemed to be completely unbothered by the smell, or she was an excellent actor.


    "Were it not for the war we wage against them here at the bastion, humanity would be overrun very quickly. These things are savages, all they want to do is eat us and breed." Emma leaned in as if she had the juiciest secret to share, "The System said this was all to get us acquainted with the multiverse and all that, but I''m telling you, there''s more to it. We''re gonna have to fight for our planet and these are the invaders, it''s preparing us as best it can. I bet you all the other forts are fighting similar fights against the Mole-Ants, but we here are at the heart of it all."


    Felix was filled with relief as she led him back out of the room towards the entrance to the caves where the stench wasn''t noticeable.


    "We aren''t always fighting though. As important as the battle is, we manage it well enough that everyone get''s time off. There are shifts where you fight but then between those we have a cafeteria, lounge and even individual homes for the officers. You''re a caster right? You don''t wear any armor so, figured you must be."


    "I am."


    "Interesting you made it to such a high level. All the casters we have down here have been pretty weak, as The System said they would be in the early levels."


    "Just lucky I guess."


    "Guess so. So, John, why''d you come to visit us? Just looking to grind some levels? Looking for a place to settle down?" Felix noted a hint of hope in the last query.


    "I''m looking for a dungeon south-west of here. Should be on the west edge of the map and about a third of the way down from the top edge." Felix could have simply shown her his map with the marker, but he didn''t want to reveal how far he had traveled.


    "Well, I don''t know for sure if it''s the one you''re looking for, but there is a dungeon in the caves around there. We used to have every new trainee head there in teams to train them on scouting, get some profession levels and some real combat experience on the way. Unfortunately, that was almost a month ago. Since then, the Mole-Ant''s levels have grown, making them smarter and more aggressive. We''ve been meaning to send a squad to clear out the Mole-Ants on the path to make it safer and more traversable. We were hoping to make it possible to send rookies out that way again. I just haven''t been able to spare the man power it would take to do it yet." She thought silently for a few moments before continuing, "Come on, let''s go talk to Ben."


    "Could you give me a map of the caves to get there? If you''ve been there already?"


    "The Mole-Ants might have changed some of the routes, as they are constantly shifting some of the tunnels on us. I''ll talk to Ben and see if I can convince him to be the guide. He''s been in these tunnels the longest and should be able to find his way there the best. If he agrees, I''ll send you with some of my best recruits and you guys can clear a path for us."


    Ugh, noooo. Just give me a damn map. I don''t want to be bogged down by slowpokes. I could try and just find it myself, but I navigating these tunnels would be a lot harder than the puzzle dungeons. Those are 2 dimensional and geometric, with only 90 degree turns and perfectly straight walls. These tunnels, not so much. . . . . .

 Chapter 56 - Book 55

    Felix silently moped as Emma led him towards one of the first sectioned off caves. This one, instead of a curtain, had a wooden door shaped perfectly to fit in the entrance. She knocked twice on the door then stood back and waited. After a few moments, she knocked twice again, this time a little harder. Felix heard a gruff male voice yelling out from inside, "What do ye want, Emma?"


    "Ben, I''ve got someone for you to meet and I''ve got an assignment, one you''ll like I promise."


    "I''m not training some fresh out the oven new recruit for you I already told you I don''t take orders from you."


    Emma smirked, "Well, if he''s fresh out the oven I might have to capture and experiment on him since he''s already a higher level than I am. And, I don''t need you to train him, want you to lead him-"


    The door swung open interrupting Emma as a barrel chested man of slightly below average height with bulging arms and legs opened the door. He had short, buzzcut light brown hair and dark brown eyes. Were it not for the fact that he was clean shaven, Felix might have mistaken him for a dwarf.


    [E - Common] Human (Lvl 38)


    "Huh, would you look at that." The man stepped forwards and held out his hand, "I''m Benjamin, nice to meet you."


    Felix grasped his hand which was a similar size to Felix''s but covered in a thick uniform callous, and offered a slight nod "John."


    The slight smile shifted from polite manners to a mirthful grin as he turned to Emma, "Where''d you find him?" Then his expression darkened with exasperation, "and what''s the damn assignment?"


    "He just showed up and knocked on our door. He''s looking for a dungeon on the west end of the map, slightly to the south from here. Sound familiar?"


    "I take it that''s the assignment too?"


    "It is. You can take whomever you want, but I want the path cleared out all the way there. I want to be able to use that thing again, and soon."


    "Yeah yeah, I got it. I''ll go round em up. I''ll come find you when we make it back."


    Emma, slightly put off by the obvious dismissal, "Right, well¡­ I''ll see you then. I expect a full report and I want you to debrief me when you get back." Then she hurried off, walking with discipline but clearly eager to end the conversation.


    Benjamin sighed, "You debrief me¡­ Whatever." He turned to Felix, "Gimme a moment to put on my armor and collect my things and we can go. I assume you have some rations and other provisions, the trip is gonna take a while with lot''s of fighting along the way."


    Felix just nodded and stepped back to give Benjamin room to disappear inside his abode and collect his things.


    After a couple of minutes, Benjamin opened the door again wearing some ramshackle heavy armor. It appeared to have been assembled from multiple pieces of different sets, with some leather and some raw iron plates fit together. While not uniform, it did appear to cover almost everything. He also had a shiny axe strapped to his belt on his left side.


    Oh man, not having hit a quest or combat dungeon must be rough. You could buy it on the auction house, but I''m not sure how much income you could have.


    "Alright, let''s hit the lounge then the caf if they aren''t there. How many people do you think we''ll need? I can definitely get two and likely scrounge up a few more to make at least 6 to 7 or so, you think we''ll need more? I figure since you are the higher le-"


    "Uh, how about just you and me?" Felix interrupted.


    Benjamin turned and scowled at Felix, "Look buddy, I''m not interested in killing myself out there, and I''m not interested in walking out there all alone so you can stab me in the back."


    "Alright bring the two you said you know for sure will come. That''ll be enough, the less people the better."


    Benjamin started walking towards the lounge Felix had passed by on his way in and Felix followed him.


    "Look, these Mole-Ants are nasty creatures and some of the higher leveled ones are hitting around the mid forties. Just the other day, one of the scouts spotted one at level 45. I can handle one a few levels above me on my own with a bit of time, but what do we do when a whole group of mid level forties come ''round the corner?"


    AGH. What the hell do I tell this guy, "Just trust me, the random stranger who just showed up." Yeah right.


    Benjamin continued, "Let''s go talk to Will and Alan, see what they think about just us four heading out on our own. If you can convince them, I''ll go. So uh, good luck."


    Felix followed Benjamin through the caves, towards the lounge area at a blisteringly glacial pace, for Felix at least, which was still marginally faster than most peoples normal speed. It did allow him to restrict his energy flow and train his body to be more efficient though, which was something.


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    Ding You have demonstrated sufficient proficiency to unlock the General Skill: [Internal Energy Cycling (Uncommon) By cycling the energy within your body, you are able to train your body to be more efficient as well as increase it''s performance. By restricting the flow of energy to your bodily functions, your body is becoming gradually more efficient. By increasing the flow of energy to specific bodily functions, you can increase their performance. By increasing the flow of energy to entire systems, you can increase your stats for as long as you have energy. This skill can be upgraded. You may alter the course and function of the buff at any time by manually directing it, this skill will simply maintain the last manual state. (Current maximum stat increase: 65%)]]


    Felix almost tripped, with the notification catching him completely off guard.


    No thanks. While I have been waiting for this, and this could be upgraded, I have a theory that it will be easier to start with a skill closer to what I want, then to start with this and evolve it in that direction. Surprised it took this long honestly, wonder what the hold up was.


    Benjamin turned his head and looked at Felix before continuing onwards and leading him into the lounge. Benjamin approached a table at the back where there were 7 people, 4 men and 3 women. Most of them were anywhere from level 26 to 30 but two of them stood out from the rest at levels 36 and 37. Those two, Will and Alan Felix assumed, appeared to have the vast majority of the pot, which was a pile of pebbles, between them.


    "Oi, Will, Alan stop cheating the rookies out of cash."


    "Cheating?" They looked at each-other, "We would never." They innocently shrugged.


    Benjamin tapped on the shoulder of the woman sitting just in front of him, "They can see your cards in the reflection of your eyeballs."


    "Did''ya have to tell em before they handed over their credits?" One of Will or Alan said.


    "Yeah come on Benny." The other chimed in


    "Yea, I did. And you lot wouldn''t have even gone through with the transaction anyways you little pansies. You cheat''em but your fatherly instincts won''t let you actually punish them for it. You know it teaches them that there are no penalties to screwing up right?" Benjamin shook his head in exasperation.


    "Hey now, these fine recruits are plenty old enough to have learnt from their own parents." The first one said


    "They aren''t kids you know." The other added.


    "Then why do you treat''em like they are?" Benjamin rehearsed.


    They both rose from their seats and grumbled as they made their way over to Benjamin and Felix. The rest of the table was too busy intimately looking into each-others eyes to try and examine each-others cards to notice them leave. These three had clearly had this conversation before and there was nothing more to be said at this time.


    "Who''s the powerhouse and why isn''t he wearing any armor?" The taller one said.


    "This guy," Bejamin gestured towards Felix, "wants us to escort him to the dungeon."


    Will and Alan looked at each-other and shrugged before Benjamin interrupted them, "Just the four of us, no one else. Tried to convince me to go with him alone too."


    They both started giggling at that, "I see, so he asked you out." The taller one started.


    "And you refused? But he''s so¡­ your type. High level red head and¡­ Is there anything else?" The shorter one continued.


    "Nah, that''s all he really cares about anyways. No time to shoot the shit with his old buddies, huh." The taller one added.


    "We''ve known each-other for what, 2 decades now? and you both come with me when we level. Plus, you two love it." Benjamin said with growing exasperation.


    "Awe, you remembered." The taller one pivoted.


    "That''s so sweet. What did you get us for our 20 year anniversary?" The shorter one added.


    "Oi, enough joking around." Benjamin said, done with their shit.


    "Alright fine." They both looked at Felix, "So, are you insane or what?" The shorter one said.


    "Why would we even try something so suicidal?" The taller one shook his head.


    "Ok, how about this. You show me the way, give me a map. I''ll clear it out for you." Felix was annoyed and impatient at this point.


    "Sounds good to me" The shorter one said.


    "Oi, you both still need to run the dungeon. If he''s gonna head that way anyways, we might as well take advantage."


    After a few minutes of arguing, Benjamin convinced them to come along, then turned to Felix, "So why are we gonna only need four of us?"


    I feel myself sinking into the pits of despair, tempted towards evil as the dark thoughts seep through my skull and penetrate the serenity of my mind. I just need a map¡­ I could force them to give it to me. Ugh.


    "Ok, first things first. Which of you is Alan and which is Will. I''d like to stop referring to you as the shorter one in my head. Oh also, just for reference what are your classes."


    Benjamin and the taller one both snickered, "As you so rightly pointed out, I the taller one am Will. I''m a duelist, practiced fencing back on earth and use a single sword out here. Y-"


    "He''s a fighter, a common class, unlike my, uncommon class. I''m Alan, nice to meet you. I''m a hunter, use a bow and arrow." The shorter one cut in.


    Well that is¡­ a coincidence.


    "How about this, you guys tell me where to go and I''ll lead up ahead. If it''s too much for you guys, you can run away and leave me behind."


    "Look, we may joke around, but we will never leave someone behind." Alan said.


    "Besides, we could just get ambushed pretty easily." Will added.


    I don''t really want to just bust out my level. I know it doesn''t really matter but¡­ I just feel safer this way. I know it doesn''t make sense¡­ Agh whatever, I''d rather blow some money that I can make back than my identity which I cannot.


    "Alright, I will outfit you all with some equipment I have found on my travels. If you show me the way, you can keep em, how about that?"


    They all looked at each-other before Alan piped up, "Well we have to see the stuff first."


    "Got somewhere less in the open?"


    Benjamin led them over to one of the tunnels that he said would lead out of the camp and towards the dungeon. They stopped part of the way through with Benjamin assuring Felix that there was no one else further down the tunnel.


    Felix turned to Benjamin and pulled out the [E - Uncommon] Steel Plate Armor he still hadn''t sold yet and handed it to him. Then he turned to Alan and pulled out the [E - Uncommon] Longbow of the Sands and the [E - Uncommon] Glass Head Arrows he had. Finally he turned to Will and pulled out the [E - Uncommon] Glass edge Rapier he had used as a prop back on the Icewatch hunt with Broxus and Lucas.


    Their eyes lit up as they cradled the treasures in their hands. After a few moments and a couple of tears shed by Alan, they all looked at each-other. Sear?h the n?vel_Fire.¦Çet website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    "Alright we would be lying if we said we weren''t tempted, but I''m not gonn-" Benjamin started.


    Felix reluctantly pulled out the [E - Rare] Shivering Ivory Axe and handed it to Benjamin, who promptly dropped the armor he was holding in favor of the weapon.


    Not like I ever would have been able to use that thing anyways. Plus, with the amount of cash I have now, selling all of this wouldn''t have been worth much. . . . . .

 Chapter 57 - Book 56

    "How the hell did you get your hands on these anyways?" Alan asked.


    "Dungeons." Felix said shortly.


    "What are you? Some kind of super high level craftsman?" Will wore a confused expression on his face.


    "Enchanter ish and no. These are from Quest dungeons mostly." Felix sighed.


    "Wait what? I thought they were all profession dungeons?" Will said.


    "Nope. There are also combat dungeons too." Felix answered with the remains of his rapidly shrinking patience.


    All three of them looked at each-other excitedly at the mention of a combat dungeon.


    "If you lead me to the dungeon in the caves, I will handle all the Mole-Ants, you can keep all the gear, plus I will mark down every dungeon I know about on your maps. How about that?" Felix offered.


    "Woah woah woah, what makes you think you can have these back? I''m never letting this thing go." Alan held his bow tightly in his arms.


    "Look, we appreciate the whole lone wolf act, but we gotta test the new equipment out, what if it''s an illusion, you know?" Will added


    Felix was very close to punching him harder than he ever should, "Can we go now?"


    "Yeah alright, we can give this a shot. We go carefully though and you gotta listen to me, got it?" Benjamin ordered.


    "How long will it take to get there?" Felix asked.


    "Normally takes less than a day, but with combat, camp and watch, shouldn''t be more than a few days, five at most." Benjamin answered.


    That is WAY too long.


    "Can you reveal some of the way there to me and I can clear out the caves ahead of us? Try to speed this up a little?" Felix asked hopefully.


    "Fine, don''t kill yourself and come back when you get to the end." Benjamin relented. He shared a partial map of the tunnels with Felix, which filled in his own map.


    Felix nodded to them before jogging at normal human speeds down the cave and out of sight. As he was leaving, Benjamin yelled behind him, "Remember, the Mole-Ants likely changed the layout and your map won''t update down here."


    As soon as Felix was sure he was out of sight, he ran at full speed down the cave. He made it to the end of the partial map he was given then began clearing all of the side caves and tunnels around him to make sure there were no Mole-Ant''s hiding. He managed to find a handful of them and quickly wiped them out with a single overpowered Fire Bolt each before stowing the bodies to hide his proficiency. He waited a few more minutes then ran back to where he had left his burden.


    When he heard them just down the cave, he slowed down to a normal human''s pace and rejoined them.


    "It''s all clear all the way to the end."


    "Did you run straight there?" Benjamin contorted his face.


    "He''s gonna kill himself." Alan said to Will.


    "You need to clear the side tunnels, what if they ambush us?" Will added.


    "Is there any way I can get you all to move faster?" Felix asked bluntly.


    "Look, we appreciate the gear, but we aren''t gonna just throw our lives away cause you don''t have any patience." Benjamin said.


    Felix looked at him for a few moments, then dropped six Mole-Ant corpses with singed holes through their heads on the ground in front of them.


    Alan knelt down and inspected them before turning to his friends, "Fresh."


    "Alright, you got lucky and they were low level. They won''t all be like this, don''t let it get to your head." Benjamin said unsurely.


    "How many?" Felix asked.


    "How many what?" Benjamin shook his head with confusion.


    "How many Mole-Ant corpses do you need me to bring you before you let me set the pace to the dungeon."


    "That''s not-"


    "A hundred." Alan cut him off.


    Felix was already around the corner before he finished.


    It took Felix about twenty minutes total. It helped a lot that he came across multiple large groups all bunched up together.


    This is kind of like revealing my level, but I think this will be more believable. At least I hope so. They will probably assume I have some crazy magic items from dungeons and that they are missing out, which hopefully makes them lust after the dungeon locations even more.


    The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.


    Felix ran back to the three of them then started dumping bodies at their feet before they could even open their mouths. After twenty bodies, the cave was completely full, so they started to stow them in their inventories to make sure Felix wasn''t cheating with Alan inspecting each one for freshness.


    "Do you really have a hundred of these?" Will asked after Felix had dumped about forty of them in the cave.


    "Oh yeah, and you''re gonna take them all. I don''t want a single one in my inventory." Having already inspected their bodies with his ring, Felix had decided there was nothing of value to him on or in them, which made them just a large waste of space. Sear?h the n?velFire.net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    After Felix dumped a hundred and twelve fresh bodies in front of their feet, and having collected them in under a half hour, Benjamin finally relented.


    "Alright, we''ll run there. Let''s go. I''m not giving you the whole map cause I don''t want you to just leave us behind, but we''ll try to keep up with you."


    Felix sighed in relief and started running, trying to keep his pace achievable by those running with him. After getting fed up with their speed, he also filled the cave with a strong tail wind.


    They ran like that for a few hours, with Felix dispatching any Mole-Ants they came across, making sure to use multiple Fire Bolts so he wasn''t killing them in a single hit. The dispatching of the Mole-Ants let Felix blow off some steam which let his frustration slowly fade. He was feeling a little bad for being so short with them earlier so he guiltily started a conversation with Benjamin, using a simple barrier of mana to keep the wind out of the conversation.


    "What''s up with Emma?"


    "Uh, good question." Benjamin thought for a moment. "Let me just start from the beginning. I was the one who found and claimed the fort originally. I lived a good life, fighting Mole-Ants and chilling with Will and Alan who showed up about a week later. We mostly leveled and explored the caves, eventually finding the dungeon. Will and Alan hadn''t chosen a profession yet, so I completed the dungeon while they stood guard. After that I had met all the requirements so I officially claimed the fort. At this point, the Mole-Ants were mostly docile. They only attacked if you walked right up to them, but you could walk by as long as you kept your distance. They didn''t bother us and we didn''t bother them. Then, a few weeks in, Emma shows up."


    "Her dad was a veteran in the army but died when she was young. She wanted to join the army too, follow in his footsteps. Her dad''s commanding officer swore to her dad, on his death bed, to keep her out of the military, so he''d been blocking her ever since. She arrived here and kind of took over, not literally, I was still the leader but she started to set up platoons and scouting parties, organizing the whole camp. While I might not agree with her on everything, she is a good leader and she''s keeping us mostly safe. The platoons she sends out are majorly overkill but they keep everyone relatively safe. Eventually I gave up on fighting it and named her my successor."


    "Best decision I ever made by the way. I don''t feel responsible for people anymore and I went back to just grinding and hanging out with friends. The platoons allow people to level in relative safety and everyone has food, water and shelter. So thing''s are pretty good overall."


    "What do you guys eat anyways?" Felix asked.


    "Mole-Ants and marketplace goods."


    "Gross." Felix said with disgust.


    "Yeah but most of us down here are low on cash so¡­ It''s survivable though. How many of the other forts have you been to? What are they like?"


    "I''ve been to Icewatch, Tri-peak and Tiki Kahuna, all the others were closed."


    "Woah, those are far apart, how did you get all the way over here then?"


    "The boots make me very fast." Felix slightly lied, not wanting to get into specifics.


    Benjamin looked down at Felix''s boots, possibly trying to identify them. He gave up after a few moments and Felix continued, "Icewatch is run by Broxus, they hunt every day and try to push levels as hard as they can. If you fall behind on level, you are kicked out. It''s just constant hunting and grinding."


    "Tiki Kahuna is just a big resort. Giant tiki hut in the middle with any drink you can imagine. Everyone just dances, surfs and relaxes all day. Run by Mike, good guy."


    "Tri-Peak is my home. An old stone fort city in the valley between three mountains. It''s open to anyone which made it kind of profession focused when none of the other forts wanted non-combatants. You can buy a house or have one custom built to your specification, if you have the cash. Oh and the castle was turned into a System run university or college where you can study anything you want. The streets were all open markets last time I visited where you can buy anything you want. They''re all profession focused so you have farmers, blacksmiths, cooks and even an alchemist."


    "Who runs that one?"


    "Uh¡­ Not sure." Felix lied.


    "So Tri-peak is your home, why not the resort? Wouldn''t that be sweet?"


    "I can''t vacation permanently, I need to do things, like to focus on tasks and grind. Plus if I want to visit Tiki Kahuna, it''s less than a day''s travel from Tri-Peak, with my boots at least."


    "That sounds too good to be true."


    "I mean, there was a wait list for houses when I was there, but there are barracks so no one is sleeping in the streets."


    "What are the taxes like?"


    "5%"


    Benjamin whistled, "So anyone is welcome?"


    "Yup, just don''t hit people, steal or kill and you should be fine. At least, last I checked."


    Benjamin nodded, a little lost in thought.


    Felix interrupted his day dreaming after a few minutes, "So, have you explored around here much? I mean outside of the caves?"


    "There isn''t much to explore outside of the caves, it''s all mostly the same with water on every side except the wall to the west. That and the giant bird, but it doesn''t seem to give a shit about us."


    "It''s water on every side? Even to the south?"


    "Yup. To the west and north west is the edge of the map but otherwise, yup."


    Shit, I''m gonna need to cross it to get back, that''s a pain in the ass. Hopefully it''s not too long of a swim.


    After a few moments Benjamin spoke up, "So enchanter ish, you any good?"


    "I will enchant your armor for you if you are still there when I leave the puzzle dungeon, how about that?"


    "Really? Thanks¡­ I''ll be there."


    It took the whole party a total of 10 hours to get to the Puzzle Dungeon. The caves were relatively clear with just a couple dozen or so Mole-Ants per hour that Felix dealt with.


    The dungeon was a large door in the side of one of the caves, in an out of place, perfectly shaped cave.


    When they arrived, Felix turned to the group, "Well, this is me. Let me mark your maps real quick."


    Felix marked Benjamin''s first before marking Alan''s and Will''s. He marked the puzzle dungeons in blue, the combats in red and the quests in yellow.


    "Wait, you''ve been to them all?"


    "This is the last one. Thanks for being good sports about all this. Feel free to go back on your own if you''d like, I''m not sure how long it''ll take me. I can manage on my own."


    With that said, Felix touched the door.


    Puzzle Dungeon B


    You have found a dungeon. Would you like to enter?


    Yes


    No


    Yes. . . . . .

 Chapter 58 - Book 57

    Felix had been exploring Puzzle Dungeon B for a few days now. He had decided on the first day that he didn''t intend on exploring the entire thing, though he still thought he might change his mind as the layout of this dungeon appeared different from the rest. The rooms were much bigger and the sheer number of corridors was much lower. Navigating this dungeon was a breeze in comparison to the previous puzzle dungeons. S~ea??h the N?velFire(.)net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    In contrast though, the rooms were much more complex. They were much bigger in general as well as containing much more complex challenges within them. Instead of the same challenges involving the same tasks being drilled into their victim, these rooms were more like creative challenges that were intended to be thought provoking. At least that was Felix''s interpretation of them.


    In the first room Felix encountered he was tasked with breaking into a series of rooms that were protected with wards. He had never even heard of wards before so it took him longer than he would have liked, but his mana sense and control helped a lot. The wards tended to be hidden on the inside of the room he was trying to get into, to minimize tampering or sometimes even embedded into the wall with a metal being used to guide the mana. In the first case, he could just shatter the ward, in the second he had to stop the flow and hold it while he passed through. He couldn''t exactly shatter the metal and when he let go, the mana would simply resume course and reconnect the ward.


    The functions of most of the wards he encountered were simply alarm wards with sounds and lights being created when triggered. In some of the later rooms though, the wards functions were more complicated. Some of them were configured as traps and others maintained mana barriers to prevent access. The hardest one to deal with, for Felix, was a ward that projected a force barrier from a distance. That meant that he could only minimally interfere with the mana flow and instead had to fight the force barrier with his own force spell, making it a battle of mana capacity.


    In general Felix was getting the sense that wards were somewhere between enchantments and spell forms. They consisted mostly of triggered or channeled spells that were kept alive by being drawn or inlaid rather than having a caster shape mana. They also didn''t have to be used to guard something, as the name might imply, Felix found that they were also useful in magical item engineering.


    Felix had come across kitchens where the oven and stove functioned through a combination of wards and enchantments. The enchantments held the heat in and the ward was enabled to funnel mana from a battery and convert it to heat. Though Felix wasn''t sure if that would be considered a ward or an enchantment.


    He had to create multiple different household machines or tools, including but not limited to a kettle, a door lock, and a mop. His kettle was pretty sad as it had no way of sensing the temperature of the water and stopping itself. The door lock was simply a force spell that he triggered with his own mana through the wall to push a deadbolt into a hole. The mop, he was most proud of as he had managed to make it heat up or cool down with a simple switch and even managed to make it vibrate. Not all of which was useful, but it was a fun project.


    From the rooms, Felix was mostly rewarded with ward diagrams and materials for magical item engineering, which was fairly boring overall. He did manage to net himself a whopping 14 levels in his profession, which was more than he had ever gotten at once. That boost in levels had finally bumped his intelligence above 1000, a personal milestone he had been anticipating with excitement. There did not appear to be any specific milestone or achievement for getting there though.


    Felix lay in his bed in the rest room. He realized it hadn''t been washed for a while so he put washing machine or spell on the todo list before he pulled out Mind, Body, Mana and began reading the next part.


    In part 2 of this book, we will look at the different natural uses of mana as well as interactions between creatures, organic cell and mana.


    Our first series of case studies will look at the natural uses of mana in certain beasts. These interactions do not include any creatures with mana channels or cores as those will be explored in depth in part 3. Some would be surprised to know that some creatures, without channels, infuse their bodies with mana, similarly to how most sentient creatures naturally consume and infuse energy.


    There exists a race of beast, name redacted to preserve tier and rarity of book, that has been found to infuse their muscles and organs with mana as they move in order increase their natural performance. The benefits, when compared to energy are perplexing. Some of the creatures that have been found to do this do not appear to obtain any benefit from doing so. Others, are able to increase the performance of their organs to a much higher level than is traditionally possible with energy.


    The book went on to detail specific case studies with the general idea being that using mana to infuse organs resulted in completely different effects for each and every creature.


    When attempts were made to replicate this phenomena in humans and other sentients, the results were disturbing. In some cases, the mana resulted in the test subject''s muscles replicating and growing like a cancer whereas in others, it had no effect whatsoever. This variance is likely due to the application of the mana as well as other properties and environmental circumstances along with variances in the test subjects themselves. Unfortunately, as with the last part, we can only theorize on the cause of the specific outcomes as there is simply not enough data.


    Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.


    The case studies were as advertised, disturbing. In one of them, the one with the muscles growing like a cancer, the test subject was tied down and injected with multiple tubes that supplied refined liquid mana from a plant mixed with other natural ingredients that remained unnamed. The subject went insane and killed all of the researchers.


    In another, the subjects body was carefully flooded with mana uniformly. The intention was to let the subject''s body naturally process and utilize the mana. The results were negligible if any and inconclusive from a research standpoint.


    The really crazy case studies were the ones where an organ from a creature that uses mana for bodily functions was transplanted into a sentient test subject. Some were successful, some disastrous but overall, the effect never matched the intention.


    Separate from the body, is the mind. If you found the effects on the body disturbing, you might want to skip this section. There are creatures, once again without channels, that infuse their minds with mana as well as some whose mind consume it to function. These creatures are mostly ones where their mind is the majority of their body. Though their names and descriptions are redacted, hopefully you can picture some such creature that fits the vague description.


    Felix thought of a popular monster from role playing games that was essentially a floating head with tentacle like appendages, though he wasn''t sure if they did or even could exist in the multiverse.


    These creatures tend to be natural casters and will often suffuse their bodies with mana in some way. While the exact function of mana with respect to their minds is unclear, it is known that they use mana in some way.


    I was not able to find significant experimentation on these creatures, however there has been plenty of documented case studies of humans attempting to replicate said feat.


    While the last case studies were horrific in a body horror kind of way, these were more psychological. Some had no effect, others were accidentally stuck in a permanent dream or nightmare with no way out. The majority of these experiments were conducted in an odd manner though. In order to deliver mana into the brain of a subject, the more horrific results were achieved by administering the mana through parasites. These were parasites that were found to seek out the brain of their host and were surgically modified to secrete mana by transplanting unique organs. The host was then kept alive by healing them repeatedly.


    The next case studies that we will talk about were separated due to the low quality of observation. They mostly involve the consumption of mana based organs over a long period of time. The effects are reported as wild and extravagant but the research is overall of low quality and, in my humble opinion, likely completely unrelated to the subject''s diet. These low quality case studies are included mostly for future research purposes as well as to provoke thought.


    Felix skimmed through these case studies and had to agree with the author, the accounts mostly consisted of multiple year long trials where someone was offered a race that was slightly different than normal. All of the effects could easily have been accounted for by a slew of other causes, such as the acquisition of mana organs by slaying magical beasts for years.


    While the case studies in this section might have been disappointing with no clear results, I genuinely believe there is something achievable with more modern tools and different applications of mana. These beasts typically have an organ within their bodies that can process and store mana for distribution, effectively circumventing the mana control issue. As with many things, were we sentient beings to have more and/or finer control over mana, many of these experiments would be much less gruesome, more scientifically sound and potentially have positive results. The reason I believe this, is due to the case studies in part 3.


    With mana existing in all things and some amount of manipulation found in all sentient beings, everything with consciousness appears to have some control over mana. Mana control varies greatly but seems to be limited in all things. The highest known mana control of any creature is defined simply by the feat of completing a [B - Epic] Mana Control Box. As is widely known, the difficulty of Man Control boxes are almost entirely dictated by the rarity with the tier affecting almost solely the quantity of mana involved as well as contents of the box. No known Mana Control boxes of a higher rarity of any tier have ever been solved.


    "Huh. Is Arcane lesser than Epic? Where does it fit?" Felix said aloud.


    The rest of part 2 of the book was simply a list of odd case studies and interactions that didn''t fit well into the rest of the section but seemed to have interesting results, intentions or methodologies. To Felix, they were mostly just odd, involving experiments on plants, consumption of mana dense rocks and other random oddities.


    Felix was tempted to continue reading as he only had one part left, and it was the one he was the most excited for, but he decided to call it a night and continue next time he slept.


    Felix ran from room to room completing challenges for about 40 hours or so and managed to complete 27 rooms in that time. Felix was starting to suspect there were more than one blue room in this dungeon as multiple of the rooms had stood out in reward quality and puzzle difficulty. He was receiving some more complex ward components as well as more valuable components for engineering tools. He now had multiple bags of precious metals for enchantment and ward inlaying as well as many small mana batteries. Too small for him to use in anything other than magical item engineering though.


    Overall, he gained 10 profession levels over the two days.


    He also found an [E - Epic] Skill Test Cube: Mana Control, which he opened with relative ease. Inside he found another book.


    [E - Epic] Manaverse


    This book explores Mana as one of the fundamental building blocks of the universe. Where and how it appears as well as the known properties of mana and some theories as well.


    Ok, finish the other book tonight, then I can start on this one. Then I can look at the D tier book. As much as I want to start with that, I think these two will provide some useful background information. . . . . .

 Chapter 59 - Book 58

    Felix was back in the rest room, having completely devoured the feast that reappeared every day or so and was sitting up in bed, the last part of Mind, Body, Mana in front of him.


    In this final part, we will explore dissections and mappings of creatures with mana cores and channels as well as some of the more gruesome experiments.


    In the majority of sentient creatures, non sentient creatures and objects, mana is evenly spread throughout the body, but seems to exist shifted in a dimension we cannot access. The most prevalent theory is that there is essentially another spatial dimension that we are unable to access, observe or manipulate significantly, where mana exists. When we draw on our mana pools or regenerate mana from the environment we pull the mana to be in line with our own existence within this dimension.


    For those without a mathematical and theoretical physics background, imagine we exist entirely within a sheet of paper. This sheet of paper is at 0 on a ruler. Now we take another piece of paper and place it at 1 on the ruler, mana exists naturally in this sheet. When we regenerate mana, or pull on our mana pools to cast spells we reach into the paper at 1 and pull it to 0. Whether or not this is the truth of the universe this theory has explained many known and confirmed phenomena regarding mana to date.


    There exist some creatures in the multiverse that contain a central location within their bodies that exists in reality, containing a large pool of mana that they can draw upon. This is typically referred to as a mana core. There are many forms of cores, appearing in every known state of mana. Some creatures even have multiple cores or cores containing a combination of mana forms.


    The book went on to discuss creatures with single and multiple cores spread out, cores that were gaseous, liquid and solid. The gaseous and liquid states were usable whereas the solid core tends to be a backup as it is difficult to use. This was mostly a cursory look as it was difficult to look at solely mana cores without talking about mana channels.


    Almost all of the creatures with, and some without, a mana core also have mana channels. When the mana is already in reality, there needs to be a path to move it where it is needed. Typically, in beasts, this is to their muscles and organs as they infuse them with mana. For the majority of us sentient creatures, we simply move the mana before pulling on it to our own dimension meaning we move it without physical resistance.


    There are some creatures with mana channels and cores that have achieved sentience, but there are no confirmed cases of them having the ability to manipulate or interact with their core or channels to any degree. This does not however, hinder it''s function in any way. Mana cores and channels are typically larger and more responsive than a typical mana pool as the act of pulling mana from it''s dimension is typically the bottle neck with mana manipulation.


    They also appear to be much more effective at infusing the body with mana than any of the attempts discussed in part 2. There are known cases of mana channels being meticulously transplanted into a sentient creature resulting in increased stats and performance of basic organs, even mental processes.


    The book went on to describe these cases, as well as the surgeries involved in them, in excruciating detail, denoting the placement of channels as well as the solutions when they didn''t line up perfectly. It also discussed the confirmed benefits that are achievable through mana channels and infusion of organs. The most surprising to Felix, were some cases where the stats of the test subject simply increased, similar to infusing energy in entire systems.


    Finally, the book contained an index of all known categories of mana channel and core placements within different creatures. The diagrams were odd, as the creatures form had to be obscured, resulting in childish outlines surrounding meticulously precise channel diagrams. They ranged from a few thick tubes to what appeared to be an entire circulatory system.


    In closing, I hope this book has brought you insight into the ways sentient creatures use mana, how it may be used in future and how you could use it now. Mana is one of the most interesting aspects of the universe, in my opinion, and I hope that in the future, more research is conducted and distributed so as to further it''s study. Thank you for reading, Ahedorya


    Felix wasn''t sure if he would be able to sleep considering how excited he was to start designing his mana channels and cores, but he knew he had to sleep now. He quickly depleted the entirety of his energy pool by buffing himself as much as he could and exerting himself on the immovable walls of the dungeon. Doing so, he was exhausted so he slept as soon as he laid down.


    When Felix woke up, he headed out right away. He quickly found and completed his first room, then was interrupted before he could collect the reward. A System message appeared to Felix and a second chest also rumbled into existence as he read the message.


    Puzzle Dungeon B


    You have successfully completed half of the rooms.


    Rewards:


    Dungeon Map.


    Opening the second chest, he found a familiar stack of paper that he quickly used to fill in his own map. Inspecting the map, he decided that he would complete the entire dungeon again this time, except now it would take much less time and he was already half way there. He figured the rest should only take another three days or so now that he had the directions. Also, he found that he had been correct, there was more than one blue room and surprisingly, there were no trap rooms.


    Felix managed to complete 32 rooms before getting tired, including the one that rewarded the dungeon map. In total, he managed to level up 11 times and collected a ton of random materials. The rewards were definitely less exciting overall, but they had more potential.


    In the last dungeon, he was getting a ridiculous amount of wooden equipment to practice enchanting which were useless for anything else. In this dungeon, he was getting random materials he could actually turn into something. Though, he didn''t have too many ideas at the moment as most of what he had created in the dungeon rooms were household items or easier to accomplish with a spell. He figured they were likely more useful to those with a limited spell list that couldn''t just learn or design a new spell specifically for cooking or cleaning.


    The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.


    He also got a lot of ward components, often multiple from a single room but now he was starting to get slight variations similar to what he started getting in the other dungeon. They were still useful, but less exciting as their effects and use cases were almost identical to components he already had.


    Almost done, just one more sleep.


    Felix finished off the feast in the rest room and drank some of the undisclosed fruity drink from his flask. He bathed and cleaned his clothes through their enchantment before finally pulling out Manaverse.


    This book is designed to introduce the reader to mana, it''s various forms and properties, how they affect it''s uses as well as where they can be found. This book goes as in depth as possible and is curated to contain the most relevant information without exceeding the E grade. Unfortunately, the Epic rarity seems unavoidable at this point. I have consulted with many professors, tutors, and high grade beings to determine what is relevant and what is unnecessary and it seems this is as common as it will get.


    In general, you will not find any specific research, reasoning or any names in this book. Instead, the current working theories as well as what we know to be true will be provided and distinguished between.


    The Basics: Mana comes in various states or forms these being solid, liquid and gas. There are other states but they are mostly theoretical and not usually relevant; these include a parallel to plasma as well as a super-solid state. There are other theoretical states between the others, but they are not common and are not even confirmed to actually exist.


    The states of mana are largely parallel to the common states of matter. As a solid, mana is generally a crystalline substance though not always. As a liquid it resembles slightly thicker and bluer water. As a gas, it appears as a blue mist. These phases appear in nature in many places with the gaseous form being the most common form. In it''s dimension it is a gas and when it is pulled over to ours, it comes as such. The odd part is, mana does not interact with temperature the way physical matter does. It does not have a temperature and therefore cannot distribute or consume thermal energy.


    This neatly brings us to mana density. Given that we cannot detect any form of temperature from mana, even if it may have one, we instead compare it based on it''s density. In liquid form, denser mana is thicker and tends to travel slower than lighter mana. Ironically, solid mana is not always denser than liquid mana or gaseous mana. There does not seem to be any relation between the density and state of mana, or none that are known.


    The book went on to talk about different places in nature that the different states of mana could be found. Felix mostly skimmed through these sections, skipping over the uninteresting and unimportant parts. The entire book was already stored in his Memory Palace so if they ever became relevant, he could refer back at any time.


    Properties of Mana: Mana appears to have different properties from normal matter, as we discussed in the previous section, it does not interact with temperature deltas the way matter would. It also seems to have different energy levels, separate from any temperature value that we have no way of quantifying. No metric for quantifying these energy levels has been agreed upon but the range is generally considered to start at calm and end at agitated. In it''s calm state, mana is easy to manipulate and non reactive. In it''s agitated state, it is reactive and generally harmful as well as being more difficult to deal with. In general, mana is kept in a calm state except in harmful spells and projectiles. Even then, it is likely to react with the medium through which it travels so it is generally recommended to avoid agitated mana if found. There is no known process to specifically agitate mana.


    ¡­


    Mana also appears to have a form of inertia and flow. The inertia is simple and understandable, the flow is confusing. It seems to be the case, that mana in general wants to flow in a specific everchanging direction. In some areas, mana with no inertia, will simply begin to flow in a specific direction, almost as if an invisible force, similar to gravity, is manipulating it. The only issue with the gravity theory, is that the direction it flows seems to change at random. Many have tried to understand it, but no acceptable theory has ever been presented.


    ¡­


    Mana also seems to have attunements as there have been plants and creatures that appear to pull mana from their pool and cast spells with no fire nodes, creating fire. The working theory is that mana can be attuned and that is what the transformation nodes in a spell do, attune mana. How these attunements are created is a current field of study with no viable explanation thus far.


    Attuned mana appears to have odd properties as well. It appears as though attunement affects the speed, density range, as well as having odd interactions with energy levels. In general, this is not relevant to the vast majority of the multiverse, but it is an interesting research case for those with a research profession.


    ¡­


    Finally, mana also appears to have affinities to mostly sentient creatures but generally, anything. Mana with an affinity or even without one is difficult to manipulate. Most sentient creatures with mana pools will slowly affinize mana to themselves, making it more likely to cooperate. The vast majority of mana has either no affinity or a weak affinity which can easily be changed. There have been cases of mana with strong affinities that cannot be changed, but these are generally harmful to interact with so minimal study of these has occurred. This is sometimes referred to as the alignment of mana.


    After having skimmed through the entirety of the book, pulling out the most relevant information, Felix closed and stowed the text. As he had come to expect with textbook style books there was a lot of irrelevant information between the relevant chunks. Summarized, he figured he didn''t lose more than 5% of the total information, though maybe it would be more useful to a researcher. He did however, learn a lot from the book and had many ideas on what to do with his [E - Arcane] Skill Test Cube: Mana Control. He had completed it, or so The System had said, but it didn''t feel right. Now he was pretty sure that was because he wasn''t supposed to individually manipulate all of the mana to be slower or faster but instead change it''s density, state or attunement. sea??h th§× N?vel(F)ire.¦Çet website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    Unfortunately, he had a dungeon to finish and sleep to catch up on, but he was ecstatic to start experimenting with it when he got home to Tri-Peak. After that, he would read the Spell Form Primer then start working on Mana Channels, a passive energy buff skill and finally make some new spells. He was hoping he would be ready to fight the world bosses at that point as, even though he had almost a half of the tutorial left, he was feeling pressed for time overall. He wasn''t sure what he would face outside of the tutorial and was hoping to get as much of his todo list completed as he could. He had many more things on the low priority list as well, such as familiars, weapons, armor, enchanting, meditation and more.


    He exhausted himself again similarly to last night to combat his excitement and passed out once more. . . . . .

 Chapter 60 - Book 59

    When Felix woke, he ran faster than he had any of the days prior, or at least that''s how it felt. He had just 19 rooms left on the map and he intended to complete them all as fast as he possibly could. In reality, it took him about 12 hours netting him a final 3 levels for his profession. The loot was boring, at least to Felix with nothing of particular noteworthiness.


    He ran back to the rest room, bathed one last time then headed for the exit.


    Puzzle Dungeon B


    Would you like to leave the dungeon?


    Warning: You will be unable to retry this dungeon.


    Yes


    No


    Yes.


    Congratulations!


    You have completed Puzzle Dungeon B.


    Calculating Rewards.


    [E - Epic] Mana Battery Blueprint


    25,000,000 Tutorial Credits


    You will be returned to the entrance in 3 seconds.


    The screen is different, there are no bonus rewards at all? No experience? Is that because it was a different kind of puzzle dungeon? The layout was different. That is a lot of credits though. Also score on the blueprint.


    Congratulations!


    You have completed all of the dungeons.


    Rewards:


    [E - Legendary] Charm of the Boss Conqueror


    You will be returned to the entrance in 3 seconds.


    Outside the dungeon, Felix was surprised to see Benjamin standing watch with both Alan and Will sleeping at his feet. They both seemed to have gained almost 20 levels from the puzzle dungeon, though he expected more considering his own monstrous 41 levels.


    [E - Common] Human (Lvl 43)


    [E - Common] Human (Lvl 43)


    Benjamin spotted Felix and jumped to his feet with surprise. He hurried over so that he wouldn''t wake Alan and Felix and whispered to Felix, "You know, it''s funny. I though Emma would become insufferable with the orders now that she finally surpassed me in level, but instead you showed up. I''m hoping it was the best thing to have happened to me in the entire tutorial."


    Felix cocked his head and looked at Benjamin for a few moments before Benjamin continued, "If it''s alright with you¡­ we were talking and uh¡­ we want to move to Tri-Peak for the rest of the tutorial, or at least see what other forts have to offer."


    Felix simply nodded and smiled, slightly worried about waking Alan and Will.


    Benjamin let out a breath of relief before he asked, "By the way, you''re hiding your level aren''t you?"


    Felix looked at him with surprise.


    "Your level didn''t change in the dungeon. Don''t worry about it, I get it. But uh¡­ is everyone in Tri-Peak as much of a monster as you are?"


    Felix snickered involuntarily before catching himself and shaking his head.


    I knew I forgot something, damn.


    He quickly increased his level to 50 so as not to advertise the existence of his disguise to Alan and Will.


    "Huh, that''s convenient." Benjamin said.


    Felix just shrugged.


    I don''t want to head back through the caves if I don''t have to. Time to try and find a way to the surface.


    Felix gestured for Benjamin to wait a few minutes then ran around exploring the nearby caves. He wasn''t sure, but Felix was betting it should be possible to access without going through the fort, in case they were hostile or blew themselves up. Sure enough, one of the caves near the dungeon led to the surface.


    Felix headed back to Benjamin spotting a quick twitch of relief when he saw Felix had come back.


    "Should I wake them?"


    Felix nodded.


    Benjamin knelt down and lightly shook Alan''s shoulder gently waking him then did the same to Will. However, Will didn''t wake at first so Benjamin had to shake harder and harder until Alan just kicked Will in the leg harder than Felix expected.


    "Oi, what was that for?" Will awoke with a start.


    "Sorry, you sleep like a rock. Impossible to wake you." Alan apologized.


    "Ah, yeah. Bad habit I picked up from by deployment. Helped with all the babies crying through the night and many toddlers jumping on me while I slept later on though. Oh hey, you''re back. I take it Benny filled you in?" Will explained.


    Felix nodded.


    "Damn, you made out well in there. I knew we would get a lot out of it having not done any puzzle dungeons yet, but do they get more interesting?" Will asked.


    Felix wiggled his hand gesturing ''kind of'' to Will.


    Will pumped his fist in celebration which caused everyone to stare at him for a few moments before he noticed and explained, "It was reeeeaallyyy boring."


    They all chuckled and Felix led them to the surface. Outside, the sky was dark with barely a hint of the sun on the horizon.


    "Oh¡­ I was kind of hoping to try and convince others to come with us, or at least explore other forts. It''s alright though. Let''s go."


    Felix spoke for the first time since he had spoken to himself in the dungeon, not entirely intentionally, he just didn''t see the need to speak until now, "We can head back to the shack and you can talk to people then we head out. We have to find a way across the sea anyways. Either we make a raft, or I try to make a spell that makes a giant boat."


    They nervously looked at each-other then shrugged.


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    Felix led the way as they ran back to the lonely building marking the entrance to the caves below.


    "Just so we''re clear, you are welcome to travel with me back to Tri-Peak, but I''m not gonna set you up or anything. You guys are all on your own when we get there. Also, make sure anyone else you convince knows that." S§×arch* The n?velFire.net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    "Of course, if what you say is true and they let anyone in, which it still says on the map anyways, then it shouldn''t matter." Benjamin answered.


    They arrived back at the building in just a few hours due in large part to Felix pushing everyone along with a strong tail wind.


    "Alright, I''ll wait here for 2 hours, if you aren''t back here by then, I''ll assume you changed your minds." Felix said as he knocked on the front door.


    He noticed multiple voices from inside that all vanished when he knocked. A few moments passed before someone opened the door.


    [E - Common] Human (Lvl 35)


    It was neither James nor the other guard Felix had met before though, he suspected their shift was over, instead, there were many more people inside the room than he was expecting. There were seven people in total with two of them sporting mismatched armor and levels in the mid thirties, one of which was holding the door open.


    Three of the other people were wearing fancy armor, two in ornate steel plate and the other in a dark banded leather. All of their armor sets were cohesive as well, making them appear much stronger in comparison. Their levels were also in the low forties. The last two individuals had levels in the mid forties and wore beautiful clothes. They were colorful and appeared to be made of silk with shiny jewelry to complete the whole ensemble.


    Felix was stunned for a few moments by the odd assortment of people and one of the two in the fancy robes were the first to speak.


    "Hello, I assume you are a denizen of this fort? We come in peace, I promise." He said with a charming smile.


    The one holding the door spoke up, "He''s not one of ours."


    At this point, Benjamin had walked up behind Felix to see what was going on and made eye contact with the man holding the door open.


    "Rich? What''s going on? Who are these people?"


    "Benjamin? How''d you get out? Oh uh, not sure exactly, they say they are here to trade?" He looked back at the two in the fancy clothes for confirmation.


    They both nodded and the one who had spoken early responded, "Among other things, yes."


    Rich turned back to the door and shrugged before stepping aside and letting everyone inside.


    With all seven of the previous individuals as well as Felix, Benjamin, Will and Alan, the little cottage''s living room was rather cramped. Most people were standing with the fancy robes sitting on one couch and Benjamin along with the one who opened the door on the other.


    One of the people in the fancy robes spoke first with his ever present warm smile and silky, charming voice, "We are from Tri-Peak. As you may know, we are mostly a profession focused town and we rely pretty heavily on trade. With the System tax rate on the auction house and prices on the marketplace sky rocketing, we decided to try and open trade routes with the other towns. We already have multiple regular trade routes between 5 of the forts around us. The rest of the forts were harder to access, but our shipyard and docks are now up and running so this was the maiden voyage of a vessel dedicated to trading with your fort, if you would be willing."


    The one next to him added, "Anyone is welcome to travel by ship or trade caravan as well if they would like for the flat fee of 10 credits per vehicle. Those numbers are subject to change, but we think that should cover the cost to maintain the ships as they wear out."


    HAH, well that''s convenient.


    The first one spoke up again, "In terms of goods, we carry food, materials, weapons, equipment and more both crafted by residents and looted from dungeons. We carry much more than just that though and are more than willing to take requests if you have something specific in mind."


    The second one spoke up, "Lastly, both Tri-Peak and Tiki-Kahuna are completely open to visitors and we have a care package for each town which we can bring inside or leave outside if you are cautious. It''s mostly food, alcohol and some samples from ambitious crafters."


    Felix looked over at Benjamin, Alan and Will one by one with a mirthful smile on his face. They all nodded at him in response except Will who saluted for some reason.


    After a few moments where it was apparent no one was going to speak, the first of the fancy robes to speak, interrupted the silence, "My name is Dylan by the way, we will be just outside if you want to discuss. We will stick around for another couple hours or so if anyone wants to trade, otherwise we will head home and come back in a week or so."


    With everything that needed to be said, Dylan and his counterpart stood and walked out of the cabin with the three uniformly armored guards in tow.


    Benjamin looked at Felix questioningly and, anticipating the question, Felix just shrugged and walked outside as well.


    The five from Tri-Peak were standing around talking amongst themselves as Felix inspected them. He had noticed something in the cottage but was distracted by the conversation.


    [E - Common] Human (Lvl 45)


    [E - Common] Healer (Lvl 40)


    [E - Common] Merchant (Lvl 50)


    [E - Common] Human (Lvl 46)


    [E - Common] Scout (Lvl 35)


    [E - Uncommon] Ambassador (Lvl 57)


    The guards as well.


    [E - Common] Human (Lvl 46)


    [E - Common] Fighter (Lvl 54)


    [E - Common] Miner (Lvl 39)


    [E - Common] Human (Lvl 46)


    [E - Common] Rogue (Lvl 47)


    [E - Common] Lumberer (Lvl 44)


    [E - Common] Human (Lvl 46)


    [E - Uncommon] Bulwark (Lvl 52)


    [E - Common] Blacksmith (Lvl 40)


    Is that cause they''re residents of my fort?


    Felix walked up to Dylan, "I''d like transport on the ship back to Tri-Peak."


    Dylan turned to Felix with his warm smile that Felix suspected was augmented by an Ambassador skill, "Of course, do you know how to transfer credits? Sean over here," he pointed to the Merchant, "handles the transactions, we''ll show you."


    Sean walked over and held out his hand as if to shake and Felix took it.


    "Now, simply think ''Transfer Credits'' and choose 10, that''s the transportation fee." Dylan explained.


    It was easy enough for Felix to do as it worked exactly as Dylan had described.


    "You don''t technically need to be touching, but it makes it easier as we''ve had some issues with people transferring credits to the wrong person." Dylan said.


    Sean was looking with confusion at the air before he waved Dylan over and shared a screen with him. Dylan read it through then bit his lip, "Uh, I''m sorry about not telling you sooner, we want to be upfront and all¡­ Would you mind turning off the skill you''re using to hide your affiliation and intentions with us? All we care about is your intentions, we just want to try and keep serial killers and terrorists out, I''m sure you understand? Though I guess if you can hide it, you might be able to change it at will."


    Dylan looked at Sean who just shrugged, before turning to Felix and looking him straight in the eyes, "Do you intend to harm Tri-Peak, it''s residents, any if it''s affiliated or partnered fort''s or their residents in any way."


    "Yes." Felix answered, mostly to see what they would do.


    "He''s good." Dylan said with a smile, "I can tell when people are lying, ambassador skill."


    Felix shrugged and Dylan chuckled.


    "I guess you''ll perform all your trade back at the fort?" Sean said with a little disappointment.


    "Actually¡­" Felix pulled out the [E - Uncommon] Frozen Wand and the [E - Uncommon] Frost Dagger and handed them to Sean.


    Sean''s eyes lit up as he inspected them then pulled out a notepad to jot some notes and calculate some numbers.


    "Alright, I''ll give you 8500 for the wand and 7000 for the dagger." Sean offered.


    "How about 9000 and 7500, so 16500 total?" Felix countered.


    "16k flat." Sean shot back.


    "Deal." Felix said with a smile and shook Sean''s hand.


    Sean pocketed the items as one of the guards, the Rogue, walked up, pointed at the dagger and started talking with Sean. After a bit of back and forth, Sean handed him the dagger with a smile and shook his hand.


    Felix sat down a few meters from the guards and began meditating. He entered his Mind Palace and began planning out his mana channels. He really wanted to inspect the Charm he got from completing all the dungeons, but he didn''t want others to see it and he hadn''t had a minute alone since exiting. He did make sure it was in his inventory though, so it shouldn''t matter if he looked at it now or later. With the mana channels, he was mostly doing busy work to try and distract himself as well as kill time. . . . . .

 Chapter 61 - Book 60

    He did such an effective job at distracting himself that some time later, he felt someone shake his shoulder pulling him back to reality. He looked upwards to find Dylan wearing his signature smile looking down at him, "We''re heading out now, boat''s just to the south, shouldn''t be too far."


    Felix rose from the ground and found almost a hundred people around him.


    That is way more than I was expecting. I suspect some of them are probably just looking for a vacation though, not necessarily moving.


    He followed the crowd to the south and towards the ship. It took them a couple hours and Felix didn''t even try to push this many people with a Gust spell. The ship was a large wooden vessel with two masts and two stories. It was docked at the end of a dock that appeared brand new meaning no landing crafts were necessary. The crowd boarded the ship one by one, each one shaking Sean''s hand to transfer the flat fee as they boarded. They all looked at the ship in wonder as they ascended the plank. When Felix approached, Sean and Dylan simply nodded and waved him aboard, as he had already paid. The deck of the ship was a simple affair with railings around all sides which people were now leaning over.


    Once everyone had boarded the ship, the boarding plank was lifted and the sails were dropped. A voice boomed throughout the deck a moment later "Welcome aboard Hope. Our journey is a simple one to the south east however, the winds are not in our favor in this direction so the trip will take a little longer than it did on the way here. Not to fear, it should take us around 20 hours or so to make it back."


    Oh god, I should have swam.


    The boat began moving, slowly to the east. After about 15 minutes, the passengers were mostly settled with some napping and others just chit chatting. Felix walked up to the quarterdeck to speak with the captain. The captain manned the wheel with a wind sock a few meters behind him.


    "Good morning, I was just wondering, if we did have a tail wind, how long would the journey be then?"


    The captain nodded in acknowledgement then tilted his head back a bit, "Oh¡­ with a normal tail wind it would take maybe 15 hours, with a strong one maybe 10. With something really strong, the likes of which I don''t think exist in this tutorial, it could be even less."


    Felix nodded, "Thanks." Then walked back down to the deck. He leaned against the railing and tried to appear as casual as possible as he slowly constructed two massive Gust spells, one behind each sail. He also created a small spell and placed it behind the wind sock on the quarter deck directed to the south-east.


    The spell''s themselves were relatively small compared to the sails, but he made sure they spread and directed the air outwards in a cone so he didn''t poke a hole in the sails. The spells were very far from him but he realized back when he fought the Macerodos that as long as he constructed the spell near himself, he could simply move it far away and maintain it with some concentration. He could not construct them that far away just yet though.


    At first they helped, but didn''t do much, it was lucky that there wasn''t much of a competing wind. The captain did however slowly turn the ship southwards with a confused expression on his face after triple checking the wind sock.


    Felix sat down and began meditating, focused on maintaining all three spells from a large distance. With the increase in his mana regeneration, he increased the flow of mana to the two behind the sails. He was blowing through mana rapidly so he started to draw in mana to regenerate his pool as fast as he could. He pictured an ever spinning vortex of mana centered on himself, pulling all of the ambient mana inwards. It resulted in turbulent, low affinity mana but the effects on his spells were negligible considering their wide area of effect.


    He managed to strike a balance where he was maintaining the spells without losing mana and still had half of his pool as a buffer. The amount of mana flowing into him varied so he adjusted the flow of mana to the spells on the fly.


    He was rudely interrupted by the ship stopping fairly suddenly, causing him to lurch forwards. Worried they had hit something, Felix jumped to his feet and looked around.


    "Sorry about the rough landing folks, or docking. The wind was a little faster than we expected around the dock. We didn''t expect the wind to pickup and blow south all of a sudden¡­ it never does that, but lucky for you folks it cut our travel time down by quite a bit. Welcome to the Tri-Peak docks."


    Felix sighed with relief and caught Benjamin looking at him. Once Felix''s eyes met his, he winked and offered a slow nod which Felix ignored, instead he just smiled politely back. He didn''t want to acknowledge having done anything, even if Benjamin knew. Checking his map, they were just north of where he was first dropped into the tutorial, buck naked. Puzzle Dungeon C was almost directly south through some small mountains and Tri-Peak lay to the south west.


    The docks were way more impressive than Felix was expecting. There were 5 docks total with just the one they were at being occupied. They were all the same size, capable of holding a massive ship like the one they were on. The passengers all exited the ship and there were caravans traveling to Tri-Peak and Tiki-Kahuna with a forest fort on the way. There were also signs planted in the ground for those that wanted to walk.


    Felix ignored the caravans and simply jogged down the path labeled "Tri-Peak." Once he was well out of sight, he began running at full speed.


    I remember something about docks and ships in the expenditures but I wasn''t really paying attention, I was more focused on making sure none of it was being stolen. This is way more than I ever expected. Also what is up with the auction house and marketplace, that is super annoying. I guess it makes more jobs for sailors and guards and whatnot. Still, annoying.


    Felix made it back to Tri-Peak in less than an hour. The fort hadn''t changed too much from the outside. There were many more farms that were much more developed with both crops and livestock as well as large caravans to transport goods back into the fort. There was also a new addition with a stable housing caravans and boars that sold trips to Tiki-Kahuna and the local dungeons.


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    The wall was fixed up with the collapsed areas repaired and the bridge inside had no more pot holes or missing bricks. The repairs were obvious with a different color of stone, but they were still better than the gaping holes. The gates were open, exactly as expected and Felix strolled inside. Inside, the changes were much more obvious.


    There were no buildings Felix could spot with holes in the walls or missing roofs anymore. Each and every building in sight was functional and enclosed. As he walked down the street, he passed by shops with goods on display and stores with wonderful smells wafting out. Had he not eaten on the way, he would have stopped, as it was he resolved himself to come back for his next meal to sample the wares.


    There was a massive variety on display with armor, general goods, weapons, magical goods, raw and refined materials, clothes, and even specialty shops. Felix continued onwards to the university eager to see if they had qualified for the upgrade to a City.


    He passed through an industrial district with similar upgrades though less exciting for the average person. Finally he arrived at the university which had way more people than Felix was expecting, coming and going as well as simply loitering around. It felt like an actual university to Felix, and not the empty transformed castle it was when he had left. He bolted inside and climbed the stairs to his office before sitting down at the desk and opening the upgrade screen. He had to dismiss tons of notifications but he persevered, reading not a single one of them.


    Major University Town Upgrade


    Your town has met all the requirements to be upgraded to Minor City (Tier 4).


    Requirements:


    Population of 12500+ [26102 | 209%]


    50%+ of population at profession level 25+ [78% | 156%]


    15,000 total profession levels gained since choosing upgrade path [429318 | 2862%]


    Leader Level 50+ [87 | 174%]


    25,000,000 Tutorial Credits (Consumed) [159,105,206 | 647%]


    Would you like to upgrade now?


    Yes.


    No.


    Yes.


    Major University Town Upgrade


    Option Select


    Please select a combination of two either new buildings or existing buildings to be upgraded as a reward.


    Warning: This choice will affect future town advancements.


    Possible Options:


    [E - Special] Auction House (Existing)


    [E - Special] Wall (Existing)


    [E - Special] Warehouse (Existing)


    [E - Special] Stable (Existing)


    [E - Special] Docks (Existing)


    [E - Uncommon] Dorms


    Oh shit, I have to actually choose? The Auction house is soon to be useless with the tax rate, maybe the upgrade changes that. The wall seems fine, not sure what that would do. The warehouse? Seems to be fine to me. Stable is interesting, could be useful I guess. Docks? They seem good enough to me. Not building dorms.


    Shit, I really should have asked Noah about this shit. Let''s just start eliminating things, Auction house is risky, could still be useless after the upgrade, Docks seem to be completely functional for what we need, maybe even a little overkill. Dorms are a no. Warehouse seems fine, but we seem to be focused on trade more than storage.


    That leaves me with the wall and the stable. Stable sounds good, not sure if we need a wall. Is there any chance of us getting attacked? I guess it''s a good safety measure in general. Meh whatever, we''re only here for another two months. Wall and Stable.


    Felix took a few moments for his eyes to adjust before looking up at the university. He wasn''t expecting the building to be upgraded so he wasn''t expecting being moved and apparently neither were the hundreds of people that were inside it either. Around Felix was a massive crowd of confused faces in half poses, some tripped as they had been ascending stairs others stared at their hands as they had been reading books.


    Felix ignored them because he felt guilty when that he hadn''t even considered them. He assessed the building in front of him, which was impossibly even bigger. The three towers were taller and wider and the buildings that were a single story were now the same height as the rest of the building at four stories. The building also now looked cohesive as the stone was all a uniform light grey color and the marble accents were complete. The building looked like it was designed like this now, instead of before where it looked like it was a repurposed castle. S~ea??h the N?velFire.n§×t website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    He looked around and saw that the walls now peeked over the buildings of the city now standing at about 10 meters high. I was also entirely uniform with the repairs having been perfectly integrated into it''s structure. Felix couldn''t tell if it was thicker or more functional from here so he simply turned back to the university. He couldn''t see the stable from here but he didn''t even bother going to evaluate it''s upgrade.


    Felix pushed through the crowd and ran into the building and back to his office, leaving the crowd in their confused state. He sat down as quickly as he could and opened up the upgrade screen, once more dismissing all the notifications that appeared.


    Minor University City Upgrade


    Your town has met all the requirements to be upgraded to Major City (Tier 5).


    Requirements:


    Population of 25000+ [26102 | 104%]


    50%+ of population at profession level 40+ [53% | 106%]


    30,000 total profession levels gained since choosing upgrade path [429323 | 143%]


    Leader Level 85+ [87 | 102%]


    100,000,000 Tutorial Credits (Consumed) [134,105,206.60 | 134%]


    Would you like to upgrade now?


    Yes.


    No.


    Yes.


    Minor University City Upgrade


    Option Select


    Please select a designation for the Major City.


    Warning: This choice has lasting impact outside of the tutorial.


    Possible Options:


    [E - Epic] Place of Learning


    [E - Epic] Bastion of Knowledge


    [E - Epic] Sanctum


    [E - Epic] Cultic Sanctuary


    Outside of the tutorial? Shit. Show me the first two.


    Minor University City Upgrade


    [E - Epic] Place of Learning


    This Major City is focused on collecting and sharing knowledge with those who seek it. Knowledge is provided at low or no cost and any knowledge provided to the city, is paid for. Come one, come all to the Place of Learning.


    Would you like to upgrade now?


    Yes.


    No.


    Minor University City Upgrade


    [E - Epic] Bastion of Knowledge


    This Major City is focused on collecting and hoarding knowledge. Knowledge of all kinds is acquired through sale or through the use of spies and is kept within the Bastion. Some information may be sold or traded but all knowledge can be dangerous, the Bastion of Knowledge protects it from the wrong hands.


    Would you like to upgrade now?


    Yes.


    No.


    Oh man that second option is way cooler. I feel like I want something in the middle. I like the idea of sharing knowledge, but not all knowledge, some is dangerous. I''m also a pretty secretive guy, paranoid and untrusting, so the second one fits me a lot better. Considering it has impact outside of the tutorial, I don''t want to be too selfless. Agh, at this point I''m just justifying the decision I already made. I mean it''s not like the description of the second one precludes me from sharing all knowledge.


    Felix let out a long sigh before saying aloud, "Bastion of Knowledge." . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 Chapter 62 - Book 61

    As expected, he found himself standing outside with the sun blinding him from above. He looked around and this time, the, now city, was majorly changed. The wall had at least doubled in size again, standing around 20 to 25 meters high. It also seemed thicker, though Felix wasn''t sure it wasn''t just an illusion given how daunting it''s height was. It was also made of perfectly uniform rectangular stone bricks with a light grey color, instead of the mishmash of oddly shaped stones glued together with concrete that it was before.


    The buildings throughout the entire city were made of more uniform materials, not with each-other but respective to themselves. Instead of being made of a combination of brick colors and sizes, each building looked like they had been individually planned instead of repaired ruins. There were still a smattering of buildings with holes and incomplete sections, but they would be patched eventually by the builder professions. The roads between them was now also made from flagstones laid flat and almost entirely level, at least according to Felix''s amateur eye.


    The castle had drastically changed this time. Before there was a wall a few meters high with a large complex inside, the university upgraded that to a uniform building with three towers containing offices. Now, there was only a singular building standing within a wall easily surpassing 5 meters in height. The building was a massive monolithic structure with windows lining every one of it''s 5 floors. It was entirely rectangular, like a giant brick and was surrounded by a verdant park. Before, the green land within the grounds was almost entirely grass, now it was mostly trees with grass between them. The trees gave the building a more hidden and secret look, which fit perfectly with the city''s designation.


    The biggest change of all, was a brand new structure entirely outside of the city pre-upgrade. Behind the library, halfway up the mountain that the city backed into, an octagonal tower almost fifty meters wide rose from the ground. It rose hundreds of meters into the air with its top at a similar height to the mountain peak behind it, possible even surpassing it. The tower was made of light grey stone bricks resembling concrete with a thin marble cap on each corner. The entryway led to a staircase that descended the side of the mountain and disappeared behind the old castle complex. The staircase climbing the mountain reminded Felix of a pilgrimage.


    Lastly, the banner of Tri-Peak was completely different. The three peaks remained but the castle had been replaced by an book with a padlock on the cover. There was also now a tower rising out of the rear most peak, though it was more of a decoration than a focal point. It was still mostly white with blue accents except now there was also a touch of purple on the book.


    Congratulations!


    Your Minor City has been upgraded to an [E - Epic] Bastion of Knowledge - Major City.


    The relevant buildings have been upgraded and all buildings have received minor cosmetic upgrades. A new building has been tailored to best fit the leader, known as the Keeper, of the city.


    Tailored Building: [E - Epic] Wizard''s Tower


    Upgraded:


    [E - Special] Wall => [E - Epic] City Wall


    [E - Special] Stable => [E - Epic] Spy Network Headquarters


    [E - Special] University => [E - Epic] Vault of Secrets


    Congratulations!


    You have received a new title.


    Keeper of Secrets.


    Note: Titles are purely cosmetic and may be changed at any time. The only other function of this title is to mark the current Keeper. If you wish to relinquish the role, simply pass the title on to another.


    This title is given to the current leader of a Major City: Bastion of Knowledge


    Would you like to equip your title and display it to those who identify you?


    Yes.


    No.


    Hell no.


    Tutorial Announcement


    A Minor City has been upgraded to a Major City.


    All other Minor Cities will be unable to upgrade until the existing Major City is either captured or decimated. The Major City will persist outside of the tutorial as well and become a city on earth upon your return.


    The Bastion of Knowledge will be marked by a special icon on your maps.


    As soon as Felix closed the screen, he noticed the crowd was now also populated with random tools and projects that were half finished. It seems everything that didn''t have a place in the new building was ejected outside. Felix didn''t expect people to be too happy about that so he was glad he was still wearing a disguise. Doubly so when he spotted Noah searching through the crowd.


    He would have to talk to him eventually, and he did have questions for him, but right now Felix wanted to get out of the crowd.


    Tower it is.


    Felix bolted through the wall and around the Vault of Secrets towards the start of the pilgrimage stairs. He ascended them as fast as he could without much trouble. At the top of the stairs the entrance into the tower was a large double wooden door. Felix pushed them open and entered into what appeared to be a lobby.


    The floor was carpeted with a soft red material and there were stairs winding upwards starting at the back of the room. The only other thing in the room were crystals acting as lights hanging uniformly around the area. Felix walked towards the stairs when he was interrupted by a voice behind him.


    "Nice tower." Noah said.


    Felix whirled around in surprise.


    "Got a movement skill to dart around the town, well city now I guess. Not quite as fast as you are, but within the city walls, I''m no slouch."


    "I see. Sorry about not consulting you first, I kind of got wrapped up in the moment."


    "Yeah, I wish you had but¡­ what are we gonna do about it now? I''m not actually upset, I''m mostly hiding from the crowd of people that were ejected from the university, likely with a thousand questions each. Out of curiosity, what were the other options?"


    "For the Minor City building upgrades, or the Major City designation?"


    A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.


    "Both." He shrugged.


    "For the Minor City it was two of: Auction House, Wall, Warehouse, Stable, Docks, Dorms"


    "Oh gross, I''m curious about the warehouse and what the docks would have become, maybe it upgrades the boats too? I can''t argue with your choices too much though. The designation?"


    "The one I chose, which I assume you can check and read the description of. An equivalent option where all knowledge is collected and shared. Finally, two religious options, which I have no idea why we were even offered."


    Noah laughed, "I know exactly why. It''s cause no one in the damn city knows who you are or ever sees you, so there are some wild rumors. We''ve also been visited by more than a couple raiding parties that couldn''t even declare war on the town because of the level difference."


    "Oh. Wait gross, I don''t want to lead a religion. I don''t give two shits about the rumors, but I am not a cult leader."


    "I''m glad you aren''t. As for the other option about sharing, that likely would have been better for the tutorial and if the city persists, the rest of earth. You know humanity as a whole."


    "Yeah, probably."


    "Also probably would have made the other cities striving for upgrades less mad at us for locking them out."


    "Yeah, definitely."


    "So why''d you pick this one?"


    "Honestly? This one sounded cooler and fit me better. Not a great reason I know, but I just don''t think all knowledge should be shared. Also, I do intend on sharing most knowledge. Ultimately this one gives us more options, to share or not to where the other sounded a lot like we would be forced to share everything. We definitely wouldn''t have looked as evil though, so¡­"


    Noah sighed, "It''s your City."


    "Sorry."


    "Eh? Oh don''t worry about it. I would rather be attached to the Major City led by the highest level person that differs slightly from my ideals than risk being wiped out by a raid. You are still planning on letting anyone in and focusing on trade right?"


    "Oh yeah. I don''t plan on changing anything. Losing the university is a blow. I wish I had bought all the upgrades and classes, but transportation of goods should be better, I hope."


    "You don''t read anything do you?"


    "Uh, honestly no. I get way too many notifications."


    Noah laughed, "I bought out all the upgrades a while ago. Also, the vault functions as a university of sorts. The layout is just vastly different and I think the costs are higher but it also has rarer knowledge so¡­ It''s a wash?"


    "Oh. Well that makes me feel better. We can still share most of the information we ever have, but now we aren''t locked into a specific price and we can choose what to share and what not to."


    "That''s fine and all, I just personally am of the belief that all knowledge should be shared, everyone should be open and honest and all that."


    "Did you choose the tower by the way?"


    "Nah, it tailored the building to the leader without consulting me at all."


    "Well, expect more religious options back on earth. This is definitely gonna feed a lot of rumors. Alright, can we talk logistics though? I don''t know how long you''ll be here so I''m gonna beg for your time if that''s what it takes."


    "Oh, yeah. Can we walk and talk? Maybe we can find a sitting room or something."


    "Sure."


    Noah followed Felix up the stairs to the second floor which held a feast room as well as kitchens, a pantry, servant''s quarters and closets.


    Felix sat at the feast table, though not at the head as that felt too weird to him. Noah took the seat opposite Felix. sea??h th§× N?vel(F)ire.n§×t website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    "First thing''s first, I got a list of people that want to meet with and discuss things with you. At first I just brushed them off, then people kept coming so I told em I''d ask."


    "What, why?"


    "Well, the most important one is Henry, he''s a high level smith and other crafters tend to listen to him. He wants you to lead a party to go and take out a world boss. He already has 200 people lined up and plans on hiring the last 50 from the neighboring towns."


    "250 people? That seems excessive."


    "Huh? Oh right, I forgot you missed the whole pre tutorial explanation. 250 at around level 50 is the recommended number of people to take on a world boss."


    "Holy shit¡­ Why do they want to take one out? Any particular reason?"


    "Glory? Mostly the materials though. They want to work with interesting materials to craft things and they either get them from the world boss corpses or the world bosses guard something natural."


    "I see. Tell him¡­ Not right now? I''ll think about it?"


    "I''ll tell him, but he might just knock on your door so¡­ be ready. He''s a pretty persistent guy."


    "What else you got?"


    "Not sure there are any other meeting requests worth mentioning, most people just want to see if the rumors are true."


    "Ugh" Felix sighed and moved to rub his face with his hands but collided with his mask. Felix looked at Noah, "Would you mind keeping my level a secret by the way?"


    "Sure thing? 50 isn''t that ou-"


    Felix pulled off his mask and rubbed his face then shook his head. The mask was magical and designed for his face so it fit perfectly. It was also a mask on his face so it was stuffy and annoying.


    "Could I send a barber up here as well?"


    "What?" Felix reached up and felt his face then his head.


    "Oh yeah, if we have those send one up."


    Noah preceded to summarize all of the happenings in the town while he was gone, since Felix dismissed all his notifications without reading them. He also asked some minor logistical questions and Felix'' opinions on some choices, though nothing substantial.


    Apparently, The System taxes had skyrocketed so trade routes were created and the docks and ships were commissioned. People were migrating over here from other towns mostly for the pay, with the trade routes, dungeons and just in general, people wanted to travel and most merchants were hiring guards. The merchants in Felix''s city tended to be the wealthiest so they paid the best and attracted all kinds of talent from throughout the tutorial. With the trade routes, caravans and ships up and running, they were expecting a large influx of population.


    Most of the buildings were complete, and any buildings currently being put up were mostly cosmetic or extravagance, with some wealthy crafters commissioning mansions. The university was a huge success and helped immensely with increasing the citizen''s levels. They also finished repairing the wall just recently, only for it to be immediately replaced.


    "Finally, one of the towns to the north got conquered."


    "What?"


    "The icon is gone. We had a ship heading that way but it turned around less than a day into the journey. They saw that the icon disappeared and was replaced by a town icon with a sword through it then the name changed to Swampwatch. None of the traders wanted to mess with a fort that was conquering or had been conquered."


    "Icewatch raided the swamp town?"


    "That''s the working theory. It''s got people a little stressed out but hopefully the massive wall helps with that a little. We are hoping our caravans can get to ''Oasis: Bosom of the Desert'' soon before Icewatch heads down that way."


    "The what?"


    "Yeah I know, it''s an idiotic name. We were bound to get some with 9 forts."


    "I guess¡­"


    "We''re gonna keep an eye on them and other raiding in general, and I''ll keep you updated. Hey maybe you can send some spies to check it out."


    "I''m not even gonna look at that until the tutorial is over and done with."


    "I don''t have anything else for now, you mentioned you had questions for me?"


    "I have a list. Let''s see, how do the rarities work? Where does Arcane and Mythic fit into it?"


    "It''s Common, Uncommon, Rare, Special, Epic, Legendary. Mythic, Divine, Ancient, Arcane, Unique and a bunch more are kind of separate. If something has one of those for it''s rarity it is either way above the rarity tier list or it doesn''t fit between any of them and is kind of separate. Though I have no idea what would fit that description, that''s just what The System told us."


    "Huh. Good to know." . . . . .

 Chapter 63 - Book 62

    "What about evolutions? You know anything else about that? We were F tier race until 25, then I evolved? Now I''m E tier? I heard someone mention changes at evolutions?"


    "Yeah, we talked about this a bit, most races start at E tier within the multiverse. For us humans living in a universe without an abundance of mana or energy we start at F tier. Really F tier is just us acclimatizing to the new environment. At level 25 our race goes through a minor evolution to E tier. All it means is that your race or body is ready now and small things will change based on how you want to be seen. Some people get a little more symmetrical, some scars disappear, body hair if you didn''t want it. At level 100, the evolution is much more impactful."


    "Oh huh, I didn''t even notice. Did I change? What changed?"


    "Uh, a little bit. Amelia and I were trying to figure it out but we think your eyes are a little bluer and maybe your freckles are slightly more visible? Honestly, that could just be the lighting and exposure to sun though. You didn''t notice any other changes to your body overall? Less fat, tighter muscles, slightly taller anything like that?"


    "I think I''m a little bigger than when the tutorial started but that might just be the strength and constitution increases? I don''t think my height changed but honestly, I wouldn''t know unless I measured."


    "What changed for you?"


    "Taller, bigger muscles, less fat, more symmetrical, cleaner skin, and the best part, none of those little hairs on the back of my neck."


    Felix reached back and felt at the back of his neck.


    "Huh, I should get rid of that too next evolution. Never really paid attention to them. Wait can you choose what to change?"


    "Sort of. You change based on the race you choose, some changes are mandatory to accommodate racial traits. Otherwise it''s just about what you want changed and how you see yourself. If you really hate a particular mole or something, it will likely disappear."


    "Huh, good to know. So everyone in the multiverse is gonna be super hot?"


    Noah snorted, "Maybe, I kind of suspect the definitions of ''hot'' and ''beauty'' are gonna vary wildly based on race, planet, universe etc."


    "Yeah, probably."


    "What about earrings and piercings? Do they constantly heal over with vitality?"


    "I had the same question for Amelia, since my ears aren''t pierced. The answer is yes until the minor evolution where the piercings become permanent for most people who had and wanted them."


    "Ah, that makes sense."


    Felix proceeded to ask Noah every other minor question he''s had that he felt like he should be able to answer but couldn''t. Noah was able to answer about half of them just from the explanation pre-tutorial. The rest he had no idea so Felix figured they likely weren''t important.


    "I think that''s all for now. I''ll go deal with the crowd of people likely freaking out about where to find the specific books they were reading."


    "Good luck. And uh¡­ Thanks for dealing with all that stuff. The city and the people in it, stuff like that."


    Noah shrugged, "It''s fine. Most of it results in my leveling so I can''t complain. Amelia''s been a huge help. Plus, I''m pretty sure you would hate that stuff, considering you seem to always be hiding or running away from people."


    "What''s she been up to? Haven''t had any reason to go talk to her."


    Noah snorted and shook his head, "You don''t need a reason. She''s good though, she manages the builders guild, they do everything from building construction to furniture and repairs. She still gets to go on projects which is what she really enjoys, doesn''t do much management really. She''s more of a figure head, even found herself someone to manage the minutiae for her. If you want to fill this place with some furniture though, I could send her up. Seems like a decent excuse to me."


    "Yeah sure. Maybe send a designer or something with her, I have no idea what I want to put in here."


    "Sure thing. Alright, have fun exploring."


    "Thanks, good luck with the mob."


    Noah shook his head once again as he left the tower.


    Felix continued exploring the floors above the kitchens, feast and servants quarter floor. The next floor above that appeared to be a lounge or sitting area around a large fireplace embedded into a wall. There were more side rooms on the floor but they appeared to be empty. Following that were two empty floors with not a single room or other distinguishing feature between them. Past that there was a library, which was currently empty but otherwise cozy. There were empty shelves but otherwise no pieces of furniture. Lastly was what Felix assumed was a bedroom due to what he was guessing were closets as well as shutters to darken the room at night.


    The hell am I gonna do with a physical library? Also why do I need a tower, I kind of just run around and do whatever, I didn''t feel the pressing urge to find a house at all. I have an odd feeling that this tower is going to mostly go unused. I just have too many things to do with way too much traveling around.


    Finally, Felix ascended the stairs to the final floor, the roof. The walls of the tower rose an extra meter forming a lip around the outside of this floor, acting as a railing. Other than the stairway back downwards, it was entirely empty. Standing in the middle of the floor, Felix looked out at the rocky peaks around him, Tri-Peak city below him, the plains to the south and the ocean beyond the mountain range. With the wind buffeting against him and the sunlight pouring over him, Felix found it rather peaceful and beautiful.


    I guess I wouldn''t mind coming up here to meditate every once in a while. Not that I would get to enjoy it much, unless¡­ Can I bring the scenery into my meditation? Like replicate it in my soul space? Hmmm, another thing to add to the todo list.


    Well, now that I''m alone, time to finally check out that charm, whatever that is. Felix finally pulled the legendary item out of his inventory. In his hand, appeared a tiny black metal skull with horns and fangs pierced by an equally tiny longsword. There was a tiny chain loop, like one used for jewelry, hanging off the pommel of the sword. The sword was made of a light silver almost white metal with a black handle. Looking closely, Felix noted that the eyes of the skull were empty and seemingly endless, even when he shined a light into them.


    [E - Legendary] Charm of the Boss Conqueror


    [Sould Bound]


    This charm is made to absorb part of the souls of tutorial world bosses when they are killed. It will absorb a portion equal to your overall contribution towards the kill.


    Note Charms: Charms are pieces of equipment that typically grow alongside their wielder. The benefits gained from a charm are completely unique and more than one charm may not be equipped at once.


    Note Bond: Some magical items, particular ones that grow alongside you, must be bonded. To bond to an item to yourself, flood it with mana or energy for a few minutes to imprint your soul into the item. To un-bond an item that either you or another has bonded with, keep the item away from it''s wielder for an extended period of time.


    Current Bonuses:


    None


    Ok, I''m not sure what the value of that is honestly, it''s a little weird. It is legendary though, so I guess it has to have some kind of value, right?


    Felix squeezed the charm in his hand and flooded it with as much mana as it would take, which was about a single point for a few moments. He held on and squeezed it for 10 minutes before opening his hand, unsure if the bonding process was complete or not. The skull lying in his hand was largely the same with one particular difference, the eyes glowed with an ominous red color.


    Ok, where do I put it? Hopefully I can find somewhere out of sight, this thing is a little too¡­ halloween for me.


    Felix eventually just decided to just hang it off the same chain as the Amulet of the Wild. The loop from the charm was long enough that it hung freely a few fingers below the amulet itself. That also made it hang, with his amulet, beneath his shirt and cloak so that it wasn''t visible. He figured if the swinging around got too annoying, he could tie to his belt or something like that.


    Alright, with that done I have a whole slew of things to do and I''d like to get them done as fast as possible. First thing''s first, I think I need to read through the spell form primer. I doubt it will, but there is a chance it contains relevant information for designing mana channels and a core and more. More knowledge definitely won''t hurt¡­ unless it''s just wrong and misleads me, or intentionally and maliciously wrong. Guess I''m kind of just banking that The System wouldn''t give it to me if it was.


    Felix sat down and pulled out [D - Epic] Odamoran''s Spell Formation Primer and held it in his hands for 8 and a half seconds before stowing it back into his inventory. He sat down and entered a soul space meditation then spent a few minutes trying to get his surroundings to be reflected inside his soul space. He eventually figured it out by isolating and remembering the feeling of entering a meditation then replicating that feeling with his eyes open. He wasn''t sure it was working at first until he accidentally turned off one of his senses creating an eerie silence.


    With that task complete, he pulled on his memory skill and retrieved a mental copy of [D - Epic] Odamoran''s Spell Formation Primer. He realized pretty quickly that he could close his eyes again and the environment remained. He guessed it was because the environment was simulated by his mind, like a waking dream rather than being completely accurate. That suited Felix just find as he just found the wind, clouds and solitude comforting. S§×ar?h the N??eFire.¦Çet website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.


    He could have also just read the book in the real world, but he wanted to practice with and get to know all of his skills as much as possible for when he eventually tried to upgrade them.


    This book is designed to provide as much information as possible while remaining in the D tier, which is why it''s rarity remains at the peak of the regular rarities in the D tier at the time of writing this. Should you have further inquiries I encourage you to visit ??? and ???.


    "More redactions? Seems dates and names of people or places are not allowed for some reason, annoying."


    This book is also written under the assumption that the reader has no prior knowledge or experience with spell formation. Even if you may be able to cast spells, spell formation is completely unrelated. The extent of the similarities end at the common word, and the fact that mana is involved somehow. The System enables us to cast spells by inserting them into a spell list, the question becomes, where do new spells come from?


    Some theories state that all of the spells are created by The System, however these people are lunatics and this is a childish notion. There are many cases of spells being created from nothing, though some would argue that all combinations have been created in the past and are simply rediscoveries. This is also foolish as there are simply too many combinations for that to be the case.


    "This author is quite¡­ opinionated."


    The basics of spell formation are simple, the intricacies however, are endless. A spell is something that, when formed with sufficient mana and willed to cast will create some effect. While this definition is broad and may seem overly vague, it is the only one I have come across that truly encompasses all spells. The vast majority of spells consist of at least two components, a stabilizing ring and a node. The stabilizing ring is what contains the influx of mana and acts as a buffer from which mana flows into the spell. An excess of mana in one section of a spell will be distributed along the ring to other parts of the spell. This may seem unnecessary with simple spells that have singular effects, and it is, but it does help and becomes essential in more complex spells that have a multitude of functions. The ring should also grow increasingly complex alongside the complexity of the rest of the spell.


    Nodes simply transform mana into something. Typically this is energy in the form of heat, cold, light, kinetic and so on. It is also possible to transform mana directly into matter, though the mana required to do so is typically absurd. Take for instance any basic fire spell, converting mana directly into fire would require somewhere in the neighborhood of a few billion points of mana. It is far more efficient to either heat up and burn something that already exists or transmute something into something else and burn that. The majority of all fire based spells will burn something that already exists, the question is, what is being burned. The most accepted answer, is mana itself, though I have not encountered any acceptable explanation as to how. Magically or chemically.


    While it is theoretically improbable for anyone to run around creating boulders from mana, as it would be terribly inefficient, you may encounter someone that appears to be doing so. It is more likely that they are transmuting existing material into boulders, in this case, likely air around them. This requires a lot of mana, but not nearly as much as raw conjuration and is very easy to interfere with. Transmutation requires copious amounts of mana, time and precision. If you are being attacked by someone who appears to be conjuring boulders, try peppering them with Mana Bolts or something else to disrupt the area around them. More often than not, it will become impossible for them to transmute a boulder from the air if a Mana Bolt hits it. If they are capable of that, you are likely dead and I would love to meet them.


    Many of you may rightly have asked the question, "What gives? I can''t make a spell from a circle and a fire node?" Correct, you cannot. I said that there are only two required components for a spell, there is another that the even more astute among you will have identified. While not technically a component in the spell, you need to somehow connect a node to the ring. This sounds easy, just draw a line and you have a spell, right? Wrong. You could do that, and if you do, please try and cast the spell as it will be quite the sight to see. Nodes are not so simple or diverse as to be able to take mana from anywhere. Nodes have specific inlets for mana and to confuse things further, some have multiple inlets with only some of them required in most spells, and others in a different spells. Some also have outlets, for more complicated nodes we will see later on.


    Here is a basic stabilizing ring and some basic nodes with their inlets labeled. More complex rings and nodes, with outlets, will be discussed further on.


    On the following pages Felix flipped through there were diagrams. The first was a circle, making Felix wonder why it was drawn out at all. After that, there were nodes. Felix recognized the ones for fire, cold, light and force among them. While Felix had seen the nodes before, he had never seen them labeled like they were in the book with inlets and descriptions. He pulled himself into his Mind Palace and began copying and cataloguing all of the node diagrams in the book, including the ring, for posterities sake. He replaced his own separations, in favor of the more accurate diagrams from the book, on the bookshelves and continued reading.


    Connecting the inlets of any of these nodes with the stabilizing ring above will create a simple spell. You are welcome to draw them out and add them to your spell list, though they have minimal effect and you likely don''t want to replace any of your spells with these. Nodes are typically seen as tiny complex spells that we have yet to properly understand. It is possible to create a node, a task you will likely undertake with large complex spells, but in general, these are widely considered to be the most efficient at what they do.


    Creating your own node is typically reserved for when you desire a function or transformation that does not exist yet. While these can transform mana into energy, there is no direction so they simply act around themselves, which can be problematic if you use a fire node right next to your hand. The solution to this, is what we refer to as a targeting node. While it is called ''node'' it is considered an accessory node, not a spell node. The naming is awful, but unfortunately it is much too late to complain about now.


    Accessory nodes are like adjectives, they complement and add to a spell node. However, they can also act on each-other. A targeting node simply directs the effect of a node in some way. Simple targeting nodes include forwards, backwards, left, right. However, these can be combined into forwards and left. More complicated targeting nodes include things like the caster themselves, an anchor of sorts or absolute positions. These can then be modified to left from an anchor or up from an absolute position. This enables essentially infinite combinations, however too many accessory nodes will add inefficiency.


    There are also quantity accessory nodes, which can define how much a targeting node affects the spell such as 1 meter to the left vs 2 meters to the left. Typically these will simply reduce or increase the amount of mana or size of the node they act upon. They are also not quite so precise as to be measured in meters. A skilled spell shaper may opt to simply perform this action themselves and skip the accessory node all together.


    Combinations of these can result in specifying anything as your target, but often there are multiple ways of targeting the same thing so keep efficiency in mind. Other accessory nodes include shapes, these are self explanatory and are typically placed before the targeting node, such that mana is transformed into a shape at a location rather than at a location into a shape. The latter is less efficient and prone to spell dissolution as controlling and shaping energy is exponentially harder than controlling and shaping mana, even for The System.


    The basic components discussed above as well as the more complex but useful, such as caster targeting node, are listed and labeled below.


    Once again Felix flipped through the pages making mental permanent copies then filing, categorizing and organizing them into their own shelves, replacing his own where applicable.


    Spells are typically more complicated than transforming mana at a target in a shape though, what about having effects chain together, or delayed effects? This is where intermediary nodes exist. These can store mana and delay it''s release, transform the flow of mana, distribute input mana evenly and create spell effect chains where one node is only activated when the first is complete. Typically these are placed on the connecting lines between nodes, or between the outer ring and nodes. These can also be chained together.


    The book went on to list these nodes with well labeled diagrams that Felix continued to copy and permanently file away. It also listed more complex rings and some tips and tricks for spell formation. Following that, it looked at specific patterns that recur in spell formation for specific tasks as well as multiple methods of accomplishing them. Typically, it showed inefficient variations, explained why, then showed the generally accepted versions that were equivalent in function, but more efficient.


    These patterns included how Fire Bolt worked by chaining a fire node with sphere and forwards into a forwards pushing force node. It also discussed other common spells and functions that were deceptively hard to achieve.


    You might be wondering, why work on or study this at all if it''s so useless compared to spell lists? The answer is rituals and scrolls. A ritual is essentially a ward, it''s a drawn spell form using a mana conductive material that a caster pumps mana into to cast a spell effect. A scroll is the same thing but almost always single use and portable. There have been famous mages in the past that walk around with spells inlayed into stone tiles that they kept in their pockets. They can simply pull one out and pump mana into it to cast any spell they have on them. It is slower than normally casting, but the versatility is much greater.


    Finally, it listed some complex nodes including solid mana and a very interesting addition, ionization. Ionization allowed atoms to be marked for transporting electricity. To create something like a lightning bolt, the spell would ionize the atoms in a path from the caster to the target, then create sparks with a ton of mana to travel along the path. Sparks alone were not overly useful as the mana required was inefficient compared to Fire Bolt or any other, simpler spell. It was an enticing idea though to be launching lightning bolts at a target.


    Apparently, spark was one of the most mana efficient ways of killing someone. However, it required the spell be cast within another person''s body which was difficult due to natural a soul resistance that fought against and scrambled spells. Given that mana control was exponentially higher closer to one''s body and soul, this method of killing was essentially impossible. The further away you were from the target, the more mana was required for the sparks to travel the distance. Without ionizing the path ahead of time, the mana cost would be exponential.


    Solid Mana was an oddly complex node with many inlets and outlets that each contributed in weird ways to the final result. Unfortunately, specific effects required specific combinations of mana in different ratios across the inlets. Meaning, solid mana at a specific density or with specific traits required specific amounts of mana and was typically just retrieved from a table and memorized. The table was created through trial and error and apparently no one understood why certain combinations did what they did. So the table just had to be memorized, instead of it being possible to come up with a combination on the fly. Solid mana from a spell also wasn''t the same as solid mana. Apparently solid mana spells were something else entirely, though no further explanation was provided.


    The last section of the book was on effect rings, which were stabilization rings that had integrated nodes, such as the one used in Fire Bolt. By combining the nodes, the overall spell was more efficient.


    Felix spent the rest of the daylight reading and taking notes on the spell formation primer. When he was done, he returned to the real world to find the sky above had given way to twinkling stars. Felix headed back down into the tower and placed his bed in the bedroom. He was getting pretty tired having been up for almost two days now so he laid down and fell asleep very quickly. . . . . .

 Chapter 64 - Book 63

    The next morning Felix decided to take a look through the courses and books available in the vault on the off chance one of them would be useful for his core and channel endeavor. He wanted to just head down and check it out but he knew Noah was sending a barber and Amelia up to the tower, likely that day. Not wanting to miss them, he instead sat on the floor of the lobby and began some preliminary experimentation. First, he wanted to experiment with mana states. It was his understanding that it should be impossible to turn mana into a liquid, and further into a solid. Given he was doing a lot of things other people deemed impossible already, he wanted to give it a shot.


    First, Felix drew out a hundred points of mana from his pool and held it in front of himself as a blob floating in the air. It was still in the mana dimension rather than reality, but Felix could feel it in front of him. He first tried to just squeeze it from the outside but he couldn''t seem to hold it all steady. There was always a hole through which it squeezed out. He also tried creating a piston out of solid mana but he couldn''t get the seal just right. He also tried creating a ball of solid mana then pushing mana into it but at a certain point, it simply slipped around the ball instead of pushing inside.


    If he pulled it into reality then squeezed it, it would simply fall back into it''s own dimension. Frustrated, Felix started to try random things, he tried to just touch it with his finger and surprisingly, it reacted. Not when he first made contact, but when he swung his arm through it. It took him almost an hour to realize it was reacting to his soul, which didn''t reach to the tip of his fingers. He spent a little while trying to compress it using his soul with minimal success. He just couldn''t apply enough force to make it work.


    After all of his experimentation, he decided to just go back to the basics. He pulled out a blob of mana and tried to squeeze it. The results were largely the same but he kept trying, hoping that he might be able to develop a skill or that practice would help. Ultimately, it was neither. Felix slipped as he squeezed once again not able to hold the mana still but he just ignored it and kept squeezing. He figured if he was just practicing, it didn''t matter. As he compressed the mana, it became easier the less mana he tried to compress. Once he realized this, he let go of all but a single point of mana, then he further divided that until he was left with just a miniscule amount.


    While it was easy to compress the mana when he was only manipulating a tiny portion, he still needed to compress it a ridiculous amount. He also didn''t have much practice forcing mana to do things as he felt like he had mostly been asking it up to this point. However, given a few minutes, Felix was pretty sure he had done it. The mana felt like it gave way at a certain point and just switched over. He then immediately let go and it reverted. He repeated the process and held it with his mana control this time. Given that this amount of mana was essentially unusable for anything, he repeated the process and added each little seed to a growing globule of mana.


    He eventually managed to create multiple at once, creating a small factory of compression with around 10 compressions happening at once. Doing this, he had essentially infinite mana since he couldn''t compress faster than he regenerated. Once the globule was about the size of a marble, he stopped.


    Ok wonderful. What the hell can I do with this?


    It took an extravagant amount of time and effort to make just the tiny liquid globule so he didn''t want to waste it. His ultimate goal was to potentially have liquid mana flow through his channels and maybe even make up his core. He had to decide if he was going to keep his core and channels in the real world or the mana dimension and to do so he would have to figure out the advantages to both. He also wanted to try and make a single use mana battery, but he figured he would need to make it a solid first.


    His first test was to pull a portion of the liquefied mana into reality. It felt a little heavier than normal mana did but otherwise there was no issue. It appeared as a blue tinted liquid not dissimilar in thickness from water.


    I know it''s dumb, but I kind of want to drink it. All the people in the book did it with plant liquid mana, never just pure liquid mana, so it''ll probably be fine? Also it''s essentially a drop, that shouldn''t be enough to kill me, should it?


    First, he touched it with the tip of his finger and nothing happened. After that, Felix decided to just go for it and he dropped the droplet onto his tongue. It was completely tasteless and a little warm but otherwise didn''t invoke immense pain or anything. He swallowed it but didn''t notice anything at all. He waited for a half hour, creating more liquid mana while he waited but ultimately saw no perceptible changes. His stats were the same and he felt the same.


    That was kind of disappointing.


    Next he wanted to try creating solid mana. He split his marble into 10 and tried to compress them once again. It was a little too hard so he focused on one piece and compressed that. Similar to when he created the liquid, the mana simply gave way at a certain point forming a tiny granule of sand. Felix repeated the process one by one until he had 10 grains of mana sand.


    He pulled them into reality and they appeared as tiny blue crystals, like tiny pieces of glass. He didn''t eat them this time, instead opting to just place them into a canteen he hadn''t gotten around to selling. He was about to start creating more when he heard a knock at the door.


    Stolen story; please report.


    He quickly bolted over and opened the door to find someone he didn''t recognize at all. Standing in front of the door was a very young, very thin and very bald man. The only hair he had visible was a magnificent beard that did not suit his stature at all. The beard was fit for the burliest of dwarves and he appeared more like the thinnest of elves.


    [E - Common] Human (Lvl 52)


    [E - Common] Barber (Lvl 52)


    "Ah, the barber. Please, come in."


    "Oh ah¡­ thank you."


    "I''m Felix, thanks for making the trip all the way up here."


    "Ah, uh¡­ no problem. I''m Ray."


    "Pleasure to meet you Ray. Judging from your profession level, there must not be many barbers in the city. I take it you''re a busy man then?"


    "Uh, yeah think it''s just me."


    "Well, I don''t exactly have many chairs¡­ Oh wait, the dining room has chairs, follow me."


    Ray simply nodded and followed Felix up the stairs to the second floor. Felix sat down at one of the chairs at the table.


    "So, you took the pacifist option then?"


    "Uh, yeah. Had fighter but Mike told me about it when he came by a few weeks ago. It''s kind of convenient as a barber." To demonstrate, Ray pulled out a blade and poked Felix'' arm. He wasn''t expecting it at all so he only managed to flinch a little but it was completely unnecessary as the blade simply felt like a finger poking him. Ray explained, "It''s literally impossible for me to hurt you meaningfully. People used to get so tense which made it hard to cut their hair, now it''s a lot better."


    "That is convenient."


    "So how do you want me to cut it?"


    "Could you get rid of all my facial hair, shave it clean. I usually keep my hair a few inches long, and keep it messy."


    "Sure."


    Felix wasn''t the type to strike up a conversation and Ray seemed like the quiet type as well, that or he was terrified of Felix. The haircut happened without either saying a word to the other. Apparently Ray was confident in his work because he didn''t ask for any other clarification or guidance. When he was finished Felix used the blade of a dagger to try and inspect. To him, it looked almost exactly as it did before the tutorial so he was very happy with the result. He also looked for changes from his evolution but didn''t manage to find any particular stand outs. He did think his eyes were a little bluer, but he wasn''t too sure exactly what shade they were before the tutorial as he never paid much attention to it.


    Ray backed away a few steps and Felix stood up and thanked him.


    "How much is it?"


    "Uh, 100 credits." S§×ar?h the novel(F~)ire.net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    That seems high, but I don''t know cause I am super rich.


    "How much to not tell anyone about my level?"


    "Oh uh, I can''t. Part of barber is I have to keep things told to me a secret, here."


    As a Barber, this individual is soul bound to protect any secrets disclosed to them as part of their service. You may ask for something to specifically be kept a secret or give them permission to share releasing them from the contract.


    "Oh huh. Good to know. Keep my level and anything else about my appearance and stuff a secret." Felix held out his hand to complete the transfer of credits.


    Ray simply nodded and shook Felix'' hand. Felix transferred 150 credits and Ray thanked him before leaving. Felix walked back up to the feast room to clean up the hairs as best he could but didn''t find any.


    Magical barber things?


    Felix decided to keep playing with mana while he waited for Amelia to show up but this time, he wanted to experiment with attunements, affinities and energy levels. Theoretically, he could attune mana to fire simply by holding it near or inside of fire for a while so he started by trying that out. It didn''t seem to do much and his magical fire had a nasty habit of trying to burn his mana. He decided to try with a different element and instead tried to shine light at it. This also appeared to do a whole lot of nothing so he gave up on that.


    After a little while, he tried something new. He wasn''t certain what was happening when mana passed through a node other than transform and he wanted to figure it out. He felt like there might be a connection there with attunements but he wasn''t sure so he started casting the most basic spells, a ring connected to a single node. He very slowly poured mana, just a trickle, into the spell and tried his absolute hardest to follow and sense the mana as it passed through the spell. As expected, Felix sensed a whole lot of nothing happening as it passed through the ring and into the node.


    As soon as it was in the node however, it started to change. He wasn''t sure exactly how it happened, but the mana in the node just felt different from the rest. It was an odd intangible feeling, like he was seeing a new color for the first time. He could sense mana, where it was mostly. Now he felt like he could see mana, and it came in different colors. He also found that if he simply didn''t will the spell to cast, it wouldn''t, it would remain in the mana dimension. He realized he had likely been unintentionally willing spells to cast up until now by pulling them from the mana dimension into reality.


    With the knowledge of that discovery, Felix started to create more of the same spell but with different nodes in the middle. Comparing the mana in a cold node to a force node, to a light node was enlightening. Slowly but surely, he learned the specifics and figured out what each attunement felt like. He made sure he could identify the attunements by themselves and all of a sudden, he began noticing the attunements of the ambient mana. It was generally a giant mishmash of attunements all over the place but it mostly consisted of the equivalent of black, the absence of any attunement.


    The next step for Felix, was to try and create the attunements without a node. He had no idea how to go about it so he simply held a ball of unattuned mana next to a ball of attuned mana in front of himself. He compared the two and tried to will the unattuned mana to attune but it just wasn''t listening. If he shaped the unattuned mana into a node, it transitioned almost immediately, he just couldn''t nail down the process. He saw it changing colors but had no idea how to make it change colors.


    He decided to table this issue for now and look at energy levels. Staring at all the pretty colors of the ambient mana gave him a pretty good idea about what the energy levels were. He had noticed that some mana was a certain color then other mana was the same color, but brighter. He had no idea what to do with that either though. He had no idea how to increase or decrease the energy levels of mana in any way, node or not. If he wanted to finally complete the Arcane level puzzle cube, he would need a way to change the energy level. He could already rely on nodes to change the attunement, but energy levels were beyond him entirely. . . . . .

 Chapter 65 - Book 64

    Felix was frustrated and just sitting in the middle of the lobby staring, with his mana sense, at an unattuned ball of mana next to an attuned one next to a high energy attuned one. He started to just spin them around and generally juggle them in the air when he heard a knock at the door. He quickly jumped to his feet and ran over opening the door to find Amelia standing next to an older gentleman.


    [E - Common] Human (Lvl 45)


    [E - Common] Scout (Lvl 37)


    [E - Uncommon] Head Builder (Lvl 54)


    [E - Common] Human (Lvl 37)


    [E - Common] Healer (Lvl 32)


    [E - Common] Interior Designer (Lvl 43)


    Amelia appeared largely the same as he remembered except her hair looked like a commercial and her skin was pristine. He couldn''t remember if that was always how she looked but it was what he immediately noticed. The man appeared to be in his 50s or so and was clean shaven with short cleanly styled hair. He also wore a full three piece suit with a tie, pocket square and everything. How he managed to either find modern looking clothes or keep his clothes this clean and intact this whole time, Felix had no idea.


    "Hey Amelia."


    "Hey Felix, nice tower."


    "Thanks, I would have gotten you to build me one but uh, this one kind of just fell into my lap so. Also I never really wanted a tower so it never came to mind."


    "Don''t worry about it, this would have probably taken a ridiculous amount of time anyways. Oh this is George by the way."


    "Afternoon." George said as he gave a little curtsy.


    "Uh, you as well. Come on in." Felix stepped aside and held open the door to let them in.


    "So, what were you thinking for furniture in this room? Or on this floor I guess." George asked as he walked around inspecting the space.


    Felix shrugged, "I didn''t really want a tower at all so¡­ How about you come up with whatever you want and I''ll just veto it if I need to?"


    George nodded, "Works for me. Mind if we see the whole thing first?"


    "Of course, follow me." Felix led them through every floor all the way up to the roof top.


    "Wow, this is beautiful. And freezing cold." Amelia said as she wrapped herself in her arms.


    George shivered a little but otherwise kept his cool demeanor.


    "Let''s head back down then."


    They all proceeded back into the bedroom floor.


    George proceeded to walk around the room describing his plan with display cases and trophies on the walls, many more closets than Felix would ever use and a ton of furniture. Felix pushed back on some things, especially the multiple beds for multiple uses and ridiculous closet space. They ended up with a plan to have a sitting area, an area rug, a bedside table, a modest amount of closet space, a writing desk and a dining table. Most of that was unnecessary, but the room was so big, even Felix agreed he needed something to fill it.


    The last item was the bed, which Amelia promised she could improve on. Felix was certain the wood work would be superior, but he had doubts when it came to a mattress, sheets and pillows. Ultimately he relented because worst case scenario, he could simply not use it.


    The next floor was the library filled with empty shelves. The only thing they commissioned for this room were sitting chairs, a coffee table and an area rug. The next floor was an empty floor.


    "So what were you thinking for this floor?" Amelia asked Felix.


    "I have no idea. What do other people have in their houses, or mansions." S~ea??h the n?vel_Fire.¦Çet website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    "Lots of things, bathing rooms, sparring rooms, saunas, guest quarters, storage, workshops for their profession, lounges, game rooms, bars."


    "There was also a disco room" George added.


    "Oh yeah, that was a pain in the ass." Amelia groaned.


    "Ooh, yeah a workshop would be great. Just lots of worktables, desks and storage. Just tables and desks everywhere would be great."


    Amelia shrugged, "Easy enough. What about the next floor?"


    "Sparring room I guess? I don''t see myself ever sparring with someone but maybe I can hit dummies or something."


    "So leave it empty for now?"


    "Yeah, pretty much. I guess there isn''t much that goes into a sparring room."


    On the next floor, George had a plan once again, this time it was much more reasonable and fit Felix'' taste. Mostly just couches, tables, area rugs along with some basic decorations. On the next floor, they decided to add furniture for staff if he ever ended up with any, otherwise there was already a large feast table and chairs so there wasn''t much else to discuss.


    Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.


    Finally, the lobby on the ground floor. The space everyone saw right as they walked in. George wanted a statue right in the middle of the room of Felix slaying a dragon, Felix vehemently declined.


    "Look, we can add seating and stuff but ultimately, you need something right in the middle. A decoration of some kind or something like that."


    "What about a tree?" Amelia suddenly interjected.


    "A tree?" George recoiled.


    "Yeah, a tree. I always liked the look of those mansions with trees and waterfalls in them."


    "Yeah I like that. How do we plant a tree here though?" Felix bent down and rapped his knuckles against the stone floor.


    "Not sure. Maybe a magic tree?"


    "A magic tree? Do you happen to have one of those?" Felix asked.


    "Nope, that one is all you."


    Another todo list item, ''find a magic tree and collect seeds.''


    "Ok, what about right now though? Got anything pretty lying around in your inventory?"


    "Hmm, I have giant blue chicken feathers and shiny scales."


    "Parroukan feathers?"


    "Yeah!" Felix was surprised they had heard of them, he realized it was likely due to the auction house though.


    "Can I see the scales?"


    "Sure." Felix proceeded to dump 9 Selefin corpses on the ground. To George and Amelia, they were giant six legged serpents though. They both recoiled a little before adjusting to the shock.


    "These would have been perfect for the disco room." Amelia broke the silence.


    "I have no idea what decoration to make with these, but I will buy them off you. These scales are gorgeous." George said as he leaned down to inspect the scales. He had completely gotten over his initial aversion it seemed.


    "Uh, sure?"


    Not sure where else or who else I would have sold these to.


    "I don''t really have many credits¡­"


    "Just take them as payment for your work here, how about that?"


    "Are you sure? These are probably worth way more than that?"


    "Yeah, don''t worry about it."


    "Thank you." George bowed his head. He touched and stowed each corpse into his inventory then Amelia and George left to get started on the furniture. He told them to just come in and place stuff as they finished even if he wasn''t there so they didn''t end up waiting on him.


    With them gone, he walked up to the roof and sat down. He planned on taking a quick look at the mana again then checking out the Vault of Secrets if he couldn''t figure anything out. As Felix walked around with Amelia and George, he had continued to fiddle with the three balls of mana, juggling and spinning them behind his head and off to the side. He had kind of forgotten about them until he sat down and returned his focus to mana.


    He pulled the three of them in front of himself and found that they were all identical now. They were each heavily attuned to fire and all had the highest energy level he had seen yet.


    How the hell? If I had accidentally combined them at some point they would be a dull light attunement, the combination of all three. How did this happen?


    Felix spent another hour trying to figure it out but only managed to figure out that the three balls seemed to have a Felix affinity as he felt comfortable and attached to them when compared to normal mana. They were also easier to move and manipulate in general. He decided to give up and combined the three liquid marbles into one bigger marble. Then he added two others of a slightly different size so he could differentiate them and started juggling them far apart from each-other as he descended the tower.


    He made his way into the Vault of Secrets, which was a large monolithic rectangle on the outside. On the inside, it was a 10 story library, 5 of which were below ground level. On each floor there were also classrooms, study rooms and reading nooks nestled throughout. The shelves contained many books but were far from full. Luckily they were also very well organized. Felix had no trouble finding his way to the section on mana, magic, spells, enchanting, magical engineering, wards and rituals. Unfortunately, the only one containing any books was enchanting.


    Felix visually scanned the books on that shelf and unintentionally scanned most of the other books he passed, with his skill, as he walked. He planned on scanning the whole thing but now that he knew he didn''t have to do so before the tutorial ended, and he didn''t feel the need to do so right away. The only enchanting book of value was a book on durability enchanting.


    The book just explained that there were three aspects to the durability of anything, prevention, containment and restoration. The analogy given was a ceramic dinner plate. If dropped you want to prevent any damage. If damage did happen and a crack started you want to contain it to stop it from spreading. If it sustained any damage, ideally it could then restore itself. The idea was to balance all three, the hard part was doing so while taking into account the base material. If the material was naturally flexible or hard you would treat it differently. You also had to take into account how you wanted it to break, shatter, crack, tear, bend. Some of which were easier to heal but less durable up front.


    It was an interesting read, but ultimately didn''t help any with his current endeavors. Without anything else of interest in the library, he decided to just head back to the tower and work with mana until it worked or he gave up. He quickly checked the three marbles he had created before. The one he had combined the initial three into, which was intentionally the biggest to be identifiable, was still a bright fire attunement. The other two, were a dull fire attunement.


    What the hell is happening? Do I have a natural fire attunement?


    Felix pondered as he ascended the stairs up to his tower then through the floors up to the roof. He sat down and began testing out random things that might have happened as he walked around. He moved the marbles around, tossed them and even smacked them into each other, doing so only combined them though. Finally he got bored and just started playing with them, in doing so he spun them around. Gradually, the attunement shifted towards fire. Excitedly, he spun it faster, but now the attunement changed, it became more sparks and less fire. Felix tried spinning a new marble at a different speed and sure enough it changed to a brand new attunement, light.


    Why the hell does spinning it change the attunement?


    Next he tried orbiting some of the marbles around others, like a solar system. If he spun them at the same number of orbits per minute, they all gained the same attunement, but now the ones on the outside became brighter than the ones on the inside. The next thing Felix tried was to turn each marble into a different sized donut and spin them at the same speed again, with the same result. The donuts on the outside were the brightest, growing gradually dimmer as the donut shrank.


    That''s why it took so damn long, I was spinning a marble. If I spun it around my head or in circles it would have been faster probably. Why spinning though? What the hell does that have to do with anything? How am I supposed to spin mana inside of the puzzle box?


    Felix was pretty sure there was more to it, but he had no idea what it could be so he put that on hold again and decided to experiment with adding mana to his energy buffing skill. . . . . .

 Chapter 66 - Book 65

    He had already been offered a skill to do what he had been doing up to this point, but with a slightly higher efficiency. Felix hadn''t really taken time to experiment with it yet so he hoped he could improve it further before turning it into a skill. Plus he had many ideas for improvements.


    The first thing he tried was to split up the general cycle of energy into multiple cycles. Currently, he cycled the majority of the energy in his body around so that he could pull energy into a single body part when the energy cycled by. That meant that the longest he would ever have to wait was a single cycle. The remainder of his energy was suffused throughout his body to allow for instant reactions. This was a good system allowing for him to react quickly with energy, within a single cycle, and still have access to 90% of his energy at any given time.


    What he wanted to try, was to have a cycle in the center of his body and also have cycles running down each of his limbs. The main cycle would feed the sub-cycles in the limbs and they would loop back into the main cycle if they every had any excess. Theoretically, it should reduce the maximum latency by quite a bit, not that it was an issue before, but this was an easy improvement to make. This was also an intermediary step between this and what he hoped to do which was combine his mana channels with energy. His current plan for mana channels was to make something like a circulatory system. The major difference being, he didn''t need to recirculate the mana or energy to reoxygenate it as far as he knew.


    Theoretically, the energy and mana sitting at the end of his limbs for days should be just as ''fresh'' as the energy and mana sitting in his core. The only exception to that he could foresee was if he wanted to induce an energy level or if he wanted to have it maintain a high affinity. He had no idea if energy had energy levels or affinities though, so it may or may not matter for energy channels. The other things he had to consider were attunements and states. It should be possible for him to induce an attunement on the mana within his channels, the question was should he or was it worth it to do so. With states the question was could the mana be a liquid when he cast spells, or should he turn it back into a gas. Luckily, Felix had ample time to experiment.


    It was relatively easy to implement his new method of cycling energy, unfortunately testing it was nearly impossible. He essentially had to test his reflexes which felt impossible without likely injuring himself. He could try and dodge Mana Bolts he fired at himself, but that wasn''t a great option because he knew when and where they were coming. What he should do was find someone with high agility to attack him with a wooden stick or something. Unfortunately, finding someone with a higher agility than he had, even if they were entirely focused on the stat, would likely be impossible. Some rough mental math put that theoretical person at around 670 agility with a common class and profession focused on it. If they had some sort of fast projectile, that might work. At this point his best bet was to play 1 against many dodgeball, but Felix didn''t want to go recruit people so he just settled with, ''it feels the same so it''s probably fine.'' Sear?h the n?velFire.net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    His next test would be to figure out if energy had affinity. He wasn''t exactly sure how to test this though as there was no such thing, as far as he was aware of, of ambient energy. All the energy he had ever seen was within his own body. In theory all living things had some though so he decided to go find some. He ran down the tower and bolted down the mountain into the courtyard around the Vault of Secrets. He found himself a big tree and sat down in front of it placing his palm against the trunk. He closed his eyes and entered a meditation.


    In his souls space, it was just him and the tree, or at least what he could see of it before he closed his eyes. Felix tried to sense the energy in the tree, but he couldn''t seem to find it. It was like the tree didn''t have any at all. After trying for a little while to sense the mana in the tree, Felix gave up on that and decided to switch tacks. Instead of sensing the energy in the tree, he tried to pull energy from the tree, or more accurately cycle energy with the tree. He extended the cycle within his arm right up to his palm and tried to push it into the tree.


    At first nothing happened, but then suddenly, the cycle connected and his energy was passing in and out of the tree. It took him a few minutes to realize though, that not all of the energy he was getting back was his. He expected it, but he couldn''t sense it at first. Once he got used to it, he could suddenly see within the tree. He saw the energy as it slowly moved up the trunk from the roots and even some that traveled back down. Once he could sense the mana in the tree, the entire tree, even the roots and tips of the leaves appeared in his soul space.


    He tried to pull on the energy within the tree. He wasn''t trying to pull it out of the tree, but he wanted to try and move it a little bit faster. He succeeded in moving it, though not very effectively. It was moving faster, but by a barely noticeable amount. It was much less reactive to his will than his own energy was, effectively confirming that there was such a thing as energy affinity.


    Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.


    Felix was quickly realizing though, that he wasn''t sure if it mattered. The real test would be if his energy lost affinity when it was sitting at the tip of his toe. He realized he didn''t need to test it at all though, there was energy moving glacially slowly through the tips of the roots on the tree and it didn''t seem to be any different. Realistically, energy should never be losing it''s affinity even if it was far away from his soul or he left it for years. He did want to eventually cultivate and grow his soul and have it reach the extents of his body, so that even the tips of his fingers would have his soul suffusing them. That was a low priority long term item though.


    The next step was to figure out if it had energy levels, just from looking at the tree though, he was pretty sure the answer was no. All of the energy felt identical other than some of it moving slower with his will. The energy in his own body was constantly spinning and yet it was the same as the energy in the tree. It was possible there was a different way of increasing the energy levels of energy, but Felix didn''t feel like he had time to experiment with it, and he didn''t think it would be worth it.


    Lastly, the experiment Felix was least excited about, figuring out if he could liquefy energy. He didn''t need to sit in the courtyard and didn''t want to be surrounded by people so he stood up-


    Fuck me. I forgot to replace my disguise.


    Felix looked around and saw multiple groups of people whispering, staring and pointing at him. He couldn''t think of anything to say so he just left, as fast as he could. To the crowd, he seemed to almost vanished in a gust of wind.


    Felix made his way back to the top floor of the tower and began trying to compress energy to the point of it liquefying. Unfortunately, he quickly found out he couldn''t move energy outside of his body. Inside of his body, he tried to isolate a tiny portion of energy in the tip of his finger and began compressing it with all of his will. He managed to compress it, but he never felt it turn into a liquid. It felt like it was close to or maybe even denser than a liquid would be, than the mana was, but it wouldn''t quite shift.


    Well, if it''s just as dense it''s essentially the same thing so, should work fine.


    Next he moved onto mana experimentation, the first thing to test was whether or not he could cast with liquid mana, or if it had to be a gas. Furthermore, was there any benefits or downsides to doing so. In order to test this, he would have to create enough liquid mana to cast a spell though, so he started working on that. It took him a few hours to create enough, rather than the dozen or so he expected in large part because he found a much easier way of creating it. Instead of creating the tiniest possible balls of mana one by one, he realized he could create them in streams. He would have normal mana be pushed towards a point where he funneled and compressed mana turning it into a liquid. He could manage about three streams at once and had them pouring into another empty canteen.


    He kept going until the canteen was full which entirely drained his mana multiple times, luckily using low affinity mana didn''t slow down the process at all. Felix pulled a thin stream the width of a thread of mana out of the canteen and slowly formed it into the shape of a very light instant gust spell. He figured it was the safest option, using only diffused air and not being channeled. He could have shaped it the way he was used to, entirely mentally, instead of manually weaving the spell form but he wasn''t very confident with liquid mana and this felt safer for some reason.


    Once it was complete, the spell instantly cast without Felix having to do anything, unlike how it normally was. The spell, had he cast it normally, would have created a light wind, which in hind sight might not have been noticeable on the top floor of the tower. The spell with liquid mana, created a shockwave of air instantly breaking the sound barrier and possibly even creating a vacuum in it''s wake due to how much air it pulled around it.


    Felix was yanked off the ground by the air being moved and got launched off the top of the building. Unfortunately, he didn''t react fast enough to push himself back up as he was slightly stunned from his eardrums being ruptured. Felix slowly came back to full consciousness and found himself falling from the sky above the mountain being whipped around by the strong winds around him. Luckily they weren''t nearly as strong as the wind he had just accidentally created, but this high up the mountain, the natural winds were enough to make it difficult for him to right himself.


    He was running low on mana so he pulled on the ambient mana and waited for the last minute to cast Feather Fall. Luckily he was smart enough to have closed the canteen he had filled with liquid mana, unfortunately he was not smart enough to have placed it in his inventory. Felix spent almost an hour trying to find the canteen which ended up being effective training of his mana senses, but was still annoying as it had vanished onto the mountain side somewhere. He had a pretty good idea of it''s general direction, but the winds on the mountain made it''s possible landing area vast.


    He found it lodged between two large rocks, dented and beaten but otherwise intact. The mana inside was of a slightly higher energy level and slightly attuned but not by any significant amount. That did answer another question he had about liquid mana. He made the trek back over to his tower and thought about sitting in the lobby this time, but if the same thing happened again, it would be worse if he hit a wall. Instead, he sat outside the tower a hundred or so meters away on the mountain. . . . . .

 Chapter 67 - Book 66

    With all of that figured out, he had a pretty good idea of what he wanted to do with his mana core and channels. Before he dove into that project though, he wanted to experiment with his energy buffing skill to see if the two might end up being related. First, he had to figure out if compressing his energy had a large effect on the effects of the buff. Second, he had to determine if mixing mana into his energy held any benefits. He didn''t expect it to, but if it did it would affect his channel and core planning. The only issue with that was figuring out how to do it at all.


    First, without looking at liquid mana, Felix slowly pulled a little bit of mana into his energy cycles. As they spun, he essentially tried to weave a thread of mana into the cycle. Unfortunately, he felt it immediately dissipate and fall back into his mana pool. What he wanted to happen was for the mana to dissolve until his energy was saturated, and for it to have some effect on his buff. Felix didn''t think it could be done without using liquid mana which seemed to stick itself in reality and not fall back into mana''s dimension as gaseous mana did. Luckily, he had a whole container of the stuff that he had no idea how to use.


    He didn''t think his energy was actually in reality as he was currently spinning it rapidly within his body and yet it spun freely with little resistance. In theory it could also be offset in some extra spatial dimension as it was believed mana was. The only issue with that theory was that there didn''t appear to be ambient energy, it was restricted to existing within a living body. The other option was that energy was able to pass between or even through cells but only existed within them. Likely, if it was pulled outside of a cell, it would dissipate or transform into something else, or it couldn''t do so at all. That made more sense, but made dissolving mana into it much weirder.


    If that were the case, Felix would have to pour mana directly into his cells somehow. He could keep drinking it, but that seemed like a bad idea just in case. Instead, he poured a little bit of mana into the palm of his hand then, using his will, he tried to slowly pull it into his body and into the cells instead of between them. He also made sure his energy cycle that was normally in his arm touched his palm to hopefully distribute the mana around his whole energy pool. The mana slowly disappeared, absorbed through his skin and hopefully distributed itself through his energy cycles. He gave it a few minutes to be fully distributed before he tested it out.


    The most quantifiable test he could do was to buff one of his stats as much as he could to see if the increase was more than it was without any mana involved. He decided to buff perception as it was the least likely to end up killing himself with, even though blindness was a scary notion. Felix figured any damage he did would likely be corrected through the magic of vitality over time plus he had a pool of health in his ring he could draw on.


    The other options were his spinal cord and nervous system for his agility and dexterity, his muscles for his strength, his whole body for endurance and vitality and his brain for intelligence. He figured his eyes, ears and nose were slightly more favorable if they exploded over those other options. He only buffed his eyes directly though as only one of his senses were necessary to obtain a stat increase and he was most familiar with his eyes. He was more likely to notice a small change in them than any of his other senses.


    Felix slowly fueled his eyes with energy carefully watching his stats to try and determine if they increased any more than they usually did. His full power energy buff without mana capped at an increase of about 50% of the stat. With mana, his perception stat was increasing to about 50%.


    Damn, nothing?


    Felix tried many variations of using energy and mana but he seemed to be stuck with about a 50% increase. He tried funneling the mana towards his cells directly, which was nearly impossible. He also tried slowly infusing his cells with mana first then energy among a huge array of other random combinations.


    Well that is disappointing. Moving on I guess.


    Next he spent time compressing the energy in his body as much as he could. He chose a point in the cycle and just squeezed it. As the energy cycled through his body, more and more of it was compressed until it was all as dense as he could manage. This also didn''t increase the effectiveness of his buffs much if at all. It did make his cycles faster, more controlled and easier to manage. Unfortunately, he didn''t currently have a good way of keeping it compressed. After an hour or so, it had all relaxed back to normal.


    So with energy I can cycle through a core that I have keeping it constantly compressed, simple enough. With mana though, is there any reason to have channels at all? Why not just a core? All I do is use mana to cast, it''s not like I need mana to be physically inside of my fingertips. What''s the benefit?


    It would be fine if the answer was ''there is none'' but there were case studies in Mind, Body, Mana of creatures with no apparent mana consuming organs that had mana channels. They must have evolved to have those somehow right? or did the mana organs disappear as they evolved further past channels? It feels like that doesn''t make sense, even though the logic seems sound.


    Stolen story; please report.


    It''s possible it has benefits at higher tiers of race and when those high tier creatures give birth, their offspring are born with channels in preparation for higher tiers. It''s also possible there is a benefit I am unaware of or I haven''t figured out how to use it properly. I don''t think it will have any negative effects though, so maybe I just do it and hope it helps somehow later on. For now, I want to open the damn puzzle cube, I''ve put it off long enough. First thing''s first though, how the hell do I induce an energy level and attunement without spinning mana around my head like a damn yo-yo.


    The first thing Felix had to figure out, was how small of a unit of mana could he induce an energy level and attunement on. He pulled out the smallest unit of mana he could control and experimented with spinning it at different speeds and orbits. Turns out, with a tiny speck of mana, it was trivial to induce an attunement and energy level. That also meant it was harder to be precise, any tiny adjustment greatly changed the mana''s properties.


    Felix was out of ideas and growing bored so he decided to take a break. The sun was just starting to set and the torches that lined the streets were just starting to be lit. Felix put on his mask, set his level to 35 and set it to randomize his face, then headed down into the city.


    Felix hadn''t spent much time at all in the city and was only vaguely aware of what was going on, mostly from Noah. He ran across the mountain, avoiding the stairs to hopefully prevent people from putting two and two together. He ran all the way around the mountains and looped back to the entrance of the city. The first thing he saw was what was once the stable. Before, it was a simple stable with a large barn as well as a fenced in pasture for grazing. There were individual mounts, caravans and individual carts for hire pulled by boar or stags, likely from the forest.


    Now, the barn was gone. The fenced in pasture remained, but the area with caravans and carts was entirely missing. The rest of the farms seemed untouched by the upgrade, with the possible exception of their fences and barns being touched up slightly. Felix did find it impressive just how many farms there were though. Even without heavy machinery to speed up the farming process, the farms remained just as big as any he had seen back on earth. Stats and skills likely had a large part in keeping them manageable. As far as Felix could see though, to the south, were farms to either side of well maintained dirt road that seemed to travel all the way to the combat dungeon, according to the signs.


    Felix continued on towards the city which was significantly different. The walls for one were much more intimidating standing at least 20 meters high with parapets on either side. The entrance to the city remained a large stone ramp upwards which now passed between two towers at the ends of the walls. On the towers hung multiple massive gates that could be closed simply by dropping them. They were currently lifted high in the air so anyone could pass through. Felix spotted many people patrolling the top of the walls, though he wasn''t sure why they were necessary. Maybe people were worried about the invaded fort to the north, but as Felix saw it, that was very far away from them, especially for an army.


    Felix passed through the gates and into the city itself. Felix immediately noticed that the walls seemed to have moved outwards slightly to accommodate the stable or more accurately, transportation hub being placed inside the walls. There now stood a wide two story building with carts, caravans and individual mounts that entered and exited from multiple different opening on all sides of the building. Instead of the wooden barn it used to be, the building was now a stone building with vents along the top.


    Last time he passed through here a few days ago, he was moving quickly and didn''t take time to admire the progress of the city and it''s residents while he was away. Just past the upgraded stable Felix passed into the market area. The buildings along the sides of the road had large glass windows with wares on display. Felix spotted all kinds of armor, weapons, clothes, furniture, and general goods on display. There were a few restaurants as well with their doors open in the hopes that the smell of the food attracted customers. In general, all of the shops on the main road right as you entered the city were high quality and sold widely applicable goods. There were no specialty shops or small outlets here. Felix suspected these were some of the more expensive buildings so the shops here were likely the most profitable ones.


    Felix walked by a particularly busy restaurant and couldn''t help himself from getting in line when he walked by. It had only been a couple months now, but Felix was really craving fried food as soon as the smell reminded him it existed. Luckily, the line moved faster than he had ever expected it to and though he started outside the building, he was at the counter ordering in just a few minutes. Felix ordered a bucket of french fries and fried chicken for just 30 credits which was handed to him within just a few minutes.


    The bucket was bigger than Felix had expected, almost twice what he would have gotten back on earth but he finished the whole thing in less than 10 minutes. At first Felix was absorbed in the food but he also managed to observe the customers and cooks as well. A good chunk of the customers were picking up food to deliver to others throughout the city, which was surprising to Felix.


    We have a food delivery service? How does that even work? Without the internet to pay the restaurant through, do people just trust each-other? There has to be some overarching body regulating things, right?


    When Felix was finished with his meal he decided to shake things up a bit and randomize his flask again. He ended up with something that reminded him of a soda though he wasn''t quite sure why. It wasn''t fizzy but it was sweet with a strong earthy and slightly acidic flavor. Overall, it was delicious. Felix was quickly realizing his only complaint with the flask, was that once he randomized it, there was no guaranteed way of going back to one of the previous drinks. . . . . . Sear?h the novel(F~)ire.net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.

 Chapter 68 - Book 67

    Felix continued to walk down the street and inspected many of the goods but didn''t find anything he was interested in besides a change of clothes. They were ultimately unnecessary and all of the styles Felix saw were too garish for him so he didn''t end up getting anything. He did however turn around and walk into a large armor shop with all kinds of plate armor and leather goods. A young woman, though possibly just in appearance from her evolution, approached Felix almost immediately.


    [E - Common] Human (Lvl 44)


    [E - Common] Healer (Lvl 31)


    [E - Common] Merchant (Lvl 58)


    "Good evening and welcome to Susan''s Armorium. I carry all kinds of armor and other protective gear. What class are you so I can help you find the perfect fit."


    "Oh uh fighter." Felix lied, caught off guard. He quickly recovered though and shored up his persona, "I like to use large two handed weapons, currently using a great sword. My armor situation has been kind of lacking though. I didn''t see it as an issue until I had a¡­ closer than I''d like, encounter in the combat dungeon to the south."


    "Ah, I see. Well, I''m glad you managed to live through it. It''s odd that the dungeon didn''t give you any armor to use as a reward though¡­"


    Oh shit, it probably would have¡­


    "It did, but I don''t think leather is really my thing. The dungeon seems to have pegged me as a barbarian or something, but I''m not super into the whole rage and scream through the pain thing. I think I''d rather avoid the damage if I can. I was hoping for something like plate armor, but a little more¡­ flexible, maybe scale mail?" Felix improvised.


    "Aha, I have just the thing." Susan, Felix presumed, led Felix through some of the stands towards the back area. "I never understood those either, plate armor is a much smarter call if you ask me. Luckily, I think we can find something that will fit you perfectly. Not sure about any scale mail, but I have multiple suits of Henry''s finest that should let you stay mobile and protected at the same time."


    Where do I recognize that name from¡­


    "I''m sorry, Henry?"


    "Oh are you new to the city then? Henry is the most famous blacksmith in the city. His work is considered the best you can get outside of some of the fancier dungeon loot. Most of what he makes comes out as uncommon and I hear he managed to craft a few rare pieces as well but those were for direct commissions."


    "Wow, he sounds very impressive."


    "He also kind of leads the crafters in the city, most of them tend to listen to him. He''s quite famous in the city, I''m sure you''ll love his work. I have to warn you though, it is quite expensive."


    Oh, Noah talked about this guy. He''s the one that wants to send an army after a world boss.


    "That makes sense, if it''s so high quality and he''s famous. Is any of his equipment enchanted by any chance?"


    "No, I don''t think I''ve actually seen anything that was crafted being enchanted yet. Most of the enchanters are busy up at the university and seem to still be trying to figure things out."


    "That''s unfortunate."


    "All the enchanted gear usually comes straight from the dungeons and is sold directly through merchants for clients usually. Plus it''s usually exorbitantly expensive."


    Susan proceed to show Felix multiple suits of plate armor that were finely crafted and seemed to be exactly as she had promised, high quality and high cost. They were all within the range of 5 to 10 thousand credits. Felix didn''t end up buying anything as he had already gotten what he wanted out of this excursion so he excused himself and continued on through the city. He quickly checked out a clothing store and ended up buying simple navy robes made entirely of silk with some simple white accents. It cost him 2500 credits and he stowed it in his inventory, not wanting it to get damaged.


    He didn''t end up buying anything else, though he was tempted to buy more food as he passed by spiced meat dishes, vegetable dishes and other colorful foods with tantalizing smells. He was surprised to find the city full of people walking along as well as carts contributing to the hustle and bustle. As Felix was nearing the edge of the commerce district when he heard a young woman yelling out through the crowd, "Another fort conquered, another conqueror. Get the latest news here!"


    Felix walked over and purchased a newspaper which was actually just a single sheet of paper with information stamped on both sides. It cost 20 credits with half of that refundable if he returned the actual sheet of paper. Felix stood next to the stand and quickly read through the paper. Apparently, one of the forest towns had declared a siege on the other which lasted only a day before they were conquered.


    In other news, all of the dungeons had been found and were available in Tri-Peak valley with the synced up map updates. Other than some areas of the ocean, 80% of the land mass within the tutorial had been revealed. Only some of the land around the corners and on the edges remained hidden. It was also being speculated that the town in the mountains to the east were preparing to take on a world boss some time in the next month or so. They were training and recruiting for some undisclosed event. The System taxes in the auction house were now 0 but the auction house now had a minimum price of 10000 credits imposed on all transactions.


    The last article Felix skimmed over, even though it was on the front page under the siege, because he had been avoiding it, was about the leader of Tri-Peak being spotted. Apparently many had speculated he was high level but the actual number was unknown. No one in the city could identify him when he walked through the library and into the courtyard around it, without his disguise, on multiple occasions. This sighting had fueled the rumors, some of which were completely ridiculous. He couldn''t make himself read through it as reading the article written about himself was too weird so he simply handed the paper back to the woman for his 10 credit refund.


    Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.


    Felix continued on into the industrial area of the city with the forges and warehouses. He had one in particular he wanted to visit but he also wanted to gauge the town''s progress in general. He walked by many large non descript buildings which made him realize he probably should have asked for directions. He had no idea what the purpose of the buildings he saw were other than that he knew there were forges, workshops and warehouses in there. Eventually he gave up on walking around and opened his map. He was going to look for the bigger buildings as he figured if Henry was famous, he probably had a large forge.


    Felix was surprised to find his map labeled within the city though. He simply located the building in the industrial district labeled as Henry''s forge and walked over there. The building was large with a handful of smoke stacks, but not the largest building or even forge by far. He approached the large metal door and knocked, which caused a loud echo to reverberate through the forge. After waiting for a few minutes without a response, he knocked again. He didn''t hear anything coming from inside, but it was possible Henry was just on a break or something. Checking his map, Felix knew for a fact Henry was inside.


    The third time Felix knocked he thought it was possible Henry didn''t hear him but he was also getting a little impatient so he knocked a little harder than intended. He didn''t damage the door or anything, but the reverberations were thunderous, even from outside. Shortly afterwards Felix heard a yell from inside, "Oi, leave my damn door alone will ya?"


    "Sorry. I''m looking for Henry?" Felix yelled at the door.


    It took a few moments, but eventually a tall man with messy brown hair and a beard opened the door. He was wearing thick leather pants and boots with steel toe caps and no shirt whatsoever. His chest and arms were some of the thickest Felix had ever seen and were also covered in hair. All in all, he looked like a bear.


    [E - Common] Human (Lvl 43)


    [E - Common] Fighter (Lvl 23)


    [E - Common] Blacksmith (Lvl 63)


    That is the highest level I''ve seen on either class or profession. Looks like he focuses pretty hard on it though, at the expense of his class it seems.


    "Commissions start at 20,000 credits."


    "Not looking for a commission. I¡­ was sent by an enchanter looking to enchant some of your commissioned gear¡­ if you''d be interested."


    "Nope. Who thinks they''re so self important they need to send someone anyways?"


    "Uh, Felix?" sea??h th§× ¦ÇovelFire.¦Çet website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    "You mean the guy that owns the whole damn city? Guess he couldn''t be arsed to leave his damn tower. Tell him to visit himself, I got some things I need to talk to em about anyways." Henry began closing the door but Felix reached out and held it open. Henry immediately pushed harder but it seemed like Felix''s strength was greater as the door only slightly moved. Henry immediately frowned at Felix, likely because it should have been impossible for Felix to match his strength at level 35.


    Screw it, this is too much of a pain in the ass.


    "Oi, fuck you too buddy. Now back up and let me in."


    Henry seemed to consider for a moment then smirked and shrugged as he stepped back to allow Felix inside. "It''s a little toasty in here, might want to reconsider that."


    Felix strolled into the building, which felt exactly the same as it did outside thanks to his cloak, and smiled at Henry.


    Henry waited for a minute then his smirk turned back into a frown as he shut the door a little stronger than necessary.


    "Alright, what does he want. I don''t have that much time."


    You really didn''t figure it out by now?


    Felix sighed as he removed his mask.


    "Oi¡­ it''s you."


    "Yep, plenty arsed thank you very much."


    "Damn, didn''t think the rumors ''bout yer level were true.''"


    Felix shrugged, "I want you to let me enchant some stuff. I got practice gear for enchanting from the dungeons but enchanting practice stuff that''s never going to be used is boring."


    "Woah hold on, my thing first. I want to kill a world boss." Henry paused for dramatic effect.


    "I know, not interested. You can go do it if you want with your army and all that but I''m not fighting with a group let alone, an army."


    "So you''re just gonna give up on the rewards and quest and all that, just so you don''t have to fight with people?"


    No, I''m gonna kill it myself. I just don''t need or want other people to make it easier or steal my experience.


    "Yuperoo."


    "Alright, I''ll look at getting some more people involved then. What''s your class by the way? There was a rumor it was caster with the tower and all that but casters are so weak in general that didn''t make much sense. Now I know you have more strength than most fighters, even with your high level."


    "Fighter, use two handed weapons."


    "Yeah, that makes more sense. We figured you found some crazy sword or something¡­" Henry waited for Felix to confirm or deny his theory but Felix just looked at him blankly.


    "Alright, well I got other things to talk about too. What''s happening after the tutorial? I know right now you have an open door policy but The System also enforces the law right now, what''s gonna happen after the tutorial?"


    "I don''t know. I didn''t know the city would even exist after the tutorial until a few days ago. I have no plans to change the open door thing and I have no idea about the policing, maybe we just pay guards or something. I''m open to ideas or suggestions, just send them through Noah. For now, things seem to be good. I''m happy with the progress and all that. The taxes could probably be lowered but I think it will be more necessary for guards, repairs and purchasing goods later. I figure I leave it for now, build up a small pool of credits then rely on that, if needed I raise it by a percent or so."


    "That seems reasonable. I just don''t want you going crazy on us or anything, us crafter''s have a nice thing going here and we don''t want it ruined."


    "Anything else?"


    "Yeah, given that your answer was pretty good to the last question, we crafter''s want to help defend the city. We know that now that we''re a major city we''re kind of a target, which sucks but it''s necessary, I get it. Had to convince some people but, the wall and your level helps. We want to keep being big and relevant with a wide trade network and upgrading to a major city was going to have to be a part of that. With the raiding going on between Icewatch and The Grove we figure our city will be targeted eventually so what''s the plan on city defense and how can we help?"


    City defense? Do we really need a plan, we have a giant wall and a population of over a quarter of the tutorial''s population¡­


    "Noah''s managing it for now. The main goal is to currently migrate as many people as we can over here. The bigger our population, the smaller theirs is. I guess we could mount cannons or ballista on top of the walls. I think catapults would be too slow with everyone having such high agility."


    "We can work on those, I''ll coordinate with Noah. I assume you are working on some secret sauce yourself plus with you fighting with us, I think we should be fine. Plus I think I can convince the other''s that we''ve got this in the bag. Having something to do will make easier to convince them too so I''ll get started on figuring out siege and defense weapons. Great job upgrading the wall by the way, that went a long way to building trust."


    That semi-random choice of mine is turning out to be more useful than I thought it would be. Lucky me.


    "Alright, can we talk about enchanting now?"


    "Sure¡­ I''m gonna need to see some samples of your work before I agree to anything."


    "Alright give me an hour or so and I''ll enchant a training breastplate for you."


    "Sure, I got things in the forge I gotta get back to anyways. Come back and knock when you''re done." Henry said, clearly expecting Felix to leave.


    Felix sat down right where he was and pulled out a training breastplate as well as his enchanting quill. Henry looked at him for a minute, ready to say something then decided against it and went back to his forges. . . . . .

 Chapter 69 - Book 68

    Felix enchanted the breastplate with a simple durability and weight enchantment. With wood, he went with hardness, as it was generally pretty soft, and internal strength to hold it together. The weight enchantment was just to show off so he made it almost half as heavy as it normally was. He drew out the enchantment on the inside of the breastplate so it wouldn''t be damaged in combat. It took him just over 20 minutes so he quickly threw a simple light enchantment on the front which made an entirely cosmetic drawing glow.


    When he was finished Felix looked up to see Henry managing five different projects, one at each of his five forges. Henry also occasionally looked over his shoulder at Felix, which caused him to realize he was finished. Henry moved some things around so his projects didn''t need to be monitored then turned around. Felix handed him the breastplate which he started inspecting with his hands, tongs, hammer and a sword. He didn''t seem very impressed however.


    "Seems decent enough. It''s definitely¡­ pretty? I''m not sure what it was before this though so I''m not sure I-"


    Oh shit, right.


    Felix pulled another three training breastplates out of his inventory and handed them to Henry. He tested those and then the enchanted one again back to back and was much more impressed. "Huh, alright not bad. I have a few commissions on the back burner and I''m meeting some clients tomorrow. I''ll offer them to have their stuff enchanted and I''ll give you 30%?" Henry offered.


    "Sure." Felix shrugged. Henry was put off by the fact that Felix didn''t haggle at all but he quickly accepted.


    I really don''t give a shit about the credits.


    "How do I reach you if they agree?"


    "Send someone to the tower or tell Noah I guess?"


    Do we have a mail system or something like that? Couriers?


    "Alright, sounds good. Anything else? Need armor yourself?"


    "Nope, I''m good. Alright well, I''ll maybe see you later then." Felix waved and walked out.


    "Sure, sounds good. I''ll keep Noah up to date about the cannons and stuff too, I assume he''ll let you know?"


    Probably, not that I super care.


    "Yeah, he''ll keep me up to date."


    Felix left the forge and headed quickly over to the library. He made sure to replace his disguise with the same level as before along with a random face. Felix was just about done with people for the day, but he figured the library should be fairly quiet. He was also done with exploring the city and his mind turned back to looking for a clue with respect to attunements and energy levels.


    He walked the short distance towards the wall surround the Vault''s grounds then through the forest surrounding the building itself. Inside he looked for anything he could find on physics, math and chemistry. He had already checked through the mana sections as well as the course catalogue and was sorely disappointed. He hoped he might be able to find some sort of inspiration among the more mundane subjects. He referenced the libraries index which he had previously scanned, but was updated constantly, meaning he had to rescan the physical book. He plotted a course through the chemistry then physics and finally math sections of the library.


    There were many more books in these sections than the magic sections he browsed previously. Unfortunately, he didn''t find much in the chemistry section just by skimming through a few books. He did make sure to scan the whole section though which just meant he had to walk through it slowly. He headed on to the physics section which was more of the same though there were some interesting tidbits in the quantum physics section, not that he understood much of it. He saw some interesting notes on the spin of a particle and string theory in general that just seemed more applicable. He made sure to mark all of those books mentally after he scanned the whole section. He suspected math would be the least useful as it was a long shot in general.


    Finally in the math section, Felix encountered something he didn''t expect at all, another person. The previous sections he had explored in the library on this and the past occasion were completely void of other people. This section had a young man with black hair sitting against one of the shelves with dozens of books all around him, some open, some piled high.


    [E - Common] Human (Lvl 12)


    [E - Common] Healer (Lvl 3)


    [E - Uncommon] Mathematician (Lvl 22)


    Felix walked through and scanned the entire section without the man noticing him. Just as Felix was about to leave and go through the books mentally, the man addressed him, "Oh uh, sorry about the mess. Were you looking for something in particular? Cause I have all the most interesting ones around me. I can let you know when I''m done with them, if that''s alright?"


    "Just looking around."


    "Ah I see, I like to do that too. This library and all these books are the most fascinating and wonderful things I have ever seen. There are books on every subject you could imagine in here. Back on earth we theorized about things, here there''s a textbook that perfectly explains it, in full. There are also things we had never thought of before. I''m sure whatever you are looking for, it''s probably here."


    "I kind of doubt that, but you might be right." Felix started to walk away but the man addressed him again.


    "Well, what are you looking for? Maybe I can help you find it and learn something myself along the way. Don''t think it''s just for selfless reasons, I don''t know where to start with half of this stuff and some direction, even if it isn''t mine could help me learn too."


    This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.


    What the hell, why not? This guy also seems like the most genuine guy I''ve met, the earrings think so too. He just really wants to help people and learn stuff himself.


    "Were you a mathematician before the integration too?"


    "Ah, yes I was a professor before the integration, mathematics. I could not however, read every book in every language before, now I can. How''d you guess my profession? Just from the books?"


    Oh right, not everyone can see that. S§×ar?h the Nov§×l?ire.n(e)t website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    "It''s a skill" Felix shrugged.


    "Ah, fascinating. So many things that were once impossible are now a daily occurrence. Anyways, what is it you''re looking for?"


    Felix sat down across from the man, against the opposite book shelf, "Honestly, I''m not sure. I''m looking for inspiration I guess. I''m having trouble figuring something out and I want to understand what''s happening first."


    The man simply waited for Felix to continue, clearly practiced with helping other''s through difficult problems that were hard to explain.


    "I''m observing an effect and I want to know why it''s happening. I know what''s happening, from a high level, but I want to be able to replicate the effect in a less involved way."


    The man simply waited again and Felix sighed and continued after a few moments.


    "Basically I have this¡­ thing and it''s fundamental properties seem to be changing when I spin it at different speeds and orbits. I want to change it''s properties, problem is, I want to do so without having to spin it."


    "I see." The man finally responded, "Hmmm, I don''t have much information but maybe I can point you in the right direction. I''m more of a math guy, but electrons and other fundamental particles, I think, had a property we used to call spin but only sort of if I remember correctly, so you could look there. Within math, you could look into harmonics maybe? The relation to spinning is very loose but there''s Fourier transforms, signal theory and frequencies? It''s not perfect but from what you''ve said I can''t stop thinking about frequencies and harmonics, so maybe look there?"


    "Alright, I''ll look into it. I appreciate the help."


    "Not sure if I was any yet, but I always enjoy trying to figure out a problem. Feel free to come back if you need anything else."


    "I appreciate it¡­ Are you just¡­ always here?"


    "Sort of, I plan on reading through all of the books in this section first, then maybe a different section. I don''t really feel the need to do much else, I have enough credits to eat and no one seems to mind if I sleep here so I''m gonna do what I always wanted since I don''t have to work. I just hope I don''t get kicked out eventually for my low level¡­ I don''t have much to do other than hit the puzzle dungeons, but the others are a little too far for me to check out for now. I don''t really want to fight either so."


    This guy is gonna run out of credits eventually¡­ Damn.


    "Have you thought of the pacifist option?"


    "I don''t know what that is, I don''t exactly get out much."


    "You can give up on fighting and ever doing damage to others. In exchange your profession is improved or you pickup a second profession and you lose your class."


    "Oh¡­ That''s interesting. How would I start the process or¡­"


    "I''m not sure, you''d have to ask around. I know Ray the barber took the option as well as Mike who runs Tiki Kahuna."


    "Ah I see, I''ll see about that next time I get out then."


    "Well I appreciate the help. I also hope you don''t get kicked out. Thank you, what was your name by the way?"


    "Oh, I''m Charles, pleasure."


    "Felix, thanks again."


    Felix headed out back to his tower. As much as Charles was friendly and pleasant, Felix was a little exhausted from all the people. He had one last stop though before he could re-enter the comfortable solitude, which was luckily on the way.


    Once that was done he headed back up to the top of his tower and began sifting through the books he had scanned in the library. His Mind Palace was becoming much less bare and started to look more like a library, at least in some sections. He pulled out all the books he could find that referenced harmonics first. He would come back for Fourier and signals later if he didn''t find anything.


    He spent a few hours reading through the books and gathering from them what he could. He understood everything that was being said, but he didn''t understand the concepts themselves, they just didn''t click for him. Overall though, he understood mostly what was going on. He figured if he had had a more math focused background it would have been easier. The one thing he did get out of it that kept resonating with him was frequencies.


    It was a loose theory at best, but spinning something at a different speed was essentially a different frequency and it''s possible the larger orbit translated to a larger amplitude. Though that theory presented a problem, it was possible to have high energy level mana with no attunement, he had seen it before. That would be impossible if unattuned mana didn''t have a frequency, but maybe it was it''s own frequency or something.


    The other problem, which was why he was still reading, was that this theory didn''t help him in any way. Whether or not it had anything to do with frequencies, he didn''t know how to alter it''s frequency without vibrating or spinning it. Eventually though, he came to the conclusion that he wasn''t going to find anything else of value in the books so he simply shelved them for now and returned to reality.


    He sat on the roof of his tower with a storm brewing above him. The sky was already dark as it was just an hour to midnight now and the sun had long since set. With the clouds smothering any light coming from the celestial bodies above, the night was almost pitch black. The only sources of light were from the torches lit along the roads down in the city. Some of them had been blown out by the winds but, no one seemed to care. The city was nearly empty now in preparation for the storm, and from Felix''s vantage, it seemed empty.


    Felix decided to try one thing before he headed inside. He pulled out a simple ball of mana and attuned it the old fashioned way, by spinning it. Then he pulled out an equally sized ball of mana next to it. He closed his eyes and had the balls of mana appear before him in his soul space. Focusing on the attuned ball of mana, Felix stared at it trying to discern a difference between the two. He tried to understand the differences he sensed as frequencies. That didn''t seem to change anything but he wasn''t done yet.


    Next he stared at the unattuned ball and tried to imagine it beginning to oscillate internally. He wasn''t sure what mana was made of, and he doubted it was any of the elementary particles he had heard of. Instead he imagined the mana itself slowly vibrating at the same frequency as the other ball. He had no idea how fast that was so he slowly increased the speed of the oscillations in his imagination.


    He was about to give up as his mental image was vibrating almost as fast as he could imagine before suddenly he felt a change. It wasn''t the right attunement, but it was an attunement. The mana looked purple, the color he imagined for an electricity attunement, and it was bright. This was possibly the highest energy level he had ever seen from mana. It frightened him a little bit so he imagined damping it until it was more normal. He successfully damped the attunement, but he also completely snuffed it out, removing all energy from it entirely. Ultimately though, he had succeeded, and just in time as he realized it had started raining.


    Felix descended back down into the tower, just a single floor to his bedroom and laid down to sleep for the night. He was excited to have finally figured out attunements and energy levels, but he also had a lot of work ahead of him to perfect it. Currently, he mostly felt satisfaction that he had made any progress and relief from the past few days of frustration and that, was a wonderful feeling to fall asleep with. . . . . .

 Chapter 70 - Book 69

    Luckily the rain seemed to have satisfied itself thoroughly overnight as the next two days were clear and sunny. Felix spent almost the entirety of both, around 45 consecutive hours, practicing with inducing energy levels and attunements directly into mana. He still had to visualize the mana vibrating but he had internalized the right speeds for all of the different attunements he knew and had figured out. He was hoping to be able to do it instinctually, without visualizing anything, but he wasn''t quite there yet. Energy levels were much easier to figure out as they were less finicky. Overall, all it took was practicing with the scale, as the oscillations were very tiny and very fast.


    He also spent time figuring out how high energy mana was functionally different from low energy mana as well as what the different attunements did. He knew he wanted slower and faster mana as well as dense and light mana in the puzzle cube, but he didn''t have an intuition for the different attunements and energy levels. He spent the second day building as much of an intuition as he could.


    After the 45 hours of staring at mana Felix felt like he was finally ready to look at the cube again. He pulled out the sleek black cube that looked like a die made of obsidian. Each side held a slightly blue circle in the center and was still in a complete state, according to The System. Felix felt otherwise however as when he was completing it, he felt like something was wrong. It was both too easy and too awkward to be complete. He felt like the cube itself looked elegant and sleek and his solutions to each side were gauche and messy.


    First things first, he did something he knew he had to do but was slightly worried about, he pulled all the mana from the cube and reset it. Rationally he knew that he was much better with mana control than he was when he had previously completed the cube, irrationally he was worried he wouldn''t be able to do it again.


    He started, as he had last time, by pushing mana into the cube until it wouldn''t accept more. Once again, the blue circle on a single side lit up. Felix remembered this one as the side that he needed to spread the mana through evenly, despite the differing widths and lengths of the channels spreading from the center. Rather than starting right away, Felix looked curiously at the center of the first side, where there was a simple blue ring filled with mana in the center.


    Felix still had a map of sorts of the entire side in his mind, but he had a different approach this time. This time, he spun the mana in the circle and gave it an attunement, he wasn''t sure what attunement to start with but he figured he could restart if he got it wrong. On a whim, he started with the lowest speed attunement he knew of, light. In his training over the last 12 hours or so, he found that he could also control the color of the light by slightly changing the frequency or energy level of the mana. He started with red as it was the lowest frequency he could see.


    As Felix began spinning the mana in the circle, it shifted to red then slowly spread out from the center. As it spread it would become lopsided with certain channels being wider or longer than others. When it did, it would stop entirely but all Felix had to do this time was reverse the direction he spun the circle and the mana would recede. Then he switched direction back to growing and shifted the color.


    He knew the layout of the channels and so he had a rough idea of when he needed to shift the speed he spun the center circle, but it still wasn''t perfectly intuitive to him. It took him a few hours to complete the side as he had before, but by the end he didn''t have to switch directions at all, about half way through it had become intuitive. He slowly grew the light at first, adding to the rainbow then his speed increased until he was confidently filling the side, right to the edge.


    This time, instead of another side lighting up, the same side continued to fill. The center of the ring in the middle that Felix had been spinning started to fill with mana. Felix filled it the same way he had the outside of the ring, except this time he didn''t have a mental map ahead of time. It took him only an hour or so even though he had to switch directions a dozen or so times. The center of the ring was smaller after all. In the end, the colors formed some sort of drawing on the side, it seemed like a spell node but Felix wasn''t entirely sure. It consisted of too many colors to be castable as far as he could tell.


    Unless each color is a different attunement? But which color maps to which attunement?


    Felix put it to the back of his mind for now as the next side had opened up. Just like before, the next side was about spreading a tiny piece of mana evenly across an entire side. There was another ring in the center so Felix spun it once again and chose a light attunement to start. This time, the ring grew without any input from Felix for a bit, then it stopped growing. Felix tried spinning the ring at different speeds but didn''t manage to get it to grow again. He didn''t want to manually spread it out as he felt that was likely the incorrect approach.


    Instead, he began to spin all of the mana as it grew instead of just the core ring. With the mana outside of the core ring, he first spun it at the same speed, but realized the mana wasn''t growing. He quickly figured out that he had to split the mana into rings and spin them each at a different speed. He had no idea why different speeds were required, especially when they seemed to increase and decrease randomly. He was mostly working with trial and error and it felt a little like he was trying to pick a combination lock to open a vault.


    When he was finished and the entire side of the cube was covered with an even layer of mana the side lit up with different attunements and energy levels. Given how the other side had a second stage within the ring, Felix looking inside the ring and tried to manipulate mana inside of it. It was simple enough as all he had to do was fill it with a few points of mana, after that, the next step became more clear.


    Love what you''re reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.


    The inside of the ring was filled with mana, but it wasn''t even. Felix could feel that some areas were thinner but not naturally. The mana was being influenced somehow and the whole thing was made uneven because of it. Felix could probably fight the influence, but he figured a better solution was to play with the energy levels and attunements of the mana to try and even it out.


    It took him nearly two hours to figure it out as simply changing the attunement or energy level caused the mana to shift. Every change he made had cascading impact on the rest of the mana. He also had to manipulate both the energy levels and attunements to balance everything out. At first he wasn''t sure he had completed the ring as he hadn''t noticed anything, then he backed up and saw that the rest of the mana on the side of the cube had been warped. By balancing the mana within the ring, the rest of the mana had reacted and shifted. There was now another drawing of some kind on this side. It was only visible with mana sense though as it was drawn out with attunements and energy levels.


    Felix made sure to thoroughly examine and record both drawings to the best of his ability in his mind palace before moving on to the third side. The third side was exactly what Felix expected, a moving labyrinth with pitfalls and traps that he had to map out in some way. Previously, he had filled the side with mana and ended with just a fraction of the mana he had started with. That solution was too crass for Felix this time around. This time, when he encountered his first pitfall, he simply filled it with solidified mana. Once he started doing that, the rest of the labyrinth was trivial. He wasn''t sure if he had the correct solution until the side started to accept more outside mana every time he solidified some of it. Every time he filled a pitfall, he also felt like he had aligned a pin in a lock.


    As he solved the labyrinth it also shifted to his successes, instead of every time he failed. It was like an every shifting lock he had to pick. In the end though, he arrived back at the ring where he had started. To his surprise, this wasn''t the end at all though, the labyrinth continued within the ring and so did he. When he was finished, the mana drew out a similar, simple symbol which he still couldn''t identify. He recorded it and moved on.


    The next side was a labyrinth that relied entirely on his mana senses, this time though he felt the mana respond to the maze as he moved it. He realized that he was supposed to respond back. With some trial and error, he found energy levels to be the method of communication and slowly learned the language. When the maze thinned around him, he increased the energy levels. Similarly, when the corridors within the maze increased in size, he lowered the energy levels. With this side again, he felt like he was picking some sort of arcane lock, which was always a possibility. In essence, a locked chest could be considered a puzzle box, to an extent.


    Though there was no symbol displayed at the end, the mana that he had led through the maze drew out a symbol, and he was recording it the entire time. He still didn''t know what the energy levels were, unless it was a three-dimensional drawing and the energy levels were a way of encoding depth. He couldn''t be sure though. This side held no ring as the entire side was invisible and part of the maze so he simply moved on to the next side.


    He still had the mental map of what each and every button and lever on this side did and a solution to it''s layout. He didn''t however, know what would be different, it was possible there was nothing different, but he doubted it. He had a few units of mana at his disposal to complete the puzzle with and the first thing he tried was to change the attunements of the mana as he pushed the buttons. He didn''t notice any difference so he tried it with energy levels, but still didn''t notice anything.


    Finally he decided to find out what would happen if he pushed all of the buttons at once. The buttons each seemed to open and close different doors around the maze and some opened or closed the same one. Felix started by solidifying mana on top of a button which required more mana than he was given, luckily when he solidified the mana he had, he was suddenly able to add more of his own mana to the equation.


    With every button pressed, Felix filled the side, which didn''t seem to limit his mana at all anymore, with mana. Once complete, he once again, had another symbol to record.


    The last side had a familiar glowing circle in the center which he fed his mana to until it was satisfied. Once that was done, he began to balance the mana across the entire face of the cube. Instead of simply moving it around though, he manipulated the energy levels, density and attunement. At first he only adjusted the energy levels, but then the mana and the cube face itself started to respond to his adjustments.


    Before he had slightly compressed some of the mana to adjust it. This time, the entire surface of the cube was moving, the mana was moving and they moved each-other. Some areas closed themselves off completely, others opened up. He knew more or less what was happening, on each of the previous sides some sort of symbol was being drawn out so he assumed the goal of this side was the same.


    This side had a ring as well, but Felix had no idea what to do with it. He knew it did something, because the rest of the side didn''t depict the clean symbol he expected. It was a little bit of a blurry mess still. With no other ideas, Felix simply spun the ring at the center. As soon as he did so, the ring filled with mana that changed attunement, not in accordance with the speed he spun the ring, but in response to it. The inside of the ring depicted what attunement he had to create next.


    He followed it through a long series of random attunements, some a combination of multiple attunements which he created by spinning the inside and outside of the ring at different speeds. The mana outside of the ring also shifted slightly whenever he spun the mana at a new speed. In the end, the entire side was morphed into a clean and sharp symbol that Felix mentally recorded.


    At first he was worried about losing some of the details of the symbols when he mentally recorded them, but his mind palace was not an actual library and was not limited to ink on paper. He was easily able to record the input from all of his senses so he could mentally replicate the completed cube itself, which was placed on a shelf he was dedicating to interesting magical items. sea??h th§× ¦ÇovelFire.¦Çet website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    The cube was complete, this time to Felix''s satisfaction, but nothing was happening. He was slightly worried he was still missing something, but he was pretty confident about his solutions as everything seemed to just fit and feel right. He examined the cube and it''s six sides with arcane symbols now visible and had a thought.


    These symbols look like spell nodes, what if they are? I just need to ''cast'' the spell?


    Felix pushed mana into the cube which it accepted readily. He was relieved as his other idea was to try and create and cast a spell with those six nodes in it which would have taken weeks or even longer as they were drawn out with multiple attunements, energy levels and densities. Along with individually being the most complicated pieces of spell work he had ever seen, including enchantments. . . . . .

 Chapter 71 - Book 70

    As the cube filled with mana, the symbols began to glow slightly brighter and the cube continued to accept mana. Felix poured almost his entire mana pool into the cube but it kept accepting more so he started to forcefully regenerate his own mana and continued to fill it. It took him thirty four hours for the cube to finally be full which Felix estimated to be about ten times his total mana pool. This time, once it was full, something odd happened.


    [E - Arcane] Skill Test Cube: Mana Control


    Congra


    The screen Felix expected from The System was interrupted, it appeared incomplete then disappeared completely. A heavy object suddenly fell into Felix''s lap, right below the cube. Felix waited a few moments to see if The System would provide a new screen but nothing happened.


    Maybe it just chose yes for me?


    Felix exited his meditation and found himself starving, exhausted and soaked as, apparently it had rained at some point in the past few days. The cube was exactly as he remembered it represented in his soul space, a sleek black cube with colorful symbols he didn''t have any hope of deciphering on each side. It reminded Felix of a die.


    Felix looked down and saw, in his lap, a leather bound book. It was almost too thick to grip and appeared to contained at least a thousand pages. It was bound in a dark crimson leather with complicated spell forms or enchantments drawn out in white on the front. There was also a deep blue metal that covered the corners and rivetted the binding together. It was almost half a meter in height making it one of the biggest books Felix had ever seen. The book was held shut with a single leather clasp across the center of it''s height.


    [? - ???] ??????


    ??? ??? ???.


    Oh lovely, how incredibly useful. On a more serious note, The System is starting to freak me out a little. It seems that the omnipotent overlord of the multiverse is glitching out or encountered a bug.


    Felix visually inspected the book further but couldn''t find anything resembling text. He also had no hope of figuring out the complex drawing on the front, whatever it was. Felix tentatively opened the clasp which was not a buckle like he had expected. Instead he simply pulled on the binding and it released as if it was never attached to the front of the book at all. Felix very carefully pulled the front cover open to reveal a blank page.


    He examined the page with his mana senses for a few moments then was about to flip to the next page when something began to appear. At first, an inky cloud appeared like someone had spilled a bottle over the page, then it slowly moved itself to form some sort of script. At least, Felix assumed it was script as it was inside of a book, it looked more like a series of randomly placed and somewhat interconnected drawings, like a spell diagram, but not quite.


    Felix just looked at it, not sure what else to do for a few minutes until the text changed again. It continued to, Felix assumed, switch languages for almost ten minutes, getting progressively faster until it simply went blank. After a few seconds, the ink cloud reappeared and slowly morphed into the shape of a book. It was a simple book with no decorations. Next to it, a drawing of the unidentifiable book Felix was currently reading appeared. The drawings moved like a cartoon and the book Felix was holding appeared to eat the other one.


    I know I scanned and memorized the books in my inventory, but I feel bad having them eaten to this random book. Maybe I can go buy some books from the library or marketplace.


    Felix placed the cube in his inventory then stowed the book, except nothing happened. The cube disappeared into his inventory as expected but the book simply wouldn''t.


    It just gets keeps getting weirder. Well I don''t really want to leave this thing lying around, guess it comes with me. I probably want to hide it under my cloak at least, I don''t really want people to be identifying it.


    Felix spent a few minutes tying the book to his chest using his bed sheet under the cloak. With the book tied as tightly as he could, he headed down to the Vault of Secrets. The book only moved minimally when he walked, but it was still very heavy so he didn''t travel at his usual pace. It did create a slight bulge under his cloak, but it was billowing enough that it wasn''t overly obvious. He made sure to equip and enable his mask then headed down.


    Felix headed through the forest which reminded him of a well curated park back on earth, just with denser tree-top coverage. The ground was even covered in grass with oddly not a single fallen leaf in sight. Felix rounded the building and entered through the front door heading straight to a large index book. Previously, he was simply looking for the books so he could scan them then he would put them back, he didn''t need to borrow the books at all. This time, he actually read through the introduction, instead of skipping over it.


    Essentially, he could borrow or buy any book he wanted from the vault. Most people were restricted from certain sections, but Felix obviously held the highest level of permission. Not that it made any difference at the moment as those sections were completely empty. To borrow or buy a book, you simply transferred the cost of buying the book to the index node. If you returned the book, the majority of the value would be refunded, contingent on the quality of the returned book. The vault could also create any number of copies of any book but the cost was high and charged to the library itself. Once they existed, the copies could be bought or borrowed. Typically the cost of copying the book was close to the cost of outright buying a copy, which made sense.


    Felix chose a handful of books to produce and buy copies of starting with a number of dictionaries from a multitude of languages on earth and others that had appeared. He also bought a number of novels as examples for the structure of sentences as well as customs. The books cost anywhere from a 100 to 1000 credits each and in total, he spent 20k credits. He stowed his purchases in his inventory then headed to check on one last thing before he headed back up the tower. In the index node he flipped to the section on classes being taught and found what he was looking for. He quickly flipped through a few screens, confirming things then left The Vault of Secrets.


    He headed to his room on the top floor just below the roof and pulled out the unidentifiable book. He opened it up to about the middle then placed the first dictionary from his inventory on top of it. As he placed it down however, the books didn''t collide at all, the dictionary simply disappeared into the pages of the magic book.


    Really glad I didn''t use the books in my inventory just yet.


    He continued to feed books to the book until he had run out, then waited. Nothing happened after half an hour so he simply closed it and strapped it back to his chest.


    A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.


    Maybe it just needs some time? What the hell do I do in the mean time? I guess I can work on designing mana channels maybe. Honestly, this book is kind of just throwing me off a little. It caused The System to bug out multiple times and The System isn''t or can''t translate any of the languages it contains. Honestly, I''m not sure which of those is a scarier notion.


    Felix didn''t have to decide as he was suddenly presented with a screen from The System.


    Innate Ability


    The System has identified your innate ability. Innate abilities are talents that are so unique they tend to only exist in a few people in the multiverse. Some appear in multiple people, others are completely unique to an individual. Innate abilities with no practical use or with negligible impact are typically left unidentified, this means they will not be represented on your status screen. They will however, remain a part of the individual.


    Wizard


    Ascendant Prodigy: Mana


    You posses an unusually high capability with respect to mana as well as an usually high rate of growth. Your current capacity is unknown, the limit for your growth is unknown, the rate of your growth is unknown.


    That''s a lot of unknowns, and I guess it confirmed suspicions of mine, but it didn''t really give me any new information. It is cool I guess. It would be even cooler if it doubled my intelligence or something like that.


    Felix opened his status screen to see what had changed.


    Name:Felix KadeFREE0Innate:Ascendant Prodigy: Mana (Wizard)STR672Class:[E - Common] Caster (Lvl 82)DEX672Race:[E - Common] Human (Lvl 87)AGI672Profession:[E - Special] Arcane Engineer (Lvl 92)PER672Health:13425/13440VIT672Mana:2683/26880INT1344Energy:276/13440END672


    Why the hell wasn''t my level there before? It makes way more sense. Also what''s with the double name thing? Is my innate called wizard or ascendant prodigy of mana? Also man I am really running on empty, I didn''t feel that tired with so many things to do but now that I think about it, I think it''s time I head to bed.


    Felix laid down and fell asleep immediately as he clearly hadn''t realized how exhausted he really was.


    Felix had fallen asleep a couple hours after noon and woke up the next morning a couple hours before noon, sleeping around 20 hours. Considering he hadn''t slept at all for almost four days, he slept about as long as he had expected. What he also expected, but wasn''t ready for, was the immense hunger that woke him. He immediately devoured a dozen meals worth of cooked Parroukan from his inventory which satiated the pangs for the time being. He still craved food though so he decided he would go taste test some of the restaurants on the main street. He had one in particular right near the entrance that he was craving based on it''s smell alone. He assumed it had a name, he just wasn''t sure what it was and couldn''t be bothered to check his map.


    As soon as he was finished with his impromptu feast, wiped his hands on his shirt and channeled mana through to clean it, Felix felt something vibrating on his chest. He jumped back at first before he remembered that he had strapped a large unidentifiable and likely magical book to his chest. He untied the book and placed it on the bed in front of him. He carefully opened it to the first page, which was once again blank. A cloud of ink appeared and morphed into text, this time in a language Felix could read.


    "Hello."


    Do I write in it or do I speak to it? I don''t want to write in it unless it tells me I can, guess I should ask?


    Felix pulled out an enchanting quill from his inventory, his rare Parroukan feather one as he felt like the book deserved it. He held the tip of the inkless quill a few inches above the page and waited.


    "Go ahead."


    Felix wrote back, "Hello." Though he had no ink on his quill, the ink from within the book simply followed his tip like it was carbon paper.


    "I take it you were the one who opened the cube?"


    "Yes, I''m Felix."


    "Hello Felix. Do you know what I am?"


    "A book?"


    "I see. Who helped you open the cube?"


    "No one."


    "Could you do me a favor, Felix?"


    "Possibly?"


    "Could you cast the following spell for me:" An overly complicated spell form morphed on to the next page from a cloud of ink.


    "What does the spell do?" Felix asked.


    "It''s innocuous, I promise."


    Felix had no intention of casting a spell he didn''t understand from a magic book as he didn''t really want to summon a demon or free an evil god or something. He examined the spell form though and realized it was really just an overly complicated light show. Every node was simply a light node with a slightly different color, there was no balancing ring around the outside and the connecting lines were very simple. Felix was confident that even if there was a hidden intention in the spell somewhere, it likely wouldn''t translate when he formed it out of mana.


    Felix began creating the spell in the air from mana piece by piece. While he didn''t have to weave the whole thing, he did have to split it into individual parts then connect them together to construct it. When he was finished, he looked at it one last time then cast it as far away from himself as he could. He even cast a normal mana shield between himself and the spell to be certain. The spell was terribly inefficient so it did require a lot of mana, but Felix expected that. Once it was complete, the spell produced a random series of blinking lights that was sort of pretty.


    He waited for a demon to appear but nothing happened. Felix shrugged and looked back to the pages of the book. All of the ink had disappeared replaced by a single line.


    "Would you be willing to form a soul bond with me, Felix?"


    "A what?"


    "A soul bond is fairly self descriptive. For more context, our souls become bonded and we become connected. It is essentially the same thing you would do with a familiar or any soul based weapon or armor."


    "Oh, I do have a skill to bond with a familiar, but why would I bond to something I know nothing about, how do I know you aren''t trying to possess, kill or slowly corrupt me?"


    "I would rather you not use that skill, instead let me create the bond. As for your concerns, totally valid. Best I can offer is my word."


    "I don''t think your word is enough for me, sorry."


    "No not my word, my word. This is hard to convey, maybe conviction is better? Do you have any amount of control over your soul? or even just soul sight?"


    "I think so, I''ve manipulated my own soul before and I can see it."


    "That should be fine. I will open my soul to you as much as I can and you can read my intentions?, that''s not quite right either. I''m not sure if you have a word that is a perfect translation. I''m not going to try and explain it right now, you should be able to get the picture, I hope."


    "I''ll give it a shot."


    The book has a soul now, interesting. Worst case, if looking at it''s soul is enough to harm me, I was screwed anyways. . . . . . S§×arch* The NovelFire.net* website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.

 Chapter 72 - Book 71

    Felix sat down and meditated in front of the book then slowly felt out his soul. Once he was ready, he reached out and looked towards the book''s soul. He had never tried to look at or feel another being''s soul before. He expected to find something similar to his own but slightly more bookish. Instead, he found that he couldn''t map the book''s soul at all but he could sense it''s values or beliefs. He also understood what the book meant when it said there wasn''t a perfect word or translation.


    He could feel the fundamental beliefs, ideals and laws that governed the book as a sentient being. Things that made the book an individual and gave it personality. Before he wasn''t even sure it had a personality, now he thought it might be the most complex and human thing he had ever encountered. Out of curiosity he tried to sense his own convictions but didn''t come up with anything.


    Looking back towards the book, he didn''t feel any ill intent at all. He felt something along the lines of protect, nurture and uphold among a slew of other more mundane things he didn''t bother trying to classify. As impressive as the feel of it''s soul was, Felix still wasn''t ready to bond his soul to it. Instead he stood up and opened the book and wrote the following: "I understand now. I am not ready to bond souls though." S§×arch* The n?vel_Fire.¦Çet website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    "I understand, think about it please."


    "In the meantime, I can''t seem to place you in my inventory and I don''t love strapping you to my chest. Is it possible for you to let me stow you in my inventory?"


    "It is, but I won''t do that. I can however follow you or hide on a shelf. I will need you to provide me with mana though."


    "How much mana?"


    "Not a huge amount? I''m not familiar with how you measure quantities of mana unfortunately. I can''t hold much mana on my own though, which is one of the reasons I wish to soul-bond."


    "You ate the books I gave you, can you still access them?"


    "No, I destroyed those. I could have kept them whole, but learning your languages would have been much slower."


    Felix pulled out a mana battery and held it out in front of the book, "How about this? Could you use this to store more mana?"


    "Yeah I definitely could, feed it to me the same way."


    Felix fed the battery to the book and then pulled out 8 more and fed them as well, leaving him with 25 batteries for himself.


    "Woah, that was more than I was expecting, thank you. These are simple but very impressive and well made."


    "Thanks, I stole them. Sort of."


    "Oh lovely, (only sort of sarcastic). Would you rather I hide or follow you?"


    "I''m not leaving you here, you are too interesting and potentially catastrophic."


    "If I had eyes, they would be gleaming. I''m both touched and disturbed at how accurate that statement was."


    Uh¡­ what?


    The book then rose off the bed and hovered in the air, it immediately fell to one side as Felix had it open to the first page, making it unbalanced. The book righted itself then opened to a page in the middle to maintain balance. The book then hovered to be just in front of Felix.


    Not bad, I still don''t want this thing being identified though.


    Felix reached forwards with his quill and wrote, "Unfortunately I''d rather you not be identified in public as I suspect you would be a little too disturbing for most."


    After almost a minute of no response the book wrote, "Is that another skill?"


    "Yeah, one that everyone has."


    "I''m going to need more information so I can disguise myself."


    Felix though about it for a second before he took off his mask and held it in front of the book. He wrote, "This mask changes what people see when they use the skill on me and also makes me less noticeable in public, does that help? I couldn''t tell you how identify works."


    "One moment please. Could you identify me?"


    [? - ???] ??????


    ??? ??? ???.


    "Thank you."


    Felix waited for almost five minutes before the book continued.


    "Okay, identify me now."


    [E - Common] French Dictionary


    A book that contains the words and corresponding definitions that make up the French language.


    "How''d you do that?"


    "Magic?"


    "Fair. I''m not sure people will believe that with your cover and binding though."


    "Good point, most people should see the cover of a French Dictionary though when they look at me. You know what I am, so you see me normally. It''s not a great illusion but I have an inkling it will suffice."


    "Are you sure?"


    "Yes."


    I really should test this first.


    Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.


    Felix replaced his mask and enabled it then walked down the tower to the lobby. He made sure to shuffle his disguise and this time he set the level to 32. As he got there, he heard voices coming from a few hundred meters away just outside the door.


    The hell?


    Felix opened the door just a crack and peered through. On the stairs, he saw a large group of people carrying furniture led by Amelia.


    Oh shit. I guess that works.


    Felix fully opened the door and cast a few spells to lighten the load. Even though none of them appeared to be struggling thanks to their stats, he still felt bad they had to carry it all the way up the stairs. Felix quickly placed his hand under the book so it didn''t appear to be floating then Amelia arrived at the top first and approached Felix, "Hello, I am Amelia. I have arrived to deliver furniture for Felix?"


    Oh right the mask.


    "What book am I reading?"


    "Uh, a French Dictionary it looks like?" Amelia said taken aback.


    "Perfect, thanks. You know better than he where the furniture goes, feel free to come and go." Felix said then bowed, he wasn''t sure why but it felt kind of right. Then he walked out the door and jumped down the mountain so he didn''t have to squeeze by the people carrying furniture.


    Felix half expected the book to write out ''I told you so'' but it didn''t say anything. As he jumped down Felix stopped quickly to write, "That is pretty cool. I''m impressed."


    "Thanks."


    Felix continued on to the main street to hit as many restaurants as he could before his appointment in an hour or so. He quickly bought and devoured food from all of the restaurants and stands whose smells had enticed him a few days ago. He had dishes of exotic spiced meats, delicious fruits and even sushi. Apparently the fish had originally been sourced from the river to the south, but now there were fishing boats over at the docks which let them really ramp up. Once he was finished, he headed straight for his appointment. He was going to be slightly early, but he was fine with just hanging out until then.


    He arrived at The Vault of Secrets and consulted his map to find the correct room. It turned out he was about 15 minutes early so he turned to his floating book and wrote, "Do you have a name? I''d prefer to stop referring to you as book in my head. It makes thoughts like ''I fed books to the book'' a little odd"


    "I don''t have that kind of name, no. In the past I was referred to by my use, kind of like calling your local fireman ''the fireman''"


    "Are there any names you are fond of?"


    "I''m pretty sure most of the names I could come up with would be in another language that you can''t even speak, or copied straight from a fairy tale. How about you throw out names, and I''ll rate them, then we pick the best one?"


    "Alright, you are a book, a tome. How about Tom?"


    "Meh, not awful, not great."


    "Fair. What about Brock? Similar logic."


    "Nope, I don''t like the taste of that word."


    "The taste?"


    "Being a book, I have some weird senses."


    "The cube you came out of was Arcane rarity, what about Archie?"


    "Seems a little too cute for my liking."


    "We could just pick a random name, like Robert or something?"


    "We could, as a fallback. I''m rather fond of this word play though. It satisfies me in novel ways."


    "You know you don''t have to emphasize the puns, I am seeing them."


    "Yeah but there''s a chance you don''t and that would be hugely disappointing. I don''t think I know a single other language that contains quite the same overlap of words to allow for these ''puns.'' Everything other language I know is clean and efficient, nothing sounded too similar or was written too similarly so things were legible and decipherable even with messy hand writing. Some words had multiple meanings but they were intentional and never really humorous."


    "That sounds very pragmatic. I want to learn these languages some time. Especially the one you started with when I first opened you, that was cool."


    "Ask me about it some other time and we can see about that."


    "Sure. What else are you? You are a book, you know spells and can use mana. You have a soul with ideals or convictions. What do you see yourself as?"


    "A grimoire of forbidden secrets? A vault of taboo knowledge? The keeper of nightmares?"


    "That is a little concerning. How about Grim? You are a grimoire and those are all rather grim sounding titles."


    "Ooh I like that one, it has multiple meanings. This language is so dumb, I love it."


    "Yeah it''s not the most efficient. Welcome to The Vault of Secrets, Grim."


    "Thanks, Felix."


    "I think it''s time for my class now, I''ll talk to you in a bit."


    Felix headed to the designated room and sat at the back of the room. It was just a couple minutes from noon and there were a handful of other people in the room as well. The second his tutorial countdown indicated it was noon, the professor walked in from the door next to the small stage at the front. The professor walked right up to the middle of the stage and scanned the room, smiling.


    [E - Common] Human (Lvl 32)


    [E - Uncommon] Professor (Lvl 34)


    [E - Uncommon] Mathematician (Lvl 29)


    "Welcome, my name is Charles and this is ''The Wonders of Math.'' Is there any topic in particular that anyone would like discussed? There is no curriculum so to speak and there aren''t enough people that I need to structure things so rigidly."


    A couple people raised their hands, having clearly come with questions prepared ahead of time. The questions ranged from high-school level all the way to what Felix assumed was very high level math. Some had clear value to shopkeepers and merchants, other''s seemed to be entirely theoretical. Some people had multiple questions and others left after obtaining the specific answer they were seeking. Felix sat through the whole class but didn''t ask any questions himself.


    While the class proceeded and Charles was answering the class'' questions, Felix quickly entered a meditation and tried to sense Charles'' soul. He didn''t think Charles had any ill intent, he just wanted to test out soul sight and be able to compare other''s to what he saw in Grim. It took him a handful of minutes to sift through the other souls in the room, but eventually he found what he was certain was Charles''.


    He sensed dedication, learn and teach from his soul, not as rigidly as in Grim''s soul but they were all obviously there. He also realized Grim''s convictions seemed unnatural where Charles'' seemed to be a part of him. He figured he would ask about it some other time and returned to reality then waited out the rest of the class. In total, the class lasted just under an hour by which time everyone else had left, most just after their questions were answered. Just as Felix was standing to leave the room, he was interrupted.


    "You didn''t have any questions yourself? I think we still have enough time for one more?" Charles addressed Felix and stopped him as everyone else left, leaving them the last two people in the room.


    "No thank you. I just enjoy math."


    Charles eyes beamed at that, "Me too."


    "I remember seeing you in the math section of the library at, what seemed like, every hour. Now you''re a professor and your level is much higher."


    "Ah, I got some good advice to look towards the pacifist option and managed to pick up a second profession instead of a class. The town administrator asked if I wanted to be a professor and well, I loved my job back on earth so how could I say no."


    "I''m glad things seem to have worked out. Why is your class the cheapest one by the way?"


    "It''s just enough for me to live off of. After today''s stellar turnout I''ll have to lower the price. The town administrator provided me with an apartment to live in so all I need to cover is food, occasionally clothes, paper and the laundromat. Plus charging any more than necessary is¡­ well, unnecessary. I love teaching, so why would I make it harder for students to learn by gating my class behind a high price?"


    "That''s rather inspiring, professor. Thank you for the class and candor."


    "Of course. Thank you for attending and sharing in my enthusiasm for math."


    Felix left the room and headed back up to his tower. The stairs were empty and this point so Felix assumed they had finished moving things in. He opened the doors, unsure what to expect, but found the lobby as bare as he had left it. He continued up to the next floor which was as he left it as well, though he only walked through the main feast hall. . . . . .

 Chapter 73 - Book 72

    On the next floor, there were small sofas and armchairs as well as animal pelt rugs placed around the room. Sitting in front of an unlit fireplace were Amelia and Noah who were chatting, laughing and sharing a canteen between themselves. Felix removed his disguise and approached their chairs stamping his feet somewhat on the way just to make his presence known.


    Noah noticed Felix''s steps first and turned causing Amelia to realize he had walked in.


    "Come, sit with us. We''ve been waiting for you." Noah said in a playfully dire tone.


    Amelia giggled and Felix sat on an arm chair across from them.


    "Oh hey, you learning French too? There was some guy here earlier that was reading the same dictionary as you. He let me in to deliver the furniture, I assumed he was your butler or something?"


    "What did he look like?" Noah asked with a smirk.


    "Uh well, he was¡­ uh male with¡­ hair¡­ I can''t remember?" Amelia said perplexed.


    Noah gestured towards Felix with his thumb, "He''s got a mask that changes his level and makes him ''uninteresting'' and as a side effect hard to remember. I didn''t figure that last part out until I went looking for him and tried to remember what his current disguise was."


    "That was you!? You could have said something you know?" Amelia admonished Felix.


    Felix shrugged, "Yeah I could have. I was on my out though so¡­ I just didn''t bother."


    Amelia quickly glanced at Noah, "It''s fine, just tell me next time. This time I got to hang out with Noah since it seems you owe us both some money."


    "We talked about it and we are okay with the city pa-" Noah started.


    "Oh, sorry about that. How much do I owe you each?" Felix stood and walked over to Amelia and offered his hand to her.


    "100k for the furniture and the crew so far, I''ll let you know the rest when it''s done." She said as she grasped Felix'' hand. He transferred her 100k credits then stepped to the left and offered his hand to Noah.


    "50k for the professor''s apartment. Why did you buy that guy a house anyway?" Felix gladly payed then answered with a shrug and a smile, "Seemed like he could use it."


    "Well, I think I could use a mansion if you''re still feeling generous?" Noah teased.


    "Don''t you both make enough credits to buy multiple? or to build one yourself in her case?"


    "I mean¡­ Presents are just kind of nice, you know?" Noah pouted.


    "Sure, maybe I''ll drop down your chimney and place one under your tree tonight."


    "Oh, speaking of holidays, the tutorial began just before the start of May which means it''s going to be around July 4th for me, July 1st for her and there are too many other nationalities to track. We are going to host a holiday when there are 40 days left. We haven''t decided the name, just that there will be fireworks. The restaurants are all bringing food, whichever one is the most popular will become the traditional food for the day as well. We are spreading the word around now just internally to crafters and merchants, but we haven''t decided a name yet." Noah explained.


    "We thought about Tri-Peak day but we wanted it to be more open to anyone. Any ideas?" Amelia chimed in.


    "Earth independence day? No that''s actually wrong, Multiversal Birthday? Integration day? That would be the start of the tutorial though. We could just call it Earth day? That''s a thing though isn''t it?" Felix brainstormed.


    "We should do integration day. I always forget you missed the whole explanation, but the universe is being integrated while we are in the tutorial." Noah responded.


    "Oh I guess it makes sense it''s not a snap of the fingers kind of thing."


    "Integration day it is. You should figure out some way to participate, people will want to see you at least be a part of it somehow." Noah instructed.


    "Just make your presence known and that should be enough." Amelia tried to comfort him.


    "Alright, we''ll head out. Oh and Henry says to go see him in a week or so." Noah said as he stood from the sofa. S~ea??h the N?velFire(.)net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    "I''ll be back with more furniture soon." Amelia said as she stood.


    The two of them walked towards the stairs together, Noah stumbling once and Amelia catching him.


    Didn''t realize alcohol still worked once we evolved.


    Grim floated in front of Felix with a question on it''s page,


    "May I drop the disguise now? Also I''m gonna need you to carry me or put me down somewhere, I''m running low on mana."


    "Yeah, you can drop the disguise." Felix wrote as he picked Grim up with his other hand.


    He headed up stairs and found that the other floors were empty except that in his room, a second bed had been placed across from his. It was made of a dark treated wood and was a simple design with no decorations at all. It had it''s own mattress, duvet and pillow. The sheet and pillow were white and the duvet was blue, the same shade of blue that accented the city''s logo.


    Oh man, I can''t test it cause I''m not gonna sleep for another day and a half. I''ll just hold off entirely so I don''t end up teasing myself.


    If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.


    "Hey Grim, what do you know about mana cores and mana channels?"


    "They exist, some creatures have them some don''t. Some need them, most don''t. Not much else. What specifically are you looking for?"


    "I want to create a mana core for myself with mana channels and everything. I was also thinking about an energy core and having them possibly connected."


    "I mean, it''s probably possible. Thing is if you don''t have one yet, it''s unlikely you''d be able to use one. It would also probably shrink your mana pool, unless you used both a normal pool and a core but then the gain would be marginal."


    "Really? My rough mental math puts a tennis ball sized core as being at least 3.5 times the size of my pool now."


    "What''s a tennis ball?"


    "A ball I can comfortably hold in my hand, slightly smaller than my fist. Here, I''ll make a ball of mana, you can see that right?"


    "Yup."


    Felix created a ball of normal mana above Grim the size of a tennis ball, or Felix''s best guess as it had been a while.


    "Isn''t that smaller than your pool is now?" Grim wrote.


    "Yeah but if it''s a liquid, it''ll be much denser."


    "Where are you gonna get liquid mana?"


    "I''ll make it."


    "Hold on, could you place the cube I came in on top of my page? I won''t eat it I promise."


    Felix carefully placed the cube on Grim, making sure it didn''t sink into it and sat on the page. After almost 10 minutes Grim wrote, "You can take it back now."


    Felix picked up the cube then Grim wrote, "I don''t want to push you too hard, but what will it take for you to soul-bond with me?"


    "Honestly, I just don''t understand it that well. Our souls become bonded, what does that mean?"


    "We can communicate with each-other at a minimum. Depending how strong the bond is, we can share experiences which means knowledge and memories. We will roughly know where the other is at all times, almost all. It can do more, but the bond would have to grow to get to that point."


    "None of that sounds too bad but how do I know it won''t also let you consume my soul or something?"


    "You don''t I guess. We could try and find you a familiar so you can bond to it first with that skill or naturally."


    "I''ve been looking but honestly, all the creatures in here are boring."


    "I suspect you won''t find anything you consider interesting in the tutorial then."


    "There is this griffin world boss I''ve had my eye on."


    "Don''t bother. Sounds like you probably want to kill it anyways for the rewards. As cool as a griffin is, it''s not the best familiar. Tends to plateau in usefulness later on. I''ve got a couple creatures in mind that would be perfect, but I''m not sure if they will exist on earth."


    "Alright. You''re right though, I do want to kill it. Just thought it would be cool to ride it and fly around."


    "Just fly yourself? You should pretty easily be able to fly with some simple spell work."


    "Probably, I''ve thought about it and it''s on my todo list, but mana core and channels are higher up for now."


    "Alright fair enough. Where will your core go? Usually they remain in the physical realm, and if yours is a liquid it will almost have to be."


    "Good question. I guess I have to make room between some organs for it, huh. Not sure I want to do surgery on myself though. Suddenly I am much less inclined to do this at all."


    "If your anatomy is similar to the humans I''ve known in the past, you can probably safely remove bladder and intestines. Possibly also a kidney."


    "Probably? I''m not removing organs like that."


    "They probably aren''t all used anyways. You don''t use the bathroom at all right?"


    "Right. How can I know for sure though?"


    "Cut yourself open or, I''m not trying to push this on you I swear, I could tell you if we were soul bound. It''s also possible you could try and feel out the organs, it''ll probably take a while to be certain though."


    "Damn."


    "Actually, I''ve never heard of anyone doing this but I''ve got an idea. How much liquid mana do you have?"


    Felix pulled out his canteen that he had shot off the top of his tower filled with liquid mana. "This much, can you see this?"


    "Oh man. Ok you can drink some of it then track it with your mana sense and with a little manipulation, also scan the inside of your body. Just be careful not to punch a whole in your gut or anything. Though most of that should regenerate."


    Felix sat down and drank a sip of liquid mana from the canteen. He held it in his mouth as he closed the canteen and stowed it in his inventory. He made sure he could sense the liquid then swallowed it. He followed it through his body as it traveled as expected, into his stomach. He moved it around as gently as he could to feel out the inside of his body. Some of it was slowly absorbed through his stomach and made it''s way into his bloodstream where it remained. That wasn''t what he was curious about right now though so he turned his attention back to the mana in his stomach.


    He knew some basic biology and understood that it should be possible for it to pass into his intestines, as solid food did so, he gently pushed it against the bottom of his stomach but found no opening like he expected. Instead the mana was simply passed right through his stomach lining. Where he expected intestines though, he found nothing. It wasn''t just an empty pocket of air, but he moved the mana around and found tissue that he couldn''t even feel.


    When he was moving the mana around in his stomach, he could feel it and was aware of it pushing against him. He was aware of and could feel all of his other organs, that he could identify too. He could feel his veins, heart, lungs, muscles, tendons, skin and other parts he couldn''t identify. He could effectively look through them and pay attention to what they were feeling.


    Where his intestines should have been though, there was simply nothing. He couldn''t feel the tissue at all, like it was entirely detached from his nervous system. Felix took the small sip of mana and simply nestled it in some dead tissue and left it there as he came to consciousness.


    "You were right, it''s all just dead."


    "It''s honestly rather odd you had them in the first place. I was piecing together what it all did from the dictionaries, but I don''t think I''ve ever seen those organs in a human before. Typically they have other organs in that space or just a bigger stomach and lungs."


    "Wait, really? How do I get nutrients from food?"


    "Your stomach. It completely obliterates food and everything is just absorbed through that. I take it that wasn''t the case before?"


    "Not before my evolution it wasn''t."


    "Seems overly complicated. This is much simpler."


    "I don''t think it was possible for my stomach to ''obliterate'' food before. I guess it''s just stronger now?"


    "I mean don''t eat a rock, but it seems like it."


    "What would happen then?"


    "You''d probably be forced to throw it back up."


    "Alright, moving on. It seems I can simply drink mana or pull it into existence right in there, so that issue is solved. Now I need to design the whole thing and figure out how the channels will attach to it. I know it likely won''t do anything, but I''d like them to run everywhere."


    "You could just copy your circulatory system, it seems to do a pretty good job."


    "Yeah I thought about that. How do I create veins though? I was thinking about making tubes of solid mana, but then I wouldn''t be able to move and long solid objects in my body seems like a bad idea."


    "Great question, I have no idea. You could run your mana through your veins alongside your blood. Just direct mana into your heart and have it suffuse your blood. Then you could do the same with an energy core. The biggest advantage to this right now is that your mana pool will be bigger, the channels are kind of just a hope and a dream at this point, right?"


    "That''s true. I don''t want to be pulling energy from my veins and screwing with my blood flow though."


    "I don''t think it would have any effect. Your blood and energy shouldn''t really be touching, it''s kind of like the energy is using the blood as a medium to flow through. If you pull the energy or mana out of your blood, your channels should quickly try and even themselves out and fill the gaps. While your mana will be a liquid, it''s not actually a liquid and it travels between and exists within your blood. They sort of only barely touch. You can test it out, just flood your bloodstream with energy and then use it or pull the mana you have in your blood out." . . . . .

 Chapter 74 - Book 73

    Felix paid attention to the mana in his blood and realized it had quickly dispersed itself evenly throughout his blood stream, which meant there was only a trickle in it at any given point. He slowly pulled it out of the tip of his finger and watched as the mana seemed to be pulled evenly from his entire blood stream. He tried to do the same with energy but it was harder to simulate. He flooded his bloodstream with energy then just buffed the muscles in one of his arms. The energy acted the same as the mana had, keeping itself perfectly suffused throughout his body.


    "Okay, that makes things really easy. How do I get the mana into my blood from my core though?"


    "If it evens itself out, any vein or artery should be fine, but you don''t want to bleed yourself out. Ideally something like your lungs where the mana is absorbed into your bloodstream is ideal. You could have it pump into your stomach?"


    "I''d still want some sort of flexible tube to do so, I don''t want a hard tube in my body at all."


    "It doesn''t need to be a tube at all though, you could just direct the mana once and make a channel through the dead tissue around there. Shape it into a tube of sorts. Worst case the dead tissue absorbs some of it, but the tissue isn''t actually dead otherwise it would rot. It should still be attached to your bloodstream and therefore the mana would likely make it''s way there anyways."


    "Couldn''t I just pour the mana into the tissue around it then?"


    "You could, but your stomach is designed to do that now anyways so it''s probably faster and safer."


    "Alright, well all those designs for channel layouts are useless now I guess."


    "I suspect they''ll be useful later. I''ve seen higher tier humans without any blood stream at all, though that is rare."


    "I mean yeah, I''ll keep them around, they''ll just sit in my mind palace."


    "What''s that?"


    "Was a memory technique, now it''s a skill. I have a library in my head that stores anything I want permanently."


    "How big is it?"


    "Not sure, there isn''t too much up there right now. Just a few hundred books and other random memories."


    "I see."


    Guess I can''t have the mana cycle in and out of my core then, not sure how to make it go from my heart back into the core. Same thing with energy unfortunately. Damn, I do like this plan though. It''s minimally intrusive, I should test casting spells from the mana in my blood stream though just to be sure.


    Felix drank the rest of the mana from the canteen and slowly let it suffuse his blood stream. He only had to wait a few minutes for it to be fully absorbed then he pulled mana from his blood to cast a spell, which was unacceptably slow. Felix thought about it for a bit and realized he likely wanted it not in liquid form anyways considering the last time he tried casting a spell with liquid mana. He first relaxed the mana in his blood into a gas which would normally mean it would fall back into the mana dimension. It seemed having it suffuse his blood though, giving it a medium to travel through allowed it to stick around.


    Testing the mana with a simple spell cast, he found it was just like casting with his mana pool. Releasing the mana took a miniscule fraction of a second, comparable to how long it was to reach into his pool anyways. It seemed using his veins as channels weren''t going to speed up or slow down his casting at all. sea??h th§× Novel?ire(.)ne*t website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    Well, I guess I just go for it at this point. Should I drink the mana and move it, or create the liquid mana directly inside my body? Actually I should probably make a container for the mana so I can spin it or do whatever I want with it. Probably out of solid mana. If that''s the case, I need to decide on how big it''s gonna be ahead of time. Probably as big as I can so slightly less than the thickness of my torso.


    Felix took some quick measurements with a thread of mana then began to practice creating a shell of solid mana. The method he came up with was to start from a large marble of liquid mana then grow it into a hollow sphere that he filled with normal mana so he wasn''t creating a vacuum. Then he compressed the liquid mana on the outside to solidify it. This created a very thin shell at first, but he could grow it with more mana after it was created. As long as the initial shell was in place and held it''s shape, he could go from there to fill it and make the shell thicker.


    He also decided to have a small solid tube that came out one side tangential to the shell as the output. That tube would merge with another from the shell for the energy core and would feed into his stomach. He decided he was ok with a small amount of solid tubing because it was very short, with his cores right under his stomach, and they were close enough to his spine that they shouldn''t ever be pushed on or bent too much.


    He started by creating four canteens worth of liquid mana. Once that was done, he drank the entire contents of one of them and directed all of the liquid mana through his stomach and into the location he had chosen. He was going to have his mana on the left and energy on the right. He slowly expanded the mana like a balloon, filling it with normal mana until it was just the right size. He used some mana to move the useless tissue aside a little but otherwise had no issues. He held it there as he stretched and contorted his body to make sure it wouldn''t affect anything, and the result was, he couldn''t even feel it.


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    He drank another canteen fully and added it to the sphere to make the walls much thicker before he started compressing it piece by piece into a sphere. He felt like he was creating a jigsaw puzzle out of a million pieces where all of the pieces were identical and fused together. The spheres weren''t perfectly round but Felix knew from his earlier testing he would be able to mold them a little bit at a time until they were perfect. He formed two spheres next to each-other and connected them with a few simple braces. He then formed a small tube with a dividing wall down the middle and attached it to the top of the two spheres he had created.


    Felix slowly moved and positioned the casings for the cores he had created just below his stomach positioning the tube perfectly. The foundation had been set, but he wasn''t happy with it being so thin so he drank the other two canteens and used the mana to thicken the walls. He continued to thicken the walls until he was satisfied.


    Now the interesting part.


    Felix began filling his canteens with mana once again, then drinking them and finally using that to fill the solid core shells he had created. This time he made sure to make the mana as dense as he could, right on the verge of becoming a solid. Once the left side was full he began working on collecting up as much energy as he could and funneling it into the shell on the right side. He had forgotten though, that energy wouldn''t leave his body and seemed to exist only within his cells.


    Oh shit. Change of plans. Luckily I have a bunch of, currently, useless tissue.


    Felix didn''t want to cut any of the tissue out as he didn''t want it dead, he just wanted it contained. He realized he also probably couldn''t funnel the energy into his blood through his stomach the same way mana could.


    Unless, can energy exist use mana as a medium the same way it uses cells?


    Felix created a thread of liquid mana and touched it to his abdomen then funneled the energy there. He was easily able to move the energy into the mana and directed the thread into his other core. At this point, he had about half of his energy pool and tons of mana to work with. He first experimented with how dense the mana should be to hold the optimal amount of energy. He found that having the mana in a gaseous state right on the edge of becoming a liquid held the most energy. He created a second core out of gaseous mana at the perfect density. Next, he created threads of mana to give something for the energy to flow through when it passed in and out of his core.


    The last step before he started up his cores was to figure out a way to keep the mana core filled. His energy core was attached with mana threads to his tissue in multiple places and the spinning of the core should pull the energy into it. The energy should then be balanced and distributed through his body through the single output tube. He was slightly worried he wouldn''t be able to pull from the core fast enough, but he would just have to test it and adjust from there. His mana core functioned in the same way, except he wasn''t sure how to keep it filled other than to consciously fill it. He didn''t have to drink mana to fill it, he could simply pull mana directly into his core from his pool and the ambient, but that was currently a conscious effort. The other issue was that the mana had to somehow become a liquid, hopefully without his conscious attention.


    Felix was about to explain the problem to Grim, but got distracted with something he had been wondering.


    "Hey Grim, are you male, female or something else? I keep flipping between it and they because I don''t really know."


    "I''m a book, not sure how I could have a gender."


    "Do any of the pronouns sounds particularly fitting to you? Do any of them resonate with you more than the others? You can choose whatever you want, I just want to know what to refer to you as, even if it''s currently only in my own thoughts."


    "Not really. Wait, important question, what are your sexual preferences?"


    "I''m straight, only ever been attracted to women."


    "Let''s go with male then. I want to avoid the possibility that you ever have romantic feelings towards me."


    "I don''t think that ever would have been an issue."


    "I think it could have. You''ll know what I mean later on."


    "Well, alright then. Back to the task at hand, how do I refill my core?"


    "Do the same thing as your energy core?"


    "My energy is just in my tissue, I can run a thread to it and pull the energy. My mana pool is in another dimension, how do I run a tube there?"


    "Is it in another dimension?"


    "Oh shit, no it isn''t, not really. Is that possible though?"


    "Possibly? I''ve never even heard of any of this being done before but I don''t see why it wouldn''t work."


    "I guess I don''t even need tubes then, thanks."


    Felix reentered a meditation and looked inwards. Mana was theoretically not in it''s own dimension, it was just shifted in a spatial dimension. Realistically, he should be able to just run a thread from his current position to the position of mana, running axially in that spatial dimension. The thread would then act as a channel for the mana to move from his pool and the ambient to his core. He could also use the spinning of the core like a pump, at least theoretically. It might also be possible to use tubes instead of threads or threads inside of tubes.


    After some experimentation, Felix managed to get a thread that ran into the mana dimension, the problem was that it was very fragile. Large disturbances in the ambient mana, his normal mana pool or even if he just moved his body too quickly, the thread would snap. His next attempt was with solid mana tubes, which worked as he had hoped, but had other big issues. The pulling force from spinning his core was not enough to pull mana through and it only pulled the mana as a gas. His solution was to have a funnel or reverse jet and have the end of the funnel just on the inside of his core. This would cause the mana around the end to effectively pull the mana through the funnel and into his core. If he made the end thin enough, he could almost turn the gaseous mana into liquid mana.


    He realized though, that no matter what he did, when he spun the core fast enough, it would be denser the further in the mana was. It was similar to the portable star spell in that the core was the most dense and it grew lighter the further from the core the mana was. The input being gaseous also caused there to effectively be an atmosphere around the core. The gaseous mana acted as a lubricant between the rapidly spinning core and the walls of his casing allowing the core to spin very quickly and undisturbed by friction. The gaseous mana was then also sucked into the core as it spun, like a vortex, compressing it as it was pulled inwards and joined the core. This also worked on his energy core, compressing it as much as possible just from the spinning.


    Felix had tested everything outside of his body, now he had to actually start them up. First he made sure they were both about half full as he wanted to minimize potential catastrophes. He held on to and spun the cores right in the center of their casing slowly bringing them up to about half of the speed he was hoping for. He then carefully attached threads of mana to his energy core that would act as sources. He also connected his mana pool to his mana core for it''s input. They should pull on their own but he had to start the process, like siphoning gas with a hose. . . . . .

 Chapter 75 - Book 74

    Felix wasn''t ready to connect the outputs yet as he wanted to make sure everything else was stable first. He had to speed up both cores significantly past what he had wanted them to be so that they would pull from his pools efficiently. Once he tuned the shapes of the input tubes and speed of the cores he started to fill the cores as much as he could. He depleted both his energy and mana pools then began drawing in ambient mana until his mana core was close to 80% of it''s capacity. Finally he was ready to connect his cores, he wished his energy pool was more full, but he didn''t have a fast way of regenerating energy at the moment.


    He slowly moved the start of the output tubes below the surface of the cores so that their natural spin pushed mana through them and suddenly had his stomach flooded with mana. He quickly held the mana manually and thinned the output tubes until they only let a manageable amount into his stomach. He moved the output tubes into position right next to the center of his cores so that he was getting the densest resources he could.


    He had to further adjust things as he went but overall, it was looking like a great success. He found his energy core continued to fill up and he couldn''t figure out where the energy was coming from at first, until he realized his mana was being consumed. When he had previously tested mixing energy and mana before infusing his cells, he hadn''t even considered that maybe mana could become energy. When he was observing the effects, he didn''t notice it because he was looking for something completely different. To supplement this consumption he helped manually fill his mana core until both cores were filled to the brim.


    Ding You have manually modified your race and gained the Racial Trait: [Mana Core (Uncommon) A centralized location within the body containing mana. Cores can have many different sizes, shapes, and effects. Your core will spin drawing mana from your mana pool and compressing it into a liquid. Your core has the following effects: +90 x Intelligence Mana, +100% Passive Mana Regeneration Rate]


    Ding You have manually modified your race and gained the Racial Trait: [Energy Core (Rare) A centralized location within the body containing energy. Cores can have many different sizes, shapes, and effects. Your core will spin drawing energy from your body, mixing it with mana and compressing it. Your core has the following effects: +30 x Endurance Energy, +1000% Passive Energy Regeneration at the cost of mana]


    Woah, that''s a lot. Huh, no Racial Trait for Mana Channels though? I guess I am kind of piggy backing off of my circulatory system.


    Felix also found that he didn''t need to do anything manually with his cores at all anymore as The System seemed to be managing them for him. It kept them spinning at speed and made sure the inputs and outputs were maintained. He also found that he didn''t even notice the mana depletion from his Energy Core Trait, especially not after his mana regeneration was doubled.


    He started testing the effectiveness of his makeshift channels, first with energy. He had previously refused an energy buffing skill because he was pretty sure he could find a better one with a little work. Now he didn''t have energy cycles at all, instead energy traveled using his blood as a medium to all of his limbs. He found that if he consciously pulled the energy into his muscles or organs, it would simply be drawn out of his blood naturally. It was much more efficient and cleaner than what he was doing before. He spent a little bit of time tuning it so that his intelligence, dexterity, agility and perception were buffed as much as he could at all times.


    He practiced a few times with buffing his strength to jump and run and immediately noticed his buff was now around a 75% increase instead of just 50%. He compared his stats before and after his buff to confirm.


    Name:Felix KadeFREE0Innate:Ascendant Prodigy: Mana (Wizard)STR672Class:[E - Common] Caster (Lvl 82)DEX672Race:[E - Common] Human (Lvl 87)AGI672Profession:[E - Special] Arcane Engineer (Lvl 92)PER672Health:13324/13440VIT672Mana:134400/134400INT1344Energy:26880/26880END672Name:Felix KadeFREE0Innate:Ascendant Prodigy: Mana (Wizard)STR1176Class:[E - Common] Caster (Lvl 82)DEX1176Race:[E - Common] Human (Lvl 87)AGI1176Profession:[E - Special] Arcane Engineer (Lvl 92)PER1176Health:23513/23520VIT1176Mana:235200/235200INT2352Energy:47040/47040END1176


    I guess it doesn''t matter if I buff my dexterity or agility or perception since the buff applies before the amulet it seems. I guess the buff is like directly increasing my bodies performance while the amulet is going from the state of my body? Maybe. I''ll have to ask someone but who the hell would know this kind of thing other than The System. If it wanted to answer me it would have since it can definitely listen to my thoughts.


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    Ding You have demonstrated sufficient proficiency to unlock the General Skill: [Core Energy Infusion (Rare) By infusing different parts of your body with energy, you are able to train your body to be more efficient as well as increase it''s performance. By restricting the flow of energy to your bodily functions, your body is becoming gradually more efficient. By increasing the flow of energy to specific bodily functions, you can increase their performance. By increasing the flow of energy to entire systems, you can increase your stats for as long as you have energy. This energy is supplied by your core and it''s density increases this skills efficiency. This skill can be upgraded. The amount of performance and stats you gain are dependent on your core density and bodily efficiency. You may alter the current state of the buff at any time through intent. (Current maximum stat increase: 75%)]


    Yes please, thank you. Now The System should manage the whole thing and make it all seamless. I wonder if in future I could drop the skill and just do it manually. That would be a lot of multitasking but maybe I can split my brain to handle multiple processes later on.


    Felix checked what day it was and saw that he still had a day or so until he had to go see Henry and a few days until the holiday. His first order of business was to bathe then he wanted to start creating spells in preparation for the world bosses. Before he did any of that though, he walked over to Grim and wrote, "Hey Grim, open up." He then pulled out the rest of his mana batteries and fed them all to Grim.


    "Success I take it?" Grim asked.


    "Huge success."


    "Congratulations."


    Felix had noticed the rest of the bedroom furniture had arrived and heading down the tower he immediately noticed the rest of the rooms had also been filled with furniture. It was mostly as he had imagined, wood chairs, shelves, tables and random rugs. It looked decent enough, but honestly, Felix didn''t overly care about most of it. He did care a lot about the lab floor though which was exactly as he had hoped it would be, tables everywhere with shelves and bins for tons of storage.


    He left it for now and ran straight through the city heading south to the river. He arrived in just under 20 minutes and bathed as best he could in the river. He could have gone to a bathhouse, which he recently learned existed, but it was a pretty easy jog down to the river and he didn''t feel like talking to people. When he was done he headed back up to the city and towards the builders guild hub.


    He found Amelia relatively easily at the guild hub and paid her 150k credits for the rest of the furniture. Afterwards, he headed straight back to the tower and headed up to the lab floor. Grim floated over to rest on the table in front of him.


    "So what''s your next project?"


    "Now I''m gonna work on improving my spells. I plan on taking on a world boss solo soon and The System recommends 250 or so level 50s to take it on. I also need to increase my diversity. Right now, I just fall pretty heavily on Fire Bolts."


    I hope Grim doesn''t count as a party member and steal my experience points. Maybe I should bond to him to be sure, then he''d be more like a familiar.


    "Seems reasonable to me. Do you have any spells in specific you''re gonna try to create?"


    "I can already make javelins but I want something more blade like. I fought a tree in a swamp a few weeks ago and had to just blast through it with raw fire power, literally. It mostly used vines for attacking and defending so some sort of blade spell would have been ideal. I''d also like to figure out lightning but that''s a lower priority. Oh also mana or mage armor and shield if I get to it."


    "You aren''t worried about your defense fighting world bosses? Seems like you should prioritize that, shouldn''t you?"


    "I figure no matter how good I get it in the next few days, any of the world bosses will rip right through it anyways."


    "Maybe, it''s also possible it saves your life."


    "Yeah but so could killing it faster."


    "Yeah, I guess."


    The first task Felix took on was to perfect both his standard Fire Bolts and Pocket-Star Fire-Bolts. With his standard Fire Bolts, he had already upped the heat and density of the fire as well as added some inward force to keep them stable and spun them. He was already pretty happy with the spell but spent a few hours experimenting further with different rings and multiple nodes instead of a single fire node. His last experiment was with not using nodes at all, now that he could change the attunement of the mana directly, he theoretically didn''t need them.


    In reality though, the nodes were still much faster. It took Felix a few seconds to change the energy level and attunement of enough mana for the spell, which was much too long for use in combat. He spent a few hours though tuning the exact parameters of the spell until it was as fast and efficient as he could make it. The efficiency was less important with a standard Fire Bolt but having the efficiency scale up when he oversized them was important.


    With the Pocket-Star Fire-Bolts he first fiddled with his Pocket Star, which was much easier to cast now that he had such a massive mana pool. He increased the spin on the ball and also experimented with casting a shell around it so it cooled off slower. Unfortunately, it sucked in so much air to keep itself burning that the insulation provided by the shell was negligible at best. He did however figure out how best to hold it, fuel it and siphon from it. He had it spinning just in front of him with threads of fire being siphoned off into Fire Bolts. He could manage to hold the star together and create four Fire Bolts at the same time.


    Next he started trying to figure out how to make some kind of blade spell. Ultimately he found that he had to manually shape blades from mana which was inefficient as hell. What he really wanted was shaping nodes for blades. Unfortunately he didn''t know any and didn''t have anywhere to look for them. It was possible Grim knew some but he didn''t offer any and Felix didn''t bother asking. He figured if he did know any, he would probably offer them himself. He could however move the blades very easily with his mana control alone. He debated creating the blades ahead of time then storing them in his inventory but didn''t end up doing it just yet. He was still holding out hope for a better option.


    By the time he had finished experimenting with blade spells it was about time to go and see Henry. Felix headed out of the tower and straight to Henry''s forge where he knocked on the large steel door. Felix was still getting used to his strength that came from the amulet after buffing his intelligence so he knocked a little harder than intended. Henry opened the door after just a few moments, "Oi, it is you. You are the only one who knocks that hard." sea??h th§× Nov§×l?ire.n(e)t website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    Henry stepped inside and Felix followed, closing the door behind him. Henry led Felix to a table off to the side from the forges where a beautiful suit of plate armor lay. It was made of v shaped interlocking plates over the joints and flexible areas. The whole thing was made of some metal a few shades darker than steel with white trim on the edges of the interlocking plates.


    [E - Uncommon] Carbon Steel Plate Armor


    A suit of plate armor designed to be as flexible as possible while still offering complete protection.


    "This one is kind of a gamble on my part. I know high carbon steel is rather brittle so it don''t make for the best armor but I was hoping you might be able to enchant it to fix that. As it is, I can''t break Uncommon with the material."


    "I''ll see what I can do. Do you have a few sample plates or pieces of high carbon steel I can experiment on?"


    "I have a few scrap plates I was gonna melt down over there." Henry gestured with a nod.


    "How permanent do you want the enchantment?"


    "Very?"


    "Most basic enchantments last for a few years or longer depending on the material and it''s wear. I can also do a permanent enchantment but that requires inlaying metal into the armor."


    "Oh a few years should be fine. I doubt anyone will be wearing this that long and if they do, they can come back for a touch-up or maintenance."


    "Perfect. Anything else you want on this specifically?"


    "Make it stronger, lighter. Anything else to make it better armor. The client is a bit of a show-boat too so, if it doesn''t disrupt the other enchantments, you can add some cosmetic nonsense. Oh almost forgot, they are getting the Tri-Peak logo painted on the breastplate too. I''ll go grab the painter when you are done. If you can, try to avoid disturbing the circle in the middle of the armor."


    "Who is this guy anyways?"


    "A rather wealthy builder who wants to start adventuring now." . . . . .

 Chapter 76 - Book 75

    Henry headed back to his forges leaving Felix to work and Felix headed over to the bin of scraps that Henry had previously pointed out then dragged it over to an empty table. He experimented with enchanting the steel and tuned the ratios of elasticity, flexibility and hardness. About halfway through his testing, Henry got curious and came over to help test the plates by smacking them with a hammer and offering scrap weapons as well.


    Felix found the ideal ratio to be about 5 to 2 to 2 for elasticity, flexibility and harness. He had the elasticity much lower and was happy with it initially, but then he started adding another enchantment, force distribution. With all the enchantments together, a higher ratio for elasticity was more suitable.


    Felix experimented with other enchantments but didn''t find anything else he was happy with so he did one final test on the most pristine scrap he could find. Henry approved of the enchantment so he got to work on the armor itself.


    It took Felix almost 12 hours to completely enchant the suit of armor. He didn''t face any major issues and was very happy with the result. He even added an even glow on the front of the armor, where the logo would go, that would light up when the armor was struck. He left that as a surprise and didn''t even tell Henry about it. When it was done, Henry inspected the armor and seemed very pleased with the result, likely due to it''s new rarity.


    [E - Special] Armor of Protection


    A suit of plate armor designed to be as flexible as possible while still offering complete protection. The suit is enchanted to be more durable, lighter and distribute the force of blows evenly.


    "I''ll get the painter down here tomorrow morning and have it delivered in the afternoon. Once the painter is done, the Tri-Peak Armor of Protection will definitely be an eye catcher."


    "Does the logo change the item''s name?"


    "Yup. A couple of people have had it done recently and it''s picking up in popularity. Seems like people have decided to tie themselves to the city for better or for worse."


    Henry asked Felix if he wanted to enchant anything else but Felix said he didn''t have much time. He did offer to enchant a weapon or two if Henry sent them up to the tower but otherwise he had some things to take care of. Felix found it slightly odd that Henry didn''t ask about the French dictionary floating around him but didn''t think much of it. He headed back up the tower to continue with his spell work. Before he started, Grim floated in front of him.


    "That was nice of you, but wasn''t it kind of a waste of time? Did you just really need the money?" Grim''s pages read.


    "Nah, I definitely don''t need the money. I wanted some amount of real world experience with enchanting. Before this all I had was the dungeon and some practice equipment. I''d read some books about techniques and tips but maybe I just needed affirmation that the enchantments would actually be useful."


    "Fair enough."


    "I also learned that planning for enchantments ahead of time with the materials, instead of using the best material then enchanting it is definitely the way to go. He used an unideal metal for armor but enchantments essentially mitigated it''s flaws entirely and made it something Special."


    "You don''t need to highlight them to me, there is no way I''m gonna miss word play." Sear?h the nov§×lF~ire.net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    "Hey, you disguised yourself as a French dictionary again right? I''m wondering why he didn''t comment on you at all."


    "Nope, I just made myself kind of invisible. Same way your mask does. I can be seen, but people just don''t notice and don''t remember unless they try really hard. Figured it would be really weird to take a book into a forge."


    "Can I do that too?"


    "Probably, it''s something you do with your soul, not a spell. It''s also possible to make an invisibility spell that redirects light, but it''s much harder. What you can do instead is influence their experience of seeing you. Essentially when someone looks at you, your souls communicate. They read each-other involuntarily. You can basically make it so that when they read your soul, you forcefully tell them to forget and look away. It only really works on people much weaker than you who have no training with their souls at all. If he really cared, Henry probably could have just forced the issue and focused on me."


    "What else can soul magic do?"


    "It''s not really magic, though I guess it technically counts. There''s a weird undefined line between mana magic and soul magic where certain things are way easier with one over the other. Invisibility is hard, making people not think about you is relatively easy. Changing memories is essentially impossible with normal magic and very possible with soul magic, though no easily. Entire illusory spaces are possible with both, but easier with soul magic as the target''s brain will fill in gaps more readily, also bending light on that scale is ridiculous. For something like that though, you probably want to combine the two."


    "Well I guess soul cultivation is moving up on my priority list."


    Alright, time to figure out a good firework spell.


    Now that Felix had more nodes and more background on spells, a firework spell was trivial. He simply created a two stage spell, one that launched a projectile into the air then a time delay so the projectile would explode in light. That just made colored balls though, what he really wanted, was a firework that drew something in the sky. He decided to ask Grim for help and together they crafted a spell that Felix was very happy with. It was absurdly complex and inefficient, but it would be pretty. He wanted to test it at the intended size, but it was likely that someone would see it and he didn''t want to spoil the surprise. Grim assured him it should work though, so that fueled his confidence somewhat.


    Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.


    With the remainder of his time, Felix wanted to figure out how to make better mana batteries. He wanted to experiment with spells more, but he was worried the bosses health would be so great he would still run out of mana despite his core. Unfortunately, referencing his blueprint, he didn''t have the materials to craft a true mana battery. He would need some kind of crystal as well as a bunch of other things he didn''t have. He did have another idea though, he could just make single use batteries. If he solidified a bunch of mana, he could later consume it quickly to replenish his core and pool.


    He spent the next few days until the celebration doing just that, solidifying as much mana as he could into softball sized crystals. He had a dozen of them even after feeding one to Grim as a backup incase his rechargeable battery mana pool ran out. That should allow for him to replenish almost his entire mana pool a dozen times over, not to mention passive and active regeneration using ambient mana.


    The day of the festival came and Felix, wearing his disguise, perused the food, drink and wares of the different shops in the city. The festival was still ramping up as it was planned to really kick off later that day, but the city was still packed with people, many of which were tourists from other forts. The shops all offered their normal goods as well as some particular item they were hoping would become a tradition. Some were weird and others were a little tacky but Felix had a good time browsing and sampling some of them nonetheless. He also ended up shuffling his flasks drink in preparation for the occasion and settled on a warm spiced cider that was a little minty and a little spicy.


    As the sun fell through the sky, the celebrations swelled with more people around, more food consumed and a lot more noise. Felix decided to go and see if Noah or Amelia needed help with logistics and was surprised to find them heading up the stairs to his tower on his map. He rushed over to meet them and managed to catch up with them before they reached his door. He removed his mask and approached, "Looking for me I take it?"


    "Oh, were you just in the city?"


    "Yeah, figured I''d just walk around and see the different traditions people are trying to start."


    Amelia cringed, "Yeah¡­ They''ve been pretty silly from what I''ve seen."


    Felix nodded.


    "Any chance we could watch the fireworks from the top of your tower? The city has been a little much lately and well¡­" Noah asked tentatively.


    "He''s hiding from all the people asking him for things." Amelia finished.


    Noah sighed, "People keep asking the most mundane things, ''Can I have live music?'' Yes of course, ''Can I have live combat?'' Yes, not in the street, not with real weapons."


    Thank god they don''t come asking me these things.


    "Yeah sure thing, I''ll have to head up there once the sun sets for a few minutes to ''make an appearance'', but otherwise it''s all yours." Felix responded.


    "Ooh, what do you have planned?" Amelia asked.


    "You''ll have to wait and see."


    They all headed up into the tower together, Amelia and Noah to the roof while Felix settled into the Lounge in front of a fireplace.


    "Hey Grim, tomorrow I''m gonna head out to fight the world bosses. I think I''ll probably head to the griffin first, any advice?"


    "Honestly, I still know very little about your entire universe. I''m piecing together what a ''world boss'' is from the definitions but realistically I have no idea how strong they are and I''m only somewhat sure of how strong you are. Relative to each-other, I have no idea. Do you have a backup plan or way to escape if things do go sideways?"


    "I have an escape rod thing, break it and get away essentially. Should be enough."


    "If you say so."


    "Guess I''ll have to feed you more books then. Can you learn from my memories if we bonded?"


    "Almost definitely, unless your thoughts are encrypted."


    "You can do that?"


    "Yeah, but it''s really annoying and not worth it."


    "The more I think about it, the worse it gets."


    "Yeah, it''s one of those things that sounds cool at first, but has about a thousand issues preventing it from ever working well and limited benefits."


    "So who or what are you, Grim?"


    "I sort of can''t tell much more than what I''ve said unless we soul-bond. It will make slightly more or a lot less sense, depending on how you look at it, once you know."


    "How cryptic."


    Felix and Grim discussed Felix''s plan for taking on the griffin for the next few hours before Felix had to head to the roof. He found Noah and Amelia sitting on a sofa one of them had brought in their inventories. The fireworks were just starting to kick off with some interesting displays. No one had quite figured out how to make fireworks again the way they were on earth so most of the attempts were a little odd. There was everything from essentially grenades thrown into the sky to just pure light shows with attempted laser beams. Mostly they were funny and Felix was glad he didn''t have to deal with any of the safety concerns.


    Once they started to die down, Felix walked up to the edge of the roof and cast a few simple firework spells which were simply lights that split into balls. They were much closer to traditional fireworks than any of the attempts from the city. After a few dozen, he prepped the big one. Felix prepared three spells, two normal fireworks in a mix of blue and white and a single spell in the middle that was one of the most complicated spells he had ever cast. Once it was done he cast the two spells to the side then the middle one a few seconds later.


    Blue and white lights showered the sky above Tri-Peak before the last firework, the one that had cost Felix the majority of his mana pool, blasted through the center. The spell drew out the logo of Tri-Peak valley in the correct colors out of balls of light. There were three peaks out of white light with a tower on the middle one and a book resting in the valley with purple accents. It wasn''t perfect, but it was very good and easily recognizable. It was also massive in comparison to all of the other fireworks on display that night.


    The spell had required a combination of many shape nodes to create the logo as well as a ton of force to fire off the lights. It was only so big, because there were so many components to fit into the spell form. Felix was satisfied with the display and Amelia and Noah seemed transfixed. He left them alone just after firing it off and watching to make sure it was successful.


    "Thanks for your help with that one Grim. That spell was annoying as hell."


    "Of course. There are much more efficient ways of achieving the same effect, but not with the nodes you know."


    "I take it you aren''t allowed to show me new ones then?"


    "Unfortunately not."


    "Oh well."


    Felix headed outside onto the side of the mountain his tower was attached to and began actively refilling his mana pool. Once he was done, he climbed over the rest of the mountain and headed east towards the forest. It didn''t take him long until the griffin''s territory was in sight but he decided to wait until sun up to engage. In the meantime he created some blades out of solid mana and stored them in his inventory then experimented with using them on the trees around him. He didn''t have quite enough time to make another mana battery but he figured he shouldn''t need it.


    By the time the sun had risen in the sky, the weather had changed. It was an overcast day, the sky blanketed with a thin grey cloud cover that provided a slight drizzle. Despite the dour weather, Felix was excited and ready to fight. He had spent some time theorizing how the Griffin might fight and talked through it with Grim, who knew about Griffins. Turns out Griffins varied greatly, with some utilizing magic and others entirely physical attacks.


    Felix left the forest and headed south, directly into the Griffins territory. The ground was a combination of light beach sand with grass growing through it. There was no other vegetation in sight, with the only thing marking the landscape being small hills. Atop one of the hills lay the Griffin. . . . . .

 Chapter 77 - Book 76

    As Felix approached, getting closer than he had dared last time, he realized just how massive the Griffin was. It also didn''t quite match what Felix remembered a Griffin to be. It was covered entirely in yellow feathers with bright orange on the ends. It had two front legs with eagle talons and two back legs with cat''s claws. It''s wings were large, but not overly impressive when Felix remembered the Roc near Bastion of Hope.


    The Bastion of Hope? A Bastion of Hope? Ugh, it''s such a bad name.


    [E - Special] Griffin (Lvl 87)


    Exactly the same, equally comforting and eerie.


    In all of Felix''s theorizing he had decided his best bet would be to start with tried and true Fire Bolts. He planned on using Pocket-Star Fire-Bolts as they were stronger, but in general feathered and furry creatures tended to fare poorly against fire. He stood a top a hill a few hundred meters away from where the Griffin was napping and began to create a Pocket Star.


    He suspected he would need more power than usual so he had specifically tested a larger and stronger variant to provide more heat and more fuel when fighting the world bosses. He held it in front of him and began pulling fire from it into four different Fire Bolts spread out to the side.


    Once he was ready, he let loose the Fire Bolts on the Griffin, managing to hit all of them on it''s side. They didn''t appear to do much damage visually, but they definitely angered the Griffin. The first attack it launched on Felix was an ear shattering screech that reverberated through the air as it rose to it''s full height. It''s back was about 5 meters off the ground with the top of it''s head much higher than that. It''s total wingspan was massive as it unfurled it''s wings and leapt into the air.


    It caused Felix to be buffeted by the strongest winds he had ever felt, but he had planned for that. He cast a quick mana shield to protect his star and braced himself, crouching to so he didn''t fall over. He did slide backwards, his feet scraping the ground, but he was still standing, and ready to fight back.


    He looked up and saw the Griffin circling above him, slowly flying further outwards as it lowered towards him. He quickly fired off a few Pocket-Star Fire-Bolts but only barely managed to hit a single one. He started to adjust his aim and managed to hit around half of the 20 or so projectiles he fired before the Griffin finally attacked.


    As it swung around in it''s loop in the air, it quickly dove downwards towards Felix. It was extraordinarily fast, but that didn''t seem to translate perfectly to the air as Felix managed to dash off to the side. The griffin wasn''t planning on physically attacking Felix this time though, instead it slammed it''s wings downwards firing a blast of air, stronger than the liquid mana fueled gust, at it''s prey.


    Felix was shot off the ground but managed to shield the Pocket Star entirely in a sphere of mana to keep it going. It was the only hope he had of doing enough damage to the thing so it was second only to his life on the list of things to protect.


    Luckily, Grim was floating just outside of the fight and seemed mostly unharmed by the strong winds. He was launched from side to side but Felix wasn''t worried about him, he could handle himself.


    The griffin had risen back into the air by the time Felix was standing again and began circling once more. This time, instead of standing still and waiting for the Griffin to attack, Felix began running around at his full speed zig-zagging and strafing, trying to make himself harder to hit and lock down. As he ran, he fired off a couple of Bolts but his accuracy had declined now that he was also a moving target.


    Man this thing would be cool as a familiar, I really wish I didn''t have this stupid tutorial screen that makes these things an objective to kill. It''s basically an achievement screen so I pretty much have to kill it. Oh well. This one is probably going to take a while.


    Felix continued to fire off Star Fueled Fire Bolts as he darted around trying to preempt and avoid any incoming attacks. The Griffin mostly just circled around in the sky. After another few loops the Griffin began attacking Felix with blasts of air from afar. It would dive to within a few dozen meters of Felix, use it''s wings to generate wind then rise again and repeat. At first Felix though it was just being silly, not attacking him with the stronger attack from before, but soon he realized it was just creating a wind storm. The wind started to pull the grass and sand into it as well whipping them around and making it increasingly difficult to see.


    With the winds picking up, Felix kept his star almost entirely encased in solid mana to prevent it from being blown out. The sand carried by the wind buffeted him and slowly ate away at his health pool. Felix continued to fire off bolts at the Griffin as it dove but they were mostly being blown out by the strong winds. A couple of them were landing here and there but largely they died out long before they found their mark.


    Then came the real attacks. While some Griffins had magic, according to Grim, most of them were melee fighters relying on high strength and agility along with their beak and claws to rip their prey apart. Once Felix could only see a few meters in front of himself and was close to being knocked over at any minute, the Griffin began to dive within melee range to claw at Felix.


    He managed to dodge out of the way at the last second, usually because he could just hear the whistle from it diving as well as feel a particularly strong wind. He dodged a few phantoms, him expecting there to be an enemy that wasn''t there at all, but he was ok with that if it meant avoiding the real griffin when it did attack.


    The Griffin finally managed to snag Felix''s forearm on one of it''s dives and ripped right through to the bone, only stopping due to Felix engaging his arm wraps just after it hit. His health plummeted by a quarter, which was lucky as he was expecting to lose much more. The arm wraps kept the wound shut as long as he infused them with mana meaning he could keep on going. Felix gritted his teeth through the pain and continued running. He quickly consumed the entirely of the meager 500 health heal on his ring to help staunch the bleeding.


    Why didn''t I just have those permanently infused? I have more than enough energy to do so. Such a stupid mistake, ugh.


    Now that Felix was expecting the dives, he began to react to them and fight back. The next time he felt a dive coming, he blasted towards it with the fire from his Pocket Star creating the biggest flame thrower he could without destabilizing the spell. Luckily, he wasn''t reacting to a phantom and managed to hit the Griffin, who was likely getting cocky after landing a single blow. The superhot flames poured over it''s head causing it to screech as it flew by. Felix knew it had crash landed as he heard and felt the impact. He quickly ran over to keep it in his sights and saw it had already risen to meet him head on.


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    Felix kited back as he fired off bolts of fire fueled from his Pocket Star with a little extra push to help combat the winds. The Griffin leapt forwards, knocking Felix over with it''s wing but missing with it''s beak as he jumped to the side. The casing managed to protect the Pocket Star, but it needed some minor maintenance.


    Felix scrambled to stand and the Griffin pivoted towards him. Felix was now running as fast as he could while throwing Fire Bolt''s over his shoulder. The Griffin was faster than Felix though and whenever it got in range, it swiped with it''s talons or tried to catch him with it''s beak. It had already torn his cloak and cut his right leg causing it to bleed profusely as he ran. The cut slowed him down further bringing the Griffin closer to catching him with every attempted strike.


    Felix began flooding as much mana as he could into his Pocket Star in a last ditch attempt. Once the Griffin got close enough for it''s next strike, he threw the star at it. He knew he had hit it based purely on the screech of pain that erupted from behind him, he only hoped it was enough to slow it down a little bit. He quickly cast a jump spell with the time he had bought himself and bounded forwards. Just as he left the ground, the Griffin''s talon pierced his left calf right through the leg causing Felix to slam into the ground in front of him. Before he had a chance to recover from his head smacking the ground, the griffin''s beak pierced his torso reducing his health to 0.


    The winds had died down allowing the grass and sand to settle across the field. The Griffin had returned to the hill top it favored to lick it''s minor wounds and go back to sleep. There was no sign of the battle that had just taken place except for Felix''s broken and battered corpse lying on the ground. His face was in the dirt and the winds had covered him in a light layer of sand. The gaping hole in his chest was closed but the gashes on his arm and leg remained, slowly bleeding.


    Felix was conscious but he knew that if he didn''t get up, he would die. Not from being buried alive, he could survive a while without breath, he would die from the blood loss he could easily stop. The cut on his leg was minor but the gash on his arm was the one that would kill him. All he had to do to stop it, to start healing back up, was to infuse his arm bands to hold the wound shut. He even had way more than enough energy to do so.


    Felix lay on the ground in immense pain from the cut on his arm, the throbbing headache and the shards of solid mana in his gut. At some point, either when he smashed into the ground, or when the Griffin''s beak had pierced through his chest, his cores were shattered. The casing was reduced to sharp shards of mana that were tearing through his stomach whenever he breathed. The mana and energy that were inside of them flooded his body when they broke, most of it wasted but some of it going towards filling his pools.


    At first Felix didn''t dare move so he didn''t risk injuring himself. Then he didn''t dare move because the Griffin might be looking to feast upon it''s fallen prey. Now, he didn''t move because he didn''t want to move. In all the fights before this one, Felix had the upper hand, and a plan B. He had ways of getting away but he didn''t ever feel the need to use them. He had torn through enemies up to 13 levels higher than himself and some that were much bigger than any that had ever existed on earth.


    Felix had felt like a god, an unstoppable machine of destruction. The fact that he knew he was better than all the other humans in the tutorial, seeing Lucas casting, seeing parties of people struggle to fight things their own level. It all reinforced his belief that he was better than all of them.


    He didn''t specifically think he was a match for 250 level 50s, but he clearly thought he was, somewhere deep down. Otherwise why would he have tried to fight something like that. He thought it was a similar level to himself, it couldn''t be too much stronger. Evidently though, he was wrong. Whatever stats the other creatures he had faced had, the Griffin had many times more. However much health they had, however much damage they took, the Griffin was just more, and by no small margin.


    It was rare that any enemy had ever gotten close enough to land a blow on Felix, and when they did he usually managed to get away shortly afterwards, effectively cutting the attack short. The Griffin, was faster and stronger. It chased him down and tore him apart, like it was nothing.


    Fighting the Griffin, after it had landed, was the first time Felix had felt real fear in a fight since he was chased by a fox into the first Puzzle Dungeon. The Griffin landed and it closed in on him, he never had time to cast anything to get away, it was constantly right behind him. He barely managed to dodge some of it''s attacks, and the ones he didn''t, were his undoing.


    He knew he had the ring and the rod of escape, but he was certain he was going to die as soon as it had cut his leg. Even if the ring would bring him back, he didn''t want to die. He didn''t want to be struck down. Instinctually he wanted to live, and he also didn''t want to believe it was possible for him to lose.


    Felix lay in the dirt, buried in sand, not wanting to accept the reality that he had lost. Not wanting to ever see the Griffin again. Not wanting to ever feel the despair of the inevitable ever again. Felix lay in the dirt, mouth full of sand and watched as his health points dwindled. He felt the blood pouring out of his arm.


    Ding Your cores have been damaged. Until they are repaired manually, their effects will be inactive.


    Oh well.


    250/23520 health.


    What''s the point?


    225/23520 health. sea??h th§× N??elFir§×.net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    I could become an enchanter, start up a business, I''d have lots of customers¡­


    200/23520 health.


    I''d rather die.


    175/23520 health.


    It was all so boring before, then it was fun.


    150/23520 health.


    I could find a party, people I can trust to protect me. We could fight together, have each-other''s back?


    125/23520 health.


    I hate people though. We would have to share experience, deal with each-others feelings. Plus having a tank stand in front of you, a healer keep you alive makes fights boring. Where''s the excitement in that.


    100/23520 health.


    The idea of giving up is just¡­ disturbing. It feels wrong.


    75/23520 health.


    I''d rather die.


    55/23520 health.


    ¡­


    42/23520 health.


    _I want to fight though, I want to feel the excitement.


    37/23520 health.


    I want to practice and train to get better, to be better. I want to come up with interesting solutions to hard problems.


    24/23520 health.


    I just don''t¡­ I don''t ever want to lose again. I want to win.


    17/23520 health.


    I can''t give up. No more losing. If I fight, I give it everything I have. Fight to the last breath. I prepare as best I can for every fight and I will never give up.


    Felix felt the last statement resonate with himself, it felt inspiring, it felt right and he felt it in his soul. No System screen appeared, but he knew he was bound by that statement. He wouldn''t give up, couldn''t, not ever. If it was possible to win, he would. If it wasn''t, that would be the end, but he was never going to let himself get into that situation. He had gotten cocky, he had almost died. From now on, he would be better. He would train harder. He would be smarter. He would win.


    Felix infused his arm bands to staunch the bleeding and watched as his health dropped to just 8 points before it began to rise again. He lay perfectly still and watched as it rose. He entered a meditation and watched his health rise almost a percent every two minutes. Once his health was at around 10%, he turned his attention to his shattered cores.


    He was once proud of his cores, now he looked at them in disgust. They were fragile, they were sloppy. He could do better, and he knew it. He reabsorbed all of the solid mana from the casing so it stopped tearing through his body and he collected what remained of their contents.


    His mana was full, his energy was high but depleting rapidly as his body consumed it to heal and his health was low. He didn''t know if the Griffin was nearby or watching, but he stood anyways. He rose from the ground as if rising from a grave. He looked over his shoulder and saw the Griffin staring at him. He stared back. He wasn''t going to fight, not now, that was not a fight he could win.


    Before the Griffin attempted to engage, Felix pulled out the rod of escape and faced north, into the forest. He looked once more over his shoulder, then broke the rod. He was launched into the air faster than he had ever moved before. He couldn''t even see what was happening, but he felt his gut shoot backwards from the force. He couldn''t open his eyes with the wind battering him. He just hoped the rod knew what it was doing and thanked The System that it kept him upright as he flew. . . . . .

 Chapter 78 - Book 77

    Before long, he felt his body slowing as it fell, reminiscent of feather fall. He managed to open his eyes and saw himself being lowered into the forest just a short distance from the docks. Right about where he was first dropped into the tutorial. Felix fell through the trees, something the rod didn''t take into account, and broke branches where possible and pulled himself aside where it wasn''t.


    Felix landed softly on the forest floor. He didn''t recognize his location at all, but it still felt nostalgic. It still reminded him of where he fought and barely killed an overgrown fox and ran from another. In many ways he was the same as back then, he knew nothing of the multiverse. He knew nothing much of anything really. He could move some mana, he was good at that.


    He looked around and decided that this was exactly where he wanted to be for right now. He used his map to move slightly further from the dungeon and deeper into the forest to minimize his chances of encountering anyone.


    He sat down and entered a meditation. His health was still low so he had to regenerate that first. In the past, he practiced his spell formation as he meditated, but he found himself hitting the point of diminishing returns with that. In the future might do it again, but for a while now he had gotten lazy and just relaxed in his meditation. There had been something he had been meaning to do for a while now with his meditation and though he doubted it would increase his combat strength any, he decided to pursue it now.


    His Soul Space Meditation allowed him to transport himself somewhere where he could focus on something he brought with him. It was effectively removing distractions and replicating the object of his focus, as he sensed it, in his soul space. He had also previously reflected the environment on top of his tower in his soul space.


    His interpretation of a soul space was not what the skill did though. What he thought a soul space should be, or would be, was either an actual space or pocket dimension within his soul, or an environment that reflected his soul. He wanted to attempt both. Since he had no idea where to start with transforming his soul space into a real place, he first worked on cultivating the environment. S§×arch* The n?velFire.net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    If his soul space was going to represent him, the core of who he was, he was going to have to figure out what that meant. He didn''t take it too seriously though and simply thought about his favorite places, the environments that he liked the most. The first thing that came to mind was a desolate forest.


    He focused on that and realized it wasn''t just a forest, it was a serene forest, one without danger. He wanted a calm body of water, perfectly clear water. He also wanted colorful plants and pleasant smells. He wanted it all perfectly arranged, laid out meticulously. Were it to become a real space at some point though, he would need some functional space too.


    He started with a wide clearing in a dense forest. In his soul space, he imagined a forest that radiated serenity, as his soul space was essentially his imagination, it transformed to be so. In the center of the clearing, he wanted a small lake, fed by a cascading water fall, each level a pond of it''s own, and so it appeared. He wanted the lake to flow out into a river that disappeared into the forest. He didn''t need the output to balance the inputs as the lake was imaginary, but he wanted it to be balanced, he wanted it to make sense.


    He wanted a wooden bridge made of fragrant cedar with a simple railing to cross over the river, and so it appeared. He wanted trees with flowers and delicious fruits, advertising hints of vibrant colors, and so they appeared. In the center of the lake, he imagined a floating disc of wood, one that he could sit on and ponder difficult problems, and so it appeared. He added an area with sand and an area with flowers. He had a field and he had stones to sit upon. He had an area he could work with a large natural wooden table. He scrutinized every detail until he looked upon the landscape and smiled. It radiated serenity and balance, exactly as he had planned. Most of all, it resonated with him, it felt right.


    When he was finished, he checked on his health bar which was just over half full. He felt like he had spent a while in his soul space, but he also knew it had some amount of time dilation as well.


    **Ding You have successfully upgraded the General Skill [Soul Space Meditation (Special)] to: [Soul Garden Meditation (Epic) You began your journey on the path of meditation by focusing your mind and eliminating distractions. You have now replaced those distractions, carefully curating an environment to keep yourself calm and centered. When you meditate, you enter a metaphysical space within your own soul containing a garden. This place does not exist. The garden resonates with your soul and will keep you calm and focused. This skill can be upgraded. Your Mana, Energy and Health restore themselves at an increased rate while inside of your soul garden (x10). The passage of time while within your soul garden is altered based on your Intelligence. (Current dilation: 29.83% normal time)]


    The time dilation was going to be very handy for Felix to grow strong enough to beat the Griffin. Before he started working on that though, he exited his meditation and climbed a tree as he hoped to avoid rogue enemies. He found himself a large branch to sit upon and reentered his soul garden.


    His first order of business, was his cores. If he was going to experiment with new spells and abilities, he wanted all of the mana and energy he could get. His old cores were a foolish attempt in hindsight. They were foreign objects implanted within his body, not a part of it. Unfortunately, he couldn''t just modify his body however he wished, so he tabled real mana channels for one of his evolutions, where he would force them into existence. He had time to plan those out though so instead he worked on his cores for now.


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    In the battle, he wasn''t sure where his cores had broken, but he knew how, he felt it. His cores had collided with the shell surrounding them and ripped right through them due to their high velocity. He had implanted a solid object containing another with a high velocity within his body, he cringed at how stupid he had been. When he thought about it now, it was obvious. Why did he have the core inside of his body at all? For some reason he had assumed it wasn''t possible, but thinking about it now, he had never actually tried it. He could simply have a core within the mana dimension, implanted in his mana pool. Or rather, transform his mana pool to contain a core. No implanted foreign objects, just an upgrade through minor transformation.


    He would still have mana flow through his blood stream though, to help regenerate energy. He was also going to attempt to have an energy core in his mana pool as well, simply using his pool as the medium for it to travel through and exist within. His first step, was to figure out what his mana pool was. He was surprised he hadn''t explored this sooner but now was as good a time as any. He expected his mana pool to be a pool of ambient mana that had an affinity for him, essentially just following him around within the mana dimension.


    The reality was, it was between the ambient mana and the physical world. It was a pool of mana that had an affinity for Felix, shaped like his body, no, his soul. It was so close to his physical body though, that it was like it was constantly touching him, or rather, his soul. Rather than touching though, he realized it was attached to him, it was a part of him. It was like a bubble and resembled a tumor, but was meant to be there.


    Felix didn''t want to have to actively focus on regenerating mana if he could get away with it, so he was going to create something akin to a mana engine. He would have a core that would spin creating a vortex that reached towards and pulled on the ambient mana. He also wanted to change the core itself.


    He wasn''t sure why he was limiting himself to liquid mana, instead he would have a gradient of solid mana in the middle all the way out to ambient mana on the outside. The solid mana would then keep momentum, he hoped. He thought about making an actual pump, with a propeller of solid mana, but he wanted it to naturally compress the mana. This, though physically impossible without his or The System''s will, would compress the mana as it was sucked in.


    The idea of a pump though did give him an interesting idea, he could effectively create a large drum that would spin, creating something like the spin cycle on a wash machine. The mana would be forced to the outside with centrifugal force and be compressed naturally. He created a small model, but it was no more efficient than manually creating an artificial vortex so he went with that instead.


    He solidified mana into a ball, like he had with his temporary mana batteries except this time he kept the ball in his mana pool. He wasn''t sure it would work at first, but it seemed it was completely possible for solid mana to exist anywhere it wanted, within the ambient mana''s spatial dimension or not. Once he was done with that, he compressed his pool until it was liquid mana and surrounded the solid ball with it. Finally, he started spinning it.


    His next step was to create an outlet for it to saturate his blood stream once again, but he decided he didn''t want to create and implant another brittle solid object. He somehow had to create solid mana that was flexible. Before that though, he quickly put together a second core with mana that was much less dense that didn''t pull from the ambient mana at all for his energy core. It too, existed within his mana pool.


    Felix was roughly familiar with why some objects were solid and some were flexible. He also knew that solid mana resembled a crystal, but he wasn''t sure if that had to be the case, or if Manaverse had misled him and it was just how he had been doing it up until now. Mana didn''t have constituent particles as far as Felix knew, it simply was. Being crystalline didn''t really make any sense, not that having it as a solid at all made much sense either. Felix tried to solidify mana and have it be flexible but he didn''t know how, and his attempts to will it to be so were not fruitful. The only other thing he knew about mana, was that it could have an attunement, energy level and affinity.


    He first tried energy levels as there were a ton of attunements he would have to test. Felix pulled out a temporary battery and liquified the whole thing, then he gave it an energy level, about half of the maximum he had ever seen, and resolidified it. He held the ball in his hand, which felt bigger than before, and luckily, squishy. Experimenting with attunements resulted in odd properties but nothing he was looking for. Changing the mana''s density on the other hand seemed to change it''s elasticity if it was flexible or just it''s tensile strength when it was hard.


    That was easier than I thought, and also right under my nose the whole damn time.


    Felix tuned the energy levels and density until the flexibility and elasticity was just right then memorized that energy level and density. He created tiny tubes running from his mana and energy core into his stomach. He also created flexible, solid, threads from the useless tissue in his gut into his energy core.


    Ding Your Racial Trait Mana Core has been reactivated.


    Ding Your Racial Trait Mana Core has been modified.


    Ding Your Racial Trait Energy Core has been reactivated.


    Ding Your Racial Trait Energy Core has been modified.


    Ding Your General Skill Core Energy Infusion has been reactivated.


    Racial Traits.


    [Mana Core (Rare) Your mana pool has been shaped to contain a mana core. Cores can have many different sizes, shapes, and effects. Your core will spin drawing mana from the ambient mana and compressing it into a liquid. Your core has the following effects: +100 x Intelligence Mana, +500% Passive Mana Regeneration Rate]


    [Energy Core (Rare) Your mana pool has been shaped to contain an energy core. Cores can have many different sizes, shapes, and effects. Your core will spin drawing energy from your body, mixing it with mana and compressing it. Your core has the following effects: +30 x Endurance Energy, +1000% Passive Energy Regeneration at the cost of mana]


    He wasn''t trying to make them bigger, but he also wasn''t constrained by the physical size of his body anymore. The passive mana regeneration was a huge upgrade though, especially since it was abysmally slow before. His next step was to start working on spells. . . . . .

 Chapter 79 - Book 78

    While his Pocket-Star fueled Fire-Bolts did a lot of damage, they were unwieldy. His work on figuring out the firework spells though had given him an idea for a more traditional Fire Ball spell. He didn''t want it to be slow at all though so he was planning on having it travel at speeds more similar to a bullet.


    The fireworks spells were created using a delayed activation spell form, where one part launched a projectile, the other detonated the projectile with a spell form. It was so similar in fact, that Felix started with that spell form and simply swapped out the light node for a fire node. He spent a little while tuning the ratios but ultimately he was very happy with his creation. The actual spell being a delayed activation meant that he didn''t have to worry about how quickly he fired the initial projectile. No matter how fast he tried to launch it, it didn''t seem to destabilize at all. The spell cost a lot of mana, especially compared to Fire Bolt, but he had high hopes for the damage.


    With the same principle, he also created variants using pure force, cold, sound, light, solid mana and electricity. They all seemed to vary in use, the force one was just an explosion, the cold one had the potential to freeze a limb solid, sound and light were mostly to temporarily disable senses. The solid mana variant was like a shrapnel bomb, but it wasn''t perfect and needed some tuning. Felix currently didn''t have a shape node for shrapnel so it was just weirdly shaped chunks of solid mana.


    The last one, electricity, was questionable in value. Felix had no idea how effective it would be and would have to test it on something. He though about trying different kinds of delayed casts, like timed and conditional, but he needed much more time to figure those out and impact casts should be more than enough for now.


    He was happy with his damage spells though so he moved on to shoring up his defense and mobility options. For mobility, he already had a jump spell, but it required time and concentration to cast. It was also a large burst instead of what he wanted to try and achieve now, which was smaller bursts over time. He started with some of the enchantment training boots from the second puzzle dungeon and began inscribing spells into the bottom of the boots.


    The spell was a simple force spell that ended up being a weird mix of enchantment and spell forms as it used an enchantment source to power it from the mana in his feet. The weirdest part for him to figure out, was that he wanted the spell pointed towards himself, instead of away. On his initial attempts, he would pump mana into the soles of his feet but it wouldn''t do anything. When he cast a force spell, the force was created from mana which meant there either was no equal and opposite reaction or he had no idea what he was pushing against. It seemed he couldn''t use them like a rocket''s thrusters and push outwards. Instead he needed to push the force into himself, he wanted to move himself after all.


    Once he wrapped his head around it, he designed a simple leather wrap, like a crampon, that attached to the outside of his normal boots. He didn''t currently have the materials for it, but he would get them in town when he went back. His initial tests, were extremely positive. As he ran around, he could pump mana into his boots and launch himself a short distance each time. It was effectively multiplying his movement speed, which wasn''t necessary when traveling, but in combat, it made changing direction and dodging much easier.


    For defensive options, Felix wanted to work on tuning his mana shields to be more effective. The base spell was decent at what it did, but it was also unwieldly being so big and right in front of him. It just tended to get in the way. Felix spent a little while designing bracelets he could pump mana into that would create the same spell, at about half the size, Infront of his forearms like a buckler on each arm. This made the spell much more mobile and way more usable. He thought about making bracers instead of bracelets to better distribute the force of impacts, but realized it wouldn''t be unnecessary when he remembered the spell itself absorbed blows.


    Ultimately, he could have just cast these spells himself, but that took more time and precious concentration. Inscribing these new spells into items allowed him to focus on his other spells and the battle itself. It gave him more options and more options was always a good thing. He could only currently cast about 5 spells at once. If he cast one on each foot and wrist, that would leave him with just one spell left to deal damage with. Having only one extra spell was unacceptable to Felix and, in his opinion, asking to die. How all the other caster''s managed with so few spells and only one at a time, he didn''t know.


    He knew he needed to go back to the city to commission the items soon so he could practice with them to improve his reactions and make them instinctual. He also wanted to work on his reactions when fighting, but he didn''t have any good sparring partners so he would have to figure that out as well. Felix really didn''t want to see anyone at the moment, as he still felt some residual shame from losing, but he didn''t really have a choice so he headed back to Tri-Peak.


    It took him less than 20 minutes to make it back to the city. He made sure to equip his mask and shuffle his disguise before entering as he didn''t want to be delayed. He ran straight through to one of the forges with an active smoke stack in the industrial district, but not Henry''s. He commissioned the two bracelets and four plates of metal, two to strap onto the heels of his boots and two for something else he had just thought of. He had them all made of simple steel, half an inch thick just to be safe. The smith clearly found it a little odd to make heal shaped steel plates but didn''t seem to question it much as he dealt with similarly odd orders every week or so.


    Once that was done, he used his map to find a tanner''s workshop in the industrial district and got them to make him simple straps of leather. The tanner didn''t find the commissions nearly as odd as the smith, likely because random straps and sheathes had been commissioned for the magical items people were getting from dungeons. Felix paid them and headed back up his tower to the lab room so he could engrave the plates and fasten them in place.


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    He found that, though he couldn''t really nail the soles into his boots, as they were magical, he could strap them to his calf and foot tightly enough that they didn''t move. He thought about engraving his boots directly, but he was worried it might ruin their current enchantment and he hadn''t finalized the inscription yet. Once it was finalized and he had new boots, he might try it out. He also thought about buying enchanted boots to test on, but decided this was good enough.


    His bracelets worked flawlessly, he just had to make sure they were tight enough to maintain the proper orientation at all times. They looked more like cuffs, but Felix didn''t really care so long as they worked. Finally, the last two plates he strapped to his chest and back and engraved with a bigger variant of the Mana Shield. He used a simplified version of the spell, as he didn''t need all of the functions the original came with. Those two worked as well as he could have hoped.


    The biggest issue Felix had with all of the spells was the source node. The normal source node for the wielder''s mana relied on skin contact but he found that he could simply modify it with a targeting node to have it source mana through his wraps and boots. The plates on his chest and back, he simply had pressed against his skin so the source node wasn''t an issue. His bracelets were also a little superfluous as he already had the energy wraps but he wanted the bracelets incase he needed to block something less solid, like a stream of fire or a blast of wind.


    Once he was done with his new equipment, he ascended to the roof. His map had updated slightly when he was out and there was a world boss directly north of the city. While he wanted a rematch with the Griffin, killing this one first was the shortest path to taking them all out. He also didn''t want to go after the Griffin just yet as he was still recovering mentally from dying. When Felix ascended to the roof, he found someone, or something waiting for him. As soon as he closed the trap door, Grim floated over to him.


    "Your alive."


    "Barely."


    "Honestly, I wasn''t sure you had made it."


    "I was dead for a bit there, had a magic ring that barely saved me."


    "How close did you get?"


    "To winning? Not sure. Not close enough."


    "I know what world boss means in theory, but I didn''t expect that thing. That was way more than a normal Griffin."


    "The System recommends 250 level 50s to take it on."


    "You mentioned that before. Is level 50 high?"


    "A bit higher than most people in the city."


    "I see. That estimate actually seems a little low in that case. So what now?"


    "I try again, but I don''t lose this time."


    "You¡­ Oh, you created your first conviction. Unrelenting? No, not quite. Indomitable? Sort of. More something between the two. That''s a gamble." sea??h th§× Novel?ire(.)ne*t website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    "I didn''t do it intentionally, it just kind of resonated with me. Didn''t even realize it was a conviction until you said it just now, but I probably should have realized it sooner."


    "Interesting. Most convictions take a while to nurture, and only happen much later in life. I''d heard of life altering events being a catalyst for them before but never for anyone as young as you are."


    "Is it a bad thing?"


    "Could be. It will affect just about everything you do. If you break it, your soul will shatter and you will likely die. That''s why indomitable is such a gamble. You can''t ever give up on anything you decide to do. That might not sound too bad but if you get yourself way in over your head, you could be screwed. You likely won''t be able to ever ''let someone win'' unless you already decided to ahead of time. I heard about someone with a similar conviction that died because he tried to let a girl win a match in a tournament to woo her."


    "Ouch, don''t really have much of a choice at this point though."


    "Yeah, you are kind of stuck with it now."


    "How''d you make it back?"


    "I just flew back over here. It took a little while, fly a little bit then rest and let the batteries recharge. I just assumed you''d be back here eventually if you weren''t dead."


    "I guess you were right. Honestly I thought you would have teleported or something."


    "Can''t. Don''t have enough mana and you would have to figure it out first. I''m not allowed to reveal or teach anything to you."


    "What''s with all these rules?"


    "Think of them like imposed convictions, I didn''t choose them but, if I break them my soul shatters. I likely won''t die, but it''s not a fun time. Best case you lose a chunk of your memories and personality."


    "Huh, well that would suck."


    "Yeah, it''s not great. So how are you gonna kill the Griffin? I was not expecting the wind storm."


    "Haven''t figured that one out exactly just yet. I''m going to work on flying now, then I''ll figure out how to see and hit the Griffin through the wind."


    "You know, with your mana sense you could probably mark it."


    "With mana? What do you mean?"


    "Hit it with very high affinity mana right at the start. A Mana Bolt or something, then make sure it embeds under the skin. You should be able to sense it''s position at that point, have you tested how far your mana senses reach?"


    "That is an excellent use case for high affinity mana, I thought it was essentially useless. I haven''t tested the range just yet, no."


    "This is a pretty niche use case. High affinity mana is pretty niche in general for most people. Only really used when the ritual is incredibly precise."


    "I''ll test it out after I figure out how to fly."


    Felix stood atop the tower and tuned the force spells he intended to use to fly around. His current attempt involved four separate spells, two under his feet and two under his hands. He already knew he had to direct the force into himself instead of away like thrusters. The spells were similar to the ones on his boots, but these were channeled so he could keep himself in the air. Rather than go all out right away, he slowly channeled mana into the spells until he just barely lifted himself off the ground by less than an inch. He practiced with his balance until he felt ready then slowly lifted himself higher in the air.


    He wasn''t darting around through the sky just yet, but he hovered back and forth across the roof of the tower. He knew he had Feather Fall, so it wasn''t a huge risk to hover over the edge. Slowly, Felix leaned further forwards and propelled himself faster through the air. He almost fell a few times, but it was trivial to cast Feather Fall to catch himself then readjust and continue. It took him almost an entire day until he felt somewhat comfortable using flight just for travel alone. Luckily, that was all he intended to do with it for now. . . . . .

 Chapter 80 - Book 79

    The next world boss he was heading for was directly north of him. If he looked out from the top of his tower towards the north, all he saw were mountain peaks. He didn''t want to scale multiple mountains just to get to it so he had decided to finally learn how to fly. Now that that was complete, he wanted to train his reaction time and fighting instincts. He had flown north a few kilometers into the mountain, Grim once again following him. Once he was far enough away from the city, Felix looked for a large enough open space and ended up in the valley between two mountains.


    He waited for Grim to catch up and wrote on his pages, "Can you cast offensive spells?"


    "Only ones that you already know."


    "Can you try and hit me with high speed Mana Bolts so I can practice dodging and blocking?"


    "Sure thing, I can''t move very quickly and I can''t cast spells multiple meters away from my body like you can, but I should be able to fire off a barrage of Mana Bolts."


    "That should be enough."


    Felix had Grim float on the opposite end of the valley and try to hit him with Mana Bolts. Felix blocked and dodged and did whatever was necessary to avoid the strikes. Fighting a book meant that there was no wind up so he had no way to predict when he would cast. Felix was hit by a lot of Mana Bolts, the majority of them at first. He slowly got faster though, both with dodging and activating his shields.


    After almost 2 days with only breaks to meditate and regenerate, Felix had learned which strikes he could avoid, and which he was forced to block. Now he had to find out if that translated to other forms of attacks. Unfortunately, Grim couldn''t quite manage what Felix could with mana blades, so he couldn''t test himself against those.


    Felix didn''t think he was ready to take on the world boss just yet, but he did want to know what he was preparing himself for. He decided to sneak up as close as he could to inspect it. He flew low and slow over the mountains, both due to his comfort with flying and for the sake of stealth. Right at the point where his map indicated a world boss would be Felix saw a giant turtle. It was black with a slight orange glow and multiple spikes on it''s shell. It was currently taking bites out of the mountain next to it.


    [E - Rare] Colossal Mountain Turtle (Lvl 86)


    Felix turned around and flew south a few dozen kilometers back to the valley he had used to train with Grim.


    "Ever seen one of those before?"


    "Nope, that one is new to me."


    "Any idea what I should prepare for with that one?"


    "My best guess is that Fire isn''t going to be the ideal element, based solely on the orange glow."


    "I could go with the exact opposite. I can do Cold Balls, like Fire Balls. I should probably also add a little force too to spread the cold and probably choose a better name for them, Frost Balls?"


    "I think that''s probably your best bet. Frost Shot?"


    "That''s better, not perfect though."


    Felix spent a few hours tuning his Frost-Force Balls and settled on double sizing them for the fight. He also worked on Grim''s suggestion of using high affinity mana projectiles to track targets. Testing out his mana senses, with the highest affinity mana he had, he could sense it from half a kilometer away with some precision and over that with much less. He ended up creating something that he found disgusting, but effective. He created what was essentially a projectile syringe to inject high affinity liquid mana into the targets blood stream, which should make it nearly impossible to remove for a few hours. It also let him sense the entire target, instead of just the projectile lodged somewhere on their body, so long as they were less than a kilometer or so away from him.


    This time, Felix felt more ready than before. He wasn''t sure if he was falling prey to bias, but he felt like now he was much more prepared. Where before, he had felt arrogant and overconfident, now he just felt confident and sure of himself. Felix glided over to where he knew the turtle was and began creating a handful of tracking shots. The turtle didn''t seem to notice or care and continued to munch on rocks. As it took a bite, the orange glow coming from within it''s shell would brighten briefly then slowly die down. It seemed like the turtle also found these particular rocks very tasty as it''s tail would not stop wagging whenever it took a bite.


    Once Felix''s tracking shots were ready, he created a few simple but powerful force spells to fire them. In order for the tracking to work, he needed at least the tips of the projectiles to pierce the targets skin. If he used too much force it would either shatter before piercing, meaning the projectile wasn''t strong enough, or it would shatter under the skin, which should work just fine. For a turtle, he would need to also make sure he hit it in the limbs and not the shell. Felix''s aim was decent, but not that great so he snuck up as stealthily as he could on the turtle. The turtle either didn''t notice or didn''t care as Felix stood less than a hundred meters away from it. Felix suspected he could have walked right up to it without it caring, but he was already more than close enough.


    Standing this close, Felix realized how absurdly massive the turtle was. It''s legs were almost as wide as small houses meaning it would be trivial to hit it''s skin with the tracking projectiles. He was worried his tracking shots wouldn''t pierce deep enough into it''s thick hide so he adjusted them slightly. It towered around 30 meters to the highest point on it''s shell.


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    Felix prepared himself to jump away and carefully aimed all of his tracking shots. He fired them with a few thousand mana worth of force each and darted away. Though he wasn''t facing the turtle, he could tell they had hit because of the loud roar that followed him and reverberated through the mountains. He knew they had pierced the skin because he could feel the mana slowly spreading through it''s bloodstream. S~ea??h the N??elFir§×.net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    Once he felt he was far enough away, Felix turned around but the turtle was completely gone. He quickly referred to his mana senses to track it but that turned out to be unnecessary as Felix heard a massive boom from the mountain just above and behind him. The ground shook and Felix turned to find the turtle''s shell lodged in the side of the mountain, all limbs retracted. Dirt and small stones showered down around Felix purely from the impact. With nothing exposed, Felix couldn''t really hit it with anything so he just prepared a couple of the Force and Cold Balls he had decided on and tested before hand.


    The turtle pulled it''s limbs free from it''s shell and took a few seconds to reorient itself. In that time, Felix let loose all of his double size attack spells and began running. He managed to strike the turtle once on the side of it''s head and thrice on it''s front legs. The turtle quickly recovered from the blows and seemed angry as it roared once more. Felix watched this time, as he ran. The turtle ben down slightly then jumped and rocketed itself in Felix''s direction using it''s legs and tail. As soon as it left the ground, it''s limbs retracted into it''s spinning shell creating a giant ball of death.


    Felix continued running in the direction he was going and the shell impacted slightly behind him and to his left. He turned away from it and fired a few more spells behind him at the turtle as soon as it''s limbs reemerged. He was about a hundred meters from the turtle at this point and was gaining distance. This time when it jumped, it''s aim was a little better and it landed just 50 meters away from Felix as he ran. Felix once again shot off a few offensive spells as it emerged, except this time, it didn''t prepare to launch itself. The turtle''s glow brightened and it locked it''s eyes on Felix before bellowing out a massive stream of fire in his direction.


    Felix quickly pumped mana into the steel plate on his chest casting a Mana Shield in front of him. The shield was big enough to cover his entire body, especially if he crouched, and diverted the stream around him. It ended up draining a few thousand mana but managed to hold off most of the strike. All of the residual heat from the fire was easily dealt with by his cloak.


    Frostforce Ball?


    Felix prepared 5 of his Frostforce Balls and fired them all off when the fire breath subsided. He managed to hit it''s head with two of them, the rest on it''s front legs and exposed chest. The turtle roared and shot itself forwards again, it''s aim still lacking. This time, as soon as it left the ground, Felix didn''t bother moving as he knew it had shot itself much too high in the air. As expected, the turtle soared right over his head and landed almost 200 meters away.


    Frostboom Shot?


    Felix fired off more of his Frostboom Shots as it exposed it''s skin, mostly hitting it''s tail this time. Felix was starting to see large craters where his strikes were hitting, about the size of softballs. The wounds didn''t bleed right away though, as they were initially frozen solid. As it turned towards Felix once again, he noticed that some of the strikes on it''s front legs had started to bleed a dark sludgy blood. Felix was ready to dart off to a side to dodge it''s canon like strike but was surprised when the turtle simply started charging him.


    Frozen Burst?


    It wasn''t very fast though, so Felix jogged backwards as he fired off more of his Frozen Bursts into it''s hide. Suddenly, the turtle launched itself forwards, not bothering to retract it''s limbs, instead trying to catch Felix in it''s maw. It was fast, but not nearly fast enough. Felix had time to fire off a triple sized Frozen Burst into it''s open mouth and bolt off to the side with the steel plates beneath his heels.


    Felix managed to distance himself by a hundred meters or so to the side before turning around and watching the turtle struggle to lift it''s legs as it tried to turn. It stumbled and fell causing Felix to feel bad for it just before he finally finished it off with a single spell.


    Glacial Blast.


    Ding You have slain an [E - Rare] Colossal Mountain Turtle (Lvl 86)


    Ding You have gained a level in [E - Common] Caster


    Congratulations!


    You have slain a World Boss.


    The experience will be split among your party of 1 and you have obtained an upgrade token for any tutorial settlement. The token may be consumed in any settlement granting an upgrade based on the World Boss slain. The upgrade will be split evenly among the settlements where the tokens are consumed.


    Upgrade: Turtle Cannons.


    Finally, Felix felt the charm hanging around his neck hum. He pulled it out and immediately noticed the eyes glowed with just a pin-prick of blue light. He identified it.


    [E - Legendary] Charm of the Boss Conqueror


    This charm is made to absorb part of the souls of tutorial world bosses when they are killed. It will absorb a portion equal to your overall contribution towards the kill. This charm will contain the souls for later use.


    Note Charms: Charms are pieces of equipment that grow with their wielder upon level up and evolution. The benefits gained from a charm are completely unique and more than one charm may not be equipped at once.


    Note Bond: Some magical items, particular ones that grow alongside you, must be bonded. To bond to an item to yourself, flood it with mana or energy for a few minutes to imprint your soul into the item. To un-bond an item that either you or another has bonded with, keep the item away from it''s wielder for an extended period of time.


    Current Souls:


    Colossal Mountain Turtle (100%)


    Well, one down 8 to go. Tutorial Screen.


    Tutorial Status


    There are 75,692/100,000 people.


    There are 34 days, 8 hours, 21 minutes remaining.


    You have completed all available dungeons.


    You have killed 1 world boss.


    You have captured 1 fort.


    The wording changed. I wonder how much of the drop in people is because of the sieges.


    Felix didn''t bother examining the Turtle''s pockmarked corpse and instead just stowed it in his inventory. He wasn''t sure it would work at first, but his inventory didn''t seem to have any issues with it. He then turned back south, towards the city and floated into the air. He encountered Grim on his way back who wrote to him while he gently glided through the air.


    "Congratulations. Looks like that went rather smoothly. I assume it''s the Griffin next? For hitting it through the wind, have you thought about lightning? Theoretically, it should be fast enough to hit it before being disrupted by the wind. Ionizing a path is almost instant and being hit by lightning would suck for a flying creature."


    That''s not a terrible idea at all.


    Felix spoke aloud as he glided back over the mountains, "Can you hear me by the way? Understand what I''m saying?"


    Grim wrote back, "I can hear you, I can''t decipher your language though. I only know how to read and write it."


    Felix nodded. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 Chapter 81 - Book 80

    He glided his way back to the roof of his tower then headed down into the lab room. He worked on figuring out exactly how a Lightning Bolt spell would work with some input, where possible, from Grim. While he couldn''t use a Fire Ball or another elemental variant while it was flying, if he could ground it with a few Lightning Bolts, then he could hit it with Fire Balls. Neither he nor Grim knew which element would be best against the Griffin so he decided to just go with his best guess, lightning then fire. If lightning seemed particularly effective, he would stick with it. Otherwise he would switch over.


    His spells were ready and his mana was refilled. He planned on testing out the spells in the forest just before he engaged so, he had nothing else to do in the tower for now. He headed downwards to leave through the front door as he was much faster when running compared to flying. Through the mountains, running was difficult, making flying favorable. Through a giant open field, running was much faster. He could have flown over the mountain to the east, but he also wanted to use his token before he left. As he descended the tower he found Henry and Noah arguing in the lobby. He managed to catch the tail end of their argument when he walked down.


    "If he can''t even be arsed to help defend his own city, people are going to start leaving." Henry spat.


    "Henry, we''ll be fine. If the city does get attacked, he''ll be here, I promise." Noah tried to calm him down.


    "Well where the hell is he now? What if they attack right now? How long will it take for him to be here? All the rest of us are here ready to defend. Where is he?" Henry got a little too into Noah''s face.


    "Talking about me?" Felix cut in. Sear?h the ¦Çov§×lFire .net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    They both jumped a little and turned towards him, "Felix, a third fort has now been taken. We have to be on high alert, ready to defend the city. They could be coming for us next."


    I know I''m a much higher level than everyone else, but should we really be that worried? Our population is almost half of everyone left alive in the tutorial and I don''t see how anyone gets through that wall, it would be hard even for me.


    "Well, I''m here now. Was there something in specific you needed from me?"


    "You should be around at all times in case we get attacked. You can''t just abandon us."


    "For your information, I was just a few kilometers north doing that thing you asked me to do. You know, killing a world boss. As a reward I get to upgrade the city''s defenses, says it''s a bunch of canons. Is that alright with you?"


    "Wait, you killed the world boss?" Noah asked with an expression of pure shock.


    Felix just nodded.


    "Which one was it? What environment was it in?" Henry changed topics immediately.


    "A giant turtle that ate mountains, or took bites out of them. It wasn''t big enough to eat the entire mountain. Just 30 meters or so tall. Why?"


    "The world bosses are all guarding special materials. The turtle was probably guarding rare metals and minerals." Noah whispered to Felix.


    "Prove it."


    "I''m keeping the corpse, but you can come watch me set up the canons if you''d like."


    "Fine, let''s go. You can finally see all the hard work us crafters have been putting into your city."


    This is why I hate people.


    Felix walked out of the tower, Henry and Noah in tow, towards the walls at the entrance to the city. They arrived at the front gates and Felix pulled out the token from his inventory.


    [E - Epic] Tutorial Settlement Upgrade Token: Turtle Cannons


    This token can be consumed while within the borders of a settlement to provide the specified upgrade. The upgrade will be split among all of the settlements where the similar tokens are consumed.


    As the acting leader of a settlement, you may choose to consume the token for your settlement or one you are located within. Would you like to consume this token for Tri-Peak?


    Yes.


    No.


    Yes.


    Felix wasn''t sure what had changed at first, expecting himself to be teleported or for there to be a loud noise of some kind. Instead he looked around and saw nothing. Eventually though, he looked up to the wall and saw massive turtle shells sitting embedded into the wall at even intervals of a dozen or so meters. He had no idea how they functioned, but they did look very cool, and very unlike a traditional cannon.


    Felix didn''t overly care how effective they were, but he knew they should placate Henry for a little while so, he flew up to the top of the wall and walked up to one of them. It was easy enough to figure out, all he had to do was fuel it with mana and push a button then it would fire off a blast. It could also regenerate mana on it''s own, but it was slower to do so. Felix filled it with mana and aimed it at an empty section of the field, off to the east. He pushed the button and a turtle shell flew out of the cannon trailing fire as it flew. It collided with the terrain similarly to how the world boss had collided with the mountains except this time it created a fiery explosion.


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    Felix floated back down to Henry and asked, "So what did the crafter''s get up to that you wanted to show me so badly?"


    Henry proceeded to grumble a little then asked, "So north, if we head north through the mountains we will find the battle site?"


    "Here, I''ll mark it on your map for you." Felix said, happy to be done with this conversation.


    "We''ll send a crew out there soon, should be safe with the mountains on all sides. Thanks by the way, for the uh¡­ World Boss. You could have told me you already had a group planning on taking it on, I only wanted the materials."


    Felix shrugged.


    "You''ll be nearby? Within 5 minutes of the city at all times from now on though, right? We don''t want to have a siege declared on us and be caught with our pants down."


    Seriously? With the cannons, you absolutely need me to be here? Yeah right.


    Felix shrugged again, with no intention of promising that. He didn''t care that his non answer was sort of a lie, he just also didn''t care enough about it to explicitly lie either. Henry walked off, a little skip in his step as he left, clearly excited to plan the mining expedition. Felix turned to Noah, "Anything else need my attention? I''m planning on leaving for a few days at most."


    "Nah, and don''t worry about Henry too much. He''s just worried his forge and all that will be gone soon. Honestly, it''s probably just all the other crafters that are worried and they take it out on him. Then he brings the complaints to us. I''ll just tell him you are in your lab and are busy tinkering with some new weapon to help protect the city. I didn''t know you planned on taking out any world bosses."


    Felix shrugged, "Seems like the last thing to do in the tutorial. Other than, well, I have no interest in sieging the other settlements."


    "Thank System for that. Well, safe travels. Don''t die."


    "I''ll try."


    With that settled, Felix headed out through the main gates and ran south east towards the Griffin. He ended up exactly where he had list time, on the edge of the tree line facing towards the sandy hills. From this distance he could just barely see the Griffin as it lay nonchalantly on the same hilltop as it had last time.


    No more losing.


    Felix prepared his tracking shots, making them as resilient as he could and snuck up on the Griffin. He made sure to be as quiet as possible as he floated just over the hills. He didn''t dare get as close to the Griffin as he had with the turtle, but he figured 300 meters or so would be good enough. He aimed his shots meticulously to strike the largest body parts while avoiding the wings. When he was ready, he mentally started a countdown to force himself to commit, but ended up firing off the tracking shots at 3 anyways. He didn''t need a countdown, he was ready.


    The tracking shots all hit their mark causing the Griffin to let out a familiar screech before taking off for the air. Before it could start creating a wind storm, Felix let loose a Lightning Bolt striking it in the belly as it flew. The Lightning Bolt caused it to tense up and begin falling for a few seconds, but it seemed to catch itself. Felix was already casting it at 4 times normal strength so he cast it again. Unfortunately, the Griffin remained in the air, though it hadn''t attempted a dive just yet. Felix wasn''t going to let it do anything though, he jumped to 10 times strength and let loose on the Griffin.


    His prey immediately seized up and fell straight into the ground a few hundred meters away. Felix pumped mana into the soles of his boots as fast as he could and bounded towards the Griffin, he wasn''t going to let it take off again. He managed to get within a hundred meters when the Griffin recovered and rose to it''s feet. Felix fired off a triple sized Fire Ball to get it''s attention. He hit it in the joint of it''s front right leg which singed the entire front side of it''s leg with the resultant explosion. The Griffin screeched again then ran towards Felix who fired off as many Fire Balls and Lightning Bolts as he could. He wasn''t sure if the Lightning Bolts were doing a lot of damage, but they were definitely slowing it down. It even tripped a couple of times from having it''s muscles suddenly seize up.


    It also tried to dodge Felix''s Fire Balls, but they were simply too fast, resembling bullets to Felix''s eyes. He managed to hit it with 9 Fire Balls and 3 Lightning Bolts before the Griffin managed to close in on Felix. It began trying to swipe at Felix with it''s talons, but now that Felix had prevented it from creating a sandstorm, he could see the wind up and predict the strikes. He couldn''t dodge all of them, but he blocked those he couldn''t and managed to entirely avoid taking any damage directly. He was knocked to the ground a few times and took a few points of damage here and there from landing too hard but it was a much better performance than last time.


    On a particularly wide swing of desperation from the talons, Felix dodged and jumped back to gain distance then started to fire off Fire Balls once again. He shot three of them before the Griffin tried to jump backwards and take off with with a powerful flap of it''s wings.


    Felix already had a Lightning Bolt ready to strike to keep it grounded but the flap of it''s wings doubled as an attack, knocking Felix over with a large gust of wind. It also caused the sand around Felix to create a small cloud, but he was ready for that too. He sensed the Griffin''s location and charged up another Lightning Bolt at 7 times the power. He fired it off and heard a loud boom before he saw the Griffin crash land as the sand was still falling around him.


    Ding You have slain an [E - Special] Griffin (Lvl 87)


    Ding You have gained a level in [E - Common] Caster


    Congratulations!


    You have slain a World Boss.


    The experience will be split among your party of 1 and you have obtained an upgrade token for any tutorial settlement. The token may be consumed in any settlement granting an upgrade based on the World Boss slain. The upgrade will be split evenly among the settlements where the tokens are consumed.


    Upgrade: Griffin''s Protection.


    Felix confirmed 100% of the Griffin''s soul was in his charm and ran over to stow the corpse in his inventory. Once that was complete, he pulled out the token he had just acquired.


    [E - Epic] Tutorial Settlement Upgrade Token: Griffin''s Protection


    This token can be consumed while within the borders of a settlement to provide the specified upgrade. The upgrade will be split among all of the settlements where the similar tokens are consumed.


    As the acting leader of a settlement, you may choose to consume the token for your settlement or one you are locating within. Would you like to consume this token for Tri-Peak?


    Yes.


    No.


    Yes. It would be nice to know what that did, but I have more bosses to kill before Henry realizes I''m gone and explodes.


    He knew about the Royal Elk in the forest, the boss in the middle of the sea to the south and another on his map next to the mountain settlement he hadn''t visited yet. He didn''t want to try and fight while flying just yet, so he saved the one at sea for last. The next closest one was the Royal Elk, but killing it meant he would have to loop back for the one in the mountains, so he headed there first. . . . . .

 Chapter 82 - Book 81

    It didn''t take long for Felix to bolt through the forest directly north east until the tree line broke giving way to a mountain range. Now that his map was more filled in, he knew that this was the same range Tri-Peak was nestled on the edge of. He lifted himself off the ground and slowly glided towards the north where he knew the world boss would be. As he approached, he heard then saw something he had feared.


    On the side of a mountain Felix saw an army of people fighting a large giant.


    [E - Rare] Stone Giant (Lvl 91)


    The Giant appeared to have skin made of interlocking flagstones and stood at least 50 meters tall. It was currently picking up and throwing large stones at the army it faced. The army didn''t appear to be in good shape. There were bodies strewn about and none of them were in any kind of formation. They were all either throwing last ditch attacks at the giant or running away. Felix crossed his fingers and hoped they just ran away to recuperate for the next few days.


    He didn''t want to interfere though as he didn''t want to share it''s soul, tokens or experience. Felix turned to the south east and flew as fast as he was comfortable flying, towards the Royal Elk. Seeing the world boss locked in combat with someone else made him want to rush through the others. He was desperately hoping that Icewatch was too busy raiding to take the yeti out just yet.


    He found the Royal Elk exactly where he expected it to be, in the middle of the forest. Luckily, it was alone so Felix prepared his tracking shots and took aim. The elk was slightly smaller than the Griffin if Felix didn''t count the antlers. It was inside of part of the forest that appeared to be younger as the trees were much smaller.


    [E - Special] Royal Elk (Lvl 86)


    Felix debated waiting until it tomorrow as it was currently the middle of the night. He ultimately decided though that he could see enough with the star and moon light in this part of the forest where the tree cover was sparse. Felix fired his shots and watched as they all struck the Elk in the side. The creature jumped up onto it''s hind legs then launched itself towards Felix who was suddenly feeling less safe standing behind trees than he had before. The elk, with it''s antlers, tore through the young trees around it making a beeline towards it''s attacker. sea??h th§× Nov§×l?ire.n(e)t website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    Felix was already preparing a triple sized Lightning Bolt to stun it temporarily so he waited for the right moment to fire. As soon as the Royal Elk was a few steps away from a larger tree, Felix struck it with the Lightning Bolt. It tripped two steps then didn''t have the force to take the tree down so it collided with it and fell over instead. Felix was ready and fired off multiple Fire Balls before switching over to Glacial Blasts. He was slightly worried about burning down the entire forest and figured the Glacial Blasts would at least slow the Elk down.


    The effects were much greater than when he had hit the turtle with the same spell. The spells pierced the Elks side and visibly froze a large portion of it''s hide. He managed to land 5 of them before it rose to it''s feet again. The elk turned away from Felix, who was prepared to stop it from running, and used it''s hind legs to launch a tree straight at Felix. He managed to dodge below the tree that was moving surprisingly quickly and fire off another two Glacial Blasts. The elk continued to kick trees at Felix who dodged most of them but had to block one of them for a few thousand mana. He also managed to land 8 Glacial Blasts in return though.


    The elk seemed to realize what it was doing wasn''t working so instead it turned to the side and vanished. Felix immediately referred to the tracking mana he had shot it with earlier and sensed it trying to sneak through the forest to get behind him. Felix stopped it short with three triple sized Lightning Bolts, just to be sure, followed by two Glacial Blasts. The Elk realized it''s stealth wasn''t working so it dropped it''s spell or skill and tried to charge Felix once more.


    It didn''t get any closer than last time though. It was much slower due to the Glacial Blasts, even though most of those wounds had started to heal over a during the fight. Felix landed 3 triple sized Glacial Blasts causing the Elk to fall over as it''s front right leg gave out. Felix fired off one last Glacial Blast into it''s neck, 5 times sized just to be sure, ending it''s life.


    Ding You have slain an [E - Special] Royal Elk (Lvl 86)


    Ding You have gained a level in [E - Common] Caster


    Congratulations!


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    You have slain a World Boss.


    The experience will be split among your party of 1 and you have obtained an upgrade token for any tutorial settlement. The token may be consumed in any settlement granting an upgrade based on the World Boss slain. The upgrade will be split evenly among the settlements where the tokens are consumed.


    Upgrade: Elk''s Crown.


    Felix checked his charm and stowed the body before consuming the token, who''s function he knew nothing about either. He then decided to head for the worm in the desert before heading back to the giant so that the army had enough time to run away.


    [E - Rare] Desert Worm (Lvl 88)


    The worm didn''t seem to have a resting state, so Felix had to time his tracking mana shots for when it jumped through the sand. After that, the fight was fairly easy as he knew when it tried to swallow him from below, able to track it''s every movement. The hard part was waiting for it to surface as Felix didn''t have any way of striking it when it burrowed. He was mostly glad it didn''t try to hide as he would have little hope of ever reaching it beneath the sand.


    It was still the middle of the night so he was relying solely on the moonlight. Once he had killed it though, he was surprised he could stow it''s body as it was easily the biggest corpse of all the ones he had seen so far, including the giant. The upgrade token it gave was called Desert Oasis which provided no indication as to it''s function, but Felix consumed it anyways.


    The next world boss would be the yeti. He thought about heading back to the Giant now, but he was worried it might still count the army''s contribution if he killed it too soon. He also figured he should have enough time if he made it back in a day or two as the army would probably take at least that long to recover.


    [E - Rare] Alpha Yeti (Lvl 89)


    The yeti threw giant snowballs and trees at Felix when it wasn''t trying to pick him up and throw him. Felix used Fire Balls as he hoped they would do more damage to a creature that lived in the cold. The yeti also had either some magic or a skill that they tried to use it to create a blizzard, but Felix put an end to that before it could even start. It''s upgrade was Yeti''s Hide.


    [E - Special] Giant Gator: King of the Swamp (Lvl 92)


    The gator had an odd name which Felix thought might have been a title. It was also the highest level enemy he had ever encountered. Unfortunately, the fight was very similar to the Elk''s. The Gator charged at him and tried to throw trees. It also tried to hide beneath the swamp water, but Felix had made sure to inject it with tracking mana. It took the most hits to kill among all of the bosses as a result of it''s thick hide that acted like armor. Felix was surprised it was more resilient than the turtle but he figured the level difference probably played a part in that. It''s upgrade was called Gator''s Gate, which was the first upgrade whose function he could reasonably guess at.


    [E - Special] Tropical Roc (Lvl 89)


    The last one before Felix looped back was the Roc. He had already encountered it when he was last in the tropics. Hitting it with tracking mana darts was trivial as it was so massive. Taking it out of the sky, was much more difficult. He continued to fire off Lightning Bolts but they didn''t seem to have much of an effect. The Roc attacked him by ripping trees out of the ground and attempting to drop them.


    As the fight went on though, it began to crackle with energy and strike with lightning from above. Fortunately, it didn''t seem to be able to aim it''s strikes at all. Felix kept a manually cast Mana Shield above him at all times and simply positioned his spell forms above it. Felix began hitting it with tried and true Fire which seemed to be slightly more effective, though harder to hit. Eventually, after the longest fight of his life at around 3 hours, he managed to ground the beast and finish it off.


    He stowed it''s body and consumed the upgrade token: Tropical Storm. At this point, the sun was setting over the horizon so Felix decided to head towards the Giant and wait till morning to engage. He also needed to find a way to fight the world boss at sea, west of Tiki Kahuna. He could fly, but he still wasn''t very good at it. Unfortunately, he didn''t really have any better options. He could commission a ship which would take a while to be built. Even if he stole one, it would likely get destroyed pretty quickly in the fight. Felix was very quickly realizing flying was his only option.


    Luckily, he had a long journey over the ocean to get back to the Mountain Giant where he could practice with little risk of falling and dying. As he flew, he had Grim fire off Mana Bolts at him so he could practice dodging. His biggest issue with flying in combat, was that currently it used up four of his manual casts. That left him with one spell at a time to either deal damage, defend or for utility. If he quickly needed a spell but was currently casting a Fire Ball or similar, he would be significantly delayed changing the spell over. With the Roc, he had needed to maintain a manual Mana Shield above his head once it started using lightning, if he were flying, he didn''t have that option.


    Felix had a few ideas for simplifying his flying spells, but all of them involved decreasing his mobility. The best idea he managed to come up with was to commission some kind of surf board then use a single spell to make it fly. It had the unfortunate problem of being easy to fall off of though. Felix spent over 8 hours traveling with Grim and practicing his flying ability. By the end he was much more comfortable with flying around but not quite ready to fight a world boss while he did. The sun was just beginning to rise over the horizon which meant it was time to kill the Stone Giant. . . . . .

 Chapter 83 - Book 82

    As Felix approached the battleground where he had last seen the Giant, he expected to see signs of battle from the previous fight. Instead, Felix saw nothing. There were no bodies, no blood stains, nothing to indicate there had previously been a battle here at all. He knew the Giant had thrown stones at the army, he had seen it, but none of the stones around the area were displaced at all. He found the Giant itself laying on the mountain side, as if tanning, although the sun hadn''t even risen over the horizon yet.


    It wasn''t the most human like enemy he had fought, that would be the vampire and it''s thralls, but it was the least threatening human like enemy so far. Felix felt a little bad hitting it and starting a fight as it seemed to just be napping on the mountainside. Unfortunately, he had a tutorial to complete so he fired off his tracking mana shots, though he doubted he would need them for this one. The tracking shots didn''t pierce it''s hide at all, instead shattering against it''s body. Felix wasn''t too worried though as he doubted he would need them here and the resulting splash of liquid mana still provided him some sense of it''s location.


    Felix had decided ahead of time to just stick with pure Force Bombs. The Giant''s skin seemed to be made of large flagstones so he doubted cold, fire or solid mana would have had much of an effect. He settled on triple sized spells to be sure he had enough damage to kill it without running out of mana. He was just hoping he was able to damage it at all.


    The giant rose to it''s feet faster than Felix had expected possible for a creature of it''s size. It immediately reached down and picked up a large stone to it''s left with both arms before lifting it above it''s head and tossing it in Felix''s direction. It''s aim was much better than the turtle''s but it wasn''t perfect as it was off by a few meters. It still would have done significant damage had Felix not dodged to the side though.


    Unfortunately for the giant, with it''s better aim, came a much longer ramp up time. As the Giant bent down then lifted another stone over it''s head, Felix managed to nail it''s body with 8 Force Bombs, and that was before the stone had even left it''s grip. That wasn''t all of it''s tricks though as it stomped on the ground and, likely with a little help from a skill or magic, caused a minor earthquake in the immediate area.


    Felix was almost knocked over by the quaking ground but he quickly jumped up and floated off the ground to avoid the strikes. He then used the last spell he could concentrate on to hit the Giant while it was essentially helplessly stomping the ground. Were it''s body not shaped like an adult male statue, Felix would have thought it was a child throwing a deadly, earth shattering tantrum. Felix only managed to hit it 3 times while floating as he only had a single spell of concentration remaining. The Giant seemed to realize it''s current tactic wasn''t working so it stopped stomping and switched it up. Instead it started pelting a barrage of small stones and chunks of dirt, basically whatever it could get it''s hands on, towards Felix.


    Felix had to cast the Mana Shield on his chest to ensure he didn''t get hit from the rain of debris he was subject to. Unfortunately, the debris also meant it would be difficult for him to hit the Giant with any projectiles berceuse they were too likely to detonate prematurely. Felix glided over to the side to get out of the way of the spray, but the Giant''s aim followed. Though Felix wasn''t ready to fly too far off the ground in combat, he felt he didn''t have much choice, so he glided up into the air and forwards, until he was directly above the Giant. He used his last spell to cast a Mana Shield under him and the Giant''s projectiles began to rain down upon itself, while Felix was relatively safe.


    As soon as it realized it was throwing things on itself, it switched over to trying to hit Felix with single large stones it could throw with one arm. It''s fire rate had greatly slowed, but it''s aim and lethality was much better. Felix dodged from side to side to avoid the stones and ultimately ended up giving up on one of the spells he used to fly, instead pressing his feet together. With the extra spell of concentration freed, he began firing back with Fore Bombs. The Giant was occasionally hitting Felix but, his Mana Shield absorbed the impact, and Felix was hitting the Giant almost every time he fired. This continued until Felix had landed 9 blows and had to block 2.


    In a last ditch attempt to end it''s prey, the Giant did something that Felix would never have expected, it crouched down and jumped to try and grab him. Felix immediately forced mana into his boot enchantments as they were the fastest thing he had and shot himself to the side. His aim was abysmal but he managed to avoid the grab, unfortunately he had also sent himself plummeting into the side of the mountain. He quickly dropped everything and cast Feather Fall on himself. As his descent slowed, he managed to find his bearings and caught a glimpse of the Giant running at him as fast as it could. It wasn''t very close so Felix had time to release his Feather Fall, hit the ground and begin running away as he launched Force Bombs over his shoulders.


    The Giant quickly closed in on him and tried to swat Felix like a fly. Felix engaged the enchanted plates strapped to his boots and shot himself to the side avoiding the slap by a dozen meters or so. He fired another Force Bomb into the side of it''s stone beard and continued running. The giant continued to chase and swat at Felix as he returned a single Force Bomb every time he dodged. The giant attempted to swat Felix 5 times before he fell to the ground, dead.


    Ding You have slain an [E - Rare] Stone Giant (Lvl 91)


    Ding You have gained a level in [E - Common] Caster


    Congratulations!


    You have slain a World Boss.


    The experience will be split among your party of 1 and you have obtained an upgrade token for any tutorial settlement. The token may be consumed in any settlement granting an upgrade based on the World Boss slain. The upgrade will be split evenly among the settlements where the tokens are consumed.


    Upgrade: Stone Giant''s Living Stone.


    Once again, no idea what that does.


    Felix consumed the token and checked his charm. He was worried the army would get some amount of contribution towards the kill, but the congratulations screen as well as the 100% soul on his charm reassured him. He was just as surprised when the Giant''s corpse vanished into his inventory as he was with the worm, even though the Giant was smaller.


    One more.


    Though Felix wanted to take time to practice his flying, he felt like he was kind of on a roll. He decided to scout out the next boss so he could properly prepare before doing anything. He really didn''t want to delay the fight to tomorrow or later which meant he had around 13 hours to be ready. He floated over the mountains and landed just beyond the tree line then ran south through the forest. He reached the beach where he could just make out something on the horizon and floated into the air. He then glided a few dozen meters above the ocean and approached where he knew the world boss would be.


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    He headed towards what he could now see was a large serpent with shiny scales and a long spiky fin running down it''s back. It was mostly silvery with a slight pink tinge around the fins and gills. It was easily as long as the sand worm, though much thinner. It was currently swimming, or rather thrashing, around in a circle creating the endless surfing waves Tiki-Kahuna enjoyed.


    [E - Special] Great Sea Serpent (Lvl 93)


    He floated back over to the nearest chunk of land and began to craft a surf board out of solid cast mana. This would allow him to move it freely with mana manipulation using only a single force spell to counter gravity. It took him half an hour to craft it to satisfaction then he began practicing his air surfing. He once again had Grim try and hit him with mana bolts as he darted around in the air. His overall mobility was worse as he couldn''t change directions as quickly, but the top speed he was comfortable flying at was much higher.


    He and Grim had come to the consensus that lightning was probably the best option for fighting the sea serpent. After just under 10 hours of training his flying, Felix felt ready. He wasn''t perfect at flying, but he felt a lot more comfortable with the board beneath his feet than he had with four separate force spells propelling him.


    Once he had beaten the Sea Serpent, he will have completed the tutorial, at least in his mind. He wasn''t sure what he would do at that point. He did have a lot of things on his todo list to knock out. He also wanted to spend some time getting to know Grim better and getting any useful information he could out of him, and finally decide whether or not to soul-bond. Plus he would have an entire month to himself. All of that came after the sea serpent fight though.


    Felix rode an invisible wave through the air and over to where the Sea Serpent was currently making it''s mark on the otherwise calm ocean. He started off with his tracking shots which got the serpents attention. What followed was the most fun fight and as a result the most fun Felix had had since the start of the tutorial. The Sea Serpent tried to shoot jets of water at Felix, which he just rode over with his board. He had to repair it manually, but it wasn''t difficult to do as he flew around.


    The Serpent also tried to jump into the air and catch him, but Felix was just too slippery. When the serpent jumped, it gave Felix the perfect opening to unload a barrage of Lightning Bolts. When he finally killed the serpent with his 17th triple sized Lightning Bolt, Felix felt sad that the fight was over. At no point during the fight had he felt like he was in danger, he had simply felt excitement. Maybe it was the surfing he enjoyed, he wasn''t sure.


    The Serpent had died mid jump so Felix rode down to touch it''s body before it collided with the ocean and stowed it in his inventory. At this point he had accepted that they would all fit, though he wasn''t sure why. He knew other''s had found out the hard way that there was a limit to everyone''s inventory, he just expected to have hit it by now. Felix figured the people who had figured that out, must have tried to store a mountain or two.


    Congratulations!


    You have slain a World Boss.


    The experience will be split among your party of 1 and you have obtained an upgrade token for any tutorial settlement. The token may be consumed in any settlement granting an upgrade based on the World Boss slain. The upgrade will be split evenly among the settlements where the tokens are consumed.


    Upgrade: Serpent''s Wrath.


    Finally, I get to relax. Just chill and hang out for the rest of the tutorial. Maybe I''ll read some books or learn to fight with a sword. I also want to learn some martial arts at some point.


    Tutorial Announcement


    All 9 world bosses in the tutorial have been slain.


    With the death of all of the world bosses, a new challenge has been unlocked. At the center of the tutorial map the seal containing the final boss for the tutorial is breaking. This boss is much more difficult than all of the other world bosses and will require the best of the best in the tutorial to come together and fight as a team. There will be opportunities for all to participate, even non combatants, and special rewards will be given to those who do.


    This boss is recommended to be taken on by 25,000 level 50 - 60s. The seal will be broken and the boss will be available to fight when there are 9 days left in the tutorial. If the boss is not engaged in a fight within the first five minutes of it appearing, it will disappear. It will be available to fight for 1 day if engaged. If it has not been defeated at that point, then it will disappear.


    Fuck you. Of course. Whelp, who needs to relax anyways?


    Felix consumed the token and turned to Grim and wrote, "Can you see the announcement?"


    "No, I''ve been blocking The System from interacting with me. Don''t really trust it."


    Felix copied down the contents of the Tutorial Announcement on to one of Grim''s pages then wrote, "I was supposed to have a month off, to relax, catch up on some things I''ve wanted to do. Now I have this to deal with."


    "You don''t have to deal with it, but why are you complaining? You would much prefer this."


    "You''re right, it''s making me a little giddy to be honest. I was hoping those other fights would be more engaging but honestly, once I got serious, they were kind of easy."


    "Maybe but, you''re a monster."


    "I don''t think I''m that different."


    "Think about it this way, how much mana did you use per fight?"


    "Anywhere from a third to three quarters of my mana pool."


    "How much mana per strike for a lightning strike on the serpent?"


    "Just over 4k."


    "If someone only focused on intelligence and managed to make it to class and profession level 100 with a common profession focused on intelligence, say 3 per level plus 3 free points. How big would their mana pool be? How many of those lightning strikes could they cast?"


    "They''d cast at most, 3. I see your point."


    "Also the fact that you can cast spells so easily is kind of insane. Where I came from, there was no system, no spell lists. People either cast simple spells or inscribed spells onto tiles then filled those with mana to cast spells, or inscribed them on different sides of a wand or staff, or into an orb. Ultimately though, they can''t just create spells on the fly. It takes an hour or so to inscribe a normal spell, less for easy ones. I don''t know why you are the way you are, but you are a monster."


    "I don''t think I appreciate that enough. It would annoy me so much to have to add and remove spells from my spell list, then chant and wave my hands and wait for them to cast. Oh man that would be hell. Why would anyone want to be a caster? Just pickup a sword or bow."


    "Because at higher levels, they cast Fire Balls and other large effect spells. Oh also, the fact that you can actively regenerate your entire mana pool between the fights is insane. The fact that you do it at all is not that impressive, the fact that you first touched mana a few months ago, is mind boggling. I know you used the single use, solid mana batteries, but making those is also kind of wild."


    "Oh yeah that would have been impossible if I couldn''t just regenerate my mana pool using the batteries. Also I guess they''re more like mana consumables."


    "Yeah I guess, still kind of insane. They are crude and a little silly, but I don''t think I''ve ever heard of anyone just making anything like it on a whim."


    "I''ll have to make a lot more of those, they were the real stars of the show. Those and the surf board."


    Speaking of surfing¡­ S§×ar?h the ¦Çov§×lFire .net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    Felix decided to go inform Mike his free waves were unfortunately done with so he glided over to the east where Tiki-Kahuna was. When he got there though, he found the town completely abandoned. At first he was worried they had been raided, but then he noticed that there was nothing strewn about, left behind or even damaged. Everything had been taken cleanly. The only thing remaining was the massive bar in the center, that was completely empty. . . . . .

 Chapter 84 - Book 83

    Felix had nothing else to do in what was once Tiki-Kahuna so he flew back to Tri-Peak and landed atop his tower. He stowed his surf board in his inventory and headed down to see if Noah or Henry had been waiting for him. When he stepped onto the kitchen floor though, he smelled something wonderful that made him stop. He followed the smell into the kitchen to find a tall man with long blond hair cooking something that smelled of exotic spices on a magical stove top.


    [E - Common] Human (Lvl 71)


    "Mike?"


    "Oh hey man, good to see you again. Interested in some stew?"


    "Sure? I''ll take a bowl, it smells awesome. What are you doing here by the way?"


    Mike placed a few finishing touches into the stew then scooped some out into a bowl for Felix and handed it to him with a spoon.


    "With all the raiding happening, and the Grove being right next to us, we didn''t really feel safe. Most of the other''s had already moved so I just made it official and left with the rest of ''em. Hope you don''t mind me crashing here, Noah said it would be cool once I told him we were buds."


    I guess I don''t really care. I don''t want people permanently living in my tower, but what does it matter if he stays here for a few months. Especially if he keeps making me delicious food, wasn''t he a bartender? Is he also a cook now?


    "I don''t mind at all. Which room are you sleeping in? Also when did you become a cook? This stuff is awesome."


    "Glad you like it, I picked up some skills a few months ago and have been practicing ever since. It kind of became a necessity when people come to you for all their needs. I just took one of the rooms off of the kitchen, if that''s alright?"


    "Yeah that''s totally fine. Where is the rest of your settlement staying? I hope it''s not in my tower?"


    "Hah, nah man, they''d never fit. They seem to all be integrating pretty well, finding jobs and getting back to the real world, kind of¡­ you know what I mean. Speaking of¡­ would you be willing to uh¡­ combine settlements? At least until the end of the tutorial? I can be under you, like the manager of the vacation themed remote location."


    As long as you don''t want to co-own this city, why the hell not?


    "Sure I guess."


    "Sweet, thanks man. When the tutorials over we can split off again."


    City Management S~ea??h the nov§×lF~ire.net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    Tiki-Kahuna has offered to become a branch of the main city, Tri-Peak.


    Tiki-Kahuna will be a settlement that exists under Tri-Peak, it will be subject to the same laws and tax rates as Tri-Peak unless a specific exception is made. The land occupied by Tiki-Kahuna will be owned by Tri-Peak and will be leased at no charge to Tiki-Kahuna, at the discretion of Tri-Peak.


    Do you accept this offer?


    Yes.


    No.


    "Why wouldn''t I accept this? Why are you being so cagey about it?"


    "I just wasn''t sure if you wanted to take on my population, provide food and stuff like that."


    Yes. Why would that matter?


    Felix shrugged and Mike scrambled to explain, "It got kind of hard to provide food and drinks for everyone. We didn''t have many sources ourselves, other than some fish and we started to run low on cash to just buy it. We are- were¡­ kind of a sinking ship. Don''t really have much to offer. So uh, thanks¡­"


    Ah, pretty sure we could pay, as a city, to keep you afloat forever. Then you could just be the discount vacation destination for citizens. He could probably make a ton of credits if he charged more for drinks and lodging.


    "Like you said, we''re buds."


    Felix licked his bowl clean and placed it on the counter, "Thanks for the stew by the way."


    "No problem."


    Felix left Mike to his own devices and went to go figure out what all the upgrades had done. He wasn''t certain which upgrade had which effect, but talking to Noah, he cross referenced the timeline with their names and got a pretty good idea. Griffin''s protection seemed to be a wind storm capable of blocking projectiles. Elk''s crown was a larger parapet with arrow slits and spaces for cannons, that did in fact resemble a crown atop the walls. Desert Oasis protected the entire city from undesirable weather effects, though it had only been active for a minor drizzle at this point.


    Yeti''s Hide had almost doubled the thickness of the wall, though Felix doubted how useful that was given how thick they already were. Gator''s Gate replaced the gate with an upgraded three stage gate that was both more defensive and more welcoming. Tropical Storm was a lightning storm the city could deploy upon attacking armies. Stone Giant''s Living Stone allowed for the wall to slowly regenerate itself, which was actually accidentally tested when someone fired a turtle cannon straight upwards. Serpent''s wrath was a set of fire hoses that could be used to put out fires, or attack an enemy.


    This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.


    Overall, Felix thought the upgrades were pretty minor, but he would have killed the world bosses no matter what they were. Once he had figured that out with Noah, not that it was necessary, they moved on to discussions about the city. Henry had gotten so distracted with the metals and minerals up north, that he didn''t even notice Felix was gone. After the world announcement about the final boss, people started getting scared because the current rumor is that The Grove and Icewatch teamed up to take them out. That meant they would raze the rest of the settlements and be all powered up to take on the Major City last. Felix had no intention of revealing himself but Noah wanted to assure them somehow.


    Noah finally managed to convince Felix to let him spread a rumor that they had deployed a secret strike force to take out the world bosses. He wanted Felix to show off the corpses but Felix refused out of principle and because they could have useful materials on them. He doubted any of those would spoil with too much exposure to the air, but he was being safe and stubborn.


    Apparently the mountain town north of the grove got invaded and almost immediately surrendered just a few hours ago. The rumor is that they deployed a small army of their best somewhere else and got decimated. Without them, the rest of the settlement was essentially defenseless. Icewatch had also claimed Bastion of Hope and the Oasis meaning the only settlements left in the entire tutorial were Tri-Peak, Icewatch and The Grove. Felix''s population was about half of the people still alive in the tutorial though so he wasn''t too worried. That and all of the upgrade tokens he had consumed reassured him.


    At this point it was only a matter of time before The Grove and Icewatch combined, forcefully or peacefully and came after Tri-Peak. After thinking about it for a few minutes and talking it through with Noah, Felix was slightly worried. His town was built around crafters, even though a good number of combat focused individuals had migrated over, he was still felt like he alone was the last line of defense. If they were at all smart too, they would plan the siege for the day the seal broke on the final boss, or lie in wait for Felix to leave. It was unlikely they knew much about Felix, but if they heard and believed the rumors about a strike force taking out bosses, they would probably want to wait until they weren''t around.


    Even if they didn''t know about Felix or hear about the rumors, they knew that they had collectively taken out the rest of the forts on the map and neither of them had killed any world bosses. Putting two and two together, the only other possibility was that Tri-Peak or an independent faction had taken them out. Either way, attacking when, whoever it was, was occupied with the final boss would just reduce the variables and increase their chance of succeeding.


    The rest of the settlement was preparing for a siege. Those who wanted to fight were buying new gear and training. Those who didn''t, were collecting and stocking up resources in warehouses.


    Noah finally asked the question that had been eating at him the entire conversation, "You''re going to try and fight the final boss, aren''t you?"


    "Yeah." Felix nodded.


    "Figures¡­ Henry is not going to be happy about it, and obviously I would prefer having you here to help. Do you think we can do it though? Survive? I know we have walls and cannons as well as projectile shields¡­ but¡­ is it enough?"


    "They are probably preparing siege equipment, if they can. They have to know about the walls and cannons by now. They are probably coming up with as many countermeasures as they can. All we can do is prepare to the best of our ability and fight."


    "Yeah¡­ I guess. Any chance you could fight them off then go fight the final boss?"


    "I''m not doing that. I am not flying around the tutorial to massacre large groups of people. Don''t get me wrong, I will kill people to protect the city and the weak and all that, but I don''t think I should go out of my way to kill people."


    "I guess not. Maybe you could go scare them a little?"


    "How?"


    "You could visit them and give them a show of force."


    "I would be the aggressor in that situation. As it is, they haven''t done anything to indicate they''re going to attack at all yet. They may just chill for the rest of the tutorial or fight each-other."


    "Yeah¡­ probably shouldn''t do that. Could just scare then a little, you know? We are basically preparing for war, or at least that''s what it feels like. We also have a large proportion of our population that have taken or are thinking about taking the pacifist option."


    "I''ll do everything I can to defend the city."


    "Except be here yourself? What if it comes down to the city or the boss¡­"


    "The city every time, but that''s not the decision I''m making right now. It''s between protecting the city or letting the city protect itself."


    "If we can. Felix, you are a part of the city. We may or may not need you here to win, but how many lives would be saved if you were here? Just think about it, ok?"


    Noah left to organize the people and assuage their concerns and Felix ascended to the top of his tower and wrote to Grim, "You can cast any of the spells I already know right?"


    "Yeah, I don''t exactly have a monstrous mana pool, but more or less. I also can''t cast as fast as you can and I cannot cast as many spells at once as you can but, yes I can."


    "I''ve got an idea."


    "If it''s what I think it is, I can do that, but you are going to need to give me a lot more mana."


    "Is that all you need?"


    "I think so. Everything else I should be able to manage. It''s going to need to be a lot of mana though, like a stupid amount."


    "That, I can do."


    "If we''re going to do this, I''m going to spend the next twenty days preparing the city for a siege."


    "Coordinate with Noah and¡­ Oh, take these, should help with the illusion." Felix handed Grim the silk robes he bought last time he was in the city along with the mask.


    Grim took the robes and floated around inside the hood. Felix could easily tell there wasn''t anything beneath the robes, but Grim had fooled people before with less.


    "How are you going to communicate with people? I thought you couldn''t understand our language?"


    Grim wrote out a floating message in the air in front of him using a slightly convoluted light spell reading, "How''s this? I''ve been working on that. I''m not perfectly fluent but your language isn''t really that complicated. I think I can manage."


    "I guess that works. Everyone already thinks of me as an eccentric, not like this is gonna hurt my image."


    "Oh and can you give me the mask too?"


    "Uh, sure I guess. I don''t really need it to fight the boss. How are you gonna use it though? You don''t exactly have a head."


    "I think I can use the enchantment, with a little modification to make myself look like you."


    Felix handed Grim the mask who took it by floating it out of Felix''s hand and into the hood using a force spell. Felix immediately felt the effects of the mask on Grim. Instead of a flying robe with no legs, it looked like Felix with no legs. It didn''t seem like that would be much of an issue though because the attention avoidance effect was active. It was like he couldn''t see Grim clearly or mentally process what he was seeing. It felt like his brain was just glossing over everything that it found wrong with the image in front of him, which helped greatly with the fact that he was essentially staring at himself.


    Felix nodded to Grim and Grim took his leave, floating out of the tower and into the city. . . . . .

 Chapter 85 - Book 84

    In the tower, Felix sat in the center of his bedroom and thought through what he wanted to do over the next few days. He wanted to sit on the roof, but there was a chance someone could see him there and with Grim posing as him, that wasn''t the best option.


    I''m not sure I want to give the grimoire of forbidden knowledge a ton of mana then leave it alone in the city. It might try to sacrifice the town or summon a demon. Maybe I should soul bond with it, then I can keep track of what it''s doing and what''s happening in the city.


    Felix began creating balls of mana from ambient as quickly as he could and placing them in his inventory. He didn''t use his pool because he didn''t want the mana to have an affinity for him, which would make it difficult for Grim to use. He stopped after creating a dozen balls of about 250k mana each, which took him around 3 days. While he couldn''t exactly practice his spell formation at the same time, the process of creating the consumables alone was great training for his general mana control.


    Ok, so the center of the tutorial is a giant ocean. Unless an island has randomly appeared or has been floating above us all this time, the boss is something water based. Hopefully that means lightning is effective. I should probably go scout the area to be sure.


    Felix flew from the top of his tower north east, to the center of the tutorial map. It was possible somebody had seen him, but he didn''t care that much. He rode his surf board through the sky as it was likely that was how he would be fighting the boss. He traveled over the ocean far enough that none of the land around him was visible over the horizon. He used his map to make sure he was directly in the center of the map because there wasn''t any indication of a boss of any kind. He stood on the air above the ocean with nothing but water and sky in sight. He looked up hoping to find a floating island above him but found nothing but stars.


    Oh man, whelp.


    Felix stowed his surfboard and dove into the sea below. He swam downwards using a strong light spell to be able to see and a couple of force spells to propel himself faster. He was very glad for his diving ring as he was already feeling the pressure on the rest of his body from the seemingly endless depth. After swimming through the sea for what felt like an hour, Felix turned off his light to confirm, there was a slight glow below him. He swam down a few hundred meters and found a large stone tablet, a hundred meters to a side, laying flat on the ground. On the tablet, the image of a large tentacled creature was glowing with a slight pulse. The creature looked like an octopus except it had large spikes on it''s head and much more than 8 tentacles. It also had 9 eyes which looked odd to Felix, but he wasn''t sure if that was normal for octopi.


    It''s probably soft and has lots of tentacles, blades are probably a safe bet. Other than that I practice some more with lightning then worst case I can fall back on Force Bombs or Fire Balls.


    He didn''t think he would be able to figure anything else out so he shot upwards and out of the water. He flew back to the tower and got to work on training.


    The first thing Grim did was figure out how prepared the city already was and to make sure they were working on the basics. He wanted to go scout out the enemy, but in another 10 or 15 days, they would be more prepared and he would get more useful intel. As of right now, they were likely spread out all over the place and possibly still training individually. It was unlikely the two forts had met up or even started working together. In the meantime though, he could make sure the city was creating bows and arrows as well as cannon balls and medical supplies which would be useful no matter what.


    He first headed over to the walls to get an idea of what was already there. He was also looking for Noah, but he figured he would come across him eventually. The walls were full of activity as people carried and set up cannons and ballista between the turtle cannons and serpent''s wrath terminals. Cannons and ballista were fine, but they were also slow and inaccurate. They were great against enemy siege weapons, but Grim was seeing a lack of high fire rate or precision weaponry.


    He then flew through the city, starting at the entrance to judge how everyone was currently preparing. As he flew through, people appeared tense but no one seemed to be preparing much, other than the people on the walls. There were some buying armor and weapons, but people were always doing that. He continued through the entire town before he headed back to the wall and floated in front of the least busy looking individual then wrote in the air, "Where can I find Noah?"


    The man was taken aback and took a few seconds to recover then he tentatively said, "Check Henry''s forge." Grim floated off before they asked any questions. They should forget most of the interaction in a few minutes anyways. Overall Grim''s assessment of their preparedness was abysmal. Felix''s upgrade tokens helped a lot but ultimately, they didn''t have an army to take on the attacking army which was worrying.


    Most worrying of all though was that although the city was relying on crafters to create solutions, they didn''t have enough answers to traditional siege methods. The solutions that crafters were able to create tended to be specific answers to specific problems. The city as a whole didn''t have great answers to dynamic problems, things that came up that they couldn''t predict. From what Grim had seen in his universe, typically that was handled by individuals, strike teams and more general use tools.


    Their best answer currently was throw Felix at the problem, unfortunately, Grim wasn''t Felix and he had more limitations than Felix did. His casting was slower, his mana pool wouldn''t regenerate as quickly, and he wasn''t able to just pull super powers out of his pages like Felix seemed to be able to pull out of his ass. If he got the single use batteries from Felix, his mana pool would be much larger, but it wouldn''t regenerate. He would have to conserve mana in case the siege lasted for a few days or more. Though at that point, hopefully Felix would be back.


    He knew where Henry''s forge was, he had followed Felix when he enchanted the armor of Tri-Peak and Grim''s memory was perfect. He didn''t have hands to knock on the door but he should be able to simulate Felix''s heavy handed knock with some simple force spells. BANG BANG BANG


    If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.


    "ALRIGHT, I''m coming." Henry yelled from inside.


    A moment later Henry opened the door, "Please stop hitting my door that hard. The entire damn building rattles. Every time you knock, I think someone brought a siege engine to my door."


    Grim used some very light force spells to lift the shoulders of the robes and simulate a shrug.


    "Come in" Henry grumbled as he stepped aside. Grim floated into the room and Henry closed the door behind him. Though the temperature didn''t bother him, Grim was a little worried the robes might catch fire so he cast a simple cold spell to keep the robes from combusting. As he floated in, he noticed Noah was having a tough time with the heat as he was dripping in sweat so Grim floated over next to him and extended his cold spell to encompass Noah as well.


    Noah sighed in relief, "Felix, what are you doing here?"


    Grim wrote in the air in front of him to respond, "Here to organize the defense of the city."


    "I see. What about that project you were working on?"


    "Taken care of."


    "Well¡­ alright, I guess." Noah looked at Grim for a few moments with a confused expression.


    It was time to get to business, "Update me on all the plans for the siege. What is everyone doing, where is everything going. What are our options and what are we planning for?"


    "Oh uh well, we''ve got the cannons and ballistae, that the crafters have been working on, going up on the walls around the gate now."


    Henry added, "I''ve also got the crafters working on grenades and other weaponry we can lob at the enemies."


    Grim waited for a minute until he realized that was it.


    "Alright here''s what I need, Noah go get me the biggest and most accurate map you can of the city layout and arrange to have my feast table moved into the lobby. I know it sucks to get up there but suck it up. The lobby of my tower is now the war room. I want the map there before midday then we''re going to start actually planning for the siege. Henry, get all of the wood workers and carpenters on making long bows and arrows. I want as many as you can possibly make at a ratio of 25 arrows to each bow. Don''t make them fancy, no tips at all. Just straight, sharpened sticks with fletching." Grim wrote out in increments.


    "Uh, alright. Yes sir¡­ Can''t we just use the projection we used back in the castle?" Noah awkwardly saluted then headed out of the building.


    Henry seemed to be a little put off at first but recovered after a few seconds and nodded.


    Grim followed Noah out of the building and down the road while Henry went in the other direction.


    "Why are you wearing the mask? And is there a reason you''re writing everything out instead of¡­ talking?" sea??h th§× N?vel?ire.net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    "Magical experiment gone wrong."


    "Oh shit, how long till it heals?"


    "A couple weeks probably. This is the best I can do for now."


    Noah nodded, "What changed your mind by the way?"


    Grim lied, "You, I thought about the lives we could save. I still don''t want to just go crazy and kill people but I can at least help."


    Noah smiled and blushed a little, "Thanks, Felix."


    Noah led Grim to a few buildings where he recruited some people to move the table then led them all to the tower. It took 4 people with strength focused builds to move the table, but they managed to do so without damage to the table or the walls. They also moved all of the chairs into the lobby as well then left after Noah thanked and paid them a small amount.


    "As for the map, we can just use the city planning projection from way back when. Forgot about that?"


    "I did, mind pulling it up for me?"


    "Sure thing." Noah pulled up the city projection and had it project itself on the middle of the table.


    "First things first, how long will our food and water supply last? Do we have water towers or tanks to store water just in case? How much is in the warehouses?"


    "We don''t have water towers but the town gets all it''s water from mountain streams and wells."


    "We''re going to need tanks of some kind for reserve water, just in case. I know we have the water cannons on the walls that we can use if all else fails, but those take a long time to recharge. What about food?"


    "We are currently moving as much as we can into warehouses."


    "How many trained fighters do we have?"


    "Not sure. Lot''s of merchants privately hired guards, along with immigrants over the last couple weeks, those are most of the combatants in the city."


    "Alright, with this map done I''ve got a different task for you. I want you to go and find someone to organize the melee combatants, archers, casters, the food and water, Henry for the crafters, and finally the civilians. Choose whoever you think will be the best representative for each and offer for them to be a part of the council. Every morning, starting tomorrow, when the tutorial countdown reads 16 hours we''re going to meet here and update each-other. You have until then to find someone for each of those categories."


    "Sure, shouldn''t be a problem. What about all the preparations happening right now?"


    "Just leave it be for now. Make sure no one fires a cannon or activates any spells at all. No weapons tests, nothing until someone orders them to. Bring Amelia too to represent the live repair team, if she''s up for it. Every time you find someone, send them to me as soon as possible and I''ll give them preliminary marching orders."


    Noah nodded and left the tower at a slight jog. Until Noah sent someone up to meet him, Grim began planning the siege defense based on the map in front of him. The town was surrounded by mountain peaks on each side except for a large gap in the front. The cannons and ballistae were being set up around the gate facing forwards. Other than that though, there was nothing. If Grim were setting up a siege on the city, he would have people climbing the mountains and attacking from there. If he didn''t have access to complicated magic items, simple hang gliders or parachutes would easily get people over the walls. He would also launch flaming projectiles like logs and stones directly into the city from the mountains. It would be a pain to get things up the mountains, but it wouldn''t be impossible.


    A thick wall surrounded the city, but it''s height was also eclipsed by the height of the mountain peaks around them. It would be nearly impossible to get through the walls and the other way to get around them was to tunnel. Grim wasn''t sure how that would be possible so he didn''t worry about it for now. The last option was to either use battering rams on the gates, force a surrender through damage to the city or starvation, or circumvent the walls entirely. While Grim knew, from dictionary definitions, about towers to get over walls from back on earth, he also knew about more convoluted methods magic and stats allowed for.


    With a catapult or trebuchet, you could launch people over the walls to cause chaos. They were very likely to survive if they were strong enough and it would allow them to wreak all kinds of havoc. They could also use grappling hooks with chains or other difficult to cut ropes. It also wouldn''t be impossible for them to cut down trees that were long enough to create a ramp over the walls that would allow anything inside.


    As of right now, the city didn''t have anything to deal with most of those attacks. Cannons were a decent start, but they were also an inefficient solution to these problems. Not to mention the more appalling methods of attack through disease or chemicals. If the city relied solely on the upgrades from the world bosses, they would run out of mana and be overrun in less than a day. . . . . .

 Chapter 86 - Book 85

    Grim continued to plan until the first new council member arrived to take their preliminary orders. There was a knock on the door and Grim used a force spell to open it revealing Amelia.


    Grim immediately started writing out orders in the air for her, "I need you to halt all non war related building activities. Start stocking up on resources to repair buildings and defensive structures. We''ll start reinforcing shelters and bunkers for civilians, in case something goes wrong, tomorrow. In the meantime, stock up on resources and split your builders into teams with simple names so we can separate and deploy them. I''ll make sure there are casters and soldiers assigned to protecting them as well."


    Amelia nodded without saying a word and left. Grim continued to plan until someone else showed up, a tall individual in a full set of plate armor who was completely bald save for his long red beard. He spoke with a gruff voice, "Commander, reporting for the casters."


    Grim didn''t even question the fact that he wore a full suit of plate armor, he''d heard of much weirder, "I need you to organize casters into small groups that can be deployed. Organize them based on mana capacity. Those with low capacity will be assigned to help defend builder groups or to support soldiers. Those with a high mana capacity will be on siege duty. I have some spells I want them to learn. They don''t all need to know all of them, but they should have at least two per squad. Organize the squads today and give them simple memorable names. I''ll give you the spells at tomorrow''s meeting."


    "Yes, sir. Excellent sir." The man saluted, nodded then bowed. If Grim could have sighed, he would have. The man left and the next person to arrive was actually 3 people at once. The one of them that wore a full suit of plate armor managed to start talking before Grim had a chance to write anything.


    "Hey John."


    Who?


    When Grim didn''t respond the man continued, "You uh¡­" then he whispered the man next to him and the third one giggled. The man turned back to Grim, "Ah, sorry ''bout that. I thought you were somebody I knew. I''m Benjamin, this is Will and this is Alan. I''ll be leading the melees and Alan will be leading the archers. Will is going to be my second in command and he''ll be on the walls while I maintain the ground."


    "All three of you, find and recruit anyone who can fight. Send them to this warehouse and split them up once you''re there. Set it up like a pyramid scheme, promise them pay and they get more the more they recruit. Everyone who is joining though must show up at this building by 2 hours left on the countdown for the day. Will and Benjamin, you guys split the forces into two groups. I want the best of the best to start on the walls. They''ll be guarding against the enemy forces that make it on or over the walls, which we have to assume will happen."


    "The rest of the melee will be backup for the walls and will defend against anything that makes it''s way past the walls. I want them split up into groups of 5 and they will mostly be guarding builders and healers at first. I''m also going to assign at least one caster to each of those groups once we get closer to the siege. For the next week though, everyone is training on their own to get up to snuff."


    Grim continued with orders for Alan, "Alan, once you have your archers ready I want them to start practicing with longbows if they haven''t been already. If they happen to have something with better range, that works too. Split them up based on aim and endurance. The archers with the best aim will be special units for taking out specific people or firing off flaming arrows to take down a structure. The high endurance people will be on volley duty, I want them taking out as many people as they can and fire as fast as possible. The more arrows in the air, the harder it will be for them to move about freely. They can also switch out with reserve units on the ground. I''m having the crafters stock up on arrows and bows now so if anyone is running low, they can go there."


    Finally Grim wrote, "Any questions?"


    Will spoke up, "Why can''t you speak?"


    "Magical experiment with a potion, should be fine in a couple weeks or so. Any relevant questions?"


    They all shook their heads then took their leave.


    Who is John?


    The next person to walk in was a tall thin woman with blonde hair, "I''m Jen. I''m a farmer, not exactly sure what I''m doing here but Noah asked me to so¡­"


    Grim wrote back, "You speak for the other farmers and are comfortable handling logistics for food and water storage?"


    "Yeah sure, I can do that. What does that have to do with a war though?"


    "One of the best ways to fight a war and take a castle is to cut off their resources. Then they can either starve or surrender. I want you to make sure that never happens."


    "I see, I guess I ca-"


    Grim interrupted her by writing, "I need you to start harvesting and collecting as much food as you can from the farms. Take all of the livestock and either slaughter them or move them to a warehouse in the city. Anything left outside the gates will be taken as spoils of war. I also need you to find some way of storing as much water as you can. There is always a chance we''ll need it. If you can get enough water for us to survive a month, that should be enough."


    "Uh, alright I can do that, I''ll get on it."


    She turned and opened the door to reveal another woman standing in wait in the door. They awkwardly shuffled to let each-other pass and Jen walked down the stairs. The other woman said, "Name''s Susan. Here to represent the merchants." Sear?h the N?velFire(.)net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


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    "I don''t need a representative for the merchants, you can leave."


    "Excuse me? The merchants are one of the most important factions in this town. We run on craf-"


    Grim didn''t bother listening to the rest, "You can report to the representative of the civilians if you''d like. You can wait until they show up if you''d like."


    "Why would the civilians be above the merchants?"


    "Because in a war, neither of you are fighting it. You will both be sheltered and protected when the time comes. You will both be treated the same."


    After some inaudible grumbling to herself, Susan said something barely audible, "Alright fine, I was sent to be the representative of the civilians."


    "Excellent, I need you to get people ready. What that means is, anything particularly valuable needs to be stowed in your inventories at all times or placed into one of the bunkers we are reinforcing. If you don''t trust it there, and it is particularly valuable, they can store whatever it is in my tower and I will watch it. Every single civilian in the city should know the location of every shelter and bunker we are creating. At any moment they may need to run to one and that better be whichever they are closest to. If they want to plan for their own provisions, they should have it in their inventory at all times. We are planning a worst case scenario of a month. We highly doubt it will ever last that long, but we are planning for that anyways to be safe. Everyone should be ready to move at a moments notice. Make sure no one goes outside the gates unless absolutely necessary because we may close them at a moments notice."


    "Yes, I can¡­ I can do that. I''ll get people ready."


    "Update me at tomorrow''s meeting on how it''s going and we will adjust from there. If possible you should run drills so people know how and where to run. I don''t want a stampede if the time comes to shelter, I don''t want anyone to die or get pulled by a crowd to an incorrect location, got it? Everyone sticks to the right side of the street and doesn''t lay a toe on the other side, clear?"


    "Uh, yes sir. Don''t you think that''s a little dramatic?"


    "No. If someone get''s stampeded in a crowd, how are you going to feel? Let''s make sure there isn''t even a chance of it happening."


    "Yes¡­ sir." With that, Susan left appearing a little shell shocked.


    With all that complete, Grim headed up to the kitchens to find Felix''s impromptu guest. He found Mike in the kitchen cooking something on the stove. Grim couldn''t taste or smell, so it just looked like soft goop to him. He used a very light force spell to tap on Mike''s shoulder than wrote out in air, with a brief pause between due to spell casting cooldowns, "Mike, I''ve got a job for you if you''re up for it."


    "Sure man, what do you need?"


    "I''m going to be having daily war room meetings in the lobby, where the feast table is now, every morning when the tutorial countdown reads 16 hours."


    "You mean 6AM?"


    "Yes. Would it be possible for you to make breakfast every morning for the council? I''ll pay you a thousand credits each meal."


    "Woah, I mean sure? I don''t mind. I kinda just like cooking man."


    "Excellent, first meeting will be tomorrow. Also, you are welcome to join us for the meal, it''s not like the war preparations are super secret. Just try not to divert or delay the meeting too much if you do."


    Mike nodded and Grim floated back down to the lobby.


    Grim''s next order of business was to go and find Noah, he had forgotten about one representative who was likely to be the most important of them all. He figured Noah would be at the walls as his orders were to make sure no one test fired anything. He found Noah standing, as he expected, atop the walls helping to organize things.


    "Noah, I forgot the most important council member of all, I need you to find a representative for the medics. Healers and doctors and anyone that wants to help on that front."


    "Oh yeah, I can see how that would be important. I think I know someone who fits the bill, follow me."


    Noah led Grim to one of the houses in the residential district and knocked on the door. A few moments later a tall man with a neatly trimmed bear and curly blond hair opened the door.


    "Noah, how are you?"


    "Good thank you, this is Felix. We are arranging a war council to organize the defense of the city, should it come to that. I thought you would be perfect to organize the medics."


    "I see. As of now though, the war might not even happen, right?"


    "Correct."


    "So this is just preliminary preparations?"


    "Correct."


    "That''s a lot of managerial work, I''d much prefer to be a medic than to organize them."


    "Probably."


    "Don''t you want someone with magical healing powers?"


    "Nope."


    "You want someone with knowledge? Who knows which injuries are urgent?"


    "Exactly."


    "I can recruit anyone I want to do the actual micro managing of people?"


    "Of course, entirely at your discretion."


    "This is the mythical creature that oversees this city?"


    "Hell no." Grim shot in, "Noah does all the overseeing, I''m just a figurehead, and very much not mythical."


    "Alright, what do you need me to do?"


    Grim wrote, "I need you to recruit as many healers, doctors and nurses as you can. Anyone who wants to join should be welcome. Split them into threes with at least one healer and one traditional doctor per trio, if possible. We will be setting up three buildings for medical treatment. I need you to send everyone experienced to gather medical supplies, just charge them to the town. Anyone with no experience but who is willing to help, train them in the basics or find someone to train them. Also make sure they aren''t squeamish, don''t want them vomiting when they see a wound for the first time."


    "I can do that."


    "There will also be daily meetings when the tutorial countdown reads 16 hours in the lobby of my tower. If you have any issues or concerns or just need help, that''s where you can address them. Noah and I will try to help whoever needs it and keep everything running as smoothly as possible."


    "Will breakfast be provided?" He said jokingly with a smirk.


    "Yes."


    "Really?" Both Noah and the medic representative said in unison.


    "Yup, I have a chef living with me right now, so I might as well put him to use."


    "Alright, I''ll be there. I''m Anthony by the way."


    "Pleasure."


    Grim and Noah left. On the road Noah asked Grim, "Should I be at these meetings as well?"


    "Yes, you are the most important person in that meeting, above even me. You both have the permissions for everything in the city and you know the most about the people and infrastructure. If there are problems, you are going to help resolve them. If people need help or have issues, I will have them come to me directly then I will delegate the most important ones to you. Anything of lower priority I might ask for your advice, but largely, I will handle those myself. For now, stay near the walls and deal with the people setting those up, as of tomorrow you will report back to the lobby in my tower when you don''t have any tasks, then you can wait there until someone comes asking for help."


    "Alright, I will be there. Thanks."


    Grim didn''t continue the conversation any further and they parted ways a few blocks later where Grim headed to the tower and Noah to the walls.


    Grim spent the rest of the day planning out the siege in the lobby of the tower. He ran through as many possibilities of how the enemy could attack and formulated the best responses to each of those. Then he trimmed down the list of answers the city would need to prepare by focusing on the answers that addressed multiple problems and removed the more specific options that were too niche. Some specific solutions, like cannons and grappling hooks on winches, would stay as taking down siege engines was essential to their winning the battle. . . . . .

 Chapter 87 - Book 86

    The next morning, everyone showed up on time to the meeting, including Mike, who served a classic breakfast of sausage, bacon, eggs and toast. The most common issue the council faced was with recruiting so they opted to have message boards set up throughout the town where all of the recruitments would be posted. Then they would each get a designated building and recruits would head there. All recruits and council members were paid from the town''s coffers, though Grim was trying to be frugal to conserve as much as possible, especially since he had no idea how much they had.


    The only person who had new orders was Amelia, "I want you to be ready, we expect the siege to begin around when the final boss finally wakes up. In one week, I want a ramp set up on the main road so we can get on and off the walls easily. It can go right behind the gate because we will also be closing the gates on that day too. The single person doors will remain open but guarded and people can walk in and out beneath the ramp. When it comes time for the siege, we may need to wheel cannons up and down for maintenance as well as swap the people on the walls."


    "If someone needs to be removed from the wall on a stretcher I want that to be as easy as possible and frankly, pulleys are not gonna cut it. Your skills and the stronger wood here should make it possible, let me know if you have any issues. I need you to get that ramp built as soon as possible in prefabs so that we can deploy it quickly when the day comes. That also means the rest of you need to make sure that anything you need done that involves a cart going through the gate, needs to happen in the next few days, mostly applicable to you Jen."


    He had already gotten Noah to create a small informational brochure containing the spells that he wanted the casters to learn. He handed the brochure to the fully plated caster''s representative, who''s name he learned was Kenneth. He had transcribed Fire Ball and Force Ball for the siege casters while the non siege caster''s would focus on Gust and Fire Bolts. After that, the meeting was adjourned and Grim and Noah spent the day helping the different council members with recruiting and making sure the town was organized. For Grim, it was mostly creating and casting temporary flashing lights around large signs to get peoples attention. For Noah, he mostly spent time organizing which buildings would be allocated for what purpose.


    The next two council meetings passed much the same, there weren''t any specific problems yet as people seemed to still be ramping up. Grim was expecting all of the problems to happen all of a sudden and all at once. He had the crafters working on crafting a few grappling hooks on chains and winches that would be fired with a ballista. Really they were just large barbed arrows with chains attached to the back, grappling hook was just more indicative of what their use would be.


    He also had them start building steel plates for simple barricades that could be used to section off a part of the wall if necessary. If the builders didn''t have time to make them, the crafters would have to. Luckily there were a lot of builders with not a lot to do outside of the war, so there were no issues so far. The biggest issue was that they were quickly running out of wood and they didn''t want to go anywhere near the forest because that would be too close to The Grove for comfort.


    He had thought about launching a mission to collect wood but decided that would leave them too exposed. Not only were their enemies in the woods, they had leveled up there. They likely knew the woods and how best to hunt within them. Launching a mission at this time was also too expensive in terms of man power and time, neither of which Grim could spare. It wasn''t like they desperately needed it, he was just going to have to ration it''s use from now on. If it wasn''t essential or could be made from metal, which they had a ton of, then it just wouldn''t be allocated any wood.


    Grim also had some things he needed from Felix on that day too and luckily he found him just after he had returned from scouting the final boss, still completely soaked through.


    "Felix, I have a few things I need from you."


    "Alright, shoot" He said.


    "First, how many credits are in the city''s coffers?"


    "325 million or so."


    "Oh, well that makes things much easier. Next thing, I need you to help me scout the enemy. While I can fly, I can''t fly that far and I''m not that that stealthy. Also, I can''t actually see very far. I was thinking every three days, starting today you and I go on scouting trips. Figure out the enemy''s position and stuff like that."


    "I can do that, won''t it be pretty easy to spot me though?"


    "That''s why I''m going to teach you some very basic stealth right now. I can''t cast spells you don''t know around you so I can''t keep us invisible but I can teach you some basic soul magic."


    "Oh cool, this won''t take too long though, right?"


    "The soul magic, probably not. The scouting, I only need to see into the forest around The Grove. I highly suspect they will use that area to build themselves up. There''s enough wood there for them to build a stupid number of siege engines if they wanted and it''s pretty close to the city."


    "Yeah I guess, they would need a lot of engineers and crafters though."


    "Guess we''ll find out, huh?"


    "Alright, how do I go invisible?"


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    "You don''t. Not now, not with this. Instead I''m going to teach you that thing where people''s eyes kind of just brush over you and they have trouble paying attention to you."


    "Not quite as cool, but still very useful, alright how do I do it." S§×arch* The n?velFire.net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    "Some quick backstory, what do you know about souls?"


    "Similar to mana, there is soul matter all around us, souls are a collection of soul matter and they have layers with a core soul in the middle and a bunch on top of that."


    "Yup, pretty much. Essentially, the way this works is it takes advantage of people''s instincts. Your instincts are based on your soul and when you look around a room, your soul sees other souls, because they stand out from the soul matter around you. Ever walk into a room and get a ''vibe'' from someone? Find you can sense the bloodlust on some people, the arrogance on others without them actually doing anything? You''ll start to notice aura''s on higher level people too at some point. That''s just this basic trick taken much further and weaponized."


    "Oh, so I have to make my soul look like the soul matter around me?"


    "Exactly."


    "How do I do that?"


    "You can see your soul, what you have to do is see past your soul. See the soul matter around you, then slowly blend your soul into it. Not literally, but just try to smooth the transition to the soul matter around you. It''s impossible to do this fully as your soul will always be denser and you can''t do this with your core soul, but the top layers should be enough."


    Felix sat down and began meditating then, over the next few minutes, became increasingly difficult to notice. Once he was done, Grim judged him as being about 90% of the way to a perfect soul camouflage. He had expected Felix to get to 20 or 30% then work his way up to 50, but he had clearly forgotten that Felix was just some kind of monster in human skin.


    Felix opened his eyes and Grim wrote, "That will do, how are you so fast by the way?"


    "Meditation skill, time dilation."


    "I see. Alright, ready for our first scouting mission?"


    "Let''s go."


    "Last thing, take the mask. Just in case someone does notice you, it should make it so they just kind of forget about you."


    "Good call."


    Felix pulled out his surf board and Grim dropped the robes on the bed then floated into Felix''s left hand. He flew out the window and towards the forest. To remain stealthy, they flew high up within the clouds until they were close by. Felix had passed by The Grove when he was hunting down all of the dungeons, but he hadn''t gone near it. All he had seen back then was a single building between the trees.


    As they lowered down , through the cloud cover Felix made sure to camouflage his soul and they got their first look at the settlement. It was comprised of almost 2000 buildings split between permanent wood buildings and tents, from Felix''s rough estimate. Most of them were only big enough for a person or two and a lot of them were covered in leaves making it hard to get an accurate count. While the vast majority of the buildings appeared to be single person homes, there were a few standout structures.


    In the middle of The Grove, right where the map icon was, was a massive wooden building that was obviously System made or upgraded. It was made entirely of treated wood with steel holding it all together and was the size of a stadium or a massive warehouse. Felix doubted any settlement could have had the time alone to build a structure like that from scratch in the tutorial let alone acquire and process the materials. Someone building his tower by their lonesome might have been more possible than this colossal structure.


    Next to it, just a few hundred meters away, was a massive lumber mill. There were dozens of logs going through the mill at once only for the cut wood to be carried off by a team of people into the colossal structure. Both the lumber mill and the building in the middle of the settlement were producing a cacophony of sound. Just outside the colossal structure, almost a kilometer to the west, where most of the trees had been cleared, were 4 large structures on wheels. Around them, people were constantly moving and loading them up with barrels and crates.


    Finally, there were almost a thousand people engaged in combat training. Three quarters of them were shooting targets with bows while the rest were sparring with each-other. That was all they could gather at the moment, so they headed back to the tower. Grim asked Felix to give him permissions for the town management so he could manipulate the map and other things. Felix debated it for a few moments then agreed but asked, "Doesn''t that mean you have to interact with The System?"


    "I''m fine interacting with it, I don''t want it to touch my soul though. No stats, no leveling. For the other stuff I just have to talk with it, kind of. It reads your intentions so I just need to broadcast them."


    "Alright, anything else you need from me?"


    "Nope, I have to go make more plans now. I''ll see you in three days?"


    "Yup, I''ll be right here or in the lab."


    Felix returned the mask to Grim who equipped it and the robe then flew back down into the lobby.


    Felix walked down into the lab floor and began preparing for the final boss. He had spent a while thinking about what he should do to prepare and he had come to the conclusion that his biggest problem, was likely going to be mana. If the other bosses had taken at minimum a quarter of his mana pool, and The System recommended 200 times the number of people for this one, he would need a lot more mana.


    While he could have spent the entire time creating consumable batteries to replenish his pool, and while that would likely be enough mana, that approach had problems. For one, consuming the batteries took time. It wasn''t a lot of time, but it also wasn''t negligible. The batteries would also create dead time where he couldn''t do much because he was stuck consuming them.


    Ultimately, he had decided on a different approach. While he hadn''t used this aspect of his profession much except for in the last puzzle dungeon, it did include the creation of magical contraptions. All of the ones he had worked on in the dungeon were household items like ovens and freezers. However, Felix was pretty sure he could use the same concept, along with consumable batteries, to create disposable weapons.


    Luckily, he also had a hundred dungeon rooms worth of loot in the form of random components he could use to craft weapons out of. He started with simple wands that could cast a few spells before being expended. From there, his crafting got more creative. He created cannons, hand guns, flame throwers, grenades, and other contraptions. He mostly focused on general use items, but he also created some weapons he just couldn''t resist making.


    He had a few particularly powerful cannons that he wasn''t sure were entirely safe to use as well as a few bombs that all used almost double his entire mana pool at once. He knew that these were a waste of time because he had to enchant the outside of the cannon to be more durable as well as inscribe the spell, instead of just the latter. Even though he knew that, he just couldn''t resist making them. He first planned out all of the weapons ahead of time so he could optimize his time and began with the simple weapons. . . . . .

 Chapter 88 - Book 87

    The time for the next scouting mission arrived to interrupt Felix''s crafting so he and Grim headed out to fly over The Grove once again. This time, there were about 50% more tents at around 1500 and they were mostly located around the siege machines that had started appearing. Next to the wheeled structures in the clearing there were now a tower, 2 battering rams with massive logs inside of them, a trebuchet, 4 catapults and 2 galleries alongside another 2 of the wheeled structures that likely carried supplies. There were also a lot more people training with almost double the archers and double the people sparring.


    "Guess that removes any doubts that they intend to attack us, huh?" Felix wrote on one of Grim''s pages.


    "Yeah, pretty much. They could be presenting all this to our city as a welcome present but I doubt it."


    "Yeah, that doesn''t seem too likely. You going to be able to hold out against all this? I suspect they will have at least 5 times this many siege engines and people considering how quickly they put all this together."


    "Yeah, all of that is less than what I plan to prepare us for."


    Felix and Grim flew back to the tower and Felix continued to craft increasingly odd weapons in his lab.


    Grim flew down to the lobby and began planning out the siege with more accurate numbers of what was happening. His estimate was, similar to Felix''s, that there would be at least 5 times as many of everything they saw. That meant that he wanted to prepare for 10 times as many of everything, at least. Unfortunately that wasn''t really possible so he simply planned to do the best he could to defend the city.


    The biggest issues he faced, were the 5 towers. The battering rams were annoying, but the solution was to fire a barrage of projectiles at them until they were destroyed and realistically, the gator gate should hold for a while. The projectile based weapons could be blocked with the Griffin''s protection buff, but that had a major issue, using Griffin''s protection blocked projectiles from both sides. If the city used it, the enemy could start up their battering rams and wouldn''t even need to defend them. Griffin''s protection was a last resort and only to be used to defend against projectiles that were fatal to the defense of the city.


    Grim planned to have 10 total winched grappling hook ballista bolts crafted to help deal with the towers. Other than that, the rest of his plans remained mostly the same. The only other thing he wanted to do was to check on something in the library that he remembered seeing when Felix had attended math class.


    In the library, he read through the index node and found what he was looking for. Some of the very first upgrades the city had bought back when it was a Major University Town, was all of the courses. Those included Siege Offense and Siege Defense courses. Grim signed up for both, which were available at any time because they were System run. Now that he had permission to use the towns money, he paid for them out of the city''s absurd coffers.


    He didn''t learn much from either of them, having read the record of many wars himself, but they were excellently structured courses that tried to teach the basics and some intuition. There was even a test at the end that Grim was a big fan of. The test tried to test problem solving and intuition more than memorization. It asked what the right thing to do was in a complex situation with reasoning. The courses were exactly what he was hoping to find.


    He flew as fast as he could into Felix''s lab and interrupted his work on a massive cannon that he didn''t have time to question, "Hey Felix, I''m going to make two of the courses in the Vault free to take for the next month. Any issues with that?"


    "Go for it." Felix shrugged.


    Grim could have done it without permission from Felix, but he just wanted to be sure. He flew back down to the index node and made both courses free. At the meeting the next morning, he presented his proposal, "I have made both the Siege Offense and Siege Defense courses free for the next month in the vault. Anyone who is participating in the war and passes either test with a grade of 80% or higher will get 2500 credits. That means they can get a total of 5000 credits on top of their salaries, as a bonus."


    The council members seemed moderately excited and Grim hoped the citizens would be more excited about the proposition. Having people be more aware of how sieges worked was crucial to having as many people survive as possible. What had initially inspired Grim to look for the courses was that he realized he would have to explain to the soldiers how to use the grappling hooks to topple towers. While it seemed obvious, you wanted to wait until the tower was close to the wall then pull it from the top to the side. If you pulled it forwards, it would roll right up to your walls and you would be screwed. This was also important to know for the casters who would be using force spells as they would also be responsible for taking the towers down.


    The courses covered this and much more. It covered what to do in most situations Grim had been planning for. Things like what to do when you are injured, someone near you is injured, a building is lit on fire, you are a civilian and need to evacuate. It also covered the basics of simple siege engines and how best to counter them.


    Grim spent the next couple of days making sure everything was running smoothly. He checked on the ramp the builders were making for getting on top of the walls. He also checked on the crafters who were working on a handful of trebuchets to use as well, now that they had crafted thousands of bows and hundreds of thousands of arrows. The training had been going well for everyone, as expected some needed armor and weapons and some of the volunteer medics were unfit to treat anyone without risk of infecting the wounds with vomit.


    The next scouting mission arrived and Felix and Grim flew over The Grove once more. This time, there were three towers, 4 trebuchets, 8 catapults, 5 ballista, 8 galleries, and 2 massive ramps to try and climb up the walls. Grim had planned for most of that but hadn''t overly thought of a ramp.


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    It was kind of a ridiculous notion as towers were just as effective and didn''t need to be a hundred meters long. He had Amelia working on a ramp inside the walls but that one wasn''t mobile and would be set up far ahead of time. He wasn''t sure just yet what the best answer was to those but he suspected it was something along the lines of roll flaming or exploding barrels down them. The other option was that their supporting posts could likely be cut or burned, given enough mana. There were also about double the number of tents as last time as well as almost double the people sparring and training.


    They flew back and Grim descended to the lobby so he could iterate on his plans.


    Felix went back to the lab and finished up on a few grenades he had been working on. He knew the final boss was some kind of octopus or water based creature so about half of his weapons were based on or included some amount of lightning. The grenades he was finishing up were a combination of force and lightning with some extra force added when he threw them. With those complete, Felix turned to something he had fantasized about creating for a few days now.


    In his inventory, Felix had a common steel longsword. While he wasn''t the greatest with blades, he could hold one while casting spells so there was little reason for him not to. His plan for the long sword was to enchant it''s hardness as high as he could then add a battery to it''s pommel that powered a simple heat enchantment. The high heat should counteract the overblown hardness and create a superhot sword for slicing through tentacles. At least that was the hope. He figured he would also add a forceful swing enchantment and the option to power it from his own mana pool.


    He created a proof of concept using a simple steel plate to make sure the metal wouldn''t warp too much when it got hot and tested it with some force spells. He tuned the ratios a little bit then planned out the entire enchantment on a practice sword. Once he was happy with it, he enchanted the real sword. He was very happy with the result, unfortunately he didn''t have any live flesh he could really test it on, but it did make him feel slightly like an evil sci fi character. It was essentially a glowing red sword capable of cutting through steel relatively quickly.


    It did not recharge itself though so Felix gave it the biggest battery that would fit in the pommel and spent time to make identical copies so he could switch out the battery on the fly. Once that was done, he had just enough time to finished a few more simple weapons before he had to go scout with Grim once again. Sear?h the ¦Çov§×lFire .net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    They flew together over The Grove, easily staying hidden with Felix''s basic soul magic. This time, there were about 5000 tents around the siege equipment all made of leather with some using leaves to camouflage themselves to their surroundings. They neglected to put leaves on their roofs though so it wasn''t difficult to spot them from the air. There were now, in total, 4 towers, 3 battering rams, 8 trebuchets, 12 catapults, 12 ballistae, 16 galleries, 2 massive ramps, and 16 various wheeled structures. The various structures seemed to contain supplies as well as explosives, judging from how far they were placed from the rest of the equipment and people. There were also upwards of 15k people training.


    They flew back together and Grim headed down to find Henry at his forge, "Henry, I need you to spend some time working on explosives of some kind. If we can roll them, great, otherwise we put them on carts. This is lower priority than the grappling hooks though, how are those coming along?"


    "We were never going to have time to make 10 with chains and we tested one and it screwed with the flight of the bolt. Instead we are just using thick rope, it should hold up fine though. We are finishing up the last one now, it''ll be done by the end of the day."


    "Excellent, have them placed evenly over the front wall, where we talked about."


    "Yes sir."


    "How about the portable walls?"


    "Those are all done, we moved them next to the front wall for now."


    "Good work."


    Grim headed out and flew over to the wall, where there was now a massive ramp that ran from on top of the gates down to the street. It was as wide as the street at about a dozen meters and descended at an angle of about 30 degrees. The ramp was supported by posts and beams which meant people who needed to leave the town could still do so, just not with a cart or animal. The gates had also been completely shut save for the two single person wide doors located next to the main gate. At this point it was almost a certainty that they were going to be attacked. It was possible The Grove was planning on attacking Icewatch, but that notion was doubtful at best.


    He also checked on the grappling hooks as well as the reserve arrows around the town. He had also commissioned pulleys for the other walls to move either injured people or supplies up and down more easily. There would be a small number of people manning those walls because most would either be focused on the front gates or be dynamic, moving to where they were needed most. By the time the next scouting mission came around, about a quarter of the recruits had taken the courses, only three quarters of those had passed either test, about half having passed both. The grades were a little worrying but they could retry the course as many times as they''d like so Grim hoped those numbers would go up.


    Felix and Grim flew together over The Grove and this time, any doubts that Icewatch and The Grove were working together were crushed. There were about 9000 tents now, with about 4000 of them, the new ones, being made of untreated hide with the fur on the outside. Something that was evidently designed for a colder climate. Oddly, all of the fur tents appeared to be on large wheeled platforms.


    About 80% of the people in the camp were training and the lumber mill was finally slowing at about half capacity now. For the siege engines, there were 2 more trebuchets, 6 more catapults, 8 more ballistae, 8 more galleries and another 10 random wheeled structures. They all appeared exactly the same though so it seemed like The Grove were supplying all the siege equipment and Icewatch was simply there for man power. The only other surprise to be found was an enclosure full of forest animals and a reinforced hole with stairs dug into one side.


    Neither Grim nor Felix knew what the hole was for. The other animals were clearly for food and transportation. Grim had expected everything else though so his plans didn''t change much. He feared had to do with tunneling beneath the walls but he was expecting that too so he continued on with his plans. He did commission some more countermeasures for tunneling though.


    Felix continued to make weapons in his lab focusing on utility and mobility this time. He wasn''t sure how to make a rod of escape as he didn''t know how to trigger a spell upon breaking, but he knew how to make the rest of it. He instead created balls containing batteries that he could cast to launch himself if needed. All it required was a simple caster targeting node with a force spell and a direction. He set them to simply launch him forwards and upwards then created a couple others for just forwards. Once he was done with that he created a couple of cold bombs so he could freeze a chunk of the water if needed. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 Chapter 89 - Book 88

    Felix''s next big project, was a cannon. He had already created a few of them, but he wanted to create something insane. This cannon would use batteries of a million mana each and would channel it all into different kinds of projectiles. He would load up a disc with a spell on it, then the cannon would channel the mana into the spell and cast it. He could then have lightning discs and fire discs and he could also fire with only some of the mana, he wasn''t limited to all of it. He made the cannon out of a large steel tube that was a couple meters long and half a meter wide. He enchanted the entire thing to be lighter, more durable and counteract any force applied to it so it didn''t have too much recoil.


    When he was done, he giggled to himself from the excitement of using it at some point. He hoped it would work, but he couldn''t test more than a tiny fraction of the mana it was designed to handle. He also made sure he made multiple lightning, force, cold and fire discs so he could choose the spell he wanted on the fly and replace them if he needed to for whatever reason. The best part about all of these tools, was that they didn''t cost him precious concentration, meaning he could fire them and cast 5 other spells at the same time.


    By the time he finished it was time to escort Grim and scout the enemy so they flew over to The Grove. Overall there were a couple more trebuchets and ballistae but the biggest change was that everything was beginning to fit into a loose formation. All of the siege equipment and tents were set up into even rows and columns and split up into groups. They were all facing, as expected, west, towards Tri-Peak. This may have been the most profitable scouting mission yet though because Felix realized what the tunnel was from, mostly because he caught a glimpse of it''s creator.


    Felix explained to Grim as they flew back to Tri-Peak, "Grim, the tunnel, it''s Mole-Ants. Before I met you, I stayed in Bastion of Hope for a little while. Their entire settlement was in a cave system below the ground. Their stupid name, was because the leader of the settlement decided to start a holy crusade against these Mole-Ants. See if you can find a Benjamin, Will and Alan in the city, they''re from Bastion and know more about the creatures than I do."


    "Oh, they''re on the war council."


    "Really? That is oddly convenient. I guess they were all pretty high level and outspoken, makes some sense I guess."


    "Noah recommended them."


    "It''s good to hear they integrated themselves so well into the town. Do you mind if I attend one of the council meetings in the morning?"


    "How would that work? Why?"


    "You just answer everybody by writing in the air again. If you just pull my hand, I can walk you where you need to go. As for why, I want to see what preparations we have set up and make sure you aren''t going to set up a demon summoning circle."


    "Alright sure, but in exchange, can I get some mana batteries?"


    "I''ll give you 6 million mana worth and some magical weapons I''ve been working on."


    "Alright, deal. It will also mean I finally don''t have to magically hide the breakfast to pretend I''m eating it."


    They flew back to the tower and Grim headed down to the war room to prepare for the battle. Felix worked the rest of the night on magical grenades and planning for his next big project, some massive bombs.


    In the morning, before the meeting, he met Grim and they sat at the head of the war room table. Grim placed himself down on the table next to Felix, open to a blank page so he could talk to Felix privately using the page, or to the room with lights. They had a few minutes before the meeting started so Grim briefed Felix on all the preparations they had made for the war.


    "Wow, I am glad you are handling this and not me. I would not have prepared that well."


    "You could likely have ended the siege in a few minutes yourself though."


    "Really?"


    "Yes. When you are done with the final boss, make sure to fill your mana and hurry back. While I am planning to be able to hold out for a month, I am only expecting to be able to hold out for a day at most. The city is mostly crafters and non combatants. We can hold the line but it''s going to be hard to actually crush them and end all hope of continuing. Fighting back is not our specialty."


    "I think you''re going to do better than you think. Guess we will see though. As for hurrying back, I''d rather not interfere."


    "Why not?"


    "I''ve been thinking about Noah''s concerns and now you saying I could end the siege by myself just reaffirmed my decision. I want the city to be self sufficient, the only reason I originally claimed it was to have a place to sleep. I am not and will not be the protector of the city. Either it can defend itself or it can''t."


    "I wish you would have told me sooner, I''d probably have prepared differently."


    "Sorry."


    "It doesn''t really matter to me. Doesn''t really change that much. Have you talked to Noah yet?"


    "No. I''m kind of hoping he just falls for our little ruse."


    "Pages crossed (It''s like fingers crossed, get it?). Any idea what the final boss is?"


    "I found the seal at the bottom of the ocean, it looks something like this." Felix proceeded to trace the engraving from the seal almost perfectly, as he was tracing a mental image, onto Grim''s pages.


    "Well shit, I know what it is."


    "What is it?"


    "I can''t say more unless you know what it''s called. I can give you a hint though, it was in one of your dictionaries."


    "Octopus?"


    "More mythical, like a griffin."


    "Oh, Kraken?"


    "Yup. I''m not sure about your universe, but the youngest one I had ever heard of, was absurdly strong. I honestly don''t think you have the damage to kill it."


    "Yeah I didn''t think so either, I spent the last little while stocking up on mana and making single use weapons and stuff."


    "If it is a Kraken, it won''t be enough."


    "Really?"


    "You would need something ridiculous like 20 times the mana and even then, you would have to hit it with 50 thousand spells."


    "Even if they were lightning?"


    "Yes, I was assuming you would use lightning. Otherwise, it would be more."


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    "Well shit."


    "It''s possible they aren''t as strong in this universe."


    "That doesn''t seem likely."


    "No it doesn''t. I know you''re still going to try though, aren''t you?"


    "Of course."


    "Just don''t get trapped by it''s tentacles and you should be fine. It''s really strong and really durable, but it''s also massive. It doesn''t move as fast as you do. You need to be like a fly, impossible to swat."


    "Oh man, is it really that big? I''ll be actually the size of a fly?"


    "It''s bigger and you''ll be lesser. I''ll be surprised if you manage to get 10% of the way to killing it."


    "That''s a little grim don''t you think?"


    "That was awful."


    "Yeah, it was."


    The meeting started and breakfast was served. Felix was happy to stuff his face with delicious food to help him avoid talking. Grim spent the time discussing the new developments with Benjamin. Luckily, Felix had worn his mask the entire time he was with Benjamin, Will and Alan so none of them recognized him.


    "Mole-Ants? Are you sure?"


    "Yeah." Grim wrote in the air in front of Felix.


    "How the hell did they tame the stupid things."


    "I assume they will use them to tunnel beneath the walls, how worried should we be?"


    "A little? Mole-Ants are great at tunneling, but they aren''t very fast. If they do tunnel through, it''ll be at the front and only just under the walls. They won''t tunnel through the mountain into the middle of the city or anything. That would take months. Best case, they tunnel a hundred meters every couple hours or so. Depends on the ground beneath the wall though. If they have to tunnel through hard rock it''s more like a dozen meters in the same time." Benjamin said looking to Will and Alan for confirmation. They both nodded and shrugged.


    "Alright that makes this easier. We need to have combatants ready to fight at the bottom of the walls in case they do show up. We also want to make the tunnel unusable once they come through, but we don''t want to destabilize the wall, so no explosives. We can pour oil and ignite it or water to drown the tunnel. Any other ideas?"


    "Caltrops. Should be pretty dark down there, doubt they can easily avoid ''em." Kenneth offered.


    "Henry, can you make some simple caltrops? Just bend some scrap shrapnel or something?"


    "Should be able to do that, sure."


    "What about bear traps? Can use their own trapped corpses to seal the way." Jen offered.


    "Henry?" Grim asked.


    "On it." He responded.


    The rest of the meeting passed without any major issues or concerns. Everyone gave quick briefs about what they were working on which was helpful for Felix who had no idea. In the end, Felix decided that Grim was doing a much better job than he would have been able to and that he should probably just trust Grim. He wasn''t sure he was ready to soul-bond yet, but he was ready to give Grim a bunch of mana batteries.


    "Uh Felix, you seem different today, did you change your robes?" Susan finally interjected. She had stared at him the entire meeting, clearly trying to figure out what was different about him.


    "Yeah." Grim wrote.


    "It is a little odd you writing to us while you stuff you face with food. Just saying." Will interjected.


    "More efficient." Grim wrote.


    "I mean, I guess so. Just a little off putting is all." Will mumbled. Sear?h the N??eFire.¦Çet website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    Once the meeting was over, Felix and Grim headed up to Felix''s lab to get some privacy. Felix supplied Grim with 24 single use batteries totaling about 6 million mana and also gave him some of the magical weapons he had created over the last week. He gave him an assortment of explosives as well as a few wands and a hand cannon prototype from before he had thought of interchangeable spells.


    Just as Felix finished handing everything off to Grim, Noah walked up and into Felix''s lab, "Alright, what''s going on?"


    Felix turned to Noah and Grim wrote out, "You''re going to have to be more specific."


    "For one, the past week you wore the mask even though you didn''t change your face. Alone, that isn''t that weird but, I started paying attention to the map and your icon said you were somewhere else even though I was right next to you. At first I thought you were projecting yourself but then I thought through the things you''d said over the last week and the fact that you can''t speak. Then I saw you at the table today and everything was back to normal. That wasn''t you, was it? You leant someone your mask? Who?"


    Felix looked at Grim then back at Noah, "Noah, meet my book, Grim. Grim''s been the one planning the city''s defense. He''s been posing as me for the past little bit."


    "Hello." Grim wrote out in the air.


    "What the hell do you mean, posing as you? Why?"


    "As you said, he wears the mask and makes it look like me then we put a cloak over him and the mask''s effect makes it hard to tell it''s not me."


    "Why?"


    "I''m not going to be participating."


    "In what?"


    "The war. I''m going to go fight the Kraken. Grim will do his best to fill the gaps, he-"


    "Your book? Felix, we need you here. I know I said think about it but I thought you had decided to say. You sai- or the book said you were going to help."


    "Noah, it''s not my fight. It wouldn''t be right for me to fight."


    "It''s your city, why wouldn''t it be right."


    "It would be like picking on the little guy, beating up a child. It''s not right."


    "What if it''s to protect tens of thousands of lives?"


    "If you have a kid and they''re being bullied at school, do you beat up the bully?"


    "You do if the bully is trying to kill your kid. Or you do something to stop the fighting. Felix, the bully is trying to kill us."


    "Those are the rules of the arena. In a playground, the bully punches your kid and takes their lunch money. Here we fight with sword and spells. People die, on both sides. Hundreds or even thousands of our citizens will die. Hundreds or even thousands of them will die too. This is a gun fight, don''t complain that they have guns too."


    "Why not just end the war before it starts? Why not destroy the siege weapons and make it impossible for them to fight? You don''t need to kill any of them. The whole town was started around the idea of focusing on professions. Why should we have to fight when you could easily protect us?"


    "Just taking out the siege equipment doesn''t eliminate the threat they pose, it does minimize it though. You would have had to fight eventually, whether or not it''s this army or beasts or something else down the road. Even if I did protect you now, I wouldn''t be able to forever."


    "You don''t have to protect us forever, but you sure as hell own the damn city right now and right now it''s under attack. Also don''t you think it''s a little arrogant to call us all kids?"


    Felix sighed and finally looked into the privacy setting screen for his own level. Once he found the setting he was looking for, he gave Noah permission to see his level.


    "Hello? Why''d you go all blank ey- holy shit. That''s an item right? It''s the mask or something?"


    "Noah, I really did kill all those world bosses myself. I''m not going to go on a killing spree to take out the other people in the tutorial. I don''t care that they''re aggressing on us."


    "Wouldn''t it be easy then? All you have to do is scare them, make them back off. Maybe destroy the siege weapons, you don''t need to kill anybody. Minimizing the risk will still save lives."


    "Look, maybe in hindsight I''ll regret this decision, but I just think it''s wrong to participate. It''s not the right thing to do. The right thing to do, I think, is to prepare you all as best I can and let whatever is going to happen, happen. I won''t always be there to protect the city. What if down the road I''m dead or stuck somewhere and can''t be here? The city needs to be self sufficient, and well¡­ this is the tutorial. You may not agree with my moral conclusion, but this is the one I''ve made, and I will live with it. If you don''t think the city can defend itself, evacuate. I''ll help in whatever way I can. Or surrender, if you think they''ll be merciful and you''d rather live under them."


    "So instead I''m responsible for protecting everyone in the city? What if everyone dies? Or even just half of them? Or¡­ Amelia¡­"


    "You have cannons, storm generators and an absurdly massive wall. You have the tools you need to survive, you just need to be willing to fight back. I''m sorry I won''t be there. I''m sorry you feel responsible for their lives, but this city is as much, if not more yours than it is mine. You built it, you designed it, you cared for it and fostered it''s growth. All you need to do now is fight for it. And again, I''m sorry. Look, at the end of this, if it makes you feel better, I''ll transfer the ownership of the city to you. All I really wanted in the first place was a place to crash. If you still want me around at that point, I''d be happy to do my all to protect the city from anything that''s out of it''s league."


    "You think that''s the right solution? Just give up the city entirely?"


    "It is what it is. I''m sorry you disagree. Look, if you want my advice, emotionally not for the actual battle, people are going to die, that''s just how it is. The sooner you accept that the sooner you can get over it and the better prepared you''ll be to save as many people as possible. If you know there was nothing else you could do, hopefully it will hurt less down the road when you look back on the fallen. And remember, it''s not all on you. Everyone in the city is helping to defend it, Amelia built defenses and the ramp, we have medics on standby, Jen stockpiled food and water, Henry built ballistae and Grim here knows a lot more about war than I do."


    "They just don''t have to die."


    "I''m not gonna give you the broken egg omelet analogy cause that''s not accurate but, people die no matter what, whether or not a war is happening. If they go out to hunt creatures or Henry got his way and fought the world boss, people would have died. You can''t, and even I can''t, protect them all, all we can do is prepare everyone for success and hope. It seems this is just life in the multiverse."


    Noah stormed out of the room and Felix sighed.


    He doesn''t have to agree with me, I just hope he doesn''t hate me afterwards. . . . . .

 Chapter 90 - Book 1: Chaper 89

    Felix got back to work and spent the rest of the next few days working on his final project, a couple of massive bombs.


    Grim spent the days making sure everything was in place and running battle simulations, mentally, to try and position everything exactly where it needed to be. He made sure to have portable walls near the front walls as well as some logs and explosive barrels for rolling down the enemy ramps. They had to be close enough to use, but not close enough to accidentally explode on his own people. He made sure they had answers to the Mole-Ants ready and spaced out where they would be needed. They would mostly be handled by the squads on the ground and the ones that were resting if necessary. Atop the walls, the arrows were ready and the canon balls prepared. The ammunition for the trebuchets was piled up and moved nearby.


    The entire city was tense. The war would begin in just a few days now and the city was different in the last few days of preparation. People were outside of their homes and shopping less, the gates were completely inactive, people were beginning to stash away their belongings and some had moved into the bunkers ahead of time. The once lively nature of the city was dampened by the door mood of the upcoming battle. A few people had placed their things in Felix''s tower, mostly odd projects and expensive furniture. Not nearly enough to fill it though. It seemed like people were a little scared of Felix and only those with something very precious to them that didn''t fit in their inventory would dare try and take him up on the offer.


    Felix spent the time oblivious to the general mood of the city. In his lab he tinkered away and created multiple weapons of mass destruction. They were not efficient and he knew that if what Grim suspected was true, they would end up being a waste of time. He was also so giddy when he made them, he didn''t even care. What Grim had said about the Kraken, just made Felix more excited for the battle.


    If he needed twenty times the mana pool, he had enough batteries for that. If he had to hit it 50,000 times, he calculated that would be about 30 minutes of standing still and casting with all 5 of his spells at once. In a battle where he had no hope of just standing still like an artillery cannon, it would more realistically be many hours, but Felix was ecstatic to try anyways. That was how long he wanted the world boss fights to go, but instead they were all dead in less than 40 spells, some less than 20. He wanted experience and honestly, he loved the fight. It was exhilarating and challenging all at once.


    I''m a battle junky aren''t I?


    Felix finished up some finishing touches on his bombs then carefully stowed them. He still had a day or so until the last scouting mission so he spent the time creating as many batteries as he could. Once the time came, he and Grim flew out of the tower and to the east. They descended from above the low hanging, dark grey clouds only to find The Grove completely empty. The lumber mill was dead and the colossal structure in the middle was silent. There was no one in sight.


    Felix flew with Grim back towards Tri-Peak, below the cloud cover this time and spotted them about half way between the two towns, still in the forest. There were a handful of new siege weapons, notably a fifth tower, but otherwise the layout and formation was largely similar to how it had been before. The Mole-Ants were completely hidden, likely in one of the wheeled structures or galleries. They were on the move through the forest with the fur tents all attached forming a bunch of trains that were pulled by bears.


    "This is it." Felix wrote to Grim.


    "Sure you don''t want to fight them, then try the Kraken afterwards?"


    "I''m sure. I''ve got my enemy, the city had it''s."


    "Yeah, I knew you''d say something like that. It''s also just more fun, isn''t it?"


    "Yeah, it is. I have no inclination to go on a massacre. I don''t care if it is a war."


    "I don''t fully understand that sentiment, but I can respect it I guess."


    "You know how I feel about this. I also want the city to gain experience and I want the people to fight for themselves, be self sufficient."


    "That''s a nice sentiment but you''re also basically dooming a large number of people to die."


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    "Yeah, sort of. I genuinely believe you, and the city, will be fine. You''ve prepared for just about everything. This will also be good experience for everyone. Also, I just want to fight the Kraken, the prospect of¡­ it excites me." Felix''s eyes lit up as he spoke.


    "Good luck. Mind giving something a shot though?"


    "Sure, what''s up?"


    "I want to scare them a little, maybe make them second guess the entire siege¡­"


    They headed back to the tower and Felix spent the next 24 hours making mana batteries and storing them in his inventory. By the end, he had stocked up over 20 batteries of 250k mana each, not including the ones already embedded in his weapons or the ones he had already fed to Grim. When their were just 4 hours left in the tenth remaining day of the tutorial, Felix and Grim headed out to try Grim''s idea.


    Together, they flew out over the city towards the front gates. The siege engines were being set up half a kilometer away and the army was just finishing pitching their tents. Felix flew up above the field and glided over in front of the army. The sky was dark from the clouds alone, an ominous omen of an incoming storm. Now though, it was just barely drizzling.


    Felix used his old method of flying without the surfboard because it was more intimidating. He held Grim in his left hand and flew with his hood down, so people would recognize him. While Grim had taught him how to avoid attention with soul magic, Felix had intentionally reversed the effect in this instance, making himself stand out among the soul matter as much as possible. He made his soul radiate his conviction, indomitability. Now when people looked at him, they would have a hard time not noticing him, a harder time pulling their eyes off of him and they would feel like he could not be defeated.


    Two people came to meet him, one familiar, the other new to Felix. Felix approached wearing no mask, displaying his full level. The two men approached, one on a bear, the other an elk.


    [E - Common] Human (Lvl 57)


    [E - Common] Bear (Lvl 42)


    [E - Common] Human (Lvl 61)


    [E - Common] Elk (Lvl 46)


    "Good evening gentlemen."


    "Hey, you''re that kid who couldn''t keep up with our hunt."


    Felix had mostly been ignoring his earrings as they usually didn''t provide him with any new information, but here, he decided to give them a listen to make himself feel better.


    Lying. Slight fear. Disbelief.


    "That''s me."


    "I never did get your name back then, I take it you''re Felix though?"


    "I am."


    "I''m Scott, leader of The Grove." The other man interjected.


    Arrogance.


    Felix simply nodded in acknowledgement.


    I wonder if they can finally see my level or not. It''s gotta be based on their level or perception, right? Would they back off if they could? Would they even believe it?


    "Look, if you thought the hunt was too much, you should probably just surrender now. I''ll be honest, this isn''t looking great for you."


    Lying. Hope. Exaggeration.


    "Yeah, that''s not happening."


    "I''m sorry it had to be this way."


    Lying.


    "I mean, it doesn''t? You could just not attack?"


    "It was always coming to this, you must have known that when you upgraded to a Major City?" Scott said.


    Arrogance.


    Honestly, no cause The System didn''t explain any of this shit to me.


    "If this is how it will be, I will defend the city." Felix lifted himself into the air and spoke loud enough for everyone in the army to hear, with a little sound magic Grim had helped him with, "My name is Felix Kade. I am the leader of Tri-Peak, the Keeper of Secrets. I have single handedly slain all nine world bosses. I am the protector of this city and I will defend it to my last breath, and I¡­ will not¡­ be defeated." Felix punctuated the end of his sentence with a massive burst of lightning coming from his body using up half of his entire mana pool.


    The lightning arced off of him in a dozen different directions and danced through the rain around him and struck the ground below him. His entire body glowed and caused shadows to flicker over the army from the only solid light source below the clouds. Felix rose into the air and flew off just as the light show finished, reversing the soul magic right at the end to make it look like he had disappeared. Broxus, Scott and the entire army looked around and scoured the sky, but through a combination of the soul magic, low lighting, and his black cloak none were able to find him.


    Felix flew back to the tower and descended into the lobby. He hadn''t opened Grim up outside due to the rain, once inside, he wrote, "Think it worked?"


    "It was definitely flashy. The soul magic was a nice touch." S§×ar?h the nov§×lF~ire.net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    "Thanks, I hope it did what I hope it did."


    "Made you very noticeable and definitely made you feel undefeatable."


    "Yeah, that was kind of a side effect of my conviction."


    "Let''s hope it at least lowered their morale, that is a large part of war after all."


    "Yeah. You don''t need anything else from me, right?"


    "Just try to be stealthy when you leave."


    "Of course. Good luck."


    "Likewise."


    "That is a great word."


    "Yes it is."


    There was nothing more to be said from either side so Felix ascended to the top of the tower and began focusing on his soul to make himself as hard to notice as possible. . . . . .

 Chapter 91 - Book 90

    Grim floated down, wearing the silk robes Felix had bought along with his mask, to the lobby where the war room was set up. He looked at the map and reviewed all of the preparations, then left the tower and headed over to float near the wall at the front. He found Noah, Amelia, Will, Benjamin and Kenneth standing atop the wall, side by side, looking out over the encroaching army. He floated over next to Noah and faced in the direction of the army as well, though he couldn''t see nearly that far, so he was just standing in solidarity.


    Noah begrudgingly nodded to Grim then looked back out over the army without saying a word.


    Grim didn''t have it in him to say, or write, anything himself so he just kept staring forwards. He just hoped that no one died, at least no one he knew, then he would feel awful and he knew Felix might end up blaming himself. Grim just had to overwhelmingly win the battle and minimize the casualties. No, he just had to do his best, then he would know there was nothing more he could have done. It wasn''t even his city, or his people, but he was responsible for them, and he didn''t resent that for a second.


    The army slowly got into formation around their siege engines and moved everything into position. There were three hours left until the Kraken was released and neither side interrupted the silence. The army shuffled along and the people of Tri-Peak made final adjustments to their preparations. People moved into the bunkers, checked their ammunition and hugged their loved ones. The loudest noise across the entire battle field, was the sound of the rain pitter pattering across the stone in the city, the grass of the field and pinging off armor here and there.


    Grim couldn''t see the army, but he knew they too stood still, in near silence, because he could hear them. Grim''s sight was short range, quickly becoming too blurry to rely on at anything further than a few hundred meters. His hearing though, was better than most creatures. He could hear the army standing before him as it breathed in and out, he could hear the heartbeat of those he considered friends, even if they didn''t know his name. He could hear the occasional scrape and clang of someone adjusting their armor or dropping their weapon as the nerves got to them.


    Grim wasn''t a person. Grim didn''t have a heart to sink or skin to crawl, but he had a soul, so he too experienced feeling, but they translated in a different way. While the heartbeats of those standing around him mounted and occasionally skipped a beat, while their skin tensed and hair rose, Grim''s cover tightened and his pages stiffened. Across the entire field, both the defending and offending armies experienced the moment of silence before the battle. The moment that no one dared intentionally break. The moment that lasted three hours, before the unruly System itself shattered the silence.


    Tutorial Announcement


    The Final Boss has been released.


    The seal on the prison holding the Legendary Kraken at bay has broken and the emperor of the sea has risen from the depths. The Kraken will remain for a period of 24 hours if engaged, before being resealed in it''s prison. Defeating the boss will result in rewards to be given out at the end of the tutorial.


    Good luck.


    Though none of the message applied to them, most everyone read the last part and took it to heart, ''good luck''. Grim didn''t receive the screen like everyone else did, The System tried to deliver it to him but he was still skeptical of The System so he blocked it. He could however, hear everyone go silent as their hearts skipped a beat in unison, and knew.


    The sounds of the army as it began it''s approach towards the city echoed through the valley but was quickly drowned out by the sound of the rain as it began to pour. The army was not deterred however, they marched onwards with their siege machines in tow, moving at a glacial pace. The citizens of Tri-Peak were completely unfazed by the rain, some of them not even having noticed it as their entire town was immune to weather effects.


    This was the first time the Desert Oasis upgrade was used on anything more than a drizzle, but it was always active with no apparent need to be recharged. Everyone but Grim who was watching the army, saw them disappear behind the curtain of rain that fell from the sky. Even the sounds of their approach were completely muffled by the torrential downpour making it almost seem like they had completely disappeared. Everyone knew they were there though, just beyond, making their way towards the city bringing the start of a war with them.


    Unfortunately, the rain meant projectiles of all but the biggest and heaviest sizes were ineffective. Grim had hoped the battle would take place with clear skies so they could rain hell down upon their enemy in the form of arrows. As it was, there were a few meters outside the walls the rain couldn''t touch, and Grim predicted it was in those few meters that the real battle would be fought. They continued to wait and watch and listen to try and catch any sign of the encroaching army.


    The first sign though, was the extended tip of a tower piercing the veil of rain right in front of Grim. He didn''t flinch and the soldiers down the wall to his left didn''t hesitate. Two ballista bolts sunk into the left side of the tower, just beyond the wall of rain and the winches began to wind the rope taught. The tower tilted and caught on braces that were placed on it''s side to keep it from falling. This was when Grim acted, he didn''t know if anyone else knew what to do so he decided to get a morale boost early on.


    He fired off, what Felix would have considered, a double size Fire Ball right at the brace and blew it right off the side of the structure. The tower crumpled as the side he hit splintered and snapped. The soldiers cheered but were cut short by two more ballista bolts firing off from the soldiers off to the right. They tilted a second tower onto it''s brace and the siege casters on that side of the wall quickly acted, they knew what to do and fired off 3 Fire Balls to bring it down. No cheering followed though as a battering ram was rolled up the road.


    It consisted of a large log suspended horizontally in what looked like a rolling house. The armored roof above it defending it from projectiles. On either side of the gates, four vehicles on wheels, who''s purpose was unidentifiable, rolled up to the wall. In between the siege engines though, people marched in. Though they had formed a loose formation out in the field, they were clearly not an army as they all ran at a different pace and wore completely different equipment. The archers began firing through slits in the parapet then quickly rotated clockwise to reload and allow another to fire a shot, exactly as they were trained to do. This allowed the archer''s to release an unrelenting volley of arrows upon the army below.


    The casters used Force Bombs to throw people aside and try to disrupt the attack. The cannons and ballista focused on the structures, trying to take them down if at all possible. One of the structures on the left side of the gate was blown open by a turtle cannon to reveal a half dozen Mole-Ant corpses. Though only Will, Alan and Grim knew of them on top of the wall, everyone was taken aback by the abomination that was those animals. Grim''s hope at this point, as grim as it may be, was that they could pile up enough corpses and rubble to make it impossible for their siege machines to reach the walls.


    The casters and cannons focused on the structures and managed to take out another one boosting their morale, before the first trebuchet hit. It didn''t hit anyone, just bouncing off the wall and causing little damage, but it literally shook the ground they stood upon and their confidence. Another large stone flew out of the rain and descended upon the wall, those standing under it froze. Grim dashed over as quickly as he could fly and cast a Mana Shield on an angle so the stone rolled back onto the army, taking almost 12,000 mana with it. At some point in the fight he wouldn''t do that as it wasn''t worth the mana but right now, keeping morale as high as possible was worth every point.


    The author''s tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.


    Unfortunately, he would also have to deal with the battering ram as it was now within a meter or so of it''s target and no one else had managed to take it out themselves. Grim had a few options for the battering ram, he could stealthily block the blow making it seem like the gates were impenetrable for morale, but that would likely consume almost a hundred thousand mana due to the size of the tree. He could also blow off the wheels on one side, effectively stopping it, but there were many wheels.


    Instead, he decided to get his hands dirty and dropped off of the wall in front of the gate. He stopped his descent when he was just a meter off the ground and zipped into the battering ram. As expected, the log was suspended by a dozen large ropes on either side. Grim cast a simple Mana Bolt, modified to be both larger and fly faster, right down the line of ropes, severing all but one of them. The log dropped and swung to the side, pinning soldiers to the side of the structure. Grim zipped back out of the structure as the remaining soldiers slashed and shot at him.


    He floated back a top the wall with a few holes and a single cut in his robes, but having sustained no real damage. The enemy army''s morale on the other hand, dropped slightly as one of their three battering rams was pulled back away from the gates as it was useless now. Grim had Will bellow out orders to stop attacking that battering ram, as it was a waste of resources and focus on the structures that could be holding Mole-Ants. Too late, Grim looked downwards to the left and spotted the soldiers dashing away from one of their own wheeled structures that reached the wall.


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    The entire wall shook as the structure exploded leaving behind a large crater in the stone wall. Grim made sure to have the casters use Fire Bolt''s at least once on each of the wheeled structures from now on to try and prematurely detonate them where possible. The Catapults and Trebuchet''s all seemed to be in position now as a volley of projectiles descended upon the wall. Half of them collided with the wall itself, chipping the stone and leaving a small dent at worst. Four of them descended upon the wall directly, but this time people moved out of the way so Grim didn''t need to save anyone. One had hit a turtle cannon directly, but it seemed to be undamaged so Grim thanked The System for that.


    The other ten had fallen over the wall, seven of those were stones and caused damage to some buildings and road but three of them, were chunks of a log. When they struck, one side popped open and warriors jumped out ready to attack. The ground teams mobilized to meet and neutralize them as quickly as they could. Some from the walls were shuffled down the ramp behind them to be replaced by uninjured and fresh soldiers as the battle progressed.


    The next surprise from the enemy was something Felix would have considered a war crime, as projectiles from catapults rained down and revealed a collection of corpses. The corpses were tied together with rope into a ball and were left to rot for at least weeks. Due to the rain, they were soaked through and they tended to explode on impact. They were completely disgusting and unfortunately the ground crew had the miserable job of gathering them together to burn.


    Almost an hour into the battle, the rain subsided as the storm slowly moved to the north, revealing the enemy in slight disarray from lack of sight. They quickly adjusted though and their morale exploded as they screamed a war cry and charged the walls. They weren''t really thinking about what they were doing as many of them arrived at the walls, swung and then shook their heads.


    They were easy prey as the enemy commanders worked to corral their men back into a formation. Their jobs were to wait and assist the siege machines until such time as they could charge through the walls, not attack the walls directly. The soldiers moved back behind the series of portable walls they had set up. They were large four meter tall log walls with steel plates salvaged from old gear nailed to the front. They had braces on the back to hold them up and the enemy had arranged a dozen of them in a line to provide a safe place for their army to retreat to.


    Everything on the wall was handled so Grim decided to aim for another morale boost as he shot through the air above the portable walls. He floated above the army, getting hit in the empty robe by a few arrows, and cast Force Bombs, one by one almost 5 seconds apart, right behind the barricades. They toppled, not quite like dominoes as they didn''t topple each-other, but close to it as they fell in a line. The archers a top the wall seized the opportunity and released a volley of arrows at anyone who tried to pull the walls back up. They had ropes set up to do just that, but the wet ground just caused the walls to slip and slide instead of tilt.


    Grim flew back over to the wall and saw, only because he was facing the back of the town, people flying over the walls on either side. He couldn''t see how many were in the mountains around them, but as he had feared, there were people using hang gliders and parachutes to descend from the mountain peaks. He commanded the handful of archers manning the walls on either side to take aim and try to take them down, but they didn''t manage to take them all out. They did manage to injure most though, which was valuable in it''s own right.


    Noah, who was mostly acting as the general giving orders where Grim couldn''t yell, directed the ground crews to meet them. Grim made sure none of them would land near the bunkers and storage then turned back to the walls. He trusted the ground crew to take care of them, he had to, because he was needed here. The danger, of even one of them reaching the bunkers full of food, the injured and the innocent was catastrophic. The danger of just one of the siege engines breaching the wall was fatal to the entire battle.


    Grim paid attention to them, spinning around occasionally to keep track of them as they fell. Noah also made sure each and every one of them was dealt with as he too, feared the worst for the non combatants. Grim continued to support where he felt he was most needed and expended mana where necessary. He had begun joining the siege casters in raining spells down upon the siege structures and they had collectively managed to take out a handful of ballista and a catapult.


    As the rain continued to die down, the galleries and a ramp were deployed. The ramp was wheeled up the road in place of the battering ram as, on top of the ramp, the galleries and explosive carts were wheeled up to the height of the wall. Grim knew that if they couldn''t deal with it soon, he would have to expend an absurd amount of mana himself. The cannons, both turtle and crafted, aimed at the supports and the flaming barrels were lifted atop the wall to be ready. The archers targeted the animals pulling the structure to slow it down and the casters targeted the explosive carts. They managed to explode a single cart and send another barreling back down, but there were still too many supports and the ramp was just a few meters back at this point.


    Grim was about to fly down to deal with it when Henry ran up next to him with a barrel over his head and said, "Could I get a light?"


    Grim didn''t get the joke but he knew what to do, he cast a simple Fire Bolt onto the barrel and Henry lobbed it over onto the ramp. The archers had completely halted the ramps advance and a few soldiers joined Henry in throwing things onto the ramp. It was possible for someone to run all the way up the ramp and jump, but the archers were ready, the casters were ready, the melee fighters a top the wall were ready, and Grim was ready to send them flying. Though they were not aware of the specifics, no one dared run up the ramp.


    Eventually, the cannons managed to take out the posts and the ramp collapsed creating a pile of debris that was more helpful than harmful to Tri-Peak. Unfortunately, that was when the first tunnel broke the surface behind the wall and a Mole-Ant barreled through. Behind it, a dozen soldiers followed and ran towards those supporting the wall. Benjamin directed three teams of five to collapse on them and had some of the archers who were resting slow them down. There were people standing at the base of the wall ready for a tunnel to breach the surface that dropped bear traps and caltrops into the hole.


    The first team that made it through was slowly whittled down as another tried to follow them. That team was stopped short when bear traps tripped people and casters dropped Fire Balls down inside. No one else followed as the teams on the wall made sure to stop anyone from approaching the tunnel. Luckily for them, the tunnel slowly began to close up on itself due to Stone Giant''s Living Stone, which apparently applied to everything, not just the wall. It would take almost an hour for it to seal, but it was better than nothing. . . . . .

 Chapter 92 - Book 91

    It had only been just over an hour into the fight and Grim had used over a million mana, if the battle continued at this rate, they might win, but Grim would definitely be out of mana after 6 hours. Issue was, it was almost definitely going to take Felix more than 6 hours to give up on fighting the Kraken. Grim, now that he knew it was a kraken, was certain Felix wouldn''t be able to kill it, he was pretty sure he would be able to survive though. The only question was, how long before he retreated and would he consider that giving up, if he did, his soul would shatter and he would likely die. Grim didn''t see that as giving up though, if Felix retreated on his own terms, he was the one with the power, he had made the decision. Realizing he couldn''t kill it wouldn''t be giving up but Grim was pretty sure Felix would see it that way. He just hoped Felix survived.


    Though the sun had set, the battle was bright. No one had trouble seeing as fires raged and explosions blinded across the field under the radiant light of a full moon. The debris from the ramp had been removed, with a lot of effort, and it had been replaced by another battering ram. This time, it was stalled for half an hour as it''s shell was hit by a barrage of shells and iron balls until it finally crumpled and the log rolled off to the side. Another tunnel had been created and took much longer to deal with than the last as people grew weary and became more easily distracted. Grim himself had to help deal with both gliders and explosive carts that had gotten too close for comfort. The former he set alight in the air and the latter he launched back into the enemy and had snipers with flaming arrows set it alight.


    Though Felix''s spells were great, they were expensive as hell for a normal caster and most of them had been rotated out by now. Grim was trying to pick up the slack but he wasn''t able to cast nearly as quickly as Felix could and there were simply too many targets to take out. The enemy had also began using casters of their own but they were quickly sniped snuffing out that idea for now.


    Over the next hour they managed to take out 3 trebuchets, 2 catapults and 5 ballistae along with 4 carts of various contents and 8 galleries. The towers were being held far back though, lying in wait for something to happen. Grim had expected them to try and throw everything out all at once to overwhelm the defenses but instead they went for a staggered approach, which was beneficial for him. It did cause a sense of foreboding in Grim though as he figured they must be waiting for something.


    It took another hour of Tri-Peak struggling until Grim figured out what that was. The people on the walls were rotated again and their defense had picked up. There was an obvious slump after the second tunnel had circumvented the wall, but everyone seemed to have found a groove now and the attacking army was being repelled on all fronts. The first major hiccup though was when Broxus and his party glided over the wall using flame retardant parachutes. The archers had injured them as they descended but they were well armored so the damage was minimal. Benjamin and his team arrived to meet them and engage.


    Broxus was a machine though and his tank, Sophia was an unkillable wall that seemed to shrug everything off like it was nothing. Lucas kept Broxus topped up at all times and James tipped the fight in their favor with well aimed arrows. They managed to chew through four different ground teams while Benjamin fought them. Although everyone around him was being taken out, he was still there, still fighting, the entire time. Finally Grim managed to break away from the wall and dropped a Fire Ball down onto Broxus'' party, Sophia though, reacted almost instantly and leapt inhumanly high into the air to block the Fire Ball with her shield.


    Grim grumbled and waited for 5 seconds before casting a Lightning Bolt directly on Broxus. The spell hit nearly instantly giving Sophia no time to block it, Lucas though protected Broxus with a bright yellow shield and healed him back to full. James had noticed Grim at this point and began firing arrows through his robe. Grim scoured the inside of the walls and spotted the perfect individual. He found Henry standing nearby, watching the battle unfold with gritted teeth and clenched fists. Grim fluttered over to him with his shredded robes and dropped the prototype cannon Felix had created into his arms. S§×ar?h the NovelFire.net* website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    Henry''s eyes lit up and he immediately took aim. The cannon instantly fired a massive lightning strike that instantly dropped Sophia with smoke pouring out of her armor and even arched to the other three stunning them for a few seconds as well. Benjamin was also hit, but on a tertiary arc so he recovered almost instantly and leapt forwards planting his icy axe into Broxus'' collar bone. Some of the archers that were on break nearby instantly peppered James and Lucas with as many shots as they could get in making them easy targets when they recovered.


    Though Broxus was a menace, he had only actually killed two people with the rest unconscious or too injured to continue. Benjamin had noticed Lucas healing both Broxus and his victims as they fought to keep them alive when he could. Benjamin made sure they lived and were firmly restrained before limping over to the medics to deal with his shoulder. He didn''t know it was possible, but he had dislocated it. Embarrassingly, he had done so right at the end when he had struck Broxus.


    The medic told him he likely wouldn''t be recovered for another few hours so Benjamin sat against a building and moped. He watched as others battled and fought, as they sustained injuries and took losses. As he sat, his sadness turned to anger but then suddenly, a bag was dropped in his lap by Felix flying by, "A gift from John."


    Then he was gone, like a ghost. Benjamin reached his good arm into the bag and pulled out a ball he wasn''t sure what to do with. He figured it was likely a special medicine so he rubbed it on his shoulder. When that did nothing, he tried to eat it. It was hard though and he couldn''t seem to bite through it. He stared at it curiously when an enemy that had tunneled in snuck their way over to him.


    Benjamin thought it was rude that they would target an injured man instead of the infrastructure or those running supplies. He may be injured, but he wasn''t going to just die like a dog, so he lobbed the medicine at the warrior. They simply swatted it with the back of their hand, but as soon as it made contact, he exploded in a shower of frozen chunks. Benjamin looked down and gulped at the idea of eating the mystery balls from John.


    Grim was happy to see Benjamin back on his feet, instead of moping about, using the grenades to thwart the attacks as they came. He had figured out the whole John situation when Felix mentioned he had spent time in Bastion and knew Benjamin. When Broxus and his party had dropped in though, the siege equipment began to move. He was clearly intended as a distraction so the siege engines could make it to the wall. Unfortunately for the enemy, though it did occupy almost the entire ground crew in an area, Broxus'' party didn''t really have any affect on the people atop the walls.


    As the enemy committed another tower, battering ram and six carts, the people on the wall acted as quickly as they could. Instead of the winches, the towers were taken out entirely by well placed turtle cannon shots. The battering ram managed to strike the gates three times, piercing the first layer but they never had a chance to strike the second because Grim took it out with a very overkill Fire Ball. He had made the entire structure explode and managed to take out a large chunk of infantry and carts around it.


    The battle raged on as Grim''s mana depleted itself. After about two and a half hours, Grim had used half of the 6 million mana he had started with and had given out the cannon, grenades and half of the wands to weary casters. The tunnels had slowed and the siege equipment being committed lessened. The battle was mostly being fought between the archers, the infantry, the cannons and the siege equipment. Once they had taken out, in total, 8 trebuchets and 12 catapults, the next distraction revealed itself.


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    All of a sudden, 6 tunnels burst open in unison at the base of the wall revealing Mole-Ants followed by warriors in matching black leather armor. There were 6 of them per tunnel with one of them being Scott, the leader of The Grove. The ground crew ran up to meet them, fighting in formation to try and slowly whittle them down. At the same instant they had appeared, the remaining siege equipment began rushing the walls. All of the remaining siege equipment. There were two towers on either side of a ramp with ten carts sitting a top it. Around the base of the towers were five carts each. As they approached, the remaining ballistae, trebuchets and catapults, which had previously slowed their fire, all fired at once.


    The winches were being cranked but were getting picked off by ballista bolts and stones. The archers were slowing down the animals that were towing the structures, but they had more behind them pushing as well. Grim was down to less than a fifth of his mana and knew that if he dealt with these structures, he would be using up the rest of it. Down at the base of the wall, Scott and his black leathered warriors were tearing through everything that was thrown at them. The only ones that were taken out were the odd ones here and there by Henry and Benjamin using the tools Grim had given them.


    Will had given up on defending the top of the wall and dropped down to deal with Scott directly. If anyone was going to give him a decent duel, it would probably be him. Will approached wearing his simple leather armor with no dye and his glass edge rapier he had received as a gift. Scott was an average looking man in his forties with a scruffy chin and slicked back brown hair. He held two short swords and the most carefree and arrogant smile Will had ever seen, it disgusted him. Will walked up to him and flicked his wrist, cutting Scotts cheek before he could react. Scott turned to him and smiled, then pulled his blades back and pounced forwards.


    Alan had seen Will dash off the wall and watched over his shoulder as he engaged Scott. Alan had known Will for a while and he knew that Will specialized in one on one duels. Alan gave up on firing upon the army and lent his arrows to his friend. As the other black leather bound warriors tried to flank Will, Alan helped pick them off. He planted an arrow in their knee or shoulder to stop their advance and the remaining ground crew finished them off.


    Benjamin too, had noticed Will engage Scott and did his best to keep others away from the fight as much as possible. He did his best to kite the enemies into groups so his grenades would be more effective and draw them away from the duel.


    Henry had made his way back to the top of the wall and picked up where the casters were slacking. He wasn''t sure how many more shots the cannon had, but his eyes were wide and there was a smile plastered to his face as he fired doom and destruction down upon his enemies. He alone took out a tower and half of the supports under the ramp before the cannon died.


    Five shots wasn''t bad at all, but Henry was back to being just a smith in a battle. He did what he could, throwing barrels over the wall and loading cannons and ballistae when the other''s were too weak to do so. He helped, but he wanted to fight. When this battle was over, no matter who won, he had some thinking to do about changing his class to something that used magical cannons. He figured his profession should be able to make something similar, at least he hoped.


    On the ground, Benjamin and Alan continued to take out warriors as they could, but the real star of the show, was Kenneth. He had been in the city for most of the fight, which Grim hadn''t even noticed. Though he represented and trained the casters, his specialty was a little closer ranged than expected. Alan and Benjamin quickly moved to support the bald terror as he danced through the fight punching his enemies with flaming fists. He was surrounded by up to 5 people at any given time, but each and every time, he kicked and punched his way through them like it was a dance. He almost looked like he belonged in a circus. They eventually managed to chew through all of the black leather clad warriors and then worked to get the tunnels trapped and sealed as best they could.


    Will found Scott to be the messiest fighter he had ever encountered. He was sloppy and aggressive in every strike he made, but he was unrelenting and fast. He was a flurry of slashes and stabs that Will deflected and dodged. Every once in a while, Will would land a strike, a shallow cut here and there, but not once did Scott land a strike on Will. Eventually, the shallow cuts added up and Scott slowed, the fight ending quickly from there. Will disabled him with a couple of precision strikes then made sure he was restrained before resuming his place a top the wall. On his way up he nodded in acknowledgement of Benjamin and Alan, offering them both a warm smile and the latter a shrug.


    The second tower reached the wall while the cannons focused on the ramp as the higher priority target. Will moved to engage the people as they exited but was instead launched off the wall by a loud explosion as the top of the tower detonated. Grim flew downwards as fast as he could casting Feather Fall on him just a few meters from the ground. Grim made sure to send a medic to him then flew back to the top of the wall to assess the damage.


    The top floor of the tower was split into two, with the front section lined with metal plates to act like a cannon and direct explosions. It was a disgusting tactic that angered Grim greatly. He knew he didn''t have much mana left, but he didn''t care much at all. Grim flew up on top of the tower and, just as the people inside began to charge, used almost a million mana to cast a lightning bolt directly downwards.


    Grim wasn''t intentionally feeding Felix''s image as the god of lightning, but he did so anyways. The lightning obliterated the tower completely incinerating the people inside and shattering the wood construction into a million pieces. When it was over, there was blackened splinters sprayed out across the ground in every direction and a hole in the ground beneath it. Everyone on the wall was silent for a few moments before the cannon fire resumed to try and take down the last siege engine the enemy had. The concentrated effort from everyone a top the wall resulted in the ramp, with all of it''s cargo, to crash to the ground just two meters shy of the wall.


    The only remaining equipment the enemy had were 4 trebuchets, 6 catapults, 6 ballistae and 12 galleries that they never had a chance to use. There was also the majority of the army left standing, most of them waiting to use a ramp, tower or the gates to enter the city. None of them ever had a chance to do so though so they mostly manned the ranged equipment.


    They continued to fire for almost an hour before they started to slowly give up and walk away. It was becoming evident that without their other siege equipment, they didn''t really stand a chance of getting in. Even if Tri-Peak let them free fire on the walls, they didn''t have enough ammunition to punch through. Once they realized that, the rest of the army began scatter in the wind. No one stopped them, but no one celebrated yet.


    They stood a top the walls vigilant until Grim decided to use the rest of his mana to take out the remaining structures one by one. He used efficient spells to ensure he could take them all out then flew back to the walls where the people had begun to sit against the parapet, lie on the stone and lean against each-other. Noah kissed Amelia and Alan mimicked them and moved to kiss the now recovered Will who slapped him as Benjamin laughed.


    Someone went and told the civilians who left the bunker and joined in the celebrations. There was a lot of cleanup work to do, but Stone Giant''s Living Stone seemed to be handling most of the repair work. Grim was also happy he didn''t have to use Tropical Storm or Griffin''s Protection. He wasn''t sure where the latter could have been used in the battle as it would have allowed siege equipment to roll up without resistance. The former was just unnecessary. It would have killed off a bunch of the army, but they had just scattered at the end anyways. During the fight itself, they didn''t do much of anything so killing them didn''t help anyone.


    Overall, Grim was happy with how the battle had turned out. There were minimal losses with a good number of injuries that would all disappear in a day of bedrest thanks to vitality. The wall itself was regrowing and the damage to the buildings was minimal. The worst part was the diseased corpses they tried to inflict, luckily those were quickly incinerated and Grim didn''t think they had done any damage.


    The only question left, was if Felix was still alive. It had been almost 5 hours now. . . . . .

 Chapter 93 - Book 92

    Felix flew from the top of his tower, on his surf board made of mana, into the center of the ocean. As he flew, he noticed that he was outrunning the storm behind him as he surfed over the ocean, the sky completely clear above him, showcasing the setting sun. He quickly reached the middle of the ocean where the glow from the seal beneath him radiated all the way up to the surface. Looking around, Felix saw a wall of dark grey clouds closing in from every direction. The small spot of clear sky right in the middle was slowly shrinking as the sun set over the cloud cover to the west.


    Felix checked his status screen and confirmed, he was as ready as he could be.


    Name:Felix KadeFREE0Innate:Ascendant Prodigy: Mana (Wizard)STR1226Class:[E - Common] Caster (Lvl 91)DEX1226Race:[E - Common] Human (Lvl 91)AGI1226Profession:[E - Special] Arcane Engineer (Lvl 92)PER1226Health:24520/24520VIT1226Mana:294172/294360INT2453Energy:61223/61300END1226


    He looked through his inventory and made sure to memorize all of the tools he had available to him. He even pulled out the bigger items and gave them a final inspection before the final fight. In his tinkering, he had also made steel plates with a channeled flying spell for his boots and hands. That meant he could fly without the surf board, in case he fell, without consuming any concentration. The plates on his boots were strapped to the balls of his feet and the plates on his hands were small enough to fit in his palm. There was nothing for him to do but wait so he laid himself out across his surf board and enjoyed the clear sky before it was strangled by the encroaching storm.


    There wasn''t much he could do except relax and be ready. He had already played out the fight a million times in his head both to prepare and out of sheer excitement. He wasn''t going to bother with the tracking mana for two reasons, he doubted it would try and run. Secondly, the Kraken was supposed to be so huge, no amount of tracking mana was going to suffuse it''s bloodstream and be useful. If he hit the tip of a tentacle, he could be running hundreds of meters away from it''s body.


    Felix lay on his surfboard, floating on the air, beneath the setting sun and waited for the final battle of the tutorial. Unless he managed to get back in time to watch the war, who knows maybe he could swoop in and provide fire works. His fantasizing was cut short by a System screen.


    Tutorial Announcement


    The Final Boss has been released.


    The seal on the prison holding the Legendary Kraken at bay has broken and the emperor of the sea has risen from the depths. The Kraken will remain for a period of 24 hours if engaged, before being resealed in it''s prison. Defeating the boss will result in rewards to be given out at the end of the tutorial.


    Good luck.


    Felix quickly jumped to his feet and before he could look down, noticed the clouds, in every direction began raining all at once. They were still closing in around him, but now a sheer wall of rain was closing in as well. He saw flashes of light flicker along the tops of the clouds as static built up within the clouds. Finally looking down, Felix saw the glow from below had vanished and instead, a dark shape was slowly growing. He quickly flew over to the side, not wanting to be directly above it which turned out to be a great idea as the first thing to breach the surface, was the tip of a tentacle.


    Felix continued to race in a random direction to get out of the way and looked over his shoulder to see the tentacle push upwards and grow like a plant. It continued to grow seemingly forever until Felix was certain it would have touched the clouds that surrounded them. The width of the tentacle also increased until the base of the tentacle was the width of a two lane road. Surprising to Felix was the fact that the tentacle had no suckers on them, instead it was scaly and dark on one side, and lighter on the other. It was a dark grey color with a tinge of blue on the scaly side and a light cream on the underside.


    As Felix stared in awe of the massive tentacle, the head of the Kraken pierced the surface and sprayed water in every direction. Once the water settled, Felix looked back to see a massive round dome covered in scales with dozens of bony horns on either side, forming a crown of sorts. Felix thought the dome rose slowly through the water but quickly realized it was moving very quickly, it was just an illusion caused by the size of the creature. The tentacle that had first breached the surface slammed down on the water a hundred meters or so away from Felix causing a massive tidal wave to erupt in either direction.


    As the Kraken''s head rose from below, so did the tentacles. At first it was the one tentacle that had led the charge, that tentacle was shortly followed by another two, then another, and what proceeded was a seemingly endless torrent of tentacles. Felix had expected eight tentacles because he associated the creature with an octopus mentally. Instead there were somewhere between a dozen long tentacles to hundreds of shorter ones. It was impossible to get an accurate count because everywhere Felix looked, the tentacles weaved and wound their way all around the creature. They rose above then fell below the surface only to continue on somewhere else. Everywhere he looked around the creature, there were tentacles.


    At it''s full height, once it had stopped rising from the depths, marked by an ear shattering screech, Felix stared up at a creature that rivaled mountains in size. When Grim had said he would be a fly, he hadn''t believed him and he had thought of a large horse fly in his head. Grim was right, he was a fly, but he was a fruit fly, he was a tiny speck, nothing more than a large grain of sand. He was less than an ant in comparison as the head of the Kraken stood hundreds of meters tall. He had thought the tentacles were thick, but they were also absurdly long. Before, the creature itself had been surrounded in tentacles, now Felix saw tentacles everywhere he looked. If the creature lifted them all at once, Felix would be completely trapped in a prison almost a kilometer wide.


    The Kraken itself was a massive creature that resembled an octopus except that it had many more tentacles, was covered in scales, had nine eyes, a crown of horns and was the size of a small mountain. It did resemble an octopus though, if Felix blurred his vision. By the time the Kraken had fully risen, the clouds had completely closed in, snuffing out the last remaining sunshine and most of the light. Felix could see the Kraken using the rapidly dimming light of the sun that barely managed to pierce the storm clouds above.


    [D - Legendary] Kraken: Emperor of the Sea (Lvl 105)


    D grade¡­


    As the clouds closed in, so did the wall of rain and with it, winds whipping about in every direction. All light from the sun disappeared and Felix saw the Kraken in flashes, as the lightning above flickered and provided after images of the monster. Outside of those flashes, it was inky black in every direction.


    As Felix flew around the creature all sounds outside of him vanished. He could hear his breath as he breathed in and out, he could hear his heartbeat as it quickened and skipped a beat. He felt his skin tense and hair rise, as goose bumps crawled along his skin. Felix wasn''t nervous, his body reacted to the excitement that mounted and the lust he experienced for the coming battle. The Kraken''s eyes suddenly darted over and locked with Felix''s. His chest tightened and his breaths shortened as he experienced the moment before battle.


    Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.


    Neither he, the Kraken nor even the rain dared move, completely suspended, everything was perfectly still. Felix stood there and simply experienced the moment, savored it. Felix didn''t experience the normal moment before battle, strife with danger and unknowing if he''ll even survive. Instead, Felix experienced the moment right before he took on an impossible enemy, one he had no hope of defeating and one that he had every intention of conquering anyways.


    The moment didn''t last forever though and sound came crashing back in around Felix as the rain poured and the Kraken moved. Felix had intended on making the first move, replacing his traditional tracking mana shots with the biggest hit he could to open the battle, instead he was locked in the experience. Instead, the Kraken reacted first, one of it''s tentacles reached up to grasp Felix. He noticed it immediately and felt he had plenty of time to fly out of reach then quickly realized his mistake. The Kraken didn''t need to move quickly, it''s tentacle was large enough that avoiding it''s grasp felt impossible anyways.


    Felix raced by traveling what felt like a kilometer before he finally felt like he was outside of the tentacles reach. With a creature this large though, outside the reach of one tentacle, was almost guaranteed to be inside the reach of another. Felix spun as quickly as he could and raced in another direction using all of his focus to try and navigate through the endless sea of tentacles.


    After dashing and darting around for 30 minutes, Felix had fired a single spell. While he could have opened up his inventory and taken out a wand or cannon, he didn''t dare do anything to throw his focus. After another 30 minutes he had fired off another handful of spells. Luckily, it wasn''t difficult at all to hit the creature, as he could pretty much fire in any direction and hit it. Unfortunately, he knew his spells were a light tickle at best to the Kraken. Grim had warned him that he would need to slowly whittle it down and so that was what he was prepared to do.


    After two hours of dodging tentacles, Felix felt like he was starting to get into a groove. He began predicting tentacles and had even pulled out a few grenades, which were cool except they looked completely useless when their explosion was less than the size of one of it''s eyeballs. Felix was especially happy to have created an energy core and figured out how to regenerate energy with his mana because it meant he could keep fighting essentially forever.


    Felix had expected to cast a light spell so he could see but it quickly became unnecessary as the flickers of light from above became constant. There was the occasional blackout of light after a lightning strike but Felix quickly learned to be ready for those and in all other situations, the area was dimly lit. S§×ar?h the ¦ÇovelFire.¦Çet website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    After four hours, Felix felt like he was on top of the world. At first, he struggled to avoid the tentacles and raced as fast as he could in reaction to every move the Kraken made. Now, he felt like he knew what was going to happen before it happened. He was predicting the tentacles and leading them into each-other, winding them around it''s head and chuckling as it accidentally knotted them together. Felix surfed the air like a bird on the wind, laughing in glee as he did.


    He had managed to significantly ramp up his damage as well as he was now releasing an almost constant barrage of spells. He stuck to single sized Lightning Bolts as those were most efficient than upsizing them and switched between casting and recharging his pool using the batteries he had stored. While he was recharging, he pulled out a wand or grenades so he could keep the damage up. He had eventually used all of his grenades and wands though so he ended up trying to score critical hits with the bigger weapons. He led the tentacles around to create an opening so he could drop his bombs of mass destruction on an eyeball.


    When the blast a hundred meters wide finally subsided, Felix saw one of it''s eye had caved in so he cheered. He looped around and did the same thing again and again until he had taken out five eyes and run out of super bombs. He still had his cannon though so he set himself up for the perfect hit and finally pulled it out of his inventory. As it fired, the runes covering the outside of the steel tube glowed and the spell grew until it exploded, releasing a torrent of lightning upon the Kraken. A normal lightning strike from a storm was a single big bolt. The cannon released a stream of lightning consisting of countless arcs of electricity. Felix was pretty sure it did less damage than a real lightning strike, but in his mind, it definitely looked cooler.


    After 6 hours, Felix was running very low on mana. His pool was depleting and he had just a handful of batteries left. His cannon was empty and although he could replace it''s charge with the spares he had, that would take too long. The only weapon that still had charge was the sword. He didn''t bother pulling it out for the same reason that it was still fully charged, what the hell was a normal length longsword supposed to do to the creature before him. At best, it would be the equivalent of a small splinter and he never wanted to be close enough to a tentacle to try it on them.


    As the battle had progressed, around the 5 hour mark, the storm had reached a crescendo where lightning struck every few minutes within the couple of square kilometers of the battle field. It never struck Felix, luckily but it also never struck the Kraken. All Felix could do was hope and dream though.


    Felix was starting to feel pretty helpless right around the eighth hour. He had spent almost two hours conserving as much mana as possible, slowing his cast speed so his mana expenditure was less than his regeneration. Dodging the tentacles, leading them into each-other and tangling them together quickly lost it''s appeal for Felix. He was a little bored and the knot of fear in his stomach was growing. He was pretty sure he had no hope of actually killing the Kraken, not that he was going to give up.


    There was basically no chance the Kraken was going to catch him and there was almost no chance he could kill it. It was essentially a stalemate. Either he was going to kill it or 24 hours was going to pass and it would disappear. Felix could have taken that as a victory, coming to a stalemate with a Legendary D grade creature. He probably should have, but Felix was stubborn and one of the most intelligent idiots in the E grade, or at least in the tutorial. Felix didn''t think a stalemate was a victory, to Felix, if he didn''t kill the creature, that was equivalent to giving up. If he didn''t kill the creature, his soul would shatter and he would likely die, but in his mind, he would deserve it.


    No more losing. Never again.


    Felix wasn''t going to give up and he decided he wasn''t going to lose either, so he concocted a ridiculous plan to kill the Kraken and more than likely himself, unless he executed it perfectly. He had had an idea, back when he had compared his cannon to a real lightning strike but had quickly dismissed it as a ridiculous and certainly fatal notion. Now though, he wasn''t sure he had a choice. His cannon might look cooler than a lightning strike from the storm, but he was certain those would do a lot more damage, and a lot more damage was exactly what he needed right now.


    Luckily he knew a little about spell forms and theory so he knew how the lightning bolt worked. Essentially he created a path for the lightning to travel, then created a spark. The spark would follow the path and strike the target. Both of these parts of the spell were almost instant though so it just appeared as a simple bolt.


    Felix''s theory was that he could create a path for the lightning from the storm above, into the Kraken. The only issue with that plan, was that because both lightning and the path were almost instant, it would almost certainly fry him as well. He had a decent idea of how to do everything except keep himself alive. He spent almost 30 minutes pondering the plan as he zipped through the Kraken''s tentacles, sitting on his surfboard of mana. In the end, he settled on the only idea he had. He pulled out the cannon from his inventory and removed the lightning spell form disc from it. He stowed the cannon and pulled out his enchanting quill to make some quick modifications.


    The kraken, had no idea what was happening, the speck of dust it had been trying to swat was just mildly annoying. The wounds it had caused would heal in a few hours, which felt like an instant to the nearly immortal Kraken. Had the Kraken been able to recognize what was happening, it would have been livid. It continued to swat at the speck of dust, Felix, who was now sitting on his surf board, scrawling on a metal disc, while barely paying attention to where he flew. He effortlessly wove a path through the tentacles using only his peripheral vision as he focused on the disc in his hands. The blatant disregard for the danger imposed by the massive and Legendary Kraken was lost on it, as it simply didn''t understand.


    With Felix''s modifications complete, he inserted the disc back into the cannon and swapped it''s battery for a fresh battery. He quickly zipped up a top the Kraken''s head, dodging a few tentacles on the way. He used the force enchantment he had engraved on the outside, to reduce recoil, and overpowered it with the last of his batteries. The enchantment, resisting all force in every direction, held the cannon perfectly still as he fired it and jumped into the air. A moment passed, just a sliver of a second while Felix started to fall from the sky and his hope began to dwindle.


    Then suddenly, three things happened all at once. The cannon having fired, having seemingly no effect whatsoever. The lightning that had built up in the sky for a few hours now, with a few discharges here and there, collected itself and released in what appeared to be a perfectly straight line. Finally, Felix realized his mistake, lightning was almost instant so he was still more than close enough that the lightning would almost certainly arc off the creature and into him. . . . . .

 Chapter 94 - Book 93

    The battle was over, the war had been won. There was work to be done, but no one was ready to do it just yet. Instead, ale was poured and food was shared. Grim was happy everyone was in a jovial mood but after the initial wave of relief, his worry was slowly growing. Felix was still missing and it had been almost 6 hours. Everyone in the city was participating in something called a barbeque, which Grim understood the definition of, but that didn''t translate into an experience for him. He cared about the people around him, he had come to see them as friends, but he didn''t overly feel the need to spend time and celebrate. Though it was possible it was his growing anxiety that spoiled the mood for him.


    He had spent the entirety of the last hour staring north east, towards the center of the map. His thoughts didn''t race, he didn''t theorize, he simply waited for a sign of any kind. Noah misinterpreted this as longing and regret so, after spending a solid amount of time with Amelia, walked over to stand next to Grim and stare out at the ocean alongside him. After a few minutes he said, "You think he made it?"


    Grim thought about it for a few moments, then wrote out, "No idea. All we can do is hope."


    Noah nodded and turned back to the celebrations while Grim flew north. Grim had no intention of getting anywhere near the fight, but he needed to be closer, he needed to know as soon as possible. Instead of the fight, Grim headed to the shore line and floated there, perfectly still. He could see the wall of rain that had passed over the armies in the middle of the sea, at the center of the horizon. He could only see it, that far, because it was so big. His vision at that distance was unusable for precision, but it was able to make out the landscape and weather.


    He watched for two, almost three hours. As before, he did not fret, he did not fear. He simply stood there and waited, for a sign of any kind. Grim wasn''t from this universe, or at least not this section of it, he knew that almost right away when Felix didn''t understand a single language he knew. He knew it when The System rudely probed his existence as soon as he was released.


    It was supposed to be impossible. Releasing Grim was supposed to take 6 of the greatest magicians ever, all working in perfect unison. He was meant to be sealed away, only to be released if the time came for the awful secrets he contained to be revealed and forbidden knowledge to be known.


    Then a kid from a universe he had never heard of opened the seal and revealed secrets he didn''t even know it contained. The intention was to open the cube that sealed the pocket universe containing Grim, what the symbols on the outside of the cube meant, he had no idea. He didn''t even know they were there and he doubted the magicians who had sealed him did either. They had just found the cube, opened it and found something mundane inside, realizing how hard it was to open, they used it for their own purposes. He recognized them, he knew what the symbols were. He just didn''t know where they led, and he had no intention of finding out, at least, not alone.


    The first person he had seen after being released, was Felix. A kid who did the impossible. A monster in every way. Felix probably isn''t worthy of the forbidden knowledge Grim contained, he would probably never be so Grim shouldn''t be able to bond to him. He wasn''t the most morally grounded individual and he wasn''t incorruptible. The issue was, the reason Grim deemed him worthy anyway was that Felix didn''t need the secrets Grim held.


    Whether he learned them or not, one day, Felix would be able to do everything in the book and a million other things no one had even dreamed of. It didn''t matter if Grim chose him or not, either way, Felix would outclass everything he had ever heard of. So in the end, the decision was to either hitch himself to the fastest ride that has likely ever existed and just enjoy the journey, or sit back and watch it leave without him.


    Grim watched the storm, a large grey blur in front of him. He saw a brilliant flash of light that lit the entire night sky, like an instant of daylight in the inky black night. Then he heard, the crack of thunder, what was certainly one of the loudest sounds he had ever heard. He could feel the sound through his pages as they ruffled and vibrated. He had no idea what had happened, other than a lightning strike. For some reason though, he laughed.


    Felix lay on the ocean and watched as the clouds dissolved to reveal the starry sky above. He floated on the surface and just enjoyed the night. He was alive.


    He felt guilty, having chosen the amulet or the charm as his favorite piece of gear over the boots. In the end, they were what had saved him. They were also just so comfortable and stylish, which was why he wept when he realized they were damaged beyond repair. They had saved his life. What had the necklace done? Given him stats? That was great too, but right now, he mourned the loss of friends that had been with him since nearly the beginning. He loved those boots, and now they were gone.


    He was also recovering as he floated in the sea. He had lost about a quarter of his health and was almost entirely out of mana. His muscles were actually sore, though he wasn''t sure why. He hadn''t blacked out, but for all intents and purposes he had. The lightning strike blinded him, deafened him, filled his nostrils with smoke and his mouth with something. He was launched into the air off the Kraken and his senses recovered as he floated on the surface of the sea. The Kraken''s body was no where to be found, though Felix didn''t care, there was no way it would fit in his inventory at least he assumed.


    This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.


    He knew he had notifications waiting but he didn''t check them. Not for a while anyway. Eventually, he knew he had to get up, he wanted to find out if the city had succeeded or not and he couldn''t just lay there, floating on the sea forever. First though, he checked his notifications, which there were a lot of.


    Major City


    Grovewatch has declared a siege on your city.


    If they manage to either slay you or occupy the city, they will be victorious. You will win if they are captured, slain or surrender.


    Major City


    Grovewatch has been defeated, you are victorious.


    With the co-leaders of Grovewatch captured, the siege is concluded. For the siege to continue a commander of the enemy''s army will need to declare a vengeance siege within the next 24 hours.


    I think it''s time I soul-bond with Grim.


    Tutorial Fort Capture


    You have successfully captured: Icewatch, Swampwatch, Desertwatch, Cavewatch, Grovewatch, Mountainwatch, Forestwatch.


    How creative.


    Congratulations!


    You have received 2 new titles.


    Solo Completionist: Integration Tutorial, Warlord (Commander)


    Solo Completionist: This title is given to one who both wholly owns every fort and completes every available standard objective in the integration tutorial, solo.


    Warlord (Commander): This title is given to one who commands and leads an army to victory against an army of a larger size with minimal losses.


    Would you like to equip one of your titles and display it to those who identify you?


    Yes.


    No.


    No. I never want to do that. It gave me the title? Guess The System is mad it can''t give it to Grim?


    Tutorial Announcement


    The Final Boss has been slain.


    The Legendary Kraken, Emperor of the Sea has been vanquished. This is an accomplishment to be proud of, through determination, perseverance, and teamwork, you have come together to accomplish the impossible, and come out victorious on the other end. All rewards will be distributed at the end of the tutorial.


    Stats:


    Deaths: 0


    Total Damage Dealt: 57,903,398


    Total Damage Taken: 22


    Participants: 1


    Thank god it didn''t say how long it took. Also note to self, don''t get hit by lightning, it does a lot of damage.


    Ding You have slain a [D - Legendary] Kraken: Emperor of the Sea (Lvl 105)


    Ding You have gained 6 levels in [E - Common] Caster


    Congratulations!


    You have received 3 new titles.


    Slayer: Emperor of the Sea, Hand of Heaven, Titan Killer: Legendary


    Slayer: Emperor of the Sea: This title is given to those who single handedly slay a Kraken.


    Hand of Heaven: This title is given to remember a great feat, smiting an enemy with the power of the heavens and surviving to tell the tale.


    Titan Killer: Legendary: This title is given to those who single handedly slay a creature of a higher tier than they are, the rarity corresponds to the slain beasts rarity.


    Alright, time to check my charm.


    [E - Legendary] Charm of the Boss Conqueror


    ¡­


    Current Souls:


    Colossal Mountain Turtle (100%)


    Griffin (100%)


    Royal Elk (100%)


    Desert Worm (100%)


    Alpha Yeti (100%) sea??h th§× Nov§×l?ire.n(e)t website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    Giant Gator: King of the Swamp (100%)


    Tropical Roc (100%)


    Stone Giant (100%)


    Great Sea Serpent (100%)


    Kraken: Emperor of the Sea (100%)


    Nice, now it''s gotta do something great, right?


    Felix knew there was nothing to get back to, know that he knew the war was won, so he thought about just laying on the ocean for a while. Ultimately, that got boring so he righted himself and channeled mana into the plates on his boots to lift him into the air. Except, nothing happened.


    They''re gone, aren''t they, from the lightning. Oh well.


    Felix''s mana surfboard was shattered so he cast 4 channeled force spells and flew towards the city. On the way back, he spotted a torn piece of cloth, a rag really, floating over the shore. Felix descended down towards it and realized, "Grim!"


    "Felix? What happened?"


    "I won. I hear you won as well."


    "Yeah, yeah war''s over. What do you mean, you won?"


    "I killed it."


    "How?"


    "Magic." Grim didn''t bother responding so Felix continued, "I smited it."


    "Is that even a word?"


    "Not sure, smote?"


    "Was it actually a Kraken?"


    "System said so."


    "So the flash of light?"


    "You can read my memories right? If we soul-bond?"


    "Yeah, I should be able to."


    "Ok, let''s do it."


    "Right here?"


    "Sure, why not? I take it this isn''t a surgical procedure?"


    "No, of course not. Alright, I don''t know how the system does it, but here''s how we''re gonna do it."


    The process was simple, both parties just had to carve out a tiny portion of their soul and swap them. It didn''t have to be from the core soul or any particular layer. Grim called it a soul seed. Once planted in another soul, it would slowly grow as the bond grew and integrate with the host soul. The bond was then through the seed, that was how either side could communicate with each-other. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 Chapter 95 - Book 1: Chaper 94

    Can you hear me?


    Grim?


    That''s me.


    Woah, this is so much easier.


    Yeah your language sucks.


    Wait, I thought you didn''t know how to speak?


    Sort of? Being inside your head helps a lot. I''m doing a fair amount of piggy backing off your knowledge of your language.


    Wait, you''re in my head?


    Yeah, I''m exploring. Give me a bit to sort through things.


    Uh¡­ Sure thing?


    Felix picked Grim up and continued to fly back to his tower in Tri-Peak. Just before he landed, he assessed the damage to the city. From above, it seemed pretty minor. There were a few dozen buildings in need of repair, but that shouldn''t take too long. He also saw almost everyone celebrating out in the streets. He was happy for them, but also felt no inclination whatsoever to go and join them. He did however, descend from the roof of his tower and lay in his new bed. This was the first time he was actually testing it, and it felt awesome. He didn''t think he needed to sleep anymore, with mana regenerating energy for him, but he felt like a nap was in order anyways.


    Felix slept for just a few hours, waking up at around noon. Though he didn''t need the sleep, Felix felt much better afterwards anyways. There wasn''t much he wanted to do, now that the tutorial was complete. He figured he should spend time to create more mana batteries just in case, and recharge the weapons he had created. Maybe he would even recreate the cannon that had sacrificed itself to kill the Kraken. He also needed new boots. First things first though, he checked in with Grim.


    Hey Grim, how you doing in there? sea??h th§× NovelFire.net* website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    He got no response.


    Grim? You in there buddy?


    He closed his eyes and hunted for Grim''s consciousness through his soul seed. He found Grim staring at something in particular and wasn''t sure what it was. Upon getting a closer look though, he laughed. He entered his Memory Palace and found a floating grimoire, Grim roaming the shelves.


    "Hello. You doing okay in here?"


    "You know¡­ you said there was a library in your head. I''m not sure what I was expecting, but there is literally a library in your head."


    "Yeah, pretty much. Best part is, to fill it, I just have to walk near a book. I''ve been meaning to go scan the whole Vault of Secrets. Just haven''t had the time yet."


    "Well? You have time now. Go go go."


    Felix smiled, "Alright, I''ll do that today. Anything else, master?"


    "Shut up, go scan."


    Felix returned to reality and rose from his bed. He picked Grim up and flew out the top of his tower and into the Vault of Secrets. He didn''t have to do this right now, as the Vault would exist outside of the tutorial as well, but he also didn''t have anything better to do. Felix slowly walked down every aisle and didn''t see a single other person in the entire building. It took him just a few hours total, making him wonder why he hadn''t just done it sooner.


    Grim, how you doing in there?


    Alright, I''ll go through this later, shouldn''t take too long. I sorted through your memories while you slept. Overall, you are one weird guy but at the same time, being you must be pretty sweet. How do you find yourself in the most perilous situation of your life, and end up having a blast?


    I don''t know, it''s just fun.


    Uh huh. Henry still owes you some credits.


    I don''t care enough.


    Fair enough, you are stupidly rich.


    That I am.


    This System is¡­ Odd? Not sure what to make of it.


    Felix mentally shrugged.


    Can you show me your Soul Garden thing?


    Sure? How do I do that?


    Just go there yourself, I can follow.


    Felix sat down on the floor and entered his Soul Garden. After a few moments, Grim appeared just to Felix''s right.


    "What do you think?"


    "It looks exactly as your memories depict."


    "What did you expect?"


    This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.


    "I just wasn''t sure what it actually was."


    "Eventually, I''m hoping to make it a real place inside of my soul. For now, it''s imaginary."


    "Sort of. It''s not entirely imaginary, it is kind of like the painting on a jigsaw puzzle that represents how your soul is structured. Kind of."


    "Oh, cool."


    "You are missing something though."


    "What''s that?"


    "You should represent your conviction somehow."


    "I guess you''re right, that is an important part of me. What about a monolith of dark stone?"


    "Sure, whatever feels right to you is right."


    Felix looked towards an area in the sand and focused on his conviction, something between unrelenting and indomitability. He knew he wasn''t undefeatable, he wasn''t that stupid. He also knew he would fight with everything he had no matter what and if it was possible to win, he would. He crafted a monolith of dark stone with a carving of a man standing atop a mountain on the front. The man had climbed the tallest mountain and become the peak. He was an unstoppable force and an immovable wall, he was indomitable and unrelenting.


    "Perfect."


    "Looks good. As for making this a real place, you are a long way from that."


    "Any idea where to start?"


    "You need to open your soul space first. Normally I would tell you to wait until you''re older, but then I remember you''re a monster. The basic idea is that you choose a point in your soul and stretch it, think of creating a vacuum. Then you fill that space with mana and squeeze it back down again. If you do it right, the mana will be forced into a new space instead of back into the Aether."


    "Alright, I''ll give it a shot later on. Thanks. I thought you weren''t allowed to share things with me? Also what''s the Aether?"


    "I wasn''t, now I can share some things. As our bond grows, the convictions imposed upon me will weaken and I can reveal more. For now I can reveal anything that was basic knowledge where I''m from. I''ve been meaning to talk to you about your choice of words. ''Mana Dimension'' is convoluted and crude, let''s try Aether. For Soul matter, Anima."


    "I agree they sound better, but will other people understand me when I use those words?"


    "The System is translating everything you say, so yes. It''s literally reading your intent so you could just mumble gibberish and it would translate perfectly."


    "Huh, that''s kind of weird."


    "It''s one of the things I dislike about the system. Ruins verbal wordplay, at least some of it."


    "I guess so, but being understood always is nice."


    "Fair enough."


    "Anything else I should know that you can now share with me?"


    "Nothing urgent. I have a list of creatures we can hunt down for your familiar. I want to experiment with your bond familiar skill. A handful of other, non urgent things. Oh you should check your inventory, I doubt the Kraken just disappeared."


    "That thing would never fit."


    "If inventories work the way I suspect they do, then it might."


    "Alright, thanks. Have fun in here I guess." Felix said as he gestured to his head and body. Back in the real world, Grim was right. In Felix''s inventory was one Kraken corpse. He had no idea what to do with it, but he had it.


    Tutorial Announcement


    The End of the Tutorial.


    There are 8 days and 6 hours remaining in the tutorial. You are welcome to stay for the full period of time, but should you wish to leave early, the option to do so will open with 1 week left in the tutorial. In 30 hours, you will be presented with the choice to either continue in the tutorial, or leave the tutorial to begin your life anew. There are no extra rewards or accomplishments for leaving early or staying. The tutorial will not change in the last 7 days. For those of you with nothing left in the tutorial, you are welcome to leave. For those of you with a few things you wish to complete, you are welcome to stay. If you have decided to leave, you have 30 hours to say goodbye and arrange your things.


    At that time, the final owners of the settlements in the tutorial will be locked. Staring on the seventh day, no sieges can be declared.


    Oh sweet. I was not looking forward to just running down the clock.


    Felix had already decided on leaving the tutorial early. There was a whole world out there to discover. In here, well his completionist title spoke for itself. That meant he had 30 hours to arrange his things and be ready to leave. The first thing he did was rush back up his tower and stow his beds in his inventory. He knew the city would exist outside the tutorial, but that didn''t mean everything from inside got moved outside.


    He had already scanned the library, so that wouldn''t be an issue. He quickly bought a new pair of regular leather boots and used his map to find Noah. He found him, with the rest of the city, either still or once again celebrating. He made sure to have his mask on so he didn''t have to talk to anyone else. Noah was sitting on a chair next to Amelia around a campfire, in the middle of the road.


    "Noah, it''s me, Felix."


    "Hey Felix. I take it you''re planning on leaving early?"


    "Yeah. Anything you need from me before then?"


    "Not that I can think of. Hey, have you heard this one yet?"


    "What?"


    "Listen." He said pointing to a young man standing next to the campfire who seemed to be recounting and epic tale.


    "The announcement came through, the Kraken had to be engaged to stick around so with a snap of his fingers, a storm was created that kept the kraken at bay. We fought in the war and he watched over us, making sure we survived. Then, after showing mercy to the invading army as they fled, he waited as his storm grew in power before finally, he flew out into the open ocean and engaged, The Legendary Kraken. With another, simple snap of his fingers, a flash of light blinded all who witnessed it, as a bolt exploded from the heavens, smiting the great Kraken. Our hero, took just a single point of damage. That man, he''s the leader of this town, the great lightning caller. The Stormbringer. The Herald of Thunder."


    "It was 22 points and Stormbringer is a ridiculous name. There''s so much more to a storm than just lightning."


    "Yeah, but a single point is more poetic. That''s definitely one of the better nicknames I''ve heard so far." Noah snickered.


    "That all?"


    "Yeah¡­ Look, just because it worked out does not justify your actions. There are still 142 lives that could have been saved if you had participated."


    "You''re right. Do you want me to transfer ownership of the city to you?"


    Noah sigh, "No. It''s safer having you as the figure head. I don''t want people thinking they can take over just by killing me."


    "So you want the target on my back instead?"


    "Yes. Much safer."


    Felix smiled, "Fair enough."


    After a few moments of silence, Felix added, "I''m sorry about everyone we lost."


    "Me too."


    After a few more moments of silence, "Have fun with the celebrations and hopefully I''ll see you outside the tutorial, unless you want to quit as city planner slash manager?"


    "I''m not leaving unless you make me."


    Felix smiled and nodded then headed up to the top of his tower. There was nothing more for him to do. He could track down and collect the precious resources the world bosses had guarded or-


    Minor City: Icewatch


    Justin has declared a siege on your city.


    If they manage to either slay you or occupy the city, they will be victorious. You will win if they are captured, slain or surrender.


    You''ve got to be kidding me. I guess with the tutorial ending soon they''re grabbing onto whatever rewards they can. Normally I wouldn''t have cared, but this is weaselly and I want the rewards. . . . . .

 Chapter 96 - Book 95

    It took Felix just a couple of hours to make it to Icewatch, likely much less time than ''Justin'' was hoping. When he had last seen Icewatch, it was a camp of longhouses and tents surrounded by a wood wall, now it was completely gone. He checked his map and saw that Icewatch was actually in the middle of the forest, just next to Grovewatch. He spent another couple of hours tracking down the city, which it turned out, was a large longhouse on wheels. He wasn''t exactly sure where Justin was but he walked up to the longhouse and opened it. There was no one inside.


    Weird.


    Major City


    Justin has been defeated, you are victorious.


    Justin has declared his surrender, and the siege is concluded. The siege may not continue as the tutorial is ending in less than 24 hours.


    He was really just checking to see if I''d let it slide? Oh man, every Justin I ever meet from now on is going to wonder why I seem to hate them. sea??h th§× nov§×lF~ire.net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    Over the next 6 hours, Felix had to prevent 3 different sieges. He made sure to use his map so he didn''t accidentally fly to the wrong place again and two of them surrendered as soon as he descended from the sky. The last one, Desertwatch, required Felix walk up to the intruder, snap his fingers and create a tiny lightning bolt. The intruder then literally pissed their pants and ran. A few moments later, they surrendered.


    That was a major waste of time. Thank god for the 24 hour cooldown period. Guess I spend the rest of my time trying to create an actual soul space. Don''t really have anything else to do.


    For fun, Felix checked his skill, class and profession screens but didn''t find anything that was even worth reading. He either already knew them or was completely uninterested. For the next 24 hours, Felix attempted to open a soul space. He was still stuck on the first step though when the screen he was waiting for came.


    Early Tutorial Departure


    Would you like to leave the tutorial early? You may leave the tutorial at any point over the next 7 days at which point you will be forced to leave.


    Yes.


    No.


    Yes.


    Felix found himself in an empty white room, the same one he had woken up inside of when the integration first began, just under four months ago. The white walls were just as harsh and blinding as he remembered them.


    Hello Felix.


    Hello System, it''s been a while.


    Not really. You have survived the tutorial.


    Just barely. Wasn''t sure I would make it at the end there with those last couple of sieges. After a hard fought battle though, I have come out the other side, victorious.


    Calculating rewards¡­


    Lame.


    I thought it was mildly amusing. Grim said in Felix''s head.


    Thank you. See, this is why Grim is my favorite ''entity I don''t understand who speaks directly inside my head''.


    The System didn''t respond and Felix just wandered around the room, pacing out of boredom.


    Tutorial Rewards


    Credits:


    50k for each Dungeon (x9)


    1M for each Settlement (x9)


    50M for each World Boss (x9) split amongst your party (1)


    1T for the Final Boss split amongst your party (1)


    Bonus:


    10% Dungeon reward for every Dungeon completed beyond the first.


    20% Settlement reward for each Settlement captured beyond the first.


    20% World Boss reward for each Wold Boss slain beyond the first.


    50% overall reward for participating in slaying the Final Boss.


    Total:


    1,504,082,807,974 [E] Credits


    That is¡­ a very large number.


    Holy shit, and I thought you were rich before.


    Me too.


    The recommended for the final boss was what, 25k?


    Yeah so if you pulled that off you got 40M each.


    So the average person with a few dungeons and maybe a single boss would be at about 500k?


    Something like that, without the final boss, just a couple hundred thousand.


    Damn, I wonder if that''s a lot in the rest of the multiverse, like outside of our ''just integrated'' universe.


    Oh, yeah. Maybe you aren''t super rich. Good question.


    Final Boss Rewards


    This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.


    [D - Epic] Kraken Gear Set (Caster).


    Oh nice, that''s convenient. I wonder if I''m allowed to wear it yet.


    Probably not.


    Yeah, probably not.


    Confiscated 26,713 Items


    All Tutorial Credits transferred to [E] Credits at (1:1)


    Confiscated? What the hell?


    That''s just the rest of the enchanting training stuff, right?


    Oh yeah. Felix checked his inventory, Guess I didn''t really need those, still could have had some use for them.


    Tutorial Shop


    A shop with some basic items to get integratees ready.


    Felix scrolled through the shop which contained basic gear and equipment. There were some more interesting pieces, rare armor and weapons with a few epic quality pieces but they were all quite expensive. They were the kind of loot Felix had come to expect from the quest dungeons. He skipped through all of it not finding anything of value. The biggest issue was that he didn''t know what was included in the Kraken Gear Set so he didn''t know if he''d need anything else. Also it was all E grade so he was inclined to just pass on everything.


    He almost closed the shop but noticed the other sections. There were general goods sections with rations and basic clothes as well as some prefab buildings that could be placed down, nothing interesting though. There was also a spell section, but there wasn''t anything Felix didn''t think he could make on his own.


    The interesting section, was the skills section. It had tons of skills for each and every class and profession alongside general skills, with a convenient filter to only show compatible skills. None of them surpassed Rare rarity but Felix scrolled through them looking for anything to fill his slots. He already knew he could drop skills when he needed to so he might as well fill all of his available slots. He currently had no profession skills, a single class skill and four out of five general skills.


    I really need to offload things from general skills to the other two. Issue is, I can''t use most of the skills offered to me for my class or profession. For class skills, I mostly see things that help with spell list spells, not much that helps outside of that. I already tried slotting in mana speed and manipulation but those don''t seem to do anything, at least for me.


    In the end, he picked up another general skill: [Combat (Rare)]. There were also Uncommon and Common variants, but he figured he might as well get the highest rarity version, since he could afford it. There were also individual weapons and fighting styles, like archery and martial arts, but this skill seemed to cover all of the other ones, in a single skill. Felix figured that was likely a double edged sword but figured it didn''t matter since he was a caster first and foremost anyways. For his class he picked up [Mana Sight (Uncommon)] which he suspected might be useless to him, but sounded cool anyways.


    For his profession he bought [Tongues (Rare)], which let him translate almost any written work and taught him all languages up to the Rare rarity in the multiverse. He figured it might be useless, but the fact that it was available at all, worried him, he also had more than enough money so he might as well. The other skill was more useful [Crafter''s Intuition (Rare)], another skill with variants at each rarity. At Rare it would allow him to see flaws and failure points in spell forms, enchantments, wards and magic contraptions before even using them for anything that would be rare or less.


    He had hoped to fill all his slots and maybe pick up a few more just in case, but ultimately didn''t see anything that was super worth while. There were skills like Hawk Sight which let you see further and effectively zoom in, super useful skill especially for sniping, but it was a General Skill. Those slots were just too valuable to use on something like that, plus he was pretty sure he could make a spell to do the same thing.


    Faction Tokens


    153,203 Faction Tokens have been added to your inventory.


    List hidden for brevity.


    What the hell¡­


    Hah, I assume these are recruitment offers or something?.


    I don''t know, we can check afterwards.


    I''ll go through them now.


    You can do that without me?


    Yeah, and I can use you as a proxy to identify them so I don''t have to interact with the system just yet.


    That is¡­ convenient. You know, you are becoming more useful each and every day. Why did I take so long to soul-bond with you?


    Your rational mind resisted the evil sounding book.


    Major City


    As the owner of a Major City, you will be given the opportunity to found and erect a city back on earth. The first month will be a restricted time for erecting settlements, after which founding a settlement will be open to anyone. You may erect a city at the level of a Major City with the same upgrade path and choices made in the tutorial during the restricted period.


    Conqueror''s Bonus


    As the owner of all 9 settlements in your tutorial you have been given a bonus reward. The reward varies in accordance with your other accomplishments in the tutorial.


    Reward:


    Alongside any Major City rights you may have, you will also be permitted to erect a single other settlement during the restricted period. This settlement may not be a Major City, but it will grant extra votes. The available options will be presented upon founding the settlement.


    Votes?


    World Council


    As the acting leader of a Major City you have been given voting rights and are invited to attend the first world council of earth. The council will be held in 1 month, a the end of the restricted settlement founding period and then every 4 months thereafter.


    As the holder of a Major City you are entitled to bring up to 3 representatives with you. You and your representatives, should they be willing, will be teleported to council chambers where you will meet with anyone else that represents a vote.


    Uh¡­ yuck? Thank god I can just send Noah, right? Or someone else. Maybe we should find someone to be the face of the town, a true politician.


    I don''t know if it''s your seed corrupting me, but I''m starting to hate people more and more each and every day.


    They suck.


    Return


    You have survived the tutorial, you will be returned to a planet similar to prehistoric earth. The planet is much larger than earth was and there are no buildings or infrastructure currently on the planet. There are high grade materials and enemies on the planet as well as curated dungeons. This planet has never been occupied by a sentient race and no ruins or relics have been placed upon it.


    Welcome, to your new home, Trenus.


    . . . . .

 Chapter 97 - Book 1

    Felix found himself at the very top of a large mountain. Looking around, he saw a a mountain range extend to the south, large relatively flat plains to the south-east, and a large forest to his north. The mountain range seemed to run along the edge of a lake to his west. Felix''s first mission was to found Tri-Peak once more. He wanted it to be available for his citizens to move in as soon as possible. He quickly checked his screens and found that he could settle his town wherever he wanted. Only key buildings from the tutorial would be recreated and everything else could be bought or built from scratch.


    While, in the tutorial, Tri-Peak was nestled in the valley between three mountains, hence the name, Felix instead flew east. Nestling his city among the mountains would make future expansion and city growth difficult. He had his eye on a particular spot about half way to the horizon where the plains and mountain range met. The forest was also just north of the point too, providing for a good amount of resources. He was initially worried about water and had wanted to head towards the lake to the west, but the spot he had picked out actually had a large waterfall. It originated from a mountain stream and poured into a small basin that split into streams reaching out into the plains.


    Felix flew out towards the point he was looking at but had to travel over ten hours to reach it. He had expected the mountains to be a similar size to the ones in the tutorial, and had a hard time differentiating them from the peak. Flying past them, he realized how absurdly big they were. It also threw him off how far things were. On earth, something on the horizon wasn''t too far away, this planet was evidently much bigger though as things were so much further than he expected. Even accounting for how high in the air he was, he estimated the radius of the planet to be about a half dozen times bigger. His calculation was very rough though so he gave himself a margin of error of about 25%.


    He finally reached the spot he wanted and stood a top a cliff next to the water fall. Behind him, the top of the cliff was rocky and hard. At the base of the cliff, around the basin which fed multiple streams and rivers, the ground was soft and grassy. Looking north, it was about a half to full day of travel to reach the forest for a normal level 50. That was close enough to all the necessary resources for Felix so he walked off to the side, where the water fall was a little less loud, and opened his city management screen.


    Major City


    Would you like to found a Major City at this location? The location will be permanent unless you manually move the buildings placed. An area of 20,000 kilometers in every direction will be reserved for the city.


    Yes.


    No.


    Yes. That is a ridiculous amount of land.


    Felix immediately noticed the shadow cast upon him by the building that had suddenly appeared behind him. It was a large stone building with decorative archways and pillars reminiscent of ancient roman architecture. He walked up the large stairs and below the archway held up by white stone pillars and headed inside.


    The interior of the building was much like the outside, except that it was completely empty save for a large table in the middle with a single chair. Felix walked over and sat down, thinking back to the throne in the tutorial. He found multiple city management menus and felt a wave of relief when he saw that the Vault of Secrets was able to be placed wherever he wanted.


    Most of the other buildings had been exchanged for some sort of city points that could be used to purchase prefabbed buildings. Felix didn''t touch any of them though as he would have Noah deal with it when he arrived. He did however, decide to change the city''s name. He had already confirmed that the citizens of Tri-Peak will be informed of the name change and that they would even be given the option to arrive here instead of randomly.


    While he liked the name Tri-Peak Valley, it was a little long so ended up shortened to Tri-Peak and was completely unapplicable to this location. He figured it would be too confusing for people and now was likely the best time to address that. He didn''t want people immigrating here after their tutorials and constantly asking about the name. He didn''t have any brilliant ideas on what to name it though so he talked it through with Grim.


    Cliffwatch?


    No, that was bad then it''s still bad. If you wanted that though why not Waterfallwatch?


    Never mind, you''re right. I''s awful.


    Stormwatch? S§×ar?h the Novel?ire(.)ne*t website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    I thought we agreed to ban that naming scheme?


    Yeah but I couldn''t think of what else to add to storm. It also makes some sense so it''s not awful.


    Why storm?


    Your nickname, the Stormbringer.


    I don''t think that''s catching on. Also I don''t want to name the city after myself.


    Alright fine. Alympus.


    I''m not zeus and that was weak.


    This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author''s work.


    I think it''s time for you to suggest anything.


    I''m trying. Atalus?


    What''s that?


    Just a bunch of letters strung together than sound ok and are easy to pronounce. Mashed up a bunch of other city names from fantasy and the real world, ended up with that.


    Meh, I like the ones with hidden meaning better.


    Yeah I know you do, but their all cheesy and lame.


    Yeah, kind of. Atolus?


    Ata- is easier than Ato-, at least for me.


    Meh, I guess it''s fine.


    Yeah¡­ I don''t love it either, but honestly, it doesn''t matter too much. I want people to take it seriously and I think this is good enough for that.


    Felix locked in the name, Atalus.


    With that done he looked through the options for buildings to build and frowned. Then he looked through the buildings that had been exchanged for tokens and his frown deepened. He left the building and pulled up the screen for the bonus he had received and realized what had happened.


    Conqueror''s Bonus


    You may claim land and construct a special building You have the option of constructing a:


    Keep.


    Tower.


    Castle.


    Fortress.


    Other.


    You are unable to claim land here as this land has already been claimed by Major City: Atalus. Please contact the Major City if you wish to use this land.


    Would you like to open a world map now to claim land?


    Yes.


    No.


    That''s an option? I can just look at a map and point? Since when? Why wasn''t I offered this in the last one? Yes.


    Felix suddenly had his map screen open in front of him and zoomed all the way out to show the entire surface of the planet. The interface was a giant globe that he could spin and inspect at will. He also found he was able to zoom in quite a bit. The world was split into 4 major landmasses with the one Felix was on being the largest. That one was mostly vertical with a desert extending off to the west on the bottom making an awkward backward L shape.


    To the east there was a land mass to the north which appeared entirely covered in snow and one to the south which was another desert. To the west of Felix''s current location, above the desert part of the landmass and inside the crook of the L shape, was another landmass. This was the only other landmass that appeared to have a diversity of biomes other than the one he was standing on. He zoomed in on it to get a better look.


    In the middle of the landmass was a massive mountain surrounded by a sprawling jungle on all sides. North of that was a rocky cliff face over the ocean that formed a massive bay with a snowy area further north. On the west of the jungle was a desert and above and below it, plains. He zoomed in further and noticed that the mountain was actually a giant volcano. From the map, it seemed to be inactive, but he didn''t know if the map had that level of accuracy. Around the volcano there were a few other smaller mountains but they were mostly covered in trees, with just their peaks breaking through the tree line.


    Felix panned around the entire map and saw 2 settlements other than his own that were already founded. One was in the desert to the south-west, attached to his current continent, the other was on the arctic land mass to the north-east. After panning across the entire map for almost ten minutes, he found he kept going back to the volcano.


    His reservations were that it was very far from Atalus and he didn''t know if the volcano might erupt at some point. On the other hand, he found the idea of living on a volcano really cool. He decided to just go for it and selected a point on the side of the volcano that was very steep and close to the top. It didn''t need to be flat or accessible as he could just fly there so the location just made it harder for someone to attack him and that seemed like a good enough reason to choose this spot in particular.


    Next he looked through the options and chose tower. He had had a castle back when he first claimed the fort and found it was too big to be usable and found it a little lonely with how empty it was. He figured a fortress and keep would have similar problems. He explored Other, but it was just the ability for him to ask for something different if he had something specific in mind. He had come to like his tower back in the tutorial though. Even though it was empty, the floors were smaller than the castle and filled with shelves, tables and other furniture. The whole thing was much cozier and the idea of having another tower was comforting to Felix.


    Conqueror''s Bonus: Tower.


    Continent Claimed.


    [E - Epic] Wizard''s Tower has been constructed.


    Would you like to teleport there now?


    Note: You will be able to teleport to your tower or city once a day. The teleportation takes 15 minutes to complete. This is a function of Atalus and your tower granted for having slain all 9 world bosses.


    Yes.


    No.


    Say what now?


    Uh, did it say ''continent'', as in¡­ the whole land mass?


    Felix ignored the screen for now and opened his map. He zoomed out as far as he could and enabled the overlay that showed which land was claimed. He saw a small circle surrounding Atalus as well as circles surrounding the other two settlements to the north-west and south-west, though their circles were much smaller. Over to the west, he saw a small icon of a tower on the side of the volcano as well as a light blue color covering, not just the land mass, but also the small islands off its coast. It had in fact, claimed the entire continent. When he zoomed out, The System had even taken the liberty of naming it for him, Stormbringer''s Demesne.


    Hah, and you didn''t want to name the city after yourself. Grim laughed in his head.


    I don''t need a continent. Oh also, judging by the scale of the map, that continent has more land than the entirety of earth had. WHAT THE HELL AM I SUPPOSED TO DO WITH THAT AMOUNT OF SPACE?


    Throw a party? Found another city?


    You know I hate people. I mean, I wouldn''t have said no to a small chunk of land or small island to call my own, so I could get away from people and be alone.


    Except for me.


    Yeah, except for you. Ugh, if someone had a city on one end of the continent, there is a very good chance that I never would have ever seen them. People are going to hate me for this aren''t they?


    Nah probably not, they are going to think of you as a terrible boss to take out though.


    Oh no, they''re going to mount a campaign to take me out at some point aren''t they?


    You could just tell them it''s you, a human.


    Yeah then they all hate me. So it''s either they hate me, or hunt me down eventually.


    Seems like it yeah.


    Then Felix said aloud, "Yes." . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 Chapter 98 - Book 2

    Felix was instantly teleported to the top of a very familiar structure. Next to him, the tip of the volcano rose through the clouds, far bigger than he had imagined it would be. Around him, across from the volcano, a jungle stretched out over the horizon. He looked around and found the familiar trap door he had expected to find. He descended through his tower and found that everything was exactly where he had expected it to be, even the furniture remained.


    The only thing that was out of place, was a large wooden lectern in Felix''s bedroom. walking up to it, he placed his hand upon it and was greeted by a screen for managing the tower itself. He scrolled through it and found that, similar to how the cities were upgraded, he could upgrade his tower. The differences were that, this screen included minor changes like furniture and decorations. He never needed to have anyone come to construct things ever as everything could be paid for through a combination of credits and mana.


    He also noticed that there were 3 subterranean floors below the lobby. The first was simply labeled Storage, the second was labeled Dungeon and the last was labeled Vault. He had no idea how to get down to those floors though, so he just let them be. He continued to explore the screens before him mostly trying to figure out how paying with mana worked.


    Eventually he figured out that he was supposed to install a large battery somewhere in the tower and have it passively collect mana. That would allow the tower''s basic functions like lighting and the kitchen to function. For now though, he didn''t worry about it and instead decided to only make a single change which was actually free. He had the stairs replaced simply with a long empty tube down one of the pillars on the side. Effectively, it was an elevator shaft, except he didn''t need an elevator to ascend or descend, instead simply flying up or down as needed. That also freed up a good amount of space on each floor, which was an added bonus.


    Well, I guess it''s something else to do. What''s the point of upgrading the tower though?


    To help defend against the inevitable army that tries to conquer this continent and the legendary stormbringer. Grim added unhelpfully.


    Alright, first things first, time to see about some Kraken Gear.


    Felix pulled the Kraken Gear Set out of his inventory causing a large chest to drop onto the ground. It was an ornate wooden chest that was as wide as Felix was and heavy as hell. On it was a series of intricate carvings all across the surface of the chest with a Kraken surrounded by waves in the middle. The chest was made of a dark treated wood. Felix bent down to open it and was presented with a screen.


    [D - Epic] Kraken Gear Set (Caster)


    This chest may not be opened until you have reached the prerequisite grade.


    Well that''s a pain in the ass. Guess I grind out a few levels then.


    Wait, hold on. There are a couple of things I think we should do first. Grim interjected.


    Ok, shoot.


    This is less important, but you should try and open your soul space sooner rather than later so you don''t have to carry me around everywhere. We should talk about familiar choices because we can likely kill two birds with one stone and hunt for it while getting you to D grade. Lastly, I sorted through all the Faction Tokens and some are actually worth looking at sooner rather than later.


    Ok, tokens first.


    Thankfully, the tokens have rarities so I didn''t have to manually sort through them. I did anyways, but there was nothing interesting in the Common or Uncommon rarities. In Rare, we have one of the most beneficial tokens for both of us, The Guild of Answers. It seems like, using the token, we can ask questions and then we get a price. If we pay the price, someone answers us. There are also options to pay someone by the hour to answer anything, but I figure someone will abuse that and drone on as long as possible. There''s also the option to offer answers but you''d have to register and it''s complicated.


    Yeah, good call. Can you manage that? Just put up a bunch of questions either of us have?


    Yeah, I''ve already added a bunch of them. I''ll let you know when I get answers and if it''s more than a million credits, I''ll ask your permission.


    Sounds good. Anything else?


    Yeah¡­ Remember that enchanting book you have?


    Eramith & Edelis: Enchanting Basics, what about it?


    You''ve got an offer to attend the school with a scholarship. If you take a test for them, the scholarship can also be increased.


    What''s so special about that?


    It''s the only one with a Legendary rarity.


    Holy shit. Guess I know where I''m heading next.


    First you need to hit D grade, then you need to figure out how to escape this integration universe.


    That shouldn''t be too hard, right?


    That''s one of the questions I already posted.


    Anything else?


    Not for the tokens, the rest I''ll mention if they become important. Oh and some of them had the audacity to send their tokens in puzzle cubes. None of them seem to be a super high rarity though.


    Interesting that Eramith didn''t.


    Another question I already posted. ''What is Eramith?'', ''Why are some tokens in puzzle cubes?'' among others.


    Alright, what''s next?


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    Familiars. Let''s quickly go over the basics. You already know how a soul-bond works, you exchange and implant each-others soul seeds into your souls. Familiars are one of the best ways of shoring up weaknesses or even just gaining strength. I have no idea why it seems like only casters use them in your universe. What happens is that when the seeds grow, you each gain a small bit of the other''s abilities or something else. Typically, with normal familiars, they gain intelligence and sentience. They won''t have complex philosophical discussions with you, but they become smarter and can understand more complex commands. If the thing you soul-bond with already has sentience or intelligence, it''s not considered a familiar, not where I come from. Instead those are soul-bound partners or friends.


    Like you.


    Exactly, instead of sentience and intelligence, I gain other things. With most people I probably wouldn''t gain anything other than what you consider levels. My soul strength would just level with yours and I would be about as durable as you are, just for convenience sake. Carrying around an E grade book forever would suck. In your case though, you''re a monster, so I suspect my mana control is going to get quite a bit better as our bond strengthens.


    What do I get out of this?


    From our bond? Nothing. Instead of actual power, I can sift through your memories and index them. I also have forbidden knowledge from another universe that will slowly reveal itself over time.


    Alright, fair enough. I guess I won''t kick you out for now.


    Ha ha. With most casters, you probably want to choose something fast or durable. Your biggest weaknesses tend to be things you can''t avoid. A fast assassin can take out a caster very easily. Basically anything that manages to get into range, being faster makes it easier to keep your distance. The alternative is something durable, so that if something does make it into range, you can take a few hits instead of a single one before going down. In my universe, birds were a popular choice for the former and metal or stone elementals and golems were popular for the latter. The other advantage is that familiars can often be used to cast spells through.


    Hence birds.


    Exactly. Now, what do you want to shore up? What do you think your weaknesses are?


    Uh¡­ I have trouble fighting at close range, but now I have the skill ''Combat'' so that''s already handled. I don''t know, what do you think it is?


    Nothing.


    What, I have to have some weaknesses?


    You will run headlong into danger and you tend to overestimate yourself, at least you have in the past. But in a fight against something of equal level to you, you are essentially unbeatable. Most caster''s suffer from slow telegraphed casting, you don''t have that issue at all. Most of them also can''t cast multiple spells at once, you are essentially a baby and you can cast 5 at once. You also figured out energy early on and seem to have a stronger than average soul so you likely won''t fall victim to a soul attack. If we think about a higher level enemy, one that''s about equally matched to you power wise, how do they take you out? What weakness do they target?


    Not sure. If it was me, I would just play to my strengths.


    Exactly, there are no glaring weaknesses. Some things are weaker than others, but there doesn''t seem to be anything that stands out as a weakness. You have enough mana to encase yourself in a mana shield and survive for a long ass time so assassins aren''t an issue as long as you can see them coming.


    So what the hell do I bond with?


    A Material Sprite.


    What the hell is that?


    My recommendation for your familiar. They are relatively common, so we should be able to find one and that was the first question I had answered, it cost a single credit. They exist in this universe but typically people call them trash sprites as slang or matter sprites. Matter or Material is more accurate though.


    You want me to choose something called a ''Trash Sprite'' as my familiar? Also why is it called that?


    Yes. It''s a stupid nickname because they are often used to dispose of trash. What it does though, is so much cooler than that. A Matter Sprite can eat just about anything and break it down, completely. Then it can reconstitute it''s body into those materials it''s learned.


    So I''ll be able to shapeshift? Make my body made of metal?


    No, almost definitely not. That''s a property of it''s body, not it''s soul. What is does have, is control over matter similar to how you have control over mana. Not to the same degree though.


    Ok, I''m confused. Also, how does it eat matter? Where does it go? Does it poop it back out? sea??h th§× Novel?ire(.)ne*t website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    Alright, a little background. Sprites and elementals are born in the same way. Some ambient Anima happens to group up and become a soul, it happens fairly often actually but typically they just die out. A soul without a host tends to just vanish. Elementals are these souls that attached themselves to something, like a rock. A sprite doesn''t need to attach itself to anything because it was big enough when it formed to continue existing for a little while. A sprite is similar to an elemental but it doesn''t have as much intelligence or power, instead it happens to have an open soul space. Having an open soul space, makes a soul officially a sprite and means it will live on for a while without dissipating. Typically, the soul space is massive too, hence why people use sprites as trash compactors. A lot of sprites will gain an affinity to things, like water sprites or fire sprites. Instead of an elemental which is a soul that possesses an element, a sprite eats the element and stores it. It spends time around that element and will have a seemingly endless supply of the element.


    Wait souls can just, form?


    Yeah, happens all the time all around you. A soul is just a bunch of Anima that agrees on enough things to travel together.


    That''s it? What about the layers?


    Not necessary, they just happen naturally in almost everything that lives for more than a few minutes.


    That''s a weird thought. So basically ghosts are real?


    Sort of, usually those are called remnants. Back on topic though, a matter sprite attaches itself to nothing in specific, just matter in general. This is a double edged sword, it''s a lot weaker early on but becomes kind of ridiculous later on. It eats all forms of matter and breaks it down on the atomic level to reconstitute it into whatever it wants. Sounds ridiculous but it mostly does it to matter it''s eaten and that''s in it''s soul space along with the matter than makes up it''s body. Bonding with one usually gives it intelligence and sentience. The mana manipulation any familiar gets, even if you''re a god, is negligible. With you though, it will likely be able to cast simple spells raw, by shaping mana. At least by the B tier it should be able to, if my interpretation of the tiers is correct. It could happen way sooner, as soon as the end of D tier, but B tier at the latest.


    I guess that''s cool, not sure I care a ton about it casting spells though.


    That''s the other advantage to a matter sprite, they can essentially grow infinitely. Given that they can reconstitute their body, you can grow it to the point that you have a giant steel griffin, if you wanted.


    Ok, never mind everything I said before, where do I get one?


    Hold on, let me lay it all on you before you make up your mind. What you get, at first, will be very basic telekinesis. Just lifting pencils at first. By the end of C grade, if you properly bond, it will be more like lifting a book shelf with a little bit of breaking down matter. Just simple things though like turning a book to dust, given a few hours. Later on, you can reconstitute matter into a different material, hold back projectiles, things like that. You will have much more control though, over the matter of your own body, right from the start.


    Ok so that handles a lot of problems I''ve had so far, I can make actual mana channels an- can I use it to fly?


    Should be able to relatively early on, if you bond before you move to D grade. I asked some questions to the guild about familiars and apparently your bond gets a big bump when you evolve, with a little system fuckery. It will also let the sprite evolve at the same time. Otherwise, you would need to manually level it to D grade. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 Chapter 99 - Book 3

    Oh shit, so I need to find one soon.


    Yeah, luckily it''s pretty easy to find¡­ trap¡­ make one. It''s not as weird as it sounds, I promise. All you have to do is hunt down cool materials and natural treasures then pile them up. Matter sprites will either come running or be created on the spot.


    Why doesn''t everyone bond to these things? Telekinesis is awesome.


    I''m making a couple of gambles here, but most people wouldn''t have combat usable telekinesis, like stopping an arrow, until B grade at least. Until then, it''s essentially useless to most people. It also eats valuable resources at a ridiculously fast pace. Growing a matter sprite''s strength isn''t worth it for most people. You however, are just integrating in a resource rich world. You can just have it eat everything you can''t otherwise use. Also most people value the durability and agility from other familiars far more than telekinesis. Last but not least, Matter Sprites can sometimes pick up weird abilities if they eat really weird stuff, and sometimes those can translate to you.


    Like what?


    The one I heard about ate a black hole and gained a little bit of gravity control.


    A black hole?


    Yeah that sprite was a few billion years old I think. No one was bonded to it, it just kind of roamed around like a natural disaster. Also ate a wormhole and could make portals.


    How do you know it can pass that kind of thing on then? And wouldn''t it be super weak if it did?


    Yes and also no. There have been less interesting minor abilities like controlling temperature that have been inherited. Normally they would be weak, but the amount that''s passed on depends on two things. The strength of the host, in this case how strong the ability is in the sprite, and the strength of the recipient. It is possible for you to develop a power, that you inherited from a soul-bond, past where the bond has it. It''s super rare, but it has happened and seems to depend on the strength of the bond. The longer the bond exists, the more the seed will integrate with your soul.


    Alright, so if I find some kind of crazy material and I can''t use it for a weapon or something, I can feed it to my familiar and potentially get a super power. Needless to say I''m sold, who needs speed or durability anyways?


    Well, your stats are high for now so it''s less important, but you''ll need to make sure they keep up as you keep leveling.


    I mean, I would have tried my best to do that anyways. I''m hoping my evolution will help with that.


    I''m really curious what that is and how it works because it''s one of the only things, that I''ve encountered so far, that doesn''t have a parallel in my universe.


    Really? That''s odd.


    Last thing. There is a¡­ darker way of making a sprite. You can make a sprite from the soul of someone who had a soul space that died. This results in it being stronger and sometimes being able to cast spells if the person who died could. Most people will think that''s how yours was created and we''re gonna use that to our advantage.


    Uh¡­ I''m already worried about people hunting me down for being an evil overlord and now I''m going to play into it?


    Not exactly. You kind of have to, to avoid people trying to capture and experiment on you or consume your soul. What we can say, is that you had a soul-bound brother in arms that died and through some miracle became a sprite. It''s weak, but it''s not impossible. Most importantly, it''s a more likely story than you being such a monster your sprite turned into a super hero.


    Alright, I can live with that. So soul space first?


    If you can, yeah. You haven''t gotten past the first step right? What point did you choose?


    I just went with the center.


    You probably won''t be able to start it in your core soul, you want to start it somewhere outside of that but not too far away or it won''t be stable. Once you''ve created it and it''s stable though, you can move it into your core soul to make it really stable. Once you''ve moved it inside, you can start to feed it mana until it grows to the limit.


    How do I know when it''s at the limit?


    You need to start it first, but you won''t be able to expand it anymore, it''ll just leak any mana you put into it.


    Felix sat down and meditated. He chose a point just below his navel that should be outside of his core soul. He focused on the point and slowly stretched outwards, away from the point in all directions. Slowly, a vacuum was created at the point and Felix filled it with mana as it grew. Once it was about the size of a marble, he began to squeeze it as much as he could. The mana started to return to the Aether, but he held it back and made sure it didn''t. He kept squeezing for a few hours not sure he was getting anywhere when suddenly, it popped and disappeared.


    Did I do it?


    Not sure, try to access it. It''s a marble sized ball of mana that''s in a pocket dimension connected to your soul. Unfortunately, feeling it is just intuition so you''re going to have to just figure it out.


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    Felix focused on the same point and tried to sense mana of any kind but just couldn''t seem to find it. He searched and scoured his soul but it was nowhere to be found. He tried a variety of things to try and find it but ultimately, it was somewhat of an accident that he found it.


    Felix spent hours focusing and paying attention to his soul, after which, he decided to take a different approach and just relax. This was a different form of meditation than the one he focused on, instead of focusing on something and eliminating distractions, he simply relaxed and ignored. Doing so, his soul relaxed enough for mana to start leaking out of the soul space he had created. As soon as he felt that, he focused in on it and followed the trail backwards. He spent a few minutes just focusing on the difference between his soul space and reality and managed to make it somewhat intuitive. It wasn''t nearly second nature, but he knew he could find it again when he closed it.


    Felix tightened his soul then found the point. Focusing on it once again, he slowly moved it right into his core soul. Once it was in there, it should be impossible for it to open back up again, no matter how relaxed he was. The final step, was to figure out how to move things in and out of it. Luckily, that step was trivial now that Felix could feel his soul space, he simply touched an object and willed it inside. The first thing he moved was just mana because Grim said it was safer than an object. With an object, it was possible for the soul space or your soul to tear if it was too big. With mana, it would simply leak out.


    Felix continued to grow his soul space for a few hours making it almost half a meter across. It was just big enough to stick Grim into which meant it was big enough for now. He wanted to spend more time growing his soul space, and he would, but it took a long time and right now and he had other things he wanted to get done. Expanding his soul space would have to go on the back burner for now.


    So how do I find natural treasures and rare materials to attract the sprite?


    Anything that''s somewhat rare will work and finding that is simple, just look for strong monsters. They tend to congregate around treasures and materials in the hopes that they can use them to get stronger.


    Oh, well that''s easy enough.


    Felix descended to the lab floor and quickly inscribed the spell forms he relied on onto the bottom of his new leather boots. He also quickly threw on some durability enchantments to keep them from falling apart too quickly. When he was done, the spell form for flying was on his heels and the spell form for jumping away quickly was on the balls of his feet. He had realized it was slightly more intuitive for him to reverse them. Initially he was worried the instant force of jump would be problematic but he found that wasn''t an issue at all. Now all he had to do was push mana into them rather than waste spell slots. Though he still missed his boots that had been destroyed, he had to admit inscribing the spells directly on the boots instead of strapped to the bottom was much cleaner.


    The last thing he had to do before heading out, was get used to his new skills. Combat wasn''t just a skill he obtained and used. What it did was that it would teach him how to fight when he activated it. He had chosen the skill because it encompassed all weapon types and fighting styles below rare rarity. That meant he could pick up a sword or a staff and it could teach him how to fight with it. It could also teach him some basic martial arts if he wanted it to. It did not however, teach him to mastery, it simply taught him some of the basics like footwork and what not to do.


    Mana Sight on the other hand, was different. He had already noticed the ambient mana leaving a slight tinge over everything, but he had quickly filtered it out. The real advantage to this skill, and why he got it, was that it used your mana senses as a base. His mana senses were really good, so he saw even the faintest traces of mana. The other reason he got it was that when he cast spells, he could see spell forms in the air, which he thought looked really cool. When he first cast a spell and visually inspected it, it was even cooler than he had hoped. The mana''s color even represented it''s attunement just like he had imagined. He wasn''t sure if there would actually be any value to the skill, but he did want to spend a little time getting used to it so it didn''t throw him off in the middle of combat and potentially get him killed.


    Once he was done, he ascended to the top and flew out, away from the volcano and into the forest. How it should work, according to Grim, was that some strong alpha creature would find a natural treasure and prowl around it, guard it, until it knew what to do with it. Increasingly weaker enemies would stand watch and wait around the alpha to either swoop in if it died, or to guard it and gain favor. So if he found the enemy''s strength increasing towards a particular direction, that was where he should head. Fortuitously, that''s probably what he would have done anyways. S§×ar?h the Novel?ire(.)ne*t website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    Felix descended into the jungle and saw it up close for the first time. Similar to the massive trees from the tutorial, and the ones even larger than that in the forest north of Atalus, these trees were larger than any Felix has seen on earth. They weren''t as big as the ones in the tutorial, but there was a much greater variety here than in both of the other forests. The trees here ranged from saplings to towers with most trees falling right around the middle. There was also a huge variety of other vegetation with flowers, ferns and moss spread out across every available surface. In the tutorial, almost all the trees were a similar size which he was now realizing was a little unnatural.


    Felix''s first encounter with a jungle creature was a fairly normal sized snake that tried to sneak up on him from behind. Luckily, he was able to hear it slithering and managed to block it''s strike with the Mana Shield inscription he had strapped to his back. The snake ended up stunning itself on the shield and Felix finished it off with a lightning bolt before it could recover.


    Ding You have slain an [E - Common] Snake (Lvl 61)


    It''s just a snake? Not like an anaconda or something?


    I actually have a theory about that that I posted to the guild for confirmation. I think it identifies it based on what you know, because you wouldn''t be able to differentiate snake species, you just see snake. If you knew it was an anaconda, it would say so. That seems likely, what I don''t know is where the line between what you do and don''t know is. You don''t know a rarity or level, the system supplies those, so some information you don''t know is added. What happens if you are certain it''s an anaconda, but you''re wrong? Will it identify as a snake, or an anaconda?


    You are just having a blast trying to figure all this stuff out, aren''t you?


    Don''t tell me you don''t find this stuff fascinating too. Plus this information could save your life at some point.


    Yeah, I do and you aren''t wrong. I''m glad you can figure it out and inform me though, instead of having to post it to the guild myself.


    As Felix ventured further into the jungle, the vegetation began to hinder his travel so he pulled out the long sword he had enchanted for the Kraken. He activated the enchantment causing the sword to glow bright red as it heated up. He ran through the thicket paying attention to his Combat skill telling him how to step and how to swing. The plants he cut through were much thicker and denser than he would have expected plants to be, at least back on earth. Luckily, his sword melted right though them, though it did consume a fair chunk of mana in exchange. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 Chapter 100 - Book 4

    At first, the only other creatures he encountered in the jungle were small snakes, lizards, frogs and bugs. None of them were worth much considering their levels were lower than the snake he had first slain. Finally, after almost a dozen hours of Felix slicing his way through the jungle, he encountered an enemy worth fighting.


    [E - Common] Panther (Lvl 92)


    [E - Common] Panther (Lvl 94)


    Felix watched as two panther''s fought each other for dominance. They leapt and vaulted around the jungle as they each struggled to fell the other, locked in the most acrobatic wrestling match Felix had ever witnessed. Felix didn''t really want to interrupt the fight, but these were the first creatures he had encountered in the jungle worth paying attention to. The one with the higher level was actually slightly losing as it was bleeding in multiple locations. As soon as they separated next, Felix finished it off with a Lightning Bolt. He was so used to world bosses and Krakens that he didn''t actually expect to kill it with a normal, single sized lightning bolt.


    Ding You have slain an [E - Common] Panther (Lvl 94)


    The other panther took one look at Felix, then it quickly shot it''s head off in another direction then back at Felix. It steeled itself for battle and pounced. The panther was a massive disappointment. Felix was pretty sure his lowest stat would be over twice what this creatures highest stat was. He finished it with a quick Lightning Bolt then headed in the direction the panther had looked in when deciding whether or not to fight Felix. Worst case, it was defending it''s young, best case there was a natural treasure to be found. Alternatively, it could have just been swatting a bug. Either way, Felix didn''t have any other direction to go so he continued onwards.


    The further he traveled, the faster Felix began walking as he got increasingly excited. He encountered more panthers along the way, a lot more panthers, and their levels increased steadily as he traveled. He wasn''t overly enjoying one shotting the panthers so he instead opted to practice his long sword combat. Unfortunately, the enchantment on his longsword had the annoying tendency of bisecting them on his first strike. He was steadily improving his swordplay and footwork as he went though. He even managed to gain a level in Caster a few panther''s in, after killing a panther sitting at level 99.


    After that, he found another 3 panther''s and gained another level before the jungle was completely empty. He considered the possibility that he had walked in the wrong direction, but his map disagreed. He continued onwards through the jungle, carving a path forwards with his sword. He began to notice all of the animals of the jungle were oddly quiet and missing where he would normally have expected them to be loud and aggressive. Before this silent patch, he had heard the occasional bird, bug or frog every once in a while, now though, there was nothing. It was almost an hour before he encountered another living creature of any kind, and it was in fact, another panther.


    [D - Common] Panther (Lvl 103)


    Was that gap just the E grades giving berth to the D grades? Sear?h the N?vel?ire.net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    Seems like it. Grim responded.


    The difference between E grade and D grade, was massive. Felix''s only other experience with a D grade was the Kraken, which was going to be hard to kill no matter what grade it was. He also hadn''t fought an E grade Kraken so he had no idea what the difference between them was. With the panthers though, he had just fought multiple panthers at the peak of E grade and he was pretty sure he was doubling their agility, at least. With the D grade panthers, he was only just slightly beating them out in agility.


    The fights were no longer one sided and they actually managed to avoid his swings and try to strike back. He still killed them in a single strike of his sword, but he couldn''t just swing at them freely anymore. At least they provided valuable combat experience.


    The panther''s levels continued to marginally increase for hours. There were also some with an Uncommon rarity sprinkled into the mix as Felix traveled. Eventually, there was another gap, smaller this time, around a single panther that circled some sort of plant.


    [D - Rare] Alpha Panther (Lvl 121)


    Finally, a worthy opponent¡­


    Your battle will be legendary! Grim finished.


    Felix slowly walked towards the panther, sword at the ready. It immediately noticed Felix and jumped between him and the plant then began snarling. Felix continued onwards, unperturbed until he was just a few meters from the panther and it leapt forwards. This panther, was much faster than Felix so he had to engage his boot inscriptions to step to the side and avoid it. The panther immediately bounded off the ground instead of landing and re-engaged. Felix barely managed to turn and activate his Mana Shield inscription. It blocked the attack and slightly stunned the panther who slid to the ground on the hard surface of his shield.


    Felix dropped the shield and stabbed forwards to finally land a blow, but it leapt backwards faster than he could move. The battle continued like this until Felix got caught by a claw that ripped his left thigh open. He waddled back and defended as many strikes as he could but the panther was much faster than he was and didn''t intend on letting him go now that he had made a mistake. Felix blocked and parried the strikes until the panther got overconfident and dove forwards to rip Felix''s throat out. Instead, Felix dropped to the ground and brought his sword up, removing it''s front left leg. It fell to the ground and stumbled, allowing Felix to kill it with a final blow through it''s neck.


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    Take the body.


    I don''t really need a bunch of corpses littering my inventory.


    The sprite might be able to take the form of corpses you feed it, if your soul makes it intelligent enough.


    Which we''re pretty sure it will.


    Almost certainly.


    Felix quickly cauterized the cut on his leg and stowed the panther''s body, picking up the leg he had removed along with it. He limped over to the plant which he now saw was actually just a pile of leaves and vines intended to hide something beneath it. Before he could figure out what it was though, another panther leapt from the trees and attacked. This one was a normal panther in the D grade with an Uncommon rarity and a level of 112, no different than any of the panther''s he had killed on his way here. He sliced it down fairly quickly with just a few parries required. He avoided dodging due to his leg injury but that didn''t hinder him much. As soon as it died, another panther attacked.


    Before he had even finished this one off, another panther attacked him from behind. The panther''s continued to leap out of the trees and attack him, as if trying to create a dogpile. Felix continued to cut them down with his fire sword, ready to switch to Lightning Bolts at any moment if he felt he was in real danger. Felix slew over a hundred panther''s before the torrent seemed to subside. Lucky for them too as Felix had run out of mana on his sword as he fought the last one, luckily the remnant heat was enough to kill it.


    Ding You have slain an [E - Rare] Alpha Panther (Lvl 121)


    Ding You have gained a level in [E - Common] Caster


    Ding You have slain 104 [D - Common] Alpha Panther (Lvl 100-116)


    Ding You have gained a level in [E - Common] Caster


    I got one level from the alpha panther, then a SINGLE level from slaying 104 panthers?


    Yikes.


    I have no idea how people are going to keep leveling once they hit D grade. I fight alone and tend to fight much higher level enemies.


    It''s just going to be slow, not impossible.


    Yeah I guess.


    Most people would take a week at least with their party to cut their way to the alpha.


    That sounds like a HUGE waste of time.


    To you, I suspect for most people, that''s just how they level and eventually, they grow accustomed to the pace.


    Speaking of levels, I hit level 100 there, then got another level?


    Yeah, noticed that too.


    D Grade


    You have reached the prerequisite level to upgrade to D grade in your class.


    You may open the class selection screen to select your class upgrade now.


    Note: It is possible for these options to change if you decide not to evolve now. It is possible some options will not be displayed until you have reached the prerequisite level to evolve in your profession and race as well.


    Note: You can continue to gain experience, but you will not gain any stats from the levels beyond the threshold until you evolve. Those levels will be active as soon as you evolve however.


    I should just wait then, shouldn''t I?


    Yeah. I don''t see how those options could be worse than the ones it shows you now, more requirements likely means better. I''ll post a question though and let you know.


    I''ll just wait till that get''s answered then, don''t want to tease myself too much.


    Felix bent down and brushed aside the leaves and brush to reveal a large red crystal. It was massive, almost the size of a basket ball. Felix tried identifying it, but didn''t get any useful information.


    [D - Rare] Ruby


    You know nothing about the properties of this material.


    Well that was decidedly unhelpful.


    It''s a big gem and probably has some cool power or ability. Who cares though? Pocket it and let''s go find another.


    You don''t think I should try and get my profession to level 100 so I can see my options?


    I think you should get the sprite as fast as possible.


    Fair enough.


    Felix stowed the ruby and sat down to meditate and restore his health. While he did so, he also created a new battery for his sword and replaced it. Once he was fully restored, he set out into the jungle and searched for another treasure. Over the next 6 days he found another 4 treasures guarded by birds, hippos, frogs and bugs. The bugs were particularly annoying, not difficult, just annoying to deal with. He mostly sprayed them down with a flame thrower but it did make him start thinking about some sort of chain lightning bolt so he didn''t have to deal with hitting them individually.


    They guarded a yellow rock, a flower, a liquid and a tree. The liquid was in a small basin and Felix almost missed it, but it now sat in a canteen safely stowed in his inventory. The rock he simply picked up, though it was rather large. The flower and tree were the hard ones to figure out. He didn''t know if there was a correct way to harvest them and neither did Grim so he just dug them up as much as possible with the junk in his inventory then cut them down at the root.


    Once he had collected the tree though, he didn''t have any time to head back to his tower with just over an hour until Noah and the rest of the citizens arrived.


    Atalus


    Would you like to teleport there now?


    Yes.


    No.


    Yes.


    Felix found himself on the front step of the only building in the city and quickly flew over to the basin of water to clean himself off. Once that was done he sat on the front step where he had arrived and began meditating, funneling mana to feed his soul space.


    Right on time, exactly when scheduled, Noah appeared hand in hand with Amelia. After which, at least 20,000 thousand people followed and appeared scattered around the area.


    Trenus World Announcement.


    Welcome to Trenus.


    Everyone has arrived from their respective tutorials. There will be a world council meeting in 3 weeks time attended by the vote holders and their representatives. The agenda for this meeting will be simple introductions and a vote on whether or not to end the restricted settlement founding period. The three options for the world event will also be presented and that vote will occur at the following meeting, 4 months later.


    World Event? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 Chapter 101 - Book 5

    Felix waited a few minutes for Noah to adjust and sift through notifications and screens before approaching him. Conveniently, he wasn''t in the middle of the crowd but rather appeared just a few meters in front of Felix, facing him.


    "Hey Noah, welcome to Trenus¡­ and also Atalus." Felix gestured around himself.


    "You renamed the city?"


    "Tri-Peak doesn''t exactly make any sense given." He once again, gestured around himself.


    "I guess not. I kind of liked the name though."


    "I also want to be taken seriously and not have to explain to everyone at the world council why our town is named the way it is."


    "What is that? and what''s a world event?"


    "Oh, you didn''t get a notification for that at the end of the tutorial? No idea about the world event though, we''ll just have to wait till the meeting. I''ll try to catch you up as best I can, follow me inside."


    Noah looked thrown off but followed Felix, with Amelia in tow, into the building. It seemed like everyone else was happy enough for now to look around and explore their new home. Felix led them into the main room and to the lonely table in the middle.


    "So yeah, everyone who owns a Major City," Along with a Wizard''s Tower, "gets voting rights at the world council. Not exactly sure what it is other than that me and my representatives get teleported to council chambers where we get to talk to everyone else with a vote."


    "Uh¡­ Ok then."


    "I was thinking I''d bring you and was thinking maybe we should find someone sociable and¡­ political, to deal with other cities. I get three representatives, you can choose who they are, you know the people better than I do."


    If you go representing the votes of your tower, can you send someone in your place for the city? As in send 4 people? Grim asked.


    Oh, good question. Or do I get representatives for the tower?


    Doubt it, seems like a very solo thing.


    World Council


    Representatives.


    As the holder of a Major City, you have 5 votes. You may send 5 representatives of the city, which must include yourself. As the owner of a Wizard''s tower and continent, you have 25 votes however, you alone must represent them.


    Representatives (1/5):


    Felix Kade


    "Scratch that, I can send 4 people. I''ll be going separately though."


    "Why? What''s happening?"


    "I have special votes or something¡­ Don''t worry about it too much. Bottom line, if you want to go to that and choose three people to bring with you, I would love to appoint you as my representative."


    "I''ll go, since I manage as much as I plan right now, but I agree, I''ll find someone political to throw into the fire."


    "Excellent. Now the city, as you can see, we have only a single building. A bunch of the buildings from the city in the tutorial got exchanged for points or something. We can use those to buy new buildings for the city. You''ll also need to choose locations for the unique buildings like the vault. I avoided buying anything until you got here so you could see the location I picked and put together a plan. Sorry to just kind of dump this on you, but people are probably going to want their homes and shops back."


    "Of course they will, they can wait though. That''s nice though that we don''t have to start from scratch. You could have at least bought your tower though."


    "Yeah¡­ We''ll get back to that. We have an area around this building of 20,000 kilometers reserved for the city, so I don''t expect us to run out of space anytime soon."


    "Holy shit, did you have to reserve that much? I feel like a dick now. That''s the circumference of the earth isn''t it?"


    "Uh something like that, I didn''t choose the number, it just came with the city. Also Trenus, the new planet, is a lot bigger than earth was. Like many times."


    "Still, that''s an absurd amount of space. How are we ever going to use all that?"


    "I have no idea. We seem to have gotten the most so far. When I checked the map, only two other''s had claimed their land and had much smaller circles around their cities."


    Noah zoned out as he opened his map. Felix watched as Noah''s face went from shock to interest and wonder then finally settled on a frown that gradually deepened as he panned around.


    "Felix."


    "Yes Noah."


    "Aren''t you the Stormbringer?"


    "I didn''t know it would claim the whole continent, I swear. I just wanted a little tower on a volcano. This is what I got. I''m just happy I didn''t try and put it on this continent."


    "Yeah, you chose the second biggest one, not the biggest. Oh how generous you are."


    "Don''t make me smite you."


    "Uh huh. You really didn''t know?"


    "Had no idea, just told me to pick a spot for the tower. Volcanoes are cool so I picked that spot."


    "I take it that''s where the special voting rights come in?"


    "Yeah¡­"


    "Alright so you''ll go as the Stormbringer and we can go as the first city allied to them."


    "You could, it might make people mad at you though. I suspect people will hate me and I''ve been thinking about going incognito."


    "You might be right, on the other hand, someone strong enough to claim a continent is kind of a scary thought."


    "Could tell them I''m an ancient friendly lich or something that values their privacy."


    You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.


    "Yeah, but then how the hell did you get onto this planet?"


    "I was sent as a protector from The System to keep the planet safe from unwanted invaders¡­?"


    "That''s actually¡­ not the most far fetched thing."


    "We can talk about it later, we have 3 weeks till the council."


    "Wait, how do you get to your tower? That''s more than an earth''s circumference away."


    "I can teleport back and forth, a perk of killing all the world bosses."


    "Well that''s convenient. Back to the city though, this seems like a good choice of location, we have water, wood and stone as well as farmable land. You have anything in mind for how to lay it out?"


    "Nope, up to you however you think it should work. You''re the city planner. My ideas were mostly fantastical, homes in the cliff, segmenting the city on the upper and lower levels, stuff like that."


    "I don''t want it to look like we think less of all the people below the cliff."


    "Could put the whole city above the cliff then just the farms below. Then the cliff is like a protective wall."


    "That would be such a pain to transport things up and down."


    "Could probably buy or make elevators, they wouldn''t be that hard to make."


    "Maybe, we would also have to eventually build into the mountains though."


    "Yeah but the rock is much more stable to build on." Amelia added.


    Felix shrugged, "Like I said, entirely up to you. In fact, I was thinking we should probably have like a government. I don''t want to be king or make laws so either we elect a prime minister or make a council and go with an oligarchy or something like that."


    "We can probably just use the war council for now, then we can have the positions elected either after the world council meeting or the world event. Whenever we manage to settle ourselves."


    "Sounds good to me."


    "I guess that makes you the emperor then? A figurehead."


    "I guess? Figurehead for sure, I do not want to have to be involved. I expect that if you call on me, it''ll be because the city is being invaded by some stronger force or there''s a monster you need me to kill."


    "So we can call on you to come back and defend the city?"


    "Yeah, of course. As long as it''s not for anything minor. At this point, every other city is a major city from the tutorials so if they attack, they''ll be just as strong as our city with me participating. I still own the city, for now, and I will do everything I can to protect it. Plus I can just teleport back once a day. So just don''t die right after I leave."


    "Good to hear."


    "Oh hey, whatever happened to Broxus and that other guy, after they were captured?"


    "We just kept them tied up till the end of the tutorial. No idea what happened after that. They probably just got teleported somewhere on Trenus."


    "Alright, let me know if you need anything."


    "What do you think of Benjamin, Will and Alan?"


    "They''re cool¡­"


    "I''m thinking we use them as representatives for the world council."


    "Why them?"


    "Thought about Susan and Henry, but she''s selfish and a little stuck up. He''s¡­ rough around the edges, not exactly the most charismatic. Those three are the only ones I can think of that are sociable and can be conniving if they want to. They are also heavily tied to the city and would die for it."


    "Really?"


    "They just sent for their kids to move here and have already asked for houses for them. Benjamin nominated Will as the chief of police because, and I quote, ''There is no one I''d rather have protecting my kids''. Alan also talked about starting up a scouting party and I want Benjamin to head up an army, at least from a desk, no need to go into the field and endanger him, not when he has kids at home."


    "Uh¡­ Yeah I''m good with that. I''m going to need to talk to them first though."


    "Why''s that?"


    "I kind of lied to them a few times¡­"


    "Wore the mask?"


    "Yeah¡­"


    "Hah! I''ll go get them."


    "Wait, why not Amelia?" Felix looked over at Amelia.


    Noah laughed then looked at Amelia, "Would you like to be a city representative at the world council meeting?"


    "I''d rather die, like actually die."


    Noah turned back to Felix, "She hates politics and stuff like that."


    "Ah, my bad. Benjamin, Will and Alan it is."


    Noah popped out of the building for a few minutes then walked back in with Benjamin, Will and Alan. They all walked in looking like they had been called into the principals office and stood nervously at the end of the table.


    "I want you three to come with me to represent the city at the world council meeting in three weeks time." Noah said.


    Will and Alan looked at each-other, "Why us?" They said in unison.


    "Because you are both sneaky and sociable and can get away with a lie."


    "What about Benjy over here?" Will asked.


    "He''s sociable when he wants to be, but also the complete opposite of you two. If someone is put off by either of you, we send him in. He''s honest but smart enough to get what he wants from other people. My other options are Henry, Susan, Jen, Kenneth and Anthony. Who amongst those do you think I should send?"


    Will and Alan looked at each-other than looked back, "Benjy it is." They said in unison again. Felix was starting to wonder if they had a skill to do that.


    "Also, Felix has to talk to you three."


    They all looked at Felix and their faces made it seem like they were preparing themselves for a scolding.


    Do I really look that scary?


    Guess so. They look like children that are about to be grounded.


    Or dogs who jumped on the couch when they knew they shouldn''t.


    "If you guys are going to represent the city, and potentially be the heads of police and whatnot, I need to be honest with you guys."


    "Head of police? Who?" Will asked.


    "You, silly." Benjamin said.


    "Me? How''d you know about this? Why do we need police?" Will asked.


    "In the tutorial, The System policed the city. Out here, not so much." Noah answered.


    "I nominated you. Gonna have my kids running around the city and you''re one of the only people I trust to keep em safe." Benjamin said, "Plus yer pretty good at taking down just about anyone with minimal damage in just about any situation."


    "I second that." Alan jumped in.


    "Really? What about Alan? or Felix for that matter? Why me over them?"


    "Alan isn''t great in the city, better in the forest and you know he was thinking of starting a scouting team. I suspect Felix has better things to do than deal with petty thieves." Benjamin explained.


    "And I don''t?" Will asked, slightly offended.


    "Would you rather risk your life fighting crazy monsters and invading armies? Risking your life when you have kids and a husband at home?"


    Will paled, "On second thought, petty thieves sound right up my alley."


    "Thought so." Benjamin said.


    "Speaking of Alan, any interest in being a spy? Or being the head of a spy guild?" Felix asked.


    "Spies? That''s what you need to be honest about?" Alan inquired.


    "No, this is a separate thing I just thought of." Felix replied


    "Oh, uh I''m not sure, what does it entail?" Alan said after shaking head to clear it.


    "No idea, but it''s one of the functions of the city''s upgrade path. Noah, you can deal with it right?"


    "Yup, I can catch him up later." Noah replied


    "Ok, back to the whole not being honest thing, remember when you guys escorted a guy from Bastion of Hope to the dungeon through the caves?"


    "Yeah, John. We thought that might have been you, but your level is too high. You know him?"


    "I am John, I have a mask that lets me disguise myself and my level."


    Will, Alan and Benjamin looked at each-other, "Why did you act like you didn''t know who John was when we came up to your tower the first time?"


    Oh yeah¡­ I hadn''t figured this whole thing out at that point. Grim said.


    "Uh, I was just gonna keep lying to you. Made things easier." Felix improvised.


    "That''s kind of a dick move." Will said with a frown.


    "Yeah, if you hadn''t saved Will''s life back during the siege, I might actually be mad at you." Alan added.


    We really need to catch each-other up. Or you me since you can just read my memories now.


    "Side note, do you have any more of those grenades?" Benjamin asked.


    "Not on me I don''t."


    "I see, we can talk about it later."


    "Alright, we can talk about the world council meeting day of. In the meantime, have fun with planning the city, Noah."


    "Sure thing, I''ll let you know if we need anything."


    "Sure." sea??h th§× N?vel(F)ire.¦Çet website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    "Actually I have no idea how to contact you."


    "Oh, good point. I can just stick around here for a little while. Pop into town every once in a while."


    "Sure, see you around then."


    "Wait, you aren''t even gonna live in the city?" Benjamin asked.


    "Not exactly, ask Noah about it." Felix said then hurried out of the building to avoid any more questions.


    Before anyone could stop him, he flew south east into the plains. He didn''t want to head north into another forest and west would have required ascending mountains so he headed into the plains instead. The plains were not perfectly flat, instead they were hilly and rough with stones jutting out here and there, at least close to the city they were. With some work removing rocks, the land would be perfect for farms, or at least Felix thought so. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 Chapter 102 - Book 6

    Felix spent almost a week hunting down two natural treasures. One was a giant clear quartz guarded by horned zebra things and the other was another rock guarded by some kind of giant moles. Those were particularly annoying because they kept trying to burrow and stash the rock in caves and holes. The biggest slow down to Felix finding natural treasures in the plains, was the distance between them.


    In the jungle, he traveled a couple hours and found some creatures wresting for dominance. Here, there were days worth of travel of somewhat empty space. There were lots of creatures, but very few of them were high level and none of them seemed to be guarding anything. After hunting down the rock that the moles were hiding away, Felix was a little sick of the plains so he decided to head back to the city.


    You think that''s enough random crap?


    You know a lot of people would kill for even one of this ''random crap.''


    Yeah yeah, you think it''s enough?


    Who knows, we can go set the trap and you can check it every few days to see.


    How do we stop some random beast from taking it or guarding it like the panthers and all the other animals did?


    Find someplace that''s hard to get to. Sprites spawn everywhere and have no trouble moving wherever they want.


    Any ideas on locations?


    How about inside the volcano? Seems to be dormant so they should just sit in the bowl at the top. As a side benefit, the volcano should also contain all kinds of random materials from the eruptions in the past so it will help with the trap.


    It''s not really a trap.


    Nah not really, make sure you save one of the treasures to attract the creature to you.


    What do you mean? S§×arch* The N??eFire.¦Çet website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    Sprites are pretty playful and aren''t scared of creatures, but they have no reason to come to you so if you hold onto something, you can hold it in your hand. Then it will want that and approach you, kind of like feeding a wild animal, but much easier because it doesn''t fear you at all.


    Any in particular I should save?


    Nah, doesn''t really matter. Choose whichever you think is the coolest.


    Felix flew into the city which now consisted of two buildings and a bunch of tents. The other building was one Felix recognized, the Vault of Secrets, which was near the town hall building. Felix checked in with Noah who said he was going to take a little more time planning out the city before he committed to anything and didn''t seem to need any assistance. With that taken care of, Felix teleported back to his tower, which conveniently placed him on the roof, at flew up to the peak of the volcano.


    His tower was already located above a few layers of clouds but as he ascended to the top of the volcano, he passed through all of them. After flying for hours, Felix finally broke through the clouds after almost half a day, leaving only clear skies above him. It seemed his diving ring or evolved body had no trouble with the atmosphere and his cloak handled the cold without Felix even noticing it. He finally reached the top and looked down into the volcano. For how tall the mountain was, he expected the bowl in the middle to be bigger. It was still a few kilometers across, but that was still miniscule compared to how big the base of the volcano was.


    Felix slid down into the bowl from the ridge. The bowl was completely deserted, only containing stones and gravel.


    Like a big bowl of rock cereal.


    Uh, I guess? What''s the milk?


    Lava?


    There''s no lava in the bowl, it''s all way beneath it.


    Yeah, I know. It just reminds me of a bowl of cereal for some reason.


    I''ve looked through all your memories, and I have no idea how that could be true.


    You''ve looked through all my memories?


    Yes.


    ¡­ I guess it doesn''t matter, you are an ancient book.


    Thank you for being a reasonable, rational person. The people who created me spent so much time wiping their memories, unsuccessfully, of mundane garbage that they didn''t want me to see. I''m a book, I don''t care.


    I''d rather you see everything than try and wipe my memory, yikes.


    Yeah, I never understood that choice.


    Felix walked to approximately the center of the bowl and placed down all of the treasures except the ruby. He held that one back because he thought it looked the most valuable. The rest of them he arranged on top of a small pile of rocks, trying to make sure they didn''t get buried. He also placed a mana battery for the hell of it since he hadn''t seen his crude versions anywhere else, Grim figured worst case it wouldn''t hurt. He also placed a high energy battery which was a malleable almost liquid ball and finally one with a lightning attunement. Once he was done with that, he headed back down to his tower and began to work on leveling his profession. He figured he might be able to kill two birds with one stone and set up a mana collection array for his tower. If it was a complex enough project, it should result in some levels.


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


    He had two ideas for mana collection on his tower. He could set up a large, long running ritual that sucked up ambient mana and funneled it into a battery. The other option was he could create something like his mana core, but much bigger. A Mana Engine of sorts. A giant vortex of mana that used a spell form or something to keep it spinning and sucking in mana. The issue with both options, was that he needed some sort of giant battery.


    With the second option, he thought it might be possible to have it solidify the mana and expand a core in the center. He wasn''t sure that transitioning from liquid to solid automatically was possible though. His core didn''t even do that. Either way, it should be a complex enough project to gain some levels. Otherwise, he could just enchant the outside of the tower or something, which was something he wanted to look into anyways.


    He started with the first option because while he thought the second was more promising, he had other uses for strong mana pulling rituals, so it would be good practice. He inscribed his ritual into the tower and found that it shared the buffs of Atalus, so if he pushed mana into the stone, it would heal and his inscriptions would disappear. His first attempt was essentially a giant ritual made up of as many ambient mana collection nodes as he could fit into a single ritual. They needed somewhere to direct the mana for now so he stuck a light node in the middle, figuring it was the least likely to kill him.


    While it did create a massive beacon of light, Felix could see the pull from the ritual on the ambient mana, and it wasn''t great. He made lot''s of attempts to space out the source nodes and place them in complex patterns. Ultimately, he decided it wasn''t going to give him the suction he was looking for. It did net him two levels though, so it wasn''t completely worthless. He figured the experience would also be useful one day for enchanting because he spent a long time experimenting with the optimal placements for source nodes.


    After that he moved onto his second idea. He doubted this one would net him any levels, but he was pretty sure it would be very effective at collecting mana. The plan was to make a ritual that generated a vortex of force, then enclose it in a shell where the only openings were tubes running into the ambient mana spatial dimension. Theoretically, the vortex would then pull mana from the ambient and funnel it into a source in the center. He was just hoping he could make the force enough to compress the mana into a solid.


    The first thing he did was design the ritual. It was a simple ritual that took mana and generated a vortex using force nodes that pointed clockwise and inwards. The force nodes at the center were the strongest and pointed almost exactly tangentially with just a slight inwards angle. It was a lot easier to design a ritual from scratch now that he had crafter''s intuition. It showed him where the ritual would fail if it did and where it would be the most stressed if it didn''t. He fired up the ritual and almost crushed himself, the only thing saving his life, being that he was powering the ritual. So when he got sucked into it, the power source for the ritual vanished. Once he recovered he had lost almost a quarter of his health so he decided to find another way to test the ritual, one that didn''t involve being in range of it.


    He constructed a small mana battery of just five thousand mana and used his mana control to place it on the source of the ritual from as far away as he could get. It immediately got sucked into the vortex though making the test a short one. Felix''s next attempt was to have a massive ritual surrounding the vortex with a time released connection to the vortex ritual, this would allow for him to fill the outer ritual with a bunch of mana then run away and observe. This time, he got to watch as the vortex sucked in the air around it. He hovered a few dozen meters away where the pull was negligible but he could still see the intricacies of the clouds around him getting sucked into it. The creation of the ritual netted him a whopping three levels, even before he did any work to optimize it.


    The next step was going to take forever, but it had to be done. Felix created a giant rounded disc of solid mana that resembled a wheel of cheese. He first made one just under a meter wide to test the theory before he committed days to crafting the full thing. He made it thicker than he usually did because the force of the vortex was more than he had expected and he wanted to be as safe as possible. He modified the ritual to be powered by the mana in the engine and inscribed it onto the inside of the shell before closing it up. He then attached simple tubes around the outside that connected into the Aether as inputs. To start it up, he simply moved some of his own mana over the source of the ritual until it had enough to sustain itself.


    He watched as the ambient mana was sucked into the disc and spun around the vortex until it finally made it to the middle, and disappeared. He watched it happening and couldn''t tell what was going wrong because whenever he tried to follow the mana visually, it would simply vanish. It got to the center and spun very quickly but just enough of it was leaking out somewhere that it never managed to compress. Eventually he figured out that it was leaking back into the ambient mana so he tried something he wasn''t sure was possible, but hoped it was. He extended the shell of the engine into the dimension ambient mana rested in. Essentially he took the three dimensional shell and extended it into the fourth spatial dimension to make a four dimensional object. It was so simple in hind sight, he almost kicked himself for not realizing it.


    You realize you''re annoyed you didn''t figure it out sooner, and think it was so simple, when most people would consider that impossible, and find it difficult to wrap their heads around?


    I guess, but it was very simple. I also have a lot of intelligence, so that probably helps.


    I don''t think so, I''ve been trying to figure out how that works and, as you know, it doesn''t really help with ingenuity, understanding abstract concepts or anything like that. After having asked the guild more questions, I don''t think the stat is helping you much with this, maybe a little.


    It''s not that complicated. It''s like the shell was a piece of paper, then I just stretched it out, like stacking more papers on top of it. I did have to enclose it on the other end though and it is technically hollow in four dimensions, but it''s not that complicated.


    I''m pretty sure I understand it only because I am literally in your head.


    Felix shrugged and powered the engine back up. This time, the mana was forced to compress itself in the middle. It didn''t seem to turn into a solid, but he did manage to turn it into a liquid. He manually felt at the mana in the middle and sensed that it was about halfway through it''s liquid phase. He waited a little while to see if it would compress but after waiting for an hour, he gave up. He deconstructed the engine and worked on optimizing the vortex ritual at much as he could.


    He spent a day and a half optimizing and fiddling with the ritual and the shell until he was satisfied with the design. Once the vortex was optimal he had also iterated on the shape of the shell until it too was as optimal as he could make it. The tubes turned into jet openings and the shell gained an odd shape with rings and divots in it that seemed to help with compression and suction. He still didn''t manage to compress the mana into a solid, but it was very close so he decided to move forwards anyways.


    He was about to start on the full shell when Grim stopped him.


    You might want to check the bait. I figure this is gonna take a few days and we want to minimize the chances that it gobbles up the treasures and runs away. Also to make sure some bird doesn''t just steal them.


    Good point. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 Chapter 103 - Book 7

    Felix flew up to the top of the volcano but saw that the bait was exactly as he had left it so he descended back to the roof of the tower and started creating a giant shell of solid mana. He simply made it a larger version of his experimental scale model in ever way. Other than scale, it was identical. He made it just slightly wider than the tower. Halfway through the day he realized he couldn''t just have it resting a top the tower though as this was where he appeared when he teleported. Instead, he began constructing large posts all around the roof to suspend the engine in the air. He used his flight to move around it and slowly grew the shell out for days on end. He used a combination of his own passive regeneration and active manual regeneration.


    It ended up taking him almost five days to finish just the shell. Inscribing the ritual after that was trivial. Once it was complete, at the top of Felix''s tower, there was a massive disc of solid mana suspended about three meters in the air with a spiral shaped ritual inscribed upon it. Felix kick started the ritual with his own mana and watched as the vortex slowly began to spin. He continued to manually feed it his entire mana pool multiple times over until it finally spun on it''s own. It slowly sped up over time with the compressive force in the middle ramping up alongside the speed of the vortex. Felix watched it accelerate and noted down a couple more spots he could further optimize. It was taking forever though so he decided to go check on the bait to see if a sprite had spawned yet.


    He once more flew to the top of the volcano and into the bowl. It was once again exactly as he had left it, except this time the yellow rock had fallen to the side. He replaced it on the pile of gravel and descended the volcano back to his tower. He expected to see a massive mana engine humming away a few meters above his tower but instead, he found a pile of solid mana shrapnel. He rushed down to the roof to see if there was anything he could sense about why it failed but it was too late to figure anything out. He was just going to have to reconstruct it and watch this time.


    Reconstructing the mana engine was much easier than building it from scratch. He didn''t have to solidify mana at all as he could just put the pieces back together and fuse them. He also didn''t need to know where each piece had been exactly as he could simply mold the mana into whichever piece he needed. When he was done, it looked exactly as it had when he first created it.


    Before starting it up though, he began to make the entire thing thicker and hoped that would keep it from shattering this time. He started up the engine and watched intently as it accelerated. This time he sat and watched it for the hours it took to ramp up and took notes on what to iterate on for next time. He also hovered dozens of meters away incase it did explode.


    It didn''t explode this time, instead firing all the way up, but he did see why it had collapsed violently last time. Though it worked, the vortex was completely unstable and turbulent. Felix created a outlet for it to vent out mana instead of compressing it from as far away as he could. Once he was certain it wouldn''t try and kill him, he approached it and slowly morphed the shell to try and remove the turbulence. He also made the optimizations he had noted down earlier. The entire thing was much easier to work with when it wasn''t trying to compress mana and was even relatively safe, compared to how it was before he had added the vent at least.


    Felix continued to iterate on the engine until he couldn''t find anything else to improve with it. He still just couldn''t figure out though, how to make the final step from liquid mana to solid mana. He felt the mana in the middle was right on the edge but just not making it quite there. He continued to look for optimizations but couldn''t seem to find anything further. After hours of trying to figure it out, he metaphorically began to hit his head against the wall and simply sat there willing it to work. Unfortunately, his will was perfectly capable of doing exactly what he wanted the mana engine to do so he unintentionally solidified the mana right at the center.


    He scrambled to undo it, worried it would make the engine unstable but stopped himself when he noticed it growing. The liquid mana was finally being compressed into a solid, it seemed that it had just needed a seed to grow from.


    I''m surprised you didn''t figure that out sooner. Sear?h the novel(F~)ire.net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    You knew that was all it needed?


    Nope, not a clue.


    Then what do you mean?


    It''s just like water.


    Oh shit, you''re totally right. You can cool water down past the point of freezing but it won''t transition until it either has a seed or is shaken.


    Usually any imperfection will do, but a seed keeps thing''s pure.


    I always forget because water just freezes in the freezer.


    Yeah but tap water always has some minor flaws.


    With that complete, Felix quickly headed up the bait in the mountain but it was once again, untouched. He headed back to the tower and was starting to think it was a waste of his time to check the bait as often as he was. He figured he probably needed to go and find more natural treasures but Grim seemed to think it should be enough as is. He spent a few days grinding out the last three levels on his profession by creating grenades for Benjamin.


    He didn''t really have anything better to make so he figured he might as well make him happy and make up for lying. He also created his second version of the cannon. This one was made out of entirely solid mana meaning he could control it with his mind, it wasn''t nearly as powerful though as solid mana wasn''t nearly as strong as steel. He hoped one day he might be able to change that, but for now he didn''t know of any way to make it stronger.


    D Grade


    You have reached the prerequisite level to upgrade to D grade in your class, profession and race.


    You may open the evolution selection screen to select your upgrade now.


    Note: It is possible for these options to change if you decide not to evolve now.


    Note: You can continue to gain experience, but you will not gain any stats from the levels beyond the threshold until you evolve. Those levels will be active as soon as you evolve however.


    So, did it matter if I checked it earlier?


    Only got a response a few hours ago, it''s almost always better to wait because the options are always better. There are some that combine your profession and class, others that combine your race as well. Apparently they''re super rare but¡­ I figure you seem like the kind of person to be offered one. Apparently you can get back the ones that got replaced anyways. If you upgrade your profession, the combination options that included a profession will disappear from the other two.


    Alright, thanks. Evolution Selection Screen.


    Seven options appeared to Felix and all but one of them was a complete surprise to him.


    [A - Arcane] Mana Dragon


    A dragon is widely considered to be one of, if not, the most powerful beings in the multiverse bowing only to The System. Dragons are powerful beyond belief and as prideful as they come.


    Note: This race will progress you directly into the A grade. Dragons do not exist below the B grade.


    Stolen novel; please report.


    Note: This evolution will encompass your Race, Class and Profession.


    All stats equal to 300k with 420k free points.


    Uh¡­ Grim, can you see this option?


    Yeah I can see it, I have no idea though.


    About what?


    If it''s good, what it does, why you got it¡­ anything. I''m posting questions now.


    It is curious why I haven''t heard more about dragons¡­ at all, now that I think about it.


    [D - Common] Human


    Humans are one of the most common races in the multiverse. They are adaptable and versatile.


    +2 to all stats per level.


    +500 to all stats upon evolution.


    It''s nice to know I have that to fall back on I guess. I''m not super inclined to change races now that I think about it. I like who I am, I don''t want to change it all completely. That being said, I think I can get used to some changes, just nothing massive.


    What if the dragon evolution is awesome beyond belief?


    I mean it sounds like it is, I just don''t think it suits me.


    Wow, honestly, I didn''t expect that.


    What?


    I think it''s the right choice to pass on Dragon if it doesn''t suit you. I think your journey has to be a personal one where you do what you think is right. I just didn''t expect you to be so wise considering how young you are.


    Uh¡­ Thanks?


    [D - Special] Singular Mind


    A race that is often described as a floating brain, Singular Minds are among the most intelligent beings in the multiverse. They are often employed as strategists and city planners as well as any job that requires quick thinking and perfect memory. These beings are often referred to as ''Living Computers''. This race mostly interacts with the rest of the world using spells.


    +1 STR, DEX, AGI, VIT, END per level


    +5 PER per level


    +15 INT per level


    +5 FREE per level


    +2500 INT and +750 to all other stats upon evolution.


    No chance. I would rather be a human than that.


    Yeah honestly. Sounds kind of gross. Is it just exposed?


    Please don''t post that question, I don''t want to know the answer.


    I already got an answer back. It''s not nearly as gross as we thought. Most often, it''s a floating head, not an exposed brain.


    Oh, that actually makes it a lot better. Still not taking it though.


    Agreed.


    [D - Epic] Construct: Spell Casting


    A race that encompasses a wide variety of beings created for a vast set of purposes. They come in so many different forms they are most often not even considered a race as grouping them together is usually folly.


    +3 STR, AGI, PER, VIT, END per level


    +10 DEX, INT per level


    +5 FREE per level


    +4500 INT and +1000 to all other stats upon evolution.


    Oh man, these suck. Do I turn into a robot if I take this?


    Maybe not. Could be a biological construct.


    I guess.


    [D - Epic] Lightning Elemental


    An elemental focused on lightning. Your body and mind will become lightning controlled entirely by your soul.


    Note: This race relies entirely on a single stat. Your health and energy will instead be based on your mana bar. Taking damage and expending energy will consume mana instead. Your other statistics are removed and will instead be equal to the properties of lightning.


    +70 INT per level. All other stats removed.


    +10500 INT upon evolution.


    Really? Pass.


    [D - Arcane] Infant Lich


    Often considered undead, a Lich is a soul that has been separated from it''s body and bound to a new one. This race allows you to change bodies through a ritual that binds your soul to a new body. You may choose to use a phylactery and puppet a body but be warned, using one will greatly decrease your strength compared to inhabiting a body with your soul directly.


    +100 Free per level


    +28000 Free upon evolution


    Oooohh, I think I might take this one, those stat bonuses are insane. Plus I can just stick to my own body.


    Sort of, they increase your soul''s strength but you could still be limited by the body you possess.


    What do you mean?


    Just don''t expect to dump all your points into strength then possess a bee and lift a building.


    I guess that makes sense, weak body means my stats will be limited to it''s capabilities?


    Exactly. It''s definitely not bad. Having skills or spells given to you makes this a much less dangerous option compared to manual lichdom. Might as well see what the other option is.


    Fair enough.


    [Unique] Wanderer


    This race does not exist in the multiverse currently and has never been born in the multiverse, though they have traveled through on occasion, hence, Wanderer. This race is entirely unique to each individual as it is based on individual upgrades and evolutions. This race evolution grants finer grained control over the body, to the mind and soul facilitating manual upgrades and evolutions. Taking this option will grant an immediate upgrade and then entirely remove System control over your race.


    Note: The starting body will be based on your current race, Human. You will appear human for all intents and purposes. You will be identified as human. Your race will be Wanderer as soon as the evolution is complete. You may freely diverge from your humanity as desired.


    Note: Your level and grade will continue to represent and estimation of the capabilities of your soul, irrespective of the capabilities of your body and race. This may result in your stats being limited by the capabilities of your body. Your level will still increase as you gain experience, but your bodies level may differ from your actual level. It will be up to you to keep these as aligned as possible.


    Note: Once you take this evolution, you may not change evolutions in the future. You will not be offered any evolutions to the next grade. This race has no specific grade and it will instead be estimated by it''s current capabilities at any given moment.


    +10 to all stats (including FREE) per level.


    +1000 to all stats (including FREE) upon evolution.


    Further stat increases will depend on manual modifications to your body. Stat increases per level may increase in accordance with this race''s estimation of your grade along with manual upgrades. It is possible for the stat increases to be temporarily halted as your body catches up to your soul.


    What¡­


    Take it. Take it now.


    What, why?


    Just trust me and take it.


    Did you get an answer back on the whole dragon thing? Also you don''t even know what an evolution is, what do you mean ''take it''.


    Just trust me please and take it. The dragon thing doesn''t matter, you weren''t going to take it anyways. This evolution is gonna be so unique I won''t really be able to tell what an evolution usually entails, but it doesn''t matter this is worth it. I can go watch Noah evolve or something.


    Don''t I need the sprite first?


    Oh shit, yes you do. Ok can you lock it in or something?


    Felix tried to lock the option but couldn''t seem to find a way of doing so.


    Damn. Take that one as soon as we find the sprite. Actually, it''s probably worth it to just take the evolution now. I have a feeling this evolution will be weird and not super helpful for the sprite anyways. Yeah, forget the sprite, take it right now.


    You sure?


    Yes. 100%. We can manually evolve the sprite ourselves, it''s not that big a deal just slightly less convenient. Plus, on the tiny chance the option isn''t offered when you come back to this screen, you need to take it now. I do not want the system to change it''s mind. Again, this is sooooo worth it.


    Alright, it sounds like it doesn''t change much anyways so I''m good with it. Lich did sound cool though.


    Trust me, this race is every liches dream.


    Felix selected the option and instead of immediately evolving like he expected, he received a message.


    D Grade Race Evolution.


    Your race selection has been finalized. This option is locked in and cannot be changed. To facilitate the process, you may also select your class and profession upgrades now so that all evolutions happen at once. You may also choose to evolve your race now.


    Would you like to evolve your race now?


    Yes.


    No.


    Hey Grim, it locked in the race and is letting me select the profession and class now. Says I can''t change the race option even if I wanted to.


    Oh interesting. Maybe we do have time to grab the sprite then. I think we should still manually evolve it and see what options we get.


    We get to choose it''s evolution?


    Maybe. Apparently, if it let''s us pick the evolution, the system will present us with the options.


    Alright, let''s do it. Hopefully it showed up by now.


    Hey what''s up with the level representing soul thing?


    I have some idea, but I''ll ask so I have a more complete answer and let you know. Just think of the bee analogy with the lich, it''s probably something like that.


    Sounds good. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 Chapter 104 - Book 8

    Felix headed up to the ridge of the volcano and immediately noticed the treasures were gone as well as a good chunk of the gravel that once filled the bottom of the bowl. All that remained of the rock was a single smooth black stone right in the middle of the bowl.


    It''s gone, Grim, where the hell did it all go?


    You found one. S~ea??h the NovelFire.net* website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    What do you mean?


    I''ll bet you my back cover that that stone is a sprite.


    How would that even work?


    I don''t know but I prefer my front cover anyways. Not that it matters, cause I''m right.


    Felix slid down the bowl and walked right up to the stone. He had the ruby in his hand just in case but it didn''t seem to react at all. He bent down and placed the ruby on top of the stone. The ruby rolled off the stone, exactly as Felix expected it would, nothing else happened.


    Maybe it really was a bird.


    Felix scoured the sky above him to try and spot a bird or other flying creature of some kind but couldn''t see anything. He looked back down at the sto-


    It''s gone? Wait¡­


    Felix looked down and noticed the ruby had disappeared. The stone remained exactly where it had been the last time he had looked at it though.


    Looks like it''s just a little shy. Offer it something else. Grim said.


    I don''t have anything else.


    Give it another battery I guess, it did eat them after all.


    Felix pulled out a mana battery and held it out in his hand. The sprite didn''t react at all. Felix changed the attunement to light and the sprite instantly reacted. It leapt from the ground and shot towards the battery in Felix''s hand. It wasn''t very fast, but it did surprise Felix so he jumped a little and tossed the battery towards the sprite. What was once a giant black rock was now an amorphous blob that surrounded the mana battery in the air then consumed it.


    [E - Uncommon] Matter Sprite (Lvl 27)


    Are they always Uncommon?


    Guild says Matter Sprites are, most sprites are just common though. This one is pretty big but seems normal otherwise. People tend not to notice them as they integrate with their element. Sometimes you might look at a river and it looks normal, but actually half of the water is made up of water sprites.


    So what do I do now?


    That is a great question. Normally, in my universe, you would keep feeding it until it follows you around then you would train and care for it, develop a bond, until it offered you a soul seed.


    I can just use the skill though, right?


    Yup, the system will present the offer to the sprite so it can understand it and then complete the exchange for you. You want it to like you enough that it agrees though. If it doesn''t work, offer it another attunement and try again. Worst case we grab some more treasures.


    Felix mentally activated the skill and focused on the sprite.


    [Bond Familiar (Uncommon)]


    Would you like to offer the [E - Uncommon] Matter Sprite (Lvl 27) a soul bond?


    Stats gained: 0 while bonded, 0 per level.


    Note: This is not guaranteed to succeed as it is possible for the target to decline. Ingratiating yourself with the target ahead of time can increase the odds of success.


    Yes.


    No.


    Yes.


    Felix waited patiently for a few minutes, watching the sprite on the ground as digested the battery. It didn''t seem to move and Felix got no indication that it had even been offered the bond let alone accepted or rejected it. As per Grim''s suggestion, Felix pulled out another battery and changed it''s attunement as well as slightly increasing it''s energy levels. As soon as he altered it, the sprite leapt into the air to eat it. Felix was worried at this point that it might try and eat his hand with it so he threw it forwards and recoiled.


    [Bond Familiar (Uncommon)]


    If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    The [E - Uncommon] Matter Sprite (Lvl 27) has accepted your soul bond on the condition that you provide it with at least 5 more mana batteries of different attunements.


    Please create and present a soul seed to complete the bond.


    Huh, I kind of thought it would just make the soul seed for me.


    That was my understanding, people in this universe tend not to understand how bonds actually work. I wonder if this is a you thing or it''s because you know how to make a soul seed so it let''s you do it?


    Felix shrugged and presented 5 more mana batteries from his inventory and shuffled the attunements and energy levels at random. Once it accepted, Felix carved out a miniscule piece of his soul and presented it before him. He expected the sprite to present one as well but instead, the seed he held before him was simply swapped in an instant. Felix quickly planted it in the hole he had made in his soul.


    [Bond Familiar (Uncommon)]


    The bond is complete. You will be able to see the current level of your familiar at all times. The familiar will grow alongside you and you may attempt to communicate with it, if possible, through this skill.


    The sprite gobbled up the mana batteries and simply remained perfectly still on the ground. Felix walked a few steps away but it remained where it was. He tried communicating with it, sending ''follow'' as an intention rather than a word but it still sat there perfectly still.


    Should I feed it more? I''m running out of batteries.


    Feed it whatever you want, anything really. It should be able to fly, it might be sleeping though. So if feeding it doesn''t wake it up, just carry it around.


    What if it tries to eat my hand?


    It probably can''t now that you''re soul bonded.


    Probably?


    Almost definitely?


    Felix took all the things he didn''t have any use for anymore out of his inventory which was mostly corpses. The sprite didn''t move at first then began to consume them one by one until the pile vanished. He fed it the panther as well as some vuloxator corpses he had been holding on to. Then he fed it all of the alpha corpses he had picked up from his natural treasure hunt.


    I see now why some people call it a trash sprite.


    Once it had consumed all of the corpses it reverted to it''s rock form and simply lay there in the middle of bowl. Felix bent down and tentatively touched it. It didn''t try to eat him and didn''t seem to react at all. He picked it up and held it in his arms.


    Hey, can you make yourself lighter? You kind of weigh a crap ton right now.


    It once again, did not react. Felix gradually hovered into the air and slowly adjusted to the increase in weight as he descended back to his tower. He was happy to see that this time, his engine hadn''t exploded, at least not yet. He was slightly worried the sprite might try to eat the mana engine or his tower so he landed on the mountain about a half kilometer away and put the sprite down for now. Even if he flew away, he would still be able to feel the general location of the sprite so he wasn''t worried about losing it, even if it''s camouflage was perfect.


    On top of his tower, the engine was slightly wobbling slightly but the instability was constant and not growing so there was little to no risk of it collapsing or exploding. He quickly examined the engine to try and find what was causing the shaking. He found that the shape of the shell was currently slightly off and not perfectly aligned so he quickly modified that one the fly. Normally he would be worried about it exploding but it was such a minor change, he figured it shouldn''t matter.


    Once it was done the slight vibrations slowed to a stop. Felix decided it was good enough for now and headed down into the tower to the lectern to see if it would accept this mana. He found that it not only recognized but also accepted the mana in the center of the battery so, he had accomplished his mission. The upgrade he was most interested in right now was the one to replace the tower''s materials from E to D grade materials. It cost a small fee of credits and a massive amount of mana. He was currently generating around 400 mana a second and the upgrade cost 320M mana so it would take almost 9 days to generate enough. He figured he would just save up for that then worry about other upgrades afterwards.


    So how do I manually level my familiar?


    There are two ways with one being strictly better but vastly more annoying. First, I need your permission to spend a billion credits for that souls and levels question.


    A billion?


    Yeah turns out, you aren''t that rich. The credits you have are E grade credits, 1 million E grade credits makes a D grade credit. So here, on this planet, for now, you are absurdly rich. Give it a few years or leave this universe and you don''t really have that much at all.


    Well that sucks. Yeah go for it.


    Give me a minute to process the response.


    Felix waited patiently.


    Alright yeah so this is a doozy. Basically, your body has capabilities like strength and perception. Your soul then taps into those. For most of the E grade you are simply leveling your soul and gaining access to new capabilities of your body. For most people, The System handles all of it. It keeps your body and soul progressing so that neither limits the other, for you that''s not true anymore, or won''t be. Apparently things get weird at the really high grades, like S and Divine but we can worry about that later. Also it probably costs more money than you have to answer that.


    Alright you already knew that though, didn''t you?


    Yeah, here is where it get''s interesting. In my universe, people manually level and evolve. You gain experiences which strengthens your soul, then you cultivate your soul and harden it. This results in you gaining power. It''s a tedious process that takes a ton of time. Here, the system seems to do most of the work for you and simply levels you up when you gain experiences. The more impactful the experience, the more experience points you get. The other weird thing is it seems the system uses a portion of the souls from enemies that are killed to strengthen your soul. That''s why fighting in a party greatly reduces the experience gained. It''s both much safer and therefore less impactful, and you share the soul with the party.


    Wow there must not have been many high grade beings in your universe.


    Yeah the distribution was worse. That''s the other thing, grades are just an arbitrary splitting of power levels. In my universe people continuously increase in power, here that continuous curve was just broken into segments and you get skipped and jumped between them. Where people would have to slowly progress and upgrade, you get an evolution. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 Chapter 105 - Book 9

    So why do some people get better evolutions than others, and why did I get offered an evolution into a dragon that skips straight to A grade?


    Evolutions are offered to people based on their accomplishments, abilities and a bunch of other things. I''m still asking about dragons but it seems like you had enough accomplishments and experience to warrant the option.


    So why were you pushing so hard for the Wanderer race?


    That''s how my universe works. You want power, you manually upgrade yourself by working out or practicing or whatever. What that race gives you though is something everyone in my universe dreamed of having. More control over your own body.


    Really? Doesn''t seem that special.


    Some people got there, through time, effort and luck, but it was something everyone wanted. It will let you force things to happen. You workout and tear your muscles, they regrow stronger, simple enough. With high levels of awareness and control though, you can multiply the results and make your cells denser at the same time.


    Wouldn''t the system do all that for me with most of the other races?


    Yup. I''m hoping you can beat what the system can. Let''s assume D grade is twice as long as E grade, so 150 levels and ends at 250, I just posted the question so we will know for sure soon. To match the lich race, all you have to do is manually find 24k stat points by level 250, the end of D grade.


    That''s a lot of stats, how the hell am I gonna do that?


    Is it? It''s less than 4000 stat points per stat. I think that is very doable, especially considering what your starting with.


    Hey, that''s not very nice. I get what you mean though, my body isn''t even close to what it could be.


    Yeah, you are still an E grade race right now. By the 250th level, most people will reach about 4000 in one stat, if they focus on it. All you have to do is replicate or beat whatever happens to their bodies.


    Oh, I guess it isn''t that bad at all then. I can just look at things like the panther and replicate whatever it does to have a high agility.


    Exactly, and you are already fighting high rarity and level enemies so you have tons of examples to use for inspiration. The other huge advantage is that the system gives up it''s control, so now you don''t rely on it.


    What do you mean?


    I asked the question but I''m starting to suspect no one knows the answer for certain. You know how I have imposed convictions?


    Yeah.


    I think the system is a giant mana computer essentially with a soul. It''s creators then imposed rules on it through convictions.


    Possibly¡­ I guess? What the hell makes you think that?


    The system was doing weird things that didn''t seem to make sense otherwise. Let''s just assume that theory is true, that means there are some upgrades, skill and spells that the system can never offer.


    I still could have gotten them myself, couldn''t I?


    Possibly, it''s also possible the system has imposed convictions to stop you from doing certain things.


    I guess, all that is a gamble though. What if none of it is true?


    If none of it is true, what did you really lose by taking the race?


    24k stats.


    Potentially, you could also beat the lich race.


    I guess. What does all this have to do with the sprite?


    Oh right, got distracted. I find this universe and the system fascinating if you couldn''t tell.


    I can tell, and honestly, me too.


    The ways of leveling the sprite, first you can go grind out levels yourself and your soul seed will grow and push it''s soul to grow. In simple terms, it will gain experience without stealing your experience when you level. Easy and safe way of leveling it up.


    But the experiences are lower quality so it''s slower?


    Yes they are, that also means it''s evolution and skill options are worse. The other option, is to let it fight for itself. You also can''t just be waiting to save it, you need to let it fight on it''s own. Otherwise, there is no danger and the experience is worth less. Apparently this is what high grade people in the multiverse do with their children. They have a bunch of them then throw them into a dungeon and see which one comes out. That one has the highest quality experiences and is worth the time and wealth to invest in.


    That is barbaric.


    Some of them make all the children fight each-other for dominance, so it get''s worse. That was mostly a metaphor though, from the answer I got, it sounds like it''s more along the lines of sending them off to boarding school. They support them but don''t baby them.


    If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.


    Oh, I guess that''s not that bad then. So how do I let it kill things? It''s a rock.


    For now. I''m hoping it will be able to adopt a different form soon. What I want from you is to create a weapon for it to use.


    Won''t that dull the experiences?


    Yes and no. I want a weapon and no armor. Make the weapon able to one shot anything up to level 50 then take a handful of shots for something at level 99 or so. So it takes on the danger, but it''s still possible for it to kill things. It''s going to fight on the knife''s edge where everything it fights is faster, stronger and smarter than it is, but it can kill them if it plays it right. That''s pretty much what you did, isn''t it? You had spells that could one shot things but you could also be one shot yourself.


    Yeah I guess. How do I make a weapon for it if I don''t know what form it will be?


    You do though. You gave it a cat corpse, a vuloxator corpse and some others. It''s going to be one of those for now.


    So a melee weapon is probably ideal then? Force it to get up close and personal?


    If you want it to fight melee in the future it is. You should probably wait till it figures out it''s form though so you know how big it will be and all that.


    Alright so I just wait on it for now. Can I stick it in my soul space while I wait?


    Uh no. You''re the one soul bonded to it, not me. It could try and eat me.


    You can just fly around me instead.


    I could, might get hurt or stolen though.


    I guess¡­ Wait, will you evolve too when I do, because we''re bonded?


    Sort of, your soul seed will grow very fast for a bit and it will encourage mine to grow as well. So it will accelerate my growth and increase our bond''s strength. I''m hoping that will let me organize your brain, instead of just indexing and reading it.


    Excuse me? Not sure I want you ''organizing'' my brain.


    The library. I want to organize the library.


    Oh¡­ fair enough. In the meantime I guess I can go collect more natural treasures, not much else to do if I can''t evolve yet.


    I''ve got something that I suspect will take a little while.


    I''m open to suggestions.


    Open your map and zoom out sout-west of Atalus.


    Felix did so, zooming all the way out and panning his eyes south-west on the map.


    The desert?.


    No closer.


    The lake?


    Yes. What''s around the lake?


    Lots of mountains?


    Yeah, but where are the mountains located, are they all around the lake? Look at the shape of the lake.


    They are only around the bottom of the lake, where it''s the widest. I''m not sure I''m seeing your point.


    If you had to guess, what created that lake? Look at where the mountains are tallest.


    What created the lake? Natural rock formations? The mountains are tallest on the south end. I have no idea what you''re getting at here.


    Is it possible for anything else to have created that lake?


    Yeah I guess, plates shifting¡­ Oh shit, I''m an idiot. I should have seen that sooner. You are totally right.


    Well, it might not be, but¡­


    It totally is. Guess I should teleport to Atalus then, do I bring the sprite with me?


    You should yes, but before that, how are you going to get it out?


    Oh shit, this is why you said it might take a little while. I''ll probably need Henry too then.


    Felix spent a dozen hours in his lab experimenting with designs for the tools he was going to need. Once it was around two in the afternoon he went outside to collect his rock familiar. Felix had found, one time when fooling around, that the tutorial screen was replaced with a convenient clock screen. He found his familiar exactly where he had left it, on the ground in the shape of a black igneous rock. He picked it up and activated his teleport back to Atalus.


    Felix landed on the steps of the city hall building as expected, except now it was surrounded by a city, or the beginnings of one at least. Farms were spread out among the plains and roads had been set up between the buildings. On Felix''s side of the river that fed the waterfall, there were houses and on the other side lay shops and forges. There was also now a bridge connecting the two sides.


    Felix referred to his map and found Henry''s forge. He made his way over to it, passing through the hustle and bustle of the city that was still settling down and finding it''s groove. Felix approached the forge, placed his sprite on the ground, and knocked on the door, this time with a normal strength knock. The door swung open after a few moments revealing Henry.


    [E - Common] Human (Lvl 56)


    [E - Common] Fighter (Lvl 45)


    [E - Common] Blacksmith (Lvl 67)


    "Ah, Felix. I''d been meaning to come find you. I still owe you for that enchanting work and I uh¡­ I have a favor to ask."


    "What a coincidence, I need something from you too."


    "Alright, come on in." Henry opened the door wide and stepped aside with an inviting gesture.


    Felix, bent down and picked up his sprite, then walked into the forge and Henry closed the door behind him.


    "First, let me get you your creds."


    "Don''t worry about it, I don''t need em."


    "Well, I want to be on good terms, and I don''t want any handouts." Henry held out his hand rather forcefully. He clearly wasn''t going to budge on this so he took Henry''s hand and accepted the transfer. It turned out, his enchanting work was worth almost ten thousand credits.


    "Alright, what do you need from me?" Henry asked. S~ea??h the Nov§×l?ire.n(e)t website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    He''s trying to butter you up for whatever favor he wants to ask.


    Yup, I noticed. Any ideas what it might be?


    Pretty sure I know what it is. Won''t be more than a few hours of work, you won''t mind I suspect.


    "I need to drill into some hard rock, possibly high grade rock. I''m planning on blast mining into it."


    "I take it your planning on enchanting the drill head and spinning it with a spell of some kind?"


    "That''s the plan."


    "I have some experience with mining, you''ll probably need a few drill heads just in case. I can make you a few out of Carbon Steel. If you enchant it like you did the armor, it should hold up just fine."


    "Sounds good to me. What do you need from me?"


    "Let''s get this done, then we can worry about that after."


    You sure I won''t mind? He''s really trying to butter me up.


    Yeah, he''s just timid.


    Felix waited and watched as Henry quickly made a handful of drill heads that would make a hole about the width of his palm out of high carbon steel. The drill heads had handles on them that freely spun but were no bigger than the handle of a sword. He then quickly enchanted them, making them as durable as he could and inscribed a spell on the base of the drill head that would spin them quickly. Felix thanked Henry and started walking out the door.


    "Wait, what''s with the rock? Why''d you carry it into my forge and why are you leaving it here?"


    "Oh that¡­ Actually, do you mind watching that for me for a bit? Pretty sure it''s sleeping right now but when it wakes up, make sure to keep it away from anything you value."


    Henry paled as he looked down at the stone, "What the hell is it?"


    "My familiar. Thanks, I appreciate it." Felix said as he walked out and closed the forge door behind him.


    That was kind of mean. You knew he wouldn''t protest much because he still really wants that favor.


    Yeah, but it shouldn''t be much trouble. Best case he feeds it or it sleeps the whole time. Worst case it eats him I guess. No, it wouldn''t do that¡­ I don''t think. It''s only level 27. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 Chapter 106 - Book 10

    Felix quickly flew into the air and towards the lake, drills safely stowed in his inventory. It took him a few hours to get there where he immediately dropped into a dive into the lake. He swam south to where he and Grim thought it should be, using his map as a reference. He used a mage light underwater to try and clarify things but he was mostly scouring an underwater cliff face for any sign of- well anything really.


    How the hell am I supposed to find it, or know if it exists?


    I mean if it does exist, it''s a natural treasure¡­


    So guardians. Oh man I don''t want to fight them underwater, I can''t even use lightning then, or shouldn''t. Am I just stuck to force bombs then? Solid mana would be slowed too much and sound would do more damage to me then them. Alright, force it is.


    Felix was pretty sure he was at least near where he should be laterally so he began diving downwards. He should have a few hours of breath, last he checked. It was thanks to the fact he had trained his muscles to run more efficiently by starving them constantly. He descended a few hundred meters before he found the first enemy.


    [D - Uncommon] Hunter of the Deep (Lvl 132)


    Woah, that''s as high as the alpha guardians were on all the other treasures.


    Instead of Force Bombs, who''s effects Felix was pretty sure would be significantly dulled underwater, he instead decided to use Force Beams. They were like Force Bolts but they were much stronger and had a less defined shape. He thought about Force Spears or Javelins, but he wasn''t bothering to shape them at all, instead just firing off a blast of force mana at a target.


    As deep as he was underwater, Felix needed his Mage Light to see, but that also turned him into a beacon for all of the monsters. He quickly found that, though force was his best bet underwater, it was still significantly hindered by the thicker medium. His effective range was just a few dozen meters and his damage was greatly reduced.


    The other issue, was that he couldn''t swim nearly as effectively as the natives. He was nearly as fast due to his Amphibian''s Belt, but he wasn''t nearly as elegant or proficient. His inscribed boots and plates on his palms helped tremendously, but it was still an incredibly tedious fight. His accuracy was abysmal, but Felix figured it took him around 8 or 9 hits to kill.


    Grim''s theory that identify was only showing what Felix knew, plus rarity and level, was becoming increasingly likely. Every creature he fought, looked completely different and yet had the exact same name. Felix found some at a lower level than the first that took twice as many hits to kill meaning their stats were completely different as well. There were long snake like creatures and wide shark like maws, scales and slick black skin as well as tentacles and even some that cast spells. Felix was close to running out of air so he quickly ascended and restored his breath before descending back down and continuing onwards.


    As he descended, the monsters he could take out between needing to ascend became lesser. It became impossible for him to continue like this when he fought monsters at levels 150 to 160 and had to ascend between each and every one of them. He started to create thick bubbles of mana above the surface then stow them in his inventory to refill his breath while he was down there. With some testing he found that he had to make the bubbles very thick to keep them from collapsing under the pressure. Though, he found that he didn''t need to make all the bubbles extremely thick. He could also have one thick bubble to contain himself with braces running through it like pillars in a cave. He would then summon fresh bubbles within the larger bubble to restore his breath.


    The only issue with that was that the bubbles were all insistent upon ascending so he had to hold them down with large amounts of mana and force spells. That meant that after each and every time he restored his breath, he had to then quickly meditate and restore his mana as well. This was all becoming a major hindrance to his finding what he was looking for so he began to look for alternative solutions. Unfortunately, the best he could come up with was to compress the air in the bubbles using force and gust spells.


    It took him almost two days just to clear out the monsters above the champion guardian, as well as any that sought out the beacon of light. He did however manage to find the guardian or rather guardians of the treasure. At least, he assumed that''s what they were. The two creatures were long with slick black skin and multiple layers of wide fins. Their maws had layers of teeth like sharks and they had multiple stringy antennae being dragged by their heads. Worst of all though were two sets of four eyes on either side of their heads that glowed a sickly greenish yellow color.


    [D - Special] Hunter of the Deep (Lvl 132)


    [D - Rare] Hunter of the Deep (Lvl 155)


    Felix quickly restored himself as much as he could, both breath and mana, then dove down and engaged the creatures. The fight was a showcase, and the perfect example, of just how much rarity mattered. Though the Rare creature was over 20 levels above the Special one, it felt significantly weaker to Felix. They seemed to have a similar distribution of stats but the Special one was almost 20% stronger than the other despite their lower level. Under water, the creatures, at least fighting them together, almost felt like fighting a world boss all over again. It took him a total of 15 or so hits between the two, 6 for the Rare one and 9 for the other.


    Unfortunately, he immediately needed to retreat to the surface after the fight. He replenished his breath and compressed air into as many bubbles as he could and returned to the scene of the fight. He had to fight off waves of enemies that tried to claim the newly vacated post and claim the treasure causing him to have to ascend twice again. Finally he dove down and had the area to himself. Thought the Rare and Special Hunters were guarding something, Felix wasn''t exactly sure what it was and even scouring the wall, he couldn''t find any signs.


    He decided to just start drilling into the wall and hoping so he took one of his hand drills and pressed it into the stone as he flooded it with mana. It effectively drilled through a couple of inches but then he couldn''t seem to get any farther than that. He kept pushing on his drill though as hard as he could with extra force spells to push even harder. The drill started moving forwards and Felix was happy to finally make progress, and excited for what could be behind the layer of stone. Once the entire drill head had passed into the stone, Felix pulled back the drill so he could look inside. As he pulled the hand drill out though, most of the drill head was completely gone. Instead of drilling into the rock, the rock had tore through the drill. Felix tried another two drills before he gave up, marked the exact location on his map, and flew back to Henry''s forge.


    "Ah, you''re back. I take it-"


    Felix held up three of the completely flattened drill heads, interrupting Henry.


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    "Damn, what the hell are you trying to drill through?"


    Felix shrugged, "Got any stronger materials?"


    Henry scratched his head, "Uh, I got a little bit of Ekronian left. I was kind of hoping to save it for something else but I guess you can have it."


    "What the hell is that and I''ll pay for it."


    "Nah, that''s alright. I want something from you though, so we can just exchange services and any required materials, how about that?"


    "Depends what you need, but in principal sure. What is Ekronian?"


    "It''s the metal we mined in the mountains to the north after you took out the turtle. Stuff is strong as hell and nearly impossible to work with, it''s also D grade."


    "How much did you get from mining?"


    "Just enough. I used all the rest on the thing I need your help with, let me show you." Henry gestured for Felix to follow him into a back room, through another thick steel door. The room was smaller with no forges inside, almost like an office for managing the books. In the middle of the room was a large table with a single item on top of it.


    [D - Uncommon] Ekronian


    A large amount of Ekronian shaped into something specific. This item is incomplete and until it is functional or close to it, it will be considered scrap material.


    Henry had forged a large amount of Ekronian into a cannon. If Henry hadn''t told Felix it was a metal, he would have said it was made of a dull red stone. The cannon walls were thick and the barrel was long. There were no decorations on the outside other than two handles, one around the middle and the other at the back. It was a couple of meters long and almost half a meter wide at it''s thickest end.


    You gave him the cannon prototype, didn''t you?


    Yup.


    "I take it you want me to inscribe a spell into it?"


    "I want it to work like the cannon you gave me during the siege worked. If possible though, I''d like it to shoot Fire Balls."


    "I can do that, but you''re going to need to power it somehow. I can''t supply you with batteries forever."


    "I already started putting points into intelligence so I can build up my mana pool."


    "Uh¡­ These Fire Balls aren''t going to be as big as you hoped then."


    "How much mana are we looking at? I''m willing to invest in it for a while. I don''t mind if it takes time to get there."


    "If I just switched the spell from lightning to Fire Ball, at the same size, it would take just over 30,000 mana."


    Henry paled and his head dropped a few degrees towards the floor, "What if it was smaller? How big would a thousand mana be?"


    "Uh, I can show you I guess¡­ I don''t really want to blow a hole in your workshop though, I doubt it would, but I don''t want to risk it."


    Felix and Henry walked outside into the city then beyond it''s current border onto the flat stony cliff. Felix did some quick math and fired off a 1.6 sized Fire Ball which cost him just over a thousand mana. The tiny bullet of mana raced through the air and struck the ground a few hundred meters away exploding into a torrent of fire a few meters across.


    Henry brightened when he saw the result and turned to Felix, "That wasn''t bad at all. What the hell would the 30,000 mana one have done?"


    Felix fired off a 5 sized Fire Ball at the same location where the rocky ground was blackened but otherwise undamaged. The tiny bullet of mana raced through the air and struck almost the same spot, exploding into a torrent of flames a dozen meters across. Where before the light from the fire had reached them, now they felt the heat of the flames wash over their faces and the force of the explosion struck them. It made Henry stumble a couple of steps backwards to catch himself. When the flames cleared, there was a crater in the ground and the rock was scorched in every direction for dozens of meters.


    "How many of those to kill a world boss?" Henry asked after a few seconds of gawking.


    "Maybe 20 or so for the stronger ones."


    "It took 20 of those? So 6 hundred thousand mana?"


    "It''s more efficient to use smaller spells and lightning is more efficient, but yeah, something like that."


    "Will I be able to kill things around my own level with the first Fire Ball?"


    "Might take a few of them, but probably. Your best bet is probably to just make mana batteries that recharge with time."


    "You can do that?"


    "Yeah." Felix pulled the blueprint he had out of his inventory and handed it to Henry, "Here, take this."


    Henry carefully took the parchment and squinted at it while he identified it, "Don''t you need it?"


    "Nah, I memorized it."


    Henry looked at Felix with confusion then shook his head and looked back at the parchment. Felix continued, "I''ll enchant the cannon and inscribe some spells but you probably want to change the design a bit. The first one Gr- I gave you was a prototype. The final product has plates that can be swapped out to change the spell when you need to."


    Henry''s eyes widened then his shoulder''s fell, "It''s a real pain in the ass to work with Ekronian. I probably should have consulted you before I made the damn thing, huh?"


    "Yeah, probably. You also don''t need it to be so thick and heavy, the spells don''t have much feedback or effect and no recoil whatsoever."


    "Really?"


    "Yeah, it''s very counter-intuitive but the spells essentially create force, so there is no equal and opposite reaction."


    "That just seems wrong."


    "Yeah, confused me for a while."


    "So I should probably melt it down and just make armor then, huh?"


    "No, you should melt it down and make a giant drill. One that you can ride. Then you can mine for even stronger materials and use those for fancy weapons and armor. Then you can sell those and buy the components for batteries if you don''t wear them. How usable is Ekronian really? It looks like stone and seems absurdly heavy."


    "It is. It''s really strong though. No matter how much I tried to polish or forge it, it always comes out looking like stone. Maybe using it as a stepping stone is the best bet. I don''t want to have to run around in armor made of that stuff. I''m really curious what you were trying to mine that requires it."


    "I''ll let you know when I can actually get any of it to identify."


    "Will you bring me some too? To replace the Ekronian?"


    "Just make me a hand drill head and I''ll go try it out. Then you can work on a large excavator or drill and use that on all kinds of metals. I''ll show you where I''m mining, but you aren''t gonna like it and you won''t be able to get there for a while."


    Felix shared the location with Henry who said, "We can probably make it into the mountains there and-"


    Felix shook his head and pointed downwards.


    "How far?"


    "A couple kilometers or so."


    "How do you get down there? Wouldn''t the pressure kill you?"


    "I have a ring and a belt for that."


    "But I''m gonna need a submarine or something." S§×ar?h the N??elFir§×.net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    "Yeah, something like that. I''ll bring some to you though cause I''ll probably need you if I want to actually make anything with it."


    "Alright, I''ll go make you a drill head then work on a bigger one for later."


    Henry and Felix headed back to the forge and walked into the back room where the cannon was, or at least, half of it. On the table, a large chunk of the cannon was completely missing, like someone had taken a bite out of it. Almost a third of it was gone and in it''s place, was a black rock.


    Oh shit.


    Hah, you forgot about it didn''t you?


    Yeah.


    Henry looked towards the table with a look of pure befuddlement on his face.


    "Oh, sorry about that. I kind of forgot I left it with you. I''ll try to replace it with whatever I manage to mine."


    After almost a minute of Henry being baffled, he recovered and sighed, "It''s fine. I was going to have to melt it down anyways I guess. I probably didn''t need it all for drill heads anyways."


    "It didn''t wake up and eat anything while I was gone?"


    "I stuck it in the scrap pile and it ate a chunk of it then fell back asleep. I didn''t realize it could move though."


    "Yeah, it still seems to be a little shy. It likes new shiny materials though, anything it hasn''t seen yet might wake it up¡­ How long will the drill head take?"


    "The hand drill? A few hours at most, maybe 5 or so."


    "Alright, mind if I take my familiar for a walk then come back around 8 then?"


    "Sure, I''ll have it done. Any chance you could get me a schematic for a spell cannon though?"


    "Yeah sure, let me just buy some paper and write it out for you."


    "I have some you can use in the back room."


    "Oh perfect, I''ll go draw it out now."


    Felix spent a half hour drawing out a schematic for the latest version of his spell cannon with some slight modifications. He made it so that the battery and the spells themselves were smaller, since Henry likely wasn''t going to use a multiple hundred thousand mana capacity battery. Once that was done he picked up his familiar and carried it under one arm as he wandered into the city. He was planning on shopping around, finding materials for his familiar and just exploring the town. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 Chapter 107 - Book 11

    Tri-Peak had been a city that was rebuilt from ruins meaning it''s outline was inherited from it''s previous owners. Felix didn''t know who the previous residents of Tri-Peak were, and he certainly didn''t think that they were incapable of planning a city well. On the other hand, he expected that the city had grown in a more natural way, from a few residents among a few buildings to eventually growing into a city. That meant that the layout was not ideal, at least for Felix and the residents of Tri-Peak. It was totally possible it''s previous residents enjoyed and prospered living amongst it''s layout but it definitely wasn''t ideal for the residents of Tri-Peak.


    Atalus, was designed from the ground up and had the unique advantage of being able to place down a large number of buildings all at once. Noah had also designed it to be expandable. The city was split up into modular subsections that could contain entire industrial, commercial and residential districts within them. In future, they could simply add on a small section or district. For now though, the city consisted of a single main section and Felix walked through it''s commercial district. The buildings were mostly finished with construction and there were decorations going up here and there. The goods themselves were still a work in progress for the most part. Restaurants were operational but storefronts with furniture, equipment and general goods were almost entirely empty at this point.


    Felix bought some spiced meat but not much. Walking through the town he had realized he wasn''t overly hungry. He thought back and realized he hadn''t really eaten at all for almost a month or more. He managed to pinpoint when it happened and realized that using mana to create energy must have resulted in his not needing to eat much, if at all anymore. He knew it meant he didn''t need to sleep, he had noticed that almost immediately, but he didn''t even realize he wasn''t eating. Before that, he had just eaten when he was hungry so afterwards he simply didn''t get hungry anymore.


    He unfortunately didn''t really find anything for his familiar to eat as most of those shops weren''t open yet. He also didn''t find anything else of value or interest so he simply headed back to Henry''s forge once it was time. It wasn''t a complete waste though, Felix enjoyed walking around a little and getting a feel for the city, exploring the shops.


    Back at Henry''s forge, Felix opened the door without knocking and walked into the back room. The forge in the main chamber was cooling down and the anvil was still hot but the room was empty. In the back room though, there was a drill head similar in appearance to the ones Felix had eaten through. Instead of a shiny chrome though, it looked like it was made out of a dull dark red rock. The cannon was completely gone, melted down Felix suspected, and Henry was looking over the design Felix had drawn out as well as the mana battery blueprint next to it.


    "All done?"


    Henry jumped a little and turned his head, registered Felix, then returned to scouring over the plans, "Yeah, stuff''s a real pain in the arse to deal with, but it''s the strongest stuff we''ve got. If that can''t drill through whatever your trying to drill through, then we might not be able to at all."


    "Thanks, I appreciate it. I''ll let you know how it goes and deliver some of whatever it is if it works."


    Henry just nodded.


    I feel guilty leaving the sprite with him now that it ate his c-


    "You can leave the sprite here too. I was just surprised it could move earlier. Now that I think about it though, it ate through the hardest material I''ve ever encountered. I kind of want to see what else it can chew through." Henry interrupted Felix''s thoughts.


    "You sure?"


    "Yeah, you can''t exactly carry a stone around with you while you mine. Don''t worry about it."


    "Thanks, I''ll be back as soon as I can."


    "Sure."


    Felix placed his sprite on the ground and flew off to the south west, back to the treasure under the sea. After the many hour long flight, he dove down and cleared out the sea creatures that had tried to move in and managed to find where he was drilling before. He quickly swapped the new head onto the handle and inscribed the spell onto it''s base. He had forgotten to do so earlier, but luckily the depths of the sea didn''t seem to hinder his ability to do so now whatsoever.


    With all the preparations complete, Felix pushed the tip of the drill against the impenetrable material and pushed mana into the spell. The drill head began accelerating and he pushed into the stone with a little help from a simple force spell. While the drill head didn''t seem to be damaged at all, neither did the material he was trying to drill through.


    Any ideas?


    Actually yes. You know how you enchanted the heads and armor to be hard and durable?


    Huh, I know what you''re getting at. I have no idea if that would work. The only issue is drilling would likely damage the enchantment¡­ Actually, I know exactly what to do, thanks.


    In the past, while experimenting with enchantments, Felix had noticed that enchantments were potentially be replicated with spells. An enchantment, or some of them, were essentially just programmed and channeled spells. They had an effect that activated either always or based on a condition. For durability enchantments that was imbuing and enhancing the forces that already existed within a material.


    A normal enchantment inscribed on a material would eventually degrade and become ineffective. The way to get around this was to inlay a mana conductive material in the shape of the enchantment and that would last an indefinite amount of time. On the other end of the spectrum, simply replicating the enchantment as a spell would make the enchantment very temporary. That''s what Felix planned on doing, he designed an enchantment that would have the opposite effects of a durability enchantment and cast it as a spell.


    He played around with the ratios of hardness, elasticity and flexibility but he couldn''t seem to find any ratio that made a difference. He had no indication that any ratio was better than any other, but he suspected any ratio would work somewhat, given enough mana. Felix began pouring buckets and buckets of mana into the spell at a 1 to 1 to 1 ratio just to see if it had any effect. Around a few thousand mana, his drill head managed to find purchase. From there, he began playing with the ratios until he found the perfect ratio for the material, which turned out to be 100% reducing it''s hardness. Using any amount of mana to reduce it''s elasticity or flexibility did nothing no matter how much he used, at least all the way up to 100,000 mana.


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    Once he found the ratio, he pumped mana into reducing the materials hardness and began to drill a hole as deep as he could. Once his drill was about half a meter deep, he pulled out and began enchanting about a square meter of the wall with the hole he drilled at the top left. Then he drilled into the other three corners. His enchantment was just intended to loosen the rock layer that was on top of his goal. After he drilled holes into all four corners, he began blasting the surface of the wall he had enchanted with Force Bombs. The layer of rock a few inches thick covering the surface of the material began to crumble and fall off the wall revealing what he had so much trouble drilling into. He couldn''t really see it though as it was dark and even with a mage light, the water distorted it. It simply looked like a metal, but Felix couldn''t be sure until he brought some out of the water. He had the extra filings from his drill, but he intended on getting as much as he could before ascending. Sear?h the N?vel(F)ire.¦Çet website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    The last thing he needed to do was to enchant the surface of the material between the four holes to reduce it''s hardness as much as he could. Then he placed his bombs into the holes and set them all to explode at the same time. He swam back as far as he could and covered his ears. He turned around after the explosion, but the wall was almost identical to how he had left it. Felix was frustrated now so he decided to just go all out on the wall. He drilled holes just a few fingers apart along each side and placed bombs in each hole. He had drilled 37 holes and placed 37 bombs this time, with one at the center just for good measure. This time he moved much further back and covered his ears.


    This time, he wasn''t sure if it worked, but it shattered his ear drums even with his hands over his ears. He swam back over and had to race downwards to catch a slab of whatever the material was that he had blown out of the wall. It was almost a perfect square with a hole in the center, a perfectly flat side and a rough cratered opposite side. He lifted the insanely heavy material, even under water, up to the surface slowly. He used a bubble of air from his inventory to help, which was the only way he managed to move it so far. Back on the surface, he saw the material was a shiny metal with a blue luster to it.


    [D - Epic] Starmetal


    A large amount of Starmetal mined out of the remnants of a meteorite.


    Looks like you were right.


    Huh, I''m curious what the hell is up with this metal.


    Yeah, me too. I suspect the sprite will appreciate it. I think I''ll also make a weapon of some kind with it.


    A sword?


    I was thinking a staff.


    That definitely fits your class better, what would it do though?


    Nothing? Just a quarterstaff for now, then if I can find something for it to do I can worry about that later.


    Why that over a sword?


    Seems better for defense and that''s what I lack most, I think. I can also then enchant it to do all kinds of things like swing harder and or absorb force. Also I kind of just like the idea of a staff better. I still want to learn how to fight with a sword because it seems fun and it will also help against enemies that wield swords. Right now though, the idea of a quarterstaff appeals to me greatly.


    Felix stowed the chunk of material, which he wasn''t initially sure would be possible given how big the chunk was, and flew back to Henry''s forge. He walked in without knocking again and found Henry feeding pieces of scrap metal to his familiar. Felix walked right up next to him before Henry noticed him.


    "You get it?"


    "Yeah. I see you two are bonding?"


    "I thought about what you said and started making a bunch of different alloys and feeding them. It''s been fun, seeing how different they need to be to be considered new and just playing with alloys."


    "That''s good. Turns out the metal was exactly what I thought it was, it''s called Starmetal."


    "You managed to get some out? How much did you get?"


    Felix stepped back and made sure there was a cleared area of the floor about a meter to each side and placed the Starmetal from his inventory in front of him. It fell to the ground with a loud thunk and an odd lack of reverberation through the metal.


    "Holy shit. That''s a lot more than I expected you to get."


    "Honestly, same."


    "So what do you want to do with it?"


    "I think we feed a quarter to my familiar, another quarter I''ll keep and get you to forge me something. You can keep the other half and do whatever you want with it. How''s that sound?"


    "Sounds good to me. What do you want me to forge your quarter into?"


    "A quarterstaff."


    Henry shrugged, "That won''t take nearly all of this, want me to just give you the rest to hold onto?"


    "Sure, then if I decide to turn it into an actual staff later I can do that."


    "Let me go get something hot to cut through it."


    "I have a sword here we can use." Felix pulled the longsword he had enchanted to heat up without melting out of his inventory, "Let me do it. I''m going to have to cast a spell on it to make it workable anyways."


    Felix took the sword and lined it up to cut out a quarter of the Starmetal chunk then began manually casting an enchantment to remove hardness from the metal. The sword heated up and very slowly began to sink into the metal. Instead of melting and seeping around the blade though, the Starmetal simply split into two pieces. It looked more like Felix was cutting a cake then melting through a chunk of metal. He stopped about halfway through and had Henry hold the chunk standing vertically then he continued all the way through with his sword. He cut off two quarters then stowed the blade. Overall it had cost him almost half his mana pool just enchanting the metal to be workable, he had no idea how Henry would be able to use it at all.


    Felix picked up one of the quarters and carried it over to his sprite. He placed the chunk of star metal down on the ground, far from the rest so the sprite didn''t accidentally eat it too. Then he picked up his sprite from the table and placed it on top of the large chunk, almost cube, of Starmetal.


    "That seems a little big for it, doesn''t it?"


    "Remember the cannon?"


    "Yeah b-"


    They looked over and the Starmetal was completely gone. Felix looked at Henry and shrugged, "For the rest of it, you''re going to need to learn some spells to make it workable. Can you make a wand out of some scrap metal? Make it out of something that resists heat."


    "Uh sure¡­ What for?"


    "I''m going to inscribe the spell I''m using so you can actually work with the metal. You''ll need to channel mana through the wand into the metal anytime you want to actually do anything with it."


    Henry quickly melted down some scrap metal and poured it into a vaguely wand shaped mold. He did some simple finishing to remove the sharp edges and imperfections but didn''t bother to polish it or anything like that. He handed it to Felix, "How long do you want the staff? I''ll work on the mold while you inscribe this."


    "Uh, not sure. How about 3 meters then I can shorten it from there if I need to."


    "Anything else? This is going to just be a big long stick basically."


    "That''s fine, thanks."


    Henry nodded and began working on the mold while Felix inscribed a spell to decrease the hardness of a material. He made the target of the spell very small so that Henry would have enough mana to do anything and also made it so that more mana caused the spell to spread out a little. When Henry''s pool increased in size, he could channel more mana and it would spread over the material a little easier. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 Chapter 108 - Book 12

    Once Felix was done with the wand, he found Henry stoking the forge so he quickly refilled his mana to be sure he would have enough. Together, Felix lowered the hardness of the Starmetal and Henry molded and melted it down. Felix also helped increase the heat of the forge at Henry''s direction which helped tremendously in melting the Starmetal down. They poured it out into the mold and poured the rest into ingots so it would be easier for Felix to transport. They worked for hours but neither of them tired as they worked.


    Once it was all complete, they had around 360 ingots just from Felix''s quarter along with his quarterstaff. Together they also did some finishing work on the staff until it was polished to an almost decorative degree. Normally, Felix and Henry wouldn''t bother as the finish would just get damaged as soon as it was used, with Starmetal though, it may look like this forever. At least it should last until Felix fought something much stronger.


    The staff was a little long for Felix but he was going to try and get used it to it as best he could. It was a 3 meter rod, about 3 centimeters in diameter with flat ends that were slightly tapered so they weren''t sharp. The staff was a beautiful deep blue reflective metal and no matter how much Felix tried, completely unbendable.


    Felix offered to help Henry turn the rest into ingots but he said he wanted to get some sleep and he would work with the wand on the rest of it. Felix would stop by in a month or so to see if he had finished the cannon but otherwise, he said farewell and activated the teleport back to his tower with his sprite in his arms. sea??h th§× Nov§×l?ire.n(e)t website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    When he arrived, he was happy to see the mana engine whirring away without so much as a tremble. He walked down into the tower with the sprite for the first time and was happy to find it didn''t seem to react much to any of the materials in the tower. He descended into the sparring chamber and placed the sprite in the middle of the room.


    That should be fine, there isn''t anything in here other than the tower itself that it might eat.


    Hey, I got an answer to the whole Dragon fiasco and it''s a big one. Luckily it cost a grand total of a hundred credits since this is apparently something everyone just knows.


    Big in terms of length or gravity?


    Both I guess. So first, let me give the relevant background that you sort of know but I asked about to be sure. You are currently in the 256th universe to be integrated into the multiverse. A new universe is integrated into the multiverse every few hundred-million or so years. The integrations universes are kept isolated from the rest of the multiverse and no one is allowed in. Eventually, communication and people are allowed to pass through but it''s gradual and very slow. Dragon''s do not exist naturally as in they didn''t evolve from something, there are natural born dragons, but we''ll get to that later.


    So the entire race started as a system evolution?


    Exactly, or that''s the common thought, not sure I agree but we can discuss that after. A dragon evolution is offered only once per integration to only a single individual that satisfies a bunch of requirements. No one knows the exact requirements but it''s something along the lines of the strongest by a decent margin as well as being the best at something. All dragons have a theme or focus, examples are fire dragons, ice dragons, steel dragons. Each one of those was the predominant expert on that thing before their evolution, for you it would be mana. That doesn''t mean the expert in the multiverse though, it means the expert in their origin universe before the end of the integration and they also have to be a prodigy. They have to be approaching the knowledge of the experts in the rest of the universe to some degree, when they were at the same age and level.


    So there are 255 dragons?


    No for two reasons. One, you didn''t accept the evolution and it''s offered once per integration. This integration won''t have a dragon.


    Wait really? It won''t just offer it to the next best option?


    Nope, that''s it. Second reason, it''s not always offered. This is how people know about the requirements, there are integrations where it wasn''t offered at all.


    How the hell would anyone know if it was or wasn''t offered?


    Apparently it''s a huge event so it''s announced when it''s offered and whatnot.


    So everyone knows I declined the dragon evolution?


    No, it doesn''t say who it was. You will be hunted down though, but no one will know who you are and they can''t find you at all until the end of the integration which is pretty long.


    Wait what? Why?


    Have you wondered why nothing has draconic or dragon in front of it? Have you even noticed? Apparently being a dragon or comparing yourself to a dragon, naming an item draconic is not allowed. No one but dragons are worthy of the moniker. Dragons, and sentients trying to gain favor with them, will report, hunt down and sacrifice anyone who breaks that rule.


    Really? That seems ridiculous.


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    Yeah. Anyone who they know declined a dragon evolution is also hunted down for thinking anything is superior to dragons. You don''t have to worry too much though because the system will sort of protect you for the duration of the integration. It will make you impossible to identify in every way basically. So unless you tell someone you declined it, they won''t know.


    How long are the integrations?


    Depends on how quickly the people level. In general it''s a few decades to many centuries.


    How high do they need to get?


    Mid to high D grade apparently, but it varies. The system is just judging when the sentients seem strong enough to stand up on their own and defend themselves. Before that though, some communication will be allowed, gods for religions and tokens as an example.


    So how many dragons are there?


    Apparently it''s hard to know for sure, but the estimate is about 50 give or take 10.


    That''s it? I would have thought there would be like 200. If it''s close to one per integration, is it just not offered as often as I''m assuming?


    Apparently there was a period where they were hunted down for the glory.


    Oh¡­ That sucks.


    Yeah.


    Well that''s annoying. I always thought dragons were cool. Just because I don''t want to be one, doesn''t mean I don''t want other cool dragon things. A dragon staff would be cool.


    Dragon scale armor?


    Oh yeah. You know, a dragon familiar was one of the familiars I wanted to look into.


    Yeah, that was on my list. That''s why I doubt the race was started by system evolutions, dragons existed in my universe and we didn''t have a system.


    Yeah, that one doesn''t add up to me either. So what about natural born dragons? I take it two dragons come together and have a baby?


    Yeah exactly, issue is dragon is such a powerful race, they are typically hunted down. Then they are either used as forced familiars or trained from a young age to be obedient soldiers. The current dragons just all came together and basically agreed to never have kids.


    Woah, they''re basically oppressed because of how strong they are.


    Yeah and there just aren''t enough of them to fight back in a meaningful way.


    Damn, I''m pretty happy I didn''t choose that race then. I take it not all dragons start at A grade then?


    No, minimum is B grade, remember? Yours was just particularly strong. They also aren''t always Arcane or Legendary, it depends on the focus. Apparently the lowest rarity every recorded is Epic.


    What''s the highest?


    One of the Gods was a Legendary then evolved to Divine. Exact stat numbers aren''t something anyone has apparently.


    So mine was pretty good then.


    Yeah I mean, mana is a pretty broad all encompassing area of focus.


    Does the focus do anything?


    You get racial traits apparently. Also the scales are an impenetrable defense against that focus area.


    Man I really liked the idea of a little baby dragon familiar though. Then we train up together and eventually I ride it.


    Felix was picturing him and a little red dragon traveling through the cosmos fighting and exploring together. He was so lost in thought, he jumped and hit the ceiling when he felt something hit his leg. He was pretty sure it was just him and Grim in the whole tower, but when he looked down he saw a tiny black dragon no bigger than a basket ball looking up at him.


    [E - Uncommon] Matter Sprite (Lvl 27)


    Felix calmed down quickly and examined his familiar. It was made entirely of obsidian giving the entire dragon a glassy finish. There were no scales and looking closer, no specific details. The sprite had taken the general shape of a dragon with none of the finer details, like a blurry representation of a dragon.


    Huh, guess it''s finally awake now. Why''s it so¡­ blurry?


    It doesn''t know what a dragon looks like, it just got the impressions of one from your thoughts. It probably also doesn''t have precise enough control over matter just yet.


    We should probably get it to change then huh? Given that I don''t want to be hunted down and sacrificed on sight for having a dragon-esque familiar.


    Yeah¡­ Probably not a great idea to leave it like this.


    How do I get it to change?


    You know how you can feel the connection to my soul? Try to focus on your connection with the sprite and communicate intentions through that. You won''t be able to speak to it, it doesn''t understand any languages, but you should be able to convey intentions.


    Why don''t I have to focus to speak to you?


    Because I''m doing all the focusing on the connection to make it easier on you. You hadn''t ever had a familiar before so figured I would make it easy.


    Oh¡­ Well thanks. Wait, what form do I try to tell it to take?


    You gave it a panther body so that should work, it won''t be able to be much bigger than it is now though.


    So it''s going to be a mini panther?


    You could make it a cat, they should be similar enough.


    So it''s going to be a black cat¡­ as my familiar¡­ I''m a witch.


    Felix focused on the intent that dragon form was dangerous for now and that a small cat was much better. The familiar stared at him for a minute then proceeded to parade itself around the floor with it''s chest out in an overly dramatic way. It ran around, flapped it''s wings and mimed breathing fire everywhere. Felix got the intention both from the charade and through his soul-bond.


    I know dragons are cool, I agree.


    Felix tried to convey the complex thought that other people wouldn''t like it and the familiar seemed to sulk and tilt it''s head in confusion.


    I don''t care what they think either, but if we ever leave this universe, they may try and kill us for it.


    The sprite sulked briefly before it''s body began to morph and reshape itself like goo. It would have been slightly disturbing had Felix not found it so cool. It shaped itself into a small black cat just as Felix had imagined. It''s irises were the light blue color of the flower Felix had used to bait it and it''s fangs and claws seemed to be made of Ekronian.


    Felix reached down to pet it and found that it''s fur was incredibly soft, he was expecting it to be wiry like the alpha panther''s, instead it was silky. Where the dragon form had been blurry, the cat looked just like a cat would except that it was a little more muscly like a panther and it''s eyes were a little too big. Felix''s mental image of a cat was closer to animated movies and cartoons than to that of a real cat and that ended up influencing it''s final form a little.


    The familiar opened it''s little mouth and roared, which came out more like a meow before it began walking around the room getting used to it''s new form. At first it tripped a few times but after a just a few minutes it was prancing, leaping and bounding around the room. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 Chapter 109 - Book 13

    I really have to send that it into battle? All alone? Felix thought as he watched the adorable tiny black cat bounce around the room.


    It''ll be fine. Have you thought about what weapon you''re going to make for it?


    I have no idea. I could put a cannon on it''s back or something.


    Yeah, remember it''s body is amorphous, just because it looks like a cat, it can embed things in it''s own body.


    So I could make a small spell cannon and it could breath fire? Just like it wanted to do as a dragon?


    Yeah exactly. I wouldn''t make it a cannon though, you want it''s body to be still be flexible, not have a thick metal rod running down it''s stomach. You can just give it the components of the cannon and a bunch of batteries and it should be able to integrate them.


    Really?


    Meh, probably? Normally, at this age, I would say no way. This one seems pretty smart though, it''s acclimating to new bodies faster than I would have expected.


    Is that because of our soul-bond?


    No, there hasn''t been enough time for that to have much of any effect yet. This one is just naturally smart. Or all the sprites in this universe are smarter than I''m used to.


    Felix walked up to the next floor, his personal laboratory, and the cat immediately ran after him bounding ahead of him, then waited for him to carry it to the next floor. He pulled out a simple steel disc and inscribed a simple spell formula for a Lightning Bolt then another for a simple Flamethrower and finally one for a force beam. He had them use mana from just behind the disc so the sprite should be able to place the mana battery on the inside of it''s head to cast. The hardest part was finding a way for the sprite to trigger and cast the spell. He ended up removing the triggering method entirely so that all the sprite had to do to cast the spell, was to move the plate in range of a battery. He figured that was likely the easiest triggering method that he could actually communicate to it.


    He quickly pulled out a battery and made his sprite sit in front of him on the table and watch. It had been running and jumping around the room the entire time he worked but even when it jumped on and off his head, he barely felt it as the sprite weighed almost nothing. He pointed the plate at the far wall and slowly moved the battery towards the plate from the other side. As soon as it was in range, a stream of fire blasted out of the plate and he quickly pulled the battery back. Felix expected it to react with wide eyes or shock or something, but it just sat there and watched intently. He demonstrated a few more times and then with the other plates too and carefully handed first a battery, then the plates to the sprite. It swallowed the battery immediately and Felix made sure to convey do not destroy when he handed over the spell plates.


    The sprite ate them all but Felix wasn''t sure if it just stored them or started digesting them. He spent almost a half hour trying to convey the intention of how to use the plates through his soul-bond but the sprite was like a toddler and it did not have a very large attention span. It was very excited every time Felix tried to convey it breathing fire like a dragon as it bounded in circles and wagged it''s tail like a dog. Eventually though he managed to get the sprite to fuse the plate into the inside of it''s mouth and managed to get it to cast.


    As soon as it did though, it ran around the room breathing fire everywhere, like a child with a new toy. It only stopped once it ran out of mana which caused it to run up to Felix and poke him until he gave it another battery. Before he handed over the battery though, he taught it a new trick. He made the sprite learn to swap the plates out, though it didn''t seem to know why and kept insisting it liked the first one. That was until he made it cast the others. Once that happened, it bounded around the room and swapped the plates every second blasting everything in the room with a constant stream of spells. Felix had the foresight this time to hand it a smaller battery though and it ran out much faster because of it.


    I think it''s time to bring it out into the world.


    You should probably give it a name.


    Yeah¡­ I''ve kind of been stalling on that because I don''t want to be too attached if it dies right away.


    Not sure I understand why a name changes your attachment level. It just seems pragmatic to have a name to refer to it by.


    Yeah¡­ Got any ideas?


    Peter.


    What? Why?


    I don''t know, I just scoured your memory for a random name.


    That doesn''t feel like a sprite or a cat''s name.


    What the hell makes a name a "sprite''s" name? or cat for that matter.


    Yeah, I have no idea. It''s just a feeling, probably just pattern recognition based on previous pet names I''ve heard in the past.


    I know why you do, cause it''s a cat, but I never saw familiars as pet''s.


    That and it''s also basically a toddler. If it was smarter I would probably think of it as a friend or companion. As is, I''m basically babysitting, or at least that''s how it feels.


    At least you don''t need to wipe it''s ass.


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    Yeah gross. Actually, it would probably just poop rocks if it did poop so it wouldn''t really be that gross.


    Yeah probably. What about Merlin? or Archie?


    I like Merlin, but I bet you he was a real wizard or something, thing''s that were legends seem to just exist. I''ve already seen a griffin, kraken, roc and even dragons exist. I wouldn''t be surprised if Merlin existed at some point too.


    That''s actually kind of odd now that you mention it. I''ll post a question.


    What about storm? or thunder?


    You could call him Thor or Zeus? Actually they probably exist too, huh?


    Yeah or they did at some point. I like storm but I think it''s a little odd if I''m the Stormbringer. Then I''m just bringing my cat? or my sprite? Sear?h the ¦Çov§×lFire .net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    Yeah, but no one outside of this planet will know you''re the Stormbringer.


    What do you mean? Who cares what people outside of this planet think? I''m stuck here for a few centuries till the integration is done anyways.


    Maybe, but a few centuries isn''t that long. What about Nova?


    That''s not bad. Ash?


    Boring. Tiamat, it wants to be a dragon, let''s give it a dragon name.


    Probably exists or existed.


    Oh right. I mean maybe not though.


    Meh, can do better anyway.


    You want me to think of it as a companion and not a pet, I should let it choose, shouldn''t I?


    It''s a little young and a little dumb for that.


    I''m sure we could find a way. Come up with a list of names and convey their meaning then see which it likes the most.


    At that point give it a ouija board.


    Oh god we would end up with Fgst the cat.


    Yeah, we should probably just choose it. What about Neo?


    That''s not a bad direction. If the name exists, it''s not likely to be a god.


    I have no idea, they''re all fine I guess.


    Yeah, nothing jumps out.


    What''s the current list of names that are not problematic?


    Neo, Storm, Nova, Ash. Thunder is awful so not that.


    Alright which is your least favorite?


    Ash. Yours?


    Neo. So Storm or Nova. To me, Nova feels feminine and Storm feels masculine, so how about we ask it''s gender then go from there?


    No, it''s a sprite, I would be astonished if it had any attachment or aversion to either gender.


    Oh right. So just ask it Storm or Nova?


    Might as well, see if it can understand the question.


    Felix knelt down and looked at the cat that had been pawing at his pant leg for the last minute or so and focused on the soul-bond connecting them. He communicated the concept of a name as best he could then the idea that the sprite would choose. Finally, he said the two names aloud because he didn''t think the names could be communicated properly through intention. As he said the names he also conveyed the objects they represented. The whole process was weird and complicated and ultimately Felix had no idea if the sprite understood what was happening. It did seem more excited for the idea of a nova, though that may have something to do with it being a giant colorful explosion in space, at least that was how Felix imagined it.


    Nova it is.


    Felix picked the cat up and placed it on his shoulder then walked up to the roof where he flew off the building and into the forest. The sprite quickly jumped to his head and learned how to retract it''s claws when it felt Felix''s pain through the soul-bond. They flew out into the forest but Felix couldn''t seem to find any enemies that were a low enough level that he was comfortable leaving his sprite with them. He knew there were lower level enemies in the plains, but he couldn''t teleport there until tomorrow so he traveled away from the tower and continued to scout the enemies. It took him a few hours, but he managed to find an area of the island that was completely void of vegetation and instead covered in exposed rocky outcroppings and cliffs. The most common enemy Felix could see were long six legged lizard creatures with a long fin running down their backs.


    [E - Common] Varanitor (Lvl 32)


    Not sure I''ll find much better, this will have to do.


    Felix flew down and placed the cat on the ground. It tried to fight him, clearly having enjoyed the flight over, but he managed to wrestle it down. He did his best to convey the cat fighting the lizard creature but it didn''t seem to want to. He gave it a mana battery though and it did want to cast spells, so Felix finally managed to convince it. The cat shot a stream of fire at the lizard and completely missed as it was multiple kilometers away. It stepped up a few dozen meters and tried again, to no avail. It continued this pattern until it ran out of mana and ran back to Felix for more.


    This is hopeless, isn''t it?


    Just give it some time, and maybe a literal push too.


    Felix pulled out another battery and brought the cat much closer. It tried to resist getting any closer to the enemy, but it''s desire for more mana managed to outweigh it''s sense of danger. The Varanitor noticed Felix and turned towards the pair of them standing just a hundred or so meters away. The lizard charged and the cat hid behind Felix.


    Sometimes you need to push the bird out of the nest to let it fly.


    That''s just cruel.


    Sometimes, it''s necessary.


    Felix pulled the sprite off of his pant leg and placed it on the ground then flew into the air. The sprite watched him fly upwards without it and then swung it''s head to the charging lizard creature. It didn''t even think before it turned and ran as fast as it could in the other direction. Felix tried to communicate the idea of, ''hit the damn thing with a spell'', but it just kept running, fearing for it''s life.


    The Varanitor chased it into a corner formed by a large stone and a cliff. The sprite desperately tried to climb the wall but didn''t quite realize it needed it''s claws out to do so. Instead it fell to the ground and watched the Varanitor run at it full speed. Once the cat was staring down the Varanitor''s maw, just a couple dozen meters away, it finally switched from flight to fight and cast a stream of fire that melted a hole right through the lizard.


    The sprite slowly approached the Varanitor and checked for signs of life, when it didn''t find any, it leapt into the air and bounded towards new targets. Once it knew it could handle them, it pranced across the stones and killed anything it could see until it ran out of mana. Felix followed it from above and handed it another handful of batteries when it ran out. Then he made a show of flying away, making sure the sprite knew he wasn''t near it anymore. The sprite would be able to sense his location through it''s soul-bond, but it couldn''t sense Grim. Felix and Grim hatched a plan where Grim would stealthily watch over Nova from above, with a few mana batteries himself, to step in if needed. Worst case, Grim should be able to rescue and run with the cat, at least long enough for Felix to show up.


    In the meantime, Felix flew far away to the east, exploring the rest of his continent. There were plains to the north east, similar to the ones near Atalus but colder with different vegetation and harder earth. After a few hours of flying around, Felix felt a slight tug on Grim''s soul bond so he flew as fast as he could towards them. After a few moments though, Grim sent the intention of never-mind so Felix stopped, shrugged and continued exploring. He got to the edge of an icy snow covered biome that seemed to stretch for thousands of kilometers before Grim sent him the intention that they were out of mana. Felix was surprised, he had expected them to run out much faster than that. He flew back as fast as he could, more so to test his speed than to get back. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 Chapter 110 - Book 14

    He found Grim flying a few hundred meters above Nova who seemed to be napping on top of a rocky outcropping.


    [E - Uncommon] Matter Sprite (Lvl 92)


    Holy shit that was fast. What the hell happened?


    You know how I tugged on the bond? That was the fifth time I was about to call you but realized I didn''t need to. First it started hunting down the higher level enemies and I almost called you until it started smashing through them. Then it started baiting them into each-other to hit multiple of them with a single spell. It''s bait was good enough that I thought it was in danger though. Then it challenged an alpha but it just toyed with it jumping just out of reach and firing back when the alpha was stuck mid air so it couldn''t dodge. Then it let one of the lizards get within a meter of it before the lizard exploded from the inside with a spell. Then I thought it had run out of mana, I had been keeping an approximate in my head and it''s spell ended suddenly without killing the enemy. It looked around for you and I tugged. Remember all those batteries you fed it before though, when you met it and a few after that? Yeah apparently it still had those.


    Huh¡­ That seems a little too smart too fast, doesn''t it?


    Yeah, I have no idea what''s happening. It''s definitely a smart sprite, and also a mischievous rascal.


    Well, just one more and we can evolve together. We should find a boss for it to fight though. Maybe a high level D grade alpha. Something big and slow so it''s not in too much danger, but strong enough that there is a risk.


    Yeah, not sure we''ve seen anything big and slow yet though. Got anything in mind?


    Not right now, it''s been almost 20 hours. We can find something later on. Does a sprite need to sleep?


    I don''t think so, but it seems to do so whenever it eats something new. It just ate the alphas body so it might be processing it.


    Felix stowed Grim in his soul space and retrieved Nova, carrying them in his arms while it slept. Felix flew back to the tower and placed Nova on his old bed then walked over to the lectern to check the tower''s current mana. He was just three days away from upgrading the materials to D grade and it was 5 days until the world council. Before then he wanted to finalize his evolution, but first he had to find a boss for his familiar to fight. He crafted batteries for a dozen hours or so until Nova woke up and started to hound him for attention. He had managed to make three batteries, which should be enough for Nova to kill something. For now he held on to them and he brought them with him as he teleported to Atalus.


    From there they headed south east into the plains and Felix kept his eye out for rings of enemies from the air indicating a natural treasure. He found a few that would be an annoying matchup, birds and burrowing animals so, he avoided them and continued on. Eventually, he found the perfect creatures, Bison. He flew around and struck down the inner most rings with lightning bolts, leaving just the alpha alive. Then he flew down and placed Nova on the ground a few hundred meters from the creature.


    [D - Special] Alpha Vampiric Bison (Lvl 162)


    He handed Nova the three batteries he had crafted then flew away back towards Atalus, pulling Grim out in stealth mode when he was a few hundred meters up. Felix flew back towards the city hall building, the first one in the entire city, where he hoped to find Noah to talk about the world council meeting. He found Noah inside, exactly as he expected, standing over the long table in the middle staring down at a projected map of Atalus. Felix walked over to the opposite side of the table.


    "Ah, the great Stormbringer graces us with his presence." Noah bowed.


    Felix just looked at Noah with a raised eyebrow.


    "Sorry, couldn''t help myself. The rumors about you have gotten much weirder. We''ve got the original residents of Tri-Peak who knew of you, then we''ve got many times more people who moved in from other tutorials, that never knew you. Somewhere in the chain, the rumors have grown to be a little ridiculous."


    "Wait, we have non Tri-Peak residents now?"


    "Yeah, not all tutorials had Major Cities, in fact it seems very few did. If there were 8 billion people and 100k to a tutorial, it seems it was exactly 0.01% of the tutorials that had Major Cities, since there are 8 of them. There were minor cities, a good number of those from what I hear, but they don''t reappear outside of the tutorial."


    "Woah, that number seems kind of small, doesn''t it?"


    "Yeah, seems like most cities got stuck on the money and population requirements. They also vary based on the upgrades and upgrade paths, so some people chose upgrade paths that were too hard to satisfy. Some tried to raid other settlements as the fastest way of increasing their population and income quickly, but that had other issues. Like people dying or abandoning the settlements."


    "Huh. Any thoughts or preparation we should do before the World Council?"


    "No preparation¡­ I don''t think. We seem to be in a pretty good spot so far. I suspect this one will just be introductions mostly, meet the other Major City leaders and whatnot. We''d like to establish trade routes with them, but they are really far away so that''s not an immediate concern. I''ve got Benjamin, Will and Alan focused on making friends if they can. We also want to get access to any dungeons around them, so hopefully we can figure out transportation soon."


    "Anything you need me to do?"


    "Don''t make enemies. Don''t make people mad. If you are going to, don''t associate yourself with our city."


    Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.


    "Yikes, I''ll do my best. What''s up with these dungeons you mentioned by the way?"


    "They''re locked to level ranges, nothing above level 60 yet. Seems to be a catch up mechanic mostly at this point."


    "Oh, that''s unfortunate."


    "Anything you need from me for the city?"


    "Nope. We''re looking at putting up the first wall soon, just want to finalize it''s position."


    "The first?"


    "Yeah, based on the layout of the city, I''m thinking we nest the walls to separate subsections of the city. Then worst case, in a siege, we only lose one section at a time and have somewhere to fall back to."


    "Doesn''t that make the city feel too enclosed? Like a prison?"


    "Normally, yes. I don''t think you realize how big the city is going to be though. We are mostly ramping up on collecting materials right now, but think about this. There are 8 major cities. If, worst case, 30% of people died across the tutorials, that''s still 700 million people per city, if they are distributed evenly. Now, people won''t only live in major cities. After the restricted period, I''m sure minor cities will begin popping up all over the place. We want to plan for 500 million just to be safe though."


    "That seems like way too many people to live in a city."


    "The other consideration is that now people live much longer. If the birth rate slows dramatically, we would still have a growing population because life spans are now measured in centuries and millennia."


    "Yikes. Good luck I guess."


    "Luckily, I love what I do. Planning out the city, planning for the future, trying to mitigate potential losses and maximize gains, I love it. It''s like a city building video game from back on earth. I can even erect certain buildings at will, though I''m missing the resources for some of them."


    "Like what?"


    "Wood, stone, metals. Specific variations of each. Mana can be used to replace them, but the ratios are way too high, it''s just not worth it."


    "How much?"


    "Millions."


    "I see. Can you spend some credits or whatever to dig out a big basement for this building?"


    "Why would I do that?"


    "Trust me?"


    "Gonna need to give me more than that."


    "How about this, if you don''t think it was worth it when I''m done, I''ll pay for it myself."


    "Or you could just tell me whatever it is then I could plan around it."


    "I could, surprises are fun though."


    "Fine. It''s done."


    "Alright, I''ll see you in a few days."


    Felix headed down to the newly dugout basement, which looked like a large rectangular room had been cut straight out of the stone with a laser. He walked into the middle and got to work. This time, it only took him 3 days to construct a mana engine. It was the exact same size and shape as the last one. Having the design finalized and the experience from the first model made the entire thing much faster. He was mostly limited by how quickly he could collect and solidify mana, but over the course of the project, he had gotten much faster. He made a mental note to continue practicing in future so became even easier, then he might be able to use it in combat. He was a little worried Grim and Nova might need him, but Grim had never pulled on their soul-bond so he figured they were fine.


    Once he was done, he started up the engine then observed it for a few minutes to make sure it worked as intended. Then he left the basement for the first time in 3 days and squinted at the bright main floor of the central building. Noah wasn''t there and the building was completely empty as far as he could tell. He quickly verified that the city management screen registered the mana being collected then flew off in the direction of Grim and Nova''s soul-bond. They were hundreds of kilometers north of where he had left them, well into the forest. Felix wasn''t worried though because both of his soul-bonds were still very close to each-other. He flew off into the forest and found Grim flying high above a clearing in the trees.


    You guys made quite the journey. I expected you to ping me days ago.


    Yeah, me too. Your sprite is as much a monster as you are it seems. It fought the bison, was a difficult fight, almost entirely because Nova decided not to use spells.


    Wait, what? How''d they kill it then?


    With claws and fangs. I was a little worried at first, it got hit a few times, but it''s pretty durable. Once it got the hang of fighting with it''s body though, it tore through the bison. I was going to ping you after the fight, but then it ate the bison, tearing it into bite sized pieces in a rather horrific way. Then it started napping so I figured I''d just wait until it was done. Well, as soon as it woke up, it sprinted off to the north and started hunting down natural treasures. Nova''s managed to find 2 so far, it just ate a large gemstone a few hours ago so should wake up any minute.


    [E - Uncommon] Matter Sprite (Lvl 99)


    Damn, only level 99? Guess we let it keep going until it hits a hundred.


    What have you been up to?


    Made a mana engine for Atalus, turns out they can use mana in place of materials too.


    Same size?


    Yeah.


    That was fast then.


    Yeah, this one was much faster.


    So what''s next?


    Let Nova hit 100 then we buy the tower upgrade and evolve. Then we have the world council meeting.


    You talk to Noah already?


    Yeah, he just wants to make friends right now. He figures this one will mostly be introductions.


    Makes sense. Have you figured out how you''re going to present yourself?


    What do you mean?


    As the Stormbringer or as the leader of Atalus?


    Oh good question. Honestly, I have no idea. Probably the leader of Atalus, I don''t really want to associate myself with the rumors.


    So what''s the story with the Stormbringer then? They just didn''t show?


    Yeah I guess. If there''s a vote, I might be forced to use the Stormbringer''s votes though.


    So what''s the plan then?


    Figure it out when we get there.


    I can pretend to be the Stormbringer if need be.


    I thought about that. I think it''s too risky. The world leaders and their entourages could easily have some detection skills or something to see through the ruse. S§×arch* The N??elFir§×.net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    Oh shit you''re right. Not worth the risk. Winging it it is. You gonna bring Nova?


    Probably. I don''t see why not.


    It might not behave.


    Like what? Jump across our heads?


    You sure it won''t try and kill people at the meeting?


    Honestly, I''m not expecting them to be high enough level for Nova to care. I''ll tell it not to kill anyone before hand. I also don''t think The System will let anyone hurt each-other. It would be kind of problematic if people just started killing each-other for their cities at the meetings.


    Oh right. I forgot about the system for a second there. Yeah it''s probably fine then.


    Felix placed Grim in his soul space and dropped to the ground next to Nova. He waited another half hour or so for his familiar to wake up who was immediately very excited to see him, jumping up to his shoulder and nuzzling into his neck.


    Even though it looks like a cat, it acts more like a dog.


    He activated his teleport back to the tower and appeared on it''s roof. He quickly checked the mana engine which was filling up, but seemed stable, then flew off into the jungle. He deposited Nova near some large familiar animals with a different coloration.


    [E - Uncommon] Royal Parroukan (Lvl 117)


    These Parroukan were mostly purple with some white feathers here and there. Nova looked up to Felix for permission then pounced into the fray. Felix didn''t bother taking Grim out to supervise as Nova was already killing monsters just as high as either of them could with a backup supply of mana. He communicated to the familiar that he could come and help if it asked through the soul-bond, but he wasn''t sure if they understood. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 Chapter 111 - Book 15

    Felix flew back to the tower then walked down a floor and over to the lectern that allowed him to upgrade his tower.


    [E - Epic] Wizard''s Tower


    Upgrade [E - Epic] Wizard''s Tower => [D - Epic] Wizard''s Tower


    This upgrade will replace the materials of the structure with D grade materials making it more resilient.


    Requirements:


    320M Mana [345.9M | 108%]


    500M Credits (Consumed) [26102 | 209%]


    Would you like to upgrade the tower now?


    Yes.


    No.


    I kind of expected there to be some sort of upgrade path or choice. Guess that was just the city. I can also use this to upgrade it myself outside of evolutions so I guess it doesn''t really matter. Yes.


    Felix had expected to be teleported outside of the tower. He even felt the slight lurch in ambient mana that he sensed when The System had previously teleported him. Looking around though, he hadn''t moved at all. The stone that formed the walls and floors of the structure changed slightly right in front of his eyes. It became smoother, like treated concrete with smaller gaps between the bricks. All the tolerances were tighter and the slight difference in color from brick to brick was gone. The floor was completely flat now, and uniform with the walls.


    He looked around and could almost swear his furniture had changed as well, but it was such a subtle change visually, that he could have been imagining it. Whether or not the furniture did change was irrelevant though so he headed up to the roof so he could fly around and inspect the outside visually. The roof was the same as before, with his mana engine suspended in the air and no new changes visually. Felix flew off the top of the tower and inspected the tower from the outside where there were changes.


    The tower itself was a fair bit taller though he wasn''t sure what from. He flew back inside and descended through the floors but couldn''t find any new floors which made him realize all of the rooms were taller. He wasn''t sure how he had missed it before, but now instead of 3 meters, each room was 4 to 5 meters from floor to ceiling. He had no idea why it had changed that way but he definitely didn''t mind it. It would allow him to host really tall races, not that he ever planned on hosting anyone here.


    While he waited for Nova to level up one last time, he headed onto his lab floor and began planning out the enchantments for his staff. For now, it would act as a quarterstaff allowing him to hit and block with it. He didn''t really need a staff that let him channel mana through it and any he could create now, wouldn''t have any value. Him casting spells raw was far more effective and efficient than casting through an item, even though it was slightly slower.


    He thought about inscribing a spell on it that he might need in an instant, but he couldn''t think of a single spell that fit that description that he didn''t already have. Instead, he wanted to have mostly force enchantments that would let him swing it faster and harder, as well as absorb some of the force of any blow he blocked. He figured he would start with that then iterate and improve it as he found the need for new functions and his enchanting skill improved.


    He spent a couple hours designing the enchantment and a few more hours actually inscribing it. Once he was happy with the design, he would then inlay, or overlay since he couldn''t cut Starmetal, the enchantment to make it more durable and permanent. For now, he would just touch it up if need be. He was interrupted part of the way through though when he felt Nova pulling on their soul-bond from somewhere in the forest. Where Grim''s pull was more of a gentle nudge or tap on the shoulder, Nova''s was more of a pull for attention, like they were nagging him. Felix flew out in the direction of their bond and Nova pulled on it twice more before he finally found them lying on a pile of corpses. As soon as they saw him, Nova started to run in a circle wagging it''s tail and bounding up and down every once in a while, clearly excited to see him.


    [E - Uncommon] Matter Sprite (Lvl 100)


    "Yes, hello I missed you too. Looks like you finally got that last level."


    Nova jumped up to Felix''s shoulder, trailing some blood onto his cloak from it''s paws then, he flew off back towards the tower with Nova on his shoulder. They descended to the empty floor that was supposed to be for sparring and Felix pulled out Grim''s physical form, in case the evolution affected him.


    So, class or profession first?


    Or Nova first. You should also look over all the lists before making any final decisions too.


    Fair enough. How about Nova first? Don''t want them getting bored and wandering off while I choose my evolutions.


    Probably not an issue considering they''re currently napping at your feet.


    Felix looked down to confirm and decided to sit on the floor and place Nova in his lap. He pulled up the familiar evolution screen.


    [Bond Familiar (Uncommon)]


    Familiar Evolution


    Your familiar has not chosen to share it''s evolution options with you as of yet. You may ask for permission or let them decide on their own.


    I guess it''s smart enough to make the choice for itself, I was a little surprised it didn''t just make me do it.


    Yeah, didn''t think it was there yet, but the system seems to think so. Just ask, it seems rather fond of you.


    Felix felt a little bad waking the sprite up from it''s nap but he wanted to get through the evolution as soon as possible.


    What''s it doing anyways? Does it really need sleep? It doesn''t actually have a body¡­


    It''s awake, it''s soul is just focused on it''s soul space. It eats lot''s of things but then it needs time to manually break those things down, analyze and understand them. That''s how it grows. For a matter sprite, it breaks down matter and compares it against other matter to better understand it. That''s a lot more complicated than comparing two rocks or two drops of water, so matter sprites tend to sleep a lot longer and more often than other sprites.


    I guess I didn''t really think about it. I kind of figured it would just automatically digest them, like human''s and other animals do with food.


    It may look like one, but it is very far from an animal.


    He tried his best to convey the intention of Nova sharing it''s options. Nova didn''t move or even twitch as he sent the intention, but it seemed to understand nonetheless as Felix got an unprompted screen from The System.


    [Bond Familiar (Uncommon)]


    Familiar Evolution


    Your familiar has granted you permission to see it''s evolution options. You may not choose the evolution yourself, but you may advise the familiar of which choice you would prefer.


    Would you like to see the options now?


    Yes.


    No.


    Yes.


    [D - Uncommon] Matter Sprite


    A matter sprite is a sprite that is fascinated by and attached to matter. All types and forms of matter are interesting and it constantly seeks novel matter to increase it''s understanding and grow it''s strength.


    The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.


    +4200 stats upon evolution


    +60 stats per level


    The basic option, simple evolution. Guess that means no dragon evolution option then.


    It couldn''t anyways, you were already offered it. No one else, until the next integration, will be offered a dragon evolution. Barring a natural birth, there will be no more dragons for a while.


    Oh right, I kind of forgot about that.


    [D - Special] Greater Matter Spirit


    A spirit is an evolution of a sprite where they fully attach themselves to their specific focus. A greater spirit has full sentience and is capable of complex thought as well as being much larger and stronger than a sprite. It is not however, a direct upgrade, rather a potential path of evolution for sprites that becomes strong enough. Not all sprites will become spirits or greater spirits, only those that are both particularly cunning and powerful. This path will greatly increase the sprites understanding of and control over matter.


    +7500 stats upon evolution


    +100 stats per level


    Seems like a straight upgrade to the last one to me. Any downsides?


    Some people don''t want their familiar to be sentient, doesn''t seem like you care much though. Otherwise, not really.


    Why would they care?


    They don''t want the familiar disagreeing with them, leaving them. If you had a dog that you had grown attached to for years, then it had the option to gain complex thoughts, emotions and feelings, would you want it to? Before you say yes, those thoughts may disagree with you or make it want to venture out on it''s own. It might leave you.


    Sounds like a parent that''s sad when their kid goes off to school.


    Yeah, pretty much.


    [D - Cursed] Ravenous Matter Spirit


    A spirit is an evolution of a sprite where they fully attach themselves to their specific focus. It is not however, a direct upgrade, rather a potential path of evolution for sprites that becomes strong enough. Not all sprites will become spirits, only those that are both particularly fond of their particular area of focus. A matter spirit is a spirit that is fascinated by and attached to matter. All types and forms of matter are interesting and it constantly seeks novel matter to increase it''s understanding and grow it''s strength.


    Cursed: This evolution is cursed. The spirit will be permanently tainted by the desire to consume matter. It will grow in stats, understanding and strength based entirely off of that which it consumes. This evolution greatly increases the processing speed of novel matter. It''s growth is entirely tied to how much it can consume and how many new and different items it can find. This corruption of the soul can lead to unintended consequences such as a change in the focus area and in extreme circumstances, a shift in personality that may lead to soul death.


    +0 stats upon evolution


    +0 stats per level


    Uh, Grim¡­ What''s a curse?


    Posting now. If it''s the same as curses in my universe¡­ I just want to be sure.


    Based on what you know¡­ Is this a good evolution or a bad one?


    It''s a massive gamble and will be much worse in almost all situations than even the first option.


    That bad?


    I''ll get back to you when I know for sure.


    Alright, guess I''ll go over my own evolutions now.


    You probably want to choose Nova''s first, it should have them both wait for each-other anyways, but if it doesn''t, you want it''s end of the bond to grow first.


    Why''s that? S§×arch* The N??eFire.¦Çet website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    It most often isn''t an issue, and it probably won''t matter. Sometimes, if their soul grows strong enough, it can push back and halt the growth of the implanted soul seed. The seed becomes too weak to push back, imagine the ground is too hard for the roots to penetrate.


    Couldn''t that happen the other way around too?


    Yeah, but it''s less of an issue that way because you can consciously decide to let the seed grow. The sprite doesn''t have nearly as much control or awareness over it''s soul.


    Gotcha. My inclination is the Great Spirit one anyways, guess we can ask Nova and see what they want.


    Yup. I agree the Greater Spirit is probably the best bet.


    Felix looked down at the small muscle bound black cat in his lap and did his best to convey that he thought the Greater Spirit choice was the best choice. It took a few seconds for Nova to react and when they did, they looked up at him and tilted their head.


    Do you not understand me, or do you disagree?


    They jumped from his lap and stood in front of him, staring up at him.


    What do you think of the Greater Spirit option?


    They just meowed at him then yawned.


    What do you think of just sticking with being a Matter Sprite?


    They feigned spitting up a hair ball with a rather gross gagging sound.


    Alright, got it. What do you think of the Ravenous Spirit option? The cursed one?


    This time, they ran around in a circle and wagged it''s tail the whole time.


    You like that one? Why?


    Nova proceeded to prance around the room with it''s chest out and act out a charade where they hunted down a beast and ate their corpse. Once it was done, it walked over to Felix and communicated the most complex thought Felix had ever gotten from them constructed entirely of concepts he had conveyed to them in the past. It translated to something along the lines of a dragon swallowing a super nova, then breathing out a cacophonous explosive stream that resembled a galaxy.


    You want to eat a super nova? Not sure that''s actually possible. Actually, Grim said their was a sprite that grew until it ate a black hole, so I guess it''s not that out there.


    You should be careful with that evolution though. If it is what I think it is, it''s not exactly perfectly safe. Grim cut in to his mental conversation with Nova.


    For me or Nova?


    Both.


    Guess we''ll hold off until you get a response then. It''s only a day until the meeting, maybe I should just wait until afterwards?


    To choose the evolution or actually go through with it?


    I guess both. If I''m not going to go through with it, I''m not sure I even want to look just yet. Not going to tease myself like that. I''m a little worried it''s going to take a while, like what if I''m unconscious and miss the meeting?


    Not sure I understand the whole teasing thing, but you do you. It will almost definitely knock you out for a bit, probably more than a day too if I had to bet on it.


    If that''s the case, then I''m definitely waiting.


    Guess I''ll finish with my staff then for now.


    Nova curled up and fell asleep on the floor while Felix flew over and ascended to his workshop where he continued to enchant the staff. He spent a while experimenting with enchantments, deciding between large singular enchantments or arrays of smaller enchantments. He ended up with many small enchantments that summed together into one whole, but he also interconnected them to help with balancing the mana throughout the staff. Instead of one enchantment bearing the burden of a blow or providing extra force for a swing, they would all work together, guided by the triggered enchantment. It took him quite some time to get all the details ironed out and figure out just how to interconnect all of the enchantments. He was about an hour away from completing his first iteration when an unprompted System screen interrupted him.


    World Council


    You have been invited to the very first, Trenus World Council. The meeting will take place in 5 minutes. You have chosen your representatives. You have 5 minutes to prepare yourself, once you are ready, simply initiate the teleport. If you do not initiate the teleport in the next 5 minutes, the teleportation will be initiated for you.


    Representatives (5/5):


    Felix Kade


    Noah


    Benjamin


    Will


    Alan


    Why don''t they have last names?


    Do you know their last names?


    Uh¡­ No¡­


    That''s my guess, you don''t know their last names and those are the names you know them by. I suspect, even if they gave you fake names, that''s how it would appear to you.


    That feels weird. Intuitively, identify and things like that should tell me their last names and class, profession, race.


    It''s not a spell that summons information, it just displays what you know about them or what you can identify about them at a glance. Class and profession is relevant to running the city, last name isn''t. If you want to differentiate two people with the same name, you can use their class, profession or just think about the one you want to refer to.


    When talking to or communicating with The System, sure. It is very relevant if I have to talk to other people though.


    I suspect this is also how they chose to identify themselves, or it''s the default setting and they just never changed it.


    World Council


    You represent two separate factions on Trenus, as such you may choose which faction you wish to represent. You will be able to vote on behalf of both factions, but you may only appear under the guise of a single faction.


    Which faction will you represent:


    Atalus


    Stormbringer


    Atalus.


    Felix stowed the staff he had been working on and descended to find Nova still napping in the middle of the sparring floor. He walked over and gently picked them up. He made sure Grim was in his soul space and activated the teleport. All he had to do was think the command in the direction of The System.


    Teleport. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 Chapter 112 - Book 16

    Felix found himself teleported into a large square room ten meters or so across with three white walls and no windows. The last wall was like a pane of tinted glass through which he saw a large circular room with 9 evenly spaced black panels, including the one he looked through. Above each of the other panels, there was a map of Trenus as well as a name. He hadn''t bothered to check the names of the other cities on his map, so this was his first time encountering them.


    Looking around the room, starting with the room to his direct left, he saw The Lodge which was the city almost directly north of Atalus by thousands of kilometers, buried deep in the forest. Next was Snowvale on the north half of the arctic continent, directly east of The Lodge. Following that was Trelas, the city on the south side of the same arctic continent. After that was Orselle, the southern most city on the desert continent to the south east.


    Then it was Coastwatch, on the south end of the main continent, the one Atalus was on. Just to the west of that, on the same continent was Sprouts. On the far west of that was Lav''Gur, in the desert area of the main continent. The final panel, just to Felix''s right, was a panel with the name, Stormbringer, above it. It''s map highlighted the entirety of the continent to the west of the main one.


    Felix cringed slightly as he glanced past the panel for the Stormbringer. In his room, the one for Atalus, there was a large round table and about 15 chairs around it. Felix sat down in one of the chairs that faced outwards from the room and placed Nova on the table. They were still fast asleep and seemed completely undisturbed by the fact that they had teleported to a completely different location that was potentially on another planet. Felix waited a few minutes for Noah to show up, who sat next to him followed by Benjamin a minute later then finally Will and Alan a few minutes after that. They all took seats at the table on the same side as Felix, facing outwards, and waited a few minutes until The System displayed a screen before each of them.


    World Council


    Welcome to the first ever Trenus World Council meeting. There are 29 people in attendance including the owners and representatives of the 9 different factions on the planet thus far. The restricted settlement founding period is set to end at the conclusion of this meeting in 3 hours. The purpose of this meeting will be for the current council members to introduce themselves and vote on whether or not to extend the restricted period.


    For the next two hours, you may choose to open or close the panel that seals your rooms by placing your palm on the wall next to it.


    Agenda:


    Introductions (2 hours)


    Vote (1 hour)


    Felix read through the screen then looked up and waited a few seconds for the others in his room to read through it as well. He and Noah looked at each-other and nodded then Felix stood from his chair and walked up to the panel. He placed his palm on the wall next to the panel and waited a few seconds before it vanished. As he stood there, the panels for Trelas, Orselle and Coastwatch opened around the same time as his. He glanced to each of the rooms one by one briefly locking eyes with the people who had opened their chambers.


    In the rooms for Coastwatch and Trelas, there were only 3 people total and just 9 chairs. In the room for Orselle, there were 4 people and 12 chairs. Some quick mental math told him that all of the people who had made themselves visible would fit in his room, if they wanted to. Knowing this, he gestured for the others to join him. The man who had opened the panel for Trelas looked at the other two in his room then turned back to Felix and smiled. He walked right over and shook his hand.


    [E - Common] Human (Lvl 82)


    Neither he nor Felix said a word to each-other but they both nodded and smiled, acknowledging each-other. The man walked past Felix and sat next to Alan on the left side of the table. The woman that had opened the panel for Orselle seemed hesitant but eventually decided to walk over as well, though the other three in her room did not seem to agree with her decision. Felix shook her hand, smiled and nodded to her as well before she sat on the opposite side of the table, just a seat over from Noah.


    [E - Common] Human (Lvl 91)


    The man who had opened the panel for Coastwatch looked back at the other two in the room and seemed to be arguing with them in whispers and hushed tones. Felix waited a minute or so before shrugging and returning to his seat at the table, between Noah and Will. As soon as he did, Noah gestured towards him and said, "And this, is Felix. Our fearless leader."


    Felix looked at him with a frown of shock and slight disgust which caused the woman from Orselle to giggle and cover her mouth with the back of her hand. Once she recovered, she looked up at him and introduced herself, "I am Amani, it is a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Fearless-Felix."


    Felix groaned and rolled his eyes causing her to laugh with a full belly, unable to contain herself this time. Felix, looking for a reprieve from the teasing, looked to the other newcomer at the table and introduced himself to him, "Nice to meet you, I''m Felix."


    "Jack. I appreciate you hosting." He said gesturing to the room and chairs around him.


    Felix just shrugged, "There were 15 people who made themselves visible, we seem to be the only ones who could host that many. I didn''t really want anyone to feel left out, but it seems that may not have been necessary."


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    "Well, I appreciate the consideration nonetheless. How have you all been settling in to the new planet? Any major issues or setbacks?"


    Felix looked at Noah and shrugged, "Not that I''m aware of. You? How''s the arctic? That definitely wouldn''t have been my first choice of location to settle down."


    Jack smiled and nodded, seemingly having figured something out, "It''s been good. Our city in the tutorial was based in a rather wintery biome so we were ready and used to the cold already. As for how I chose the location, honestly I kind of just plopped it down as soon as I arrived."


    Felix raised an eyebrow then turned back to Amani, "Was your city in the desert in your tutorial? Is that where you left from?"


    "Yes. I take it you were somewhere near mountains and plains? We all ended up in the biomes we left from?"


    Felix nodded then continued, "What about you Amani, any issues settling in?"


    She hesitated for a moment, locking up, then gracefully recovered as if nothing had happened, "Nothing we can''t handle."


    "Glad to hear it."


    At this point, the other two individuals from Trelas'' room and one from Coastwatch''s walked over and stood awkwardly near the table. They seemed unsure whether or not they were allowed to sit. Alan stood from his seat and walked over to them, getting a little closer than most people would and made some sly gestures as if showing his product in a back-alley deal. In his hand though, was a simple deck of cards which caused the new arrivals to look at each-other with wide eyes. Will rose and joined them and they all decided to head back to one of the other rooms to play.


    Jack turned to Amani, "So¡­ What do you think of this whole, Stormbringer situation?" He probed.


    "Situation?" She cocked her head, "I''m not sure what you mean."


    "Well¡­ a large landmass, one might refer to as a continent, is owned by some entity that refers to themselves as ''Stormbringer''."


    "So? What is the situation? Could this not simply be a person? A man or woman? They don''t seem like a threat to me. They have made no moves or declarations against any of us thus far."


    Jack turned to Felix and Noah, "What about you? Any thoughts?"


    Noah answered before Felix could formulate an answer, "Who cares? We''ve got way more than enough land as is. I see no reason to worry about things that are outside of our control."


    Benjamin chimed in, "We might as well wait until something happens, trying to prepare for the unknown or assuming they are hostile would just be problematic. Maybe it''s just your friendly neighborhood dragon, here to protect the planet and guide it''s new residents."


    Felix cringed slightly at being compared to a dragon, knowing that in any other universe, both he and Benjamin would be brutally sacrificed for the transgression.


    Jack nodded and shrugged, "Any major plans in the coming months?" He addressed the whole table. Amani offered a slight shake of her head so Jack turned to the other three.


    Noah looked at Benjamin and they had a silent conversation with their eyes for a few moments before Felix answered, "I think we just want to finish getting settled, make sure everyone has a home, make sure our food and water supplies are sustainable. We''ve set up some farms, but we would like more ideally. Once all that''s done, ideally some sort of transportation is setup so people and goods can travel and trade between cities. I was thinking some sort of train, but it would be difficult to get to your two cities. I guess now that we are where we are, I should think bigger than trains, maybe portals or something."


    Noah and Benjamin were looking at Felix with slightly raised eyebrows, but he either didn''t notice or didn''t care. Jack answered, "Not sure how to pull that one off, but we would definitely be open to the idea if you do manage to figure it out¡­ We are in a similar boat as well, setting up food and water, making sure the shelters are warm enough and clearing out any creatures that might threaten the children."


    "You have creatures that get close enough to threaten people?" Felix shot back almost immediately.


    "Unfortunately. Mostly small animals, some larger creatures, some we''ve never heard of. So far, nothing we can''t handle so hopefully that remains the case."


    "If you ever need help, feel free to¡­" Felix started.


    Jack chuckled, "Call? I appreciate the offer though nonetheless. Out of curiosity, what level are you? I can''t seem to identify either of you."


    Felix looked at Amani and verified her level while she responded, "Not much higher than yours, it is hidden for a reason though." She said with a slightly patronizing look. sea??h th§× N??eFire.¦Çet website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    "Fair enough." Jack said before Felix could respond, "How about this, you can both see my level I take it?" He asked. They both nodded then he continued, "Can you see her level?" He asked Felix.


    Felix nodded and Jack shifted topics, having learned what he wanted to, "So your tutorials, tell me about them. Must have been rather interesting given there were so few that ended up with Major cities."


    This was a topic that it turned out, they were all very open about. A combination of the shared experience of being torn from relative comfort and dropped into danger, curiosity and the fact that it was over, made everyone both open and interested.


    In Jack''s tutorial, his town had grown to slowly become the most prolific town which attracted immigrants from all over. The other towns began to fight each-other causing people to seek refuge in Jack''s town which quickly grew to a city, which he used to defend the innocent. He also traveled with a small group and conquered the quest and combat dungeons early on. Once the warring was over, there was still a month left and he effectively owned all of the original 9 forts without having to fight for them much at all. At that point, he set his eyes on the world bosses and managed to take out three of them before the end of the tutorial.


    In Amani''s tutorial, she hadn''t founded her settlement but rather came across it and helped develop it. She was more of a solo hunter herself and had quickly leveled and completed a handful of the dungeons. After that, she had rallied together fighters and crafters, uniting them to help bring peace to the rest of the settlements that were in constant turmoil. She traveled with a small army of mercenaries, just a hundred or so, that completed dungeons and took out a couple tyrannical leaders. Once they had completed all of the dungeons and traveled the entire map, almost everyone had decided to join their cause. Together with the best of the best, she took out all 9 of the original world bosses and set up a city where those who didn''t want to fight could simply live and prosper.


    Felix wouldn''t have believed her, considering how much of a hero she had made herself out to be, had his earrings not indicated that she was telling the truth the entire time. Even when he lightly probed her about the tyrannical leaders ruling the settlements she had conquered and why they were evil, the earrings simply told him she was downplaying how awful they were. He was reluctant to believe it, but she seemed both genuine and kind of a badass. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 Chapter 113 - Book 17

    For his own tutorial, Felix let Benjamin and Noah describe the events. Noah started and talked about how they had established an open town which resulted in a heavy profession focus given the class level requirements of the other settlements in the tutorial. Their city had grown from there and quickly became the richest and largest with all of the food and gear they were selling. Once the taxes increased, they set out to establish trade routes with caravans and ships which was when Benjamin joined and about when the raiding really kicked off. They described how two of the forts in the tutorial slowly took out the others around them one by one until it was only those two and their city left. The other two banded together and declared war on their city, bringing with them an army of about half the remaining population and dozens of siege engines. They talked briefly about the battle, mentioning Felix and his efforts more times than Felix would have liked to have the attention on him, then talked about the victory and aftermath.


    "So uh¡­ What about world bosses? You didn''t even try for them?" Jack asked and Amani leaned in.


    Benjamin shrugged, "Didn''t bother, someone killed them all and our city ended up with the upgrades."


    "What do you mean someone killed them all? All nine of them?" Amani immediately said.


    "All ten." Benjamin looked at Noah to back him up but Amani cut in immediately, "Wait, you killed the final boss?"


    "No, but someone did. We captured both of the leaders of the invading forces and shortly after the battle, the final boss died. We all saw the stats from the battle. We had thought it was some group of 200 or so elite warriors that just banded together and ignored everything else, until we saw the battle stats from the final boss." Benjamin explained.


    "What are battle stats?" Amani asked.


    "There was a final boss?" Jack cut in, clearly still one step behind. Though Amani hadn''t mentioned it, she clearly knew about the final boss given that she had killed all 9 of the standard world bosses in her tutorial. It seemed that simply knowing about the final boss was enough for her to at least partially believe the tall tale Benjamin was spinning.


    Benjamin just shrugged, "Yeah so like I said, we thought it was a team, a small army. The battle stats showed number of deaths, participants in the battle and damage dealt from each side."


    Both Jack and Amani leaned in further waiting for Benjamin to reveal the numbers. He continued the story and decided to stretch the tension just a little more, "A few hours after the war, in the middle of the thunderstorm that shook the air, a massive flash of white light that blinded all who looked signaled the end. We opened our eyes and read, 0 deaths, 58 million damage dealt, 22 damage taken, 1 participant."


    Amani recoiled, frowned and shook her head. Jack sat back up and raised an eyebrow, "So who the hell was it? Who went out and dealt, what was it, 58 million damage?"


    Benjamin just shrugged so Jack turned to Felix, "What about you, you ever meet them?"


    Felix just shook his head, pouncing on the conversational escape Jack had just unintentionally given him, "No, I was fighting in the war. Never met anyone like that, but I would love to personally thank whoever they are for using all of the upgrades on my city. I spent most of my time enchanting items and practicing with my spells and whatnot."


    "You''re an enchanter?" Amani leaned in, interested again.


    He turned to her and nodded before Jack cut in, "Wait hold on. So some mysterious individual ran through and killed all of the world bosses that The System recommends 250 people for, by themself?"


    "25,000 for the final boss." Amani added.


    "I don''t know what to tell you. We don''t know them, all we know is what we saw and read. I can tell you some of the rumors and theories? Most of the people thought it was him," He gestured at Felix, "before the war, then the final boss died shortly after it. They spun some stories about how he finished the war then snapped his fingers and killed it but¡­ those were campfire stories. Amani, you know it had to be engaged from the start so that battle lasted longer than ours did and started at the same time so it wasn''t him. All that leaves is some rogue agent no one really knows."


    "I''m not sure I''m buying it." Jack said and Amani nodded in agreement.


    Benjamin shrugged, "System, can you show them the final boss slain announcement?"


    Felix was certain that wouldn''t work until he looked at Jack and saw his eyes focus on something close to his face that Felix couldn''t see. He looked over and Amani was reading it too with a growing frown on her face. Benjamin continued as they read, "We figure they happened to find some ancient relic or item that let them kill it in a single blow."


    The oddest part to Felix about the entire story, was that his earrings told him Benjamin was being entirely truthful. It seemed that the city had changed their minds, or the tale of him smiting the Kraken never caught on. He resolved himself to ask Noah about it later.


    "We had been calling them the Stormbringer, but that name seems to be taken. Not that we had ever met them, for all we know they''re one in the same."


    "We could go ask them, they should be right over there in that room, right?" Jack gestured over to the room labeled as the Stormbringer''s.


    "I think, if they haven''t opened it yet, they likely won''t. That or they got the option to skip the meeting. Either way, I think we should respect their choice to remain anonymous and leave them be." Noah cut in.


    Jack shrugged, "Alright, just a thought. Speaking of respecting choices, I''m going to go invade someone''s privacy. I''ll be right back." Jack got up and lightly jogged over to the panel labeled, Snowvale, the city just south of his on the same continent. He knocked on the panel and waved into it. Sear?h the N?vel(F)ire.n§×t website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    After a few moments, it opened and Jack talked with the person inside for a few moments. Then, they walked back over to Atalus'' room together and Jack introduced the newcomer, "This is Martin. He''s the leader of Snowvale and a little shy. We actually met just after the tutorial ended and we''ve been working together ever since. The distance makes it kind of a pain though so he''s been talking about setting up a train to connect the cities. I want to call it the polar expr-"


    "We are not calling it that. I already said no." Martin interrupted.


    [E - Common] Human (Lvl 81)


    "It''s your project, you get to choose the name. I was just offering a suggestion, that''s all." Jack smirked.


    Martin rolled his eyes, then seemed to notice all of the people looking at him all at once. He looked like a deer caught in headlights for a few seconds before he awkwardly nodded to everyone. Jack sat back down and Martin sat next to him, with his back facing the wall. Noah addressed him as soon as Martin got comfortable, "So, tell us about your tutorial. We heard about everyone else''s already."


    Martin''s tutorial was by far the most interesting to Felix. Martin had started out, much like Felix. He was dropped in and had to run from wolves, taking refuge in a puzzle dungeon. Unlike Felix though, he had already chosen his class, engineer. He was offered the class because he worked on robotics and was a professional engineer before the integration, he loved his job so he took the profession. Coming out of the dungeon almost a month later, he had adapted his previous skill set to incorporate magic and enchanting. He had even managed to upgrade his profession, though he didn''t specify to what. From there, he built magical weapons and machines to solve any problems he encountered. He needed heat as he was stuck in an arctic biome so, he constructed a magical furnace. He needed to take out some enemies so, he constructed magical weapons in the form of traps for the most part.


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    From there, the leader of the settlement he had joined died to hubris, trying to fight a world boss. Martin was elected as the new leader as he had brought warmth and safety to the people, though he tried many times to refuse the position. Over the next month he constructed magical siege weapons and used them to take out the world bosses one by one. In doing so, his settlement built a fairly large following and most of the others simply asked to be vassal towns under his city. He didn''t even need to ask. By the end of the tutorial, he owned all 9 of the settlements and had taken out all of the world bosses through the use of hundreds of siege weapons and large scale traps. The most intriguing part to Felix was that he was also a caster, and just like Felix, he didn''t use his spell list at all for combat. He kept simple utility spells like light on it but otherwise ignored it. He mentioned he only took the class for the synergistic stats with his profession.


    "Felix here mentioned that he wanted to establish trade and transportation routes with the other cities. He was talking about maybe a train, but otherwise portals if possible."


    "Portals? Can you do that?" Martin leaned in towards Felix with wide eyes, instantly shattering his rather meek and awkward demeanor.


    "I mean, I''m sure you can. I have no idea how right now. I just don''t see why not, given all the other things that are now possible."


    "Damn, guess we''re stuck with trains for now then. The biggest issue I''ve come across is just producing enough tracks for the trains. Just to connect my city with Jack''s would take just over tens of thousands of kilometers. That''s a ridiculous amount of metal, not to mention the clearing of the land."


    "I mean, we could go in the other direction and try to make a plane." Felix offered.


    "A plane?"


    "Yeah, then we don''t need to clear nearly as much land and we don''t need as much metal either."


    "Yeah, but it''s way more complicated."


    "We could try to make a blimp instead? It would be much slower though."


    "Not sure I''m fully bought into creating a flying vehicle. What if it crashes or something?"


    "Into a bird? It seems fine to me, we could make it just carry cargo for now then we can see about passengers later."


    "How the hell are we refining oil for the engines though?"


    "Don''t bother. Just use mana."


    "It would be a ridiculous amount of mana, something like¡­" Martin trailed off and closed his eyes, his fingers twitching rapidly for a few seconds before he continued, "7200 mana a second, 8000 to be safe."


    "That''s it?"


    "Well, mana to energy conversion is essentially perfectly efficient, jet engines aren''t even close."


    "How big of a plane would that be?"


    "I only know the approximate numbers for a 737 from a stupid ''Environmental Consideration'' course I took back during my undergrad."


    "We could also enchant the entire plane to be lighter."


    "That would take a decent amount of mana on it''s own."


    "It would. Wouldn''t that make it more efficient though?"


    "Maybe? I honestly have no idea, I guess it depends on how good the enchantment is."


    "You could then also go straight to each city, no need to go around the coast."


    "It would be great, would cut the journey by about 30% but¡­ Not sure I want to be responsible¡­"


    "I think there is a good chance we could find a pilot that could survive a plane crash. Maybe not an explosion, but that risk is much smaller with mana."


    "Near 0, I would think¡­ still¡­"


    "We can talk about it more later. Just think about it." Felix was just happy to plant the seed. He was willing to help, but he didn''t exactly have the time to create or manage the entire project himself. Or frankly, the expertise. With Martin designing and managing it though, it should come out being much more efficient as well as saving him a ton of time. The biggest hurdle Felix could see was finding the right material. He figured they should probably use something in the D grade, incase they encountered bird monsters or something, but the only ones he had seen so far were extraordinarily heavy.


    Amani and Jack were having their own conversation, Jack having swapped seats sometime earlier, about combat techniques, their classes and favorite fights. Benjamin and Noah had gotten up and seemed to be making friends with anyone who was available. Noticing the lull in Felix and Martin''s conversation, Jack turned to them, "So Felix, I''ve been meaning to ask¡­ What''s with the absolutely shredded cat?" He asked gesturing to Nova sprawled out in a pool on the table, napping, completely unbothered by anything happening around them.


    "Oh that''s my familiar, Nova."


    "Your familiar? Are you a caster?"


    "Yup."


    Amani, Martin and Jack all frowned and looked at each-other causing Felix to ask, "What?"


    "Just odd, that''s all. Caster''s have seemed rather weak so far. The only strong one I know is Martin over here who doesn''t even use the class at all. I don''t think I''ve met a caster that wasn''t¡­ well¡­ useless in a fight. Benjamin and Noah mentioned you had helped tremendously in the war, but they didn''t exactly mention how."


    Felix shrugged, "I didn''t really meet any other casters, just one focused on healing."


    "Oh yeah, healers are the complete opposite. The only ones in my city are too valuable to have in a fight, and not useful enough to justify bringing out yet. They get stronger every day though and it does seem like they will be ready soon."


    "I mean, we had caster''s fighting in our war. Standing a top the walls, defending the city. They aren''t that useless in a fight."


    "Yeah but they need a wall and cast so slowly. I tried having a caster with me once, got flanked and almost died. Had no answer to the baby wolf that attacked them because their spells were on ''cooldown''."


    "That and spells telegraph their position with all the words and hand movements they need to make." Amani added.


    Felix shrugged. He didn''t really have a satisfying answer for them and wasn''t up for coming up with a lie at the moment. After a few awkward moments Martin, surprisingly, was the one who spoke up, "So Nova, that a male or female cat?"


    "Not sure." Felix said after thinking for a few minutes.


    "What do you mean?" Jack said.


    "I never asked." Felix said simply. Jack looked over to the cat who was lying on its back, completely exposing it''s underside. He inspected it closely for a few minutes then furrowed his brows, "Huh." Was all he said after a few moments.


    Hey Nova, you male or female? Felix quickly sent over. He knew the sprite wasn''t actually napping, just focused on it''s soul space, breaking down and processing matter. All he got in response was a feeling of confusion. Felix tried to explain but gave up when he couldn''t really figure out where the line was and how to explain it to something that didn''t even have a real body.


    His attempts did rouse the cat though as it quickly flipped onto it''s legs so it could look at Felix with a cocked head full of confusion. After a few moments, it realized there were other people around and it''s head darted to each of them in turn. When it''s eyes landed on Martin, it walked over to him and meowed right into his face.


    Martin jumped back a little, his chair squeaking across the ground as his head darted to Felix for support. He just shrugged in response and Jack giggled at the whole situation. Nova seemed to get bored when Martin wouldn''t give him any attention so it instead walked over to Amani on the opposite end of the table and meowed at her. Her reaction was less abrupt as she reached forwards carefully to pet them. Nova immediately fell into her and allowed her to pet it as it nuzzled into her stomach.


    Jack turned back to Felix, "So are cats just sexless in the multiverse? Are all animals sexless?"


    "I don''t think so? It''s not a cat. Didn''t you identify it?"


    "Yeah I did. I just saw cat, wait¡­ Now I just see familiar¡­"


    "Oh¡­ huh."


    I keep forgetting. I don''t know why I have so much trouble remembering how identify works.


    It''s possible you can upgrade it like a skill to be more useful later on. Grim responded.


    I hope so. I really liked seeing the actual names of things in the tutorial. The real world is gonna suck if everything is ''creature'' when I don''t know what it is.


    Noticing Felix zone out, Jack shifted the conversation and asked the table "So uh¡­ How are we all feeling about the vote?"


    "I don''t know why I would want the restricted period to continue. Honestly though, not sure I have much of an opinion either way, just figure we might as well let people do what they want." Felix shrugged.


    "Does make it harder for an offensive force to build strength." Jack offered.


    Felix just shrugged, "So? I figure if they''re going to attack, it''s going to happen no matter what."


    "We''ll be voting to keep it for now." Amani said, "We''d like to be a little more established before we have to deal with countless towns popping up around us."


    They continued to discuss the vote for a little while until eventually Nova wandered off and then about a half hour later Jack, Amani and Martin wandered off as well. Martin returned to Snowvale''s room and shut the panel while Jack and Amani wandered around to speak with anyone who was available. Felix didn''t bother getting up as there wasn''t really anyone he was interested in talking to that had opened their rooms.


    Looking around, it seemed like just one other room had been opened, Lav''Gur. Noah was already talking with someone inside so Felix figured there was no need for him to do so as well. He was also a little exhausted from all the social interaction so he was more than happy to just sit still and wait for the meeting to continue. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 Chapter 114 - Book 18

    Well this is long and kind of boring.


    Grim mentally chuckled, For you maybe.


    You think they are all enjoying themselves?


    I think, you dislike meeting and talking to people. I think you also don''t care at all about political shenanigans. Jack on the other hand was constantly testing you with questions. Amani was trying to be nice without giving away too much. Martin seems to just be shy or not aware.


    I caught the testing part, just didn''t know why until he grabbed Martin. Amani was just being smart, don''t give away more than you need to.


    Right, you recognize what they''re doing, you just see yourself as above it all.


    I don''t know that I see myself as above it. I just don''t see the point.


    Sure, not above it but, they''re all thinking about their cities and what''s best for them. You just don''t care at all, you let Noah deal with that stuff. So you don''t bother.


    I also don''t enjoy it. It''s a pain in the ass.


    Fair enough. Some people, like Jack and Amani I suspect, enjoy it.


    I just want to go evolve and work on getting stronger. Fight things, find cool treasures, invent things, explore and discover. If you want something from me, be direct.


    To each their own. You might want to interact a little bit though. There is some value in these people. They are more or less the best of the best in the world. If you need a sparring partner, these are the people I would look to.


    I know. Hopefully I can convince Martin to work on a plane so we can set up trade and transport. It would also be a good enchanting project.


    You sure you have time for that?


    I don''t want my profession to fall behind. Need to make some time to work on things like that.


    You could always just keep making magical weapons, that should level you just as quickly.


    I guess. This is a more interesting project, a richer experience. At least I hope it will be.


    Ok, then I was wrong, in that case, it''s not a waste of time at all.


    What do you think about the vote?


    I don''t think it matters. Just vote however Noah tells you or sell your votes to gain favor.


    I''ll just listen to Noah then.


    The next hour or so, until the vote, Felix sat in the room for Atalus juggling mana and practicing his spell formation. Just to be safe, he only crafted harmless spells so there was no risk of The System thinking might attack someone. A half hour or so into him waiting and practicing, Nova returned to his side and begged for attention. Noah, Will and Alan had all returned at some point after that after having socialized, made friends and brokered deals with others in the meeting. They told him briefly about Ashok, the leader of Lav''Gur, the other desert city. Their interpretation of the leader was that he seemed like a nice guy but was a little too prideful, or at least that was Noah''s impression.


    He was seemingly convinced he was the strongest in the room and was even slightly offended when no one knocked on his panel to meet him. When he did reveal himself, apparently he made everyone sit across the table from him and asked them what he could do for them, as if he had all the cards. The only other somewhat interesting thing to happen was Will and Alan telling Felix about Han, the old man leader of Coastwatch. He was essentially a battle crazy pirate, sailing around to find things to fight. He didn''t care at all about any of the ''political crap'' but was more than willing to play cards with Will and Alan. At the end of the hour, everyone was presented with a screen.


    World Council


    The vote is for whether or not the restricted settlement founding period should continue for another 4 months or not. There are 65 votes in attendance. You may cast each of your votes as you wish.


    The options are:


    Extend.


    End.


    Abstain.


    Felix left the 5 votes Atalus owned to Noah, allocating only the Stormbringer''s votes himself.


    25 votes, the Stormbringer''s, abstain.


    He figured it was best if he abstained, making it appear as if the Stormbringer didn''t care or wasn''t even in attendance. He waited for Noah to finish casting the city''s votes then asked him what they had voted for. Turns out, it was almost unanimous amongst the people that had opened their panels that they wanted the restricted period to continue. Atalus had voted along with them to gain favor but mostly to avoid making enemies. Once all the votes were in, just a few minutes later, the results were displayed to all in attendance.


    World Council


    The vote is for whether or not the settlement founding restricted period should continue for another 4 months or not. There are 65 votes in attendance.


    The results are:


    Extend: 23


    End: 7


    Abstain: 35


    World Council


    The restricted settlement founding period will be extended for another 4 months, until the next world council meeting where another vote will occur to extend or end it. The other items on the agenda for the next meeting are:


    Restricted Settlement Period Vote


    World Event Selection Vote


    Any of the World Council members or their representatives may also add items to the agenda at any time, before the meeting, to be voted on by the council.


    Who the hell split their votes?


    Maybe they sold them individually?


    World Event


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    At the following World Council Meeting, the council will vote on three options for the World Event. This Event will take place one month following the next meeting and will last an indefinite amount of time. There are a limited number of slots to attend the world event and they will be offered to the first 10,000 people to hit D grade. The options for the world event are as follows:


    Ancient Sanctum of Knowledge: An ancient library that has long since been abandoned but still contains secrets and treasures left behind. The knowledge will be useful to inform decisions about your class, race, profession, skills, the world, crafting and more. Treasures can also be found hidden among the books and shelves of the library.


    Vault and Tomb Raiding: A city where an ancient evil has been sealed away. His soul and treasures that led to his rise in power have been sealed in the city. Throughout the city there remains treasures left behind by the citizens before they were turned into a hoard of mindless zombies. Their leader also stockpiled treasures into vaults throughout the city from his various conquests throughout his system.


    Natural Treasure Hunt: An area rife with natural treasures of all varieties, minerals, metals, plants, gems. Be wary, the treasures will be guarded by dangerous beasts. These materials will be useful for crafting weapons, armor and building up the infrastructure of a civilization.


    Hoard not horde? Was that a mistake? Couldn''t be¡­


    World Council


    With all items on the agenda complete, you may freely discuss with other representatives or leave the meeting simply by initiating teleportation.


    Finally. Teleport.


    Felix instantly reappeared in the empty floor of his tower with Nova in his arms, just as he had left for the meeting. He gently placed Nova on the floor and was about to open his D grade class selection screen when Grim interrupted him.


    I got an answer for the gods thing.


    The what?


    Remember we were wondering why some legends and myths from earth exist?


    Oh right.


    It seems like no one actually knows, but myths and legends tend to be the same across many planets and universes. A lot of those also tend to be real, no one really knows why though.


    That was unsatisfying.


    You want my guess?


    Yeah, hit me with it.


    You know about anima, the collective unconscious?


    Of course.


    Well, it''s made up of departed souls and contains experiences. It''s possible some experiences were so great, they were ingrained in the ambient anima and happen to reoccur all over the place.


    Wouldn''t that have happened in your universe? Why is this just a theory?


    I''m starting to think your universe or the multiverse ruled by the system is ridiculously old in comparison to most universes.


    So yours never had time to develop the myths and legends and then pass them on?


    It also seems like the system might be messing with the anima, not entirely sure about that one though. That''s my best guess though. It''s somewhat supported by the odd phenomena where sometimes people will access memories from past lives, old souls that make up their soul now.


    Maybe we can figure that one out at some point. Any other answers?


    D grade ends at level 1000, C at 2000. This continues to S then past S things get weird and it''s mostly just considered Divine or Godhood at that point. Apparently no one cares about levels anymore.


    So E grade is just weirdly short?


    Yeah the first grade and last grade are weird, everything else is simple.


    900 levels to go. That''s a lot. Seems like D grade will be a lot longer than I had hoped. sea??h th§× nov§×lF~ire.net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    From what I gather, D grade is the first big wall most people hit and where most people get stuck. The vast majority of the multiverse is stuck at D grade.


    Really? 1000 is high, but not that high.


    Apparently the time to gain levels slows down dramatically.


    Ouch, all the more reason to choose a good class and profession then.


    Felix opened his D grade class evolution selection screen and scrolled through the options. There were 5 total.


    [D - Uncommon] Sorcerer


    The sorcerer focuses on casting spells instead of learning them. The sorcerer''s spell list is locked and may not be changed without consequences. The spells on the spell list however, may be cast faster and without verbal or somatic components. The spells will also become more tuned to the desire of the sorcerer, sometimes morphing or shifting with a strong enough will.


    +5 DEX per level


    +4 PER per level


    +10 INT per level


    +3 FREE per level


    Boring.


    [D - Rare] Arcanist


    The Arcanist focuses on understanding the unknown. Their spells will tailor themselves depending on the Arcanist''s understanding of the spell and it''s functions. This can result in spells morphing shape, changing element and growing or shrinking as an example.


    +8 PER per level


    +15 INT per level


    +5 FREE per level


    I like the theme of understanding, definitely resonate with that. It''s still focused on a spell list though.


    [D - Rare] Spell Weaver


    The Spell Weaver attempts to weave and fuse spells together. They utilize a combo system that allows them to cast multiple spells in rapid succession or even fuse multiple spells together for devastating effect. This requires an intimate connection with the spells, and understanding of the effects of the spells, on their spell list.


    +8 DEX per level


    +15 INT per level


    +5 FREE per level


    This sounds really cool and if this were a video game, spell combos sound awesome. Unfortunately, I don''t want to use my spell list, and I can already do this more or less.


    [D - Special] Evoker


    The Evoker focuses on large scale siege spells that cause massive damage but are slow to cast and have large costs. The damage of these spells is increased as well as the stability, aim and cast time. Any spells with elemental effects will also deal bonus damage when the spell strikes either multiple creatures or structures.


    +5 PER per level


    +25 INT per level


    +6 FREE per level


    This is¡­ really boring. This might be the worst one. Large spells, long cast times? I want to be fast, not standing still. Also, I''m starting to hate spell lists.


    [D - Mythic] Wizard


    The Wizard is a Mythic class that is rarely given out and reserved for the very few who are worthy of it. It focuses on understanding the workings of spells, mana and magic as deeply as possible to uncover the mysteries of the universe. This class is heavily focused on research to obtain and guard knowledge. There is no penalty to swap spells from the Wizard''s spell list so long as they have previously researched the new spell. Spells that have been researched are typically held in a spell book in case they need to be swapped onto the Wizard''s spell list. Swapping spells in the spell list takes a period of an hour reduced by intelligence to a minimum of 10 minutes.


    +5 PER per level


    +5 DEX per level


    +15 INT per level


    +5 FREE per level


    Mythic? Hey Grim, any big reason why I should take this one?


    What? Hell no, that class sucks. They all suck. It''s stats are only slightly better than rare and it sounds boring as hell.


    Huh, thought you would push for it.


    Why the hell would I do that?


    I don''t know, guess I just expected it given how you reacted to the race selections.


    That was a special case. My opinion: These are all really arse.


    Did you say ''arse''?


    I couldn''t think of an appropriate word to express my disappointment.


    Yeah¡­ Hey System, these all suck¡­ for me. Can we switch these up and give me some new options? Please? Anything that doesn''t have to do with the spell list but still gives lots of intelligence or free points if possible? If the stats weren''t so misaligned, I would take a look at switching to fighter¡­ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 Chapter 115 - Book 19

    Before you look at professions, though I guess it doesn''t matter now that you didn''t select a class¡­


    What''s up?


    I got an answer to curses.


    Oh yeah, hit me.


    I''m going to mostly tell you what I already knew since curses are essentially what I expected here, with some minor adjustments because of the system.


    Does it just display them, or actually change their function?


    Mostly display. Quick refresher, souls are made up of a bunch of anima that all sticks together and agrees with each-other. The more they agree on and the more anima, the stronger the soul. Anima stores experiences which also means emotions and feelings can start from the soul or be recorded as an experience. A curse, is essentially a feeling or experience that is so strong, it overtakes the soul. If the soul is weak, and not well aligned, the corruption is swift and the curse will consume the entire soul. The strongest curses are common feelings that are experienced by almost everything. Hunger is one of the strongest along with sloth, greed, lust, wrath and so on.


    The seven deadly sins?


    Uh¡­ Yeah, hadn''t encountered that memory yet. There are more than seven though, but those are a decent list. You can also split some of those up, gluttony isn''t a curse, but hunger is and arguably hunger is a part of gluttony. Greed and lust are kind of a part of hunger as well, so it''s not a perfect one to one. The big issue with the race evolution for Nova is that the curse could very well consume it''s soul entirely.


    So is there a benefit to curses or are they just evil?


    Just think of them as evil. That doesn''t mean there isn''t any benefit to them though. One of the riskiest things people will commonly try, is to get cursed to try and align their soul. One of three things will happen in that situation, the vast majority of the time the curse will consume their soul and they will cease to be a individual. Rarely, the curse will be integrated into their soul and it will become a part of their soul, their personality, though that often will later result in being consumed by the curse at some point down the road. In the rarest of cases, souls have overcome curses, the soul bands together to fight a common enemy and comes out stronger on the other side. It''s idiotic to try that though.


    Gotcha, so there''s no way it will work out?


    Mathematically, it''s not a 0 chance, but you should act as if it is. Hunger especially is an absurdly strong curse. If it was something lesser, like arrogance, it might be worth the risk.


    Isn''t that just pride?


    No, pride is unwavering and ridiculous, arrogance is an overestimation.


    Really? That seems like semantics.


    Your words don''t fit things perfectly so I''m trying to make do. Pride is kind of a greater version of arrogance and arrogance can evolve into pride. Just¡­ they are separate though, kind of.


    Alright, I''ll talk to Nova then. Why would it be offered at all then?


    For those idiots who want to try and use it to strengthen their souls. That and Nova probably resonates with it right now.


    Feel like The System still should have omitted it, seems a little too dangerous to bother.


    It doesn''t seem like the system will make decisions for you, just help you down whatever path you want to take. If Nova wants to take that path, then it is what it is.


    Anything else before I look at professions?


    Nothing that should affect the decision, no.


    Felix pulled up his profession options and saw five options displayed before him.


    [D - Special] Arcane Enchanter


    The Arcane Enchanter specializes in enchanting. The enchants can be used for combat purposes on armor or weapons or for mundane purposes to preserve food and aid in construction. This profession aids in detecting flaws and improving stability of enchantments.


    +15 DEX per level


    +15 INT per level


    +6 FREE per level


    This is already going far better than class selection did.


    [D - Special] Arcane Spell Formationist


    The Arcane Spell Formationist specializes in the research, design and creation of spells. The spells can be used for any purpose from combat to everyday tasks and the profession aids in the creation of scrolls and items for casting.


    +5 DEX per level


    +10 PER per level


    +15 INT per level


    +6 FREE per level


    Both good options so far, I do wish I could do both though.


    [D - Special] Arcane Tinkerer


    The Arcane Tinkerer specializes in the creation of magical contraptions through the use of light enchanting, forging and engineering. This profession can be used to create weapons, tools or devices for almost any purpose.


    +10 DEX per level


    +5 PER per level


    +15 INT per level


    +6 FREE per level


    Scratch that, I wish I could take all three.


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    [D - Epic] Researcher


    The Researcher utilizes their cunning and perception to gather knowledge. This knowledge is then parsed and filtered to discover something new or rediscover something lost.


    +20 PER per level


    +25 INT per level


    +10 FREE per level


    Huh, this one is kind of weird. I guess it fits the whole library in my head thing and it would kind of let me keep doing all three of the previous things, it isn''t a perfect fit though.


    [D - Arcane] Mana Engineer


    The Mana Engineer focuses entirely on mana in all of it''s uses. Most evolutions of Arcane Engineer focus on a specific field, you have shown interest and proficiency in them all. This profession continues in it''s predecessor''s footsteps and focuses on spell form construction, enchanting and the creation of magical contraptions. New to this profession is the area of mana research. Skills dedicated to all areas of focus will be available though few exist that will include all areas. Be careful not to focus on any area at the detriment of the others otherwise this profession''s progress will suffer.


    +20 DEX per level


    +20 PER per level


    +40 INT per level


    +10 FREE per level


    Well that seems like an obvious choice. This profession is just way better in every way. Plus I now get levels for mana research, something I was already doing anyways? Anything wrong with this one Grim?


    Not that I can see, seems like the perfect profession for you.


    Mana Engineer.


    D Grade Profession Evolution.


    Your profession selection has been finalized. This option is locked in and cannot be changed. To facilitate the process, you may also select your class upgrades now so that all evolutions happen at once. You may also choose to evolve your race and profession now.


    Would you like to evolve your race and profession now?


    Yes.


    No.


    No. Back to classes?


    Maybe lock in Nova''s just in case it stops giving you the option to delay the evolution. Once you choose class, you won''t have any more to choose so you might not have the option to delay it any longer.


    I thought you said you wanted me to go through the evolution first?


    I did, but I got an answer back from the guild and turns out, it doesn''t matter. Your familiar won''t evolve before you unless they remove the bond, system won''t let them.


    Shouldn''t it work the other way too?


    Apparently it doesn''t, I could not tell you why though.


    That''s dumb.


    Felix looked down at Nova and told them that it was time to choose their evolution. He did his best to convey the level of danger for the cursed race and it seemed like Nova was scared by the idea so he was pretty sure he got it through.


    D Grade Familiar Evolution.


    Your familiar''s race selection has been finalized. This option is locked in and cannot be changed. To facilitate the process, you may also select your class upgrades now so that all evolutions happen at once. You may also choose to evolve your race and profession now.


    Would you like to evolve your race and profession now?


    Yes.


    No.


    No. Doesn''t tell me what it chose? Familiar Race Evolution Selection Screen.


    [Bond Familiar (Uncommon)]


    Familiar Evolution


    Your familiar has locked in it''s evolution option. This cannot be changed and will happen in tandem with your evolution.


    Selected Race:


    [D - Cursed] Ravenous Matter Spirit


    Uh Grim, what do we do now?


    Remove the bond and either kill it or banish it far away.


    Really? Isn''t that a little drastic?


    Remember the whole soul consuming thing?


    Yeah but sti-


    What I didn''t mention before is that because your souls are bonded and grow inside of each-other¡­


    Oh¡­ it could infect my soul¡­ consume my soul as well.


    Oh yeah, it could very easily transfer to and infect you as well.


    Is it really that big a risk? Would The System really put us both in danger like that?


    It''s possible you could overcome it, it''s not like it''s trying to give you a terminal illness or anything. Do you think the system wouldn''t put you in danger like that?


    What are the actual odds? If you had to bet on it?


    I think you have a 50/50 chance of beating it but only because your soul is abnormally strong for your age and level. Plus a curse from a familiar bond is not the best way to infect someone, so it shouldn''t be too hard to crush it if you manage to catch it early on. It also helps tremendously that you already have a conviction, they are one of the best ways of aligning your soul. If it was your race or it would infect you more directly, I would say 0.


    That''s not too bad then, we can monitor it and deal with it as early as possible if it comes to that.


    Those are your odds though. Nova''s odds, if I have to bet, are 0 or so close to 0 it''s not even worth mentioning.


    Really? Will it happen right away or gradually?


    Gradually. At first it will just be hungry, eating a lot. Then slowly it won''t be possible to satiate it''s hunger and that unending feeling of emptiness will consume all other emotions and experiences bubbling up and overriding all rational thought.


    How long?


    A decade at most, more likely a handful of years. Worst case a year to a couple years.


    So I can stay bonded to Nova, but it''s guaranteed to die soon with a decent chance of infecting me as well?


    Almost guaranteed. Yeah, pretty much.


    Ugh¡­ Why''d you have to pick that evolution? Felix looked down at Nova sitting at his feet and looking up at him. He looked into their eyes that were slightly too large giving them an animated quality and making them ridiculously adorable. Nova simply meowed in response with no attached thoughts or intentions over their bond. He could have probed his familiar for an explanation but ultimately, it was their choice. He didn''t have any right to choose their evolution for them, all he could do was advise them on what he thought.


    All he could do now was decide whether or not he wanted to stick by them and deal with the consequences of their decisions. Ultimately, for Felix, the answer was simple, he was willing to give it a shot and he didn''t have any intention of losing to a curse. So what if it infected him, he had full confidence he could crush the curse and move on. Worst case scenario it would be a good training opportunity for him. So he decided that, though he didn''t trust Nova, not yet, he would stick by them and deal with whatever came, when it came.


    Want me to monitor the bond then?


    Yeah, that would be great. Thanks.


    Sure. S§×arch* The N??eFire.¦Çet website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    Wait, is there a risk it infects you through me?


    Not really. Normally yes, for me specifically no, I can''t exactly mention why.


    I see. I was worried I was deciding for you too there.


    Nah, I would just leave if it was too risky for me personally. Although, I might stay even then, guess it depends on what the decision is at the time.


    We can cross that bridge when we get to it.


    That''s a rather obvious idiom, barely even an idiom.


    Effective though.


    It''s like lazy wordplay though, it''s gross.


    You just like the double meanings and hidden messages.


    Yeah I do, that one isn''t hidden at all. I feel like I was slapped in the face with the secondary meaning.


    Did it hurt?


    Yes.


    Uh huh. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 Chapter 116 - Book 20

    Class Evolution Selection Screen.


    He was now presented with just 2 options.


    [D - Mythic] Custom


    This class is designed to allow the user to tailor it to themselves, this variant is at the Mythic level. This class is typically only offered when the user is unsatisfied with all other presented options. It is then offered at the highest rarity the user qualified for with all other benefits converted to stats. This class is compatible with all skills, but will not offer anything more than the basic skills. All other skills will need to be learned.


    +60 FREE per level


    Definitely not what I was expecting at all. This is kind of perfect though. It doesn''t get in my way or include things I don''t need. The only issue is it also doesn''t include things I might want but can''t otherwise do. It doesn''t really add anything.


    [D - Epic] Soul Harvester


    [Hidden]


    The Soul Harvester is a class that focuses on collecting the souls of defeated enemies then processing and harvesting them for resources. This will result in some stats gained based on the souls harvested and use of the resources. This class is considered a trial run class and will be upgraded automatically if it both suits you and the class originator deems you worthy, granting you their permission.


    Note: This class has special requirements: Open soul space. Contain a soul in soul space. Qualify for a Legendary or above rarity class. Have collected the souls of defeated enemies at least 3 times. Soul strength requirement.


    Note: This class is hidden. You will be identified as Caster for all identifications where the user is unaware of your actual class.


    Warning: Consuming souls that are stronger than your own could have adverse side effects.


    +0 per level


    Permission from originator? Uh, Grim?


    Seems kind of self explanatory, doesn''t it? Someone created a class at some point. They did something so original, a class was created for them. Then they get free reign over the class, they get to decide who to offer it to and who qualifies. They didn''t want to deal with filtering through a billion people so they created an intermediary class that will do some of the filtering for them. This class is a test, the only question is ''is the reward worth it?''. Taking this is like gambling, hoping the upgrade is good enough to justify this class right now. At least, that''s my guess, not sure how else to interpret "originator" and their needing to give permission. I can post if you want, but I doubt we''ll get anything, this seems like a rare circumstance.


    You think it will scale worse than most classes?


    Yeah, for most people. I think anyone who really excels with it, manages to push it to it''s limits, passes. Everyone else is stuck with a really bad class and will likely just fall behind or die. Sear?h the N?vel(F)ire.¦Çet website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    So take it?


    If you''re up for the challenge, willing to gamble on your class.


    What are your thoughts, do you think I should take it?


    Yeah. Remember when we talked about my universe and how people get stronger there? This is one of the most common ways, incorporate pieces of defeated enemy souls into your own. Typically the return isn''t great, only a small piece can be harvested. As your soul get''s stronger though, you can essentially dominate or convince more and more of the harvested soul to join yours, so it scales exponentially. Worst case, if this class sucks or even if you choose the custom class, you could soul harvest manually, it''s just a pain. Best case, this class makes it easier and automates the annoying steps you would have had to learn and perform manually.


    What if it automates them to be subpar? Shouldn''t I just do it manually to optimize and tailor the process to me?


    Remember how your cores work? You made them, tailored them, then the skill just manages the minutiae so you don''t have to? I suspect it will never be worse than what you can do on your own.


    Really is a gamble then. You think all skills will work like that?


    I suspect so. It seems silly for it to offer to do something for you if it''s worse than what you can already do yourself. Same thing happened with energy cycling, remember that?


    Oh yeah. It was marginally better but otherwise exactly the same.


    The system is probably just optimizing and smoothing out the process you already created. So at worst, it''s the exact same as you can do.


    Why don''t I have some cool skill for casting then?


    It probably doesn''t have a skill for it, maybe you have to create the skill yourself? Or you can do things the system can''t, so it can''t offer you an equal level skill.


    That doesn''t seem very likely.


    Think about the whole attunement, solid mana, energy levels thing. I''d be surprised if anything else could do that, even the system. Casting, the spell you do now how you do it is impressive as hell for your age but not impossible. I suspect it won''t remain that way forever though.


    Really? I thought their were plants and animals that had cores and leaked liquid mana?


    There are, they take forever to do so and use nodes, like Mana Bolt. You just will it to happen and it does, that''s weird. For the system to replicate that, assuming it couldn''t just will it, it would have to create a mana farm that generated liquid mana and high energy mana then teleported it to you when it was needed. Or if it can just will it, it can''t create skills, just offer ones that have already been created. That''s another theory I just thought of after reading that class. It may be the case that the system is a distribution system, designed to distribute classes and items to people. It is not however, a creation system and relies on the people to create classes, skills, items, then it distributes those. Or both are true, the system can''t do what you can and no one has created that skill before, who really knows.


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    Figuring out The System and the multiverse aside. I kind of like the sound of the class. Can you teach me manual harvesting anyways? Then I can incorporate what I learn into the class and tailor it?


    Yeah, I can teach the basics. It''s possible I can teach more after your evolution, we''ll see.


    This one of those things that''s locked away inside you? Why would D grade unlock them?


    Strengthens our bond. The stronger the soul bond, the more we can access and the more I can share.


    Why?


    The stronger our bond, the more the imposed convictions degrade.


    Fingers crossed then. Soul Harvester.


    D Grade Class Evolution.


    Your class selection has been finalized. This option is locked in and cannot be changed. All evolution aspects are now locked in. Please place yourself in a safe location as the evolution may take some time. When you are ready, simply pull this screen back up and initiate the process.


    Note: Your familiar will evolve alongside you.


    Would you like to evolve now?


    Yes.


    No.


    This is as good a place as any. Yes.


    Felix woke up at some point an unknown amount of time later and opened his eyes, but they wouldn''t open. He tried to reach up and feel them, but his arms wouldn''t move. He tried to just feel his body, but got nothing in return. He started to panic and strain as much as he could but nothing happened. After a minute or so of straining, he forced himself to calm down, something that wouldn''t have been possible had he not experienced sleep paralysis in the past. He mentally took deep breaths. Even though his body didn''t react and he didn''t feel the breaths at all, the mental image of breathing in and out helped.


    He ran through everything, trying to feel anything, but he could not touch, taste, smell, hear or see. It took him a minute to think about as it wasn''t something he had had his entire life, but he finally reached out with his mana senses and felt the ambient mana. Around him, the mana was in the calmest state he had ever experienced. Normally, he expected the ambient mana to bunch up and flow in a turbulent way with a kaleidoscope of attunements and energy levels. Here it was perfectly uniform and still, unmoving and without any hint of an attunement or energy level whatsoever.


    He moved some of it around and felt it react to his will, and found that unlike his body, he could move and manipulate it however he pleased. He created a slight flow in the ambient mana, pulling into reality and pushing it towards his body, to try and map out what was happening. The mana however, simply passed through him. No matter what he did, even solidifying the mana, it simply passed directly through him. He felt panic setting in in the form of tightness all over and did his best to fight it by thinking about breathing. He couldn''t really think of anything else so he reached out for something that he hoped was still there.


    Grim¡­ Are you there?


    Felix?


    He felt the tightness receding slightly as soon as he heard Grim''s voice in his head.


    What''s happening?


    You''re awake?


    I¡­ Yes?


    You''re evolving. Enter your soul garden¡­ thing, it''ll be a little less confusing.


    Felix did as Grim asked and began meditating, shifting his consciousness into his soul garden. He immediately felt himself calm down as he felt his body within his soul garden, or at least a projection of it. The familiarity was nonetheless comforting. He looked up from his body and saw a tall figure in black and grey robes standing before him. It had skeletal hands and feet poking out of it''s robe and was holding a book. Looking up towards where the face would be, Felix saw a large familiar book cover under the hood.


    "Grim?"


    "What do you think?" Grim''s voice came out of the figure as it gestured to itself.


    "A little¡­ Halloweeny?"


    "I figured since I''m Grim, I would take the form of the Grim Reaper."


    "Is this part of your evolution?"


    "No, I''m not evolving or changing at all really. I can just choose whatever form I want in here since it''s a mental construct and flying around as a book is boring."


    "Well in that case, it''s a little on the nose. I like it though. So uh¡­ What the hell is happening?"


    "The real question is how are you awake?"


    "What do you mean? What happened?" Felix felt the tightness returning. Thoughts raced through his mind that he might have died or been fatally injured or something. The last thing he remembered was initiating the evolution but he could have lost his most recent memories, maybe it was something so traumatic he forgot. The water of the pond began to ripple and the wind in the garden, that hadn''t existed just a second ago, picked up causing the trees to sway, leaves to rustle and sand to blow.


    "You''re currently evolving. It seems what the system does to keep everything smooth, or tries to do¡­ Well, it teleported your soul out of your body into a pocket dimension. Once it''s done, it will return your soul I suspect." Felix processed the explanation and felt himself almost completely calm down, or get as close to it as he had been since he woke up. The wind passed and the water calmed while the sand settled back down and his garden was once more serene.


    "How long has it been?"


    "Like a minute¡­ Maybe?"


    "That''s it?"


    "It''s a little weird with your time dilation plus the pocket universe and all that."


    "How are we here by the way? Isn''t this a mental construct? I''m not exactly attached to my mind."


    "Your library is a mental construct, this is an experience construct, or at least that''s the best name I can come up with."


    "So it''s my soul not my mind that''s ''imagining'' this?"


    "Exactly."


    "Are you still sitting in my soul space? Your physical form?"


    "Yup, nothing should be able to touch that, not even the system."


    "So it''s upgrading my body right now?"


    "Yeah. At least I think so. Not sure why else it would teleport your soul to a pocket dimension without severing your connection to your body."


    "How long is it gonna take?"


    "I have no idea."


    "Right, sorry."


    "The really interesting question is, once again, how the hell are you awake?"


    "What do you mean?"


    "Well, it teleported your soul. Most sentient being''s soul will kind of fall unconscious when they are this far from their body, especially in a pocket universe. On top of that, it also did this, really interesting actually, soul attack to be sure it knocked you out. It was essentially an attack that could never cause harm but is ridiculous overkill to knock out probably even a god if needed."


    "What¡­ really?"


    "Yeah, it effectively overwhelmed your soul, or tried to, for a moment with the entirety of it''s strength and soul. All souls subject to that would simply pass out because they couldn''t deal with it. It wasn''t as crude as it sounds though, it was more like it all teamed up to stimulate your soul as much as possible as quickly as possible to overwhelm it, entirely safe."


    "It didn''t work though?"


    "Seems like it didn''t." Grim said gesturing to Felix.


    "Why not?"


    "That is the interesting question. I would assume it''s done this on a ridiculous number of sentient creatures, likely even gods. It''s had time to tune it perfectly and I suspect it''s probably never failed. If it had, the system would have fixed the issue because it''s rather traumatic to wake up without being able to feel your body. Imagine you couldn''t talk to me or enter your soul garden, most people would panic and potentially commit soul death or suicide. It would also feel like forever without a body, time get''s weird without a physical form, especially in a pocket dimension. Time could be passing really fast or really slow for all we know." . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 Chapter 117 - Book 21

    "Got any theories?"


    "As to why you''re awake? Nothing plausible. Want to experiment with me and figure it out?"


    "I guess. Don''t really have much else to do while we wait."


    "Excellent. Ok, remember you can come back here whenever you want, this is a part of your soul. I want you to exit your soul garden and do your best to turn on your soul sight. Try to look around you."


    Felix did as Grim asked, exiting his soul garden and returning to the senseless void. Though not entirely senseless, as he could feel the ambient mana around him. He focused in on his soul got a feel for it, then slowly extended his sight outwards from there. Just like his mana sense, it was like feeling things around himself. He slowly expanded the range and it grew, a centimeter outwards from his soul at first, then slowly it grew to a meter. He continued to push and feel outwards until he could feel dozens of meters outwards.


    Ok, what now?


    What do you see?


    I can feel ambient anima but it''s¡­ dead? or asleep?


    It''s just empty, this is a pocket dimension or universe. The anima here is probably just blank, never been a part of a soul, never stored any experiences. Nothing has ever happened here. It just stores the big universal events that everything contains, so it just feels blank.


    Ok. What now?


    Take me out of your soul space, but be careful. Use your mana control to keep me tethered to you physically.


    Won''t you die? Isn''t this like the void of space?


    Yeah that''s exactly what it is. No, I''ll definitely be fine. The only worry is getting knocked too far apart.


    Felix did as Grim asked, creating a flexible string of mana and holding onto it with his mana control. He pulled Grim out of his soul space and used the cord of mana to wrap around Grim''s cover as soon as he appeared. Grim gently floated away from the inertia until the cord was taught and he stopped.


    What now?


    Felix waited a dozen seconds. He expected Grim to respond right away so he got concerned very quickly.


    Grim? Are you there?


    He waited just a few seconds this time before sending a stronger message, the equivalent of a yell.


    GRIM?


    I¡­ Sorry.


    What''s wrong?


    Pull me back¡­ go¡­ go uh¡­


    Grim?


    Soul garden¡­ pull be back and¡­ go.


    Felix felt the panic returning and pulled Grim back into his soul space then shifted his consciousness into his soul garden as quickly as he could. He saw Grim''s form sitting on the ground, wrapped up in a ball with his head between his bony knees.


    "Grim!? What''s wrong?"


    "Nothing¡­ Just give me a second to recover¡­ think¡­"


    "I¡­" Felix stopped himself and sat down across from Grim a meter or so away. He waited a few minutes with the wind once again, gradually picking up and the water growing turbulent. He kept waiting, so long in fact that the garden had undergone multiple storms as Felix''s thoughts raced and calmed multiple times in repetition. After that, he continued waiting and the garden remained calm, it had been long enough for him to accept all the thoughts and accept that all he could do was wait. He kept waiting until Grim finally dropped his hands to the grass around him and looked up at the sky. S§×ar?h the nov§×lF~ire.net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    "Good news¡­" Felix heard, the first thing since the wind in what had felt like hours. "I know¡­ That''s a lie, I know nothing."


    "Well¡­ What happened?"


    "I looked at your soul. I was going to ask you to try and let me in, show me as much as you could, open up the outer layers so I could see better¡­"


    "But?"


    "It wasn''t necessary¡­ Your soul being outside of your body is a unique opportunity. Normally, it''s difficult to see anything when souls are contained in the bodies they are bound to. Well¡­ unless you''re me cause I was created, not born. Here though, like you are, you''re just visible with nothing in the way."


    "Ok, so?"


    "Your soul is¡­ I don''t¡­ Guess we try something new."


    "You¡­ What do you mean?"


    "I''m just gonna show you because I don''t know."


    "Same way as with Nova?"


    "Yeah kind of. Close your eyes and¡­ just close them."


    "Uh¡­ ok."


    Felix felt a memory suddenly flood his mind, like a dream. He watched it. In front of him was what appeared to be a white sphere with a slightly yellow tinge to it. The sphere wasn''t well defined though, it flowed and morphed like a fire without edges. It''s outer most layer was faint and fleeting as it blended into the atmosphere around it. Beneath that was another layer, this one more opaque and defined. The layers continued, dozens of them, all surrounding a golden colored sphere, the core, in the middle. The core was the size of a marble and it flickered and flowed like the rest of the soul but was separate from it. The other layers morphed together and were fused, but this was it''s own thing. It was still translucent, but it was more visible than any of the other layers.


    "Looks nor-"


    This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it


    "This is some random creatures soul that was in my memory. It had been incinerated and it''s body vanished so it was the perfect opportunity to see an entire soul."


    Felix was struck with another memory, similar, but the soul was fundamentally different. He hadn''t realized how much he was getting out of the memories until he felt the difference between this one and the last. He could feel the strength of the soul, it''s convictions calling to and enticing him, to kill, ravage his enemies, destroy everything. The soul itself was similar to the last, but it was bigger. It was hard for him to determine the relative scale when he saw nothing but a soul floating in a void, but he somehow knew, it was bigger. The layers were more defined and segmented but the biggest change was the core, which was now the size of a tennis ball. It was still just as transparent but it flowed and moved a little less than before. The entire soul was slightly denser than the last, but still bigger. It contained so much more.


    "It''s def-"


    "This is the soul of the strongest being I ever got to see defeated directly. It was some villainous monster with convictions to kill everything."


    Felix was struck with another memory, this one of a soul that appeared completely different from the last two. This one was structured. There was a core, but it was different. It was bound in strings, like a rubber band ball. Those strings floated off throughout the soul like yarn. The core was still visible though as it was all still translucent. He could feel convictions from this soul too, but there were too many to sort through. As he looked around he felt new convictions everywhere, but they were different. Instead of something that the soul agreed on, they were like rules that the soul was forced to accept. They felt like chains binding the soul, instead of a common goal or feeling. The soul was denser than the first in some parts and lighter in others. It was like many souls were stitched together and shoved into a body. The weirdest part was that the soul felt weirdly familiar, like seeing school pictures of someone you know.


    Grim spoke first this time, before Felix had a chance to "This is my soul."


    "Wow, it''s so¡­ constructed?"


    "Yeah. Last one."


    Felix expected to look out into a void once more, but instead he just saw white. Nothing but white filling the entirety of his vision. He couldn''t look around as it was a memory, but he was certain there was nothing but white.


    "Uh Grim. What am I looking at?"


    "Give it a second. It''s playing in real time."


    Felix waited and the white subsided as everything came into focus, like the camera''s lens was adjusting the exposure. In front of him was a soul, but it was entirely different from any of the others he had seen before this. The core, was simple a white ball, about the size of a volleyball or so, about 20 centimeters across. The thing that was the most different about it though, was that it was completely opaque and hard. It looked like a small porcelain bowling ball. It did not move, it did not shift. Around it were a few layers that were similar to the last souls, translucent and shifting, morphing. These outer layers stretched out in every direction growing gradually fainter off into infinity, out of sight. The layers didn''t feel like they were a part of the soul though, they felt like they were simply taped on, following the soul around. Like sheep following the unintentional shepherd. The core of the soul looked completely out of place in comparison. He got the feeling of density from the core and it was like trying to weigh something you couldn''t even budge. The other souls were like comparing a dense gas to a light gas. This was denser than lead and completely unmeasurable.


    The worst part of the whole thing though, were the convictions. As soon as the soul came into focus, Felix felt his soul cower. He didn''t really feel it, it was a part of the memory, the experience, but it translated well. It was like looking at death in the face, this standing before him was something out of reach, unattainable. He felt like there was no hope, there was nothing. It was just acceptance of the end. Everything was closing in and it was impossible to escape, it was impossible to stand against it, it was impossible to defeat. This soul was completely dominant in every regard, it seemed almost indomitable. As soon as the memory was over Felix leaned forwards catching himself with his hands on the grounds and he breathed. He felt like someone had taken his pre integration body into the depths of the ocean. He felt like he couldn''t breathe, like he had been strangled but was too distracted to notice. It had felt inescapable, but now he was free.


    "This is your soul. Hopefully the strangling sensation translated somewhat."


    Felix just gasped for air staring at the ground. He didn''t have lungs, didn''t even have a body in his soul garden, but the instinct remained and so he breathed in relief and breathed out the fear. His mental construct included a body and he felt the breath, even though it was his imagination or a complex dream, it helped calm him. The entire garden was slowly settling back down. As he watched the memory, experienced what Grim had, an obsidian fog had rolled in, closing in on the surroundings like an impenetrable wall. Now that he was free, it receded and the trees bloomed, restoring themselves from a necrotic husk. The grass regrew to what it was before and the water returned to it''s clean clear stillness instead of the solid black ice it was just a moment ago.


    "Yeah, sorry about that. I suspect it was likely worse for me too, memory sharing like that doesn''t translate perfectly, but looks like you got the idea. That''s why it took a while."


    "What¡­ the¡­ hell¡­"


    "Yeah¡­ I don''t know."


    "So that''s why The System couldn''t knock me out?"


    "Yeah, seems like it."


    "What does it mean?"


    "The hell am I supposed to know that?"


    "So¡­"


    "Well, you probably don''t need to worry about Nova''s curse."


    "Would it have been that bad if I hadn''t formed this conviction?"


    "You didn''t."


    "What do you mean?"


    "Didn''t you notice that there were multiple convictions there? Most sentient being''s souls are formed from the ambient anima collecting together into a soul. You end up with parts and pieces of souls from all kinds of different things. This results in past lives and their memories and sometimes reoccurring trauma from them."


    "So why did I form like this?"


    "That''s the only thing I know for sure. You didn''t"


    "What the hell does that mean?" Felix managed to recover himself enough at this point to sit back up.


    "That thing is not¡­ sorry, your soul is not natural. That didn''t form naturally."


    "So The System cr-"


    "Hell no. I''ve seen it do some crazy things, but there is no way."


    "So what?"


    "I have no idea."


    "Great. So what does it mean? What happens now?"


    "Great question¡­"


    "Should I not harvest souls then? Does my class even matter?"


    "Uhm¡­ You should still¡­ If your soul¡­ That ball, that''s the core soul. The untouchable part. If your stats were always maxed out instantly, I would say don''t bother. It seems more likely that your core soul was never a sentient being or ever had a body, so you still need to grow into your body. Get used to a body and handling it."


    "So stats still matter? What is any of that going to do though?"


    "It will probably build permanent outer layers, make them denser and more usable. We can look at growing your core soul later but it might not be possible."


    "What could have created something like¡­"


    "I thought about it, I got nothing. I''ve sensed, not directly seen, the souls of lots of things, god level things. This is just different. Your soul is smaller and weaker, but infinitely stronger at the same time. A god could step on you, crush your body with their ridiculous stats. Your soul would live on though¡­ Not that you could touch them either. You would be like an indestructible pebble smacking a giant in the face repeatedly. Even if you penetrated right through them, they would just heal it back. So it''s not like you''re a god or anything. Soul attacks, soul illusions, things like that¡­ You should never have to worry about them."


    "What did you mean about the conviction?"


    "It was already there. You just discovered it. I don''t think that was a traumatic enough event to create a conviction on that soul. You sensed more too, right? They just weren''t very clear? I suspect any others you come across will just be rediscovering convictions that were already there."


    "How do I find them then?"


    "Don''t do anything. Keep doing what you''re doing and you will find them. They''re a part of you and they will surface in things you do."


    "So what now?"


    "Let me just¡­ lie here for a bit."


    Felix decided to lie down too, in the soft grass and just stare up at the sky. They spent a few hours sitting there and enjoying the serenity. Felix felt himself completely calm down but he knew Grim was hit much harder by the experience so he waited until he was ready. It was just a few hours later when Grim sat up.


    "You ok?" Felix asked.


    "Yeah. I''ll be fine." . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 Chapter 118 - Book 22

    "So¡­ What now?" Felix asked after realizing he was getting bored, just sitting around in his soul garden.


    "What do you want to do?"


    "I guess¡­ I''m not sure. I''m kind of stuck without a body. I could try and expand my soul space I guess¡­"


    "Maybe wait till we''re back to do that, just in case."


    "Actually, should I learn soul attacks or something? Play to my strengths?"


    "No, they wouldn''t be affected. No one will ever permanently hurt you with one, but you won''t be able to launch some super weapon either. Your soul seems to be fully defensive, from what I can tell, it''s impenetrable and invincible. You can''t really use your core soul to attack though so a soul attack won''t be any more or less effective. Maybe a little more, but marginally. Same way you aren''t some stat behemoth, it''s the outer layers of your soul that dictate all of that stuff."


    "So soul attacks are out of the question?"


    "Yeah. Well, traditional soul attacks. I guess¡­ If you were to try and possess someone else''s soul? If they put you in their soul space¡­ you would completely dominate them, destroy their soul from the inside out. In fact, if you every managed to get your soul in direct contact with another soul, no bodies in the way¡­ I suspect their soul would just be obliterated. That sounds a lot easier than it is though, you would likely have to kill your target just to get their soul out of their body. Then you would need to pull your own soul out of your body, which is dangerous as hell. Overall, not worth it by any means. If you''re already killing them, you can probably handle their remnant yourself."


    "So, in a contest of wills, based on our soul?"


    "Yeah I guess, I couldn''t name you a situation like that though. No idea when that would ever come up. Again, it seems to be entirely defensive from what I can tell. Your soul is dominant in the sense that it''s unyielding. At least, that''s what it seems like."


    "I guess it''s nice to not have to worry about soul attacks then. Does that mean my soul will¡­ live forever?"


    "Sort of. Yes and no. Yes in the sense that it will exist as an entity pretty much forever. No in the sense that without a body, your soul will lose it''s memories and identity in a sense. If it ever did possess a different body in the future, it would carry with it all your convictions and part of your personality. None of your memories and what you interpret as your consciousness¡­ it wouldn''t persist with your soul. Not unless you did some weird soul alchemy, but even then¡­"


    "I see¡­"


    "You obtained that fighting skill with the intention of learning to fight. Do you want me to teach you?" Grim offered.


    "You know how to fight? You''re a book though."


    "Yeah, I''m also a vault of information and forbidden knowledge. One of those secrets that I store is a fighting style or martial art."


    "Why was it forbidden and when did we unlock the ability to talk about it?"


    "Well, it''s very lethal, designed entirely for the purpose of killing. Most other martial arts have some kind of defense or way of protecting from and redirecting strikes. Some others are considered violent, where instead of redirecting a strike, you break the enemies arm. This one is split into two sets. With one, you kill them. They strike, you kill them. You strike, you kill them. Everything is intended to be lethal and kill as efficiently as possible. It''s also designed to kill anything, your martial arts from earth are designed for humans against humans. This one is designed to make use of weird bodies, skills, spells, to kill weird bodies, animals and beasts."


    "What if it''s not possible to kill them?"


    "You''d be surprised how rare those situations are but in that case, you move so that you can kill them with your next move." S~ea??h the ¦ÇovelFire.¦Çet website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    "What about the other half?"


    "The other half is about getting to an enemy. It''s all about mobility. Being able to catch your target is just as important as killing them. The second also has steps to avoid attacks. The idea is that you need to avoid as many attacks as you can from range as you move in. Once you''re in kill range, you switch to the first half and take them out."


    "Not sure this is something I want to know. Who practiced this, back in your universe?"


    "There was a faction of assassins that ran rampant through my universe for a little while. They recruited billions of people but their trainee survival rate was a few hundred per billion. The faction had the recruits spar with each-other, which meant they just killed each-other endlessly. If there is an avenue to kill the enemy, the practitioners were taught to take it even if it meant being hit by an avoidable attack. Eventually, they had to be stopped. The knowledge of their martial art was then sealed away, in me."


    "So the people who created you were like a police force?"


    "Yeah¡­ Think of a team of super heroes from those comics you read in college. It was something like that. Then they have to store and seal away all the relics and items they come across."


    "So this martial art is some kind of super weapon?"


    "Your universe is old. There are probably, almost definitely, martial arts and fighting styles out there that are better than this one. It will be a good start though and should rival most of them, if you manage to master it. If you''re interested, you can see what rarity the system gives it, that should be a decent indication."


    "I''m not deluded into thinking I''ll ever be great at, let alone master it. I could take the time but realistically¡­"


    "It would take far too long to ever really be worth it."


    "Yeah, it would take too long. The second half sounds perfect though. Being mobile, acrobatic and generally able to move around a battle¡­ It''s really just parkour then? That, sounds worth the time. The first half¡­ I''d like to learn the basics of combat martial arts, just so I can survive and know what to expect in a fight."


    "Yeah, basically parkour. A little more tailored to stronger, more agile bodies but in essence. I can just show you the full set of steps and you can choose what to focus on. You interested then?"


    "I mean, it''s probably better than whatever the fighting skill would have taught me. Was this one just not sealed very tightly? Was it always available?"


    "Uh¡­ Don''t feel bad but, looking at your soul kind of did a number on me and ripped some of the weaker convictions loose. So, you accidentally unlocked some things a little earlier than intended."


    "Oh¡­ sorry¡­"


    "Not your fault, now we know. Just think of this as a silver lining. Also those convictions were imposed convictions, it''s not like you actually damaged my soul. It was more like a thorough shock. You shook some of the chains binding me, loose."


    "Ok so the martial art, what''s it called? Where do we start?"


    "Uh¡­ The faction was named after the god like being they worshipped, it resembled a serpent dragon with a dozen wings. My best attempt at a translation would be something like: ''The Dragon''s of Death.'' Their lethal martial art was something like: ''The Bloody Dragon Dance'' or ''Lethal Dragon Dance''? The mobility half was something like, ''Death Dragon''s Prowl''."


    "So in total, Dragon''s Dance of Death? Dance of the Death Dragon?"


    This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.


    "Sure, either are close enough."


    "Great, so I''m really sticking it to the dragons now, aren''t I? Learning a skill named after them?"


    "Yeah, guess so. You don''t have to tell anyone it''s name though."


    Grim guided Felix through, and demonstrated with his new projected body, the basic forms of the martial art. Just simple steps and motions to get Felix more attuned to the general motions and improve his balance. Felix felt like he was practicing yoga or tai chi. It was slow, and Grim observed and adjusted Felix as needed, based entirely on the record he had of the martial art. The best part of being in a constructed space that didn''t exist, was that Felix didn''t get sore or tired. The downside was that he was gradually growing accustomed to not having a body.


    If he practiced in here for years without ever leaving, his balance would be awful and his coordination would suffer. His body simply wouldn''t be able to keep up with his mind. On the other hand, if he simply exited and sparred for a few days a month or so, he should be able to learn much faster. Not that he was planning on studying in here for months, that was just the limit he and Grim had come up with that was almost definitely safe.


    Felix managed to get relatively comfortable with the first motions and initial movements Grim showed him so they slowly added more until Felix knew all of the basic forms. He even managed to commit them to memory, making the movements somewhat instinctual. As he completed one movement, the second simply came to him naturally, from the sheer amount of repetition.


    He spent what felt like a week in his soul garden with Grim before his soul was returned to his body. He didn''t even notice anything at first, but then he felt something nudging his arm, he looked down and saw nothing. It confused him for a few moments until he clued in. It was his real arm that was feeling something, not his soul garden projection.


    He immediately stopped practicing his forms and closed his eyes, letting his consciousness fall out of his soul garden. He was worried it might be difficult to find his body again as to him, it had been a while, but instead it was like falling into place. As soon as his consciousness had left the garden, it fell right back into his body, as if he had never left. He opened his eyes and immediately felt something off. He had blinked countless times in his life and opened his eyes many times, but never had he actually felt it before.


    If he had been asked before this moment, he would have said he knew what it felt like. Now, he knew that he had known nothing. He felt his eye lids unstick from each-other, the pressure of the lid raising over his eye balls, the contraction of the muscles and the folding and stretching of skin. With his eyes open, he felt a slight tingling in the back of his eyeballs as the nerves responded to the incoming light. He felt his pupils contract, his lenses focus, the signals being passed back from his eye balls back to his brain. He could feel, not quite the individual neurons firing, but a general tingling path as the image was processed in his brain. Before he possessed a body, now he experienced a body.


    He passed his attention over everything, and felt it all. Starting from his head, down to his toes there were new sensations and feelings everywhere. With the new sensations, came some level of control. He didn''t have to manually beat his heart, but he could if he wanted to. He could even stop it all together if he had the need to do so. Everything was accessible to him now, everything was now in control. He knew the control had come in part from the race and in part from his bond with Nova, but it was still more than he expected, likely because of just how unnatural it all was to him.


    He stood up, which was a weird sensation for so many reasons. Firstly, he felt his ears and brain working together to figure out where up was and adjusting minor things to keep him balanced. His stats and weight had also changed drastically alongside his body. He couldn''t be sure by how much, as his strength had changed, but passing through his cells, feeling them out, he could tell everything was denser than before. He doubled over, slightly overwhelmed by all the sensation and took his time to adjust, slowly getting used to everything and learning to tune most of it out, piece by piece.


    He managed to stand upright and taught himself to walk again, slowly at first, until he could make it up to a normal walking pace. Then, somewhat out of habit and somewhat to feel what it was really like, Felix moved himself through the motions of The Dragon''s Dance of Death. In his mind, his bodily projection moved exactly as he willed it, here his body had weight, was pulled by gravity. His muscles and skin stretched and his joints contorted. He tripped and fell, many times. Each and every time though, he stood back up and started again.


    Slowly, he grew accustomed to the feelings, the sensations and the effort required to move his body. It was like a new body, but it wasn''t. Instead it was like before his evolution, his mental commands and the sensations his body returned had been heavily filtered. Now he was feeling it all for the first time, moving his own body for the first time. He didn''t think The System had been filtering anything before though, it had just accelerated something he could have done for himself, further connecting him to his own body. It had simply unlocked the sensations and made the connection between his body and soul, stronger. He was now attached to it more thoroughly, in a more intricate and detailed way.


    He finished running through all of the basic forms successfully without tripping but, anyone watching would have been able to tell, it was an abysmal performance. He ran it through one more time, this time much more elegantly, but still evidently a novice. He knew what to do and when to do it, he knew where his limbs should be and when they should be there, he just had trouble matching his own body to the mental image. By the time he finished the second attempt, he was feeling much more comfortable in his own skin. He also finally noticed Nova, sitting off to the side of the room. Their form had not changed in the slightest, still a muscular black cat with comically big eyes making them likely the cutest cat on the planet, if they were actually a cat.


    [D - Cursed] Ravenous Matter Spirit (Lvl 104)


    Hey Nova, how was your evolution?


    Felix got back an extensive stream of thoughts that depicted Nova sleeping, then waking up in a different body, with a bigger soul and what felt like an empty belly. Nova looked around and saw Felix lying on the ground completely still. Nova nudged Felix, but he didn''t move. Nova waited and nudged him again every hour or so until finally he woke up. Nova watched as Felix tried to stand, tried to walk, then tried to dance. Though, Nova''s interpretation of his dance was comical at best, resembling a drunken clown. He was pretty sure that wasn''t actually what he looked like, but honestly he couldn''t be sure. Nova sent along with the stream of events a stream of emotions they had felt which was a complete rollercoaster.


    This is probably the first time it''s feeling emotions, complex ones at least. Sprites don''t exactly feel emotions other than fear and desire. Spirits, are a different story and experience emotions as complex as any sentient being''s.


    Huh, that sounds like a weird experience. Nova''s communication is definitely better now, will they ever be fully sentient?


    They kind of are but in terms of complex thought¡­ Could, depends on it''s evolutions. My bet is no because of the curse. If it manages to beat the curse, then maybe. With your soul too¡­ the odds aren''t quite as low as before. If it instead incorporates the curse into it''s soul, it will likely be closer to a smart dog or animal until the curse consumes it.


    Good to know, guess all we can do is wait and see. Speaking of waiting, how long was I out?


    Felix checked the clock screen and saw that about a day had passed, even though it had felt like much longer in his soul garden. Looking at his stats though, it likely had been much longer, roughly 6 days if the time dilation on his Soul Garden Skill was still accurate.


    Name:Felix KadeFREE1299Innate:Ascendant Prodigy: Mana (Wizard)STR2200Class:[D - Epic] Soul Harvester (Lvl 127)DEX3273Race:[D - Unique] Wanderer (Lvl 114)AGI2282Profession:[D - Arcane] Mana Engineer (Lvl 101)PER3103Health:22160/22160VIT2216Mana:513370/513370INT4667Energy:88560/88560END2214


    Holy shit, wait a second¡­


    Your amulet doesn''t work anymore.


    Oh, right. I was so used to seeing all my stats being the same number. The 1000 to each stat from the race evolution was huge though, I was so worried my stats would be abysmal without the amulet since I let them fall behind. All Free Points to Intelligence.


    At what point are you going to shore up the other stats? Like if Intelligence is 10 times strength, is strength too low?


    Good question, probably 4 or 5 times greater I think. Let''s go with 5. I''m hoping I don''t ever have to think about it, but we''ll see what happens. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 Chapter 119 - Book 23

    World Event


    Congratulations on being among the first 10,000 to hit D grade. You have been invited to the first ever World Event. You may refuse this invitation at any time, if you do not refuse the invitation, you will be considered as attending. At the time of the world event, you will be teleported to the event area.


    D Grade Evolution Log


    Your evolution is complete. A log of the changes is provided for convenience. Please read through to avoid future confusion as some skills and abilities may have been reallocated.


    Upgrading Race¡­


    Allocating Stats¡­


    Assigning Profession¡­


    Allocating Stats¡­


    Assigning Class¡­


    Allocating Buffered Levels¡­


    Allocating Stats¡­


    All Racial Traits 100% compatibility.


    Successfully transferred.


    All Skills 100% compatibility.


    Successfully transferred.


    New Class Skills Granted.


    New skills?


    Felix opened his class skills screen and pulled up the new skills. The first one, was expected, though Felix wasn''t sure what form it would come in.


    Class: [Soul Harvest (Epic - Novice I) Upon slaying an enemy with a soul, you may harvest their soul, placing it in your soul space for processing. The soul will then be processed for a period of time that varies based on your soul''s strength. You may currently hold (1.2) souls in your soul space for processing, based on it''s size. Once processed, a portion of their soul is integrated into your own granting you a portion of their stats. The gained stats are dependent on the strength of the defeated soul and your processing efficiency.]


    The second skill was something unexpected, but definitely welcome. He had many skill slots he wasn''t using so, a skill with a high rarity that was also useful was always a welcome addition to his skill set.


    Class: [Predator''s Stealth (Epic - Novice I) This skill aids the user in moving without triggering the attention of any onlookers. It will silence sounds, mask visibility naturally and dampen smells. This skill is heavily dependent on and scales with both your own stealth and your perception and dexterity. If you are already stealthy, this skill will make you that much more stealthy. This skill will not make you stealthy if you are bad at stealth. This skill will not make you undetectable, with a high enough perception, this skill will be surpassed.]


    A few moments into reading the second skill, Felix was interrupted.


    Ding You have demonstrated sufficient proficiency to unlock the Class Skill: [Dragon''s Dance of Death (Special - Novice I) A martial art designed with the explicit intent of being as lethal as possible. This fighting style was developed by an ancient faction of assassins from another universe. This skill will track your proficiency with the skill and will increase the effectiveness of your strikes and movements in accordance with your proficiency.] Note that this skill conflicts with the general skill: Combat (Rare). Would you like to exchange the conflicting skill with this one?


    Yes. How did it know all that? Is it reading my mind?


    Yes, almost definitely, but¡­ in this case, I told it. It asked so it could make a skill.


    You talk to it?


    Sometimes, sorta?


    Grim, what''s with the Novice I thing? I can guess what it means and does, but does it carry over to the next grade? Why didn''t it exist in E grade? Is it only specific skills?


    Check your other skills.


    Oh, good point.


    Felix quickly glanced through all of his skills and noticed that they all now had a proficiency, consisting of a tier and number, at varying stages.


    Skill List


    [General] (4/5)


    Memory Palace (Special - Initiate IV)


    Soul Garden Meditation (Epic - Initiate XXI)


    Scan Literature (Epic - Initiate XVI)


    Core Energy Infusion (Rare - Novice XVIII)


    [Class] (5/5)


    Bond Familiar (Uncommon - Novice IX)


    Mana Sight (Uncommon - Novice IV)


    Dragon''s Dance of Death (Epic - Novice I)


    Predator''s Stealth (Epic - Novice I)


    Soul Harvest (Epic - Novice I)


    [Profession] (2/5)


    Tongues (Rare - Novice III)


    Crafter''s Intuition (Rare - Novice II)


    You mind posting a question to find out the entire ladder?


    Already did.


    I''m kind of surprised Mana Sight and Familiar carried over. I thought of those as Caster type skills.


    I don''t think your class falls into any particular archetype. Actually, for all we know it could be a Caster type class.


    I guess.


    That was fast.


    Got an answer already?


    Yeah. Skills have Rarities, as you know, as well as proficiency or tier. Those, in order, are: Novice, Initiate, Apprentice, Journeyman, Proficient, Adept, Skilled, Expert, Master, Grand Master, Sage, Arch Sage.


    Holy shit that''s a lot of tiers.


    Within each tier is the level or grade which goes from I to XXV.


    Aaaaand that''s more than double the amount.


    It''s not as bad as it sounds though, it''s not quite 300 levels to max them out. Each stage has 25 levels, but you don''t need to get to 25 to increase the tier, most often you don''t get all the way there. Basically, in the E grade, skills are filler and meant to allow the user to figure out what they want to do. Most people don''t stick with those skills for very long. Once you''re in the D grade though, which is really long, you have to start thinking about which skills you want and how you want your build to look.


    That''s why they didn''t have a proficiency in the E grade?


    Exactly. As you use skills and get better with them, the level will go up. Depending on how you use the skill it may take more or less levels to increase the tier. For example, take Combat. If you had trained with it for a long time, it would take a while to increase in tier because it''s so diverse. If you used the skill to specialize in swords, it would increase in tier and evolve into a sword skill, keeping some of the levels. Specializing into swords would mean you only needed to get to level 10-15 or so.


    You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.


    The more diverse and complicated the skill, the more levels it takes to improve it?


    Yeah. Also how hard it is to do. How long would it take, how complicated is it outside of System intervention. Becoming a Master level in Combat, which includes just about every weapon and fighting style ever¡­


    Would be SUPER complicated.


    And time consuming.


    But you could just take Combat all the way to Arch Sage?


    You could, but there is one Arch Sage per skill. To get there, you need to be the best at everything to do with the skill, so you would have to be the best at everything that has to do with combat.


    Which is essentially impossible.


    Yeah. The other option is to expand the capabilities of a skill. If you push a skill to do something it normally doesn''t do, it can gain that as a property when it increases in tier. You can also combine skills, which will often lose tiers but open up more skill slots. Supposedly, skills are also super important. If you had weak skills, you could totally lose to someone a tier below you with high rarity, highly leveled skills.


    Wait, skills can evolve and change that much?


    Yeah. I suspect when you expand your soul space to be big enough to contain the garden, the skill will change. If you used it as a prison, it would probably evolve in that direction.


    Huh, I thought I would have to find new skills or drop mine in favor of other skills to change or expand their functions. This makes things a lot more interesting.


    Yeah, you should probably think through what skills you want or what you want your skills to be able to do. Just give yourself a general idea that you can work towards. It''s not impossible to change it up later, but it will be a bigger investment and more of a set back the longer you wait.


    I''m pretty happy with everything I have so far. I do need better skills for my profession though. Those are mostly place holders for now. Any ideas for those?


    Probably going to have to find a list of skills, like a book or something. Then we can go through it and get an idea of what exists.


    Yeah, that''s not gonna happen for a while I bet.


    Probably at that school, Eramith, if we ever get there.


    Sounds good. I''ll add it to the ever growing to-do list.


    What''s on it right now?


    In priority order, get used to my body so I don''t trip and kill myself in a fight, open the kraken box thing, start gaining stats by working out or modifying my body, modify body to have mana channels, practice the Dragon''s Dance of Death, learn manual soul harvesting and tailor the skill to me, expand soul space, figure out some sort of mage armor.


    That all?


    Well, there are a bunch of other things but they''re minor, like the staff and following up with Martin about planes. Also not entirely essential, if I never got around to them, I''d be okay with that. Some of those I''ll have to wait for the next world council anyways.


    What about that trinket? It was supposed to grow with you? Did it evolve alongside you?


    Oh shit, I''ll check.


    [D - Legendary] Charm of the Soul Harvester


    [Charm][Soul Bound]


    This charm is made to absorb souls from creatures when they are killed. It will absorb a portion equal to your overall contribution towards the kill. This charm will contain and preserve the souls so they can be later retrieved. This charm may hold up to 100 souls at a time.


    Current Souls:


    Colossal Mountain Turtle (100%) S~ea??h the nov§×lF~ire.net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    Griffin (100%)


    Royal Elk (100%)


    Desert Worm (100%)


    Alpha Yeti (100%)


    Giant Gator: King of the Swamp (100%)


    Tropical Roc (100%)


    Stone Giant (100%)


    Great Sea Serpent (100%)


    Kraken: Emperor of the Sea (100%)


    I guess it''s fine. I was hoping for more from a legendary charm.


    It''s awesome. It let''s you hold out on expanding your soul space, and holding souls is kind of ridiculous in it''s own right.


    Really?


    Yeah, for most people, storing souls in their soul space would put them at a constant risk of being possessed. If you ever stored too many, if their combined strength was more than your soul''s, they could mutiny, take over.


    That''s fine, but that won''t ever be an issue for me, will it?


    Nope.


    I guess that''s good in it''s own right.


    It''s not Legendary level, for you. For most people I suspect it would be. It also fits your class perfectly. It''s also not trivial to expand most people''s soul space.


    Yeah, it makes the class easier to use, for most people.


    Makes it possible to use, for most people. Opening your soul space is typically something you do way later on in life anyways. Having it big enough to store multiple souls, at your grade, I suspect that is extraordinarily rare.


    So this class would be impossible to use for most people?


    They wouldn''t even qualify to have it offered, and by most I mean the vast majority.


    So this class isn''t a filtering mechanism, it''s more of a test?


    Little of both, there are also a ridiculous number of people in an entire multiverse, especially one that''s existed as long as this one. It''s possible for someone else to open your soul space for you too.


    How?


    Usually powerful parents force open their child''s soul space. It hurts their soul, but not permanently. It also allows the child to carry around treasures and valuable items without risking them getting stolen.


    Can''t you just use your inventory?


    I''d be willing to bet there are skills to steal from other people''s inventory.


    I suddenly have the urge to move everything into my soul space.


    It doesn''t preserve things the same way, so maybe leave the cooked Parroukan behind.


    The first thing Felix did was to continue practicing the basic steps of the Dragon''s Dance. He wanted to open his kraken box, but he was slightly worried about having issues when he put it on and movement was still a little uncomfortable for him. He also realized, thinking about the kraken box, that his other equipment was likely failing like the amulet had. After thinking about it for a few seconds, he stripped naked and continued practicing the steps. It was much more comfortable not having to feel the exact texture, slight pressure, temperature difference and friction of the clothing on his skin at all times. He also didn''t care if Nova or Grim saw him naked, neither were even animals, let alone humans.


    Felix spent half a day practicing the steps and slowly getting much better at it. His muscles would get sore pretty quickly, but with some energy and conscious effort, he was able to quickly repair them and the soreness vanished. He could theoretically continue endlessly as his energy was being restored by mana but he eventually stopped when he felt more comfortable with his body.


    He had mostly tuned out the feeling of his heart tensing, blood flowing, lungs contracting, cells dividing and was about halfway towards usable senses. Then, he started to really put his comfort to the test. He dropped to the floor and rolled around on the stone, taking it the feeling of the cold hard stone along with his joints forcibly moving and skin scraping. He then proceeded to inflict minor wounds, both testing the durability of his skin and body as well as his tolerance to pain. He started with a dagger, poking the surface of his arm and it took a lot more force than he expected to cause damage. As he pushed the dagger, the pain gradually increased until it suddenly spiked when the dagger finally pierced his skin.


    The pain was as he expected, a fiery sensation that jolted through his body from his arm. It was immense but it was also more refined. He expected the particular pain sensation he was used to where his body told him to stop, back away and avoid that thing again. That familiar sensation was there, but now it was intricate. Alongside the pain, he also felt the cells being torn apart, some dying, some being split. He felt his immune system and cells immediately react and jump on the wound to mitigate the local disaster. He felt every little reaction throughout his body and he felt like he understood pain so much better than he had before.


    It was intricate and in depth to the point where the pain was entirely bearable simply due to the distraction of all the information that flooded him. He also found that he could simply turn off the pain sensation if he wanted, but he figured that would be dangerous so he simply tuned it down to half or so. The rest of the sensations he left. Pulling the dagger back, he took control of his body and recklessly spent energy to seal the wound right in front of his eyes. He paid attention and accelerated the process until there was no sign of the wound at all. It had taken a lot of energy to do so, but if he practiced, it could save his life at some point. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 Chapter 120 - Book 24

    At this point Felix felt more or less comfortable with all the sensations he felt. The sensations were still a little raw, like a layer of dead skin had been peeled back, but he was most of the way back to normal. He figured he would get the rest of the way there gradually as he simply went on with his life. With that done, he was ready to move on to looking through his old gear, which was rather disappointing overall. His Amulet, he already knew was useless so he saved it as a gift for someone. The energy wraps also seemed useless, he could still activate them, but they seemed unstable when he did so and they were not impenetrable anymore.


    The Traveler''s shirt and pants still offered a little protection, but they no longer increased his movement speed. His cloak looked fine, but also didn''t seem to have any effect whatsoever. He could feel the cold around him, though it didn''t bother him in the slightest with his much higher natural endurance. The earrings still seemed to work just fine but he suspected that depended more on the target and less on the wielder. His Diving Ring and Amphibians Belt didn''t seem to work either, gaining a note on them when he identified them that they would provide no magical effects.


    That''s sad. I was hoping they would last even just a little bit longer.


    Yeah, but now you have new gear.


    Yeah, that''s true.


    Felix pulled the intricately carved wooden chest out of his inventory and placed it on the ground. It was just as heavy as it had been the last time he pulled it out.


    Hey Grim, my stats are wrong, aren''t they?


    What do you mean?


    My strength should be lower, shouldn''t it?


    Your energy buff seems to be affecting everything at all times right now.


    Felix turned the skill off to verify and for some reason, it had defaulted to buffing everything. He also noticed that the maximum buff had increased slightly to 85% either due to bodily efficiency, core density or both. He turned the buff back on for everything, as he saw no reason why he shouldn''t and upped the effect to the maximum across the board for now.


    With that done, he bent down and simply touched the metal plate that sealed the chest, where a lock would be, but had no keyhole.


    [D - Epic] Kraken Gear Set (Caster)


    You have met all the prerequisite conditions to obtain the Kraken Gear Set (Caster).


    Would you like to open the chest?


    Yes.


    No.


    Yes.


    The metal plate made a slight popping noise that reverberated a couple times. Felix lifted the top of the chest and peered inside finding a pile of fabric that was mostly black and incredibly soft. He pulled the pieces out one by one.


    [D - Epic] Robes of the Kraken Slayer


    These robes are made from Kraken leather treated to be thin and flexible like fabric but still retain the defensive and regenerative capabilities of the Kraken. They provide excellent defense without any hinderance on movement whatsoever. Given time, mana or energy, the robes can completely regenerate themselves from even the smallest scrap.


    Felix ran the leather that really just seemed like fabric, through his fingers and found it was incredibly soft like a fine cotton even though it was thick and durable. Felix also found a shirt, pants, boots and gloves. They were all made of the same material, simply treated differently. The boots were harder and easily just as comfortable as his Traveler''s boots that he had loved so much. The gloves fit tightly onto his hands and either through magic or expert craftsmanship, didn''t seem to hinder his dexterity or sense of touch at all.


    All together, the set made Felix look a little bit like an assassin with the entire thing being black with some small hints of grey and purple peeking out here and there. The shirt and pants fit rather tightly but in a very comfortable way. The robes wrapped tightly around his body and had little in the way of excess fabric, mostly providing extra defense across his whole body. He had expected the robes to be loose and open, these were still loose, but wrapped tightly around his body so when equipped, they didn''t dangle or hang and were definitely not open. Felix felt like the only thing missing was something to wear on his head, and a cloak if he could fit it on-top. He figured he would have to find or craft those himself.


    For now though, this seemed like a massive upgrade to him. He spent a little bit of time testing the durability and protection and found he couldn''t cut through the material with anything he had on hand. Even a fair bit of blunt force was dampened to the point of being negligible. The best part, to Felix, was that it was completely unenchanted. He could enchant them all however he pleased without worrying about interfering or ruining any existing enchantments. The only minor setback was that he had no idea how to enchant fabric, or leather, but he was pretty sure he could figure it out. Walking around and testing the clothes he found that, though he could feel the material all over his skin, it wasn''t uncomfortable in the slightest. He quickly performed the basic steps for his martial art and found it as comfortable as he had been when performing them naked.


    He picked up his Cloak of the Explorer and put it on just so that he could feel like the outfit was complete. The shadowy black cloak draped over his body, half way down his thighs with no sleeves, simply fabric hanging down on either side covering most of his arms if they were at his side. The cloak was entirely aesthetic, but it also made him more recognizable now that his entire look had changed. The last thing he tried was the mask, unfortunately, it had also gained a note when he inspected it that it wouldn''t function at all.


    The next thing Felix had to do was find a way to enchant his new gear. He had enchanted the boots he wore before this so he could channel mana into them and fly. He wanted to do the same thing to these as well as adding his previous Mana Shield inscriptions on the front and back.


    Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.


    Any ideas on enchanting fabric?


    You can draw onto it, but that only lasts a few days on fabric instead of a few years on plate. Just sew the enchantment into the fabric, that''s what most people do.


    Sew it in? So I need to find some mana conductive thread?


    Actually¡­ You could probably use one of the most mana conductive material in existence.


    What''s that?


    Mana. You could probably create solid mana with enough flexibility that it matched fabric then just fuse it into the material.


    Really? Would that work?


    That''s more or less how enchanting with a quill works, but quills have the annoying property of not fully penetrating materials.


    Can I just put mana into a material?


    You probably have to solidify it within the material, but it should be possible¡­ I think.


    Worth a shot at least. My quill is E grade so it probably wouldn''t have worked anyways.


    Yeah, the enchantment probably would have just fallen apart or not stuck to the material at all.


    How do you know so much about enchanting?


    It works exactly the same way in my universe, or did.


    Huh. What about spell casting, is it the same?


    In my universe, people cast like you do.


    Really?


    Well, more similarly to what you do. Usually it takes a lot longer and very complex spells are completely out of the picture. With those, you simple inscribe them into a plate or something and cast that. Mana weaving, what we called what you do, tends to also be less stable. Your casting is very controlled and stable though. Remember when I first learned your language and told you to cast an overly complex light show?


    Oh yeah. I thought it might have been summoning a demon, but it was only light nodes so I hoped it was safe enough.


    Yeah, the ridiculous part was that you just did it. Most people from my universe would either take forever and have it be completely unstable or pull out a plate or scroll to inscribe it. You cast it and the lights all appeared in the perfect order.


    So it was a test?


    Kind of, it was me trying to figure out what the hell was happening and if you were lying about opening the cube and not knowing what I was.


    I see. Back to enchanting though, what else should I enchant into the outfit? I should probably design the enchantment ahead of time.


    Why? You should be able to remove it at will and even if it permanently affects the material, you can just cut it out and regenerate it. Then just try again.


    Wait holy shit, you''re right. That''s sweet.


    Yeah, materials with memory, regenerating materials, are great.


    I guess that means if it gets damaged, I have to re-enchant it then?


    Yeah but you probably aren''t regenerating damaged armor mid battle anyways.


    Why not?


    Mana cost. Even for you, it would probably be a waste.


    Felix spent a few hours replacing the basic spells he had previously used into his new garments. His boots had the flying and jumping spells inscribed into their soles for travel and dodging in combat. His chest and back had mana shields inscribed in them for quick defense if he needed them. Finally, he inscribed force blasts into his hands more to help with balance when flying and maybe even push an enemy back if they got too close. He mentally noted all of the other enchantments he wanted to add later including enchantments to deflect and absorb blows as well as maybe even some to increase the mobility of his new martial art. He wasn''t completely sure what he wanted, and he wasn''t very proficient yet with the Dragon Dance though so, he just made a note for when he enchanted the outfit later.


    After that, he pulled out something he hadn''t touched since he had acquired it a long time ago, the [E - Special] Major Restrictive Equipment. Theoretically, if Felix disabled his energy buff, he had 1257 strength or so leaving him a lot of room to use the equipment considering it maxed out at 2500 strength. With his energy buff, he would only get a hundred and a bit strength out of the equipment and using it close to it''s limit might risk damaging it in some way. He was worried it might not work now that he was D grade, but it seemed like the grade was more about the materials and strength cap than anything else. He didn''t even notice any enchantments that would suddenly fail so he felt comfortable simply using it.


    Felix put the entire thing on his body piece by piece, which took a long time considering how many pieces there were. Almost 20 minutes later he adjusted the resistance to match his unbuffed strength and then increased it a little more to push himself. He made sure to eliminate all energy in his system so he could increase his strength and hopefully his body''s efficiency at the same time.


    He spent about an hour with the restrictive equipment, slowly increasing the resistance and manually forcing his muscles to repair as quickly as possible. He used energy for repairing the muscles but made sure, with his new found manual control over his body, that it did not get used for strength at all. Over the course of the hour he spent, he gained +4 STR, +1 DEX, +3 AGI, +2 VIT and +4 END.


    Not bad for an hour of work.


    Not a bad start.


    What do you mean?


    The lich race was the best one, other than dragon, and got 100 free points per level. Your race gives 80 total per level. If you do that same thing for an hour every day, you gain 14 stats. Assuming you level at about a level a day, on average over time, you will still be behind 6 stats per level excluding the 2,857 per stat you lost out on at the start. That''s also assuming this rate continues. If I had to guess, it''s probably gonna slow down soon.


    I''ll also have soul harvesting and that should be faster, right?


    That''s mostly to make up for your class. It would be great if that gave more stats than a good class would have, but that doesn''t justify the race. You need to do more with it than just this. As for the rate of leveling, this is just an example. It could be accurate now but apparently it''s exponentially slower at the higher levels, so you''ll have more time then. The issue, is getting there. If your stats fall too far behind, you won''t be able to keep up at all.


    Got any suggestions?


    Find creatures that you can use as templates and examples for each stat then try and replicate their body.


    I assume you mean incorporate the cell structure or something and not turn myself into a chimera?


    Exactly.


    The biggest issue then is still Intelligence. No matter what I do, I don''t know how I''m going to make up for that stat.


    I don''t think it''s as hard as you''re expecting. Your brain is vastly different from the rest of your body, but it''s not some foreign entity. It''s not made of some different material, it''s still cells more or less. There are creatures out there with high intelligence that you can examine as well.


    How do I examine the cellular structure of a creature? I don''t exactly have a microscope.


    You do though.


    What do you mean?


    Think about your familiar. It does essentially what you''re talking about but on an even smaller scale. S§×arch* The n??el Fire.n§×t website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    My soul space?


    You clearly need to experiment with your soul space more, but you can do a lot of things you can''t normally do in a soul space. That''s why it''s one of the most important upgrades you can make. You are kind of like a god within your own soul space. You control the space and can do weird things within it.


    Huh, guess I really need to expand my soul space then. Definitely moving that one up on the priority list.


    What''s up next on the list?


    Figure out the body modification thing, but I guess that relies on hunting down creatures. Guess I can spend some time expanding my soul space, that seems like the most useful thing I can do right now. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 Chapter 121 - Book 25

    Felix sat down and meditated, but didn''t enter his soul garden. Instead, he collected as much mana as he could and began forcing it into his soul space. It expanded quickly without issue, but Felix wasn''t happy with how slow and manual the process was as a whole so he began testing some things. The first thing he tested was pulling out a mana battery and placing it in his soul space, then reverting it to a gas. That was faster, but relied on how quickly he could produce batteries, which wasn''t very fast in the long run.


    What he really wanted, was to funnel excess mana regen into his soul space automatically. The biggest issue with that was that it needed a valve of some sort and he needed to have a tube running into his soul space, which he didn''t think was possible. If it were, he could also theoretically move his mana and energy cores into his soul space, though he wasn''t sure if there were any advantages to that. It would require further investigation in the future. For the purposes of expanding it though, he gave up on the entire concept for now after a few simple tests. The next best thing he could do was reach for the biggest source of mana he had ling around, the mana engine on the roof. All he had to do was funnel the mana from the mana engine into his soul space. It had a ridiculous amount of mana in it right now, somewhere in the neighborhood of a hundred million mana currently.


    He ascended to the roof and sat below the mana engine, right at the center where the mana was densest. He used his mana control to tap into the mana and began pulling it out of the engine and pushing it into his soul space. The basic idea, as Grim had explained it, was that the soul space was like a balloon at the time being. It couldn''t just be empty. Luckily mana, in it''s gaseous state, was naturally offset in the fourth dimension from most everything else. That meant he could use mana to expand it, then simply place things inside without displacing the mana. He could just force bodies and souls in there as well, but that would cause them all to be squeezed together which was a great way to compost, not to preserve. Once it sat at a certain size for a little while, it would relax and become semi permanent, but Grim said it would likely be a while for that. In the meantime, he forced mana into his soul space and it slowly expanded.


    It took him a half dozen hours to drain all the mana in the engine but it netted him a soul space that was a sphere about 70 meters in diameter. It seemed like a lot of space, but if he wanted to store all of the souls and corpses he created, he would quickly run out of space. There was about 175,000 cubic meters, but a soul seemed to be about one cubic meter and a corpse could take hundreds, if they were really big. He could easily fill the space in a week or so. In the meantime, it would work perfectly for his use case. He wanted to try out the whole god like ability and zoom capabilities but he didn''t have a corpse that was worth examining so he didn''t bother for now.


    Instead he looked at the time and saw that it was exactly midnight, so he decided to run through an hour of workout with the restrictive equipment and an hour of the Dragon Dance. His plan was to repeat one hour of each every day at midnight, if possible. He wasn''t hard set on the time, if he needed to push it because he was busy then so be it. If he had to skip a day, he would do two the next day. Luckily, his rapid muscle regeneration meant he didn''t have to worry about exhaustion or recovery. He could theoretically just continue practicing without stopping for the next four months until the world council meeting.


    His plan for the rest of the day was to learn how to manually soul harvest with Grim so he headed out, with a restless Nova in his arms, and flew into the jungle. Nova''s restlessness had only grown over the past few days. They napped and processed the bodies in their soul space, but they woke up every hour or so to see if Felix was ready to do something. Felix figured that was likely the curse making them hungry and Grim said it would come as hunger for not just food, but also anything Nova desired. In this case, he figured they hungered to fight or maybe just hungered to do something other than nap.


    They flew into the jungle together as Felix carried them deeper than either of them had ever been. They finally descended into a portion of the jungle where the trees were much larger than the trees in the jungle near the volcano to the north west, where the panthers had been. As soon as they set down, Nova bolted off into the jungle. Felix ventured inwards himself in the opposite direction. He pulled out his staff and carried it in his hand just in case as he walked through the trees.


    This area of the jungle was much more open, where the other areas he had been were cramped. The trees here were easily twice as tall and spread out much further from each-other leaving plenty of room between them to move. Felix didn''t even have to cut through any vines or vault over roots of any kind, the jungle floor was mostly flat, at least in comparison. This area of the jungle was also oddly empty and void of non-plant life as Felix hadn''t encountered anything but trees, moss and the odd flower or bush up to this point.


    So Grim, how do I manually soul harvest?


    It might be best if you use the skill a few times to get a feel for it, but I''ll give you the run down. The first thing to do is when a creature dies, within 10 seconds or so, place your hand on their corpse and reach out. You remember how you opened your soul sight to see my soul and before I saw yours?


    Yeah. Why did you make me look out before you saw mine?


    To make sure the system wasn''t being lazy and using the pocket universe for multiple souls. If you saw a bunch of other souls here as well, it would have been too risky to pull me out.


    Ah, makes sense.


    You need to sense the soul within their body, which is normally very difficult. You can sometimes see something along the lines of the outer most layer of a soul when it''s attached to a body, but nothing more. This is, again, why no one reacts to your soul as you walk around. It''s almost entirely contained in your body.


    So this is why it didn''t affect me before the integration and mana?


    It would have made you marginally more persuasive if you really believed in or were very passionate about something, but that''s about it. Also it would have been negligible without you knowing how to control your aura.


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    Aura?


    Yeah, it''s just a slight manipulation of the ambient anima around you. Sort of. We can talk about it more some other time.


    Gotcha.


    Back to soul harvesting, when a creature dies, their soul leaves their body, then slowly dissipates in most cases. When this happens, the containment the body provided completely deteriorates as the soul detaches itself from the body. Your goal is to pull the soul into your soul space as quickly as possible after the creature dies. Too late and it will dissipate and too early and you either won''t sense the soul or you might rip it apart if it''s still a little stuck to the body..


    So I can just place my hand on them right away and wait?


    Yeah, you totally can. It''s going to be a little hard considering you fight mostly at range. Luckily, the time it takes for a soul to leave the body and the time a bare soul takes to dissipate gets longer the stronger the creature. I suspect around the middle of the C grade you will start to have remnants which are basically souls that are strong enough to not dissipate at all.


    So like ghosts?


    Yeah, kind of. In the middle of C grade or whenever they start appearing, they won''t be able to think, just act on desires, base emotions and convictions. They might attack the person that killed them because the soul remembers the experience. Later on, they can be fully functioning sentient beings. That usually requires many convictions though and a lot of soul cultivation. It''s not something that all creatures will create. Also most remnants do dissipate eventually, it just takes a lot longer.


    Couldn''t they just find a new body at that point?


    Yeah¡­ kinda? Your soul''s connection to your body is complex. Making a new body entirely is a massive pain in the arse and not possible for the vast majority of people, even gods.


    Really?


    It''s one of the most complicated processes that exists. There are certain spell formations that can do it. Typically you need to inscribe them ahead of time. Then you can possess the body, but you won''t be able to control it for a while. You need the body to accept your soul and for it''s affinity to grow. It may take millennia to be able to swing a sword. To get back to god levels of strength, it would take a ridiculous sum of time where you are essentially just asleep. Then you would have to level from scratch more or less as your soul knows all these techniques but your body isn''t used to them. Your soul might command the body to do something, but the brain is wired slightly differently, the joints are slightly different and they completely miss.


    Isn''t that basically a lich?


    Yeah, a no phylactery lich. That''s why they are usually spell casters, they can inscribe a soul to body connection and they don''t care as much about moving their limbs.


    What about the lich class? It said I could possess bodies, wouldn''t that take forever?


    It''s not too difficult to transfer a soul to body bond, it is very difficult to create a new one. If you die, and that bond is destroyed, you''re kind of stuck for a while.


    You could come back though?


    Yeah, but if someone wants to keep you dead, it''s not too difficult. At that point, they just launch a soul attack on you or implant a curse or even something worse. Then your soul is basically guaranteed to just fall apart.


    Got it, so if I need to keep someone down permanently, implant the soul with a curse? Sear?h the N?vel(F)ire.¦Çet website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    Or harvest it, yeah. You won''t have to worry about that for a long time though. Like A to S or higher.


    Higher?


    Above that are gods and the Divine levels, remember?


    Right. So for now, find a creature and try to sense it''s soul leaving it''s body as it dies?


    Yeah, it will probably take a little while to figure it out. Don''t worry about wasting a few souls.


    Will my soul''s peculiarities make it easier?


    Probably not, it could make the next step after this one ridiculously easy though. Get one into your soul space and we''ll see.


    Felix crouched down and began stalking through the jungle, doing his best to make use of his new skill which would work most effectively, when he was already being stealthy. He was pretty sure he was awful at it, but he figured he would practice and hoped he would eventually be half decent. He knew he would need to seek out instruction at some point, he just didn''t think now was the best time because he had more important things to do.


    He continued to prowl through the jungle until his eyes caught the sight of a large creature that appeared to be the cross between a bird, bat and a bear. It had four legs with leathery wings sprouting out of the front ones, it''s body otherwise covered in a dark green fur. It was facing away from Felix, it''s tail loosely hanging down from the branch it was perched upon.


    [E - Common] Beaked-Bat-Bear (Lvl 152)


    Felix continued to sneak up on the creature, rather proud of how effective his stealth was as he managed to get within a few meters of the tree holding his prey. Suddenly, Felix was shoved forwards and into the ground. A heavy weight pressed claws into his back and held him down, face in the dirt. He immediately cast a hasty force blast outwards from his back to free himself then shoved mana into the spells inscribed into his boots to gain even more distance.


    He ended up launching himself towards the Beaked-Bat-Bear he had been hunting so he quickly rolled across the ground once then stood and dodged as it tried to bite him. He managed to jump back a few times finally gaining enough distance to get a full picture of the fight he had gotten himself into. He realized that he hadn''t been hunting the Beaked-Bat-Bear at all, it had laid a trap for him. It had two others of it''s kind hiding in the tree tops nearby ready to ambush anyone that took the bait and tried to sneak up on their oblivious seeming friend.


    Felix could feel slight bruising on his back, but his armor had completely prevented the claws from penetrating. He would be sore, but sported no open wounds just yet. He thought about practicing real combat with the creatures, but he was a little annoyed they had ambushed him and that his stealth was not as effective as he had thought. He also only needed to test soul harvesting so he quickly spun up three lightning bolts, 5 times bigger in every dimension, about 25 times the spell effect for about 125 times the mana. The two closet to him lunged forwards and the one in front stalked forwards but they were all struck and instantly died before their legs left the ground.


    Ding You have slain 3 [D - Common] Beaked-Bat-Bear (Lvl 152)


    Ding You have gained a level in [D - Epic] Soul Harvester


    Felix quickly turned to his right and lunged forwards placing his hand on the still sizzling corpse closest to him. He looked inwards towards his own soul before expanding his soul senses out as quickly as he could. He wasn''t sure if he was too hasty in extending his soul sight but he didn''t feel anything. Everything outside of his soul was like a mess. It reminded him of the ambient mana, where the anima bunched together and moved around all over the place with no apparent direction or reason. He waited 10 minutes before giving up on these and continuing through the forest to find more test subjects. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 Chapter 122 - Book 26

    Now that he knew the ambush tactics of the Beaked-Bat-Bears, his identify skill had aptly named, he wasn''t fooled again. After the first attempt, he didn''t even bother with his stealth skill anymore and just blasted through the enemies so he could keep trying to detect their souls. It took him 50 or so kills before he thought he felt something, another 10 to be sure and another 40 to be able to see it leaving the corpse. The next kill, he tried to grab hold of the soul and thought he managed to move it a little, but it didn''t exactly move the way he expected it to so he wasn''t sure. The next one he managed to pull on and he felt himself affecting it, but he couldn''t seem to freely move it.


    Any tips? Felix, frustrated, hoped Grim had a trick or something to help.


    Yeah, but I''m not gonna tell you because it''ll be a waste of time. Most people use a trick, and do it in a different way, you aren''t most people though. You need to figure out how to do this without the trick. I''ll tell you what it is after you get a few of them.


    I see. I guess I do want to get it this way, I feel like I''m so close already.


    On the next kill, Felix managed to move the soul and even touch it, but he couldn''t quite pull it into his soul space. He did manage to pull the next two in though. It had taken a hundred and five kills of various jungle creatures all at around the same level as the last ones which had netted him another 7 class levels.


    That enough?


    Should be. Probably don''t want to turn off your senses to dive into your soul space right here though.


    Will it take that long?.


    It shouldn''t but, do you really want to risk it?


    No¡­ I shouldn''t.


    Felix looked around at the jungle surrounding him, trying to find a relatively safe place for him to, essentially, turn off his awareness of his surroundings. The best he managed to come up with was flying up to the highest branch that would support him of a nearby tree. He didn''t think it was perfectly safe, but he also didn''t want to fly all the way back to his tower so he hoped this would be good enough. Once he had settled in, he began meditating and entered his soul garden finding Grim sitting atop a rock just over the water''s surface.


    So what now?


    First, you need to not be here.


    Yeah, but how do I get into my soul space?


    You don''t. If your body went there literally, your soul would¡­ Actually it might be possible, but let''s not worry about that now. I said you need to not be here, but I just meant you need to meditate and focus on your soul space not your soul garden. You should be able to focus your consciousness there instead. Basically you''re projecting yourself there, that''s also not necessary, but it should help for now.


    Felix sat down in his soul garden and began meditating. It was a weird thought for him as he was kind of meditating while in a meditation but really all he was doing in both was transferring his attention so it didn''t really matter. He spent a few minutes dragging his attention along his soul until his conscious finally managed to pierce into his soul space. He was essentially just using his mana and soul senses to look inside. He didn''t have organs to see light, hear sound or really any other senses. He could however, feel everything. In his souls space, it was like when his race had evolved, he was suddenly feeling things everywhere. He felt like he could feel every bit of mana, anima and matter, even mana in the aether. It was simply too much for him to process. Even after almost an hour, the overwhelming sensations weren''t getting any better.


    Can I actually go in there and see instead of this?


    You should be able to.


    How?


    You are kind of the god of your soul space, you know everything that happens in it. You should be able to feel light bouncing if you cast a light spell or something.


    I won''t be able to see the soul though, right? Sear?h the N?vel(F)ire.n§×t website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    Sort of? You could probably choose to have your soul senses appear as an actual image if you wanted to, same way the mana sight skill works.


    Could I do that in real life too? Replace the mana sight skill?


    Yeah for sure, you just need to figure out how.


    That''s a problem for another time. Ok, here''s what I''m going to do, correct me if I misunderstood something, I''m going to choose a point in the soul space and feel all of the sound, light, mana and soul from the perspective of that point to simulate actually being there. Should also make it easier to process all those inputs. Then I just ignore anything outside of that point.


    Yeah more or less. You don''t need to do that. If you would rather figure out how to deal with feeling everything in your soul space at once, then you should practice that. It shouldn''t matter for the next step anyways.


    Maybe some other time. I''d rather not waste time on it now.


    Felix spent an hour or so fine tuning his new senses and making them as close to his current senses as he could. He made sure to offset the light he sensed from his chosen point as close to how his body was laid out as he could so that the transition was as natural as possible. He didn''t bother with any of the other physical senses at the moment because he didn''t think they would be necessary. He didn''t have to do anything about his soul or his mana senses as he was already used to processing a wide area in real life and not much was happening in his soul space currently. When he was done, he looked inside and turned on a light but the only thing to see in there was Grim''s actual body, a large grimoire, which was just floating around. He looked around for the soul but couldn''t seem to find it at all. All he found was the outer layers of his own soul.


    Grim, where is it?


    Uh¡­ not sure. Should be in there somewhere. Maybe try looking around with just your soul senses?


    Felix looked around for half an hour or so, scrutinizing every inch of his soul space before he concluded that it wasn''t there. I can''t find it anywhere.


    This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.


    That''s weird, try again, this time I''ll pay attention from my body and watch.


    Alright.


    Felix returned his attention to his body, exited his soul space and garden then jumped through the trees until he found some sort of six limbed monkey creature. All of it''s limbs, other than it''s head and tail, were identical ending in hands which was actually rather disturbing. Felix didn''t pay it much mind, killing it as fast as he could with a ridiculously oversized lightning bolt then jumping over to catch it''s body as it fell. He immediately reached out with his soul sight and waited for the soul as soon as it left the corpse. Just a few minutes later, he sensed the soul and latched onto it as fast as possible. He sent Grim a heads up then dragged it into his soul space.


    Can you see it?


    Uh no¡­ Gimme a few seconds, I''m gonna watch your most recent memories and figure out if you''re doing it right.


    Felix waited patiently for the first few minutes then grew anxious for the last dozen or so.


    Can we try it one more time? Grim finally asked.


    Sure.


    Felix tried to jump to the next tree but had no practice with this kind of thing and completely overshot it. Instead, he landed on the jungle floor and ran between the trees until he found a panther, similar to the ones he killed in the jungle when he was hunting for natural treasures. He killed it with a simple heavily oversized Lightning Bolt as he just wanted to figure out this soul thing and didn''t care about the fight at the moment. As the body fell limply to the ground, he ran over and held his hand to it''s side, waiting for it''s soul to leave the corpse. As soon as he felt it shift and reveal itself, he latched on and pulled it into his soul space, warning Grim as he did.


    It''s coming.


    Ok, I''m ready.


    Felix did as he did with the other souls, he pulled it into his souls space and waited for Grim to say something. He waited a few minutes then couldn''t hold himself back and stay patient any longer.


    So, what happened?


    It took Grim a few minutes to respond. Well¡­ When a body dies with a soul attached to it, the soul bond breaks and the soul is damaged, so the soul that leaves the body is slightly weakened. It had essentially been wearing armor, the body, for it''s entire existence. Outside of the armor, it''s fragile. Your soul and the enemies you kill are kind of hostile¡­ I don''t know if it matters though¡­ The souls just exploded. They were completely obliterated.


    Say what now?


    Similar to me seeing your soul for the first time, except they don''t have bodies to protect them anymore.


    Shouldn''t my body protect them though?


    Not when they''re in your soul space, in direct contact with your soul. When you move them into your soul space¡­ I''m not sure honestly, I guess that''s enough. Either they''re too weak or there''s just enough time exposed to your soul as it enters that¡­ well, they just can''t seem to take it.


    So I can''t soul harvest?


    Not manually, not like this.


    You said it''s just as I pull them in right? Could I teleport the souls directly into my soul space? Get rid of the in between?


    Uh¡­ Probably? Not feasible right now. Teleportation takes a ridiculous amount of mana and is not something you want to be doing repeatedly. Also I''ve never cast it or seen it cast on just a soul. So probably not. Furthermore, I''m just telling you what''s happening now. I''m not saying they would survive in your soul space, just that they aren''t even making it there now. There''s a good chance the souls can''t handle being inside your soul space either.


    Could I store the enemy before they die?


    Maybe? It would be really difficult and even if you could do it, you would likely have to harvest them while they''re still alive which would basically be the worst kind of torture.


    Yeah, I don''t want to do that. So I''m screwed?


    You should try the skill, maybe the system can get around these issues.


    What if it can''t? I just have a useless class?


    Well¡­ We can figure that out if we need to. For now, there are other ways you can get stronger. The only good ways I know of to get around this would take a long time to get going, like a really long time.


    Well shit, hopefully the skill works then.


    Fingers crossed.


    Uh¡­ uh huh.


    Felix, once again, darted through the jungle. He hunted down and killed another creature, this time reaching his hand out above the corpse and mentally activating his Soul Harvest class skill. As soon as he did, he saw a white stream of something more opaque than smoke that carried with it a slight glow, pour itself into his hand. He instinctively tensed his hand into a fist, as if grabbing hold of the incorporeal. He felt a warm sensation trickle into his arm and into his core, in the middle of his torso.


    [Epic - Novice I] Soul Harvest


    Soul Harvested!


    You have harvested the soul of a fallen enemy. The soul has been placed in your soul space for processing and you will be notified when the processing is completed. This soul''s level is at least 20% greater than your level and will grant bonus stats.


    Estimated processing time: 0 seconds.


    [Epic - Novice I] Soul Harvest


    Soul Processed!


    A soul you previously harvested has been processed. The harvested parts have been integrated into your soul, strengthening and improving it.


    Stats gained: None.


    SHIT.


    Yikes.


    How do we get around it?


    Well¡­ The best way I can think of would be to have a different soul space where you can harvest souls freely.


    What do you mean?


    Make an item with an embedded soul space, then store the souls in there. You can go in, with your body, and manually process them from there.


    You think I could get the skill to harvest into the item too?


    Probably? Skills don''t seem to be set in stone, they seem to just be simplifying things you can already do, so yes, if I had to guess.


    Why didn''t we do that?


    Well¡­ It''s not exactly easy to do and it takes a lot of time. The easy way, is to sever a piece of your own soul and embed it into a ring. Given that your soul decimates any other it comes in contact with, that isn''t really an option. So you need to use someone or something else''s soul. That would mean crafting an item out of something''s soul or collecting ambient anima. Both take a long time and are a huge pain in the ass. Like, multiple decades long. Though it would take about that long to naturally regenerate the sliver of your soul you would use with the first method.


    What about the charm?


    Doesn''t seem like you can process the souls while they''re in the charm. We''re talking about a pretty specialized item here and I doubt the charm is that. You could try entering it yourself but from some basic examination, that''s not a soul space but a specialized pocket dimension or something like that. In the meantime, it should be able to hold and preserve the really strong souls so you don''t lose out I guess, at least until we figure this out.


    Great, so my class is useless. All I have is this fancy stealth skill? Lame. It''s just annoying is all, I can work on my body in the meantime, but if we can think of a way around this, I''d like to get the ball rolling on that as soon as possible.


    Yeah I agree. You could see about changing the class?


    I guess. The other classes kind of sucked though. If I can get this one to work, I want to. I might be forced to in preparation for the world event though.


    I think you''ll be fine with your class now as is. If it becomes an issue you can swap it out during or afterwards. Worst case, your progress is delayed a few weeks. You don''t exactly have any issues with leveling the traditional way, so I wouldn''t worry about it too much. I''ll let you know if I think of or you come across something that could help.


    Alright, in the meantime, I think the best thing I can do to prepare myself for the event is to gain stats and enchant my armor properly. I should probably also practice with the Dragon Dance just in case and make some tools. If we end up with the sanctum, there isn''t anything in specific I can think of to prepare, just general tools. If we end up with the tomb, I need some ways of getting into vaults and finding hidden caches. If we end up with the natural treasure hunt, I need drills and other extraction methods.


    You''ll have a month between the decision and the event to make preparations too.


    Yeah, that should be enough time for any of the tools I''ll need to build¡­ hopefully. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 Chapter 123 - Book 27

    Over the next 4 months, Felix fell into a strict schedule of working out for 2 hours followed by 2 hours of practicing the Dragon''s Dance. Grim had given him new forms and he felt he was getting close to ready for the next step. The remaining 20 hours were split amongst two different activities, the first of which was simple enchanting work. At the start, he spent almost 10 hours a day designing, inscribing and testing enchantments on his armor with the ultimate goal of creating some sort of mage armor like spell. sea??h th§× N?vel?ire.net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    He had a series of inscribed mana shields of various sizes and shapes all interlocked around his body. He didn''t have access to very many shapes or any ways of curving and bending the structures though so the spell was not ideal by any means. It was however, very usable. If he could see an attack coming his way, he could effectively just push mana into that area of his armor to create a mana shield and defend himself.


    The other activity that ate up the last 10 hours every day was working on his body. He was already working out, and he noticed himself getting stronger, entirely due to his much greater awareness of his own body. He also had a much greater level of control over his body, even though he wasn''t nearly ready to actually redesign anything, he did feel like he could make a simple change. Felix began slowly forcing his cells to grow denser, each one smaller and closer together without making them weaker or less flexible.


    His daily workout and Dragon''s Dance were a huge help in making sure he could still use all his muscles and making sure nothing got too tight. With the daily stretching, Felix was confident he wasn''t causing any permanent harm, but he still proceeded with caution. He spent the most time and effort on his bones and slightly less on his muscles. He was most confident that strengthening his bones would have the least side effects followed by his muscles. At first, he didn''t dare touch his brain and only slightly touched his more vital organs.


    After the first month or so, Felix was finally satisfied with his armor inscriptions. All of his tests, in his lab and in real combat were finally satisfactory. He had found minor improvements and iterated many times but he had finally gotten to a point he was happy with. With that complete, he had 10 hours a day freed up that he spent on a couple of different things.


    Firstly, he drained mana from his tower''s mana engine and funneled it into his soul space daily. Over the last four months, he managed to expand it to a sphere just over 240 meters across using 4.3 billion mana. He also spent some time loading up his inventory with mana batteries, just in case. He had initially planned on just using the absurd amount of mana in his soul space as a reserve but found that it was far too difficult to remove the mana for it to be usable in combat. Removing mana resulted in his soul space shrinking a bit, which wasn''t comfortable, and the process of removing it was heavily limited by the how big he could make the opening to his soul space. It was much faster for him to push mana in than to pull it out.


    Nova had learned to fly at some point and spent most of their time out hunting. They had come back and gotten Felix to teleport them to the main continent at some point, he assumed just for a change of pace. Nova had spent the last third or so of the 4 months there.


    As he progressed, Felix was happy with the results of his working out and cell compression. The compression had netted him fewer stats every day completely halting around the hundredth or so day. He had mostly gained endurance, strength and agility with a slight increase to all the other stats, except intelligence. Along with the working out, he was just about at the limit of his restrictive equipment and would have to come up with an alternative soon.


    He was sorely disappointed though that he hadn''t yet found a way to increase his intelligence. He felt like he had the tools to do so but just didn''t know how and was too scared to just try something. All of the other parts of his body were simple in comparison, his bones, skin, muscles and some of his vital organs he could simply compress and grow back to their original size. Effectively, he could just make them denser, push his cells to be more efficient.


    Brains were so much more complicated though. He was worried that if he made it denser, added any cells, or even just altered their function even slightly, he would accidentally ruin memories or change his personality. Grim assured him his soul would protect his personality and the harm would be minimal but Felix was still just too worried to try anything, at least for the first three months.


    At the start of the fourth month, Felix had decided he wanted to increase his brain''s speed. He figured that change should be relatively safe and he was very careful to test it on a tiny portion of his brain that he was pretty sure controlled part of his motor control. It was a success but the difference was negligible. On the other hand, he couldn''t find any adverse effects so he slowly spread the effect to the rest of his brain. He limited use of his brain as much as he could over the course of the upgrade, remaining in a meditation for the few days it took to complete. When he was done, he had increased his intelligence by almost a hundred points as well as his dexterity and agility by about half that. The increase was disappointing in quantity but Felix was just happy to have increased his intelligence at all. He was beginning to worry he might have to switch to a melee fighter if he wasn''t able to increase his intelligence somehow.


    Overall, he was pretty happy with his progress. He knew he wasn''t where he could have been had he figured out soul harvesting, but the enchanting work did wonders to increase his profession level allowing him to hit level 191. The manual modifications to his race along with working out every day had resulted in between 100 and 1000 per stat, with intelligence being the lowest and endurance the highest. The majority of the stats came from his manual modifications, even though they were minor modifications and all he did was make everything slightly more dense.


    His daily work out had gradually resulted in less stats per day but he figured it was still worth it as the stats were pretty much free. He had also thought about practicing the Dragon Dance in his soul garden for the time dilation, but ultimately decided against it so he could keep growing used to his body. He also didn''t feel overly pressed for time. He continued to put all of his free points into intelligence as he hadn''t reached the ratio limit of 5 between his highest and lowest stats yet. The only other changes were that his Core Energy Infusion skill had reached Initiate II and the stat increase had risen to 90% and his Dragon Dance skill was now Novice III.


    Name:Felix KadeFREE0Innate:Ascendant Prodigy: Mana (Wizard)STR4746Class:[D - Epic] Soul Harvester (Lvl 135)DEX8204Race:[D - Unique] Wanderer (Lvl 163)AGI4745Profession:[D - Arcane] Mana Engineer (Lvl 191)PER7957Health:37650/37650VIT3765Mana:1975270/1975270INT17957Energy:213280/213280END5332


    The time had finally come for the next world council meeting though. If Felix''s estimate was correct, the screen would appear in just a few hours. He had a couple of things he needed to do first though so he teleported to Atalus. First he found Noah and gifted him his Amulet of the Wild. He was expecting a more surprised reaction when he saw the item but apparently it was known and a few of them had popped up here and there. He could have sold it but honestly, he was more than rich enough and felt no need to make the effort. Noah helped him a ton with managing the entire city and he deserved a bonus here and there.


    This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.


    Then, Felix ran through the commerce district until he found what he was looking for. He walked into a specialty soap shop and settled on a minty bar of shampoo and a citrus one for body wash. He bought the shop''s entire stock of 25 of each bar totaling 500 credits. He quickly flew into the river and scrubbed himself clean as best he could, lathering and rinsing multiple times as it had been a while since he had cleaned himself. With his thicker skin, it was harder for dirt to stick to it, his cells lived longer so there were less dead cells and his body regulated temperature better so there was minimal sweat. However, he still felt kind of gross and didn''t want to show up to the meeting without having cleaned himself. His armor was easy to clean as nothing seemed to stick to it so a simple rinse removed everything, though he used a little bit of body wash to make it smell nice.


    Once he was done with that, he dressed himself and flew up into the air then flew as fast as he could in the direction of Nova. He followed their soul bond which he had mostly dulled over the last four months just so he wouldn''t feel all the emotions pouring through. Nova wasn''t great at managing their own emotions as they were still mostly new to them and they didn''t filter them out of the soul bond so Felix had initially been hit by a roller coaster.


    The emotions jumped rapidly between nervous, adrenaline, joy, hunger, tired and bored. Initially Felix didn''t realize they were affecting him until he was meditating and noticed his emotions jumping around randomly for no apparent reason. Grim had instructed him on the very simple solution of simply dulling everything that was sent through. They would still affect Felix, but this way he could also feel it if Nova needed help or consciously tried to communicate with him. Felix had then worked from there to filter the emotions so that he didn''t need to dull them at all. He practiced splitting them off from his own emotions so that he was aware of them, but they no longer had a direct effect on him. Essentially he was stepping back and watching the emotions roll through the bond instead of having them carelessly pour into his own soul. Now Felix had almost entirely tuned out the emotions in his day to day occasionally taking a peek just so he didn''t feel like he was abandoning them.


    He flew south east through the plains and up into the mountain range on the east coast of the continent where he found Nova. Had he not had a soul bond with his familiar, he wouldn''t have recognized them at all. When he had retrieved and teleported Nova 40 or so days ago, they were the same black kitten as always. Now, Felix looked down at the mountains where he saw a massive panther leaping through the air at ridiculous speeds to catch demonic looking goat creatures. Nova was almost the size of a horse and entirely made of what looked like metal. It seemed as though they had done away with the idea of using the actual corpses of animals and was instead replicating them using other materials it had eaten.


    He watched as Nova''s claws glowed and streaked lightning through the creature as it ripped open the side of it''s body. The demonic goat leapt away bleating and bleeding as it did so. It was extraordinarily fast, but Nova was much faster and managed to catch it in it''s jaw before it even hit the ground. Felix did his best to keep up with the fight but both creatures were evidently faster and stronger than he was, by a fairly large margin.


    Nova killed the creature by breaking it''s neck then laid down and let out a gentle stream of fire from it''s mouth, bathing it''s kill in flames. It then devoured the creature as Felix descended next to it. He was wary at first because Nova''s level along with the other creatures on the mountain were much higher than his, but he didn''t see anything else nearby so he proceeded with caution. He watched Nova devour the creature with a completely out of place flesh tongue that caused Felix to frown in confusion. He tuned in to Nova''s emotions and was actually astonished to realize that Nova was using the tongue so that it could taste the creature as it was consumed.


    It can tune into the taste buds or brain and experience taste?


    Seems like it.


    Awesome.


    Grim just chuckled in Felix''s head.


    Felix waited patiently for Nova to finish consuming it''s prey then knelt down to pet it''s metallic head. As soon as he did so, it shifted back into a familiar black cat in an instant and leapt onto his shoulder then crawled into the folds of his robes. Felix flew into the air as fast as he could and headed back towards Atalus as he wanted to get out of the domain of creatures that out leveled him by a factor of two at the least. He was surprised, proud and sad to see Nova at such a high level, only sad because he felt like he was falling behind. He was hoping to catch up soon, but as it stood, Nova out leveled him quite a bit. Felix also suspected Nova''s stats were greater than his by quite a bit, at least strength, agility and likely endurance.


    [D - Cursed] Ravenous Matter Spirit (Lvl 353)


    This thing is kind of a monster.


    Yeah, no kidding.


    You kept mentioning me falling behind but I didn''t really feel like I was. Now though, I definitely feel it.


    Well, Nova is also ahead of the curve it seems. You might not want to compare yourself to that standard.


    Well, if I had gone with the lich race and a different class I could be that high.


    Yeah, you could have. What you chose has higher potential though, you could surpass that and Nova, it''s just gonna take some more time.


    Yeah I guess, I just feel like I''ve slowed down so much.


    From what I gather, that''s D grade. Well, I guess for everything but Nova. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 Chapter 124 - Book 28

    Felix didn''t make it all the way back to Atalus before the screen he had been expected appeared before him.


    World Council


    You have been invited to the second, Trenus World Council. The meeting will take place in 5 minutes. You have chosen your representatives. You have 5 minutes to prepare yourself, once you are ready, simply initiate the teleport. If you do not initiate the teleport in the next 5 minutes, the teleportation will be initiated for you.


    Representatives (5/5):


    Felix Kade


    Noah


    Benjamin


    Will


    Alan Sear?h the N??eFire.¦Çet website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    World Council


    You represent two separate factions on Trenus, as such you may choose which faction you wish to represent. You will be able to vote on behalf of both factions, but you may only appear under the guise of a single faction.


    Which faction will you represent:


    Atalus


    Stormbringer


    Felix quickly checked on Nova, who had fallen asleep in the folds of his robes then initiated the teleport.


    Atalus. Teleport.


    Felix was again, the first one to arrive in what appeared to be the exact same room as last time. He took the nearest chair and waited for Noah, Benjamin, Will and Alan to appear and take their seats then a few more minutes for a screen to appear.


    World Council


    Welcome to the second Trenus World Council meeting. There are 29 people in attendance including the owners and representatives of the 9 different factions on the planet thus far.


    For the duration of the meeting, you may choose to open or close the panel that seals your rooms by placing your palm on the wall next to it.


    Agenda:


    [Added by Lav''Gur] World Leader Election Vote (1 hour)


    Restricted Settlement Period Vote (1 hour)


    World Event Selection Vote (1 hour)


    World Council


    This vote is for whether or not the council system should be replaced in favor of having a single world leader. This vote was proposed by Lav''Gur and the members of the council will have 1 hour to discuss at which point the vote will take place.


    The format of this vote will be an election with the required number of votes to elect an individual set at 40. You may nominate anyone you wish over the next hour and you may vote for individuals that have not been nominated as well as vote to keep the council in place.


    There are currently no nominations.


    Felix read through the message and frowned as he read through the agenda. He looked up at Noah who just shrugged in response. Felix stood and opened Atalus'' panel then looked around to see the panels for Coastwatch, Snowvale, Trelas and Orselle already open. Shortly after Felix opened his, Sprouts and The Lodge opened their panels as well leaving Lav''Gur and the Stormbringer as the only closed panels. Everyone waited and stared at Lav''Gur''s panel for a awkward minutes until it finally opened.


    At the last meeting, Noah had met the leader of Lav''Gur and had said good things about him. Felix on the other hand had only really seen him from across the room as he was rather exhausted from talking to people by that point. When Lav''Gur''s panel opened up, the man standing inside was definitely not Ashok. The man was tall and rather slim, though it was hard to tell as he wore many layers of ostentatious silk robes with shoulder length black hair with a short, neatly trimmed beard. While the man stood out, Felix didn''t think much of his appearance, frankly he could care less how people decide to dress. He did however frown with disgust just a little bit as he looked behind the man and noticed the two individuals he had brought with him. Behind him at the table were two women wearing a grand total of a few square inches worth of clothing and a collar each.


    Felix did his best not to judge but the sight made him just a little sick to his stomach. He knew it was just a physical reaction created by his brain and soul, he felt that, but he also couldn''t stop it.


    [E - Common] Human (Lvl 83)


    After a few seconds of silence, the man walked into the middle of the room, surrounded by all of the rooms around him and addressed the rest of the council.


    "Hello, my name is Silas and it is a pleasure to meet all of you." He said as he turned around the room before continuing, "I suspect you are all waiting to hear about the vote I added to the agenda so let me get right to it. How many nations on earth were led by a council?"


    He waited a few moments for dramatic effect then continued, "While it might sound like a good idea in theory, it has a lot of issues. It takes much longer for many decisions to be made, which might not sound like a problem until you consider what would happen if the planet were attacked? What if there was an uprising of monsters? An invasion from another planet? Fast decisions become essential to our survival." As Silas spoke, he spun around making sure to make eye contact with everyone, read the room and adjust accordingly. Felix had to admit he was rather talented at public speaking and was rather persuasive. He might have even been swayed to consider what Silas was saying had his earrings not been screaming at him the entire time.


    Lying. Deceit. Persuade. Convince. Rule. Pity. Disgust.


    Silas continued, "Don''t be fooled into thinking we are safe here. Do you really think we were the only planet with sentient life in the entirety of our universe? What are the odds of that? If we were, wouldn''t it be the integration of earth, not the entire universe?" He paused once again, "Then there''s The System and the World Event. It seems this one will not occur on the planet, but what about the next? What if the only options are invasions, what do we do then?"


    Deceit. Envy. Conviction. Conquer. Rule.


    Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings.


    "All I''m asking, is that we consider instating a leader, someone who can make the necessary decisions and lead the human race. I want us to survive as long as possible and hopefully thrive in this new environment, and honestly? I just don''t see that happening with a council as it is."


    Lying.


    "Where''s Ashok?" Felix heard Noah call out from behind him.


    "Ah, Ashok¡­" Silas responded, "Unfortunately, Ashok met his untimely demise while out trying to gain levels in preparation for the World Event. As his second in command, I have taken over as the ruler and done my best to pick up the pieces."


    Partial Truth. Lying.


    "If you''re the second in command, why didn''t Ashok bring you to the previous Council Meeting?" Felix heard Noah call out from beside him.


    "He left me behind because he didn''t know what would happen at the meeting and he wanted someone there to keep the city running and¡­ just incase he didn''t make it back."


    Lie.


    "I see." Noah said.


    "Feel free to discuss with each-other and with me in my room. We would be happy to have any conversation you wish and consider this an open invitation to anyone." With that, Silas nodded to the rest of the council and walked back to his room, his lavish robes trailing behind him as he walked.


    Felix immediately closed the panel to their room and quickly turned to Noah, "Look I know he might have seemed convincing but he was lying and looking down on us the entire time."


    "How''d you figure that one out?" he responded.


    "I have a magic item that helps in conversations. It whispers their intent into my ear basically."


    "Felix, that was sarcasm. You needed a magical item to get that? I''m pretty sure everyone in the room could tell he just wants us to elect him so he can rule." Noah looked back to Benjamin, Will and Alan who all nodded in agreement.


    "Oh¡­ Ok, good." Felix opened the panel, only slightly embarrassed.


    As soon as he did so, Jack, Martin and Amani walked over to his room followed by the old man from Coastwatch shortly afterwards. Felix was happy to see they had all leveled with Amani having evolved. She was slightly taller and seemed more slender and elegant, her hair reminding Felix of a shampoo commercial and her ears just slightly pointed. Overall, she wasn''t much different than he remembered though.


    [D - Rare] Desert Elf (Lvl 114)


    Jack and Martin were both on the cusp of D grade and actually the same level.


    [E - Common] Human (Lvl 98)


    [E - Common] Human (Lvl 98)


    Felix hadn''t spoken to the leader of Coastwatch last time but he recognized him all the same as he walked up to the room. An old man with an explosion of white hair atop his head wearing nothing but pants and an open vest. Noah greeted him as Han.


    [D - Uncommon] Atlantean (Lvl 106)


    Oh cool.


    The man immediately spoke to the rest of the group, "Y''all aren''t actually gonna vote for this guy, are ye?"


    Everyone looked around at each-other and shook their heads, "Oh thank the sea. Alright, we keep the council, ye?"


    "Sounds good to me." Felix said and the others nodded.


    "He did make some good points, maybe we should think about having someone to take charge if something happens." Jack said.


    "We can worry about that if the situation arises, as it is though, I''m happy keeping things exactly as they are." Amani responded and Felix noticed that her voice was similar and recognizable to before, but now it carried with it a pleasant melody.


    Jack nodded, "Alright, fair enough¡­ So you think this guy killed Ashok?"


    Everyone looked at each-other, clearly nervous to accuse anyone of something they couldn''t prove. Felix broke the silence, "If I had to bet on it, yeah."


    The group went silent, everyone slightly awkward with the mention of Ashok''s death. It wasn''t like any of them knew him very well, but some of them had met him. There was also the unspoken implication that the same could happen to any of them at any point. Finally, Han spoke up and broke the silence, changing topics, "So which world event is everyone leanin?"


    Martin was the first to speak up, "The Ancient Sanctum is my preference, but I don''t think that one will be very popular. We''ll probably vote just to secure whatever everyone else wants. It''s not like any of them are bad options."


    "I personally, would like the Sanctum as well, but I think my city would much prefer Vault Raiding. So, I''ll be voting for the latter." Amani chimed in.


    "Vault Raiding does sound rather¡­" Jack said.


    "Sexy?" Han finished.


    "Well, yeah¡­ Sounds like that''s the most likely then. Have any of you spoken to Sprouts or The Lodge?" Jack asked.


    Everyone looked at each-other but it appeared as though no one had. They decided to walk over to the two rooms and meet their leaders, hopefully making friends. The leader of The Lodge was a woman named Jackie with long brown hair in a ponytail and yellow eyes with slit pupils that looked like they belonged on a cat or a snake. She wore brown leathers and a long cloak. The most striking part about her though, to Felix, was the subtle confidence she carried.


    [D - Special] Apex Hunter (Lvl 124)


    That doesn''t sound like a race.


    The story of her integration was rather similar to Felix''s in that she ran through and completed all of the dungeons followed by taking on multiple world bosses completely solo. She even attempted the final boss, but had to run away. She didn''t have time at that point to amass an army to take it out as each individual world boss had taken her over a day of fighting. She hadn''t bothered with the whole city thing, instead leaving it to an advisor but they had managed to quickly rise to the level of Major City. Once they had, no one in her tutorial bothered contesting them and everyone was mostly at peace.


    The leader of Sprouts was a massive man standing at least twice the height of a normal human with proportionally broad shoulders and thick limbs. He had light brown hair covering his arms and face and wore simple clothes. His name was Otto.


    [D - Uncommon] Demi-Giant (Lvl 108)


    Otto was the only pacifist on the council and led a city of essentially farmers. His tutorial was rather boring but safe. He had started as a farmer and joined a town which was located in the middle of large flat fertile plains. They had many farmers and quickly became a farming town. People migrated from all over the tutorial simply because they had food. At some point the previous leader appointed Otto as the new leader because they decided leading a town wasn''t for them. Their town quickly became a Major City as their population consisted of just about everyone in the tutorial and were extremely wealthy. HIs race actually made farming a lot easier, apparently troll was even better, but Otto didn''t want to stray too far from being a human. With Demi-Giant he looked exactly the same as he had, according to him, just bigger.


    They were both really nice people, Jackie a little reserved but otherwise friendly. Otto and Noah had agreed to trade if they ever managed to connect their cities and Jackie seemed open to the idea as well. Otto was most interested in the Natural Treasure Hunt but he understood that it was unlikely to get picked and didn''t seem to mind. Jackie wanted the Vault Raiding above all. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 Chapter 125 - Book 29

    The initial hour quickly came and went as they all stood around and talked. It didn''t seem like anyone had taken Silas up on his offer and he was simply left alone in the room with his entourage. He had at one point knocked on the Stormbringer''s panel but gave up after 10 minutes or so of no one answering. He returned to his room and after another 30 minutes or so of no one visiting him, Silas closed the panel and no one else at the meeting saw or heard from him again that meeting. The vote screen finally appeared and no one in the group bothered to return to their rooms, instead they all simply filled in their votes and brushed the screen away.


    World Council


    This vote is for whether or not a world leader should be elected in place of the current council. 40 votes are required to elect an individual, otherwise the council will continue as the government of Trenus.


    The options are:


    Silas.


    Stormbringer.


    Council.


    Who the hell nominated The Stormbringer? All 30 votes to Council.


    World Council


    This vote is for whether or not a world leader should be elected in place of the current council. 40 votes are required to elect an individual, otherwise the council will continue as the government of Trenus.


    The results are:


    Silas: 9


    Stormbringer: 6


    Council: 50


    The council will continue as the government of Trenus.


    Who would nominate and vote for someone they''ve never met? Weird. Also, I guess Silas managed to sway some votes his way.


    World Council


    This vote is for whether or not the settlement founding restricted period should continue for another 4 months or not. There are 65 votes in attendance. You may cast each of your votes as you wish over the next hour. As soon as all votes are cast or a single option obtains a winning margin of votes, the vote will be concluded.


    The options are:


    Extend.


    End.


    Abstain.


    Felix left Atalus'' votes to Noah and voted abstain for The Stormbringer. A few minutes passed since the screen appeared and the vote concluded.


    World Council


    A winning margin has voted for Extend with 25 votes as 25 have abstained. It is now impossible for the other option to win so the vote is concluded.


    The next vote will begin shortly.


    Oh thank goodness we don''t have to wait out the rest of the hour.


    World Council


    This vote is to decide on the first Trenus World Event. This Event will take place one month following this meeting and will last an indefinite amount of time. There are a limited number of slots to attend the world event and they will be offered to the first 10,000 people to hit D grade. The options for the world event are as follows:


    Ancient Sanctum of Knowledge.


    Vault and Tomb Raiding.


    Natural Treasure Hunt.


    Abstain.


    You may request a description of each at will. You will have the next 1 hour and 52 minutes to cast your votes. As soon as a winning margin has voted, the vote will conclude and you will be free to leave.


    Felix thought about using his Stormbringer votes to try and get the Sanctum, his preferred option, but ultimately decided against it and instead voted to abstain. Honestly, any of the options were fine for him and it didn''t matter enough for him to reveal the whole Stormbringer thing or rather stir the pot. He just liked the idea of ancient knowledge and sanctums.


    Felix let Noah dictate Atalus'' votes, as always, and continued talking with Martin about planes. Over the course of the 4 months since the last meeting, Martin had run some tests and was more partial to the idea than he had been previously. It was also looking like it was going to be their only option for the time being considering how far the cities were from each-other. They only managed to talk for another 15 minutes or so when the vote ended.


    World Council


    A winning margin has voted for Vault and Tomb Raiding with 21 votes as 25 have abstained. It is now impossible for the other option to win so the vote is concluded.


    Can I leave yet?


    World Event


    In one of the early integrations there was a man who rose to power very quickly through the use of techniques and abilities that many feared. He and the city he built, became a powerhouse of the universe. They traded with and even sometimes fought the other cities in the multiverse conquering some that had existed for eons. His city lived peacefully and the citizens he ruled over prospered under his protection and tutelage. He made sure to help each individual grow and achieve their potential with training, artifacts and any knowledge he managed to get his hands on through his escapades. This man''s name was Erolan.


    The peace didn''t last and their city expanded their reaches, turning to conflict over trade in more and more with each passing day. Erolan fought both with the people he raised and the beasts he trained, utterly undefeated on his path of conquest. Eventually though, a group of 5 individuals who frowned upon his methods laid siege upon his city making their way through all four walls and finally reaching Erolan''s chambers at the center of the town. The war completely ravaged the population of the city. No one bore witness to the final battle, all that is known is the result. Erolan was sealed in his tomb, beneath the city, the five individuals no where to be found.


    This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.


    In an effort to protect the vast wealth and treasures he had amassed, Erolan spread everything throughout the city hidden in caches, vaults and coves. Erolan has now lay sealed away for a couple hundred integrations as his city remained untouched. Erolan''s tamed beasts among other monsters still roam the city, protecting the wealth of their master. You, the citizens of Trenus will be allowed to search the city and retrieve anything you find though, be wary of the beasts roaming the city and protecting it''s treasures.


    Warning: Be wary, Erolan was at the peak of the C grade when he was sealed and the five individuals who finally managed to end his reign were in the mid B grade. Some of the beasts he left behind may be too powerful for any of you to handle, proceed with caution.


    Note: Opening the vaults and caches will require more than just raw power. It would be wise to bring a large array of professions and skill sets to be able to handle the vast set of defenses Erolan employed throughout the city.


    Woah¡­ I wonder what he did that people disagreed with so vehemently they felt the need to send 5 B grades to finally take him out. Doesn''t seem like anyone cared that he conquered cities, just his "methods."


    Guess we''ll find out.


    Felix bid his farewell to Martin and the others then initiated the teleport.


    Teleport.


    He arrived, with Nova still napping in his robe, in the middle of the field just as he had left it. He still had a day or so to wait until he could teleport back to his tower so he decided to stop by Henry''s to see if he could get a head start on vault breaking tools. He flew through the field and over the walls of the city, two of them, that Noah had put in just recently. He dropped down from the sky right on Henry''s doorstep and knocked on the large metal door. A few moments passed before a sweat covered Henry finally opened the door.


    [E - Common] Human (Lvl 100)


    "Felix, I''m not done with the cannon yet¡­ if that''s why you''re here?"


    "Nope. You hear about the world event?"


    "Yeah, Noah told me. Told me we might need some tools."


    "Yeah, there were three options, the one that got voted in was Vault and Tomb Raiding¡­" Felix shared the backstory for the event as best he could remember it with Henry.


    "So what are you looking for from me? I suspect Noah will have me working on things for the city pretty soon so you probably don''t have more than a day or so."


    "I think just a hand drill if we can make one out of Starmetal? I''m open to other suggestions too if you have any, you are the expert on metals and stone here. What do you think would be the best way to break into a vault, through a wall or into a tomb?"


    "Honestly? A blowtorch for most things. I suspect along with the spell you used on the Starmetal, you should be fine. As long as it''s not underwater again¡­"


    "That actually makes a lot of sense."


    "By the way, I have metal identification skills as part of my profession¡­ It''s got another more common name instead of Starmetal, apparently this is usually called Soul-Steel."


    "Soul-Steel? Did it tell you anything else about it?"


    Wait, Soul-Steel? Are you sure? Is he sure?


    You really want me to ask?


    No. Shit, I should have realized sooner, or we should have at least tested it.


    Explain later?


    Yeah.


    "Not really. Says it''s real hard and it might require special techniques to work with it. The spell you gave me helped a ton, it makes the material workable sure, it also did wonders for leveling my profession. I just need one more level on my class before D grade."


    "Glad to hear it. You better hurry up then, only D grades are allowed into the world event."


    "Really?"


    "Yup. First 10,000 to hit D grade get an invite."


    "Damn. Any idea how many slots are left?"


    "I assume most of them. Judging just from the world council meeting, I would guess just under a few hundred or so slots have been taken. However, I think there are a lot of people in the same situation as you, right on the edge."


    "Alright, thanks for letting me know. So what did you want me to try and make for you?"


    "You know what? Don''t worry about it. Just get yourself to D grade as fast as possible."


    "You sure? I should have some time today."


    "Yeah, don''t worry about it. Good luck."


    Felix walked to the door of Henry''s workshop and started opening it then thought of something and turned around, "Actually, any chance you could whip up some plates for me?"


    "Uh¡­ Like¡­ for food?"


    "Oh no, sorry. Barbell plates."


    "OH! That makes a lot more sense. I take it you need them to be pretty heavy?"


    "Yeah, I''ll use my staff as the bar for now. It should be able to hold up to any amount of weight I can lift."


    "How heavy do you need them?"


    "What''s the heaviest material you''ve got?"


    Felix and Henry spent a few hours finding the right material and forging it into plates with a staff sized hole in the middle. Henry had a large stockpile of D grade materials in his shop that he had been acquiring and forging with over the last few months. He had upgraded his profession to Arcane Smith, not bothering to do all three upgrades at once since he still wanted to be a Smith. Once he had upgraded his profession, he capitalized on being able to forge D grade materials and made a lot of money. Unfortunately, that was what delayed his race and class evolution for so long.


    One of the D grade materials Henry had in stock was called Petralt, according to his metal identification skill. It was a naturally dark green metal with a slight luster, not quite reflective though, and it was exorbitantly heavy which was perfect. Henry hadn''t really found any uses for it as it didn''t have any other particularly interesting properties so he forged Felix a couple dozen plates. He made the mold out of some sort of wet looking sand and simply poured the metal into it which made the whole process super fast. The plates weren''t polished or even finished by anyone''s standards, but that didn''t matter at all for Felix''s use case. The plates were each a couple inches thick and Felix suspected they would last him quite a while, or at least he hoped they would. S§×ar?h the n?vel_Fire.¦Çet website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    It was hard to measure as everything''s weight was different than it was before the integration but if Felix had to guess, he would say Petralt was a bit denser than lead. Henry tried to get Felix to take the plates for free as he had no use for the Petralt anyways but Felix insisted and payed him 100k E grade credits. He wasn''t sure how much D grade materials were worth, but he hoped that was enough.


    Felix didn''t bother with plates of lower weights as he would simply use enchantments and spells to increase the weight between the plates. He thought about using spells and enchantments for all of the workout equipment but he didn''t feel safe pointing a large amount of force at himself with a spell. With the plates, the force spell he used to increase the weight between each plate would be tiny in comparison. Maybe once he had out grown the plates he would be comfortable just using a spell, but for now he figured the cost was minimal so he might as well. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 Chapter 126 - Book 30

    While Henry was forging the plates, Felix inscribed spells onto thin metal discs so Henry could swap out the spells in his cannon once it was finished. He gave Henry a quick run down of how it should work and handed him the discs along with a couple batteries as backups. From this point on, Henry shouldn''t need Felix to finish the cannon, all he had to do was finish forging it. He had decided to use Soul-Steel mostly because it was the rarest material he had which was unfortunately very difficult to work with and was why it was taking him so long.


    "What happened to your rock?" Henry asked as he walked Felix to the door.


    "My what?"


    "The one that took a bite out of my cannon."


    "Oh my familiar?" Felix opened one of the folds of his robe to reveal a black kitten that appeared to be fast asleep. "They''re just napping."


    "Your rock turned into a cat?"


    "Uh¡­ yeah sort of."


    "Well now I just feel bad. I''m a lower level than your cat."


    "Don''t feel too bad, so am I."


    Henry gave Felix a befuddled look as he walked out of the forge and into the city. Felix still had to wait half a day or so until he could teleport home so he wandered around the city and talked to Grim in the mean time.


    So what''s up with Soul-Steel?


    Soul materials, usually metals are materials that can gain an affinity. I should have thought of it earlier, I don''t know why I missed it. Usually, they are really hard to work with if you aren''t infusing it with your soul. It''s super popular for tons of stuff, you just need to find the right material. This one is good for armor or weapons but there are others that are naturally liquid or some that are super conductive as examples.


    So what happens if I infuse it with my soul?


    Depends on the material but usually you can morph into any shape you want at will.


    Wait really? So forging it was a huge waste of time?


    Yeah, sort of. The reason I didn''t have you tell Henry all this is that it takes a long time to infuse it and typically you don''t want your smith to do it. Once it''s been infused, it takes a while to revert so someone else can infuse it. It would also take him years of building soul strength and getting used to manipulating it.


    So can I do that with my staff now?


    You can. It''s gonna take a while for a full affinity but you should be able to get it to a usable point fairly quickly. Also don''t expect to be morphing it mid combat, it won''t be that fast. You should be able to morph it into a sword or something given enough time before a battle though.


    That also sounds super useful for breaking into vaults. I could morph it into a crowbar or something like that. How long does it take to infuse?


    It would probably take you a couple weeks if you did only that every day.


    Alright so I should be able to get it done before the world event then.


    Yeah, shouldn''t be an issue. Anything else you need to get done in preparation?


    I should probably sell my E grade equipment before it becomes worthless. I''ll also figure out a good blow torch spell. Can''t think of anything else. Anything you can think of?


    Not really. You''re about as prepared as you can be. Hard to prepare when you know so little.


    Felix walked over the bridge into the commerce district and found a couple of magic shops where he got his old equipment identified and appraised. He walked into three shops and they all gave him the same price so he just sold everything to the third one. Luckily the demand for E grade equipment had only increased as people were currently making their final push to D grade. They handed him 10 million E grade credits and Felix even swapped out his cloak for one that caught his eye. It was unenchanted but it was made of a dark navy dyed D grade cotton that felt more like wool to Felix. It was thick and heavy and it was big enough to completely cover up with a hood that could entirely obscure his face. It was everything a cloak should be.


    He walked into a few restaurants and ordered enough food to feed himself for a few months, if he had actually needed to eat. He wanted to experiment a little bit with how his body processed food though so he figured he might as well enjoy the food as well. He made sure to taste test the food ahead of time and ended up rerolling his flask to something that reminded him of a Lemonade. It was sweet with the taste of lemons and oranges but it was almost as though the sugar had been removed as the flavors were subtle, reminding Felix of a cold brew tea. Felix didn''t have anything else he wanted to do so he flew over to the City Hall building and checked on the mana engine he had created in the basement.


    He found it exactly as he had left it, though Noah must have been using the mana as it was relatively empty. Felix ascended back to the ground floor and sat on the floor against one of the side walls. He took out his staff and laid it across his lap then closed his eyes and followed Grim''s directions to affinize the staff to his soul. The process was relatively simple and just involved reached out with his soul into the staff and essentially cycling it. The easiest way to do that with the staff was to push some of his soul out of his right hand and into one end of the staff then out the other and back into his left hand. It didn''t matter that he was only cycling through the middle meter or so as long as he moved his hands every time he did this to get close to even coverage. He had to cycle to ensure the soul in the staff didn''t get stale and separate itself from his soul, then it would have no effect.


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    He wasn''t sure how long he had been meditating but he had quickly gotten comfortable enough to where he could do other things while he affinized the staff. He had mostly spent his time practicing creating spell forms, making sure to dissipate them without actually casting them. He had been pretty happy with his casting speed up to now, with Lightning Bolt and Fire Ball being his main spells and taking just under a second to cast, but he knew he could do better. He was also practicing to try and increase the number of spells he could cast at once. Looking back at Fire Bolt and Mana Bolt, he could cast those in about 2 tenths of a second each and could just manage 6 of either of them at once. Unfortunately those spells weren''t very useful anymore so he focused back on the more complicated spells. Eventually his meditation was interrupted by someone standing in front of him and tapping him lightly on the shoulder.


    "You awake?" Noah asked.


    "Yes, sorry."


    "I would have waited but I have a lot of shit to do and you tend to disappear for months at a time."


    "What''s up?" Felix asked as he stood and walked over to the main table in the chamber and sat down across from Noah.


    "First thing, thank you for the¡­ thing in the basement. It''s been super helpful replacing the harder to obtain materials with just mana."


    "I''m glad it helped."


    "It did. Seriously, thank you. As for the World Event, are you going to travel with Atalus?"


    "What do you mean?"


    "Uh¡­ What''s your plan when we get there?"


    "Planning on just playing it by ear. See if I can find anything particularly useful or interesting, otherwise just explore I guess." S§×arch* The N??eFire.¦Çet website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    "Talking with the others at the council meeting, it seems like people are planning to mostly travel in groups representing each city. Some people are going to do their own thing but for the most part it seems like people want to be a part of a group."


    "Doesn''t it make more sense for the cities to all just work together?"


    "Yeah, it does. Most of the cities are planning on working together. If there are multiple objectives though, like in the tutorial, we are planning on splitting up into groups. Each city tries to do one thing."


    "What if there are more or less than 8 objectives?"


    "It''s just a starting point. If someone needs help, we can double up or if someone finished early they can get two of them done."


    "Why do you think there will be objectives at all?"


    "There may not be, but if it''s just a city to explore, we''re probably going to try and split the city into 8 or 9 chunks to minimize fighting."


    "I see. I''ll probably just do my own thing then. Are people going to get mad at me if I show up in their chunk?"


    "No no, don''t worry about it. It''s not that strict. This is more about having some kind of plan ahead of time. There are lots of people doing their own thing too, I believe Jack and Martin are going to team up, Han is doing his own thing, Amani and Jackie too. Thing is some of us don''t have the skill set required to break into a vault so we bring people who can and the fighters protect them, then they split the loot. It''s a lot easier to coordinate these groups ahead of time and since the cities are so far apart, they tend to be 5 people from the same city."


    "Gotcha. I guess let me know if you need anything from me, otherwise I''ll probably be doing my own thing."


    "Glad you mentioned that, can we come up with a signal so we can call you if we need to?"


    "Sure I guess. What did you have in mind?"


    "I was thinking just a flare or something like that."


    "What if I''m underground or just in a building though? I might not see it."


    "Good point. Got any ideas?"


    "The only way I know how to communicate over long distances is a soul bond, no offence but I don''t want to soul bond with you."


    "Yeah I''d rather not do that either. I was hoping for something where anyone from Atalus could call for you."


    Not sure I want anyone from Atalus calling on me¡­ Long range communication though¡­


    "Yeah, I really need to find some kind of spell for that."


    Got any ideas Grim?


    Long distance communication is hard. I suspect most people solve it with system fuckery, as you like to call it.


    "I guess go with a flare and hope that I see it¡­ Actually, do you have some of these flares made already?"


    "Uh, yeah I have a few, why?"


    "Can you fire one so I can show my cat?"


    "I guess¡­ Why?"


    "If I can''t see it, hopefully Nova does. I''ll tell Nova to go running in that direction if it sees it."


    "Can you teleport to it?"


    "No, that would be awesome though."


    "You can communicate with Nova though, right? So you''ll come running if it finds us in a dire situation?"


    "I mean, I can¡­ Let''s just say it won''t be necessary. Just don''t be afraid if they don''t look like a cat when they shows up."


    "I''ll be sure to identify them beforehand."


    "That won''t tell you if it''s a familiar or a monster though, it just tells you what you see."


    "I have names on. I''ll just see Nova."


    "Wait, what?"


    "You didn''t know? You can change the Identify skill to show names too. Even if people look different, as long as they aren''t trying to hide, you can see their name."


    "That is¡­ convenient. I''ll have to change that."


    Felix reached into his robes and picked Nova up handing them to Noah as they walked out of the building. Felix nudged Nova to wake them up and told them to remember Noah as best they could. Noah held the cat and pet their head which they appeared to greatly enjoy as they rolled around and snuggled in his arms. Once they were far enough from the building, Noah pulled a flare out of his inventory and loaded it into a tiny cannon, firing it straight up into the air. Felix told Nova to watch the flare and that if they ever saw the flare in the sky, they should run to it.


    He also did his best to communicate to Nova that it should protect any humans as best it could unless they attacked, then it should try and run. He was worried some pour soul was going to attack Nova in it''s metal panther form thinking it was a monster and didn''t want them to die because of it. In that situation, Nova could survive taking the hit and should just run away. There was the off chance that the enemies in the city were humans, but Felix figured that was very unlikely considering how long the city had been abandoned.


    Felix checked the time and noticed it was well past the time he was waiting for to teleport home again so he bid Noah farewell.


    "Wait! Aren''t you bringing Nova with you?" Noah said as he held out the cat to Felix.


    Felix quickly asked Nova if it wanted to return to the tower yet and it seemed to want to stay and hang out in the city, "Nope. It doesn''t want to. Don''t worry about it, you don''t need to protect or watch it at all. It''ll be fine."


    Felix told Nova not to fight or harm anyone in the city. It sent back all the different foods it smelled in the city and wanted to try causing Felix to chuckle.


    "Alright, have fun. I''ll come grab them before the world event."


    "Uh, do I need to feed it?"


    "What? No, don''t worry about it. It might take a bite out of a building or something but just make a tab if it does. It''s not likely but on the off chance it does I''ll fully pay for the damages."


    "Wait¡­ What?"


    Felix waved to Noah and teleported back to his tower. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 Chapter 127 - Book 31

    Felix continued his pattern of working out in the morning followed by practicing his Dragon Dance Steps. He upped both of those to 3 hours each and observed marked improvements in both. For working out, he was gaining approximately the same stats as before but now he wasn''t reaching the limit of his equipment now that he was using his staff and plates. Before the integration, he would have to follow a plan that would strain his muscles appropriately with rest time in between designed by a professional. Now, he could manually force his muscles to repair themselves at the cost of more energy so he could theoretically just sit there and perform the same exercise at his limit forever. He also didn''t need to worry about diet since his body was converting mana to energy, entirely skipping the need for food and watching his macros and calories.


    With the Dragon Dance, he now knew all of the steps and he was working on making his body comfortable with them as well as committing the actual motions to memory. He also needed to make them faster, much faster. He still felt like he was practicing yoga or like he was doing a meditative dance. Before using it in combat, he wanted to feel like the stances and steps were fast enough to at least do damage or avoid an attack. Ideally he got to the point where he could perform the steps as fast as his body would allow, but he was still a long way from using it in combat let alone his ideal goal.


    For the remainder of each day he spent 12 hours affinizing the staff to his soul which he actually completed much earlier than he was expecting, in just a couple of days. After that he switched over to affinizing individual ingots in his inventory. By the end of the month, he had affinized 74 ingots and placed them separated from the rest of the ingots in his inventory. The remaining 6 hours each day were spent creating a blowtorch spell which was much harder than it sounded.


    Felix mentally knew the highest melting point of any material on earth, before the integration, was around 4000 Celsius which meant now it could be even higher. Unfortunately, that temperature was hard to work with, even if he could produce it. He started with a simple channeled fire node then added a heat node and a force node to keep everything contained. He spent some time tuning the ratios of each node until it was perfect then slowly increased the temperature. As he did, he needed to move the spell away from himself as it grew increasingly hot, and it was a good thing he did as tiny explosions began erupting around the flame.


    He eventually realized it was moisture so he created a shell of solid mana then removed the moisture from it and tested inside of that. That ended up helping a ton as the mana shield acted as an insulator and didn''t care about temperature at all, it was completely unaffected. He tested his spell on random stones he found outside and Soul-Steal ingots. He managed to melt both but had to tune his mana shell to get a good seal as the expanding air kept pushing it away.


    Once that was done, a week or so into the month, Felix spent his time creating as many mana batteries as he could which ended up being about 120. Overall, he had almost 200 single use batteries with about 250k mana in each. He was planning on giving 30 to Nova and he gave 10 to Grim, just in case. When there were just a few hours left before the world event, Felix teleported to Atalus and found a large crowd of people outside of the city council building. He flew over them and walked into the building to find Noah, Benjamin, Will, Alan and Amelia all sitting around the table.


    Everyone but Amelia was decked out in equipment and looked ready for battle. Benjamin wore a familiar set of plate armor, the one Felix had enchanted for Henry back in the tutorial along with an impressive looking axe. Will and Alan both wore dark brown leathers with Alan''s being a little more thorough in it''s defense and Will''s being less restrictive. They were all D grade and looked human, but Felix didn''t bother checking and only saw their names now that he had changed that setting on identify. Nova was sleeping on the table while Amelia rubbed their belly.


    Felix walked up to the table and a few of them nodded to him but otherwise continued their conversation. He walked up to Benjamin, who wasn''t currently talking to anyone, "I didn''t realize you were the recipient of that armor. I enchanted it."


    "I figured and I wasn''t. It was some idiot who never ended up using it. After the tutorial, they quickly ran out of money so I managed to buy it for pretty cheap."


    "Now that your D grade though, is it worth it?"


    "Most stuff still works fine. I guess you had some crazy enchants huh? E grade materials are still useful, it''s not like I can break a steel beam or anything. This armor should protect me quite well through most of D grade, at least the first half. The stuff that stops working is the complicated enchantments. Simple stuff will work fine, just be less effective, really complicated stuff becomes useless."


    "Really? I remember Henry thinking differently, which is why we didn''t make the enchantments very durable on that armor."


    "Henry is a smith, he''s got a different perspective. He can swap his armor out every month for something better he comes up with. He probably never even considered how useful E grade armor would be in the D grade. For us normal folk, this''ll be fine."


    "I guess that makes sense. Yeah I was mostly wearing cloth with enchantments. That seems unfair that I have to replace my equipment more often."


    "It''s also unfair that armor and steel costs way more than wool, cotton and even silk. Seems pretty even to me."


    "Yeah¡­ I guess. I guess it doesn''t matter too much for me considering I enchant most of my stuff myself."


    "Speaking of which, any chance you could enchant my axe? Commissioned it in preparation for the world event and it''s my first D grade item." Benjamin said with a large toothy smile as he held out a large axe somewhere between a great axe and a battle axe. It had a slightly yellow tinge to the metal and was very shiny, reflective even.


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    "Uh¡­ Yeah sure. I don''t have time for anything complicated though, just a simple stronger swing, maybe some durability. That ok?"


    "Really? That''s more than I was hoping for. I was kind of kidding, figured you didn''t have time but I''ll take it for sure."


    "What material is it made of? Is it brittle or soft?"


    "Henry said it was Audrine, said it was a little soft for a weapon material but it''s D grade so it''ll hold up better than what I had before. Just have to be on top of sharpening it."


    "Alright, got it." Felix took the axe from Benjamin. He quickly designed an enchantment in his head that would increase the elasticity and hardness of the metal as well as make the swings faster and stronger. He also left room for more enchantments in case he had time and quickly pulled out his Parroukan feather enchanting quill. He found that even though it was an E grade quill, it mostly worked fine. It required more mana and more effort to keep it stable as it seemed to want to shake more than enchant, but it was usable and Felix had gotten used to it. He finished the enchantment in just under an hour giving him enough time to add a cosmetic enchantment. After thinking about which color of glow to add he realized he could probably add a slightly more complicated enchantment instead.


    He asked Benjamin''s opinion, interrupting his conversation with Will and Alan briefly, "Fire, Ice or Lightning?"


    "Sorry?" Benjamin turned to Felix and shook his head.


    "Fire, Ice or Lightning?"


    "Fire!" Will called out.


    Felix nodded and got back to work. In the gaps where he had planned on adding simple light nodes, Felix instead added Fire nodes with a tiny shape node and force node to direct it. The Fire was almost entirely cosmetic as it wouldn''t get nearly hot enough to do significant damage, but it should look super cool. Felix stood from the table and stepped back to test out the axe. He gently pushed his own mana into the enchantment so he didn''t have to wait for it to charge from the ambient mana and gave it a few test swings.


    Benjamin, Will and Alan had stopped their conversation to watch and their eyes lit up as Felix swung the axe and it''s head lit on fire. The fire trailed behind the axe as it swung with nothing keeping it in place on the head. Felix felt a little bit of imbalance as he swung it so he adjusted the enchantment with his quill before testing it again and deciding it was satisfactory. He walked over and handed it to Benjamin who looked like he was ready to tear up a little as he took the axe in his hand.


    "I¡­ Thank you¡­ How much do I owe yo-"


    "Don''t worry about it. Seriously, it''s no problem." Felix nodded to him and then walked away before Benjamin could insist, heading around the table to Noah and Amelia. Benjamin stood up to give the axe a few test swings, Will and Alan standing behind him a dozen meters away. He almost fell over on his first swing, not expecting the stronger swing, but quickly got the hang of it. As Benjamin swung, his face lit up and his smile grew.


    Once he was happy with it, he nodded in Felix''s direction again and then handed it to Will who wanted to give it a few test swing''s as well. He swung it and the axe immediately flew out of his hand pulling him forwards onto the floor as the axe embedded itself in a pillar next to him. Luckily he had the foresight to swing it away from anyone so no one got hurt, well not physically. Benjamin helped Will to his feet while Alan chortled and bent over laughing. Will joined in and shortly afterwards Benjamin. Alan also tried the axe but he knew what was coming so he held on and swung it very carefully.


    "How was Nova? Not too much trouble?" Felix asked Noah and looked at Amelia too as she was the one currently dealing with the cat.


    Noah shrugged, "I know you said I didn''t need to feed it but it kept begging for food whenever we walked by restaurants so I uh¡­ well I added it to your tab. No buildings, but it did eat a suit of armor at some point. It did ask me, but uh¡­ I didn''t have it in me to refuse so we bought it."


    Felix shrugged as well, "Sure sure, how much?"


    Noah winced as he said, "The total tab is about 104k."


    Felix reached out his hand and offered it to Noah who gingerly took it. Felix transferred him 115k, "I added a babysitting fee."


    "Oh¡­ Thanks, you didn''t¡­ It mostly just napped on my shoulder or followed Amelia around. I was worried at first it would fall behind with those tiny little legs but it didn''t seem to care how fast I walked."


    Felix smiled, "Glad it all worked out. Worst case it probably would have been fine without you, just walking around the city. Really you''re more like it''s wallet than anything."


    "Yeah, I got that impression."


    "You want me to take care of her while you''re in the world event? or are you taking her with you?" Amelia asked Felix.


    "You aren''t coming with us?"


    "Hell no. The list of shit I need to build is way too long to take a vacation. Besides, what would I build in a tomb?"


    "That''s a fair point. I think Nova will want to come along."


    "You sure it''s safe for her in there?"


    "Uh¡­ Yes." Felix answered, only hesitating because he realized Amelia didn''t realize how ridiculous that question was.


    Felix looked at Nova, You want to come to the world event? He asked with mental images of what he suspected the event would entail. Nova immediately rolled over, surprising Amelia and looked up at Felix, meowed then flew up onto his head before jumping into his hood.


    "Wait, it can fly?" Noah asked.


    "Hmm? Oh, yeah. If you see Nova roaming around in the tutorial, don''t worry about them, and just don''t hit them."


    "You''re not going to have her with you?" Amelia asked with a shocked expression.


    "Hell no. Again, don''t worry, they''ll be fine."


    Amelia looked at Noah with a concerned expression but he just shrugged. Amelia sighed then turned to Felix, "By the way, they are a her right?"


    "Why do you say that?"


    "Noah and I made a bet and it just feels right. Although it doesn''t actually have any genitalia so¡­ Noah''s bet is that they''re male."


    "I''m betting on neither and it''s actually some kind of shapeshifting monster." Will said with a smirk. S§×ar?h the n?velFire.net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    "Dragon in disguise." Alan said.


    Benjamin chuckled and shrugged when the others looked at him.


    "Uh, it is a shapeshifter, though I wouldn''t call it a monster¡­ I guess Will wins?"


    "Wait, what? Really?" Will said, "I was mostly kidding around."


    "I knew it was a shapeshifter, just figured it was male." Noah shrugged.


    "Yeah I asked, they don''t know. They didn''t understand the concept of sex or gender."


    "So what are they really?" Amelia asked.


    "A Matter Sprite. Technically a cursed one¡­"


    "Cursed?" Will and Alan said in unison.


    "Yeah, it''s cursed with hunger. So far it hasn''t been an issue though."


    World Event


    Welcome to the first ever Trenus world event! You were among the first 10,000 individuals to hit D grade and have been invited to participate. Anything you store in your inventory or have equipped will be teleported there with you and the same will apply when you return.


    You will be teleported to the world event in 5 minutes.


    . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 Chapter 128 - Book 32

    Felix quickly fed Nova 30 mana batteries then patiently waited out the 5 minutes. Everyone in the building seemed to be nervously adjusting their equipment and checking through their inventories at the last minute. Noah and Amelia were embracing each-other and Will and Alan whispering in each-other''s ear. After 5 minutes were up, Felix felt the biggest lurch in ambient mana yet as everyone attending vanished from Trenus and reappeared in what looked like a greyscale nightmare.


    Everyone seemed to be in the same relative position from where they started so Felix looked around and saw Noah, Benjamin, Will and Alan standing around him. Behind him, the crowd of people that were standing outside of the city council building. There were a handful of people a few hundred meters in front of him that would have been spread throughout Atalus. Looking beyond them, there were large groups representing each of the major cities of Trenus in their relative position. To Felix''s right was The Lodge, his left was Sprouts and Coastwatch. Then Snowvale, Trelas, Orselle and Lav''gur a little further out. In total, no one was further than a few kilometers from each-other, the empty space between the cities evidently scaled down by a large amount. After a minute or so to adjust, a screen appeared.


    World Event


    Welcome to Ky''bel. This city was once a Galactic Capital and home to Erolan, one of the most controversial leaders in the area, at the time. Erolan''s home was attacked causing him to hide his wealth throughout the city. The greatest of his treasures were stored in a pocket dimension stored in his statue. The key to open it was split into 12 pieces and spread throughout the city to make it''s retrieval nearly impossible. Once all 12 pieces are gathered near the statue, Erolan''s pet, his champion, will be summoned. Defeating this champion is the only way of getting into the pocket dimension and to Erolan''s final vault.


    The key fragments as well as a vast number of minor treasures are located within vaults and treasure caches filed away throughout the city.


    Erolan''s story that was previously shown when the world event vote concluded along with this screen may be resummoned at any time.


    You may leave at any time by initiating the teleport however you will be unable to return. The event space will remain open until Erolan''s final vault is breached at which point the space will close after 1 day.


    Felix looked around and took in the environment around him. A few kilometers in front of Felix stood a massive statue some 50 meters tall made entirely of stone. It stood with it''s front leg slightly bent, almost lunging forwards holding a glowing orb with two hands just in front of it''s chest. The orb glowed shedding a crimson light around it and the statue was positioned as though it was trying to squeeze the orb. The statue wore long hooded robes, almost like a cloak with sleeves. Beyond the statue stood a massive circular wall that surrounded the city of Ky''bel. None of that stood out to Felix, at least not as much as the weather did though.


    They stood in a vast field of what Felix assumed was green grass, though it was hard to tell. The sky was filled with a massive spiral of roiling clouds that converged on the center of the city. The clouds were so dark, they were almost black, with the light that filtered through giving the environment a washed out almost greyscale look. Flashes of lightning shot through the clouds constantly with thunderous booms following them shortly afterwards. As Felix stood looking up at the clouds, his cloak was being whipped around by winds that couldn''t seem to decide which direction they wanted to blow.


    The strong storm winds and sudden change in location didn''t seem to bother Nova in the slightest as they peeked over Felix''s shoulder and looked around. Felix looked over at Noah and met his gaze as he looked around for himself.


    "You gonna head off right away or do you want to come talk to the other cities with me?" Noah asked just loud enough to hear over the winds.


    "Sure, sounds like a plan. I''d like to be aware of roughly what everyone is planning if possible so I''ll follow you for now."


    Noah nodded to Felix then Benjamin in turn. He led them over in the direction of Trelas, behind them and further away from the statue. Looking around, people from each of the cities seemed to just be loitering about, almost everyone waiting for direction. There were some from each of the cities and especially those from between them that headed straight towards the city.


    Noah, Felix, Benjamin, Will and Alan all met up with Jack, Martin, Amani and Otto. Jackie it seemed had run off towards the city on her own but her representative was there as well.


    "As we talked about before? Think we should set up further from the statue? If that''s where the final boss is going to show up¡­" Jack yelled out above the winds.


    "Good idea. We''ll keep a few hundred meters between each camp otherwise feel free to set up wherever. Once we have, we can figure out how to split up the city." Noah nodded in response to Jack''s question.


    "Mind doing that now? I''ve got a few that would like to get started as soon as possible." Amani asked. She didn''t seem to need to raise her voice much as it''s melodic tone was perfectly audible as though it pierced the winds.


    "Sure thing. Do we have any idea of the layout of the city?" Noah asked.


    Everyone took a minute to open their maps and shook their heads.


    Noah turned to Felix, "Felix, can you give me a general idea?"


    Felix nodded and jumped into the air, flying straight up until he could see the general layout of the city. Despite the clouds in the sky and the winds whipping in every which direction, Felix had no trouble seeing the city hundreds of kilometers away. No where around him did he see a single drop of rain. As he ascended, the city came into view and Felix simply let go of his spells and let himself drop until he was a hundred or so meters above the ground and he cast feather fall. He pushed himself back towards the group as he fell as the winds had pushed him while in the air.


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    He turned to Noah, "It''s a really big circle. There are three walls, the outer one, another in the middle, and another in the middle of that one."


    "That''s rather simple." Noah scratched his head.


    "You can fly?" Jack asked incredulously.


    "Uh¡­ yeah¡­"


    "Well, we can just cut it into 8 slices then. How about the cardinal direction, North, East, South, West and the in-betweens?"


    Everyone seemed to nod in agreement so they allocated the slices to the relative positions of the cities. The Lodge would get the north slice then in a clockwise direction was Snowvale, Trelass, Orselle, Coastwatch, Orselle, Sprouts, Lav''gur and Atalus. No one from Lav''gur was at the meeting, but it was too confusing to split the city into 7. After agreeing upon the split everyone moved off back to their people.


    Felix followed Benjamin who was going to claim land for Atalus'' camp while Noah went to inform the other residents of Atalus. They wanted to be further from the statue and closer to the other cities which necessitated moving. All of the cities began setting up large tents with thick posts to keep them stable against the wind. It seemed like everyone had planned ahead and possibly even practiced as tents were erected in less than 10 minutes for the camps that didn''t move from where they landed. Once the large main tents were set up, smaller tents and structures were erected all around them for individuals, food storage and communal areas. Felix helped Noah with setting up their tent, flying up and using spells to hammer in the posts. They then nailed a thick cloth to the posts that felt like it had been waxed to stay waterproof.


    Felix looked around at the other cities, taking in the differences between the tents, some wooden structures and the general layouts when something caught his eye. He flew over to Trelas and Snowvale''s combined camp and walked up to Martin who was in the process of piecing together what appeared to be a large dune buggy. It was a large metal vehicle with wheels that extended out of the main structure supported by springs. The body was large enough to fit 3 pairs side by side and was mostly enclosed with the only window being the windshield. On top of and to the side of the vehicle were cannons that mounted to the frame. At least, that''s how Felix imagined the vehicle because right now it was completely in pieces laid out on the ground approximately where each piece would go.


    "That¡­ is awesome." Felix said.


    Martin looked up from what he was doing with a smile, "Pain in the ass to transport though. Had to split it into pieces to get it all into our inventories. It''ll be much more impressive in 30 minutes or so when it''s all put together."


    Felix looked around at the rest of Martin and Jack''s camp noticing that everyone else was busy setting up tents and even some machines of their own. "Do you need help with that?" Felix offered.


    "Uh¡­" Martin winced, "Alright, but you can only do what I tell you to, ok? Initiative is very bad, got it?"


    "Sure thing." Felix chuckled as he knelt down near Martin. Together they put the structure together in just under 10 minutes. Felix followed exactly what Martin told him and didn''t stray at all though Martin relaxed after a few minutes when he realized Felix wasn''t an idiot. Martin also did an amazing job at making the vehicle come apart into pieces that were relatively easy to reassemble. The whole process was not complicated at all and was more akin to lego than it was to building a vehicle.


    "Thanks for the help."


    "No problem. So uh, how''s it move? I take it it''s an enchantment?"


    "Sort of, more like an inscribed spell."


    "Can I see it?"


    "Uh¡­ Sure." Martin led Felix to the back of the vehicle where he opened a hatch revealing a large metal plate with enchantments on it.


    "It''s going to take a little while to charge up and it doesn''t have a massive range, but it''s better than walking. It''s also mostly how my class works."


    Felix raised his hand in front of him towards the enchanted plate and looked questioningly at Martin who hesitated then shrugged and nodded. Felix touched the enchantment and gently filled it to the brim with mana. He was actually rather impressed with the enchantment Martin had come up with, he had essentially created a bunch of inert enchantments that were used just to store mana. Felix pulled his hand away and looked at Martin who''s left eyebrow was raised while his head was cocked to the side, "What did you do?"


    "I filled the enchantment. Waiting for it to charge is boring."


    "Wai¡­ Uh¡­ You can do that? How?"


    Felix shrugged, "I just push mana into it. You should probably look into batteries though, those are much easier."


    "I''ve wanted to but I haven''t figured out how just yet."


    "I can give you the schematic if you''d like?"


    "Really? You''d just¡­ Thank you, yes please."


    "You got a pen and paper by chance?"


    "You memorized it?"


    "Yeah, photographic memory skill. It is very handy."


    Martin led Felix to the nearby tent where there was already a table set up and Jack was poring over a map of the city, which was just a large circle at the moment. Martin handed Felix a piece of paper and a metal pencil with a charcoal core and he quickly sketched out the schematic for a mana battery. He made sure to trace a mental image to make the drawing as accurate as possible. He handed it to Martin who took it carefully as though the sheet might disintegrate if he was too rough with it.


    Felix lightly shook his head then walked over next to Jack with Martin''s pencil still in hand and gestured to the map with it. Jack back away a few steps and let Felix get full access. Felix proceeded to fill in the city with the rough layout of the blocks and buildings he could make out from the air along with the statue and a few other landmarks. He used his memory skill to overlay his memory, skew it until it was an overhead view then traced it to make the map as accurate as possible.


    When he was done he stepped back with a satisfied nod and Jack walked back up to the map. Felix handed Martin back his pencil which was an awesome instrument, it was essentially a mechanical pencil except it was just a piston, not a button. Jack spoke without looking up from the map, "Where do I get myself one of you? Or even better, where can I learn to fly?"


    Felix chuckled, "Martin could probably make you a jetpack of some sort."


    Jack looked to Martin with wide eyes, "Well why the hell haven''t you?" S§×ar?h the ¦ÇovelFire.¦Çet website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    "Now that I can make batteries I could, before you would barely make it off the ground or it would be size of a small plane."


    "Oh, speaking of batteries. Here." Felix pulled five mana batteries out of his inventory and handed them to Martin, "These are batteries but they can''t be recharged, they''re really just solid mana. In case of an emergency or just for testing, if you want."


    "Oh wow. This is awesome, thank you. How much mana in each of them?"


    "250,000 points."


    Martin gaped, "EACH?"


    "Yeah."


    "What the fuck. That''s bigger than my entire mana pool. Where the hell did you get these? Are you sure you can just give them to me like this? You won''t need them?"


    "I made them. Yeah I have a ton more in my inventory."


    "Holy shit. Thank you."


    "I got a request in return if you don''t mind. Can you take me for a ride in the vehicle?"


    Martin shrugged "Sure, it''s probably not as exciting as you''re imagining though."


    Felix shrugged, "Maybe, it looks damn cool though." . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 Chapter 129 - Book 33

    They walked outside to the vehicle they had previously constructed and Felix hopped into the passenger seat on the right while Martin hopped into the seat left of him. Martin checked a few things then gingerly pulled a lever between his legs to start the vehicle moving. They slowly picked up speed as they rolled through the field until they were traveling about the speed of a car on a residential road.


    "Any more and the enchantments¡­ Without batteries they might burn out."


    Felix wanted to get started with exploring the city but he also wanted to help Martin out and right now, he just wanted to see how fast this thing could go.


    "Will the frame hold up at higher speeds?"


    "Yeah it should be fine. Everything was welded together and it''s probably about as solid as any vehicle back on earth, if not more." Sear?h the ¦Çov§×lFire .net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    "Can we test that?"


    "Sure? With a battery?"


    "No, I''ll just cast a force spell to push and slowly accelerate us until you tell me to stop."


    "Uh¡­ Alright, go for it."


    Felix cast a simple force spell right in the chassis of the vehicle and slowly filled it with mana. As he channeled it, he increased it''s size incrementally, pushing the vehicle through the field. Once they had surpassed highway speeds Martin was starting to look a little nervous but told Felix to keep going when asked if he wanted to stop. They kept going until they had doubled that speed and it was nearly impossible to turn before Martin got Felix to stop them. Felix reversed the spell and brought them to a gradual stop.


    "Holy shit that was fast."


    "Not too bad. The suspension is awesome, you did a really good job. I couldn''t even feel the field beneath us."


    "Thanks."


    "You up for another test of mine?"


    "Uh, I don''t want to fly if that''s what you''re asking."


    "No no, although¡­" Felix thought about it for a few moments before shaking his head and returning to the present, "I have something else in mind, it''s an upgrade¡­ I hope."


    "I mean I''ll take a look I guess."


    "Alright, let''s head back to your camp and I''ll make it on the way."


    "Uh, ok."


    As Martin drove them back to the camp, Felix crawled back into the seat behind Martin and began crafting a disc about a meter wide out of solid mana. He used 5 mana batteries to make the process faster than it would be if he were solidifying ambient mana, molding and fusing them together. Just as they reached the camp Felix finished up with inscribing the spell forms then hopped out of the vehicle. He placed the engine in his inventory as it didn''t quite fit through the narrow door and pulled it out on the other side. He handed it to Martin who gingerly accepted it and looked down at it with a cocked brow, "Uh¡­ Thanks¡­"


    Felix reached forwards and touched it using his own mana to kickstart the process causing it to whir to life. Martin jumped back slightly in surprise and Felix smiled.


    "What is happening. What the hell am I holding?"


    "I''ve been calling it a mana engine. Essentially it just pulls in ambient mana but it''s way faster than enchantments."


    "How fast?"


    "Good question. I''ve never made one this small before so not sure. Let me see." Felix reached forwards and placed his hand on the engine once again, this time sucking in all the excess mana it pulled while he watched his mana pool grow. He manually disabled his own mana regeneration to make sure the numbers weren''t too far off. Once he had a decent estimate, he pulled his hand back, "Looks like this one will do about 80 mana a second."


    "Holy shit, are you sure?"


    "Yeah approximately. Wanna attach it to your car?"


    "Uh¡­ Yes. I take it this is how you figured planes would work?"


    "Yup."


    "We''d need a lot more, or a lot bigger but if it really is 80 mana a second for this one, planes are definitely within the realm of possibility."


    Felix helped Martin attach the mana engine to the vehicle carefully placing it in the back to make it easier to reroute the enchantments to use the engine. Felix and Martin added more enchantments as well so the vehicle would move faster and be able to utilize the extra mana. Once they were done, the vehicle was way faster and a lot more fun without Felix manually pushing it along.


    "Holy shit. This is awesome¡­ Thank you." Martin said.


    Felix shrugged, "Sure. No problem."


    They walked together into the main tent where they left Jack and found Amani and Noah inside standing across the table from Jack.


    "Oi, you drew him a map before me?" Noah scolded Felix.


    "They provided a pencil. I don''t carry disposable paper with me. Or a normal writing utensil for that matter."


    "I''m kidding. Jack''s gonna let me copy his and we''re gonna keep each-other updated as we go."


    "Does anybody need anything else from me? I''m kind of itching to go explore the city."


    "You are welcome to try." Amani said with a smirk.


    "What do you mean?"


    "The city seems to be protected by a force field of sorts."


    This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it


    "You already tried going over it?"


    "Just arrows. Jackie has been trying since she got here."


    "Well, I guess I''ll take a look."


    "Can you fly other people?"


    "Uh¡­ I''ve never tried¡­"


    "If I hold onto a rope, can you fly me over?"


    "Yeah, probably?"


    "Excellent. Definitely beats walking."


    Felix and Amani walked outside and she handed him one end of a rope while she tied the other around her waist. She also wrapped it around her arm, so the loop around her waist acted mostly as a backup. Felix grabbed the other end of the rope and tentatively rose into the air. He adjusted his spells on the fly and tuned them just a bit to compensate for the extra weight. Moving side to side was hard but if he just flew in a straight line, which was the plan anyways, there didn''t appear to be any issue.


    Felix slowly accelerated so Amani didn''t swing around too much and flew over to the city. The winds made it a little challenging but Amani didn''t seem to mind, wearing a large smile on her face as they zipped through he air. Felix slowly decelerated a hundred meters from the wall then cast feather fall on the two of them and dropped Amani''s rope. Her face panicked for a second before she realized she was descending slowly.


    When they touched down, she turned to him, "You dick. You could have warned me before you just let go."


    "Oh, sorry. Honestly I didn''t even really think about it." Felix apologized.


    "I¡­ Fair enough. Thanks for the ride, it definitely beats walking."


    Felix nodded as they walked up to the wall, next to Jackie who was firing off different kinds of arrows above the wall. Some were covered in fire others looked like icicles but they were all diverted and shot back before passing over the threshold.


    "Any luck?" Amani asked.


    "Nope, nothing."


    "Have you tried people yet or just arrows?" Felix asked.


    "Just arrows. Wall is too smooth to scale and I can''t get a rope arrow above it."


    "Alright, I''ll try flying over"


    "Make sure to open the gate if you get through, don''t just leave us stuck out here, ok?" Amani said as Felix flew up towards the top of the wall. The wall was about 20 meters high and made of what looked like stone or marble. It was completely white with some gold trim. The most surprising thing to Felix was that after the great battle and the passage of time, the wall was entirely intact and undamaged as far as he could tell. Once he was above the top of the wall he slowly pushed himself forwards with a gentle push from a force spell. He pushed a little harder and the spell pushed back, completely resisting him and not letting him pass any further inwards.


    Felix backed up and tried firing off a barrage of various spells all over the place but each and every one was met with a wall of force and held out of the city''s perimeter. He thought about trying to overpower the spell but he didn''t think he had nearly enough mana for that and figured there had to be an easier way.


    Felix descended back to the ground looked towards Jackie and Amani, "Looks like everything is blocked. Guess we try the gate then?"


    "It''s locked too." Jackie said, her eyes never leaving the top of the wall.


    "Probably easier than this though."


    "Maybe."


    Felix shrugged and walked over towards the crowd of people he saw gathered around the gate with Amani in tow. The gate was a large white double door made of the same material as the walls with the same golden metal used for the hinges and locking mechanisms. The top of the doors arced upwards to a point 10 meters off the ground, the entire gate as a whole just as wide. The people gathered around the base appeared to mostly be loitering about though some were banging on the gate and others inspecting it. Felix and Amani made their way through the crowd, right up to the gate and stood next to an average height man wielding a sword and a shield who stared up at the gate. He nodded to the two as they approached then turned his head back to the gate.


    "Any clever ideas?" Amani nudged Felix.


    Felix shrugged, "Nothing clever. You?"


    "I was hoping you could just fly over. Now¡­ I fear we will have to drill through the damn wall."


    "If I were Erolan, my city is under attack, I probably lock the gates from the inside and activate every defense at my disposal. I think drilling may be our only option."


    "Damn. Yeah, I think so as well. I guess we wait for Martin to get here and see if he can come up with a giant drill or something."


    "Shouldn''t be too long. I''m going to fly around the city, explore the area. If I find a way in, I''ll open up the gates."


    Amani waved goodbye and turned back to the gate. Felix shot up into the air until he was high enough to see most of the city, then began circling around. He fired off a smattering of spells every once in a while to test the barrier but it was the same all the way around and all the way up as far as Felix could tell. He was actually really impressed with the shield, it didn''t seem like it was always up as the wind seemed to pass through unaffected. Instead, the shield would detect when something that met it''s criteria was approaching then apply exactly the right amount of force to repel it. Felix was really hoping to get a look at the enchantment so he could do something similar with his robes. This was, far superior to his current mage armor in Felix''s opinion. It didn''t require him to notice the incoming projectile and activate the spell manually, everything was automated, at least so he assumed.


    Felix flew all the way around the city and noticed a couple of things. The outer wall, the one they couldn''t seem to get through, was a traditional wall. The next wall inside of that held what seemed to be about 5% of the city and it looked like a wall from afar but Felix realized it was actually a platform. It stood almost twice the height of the outer wall and the ground inside of it was level with the top of the wall. The retaining wall around the platform was made of the same white stone with even more intricate golden decorations.


    At the center of that raised level was another platform, this one only another 10 meters or so high. On the inner most platform lay a single building, a massive white pyramid surrounded by a large garden or park with trees, flowers and grass. The oddest part to Felix was that it was still well kept. The plants weren''t overgrown or destroying the building like he would have expected. Around the back of the city, there were two staircases to ascend to the top of each of the platforms, though he suspected the elevators he had seen all around them got more use. Overall, with the platforms in the middle, the entire city reminded Felix of a multi-tiered cake, like one for a wedding.


    Having circled the entire city and finding only three more locked gates, Felix decided to venture outwards and explore the rest of the event area. As far as he could see, there was no border or wall marking the edge of the event area, like the tutorial had had but figured there had to be one, somewhere out there. Felix flew straight outwards, away from the city which sent him east if the camps were to the south, which was the convention they had decided on ahead of time.


    As he flew, the city gradually shrunk in the distance until it lowered below the horizon and out of sight. Below Felix, the ground had started to become less flat with hills and valleys covered in long wild grass in every direction. Eventually, Felix hit the edge of the area which was simply a slightly blue glowing barrier that seemed to stretch endlessly into the sky. Felix touched it and it felt like a solid object but nothing more, there was no difference in temperature and it''s texture was best described as indistinct.


    Looking at his map, that was filling itself out as he flew, he had traveled a couple thousand kilometers from the city. The area that comprised the world event was about 5,000 kilometers across. Felix turned to his left and shot off to the north, keeping the boundary wall just a few meters to his right. If his quick mental math was right, it would be just over 31,000 kilometers to circle around the entire area. In total, Felix should be able to make it around in just over a day or so which would hopefully be enough time for everyone else to find a way into the city.


    Felix thought about helping them, but ultimately he figured having a map of the area and knowing about any monsters they might encounter outside the city, was more helpful. If there were any monsters outside the city, and they managed to sneak up on the camp or they ambushed people as they escaped the city, people would likely die. The camps were currently used for non combatants like Noah, who was there to coordinate and plan things, as well as allow people to rest and recover from injuries. Neither of those groups were ready to defend themselves. On the other hand, Felix may have just been post justifying to himself because drilling a hole in a gate sounded super boring. A part of him was hoping to find something to do in the meantime. Worst case scenario he could do more training while he waited, but that felt like a waste when he could do that anywhere. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 Chapter 130 - Book 34

    Interestingly to Felix, as he flew, he noticed that the gravity in the world event was slightly stronger than he was used to. He didn''t notice the effects on his body but as he flew, his mana drain was higher than he was used to. He also realized this was just in relation to Trenus, not Earth as he had no way of measuring the and quantifying the gravity to properly compare them. Coming out of the tutorial, his body was much stronger and more resilient too so he couldn''t just qualitatively compare his feeling of the gravity now with his memory. If he had some way to accurately measure distance, he could probably remember the math from high-school physics to figure it out, but it didn''t really matter to him right now.


    As Felix flew around the world event area, he noticed that the entire area was mostly a single biome. Everywhere he looked he saw fields of green grass covered rolling hills. The only place where that differed, at least so far, was right around the city. The city itself, as well as a large circle around it, was perfectly flat with not a single hill or divot in sight. In fact it was so flat, it made the area around the city look like a lawn or backyard where the city itself was the house.


    The grass around the city was overgrown and there were weeds and clovers thrown into the mix as well but it wasn''t nearly as bad as Felix would have expected. He was starting to think this place was either recreated, held in stasis, or cared for. Given the amount of time The System suggested this city had existed for, Felix realistically didn''t expect there to be anything left. Though honestly, he didn''t know how long D grade materials would last when left unattended, so it was possible this was normal.


    As Felix flew, he began to practice spell formation, mostly out of boredom as the landscape was both void of creatures and completely uniform. The practice became slightly mindless though so he pulled out a random E grade dagger he had kicking around in his inventory and began to make it float alongside him. After flying with Amani earlier, he wanted to get used to floating things alongside him so he didn''t need the rope at all. Luckily, that only took a couple spells of concentration so he could use one to fly, along with the inscriptions in his armor, two to practice spell formation, two for the dagger and still have one left over just in case.


    He could probably concentrate and simultaneously cast seven or more spells if the spells were simple, but he was already really happy with just six. He knew some day he would get to many more than that but he wasn''t sure what he would ever do with 20 simultaneous spells. The only advantage he could foresee was that he knew spells would get more complicated, so even if he could cast 20 Fire Bolts at once, he would probably only be able to cast a couple teleports, for example.


    He had a system in mind for categorizing the spells where he classified the spells by complexity, then he would be able to measure the limits to his concentration in spell levels. If he could cast 10 total levels now and Fire Bolt was level 1 or used one slot, he could simultaneous cast 10 of them. If Fire Bolt was level 2, he could cast 5. That would mean he had 10 slots or levels. It would make it much easier to measure real progress too instead of feeling like he stagnated or degraded because he was casting much higher complexity spells. Unfortunately, he didn''t think the numbers would be as clean as that and he would need to experiment quite a bit to nail them down. Unfortunately, he didn''t really have time to do so now or before the world event as it wasn''t going to make him significantly stronger.


    Finally, the majority of a day into his travel, Felix saw the landscape differ. The grass started to grow thinner and gave way to rocks and stones that peeked out of the ground. As he continued to fly, he stowed the dagger so he could focus on his surroundings. He wasn''t sure at first if he was just imagining things but he realized that the city was actually the lowest point in the entire area so far. All of the ground around it gradually rose. Here, on the west end of the world event, it was most pronounced with the gradient increasing steadily. Once Felix had reached almost the western most point of the area, the ground broke off on the edge of a cliff. Felix already knew what was at the bottom of the cliff before he saw it as he heard the waves rhythmically crashing against the rock.


    Felix flew right to the edge and looked down at the water below. The cliff stretched into the distance varying between a half a dozen to a dozen meters high. Felix jumped off the edge of the cliff and slowed his descent until he could touch the water. Judging from smell alone, the water likely wasn''t salt water but he was hesitant to confirm by tasting it. Realistically it should be fine, but it was somewhat risky given this was a new planet from an entirely different universe.


    Mostly for a change of scenery, Felix flew along the cliff face, right above the water, taking in the sounds and smell. He admired how the water was either simulated or let through the barrier on the edge of the world event as waves passed through it as if it didn''t exist at all. Right when he was at the edge of the cliff face and would have to ascend to ground level again, Felix heard the rhythmic lapping he had gotten so used to, shift just slightly.


    It now had a slight echo to it and the tone shifted ever slightly. He wasn''t sure if he would have noticed it at all if he hadn''t gotten so accustomed to the sound of the waves crashing against the cliff by now. He closed his eyes to focus in on the sound and slowly glided towards it. He ended up dipping his feet underwater as he did so but continued onwards anyways. Eventually, the sound got strong enough that he opened his eyes and flew forwards finding himself standing face to face with a small cave entrance. The cave peeked just a few meters above the water level, less if the waves were particularly big and realistically, it was more like a gap between two stones than it was a large cave entrance. S§×ar?h the Novel?ire(.)ne*t website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    The cave was almost a meter wide so Felix felt somewhat comforted that he wouldn''t get stuck as he glided inside. There was a large vertical wall of stone to both his left and right as he flew, as though the cave was really just a large crack in the otherwise solid stone. The cave narrowed and shortened gradually but he managed to travel dozens of kilometers without it getting too cramped. If he had to press himself between two stones at any point, he would turn back but luckily, that wasn''t necessary at all.


    You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.


    The cave finally widened and transitioned from a slight crack in a massive stone to a wide cavern. Felix flew into a cave lined in porous and weathered rock with pillars of stone stretching from floor to ceiling. It was completely dark at first but Felix cast a couple of simple light spells to illuminate the area. Shining the light downwards, it seemed the floor of the cave was somewhere deep below and wasn''t visible even though the waves had died down and the water was relatively calm this far in.


    Felix continued to fly into the cave as it gradually grew wider and more expansive. He had to increase the illumination of his light spells a few times, also moving them further above him, to make sure everything was visible and keep himself from being blinded. After winding through the cavern and having it finally open up into being almost a kilometer wide, the stone that made up the cavern shifted.


    Up until this point it had been a dark stone that was clearly weathered by the water below. That dark stone that Felix was so used to by now completely receded over the course of a few hundred meters and transitioned into a light grey, almost white stone. It made it so his light was much more effective too as it was slightly more reflective than the porous and weathered stone was. The water that had covered the entirety of the cave floor up until this point was now a small stream, contained to a groove in the stone just a few meters wide.


    Felix traveled further into the cave and quickly began to see obviously unnatural markings all over the walls. There were small holes from picks, stone ripped out of the wall and scattered about along with large chunks of the wall simply missing. They became gradually more obvious as he traveled deeper into the cave until eventually Felix saw mining tools strewn about along with the odd sight of mining carts without wheels. They were more akin to a palanquin or a stretcher with two large poles to carry them. The oddest part though, was that they existed at all.


    Why not just use your inventory?


    Felix continued through the cavern and noticed that the pillars of stone were intentionally laid out all around the cavern to keep the cave stable and prevent a collapse. The stone was either very solid and it didn''t matter, or it was strategically mined so that the pillars were structurally sound enough to keep the cave from collapsing. As he traveled further inwards, the mine continued to grow and the tools left lying around became increasingly more common. Small caves that extended off the main mine started to appear though they most often didn''t travel very far.


    At this point, the cave had stopped winding and twisting entirely and was almost perfectly consistent in width at a hundred or so meters across. There were also pillars of stone right in the middle of the cave every couple hundred meters to keep the cave from collapsing. The stream ran along the right side of the pillars, just a meter across but with no sign of how deep it may be. Felix checked his map and noticed he was about fairly close to the city at this point, about 80% of the way there from the west edge of the world event area.


    He continued onwards and when he was about a quarter of the way there, right under where the wall would be, the cave opened up into a massive cavern. The cave he had traveled down to get here appeared to be the main branch that connected to this massive mine. There were others, all equally as consistent in width and perfectly straight, but this one was the only one with a stream of water. In the room, the stream opened up into more of a long and narrow lake and continued off in the direction of the city.


    There was mining equipment all over the place in this cave that appeared completely trashed from use more than from decay. There were picks with broken handles and others with dulled tips. There were carts with broken poles and shovels, crowbars, chisels, hammers and cables all strewn about in various states of being broken and overused.


    Felix continued following the river and heading towards the center of the city. He had even passed through the wall judging from his map. The mine eventually puckered up into a cavern entrance just a few meters wide taken up almost entirely by the river that flowed through.


    Standing on the edge of the cavern that led to the mine, though Felix''s light only extended a few hundred meters, it was just enough for Felix to see the outline of a few buildings. He cautiously stepped forwards and his light extended through the edge of a very run down town or city. The buildings were made mostly of wood with a little stone here and there and looked like they were constructed in the middle ages. The buildings were almost exclusively stores, each one with a worn out sign either hanging by a single remaining chain link or on the ground, just below where they had once hung. Some of the signs were mounted above the doorway, but they were all illegible and in various states of decay.


    Between the buildings, Felix saw the first sign of any form of creature he had seen in the entire world event, and it was horrific. Between two of the buildings, stood what looked like a human in poor light, but turned out to be something else. It had the shape of a person, with legs, arms and a head but it''s skin was entirely black and shriveled. As if all the fat in it''s body had been sucked out, the skin held tight to it''s bones and muscles, but there were no outlines of veins. It''s finger''s were slightly longer than normal and it''s nails had extended out into sharp claws. The most horrific part though, was that the creature had no nose, no ears and no mouth. There were holes for the nose, ears, and mouth was completely sealed, as if it had never been there. Felix was also pretty sure it didn''t have eyelids, as it''s eyes were wider than he had ever seen on any human, but he didn''t get any closer to verify. It also had no hair and wore no clothes. The creature simply stood there, occasionally taking a few steps in a random direction, groaning then waiting for a few moments before repeating the process.


    [D] Devoured (Lvl 273)


    What the hell is that thing?


    It kind of reminds me of something¡­ Try looking at it with your soul sight, if I''m right, you can probably walk pretty close to it without it noticing you, be careful though.


    I mean worst case, I have Nova, speaking of which¡­


    Felix reached both arms over his head and gently pulled his sleeping familiar out of his hood. At first he was worried they might fall out as he flew around the world event, but Nova seemed to be perfectly capable of keeping themselves in the hood. Felix woke Nova with a gentle mental nudge and placed them on the ground then communicated to Nova that he wanted them to stay with him for a bit, just in case. Nova mentally meowed in confirmation then silently shifted into their massive metal panther form. Together, they walked as stealthily as they could towards the Devoured and Felix tuned into his soul sight. As he did so, he noticed the emotions roiling out of Nova, though these were intentionally shared. Nova thought about eating the creature, since they were rather hungry, but immediately felt disgust at the idea then annoyance. Felix chuckled to himself and couldn''t help but agree, the creature, whatever it was, was rather disgusting. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 Chapter 131 - Book 35

    Together, Felix and Nova managed to walk up to just a couple dozen meters away from the creature which allowed them to see further into the town and see many more Devoured. Felix was wary of getting too close to them, especially once he saw that there were dozens of them spread throughout the buildings, some inside, most just on the roads. As they approached though, the Devoured continued to just loiter about in a creepy way. They definitely reminded Felix of zombies, though those were much easier to understand, they were simply walking corpses. Their skin fell off and their bodies rotted but they were evidently alive at some point, with these creatures, Felix wasn''t sure they weren''t created.


    Felix placed his hand gently on Nova''s back and closed his eyes to focus on his soul sight. He extended it out as far as he could. First, he saw his own soul and pushed outwards from there. Next he saw Nova, filled with excitement and wonder, like a child searching for anything new and shiny. Their soul was also tinted with an insatiable hunger but Felix could tell it hadn''t grown too much yet. He could also feel his own soul seed within them, it had integrated itself perfectly and he could only tell it was there because he knew about it before hand. It left his own convictions within them, not as strong as if they were their own, but strong enough to feel.


    Felix continued pushing his soul sight through the darkness until he managed to find the Devoured. As soon as he sensed the creature, he knew more or less what had happened. The creature''s soul was less than the flicker of a candle, it was a tiny smidge of a soul, just enough to be alive, to move. He continued searching with his soul sight and spotted a few of the other Devoured nearby and saw their souls were exactly the same.


    I take it someone devoured their souls?


    Their souls and energy it looks like. I''ve seen both separately, never together. They were¡­ awful people, one that consumed the souls of their victims to gain strength, while they were still alive. The other, consumed the blood, energy and other essential materials from a person''s body, leaving them with tight black skin and no fat, much like these abominations.


    You mentioned that I could have done that, harvested souls while the creature was still alive. S~ea??h the N?vel(F)ire.¦Çet website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    Yeah and I''m glad you didn''t. It''s likely the worst kind of torture ever. Essentially your soul is ripped apart right in front of you. Your memories and experiences are stolen. Your abilities are ripped out of you starting with your ability to fight and ending with your ability to think. The entire time your soul is inflicting as much pain as it can to your body so you try and fight back, so you try and stop what''s happening.


    Why didn''t you mention that before?


    If that was what you decided, that was what needed to be done, then so be it.


    Really? Do you have a moral compass at all? A sense of ethics, what''s right and wrong?


    No. At least I didn''t. I was constructed with artificial convictions that forced me to think of some things as right and wrong but none of that was my own thoughts.


    What about now?


    Now I think your soul seed has started to affect me. It''s not overwhelming yet, I wouldn''t fight you if you decided to harvest live souls, but it''s there. The little thought in the back of your pages that says, this probably isn''t right, I have that now.


    Wait, so my soul changed your personality? Your sense of right and wrong? It gave you a conscience?


    Felix, you''ve seen your soul. It''s an infection, a disease. It''s probably worse or just as bad as the worst curses. It''s a virus that spreads though anyone it infects, through a soul seed or otherwise. It overwrites parts of the infected individual''s personality, who they are. It also gives them super powers, so there is that. Worth it if you ask me.


    Felix looked towards Nova with a sinking pit in his stomach.


    How can you be ok with that? How can you know you would have been ok with that? How can I be ok with that?


    I don''t know that I would have been okay with it. I am now but there isn''t any way to know how I would have felt had I known. There''s no point in worrying about it now. I currently don''t care and the me-from-before-I-was-infected doesn''t exist anymore so there''s no point in worrying about him. As for you, I''m ok with it so why shouldn''t you be? All I can do is guess at whether or not I would have wanted to bond if I had known, but that''s not worth either of our time.


    What about Nova? I feel like I tricked them, didn''t give them all the information before they agreed.


    Grim chuckled in Felix''s head, I know I haven''t been in many people''s heads, but you are definitely the only one who would worry about that, or even think of it. Nova was a Matter Sprite, they didn''t have emotions or coherent thought before D grade. Even if you did tell it everything, it would have agreed just for the prospect of new and shiny. It''s like taming or adopting a wild animal. Do you tell the animal that you''re going to leave it alone for 8 hours at a time. Do you tell it it''s going to have to be neutered or wear a collar?


    I guess you''re right about Nova, wouldn''t have mattered anyway. It''s just hard to think of them like that now that I occasionally tune into their constant stream of emotions and sometimes even complex thoughts.


    I hear you. All you can do is be better. If someone asks you to soul bond in future, tell them or refuse. You can''t change what''s already happened.


    I know, it still makes me feel a little bad that I''ll never get to know who you would have been without me.


    I''m not. You kidding, this me sounds way more interesting than that sad sack. Are you sad that your parents got married? That you never would have known who they would have been without each-other?


    Stolen story; please report.


    No, definitely not. I guess¡­ are you happy?


    I''m a book.


    Sure. You also have a soul and seem to have feelings, you enjoy puns and despise my language, which is completely understandable.


    Those are mostly pragmatic, maybe not the puns. I think so. I mean, all I can reference is your memories and I''m definitely not sad or depressed. I feel rather¡­ neutral.


    Yeah, I get that. Honestly, I always hated that question, "How are you?". I say "fine" and people think something is wrong. In reality, I''m just neutral, totally fine. Aren''t most people like that the vast majority of the time?


    I think most people see it as binary, if they aren''t bad, they are good.


    That''s idiotic.


    Most people are.


    Sorry¡­ about the whole corrupting you thing.


    Uh¡­ I forgive you? I really don''t give a shit so don''t worry about it. Plus I''m really looking forward to having super powers, seeing what it''s like to be you, even just a little bit.


    The feeling in Felix''s stomach had mostly disappeared now that he had rationalized it, leaving behind a dull sensation that should pass as soon as he was distracted. Felix sent a mental nudge to Nova, releasing them from protection duty. Nova mentally meowed then slowly crept forwards and struck out with extended claws knocking the devoured aside. Felix backed up using his boots and watched as the other devoured in the area screamed with awful guttural screechs through their sealed mouths. It created an awful sound as they were simply emptying their lungs through a constricted throat with the whole thing coming through their nose holes.


    The devoured that were nearby ran at Nova as they pounced on the one they had already struck. That first Devoured was lying on the ground though Felix couldn''t tell if they had been scratched at all as they definitely didn''t bleed. It also wasn''t dead though so Nova jumped over and clawed and bit it until they were satisfied, likely getting a notification. The other devoured were clawing and smacking their heads against Nova''s body but they didn''t appear to be doing anything. There were only a half dozen of them and they didn''t even slow Nova down as they spun around and knocked them away one by one.


    Nova finished them off, though it took much longer than Felix expected, then bounded over to Felix and jumped at his head. He almost jumped aside but Nova shifted back into a tiny kitten and floated themselves back into Felix''s hood midair. Nova went back to napping after sending a series of emotions and thoughts that amounted to ''these things are worthless and disgusting, I''m going back to sleep.'' Nova hadn''t even eaten a single one of them, even though Felix could feel their hunger slightly coloring every thought and emotion. Felix didn''t really feel like he could blame them though, the Devoured were disgusting and seemed to just be annoying to kill.


    Felix wanted to explore further but he needed to know just how difficult these things would be to kill for himself so he stalked through the outside of the town until he found one. He made sure to stay at the edge of the town so he had an easy escape route just in case then fired off a simple Mana Bolt to get it''s attention. The creature went from slowly moving, like it''s joint''s needed to be oiled, to bounding across the ground in an instant. It screeched as it ran with it''s legs stretching out much further than they should and it''s arms flailing about, as though it didn''t have full control of it''s own body.


    Felix fired off a series of spells, starting with his signature Lightning Bolt followed by Fire, Cold and Pure Force. He kept firing off a ridiculous number of spells as he realized he was going to have to run away as he did so. He had initially expected to kill it before it reached him but it showed no signs of slowing down or being affected at all. Felix eventually got sick of the fight and the creature was getting closer than he would like so he charged up a 10 sized lightning bolt and blew 150,000 mana in a single strike. A massive thunderous boom echoed through the chamber and Felix was blinded by the flash of light that illuminated the entire area. It definitely wasn''t even close to the lightning strike that had killed the Kraken, but it was the biggest singular strike Felix had ever cast.


    As soon as the spell shot out, Felix could feel residual mana spray out, some of it shooting into his arm, the closest medium it could find. It was entirely attuned to electricity and it''s energy levels were maxed out. Felix had never thought mana alone would ever really be dangerous for him, but now he knew otherwise. As the mana traveled through the medium of his arm, he felt pain as his cells ripped themselves apart, some burning to a crisp and some simply exploding. Before it could get any further though, Felix forcefully grabbed the mana with his mana control and ripped it out of his arm. He had to do so a few times to get all of it because he had trouble grabbing hold of it when it darted around so quickly. As the mana was removed from his body, so was most of the pain. Felix''s vision readjusted and he saw the Devoured, the same damn one, standing above him and clawing at his arm. He would have thought it was a different one if it didn''t have a still smoking hole right through it''s chest, where it''s heart would have been.


    Felix kicked the thing off of him, using force spells to create distance then continued to fire off spells at the creature. Entirely Fire Balls at this point because Felix really wanted to incinerate the stupid thing and the force helped slow it down. Eventually, it fell to the ground like a ragdoll and Felix received a kill notification.


    Ding You have slain a [D] Devoured (Lvl 286)


    Looking down at his arm, the creature had torn right through his armor, it''s claws only barely hindered. It had managed to completely tear through his arm though it hadn''t quite scratched the bone. Felix immediately sat in a meditation and dulled the pain as much as he could then somewhat recklessly dumped mana and energy into his arm and armor to try and close the wounds. At first he was worried he might have to manually repair things but luckily, even though his arm with in shreds, his body remembered where everything belonged.


    Fuck these things. Why are they so damn hard to kill.


    Yeah. Unfortunately, I don''t think any particular element is going to do you any good either.


    I really hope that''s not what the entire damn world event is. These stupid things.


    I don''t think the ones in the city above are going to be nearly as high level, but if I had to bet¡­


    We could just go home?


    Treasure though¡­


    Damn.


    Over the course of almost a day, Felix confirmed Grim''s theory by baiting the creatures away from the others and killing them individually with different elements. He tried everything from Fire to Force even giving sound Sound and Light a shot. No matter what element he tried, they took a stupid amount of time to kill. Fire and lightning were similarly efficient with fire taking less spells overall and lightning slightly less mana. Felix even tried enchanting their bodies to make them less Hard and Elastic but that didn''t seem to do anything at all.


    After having tested spells on and killed dozens of Devoured, Felix was certain that something was weird with the experience they rewarded. At first he though it was Nova being too close by, but then he left them way back in the mine and it was the same result. If these had been normal creatures in the high 200s, he was certain he''d have gained multiple levels per kill.


    Supporting his theory was the fact that they didn''t have a rarity at all. In fact, their stats, other than maybe endurance, were far too low for their level by Felix''s estimations. It was possible they just focused really hard on endurance at the cost of everything else, but Felix was pretty sure the fact that their souls were devoured was screwing with the experience. It also fit with how Grim assumed leveling, experience and The System interacted with each-other. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 Chapter 132 - Book 36

    At the conclusion of Felix''s tests Nova decided this was far too boring so they mentally told Felix they were going to fly back to the city and find something to eat. He was worried at first, until he felt how confident Nova was that they could find their way back. Felix wanted to go with them, but he felt like he needed to figure out what had or was happening to this undercity and the Devoured within.


    Nova departed and Felix chose the building that was the least damaged right on the edge of town. It was two floors tall with the top one overhanging the front of the building and providing cover from the rain to those passing through the door. There were 4 pillars of what appeared to be wood holding up the overhang that were somehow weathered and beaten but otherwise structurally sound. Felix crept towards the building and tried to avoid interacting with any more Devoured than necessary. He walked around the door and peeked through the windows managing to spot a handful of Devoured inside. One was mindlessly moving a rag across the bar, one staring through a window at the back and the other three sitting at a table perfectly still.


    Felix decided to move on and looked into 4 buildings before he found one with a sunken in roof that appeared empty at first glance. He extended his soul sight outwards from his own soul and peered through the building, looking for the faint flicker of a Devoured''s soul but finding nothing within.


    Can I use this to find normal people?


    Nope.


    Why not?


    Sorry, yes you can. It''s much harder though. These are easy to sense because their souls have been ripped from their bodies. All that''s left is barely hanging on and not hidden by the body anymore. You can train to be able to sense normal people but it''s very hard, then they can also train to hide their souls. Then obviously it''s just a game of who is better at what they''re doing.


    Felix hopped up through the collapsed side of the building onto the second floor and found himself a room that was entirely intact on the opposite side of the building. He wasn''t sure what the building was originally, but the room he had found was clearly a bedroom. The bed was still standing, though lopsided as two of the legs had collapsed along with a cabinet, a chair and a table. The bedding and sheets had been reduced to dust along with what were likely clothes.


    Felix looked around the room but didn''t manage to find anything of value inside. He continued searching through the rooms on the top floor but found much of the same in the other two rooms. He did manage to find a hole so he could drop down a floor though and figured out the building was at some point a leather worker''s shop and home. Some of the leather was only slightly decayed but none of it was of particularly high quality or of any value. Felix searched through the shop and found a book under the desk at the back that appeared to be largely undamaged from the passage of time. It was crusty and a little fragile but Felix opened it and found a ledger of sales, rather surprised he could read it at all until he remembered the tongues skill he had picked up.


    He had no use for anything in here though so he hopped back up to the second floor and out of the building, through the large hole in the roof. He continued on to the next building that was mostly empty but this one was completely ravaged inside. There was nothing left whatsoever, not even a ledger. Felix suspected it was once a general store, food store or something else that sold perishables as there were many shelves and none of the goods had survived. Felix continued on and found a blacksmith''s where most of the goods had survived, though none of them were usable.


    There was a book that was essentially a research journal with notes on different metals they''d used along with armors and weapons they had tried to craft. Felix stowed the book in his inventory figuring it may have some value and proceeded to the next floor. Upstairs there was a storage room with multiple sets of armor and weapons a few of decent quality but all were damaged from time to some extent. Felix did find a bedroom with bedding that hadn''t rotted, likely because it was made of some sort of thick fabric. It had a couple of holes but was overall fairly usable. Felix didn''t trust it not to give him an ancient disease though so he wrapped it all up in a corner. S§×arch* The N?vel?ire.net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    Normally he didn''t sleep at all but today he was slightly injured and it had been a while. He didn''t sense anything in particular that was going wrong, but he was worried he was missing something and that if he didn''t sleep every once in a while, he might go crazy. He vaguely remembered something about how sleep was supposed to flush chemicals your brain produced over the day. He also knew it was supposed to be good for recovery of muscles and injuries. Felix pulled out one of the meals he had bought back in Atalus and quickly scarfed it down, hoping the smell didn''t attract the Devoured. Felix wrapped himself in his cloak and slept while Grim stood watch on top of him.


    Felix woke up feeling fresh and rejuvenated, though he didn''t know if that was just placebo or if the sleep actually had any effect. Nothing of interest happened while Felix slept, according to Grim, so Felix left the building and flew back into the cave with the mine. Felix pulled out his plates and placed them on his staff then proceeded to spend an hour working out then an hour practicing the steps of the Dragon Dance. Once he was done, he used the river to wash himself as best he could, using no soap so as to not make himself smell unnatural.


    With his morning routine complete, Felix continued headed back to the city and continued what he had started before resting. He skulked through the city, avoiding the Devoured and looking for buildings that might hold a piece of the city and it''s people''s story. That or treasure, Felix was open to any treasure that may be hidden within.


    Unfortunately, Felix didn''t have a great idea of the layout of this city as it was still completely pitch black. He was using a light spell, which the Devoured seemed to entirely ignore, but he still couldn''t see very far. Just a few buildings into his search for the day, Felix came across a building that was entirely destroyed, with it''s pieces scattered around in the adjacent streets and alleys. The interesting part of this building, was that where it used to be, there was now a massive pillar multiple meters in diameter.


    If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.


    Felix panned his light upwards and traced it''s height with his eyes, all the way up to the ceiling. Up to this point, Felix had assumed the ceiling was a simple rock that had been carved into, now he looked upon it with light and realized it was rock, but it was entirely constructed. The ceiling was made of the same white stone that made up the walls of the city above and was likely mined out of the cave he had entered from. It was made of large interlocking bricks with massive beams running side to side held up by the pillar he had traced. Felix panned his light around and saw that the constructed ceiling spanned in every single direction and was entirely flat. It even spanned outside the walls of the city above, Ky''bel, according to his map.


    At some point or another, the city Felix was exploring existed. For some reason it was then completely covered and built over, using the mine to supply the stone. It was possible it was simply an evolution of the same city, but it was also possible this city was conquered and then left behind. There was also the mystery of the Devoured. It was possible the entire city was Devoured and then covered up, but then why not just wipe out the Devoured or live somewhere else? Why remain here?


    Felix wanted to figure it all out mostly because he was curious but also for something to do while he also searched for treasure. Felix continued to loosely follow the river which was bordered by two halves of the main road on either side. He didn''t walk along it though, remaining a block or two away at all times as the main street was filled with the Devoured. Felix continued to search shops and taverns as he traveled finding a few interesting books here and there but nothing more than that. Any equipment or items he found were not magical and had been damaged over time.


    Felix continued to follow the river, towards the center of Ky''bel according to his map, but today he began practicing with Predator''s Stealth. The skill didn''t teach him anything but rather it muffled the sounds and blurred his image when he was already being stealthy. In theory, if someone were already very stealthy naturally, they would be virtually undetectable. That was Felix''s long term goal, for now, Grim taught Felix two spells, well individual nodes really. The first was a spell trigger based on sound, the second based on motion. Felix connected both to simple light nodes of different colors, blue for motion and red for sound. Then he tuned the sensitivity of the spell so that it didn''t trigger constantly and cast it pointing at himself from about a meter away.


    Felix snuck from building to building, searching through the ruins for anything that might be able to help him piece together it''s history. He found workshops, alchemists, apothecaries, general stores, blacksmiths, many taverns and a few brothels. Unfortunately the only thing he had found in them, other than ledgers, was a single diary that contained sexual exploits in one of the brothel rooms. He left that one where he found it and continued on.


    He was hoping for either books containing history and stories, which would simply be interesting or better yet, a diary to help piece things together. Felix figured he would have better luck if he found people''s homes rather than just stores but it seemed as though he was in some kind of commerce district currently. Every building he searched was some sort of store or business and the only bedrooms were either for rent or for the purveyor of the establishment. The majority of the rooms upstairs in these buildings seemed to be used for storage and contained nothing of particular value anymore.


    Felix''s stealth was getting better though, he had had to adjust the sensitivity of his spell twice now as he had gotten pretty good at not triggering it. The issues he came across at first were simple fixes, step in a slightly different way, place less weight on one area, utilize the shadows more. Those were simple fixes that he just had to make instinctual, muscle memory. Now he was stuck on the harder aspects though, creaky floorboards, rusted hinges and other things he couldn''t expect.


    He was getting gradually better at avoiding and mitigating the risks with those surprise elements but unfortunately all he could do to get better was gain experience. Interestingly, the biggest help in his endeavor to be stealthier was actually his practice with the Dragon''s Dance of Death. It''s steps had incorporated stealth into most of the movements so he simply had to adapt some of it''s aspects, which he was already very used to, into his movement.


    As Felix traveled inwards, he noticed the shops getting bigger and specialized businesses became increasingly more common. Some of them he couldn''t identify, others he managed to only because the ledger had survived. The buildings were made with thicker walls and more stone which meant they were in a much better state than the buildings on the outskirts of the town. The density of the Devoured population was also increasing as did their peculiarities. On the outskirts of town, Felix spotted almost entirely human, elf or some other race that looked like humans. Here, he occasionally spotted what were once minotaurs, giants, snakes, bears, trolls and lizards among other races that he had no hope of identifying.


    The river continued on through the city until it poured into a large lake situated at about the center of the city. Felix carefully approached it, noticing the levels of the Devoured had increased steadily to the low 300s around here. The lake was entirely calm and serene though it was slightly green and smelled of minerals. Right in the middle of the lake, a massive wall of stone rose high up into the air, almost to the height of the pillars. It was like an island as it was surrounded, on all sides Felix could see, by the lake. Off to the right of Felix, there was another river that stretched back into the city and fed into the lake. Felix slowly ascended into the air to the top of the cliff. Looking up, he saw that the ceiling that had been perfectly flat, had a hole in it centered around the cliff. As he crested over the cliff, he realized why.


    On top of the cliff, in the middle of the lake, sat a massive medieval stone castle with four walls and a multitude of towers. The hole in the ceiling made way for the castle with another ceiling higher up. Felix quickly checked his map to confirm his suspicions and found that the hole in the ceiling lined up perfectly with where the inner wall was in Ky''bel. He had wondered why the second wall in Ky''bel was a platform rather than just a wall, now he knew.


    Within that second wall, under the raised platform, sat the castle of this kingdom that had been entirely covered up. From his flight around Ky''bel, he knew there was a third wall on top of the platform of the second, the highest point in the city. Looking around with his light spell, Felix saw a small hole, just big enough to be a trap door, on this ceiling and suspected that was where it would lead. He decided to explore that later, for now he looked down at the castle and the kingdom surrounding it. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 Chapter 133 - Book 37

    The castle sat at about the center of the city with the area behind it being slightly smaller than the area in front of it. The area Felix had walked through was conical and bordered by two rivers, each running from outside the city into the lake at the bottom of the cliff. The buildings nearest the rivers, outside of that cone were densely packed with many floors. Moving away from the rivers, towards the back of the castle, the houses grew increasingly larger and more spread out. Behind the castle, the cliff sloped down into an area filled with what Felix would call, mansions or manors. Those houses were almost castles in their own right.


    The city had been laid out such that the wealthy living behind the castle could simply walk up to the castle. On the south side, the poor folk''s residential along with the commerce district were located at the bottom of the cliff face just past the surrounding lake. The castle looked down upon everyone, but had an ideal view to look down upon the commerce district and the poor folk living within and near it.


    Looking down at the castle itself, Felix was tempted to search it, but decided against it when he saw and identified a few of the Devoured within. Their levels ranged from the low 600s at minimum and just went up from there. The scarier part though, was that these devoured were clearly superior in build. Some wielded steel armor and weapons, others were simply horrifying tentacle creatures, griffins and chimeras. While the Devoured on the outskirts might have only been dangerous in groups if they managed to pile on top of you, these Devoured seemed dangerous all alone.


    Felix looked into the upper class district, behind the castle and saw much of the same. Their levels weren''t quite as high but they looked just as deadly. Felix had only ascended above the walls of the castle for a few moments when he heard a screech from behind him. He whipped himself around and saw a large flying creature that was once, according to Felix''s best guess, a pterodactyl. It''s screech had alerted two other flying creatures that were further off as well. The creature that had spotted him though was currently rocketing towards him much faster than Felix had ever flown.


    Felix didn''t even think of fighting it, especially when it''s level was 653. He immediately dove off the cliff and used force spells to push himself downwards. He heard another screech and risked looking back to see the creature had landed on the edge of the cliff and was currently posturing. It had it''s wings out, making itself look as big as possible, but it didn''t seem willing to go past the cliff. Felix immediately cast Feather Fall on himself to desperately hoping to avoid hitting the water. He had just barely managed to stay dry using a couple of Force spells along with the Feather Fall. The creature at the top of the cliff screeched once more then flew off into the air and out of sight.


    I don''t think it''s worth exploring the city down here.


    Yeah, these things don''t give any experience and they''re really just a massive pain in the ass.


    Yeah. I''m gonna try to get into that hole on the ceiling though, see if I can make it back to Ky''bel.


    You might want to wait a bit for that bird thing to calm down.


    Yeah. I just really don''t want to fly all the way back out and hope they finally made it through the gate.


    Felix flew towards the outskirts of the kingdom and then pressed himself to the side of one of the ceiling beams. He flew alongside it towards the center of the city keeping a careful eye out for the flying Devoured. He didn''t spot any outside of the second wall though so he made it all the way there, once again, without issue. As silently as he could, Felix crested the corner of the ceiling and ascended along the second wall with his light as dim as possible so that he could still see. He then turned towards the hole he had spotted earlier and glided over. With his dim light, he couldn''t see exactly where it was but he remembered approximately where it should be on his map.


    As he flew, his light ahead of him illuminated the massive figure of some sort of furry creature hanging from the ceiling. Felix immediately stopped moving and carefully moved his light but it seemed as though the creature either hadn''t noticed him, or was asleep. He illuminated more of the creature and saw what looked like an owl with patchwork fur, leathery bat wings and antlers on it''s head. It''s talons had dug right into the stone of the ceiling and it seemed to be asleep. It was definitely Devoured, but it somehow managed to hold onto some of it''s fur, though not all of it.


    Felix carefully routed himself around the creature with his light much further ahead of him now, in case there were others like it. He managed to make it to the hole without encountering anything else though and carefully flew inside. It was a short tunnel that only went 50 meters or so with two cables dangling down around the middle. Felix noticed that their ends were frayed and had likely been cut. He continued to ascend until there was a doorway on one side of the tunnel. He carefully flew up to it and peeked through, gingerly moving his light into the room. After a few moments, nothing seemed to react so Felix increased the intensity of his light until the entire room was illuminated.


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    The room was a large circular chamber with a grid like pattern of what appeared to be stone sarcophagi. Felix didn''t spot anything else, at least nothing that moved in the chamber so he carefully floated himself inwards. Getting a better look around, this room was definitely contained within the third wall of Ky''bel, confirmed by his map and the material of the walls. The room contained just three things, the shaft Felix had just ascended through, a grid of sarcophagi and a tall stone pillar in the middle of the room. The pillar in the middle was a perfect square maybe ten meters wide running all the way to the ceiling made of the same white stone as the walls.


    Felix carefully walked up to one of the sarcophagi and noticed it was open. Inside, lay the body of something he didn''t recognize at all. Felix''s best description was a human sized ant but it''s body was slightly more humanoid than that. He walked right up to it and realized it wasn''t open at all, the top was made of a thick sheet of glass. Right in the center of the glass, a number was engraved, 17.


    Felix looked around and saw that every one of the sarcophagi had a number on them, though not all of them had anything in them. Walking around, the majority of them were empty. The others were almost exclusively bodies, though some of them held armor, weapons and jewelry. Felix didn''t bother trying to open any of them, slightly worried the bodies were still alive, undead or that he might trigger an alarm of some sort. Instead, he walked to the center of the room and right up to the large square column that stretched from floor to ceiling. He walked around it until he found a door which was just a doorway at this point with holes on either side, like an explosion had ripped the door off. Looking behind him, he saw a large metal door lying on the ground with a large dent in it, all but confirming his theory.


    Felix pulled his light forwards and into the room and saw what was once a workshop. Scattered around the floor there were knives, tweezers, scissors and clamps of many different sizes. There were three tables as well, one on the left side of the room, one on the right side and a large stone table in the middle. On the stone table in the middle lay a corpse chained by over a dozen chains wrapped around it''s neck, wrists, arms, legs, ankles, chest and waist completely eliminating it''s ability to move. The body was an odd amalgamation of different parts that were fit together almost seamlessly.


    It was generally the shape of a normal human but it''s arms and legs each had an extra joint. It''s feet had just three toes with claws on the ends and another on it''s heel. It''s hands only had three fingers and two thumbs, one on each side, all with one more joint than expected. It''s head had a slight snout, 5 eyes, 4 ears and two horns that curled backwards to protect it''s head almost like a helmet. It lay on a pool of dried blood covering the table and floor leading towards what appeared to be two massive severed ant legs. Finally, there was a sheet of paper held by a dagger stabbed into the corpse''s chest.


    Felix was about to walk into the room when he saw the corpse''s chest rise and then fall, taking a breath. Felix quickly darted to the side, out of sight and extinguished his light out of instinct. It was completely silent in the chamber and now pitch black. Felix stood with his back to the stone wall and as his heart calmed down, he heard the wheezing and gurgling of the creature in the room breathing every few seconds. Once he had calmed down enough to think, allowing the adrenaline to pass through his system, Felix closed his eyes and reached out with his soul senses. He didn''t detect the soul in the room, so it wasn''t a Devoured, but he could feel the ambient anima around it warping and shifting around wear it should be. It wasn''t difficult to suppress that effect but Felix suspected that body was either asleep or otherwise unconscious in some way.


    [? - ???] Erolan (Lvl ????)


    How the hell is that thing alive? It''s not a Devoured, they didn''t breathe.


    No idea. Maybe the seal, whatever it is, keeps them alive too?


    I''m starting to think it hasn''t nearly been as long as The System suggested. What''s a realistic amount of time for someone to stay alive for?


    Assuming they didn''t need food or water¡­ for a human in the D grade¡­ a long time, like thousands of years. Not sure about longer than that, but I think the system is helping fight off diseases and aging so¡­ maybe even longer in this universe? This body might also be C, B grade or even higher.


    Right but if this was an early integration, wouldn''t that have to be at least a few trillion years?


    Not necessarily, I suspect your universe isn''t as old as you thought. Each integration is probably only a few billion years. It''s also possible your universe was growing while other''s were being integrated.


    I guess, that would still be billions of years.


    Yeah¡­ Seems more likely the system did something weird with this city.


    That''s what I''m thinking. Maybe it put it in stasis or something? Can you warp time? Maybe it was only a few thousand years here instead of a few billion.


    Maybe the system can, you would probably have to create a pocket universe and have it''s time pass at a different speed. Actually¡­ that seems like the most likely thing that happened though I don''t actually know if that''s possible.


    Couldn''t this have been recreated by The System?


    Not really, creating souls is too complicated. Erolan''s and even the Devoured souls would be a huge pain, nearly impossible. sea??h th§× n?velFire.net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    Do you think it''s safe to go into that room?


    I think so, but it''s not my life that''s at risk, well¡­ not really. Just don''t mess with the seal, don''t touch anything and you should be fine.


    Felix took a few deep breaths and peeked around the doorway and into the room. The body was exactly where it was before and everything in the room was in the exact same state as he remembered. Felix cautiously stepped forwards and into the room. He watched every step he took, making sure he didn''t step on anything, his every sense as alert as possible, ready for anything. Felix managed to walk right up to the body and looked down at the sheet of paper which he expected to be a seal, instead it appeared to be a note. Felix leaned over the body and read the note without touching anything. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 Chapter 134 - Book 38

    Here lies Erolan, the terror in the night, the undying monster.


    At first, his conquest of neighboring cities and systems was impressive, it piqued our interest as he was the most prolific conqueror we had ever seen. It''s simply good business to be aware of the up and coming prodigies, the people that may employ you in the future. We observed one of these conquests and saw nothing out of the ordinary, it was an easy fight and he was powerful. On a whim, I continued to watch him, though looking back, this very whim may have been the mistake that led to the horrors that will plague me the rest of my life.


    Now, as I write this, I wish I had just let someone else deal with it, instead I was arrogant and foolish. One of Erolan''s conquests, the most ambitious I''d ever heard of, he decided to take on a long standing empire of The System. I watched the battle and it was one of the most impressive displays I have ever seen. He fought to the last breath with both strategic mastery and raw force. When the battle began to reach it''s expected end, instead of simply giving up, retreating, Erolan released one of the most horrible powers I have ever witnessed. He fed upon and dominated the enemy forces until all that was left was a husk we now call, the Devoured.


    My team and I, we had been together for millennia, we were impressive and fierce. Most of all though, we were family. We were called the hand and we were fairly well known. Most people thought our name was missing a word or two, like the hand of justice, the hand of retribution, the hand of righteousness. Ironically, our name had nothing to do with a grand moral standing or mission. Simply, if you lined us up, the way we usually walked, our heights matched that of a human''s fingers. There was Branock the dwarf, a fierce warrior and master of all weapons, the thumb. There was Varen the elven barbarian, the most often underestimated as his lithe form masked his ridiculous strength, the index. There was Shyreth the Rhunar, tallest of us all by no small margin and master of the arcane, the trickster, the joker, the middle finger. Then there was me, a simple human who prefers to fight with his fists, the ring finger. Finally there was Reyana or Rey, the Drakene, my wife. She had trained with a bow since she was a child and never could quite put it down, the pinky.


    I study souls and soul magic so when I saw what Erolan had done, I knew. I understood the pain and the terror that comes with a power like this. I ran to my wife and explained the situation. Her face hardened with resolve as she knew what a power like this one meant. The rest of the hand took some convincing but eventually their resolve was hardened as well when we described the situation to them. We took it upon ourselves to rid The System of this evil and set off. We prepared ourselves to lay siege to Erolan''s city, Ky''bel, to end this vile power and stop Erolan before he became too powerful to stop, something like that had no place in the multiverse. S§×ar?h the N?vel(F)ire.n§×t website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    As we prepared ourselves, Erolan became bolder, using the Devoured from every city he conquered to grow his army and attack a different city. He was getting close to becoming unstoppable so we cut our preparation short. Maybe if we hadn''t, we would have known, we could have found another way.


    We tore through droves of Devoured, though they were durable, they were weak. They were worthless husks who''s only strength lay in their numbers, echoes of what they had once been. As we fought our way closer to the city, Erolan became manic, devouring his own citizens to bolster his numbers and his individual strength. He scattered his treasures, foolishly assuming that was why we had come. We fought all the way to the center of the city where the final battle occurred.


    We fought with him for what felt like a day before we finally started to make progress. We were exhausted and rotating ourselves in and out of combat, Erolan feeding off his army to keep himself going. Eventually though, we had a break in the fight. Erolan broke through Branock''s defenses and grabbed hold of his neck. Before Erolan had the chance to finish off our brother, my wife had a break through. The horror of seeing her friend, her family on the brink of death pushed her just far enough to turn the tide. She swung her sword from a dozen steps away and the sword grew, it projected itself outwards. Through a complete miracle, she had upgraded a skill in the midst of battle and she severed the fingers from his hand, freeing our friend. It also removed the first of his rings, The ??? Ring.


    His body immediately shifted from that of an average human into that of a monster. He was a vile creature but his body was created to kill. He scrambled to retrieve the ring, but my wife, the only one with the speed and wit to realize what was happening darted over and swallowed the ring, storing it in her soul space. Once his connection to the ring was blocked, the tide of the battle shifted. We slowly fought, whittling down his strength until we managed to sever the other ring from his finger, The ??? Ring. Branock, my brother, a man I had come to love and call family, ate the ring just as my wife had, once more severing and sealing away more of Erolan''s power.


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    The final item, the final piece was the crown. Our sister, Shyreth, ripped it off his head as my wife and I held him down. She sealed the crown within her soul space and we severed Erolan''s head from his corpse. We had won.


    That night, we camped in the city, resting and recovering within Erolan''s home to protect us from the droves of devoured wandering the streets. We slept restlessly plagued by nightmares of Erolan''s form ripping us to shreds, except for one of us, the nightmare was reality. My sister had taken the crown out to inspect it, out of curiosity and unbeknownst to her, to us, resurrected Erolan. His body, where we had left it, had reattached itself to his head. He reclaimed the crown and devoured her mind pitting her against us. We were forced to fight our own sister, our family. The fight was easy as we knew her every strength and weakness. The fight was hard as we had grown to love each-other, love her, she was family after all. After a mostly emotional battle, I finally managed to muster up the courage that was necessary to cut her down.


    We chased Erolan through the city as he recovered, throwing his devoured at us in droves to slow us down. When we eventually managed to catch up with him, we slew him, once again. This time we severed his every limb, cutting him into tiny pieces and Varen sealed the crown within his soul space. Amongst the four of us, only I was left without a piece of the devourer within me. We slept and rested, hoping and praying that it was finally over. I do not know who, but one of us must have taken out a piece of the set for Erolan returned once again, his strength renewed. We dreaded this, but we also expected it. We knew it might happen, so we were ready. We fought tirelessly until finally we incinerated his corpse. Surely, this must be the end.


    We left the city and camped in the fields outside just before departing the planet and yet once again, for the final time, Erolan returned. This time I had seen my wife remove the ring from her soul space, she had shown it to me, I had asked her too. It was my fault. I recognized the pattern, I realized what was happening. This time we slew Erolan and chained his body deep within his own filth. We camped once again, the others managing to find sleep through the aid of some simple soul magic of mine. I lay wide awake in bed, rolling around as the horrible realization of what had to be done set in. I knew soul magic, I studied it and now I knew why Erolan kept coming back, I had an idea of what was happening. I knew what to do, and I was the only one who could do it.


    That night I sat up in bed, no cold resolve coming to me, instead tears and shakes rattled my body as I knelt over my wife, the one I loved more than anything. I knelt over her and I performed the ritual, I cut and violated her body, slitting her throat to ensure no sound would be heard. I sealed her soul in a gem, her soul that contained a piece of Erolan, the devourer, within it. The worst part of the entire endeavor was not her pleading eyes looking up at me. It was not her mutilated body torn open with runes carved into her flesh. It wasn''t even the gurgles she made as I performed the ritual, before she died. It was the screams I heard when I held her soul, when the ritual was complete and I felt the hate and betrayal radiating from within the gem. I cried. I sobbed. I listened. I took it all in, every last feeling and emotion as punishment for what I had done. I did not allow myself to wallow for long though as I had a mission to complete.


    My wife was the hardest, once I had completed the ritual with her, completing it on my brother and sister was easy. I loved them, but my mind, my heart and my soul was already broken, nay shattered. I sealed their souls, containing the other two pieces of the set within three seals and scattered them in the filth. I waited a month, camping outside of the city, to be sure it was over. I left Erolan''s body chained, just like one of his own experiments.


    I tell you this not so you pity me, but so you know the horror that is fighting a creature like Erolan. I write this to plead to you, whoever you may be, whoever found his body, to leave him be. Let this evil rest, let his memory die. Let the vile experiments, the devoured army and the corrupting items of pure evil be. There is no power to be found here. The set itself will corrupt you just as they had him, I had studied the ring long enough to see, it is worse than a curse. It is pure evil and it is impossible to resist it''s influence. It will worm it''s way into your soul and consume you, as you consume your victims.


    Take his treasures, loot his experiments, ravage the city. Just please, leave the seals be, do not let the sacrifice of my sanity be in vain.


    Felix stood straight, a little more comfortable he wasn''t going to accidentally break any seals. He looked around the room with renewed confidence and less caution, this time spotting a book lying face down, partly in the pool of blood on the floor. He knelt down and carefully picked it up, the pool of blood flaking away as he did so. Luckily, the blood had only seeped into a couple of pages and didn''t appear to damage any of the information contained within.


    Felix flipped back to the start of the book and began reading. The book was an experiment log, likely Erolan''s. Each experiment had the number at the top followed by a journal of sorts where Erolan described his theories, experimentation and methodologies. Felix stowed the book in his inventory then walked back out into the large circular chamber containing the experiments themselves. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 Chapter 135 - Book 39

    Felix walked around looking into each sarcophagus and inspecting each experiment. There were far fewer experiments in the room than there were entries in the book. Apparently, Erolan had removed and replaced some the experiments over time. Not all of the sarcophagi contained corpses, some of them contained items. Notably, there was a suit of armor and an large great axe. The armor looked like your standard affair, steel plate armor. Felix mentally pulled up his scan of Erolan''s experiment log and read through the entries pertaining to the armor.


    12: The Armor.


    What I thought was and what identifies as standard plate armor, is in fact one of the oddest magical artifacts I have ever encountered. I originally found this plate armor as it fell out of the body of a king when they died. Testing the armor on a living test subject, it appears the armor will implant itself within it''s wielder''s skin. This process is not instant, but rather takes almost a year. The metal gradually warps and grows until it is skin tight then it will morph with the wearer''s skin and become undetectable. While it does make the wielder more durable, the durability is not a large amount. Attempting to equip any other armor on top of it will result in 12 shredding it to pieces, even high level enchanted armor. I know not what other benefits the armor might provide as none of my test subjects were able to identify anything about it, even after years of wearing it.


    While I am tempted to equip the armor myself, the fact that it seems to be impossible to remove once equipped has stopped me.


    Any attempts to damage the armor have resulted in it simply restoring itself within the span of less than a day. I am also unable to devour whatever soul is implanted within the armor. This armor will remain in experiment container 12 as I feel like it''s true value may be revealed in the future.


    Grim spoke up, mentally, I guess he never found the true value.


    Any ideas?


    Not a clue. Never heard of anything like it.


    Felix walked over to the axe and flipped to it''s page in his mental copy of the experiment log.


    43: The Axe.


    1: This axe was wielded by the champion of an empire. In the battle I had mostly avoided him, instead letting my pets deal with him. However, having found the axe, having seen a glimpse of it, I wish I had battled them myself. I ended up devouring their soul from afar just after they unleashed it''s abilities.


    The axe seems to be unwilling to soul bond to me or any of my subjects so it is difficult for me to ascertain any of it''s properties. Identify is as always, unhelpful. I have tried devouring the axe but it did not appear to have any effect whatsoever.


    2: I have taken on a new apprentice, a young farming girl. It seems as though the axe is willing to bond with her as it responded immediately to her presence. I have given her the axe and instructed her on how to bond with it but she seems to be unable to do so. Maybe the axe requires time to accept it''s host? At least it doesn''t fight her when she wields it.


    3: The axe seems to have accepted her as it''s master as it has accepted the soul bond. It''s properties are simply that it can be summoned to her hand at will so long as it is within a reasonable distance and in the same universe. I suspect it may have other hidden properties as well because when she wields it, it appears completely different to how I had originally encountered it.


    4: Unfortunately, my apprentice did not last and the axe reverted to it''s base form upon her death. Having consumed her soul, the bond does not appear to have transferred to me. The axe will remain here, in container 43 for further experimentation and in the hopes that I may find someone to wield it in the future.


    Felix looked into the container and visually inspected the axe. The blade was a simple curved blade on both sides, perfectly symmetrical. The blade itself was a sharp looking chrome with a black coating between the sharpened edges. In total it was about 2 meters in length with a long leather wrapped shaft. It looked a little too big to Felix, bigger than any melee weapon he had ever seen, but then again, people were much stronger in the multiverse and their strength was only going up.


    Didn''t realize items could refuse to bond with someone.


    If your convictions don''t align it just won''t. Smarter items, like me, can make intelligent decisions.


    You mean dumb items it''s a binary that will never change, smart ones you may need to convince?


    Sort of.


    How do you convince it?


    Most commonly, either have convictions it likes or do things it agrees with. If it is particularly smart though, who knows. It could literally be looking for anything. How do you convince someone to marry you or even just trust you?


    Right but is it sentient? Like would it talk to me?


    There is a huge chasm between language and intelligence. You don''t need to be able to communicate with a language to have intelligent thought. Nova doesn''t speak with you, you still communicate.


    I guess. Any risk if I take it?


    Yes, there is always a risk. As for if it''s worth the risk, I would take it.


    Felix looked down at the sarcophagi and tried to figure out how to open it. There were no handles or buttons he could find and the glass was almost perfectly flush with the top edge of the stone. There was a slight gap between the stone and the glass though. He thought about casting a force spell underneath the glass to lift it but Felix wanted to give something else a try first. He pulled out his staff and reached into it with his soul, carefully shaping one end into a flat edge that bent slightly.


    Using his makeshift crowbar, he wedged the end in between the glass and the stone then reached up and pulled on the other end. Using a crowbar, especially one of this length, made it very easy, but the glass pane was still ridiculously heavy. As Felix lifted the glass he made sure not to put his fingers under it and instead pushed his staff into the gap. He then pushed down on the staff to lift the pane into the air and reached into the container. Felix tentatively reached for the axe but it didn''t seem to react at all so he wrapped his hand around the shaft and stowed it in his inventory.


    Felix carefully lowered the glass and pulled his staff free. He decided to leave the end as a crowbar because he figured he might need it at some point soon.


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    So Grim, these corpses, the other experiments¡­


    Yeah, you are one lucky son of a bitch.


    Yeah¡­ Erolan''s body?


    That''s riskier and hard to do considering he''s alive but¡­ I think you can probably get away with it if you''re careful.


    Any risk to me putting them in my soul space? What if some of them are still alive?


    You can''t put anything that''s alive in your soul space unless they agree to it.


    What about¡­ when we were talking about soul harvesting¡­


    If they''re on the brink of death, you can sometimes force the issue. Unfortunately, if Erolan is constantly resurrecting himself, he''s not ever really going to be on the brink of death.


    Is it possible to actually kill him?


    Of course, nothing is immortal.


    Do you know how?


    It seems like he bound a large chunk of his soul to each of the three items that were sealed away. Enough that if he dies, his soul is still bound together so he can simply stick around. At that point, he can force his body to restore itself from a single living cell. You would have to destroy one or more of the magic items or forcefully detach them from his soul.


    How do I do that?


    No idea.


    Oh shit. To destroy one, I''d have to unseal it too¡­


    Yup.


    Think the chains would be able to hold him?


    Hell no. sea??h th§× N?velFire(.)net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    Damn. Is it even possible to destroy a magic item like that?


    Yeah¡­ I don''t know how you could though. It usually involves throwing it into a star or a black hole.


    Holy shit, really?


    Yeah, it''s major overkill but if you need to destroy a magic item, overkill is usually what you want.


    That''s only for soul bound items right?


    Yeah maybe system fuckery enchantments too. You can get pretty close to that with your form of enchantmenting, but you''ll need what are probably considered S+ grade materials.


    Alright. So unsealing Erolan is out of the picture.


    Unless you''re trying to commit suicide.


    What if I take the seals with me and then break them open once the world event is over. Will this place even exist anymore?


    It''s possible that could work. Issue is, the items will take a long time to reset and unbind so you wouldn''t even be able to use them if it did. Unless it kills Erolan but I doubt that. It''s also possible the instant you remove one of the items, Erolan''s soul comes sling shotting across the multiverse to you, where he possesses a body and hunts you down.


    Uh¡­ Alright, leaving him be.


    Felix then walked to each and every one of the experiments, making sure to write down which number they were with a picture in his mind, and looted every single corpse. He placed them all in his soul space, rather than his inventory. He was initially worried some of them might be alive but none of them were. He was worried because he didn''t know how else the bodies had survived this long without rotting but he figured it out with the first sarcophagi he opened that held a body.


    The containers each had enchantments to freeze their contents, powered by whatever mana source the city was using. On the axe, it simply wasn''t enabled as it wasn''t necessary. Felix was also hesitant to loot the armor, but he decided to do so anyways, just carefully. He completely removed the glass pane and used his cloak to lift the armor, ensuring he didn''t make skin to skin contact with it. He stowed the armor in his inventory and made a mental note to be careful whenever he pulled it back out.


    With all of that complete, Felix decided to leave Erolan''s body be. He already had a memory from when he had first inspected it and from when he read the note. Without placing the corpse in his soul space, he wasn''t going to be able to inspect it any closer, since that wasn''t possible, the memory would have to do. Felix inspected the rest of the experiment room and inner chamber but didn''t find anything of particular interest so he decided to head up to the city.


    He knew there had to be a way for Erolan to get from this room to the city and vice versa, he just had to find it. Felix''s best bet was the experiment chamber in the middle which seemed to span all the way up to the ceiling for some reason. Felix looked up from inside the experiment room but it was completely dark. He flew upwards with his light as far ahead of him as he could to warn him of any creatures that might have been lurking.


    The top of the shaft was a simple metal plate so Felix simply pushed up on it but it wouldn''t budge. He inspected the entire plate but found no indication of how to open it. Felix''s last hope before hitting it with spells was to reach out with his mana senses into the surrounding material. It took him a few minutes as the enchantment had been dormant for at least a few thousand years. It had long since filled itself with ambient mana and simply sat dormant ever since.


    Mana conductive materials though, even if they were filled with ambient mana, warped the ambient around them as it passed in and out of it. Felix just barely managed to detect it but the amount of mana the enchantment stored was miniscule, if it did open the trap door, it was powered by something else. Luckily for Felix, it wasn''t very far away so he simply reached towards it and pulled on the ambient mana. The mana flowed through the enchantment and Felix heard something click as the trapdoor popped up just a few degrees.


    This time, Felix pushed on the trap door and it easily opened. Felix looked around and found himself in what appeared to be a home, more of a mansion really but the furniture was an odd sight considering it was all pristine. Felix set himself down on the floor and closed the trap door which made a faint click as soon as it was flush with the floor. Looking down, if Felix hadn''t just come through it, he never would have known there was a trap door there. The floor was covered with an intricate pattern of tiles that completely masked the seams and hid the secret passage.


    Looking around the home, it was like a modern mansion. The furniture was clean and minimal, there wasn''t a single wall in the entire home and the roof was a single giant pane of glass. Looking up, there were four triangular stones that were slightly open. As soon as Felix saw them, he recognized the building from when he had scouted the city.


    From the outside, the building looked like a pyramid where the top had been opened up, each of the four triangles splitting away from the center. That sat on top of a small squared off base that Felix now knew, contained the actual home. While none of the furniture had been damaged by the passage of time, some of it had been clearly used and tossed around likely when the hand had battled Erolan here on his first resurrection.


    Felix did a quick search of the house but suspected Erolan would have hidden any treasures in his experiment room instead. After finding nothing of particular interest, Felix found the door and left the building. Outside of the building was an oddly well maintained garden or park. The entire rest of the platform, that hid Erolan''s experiment room beneath, was covered in a soft grass with flowers and trees everywhere. Felix walked around and quickly figured out why it appeared so well maintained after so many years, there was a gardener.


    [D] Devoured (Lvl 113)


    The Devoured seemed completely unfazed by Felix''s appearance and was in the process of picking up fallen leaves. A few meters to his left, under the canopy of what appeared to be a large oak tree, were four vertical stones placed in a line. Felix could just make out the crude carvings on each of them from where he was standing. They read in order, Branock, Varen, Shyreth, Rey. The graves seemed to be the only thing out of place in the entire garden as the grass was cut, there were no weeds in sight and the fallen leaves and petals were currently being collected. Event the trees were planted in specific locations so that there were a couple of paths you could follow around the garden. It was a rather impressive sight, though not one that Felix expected to be hiding any kinds of treasures. He could start grave robbing, the deceased bodies of the hand likely still had their gear on them, but the idea kind of turned Felix off so he decided against it.


    Felix instead walked to the south edge of the platform he was on and looked towards the gates of the first wall in the distance. The gates now hung open on their hinges and Felix spotted a couple of people walking through them, one in and one out. He looked around the city and spotted a couple of people running through the streets but most of the city was obscured by buildings. He did manage to spot a ton of Devoured nestled amongst the city. They were scattered everywhere and Felix was certain there were many more hidden within the buildings themselves. There were even some flying Devoured, though they were a much lower level than those Felix had encountered under the city. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 Chapter 136 - Book 40

    Felix decided to start looking for treasure himself so, he hopped off the edge of the ledge and onto the second floor of the city. He slowed himself to a gentle landing in the back garden of a large estate that was enclosed by a large black, wrought iron fence along with hedges. Felix carefully stepped into the garden and into what appeared to be a hedge maze, which he did not feel like he had time for. Floating into the air above it, Felix looked down and saw quite a few Devoured hidden within the maze, entirely beasts.


    In general their levels were a little under 150, much lower than the Devoured in the undercity. Felix wasn''t sure where to look first, but quickly noticed that the Devoured seemed to be guarding every passage way to a single point in the maze that looked like a dead end at first. He noticed it initially because he was looking for the highest level Devoured, finding it traveling in a pair with another of the same level who both appeared to be guarding a dead end. As his eyes traced the paths outwards from there, the beasts were almost exclusively guarding the path leading to them.


    [D] Devoured (Lvl 146)


    [D] Devoured (Lvl 145)


    The two Devoured both appeared to have been some kind of tiger. Even though they were both clearly affected by having been Devoured, they still showed hints of their predatory origin. They were still somewhat sly and graceful as they stalked back and forth through the maze with only the occasional hiccup and slight drunken wobble. Felix figured there had to be a vault of some sort that they were guarding, he just had to decide if it was worth trying to kill these stupid things. Ultimately, he decided he would because he hadn''t been into any of the vaults yet, once he had he would have a better idea of what he could expect to find inside them.


    Felix dropped himself into the maze just behind the two tigers and hit them both with consecutive triple sized Fire Balls. He went with Fire Balls instead of lightning because in this case, he could hit both of them at once. He could have fired multiple at once, but he figured they might interfere so instead, 5 tiny beads of fire fired out from the tip of his fingers each one a few seconds behind the last.


    It only took a fraction of a second for each of them to hit to the ground between the two tigers, pressing them up against the wrought iron fencing beneath the hedges. As soon as they were about to peel themselves free, another exploded between them. After the fifth Fire Ball, Felix let the explosion subside to see if the tigers were still standing. Of course, being Devoured, they were stupidly resilient so Felix fired off two quadruple sized Lightning Bolts, one at each of them to ensure they stayed down.


    Ding You have slain 2 [D] Devoured (Lvl 145 & 146)


    The Fire Balls were effective, but they were also not a great call in a hedge maze. Even though the hedges were lively and filled with water, the fire was still hot enough to ignite them. The fire spread slowly at first, then very quickly spreading to the entirety of the maze in just a couple minutes. Felix turned around and looked towards the area of the maze the Devoured had been guarding and found a large fountain with a statue of a man.


    The man stood at around 3 meters tall and looked like he was reaching his hands forwards to offer the water pouring from them. The water poured in to a large basin around him, the entire structure made of dark marble rather than the white stone the walls had been made of.


    There was no doubt in Felix''s mind that the vault was hidden somewhere in or around the statue so he began circling and inspecting it. The smoke was getting to be thick and annoying but Felix simply held his breath. His eyes were stinging slightly but it wasn''t too bad just yet so he ignored it for now. He could probably create a spell to blow and keep the smoke away by modifying Gust to constantly keep the smoke at bay in every direction. That would have taken 20 to 30 minutes though just to design it and Felix was rather lazy.


    Felix circled the statue a few times but couldn''t seem to find anything, he didn''t find a key hole, a lever, a button or even so much as an unnatural looking divot. He was starting to think he might have to just destroy the statue and hope the vault was underneath it, unfortunately he didn''t have time to do so. The fire had almost burned away the entirety of the hedge at this point and was starting to die out along the edges. Unfortunately, that meant the entirety of the maze was visible through the gaps in the fence. Felix looked around him and saw the dozens of Devoured that had been stalking through the maze all looking directly at him.


    Well shit.


    Each of the Devoured around the maze were a different distance from the statue so as they ran through to get to Felix, they appeared one by one half a minute or so between each. Luckily none of them had any sort of ranged attack so they were stuck running into the choke point that was the corridor in front of the statue. Felix stood in front of the statue, an endless barrage of Fire Balls tossing the Devoured''s bodies against the maze like ragdolls.


    Ding You have slain 38 [D] Devoured (Lvl 132-142)


    Felix was actually surprised to see the fence and stone ground blackened, but otherwise undamaged by his continuous stream of Fire Balls. He chalked it up to these being D grade materials and the ground back on Trenus still being in the E grade for the most part. Now Felix could inspect the statue undisturbed. Unfortunately, he had no idea what to do. He was very quickly getting to the point where he was tempted to start hitting it. The only thing preventing him from doing so was that he was pretty sure the vault, if it existed, was in a pocket universe tied to the statue, rather than in or under it.


    He knew there was empty space under the statue, he had already seen the undercity. It was also possible there was an open cavity inside the statue which would mean hitting it was the right call, but the risk was too high. Unfortunately, it looked like there was some kind of key required to open the vault. Felix''s only hope at this point was that the key was somewhere in the manor and not scattered somewhere throughout the city.


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    He signed in resignation and flew up into the air, flying towards the manor''s back door. It was possible the key was hidden somewhere in the backyard but Felix just kind of figured that was unlikely. The rest of the backyard, other than the maze, was almost entirely open consisting of flowers, vegetables and a neatly trimmed lawn. The most hidden areas were the bases of a half dozen or so trees scattered about but even those were entirely visible, from the right angles. Unless the key was buried somewhere, it was in the manor.


    Felix opened up the large glass pane double doors and looked into what appeared to be a sitting room. There were couches and arm chairs laid around a lacquered wood coffee table. On each wall hung a painting, two of them portraits of humans and the other a landscape. The rest of the room was decorated meticulously with blankets, pillows, curtains and rugs that gave the room a rustic and cozy if not lavish vibe.


    There were 7 doorways in the room including the one Felix had walked through. Looking through the doors ahead of him, Felix saw a large foyer and hall. To the left was what appeared to be a library, or just another sitting room. To the right, there was a dining room with all of the dishes set for a meal that had never arrived. Covering the plates and utensils was, instead of a meal, a thick layer of dust.


    Felix walked forwards and looked around the room he was in, not finding anything of particular interest in there. Looking into the next room, to the right, he did spot a Devoured human that seemed to be dusting, though not very effectively as their hands were empty.


    [D] Devoured (Lvl 101)


    Felix didn''t want to burn the house down by accident so he decided against Fire Balls. As soon as the Devoured turned to dust off a book shelf on the opposite wall, Felix stepped into the room and 5 separate arcs of electricity connected with the creature''s body.


    Ding You have slain a [D] Devoured (Lvl 101)


    The creature''s corpse slumped to the ground, a couple trickles of smoke pouring out of it. Felix wasn''t sure what he would find in this room, other than books, but he was hoping for a secret chamber behind the bookshelf. He walked over to the far wall where the Devoured had been miming dusting the shelf and began pulling on all of the books. At first he was careful to put them back as they had been, but then he realized they had all already been scanned.


    Felix began tearing all the books off the shelf, tossing them onto the floor until the entire shelf was empty. Unfortunately, it seemed like whoever had built this manor didn''t know there was supposed to be a book to pull to open a secret room. Felix pulled up the carpet finding nothing underneath. He even moved all of the furniture but none of it was attached to anything. The desk had drawers but it was obvious there wasn''t anything hidden within them, there wasn''t any room left when Felix disassembled all of the drawers.


    He thought about taking out his new axe and tearing through the furniture, just in case, but decided against doing so for now. If he couldn''t find anything else of interest in the manor, he would come back and make sure the furniture was as innocent as it looked. Felix continued on through a couple of guest suites, a game room, a large bar, a dance hall, the dining room, kitchen, sitting area, theatre and almost a dozen bathrooms. Unfortunately he found nothing more than a couple dozen Devoured servants that were attempting to clean or maintain the place. Felix headed upstairs finding many bedrooms, bathrooms and a couple more sitting areas. The bedrooms were mostly empty, though there was a safe in the master bedroom but it hung open and was completely empty.


    He was very impressed with the bed though. Like all the furniture in the building, it was high quality and clearly made of D grade materials, considering how resilient it was. While all of it was a little too luxurious for Felix''s taste, it was high quality, higher than what he currently had at home. Felix was really glad he hadn''t decided to destroy anything with his axe just yet. Instead, he ran through every single room in the house and looted everything that wasn''t part of the structure of the building. He ended up with far more beds, couches and chairs than he would ever need, but it was also an effective way of removing clutter making it easier to spot anything out of place.


    The first thing he noticed that was off was that in the main foyer, when someone walked in through the front doors they were greeted by 2 statues and 2 busts. They were located alongside multiple paintings right below the double curved imperial stairway. Felix stowed the busts in his inventory then one of the statues, but found he couldn''t stow the other. He tried picking it up but it was fastened to the ground somehow.


    Felix smiled as he poked, prodded and pulled on the statue until he finally figured out to spin the statue''s head until it looked the other way. As soon as he did that, he heard a slight click coming from behind him on the wall. He turned around and saw a door had separated itself from the wall. It had been completely invisible before, like the doorway had magically appeared.


    Felix was certain it wasn''t an illusion, but given how well the door was hidden, it could have been. Looking inside, he saw that there was another staircase, perfectly aligned with the right wing of the imperial staircase above, that descended into the darkness. Felix cast a simple light spell and headed down the stairs finding himself in what appeared to be simply a really over the top wine cellar, vault, panic room and escape combo.


    The corridor the staircase ended in was short with a handful of rooms in every direction, it was also really short in height. Felix''s head was just a few fingers below the ceiling, though given that it needed to be hidden within the structure and couldn''t be underground, he understood why. He looted all the bottles of wine, having no interest in them himself, he figured they may still have some value having aged for a few thousand years at least. There were also large wooden barrels containing some kind of alcohol that Felix also looted. Walking further into the corridor, he found what appeared to be a vault containing veritable piles of jewelry, coins, clothes, pottery, and trinkets Felix couldn''t identify. There were a couple of weapons and a single suit of armor but it all appeared to be more ornamental than functional. S~ea??h the novel(F~)ire.net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    There were however, two exciting finds, one was a collection of 17 gemstones and a single large orb tossed into the pile. The gemstones were exciting, at least to Felix, because they could be turned into Mana Batteries. The orb on the other hand, was made of an opaque glass that shifted between purple and green and was a very familiar size. Felix looted everything in the vault then the furniture in the panic and escape rooms as well as a couple of hidden rapiers that appeared to actually be functional.


    With the house completely cleaned out, at least without looking for any other hidden rooms, Felix ran back up the stairs and back out into the backyard. He flew over the maze, avoided the Devoured gardeners, and descended just in front of the fountain statue from earlier. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 Chapter 137 - Book 41

    Felix pulled the orb from his inventory and carefully placed it into the statue''s outstretched hands. The orb floated on the water as it poured out, spinning in place for a few seconds before it began to glow. Felix backed up a few paces as the orb brightened and a large dark rectangle appeared in the air in front of it. A slight breeze of cool air blew out of the rectangle as Felix peered into it without getting too close. He just managed to make out what appeared to be a stone cave that descended downwards, curving out of sight just a few meters in.


    Is it¡­ Safe?


    It seems just as stable as any portal I''ve ever seen. I suspect the system has something to do with that.


    Yeah but¡­ what if I go in there then someone picks the orb up?


    Possible¡­ Maybe try walking in then back out first, if that works then we can figure things out from there.


    You sure it''s safe?


    Probably.


    Felix clenched his teeth and walked forwards, his hand out in front of him so he didn''t send his head in first. As soon as his finger made contact with the portal, a screen appeared.


    World Event


    Rothden Family Vault S~ea??h the N?vel(F)ire.n§×t website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    You have successfully found a vault in the city of Ky''Bel. Erolan''s vaults were all designed to have defenses and traps as he was a paranoid individual. The recommendation for this vault is a group of 4 - 5 at an average level of 140 - 145. Vaults are completable, each one containing at most 5 noteworthy treasures that must be collected for them to be considered complete. This vault contains 4 noteworthy treasures.


    Note: Entering a vault will cause the vault to become inaccessible to anyone outside. The portal will not close and the immediate area around it will be sealed, inaccessible to anyone. Should you survive, you will be able to exit the vault. You may explore without fear of becoming trapped inside from the portal closing. Once complete, the vault will be closed and inaccessible to anyone else in the future. If you leave without collecting all of the noteworthy treasures, the vault will remain open for future attempts by your or another''s group.


    Would you like to enter the vault with your party of 1?


    Yes.


    No.


    Oh thank System. Guess we don''t have to worry about it. Did you know that would happen?


    I figured it might. Didn''t seem right for The System to let something like that happen. It was a possibility, but seemed wrong if it''s letting you into portal''s without any knowledge of them ahead of time. If you were familiar with them and had encountered them before, it would be different. As it is, this is the first encounter for, I assume, the entirety of your planet''s population.


    Could I use a portal to get to Eramith? Or teleportation somehow?


    Possibly. We can talk about it later but you might as well loot the statue and the orb on your way out then study it. The more you learn, the more I can talk about and reveal.


    Sounds good. Yes.


    Instead of Felix being teleported into the vault, his hand simply passed through the portal, the barrier from before having disappeared. Felix stepped forwards, his entire body passing into the portal before the light pouring through it vanished. Felix cast a quick light spell then turned around and saw what looked like a picture of what he would expect to see through the portal. It was a snapshot of what was on the other side of the portal, though not an actual portal so no light was emitted. Felix assumed he would just touch the surface to exit and didn''t bother testing that instead he walked down the curving cave and into the vault.


    Where the portal had appeared, the cave appeared to be a natural formation, the walls a rough stone marked by erosion and wear. Felix descended through the winding cave just big enough for a single person to pass through a few hundred meters before the cave smoothed out and opened up. The last hundred meters or so the cave walls became perfectly smooth, carved out of the stone and the hall was entirely straight. It no longer felt like he was in a cave at all, instead it looked like the hall and room had been carefully constructed. The straight wall opened up into a large room with the entire floor covered in a red carpet. There was a door opposite the tunnel as well as one on the right wall with an open doorway leading to stairs that descended on the left wall.


    Felix walked to within a few meters of the room and, warned by The System, began doing his best to search for traps. He was using his staff to hit the ground in front of him already, but he was worried that would be too close if the trap was some kind of toxic gas or acid. A tiny light blue bead shot out of Felix''s finger and into the room ahead of him exploding with a burst of force in every direction. Immediately, the room was filled with an inferno that quickly died out without spreading into the other rooms. Felix tested it a few more times, finding the limit of the detection area using spells and his mana senses. He knew there had to be some kind of trick to get through without getting hurt because this vault was being used when it was trapped, at least he assumed so. He found that just the center of the room triggered the trap, with an area about a half meter wide along all the walls that was safe.


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    Felix was happy his little trick with the Force Bomb worked but he knew that it would only work on the most basic of detection methods. If he wanted to, Felix was certain he could figured out traps that triggered based on shape, soul, mana and other abstract methods that were harder to fool if he just had access to the necessary nodes. He was also certain Erolan would be able to figure them out as well. He just hoped this trick worked for as long as possible. He didn''t really know how else to test for traps but he put figuring out more triggers on his to do list for later.


    Walking into the room, Felix stepped along the wall and proceeded to the staircase to the left of the entrance first, mostly because it was the closest. His head peered around the corner and he saw a half dozen Devoured beasts along with four cages that had been rusted over and broken from age. The entire room was stone and there was a small bowl carved out of the stone floor that was filled with water next to a divot with a drain in it. Felix carefully stepped down the staircase and inspected the Devoured beasts closer. They were all the same level, two of them appeared to be large wolves, three of them some kind of large predatory cat and one of them a bear.


    [D] Devoured (Lvl 142)


    Felix could have fired off a barrage of spells until the creatures stopped moving. Instead he fired off a series of Mana Bolts to get their attention then led them back into the trapped room he had just crossed through. The creatures all screeched with the sickly wet cry the Devoured were famous for then bounded towards him until they reached the staircase and completely stopped. Felix had already walked back into the previous room before he realized something was wrong and turned back to figure out what had happened. Felix looked down the stairs and saw the bear standing at the base with the wolves circling behind it and the cats ready to pounce on and around the cages.


    Wow. Well trained I guess. It is kind of depressing though, and makes me feel bad for killing them from up here when they can''t even fight back.


    A series of Lightning Bolts arced from around Felix into the bodies of the creatures one by one until they all fell to the ground. Once they were all dead, Felix stalked into the room, firing off a couple of Force Bombs just to be sure the room wasn''t trapped. Inside the room, on the same wall as the stair case in the corners sat bags of various foods, the piles of rot only identifiable by the markings on the sacks now. There was a sound of water flowing just beyond the wall with the drain which piqued Felix''s curiosity because it meant were pipes of some kind wherever they were. He had initially thought the vault was a pocket universe but now he wasn''t so sure. Felix walked towards the next room on the wall to the right of the staircase, parallel with the entrance, and looked inside without getting too close, wary of any traps.


    In the room there were crates, barrels and sacks stacked in a pile in the center as well as on every wall. There was a staircase back upwards on the opposite wall and a drain in the corner, on the same wall as the drain in the last room. Felix cast a series of tiny Force Bombs making sure not to blow up or even knock over any crates. He was only satisfied when he was certain he had tested everything else then carefully walked into the room. As cautious as he was, he didn''t encounter any traps whatsoever. He inspected the crates so he could figure out their contents as well as try to find any that may have been trapped.


    In the crates and sacks Felix found sugar, salt, wood, parchment, silks, spices, coins and gems. None of the gems seemed to be usable for Mana Batteries, or rather they were too small and flawed to be Mana Batteries of any use. The barrels seemed to contain some kind of alcohol that Felix suspected had gone bad but didn''t really know because he didn''t drink. There were other sacks that had probably contained grain or some other perishable good like food, now they contained only rot and smelled awful. Felix looted the barrels and everything that hadn''t rotted. He stored them in his inventory, careful to search for any kind of pressure plate beneath them but found nothing of the sort.


    He walked to the base of the stairs to the next room and did his best to search for traps then ascended to the door. He inspected the door as best he could but he was just a novice, he risked it and opened the door anyways into a large stone room with a door to the right that had been sealed off and a door on the opposite wall. In the room, there was a wooden wall that had been added after the fact not even fastened to anything, just freestanding in the middle of the room. Felix carefully walked to the other end of the room and on the other side of the wooden was was simply a bed, a bedside table and a dresser. He walked up and looted all the furniture after looking through the dresser and finding nothing but clothes.


    He inspected the door on the right wall and saw that the door was sealed by having a large thick metal plate welded over the opening. Felix looked through the door opposite the one he entered from and saw an open doorway to the left and closed one to the right. There was also an alcove in the wall with dried straw laid on the floor that was mostly rotted through, some of it having survived just enough to be identifiable. It seemed like the resting place of some kind of animal.


    Felix checked for traps as best he could then cautiously stepped into the room. He saw through the door to the left and saw the doorway open into what appeared to be an underground lake, the smooth, carved walls reverting to the rough stone of a natural cave. Felix walked right up to the doorway and saw the lake span far to the right and left, likely where the drains in the last rooms had led considering they were placed on the adjacent wall to the lake. He turned around and walked to the other door inspecting it as carefully as he could manage before cautiously opening it. It was a heavy steel door and the hinges were not well maintained so even though it did open, it was a loud endeavor. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 Chapter 138 - Book 42

    Looking into the next room, the smooth and perfectly straight stone walls were becoming oddly shaped rooms with weird angles. The rooms were clearly conformed to fit within the existing natural cave now, though the walls were still smooth and vertically straight. Within the slight curve of the wall just to the right and left of the door there were two pairs of stone bowls side by side reminding Felix of water fountains in a public building. The bowls were empty now and there was no indication of what they contained before though they did have pipes and faucets above each.


    After checking the room for traps, Felix tried to open the faucets but nothing happened. Either the pipes had some other purpose, they weren''t connected or they had rusted through somewhere. There was a door to the right and the room continued to the left winding through the existing cave a little bit. Felix inspected and opened the door to a long room slightly too wide to be a corridor. It had doors on each of it''s walls and a series of beds lined up along the long walls. In some of the beds lay a dozen or so Devoured all wearing long bright red robes, the first clothes Felix had ever seen Devoured wear outside of the undercity center.


    None of them seemed to have noticed Felix at all, all of them either lying down on the beds, eyes open, staring at the ceiling or sitting on the edges of the beds, staring at the ground. A small barrage of Mana Bolts fired out of Felix''s fingers, at least one of them hitting each of the Devoured in the hall. They all screeched and ran towards him getting incinerated and tossed around as they passed through the door way. Once they had all been dealt with, Felix walked back towards the room but then more Devoured began to pour through the opposite doorway, on the right side of the hall.


    He had no idea there were Devoured in that room at all, he had assumed there could be but they had never really paid that much attention to each-other before. If they were in the same room or really close by, they would swarm. Back in the manor though, Felix fought Devoured, they screeched and the ones in the next room just didn''t care. For some reason these were different.


    Felix fired a torrent of spells over his shoulder as he ran back the way he came, mixing normal force spells into his barrage to slow the creatures down. With just a few of the Devoured left, a stream of liquid fire shot through the Devoured towards Felix. He wasn''t expecting it at all and some of the fire poured into his sleeves and up his neck. Felix gritted his teeth through the pain and cast a standard Mana Shield, unfortunately the Shield spells inscribed into his armor wouldn''t protect his neck.


    His cast time wasn''t great though and he failed twice, due to the pain, before the Shield finally appeared. The burns weren''t fatal but they were painful as hell. The fire had also claimed just over half of his health pool. Cowering behind the shield, Felix removed the still flaming remains of his cloak and tossed it to the side. Once the stream of fire abated, Felix looked through his Shield and inspected it''s source.


    [D] Dragon Priest: Devoured (Lvl 152)


    Luckily, it seemed Dragon Priest did not mean priest that was a dragon. The Dragon Priest wore similar robes to the other Devoured, long and red but these were more ornate with white embroidery and vertical stripes. Other than the robes and the name, they appeared like any other Devoured creature. Though, they were the first to be able to breathe fire. The Priest screeched as they ran at Felix, smoke pouring from their open maw to either side of their head. S~ea??h the Nov§×l?ire.n(e)t website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    Felix cast a Fire Ball at the creature but it leapt to the side and bounded off the wall, completely dodging the spell and diverting itself around the Shield. Felix tripped but managed to keep himself from falling as he stepped back in surprise. He swung the shield around to bring it between him and the Priest just in time to hold it back from swiping at his neck with it''s claws. The Priest hopped off the Shield and backed up a step.


    The priest screeched then stepped to the right, Felix''s shield following, except that it was a feint, the Priest had already stepped past the shield to the left. A fist made contact with Felix''s head knocking him onto his ass and stunning him. He felt himself lifted by his armor, the Devoured Priest holding him with both hands from his robe, mouth wide just a few inches from Felix''s face.


    The first thought in Felix''s mind was disgust at the creature''s breath that reeked of rot, the second was dread as he saw a spark in the back of it''s throat. He no longer felt the Mana Shield he had cast earlier, it had likely dissipated when he was punched in the face. Most of the spells Felix could cast would be too slow but there were two spells he could cast very quickly. He was pretty sure Fire Bolt wouldn''t save him so he put all his hope on the other.


    A cylinder of Solid Mana shoved itself inside the creature''s mouth and into it''s throat just as a trickle of liquid Fire poured out of the sides of it''s mouth, trying to force it''s way out. The fire spilled onto Felix''s cheeks, burning his skin but only doing a few hundred points of damage. The priest let go of Felix''s robe with one hand to pull the Mana Bolt out with the other giving Felix just enough time to cast a simple Force spell just to push the thing away from him. The priest held tightly to Felix''s robes but the spell had pushed it an arm''s length away.


    Fire Balls were too slow and likely to hit both of them so instead, an excessive barrage of Lightning Bolts descended onto the creature, blinding Felix in the process. Felix stumbled back a step when it''s hand released his robe and then felt something hit him from the side and pin him to the wall. The Priest held it''s forearm to Felix''s neck, it''s maw open unnaturally far and a faint orange glow growing in the back of it''s throat.


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    Felix knew what to do and once again cast a Mana Bolt into the creature''s mouth. This time, instead of turning it''s head to the side it simply reached up with it''s free hand and pushed harder with it''s fire breath giving Felix no time to cast anything creative. His hand''s were free though so Felix reached up and held the creature''s free arm with one hand and punched it in the face with the other. It felt like Felix was punching a shell, it''s skin was thick like leather and did little to cushion the blow against it''s bones underneath.


    He didn''t think about it much though as he pushed it''s head to the side as hard as he could to try and keep the fire breath pointing anywhere but at his face. It had managed to push the Mana Bolt out of it''s mouth with it''s breath alone but luckily Felix was noticeably stronger than it was so he managed to keep it''s head pointed away. They struggled for a little while until the creature jumped back and pointed it''s breath back towards it''s target. Felix dove the side using the inscriptions in his boots to buy himself enough time to cast a Mana Shield between them. He only got burned a little bit, losing a few thousand health though he managed to block the majority of it.


    The creature ran towards Felix without stopping it''s fire breath, trying to bound off the walls and around the shield again. Though he was expecting it, Felix was still slow to react because the bar of solid flame connecting them was blinding him and making the creature impossible to see. He did manage to back up enough steps to keep the Mana Shield between them, but only just barely as the Priest''s arms flailed around it. The Devoured tried to grab onto the shield to climb over it but Felix hit it with a Force spell from above to push it back down. Having learned his lesson earlier, Felix began hitting the priest with Lightning Bolts but this time he didn''t go overboard and blind himself. He cast the spell from the side and made sure he kept an eye on the creature the entire time.


    Ding You have slain a [D] Dragon Priest: Devoured (Lvl 152)


    It took him a few minutes and a lot of Lightning Bolts as well as Force spells to keep it back but Felix finally managed to kill the creature. It''s robes were entirely charred, just a few scraps remaining and had worn nothing else. Before doing anything else, Felix walked back into the room with the bed and sat down behind the wooden wall in the middle and began meditating. He didn''t shift his consciousness to his soul garden, instead he focused entirely on his body.


    The burns were bad, the cells that made up the skin on his face and neck were basically entirely dead. On top of that, the heat had reached through his skin and killed cells much deeper, like roots growing into his body. He manually controlled his energy and assisted his immune system in repairing his cells and slowly rebuilding his skin. Once he was done with that, he regrew some hair on his head because he wasn''t super into the idea of being bald.


    Well that was¡­ a disaster.


    You are alive.


    Yeah, I am. That could have gone way better though.


    Yeah. Seems like you don''t really have enough battle experience. Since you were killing things so quickly before, you didn''t really have to think about how to fight.


    Even the world bosses, that took more time, were just too big and slow.


    Unfortunately, the only way to get battle experience is to¡­ well, battle.


    Yeah. Wish I had known sooner how¡­ well awful at fighting I was.


    You''re the first person I''ve ever watched fight so it didn''t even occur to me until now. It makes sense though and seems so obvious in hindsight.


    So do the lessons I learned mid battle. Don''t assume your enemies are all mindless idiots. Don''t assume they''ve shown you their entire repertoire. Don''t assume all the enemies are the same. Don''t blind yourself with your own spells. Always keep an eye on your enemy, don''t let them get out of sight if you can help it.


    Keep your Mana Shield at the ready.


    Inscribe Mana Shield''s into my armor that block my face.


    Or get a hat to do that.


    Now I need a new cloak too. I really liked that one, even though it was unenchanted.


    At least it was cheap.


    Yeah, but I need something that isn''t going to fall apart as soon as I get into a fight.


    That seems reasonable. Hopefully there''s one in the vault or even the city.


    Yeah, finger''s crossed.


    Once Felix had topped up his health, energy and most of his mana he got up and walked back towards the hall with the beds. The Priest had come from the door just to the right in the hall which was now open. Looking inside that room, it looked like the inside of a small church. There were two columns of five pews with a column in the middle. At the front of the room the pews faced a large stone altar with grooves that fed into the wall behind it with pipes. The stone of the altar was stained a darker red color than the rest of the room.


    I guess they weren''t water fountains.


    There was also a wooden table at the back of the room, but it was completely empty. There was one other door next to the table at the back of the room and looking through it, Felix saw what looked to be a simple sitting room. There was a small square table with four chairs and an equipment rack. Judging from his map alone, Felix knew the door on the opposite side of that room led back into the first room with the carpet and the flame trap.


    The one on the left had to lead back to the hall he was just in so he didn''t even walk into this room, there was nothing of value in it and he didn''t want to risk any traps. He walked back to the hall with the beds and looked towards the other two doors. The one on the left from where he came in and the one on the opposite end of the hall. He started with the one closest to him.


    Opening the door and looking into the room, without entering, the room was simply a sitting room. There were a handful of tables all of a different sizes with chairs scattered about. The walls had shelves on them that had once contained food, judging from the smell and residue. There was also another door on the right. Before entering, Felix walked back into the hall and to the other door he hadn''t checked. Looking into that room, it seemed to have once been some kind of kitchen.


    There were crates and barrels on one end of the room and a counter with a large metal box on the other. The metal box had likely once been a stove or oven at some point, or at least that was Felix''s best guess. There were two doors, one that led back into the first room with the red carpet, meaning he now knew where all the doors in that room led. The other door was on the left and likely led to the room he had just looked into, before this one. Felix checked the room for traps then walked across to the door and looked into the room. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 Chapter 139 - Book 43

    This room was a connecting room with 3 doors set up in a triangle. One he looked through, the one into the dining and sitting room and the last that pointed diagonally away from the other two. The room was otherwise empty with no furniture or Devoured inside. He checked the room for traps as he had with every other room up to this point but nothing triggered when his Force Bombs collided with the walls and floors.


    Felix walked in slowly and saw that there were a few empty crates in the corner he couldn''t see from the door but nothing of interest. He walked over to the adjacent wall and opened the door, confirming it led to the sitting room as he had suspected. The last door remaining was the one that pointed outwards diagonally, the first door to not be perpendicular in the finished area of the vault. The doorway held a large double door but otherwise seemed perfectly normal. Felix inspected it for traps but found nothing to indicate danger so he gingerly opened the door. He was immediately struck in the chest and sent flying backwards into the corner of the room, his head smacking the wall and stunning him for a few moments.


    Felix looked down once his head recovered and saw a massive solid metal crossbow bolt sticking out of his chest. It was about 2 or 3 inches in diameter but luckily it had only gone halfway into his body. Checking his health pool, he was sitting at around forty percent and was slowly dropping a few points a second. After taking a minute or two to dull the pain, Felix mentally inspected his body and found that he had a few broken ribs but luckily the bolt had pierced the right side, entirely missing his heart.


    He also had significant bruising in the area, his robes and shirt underneath had resisted the bolt as much as possible, spreading the impact but ultimately failing to stop it entirely. Inside, the found the bolt had lodged itself just behind a rib with a large barb stuck just behind it. He either needed to push the bolt the rest of the way through, or pull it out and risk ripping out his organs and possibly a rib along with it. Even though his robes had dulled the blow, if the bolt had just gone through, this would have been a much better situation.


    He needed the bolt to go through cleanly but not all the way because there were metal fins on the back that would tear through him. First things first, he had to remove the back of the bolt, he could heat and try and melt it off but he knew that would burn him at the same time. It was possible cauterizing the wound would help, but it also might do enough damage to commit suicide. Instead, Felix pulled out his staff and formed it into a fine toothed saw then he manually enchanted the bolt to be slightly softer.


    With one hand he held the bolt steady and with the other, he began running the saw blade back and forth. Even with his hand holding the bolt, it still shook back and forth slightly so he had to stop every few minutes to let his body repair itself, flooding his system with mana and energy to help the process. Every time he did so, his health would rise then he would keep cutting and it would fall again. He continued with the balancing act until the bolt had been cut all the way through. It wasn''t the cleanest cut but it would have to do. He then morphed his saw into a file and made the end as smooth as possible, removing the burrs so no metal bits would be left behind in his body.


    With that done, he stowed the staff and walked over to the wall, kneeling in front of it. He made sure to heal himself as much as possible with a massive metal bar inside of him and flooded his cells with excess energy to help after the fact. He carefully pushed the bolt to the side, plotting it''s course through his body as carefully as possible to minimize the risk of killing himself. Finally, he lifted up the back of his shirt to expose his skin. Once he was ready, Felix mentally counted down to work up the courage then used a force spell to push himself into the wall.


    The severed end of the bolt hit the wall in front of him and his body continued forwards, the bolt forcefully pushed through his body and out the back. Felix collapsed just barely conscious enough to make sure he didn''t fall on the bolt. While he could dull pain a lot, he still felt the cells being ripped apart, his organs being shredded, his blood vessels opened and tissue torn. It was a different sensation but still overwhelming and shocking all the same. The feeling was reminiscent of pain but it was more nuanced and different. In this moment though, it still felt like agony.


    Once he was conscious enough to inspect what had happened, Felix saw his health sitting at around a third and rapidly increasing due to the energy he had flooded his cells with. The barbs had nicked two ribs but hadn''t broken them at all, which was what he had hoped for. The back of the bolt was still in his chest but the hard part was done, now he rolled over to his side and cast a force spell directly into the metal rod pulling it all the way out. That part wasn''t even painful really, his blood lubricated it and with his sense of pain dulled, nothing but cool air passed through the hole in his body.


    He lay there on his side manually flooding his cells until he was certain he wouldn''t bleed out then entered his soul garden. In there, he could still feel his body repairing itself, still feel the agony, but it was distant and far away like a faint voice in the back of his head which meant he could almost entirely ignore it. He found Grim sitting under a tree reading a book of some sort and walked over.


    Well that was¡­ Not my finest moment.


    You should probably keep Mana Shields up all the time, especially when opening up doors.


    Yeah, that was really stupid. I also need to rethink the enchantments on my armor. The mana shields are fine but they require me to know when something is going to hit me.


    They also don''t cover your head.


    Yeah, I''ll figure that one out too. I think I''m going to redo it entirely. I want to have the armor react to being hit so I can deal with surprises. It''s already pretty durable, I figure if I enchant it to go really hard when something with force hit''s it, that should distribute the blow better and hopefully stop bolt''s like that one entirely.


    This book''s true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.


    Sounds like a good idea. Sear?h the n?vel_Fire.¦Çet website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    Did you know something like that would happen? That I should have had a Mana Shield going all the time?


    Sometimes people need to experience something to truly learn it.


    You cou-


    No I had no idea. That just sounded wise. Honestly, you''re the first person I''ve been this¡­ intimately aware of? Everyone else I''ve bonded too kept me far away and locked up. They didn''t carry me around with them or let me organize their memories.


    Wait, what do you mean organize my memories?


    I just organize and index the library, that''s all.


    Oh, that makes sense. Guess we''ll both be learning then.


    Grim simply noded.


    What are you reading?


    One of the books you found in the Rothden manor library.


    What language is it in?


    No idea, but you can read it so, I can as well. Likely the tongues skill.


    Oh cool. Anything interesting in there?


    Nope, it''s a romance and smut book.


    Felix snorted. Really?


    Yeah.


    You''re reading smut? Can you even¡­


    Nope. Human interactions are interesting though, I''m mostly reading it for the romance. Not sure if it''s our bond or something else, but the romance is¡­ cute? Warm and fuzzy? Just a little.


    Uh huh.


    Grim just shook his head.


    Were any of the books interesting?


    Hell no. The books were a combination of self help, how to be persuasive, basic economics and fantasy with a small section of romance and smut.


    Did you go through them all?


    Yeah the self help stuff was obvious and garbage, the persuasive was silly and the economics was, well basic.


    To you?


    No, to you. I made sure to reference your memories and you knew everything in them already.


    Oh, that''s boring. No diaries or historical accounts?


    Nope. Lots of dragon based fantasy but that none of that was historical.


    Alright. I''m off, have fun with the smut.


    Romance.


    Whatever.


    Felix returned his consciousness to his body finding it mostly repaired thanks to his meditation skill increasing his health regeneration. His robes and shirt still had a hole in it though so Felix pumped mana into them until they were completely repaired. The inscribed spells in that area were still damaged, but Felix planned on maintaining a Mana Shield in front of him at all times from now on anyways, so he didn''t bother to fix it for now. He summoned the shield and walked to the doorway looking inside and finding a very simple trap, a string on the door wired to a massive crossbow, almost ballista even.


    He carefully looked around but saw no other indications of any traps. He made sure to remove the doors from the hinges so he couldn''t be locked in and then ventured into what seemed to be just a long hallway. At the end of it, there was a sliding door that Felix very slowly opened, inspecting it from every angle as he did so. It didn''t seem to be trapped though so he opened it all the way. Before walking into the room though, he pulled out his staff, that was still in the shape of a file, and morphed it into a large bar with plates on the ends of it. He set the bar in the doorway to make sure the door couldn''t close then ducked under it and into the room.


    The room was a large circle with no doors other than the one he had walked through. Around the outside of the room were nine suits of armor on stands of all kinds of designs and materials, all plate armor though. In the middle of the room, on what seemed to be a cylindrical pedestal was what appeared to be a hand made of entirely of marble. It started from about halfway down the forearm protruding from the pedestal and the fingers were open but relaxed. On the ring finger of the hand was a single ring that look like a simple metal ring with some kind of insignia on the flat face. Inspecting it closer, Felix thought it looked like some kind of arcane inscription, similar to a spell form or enchantment, though he didn''t recognize it. He tried inspecting it but as with everything he''d found since the tutorial, it simply said ring with no major details.


    He inspected the armors as well as the hand statue but couldn''t find any sign of a trap of any kind, anywhere. Cautiously, he walked over to the ring and touched it, but nothing happened. He slowly removed the ring from the marble finger, pulling it completely free and immediately heard a loud grinding sound then a bang. Felix spun around and heard a loud hissing sound coming from all around him. He ran towards the door and dove below the bar running a few meters before turning around and seeing nothing.


    His face contorted in disgust though as he realized he was smelling something that was both sweet and bitter at the same time. He immediately held his breath and cast Gust to keep the gas in the chamber. He had every intention of retrieving the suits of armor in the room, he just had to figure out how dangerous the gas was. He looked internally and felt motes of the gas in his lungs ripping through his cells. It caused minor damage, but his body cycled the minute amount out relatively quickly. It didn''t seem to affect his skin much at all, it was mildly irritating but more than manageable.


    Since the only danger was him breathing the gas in, he decided to walk back into the room, with his breath held, and as quickly as possible he retrieved and stowed every single suit of armor. He maintained the Gust spell the entire time which contained most of the gas in the room. Once he was done, he walked back to the door and pulled his staff free, which was definitely more lodged into the wall then he had left it originally. The sliding door seemed to be stuck though so he used a force spell directly in the door to pull it closed then dissipated the gust spell. He was tempted to put the ring on but he wasn''t sure it wasn''t cursed or wouldn''t mold itself under his skin without being able to identify it so he simply stowed it and moved on. The only passage at this point he hadn''t explored was the one in the blood water fountain room that headed north, if the entrance was the southern most point and the one over the lake.


    He walked back through the rooms he had before into the blood fountain room and continued north into what was just a weirdly shaped room. There was nothing in the room other than an empty bucket so Felix continued onwards to the west and into a more regularly shaped room. Across from him was a large door at the top of a couple of steps and to the right there was another passageway to the east. In the center of the room was a stone statue of a Dragon''s head.


    The head was a few times bigger than Felix and it''s maw was wide open, advertising it''s large fangs, one of which was missing, and tongue. Felix did his best to check for traps but found nothing, which was becoming less and less reassuring as he had accidentally stumbled into two traps in this one vault. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 Chapter 140 - Book 44

    He walked up the steps to the doorway across from him and pushed it open to find a large hexagonal room. There were four tables arranged in a square a few meters apart in the center of the room. On the far end of the room was a large metal box sitting on a raised stone platform. Felix inspected the room as well as he could then used his staff to hold the doors open just in case then walked in. Looking down at the circular tables, the tables were each a different color, orange, green, blue and magenta. On the tables, there were symbols inscribed around the edge at even spacing.


    Felix realized they were dials with the hands in the middle currently all pointing in the same direction. Walking over to the metal box, Felix saw that the lid would open, he just couldn''t do it himself. He didn''t want to risk damaging whatever was inside so he didn''t try and pry it open. Turning back to the dials, Felix turned one of them, the red one, just to see what would happen. He waited a few moments but nothing happened.


    There were way too many combinations and even potentially orders for him to try every one of them. His best bet, was trying to crack the lock like he''d seen people do with safes on tv. If the dials needed to be correctly positioned for the box to open, he hoped there would be mana and enchantments involved. It was possible for the mechanism to be entirely mechanical, but if that was the case, he was going to have to figure something else out. Felix walked up to each dial and slowly spun them all the way around trying to pay attention to any variance in the mana around him. Unfortunately, the dials only spun around exactly the same amount, getting stuck if he tried to push further. He also didn''t feel anything in terms of mana or enchantments so the mechanism was likely mechanical.


    He was hoping for something easy like an audible click when one of the dials was at the right position but he heard nothing. Though he had never done it, Felix knew more or less how lock picking worked so he hoped he could apply the same principles here. The first thing he did was create a channeled force spell that would push up on the top of the box. He wasn''t trying to force it open, just create tension in the mechanical system. Then he walked back over to the dials and began spinning them. Nothing happened so he increased the force on his spell gradually as he spun each dial all the way around. Eventually, one of the dials got stuck. S~ea??h the N?vel(F)ire.n§×t website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    Excitedly, he spun the other dials and slowly increased the force on his spell until each of them got stuck and the box flew open. Instead of the top of the box hinging open like he expected, it rose into the air remaining perfectly flat. There were four metal bars, one on each corner that held it in place and ran deep into the box. Felix walked over and looked inside finding what seemed to be multiple concentric white metal bands. Identifying it revealed it as a bracelet, but nothing more.


    Other than the bracelet, the box was completely empty so Felix simply released his spell but the top remained open. He didn''t really care at this point so he left the room and headed further north and to the east. Walking into the passageway, the smooth walls were completely gone in place of rough stone and what appeared to be a natural cave. There were passageways continuing to the east and one to the west. He knew there couldn''t be more than a single room to the west between his current position and the lake. He decided to just continue east and worry about the entirety of the lake later on. Once again, inspecting the room for traps, Felix fired off a series of Force Bombs into the room. As soon as he did, a massive boulder dropped from the ceiling and fell right in the middle of the room with a loud reverberating crack.


    He walked into the room and saw that there had been a tiny trip wire that dropped the stone when broken. He was happy he had caught it, but not overly impressed with himself because the trap was so rudimentary. He continued on through the cave and after a dozen or so meters, the passage opened into a larger cave area with multiple huts. The huts were made of wood posts and wrapped in hide, more like a tent than an actual structure. Between all of the huts were the charred remains of a campfire.


    Further into the cave Felix saw a large tent many times larger than any of the others and surrounded by a palisade. He was surprised both the tents and palisade were still standing and not completely rotted through, less surprised to find them all inhabited by Devoured. The smaller tents each contained a few small Devoured, just a few feet tall that looked like they had either been children or just a small race.


    [D] Devoured (Lvl 107)


    Just outside of the large tent, loafing about behind the palisade, was a much larger Devoured standing almost twice Felix''s height. It reminded him of the troll he had fought back in a combat dungeon.


    [D] Devoured (Lvl 143)


    The two other passages in the cave, other than the one Felix had just walked through, were positioned on either side of the large tent. A series of small Mana Bolts pelted the small Devoured causing them to search for their source. The creatures found Felix and screeched then ran into the narrow cave passage he had come from. A deep rumbling roar reverberated through the area when the large Devoured realized what was happening as well. The small Devoured followed by the big one ran into the passageway and got tossed around and incinerated by Fire Balls. Luckily it seemed these Devoured didn''t have any intelligence like the Priest had so they funneled themselves towards Felix, running into the fire with no regard for their own safety.


    Ding You have slain 11 [D] Devoured (Lvl 107-143)


    Searching their huts didn''t result in anything other than mold so Felix looked down each of the passageways that branched out from here. One of them looked to be a dead end with a few more huts. Looking down the other passage, the rough natural cave morphed back into smooth, straight walls so Felix headed down in that direction. It was possible the small huts contained a treasure, but Felix doubted it. If he didn''t find all four elsewhere, he would just come back to check it out.


    This book''s true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.


    Walking back into the constructed part of the vault, the room was a large open chamber that was almost circular with pillars around the outside. In the very center of the room was a stone platform a dozen or so meters wide that held a massive statue of a Dragon made of a dark stone. It was very intricately carved, the scales had definition, the teeth were sharp and the wings had slight veins. It was a beautiful statue and no matter how much Felix scrutinized it, it appeared to just be a statue. Looking down the two passages in the room, the one heading south seemed to just be a large open room with a couple of empty tables and strewn crates within. The one that headed east, right next to the one Felix had walked through opened up into what was now a large empty room and continued south into another chamber.


    The room had once had carpets, judging from the discoloration on the floor and even had a fireplace carved into the wall, though there was no chimney so Felix wasn''t sure how it had worked. There were remains of some furniture spread throughout the room but none of it was identifiable. Through Felix''s rudimentary search for traps he found a large sink hole with spikes at the bottom just a couple of steps in front of him, blocking the entrance to the chamber. Other than that, there didn''t seem to be anything else in the room so Felix cautiously floated over the trap.


    Inspecting the room closer revealed nothing so Felix continued on and looked into the next room. This room was the biggest in the entire vault and seemed to be a massive circular chamber with the passage he looked down connecting in tangentially. In the center of the room stood a marble statue of what appeared to be a woman with two horns, a vast head of hair and two massive dragon wings. She wore simple robes and stood with a warm and inviting posture, almost motherly.


    Felix did his best to check for traps, paying particular attention to the floor considering the pit trap in the last room. There didn''t seem to be anything based on his novice inspection so he cautiously stepped into the chamber. Walking inside, he saw the walls lined with sconces so he fired off a series of simple Fire Bolts at them, surprisingly they seemed to still have fuel in them because they immediately caught fire. He walked forwards toward the statue and continued lighting the sconces around the room to get more light in so he could see better. Walking around the statue, it was just as intricate and beautiful as the dragon statue outside. The marble was carved in such a way that the statue''s robes looked silky and her skin soft and supple while in contrast the wings and talons at the end of them seemed sharp and vicious. Felix lit the final sconce and heard a loud grinding sound that echoed through the chamber.


    He spun around and watched as the statues hands began to glow and redden to the point where they were wreathed in liquid fire. The hands dripped all over the ground and the statue''s head began to lift very slowly. Felix wasn''t one to judge and it was completely possible this statue was friendly, but he was learning to be more cautious so he got as far from the statue as he could, towards the entrance of the room. The statue began to lower their hands with an irritating grinding sound and their foot slowly lifted from the platform they stood upon. Every move they made was made in halted rough movements which starkly contrasted the beauty of the carving itself. Felix kept his guard up but seeing how slow the statue was, how difficult it was for them to move, he definitely started to feel like the statue wasn''t overly dangerous.


    The only reason he hadn''t just left was that he was pretty sure the treasure was on the statue''s finger. As the liquid fire encompassed their hands, he had spotted a single metal band on their right ring finger, the only part of the statue not made of stone. He was pretty sure it would be possible to kill the statue, The System wouldn''t let something too strong be in a dungeon for level 140s. Still, Felix had had a bad experience with the Priest so he stayed back and waited to make sure it wasn''t just playing him.


    The statue continued to take halted steps to the side of the room then lifted it''s head and began opening it''s mouth in Felix''s direction. Luckily, it was slow so he had more than enough time to step aside when the massive stream of liquid fire filled the corridor between the rooms. It lasted just a few seconds but Felix didn''t dare peek his head around the corner. Instead, he fired off a Force Bomb into the room, aiming roughly where he remembered the statue standing. He heard a loud boom from the spell followed by some grinding noises then, silence. Though he hadn''t gotten a kill notification, he also didn''t know if a statue would have a kill notification so he simply waited.


    A couple minutes passed before Felix decided to risk a look around the corner, with a Mana Shield in front of him of course. Looking into the room, the Statue had walked back to the center of the room and was standing exactly as he had found them previously. As soon as he entered though, it''s head began spinning towards him, again with halted movements and loud grinding. Felix simply jogged around the room and the statue struggled to follow him. On it''s left side, the dress and part of it''s wing had been completely blown off so Felix was hopeful of his ability to cause it damage.


    He maintained the Mana Shield as he constructed another Force Bomb, this one much stronger. Judging from how much damage a simple double sized bomb had done, Felix was expecting to shatter it with the 10 sized bomb he was constructing. He made sure to make the force itself contained so he didn''t hit himself while hopefully still doing similar damage. A marble of light purple energy arced out from just in front of Felix towards the statue. It was still trying to turn itself around to look at Felix when the spell collided with it''s side.


    A massive explosion shook the chamber as tiny shards of marble shrapnel exploded in every direction. Felix''s Mana Shield pulled a few thousand mana to stop them all, but it was well worth it considering Felix didn''t even take a single point of damage. A couple drops of liquid fire had also been flung outwards from the statue''s hands but neither of those streams flew directly at Felix.


    Ding You have slain a [D] Dragon Mother Statue: Devoured (Lvl 156)


    Once the dust settled, Felix looked around the room and saw white marble scattered everywhere along the floor. A few of the sconces had been extinguished but their shape had protected most of them. Felix searched through the rubble for a little while before he found the ring buried in gravel. The ring seemed to be made of a shiny metal though not one Felix had ever seen. It was entirely a deep crimson and seemed to have an inscription inside of it but it wasn''t something Felix could read, even with his tongues skill.


    He pocketed the ring and headed back to the only place he hadn''t really explored yet, the chamber to the north and the lake just west of it. There were a handful of other chambers he hadn''t walked into, but he had looked into all of them and didn''t find anything interesting. If the room appeared empty, he wasn''t going to risk dying to a trap unless he really had to. If the lake turned out to be nothing, he would go back and explore them, but he was really hoping he wouldn''t have to. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 Chapter 141 - Book 45

    He walked past the dark stone dragon statue and through the small tents then past the falling rock trap continuing through the cave. Just as he suspected, the cave was simply a short winding passage that led to a stone beach. Floating into the air, he glided further into the cave over the lake as high up as he could which was only a few meters. The lake was a weird shape stretching down tunnels and into the alcoves of the natural cave. The first passage he encountered was just to his right as he wound his way over the lake.


    Looking inside, there was a sort of a chamber where the lake only encompassed a small area in the center with a stone surface around it. Floating inside, there was a massive Devoured serpent corpse on the beach to the left that had likely once been a sea creature, judging from it''s fins and tail. On the beach to the right there were three skeletons, two large and one small. They all wore the remains of what appeared to be fancy silk clothing, though it hadn''t held up well. The skeletons were positioned closely together in a comforting way that kept Felix from blasting them with spells. sea??h th§× Nov§×l?ire.n(e)t website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    He was wary of the skeletons maybe being undead, but the way they were positioned also indicated that they had likely been close, probably a family, comforting each-other in the end. He cautiously floated over to them and spotted just a single piece of jewelry among the three of them. Based on their robes, he had expected multiple rings on each finger but instead, the only piece of jewelry and the only thing that appeared to have survived, was an amulet.


    The amulet was around the neck of the small skeleton and wrapped in their bony fingers like they were praying into it. While Felix didn''t want to disturb the dead, he also suspected the amulet was the last treasure so he carefully pried the amulet from the child''s fingers and carefully removed it from their neck. The amulet was simply a thin silver chain with a pendant that looked like a light green marble.


    World Event


    Rothden Family Vault


    You have successfully found all 4 of the noteworthy treasures in this vault. Exiting the vault at this point will seal the entrance and make inaccessible to anyone else in the future.


    Before heading for the exit, Felix positioned the bodies so that the larger skeletons were holding the smaller one as well as each-other''s hands. Felix was happy leaving the vault because if he had missed anything, it wasn''t likely to be very important or valuable. He headed through all the chambers he was certain were not trapped, the ones he had traveled through before and touched the picture like surface of the portal.


    World Event


    Rothden Family Vault


    Would you like to leave the vault?


    Note: As you have successfully collected all of the noteworthy treasures, you will not be able to enter the vault again.


    Yes.


    No.


    Yes.


    The picture came to life and light poured through. The leaves in the distance from trees in adjacent yards rustled and a warm breeze gently blew through the opening. Felix stepped through back into the wrought iron maze in the backyard of the Rothden estate. Turning around, the portal had vanished but the orb and statue had remained exactly where they were and appeared no different from how he remembered them. Felix carefully retrieved the orb and stowed it. The statue seemed to be affixed to the basin of the fountain just under the feet on a short cylindrical platform. Morphing his staff into large saw blade, Felix began cutting through the platform. It took him a few hours but eventually he managed to free the statue and even stow it in his inventory.


    Felix chose a random direction and began flying over the mansions to the west. Before he had entered the vault, he had seen people and movement on the outskirts of the town, just starting to spread out. Now, he saw signs of looting and even a couple of people at just about every one of the manors on this platform. Some of them sported fresh scorch marks, others had Devoured corpses strewn about. He found an estate that appeared to be mostly untouched, likely due to the large Devoured chained up in the back. They looked like they had once been different kinds of four legged beasts, some tigers, others rhinos and a lot of beasts Felix couldn''t identify whatsoever.


    Whoever had once lived at that particular estate seemed to have either been a beast tamer or had a thing for dangerous beasts, likely their ego if Felix had to venture a guess. The yard was one of the biggest in the area, almost twice the size of the average on this platform. Devoured beasts were either chained or fenced in and separated from each-other all throughout. It was almost like a zoo except there was no obvious way inside other than through the mansion at the front. Felix descended down into the backyard and walked towards the manor, figuring he should clear that out first. The backdoor was a set of large wooden doors with metal banding around them. Pulling the doors open revealed a woman with a brown ponytail, leather armor, a bow and slit like predator eyes.


    "This vault''s mi- Oh, it''s you." Jackie said.


    "Sorry to intrude, I''ll go find a different vault."


    Jackie walked out the door Felix was holding open and into the backyard, "People kept running scared from this one, something about beasts everywhere. I just finished clearing out the house but the key to the vault is in or on one of these things." She said as she gestured to the beasts throughout the yard.


    "I take it there was a journal or something?"


    "Yeah quite a few autobiographies. They¡­ this guy was a self absorbed prick, his autobiographies were awful."


    "Any chance I could take a look at them? I''m only interested in books, diaries and autobiographies specifically."


    "How about this, you help me find the vault key, you can have all the books and literature I found in the house."


    "Deal."


    "Don''t expect to come into the vault with me though, I fight solo."


    "That''s totally fine by me."


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    "Stupid Devoured are too dumb to put up a real fight and they don''t even give any experience. It''s like slaughtering cattle wearing plate armor."


    "You take that side I''ll take this one?"


    "Sounds good. Scream if you need help."


    "Likewise."


    Felix headed off to the far end of the yard, his side, while Jackie walked up to the pens nearby. The farthest pen from the house was some kind of a jungle biome which obscured any Devoured that might be hiding within. He flew over the massive fence and dropped down in between the trees. Looking around, the jungle there was more tropical than the one back on Trenus. There were more vibrant colors and vines with fruits and flowers decorating the trees in every direction. If there were Devoured in there, it was a toss up on whether or not they were hiding or they hadn''t noticed Felix yet. At this point, Felix had encountered mostly dumb Devoured with low perceptions but there had been at least one that was the complete opposite. Odds were pretty high that these would be the dumb variety, but he couldn''t rule out the possibility they were more intelligent.


    Felix walked around the jungle with a translucent blue barrier in front of him. It made it difficult to weave his way through, but he didn''t dare take it down. The jungle area wasn''t that big but everything was obscured by the trees, flowers and other unidentifiable plants everywhere. He was starting to wonder if this pen was empty when a he caught a black mass with the corner of his eye way up in a tree. It stood just under twice Felix''s height and was covered in muscle head to toe. One side effect of being Devoured and having all the fat in their body sucked out was that they looked like body builders. On this creature, that already had a huge amount of muscle mass, the effect was so much greater. The gorilla''s body looked like it was made of thick, wrapped cables with the muscle striations showing through it''s tight black skin.


    [D] King of the Jungle: Devoured (Lvl 147)


    A tiny dart of solid mana struck the King of the Jungle in the head causing it to turn it''s head, stand tall on the branch it was perched on and bellow out a massive roar. It looked in the direction the projectile had originated but saw nothing. It looked around with a confused expression then saw a flash of white light in the side of it''s vision and felt a burning sensation spread through it''s left arm as all of it''s muscles tensed.


    It jumped to the left destroying the branch it had been standing on and holding the trunk of another tree a couple dozen meters in the air. A few moments later, it felt the same burning sensation accompanied by all of it''s muscles in it''s back and shoulders flexing involuntarily. It was enough for the gorilla to let go of the tree and fall to the jungle floor, but not enough to put it down for good. After another couple of Lightning Bolts the King of the Jungle was defeated without ever catching sight of who was attacking it.


    Ding You have slain a [D] King of the Jungle: Devoured (Lvl 147)


    After looking through the rest of the jungle, there didn''t seem to be any other Devoured prowling around so Felix moved on to the next area. The adjacent biome was a large sandy desert, only slightly larger than the jungle but otherwise the complete opposite of the jungle. The desert was completely open and visible, looking around, Felix could see every single corner of the area, however, he saw no creatures whatsoever. He searched around, walked across the dunes and even used gust and force to search beneath the sand but he couldn''t find anything. He just shrugged and moved on to the next area.


    The next pen seemed to be a forest surrounding a lake. The trees were entirely evergreens and the terrain was varied enough in height that Felix suspected it was meant to simulate a mountainous area. Considering the ground and trees made up such a small portion compared to the lake, Felix suspected the monster was some kind of lake monster.


    Since he didn''t want to fight it underwater, in it''s home terrain, he needed to draw it to the surface, at least into view. Felix flew up into the air then, the surface of the lake suddenly erupted, water flying everywhere, then again a few moments later. Tiny beads of force rained down from Felix circling overhead. His backup plan, if this didn''t work, was to start experimenting with sound spells since he knew sound traveled faster through water.


    Luckily, it was just a minute or two before a massive turtle jumped up from the surface of the lake. It was covered in spikes, both it''s shell and skin, about ten meters across at it''s widest point and had six large fins instead of feet. It''s shell was still a deep navy color but it''s skin, everywhere that was exposed was black and taught against it''s body. Felix darted off to the side, it''s jump luckily rather slow, and fired off a barrage of lightning as it fell back into the lake.


    [D] King of the Lake: Devoured (Lvl 144)


    Luckily it wasn''t one of the smart ones so it continued to jump into the air in an attempt to catch Felix, allowing him to hit it every time it did.


    Ding You have slain a [D] King of the Lake: Devoured (Lvl 144)


    Up to this point, Felix had been looking for a key hanging off of a collar but he was starting to think he was going to have to start dissecting the creatures. He still had a few more to go on his half of the area so if he found nothing after killing them all, he would come back and dissect them. The next area was an artic biome that Felix was surprised to find mostly frozen over. The enemy had clearly once been like a polar bear but with six legs and more muscle than fat, considering there wasn''t much room left on it''s body now that it was Devoured. It wasn''t a very difficult fight, Felix just stayed in the air and the creature ran in circles with no way to get to him. If it was any smarter, it would have taken refuge in a nearby cave but it didn''t seem to be one of the more intelligent Devoured.


    Felix turned to the next pen but stopped when he spotted Jackie standing at the top of a rather large cliff, bow drawn. She tracked a Devoured that looked like a badger except that it was walking up a vertical wall by sinking it''s claws through the stone. Her arrow flashed green for just a moment then Felix heard a screech from the other side of the canyon. He hadn''t even seen the arrow leave the bow or travel through the air. In an instant, the Devoured fell to the floor of the canyon writhing around for a minute or so before curling up into a ball. Jackie''s bow vanished and she turned to leave when she spotted Felix. He flew over and dropped down next to her.


    "You finish off all the ones over there?"


    "Yeah. Didn''t see any kind of key."


    "Shit. I was really hoping I wouldn''t have to dissect the stupid things."


    "Yeah¡­ Any chance I could see just the books? I''ll still help you find the key, just that there might be information in the books so we don''t have to rip into all of the corpses."


    "That''s going to take forever to read them. I already skimmed through them and didn''t find anything. You really think you''ll be able to find something in less time than it would take to just cut the stupid things open?"


    "Uh¡­ I''m a pretty fast reader. How about this, you show me the books for 1 minute. If I can''t find anything in that time, we can dissect each and every one of them."


    "That''s just dumb. You aren''t going to find anything in a minute. Fine, whatever." Books began pouring out of Jackie''s inventory landing in a pile in front of her on the ground. With Felix''s current intelligence it wouldn''t take him more than a few seconds to scan the entire pile. Unfortunately, though it wasn''t clear in the skill description, he couldn''t scan in parallel. The skill scanned books in his vicinity one by one. He could focus on and choose a specific book to scan, but that was the extent of what he had figured out about using the skill. Just a few seconds later, all of the books had been scanned without Felix having moved an inch. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 Chapter 142 - Book 46

    "Thanks, you can take them back now."


    "What do you mean? You didn''t even touch them. You didn''t even move."


    "Yeah, I have a skill for that."


    "You took a skill for reading? What a waste." Jackie shook her head with disgust. "You find anything?"


    "Gimme the rest of the minute to check."


    Grim?


    Already on it¡­ Ok got it. The key is split up into three pieces. One is in the polar bear, one in some kind of bird thing and the last one is embedded in the amulet he wore around his neck.


    "Alright, key is in three pieces. One is in a bird thing you fought, one in a polar bear thing I fought and the last is in in the amulet he wore around his neck. Find an amulet in the house?"


    "Yeah¡­ One of the Devoured was wearing a stupid amount of jewelry."


    "I''ll go grab the polar bear, you get the bird?"


    "Yeah. Meet back here when you''re done."


    They headed off in opposite directions, Felix flying and Jackie running. The polar bear corpse was exactly where he had left it, legs sprawled out on the ice. Felix really wasn''t looking forward to seeing what was inside a devoured but he didn''t really have any other options. He heaved on the corpses to flip it over, belly side up, then pulled out his staff. He morphed the staff into a giant scalpel and pressed it against the creature''s flesh. After a few minutes, he had to switch the scalpel to a saw because a simple edge was getting nowhere.


    You could probably incinerate it too.


    The key would survive?


    Yes, definitely.


    Felix thought about it for a moment then shook his head, I''m pretty sure it wouldn''t actually be any faster than this.


    Depends how much mana you use.


    Meh, maybe. I do kind of want to see what''s inside of them, just a little.


    He continued sawing through the flesh, though it was monotonous work. The flesh was hard and rubbery at the same time meaning every time he pushed and pulled his saw, the flesh pushed and pulled with it. Eventually he managed to break through, once he had, widening the opening was a much easier task. Inside the creature, it was actually a lot less gross than Felix expected. There was minimal smell and it was mostly dry shriveled up organs that remained.


    It say where in here the key fragment would be?


    Nope. It can''t be any of the digestive track though. After that, it''s either in the empty space between or it''s in it''s skull.


    You think?


    I hope. If it''s buried in it''s liver or something¡­


    Felix sifted through the organs for a few minutes and luckily, he didn''t need to cut into the skull at all. He found a small metal object shaped like the third of a disc just a few inches wide. He cleaned his hands off in the arctic water then flew back over to where they had agreed to meet. Jackie was already there, leaning against the fence.


    "Took you long enough."


    "Sorry, had trouble getting through it''s flesh." Felix handed the key fragment over to Jackie.


    "Thanks. I take it you don''t need the books anymore now that you''ve already read em?"


    "Yeah, no need. Thank you for sharing."


    Jackie nodded, "That skill of yours, for reading¡­ Still seems like a waste, but it is kinda cool."


    Felix nodded and smiled in response, "Have fun with the vault."


    He waved and she nodded in acknowledgement then they went their separate ways. Felix flew into the air and continued heading west and veered north to stay on the second level. Just about all of the estates on this level seemed to be occupied. It seemed obvious in hindsight but just about everyone immediately ran for the inner area with the mansions and estates.


    Hey Felix.


    What''s up?


    One of the Journals, it''s not anything new but it''s got some of the history. I can filter out the garbage entries about his hunts and whores too.


    Yeah hit me with it.


    I heard about Ky''bel from that friend of mine that delivered the King of the Lake. Apparently it''s a city with laws that aren''t quite as strict, which is a plus, but on top of that, it''s a city where no one ever has to work. I''ll have to take a vacation there, check it out for myself.


    The city is everything I''ve ever dreamed of. The laws are loose and I don''t have to worry about protection. I met with the founder, Erolan and he''s one of those people who only cares about being powerful. The city seems to just be a way to give back a little, find other''s that can fight with him and just be a home. He''s willing to sell me a premium lot in the inner district for an excellent price, the only stipulation that I can''t dig down. If I don''t have to hide my whorehouses and smuggle my pets, I can live with not digging down, though I do wonder what''s down there.


    I''ve officially moved into the city and after some careful maneuvering of money, managed to bankrupt my neighbor and buy their land. Now I should have enough room for all of my pets. I also managed to buy a property on the other end of the upper district through that other friend. They''re going to run the whore house. The city doesn''t care about having a whore house, but you aren''t technically allowed to run a business in the upper district. I''d rather fuck a Drakene than walk into the lower district, so let them try and stop me. Erolan is too busy on his conquests to deal with me and everyone else is either weak or a customer.


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    Erolan introduced these creatures called the Devoured. They look mostly human. Kind of. They''re a little creepy but they perform all of the menial labor in the city. Want a gardener? The Devoured are tireless workers and completely obedient. The only downside, other than how they look, is that they aren''t very intelligent. Now though, you can pay one man to micromanage a hundred Devoured instead of paying a hundred and one people, you can just pay one. Now that most people don''t need to work, what will they do? Drugs and whores. Both things I am happy to provide.


    As one of the most trusted men in the city, Erolan has personally gifted me a vault. Throughout his conquests, he has managed to acquire pocket universes. Not one or two like most cities have, but he has hundreds, at least one from each conquered city. Obviously, I was first on the list and got my pick of the litter.


    Felix finished reading the entries, Not much we didn''t already know. The context is interesting though. The Devoured were not here originally.


    Yeah, hopefully we can find more journals and first hand accounts of what happened. After that last entry, they just talk about building their whore empire then nothing. It just ends.


    Hopefully people aren''t just taking and tossing all of the books.


    Before finding another vault, you want to figure out what those items do?


    How do I know their safe without being able to identify them?


    How do you know their safe even if you could? The system could hide something, maybe the item is designed to be a trap. In that''s the case and the system identified it as such, it would ruin the item''s purpose.


    I guess. Still feels dangerous not knowing what the items do.


    Do you know an appraiser? Are you going to be able to find one any time soon?


    No, I still don''t like the idea of just putting it on.


    Convince someone else to put it on for you.


    That a little too evil for me.


    So are you just not going to acquire anything in this world event? Everything you pick up will just sit in your inventory for years until they become useless?


    So I just risk it?


    I bet you that''s what everyone else is doing.


    I''m less worried about traps and more worried about items like the armor we found in the experiment room.


    That item takes a while to sink in. You would have time to remove it. Worst case for the rings, you could remove your finger and regrow it.


    I could regrow my finger?


    With manual attention, I think so. You did it with your hair.


    That''s not the same thing. With my hair I just pumped energy into my cells and pushed them to produce faster. If I did the same thing with a severed limb, the wound would close instead of regrowing. I''m not a salamander.


    Right but you could direct the cells to do something different.


    Maybe? I''ve never tried that though so I have no idea if it would work at all.


    It''s obviously your decision, I think you should just risk it though.


    Alright fine. I don''t want to be limited to only items I make or commission forever, I guess at some point I just need to go for it. First thing I found was the non fire ring, let''s start with that I guess.


    Felix pulled the ring out of his inventory. It was exactly as he had remembered it, a metal band with a wide flat face and some kind of insignia on it. He identified it just to confirm what he already knew, but was astonished when the identification produced different results this time.


    [D - Epic] Merchant''s Ring of Identification


    Identified (10%)


    Leave the item in your inventory to continue the identification process.


    Wait¡­ Since when was that a thing?


    I''m starting to think inventories are not a thing outside of integration universes. I haven''t gotten any useful answers to any questions related to them. Outside of this universe, you probably have people with rings like this or skills to identify things. In here, you don''t, so the inventory fills that gap.


    I don''t think that means they don''t exist outside of this universe though.


    Think about it, if everyone had one, wouldn''t I have gotten any kind of answer to my questions? I''ve gotten nothing. I''ve posted, What are inventories? What determines the maximum inventory capacity? Is there a limit to what can and cannot be put in an inventory? You would think, someone would have some kind of answer.


    So you''re saying, people probably tell the guild what they are knowledgeable in, then questions get sent to them. Since no one knows what inventories are, these questions aren''t sent anywhere? ¡­and that would mean we won''t ever get answers.


    Yeah, that''s my guess.


    So if I leave the universe, my inventory will just¡­ not exist?


    Yeah, I don''t think it will be accessible. Probably dumps it''s contents out in front of you. I bet it happens before then though. Like as soon as you reach a certain level or a certain amount of time since the integration started.


    Oh shit. So I need to find an item to replace it then.


    Well, soul space.


    Right. Well, I''m not waiting for this thing to finish identifying.


    Felix took the ring and slipped it onto the index finger of his right hand. It was slightly too big but as soon as it reached his knuckle, the ring tightened until it fit just right. If he pulled on it with intent, it came off otherwise it was stuck there. With the ring equipped, he looked down at his finger and identified it.


    [D - Epic] Merchant''s Ring of Identification


    This ring allows the wearer to identify any epic item or below in the D grade and any item legendary or below in the E grade. It will provide a description of the item and it''s effects along with any other relevant information. It will provide limited information for items higher than epic in the D grade and items in the C grade. This ring upgrades the innate skill, identify, while wielded and will also provide the names of creatures when identified. It will not provide any other information such as weaknesses, immunities, resistances, highest stats.


    That is¡­ convenient.


    Rothdens were clearly merchant''s so makes sense to me.


    That means there are items that let you identify enemies and get all kind''s of information about them.


    Yeah, seems like it. S§×ar?h the N?velFire.n§×t website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    I kind of wish I had one of those, then I would know for sure which spell to use.


    Felix pulled the other ring out of his inventory next. He had some idea of what the item would do, but he wanted to know for sure.


    [D - Special] Dragon Mother''s Ring


    A ring wielded by the head of an ancient Dragon cult. This ring signifies their position and is considered the greatest honor, wielding an imitation of the great Dragon''s power.


    This ring draws on the user''s mana to produce liquid fire around their hands as well as from their mouth. This fire will not harm the wielder and will greatly increase their fire resistance. Amount of fire produced is dependent on how wide the wielders mouth is opened for the breath attack.


    While it''s pretty cool. I don''t think this item is for me.


    I know exactly who would love that item.


    Who?


    Have you heard the name, Kenneth?


    No, who''s that?


    He led the caster''s in the Tri-Peak defense battle. He''s a caster that surrounds his fists with magic.


    That''s actually awesome. Did he come to Atalus afterwards?


    No idea, you''re going to have to ask Noah.


    I take it he fought well in the battle?


    He was one of the top 5 biggest contributors I think. He kept the ground safe, took out anything that got over or under the walls and often fought upwards of 5 enemies at once.


    Sounds like he deserves a reward then. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 Chapter 143 - Book 47

    The next item Felix pulled out was the necklace he found the small skeleton clutching.


    [D - Rare] Necklace of Protection


    This necklace was given from father to son on his death bed with the only hope that the child lived longer than he did. The child activated the amulet and it shielded him from harm until he passed away a short time later.


    This necklace can store a small amount of energy then be used to cast a sphere of protection around the wielder. The sphere will automatically cast itself to block any life threatening attacks. The sphere is impenetrable but blocking an attack consumes energy. Once the energy is completely depleted, the sphere will disappear. This necklace can store up to 100,000 energy.


    That''s¡­ sad.


    It''s exactly what we expected though.


    That doesn''t make it any less sad.


    I guess.


    Anyways, this item is not useful for me at all.


    Yeah you are much better off just using mana. Plus, you''ll either find something better in here or you could likely even make something better.


    Any idea who would want this?


    Anyone, probably just sell or give it away.


    Hopefully I can actually use the next item.


    The last item Felix had found was the bracelet. Visually inspecting it a little more intently, Felix noticed that the bracelet seemed to be made of 8 very thin concentric white metal bands all pressed together. On the outside of the outer most band, there were a series of tiny runes inscribed all the way around.


    [D - Arcane] Kryptos Repository


    [Soul Bound][Growth]


    This bracelet was designed and crafted by the master craftsman Kryptos. They remain completely hidden and no one knows exactly what they look like but their designs are legendary throughout the multiverse. This bracelet was created to keep items hidden within even if the wielder were to perish.


    This bracelet can be soul bound allowing the item to grow alongside the wielder. When bound, the bond may channel mana into the bracelet and align the runes on the each band to open an extra dimensional pocket. Each set of runes contains a different pocket.


    Felix quickly counted the runes on the outer band then the number of bands and chuckled. There were 32 runes per band and 8 bands. Which added up to a stupid number of pockets. Without hesitation, he soul bound himself to the item then began playing with it. It seemed the only thing left out of the identification was the exact directions on how to use it. It gave a general idea, but no specifics.


    It took him a few minutes to figure the item out, but he was very satisfied with it once he did. Channeling a small amount of mana into the item, the runes on each band began to glow blue. He spun the inner bands outwards like a gyroscope and spun them individually at random. He closed the bands again and channeled more mana into the bracelet then reached through it, his hand and arm disappearing into it. Reaching around, the pocket was just a bit large than his hand in any direction.


    He pulled his hand free then aligned a few more runes, each time one was aligned, it''s glow disappeared. When he closed it this time and channeled more mana into it, the pocket was much bigger. He tested spinning the inner most band and found that if he spun it, it wouldn''t stop, as if there wasn''t any friction at all. He closed the bracelet while the band was spinning and reached into a comparatively massive pocket.


    This might be the coolest item I have ever seen.


    Ouch.


    You consider yourself an item?


    Well¡­ No. What about the cube?


    This is more usable, functional. That was a fun puzzle but it''s a one use one purpose item.


    That''s fair. Not gonna lie, that item is awesome.


    What the hell was it doing in that Merchant''s vault?


    I don''t think he put it there. Pretty sure the merchant only used the storage room, bedroom and the ring room. Everything else he just left as is from when he got it.


    So the dragon cult put it there?


    Yeah or someone in the caves even before them.


    Still seems too good of an item for them to have had. This is miles better than the fire ring for example.


    Yeah so either they got lucky finding or stealing it or it was already there before them.


    It really wasn''t hidden that well though. I guess they found it and just stuck it in a vault or something.


    Yeah, that did seem a little too easy. I''m leaning towards someone before them. That lock system didn''t seem like their style.


    Not enough dragons?


    Yeah that and they seem more like the active defense rather than passive vault, trap or puzzle types.


    Maybe. So the identification ring and the protection necklace were the merchant, the fire ring was the cult and the bracelet was already there from long ago? Why didn''t Erolan take it when he captured the vault?


    That is an excellent question but I think the simplest answer is he either missed it or didn''t look around very hard.


    What if the merchant put it there?


    Possible. It makes sense given how it was hidden.


    And he didn''t wear it around because he was worried Erolan or someone else would steal it from him?


    Yeah. I bet the lock mechanism was there originally then Erolan took whatever was originally stored in it.


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    The merchant oiled the pins and maintained it then put the bracelet in it.


    Ok that seems to make the most sense. So where the hell did this low D grade merchant find this thing?


    Luck?


    Meh¡­ maybe?


    Or Erolan stashed it in there when his city was under attack.


    Actually, yeah that makes the most sense.


    Onto the next vault?


    There''s something I want to try before that. You read through Erolan''s experiment log, right?


    Yes¡­


    Which one has the strongest skin?


    Hmm, you don''t want to get too far away from human I assume?


    Correct. Not ready for that yet, maybe not ever.


    Number 7 and 53 then. You''ll want to combine those two.


    Felix found a house that had already been looted, with Devoured corpses sprawled about and a locked vaulted. He walked into the house and into the kitchen then pulled experiments 7 and 53 from his inventory. The first looked like a troll except it''s skin was a dark blue and grey color. The second corpse was a humanoid creature that looked like a lizard man with four arms except it had no scales whatsoever. It was an odd sight because Felix expected there to be scales. Instead, it''s skin was leathery and tough.


    Felix morphed his staff into a scalpel and put the rest aside then cut out small chunks of the trolls skin. It was much thicker than he expected but it wasn''t too difficult to cut through. The Lizard thing on the other hand, was nearly impossible to cut through, very similar to trying to cut into the Devoured. With a handful of samples from each, Felix stowed his staff and scalpel then sat down on the counter and meditated. He followed the samples into his soul space then focused on the troll samples.


    One of the advantages to having things in his soul space was that he was essentially the god of his own soul space. Felix cast a simple light spell and bent the light so that he could see the sample as if he were looking through a microscope, then he compared the structure and cells of the troll to his own skin. Though Felix didn''t have any formal training in medicine, his new race allowed him to essentially feel and see his individual cells.


    When he had been severely burned back in the last vault and he was healing himself, he had essentially watched his cells regrow themselves so he had a general idea of how it all worked. It was enough that he could compare his skin to the troll''s skin and find some differences. The biggest difference, other than the completely absent hair follicles was the presence of a different layers in it''s skin. Unfortunately, without a way to, for lack of a better word, turn on the skin, Felix could only really guess it''s function. Luckily, Erolan had taken detailed notes on his experiments from when the corpses were less dead.


    Grim gave Felix the gist of the experiments so he didn''t have to read through what was apparently a couple hundred pages worth of information. Erolan''s high dexterity meant his notes could be ridiculously dense so the experiment log actually contained far more information that Felix had expected at first glance.


    For the Troll, their greatest strength was their healing ability and apparently Erolan had concluded it came from a bunch of different sources. They converted energy in their bodies to cells at all times that acted like batteries. This coupled with a massive energy pool and regeneration results in a ridiculously high vitality. Alongside this, their organs were slightly different. Focusing on their skin, they have an extra layer of skin that was essentially an activatable cancer.


    The cells in that layer replicate very quickly but they aren''t very strong. Given a little bit of time though, they can morph themselves and transform into any other cell around them. So if a Troll is cut, the cells replicate to fill the gap then over the next few minutes or so the cells morph themselves from the fast replicating variety into normal skin cells. There are similar cells throughout the rest of their bodies but those cells were essentially the key, they could reproduce very quickly and store a huge amount of energy to enable their reproduction.


    The prospect was interesting and it didn''t seem impossible to incorporate so Felix decided to try it out. He was a little wary of messing with his own body too much but he decided it should be fine if he only changed a tiny portion. He decided to start with a small section on the side of his thigh no bigger than his finger nail. Even though Grim was convinced Felix could regrow a finger, he was far more comfortable cutting or burning a small chunk from his thigh then reattaching them later.


    Firstly, he grew cells based on the troll sample. To get the actual template, he removed a tiny sand grain sized chunk from the sample and embedded it into his own leg. From there, his cells absorbed the sample and began recreating the extra layers the troll had in it''s flesh.


    It didn''t take long but it did require him to flip back and forth between his soul space and body a few times for reference. Once he was done, he decided to test it out and using the scalpel, after dulling his pain sense, made a tiny incision in his leg. The cells from the layer below rapidly filled the gap with a pinkish coloration starting from the edges and pulling the cut closed. It wouldn''t be nearly as effective on a larger wound but so far it looked promising.


    Hopefully the next experiment helped prevent those larger wounds from happening. After a few minutes, Felix looked down and inspected the area and realized something was wrong. It was subtle, but there was a slight line in his skin it looked almost like a scar but upon internal investigation, he could feel the cells. They were troll cells. The cells hadn''t adapted themselves to his body, they were still following the instruction set of a troll''s body.


    Luckily, it was a fairly simple task to have his body kill off those cells one by one. He removed the layer of troll cells and reverted that area back to normal. He was already of the mindset that he didn''t want to just implant parts of other creatures bodies into his own body, instead he wanted to adapt their strengths and make them his own.


    With the Troll cells, he had gotten distracted by how exciting rapid regeneration was. The basic theory was simple, cells that reproduced very quickly and could store a lot of energy. This time, instead of replicating the Troll cells, Felix carefully took a small section of his own cells and slowly modified them similarly to how the Troll cells worked. It took some trial and error but he eventually got it to a point he was happy with. The effect was exactly the same but now the cells transformed into his own skin, instead of Troll cells.


    Felix left the tiny modified area where it was and looked towards the samples from the other creature. He decided that he would spread each of them out at the same time to a larger section, then put them both to the test and spread them everywhere if they passed. Looking at the samples from the other creature, there were a couple of interesting things to note. The creature had many more layers on the very outside of it''s skin and it was overall much thicker than Felix''s skin. Unfortunately, Felix didn''t want to have thick, leathery or blue skin so he couldn''t just copy the creature.


    Grim summarized Erolan''s notes which described it''s skin in detail. The big differentiating factors for this creature were the outer layers, and the fibers. The outer layers consisted of a few different kinds of cells but the ones on the very outside were hard and the flexibility came from weaker cells interspersed between them. It was essentially a layer of scales but the scales were tiny. The other factor was the fibers. Running throughout the skin, on the outside and inside, were these fibers made of cells that were strong on their own and very difficult to separate from each-other.


    Felix ignored the scales for now, though he did keep it in mind for the future because he thought it had potential, it just required more work than he could dedicate right now. Felix once again cut a tiny section of the sample and integrated it into his skin on the other thigh. His body absorbed the cells, and he sorted through them until he identified the fibers. Then he began morphing some of his own skin cells into the ones he had found and spread the fibers out.


    For this to work, he needed the fibers to spread in every direction and act like skin cells. He repeated the process on the outermost layer of his skin then a few more times on the inner layers. On the outer layers he kept the fibers to just one or two cells in thickness then gradually increased their thickness the deeper into his skin they grew. This would make it so that the feel of his skin stayed mostly the same, at least that was the hope.


    He spent a few hours tuning the cells until they were just right providing as much resilience as possible without his skin feeling like burlap. For a cut, the fibers were very effective and made it difficult to get through his skin with the scalpel, instead of trivial. Piercing his skin was mostly the same except, for an arrow or crossbow bolt, the skin would be slightly harder to widen. He couldn''t think of anything other than creating scales to solve that problem though so he ignored it for now. With his initial experimentation mostly done, Felix began spreading the changes out to a large area on each of his thighs, making both of them about as big as his hand. After that, it was time for more rigorous testing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .


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 Chapter 144 - Book 48

    Felix stowed both bodies in his inventory along with the extra samples from each then headed outside. He continued traveling north, staying within the second tier of the city and looking over every estate for any sign that one remained untouched. As he flew north, he watched groups of adventurers locked in combat with Devoured, heard others crashing through homes and saw some running through the streets. All of that was expected, what stood out to Felix was one particular house where there were two men yelling at each-other and another sitting on a bench sharpening their axe, just waiting it out. Normally Felix would ignore them and move on but he recognized those voices and he could use some information so instead, he floated over next to the one sharpening the axe.


    "Hey Felix."


    "Benjamin. Are they gonna be ok?" Felix nodded.


    "They just need to argue it out of their system."


    "What''s¡­ What are they arguing over?"


    "We found a pair of boots in the last vault. I told them they could argue as soon as we found an unoccupied vault. Here we are so¡­" Benjamin gestured to Will and Alan who were now aggressively poking each-other as they yelled and spat in each-other''s face.


    "What do the boots do?"


    "No idea."


    "Do they know?"


    "No way. Hasn''t been nearly long enough."


    "Would it¡­ Better or worse if I identify them?"


    Benjamin shrugged as he produced a pair of boots from his inventory and handed them to Felix, "Go for it."


    The boots were made of a deep green leather with gold eyelets and black laces. The soles were made of some kind of rubber material not dissimilar from boots found back on earth before the integration. They were tall, the leather stretching about halfway up a person''s calf and they otherwise just looked like normal boots.


    [D - Special] Boots of Gravity Defiance


    These boots have been enchanted to allow their wearer to walk along any surface, regardless of the direction of gravity.


    At the cost of some energy, these boots will create a force strong enough to counter the pull of gravity. Placing your foot against a surface and channeling energy into them will activate the effect. Simply stop channeling energy to end the effect.


    "They let you walk on walls and the ceiling if you want." Felix said.


    "Damn. Better than I thought. Rarity?"


    "Special."


    "Mana or energy?"


    "Energy."


    "Huh. Those are better than I expected."


    "Do I tell them?"


    "Nah, just wait for them to finish."


    "Alright. In the meantime, any information on what''s been going on?"


    "Not much. We''ve only hit a few vaults so far. Most everyone immediately ran to the inner platform with the rich looking houses. I only know of one key fragment The Lodge found."


    "Are people sticking to their own sections?"


    "Mostly. Some people just ignored it but most people haven''t seen the need yet, as far as we''ve seen at least."


    "Find anything interesting in your vaults?"


    "Lots of great stuff, not a ton that''s useful for us but, it''s been decent. A couple of exotic weapons, a hat, potions, jewelry and a bag."


    "Bag?"


    "Spacious Bag of Space and Finding. It''s got the highest rarity we''ve found, it''s legendary, and it''s big enough for all of us to get inside of it. Thing is we couldn''t figure out why it''s legendary. We already have our inventories, it''s bigger but it''s not¡­" Benjamin just shrugged, "Maybe we can sell it for a decent amount just because of it''s rarity."


    "You might want to hold onto that. I''m not certain, but I''m pretty sure we aren''t going to have inventories forever."


    "What? Are you- sorry, why? When?"


    "A couple of things, mostly it seems like people outside of our universe don''t know what an inventory is. Not sure when."


    "You talk to people outside?"


    "I got a token from the Guild of Answers in the tutorial, let''s me ask or answer questions."


    "Alright, definitely keeping the bag then." Benjamin stood and yelled out to Will and Alan cutting through their argument, "Oi, I''m taking the bag."


    Will waved at him and Alan gave a thumbs up without either of them looking.


    "Thanks for the tip."


    Felix chuckled, "No problem. You guys found any books? Diaries or journals specifically?"


    "We''ve found some books, nothing interesting. We don''t really pick em up or read em though. I''ll start grabbing them though if you''re interested."


    "Sure, just the diaries and journals if you can. I appreciate it."


    "You can come with us if you want, haven''t actually gone through this house yet. All the books and whatnot are yours."


    "Sure, how much longer will they argue for?"


    "Probably a few minutes. One of them will punch the other, they might wrestle a bit but they''ll be fine."


    "Uh, shouldn''t we stop that from happening?"


    "Neither of them are very strong so it won''t do any real damage."


    "Oh, well alright then."


    "Any interest in joining us in the vault? We split the loot but I don''t think we''ll be competing much, not a ton of overlap."


    "I''m mostly interested in the books¡­"


    "We could use some¡­" Benjamin wiggled his fingers in the air as he said, "magic."


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    Before Felix could respond, Will and Alan walked over, both of them wearing a little dirt and grass though Felix had missed them wrestling.


    "Will takes the boots. I get first pick from whatever we find in this next vault." Alan said triumphantly.


    "What about me?" Benjamin asked.


    "You don''t even care." Alan brushed him off.


    Will greedily grabbed the boots and noticed Felix for the first time, smiling and nodding at him in recognition as he took the boots.


    "No, not really. It''d be nice to be considered though." Benjamin shrugged.


    "You took the bag, right?" Alan said, unsure if he had properly heard him over the argument.


    "Yeah, fair enough." Benjamin smirked.


    Alan nodded then looked over at Will who was holding the boots in his arms like a baby. After a few seconds of a sidelong glance Alan turned away and noticed Felix sitting on the bench.


    "Oh, Felix. Didn''t notice you arrive. Hello." Alan waved.


    "Any interest in knowing what the boots do?" Felix offered to both of them.


    "You identified them?" Will said with wide eyes.


    "Got a ring in my vault." S§×arch* The NovelFire.net* website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    "Yes. Hit me."


    "Boots of Gravity Defiance. Walk on walls and ceilings. Not sure if I can let you see the actual description¡­"


    Alan groaned.


    "I can see it now." Will said.


    "Guess you just need to give us the name and a short description then? I can see it too." Benjamin said.


    "Good to know." Felix said.


    "You coming into the vault with us? None of us are very good with magic, we could definitely use someone like you. I get first pick of the loot, but maybe we can figure something out, if say¡­ you were to enchant some things for me." Alan wiggled his eyebrows.


    Felix chuckled, "Sure I''ll come along for one vault. You can take first pick of whatever but in return, you three have to pick up any interesting books you find, and all journals and diaries."


    "Done deal." Alan said with a wide smile.


    The rest of them waited for Will to swap out his boots then watched him run over to a tree and gingerly place his foot against it. After a few moments he lifted his other foot and planted it on the tree as well. His body fell backwards at the knees but he caught himself before he hit the ground. He slowly walked up the tree then jumped off back to the ground landing then spreading his arms and bowing.


    Benjamin was already walking towards the manor, his freshly sharpened axe held over his shoulder. Alan had grumbled to himself when Will had first stepped onto the tree and followed Benjamin. Felix was the only one who caught the entire demonstration and offered a light clap. They both caught up to the other two when they reached the back door to the house.


    The house was smaller than most of the estates Felix had seen, but it looked more like a castle than a house. It was made entirely of rough stones, the walls stood at just half a dozen meters tall, and the roof was made of overlapping slate. The windows were relatively small with black wrought iron bars over them and the doors were made of large wooden planks banded together. The whole thing had a very gothic vibe.


    Benjamin opened the wooden door to the backyard and walked inside followed by Alan shortly afterwards. Felix followed Will in a few moments later. The inside of the building was just as gothic and medieval as the outside. Felix had expected the walls inside to be finished, made of wood or sheetrock, instead it was simply the other side of the outer stone wall and more just like it. In front of them was a large open room that was completely empty, the rooms in the building forming a ring along the outer wall.


    Benjamin had gone left, Alan forwards followed by Will. Felix turned right and walking into a small bedroom containing just a bed, dresser and a bedside table. All of the furniture was nice but nowhere near the quality of the furniture from the Rothden estate. The dark wood the bed was made from creaked and cracked when Felix sat on it. The dresser drawers caught and scraped as he opened them and the bedside table wobbled when poked.


    He opened the only other door and found a small bathroom with a bathtub, a sink and a toilet. There was no running water however so the toilet was simply a bucket, the bath a large bucket and the sink a wide bucket.


    I thought the system¡­ why is there a toilet?


    Maybe it''s not, maybe it''s something else.


    Felix walked back out of the room and into the large main chamber then opened the door to the next room finding an almost identical bedroom to the last one he had just looked at.


    "Oi, found something!" Felix heard Alan yell out from the other side of the house.


    Felix turned around and walked over, Will and Benjamin popping out of the rooms they were searching after a few moments. Alan was standing in what appeared to be an art room with paintings, jewels and statues placed all around the room. It was easily the biggest room in the manor, smaller than only the central chamber which was really more of a courtyard with a roof.


    "Think the art is worth anything?" Will said looking at a landscape painting of a mountain sunset.


    "Doubt it. Pretty sure it''s all fake." Alan replied.


    "What do you mean?" Will scrutinized the painting in front of him.


    "Just a theory, but did you guys find anything in the rest of the building?" Alan asked.


    "Nope, rooms were mostly empty. Nothing interesting." Benjamin said.


    "The furniture is crap too." Felix added.


    "Given that all the furniture is shit and the rooms are empty, you think whoever lived in those conditions would set up an art room like this?"


    "Could be their partner set this up."


    "Could be. Would that partner really let them set up the rest of the house the way it is though? They would sleep, eat and live in these conditions?" Alan explained, "I think this is all a front. Doesn''t make sense for someone to actually be living here."


    "A front for what?" Benjamin asked.


    "This." Alan said as he reached his hand behind a massive painting 5 meters across depicting some kind of brutal battle. Alan dragged the painting aside revealing an open portal on the wall behind it.


    "How did you open it?" Felix asked.


    "I didn''t." Alan shrugged.


    "Were your other vaults like this? Just open?" Felix asked.


    "One was, other''s had some kind of puzzle or key to get in." Benjamin responded.


    "So you think the owner just lived in the vault?" Will asked.


    "That''s my theory, yeah." Alan just shrugged, "Shall we?"


    Through the portal, Felix saw a tile floor stretching down a smooth stone walled corridor. They all walked up to the portal and Benjamin reached out to touch it. A few moments later, he walked through followed by everyone else. Inside, the temperature was mild and the the corridor stretched forwards a few meters before forking into two rooms. Benjamin had already pulled out and lit a torch lighting the area around them. Lending credence to Alan''s theory, the vault was much cozier than the building it was located in.


    "Got lucky, 5 treasures." Benjamin called out.


    Someone whistled though Felix didn''t know who. As a group, they walked forwards to the fork then followed Benjamin into the left room. Inside was a bedroom, the complete opposite to the rooms they had seen back in the house. This room had a large master bed against the left wall with a bedside table on the right. Against the far wall was a large symmetrical wooden armoire consisting of drawers, cabinets and a cavity with a table. The majority of the floor was covered in a uniformly dark grey silk carpet.


    There were also fake plants and lanterns hanging in the room tying the whole room together and making it feel less empty. They walked in and carefully explored the room, all of them forgetting to check for traps, the presence of such a normal looking bedroom throwing them off. All of the furniture was made of a beautifully treated wood, they were solid and the tolerances were tight. The drawers slid smoothly, the bed was rock solid and the sheets were silky and soft.


    In the armoire they found a dozen sets of almost identical clothing. The colors and materials varied slightly but it was all the exact same style of pants and shirt. It reminded Felix of someone who was entirely utilitarian but influenced to have different looking clothes just so people didn''t judge them.


    "Mind if I take the furniture?" Felix asked the room.


    "How?" Will asked.


    Felix just looked at him with a confused expression and touched the armoire making it disappear into his inventory.


    "Where did it go?" Alan asked.


    "My inventory?" Felix said, his head cocked and eyebrow raised.


    "I can''t put things that big in my inventory. They don''t fit." Will said.


    "Me neither." Alan said.


    Felix looked at Benjamin who was shaking his head.


    "Huh." Felix walked over and touched the bed, bedside table and finally the rug, stowing them all in his inventory.


    "Damn, wish I could take furniture, this stuff is really nice. If only it fit into the Bag." Alan lamented.


    "You can have it. I already got a ton of furniture from the last house I was in. There were a lot of bedrooms."


    "I don''t want you to fill your inventory up carrying furniture around for me. Don''t worry about it, I''ll buy something when we get back."


    "No seriously, I have like 10 bedroom sets of similar quality. I haven''t found a limit to my inventory space yet."


    "Wait, really?" Alan asked.


    "Yeah. After this, I can drop them off at your house wherever you want them or I can drop them off somewhere else and you can carry them over if your more comfortable with that." Felix noticed the other two looking at each-other from the corner of his eye, "I''d be happy to do the same for both of you as well. You can take any of the furniture I found at the last place, I just want one or two for myself."


    Will pumped his fist and Benjamin thanked him then they walked back out into the hall and turned to the next room located on the other side of the fork.


    As they walked, Grim said to Felix, Annoying we can''t get any answers about inventories.


    Yeah, they keep getting weirder and weirder. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 Chapter 145 - Book 49

    The other room was the same size and shape as the bedroom except that it had another doorway directly across from the entrance. Like an area of a hallway had been expanded into a room. All of the walls in this room were covered by shelves with long tables running alongside the center walkway to either side holding more shelves beneath them. The shelves were about half full and contained lots of raw materials. The largest section held rolls of tanned and treated leathers, another held raw hides, another metal plates and ingots, another plants and another gemstones. There were also miscellaneous goods strewn about like string, laces, cloth and scraps from everything.


    Alan was the first to walk into the room, he inspected the doorway then looked to Felix who just shrugged as he didn''t see nor feel anything. After inspecting every surface in the room, he beckoned everyone else inside but told them to wait so he could see if the goods on the shelves were trapped. After a few minutes, it seemed the room was perfectly safe, both Alan and Felix''s novice inspection having revealed no traps whatsoever.


    The materials on the shelves were mostly raw materials which would only be moderately valuable so neither Benjamin, Alan nor Will bothered picking any of it up. Their inventory space was better used holding treasures for now. Felix didn''t have that problem so he picked everything up, stowing the entirety of the room in his inventory as the other three watched with just a smidge of bitterness and envy. Felix offered them a shrug when he was done and they all walked towards the next room.


    They walked towards a room that was at least twice as big as the other rooms in width on top of being longer. The room contained 4 total entrances along with an anvil, two tanning racks and 5 tables of various sizes. One was just in front of the tanning rack and had leatherworking attachments such as clamps, knives and punches. The other desks were placed on the right side of the room and were more general purpose with no attachments bolted onto them. Alan inspected the entryway followed by Felix and then they all walked into the room one by one. There were a few materials scattered about but other than those, it appeared to be an empty workshop.


    Walking into the room gave them a view into either of the side rooms, both of which had large metal doors just half a meter into the hallways. The doors had no gaps around them and no visible hinges, handles or key holes whatsoever. They were simply flat panels of metal. If it weren''t for the fact that they were a different material than the walls, they might not have realized they were doors at all. Felix picked up the loose materials and added them to his growing collection of random crap that may or may not be useful in the future. Will and Alan inspected the metal door on the right while Benjamin walked forwards and looked down a short stairway into the room across from where they entered.


    "Hey Felix, any idea how to get these open?" Will called out.


    Felix walked up the door on the left and inspected it with every sense he had. He couldn''t find anything that even indicated it was a door, his best bet was that it slid to the side into the wall due to the lack of hinges. Applying a decent amount of force through a simple spell form, the door didn''t budge in any direction, to the side, up, down, in or out.


    "No idea." Felix responded.


    Felix heard a groan from behind him followed by Benjamin''s voice, "Do we just move on and come back for them later? Hope we find a key or something down the road?"


    "Guess so." Will called out as he stepped over next to Benjamin.


    Alan looked around at the door one last time then begrudgingly turned around and began inspecting the stairway into the rest of the dungeon. Felix joined him a few moments later and performed his own inspection. The next room, at the bottom of the short stairway, seemed to be just a small empty room. Given that there was no furniture in the room, he began firing off Force Bombs to test for pressure activated traps causing the other three to jump back at first.


    "That''s¡­ rather crude. Seems like a waste." Alan said with a raised eyebrow.


    "Costs me basically nothing and it''s been decently effective so far."


    "Genius." Will muttered under his breath, eyes wide.


    Alan looked back at him with disgust painted all over his face and just shook his head.


    "What about magical traps though?" Alan asked through a sigh.


    "Already checked, don''t sense anything." Felix shrugged then walked into the room.


    Benjamin reached out to stop him but wasn''t fast enough, Felix having already stepped down a few steps into the room. Walking forwards, there didn''t seem to be anything in this room, if it was even a room at all. It was barely wider than the hallway and had two stairways leading upwards and outwards on opposite sides of the far end. Other than that, the walls were the same as the other rooms had been, the tiles the same pattern, everything seemed perfectly uniform and normal.


    Felix turned back to the others who had now cautiously joined him in the room and began inspecting the walls and floor for themselves. Felix walked to the far end and stepped up a few stairs to get an idea of what was in the next room. Looking up though, the stairs veered off to the side, further into the dungeon, so he turned back to rejoin the others. Alan was intently staring at the left wall, Will and Benjamin simply waiting. Felix walked up next to him and inspected the wall without getting in his way. Upon closer inspection, the wall seemed perfectly normal, some of the bricks were discolored but nothing extreme and with no apparent pattern. Felix opened his mouth to ask Alan what he was seeing but quickly closed it, deciding not to interrupt.


    After a few minutes Alan reached his hand up and lightly brushed his fingers across a brick then pushed on it. The brick depressed into the stone almost to the depth of Alan''s fingers producing a low stone on stone grumbling noise. Felix was half expecting this to happen, the other half expecting Alan to just shrug and walk away. He was definitely happy that he had found something though because he was starting to worry that this vault was either huge or that they were missing a lot.


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    After Alan fully depressed the brick, a faint click echoed through the room, then nothing. Felix expected Alan to come up with something clever and offer them all a smirk but he just turned to them and shrugged. Luckily, the faint click noise was accompanied by a slight tingle in the back of Felix''s mind, he had felt mana move in the wall to the side and down from the brick Alan had found. He created a quick force spell with just a minute amount of force and targeted it at the wall then activated it. A large rectangle of bricks slightly larger than a normal door shifted and pivoted inwards just a centimeter or so revealing the door and passageway beyond.


    "Guess it just takes a few seconds." Benjamin said pointing at the wall behind Alan.


    Alan spun around and his eyes lit up then he pushed on the disguised door, fully opening it. Behind the door the passageway was dark, Benjamin''s torch only reaching so far. Instead of making Benjamin walk up to the hidden passage, incase it was trapped, Felix created a quick light spell and floated it into the passageway.


    "That is damn useful. The more time I spend around you, the more I think I should dabble in magic." Benjamin said shaking his head.


    "It''s just a light." Felix shrugged.


    "Yeah but you can move it around, meanwhile I gotta carry this damned torch around with me. In a fight I have to drop it and just deal with the shitty lighting." Benjamin ranted.


    "I''m sure we can find a magic item to fix that. Light is not very difficult. Actually, come to think of it, I can probably enchant something to have the same effect if you''d like." Felix said.


    "I hadn''t even thought about that. Could I get like a ball of light above my head?" Benjamin asked.


    "Yeah, that should be doable. In that case, it''s probably easiest to put it on a helmet." Felix said.


    "Sounds good to me. After this vault? You can keep that light up if we get into a fight, right?" Benjamin asked.


    "Yes to both." Felix nodded.


    Turning their attention back to the newly revealed passageway, Alan had already disappeared around the corner, Will standing in the hall peeking off to the side.


    "Is it safe to enter?" Benjamin called out.


    "No need." Will responded immediately, "Wanna make sure it isn''t magically trapped though Felix?"


    Felix nodded and walked in the passageway, turning left ninety degrees and immediately understanding. The hall ended after just a few meters into a tiny room just a few meters across. Right in the middle of the room was a wooden armor stand equipped with what appeared to be the hide of a badger. Alan was already closely inspecting it, without touching it, so Felix felt safe to walk right up to it. The armor looked like a fur coat from back on earth with matching pants all made from a badger or something else with similarly colored fur. It wasn''t just loose like a jacket might be though, instead it was tailored to be fitted like leather armor would be.


    [D - Rare] Blade Defense Coat


    [Regenerative]


    This set of leather armor was crafted from the hide of a creature known for it''s tough fur. The hairs that make up it''s coat are tough and resilient like metal wire and serve as very efficient protection against the claws of other beasts.


    This set of leather armor is particularly resilient against all forms of slashing damage within the D grade.


    Felix shared the identification with Alan then began doing his best to examine it for any kind of magical traps. To the best of his knowledge, it was completely safe but he didn''t trust his own novice inspection enough to risk other people''s lives.


    "Doesn''t look trapped to me but how about you walk out into the hall and let me take it off. I should be able to protect myself if it is trapped." Felix offered to Alan.


    "Aren''t you a caster? A squishy? What happens if the door suddenly shuts and traps you in here? How about we both exit the room and use a rope to pull the armor out, just in case." Alan offered.


    "Sure, we''re going to need to sever the armor stand from the floor though."


    "Can you accomplish that with a spell?"


    "Maybe. Let''s give it a shot."


    Alan pulled a long rope from his inventory and began carefully tying one end around the armor then walked back into the hall, tracing the rest of the rope behind him. Felix walked back to the turn in the hallway and created a giant Mana Bolt spell aiming it very carefully at the post holding the armor stand up. He left the spell form floating in the air then carefully walked back into the main chamber, rejoining Alan, Benjamin and Will. As he walked, he still felt the spell floating in the air, a dozen meters in front of him. He felt his connection to it weaken as he gained distance, but it never quite dissipated.


    Once everything was ready, he slowly filled the spell with mana, which felt about as awkward as when he had initially learned to cast spells way back in the first puzzle dungeon. Eventually though, it had evidently cast judging from the massive boom and splintering sound echoing out of the room. Alan began pulling on the rope and, after a few tugs when it got caught, the armor on a now shattered armor stand began dragging along the ground towards them.


    Felix was the first to walk up, reaching around a Mana Shield between his torso and the armor to pull it free. Turns out, all of their caution had been for naught as neither the armor, the room, nor the armor stand itself seemed to be trapped in any way. Once the armor was free, Felix handed it to Alan who was standing the closest to him. He inspected it a few times then handed it to Benjamin, sharing the identification as he did so.


    "Not gonna claim this one?" Benjamin asked as he looked over the armor set.


    "I want to see what else is in here first." Alan said.


    "Good call. Nice armor though." Benjamin said. Will had walked over and inspected the armor while Benjamin held it too. Once they were both done, Benjamin stowed the armor. Alan was already staring at the opposite wall, finding a particular brick once again and pushing it in in just a few seconds this time. After the faint clicking noise, Alan pushed on the wall and another hidden passageway revealed itself. With the assistance of a floating light spell, he inspected the hallway and around the corner then turned back and rejoined the others.


    "That one looks like a larger room. I think we should head back into the previous room first though. I want to check something in there." Alan said.


    The others followed him back into the workshop room where he was looking around at the walls.


    "Felix, could you get rid of all the furniture?" Alan asked.


    "Sure thing." Felix said.


    He walked through the room and touched everything that wasn''t wall or floor, stowing it in his inventory and leaving the room completely empty. Alan walked along the walls, inspecting them shortly finding another hidden room just to the left of them, next to one of the metal doors they couldn''t open. It had been hidden behind a large work table before, now that the room was empty, it was much easier for Alan to spot.


    "How are you finding all of these? How high is your Perception?" Felix asked, wondering how much higher it could be than his own given that Alan''s level was just 132 overall, compared to his 163.


    "Just a couple thousand. I have a skill though, hunter''s intuition. The first one was like an itch at the back of my mind. Once I found that, the skill helped me see the other''s. It''s mostly for finding and following beast tracks, that kinda thing." Alan shrugged as he inspected the hidden passageway.


    Just a couple thousand. I have about 4 times that when I cycle energy.


    More and more it seems like skills are what really matter.


    At least, matter more than stats.


    Yeah. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . sea??h th§× N??elFir§×.net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.

 Chapter 146 - Book 50

    Felix followed behind Alan into another small room containing just an armor stand in the middle. The armor on this stand seemed to be made of giant leaves shaped into plate armor. The leaves were mostly green but they were tinged slightly orange and yellow, almost like they were dying.


    [D - Special] Verdant Shell


    [Regenerative][Blood Bound][Vitality Buff]


    This set of plate armor is crafted from a peculiar plant that grows on particularly large beasts. The plant roots itself into the beast and forms a symbiotic relationship with it, providing vitality and protection in exchange for nutrients.


    This armor, when equipped, will root itself into your body, connecting itself to you. The armor increases the wielder''s vitality and will scale with it. The higher the wielder''s vitality, the greater the defense the armor provides. The armor will also regenerate itself based on the wearer''s vitality. The wearer is also able to feel through the armor, as if it were a part of their body.


    It roots into your body? What an innocuous name for something so¡­ creepy.


    Felix shared the identification with Alan who shook his head in disgust. They thought about doing the same thing with this armor as they had with the last but decided to just risk it. Alan reluctantly left the room after suggesting a few times that Benjamin should do it as he was likely the most resilient of them all. Felix understood where Alan was coming from, given Felix was a caster, but he suspected he was much more resilient than the other''s, especially with his energy cycling. After this was over, he was going to have to teach that skill to them. It was just too useful.


    Felix took all the precautions he could with Mana Shields and spells but once again, the armor wasn''t trapped at all. Felix was careful to touch it though as he didn''t want it to root into his body at all. He carried it out and dropped it on the floor, sharing the inspection with the other two.


    "Damn. That is creepy, but man would that be useful. No need to put points into endurance if the armor does it for you." Benjamin said.


    "How do you take it off if you need to¡­" Will asked.


    "Maybe it can open up a hatch or something?" Alan shrugged.


    Benjamin carefully stowed the armor and Alan finished examining the walls of the workshop, not finding any other hidden rooms. They walked back down the stairs into the room where they first found a hidden door and decided to continue forwards before exploring the larger hidden room, the second one Alan had found. They chose the left path and descended down the hallway, turning to the side and finding the largest room in this vault yet.


    It turned out, both the left and right path led into this massive chamber containing what seemed to be a pool around 12 meters across and 6 meters wide. There was a tiled area around the pool but the pool consumed most of the free space in this chamber. There were some hooks and chairs but otherwise, the room was completely empty. Even looking into the water, it seemed clear and didn''t seem to contain any kind of water beast or anything of the like.


    "I guess we go back to the other hidden room?" Benjamin shrugged.


    "I think you''re right that this guy lived in here." Will said.


    "Yeah, seems like it." Alan replied.


    Together, they walked back into the previous chamber and turned left walking through the previously hidden doorway and ascending another set of stairs into a room that seemed to be positioned directly above the pool. Walking into it, the chamber seemed to have the same girth as the pool room but it was much longer. The room seemed to be a library of some kind with shelves covering all of the walls and forming rows in the middle. There was a fairly large clearing with a couple of armchairs, a couch and a table in the middle, creating what would have once been a cozy reading nook.


    Now, the couch and an arm chair were turned over and the table pushed aside to make room for a guillotine. Lying on the floor next to it was a dried out headless corpse, the head lying on the other side. The blood was completely drained but the skin remained in tact, it hadn''t really rotted at all, instead it looked like the body had been mummified or preserved. Still held in the right hand of the corpse, was a dagger. Draped over one of the arm chairs, lay a suit of leather armor that seemed to be made from the hide of a some sort of scaled beast.


    "Gross." Will face contorted with disgust.


    "Why isn''t it a skeleton yet?" Benjamin asked.


    "D grade skin? Maybe a rare race? Seems like they killed themself though." Alan said, pointing at the dagger.


    "Well, looks like you got your books, eh Felix?" Benjamin smirked.


    "Yeah. Mind giving me a minute to go through everything?" Felix asked.


    "Course. Want to just identify the armor for us first?" Benjamin asked.


    Felix nodded and walked over to the armor picking it up and visually examining it. It was beautifully crafted with layered leathers offering more protection where it was needed while still being flexible. The entire outside of the armor was covered in a layer of scales that felt more like gator scales than snake scales except for the fact that their color shifted as Felix moved the armor.


    [D - Rare] Scales of the Traveling Beast


    [Regenerative][Elemental Resistance]


    This set of leather armor was crafted from the hide of a notoriously resilient creature. The creature is known to travel across the land, luckily harmless, as nothing seems capable of deterring it. The creature walks through live volcanoes, vast deserts, the depths of the sea and through the frigid arctic. This armor is designed to harness it''s ridiculous resistances.


    You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.


    This armor provides a high resistance to most forms of damage as well as keeping the wearer comfortable no matter the temperature outside.


    He handed it to Benjamin and shared the identification then walked over to the nearest book shelf. Though he didn''t need to take the books with him, it also didn''t cost him anything to do so so Felix brushed his fingers across the edges, stowing every book he touched. Luckily, his Scan Literature skill worked on books in his inventory so he didn''t need to wait for them all to scan immediately. He wasn''t sure exactly how many, but there were thousands and thousands of books in the library in total. He was curious what the hell they were all about but he didn''t want to waste too much time so he decided he would just ask Grim later, once he had grabbed them all.


    Unfortunately the shelves were built into the walls so he couldn''t take them with him but he could always make his own shelves to hold all the books. Once he was done, he flew back over to the other three and found them all staring at him incredulously.


    "It''s not fair. How is your inventory that big?" Benjamin said.


    Felix just shrugged.


    "We still need to figure out how to open those metal doors." Alan said as they walked back into the workshop room.


    There was a diary among the books. It says how to open the doors. Want to read it?


    Yeah. Did we just get lucky that it was scanned early on?


    Sort of. Scanning is much faster in your inventory it seems. Also it was on a shelf pretty close to the corpse.


    Interesting, inventories just keep getting more mysterious. How long are the important bits? Can I read it while we walk back over there?


    It''s not long, here are the interesting parts.


    Stupid Emperor thinking he was the best. I had a good life. I was respected and even revered as a master of natural armors. Then the fucking Emperor comes along and asks me to make him armor out of this great beast he had slain. I tell him the beast was cursed and what does he say, "I know" with a smarmy smirk. The armor is going to kill you I say, and he just laughs at me "I''m the emperor, I got here because I am stronger than all of these people. It''s my job to protect them and I need to push myself to keep doing so. I can handle a simple curse, can you work with it?" Of course I can, that was the wrong thing to say because then he stuck his guards on me to make me do the work. Fuck it, I made the armor. What happens? He equips it and within a day his body rots through and he dies. What an ass. Luckily I made it out. Unfortunately, with all the forces of the new emperor hunting me down I needed to find somewhere to lay low, somewhere that didn''t give a shit about my past. That''s when I found Ky''bel.


    I''ve been living here for a few years now and it''s nice enough. The leader, Erolan, has these Devoured walking around doing everything. If you don''t want to work, you don''t have to. They seem harmless but I just can''t. These things are too creepy. Luckily he traded me a couple armors for a pocket space as big as my house and workshop combined back in ???.


    People keep trying to bother me, get me to make them armor or something. I don''t care. Just leave me alone. I just want to live out the rest of my days in this pocket space, swimming, reading and sleeping. I still make armors every once in a while but only if I feel particularly inspired. I still can''t get over the stupid Devoured. They''re everywhere now, walking down every street, cutting grass, gardening, working shops. I can''t help thinking the Devoured were once people. Erolan insists they''re constructs. I don''t believe him.


    This is it. Erolan is coming for me, I know it. I won''t be turned into one of those stupid Devoured though. I won''t let him. This is the end for me. I had a good life, I was happy. I just wish it had ended differently. Wish I could have read just a few more stories. Hopefully everyone forgets about me. About that stupid cursed armor. I know that won''t happen though. Everyone is gonna remember me as the one who assassinated Emperor ???. That''s not who I was though. I was an armorer. I made armor to protect people. Doesn''t matter anymore. If anyone ever reads this, you can open the hidden doors in the pocket space by¡­


    The last entry went on to describe the exact location of the bricks Alan had found as well as specific roof tiles that needed to be pressed to open the metal doors. Felix walked over to one of the metal doors and used his staff to push the roof tile just as Alan had done with the bricks on the wall with the other hidden rooms. The tile depressed just a few centimeters then Felix pushed the door to the side, as the diary had described. He wasn''t getting enough friction with just his hand though so he used a force spell and the door reluctantly slid open. Using the same procedure he opened the door on the other side as well then turned back to the others.


    "Did you know how to open these the whole time?" Benjamin asked.


    "What? No. One of the books described how to open it." Felix replied.


    "How did you manage to read them that quickly?" Will asked.


    "Skill." Felix shrugged, "I haven''t read them all. I just have an idea of what''s in them."


    "Damn. That seems both very useful and like a waste of a skill." Benjamin said.


    Felix just shrugged and walked up behind Alan who was inspecting down the right passage from where they had first entered this workshop. Before Felix got past the turn in the hallway though, Alan was walking back with the armor in hand.


    "Mind identifying this for me?" Alan handed the armor to Felix as they walked back into the main chamber.


    The armor was almost entirely black with just a tinge of deep purple. It looked like plate armor but upon closer inspection, it wasn''t made of metal at all. Instead of a forged and cut appearance, the armor was made of what seemed to be natural lines.


    [D - Special] Chitinous Plate


    [Regenerative][Skill: Fly]


    This set of plate armor is crafted from the carapace of a large insectoid creature and has been carefully adapted to be used as armor. S§×ar?h the N?velFire(.)net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    This armor is equivalent to D grade Rare level plate armor and gives it''s wearer some of the abilities of the creature it''s made from. When supplied with energy, the wings on the back of this armor can extend outwards and provide flight.


    Felix shared the inspection with Benjamin and handed him the armor then walked up to Alan who was standing outside the next room.


    "Might need you for this one."


    "Why''s that?"


    "Torch doesn''t seem to give off any light." Alan said pushing his arm with the torch into the hall to help explain. The further in the torch went, the dimmer it got. Alan stepped into the hall and the light from the torch completely disappeared. Felix summoned his own light and pushed it down the hall but sensed it vanish just a meter or so in. Not only did the light from the spell vanish, but the spell form itself winked out. He resummoned a light and kept it right next to him and then walked in and accompanied it. This time the spell form didn''t fall apart, but the light was still entirely consumed.


    The first thing Felix tried was simply increasing the amount of light produced and slowly light appeared in the room. He kept increasing the light well past the point of being blinding in normal circumstances and continued into the chamber. He had to keep increasing the size of the light as he walked, but otherwise it was the same as the other hidden passages. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 Chapter 147 - Book 51

    The hall turned to the side then shortly opened up into a large room, this one larger than the others. In the middle of the room was an amorphous blob of complete darkness. As Felix increased the strength of his light spell, the amorphous blob shrunk and formed the shape of a suit of armor. Felix continued to increase the intensity of his light spell until the armor was completely lit.


    The armor seemed to be made of a completely black leather with matte black metal plates fastened on top of it. Touching it, the leather was soft and pliable while the plates were shaped to keep the armor as mobile as possible while still protecting vital organs. It had small metal rivets holding the leather and metal plates together giving it an overall tight and fitted look. It was also impeccably crafted. Felix wasn''t particularly familiar with armors at all, but this one stood from the other''s, like the crafter spent more time and care on this one.


    [D - Epic] Shadow Stalker''s Hide


    [Regenerative][Skill: Shadow Domain]


    This set of leather armor is crafted from the hide of a predator that completely blinds it''s prey before silently killing it. The creature used it''s ability to consume light for both offense and defense making it''s hide inideal for armor. This armor however, was crafted to replicate it''s signature ability while increasing the level of protection using metal plates and the leather hide of other creatures.


    This armor provides protection on the level of Epic level plate armor in some areas and Epic level leather armor in others. This armor grant''s the wearer the ability, Shadow Domain. Supplying energy to the armor, a radius of complete darkness will spread from the armor that consumes all light. The size of the domain depends on how much light is consumed and how much energy is provided. The wearer is granted the ability to sense anything the Shadow Domain touches.


    Felix carefully lifted it off the armor stand and was instantly blinded as the armor''s effect of eating light turned off. His light was so strong, he had accidentally blinded himself. It took him a few minutes to regenerate his retinas so he could see again. Once he had, he saw the armor stand had a simple enchantment on it that was generating energy and providing it to the armor. He memorized the enchantment then walked back outside to the others and handed Alan the armor along with the results of his inspection.


    World Event


    The Natural Armorer''s Vault


    You have successfully found all 5 of the noteworthy treasures in this vault. Exiting the vault at this point will seal the entrance and make inaccessible to anyone else in the future.


    Before even handing it to the other two, Alan declared, "I pick this one."


    "What''s it do?" Benjamin asked.


    "You''ll see." Alan winked then ran off into one of the hidden rooms in the previous chamber.


    Benjamin shook his head then turned to Felix, "I take it you didn''t want it?"


    "I''m pretty happy with the armor I have now." Felix shrugged.


    "Which of the armor sets do you want to take then? Probably sell for quite a few credits." Benjamin asked.


    "Oh. You guys can keep them. I''m more than happy with the books."


    "Really? You should at least take one of them."


    "No seriously. You guys keep them."


    "More for us." Will shrugged, "I want-"


    "Woah, hold it. I''m taking the Chitinous Plate. You can have whichever of the other''s you want." Benjamin cut him off.


    "What? How is that fair?" Will pouted.


    "You got the boots."


    "You got the bag?" S~ea??h the N??elFir§×.net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    "You want to trade?"


    "No¡­ Ugh. I guess I''ll take the Scales."


    "You sure you don''t want the Blade Defense Coat? Seems like it would be the most useful for you."


    "Yeah¡­ it would. I don''t want to look like a furry badger though."


    Benjamin chuckled, "Fair enough." and handed him the Scales of the Traveling Beast.


    At that point, Alan returned wearing a beautiful set of armor that was completely black. With the effect turned off, the armor was easier to see and it made Alan look like death itself. Even with the effect off, he trailed black shadows behind him like a cloak that whipped all over as if he stood in an invisible tornado. Felix gave him a thumbs up and Benjamin opened his mouth to repeat his earlier question but Alan interrupted him by activating the armor. In an instant, the entire room went pitch black. Felix couldn''t see anything then a few moments later, light returned to the room and Alan was standing behind Benjamin with a hand on his shoulder. Benjamin whipped his head around and saw Alan wink at him.


    "Well that is¡­" Benjamin started.


    "Awesome." Alan finished.


    "What. That is not fair. How was I supposed to know we''d find this in the next vault?" Will pouted.


    "There was always the chance. You knew that." Benjamin said, shaking his head.


    Will continued to pout and argue for a few minutes but eventually resigned himself to finding something even cooler in the next vault. Both Benjamin and Will went off into their own rooms to change armor. A few minutes later, Benjamin flew back into the room with a set of rapidly flapping insect wings on his back.


    "Want me to enchant the helmet with a light?" Felix offered.


    Benjamin handed him the helmet and thanked him then flew around the vault, practicing his new ability. The enchantment was simple, using the wielder''s mana create a light a few inches above the helmet. That way Benjamin could enable and disable it at will. He was also not likely using much of his mana pool and a light would consume barely any of it. Will returned a couple minutes after Benjamin and the armor he wore made him look like a beast. The scales and plates were positioned to make it look like he was some kind of humanoid alligator. Felix handed Benjamin the helmet when he returned and then they headed back out of the vault together. Benjamin touched the portal and they all proceeded through after him, the vault sealing itself behind them.


    Stolen novel; please report.


    "You sure you don''t want any of the armors? You could take the other two-" Benjamin started.


    "Seriously, I appreciate it¡­ but no thank you." Felix interrupted.


    "Before I head off to find another vault¡­ uh¡­ What do you guys know about energy cycling? or just energy in general?"


    "I use it for my skills." Will responded.


    "Restore it with sleep, but you need food to do so. If you''re too hungry, you won''t restore much." Alan replied.


    Huh, I don''t think I knew that. I mean it makes sense, I might have assumed it¡­ Never actually tested or paid attention though.


    "Endurance makes it go up." Benjamin shrugged.


    "Yes, yes and yes. All of the systems in your body consume energy to function. Your muscles, nervous system, brain and so on." Felix explained, "If you''re interested, I want to teach how I almost double all of my stats permanently."


    Felix proceeded to direct them for just a half hour or so to learn basic energy cycling. It was much faster for them than it was for him because they already had and used a bunch of skills that consumed energy. They were all familiar with what energy was and felt like already. All they had to do was push themselves a little to intentionally move it, instead of letting their skills do it for them. It would still take a lot of time and practice for them to actually earn skills for it, but they were much faster than Felix had been way back when he learned it, so they were in a good spot. They agreed to meet up after the event for Felix to bring them all furniture and then parted ways.


    Felix took off into the air and continued flying around the second level, heading mostly east this time. He spotted a couple of untouched estates but nothing stood out to him as particularly interesting, they were all very similar. Though he did loot a small library worth of books and got more information about what had happened in the city, he never really got an opportunity to test the minor modifications he had made to his body. So while there were estates that were untouched and seemed available, likely with vaults, he was looking for either a large number of Devoured, or particularly strong Devoured. Luckily, one presented itself just east of the northern most estates.


    Felix spotted an estate with a large yard, not quite as big as the zoo he and Jackie had found earlier, but larger than most. What stood out though was the Devoured chained in the backyard. The creature appeared to be either a large lizard or a wingless wyvern with six legs. He was leaning towards wyvern only because it''s scales were much bigger than he would expect a lizard to have. Unfortunately, having been Devoured, a good number of it''s scales were falling off and littering the yard. It was also walking around aimlessly with it''s tongue falling out of it''s mouth. Felix felt bad for the creature because it looked like it had been drugged, but he knew it had had it''s intelligence and soul forcibly ripped out of it''s body.


    [D] Devoured (Lvl 149)


    He was happy to have found a higher level Devoured because he was worried he would have to remove his armor. The low level, mindless creatures had a lot of trouble getting through his armor so he would have had to swap out his pants. He wasn''t sure, but he was hoping this creature wouldn''t have as much trouble. Felix descended to the ground, far enough away from his prey to make sure he didn''t alert it prematurely.


    Instead of just letting it hit me¡­


    Felix reached his hand out and summoned the axe, experiment 43, and immediately dropped it. When he had first found the axe, he hadn''t picked it up so he wasn''t ready for how absurdly heavy the axe was. Felix had over 6k strength and trained almost daily with weights, this axe was ridiculously heavy. He was able to lift and swing the axe, but it strained his muscles every time he did so, to the point where he was losing small amounts of health. He wasn''t necessarily hurting himself, but he was straining his body to the point where he was hindering his ability to recover in general. Last time he had identified it, unhelpfully, all he got was great axe, which he already knew. This time, he had the ring.


    [D - ???] Great Axe


    [Soul Bound][???]+


    Appears to be a Great Axe.


    Stupid ring.


    Isn''t that a good thing? Doesn''t it mean the rarity is higher than Epic rarity?


    I guess. What if it''s just cursed or something though?


    Only one way to find out.


    It''s interesting my inventory didn''t help identify it.


    Yeah. I guess it has limitations?


    Man it would have been really nice to have an owner''s manual or something.


    Didn''t you sleep through that?


    Yeah¡­ I''ve been thinking about that. You really think The System couldn''t wake me up?


    Maybe it has a conviction that doesn''t let it do that?


    Yeah or it let me sleep through it on purpose.


    You don''t actuall-


    No I don''t actually believe that.


    Felix picked the axe up off the ground and adjusted to it''s weight, slowly swinging it around. Once he was somewhat confident with the axe, he made sure his cell modifications covered the front, back and outside of his thighs then walked towards the creature. As with most of the Devoured he''d encountered so far, it didn''t seem to notice him until he was just a handful of meters away. The creature suddenly lifted it''s head. It''s empty eye sockets sickeningly tightened with attention and it''s front two legs lifted off the ground. It swiveled it''s upper body towards Felix and screeched a familiarly awful cry then, with a short leap, the rest of it''s body followed.


    As soon as the creature''s hind legs landed, it scurried along the ground towards Felix, it''s lizard body slithering along. Felix''s lower body naturally fell into a stance from the Dragon''s Dance of Death he had been practicing every day and his upper body tensed, ready to strike with the axe. The creature was overall, much slower than Felix was, so positioning himself to have it''s bite hit only his thigh wasn''t overly difficult. He simply crouched down a little and pivoted his other leg away from the creature, it''s teeth biting down around the thigh covered in his second experiment.


    It wasn''t ideal for protecting against piercing attacks like the creature''s fangs, but it should help somewhat. It''s teeth sank into his armor but never quite got through it. His experiment did help to spread the impact over his thigh though. Instead of bruising one small point where the fangs were blocked, his skin was tighter and the new cells he had implanted reacted to the force. The cells tightened their connections to each-other, the force of the fangs essentially caught and slowed by the net within his skin.


    It was functioning far better than he had hoped originally. All he had hoped for was the cells to give him a slightly better resistance to being cut. What he didn''t realize was that the cells were able to react to sudden impacts and forces. Not only were they hard to separate from each-other generally, creating a web of cells beneath his skin, but they also tightened and hardened themselves in reaction to being stressed. This would likely make his skin feel dramatically different, but he could accept that considering it only happened when he was struck. In normal circumstances, his body wouldn''t change much.


    The other thing he noted after the second bite he let the creature get, was that the cell''s reaction felt a little weird, but it wasn''t too bad. He was worried at first that if he spread this mesh throughout his body, he would suddenly be squeezed like a ripe fruit every time he got hit, but his skin wasn''t pulled together at all. Instead, the cells simply swelled, increasing the surface area of their connections with each-other. This did strangle the cells between them a little bit, hence the slight discomfort, but it wasn''t extreme and wouldn''t kill any of the compressed cells any time soon.


    Felix thought about testing his other experiment but decided against it. It was mostly healing anyways so he could test that himself, without the aid of an enemy. Also to test it here and now, he would have to remove his pants. He did want to test and make sure the healing cell layer would heal back the new mesh cells, but again that was something he could test himself. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 Chapter 148 - Book 52

    With his experiments complete, he had something else he wanted to work on. Instead of letting the creature hit him, and uselessly carrying around the ridiculously heavy great axe, Felix prepared himself to fight back. The creature swiped forwards and Felix simply pivoted a leg back and out of the way, completely dodging it, then swung down with the axe as hard as he could on the creature''s neck. The dodge was elegant as it was already second nature for him to fall into specific steps from the Dragon Dance.


    The axe strike was slow, clumsy and frankly embarrassing. He was far too slow to catch the Devoured on the neck as it struck and instead hit it somewhere on it''s back. He also wasn''t able to put much force into the strike because he wasn''t quite ready to be swinging the axe in an actual battle. Lastly, he was imprecise. Instead of the axe striking down and cutting into the creature, Felix wasn''t holding the axe perfectly straight so the blade was deflected by it''s scales. It pulled him to the side and almost caused him to trip over the beast with it''s momentum.


    From that point onwards, Felix slowly adjusted to swinging the axe. He still missed hitting anything vital as he was having trouble holding the axe straight, but he slowly worked on holding and keeping the blade facing the creature. With each and every strike, though his strikes were still slow, the blade became straighter. Once he managed to keep the blade from slipping and sliding around, once he could hold it perfectly straight, he began increasing the speed and power behind the strikes.


    At first, the blade sank a few millimeters into it''s scales, then a few centimeters. Finally, Felix struck the creature and cleaved through a scale into it''s flesh below. It only just scratched the flesh, but it was far better than what he had started with. Unfortunately, all his practice was starting to severely tax him. With his Energy core, he wasn''t really close to running out, in fact he had only used a fifth of his total pool. Rather, the cost on his health was much higher than he was anticipating. Felix was, though he hadn''t been hit by the creature a single time since ending his experiments, sitting at around 30% of his total health.


    Luckily the Energy flowing through his body was helping to offset the cost, but it was still ridiculous. He hadn''t even noticed his health dipping so low. He felt the pain in his arms, then chest, then legs and finally his core, but he had mentally ignored it and pushed through, unconsciously dulling the pain. Unfortunately, he didn''t have nearly enough health to finish the creature off with the axe so he instead flooding his boots with mana launching himself backwards. Before he landed, three massive blinding white arcs of electricity finished the creature off.


    Ding You have slain a [D] Devoured (Lvl 149)


    How the hell is anyone supposed to use this stupid thing?


    There are people stronger than you are.


    Yeah I guess. Maybe it''ll get easier when I get stronger. Honestly, other than the health cost, I could definitely get used to this. In another life, I think I could have been a hulking barbarian with a great axe. It''s kind of fun.


    Felix sat down and meditated for a couple hours to restore his health while practicing spell formations. Once he was completely restored, he started looking around the manor for a vault but found it had already been sealed. He found the portal but it was frozen in time and touching it revealed someone had already been here, they had just ignored the monster in the backyard. Slightly disgruntled, Felix flew into the air and continued south east, around the inner circle.


    I wonder how many of these key fragments people have found.


    Already want to leave?


    No¡­ Kind of. I feel like I got everything I wanted out of it already. Don''t get me wrong there''s probably a ton more interesting treasures and all that but¡­


    Don''t you also want to figure out what is going on? Why there''s a city of super crazy monsters below?


    Yeah I do. I think that''s what''s holding me back. It feels weird to be up here galivanting through vaults when I know what''s beneath us. It feels like this, these vaults, just don''t matter.


    You could go back down there.


    I can''t gain levels here so I don''t know that I can ever get strong enough to beat the majority of those things. Even Nova would have trouble with them.


    It is a limited event. You might as well get as much loot as you can out of it.


    You''re right.


    As Felix flew over the estates below him, he started to notice a pattern among the people he saw vault hunting. Not all of them, not even a majority of them, but a large quantity nonetheless, seemed to be using magical devices. Felix spotted hand cannons, guns that fired spells, grenades, vehicles and even some interesting sets of armor. Taking a quick peak at his map, he was currently between the areas that were allocated for Snowvale and Trelas. It made sense given all the magically engineered devices, but it was still a little bit of a shock just how many people used them. He knew Martin made and used them to fight, but he didn''t realize so much of his city did as well.


    Looking through the estates, Felix suddenly spotted a vehicle racing through the streets faster than anything else on the ground. He immediately knew who it was so when they stopped, he decided to see if they had found any key fragments or journals yet. Felix dropped down in front of the vehicle as it''s occupants climbed out.


    "Oi, this is our va- Oh, hey Felix."


    "Hey Jack. Any chance you guys have found any key fragments yet?"


    Martin and Jack shot each-other a glance then Jack responded, "Nope, not yet. You?"


    The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.


    "Nope. Only been in two vaults though. More importantly, have you guys found any Journals? Diaries? First hand accounts? Honestly books in general."


    "Uh. We''ve found some¡­ I guess. Not many though. Why?"


    "Just interested in figuring out what happened here. Also I like books."


    "Martin''s been taking all of them."


    On cue, Martin walked up and joined the conversation, "Hey Felix. You''re looking for books?"


    "Yes please. I''ll give them right back, I promise. Just want to see if there''s anything interesting in them."


    "Alright¡­ Uhm¡­ There are kind of a lot of them."


    "How many?"


    "Like¡­ a few hundred¡­ maybe a thousand?"


    Holy hell. I guess it''s not just my inventory that''s massive.


    "Oof. Okay, I know this is a tall ask, but do you mind if I store them in my inventory? I have a skill to scan books so I don''t want to keep them, but it goes faster in my inventory."


    "Uh¡­"


    "How about I give you something as collateral? Felix removed the Kryptos Repository from his wrist and handed it to Martin."


    "I''m soul bound to it so you can''t just run off with it."


    Martin squinted at the bracelet for a few moments then his eyes shot open, "Did you find this here?"


    "Yeah in one of the vaults. You can identify items?"


    "Yeah, part of my profession. I trust you though, you can just take the books for now. Want to walk with us through the estate while they scan? Then you can hand me back the books before we head into the vault and part ways?"


    "Sure."


    "Jack, any problems with that?"


    "Nope. As long as the vault and loot is ours I don''t really care about the books."


    Martin began removing books from his inventory and handing them to Felix, who stowed them into his own inventory. After a couple hundred books, Martin pulled a bag off of his hip and dumped out a pile of books, that never grew larger than a half dozen, into Felix''s arms.


    Ah, that makes more sense.


    "Thanks." Felix nodded.


    "No problem."


    The two of them joined Jack and two others Felix didn''t recognize as they walked up to the front door of what was probably, if Felix had to guess, the smallest house on this level. The house looked like a normal home on any suburban street back on earth. It was big enough that it had maybe two or three bedrooms but otherwise looked so normal it honestly seemed out of place amongst all the mansions and manors around it.


    The outside was mostly rough cut stone bricks that gave it a rustic look with a vibrant almost orange wood paneling above that. The windows had black metal frames and the roof was made of simple clay tiles. Even the front door was just a normal, albeit thick and heavy, door unlike the double French doors and steel banded wood of the previous estates Felix had explored.


    Jack was the first one through the doorway followed by the two Felix didn''t know then Martin and finally Felix. Walking into the house, Felix instinctively pulled his robe over his mouth and nose. Every surface of the place was covered in a thick layer of dust. Just walking into the house, they had launched enough dust into the air to make it hard to see.


    "What the hell¡­" Felix heard a muffled voice say from in front of him.


    The front entrance was small with a small closet off to the side and stairs just a couple meters in front of them. To the left and right were sitting rooms and a hall respectively. Matching the outside of the house, inside, the floors were treated hard wood and the walls appeared to be painted sheetrock or some equivalent material.


    Jack and the two right behind him split off to the left while Felix and Martin split right. Walking down the hall, there were two doors on either side. On the right, peeking in, there was a simple office with a desk a chair and a small bookshelf. Martin and Felix walked in and looked around but other than some books on the shelves, even the drawers of the desk were empty. Felix stowed the books on the shelf in his inventory and they walked across the hall and opened the other door.


    Behind this door, was a staircase that descended downwards into the dark. The light from outside was more than enough for the ground floor to be illuminated, but this appeared to be a basement. Martin immediately pulled out a flashlight, likely his own creation and started walking down the stairs but Felix hesitated.


    How¡­


    Following Martin down, they stepped into a large open space that simply looked like a large unfinished basement. In one corner, there was a raised platform made of a somewhat rubber like material covering a large area, a couple dozen meters across. In another corner, was a workshop area with tables and tools strewn about.


    Most of the tools looked like surgical equipment with scalpels, tweezers and clamps all made of metal and in a huge array of sizes. On the other end of the basement, was a massive pile of ash. The stone or concrete walls were completely blackened and covering the ground everywhere was thin black powder. There weren''t even pieces of charcoal or chunks left over, whatever had been burned here, had been completely incinerated.


    Felix walked over to the side of the basement that had clearly been burned, a side that took up at least three quarters of the total space, and just looked at it.


    What in the hell happened here? There''s a basement¡­ which shouldn''t be possible. Now this?


    Doesn''t seem that weird to me. Maybe the basement was spatially expanded or maybe there''s enough earth on top of the stone layer for a basement to exist.


    No¡­ Something is wrong here.


    What do you mean?


    Not the basement, that''s fine. I guess the charring is fine too. Something feels wrong.


    Walking a few steps forwards, onto charred ground but still a few meters from the ash, Felix realized what the gut feeling was. There was something in the ash that was screwing with the ambient mana and anima.


    "What''s wrong? You find something over there?" Felix heard Martin call out to him.


    Felix didn''t answer though. Instead, he closed his eyes and focused in on the ambient mana. He was much more adept at feeling out mana than he was with the anima so he started with that. The mana was being pulled, but not from the ambient to a specific point. Instead it was being pulled into the ground and walls all around him but in a pattern. He couldn''t tell what it was or why but it wasn''t normal.


    After a few moments of trying to figure it out, he switched over to focusing on the ambient anima and carefully walked forwards. He tried to reach out but couldn''t quite sense the entire basement. Luckily it only took a few steps for him to latch onto what appeared to be a string. It was fluttering around like a kite string without a kite. S§×arch* The Novel?ire(.)ne*t website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    Focusing in on the string, he followed it deep into the pile of ash. To follow it further, he needed to clear out the ash so he used a very light wind spell to push it aside. He was hoping to avoid filling the air with ash but only somewhat succeeded. Following the string of anima, he found it sank into the wall right in the middle of the charred area, unfortunately, the wall looked completely solid from his inspection. Felix marked the wall with a tiny piece of mana then switched his attention back to the ambient mana.


    The pattern was like a random series of lines all around the room that didn''t seem to converge at all, if he weren''t confined to a basement, he would guess they were ley lines. That thought gave him an idea though so he took a small drop of heavily affinized mana and dropped it into one of the lines making up the pattern. He immediately felt it race off to the side following the line for a few meters then divert down somewhere else that wasn''t part of the pattern.


    What in the hell¡­


    Though it was kind of extreme, Felix had an idea of what to do. He assured Martin that he wasn''t trying to kill him then walked up to the top of the stairs and sealed the door with a thick layer of solid mana. He made sure there were no vents or other openings then sat down as close to the middle of the basement as he could. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 Chapter 149 - Book 53

    "Don''t do anything. I''m going to try something. Don''t use your inventory and especially do not cast any spells or use any enchantments." Felix called out to Martin.


    "Uh¡­ Felix?" Martin said, "¡­ Ok."


    Sitting down in the middle of the basement, Felix pulled on the ambient mana around him, sucking it all into a single mana battery in his hands. He pulled on it harder than he ever had before. With the basement almost entirely sealed, the ambient mana levels dropped rapidly until it was essentially a mana desert. Some mana was slowly making it''s way through because the walls didn''t hold it back perfectly, they were only three dimensional after all. The leakage was slow enough though that he figured he should be able to get ahead of it.


    Once Felix was satisfied with the mana levels, he stowed the battery in his pocket and released his own, affinized mana, into the air. Once the mana levels were close enough to normal, Felix stood back up and looked around him. His affinized mana slowly filled the pattern in the walls, tracing it''s visible and hidden lines. Now that he could feel it in it''s entirety, he realized what it was. The visible lines were for collection and they all fed into lines sunken into the walls that led to dozens of locations around the room. Only one of them was directly on top of the wall where the string of anima was located though.


    Felix walked over to it and examined the wall. It seemed like it was either concrete or possibly carved directly out of stone and finished to be smooth and once shiny, though he couldn''t tell which. He didn''t want to immediately resort to trying to break the wall, though he was tempted to try, he was worried he might damage whatever was behind it. Unfortunately, he had no indication of how to open it. First, he cut the mana to that section of the wall. He simply held all the mana around it in the lines still and didn''t let any of it pass through into that section. Unfortunately, that didn''t seem to have any effect but he kept it starved just in case.


    There were two possibilities running through Felix''s mind. Either this was supposed to be opened and there was a trigger to open it, like a button, lever or key or it wasn''t meant to be opened at all. If it wasn''t meant to be opened, it was either protecting something from the outside or protecting the outside from something. Considering the charring, Felix was leaning towards it being protected from the outside and whoever or whatever incinerated the basement. It was possible it was being protected and was meant to be opened but he wasn''t sure.


    "What did you do?" Felix turned around startled to see Martin standing behind him.


    Martin continued, "All my enchantments started failing all at once and then I felt suffocated and my mana regen went to 0. Now everything is back to normal?"


    "I sucked all the mana out of the room so I could follow the enchantment embedded in the walls."


    "You can do that?"


    "Uh yeah¡­ Got a cool skill."


    I hate straight up lying like that, especially to Martin who is so nice and trusting, but I have a feeling I shouldn''t be advertising my innate.


    "Sounds like a damn cool skill. What class are you now by the way? Is it something awesome like Mana Savant or something like that? What rarity is it?"


    Well shit. Is Wizard too¡­ Yeah it sounded too special.


    "Arcanist. It''s just Rare. My profession is cooler though, Mana Engineer."


    "Rare for a class is pretty awesome. Mana Engineer does sound sweet though. Any chance we could drop the barrier at the top of the stairs? Everyone else has kind of been waiting¡­"


    "Oh right. Sorry about that. Yeah."


    Felix and Martin walked up the stairs together. Arriving at the barrier, Felix pressed his hand against it and the barrier disintegrated, all the mana reabsorbed into his core.


    "Was that solid mana?"


    Felix turned his head to look over his shoulder, "Uh¡­ yeah."


    They walked down the stairs and a few moments later the rest of the party joined them.


    "You guys find anything interesting down here? What was up with that barrier?" Jack asked the two of them.


    "Doesn''t seem to be anything down here. Felix was just running an experiment." Martin responded.


    "There''s something behind or in the wall there," Felix pointed, "but I have no idea how to get it to it. You guys find a key or anything that might open it?"


    "Nah. There wasn''t much of anything in the house. Seems like a totally normal earth house. Well, other than the dust." Jack shrugged, "Any chance you can drill through it Martin?"


    "Mind if I give it a shot?" Martin turned to Felix.


    I guess if there isn''t a key, it wasn''t meant to be opened¡­ It''s always possible they missed something I guess but honestly, I was probably going to resort to drilling into it anyways.


    "Go for it." Felix nodded.


    Walking over to the point on the wall that Felix had been staring at, Martin pulled a handful of contraptions out of his inventory and began going to work on the wall. It took him a half hour or so to finally get through the rock wall, which was extraordinarily tough but was only a centimeter or so thick. Unfortunately, the rock was just decoration, behind it was some kind of teal colored metal that Martin couldn''t even scratch.


    "You sure there''s something in there?" Jack asked.


    "Pretty sure." Felix nodded.


    "How long do you think it would take you to get through that one?" Jack called out.


    "Honestly? I don''t know if I can get through it at all. If I did it would take me hours of experimentation." Martin scratched his head.


    "Alright. I think we let this one go. Whatever is back there, probably isn''t worth the time. There are vaults on this level that have loot and are much easier to find. I think we give up on this one. What do you think Martin?" Jack suggested.


    Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.


    "Yeah, I agree. Sorry Felix." Martin slumped a little.


    "That''s alright. Mind if I stay here and keep at it?" Felix asked.


    "By all means." Jack nodded.


    "Any chance you finished scanning all those books?" Martin asked.


    Yeah, finished a few minutes ago. Grim cut in.


    "Yeah. I''ll walk upstairs with you so we don''t get ash or dust on all of them."


    "Sounds good."


    They made the transfer on the front lawn then parted ways. After they had left, Felix did a quick run through of the entire house but he couldn''t find anything. Just as Jack had said, the house was completely normal. He found cookware in the kitchen, furniture exactly where he expected it and the remnants of clothing in the closet.


    The furniture and cookware were all evidently low quality, possibly even E grade considering how easily it all crumbled compared to the rest of the furniture he had seen. To be certain the house was empty though, Felix picked up all the furniture and left it in a pile of garbage on the front lawn. Then, he opened all the windows, a few of them breaking from the stress of being opened for the first time in, at minimum, thousands of years. Finally, using a few simple wind spells, he cleared out most of the dust from the ground and second floor of the house.


    Felix searched through again, paying attention to the ambient anima and mana but found absolutely nothing. He found faint hints of mana and enchantments on a stove and refrigerator, but that was expected. There were also hints of it on some of the lights but again, he expected that. He was very quickly getting to the point where he was ready to just start tearing through the walls hoping to find anything.


    Got any ideas?


    Honestly? I think you should burn the place to the ground. Make sure you properly incinerate everything.


    Ha ha. Seriously tho-


    No. I am being serious. If there is a key, it''s probably magical so it should survive the fire. Worst case, you end up back where you started and have to find a way to break into the wall.


    Uh¡­ I guess¡­ I mean¡­ Am I really going to just burn it down? That seems so¡­ inelegant?


    Who cares. Whoever lived here has been dead for billions of years probably. Unfortunately, we are stuck in this integration universe that has a severe lack of knowledge. So we make do with the information we have.


    Any idea what''s in the wall? If it''s actually worth retrieving?


    Nope. No idea. Best guess is a magical item that was bonded to someone in a weird way.


    Yeah. For the bond to stay in tact like that though¡­ and just flutter in the ambient?


    Definitely weird.


    Also why would something like that be in such a normal looking house and why is something in such a normal looking house so well protected?


    I definitely think it''s worth figuring out what it is. Worst case, it''s something innocuous and you wasted some time.


    Is it weird that I find this far more engaging than the prospect of the vaults and more loot?


    Makes sense. This is more of a mystery, a challenge.


    Yeah¡­ Anything interesting in those books Martin had by the way?


    Yes. There were a few first hand accounts, here are the only interesting sections.


    Journal 1


    Oh god why. Why did we move here. We should have known. I don''t know how much longer we can hide. He''s coming. He protected us, we trusted him. We moved here so our kids could grow up and be safe, so they could become something. I just wanted them to be surrounded by the best. To have mentors and teachers, resources. I suggested we move here. It''s my fault. We should have seen it sooner. We were simply cattle, being raised for the slaughter. Now we are all going to die at the hand of the butcher.


    Holy shit Grim. That was¡­


    Yeah. Next one is¡­ ominous.


    Journal 2


    Today Erolan took an apprentice. It''s just some girl. He put her up in a house on the second level. Why couldn''t it have been me? I''m so much prettier than she is.


    Eri started this new program where the best of the best, the highest potential, get hand picked by him to ascend. Apparently you get personal training and when it''s done, you get the chance to move wherever you want. I want to go see a big city, maybe this is my chance, I hope I get chosen for the ascension. sea??h th§× N?velFire(.)net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    It''s been a few years now since Eri chose my brother to ascend. At first I was so happy for him, a little jealous, but I was happy. Now I just miss him. I wish he would come home. I hope he at least says goodbye before he moves to a big city. Maybe he can bring me with him?


    Is that the last one, Grim?


    The last relevant entry.


    Eri is Erolan?


    I think so.


    Is there any doubt that ascension is what I think it is?


    No, not really.


    Alright. I guess it''s time to burn down the house.


    Felix picked back up all the broken furniture and placed it into the middle of the house then formed a simply Flame Thrower spell. It didn''t take long for the furniture to ignite, aided by the dust still lingering in the air. Felix quickly jumped out a window and started igniting more of the house from the outside to be sure it all burned. He flew around and made sure the fire reached every corner and used force spells to make sure it collapsed inwards. Once the entire house was alight, he switched over to trying to increase the heat. His ultimate goal was for the entire house to be a pile of ash he could easily sort through, he didn''t want any solid chunks left behind.


    It took just over an hour for the fire to start dying down with most of the remnants contained to the basement. Felix didn''t want the fire to die down just yet though so he didn''t let it. He continued pumping his own flames into the charred remains to make sure everything had enough time and heat to fully disintegrate.


    They weren''t really providing much fuel anymore though so the fire gradually became Felix incinerating the remains much more so than it was the remains themselves burning. Before it had all cooled down, Felix wrapped his robes around his mouth and nose then used wind spells to blow away as much of the ash as he could. He figured if a key had survived the fire, it wouldn''t be light enough to be blown away by a very light breeze. Keeping that in mind, he made sure his wind spell was as gentle as possible while still blowing the ash away.


    He thought about creating some kind of vacuum spell but ultimately he didn''t have a bag to contain the ash or anything he could use to filter out the remains. Once his gently breeze lifted the ash into the air, a much stronger one a few meters above the ground blew it all away. His hope was that whatever was left behind, if anything, was some kind of magic key. Unfortunately, all he found was a smattering of nails and other small metal things that had been warped by the fire. Once he cleared most of the ash out, he was left with the same basement he had started in, just empty now. Looking to the corner where the soft rubbery mat had been, there was a large metal plate under it that stood out from the uniform, scorched concrete flooring everywhere else around it.


    Felix walked over to the metal plate and pulled it open using his staff as a crowbar. He found what he was both expecting and not expecting at the same time. He knew the undercity was just below them and figured there couldn''t really be anything else down there, but he didn''t expect there to be any way to access it. He half assumed this would be a vault of some kind, a portal just below the metal plate. Instead, he looked down into the darkness and saw the light that shone through highlighting the edges of the cliffside castle below.


    The underside of the hatch had a veneer of the white stone so that when closed, the hatch itself would be almost entirely invisible from below. He carefully and silently closed the hatch so he didn''t attract any unwanted attention from the high level Devoured below. Looking around at the basement, he realized it wasn''t spatially expanded at all, the brick flooring beneath this entire level was just much thicker than he realized and the basement had been dug into it.


    No key. Fuck. I need to get my hands on more spells, skills and items. This whole thing was so¡­ crude.


    Any bright ideas?


    If you go get Nova, it can probably just eat the material but it would probably take a day or so.


    Could I move it yet? You know like the powers I''ll get through the bond?


    Hell no. You can maybe wiggle a pencil. Maybe. We can test it out later.


    Damn. Alright, I guess drilling through the wall it is. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 Chapter 150 - Book 54

    Felix turned his attention back to the section of the wall where he knew something was hiding. No more of the stone wall had been destroyed in the fire, so there was still just a small point of teal metal showing through. Felix morphed his staff into a hammer and chisel and got to work removing more of the stone wall around the metal. He found that the teal metal was just a small section. It formed a square just a quarter of a meter to a side, around it was simply more stone. Felix assumed it might be a plate or door so he began digging around the metal so he could get a crowbar behind it.


    Unfortunately, it seemed it wasn''t a plate at all, but more like a solid cube. It took him a little while to dig it out but his manually enchanting the stone to be softer helped a lot. Once he was done, Felix held a small cube of teal metal in his hands, turning it over, he found a slight seam around the side that was buried the deepest in the wall.


    "Is everything alright down there?" A melodic voice called down from above.


    Turning his head towards the source, Felix saw Amani standing at the edge of the basement, looking down at him.


    "Yeah, I''m fine."


    "I saw a fire on the edge of Orselle''s zone and thought it might be one of my people. What happened?"


    "Oh uh¡­ well¡­ searched the house but didn''t find anything. I uh¡­ figured if there was a secret key, magic item or vault hidden in the house, it would survive a fire."


    Amani''s brow furrowed and she smirked, "Didn''t think you were the kind of person to burn down a house just to find something."


    Felix just shrugged, "Is this house in your zone?"


    Amani jumped down into the basement, a small cloud of leftover ash springing into the air where she landed. She walked over to Felix, "I don''t know. There aren''t actual lines or anything. It''s definitely not in yours though."


    "Didn''t think you were the kind of person to care."


    "I don''t." Amani smiled and shrugged, "Whatcha got there?"


    Looking back down at the box, Felix answered her by pulling the lid off the box. Inside there was a small leather bound book, slightly bigger than palm sized but otherwise completely non-descript.


    "Well that was rather anticlimactic. What about the hatch, have you opened it yet?" Amani nodded her head towards the metal hatch in the corner then shifted her weight as if ready to move towards it.


    "Don''t. Uh¡­ Yeah, it''s nothing¡­"


    Amani frowned, "Doesn''t sound like nothing. Look if you just don''t like sharing, you can just say so." She fake pouted.


    "You''re right. It''s vast treasure and it''s mine. I will fight you for it."


    "Woah cowboy," Amani held her hands up as if in surrender, "No need to be so aggressive. I am curious though, what''s up with the book? Why was it in a metal box embedded in the wall?"


    Felix reached into the metal box and pulled the book out. He stowed the box and it''s lid in his inventory then inspected the book.


    [D - Special] Bound Book: Slave


    [Hidden]


    This book is bound to a master and will copy anything that is written into it''s master, exactly. The master book must be within range and this book must be supplied with a constant source of mana to function. This book also has the Hidden property and will avoid being found by the majority of detection skills and spells.


    Huh. I assume you''ve already read through it, right? Should have been scanned by now.


    Uh¡­


    What?


    Shit. You need to go back down to the undercity.


    Ok, I''ll bite. Why?


    Well¡­ Fuck it. Just read.


    Bound Book: Slave


    Entry 1


    If you''re reading this, I''m dead. My name was Kaleris, I was Erolan''s apprentice and that''s why this journal exists.


    I was born in Ky''bel unlike a lot of it''s residents. Being a new city with a leader who''s growing as ridiculously fast as Erolan attracts a lot of immigrants. The lack of laws that most larger cities have attract a certain type of immigrant. Luckily it''s not too bad, there are some unsavory people, likely more than most cities, but I grew up here and you learn pretty quickly how to avoid them, if you want to.


    I never really thought of myself as particularly special. I was smarter than most, but never top of my class at anything. I really enjoyed learning about biology and medicine, but mostly so I knew where to hit people and how to kill them as efficiently as possible. I used to think of myself as a monster, I used to think I was lucky that I was born into a city like this, given my apathy towards killing, now I''m not so sure. Don''t get me wrong, I don''t enjoy killing, I don''t go out of my way to do it. I just don''t really care either way. I need to kill things to get stronger so in that case, I''m going to learn to be pretty damn good at it. Again, something I have to do not want to do. I just don''t have the same aversion to killing people as my parents and friends do. I thought that made me a monster.


    Don''t ask me why, again I didn''t think I was special, I never did and I still don''t. One day Erolan picked me out of a crowd at our school and decided I was going to be his apprentice. I didn''t do anything special, I didn''t do anything to stand out, but he picked me. I remember thinking I was the luckiest person ever when he walked up to me.


    He was tough but generally nice. He pushed me but he wasn''t hard on me and he never forced me to do anything. He always made sure I was comfortable and safe. Life was good. I was quickly progressing in my class and profession, getting much stronger, very quickly. I easily surpassed my old classmates and a few years later, most of my old teachers. Erolan knew his shit and he was an excellent teacher.


    Slowly he became more aggressive, got angry a few times. Never anything more than any other person so I never really noticed it. Looking back though, he used to be calm in every situation, he would never show his frustration or anger at all. Slowly that fa?ade eroded. Again, he never got to the point where I felt threatened or intimidated. I just should have recognized the signs, seen the decline earlier. Noticed something.


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    But, I didn''t. I hadn''t noticed anything, until just a few weeks ago. I went to see him outside of the usual time but couldn''t find him. I ended up stumbling upon his experiment room, below his house. The bodies in the coffins are a little creepy, but none of it was that surprising. I had seen his true form a few times in the invasions, it wasn''t that big of a deal. He brought me down and showed me around, even got a cool new axe out of it because it reacted to me walking by. None of that was a problem. None of that made me worry. It did get me thinking though, if he had a whole room below the third tier, was there something below the second tier? Thinking about it, the second tier was perfectly flat, I just assumed that was a construction or design decision. Well, I asked him about it a few days later. Let''s just say, up to that point, I had never seen Erolan not have an answer or not know what to say. This was the first time I had ever seen him flustered.


    Long story short, not only is there something below the second layer, the entire city is built on a platform above a kingdom that used to exist here. Erolan either didn''t know or wouldn''t tell me what the kingdom used to be named. I did some research of my own this past week and I''m pretty sure it was the kingdom of Kroterra, once part of the Dregan empire. S~ea??h the N??elFir§×.net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    It took another week or so for him to open up a bit more but it seems like he decided to let me in a little. He explained to me what the Devoured really were. I''m not an idiot though, I knew they had once been people, I just didn''t know how he transformed them. He assured me he never used it on innocents. He brought me down into the kingdom which is filled with Devoured of a much higher level than I had ever seen before. He called the kingdom his greatest mistake. I feel like I should be disgusted, appalled, but I''m not. I just, I don''t feel anything. I don''t care. He made a mistake, he regrets it.


    What made the Devoured so terrifying as an army, was that a typical army filled with low level troops were easily dealt with by siege mages, by wide area spells. The Devoured though have a ridiculously high resistance to all forms of magic, higher than I have ever seen, along with higher than average physical resistance. The downside was that they were too low level to do much by themselves. To use them effectively, Erolan needed a massive swarm to overwhelm the enemy.


    The Devoured in Kroterra, the undercity, all had much higher levels, were far smarter, and much more capable of dealing damage. The prospect that they existed at all was both horrifying and baffling. I asked him why he didn''t use them like he had the others. Turns out, he doesn''t have full control over them. The undercity is his greatest mistake because he accidentally transformed the entire city.


    When he first found the Devourer''s set, he didn''t really know how to use them properly. One day, he accidentally lost control of them and wiped out the entire kingdom. He didn''t control the devouring so he couldn''t make sure they were obedient, instead they were uncontrollable monsters. He was so distraught by what had happened that he vowed to find a way to cure them. That''s why the kingdom still exists, in the hopes that he can one day find a way of fixing his mistake. It''s a monument to his shame. He insisted he hadn''t used the souls of Kroterra yet, they were all still safe in his ring, he hadn''t touched them yet. He thinks that makes it less bad. I don''t really care but¡­ I also don''t know anyone that would agree with him.


    He was downright giddy when he realized I wasn''t horrified by his actions. We got to talking more and he explained how the Devourer''s set worked. There were three pieces, the crown, and two rings. Each one was focused on a different portion of what makes a person whole. The crown focused on the mind, the blood ring on the body and the soul ring on the soul. The concept was simple enough, but the really interesting part was what they could do. They were each specially designed spatial pockets to store their respective element. The crown would store the memories of those he Devoured, so he could sort through them at will. The blood ring stored the matter that made up their body and allowed him to create a new body instead his own, it was how he appeared as a human. The soul ring stored their souls, so he could sift through them at will.


    Not only did they store them, but they allowed him to harvest them somehow? I don''t really understand it but there are two Erolan''s, the human one and the original. They grew as completely separate entities. As fascinating and powerful as the Devourer set was, there had to be a bigger drawback to using them. With his confidence bolstered by my acceptance of his past horrors, Erolan has grown bolder. He started a program where he personally picks and trains the best of the best from the city. He calls it their ascension. I know he just plans on Devouring them though. He''s started to pick fights he can''t win so he needs to grow his army. Lucky for him, there seems to be an endless supply of immigrants and everyone sees Erolan as their god, their great protector. Maybe he was their protector, but not anymore. He''s slowly descending into madness, becoming more willing to commit atrocities to accomplish his goals.


    I know I said earlier that I didn''t feel anything, but now that he''s rounding up children, families, anyone he thinks might be useful, there''s this pit in my stomach. I think about it and I feel sick. I feel sick because I know I should care about innocent people being dominated and subjugated, their will crushed, turned into slaves, but I don''t. Mostly though, I feel sick because I''m scared. How long before Erolan decides it''s my turn to "ascend."


    It all happened so fast. This journal will remain here as a record of what happened. If you find this, and he''s still alive, I''m dead and he''s probably completely corrupted. You have been warned, no matter how nice he seems, he''s a monster.


    Entry 2


    The axe he gave me woke up today. It accepted me as it''s wielder and offered to soul bond. Lucky thing that, no matter how I modified my body, it was always too heavy to wield without injuring myself. I was about to give up too, now it''s as light as a dagger while still being able to swing it with the full force of a massive great axe. It''s got some other properties and abilities too but I haven''t totally figured them out yet.


    Entry 3


    It''s official, he''s going mad. Erolan is openly challenging massive empires that have existed for millennia, enemies he can''t beat, and multiple of them at once. I don''t know what his plan is but I''m not going to let him take me down with him. I managed to carve out a passage into the kingdom below, I just hope I have enough time to get out when he finally comes for me.


    Entry 4


    He isn''t even bothering with the lies anymore, he''s just taking people from their families in the night and devouring them. He managed to get a semblance of control over the high level Devoured below. When he showed me, with a smile, I could see it. He no longer felt shame at what had happened in the past, he was proud of his accomplishments, he took pride in it. Erolan changed. He''s not the same person he once was.


    Entry 5


    Well he did the impossible. He managed to take out the biggest empire in reach and made everyone else wary of him. After the victory I hoped something might change, but in the battle I saw the truth. It''s hard to explain but he''s slowly descending into madness. His eyes dart around, his head twitches, he screams then reverts to perfect calm in an instant. The only time he seems present, focused, is when he''s staring down at a mass of souls he can Devour. He looks upon them with hunger in his eyes, drool on his chin and ragged breathing. He''s not even a person anymore, he''s just an animal. Tomorrow. I''m going to escape, run away and save myself. I just have a few more things to prepare before I do.


    Entry 6


    I''m leaving. Hopefully, if you''re reading this, I made it out. I left everything I thought he might be able to use to track me. I salvaged a new set of clothes from the empire we took out. I need to take the axe with me though, we''re soul bound, if I left it behind he''d just be able to track me down. I said before that there are two Erolan''s, the human and the original. I was wrong, there''s another. If you''re reading this, hopefully Erolan is dead. Who knows, maybe I got strong enough to come back and take him out. If he isn''t, run.


    Holy shit Grim. The soul ring¡­


    Yeah.


    That seems¡­ Ridiculously coincidental.


    Yeah either you are that lucky¡­


    Or something else is going on¡­


    We can think about it later.


    So how do I kill him.


    Theoretically, you destroy a piece or two of the Devourer''s set.


    Is that even possible?


    Not sure.


    What if we put it in a vault and seal the entrance?


    Even if it was a true pocket dimension, it wouldn''t stop him just slow him down. It also wouldn''t be that hard for him to open a portal of his own to get to it.


    I guess we need to find the seals first, we can figure out how to kill him then. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 Chapter 151 - Book 55

    Felix returned his attention to the real world and looked up to finally answer Amani''s question. She wasn''t standing in front of him anymore though. Felix''s head darted around until he found her crouched on the ground in front of the metal plate in the floor, behind him. Worst of all, she held it open just a crack.


    "Don''t!"


    "What¡­ What''s down there?"


    "Close it!"


    Amani dropped the door and it made a loud boom that echoed through the floor at their feet causing Felix to wince.


    "Jeez. Sorry." Amani held her hands up in surrender, "Didn''t realize you were so¡­ possessive. You kind of zoned out there for a bit so I thought I would just take a peek. I wasn''t going to take anything, I was just curious."


    Felix sighed, "I was reading the book¡­ Alright look, I''ll tell you what''s down there, but you can''t tell anyone about it, clear?"


    Her eyes lit up at the prospect of learning a secret and she nodded.


    "I''m being serious. Someone is going to think they''re hot shit and try to go down there and just end up killing themselves. It needs to stay a secret. Hopefully this is the only other entrance¡­"


    "Look if it''s just a vault or something, I''m sure it''s not th-"


    "Look, just listen. This entire city, Ky''bel, was built on top of a kingdom. We are standing on a massive ceiling that covers the entire thing. There are Devoured down there too but they''re different. The ones up here are annoying, but dumb. The ones down there are smarter, and have levels starting in the high 200s. They range all the way up to the 600s at least."


    "Bull shit. If they were that high level, you''d be dead."


    The fuck do I say to that?


    Felix just looked at her for a few moments, unsure what to say.


    I could show her, but I don''t want to have to babysit her down there.


    "Alright fine. I''ll show you on one condition."


    "Shoot." Amani sighed and shook her head.


    "We''re bringing Nova, and you have to stay with them at all times, got it?"


    "Your cat? Fine, I''ll babysit your cat for you. Where is it anyway?"


    Felix reached inwards for his soul bond with Nova and felt them just a short distance away, somewhere on the second level. He was about to fly to them then realized he probably shouldn''t leave the trap door exposed. He also realized he probably shouldn''t use the trapdoor at all. They were currently on the second level which meant the castle on the cliff, with it''s absurdly high level Devoured, was sitting directly below them.


    He spent an hour or so with an impatient Amani collapsing the basement around the trapdoor and trying to make it as hard as possible to dig back up. He had to assure Amani more than once that he knew another way in, but she understood the danger of leaving it accessible, if what he claimed was true. Once he was done, he pulled out the shittiest furniture he had and tore it apart, salvaging a large wooden board. He planted it in the rubble and used a fire spell to pyrograph a simple gravestone.


    "Who''s John and Leanne?" Amani asked with a mix of confusion and sympathy as Felix stepped back to admire his handy work.


    "No one. My hope is people are less likely to question a grave than a large mess of rubble and that they''re less likely to dig it up looking for treasure."


    "Isn''t this whole event supposed to be a tomb raiding event? You think people will care?"


    "You might be right about that. One second."


    Felix walked back up to the grave marker and wrote a quick epitaph: "There is no treasure, no loot left. We already cleared the vault and their inventories. Please just leave them to rest, together, in peace."


    "That''s a really sweet sentiment, for your completely imaginary friends that didn''t exist until a few minutes ago." Amani teased.


    Felix just shrugged and started walking in Nova''s direction. As soon as they got to a main road made of the familiar large white bricks, they sped up and began running. Though Felix was supposed to be leading, Amani sped up and passed him. Felix couldn''t help but smile and sped up to surpass her. The competition grew well past where Felix expected it to.


    He initially thought she wouldn''t stand a chance just based on stats alone but, fairly quickly he became convinced she had an energy cycling skill, and one much more efficient than his own. His stats still seemed to be higher, but she was ultimately the faster runner when she activated a skill that made her rise a few inches into the air. Her feet blurred slightly and she seemingly sprung off non existent wind with every step.


    Up to that point Felix had avoided using spells because he didn''t think it would be in the spirit of the competition, but she started it. In the end, that was her biggest mistake. As soon as Felix started flying, she didn''t stand a chance. She tried very hard but Felix just floated in the air just in front of her matching her speed no matter what she did. Finally, Felix stopped just in front of a large white stone mansion with pillars, gargoyles and countless corbels, all carved with incredibly intricate designs. Amani overshot him and almost celebrated for having finally passed him when she realized he had stopped. She walked back over to him and doubled over breathing heavily.


    "It''s this one."


    "Dammit. I thought I finally had you there. Was I close? Were you running out of mana or¡­ could you have gone faster?"


    You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.


    "Not quite and a little faster."


    "Well, I might have won if you hadn''t cheated."


    "You started it. I wasn''t going to use any skills or spells then you did that whole dancing on the wind thing."


    Amani shrugged and chuckled a little, "Guilty."


    "You have an energy cycling skill, don''t you?"


    Amani just nodded, still catching her breath. Felix pulled his flask out of his inventory and offered it to Amani who looked at him a little weirdly before shrugging and taking it. It was still refilling itself with the cold citrus drink that Felix and, according to her face, Amani liked.


    "Yours is definitely more efficient than mine. Any tips?"


    Amani took a large gulp of air, "It''s a race thing. Part of the whole desert elf thing, body is more efficient to survive in the desert."


    Hey Grim, any chance there was a desert elf in the experiments?


    Nope. Not much in terms of efficiency either. It''s pretty much all combat focused. The two you used before were among the only defense focused experiments he conducted.


    Damn.


    Doesn''t sound like this is a desert elf specific thing though, more like a desert creature thing. You could probably find yourself some other desert creatures in the future.


    Good call. We can look for one when we get back.


    "Hello?" Amani was waving her hand in front of Felix''s face.


    "Oh, sorry."


    "You kind of zoned out for a second there."


    "Yeah, sorry. This is the house."


    "There''s another trap door in there?"


    "What? No, Nova''s here."


    "Oh right. The cat¡­ Don''t get me wrong, I like your cat, it''s adorable. I just don''t get why you''re making such a fuss about sticking it on me." Amani handed Felix''s flask back to him.


    Felix didn''t bother answering, figuring he''d just show her soon enough. Instead, he led her around the house into the backyard.


    Looking around, there was a massive hole in the side of the immaculately constructed house with a sealed portal at the epicenter. The backyard itself was laid out like an art gallery. There were stone walkways that created a winding path throughout the entire backyard passing by statues and sculptures. Each piece of art seemed to be made of a different material, some of crystals, others metal and some more exotic.


    It seemed like a trophy room depicting a sculptor''s accomplishments as well as being a showcase of their art. All around and between the art was perfectly groomed vegetation, grass, flowers and hedges all meticulously placed to accentuate the art itself. It was ultimately beautiful, which made Nova''s actions that much more obvious. Each and every one of the statues and sculptures had a single massive bite taken out of them, some of their shapes no longer recognizable because of it. They found Nova napping on the roof of a gazebo right around the middle of the yard.


    As Felix approached, Nova roused and walked on the air towards him. They curled themselves around Felix''s neck and settled mostly on his right shoulder then meowed at Amani.


    Hey Nova. Felix scratched behind they''re ear, I need to go back down to the undercity and Amani is going to come with me. Could you keep an eye on her, keep her safe?


    Nova responded with the mental equivalent of a shrug and a "sure." Felix was just glad they didn''t mind. He was dreading the prospect of babysitting Amani and trying to keep her safe. It wasn''t even that he didn''t like her, he found that he actually mildly enjoyed spending time with her so far, it was that he was already having trouble keeping himself alive up here. Down there, he couldn''t be responsible for her life too, Nova on the other hand had a much higher level and had a much easier time dealing with the Devoured.


    "Alright, now we can go down into the undercity. Nova''s agreed to stay with you as well so that''s taken care of."


    Amani rolled her eyes, "So how do we get there?"


    "It''s kind of a long flight. Guess we get the rope out again."


    "Can''t I just sit on your back? Or I could stand on you, ride you like a surfboard." Amani smiled at the prospect.


    "Uh¡­"


    Felix suddenly received the image of a statue depicting a man riding a six legged horse like thing with large ram horns with an inquisitive intent.


    Yeah, she''s asking if she can ride me.


    Nova meowed in denial and hopped off of Felix''s shoulder onto the ground. He got the image of him riding a large metal panther he recognized as Nova''s preferred combat form.


    "Ah, good idea. She can ride you instead."


    Nova once again meowed in denial.


    You want me specifically to ride you?


    Nova nodded, meowed and walked in a circle.


    What about her?


    He got a sense of, If she has to, she can too.


    Can you fly with someone on your back?


    Nova mentally scoffed at his question. He figured worst case he could use a spell to lift them all, as long as Nova wasn''t too heavy being solid metal.


    "How am I going to ride a cat? Hello¡­ Felix?"


    "Sorry. We''re both gonna ride Nova, they''ll fly us over." He shrugged, "They insisted."


    At that, Nova morphed into the form of a massive metal panther, easily big enough for both of them to mount with space between them. Felix hopped onto Nova and took the front most seat then turned to look at a slightly incredulous Amani.


    "You coming?" He said with more mirth leaking into his facial expression than he was proud of when he finally saw her start to concede her disbelief, even if just a little.


    Due to Nova''s size, there was almost enough room for 4 to squeeze on their back, which meant there was more than enough room for Amani to sit behind Felix, with space between them. Instead, she sat almost right up against Felix''s back whether due to fear of falling off or some other reason, Felix didn''t know. At first he was worried of falling off as Nova''s metallic exterior didn''t provide much friction, but Nova had apparently already thought of this. They slightly morphed their back to have a rougher texture, much easier to hold on to with just their legs. Theoretically, either of them could have formed a saddle with stirrups and all, but Nova didn''t know what a saddle was and Felix was a little vain and thought this looked cooler.


    Once Amani had settled herself comfortably behind Felix, Nova looked back at them, their head turning a little further than was natural. Felix patted their neck and the three of them shot up into the air. It took a few minutes for Nova to adjust to having people ride them, instead of just flying on their own. Simple stuff like taking off too quickly, accelerating, decelerating and spinning through the air. Luckily, Felix didn''t even have to say anything, Nova was more than smart enough to realize what was happening and adjust. After those first few minutes with just a handful of almost mishaps, the ride was smooth and enjoyable. Felix used a wind spell to form a windshield of sorts as they flew outside the city and almost directly west. He also had to assure Amani they were heading in the right direction, more than once.


    Nova remembered the way so they simply sat with their thoughts and the sound of the rushing wind as they flew out past the cliff face. Felix was trying to decide what his next step was. He knew he had to find the seals but he also knew there were plenty of Devoured down in Kroterra that he was not ready to deal with at all. He figured he should probably finalize his experiments on his own skin and decide to either spread them to the rest of his body or continue to iterate. After that, he would look into increasing the strength of his bones followed by his muscles. He figured following that order was probably his safest bet.


    He was also trying to figured out a good way of dealing with the Devoured. He knew he could fall back on using the axe as they were less resistant to physical damage than they were to spells, but he was still a caster, or at least saw himself as one. By the time they reached the west coast, he had essentially accepted his fate and decided he would look into using spells to supplement his fighting with the axe. S§×arch* The N?velFire(.)net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    They dropped down the cliff and into the small cave just peeking out above the water. Nova raced through the caves and into what was once a mine. As soon as they entered Felix was ready with a light spell that he cast above them so they could see. Amani backed up and squeezed her arms around Nova due to the winding nature of the caves and mine whereas Felix practiced using force spells to keep his balance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 Chapter 152 - Book 56

    He hopped off of Nova still in the mines, a kilometer or so away from the edge of the undercity. Nova remained in their larger form and followed Felix while Amani hopped off and took up the rear. Felix dimmed the light and walked right up to the edge of Kroterra. It wasn''t difficult to find a Devoured and lead it away from the city with a couple of Mana Bolts.


    [D] Devoured (Lvl 281)


    Felix quickly dismissed the idea of trying to deal with it himself, which would have taken longer than Felix would have liked as well as potentially endangering Amani. Since this was mostly to prove a point, it was far more efficient for Nova to take it out, though the Devoured''s level already had Amani stepping back into the mines, getting ready to run. With a small mental nudge, Nova pounced over a hundred meters into the Devoured, knocking them to the ground. Their claws ripped through the Devoured''s tight black skin a few times then Nova latched onto it''s head with it''s maw and ripped it free of it''s body.


    Felix turned around and saw Amani standing almost a hundred meters behind him. He gave her a few seconds to process then started walking towards her when she still hadn''t moved a few moments later. Felix reached out and snapped his fingers a couple times in front of her face causing Amani to briefly shake her head and snap out of her day dream.


    "You ok?"


    "Uh¡­ Yeah."


    ''You kind of zoned out there''¡­ Nah, not worth it.


    "Now you see why we can''t let anyone else know about this? I don''t want anyone overestimating themselves and thinking they can come down here."


    "What if they find it on their own?"


    Felix shrugged, "It might happen, not much we can do about that. Just hope they''re smart and fast enough to get out."


    "Nova¡­ The cat¡­"


    "Level? 353."


    "How?"


    "Fighting and killing things." Felix shrugged.


    "No- Well- Duh, I mean how is that your familiar?"


    "They weren''t always this high level. I found them at 27, they just spent the last few months in the wilds of Trenus."


    "Bullshit. That''s way too fast."


    Felix shrugged, "I don''t know what to tell you. Just don''t wander away from Nova and you''ll be fine."


    "Wait- What do you mean? Where are you going?"


    "There are some things I need to do in the undercity."


    "You can''t go in there. Your only at 163, and your class is only 135. You''re going to kill yourself. We need to leave. Right now."


    "You can see my level?"


    "What? Uh- Yeah, I have a skill to identify creatures."


    "Huh. I''ll be fine. It takes a while to kill them, but it''s not impossible. Just need to make sure they can''t get to you." Felix said as he started walking away. Amani reached forwards to stop him but Nova held her back with their body, having understood what was happening.


    Felix darted off into the undercity, taking his light with him. He knew Nova could produce fire and assumed Amani would have some way to deal with the darkness herself. In the worst case scenario, Nova could protect her and if she wanted to leave, Nova could escort her easily. The hardest part would be communication, but Felix had full faith in them to figure it out. He ran through the streets, avoiding the Devoured as much as he could until he found a building he had previously found and cleared out. He walked up to the second floor in a now empty bedroom.


    Hey Grim.


    Hello.


    So the Devourer set, the seals. How do we find them?


    Binding a sentient soul to an object requires an extreme amount of precision and time, at least to do it well. Considering how rushed they were, the person who created the seals, there''s no way they''re perfect. If they aren''t perfect, they''ll act like a natural treasures. You''ll be able to sense them, but so will everything else down here. Creatures will sense them, be drawn to them, try and protect them, to ultimately try and use them.


    Lovely. So the strongest Devoured will be surrounding them. Guess that means one or all of them are in the castle then.


    Not necessarily. It''s not going to be that loud. I suspect it will be a local maxima in level, not a global one.


    Great. So only Devoured in the 400s instead of the 700s and above. If that''s the case, what''s in the castle?


    Could be a seal, you might be right it might be all of them. Who knows? Maybe it''s some other natural treasure.


    If I''m going to fight the strongest Devoured in here, I need to figure out a way to kill them efficiently and ideally get stronger and¡­ I can''t really gain levels.


    You could level your profession.


    The stats are nice, but increasing my intelligence hasn''t increased my damage for some time now.


    You could try creating new spells.


    I thought about that. Am I realistically going to be able to create something that helps me kill the Devoured?


    Sure. Just figure out a spell using blades or something.


    I''ve tried that before. Creating blades out of mana isn''t great. The blades aren''t that strong and if they ever break, I have to run away to recreate them. Ideally I need actual metal blades that I can control with mana. I just don''t see that happening right now. I''m leaning towards just using the axe.


    That is definitely faster. Just doesn''t really seem to suit you as much.


    I agree. A spell is definitely ideal. Do you know any spells that would work?


    I can''t give you any spells, stupid forced convictions and all. I can tell you¡­ no. I don''t know any. Honestly though, I don''t know that many spells. So what''s the plan then with the axe?


    I need to be stronger, literally strong. I want to modify my muscles but before I do that, I think I need to make my bones stronger. I don''t want to accidentally fracture a bone or make my muscles stronger than my bones can handle.


    Good call. Let me look through the experiments¡­ Try looking at 31, here''s the experiment log.


    If you come across this story on Amazon, it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it.


    Pulling the corpse out of his inventory and placing it on the floor, experiment 31 was a race Felix recognized immediately, it was a minotaur. The corpse was easily 50% taller than Felix and proportionally much wider. It''s shoulders and hips were wide and it''s arms and legs were long and thick, all to support massive rippling muscles that differed only slightly in structure from a human''s. In terms of it''s bones, there were the exposed horns but Felix was wary of using them as a template as he figured they might be structured differently from internal bones.


    Instead, he morphed his staff into a saw and cut right through one of it''s legs and arms then cut off a small slice from the bones in each. Due to the way Erolan had preserved the corpses, they still contained blood so it was a messy affair. Felix did his best to stow the body and the extras as soon as he could to keep them preserved but he still ended up wasting a lot of blood.


    Pulling the two samples into his soul space, Felix started by examining the leg bone and comparing it to his own. Structurally, they were essentially the same with three main parts, bone marrow which contained nerves, blood vessels and created blood cells. Then in the thick parts of the bone there was bone that looked like a sponge that was filled with similar stuff to what marrow was made of. Lastly, there was the hard part of the bone making up the vast majority of it''s skeleton. This was what seemed to be giving bones their structural rigidity and their signature hardness.


    Luckily, the Minotaur bones were very similar to his own in structure. He didn''t plan on touching anything expect the hard part of his bone because he didn''t want to mess with the marrow that produced blood cells. He wasn''t knowledgeable or confident enough for that yet. Not that he thought modifying his skin or muscles was any less risky, he was just more confident he would notice the side effects before it was too late.


    The big difference between his bones and the minotaur''s bones, other than them just being bigger, was the fact that the hard bone was made up of a different material it seemed. Taking a closer look, the hard part of the bone consisted of a network of cells that constructed bone matter around themselves. Lastly, he noticed an outer layer covering the bone, both his and the minotaur''s, though the minotaur''s was thicker and it''s fibers were much stronger.


    The process to upgrade his bones was tedious and painful at first and involved using another experiment with cells that would eat his bone first. Once he created a cavity he would replace the cells that previously created his bones with modified ones using the minotaur''s bones as a template. The other layer was a similar process but used even more temporary cells. He made sure to only replace the humerus in his left arm and by the time he was finished, had fallen into a rhythm of sorts that was much faster than when he had begun.


    He figured that in the worst case scenario, having his left arm out of commission was better than not being able to run away. His right hand was his dominant one too so he would still be able to hold and use tools in that situation. He thought about using a smaller bone at first, but wanted to use a bone where the effects would be obvious and easy to test. Luckily, he had an easy test stowed safely away in his inventory.


    Pulling out the great axe, experiment 43, Felix simply swung it using his left arm to guide it followed by his right. His muscles were still obviously being torn apart with each and every swing, but the bone in his upper left arm wasn''t fracturing slightly with every swing. He planned on waiting just a little bit to make sure there were no other side effects, but so far it seemed to have worked out.


    He quickly checked both of his legs and found that the fibrous tissue on his leg seemed normal but the regenerative layer on his other leg was slowly growing, like his skin was inflating. It was very slow as it didn''t have anywhere to go, but eventually, it would cause his skin to become as thick as a trolls. He spent a few hours fiddling with it and eventually incorporated another experiment, a plant this time that reminded him of a fungi.


    According to the experiment log, the plant would spread out indefinitely if it wasn''t eaten or stopped. As it spread out, it would form a new plant completely independent of the original and they would continue to duplicate in every direction. These individual plants were tiny and consisted of just a small collection of cells. Each one had it''s own control center cell, the brain of the plant that would direct and control the rest of the plant as well as communicate with the other plants around it.


    Felix modified some of his own cells in the image of these control center cells and used them to keep the regenerative layer dormant while there was no injury to repair. He was glad this solution ended up working because the alternative was to shed his skin every few weeks or more as he recently learned trolls had to do. sea??h th§× Novel?ire(.)ne*t website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    Before looking at his muscles in any capacity, Felix headed out to properly test his bones as well as test the axe on the higher level Devoured. He wasn''t proficient enough with the axe, and it was simply too big, to use it with precision so he avoided any alleys or tight corridors. Instead he found his way to a large open area in the Kroterra that seemed to have once been a town square or park. He used a couple Mana Bolts to pull a Devoured''s attention and drag it into the square then readied himself and the axe.


    The Devoured rushed at him, using all four limbs to run, resembling something out of a horror movie as it screeched. Ten meters from Felix, the creature sprung into the air and reached it''s claws forwards, reaching for his face. Felix stepped aside, out of arms reach and swung upwards as hard as he could with the axe. His timing was off and instead of bisecting the creature he simply dug the blade into it''s thigh. The axe dragged the creature''s body with it as it swung all the way over Felix''s head. The creature''s body was launched off in mid air and collided with a building on the side of the square while the axe''s head dug itself into the ground on the other side of Felix.


    The creature pulled itself to it''s feet and ran back towards it''s prey, clearly favoring the leg that had been struck. Felix wrenched on the axe and just barely managed to pull it free in time to dive aside and dodge the creatures swipe. It managed to cut his leg but luckily it landed on the fibrous thigh and his modifications resulted in scratches on his leg instead of his leg being shredded. They both took similar time to recover so they squared off again, this time Felix rushing the creature as well. Instead of dodging to the side, Felix swung the axe straight downwards hoping to cut the creature in two length wise. While he did manage to strike it and stop it''s advance before it struck him, his aim was off and he only cut through it''s torso, to the side of it''s head.


    The Devoured jumped back and Felix wrenched his axe out of the ground once again. The creature''s entire left side was useless as it''s shoulder and arm hung loosely to the side, completely detached from the waist up. Of course, instead of running, the crazy zombie monster just ran at Felix once again. Possibly the most disturbing part to Felix, was the fact that the injury was completely dry, he had expected the creature to be trailing ichor behind it. Instead, it clearly didn''t need anything resembling blood or liquid. The fact that it was so different, so alien to what he knew was simply disturbing. It also made him rethink his next attack. He had planned on beheading the creature but decided against that. His best bet at this point, was simply delimbing it and removing any threat it posed, whether or not that killed it.


    Ding You have slain a [D] Devoured (Lvl 294)


    Luckily with how injured the creature was, whether or not it seemed to realize it, it didn''t pose much threat to Felix anymore and he was able to take it out fairly efficiently. Before any other Devoured caught wind of him, even if their perception was abysmal, Felix hurried back to a safe building and meditated. Even though the creature had only hit him a single time and barely scratched him, he was missing a sixth of his health, mostly from swinging the axe around. Turning his attention internally, Felix inspected his body and saw his muscles were torn to shreds and his bones were fractured all over the place. His body was clearly not built to handle the axe, at least not yet. Looking at the humerus in his left arm, the bone was entirely intact and seemed to be uninjured.


    So long as he didn''t notice any side effects in the next few days, Felix planned on modifying the rest of his bones, at least the large structural ones. He was wary of modifying the small ones in his ear for fear of losing or altering his hearing forever. He would have to look at the Minotaur or maybe even some other creature''s ear for guidance. While he waited to be sure about the modifications to his bones, Felix planned on scouring the kingdom for any sign of the seals. If he could at least locate them, he could figure out what he was up against and maybe even form some kind of plan.


    Before that though, Felix quickly went through his morning routine of Dragon''s Dance and lifting weights. It wasn''t morning and it had been slightly over a day since he had last done it but he figured now was the best time because he wanted to average doing it about once a day. He realized he should probably also do some stretching and mobility work. The Dragon''s Dance incorporated some, but especially if he was going to modify his muscles and actually stress his body with the axe, stretching should help with fighting and staving off injuries. At least, that''s what he remembered from when he was working out back on earth. He did a quick series of stretches, mostly focusing on large areas for now.


    Once he was done, Felix headed out of the building and deeper into the kingdom of Kroterra. Instead of heading straight for the center of the kingdom, where he knew the lake, cliff and castle were, he headed east. He crossed over the river, out of the commercial district and into the poorer area of the residential districts. It was possible the seals, multiple or even just one of them were in the castle. It was likely even, but Felix didn''t think he was ready to face the Devoured guarding the castle yet so instead he decided he would deal with the rest of the kingdom, leaving the castle for last. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 Chapter 153 - Book 57

    Traveling through the residential district to the east of the castle, Felix found multiple forges, warehouses and apartments. Everything was incredibly dense and even claustrophobic at times. The streets were barely wide enough for a small cart to pass through, not nearly enough for two carts side by side like they had been in the commercial district. Felix darted through the streets running from and avoiding all Devoured because he didn''t even want to try and fight them in the cramped space. He accidentally attracted the attention of a few of them but managed to lose them fairly quickly. His stealth seemed to be steadily improving, not that the Devoured were a great judge by any means.


    As he traveled around the city to the north, the buildings around him grew further and further apart until he was in what he would call a normal suburb. The houses were separated, there were parks and squares, some of the houses had yards and the roads were wide enough for two carts to travel side by side along with a walkway. Unfortunately, the Devoured''s levels had also been steadily growing and from a quick glance around him, Felix estimated their levels here, on the east side, to be around 350.


    It wasn''t a huge jump, but the steady increase was worrying. Felix''s best bet to defeating the Devoured down here was the axe, but in just a single fight he had to expend a significant chunk of his own health. If he had to deal with droves of them protecting a seal, he would end up tearing all his muscles and killing himself. He wasn''t sure how that death would look, his health dropping to 0 without any external injuries. If he had to bet, he guessed his body would simply collapse then completely shut down, unable to repair all the internal damage. Hopefully he would never have to find out.


    As he made his way further north, now that the streets were wide enough, Felix began picking fights with lone Devoured. He needed the practice and literal battle experience if he was going to be able to push further into the kingdom. Felix made sure to only fight at most one at a time and to spend time recovering between each and every fight. In the first dozen fights he took about one hit a fight, though they never dealt more damage than he did to himself just from swinging the axe. He started realizing that fighting with the axe wasn''t sustainable and he wasn''t going to modify his muscles until he was sure of his bones, so he needed to do something in the meantime.


    Though it wasn''t ideal, Felix began practicing with augmenting his swings using spells. Instead of swinging the axe using just his strength, he used a force spell to push the axe. At first it was a nightmare, luckily though, he was testing it outside of battle. Using force spells helped push the axe, but it also made it unwieldy to use. The axe unintentionally flew out of his hands multiple times before he started to get the hang of it.


    The first issue was that he had to change the direction he was applying the force so the axe swung in an arc instead of flying out in a straight line. After that, he also had to use force to stop or slow the axe once it had swung through his imaginary target. A real target brought real resistance to the swing so it would be less of an issue then, but he also didn''t want to be completely vulnerable if he happened to miss.


    He settled on simply casting multiple spells in succession. He used one for the swing and another for slowing down the axe. While this helped him actually swing the axe and not tear his body up at the same time, it also made it difficult to strike accurately with the axe. So while it helped, it would be best used against large creatures where it was already difficult to miss. As it was, there was no way he could use it to make his swings faster against normal human sized enemies, like most of the Devoured, without missing with the vast majority of his swings. However, he kept using spells to slow down his strikes and avoid swinging the axe into the ground which made him much less vulnerable as he didn''t have to constantly pry it free. As soon as the axe had struck his target, he cast his force spell and it felt like it was being swung through honey until it came to a stop.


    Felix continued to pick off individual Devoured and slowly trudge through the ruins of the kingdom heading north. While their levels gradually increased, his skill with the axe did as well. He wasn''t necessarily getting much stronger, his strength stat only increased by a handful in the last day, his timing and aim on the other hand were improving rapidly. As he traveled northwards, his skill with the axe outpaced the Devoured''s levels making it feel progressively easier the further he traveled.


    By the time their levels started surpassing the 400s, he rarely if ever missed his intended target and ended up bisecting them with the majority of his strikes. At first he simply swung to the side but that had the unfortunate issue of often having their corpses stuck to the axe blade. Instead, he learned to wait for them to pounce then he swung downwards using the cobblestone road as a cutting board. Once they were split in two, usually from the shoulder down, even though somehow most of them lived, finishing them off was trivial.


    As Felix stealthed his way through the buildings and alleyways the houses grew larger and the area definitively wealthier up until he reached a wall. He had simply expected the houses to continue all the way around, like he had seen from above but before him was a couple meter tall thin stone wall. It hadn''t held up very well so it was relatively easy for Felix to spot a section that had crumbled that he could get through just a few meters away. He just as easily could have hopped over it but the Devoured were starting to become more cognizant of their surroundings so he tried his best to not draw unnecessary attention to himself.


    Walking over to the crumbled section of the wall, Felix looked through into the neighborhood beyond and saw a stark difference when compared to the buildings around him. While the buildings had slowly grown in size and comfort as he walked north, beyond the walls the houses were once luxurious. Around him the houses were like townhouses in a suburb back on earth. Beyond the wall, the houses were more like modern mansions and old money estates.


    They were all surrounded by yards and had held up much better to the throes of time, no doubt due to the use of superior materials. Even though he had just seen estates and mansions just as big if not bigger up in Ky''Bel on the second level, these stood out for a few reasons. Firstly, they appeared to generally be in better condition even though they had been built long before the ones above. They also contrasted the houses he had just been walking through so drastically and he had grown accustomed to the gradual increase as he walked. Lastly, just looking through the wall, Felix could tell the Devoured on the other side were different.


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    Not only were all the Devoured''s levels in the 400s, rather than just a handful, they were also less zombie like. Instead of just loitering in the streets and aimlessly walking around with awful posture, Felix spotted multiple Devoured standing straight and walking with purpose. Some carried weapons and wore scraps of armor others wore fancy clothes and carried books. He even spotted a pair of them that appeared to be arguing with grunts and moans, something he never would have thought possible of the Devoured.


    Felix immediately refocused on being stealthy and crept through the hole in the wall. His feet landed on soft dirt that he suspected was once a park, though there wasn''t any hint of vegetation remaining. He carefully made his way along the wall, towards the nearest building so he could duck behind it. He wanted to avoid traveling through large open spaces as much as possible in case these Devoured were more perceptive than the others.


    Felix darted from building to building using the remnants of fences and statues to obscure his movements as much as he could. He ended up making his way north, towards the outside of the kingdom and away from the castle. As he did, the growth in the Devoured''s levels started to slow down until they completely stopped. Peeking around the corner of a mansion, Felix looked around and noticed there were no Devoured anywhere around him. He could see some walking along the streets to the south and east but it was almost like there was an invisible line they wouldn''t cross.


    Looking ahead to the north, he immediately knew why. A massive area of the kingdom had been completely razed. The ground was blackened and the mansions reduced to char completely evenly. It looked like a massive explosion of fire had gone off and obliterated everything. Felix crept towards the edge of it to try and see if he could figure out what had happened. He walked right up to it though and wasn''t able to discern anything more than it was burnt. Looking around, he confirmed his suspicions that the Devoured were staying away from the area.


    He decided before investigating the area, he would use it''s repellant effect to his advantage. He crept through the buildings and found the nearest Devoured which was walking down the street wearing scraps of leather armor and held a rusted short sword. A Mana Bolt struck it in the side of the head causing it to whirl itself around. Felix drew the creature towards the blackened area of the kingdom right up to the point where it stopped and screeched at him. Easily still a few dozen meters from the edge of the charring, the creature would not take another step forwards.


    Perfect.


    Felix rushed back up to the creature and swung at it with his axe. The creature simply hopped back and completely avoided the strike. As soon as it''s toes touched the ground, it launched itself forwards and stabbed at Felix who was still trying to recover from his strike and pull his axe up.


    Since he was completely vulnerable physically, Felix quickly cast a spell firing off a blast of force into the creature rushing him to knock it aside. The creature hit the ground and rolled to it''s feet then rushed him again, this time swiping at him from the side. This time, Felix hauled the axe blade in front of the sword barely in time to block the strike. The creature whirled the blade around and went for a quick jab to Felix''s other side where he had no chance of moving the axe in time. Felix jumped backwards and barely managed to hold onto the axe as it pulled on his arms and stressed his shoulder joints to the limit.


    He landed on the ground a few meters away but landed on his back because of the axe''s momentum. Luckily he had landed a couple meters past the line the Devoured wouldn''t cross so it simply stood there screeching at him. Felix took a few moments to stand back up and pull the axe''s blade out of the ground then walked back up to the creature. They continued their duel, where Felix desperately tried to match the quick strikes of the short sword by blocking as many as he could with the axe. He didn''t even try to strike back with the axe because he already knew it was far too slow by itself.


    After a few hours of repelling the creature''s strikes, where it only landed a dozen or so minor scratches, Felix backed up and meditated as his health was dangerously low. He had accidentally let it get all the way down to just 10%. Normally he would never let it get this low but he was so absorbed in the fight and getting better at predicting, reading and blocking his enemy that he barely noticed it plummeting.


    This time, Felix only practiced constructing a single Fire Ball spell while he meditated with the majority of his focus absorbed in mentally reviewing the duel. He managed to find a few things he could do to definitely improve and a dozen that might result in improvement that he would try out. Once he had completely restored his health pool he opened his eyes and was happy to find the Devoured he had been fighting still standing exactly where he had left it, hollow sockets trained on him. If he wasn''t so excited to get back into it, and so used to the Devoured at this point, he would definitely have found it very creepy.


    This time, Felix added in pivots and short steps to dodge any strikes he had no hope of blocking. He also made sure to step into his axe strikes and towards the blade at the end of a strike to hide more of his body behind the axe as well as have more leverage to stop it. He still had no hope of actually striking the creature but he had massively reduced the number of close calls and rarely had to completely bail from the fight now.


    He still got cut a few times as they fought but the scariest part of the short sword was not it''s razor sharp edge that no longer existed. Every time it struck him, the rust encrusted blade risked an infection of some kind if it managed to cut through his robes at all. Luckily, his body was able to deal with it quickly especially given how shallow the wounds were. Without an actual edge, it was difficult for the creature to actually fatally harm him with the sword. In fact, Felix suspected it would be much better off using it''s claws and wasn''t entirely sure why it didn''t. He didn''t question it too much though at the moment as he was more than happy for the easy battle experience with what was effectively a training dummy to him.


    Felix continued this cycle for almost a day of dueling the creature then backing up to recover and analyze the fight. He was improving, he could tell but he had reached a plateau of sorts. He realized that he could accurately predict just about every strike, largely due to it''s sinewy muscle showing through it''s skin, but he still hadn''t found openings to strike back. If a real fight went like this, he would simply kill himself just from swinging the axe around. Thinking back to what he knew from fantasy barbarians, he was starting to think he was going to have to get hit in order to land any strikes. S§×ar?h the Novel?ire(.)ne*t website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    The axe was too unwieldy to be able to land a strike on a creature as small and nimble as a human unless they had already committed to a strike of their own. He had tried stowing it at the end of a strike then pulling it out right when he needed it but his inventory wouldn''t let him retrieve or stow things in the middle of an attack. He could do so, given a few moments, between swings, but not mid swing. He was disappointed but figured it was probably better this way so fighters with weapons weren''t constantly pulling out shields and swords just to block single strikes. He didn''t love the idea of just accepting hits, even if he did so strategically so he tried to think of another way while he performed his daily routine of stretching, weights and the Dragon Dance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 Chapter 154 - Book 58

    By the end of his morning routine Felix hadn''t come up with any better ideas than just taking a strike in order to land one so he decided to give it a shot. He decided that if he was going to accept some hits, he was going to minimize their damage as much as possible. It had been a decent amount of time now and he was pretty sure the modifications to his skin were probably safe enough. He planned on waiting a few more days for the bones to display any side effects, even though they would greatly reduce the axe''s strain on his body. sea??h th§× ¦ÇovelFire.¦Çet website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    Before engaging the Devoured once again, Felix sat down and entered a meditation but kept his focus within his body. He slowly spread out the new cells he had been experimenting with across his entire body, making minor adjustments to accommodate hair follicles which he had ignored on his legs. He spread them out all at once and the entire process took a few hours which was much faster than he was expecting. The fact that his body was almost entirely symmetrical from the perspective of his skin alone helped tremendously.


    When he was done, he stood up and ran his hands along his arms, face and stomach and found that his skin felt both softer to the touch and yet was less pliable overall. Also visually, the layer of troll tissue used for regeneration added a slight thickness to his skin making it look like he had gained a few pounds of fat. He didn''t mind it at all though, instead of incredibly lean from all his working out in the tutorial, he looked like what he thought of as more normal. He made sure to test the skin in as many places as he could with small cuts before redressing and recovering his health back to full.


    Once he was completely restored, Felix stood back up and walked towards his dueling partner once again. He spent the first few minutes adjusting to the fact that his skin was resisting him ever slightly more than before. It didn''t result in anything more than a negligible amount of resistance to his strikes but that was accompanied by an odd sensation he was unfamiliar with. His excitement at finally felling his enemy was quickly drowned out by the novel sensations. Felix refocused himself and prepared.


    The next time the Devoured lunged forward to strike, Felix wound up and swung the axe as hard as he could at the creature. It''s strike scraped his rib area and tore through his robes but didn''t score more than a scratch on his skin. The creature saw the axe coming and tried to launch itself back using it''s front leg. The reach of the massive weapon however made it so that instead of dodging the strike, it lined itself up with the blade and got itself decapitated.


    That was¡­ not what I was expecting. I was aiming for it''s torso then it stepped back and¡­ damn.


    Felix struck down and finished off the wriggling corpse as soon as he recovered from the massive swing. He was pretty sure it would have eventually died without a head, but he also didn''t want to risk it. Inspecting his wound he was extremely satisfied with his skin and how it had held together. He made sure the wound was clean and had both it and his robes heal themselves completely before he dashed out into the kingdom to find another Devoured.


    Though he was curious what the book wielding Devoured would do in a fight, Felix was feeling nostalgic over the enemy he had been fighting for the last few days so he hunted down one with a blade. This time, he settled on one with a longsword and a shield, drawing it over to the imaginary line they all seemed to be wary of. This fight was unfortunately far easier than Felix was hoping. They traded just a couple of blows before Felix struck forwards with more of a testing strike than anything. The creature lifted it''s shield in response and the axe simply ripped right through it like it was paper. The Devoured that had planted itself behind didn''t fare much better.


    From that point onwards, Felix mostly avoided the Devoured with shields and sought out the ones that seemed to be better equipped. He fought ones with everything from great swords to daggers though never any with range. If any Devoured with a bow caught wind of him, he simply ran further than it could chase. He was trying to duel after all and archers were simply annoying. He did manage to figure out what most of the Devoured did though.


    The ones with books were casters though they weren''t very effective. Their spells failed more often than they actually worked making them more pitiful than anything. In a large scale battle where there were hundreds or even thousands of these casters, they could still be devastating as the spells that succeeded covered for the the ones that didn''t in rotation. In a duel, they were a pitiful excuse for a fight and Felix simply put them out of their misery.


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    Over time, Felix unintentionally ended up working his way all the way around the burnt area as he sought enemies of a higher level. The highest he managed to find was sitting at 538 but he was certain now that the Devoured''s stats were not representative of their level. He suspected their level was a remnant of what they had been before they were Devoured but all he knew for sure was that he was not fighting creatures level 500 and up.


    By his estimations and quick mental math, he figured they had at most half of their previous stats from before they had been devoured. Some of their stats had suffered more than others and some of them were more like a third or less. He also figured their endurance now had to be higher than it was previously. Even if he was level 500, he didn''t think his skin would be as resilient as theirs was. It was possible it would be with some modifications but Felix had trouble imagining that now.


    Another large contributing factor was that not only could he predict their actions, but he realized he could dictate their actions to a certain degree. The Devoured seemed to be in a state of constant reaction to the world around them without actually thinking though any of their actions. If he stepped a certain way or swung his axe from a particular direction, all of them reacted entirely predictably. Once he noticed the pattern, the fights became much easier and much less fun.


    He even started fighting a couple of them at once. It took him half a day or so to get the hang of it, but eventually he could simply make them take certain actions that would doom themselves. He got up to fighting 3 Devoured at once before he got bored of them and decided to investigate the razed area he had been abusing for the last few days. He didn''t see any Devoured in the area but he stealthed as best he could anyways because he figured it was safer that way.


    Though he had ended up traveling all the way around the edge of the area, he didn''t really appreciate how gigantic it was because he wasn''t really paying attention to it. Now, traveling from the west edge towards the center, he kept wondering how much further he had to go. Checking his map, the radius of the burnt area reached almost a third of the way to the castle at the center of the kingdom.


    Eventually though he reached the edge of the kingdom which was surrounded by a vertical cliff face made of the same stone that was being mined on the other end. The cliff face itself was also blackened lending more credence to the theory that an explosion had occurred. At the center of the burnt area was a large hole in the cliff face that was almost perfectly circular with oddly smooth edges to it, like the stone itself had been melted.


    Felix couldn''t see very far into the cave as he was relying on as little light as possible to avoid drawing attention to himself. Given the cave''s location at the direct center of the blast radius, Felix figured it might have some clues inside. He made sure to prepare himself multiple spells to launch himself out of the cave just in case then carefully crept inside. His attention was split between making sure he was as stealthy as possible and paying attention to every sense he had.


    The cave itself wasn''t very deep, opening up into a large circular cavern about half a kilometer in. Before he saw it, Felix heard it, a deep rumbling breath followed by a gust of wind from an exhale. Felix immediately dropped his light spell and stopped moving but realized he was probably safe when the breathing rhythmically repeated itself a half dozen times.


    Reconjuring his light, Felix directed it towards the center of the cavern and caught a glimpse of a massive scaly hide. He couldn''t see enough of it to identify it yet but as he carefully revealed more of it, he realized it appeared to be a massive black dragon. It had two thick back legs with a long tail stretching out behind it. It''s front legs stretched outwards with small wings extending out from the joints. Lastly, it''s head was attached to it''s body by a massive serpentine like neck covered in dull spikes that formed a dark mane. Felix didn''t risk shining his light at it''s head for fear it would rouse. The fact that it was sleeping at all was odd as Felix was certain none of the Devoured he had encountered had done so. They also didn''t breathe, making this either the only exception he had encountered or it wasn''t Devoured at all.


    That thing has to be guarding one of the seals.


    Felix wasn''t ecstatic about having to fight the creature but he didn''t really see any other option. He could try and steal the seal, if only he knew where it was. For all he knew, the creature was sitting on it, or even worse, had swallowed it. If he was going to have to fight it, Felix decided to prepare himself as best he could. He carefully backed all the way out of the cave and walked a few kilometers away from the entrance before finding himself a small nook where he could sleep. While he didn''t think he technically needed to sleep ever, he could still fall asleep so he figured it had to have some effect.


    He woke up and spent a few hours practicing forming mobility spells and force blasts to make sure he would be ready when he needed them. Finally, he spread the adjustments he had made to his bones throughout his skeleton, carefully testing the bones in his ears and jaw to make sure he didn''t deafen himself. He ran through his stretches, workout and the dragon dance mostly to make sure his bones were functioning properly. They didn''t result in anything feeling dramatically different though so steeled his resolve and skulked back towards and into the cave. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 Chapter 155 - Book 59

    Though he didn''t want to get too close, Felix knew that a solid strike with the axe was likely far more effective than a single spell, unless he used a massive amount of mana. He also knew that casting a spell too large could result in backlash which he had experienced for the first time about a week ago now when he first found Kroterra. Knowing this, Felix crept towards the back of it''s neck as stealthily as he could manage and pulled the axe out of his inventory. Given how hard it would be to miss, Felix decided to add some force to his swing this time around. He lifted the axe above his shoulder and prepared to swing when he heard the creature''s rhythmic breathing completely stop.


    Oh fuck.


    Felix immediately bailed on the swing as the creature rapidly lifted itself off the ground. He stowed the axe, brightened his light and launched himself out of the cave. Before he had even reached the exit the creature roared, or at least he assumed that''s what had happened. All he knew was that he was lucky he hadn''t deafened himself earlier because he would have stolen the chance for this thing to deafen him. He was already in the air so Felix''s momentum carried him out of the cave where he smashed into the charred remains of some building. He knew the creature was chasing him as he felt it''s feet strike and echo vibrations through the ground. He quickly scrambled to his feet and darted off to the side as he looked over his shoulder and caught a glimpse of the creature now chasing him.


    [D] Partially Devoured Wyvern (Lvl 592)


    At it''s full height, the creature was at least five times Felix''s height and a couple orders of magnitude heavier. Though it wasn''t a dragon, it sure looked like one to Felix and was equally as intimidating as what he imagined. Considering it was a Devoured, his spells would be basically useless which meant he needed to somehow get up close to it to use his axe.


    The Wyvern wasted no time in chasing him down and trying to swallow him whole. Felix stowed the axe to make sure it didn''t slow him down and dove to the side as the Wyvern''s head lurched forwards towards him. Though he managed to avoid the bite, the clawed end of it''s wing unintentionally buried him in rubble when he landed. Felix released one of the force blasts he had prepared just to dig himself out, accidentally winding himself because of how close to his body he needed to release it.


    Once free, Felix started running away as fast as he could diving to either side every few steps to avoid the wyvern barreling towards him. He dove to the side once again and this time managed to catch himself with solid ground beneath his feet allowing him to prepare himself. He retrieved the axe from his inventory and waited for the creature to charge towards him again, this time jumping to the side and striking down towards it''s neck. Felix struck with all of his strength but didn''t have any extra force spells prepared. The axe connected and sunk into it''s hide just a couple centimeters which was just far enough for it to get stuck. The wyvern ripped it''s head away from Felix and jumped aside, ripping the axe out of his hands and taking it along with it.


    The creature, instead of preparing itself for another strike, backed up further until it was a few hundred meters away before it started running to the side. It reached a pile of debris and planted it''s leg''s before launching itself dozens of meters into the air and stretching it''s front legs out. The sinewy flesh attached to the back of it''s joints extended and it started gliding down arcing itself around towards Felix. As soon as it had lined up it''s flight path, the creature opened it''s maw. Felix already knew what was going to happen given the charred state of his surroundings so he jumped with the already prepared force spells he had and dove off to the side. The creature simply turned it''s head following him and spewed thick roiling clouds of fire over the entire area.


    Felix felt the heat behind him and felt the skin on the back of his head burning to a crisp. The rest of his body was burnt, but the insulation his robes provided made it less severe. The layer of skin he had just added immediately sprung to action filling in the gaps and lessening the pain. Felix scrambled to his feet and started running as fast as he could away from the wyvern which was in the process of launching itself into the air for another round. Felix noticed the axe had fallen out of it''s hide at some point but he had no idea where and didn''t have time to find it so instead he began preparing a series of spells he hoped would do anything.


    When the creature looped back around through the air this time, Felix began launching the most solid chunks of debris he could find with force spells at the creature. He didn''t hit very many and the couple he did hit, only pushed it off to the side by a small margin. Not nearly enough to divert it''s flight path. He tried to avoid the fire but only managed to trip himself barely managing to pull up a Mana Shield to protect his face from the direct fire. His entire body cooked inside his robes from the surrounding heat of the continuous blast of fire that seemed to last for minutes. Felix''s skin was working overtime to heal himself and he had to dull the pain just to make sure he could stand up.


    As soon as he got to his feet, Felix heard a loud sound behind him and turned to see the wyvern tearing through the rubble as it prepared to launch itself once again. As it ran, it tore through building remnants, chunks of stone and anything that stood in it''s path as if it didn''t exist at all. Felix excitedly realized his hearing had somewhat healed and restored his sense of balance. He quickly looked around and spotted the axe stuck in a small crater where the wyvern had landed. Felix waited for it to line itself up once again then cast the biggest light and sound spell he could in it''s direction and ran towards the axe.


    The shock bought him enough time to get to the axe without fire breathing down his neck. When he turned around, the wyvern was shaking it''s head, trying to regain it''s senses after being temporarily blinded and deafened. Felix ripped the axe out of the ground with more strength than was necessary and bolted towards the creature. He knew this was a desperate strike, only slightly less desperate now that his balance had returned with his hearing, but it was the best shot he was gonna get.


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    He leapt off a chunk of stone using a prepared force spell to launch himself into the air and hoisted the axe over his head. He smashed the axe into the creature''s left arm and it sunk right through it''s flesh and got itself stuck in it''s bone. It wasn''t exactly where he was aiming, not even very close really, but he was just happy he had struck it at all.


    Felix was ready this time and released another force spell he had prepared tearing the axe out of it''s arm and launching it into the air. The creature bellowed out in pain and started smashing everything around it with it''s absurd strength. The tantrum it threw ended up launching entire halves of buildings into the air and the sound alone was enough to deafen anyone close by. Luckily, the axe had carried Felix through the air and far enough away from the creature that the sound was painful, but not deafening.


    By the time Felix landed and got to his feet, the wyvern had recovered and seemed to be particularly mad at him. It turned to the side and tried to launch itself into the air but the strike to it''s left arm caused it to limp and not gain enough momentum to barrel through the rubble like it normally did. When it leapt into the air, it started gliding then immediately retracted it''s left arm in pain and crashed into the ground.


    Felix started rushing over to it with the axe resting on his shoulder and managed to reach it just as it got back to it''s feet. The creature had realized it wasn''t going to be flying anytime soon so instead it went back to trying to bite Felix and barrel through him. He dove under it''s wing and managed to avoid it''s claws, rolling to the side and coming to his feet just in time to see it''s tail swinging at him. The only option Felix had to defend himself was the axe so he swung it around to intercept and just managed to get it between him and it. Through the force of the wyvern''s own tail swing, the axe dug into the tail much further than Felix had expected, almost completely severing it.


    It did throw Felix back a few meters but he managed to land on his feet and the axe came with him. The creature roared again, more out of pain than rage this time, except it''s voice cracked and didn''t hurt nearly as much as it usually did from this distance. It spun around and tried to bite again but without it''s tail, it''s coordination was much worse and it only took Felix a couple steps to completely avoid it. As it''s head passed by right in front of him, Felix hoisted the axe into the air and struck down into it''s neck, hitting the underside because it had turned it''s head for the bite.


    The axe ripped through it''s flesh and came out the other side causing it to immediately spurt out a sickly black blood with every labored breath. The creature stumbled backwards and desperately tried to breathe fire in Felix''s direction but immediately cut the breath short when the fire passed through the gaping hole in it''s throat. S§×arch* The Novel?ire(.)ne*t website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    Felix rushed forwards and it tried to claw at him, keeping it''s neck far away from him. Felix met the claw with the axe''s blade and severed a couple of talons. He twisted his body and swung the axe upwards, maximizing on it''s own arm''s momentum and tearing right through it. The leathery wings kept the arm attached to it''s body, but it was just hanging on at this point. Both ends of the cut were spewing viscous black blood everywhere. The creature tried to hobble backwards but it was now missing a limb so Felix caught right up to it and planted the axe in the underside of it''s belly. He ended up covering himself in the blood, but he didn''t care.


    The wyvern tried to roll away from him, but that only gave him better access to it''s underside. He continued to hack and slash at it''s body as it''s remaining limbs flailed about. There was black blood everywhere and it''s body was completely shredded but it continued to move and blood continued to shoot out in rhythmic spurts in time with it''s heartbeat. It took until Felix had ripped through most of it''s head and neck for it to finally lie still which unfortunately brought him down to just a few percent of his health left. Without the changes he had made to his bones, he never would have lived through the number of strikes he had to deliver to put the wyvern down.


    Ding You have slain a [D] Partially Devoured Wyvern (Lvl 592)


    Felix was ecstatic for the confirmation and immediately fell onto his butt, leaving the axe buried it it''s chest. Just a moment later though, all the blood and gore surrounding him including the remains of the wyvern''s corpse exploded out from the axe then stopped in mid air and rapidly collapsed back right under the axe. After ensuring the explosion and subsequent implosion hadn''t caused any damage, Felix walked over and saw a red glow around the axe. He reached down and carefully lifted it into the air marveling at it''s awesome effect but immediately realized it wasn''t the axe at all. He stowed the axe and reached down to pick up the red ruby like gem whose glow was now fading, leaving behind a deep ruby red color.


    [Sealed] Seal


    I''m just going to assume this was the blood seal.


    Stick it in your soul space, now. If the thing inside it can function enough to suck the wyvern corpse into it, it might not be able to hold it for much longer.


    Felix heeded the warning and stowed the seal in his soul space then started walking back towards the wyvern''s cave. He wanted to drop down right there to recover but he was pretty sure the Devoured were going to come investigate now that this area''s protector had so loudly perished. He managed to recover his health to about 10% by the time he reached the cave where he immediately fell into a sitting position and meditated. Instead of focusing on his soul space or practicing spell formation, Felix turned his attention to his own body where he manually inspected and accelerated the healing and restoration. It ended up running through the majority of his energy core but it was better that than his health.


    Felix left the cave as soon as his health was restored, having already looked around and finding nothing of particular value. He let his energy slowly restore itself as mana saturated his cells and replenished him. He had already covered a lot of ground to the south east so Felix continued around the kingdom and headed to the west.


    He immediately spotted Devoured throughout the wyvern''s old domain and was silently glad he had decided to rest in the cave. He wasn''t ready to fight anything just yet so instead he stealthed his way through the ruins then the kingdom itself, darting from building to fence, keeping himself behind cover as much as possible. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 Chapter 156 - Book 60

    By the time he reached the northern most point of the kingdom, the Devoured''s levels had peaked in the mid 500s but none of them were particularly threatening. Felix found an intact house that seemed solidly built so he used it as a place to sleep and allow his body time to relax a little after everything he had put it through. When he had been inspecting his body while healing earlier, he noticed he had gotten far too close to completely tearing multiple tendons just from trying to finish the wyvern off.


    Thinking about it now, he should have used more force spells and relied less on his muscles, but in the moment he was too absorbed in just trying to kill the stupid thing. He hadn''t really thought things through much. He noted it for the future though as he finished up his daily routine. Once done, he continued traveling west, though he wasn''t overly interested in fighting the Devoured anymore. Fighting them had just become too boring and predictable. They were more annoyances than anything at this point so Felix didn''t bother getting any of their attention.


    He followed the edge of the city and started heading south west. The levels of the Devoured he encountered were slowly decreasing as he did but he wanted to complete the loop around the kingdom before heading towards the castle. The castle was the worst case scenario and Felix wasn''t sure that he was quite ready for it just yet.


    He still didn''t have a great answer for the flying Devoured and every creature he saw in and around that place had levels in the 600s and up. The wyvern couldn''t actually fly, only gliding back to the ground which was where Felix attacked. With the Devoured he had seen around the castle that could actually fly, he wasn''t sure what he would do if they had a ranged attack of any kind. He could smack them with spells but he doubted he would have enough mana to kill a flock of them.


    He was hoping there was another seal, ideally two, he could snag in the surrounding kingdom then he would come up with a plan and prepare himself for the castle if he had to head there. Ideally, the seals were all in the surrounding area and he didn''t have to risk heading into the castle at all. As he walked through the city, he looked inwards and analyzed the seal in his soul space, paying attention to what was leaking out of it. He ideally wanted to find a way to sense the seals from at least a few kilometers away. Unfortunately, he wouldn''t know he could until he found another one and was able to compare them against each-other. S~ea??h the N?velFire.n§×t website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    Felix continued to creep his way through the city, avoiding all the Devoured in the area until he arrived at an odd sight. In the middle of the mansions and estates stood what appeared to be a palisade made from the scraps of the surrounding buildings that had been completely flattened. As he approached, Felix saw that in front of the palisade lay a half dozen meter wide moat.


    What in the hell¡­


    As Felix tried to wrap his head around the odd sight and figure out how they had been built, a group of three Devoured began walking along just outside of the moat. The one in the middle and front was equipped in plate armor and carried a massive metal tower shield along with a torch. The two to either side held spears and wore leather armor. None of their equipment was pristine, the plate and shield sported a touch of rust around the edges and the leather armors had small holes and were slightly frayed. They were still far better equipped than any other Devoured he had seen to date though. Felix dimmed his light and followed them from far off to the side, keeping himself hidden behind the remaining houses.


    He followed them all the way to the end of their route, where they met an almost identical group of three then turned around and continued back the way they came. He waited patiently and watched them repeat the process four times before he switched groups and followed the other ones. This time, they met a group at the corner of the palisade and moat which Felix followed. This group''s route ended at what appeared to be a ramshackle drawbridge where there were two pairs of permanent guards posted.


    Felix tried to figure out the best way to fight a single group of three without catching the attention of more of them. He hoped these Devoured posed more of a challenge, since they seemed to act differently from the rest. He waited until one group was right in the middle of it''s route, making it furthest from the other groups then pelted them with Mana Bolts. They immediately reacted and all turned towards him.


    Keeping themselves in formation, they rushed in his direction stopping just a hundred meters or so away from the wall, unwilling to venture any further. Felix met them in the middle, rushing towards them with the axe in hand. The one with the large shield set himself up to block and the other two flanked behind him, allowing the shield to cover their bodies while their spears stuck out in front of it. Luckily, the absurd length of Felix''s great axe allowed him to strike the tower shield without getting in range of the spears.


    The axe, with only minor difficulty, sheared right through the tower shield creating an awful whining noise and shooting sparks out in every direction. As soon as the shield was broken, the two Devoured''s with the spears stepped out from behind the shield bearer and surrounded Felix.


    The one wearing plate that had held the shield reached towards his hip and unsheathed a long sword while the spears charged towards Felix. Each of them was aimed at his torso, as the biggest and easiest to hit target so he simply activated his seldom used Mana Shield he had inscribed into his robes and spun around with the axe. The tips of the spears struck the plates of solid mana and scraped off to the side harmlessly while Felix''s axe completely bisected both of them. They weren''t dead, but they weren''t exactly a threat anymore either. Felix brought the axe to a stop and turned to the Devoured in plate armor who was in the process of running back towards the palisades.


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    It''s running away? I didn''t even know they could do that.


    Felix finished off both of the Devoured spearmen then chased after the one in plate armor. He had no intention of actually catching it, but he did want to see where it was going, so he watched. The Devoured ran back to the draw bridge and grunted at the guards stationed there. After a few minutes of silence, the draw bridge lowered and the Devoured that had fled ran inside. Felix waited patiently for another couple of minutes when another group of three Devoured ran across the draw bridge and resumed the route that had just been vacated. The draw bridge shut and there was no sign that anything had happened at all, everything went back to normal.


    What in the¡­


    While the fights themselves were not very interesting, the guard routes, identical squadrons and apparent chain of command were fascinating to Felix. Whatever they were guarding, it was either a seal or something equally as valuable. He thought about the possibility that they were guarding nothing and were simply set up as an outpost but that didn''t make any sense based on what he knew of the Devoured. They would have no reason to have an outpost of any kind.


    Having already decided he had to get in somehow, Felix began testing their defenses. He pulled a guard triplet away from their rotation and this time made sure they were all dead so none of them could report back. He rushed back over to the wall and watched one of the other groups send a spearman back to report the missing group when they were still missing for two consecutive rotations. Five minutes later, the triplet was replaced and the guard rotation returned to normal.


    Felix waited a little longer this time then pulled a triplet over and killed them all off, then he killed the two groups that would normally meet them. He figured that should buy him at least 15 minutes or so. Felix ran up to the edge of the moat and began blasting the palisade with Fire Balls and Force Bombs until he had knocked out a large section of the wall. Peering inside the encampment, Felix saw just two things. Siege engines and a ridiculous number of Devoured. There were catapults, ballistae, portable bunkers and battering rams but all of it was surrounded by a black mass of Devoured. They were packed so tightly together, Felix doubted it was possible to fit any more Devoured in the walls, even if he were piling up corpses.


    Felix heard a bell ring out from deep inside the wall so he rushed back into the cover of the intact houses behind him and began running around to the other side of the encampment. The area within the wall was about a third the size of the wyvern''s domain. Considering how many Devoured he had seen packed into the wall on the other side, Felix assumed there was no way the entire thing was packed with Devoured.


    He wasn''t even sure that many Devoured existed, his rough math put the required number at just over 2 billion. If there really were that many, he didn''t really stand any chance of getting at whatever was inside. He repeated the process on this side and opened a large hole in the palisade and saw the same thing as before. However, this time, as he stared incredulously at them, he noticed that they didn''t react at all when he hit them with spells and he couldn''t seem to identify them.


    They''re dead?


    Rather than risk begin found out, Felix backed up a few kilometers away from the moat and found a house to camp out in. He spent a day looking through some of the experiments relating to muscles but wasn''t happy with any of what he found. It seemed Erolan had used the muscle structure from insects but was happy to completely rearrange his skeleton and replace many of his other systems to support them. Felix on the other hand, was not willing to do that.


    Other than those, the other experiments mostly had very similar cells to his own and were not nearly as efficient as he hoped they''d be. After about a day of analyzing experiments, Felix completed his daily routine and flew out of the house he had selected. Up to now, he could have flown through the kingdom but he was really enjoying what was essentially the perfect training ground for him to learn how to be stealthy. He would also have to either fly low to the ground or shine his light so brightly he would risk being seen.


    After what he had seen yesterday in the encampment though, Felix knew he needed to get some kind of idea of what was inside. He decided to risk being spotted by shining a bright light down on the camp rather than flying low and risking getting hit by ballistae bolts. To be extra safe though, Felix pushed the light spell as far behind him as he could so that anyone looking up at him wouldn''t be able to see him and would instead, hopefully, aim for the light. He also extended a Mana Shield out beneath him to block anything coming his way.


    Felix walked towards the edge of the encampment and stood behind the last remaining wall of a mansion that had been partially flattened. He made sure everything was ready then flew up as high as he could go, right up to the joists holding Ky''bel up above. He brightened the light as much as he could then extended it behind him. Through some quick testing he found he could extend it much further than his cast range if he simply cast the spell then moved it while it was active.


    Once the light was bright enough to illuminate the ground, Felix flew towards the encampment. The first thing he saw were the guard patrols who immediately spotted him. One of the guards posted at the drawbridge surprised Felix by sounding a horn instead of going inside to report directly. Figuring that was the start of his timer, Felix sped up a little and started inspecting the camp itself. Unfortunately, there wasn''t much he could see. Around the outer walls were countless Devoured corpses, as he had seen before, that seemed to be serving as a layer of the wall itself or as insulation of some kind.


    Within the wall, there was some exposed siege equipment but just about every other area of the camp was covered by ramshackle cloth, wood and other scavenged materials. The only building that didn''t appear to be created from scraps was a large stone building that looked very much like a cube without windows from every angle. The building was situated at the direct center of the camp and surrounded by makeshift awnings and simple structures.


    If he didn''t know better, Felix would have assumed they had constructed all of this specifically to hide the inside from him. There was no way they knew or assumed he could fly though, so Felix instead assumed they had to have been created to protect them from something else. He also noticed the holes he had punched in the walls of the camp had been completely repaired, which was impressive given it had only been a day. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 Chapter 157 - Book 61

    About halfway through his flight over the camp, Felix spotted movement. One of the awnings next to the building in the center was lifted revealing some kind of device surrounded by a group of Devoured. Before Felix could decide whether he wanted to get a closer look, the device glowed slightly then released a loud booming noise accompanied by a massive stream of pink gas firing directly towards his light. The stream missed him by a dozen or so meters but, being a gas, it spread out quickly. Felix accelerated to keep himself ahead of it but the Devoured compensated for that by firing the gas far ahead of the light in the hopes that it would fly into it. Unfortunately, they ended up firing it directly on and around Felix himself.


    As soon as the edge of the gas cloud touched his robes, Felix heard a sound that resembled an odd combination of a fire burning and something sizzling in a hot pan. The gas quickly spread around him and filled his nose with the smell of burning pepper. Felix accelerated as fast as he could out of the gas but it was too late, it had spread itself completely around him. It burned at his exposed skin forcing him to close his eyes and slowly wormed it''s way beneath his robes. It was like cutting onions but taken to the extreme. With his eyes shut, Felix flew using his memory alone and shot himself in a random direction with the only thought to get far away as fast as possible so he could recover.


    After just a few seconds of flying, the gas had eaten though most of the upper layers of skin on his face. He was pretty sure blood would start seeping through his skin if he didn''t get rid of it soon so Felix mentally checked his map and launched himself towards the center of the kingdom. He didn''t bother checking his health because he knew it would only stress him further and wouldn''t provide any useful information he didn''t already have. He either made it to the lake or he didn''t, knowing how fast his health was declining wouldn''t change that fact. As he got closer, Felix knew he had to lower himself close to the ground so he didn''t attract the attention of the flying Devoured around the castle. Unfortunately, with his eyes in the process of burning, Felix had no idea how high up he was from the ground.


    Felix had dropped his Mana Shield earlier, mostly out of shock, so he recreated it and placed it in front of him as he flew. He made the shield as big as he could and lowered it a few meters below and in front of him. Finally, he slowly descended waiting for his shield to start hitting things. As soon as it did, he would rise back up a little bit. While Felix thought it was a solid idea in theory, he didn''t actually check his map again so he didn''t descend fast enough. The first thing the shield hit was a large solid object followed shortly by Felix himself as he had lost concentration. The impact was enough to daze him which dissipated his force spells and caused him to plummet downwards.


    Felix caught himself with Feather Fall but allowed himself to fall when he checked his map. The solid object he had hit was the cliff face around the castle which placed him right above the lake. After a few agonizing moments of Felix''s everything being eaten by an unknown substance, Felix dropped the Feather Fall spell and allowed himself to fall into the water. He knew it wasn''t safe to blindly jump into water incase there were rocks near the surface, but at the moment he didn''t care. He decided that a fall probably wouldn''t kill him and it was the fastest way to get into the water.


    Luckily the water was plenty deep where he landed and he immediately flailed about trying to get as much of the acidic compound washed off of him as possible. He quickly cast a force spell behind him to push himself away from the water he had just soiled and into fresher waters. It took him a little while to get it all off and even then he wasn''t sure it was all gone as he still felt like his skin was burning all over. He swam to the surface and opened his eyes but he couldn''t see anything. At first he thought he was blind but then he realized there was no light down here so he fired off a Light spell above him. Then he realized he really was blind, but took comfort in the belief that it should be temporary.


    Felix held his breath and began meditating in the water in hopes that it was safer than meditating on land while blind. It took Felix almost an hour to fully regenerate his health and finally be rid of the burning sensation plaguing every crevice of his body. Once he was ready, he ascended back to the surface of the lake and opened his eyes along with casting a quick Light spell and sighed in relief as his dull surroundings became clear to him once more.


    Only partially fueled by rage, Felix prepared himself to assault the encampment. He flew back towards the encampment and lowered himself to the ground stealthily creeping towards it for the last few kilometers. His plan was to do what he had done before and take out the guards on rotation then punch holes in the wall. Except this time, he would take out the walls entirely then lay siege to the contents. Luckily anything of particular value, including the seal if it was in there, would easily survive.


    Felix chose his targets and waited for them to be right in the middle of their route then grabbed their attention. As he expected, they immediately chased him away from the camp. The shield bearer lifted his shield and slowly approached with the two spearmen on either side. Felix pulled out his axe and took one step towards them then stopped as he heard the sound of a horn bellow out from behind the shield bearer. As soon as the sound was released, the trio ran backwards.


    What in the hell¡­


    Felix chased after them and almost reached them before he spotted a group of five Devoured on his left. Quickly looking around, Felix saw Devoured a few hundred meters to his right and a couple a hundred meters behind him as well.


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    Felix turned to the Devoured closest to him, the ones on his left and used a force spell to hold them mostly still while he ripped through them with the axe. He didn''t have time to finish off the wriggling remains of their corpses so instead he leapt over them and ran. Felix ran a few hundred meters and spotted more Devoured pouring out of every nook and cranny around him, some of them well equipped, others not at all.


    He continued to push through every passage with the least number of Devoured but soon enough he found himself surrounded by Devoured. These ones all wore uniform equipment that was similar in quality to the guards around the camp. Felix tried to push through the closest ones but found that these ones refused to engage with him and instead backed off and poked him with the tips of their spears.


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    As soon as he leapt at a group of them, they would scatter in different directions, making it impossible to kill more than one of them at once without spells. Even with force spells grouping them together, the number of Devoured around Felix just kept growing as he couldn''t kill them fast enough. Felix refused to give up though and continued to chew through the Devoured as fast as he could. Whether by chance or some greater scheme, Felix ended up pushing through the buildings towards the flat, open area surrounding the encampment. Looking around, Felix saw Devoured in every direction closing in on him. They weren''t actually attacking him though, instead they seemed to be more focused on keeping him from running away.


    Looking towards the encampment, Felix though about running into it because it would likely be better than where he was now but quickly decided against it. The draw bridge was lowered and with synchronized steps, an endless stream of Devoured in full sets of armor with various weapons poured out.


    He thought about flying out of the area but there were already multiple streams of pink gas pouring out above and in every direction around him. Before he had only come into contact with the dissipate edges of the cloud, if he flew out, he would have to fly through a thick concentration of the stuff. Right as Felix began preparing wind spells to keep the gas away, he spotted a Devoured wearing a collared shirt and an apron riding a muscular dinosaur ride out of the encampment. The reason he dropped the wind spells though, was that he could finally sense another seal coming from the Devoured, or the mount, he wasn''t exactly sure.


    The Devoured around him moved into formation as the mounted Devoured approached, arranging themselves into an isometric grid of pointy spears in every direction around him. They split themselves and raised their spears to allow the mounted Devoured through as they rode up to Felix, stopping just a few dozen meters in front of him.


    "Finally. So you''re the rodent that''s been harassing my troops. Were you working alone? Who sent you? Are you simply the scouting party preparing for a larger attack?"


    Felix, dumbfounded, didn''t speak for almost a minute before responding incredulously, "You can speak?"


    "What a stupid question, I''m doing so right now, aren''t I? Of course I can speak," They shook their head "why wouldn''t I be able to? I am Atheldem, Second General of the Kroterran army and head of the special implements legion. Surrender to me now and I will kill you before extracting information."


    There are just so damn many of these stupid things. I could probably get away but how the hell do I get the stupid seal? This General has an actual army that he seems to be able to control and I can''t really use spells to kill them. Using the axe, I''d sooner kill myself than make any tangible progress.


    Felix planned on just leaving and coming back with an actual plan now that he had a better idea of the camps forces. He held hope in the back of his mind though that either he or Grim would come up with something, unfortunately both Grim and his own mind were completely silent. Before he could start preparing his escape, his right hand began vibrating. Looking down, the axe he held started to show tiny hairline cracks all along it''s head. He wouldn''t have noticed them at all if they weren''t glowing. Luckily it seemed the glow was faint enough that the Devoured hadn''t quite noticed it yet. Felix felt a nudge from the axe in a similar manner to how Nova might get his attention.


    What the hell.


    Looks like the axe is ready to bond.


    Do I just offer it a soul seed?


    Yep. Exactly the same way you did with me. It may or may not offer one in return, usually not with items. Remember the Kryptos Repository?


    Yeah. This one just seems¡­ different for some reason.


    Reaching into his soul, Felix quickly grabbed a piece and offered it to the axe through his hand. The axe immediately sucked it in and the cracks along it''s head began spreading. Looking around, Felix started preparing force spells to get himself out of here. Even though it had been less than a second since the General had given his generous offer, Felix could see them getting antsy.


    Suddenly, the axe exploded, it''s black encrusted surface and metal blade having been completely replaced by an ethereal blue material in the exact same shape. The shaft followed suit leaving behind just a small portion still wrapped in leather. The entire thing gave off a faint blue glow and tiny tendrils of pitch black shadow poured out of the blade and into the air above it.


    The general scoffed and the surrounding Devoured closed in on Felix. He prepared his flight spell and hoisted the axe ready to cut himself an opening but instead almost threw the axe over his own head. The ridiculous weight he was so used to with the axe was completely gone, now it was lighter than he would have expected something of it''s size to be.


    That is a very welcome change. I guess it won''t do as much damage now though.


    Felix readjusted the axe and leapt forwards into the Devoured in front of him. As he swung, the axe felt like it grew in weight adding force to his strike and effectively ripping through the Devoured in front of him.


    Nevermind.


    It took him a few strikes to get used to it and it definitely made the axe more usable. He was no longer gnawing away at his own health just to swing it. He also found, through incessant prompting from the axe, that he could will the weight to increase when he needed it to, which could make it as heavy as it used to be, and more.


    While the axe bonding with him had improved how quickly, and safely, he could slaughter the Devoured, Felix knew it wasn''t nearly enough. He was ripping through their ranks just fast enough to keep a small empty space around him, but nothing more. If it weren''t for the piles of corpses in his wake, he would assume he wasn''t making any progress at all. Once again though, the axe nudged him, this time pulling on his mana. It couldn''t actually pull the mana out of Felix without his permission, but it was definitely making it''s desire known. Felix accepted and shoved as much mana as he could into the axe then continued to cleave his way through the Devoured.


    Hearing a sound that scared him, Felix spun around and saw a man made entirely of shadow standing a few meters behind him, between him and the Devoured''s front lines. The man held an identical blue ethereal great axe except his was slightly translucent. A Devoured rushed at Felix from the left so he quickly dispatched it with a flick of the axe and the shadow man in front of him perfectly mirrored his movements.


    Holy shit¡­


    Felix spun around, swinging the axe through the Devoured behind him, peering over his shoulder to watch the shadow man perfectly replicate his movements. The shadow man ended up mostly missing, just barely scratching a couple of the Devoured behind him. The axe pulled on Felix''s mana again and this time he excitedly provided. Swinging his head around, Felix spotted another shadow man, just like the first, standing a few meters away. He tried providing more mana and although the axe accepted the mana, no more shadow men appeared around him.


    I can work with this¡­


    Felix turned back to the Devoured in front of him and took a step forwards while spinning the axe around himself. He figured this was the most likely to be able to hit the most Devoured, for all three of them at once. Felix continued to push into the Devoured army, more to get the shadow men in range than himself as the Devoured seemed to be backing away from them. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 Chapter 158 - Book 62

    Now that his mowing speed had almost tripled thanks to the axe, Felix could feel himself finally making progress. The area around him kept growing and he was actually, slowly, moving towards the encampment. The Devoured General had vanished at some point during the fighting but Felix was betting that they had run back into the camp. His health was starting to fall due to all the pokes and prods from the Devoured spearmen around him but it wasn''t nearly as bad as it would have been before he had bonded with the axe. He had only lost a quarter of his health and his natural regeneration was fiercely fighting back.


    Felix was starting to feel like he was actually going to make it, with just a hundred or so meters left to get to the draw bridge when he was suddenly stabbed in the back. He quickly whirled around and found Devoured pressed right up against his back. Peering beyond them, he saw one of his shadow men standing at the edge of an empty house hundreds of meters away staring right back at him.


    Son of a bitch.


    Felix spun around with the axe like a whirlwind, which was far from effective at killing anything. It did serve to make space around him though. Just past the Devoured army, he spotted a shadow man spinning his axe into the walls behind him. Felix shoved mana into the axe resummoning his second shadow man in the army in front of him then went back to cleaving through the army.


    How the fuck do I move them.


    Felix tried everything from willing them to move to providing more mana but no matter what he did, they only moved when he did. A few minutes later he had to resummon the shadow man that he had just recreated once again as it had apparently dissipated at some point. The first one was still happily swinging away at the wall in front of it. The next time he had to resummon one of them, Felix watched and almost immediately figured out what was happening. They seemed to have a health pool of their own and when they took enough damage, they dissipated.


    Fucking hell.


    Felix summoned a shadow to his left facing the same direction as he was and then launched a Fire Ball at the shadow stuck on the wall way in the back. As soon as it dissipated, he resummoned it off to his right side facing the same direction as him. Now, when he started cleaving through the Devoured in front of him, the two shadows on either side of him did as well. Felix began constantly fueling the axe with mana in the hopes that the shadow''s would instantly resummon if one of them fell but found that they weren''t dissipating at all.


    Together they tore through the Devoured and cleared a wide path around him making quick work of their ranks. By the time he had made it to the draw bridge, it was half way to being pulled up but Felix launched a barrage of Force Bombs at the Devoured winding the cranks as well as the chains themselves. In hindsight, as he saw the cranks and Devoured explode in every direction, it was likely overkill, but he didn''t think too hard on it as he rushed across the drawbridge and into the camp.


    Looking to the side Felix''s heart sank as he saw one of his shadow''s was standing off the bridge but he almost instantly realized it didn''t seem to mind not having anything beneath it''s feet. He readjusted to be in the center of the bridge so they could both make it through the opening in the palisade then jumped the last fifty meters into the camp. Felix was happy to see both of the shadows jump into the air alongside him, even though they didn''t have any force spells propelling them.


    Around the apex of his jump, Felix turned back and dropped a massive bombardment of Fire Balls on the wooden draw bridge. The bridge exploded in every direction, trapping the massive army of Devoured outside the moat. Felix watched them begin to walk into the moat, though they did not swim and they did not float. He figured he should have at least a half hour or so until their corpses formed a bridge across.


    Seeing the camp from below the makeshift canopy, Felix realized it wasn''t nearly as impressive as he had been expecting. There were siege weapons off to the side and racks of weapons, shields and armor neatly arrayed around them but overall it seemed like most of the space had been occupied by Devoured. Felix rushed towards the center building, which was the only enclosed space in the camp and his first guess as to where the general was. There were barely any Devoured around so he simply tore through the camp, cutting down anything and everything in his way. He was mostly cutting through posts and makeshift roofs, but he was having fun with his shadows anyways.


    Running up the stone cube in the middle, Felix quickly found the door and began cutting through it with his axe. It was made of some kind of metal and seemed to be at least half a meter thick, almost like a vault door. His shadows to either side of him hacked away at the wall, perfectly mimicking his own actions on the door. He finally managed to get through the door and started to head in but stopped when he saw both his shadows were ineffectively walking into the wall in front of them. Realizing he was going to have to resummon them, Felix turned to the one on his right and lifted the axe over his head to take it out but stopped just a few inches short of hitting it. Peering over his shoulder, his other shadow''s axe loomed over his own head. Felix swapped over to lightning bolts and dissipated both of them then headed into the cube.


    He was tempted to immediately resummon them as soon as he got inside but decided he was better off waiting until could position them more intelligently. He was also walking down a long, tight corridor so he wasn''t exactly sure where he would put them. Having learned a thing or two from the vault''s in Ky''bel, Felix summoned a large Mana Shield in front of him and prepared a couple of wind spells to deal with any pink gas he might encounter. S§×arch* The NovelFire.net* website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.


    Walking down the hallway, Felix saw doors every few meters on his left and right. He tried opening one but it was locked and they were all just as thick and sturdy as the one he had to destroy to get in. He didn''t have time to break them down at the moment and he sensed the seal above him anyways. Continuing down the hallway, Felix reach the end where the hall turned to the right and quickly turned into a stairway. Before heading up though, he pulled out his enchanting quill and quickly inscribed a spell into the wall opposite the doorway he had busted open. When it was complete, he affixed a solid-mana battery to it then stood off to the side and activated the spell causing a massive vortex of wind to fire down the hallway and out of the building.


    Continuing up the staircase Felix ascended into a large open space that easily took up the entire footprint of the building. All along the walls were desks and shelves covered in plants, animals, glass bottles, alembics and tubes running everywhere. The scariest things in the room though, were the bottles and vials all around the room that contained various liquids of vibrant colors. In the center of the ceiling was a large open hole, no doubt acting as a vent and completing the cycle of air being vented out below. Standing at the center of it all, right below the vent, was the Devoured General, whose collared shirt and large apron was starting to make a lot more sense to Felix.


    [D] Partially Devoured Second Kroterran General (Lvl 584)


    As soon as Felix walked into the room the general threw a series of vials at him. Two of them shattered on his mana shield splattering a black and green liquid that immediately exploded into a mist that was subsequently sucked down the stairway behind him to little effect. The last vial though, missed completely and struck the ground next to Felix. It exploded splattering Felix''s right side with the liquid and throwing him to the ground. His robes caught most of it and the resulting fumes were immediately sucked away, but a few droplets had hit the side of his face. Instead of burning his skin like the pink gas had, Felix felt the droplets seep into his skin and quickly hit his blood stream before he could wipe them away. As soon as they did, it attacked and killed every cell it came in contact with.


    Felix ignored the necrotic liquid for the time being and rushed towards the general in an attempt to end this fight before it got too chaotic and the poison had time to settle in. Just as Felix got within range of the general and started to swing, the general quickly stepped into the strike and past Felix ending up somewhere behind him before his swing finished. Felix used the axe''s momentum and spun around to keep the general in his sights and was suddenly struck in the foot by a vial that sprayed fire in every direction. As soon as the vial ignited, the rushing wind from the hole in the ceiling stoked the fire causing it to explode in size almost immediately.


    Felix ran and dove out of the pool of fire in the middle of the room, his only thought to prevent himself from being burned. Felix hit the ground and lifted himself to his feet whirling around and instantly felt a sharp pain in the side of his neck shortly followed by poison spreading itself through his body. Felix ignored the object in his neck for now, spinning around until he spotted the general hiding behind the pool of fire at the center of the room. Felix stared them down and summoned a shadow right behind them. As soon as he did, the general lifted a glass bottle to his mouth and chugged some kind of oily looking blue liquid, instantly vanishing from sight.


    Invisibility potion? Fuck off.


    Felix turned to the stairway and summoned another shadow halfway down then started swinging to make sure he cut off as many exits as he could. The general didn''t try to escape though, instead he threw a vial straight at Felix''s head that seemed to contain some kind of fine grey powder. The vial shattered and the powder was quickly vented out of the room but not before Felix felt parasitic spores root themselves in his lungs and all along his airway.


    Felix searched the room intently, filled with both anger and fear that he wouldn''t be able to deal with whatever he was now infected with. He turned towards the stairway to see if he could spot the general when he suddenly felt something right behind his head. Luckily, it wasn''t a physical feeling. Instead, Felix felt mana spiking and ducked as fast as he could.


    Without increasing the weight, to keep the strike as quick as possible, Felix flicked the axe behind him. The general, now visible with a dagger in hand, leapt over the blade and towards the other side of the room but tripped on one of their own bottles that had fallen to the ground.


    Felix leapt at the opportunity and swung his axe down at the general''s head. The general was too fast though and managed to scramble out of the way keeping their head safe. The axe still managed to catch them in the middle of their calf though, removing their left foot entirely. The general pushed himself to his foot and managed an impressive single legged leap towards the stairway but Felix simply jumped and swung causing his shadows to mimic him. The shadow in the stairway caught the general in the arm and flung him across the room.


    The general desperately reached up to a desk near him and threw a vial at Felix but he simply pushed it aside with a wind spell he still had prepared. The vial struck the empty wall near the stairs and caused a massive explosion where the resulting shockwave almost knocked Felix over from over a dozen meters away. The general was in the process of downing as many potions and elixirs as they could get their hands on when Felix stepped forwards and removed their arms with a couple decisive swings. A moment later, the General''s body slumped to the ground.


    Ding You have slain a [D] Partially Devoured Kroterran General (Lvl 584)


    While he waited for the body to explode and reveal the seal, Felix quickly ran around the room grabbing hold of every intact bottle and vial that contained anything. By the time he had finally killed the general, the majority of the room was on fire and Felix was hoping a few of the bottles contained antidotes to whatever the hell was festering inside of him. Looping all the way around the room, Felix saw the general''s body exactly where he had left it so he scooped it up and stowed it in his inventory. He quickly confirmed he could no longer sense the seal to make sure it wasn''t in one of the severed limbs then jumped through the hole in the ceiling. He launched himself off to the side and ducked low to avoid the pink cloud floating ominously above.


    Before he landed, Felix saw the Devoured had finally made it across the moat on the backs of their comrades and the smoke from the cube started to funnel through the chimney instead of the door. With his makeshift ventilation system down, the fire quickly started spreading to the rest of the building, though that wasn''t Felix''s problem. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 Chapter 159 - Book 63

    Felix landed in the excessively large yard of some estate off to the east and immediately began sorting through the remnants he had grabbed in the alchemy lab. His identification skill was only mildly helpful since apparently alchemical identification required a different skill than item identification. It did give him some information but unfortunately it all seemed to be useless to him. There were multiple antidotes, but he had no way of knowing which of them were for the crap in his body, if any of them. His identification also helpfully included warnings that the antidotes would act as poisons themselves if not used as an antidote and in the right quantities.


    Felix.


    What?


    Relax.


    What do you mean? I have at least three different forms of poison currently chewing through my body and only half of my health left.


    Listen, in my universe, poisons are only effective if they are way stronger than you or you''re distracted. Someone trying to kill you with poison will typically get a few hits off but their main goal is to keep you occupied. If the victim of a poison is left alone and their body is allowed to just rest and fight it, it''s completely useless. So the attacker needs to keep them occupied in a fight, keep their victims focused on them. They land a few extra scratches along the way, and all of a sudden your system is overwhelmed. Luckily for you, you didn''t sustain many injuries. S~ea??h the NovelFire.net* website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    Felix took a breath and processed, So you''re saying I don''t need an antidote?


    I suspect only poisons that are at least a grade or two above you would stand any chance. I don''t think these poisons are multiple grades above you so you should be able to just consciously attack them one by one. It would really suck if someone could just hit you once with a poisoned arrow or weapon then run away and you were just dead on the spot.


    Ok, so¡­


    Just flood your system with mana and energy, as much as you can. Then direct your immune system to kill them off one by one. You''ll be fine. You also have way more control over your body than is normal so you could manually fight them if you wanted to.


    Felix took another breath then sat down and entered a meditation. His consciousness turned to his body and assessed the situation. The necrotic poison he had first been infected with had spread itself out but it had weakened itself by doing so. Even now it was starting to lose strength as it had no way to replicate itself and had mostly been consumed. Switching his attention to the poison that had been delivered via the bolt in his neck, which he just now pulled out with a slight wince, Felix saw it hadn''t spread itself very far. It was slowly being washed away and diluted by his blood stream but it had latched onto the tissue in the area and was in the process of transforming the cells into more little poison factories.


    Felix immediately latched onto that one and completely stopped it''s mutations then slowly killed off the cells it had already transformed, replacing them with new cells. Once he had minimized the effect to the point where it should just wash away, Felix moved his attention to his lungs. The spores were in the process of planting themselves in his alveoli, slowly growing roots and feeding off of his body.


    Felix had no doubt they would simply reproduce forever if left alone so he immediately killed them off in batches. While an absurd number of spores had entered his lungs, luckily only a small percentage had managed to plant themselves. It took him a half hour to finally get through the vast majority of them. He wasn''t worried about any left behind because his body was already attacking them on it''s own, his conscious effort was just helping it not be overwhelmed.


    Inspecting the remains of the necrotic poison once again, Felix began consciously stamping it out even though he knew it wasn''t necessary. He did a couple passes over his body to make sure the poisons were shrinking instead of growing and to make sure there weren''t any other poisons that had infected him without him knowing.


    By the time he was done, his health had returned to about 90% so he exited his meditation and stowed the various vials and bottles. He pulled out the general''s corpse and began feeling his way through it until he pinpointed the seal in their head. Using the axe, Felix opened the general''s skull and found it was completely empty, save for a deep blue gemstone rattling around. He knew immediately that it was the seal without identifying it, though did anyways to confirm, and stowed it in his soul space.


    [Sealed] Seal


    Hey Grim? Thanks.


    Course.


    Poisons really would be pretty insane if a tiny pin prick could just kill you outright.


    Yeah, that would be wild.


    Any ideas how we deal with Erolan now that we can examine two seals?


    If you come across this story on Amazon, it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it.


    Sort of? I keep trying to think of another way¡­ I haven''t come up with anything though.


    What is it?


    You have to do the impossible, twice. First you have to kill a being who is at least an entire grade up on you, or more. Then you have to find a way to destroy a powerful magical item. The first one is doable, kind of. You can incinerate the body before opening the seal, then you just have to destroy one of the pieces, which is a tragic but necessary, before he resurrects himself.


    Once he does, I have to kill him for real. Actually fight him.


    Right, which is impossible.


    Won''t that risk making the soul ring unusable?


    We won''t know unless we open the seal.


    Which starts the timer anyways.


    Not necessarily. You could open the seal within your soul space. Normally I would never suggest someone do that, because it could potentially explode and cause soul death.


    But I''m special?


    Yeah. You''ll probably be fine.


    Probably?


    Almost definitely.


    I don''t love the sound of almost.


    Would you rather open it outside your soul space?


    No. I still don''t like the almost.


    It is what it is. He might not be able to come back when you destroy one piece, but I wouldn''t bet on that. If you could destroy it immediately, he probably wouldn''t but we don''t exactly have any black holes in our pockets.


    So I guess we get our hands on the last one then figure it out from there.


    Yeah. Hopefully they haven''t found too many keys up there.


    Hopefully Amani isn''t dead.


    She''ll be fine. How''s Nova?


    Quickly tuning into his bond, Felix sensed Nova was having a lot of fun, Seems to be having a blast.


    She''s probably fine then.


    If you had to guess, how long till they find all the key fragments?


    It took them just over a day to search through the second level. Assuming they speed up a little because they learn things and find new items and generally get into the groove¡­ The outer layer is denser and much bigger¡­ Rough math says about¡­ 2 weeks or so since you last saw them.


    That was my conclusion as well. We''ve been in here for 10 days now already, minus a day for the second level so that gives me about 5 days to find the last seal. Let''s say 4 to be safe.


    Then there''s the final vault. Are you going to try to get all this done before that?


    I''m going to open the seals while that''s happening. I want as many people out of the world event as possible before I attempt to resurrect a super demon.


    Good call.


    Plus, the loot in there probably isn''t as good as this set is, for me at least.


    Hopefully not.


    Do I even bother searching the rest of the kingdom?


    You already know the answer to that. You can sense it too.


    Yeah¡­ I was just hoping¡­ Damn.


    Felix''s thoughts were suddenly interrupted by the sound of a massive explosion off to his right. Swinging his head over, Felix saw a brief flash of light as a pillar of pink fire erupted from the encampment he had just left. After the explosion, the fire died down to a multicolored blaze as the remnants of the Devoured and the camp itself slowly disintegrated.


    Now that he was out of danger, Felix did something he had been looking forward to for what felt like hours now. Now that he was bound to it, Felix identified the axe.


    [D - Ancient] Eretheas


    [Soul Bound][Growth]


    A great axe commissioned by a king to help them choose an heir among his many children. The weapon was designed to only be wielded by those that represented the qualities the king aspired to have as a ruler. It was designed to grow with them, become a weapon that would allow it''s wielder to slay any evil. Unfortunately, none of the king''s children were deemed worthy by Eretheas so one of the children, fed up with their father''s antics, killed him and took the throne by force.


    They carried the axe with them as a symbol of their power and slew the creator, the greatest soul smith in the universe, so that the axe would remain completely unique. This caused the axe to be the soul smith''s greatest achievement, since their chance to surpass it and grow further was stolen from them. The forceful claiming of the throne sparked a civil war among the children who each led a faction that ultimately contributed to the demise of every single citizen in the kingdom. The axe was lost to time only to reappear in another universe, some time later.


    This axe''s weight is always right at the limit of it''s wielder''s strength unless it is soul bound. It is effectively indestructible due to the materials used along with the infused soul.


    While bound, the wielder may alter the weight of the axe at will, within a certain range. The wielder may also provide mana to summon a shade. The shade will appear at the desired location in the desired orientation, based on the user''s will. The shade will mimic every movement and action the wielder takes, within it''s power. Two shades may be summoned at a time. Shades will dissipate upon taking damage higher than the mana used to summon them. Mana may be supplied to the axe once both shades have been summoned to recharge the mana pools of both shades, equally and at once.


    Shade is a way better name than shadow men. Also how do I embody the qualities of a ruler?


    Who knows what convictions the king had implanted into it. It''s also possible¡­ it''s just been long enough.


    What do you mean?


    Being in the presence of your soul, or rather the axe reading your soul, just degraded it. Also it''s been sitting around for a long time, it might have just gotten lonely.


    That can happen?


    Sort of¡­ convictions, implanted ones especially, usually degrade, the question is just how long will it take. It''s also totally possible the king just wanted someone who wouldn''t give up and you standing against that army of Devoured was enough?


    I see. Is this going to be a problem in the future? My soul degrading things?


    We don''t actually know that that''s what happened but¡­ probably not? Just be aware it''s a possibility I guess.


    Having two seals now, Felix knew what to look for when trying to sense the last seal and could sense the general direction of the last one from very far away. He had hoped for a short moment that perhaps the seal was past the castle, instead of in it but he finally resigned himself to his fate. The last seal seemed to be in the dead center of the castle. That meant he had about 3 days to train and prepare himself to take on the castle and all the Devoured in and around it. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 Chapter 160 - Book 64

    From his memory of flying over the castle, Felix knew the general layout. There was a main structure which was just a few meters from the edge of the cliff and appeared to contain many floors, judging from the windows. The outer wall juts out of it on either side then surrounds the courtyard in front of building, on the north side, away from the cliff. Within the courtyard was mainly a road but next to the road there were a few buildings, a garden and a large sandy area. He also knew there were flying Devoured who''s levels were in the mid 600s. Within the courtyard, he had seen humanoid Devoured in shiny steel armor, griffins, chimeras, and tentacled monsters he couldn''t identify.


    The first thing he wanted to do was sleep, but it had only been a few hours since he last slept right before attacking the camp. Felix decided he would finish a few other things before he let himself sleep. First and foremost was getting a better and more up to date picture of what he would be facing. Felix prepared himself with the same method he had used with the camp, but this time prepared a spell to launch himself far away at the first sign of a colored gas or other unknown danger. He knew he would have to deal with the flying creatures, but he figured they would be easy in comparison to the gasses that had completely surrounded him and made it impossible to blow away.


    He flew low to the ground at first with a dim light and slowly ascended the stone that led up the backside of the cliff and towards the entrance of the castle. Once he was just a few hundred meters away from the castle, before he was even able to see it, Felix heard a group of metal greaves running towards him. Before they got into range, Felix shot straight up into the air and poured mana into his light spell, flooding the ground beneath him in harsh white light. He was hoping it would blind them but considering they didn''t actually have eyes, he wasn''t holding his breath.


    As he ascended into the air, Felix heard a series of very faint twangs. In almost an instant, he saw multiple explosions of wood just a short distance from his face and felt his mana being yanked into his shield. He quickly started to dart from side to side and forwards and back to make himself as hard to hit as possible but he only managed to make a small percentage of them miss. He quickly realized his light was perfectly following his movements so all they had to do was aim a dozen meters in front of it. As soon as Felix realized this, he tried to keep his light still while he darted around as evasively as he could, but every time he moved, his light jerked slightly giving him away. He realized he would never be able to get it perfect in the next few seconds so instead, he moved the light around as rapidly as he could while darting around himself. He also moved the light further behind him so it wouldn''t illuminate him.


    Ultimately, he managed to make most of the arrows miss, but there were still a fifth or so of the arrows that struck his shield dead on, and eerily directly in front of his head. He figured he should be able to maintain this amount of mana expenditure though so he shot himself forwards and over the castle. It didn''t take long for the flying dinosaur creatures to notice the bright light flying over the castle and for them to start flying over. The flying dinosaurs flew faster than Felix did in a straight line, but Felix was much better at quickly changing directions in the air and overall, his reaction time seemed to be faster. Unfortunately, the combination of the arrows, the flying Devoured harassing him and the low light, Felix was having a rough time trying to avoid everything.


    The flying Devoured would dive at him and he would duck to the side only for another to already be there. He would barely avoid that but it would result in a couple of arrows splintering against his shield. Overall, he wasn''t making much progress and couldn''t really focus on scouting what was beneath him. The only minor silver lining was that a handful of the arrows that had missed Felix had actually hit a couple of the flying Devoured, though he suspected they hadn''t lost much health.


    His available mana was dwindling as he consumed more than he could regenerate. Unfortunately, that meant he couldn''t just keep playing with these Devoured until he was good enough to dodge everything. The archer''s were too far away for Felix to worry about them at the moment so instead, he waited for a flying Devoured to dive at him and this time, he dodged upwards. As soon as it''s gaping maw passed under him, he reached down and tried to get on top of it but dodging had pushed him too far away. He tried again, this time using a force spell to push the creature into him at the same time and he pushed himself down to it, except he missed again, it was just traveling too fast.


    Changing tactics, Felix dodged to the side this time. He wouldn''t have to push himself as far because it''s beak was long and thin, so it reached high up above itself but didn''t extend very far to either side. He braced himself for impact, grabbing hold of it''s wing as it collided with his body and latching himself onto it. The creature started spiraling with the added weight on it''s wing but it was just large enough to not be plummeting into the ground.


    Felix crawled onto its back and locked his legs under it''s wings to keep himself steady. The creature tried to flail about but Felix was holding tight, so instead it dove towards the edge of the cliff. Felix whipped out the axe and started swinging down at it''s head. He managed to sink the blade of the axe a few centimeters into it''s skull but failed to find anything vital. Before the creature could smack it''s rider into the cliff face, Felix bailed and shot himself back upwards into the sky.


    He found a new target and waited for it to attack, then with marginally more grace than before, he mounted and latched himself to the creature. This time, instead of swinging at it''s head, Felix started hacking at the thin tissue that made up it''s wing. He found it almost trivial to cut through in comparison to it''s head and even had enough time to hack halfway through the arm supporting it before he had to bail off the creature. He was hoping he had disabled it''s ability to fly for at least the near future. Part of him hoped it was for much longer because he had never seen the Devoured heal from anything, but he would be happy with being left alone for the next few hours so he could scout.


    All in all, there were just over a dozen flying Devoured taking him almost an hour to disable them all. On some he mounted, he had managed to fully sever the wing, others he had disabled both wings but with all of them he was happy to settle with just disabling one of the wings if he had to. Once his gruesome mission was complete, Felix returned the air and resumed his scouting operation over the castle with far less to worry about this time. He resumed his evasive maneuvers with him and and the light moving randomly in different directions causing only a small number of arrows to hit his shield. He would have liked it to be none, but he couldn''t complain now that his mana was gradually going up instead of down.


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    Getting a better less distracted look at the castle, with light this time, Felix was able to spot what seemed like a few hundred Devoured that he classified as guards due to their uniform equipment. In addition to the guards, there were a couple dozen or so random creatures, including the chimera, griffin and tentacled monstrosity he had spotted last time, roaming about. The guard''s levels were in the low to mid 600s while the various creatures sat anywhere from 700 to 800.


    Felix identified the guards as Kroterran royal guards and assumed the creatures were later additions from Erolan''s exploits. His main reasoning being that he didn''t think a tentacled monstrosity belonged in a castle courtyard. He wasn''t sure about the flying creatures he had just systematically disabled but in the end it didn''t matter. He would likely need to kill them all anyways.


    He didn''t spot anything new in terms of the buildings but he did spot movement through the unglazed windows of the main structure. From what he saw it looked like it was just more guards, but he didn''t get a good enough look to be sure and he couldn''t stick around any longer. As he flew over, the guards had just continued to pour out of one of the buildings in the courtyard and taken aim. By the time he spotted movement within the main building, he was starting to rapidly lose mana and saw arrows everywhere around him. He decided he had probably seen enough for now so he shot himself north, back over the hill leading up to the castle and found himself an empty and mostly intact house to rest in.


    Felix slept for just a few hours, his body apparently not in need of any more, and immediately went through his daily routine. It hadn''t been quite a day since he had last done it, but it helped him think so, he did it anyways. Afterwards, he got started with the training he considered the most urgent, learning to properly use his axe, Eretheas. There were too many times in his fight with the general and the army of Devoured surrounding his camp where Felix almost screwed or even killed himself because he didn''t know how it worked. His plan for now was to not only figure out how it worked, but get as familiar as possible with using the shades, as well as test their limits.


    He had come up with an idea for training that he was proud of. He hopped up onto a nearby roof, flew a few meters into the air, then summoned a shade on the ground next to him. Next he started running on the air but felt silly when he almost immediately realized he could just fly normally and the shade would follow. It didn''t need it''s feet to hit the ground because that wasn''t how it moved anyways. Spotting a small group of Devoured about a kilometer away, Felix shot himself towards them, shade in tow. He was careful in making sure the path was clear for the shade so it didn''t get caught on any buildings or walls then engaged the Devoured using the shade alone.


    He made sure to provide a constant supply of mana to the axe so the shade didn''t dissipate but had to take a few moments to figure out how to prevent another from spawning. He eventually figured out a lot of the axe''s functions could be controlled by simply willing it, one of the benefits of a soul bond. Felix slashed forwards at absolutely nothing as his shade cut into the side of a book wielding Devoured. He spun around and swung the axe over his head, doing his best to stop it with force since he didn''t actually hit anything. The shade on the other hand cut deep into the shoulder of a Devoured wearing leather.


    It didn''t take long for Felix to, admittedly awkwardly, deal with the small group. Afterwards he flew up, lifting the shade out of the streets and flew out to find another group. The biggest issue for him at the moment was that he wasn''t actually hitting anything which meant his axe and the shade''s axe could fall out of sync. The shade would hit something and it''s axe would slow down but Felix''s would just keep going. It wasn''t hard to resync, simply holding the axe in a particular pose caused the shade to try and replicate it, but in the middle of the fight it caused the shade to perform some awkward swings. He started using force to slow and even stop the axe but he needed to swing with enough force to actually strike so it was impossible to stop the axe without wasting huge amounts of mana.


    He settled on simply resyncing as often as possible and paying attention to where the shade''s axe was, instead of where the one in his hand was. The second issue he encountered just a few Devoured into the day but had a much harder time figuring out. As he tore through the Devoured with his shade, he was almost hit with one of the Devoured''s spell casts from behind him. He was so focused on the shade and what it was doing that he was completely losing track of what was around and a danger to himself.


    Unfortunately it was nearly impossible for him to split his focus without something being lost so he simply settled on protecting himself with Mana Shields all around. He got much better at alternating his focus and even got to the point where he could switch back and forth fairly quickly, but he knew it wouldn''t be enough for most of the threats in the castle.


    A few hours into his training, he started summoning two shades instead of just one. At first he found it nearly impossible to coordinate the shades, causing them to accidentally strike each-other multiple times. After a few hours, he was starting to learn some tricks though. He had to split his focus even further to pay attention to both of his shades and himself, which caused everything to suffer at first. The upside was that the shades were always right next to each-other so it was more like his focus was split two and a half ways instead of three. Unfortunately, he knew he was going to have to learn to have the shades far away from each-other and still be, at least vaguely, aware of their positions and situations.


    Resigning himself to it, Felix started summoning the shades on either side of himself, far apart from each-other. Almost immediately this time, he realized the solution was to simply do what he had been doing with the Devoured from before, predict and dictate their actions. It took him just an hour to get to a point he was overall happy with. He would look towards one of the shades and memorize where the Devoured were around it then predict their actions. Looking towards the other, he would move them both such that the Devoured engaged in similar enough ways allowing him to deal with them in sync.


    It wasn''t perfect and both Shades were consuming a steady stream of mana to counteract all the hits they were taking, but it was enough for Felix for the time being. Looking down at the fights, if the Devoured didn''t know he was there, Felix knew they would assume the shades were psychic, reacting to enemies they couldn''t even see. Though he knew the Devoured didn''t have thoughts nearly that complex, or possibly didn''t even think at all. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .


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 Chapter 161 - Book 65

    He wanted to go perform further tests on the enemies in and around the castle but he needed a better way of dealing with the archer''s first. If he used the shades to fight the same way he had here, he would run out of mana in minutes just from trying to block arrows. He was starting to really regret that the alchemist''s camp had exploded because what he really needed right now was a weapon of mass destruction.


    He could run around to try and deal with all of the guards, but from their aim alone, they were far faster and more coordinated than even the armored Devoured from the second general''s army. If he really had to deal with them in a more individual way, he wanted to deal with the monstrosities in the courtyard first so at least they weren''t chasing after him the whole time.


    The best idea he could come up with was to create a wedge of Mana Shields so that they redirected the arrows instead of destroying them outright. While he knew that would decrease the mana expenditure, he also knew it wasn''t nearly enough. Also the guards fired from multiple angles meaning some would still be perpendicular to the shields.


    He briefly considered wind spells and making a tornado but unfortunately the fantasy didn''t quite pan out in reality. He would have needed way more mana to create then sustain a tornado and basic wind spells at the power he would need that they would have been much less efficient than just plan Mana Shields.


    He thought about trying to incinerate all the arrows in the air but didn''t think that would pan out because they moved so quickly and D grade wood seemed to be more difficult to ignite. He thought about trying to sneak in to the camp to sabotage all the arrows first but he knew they probably carried a lot on them already and he didn''t really know where they were stored. He also wasn''t entirely confident in his stealth skills just yet.


    Felix started to think through every spell and spell component he knew trying to think of something and settled on an idea that was ambitious but too tantalizing to ignore. He did some quick mental math and figured it actually had a decent chance of working, but required a lot of experimentation and spell work. S§×arch* The N?vel(F)ire.¦Çet website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    The first thing he had to do was determine if his idea was actually possible to create as a spell. If it wasn''t he would return to the drawing board, disappointed but he would at least have time to think of something new. It didn''t take long to come up with a proof of concept spell form that worked swimmingly on the devoured he tested it on.


    The issue was going to be expanding the effect. Making a really big spell wasn''t overly difficult, the issue was that Felix only had a limited set of spell components. He ultimately felt fairly limited in what he could do. He was almost certain the spell was possible, for someone who had more spell components at their disposal. It should be possible for him as well, but it was not going to elegant or efficient.


    As he saw it, he had two options. He could either try and create a massive spell form that surrounded the entire castle or he could create a bunch of smaller ones that slightly overlapped to create the desired effect. Both had strengths and weaknesses like resiliency, simplicity and time required but Felix remained undecided between them.


    HIs ideal was a hybrid option between the two but he didn''t even know if that was possible. He was sure it must be but he had never seen, heard nor read of anything like it. He was the ideal person, as a mana engineer, to figure it out, but the question was if he had enough time to do so.


    It took Felix about a day to figure everything out and he was both satisfied and disappointed with the result. He was pretty sure it would work, it was just very crude. The hybrid approach he settled on was a simple combination. He would have a large spell form surrounding the castle that collected ambient mana, supplemented with batteries, then distributed and contained it within the castle walls.


    The density of the aether within the castle should then be high enough to power simple little spells that Felix had inscribed on spell scrolls in his inventory. Initially he wasn''t sure if the E grade spell scrolls he had acquired back in the tutorial would hold up to the amount of mana he was going to need, but his tests suggested they would be fine.


    He also wasn''t sure if the spell scrolls would work for spell forms that used ambient mana, something he thought of as more of an enchantment. Luckily, they didn''t seem to care at all. In testing, he had found that they limited the complexity of the spell form inscribed onto them, but ultimately that had helped him keep his solution simple.


    He could have inscribed the spell onto chunks of stones and bricks ripped out of the buildings around him, but the scrolls were easier to inscribe meaning he could make a lot of them very quickly. The stones and bricks would have likely required him to use an inlay material of some kind.


    His biggest problem was going to be placement because he had no way to conditionally target the Devoured, his spell was inevitably going to target the buildings as well. If he managed to nail the placement though, everything else should be easy to overcome.


    The plan was relatively simple. He had to stealthily set up the spells around the outside of the castle that would collect, distribute and attempt to contain mana within the castle. Once that was done, he had to draw out as many Devoured guards as he could. Lastly, he would fly around dropping the spell scrolls around the camp, strategically.


    He had created multiple sizes of spells so he could drop small ones between buildings and larger ones in open areas but the success of the operation depended entirely on his placement. He just had to make sure there wasn''t too much building in the target area and it was mostly Devoured instead.


    Felix wasn''t entirely confident in his stealth ability, but he didn''t really have a better option and all he had to do was remain unseen as he walked around the outside of the castle. The spell forms for the collection of mana needed to be oriented correctly, he couldn''t just air drop them like he was planning to with the spell scrolls. He inscribed the spell forms required onto large slabs of broken walls, floors and rooves that he collected around him and even made multiple extra for both the walls and corners.


    Before making his first attempt at his stealth mission Felix quickly performed his daily routine as almost a day had passed since he had last done it.


    Steeling his resolve, Felix cast a light spell then dimmed it until he could just barely make out the ground in front of him and shrouded the outside in his robe. At first he would open the robe, illuminate the path in front of him, memorize it, then hide the light and proceed based on memory.


    Once he got within range of the patrolling guards on the path though, he changed tactics and used their lantern light to memorize the ground, moving only when they were far enough away from him. As they passed, he scurried away from the path and used whatever cover he could find to stay hidden. Interestingly, he noted that the lanterns seemed to be powered by ambient mana as they didn''t flicker and cast a much whiter light than any fire he''d ever seen.


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    He suspected his almost entirely black ensemble contributed immensely to his success in making it all the way to within a hundred meters of the gate undetected. Once he was there though, he wasn''t exactly sure how he was going to proceed.


    The guards patrolling the top of the wall all carried lanterns and kept them trained on the ground around the castle, among other areas. As far as he could tell, there weren''t any gaps in the rotation either, so he couldn''t just run up to it. He figured if he could get up to the wall, the guards didn''t really look directly down so he should have a blind spot to hide in all the way around the castle.


    Ultimately, he decided to create his own distraction. He almost fired off a Fire Ball but stopped himself when he realized that would illuminate the area so instead he simply shot a tiny light grey bead that gave off no light. The bead soared off down the path and slightly to the left, away from Felix, creating a massive bang on impact. As it was a sound spell with no other effect but the loud sound alone was enough for the guards to investigate. Unfortunately, only the guards patrolling the path went off to investigate and the ones on the wall completely ignored it.


    Once they returned, having decided the disturbance was nothing, they walked right up to the castle and began combing the area. If he stayed in the bushes, they would inevitably find him. He was actually surprised they had the ability to determine the sound had to have come from somewhere. Thinking about it a little more though, he decided that was probably trained into them as guards, an instinct that stuck with them after being devoured.


    Not a video game. Right.


    Felix had to backtrack over a kilometer, right to the edge of the guards patrolling range then sneak past them again as they slowly combed through everything. There weren''t many of them so it wasn''t difficult to find an opening but he still had no way to get past the guards on the wall. He tried distractions in the air above them, but the guards split their attention immediately between it and the ground.


    He was tempted to just launch Fire Balls from all around to make them think the castle was under siege but he was pretty sure the guards would be all the more alert if he did that. In the end he decided to give up on distractions and instead decided to maximize his stealth. What he really needed was cover.


    Smoke was ideal but he didn''t have a good way of creating smoke without fire, which was bright. He had an alternative but it relied on the Devoured''s limited ability to think. Any normal sentient guards would see right through it and investigate but Felix was pretty sure Devoured were mostly just reacting how they would have in life. He was hoping this was something they hadn''t dealt with before.


    Instead of heading back down the path, Felix crept his way to the edge of the cliff and stepped off. He slowly fell down to the lake and began inscribing enchantments into the stone of the cliff using a simple malleable inlay material he had from the tutorial. He liberally used Force Bombs to clear away the dirt and grime because the guards had no way of investigating the disturbance.


    All he was inscribing was a simple heat enchantment a few meters below the surface of the water. He powered them using ambient mana which he thought would be more than enough and he also let them run without limiters, getting as hot as they could with the mana they had. The beauty of it was that he couldn''t overheat the water because as soon as it boiled and turned to steam, it would float up and away.


    By the time he made it all the way around the cliff, Felix already saw a steady wall of steam rising up from the lake. He waited a little while for the steam to get thicker around the castle then headed up to the edge of the cliff and cast very light wind spells to push the steam towards the castle. Felix hopped into the cloud and flew inside of it right up to the side wall, pressing himself up against it and waiting for the cloud to float away.


    Once the cloud dissipated a little, Felix waited a few minutes to make sure the guards weren''t combing the area and ensured that his blind spot theory held up, then got to work. He carefully placed the spell form so it would push mana towards the walls then ran a short distance away and placed another.


    He placed the corner specific spell form down and adjusted it then looped around the back of the castle so he dealt with the front gate last. He was less worried about being seen the side under the main structure because looking straight down through a window was harder than peering over the edge of a wall.


    Felix looped around and easily placed everything up to the front gate then carefully used a wind spell to pull a cloud around him and ran past the front gate. As he ran, he dropped the spell forms all along the wall. Instead of jumping off the cliff once the mission was over, Felix ducked back into a brush on the path and waited for the guards patrolling the path to loop back around.


    He waited with bated breath for the guards to spot the spell forms but sighed in relief when they seemed to completely ignore them. He wasn''t sure if that was because they only reacted to living things as Devoured or if it was because he had inscribed them onto debris. Either way, he felt relief that they hadn''t spotted them and excitement at the next part of his plan.


    Now, all he had to do was wait about a day for the ambient mana to rise inside of the castle. He was confident the Devoured wouldn''t notice it happening as he was pretty sure even most sentient beings wouldn''t even notice it. He dropped off the edge of the cliff and flew to a house he knew was empty and intact then spent the rest of the day practicing something he had thought of while trying to use the axe.


    Using the axe, before they bonded, Felix tried to use force spells to propel his swings as well as halt them. Recently though he started thinking about why he didn''t do this with his own body. Theoretically, he should be able to use force spells to step off the ground, pivot his body faster, punch harder and generally make every movement he made faster and more impactful.


    It would be slightly dangerous, considering he could potentially just shatter one of his bones or accidentally remove a limb if he used too much force. He was confident enough in his spell formations though that the limiters he placed on them would hold up, even if they were janky as hell. He didn''t actually have proper limiting spell components like a fuse or anything so he instead made one part of the spell very fragile so that it would hopefully break down before his limbs did.


    If this worked out well he was debating switching out the enchantments on his shirt and pants for something similar. He was starting to realize the mana shields should probably go on his outermost equipment, which would be a cloak when he finally replaced that. A cloak could cover his entire body save for a small gap in the front that he could worry about later.


    He also realized that having his shirt and robes overlap was completely useless, at least for the enchantment he currently had on them. If he enchanted the cloak with shields and the shirt and pants with movement enhancement, then his robes could be enchanted for climate control or something more useful down the road.


    For now though, he performed the steps for the Dragon Dance to the best of his ability. He paid attention to every movement he made and did his best to get a feel for how fast and how powerful they were. After doing it three times, he started to add in tiny force spells into the big movements and paid attention to the differences in how it felt and how it performed.


    The first issue was getting comfortable and used to both using force spells and how his body was moving. It threw him off at first, even tripping a few times, but eventually he learned to suppress his expectations for how his body would move and rely more on what was actually happening.


    He made sure he could perform the steps in their entirety, comfortably, before slowly adding in more force to the finer movements. He hadn''t quite gotten to the point he was happy with, not even close actually, but he stopped himself anyways because it was just a couple hours until he wanted to sleep.


    He was hoping to have added force to every movement he could, at least in a testing capacity, but had only added force to maybe a tenth of the overall movements. He had gotten very comfortable with spitting out force spells as a by product of his training though. For the last two hours before he slept, Felix flew over to a denser area of the kingdom and parkoured through the streets fighting Devoured.


    He gradually added force to as many of his movements as he could, where it made sense to do so. By no means was he proficient by the end of that but he was starting to get a feel for it. For now, he would probably avoid using it in any fights unless he really needed to or it was a simple movement like an axe swing or a jump. He was still happy though that he had spent the time figuring it out because he was excited for the future. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 Chapter 162 - Book 66

    Felix quickly slept a few hours then ran through his daily routine. With that done, he excitedly flew over to the castle to check on the spell formations he had set up about a day ago.


    He started climbing the road to the front of the castle then shot off to the side and decided to go around when he saw that there was still steam pouring up from the lake around the castle. Using the steam as cover, Felix reached out with his mana senses and felt at the difference between the density of the aether inside the castle compared to outside. Inside the castle, the aether was about 50% denser than it was outside, which wasn''t nearly enough for what Felix needed.


    Shit. It should have been faster. It''s like the aether is sluggish around here. Is that a thing?


    I don''t know. Grim said along with communicating a shrug.


    Agh. I don''t have time to wait any longer and even if I had another day, at this rate it wouldn''t be enough. I need more than just a few hours left after I figure out what''s inside the castle. This will only deal with the guards, then there are still the Devoured monsters along with whatever''s inside the castle itself. I need to save the last day or so to make any preparations I need for that.


    So new plan?


    No. Same plan, I can make it work. The spells I already set up are supposed to collect, distribute then contain mana around the castle. It''s not collecting it as fast as I''d like, but it''s containing it just fine. Standing next to it, I don''t feel any leakage. It''s just the collection that''s slow.


    So?


    If it can contain mana, but can''t collect it, I''ll just have to add mana myself.


    Felix didn''t elaborate, instead he shot up into the air, cast a couple of channeled lights and spun them around him. Immediately, the guards spotted him and started firing volleys of arrows as he darted around over the castle. His Mana Shield blocked all the arrows that would have hit him which meant he could focus on the rest of his plan.


    He figured it would be easier for him to set up the spells now, while the guard''s volley was still manageable, then add mana afterwards because the spells needed to be placed precisely, mana didn''t. The mana he could just spray around wherever so he didn''t need to focus on it.


    Felix dove down towards the ground and dropped scrolls as precisely as he could while dodging and weaving through the arrows. He focused on the tighter sections first, between the buildings, and avoided the monsters. Once the monsters mindlessly rushed to his old position, he darted around them and placed scrolls on the other side of the camp.


    He made sure to activate the spells on the scrolls before he dropped them, but they weren''t doing much with the low levels of aether. Once the areas between the buildings and near the walls were covered, Felix rose up higher into the air, to avoid the tentacles and chimera tail, then started dropping a steady stream of scrolls with the larger area of effect.


    It didn''t really matter if they overlapped, what mattered was that as much of the area as possible was covered by at least one scroll''s radius. The last area to cover was the hardest. Felix flew over the top of the wall as fast as he could while dropping scrolls onto it and using force spells to knock the guards around a little. He had though about starting with the wall, but he wanted as many of the guards as possible to congregate in the courtyard, trying to hit him while he dove.


    Once Felix had placed all of the scrolls, the stream of guards exiting the buildings and castle had mostly ended, which he hoped meant that almost all of them were in the courtyard or on the wall. The volley of arrows had become more difficult to deal with, but with the flying Devoured still disabled, squawking uselessly at him from the courtyard, it would only slowly whittle him down.


    For the last step, Felix started circling in the skies over the castle, dodging and weaving the arrows as best he could, though it didn''t do much due to the shear volume of arrows in the air. He retrieved a mana battery from his inventory, held it in his left hand then crushed it both physically and using his mana control. The battery exploded shooting Felix''s hand back in the process.


    He learned from his mistake and pulling out the next one, he moved it''s mana back into the aether before crushing it, completely avoiding any damage from the resulting explosion. With that figured out, he started pulling out two at a time, crushing one in each hand as he darted through a seemingly infinite sea of arrows.


    His mana was slowly dropping as he flew, he only had half left, but the spells hadn''t quite activated yet so he kept crushing the batteries as fast as he could. The aether was very quickly growing denser around him and thankfully seemed to still be contained within the castle''s vicinity.


    Felix had crushed almost 30 batteries when he started having to dodge more than just arrows. The disabled flying Devoured, that had been hopping around this whole time started to jump higher and higher having finally managed get in range of him. They started to bite at his heels but didn''t have the same mobility in the air as they used to.


    Felix dodged past them but didn''t dare fly higher because he was worried the mana would leak out if it was further from the containment spells. The mana was less useful the further it was from the scrolls he had placed and considering how sluggish the aether was, he tried to keep the mana as close to the scrolls as he could reasonably manage. It took 50 batteries for Felix to start seeing the effect on the guards but he didn''t stop, in fact he sped up as much as he could. His desired effect was much greater.


    At first, the flying Devoured that had been previously disabled started to jump progressively higher as Felix crushed the batteries. It was an unintended side effect but didn''t matter in the end. Given that they were born to fly, their bones were hollow and their bodies light, so the spell affected them first.


    As they jumped towards Felix, they started to jump higher and higher until they reached him, but then kept going. They started to jump well past him, and then they stopped falling back to the ground. A couple dozen batteries after them, the guards feet started to slowly hover off the ground, rising just an inch or so at first then they slowly started to ascend.


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    Felix noticed it almost immediately because it made it hard for them to shoot at him. The arrows started to fly all over the place instead of the constant stream that surrounded him. The guards feet slowly rose an inch off the ground, then slammed back into it when they fired an arrow. Then they would rise a couple inches, and slam back into the ground. They hovered higher and higher until the arrows weren''t enough to bring them back down anymore and instead just spun their weightless bodies around in the air.


    At that point, the volley had basically ended since they were incapable of orienting themselves to fire at Felix. Some of them tried and a few arrows hit his shield every second, but it was far from the hundreds it had felt like before. Felix continued to crush batteries as he flew around and when he had consumed 70 batteries, the Devoured started falling, upwards.


    It had taken far more mana than he had hoped for, apparently having underestimated their weight or misplaced the scrolls too much but with it finally working, Felix basked in the relief that washed over him. If he had placed the scrolls too close to the buildings, they would waste mana trying to lift it instead of the Devoured. He had limited how much mana they could consume so they would only be able to lift a certain weight, but they would still try to push on the buildings because he had no way to exclude them.


    He was starting to get really annoyed that he didn''t have access to more complex spell components. Worst case he could try and invent some if they didn''t exist already but he was sure they did, he just didn''t think he''d find them in his nascent, integration universe.


    Felix stopped at 90 batteries once all of the guards he could see were plummeting into the skies above. The monsters in the courtyard were much heavier and so they didn''t fall, leaving them alone with Felix. With only a third of his mana left, Felix wasn''t sure if he could deal with them now, but he figured he might as well try.


    He swapped the direction he pushed himself as the spells on the ground caused his gravity to flip as well, and summoned a shield above him. He made sure to keep himself high enough that he was out of their jump range then summoned a shade on the ground behind the chimera. It was so focused on Felix flying through the air that it didn''t even notice the shade until it buried it''s axe halfway into one of it''s two scaly reptilian tails.


    The Chimera jumped straight up, almost 5 meters into the air and clearly higher than it had expected, then spun around to see what had attacked it. Felix had already flown off to the side though so the shade was next to the tentacled monstrosity instead.


    The shade slammed the axe down over it''s head towards the tentacled creature but it''s writhing mass simply split apart, allowing the axe to pass right through without hitting anything. In response, a tentacle wove itself around the shade and pierced it in the side causing more than enough damage for it to vanish instantly. Felix winced at the strike and took solace in the fact that he wasn''t facing these creatures directly.


    He summoned two shades this time, one in front and the other behind the griffin, since it seemed to be paying the least attention. He ran forwards, causing both shades to charge at the creature in unison then struck out with a wide, horizontal swing.


    Unfortunately, the griffin was either too lucky or too aware of it''s surroundings to fall prey to a trick like that, it simply jumped up to avoid the swing and landed a dozen meters away. It tried to glide with it''s wings but without feathers and with a lot of it''s flesh missing, it''s wings were just long spindly appendages that were mostly useless.


    As Felix shot himself to the side repositioning his shades to attack some kind of dozen legged lizard, he saw a mass flying by off in his peripheral vision. Shooting his gaze over his shoulder, he saw that one of the guards plummeting to the ground from some unknown height. It was outside of the bounds of the castle though so Felix sighed in relief that he still had some time before his scrolls started to fail.


    He had designed them to fail dramatically instead of their effects lessening as the mana reduced. It had taken some time experimenting until he found the right intentional flaw, one that would cause the spell itself to shatter instead of gradually falling apart.


    Ultimately, it came down to the limitations of the spell scrolls. He found that they were limited to channeling a certain amount of mana, he wasn''t going to exceed that ever but he could have the mana circle around many times. That way a single spot on the scroll would end up with a lot of use, even if the rest of the scroll didn''t. When it failed like that, the spell scroll itself combusted and the spell effect simply vanished, so the guards would plummet from whatever height they had achieved.


    Felix refocused on the monstrosities in the courtyard and continued trying to hit anything and everything but mostly ended up missing. He landed a few strikes among the dozens he attempted but they even when they did hit, they didn''t seem to have much of an effect


    Given how much higher the monstrosities levels were, he assumed he wouldn''t wouldn''t be severing their limbs in a single strike, but he was hoping they would do more than they were. He wasn''t sure how to increase the effects of his strikes more than he already was, adding force to every strike and maxing out the weight of the axe. Instead, he settled on the alternative, if his strikes weren''t very effective, he was just going to have to hit more often.


    At his current level, Felix wasn''t nearly as fast as the creatures on the ground, even with their stats reduced from being Devoured. The difference was so great, that they were able to dodge almost all of his strikes. He only occasionally hit them because he caught one of them by surprise, often right after resummoning a shade, or he managed to corner them using two shades and a wall.


    It would take too long for him to keep shepherding the creatures into walls so he settled on a different approach. All of the Devoured he had encountered so far, other than the alchemist general, appeared to only be reacting on instinct, they were not capable of thinking for themselves. Those instincts were also entirely a carry over from when they were alive. S~ea??h the n?velFire.net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    Given that the monsters were both aware enough and fast enough to dodge his strikes, Felix decided to deal with the former. He pulled out a couple of mana batteries, this time crushing them and pulling the released mana directly into his core.


    As he flew around now, Felix started raining down explosive balls of light and sound. He didn''t want to risk destroying the scrolls he had so carefully littered across the ground so he didn''t use lightning, fire or force. He just hoped the light and sound would be enough to trigger their instincts and flood their senses.


    Guiding his shades into position Felix struck forwards at whichever creature seemed the most distracted. His hit rate had climbed drastically to about 50% and he had even landed a couple of devastating strikes on the griffin''s neck and the tentacle''s core body.


    He started to focus fire his distractions on individual targets and used the shades to whittle them down instead of raining down upon the entire battle field. It took far longer than he would have liked but he managed to finally kill one of them, a large two headed bear.


    Moving onto the next target, Felix saw a couple more Devoured, that had drifted out of the range of his spells, fall to the ground but none that had fallen within the bounds, just yet.


    He hurried along taking out as many monsters as he could, focusing on the ones that seemed the most affected by his distractions. The only goal in his mind at the moment was to reduce their numbers so they would be easier to deal with later on. He had made it through three quarters of them using a dozen mana batteries by the time the first guard rained down from above and landed within the castle walls.


    In a matter of moments the number of guards falling from the sky made it too dangerous for Felix to stick around so he shot off to the side, over the lake and watched. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 Chapter 163 - Book 67

    A falling guard would have consumed a lot of mana from his shield, especially compared to the arrows they were firing considering the difference in weight alone. Their bodies completely flattened themselves when they smacked the ground, their armor denting itself and creating a loud racket. None of the guards he saw falling survived.


    Some of the ones that had floated out prematurely had survived their fall, but only the earliest ones. The rest of them splattered across the ground like water balloons that refused to burst, their skin being too tough to pierce and holding itself together. The way they laid after landing though, it was clear their insides had been obliterated.


    A good number of them fell upon the monsters in the courtyard like giant hail. Their bodies slammed into the creatures and seemed to deal a decent amount of damage. Most of the creatures managed to dance around to avoid the bodies but there were so many, it was impossible to avoid them all.


    Felix recharged his mana as much as he could using batteries and manual regeneration while he waited for the last few Devoured to fall. Once a minute had passed without any falling guards and Felix was sure all of the scrolls had been dealt with, he flew back over the castle. The ground was completely covered in hundreds of corpses that had even destroyed most of the buildings in the courtyard. S~ea??h the N??elFir§×.net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    One of them had clearly been a stable once, judging from the wreckage, another was once a barracks next to the training yard. The last had been both storage and sleeping quarters, likely for servants judging from it''s location outside of the castle itself. Felix wasn''t sure at first how to deal with the remaining monsters.


    The only Devoured left were the fastest, most perceptive and smartest of the lot and even with his distractions, he had a hard time dealing with them. Eventually, he settled on doing his best to slow them down using spells. The aether was still dense enough for scrolls to work so Felix quickly created a bunch of those and littered them across the ground. All the spell did was apply a force that would pull things into them. It wasn''t nearly enough to trap any of the giant monsters left in the courtyard, but Felix was hoping it was enough to slow them down.


    He resumed his distractions and managed to take out the tentacled thing after a quarter hour of persistence. Moving onto the chimera, he had to create more scrolls as the original ones he put down had barely lasted the entire fight. This time he made sure to create even more scrolls. Along with the experience gained from the last fight, Felix was able to finish off the chimera a few minutes faster. The last monstrosities didn''t last any longer though, Felix did have to recharge his own mana as well as the aether a couple of time.


    He finished off the last couple of guards that were lucky enough to still be under rooves and the ones that had fallen prematurely. With all of the visible threats dealt with, Felix lowered himself to the ground and meditated just outside the front gate.


    All in all he had used a total of 103 batteries in the fight. That was over 25 million mana even without considering the amount of aether used. It was more than he had ever used before but it was the only solution he could come up with and looking back, he was happy with the expenditure.


    He still had 47 batteries left in his inventory so it wasn''t like he was running low. He should have more than enough for a while, unless there were another half-thousand guards in the castle itself. He was also somewhat surprised to see he had gained some levels in his profession.


    Ding You have gained 10 levels in [D - Arcane] Mana Engineer (192 => 202)


    Once he had completely recovered, Felix walked back into the courtyard of the castle and paid as much attention to his surroundings as possible. He was pretty sure everything was dead but in case there were still some Devoured alive, he didn''t want to be caught off guard.


    Corpses littered the ground in every direction, just a few meters of space between each of them. He walked up to each of the buildings, starting with the servants quarters on the left, right as he walked in. About half of the building was reduced to rubble but it didn''t seem like there were any surviving Devoured in the remaining half. There were barrels, crates and sacks piled up in a storage room but all of it smelled awful so Felix didn''t even bother looking through any of it.


    The building to the right of the main road, across from the servants quarters, appeared to be a large barracks. It had had three visible entrances, two to the main road because of how long it was and one to the sparring area covered in sand, nearest the castle.


    The building had a small section in the middle that was still standing but everywhere else the roof had collapsed. There was nothing remaining inside the building of value and it seemed like all the Devoured guards had left to try and take Felix down so none of them were left inside the rubble. He was expecting an armor rack or weapons cache in the ruins but other than a couple of each lying around, there didn''t appear to be much.


    The last building was a stable and only had a couple walls though, it had managed to stay mostly in tact. It seemed like the majority of the Devoured had fallen closer to the main gate so only a few had actually hit the roof of the stable. There were a few of the flying Devoured''s corpses here that had died from falling but they were too light to actually do any damage to the building.


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    The rest of them, Felix had finished off with his Shades. Looking through the contents of the building, there wasn''t much left at all. There were some destroyed saddles that were not for horses but rather seemed to be made for the flying Devoured Felix had initially dealt with. All the saddles had been completely shredded and looked like they had been used as chew toys for something with very sharp teeth.


    There were a couple of Devoured hanging around that had survived, though all of them were crippled in some way so it was trivial for Felix to finish them off. Once he was sure everything in the courtyard was dead and there was nothing left of value, he walked up to the castle.


    The castle had a large double doorway that eerily swung open as he approached. He jumped back and looked around for whoever had opened the doorway but couldn''t find anyone. Felix didn''t have any intention of walking in through the front door just yet so he ignored the self opening door and flew up alongside the castle.


    Felix flew himself up to the first level and peered through the, now unglazed, windows. On the first floor, Felix saw a large open entry way flanked by pillars and terminated by an angular imperial staircase on the far wall. There were a few Devoured walking around but they were all low level and posed little threat.


    Felix waited and watched as they walked in and out of the doors on either side of the room but no guards ever appeared. Once a half hour or so had passed, he summoned a shade into the room and finished off every Devoured that walked through.


    His best guess was that these used to be slaves, butlers and maids because they appeared to have had little to no combat experience when they were alive. One of them carried a large kitchen knife but they didn''t seem to know how to use it in a fight so Felix assumed they were once a cook of some kind.


    He circled around the building and found an empty ballroom. The other rooms didn''t seem to have any windows so Felix moved up to the next floor. Circling around, he peered into a dining room followed by a bedroom, library and a bathroom all located around the outside of the floor. He made sure to finish off any Devoured he spotted then finally circled around to the backside of the building.


    This floor had a series of massive open windows that looked out over the cliff. Peering through them, Felix saw a large room with ornamentally carved pillars and beautifully ornate flooring. At the far end of the room there was a large throne sitting atop a raised platform. The entire room was lavish, beautiful and incredibly excessive in Felix''s mind.


    There was only one Devoured in the throne room, unsurprisingly sitting upon the throne. The Devoured wore a large crown as well as the scraps of long thick robes that might have once been as lavish as the throne room itself. Their hand rested upon the cross guard of a longsword with it''s tip buried in the stone flooring.


    [D] King of Kroterra: Devoured (Lvl 902)


    Yikes.


    The king either didn''t spot Felix or just didn''t react to him so Felix decided to leave them be for now. He flew up to the last floor and looked into a series of bedrooms but only found a couple Devoured total that were probably maids considering the remains of their garments. He made sure to scour as much of the building as he could but found nothing else inside. All that was left was a stairway that led underground and the king himself.


    Judging from his level as well as his position as king, Felix wanted to avoid a direct confrontation as much as possible. He made sure his Mana Shields were active then floated up to the large unglazed windows that looked into the king''s room and made sure he was a few dozen meters away from the windows.


    He didn''t want to be too close in case the king tried to jump at him or something. Once he was ready, Felix summoned a shade behind the king and attacked. The shade swung outwards in an attempt to cut right through the throne along with the king''s neck. Right as the axe started to cleave through the back of the throne, the king shot up and whipped around, sword in hand. The shade''s axe had dug itself a half meter into the throne and no matter how hard Felix pulled, the shade couldn''t seem to free it.


    He ignored that shade for now and instead summoned another shade next to the king. As soon as the shade appeared, the king flicked his wrist and shot the longsword towards the shade. Felix saw it coming and was barely able to launch the shade back in time so it only suffered a minor scratch instead of being split in two.


    The king was undeterred though as he simply leapt towards the shade and struck out again. Felix was very ready for it this time and dodged towards the windows and away from the throne. The king planted a foot in the ground then diverted all his momentum and pursued the shade. The only reason Felix was able to barely dodge the king''s advance was that he was flying and his shade was replicating his movements.


    From this brief fight alone, Felix was certain the king was easily twice as fast as he was and almost thrice as strong. There was no chance Felix was going to be able to land a strike, especially one on one so he cast a quick lightning bolt to disperse his first shade who was still stuck in the throne.


    As soon as his lightning bolt hit, before he could resummon the shade, the stone work around the windows Felix was peering through started moving. A tendril of stone bricks shot out of the wall directly for Felix. He wasn''t ready at all for the attack but luckily his Mana Shield was. It struck the shield and consumed thousands of mana to stop the strike before Felix flew off to the side and the tendril flew past him.


    Before he even started slowing down, a pair of stone tentacles shot outwards and tried to wrap themselves around Felix. They were far faster than he was so he had no hope of dodging them.


    Instead, he summoned a shade next to the tentacle on his right then swung to the left. He, nor the shade, managed to bury their axe very far into the tendril but unexpectedly, it still managed to stop the attack. As soon as the axes struck, the tentacles recoiled and writhed almost as if they felt pain.


    Felix quickly looked back into the castle, worried that the king was about to launch an attack of their own but instead found himself face to face with a blank wall. At some point during the attack of the stone tendrils, the windows had vanished, as if they had never existed in the first place.


    Felix shot himself away from the castle to avoid any more attacks and ended up flying all the way back to one of the houses in the northern, wealthy neighborhood. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 Chapter 164 - Book 68

    So not only is the king far faster and stronger than I am, but he can also control the castle itself?


    Also Devoured, so highly resistant to most spells.


    Right, of course. Is there any doubt he has the seal then? Any chance I can just ignore him?


    He might, but did you notice his title?


    Yeah, didn''t have the partially Devoured thing.


    So maybe he just guards it, didn''t integrate into himself. What if that''s what''s making the castle move?


    Is that how that works? How does one go about making a castle move like that?


    You give it a soul.


    And we''re pretty sure the last remaining seal is the soul ring. I guess that makes sense. Just seems weird the king would give it to the castle instead of using it himself.


    Maybe he never had it. The guy who wrote that note, the one who made the seals in the first place, maybe he didn''t give it to the king at all.


    He locked it away somewhere in the castle and over time the castle ended up absorbing it?


    Something like that.


    I think that''s even worse. That means the castle acts on it''s own so I can''t just distract the king. I''ll always be fighting two entities instead of one.


    You could try and ignore the king, but I''m not sure how you find the ring.


    The castle would definitely try and defend itself and we can''t assume it''s an idiot. The smartest option for it is to move the king on top of me so I have to deal with both at once.


    So you need to find a way to kill something far stronger and faster than you in it''s sentient lair.


    Pretty much.


    The wyvern was strong, but it wasn''t particularly fast so it wasn''t too bad. This thing is strong and fast. How the hell do I beat that thing in a fight then?


    You cheat.


    Sure¡­ how?


    Bring a gun to the sword fight.


    Is a gun enough? On my world a gun could kill someone in a single shot and it wasn''t really possible to dodge, assuming the shooter was remotely competent. I don''t know anything like that here. I could try and make a massive lightning cannon or something¡­ How much do I need to overpower the spell to kill that thing though?


    Well, we know about how much it takes to kill a normal Devoured.


    Right and assuming the king is 5 times harder to kill¡­


    It''s between 10 and 30 million mana.


    Great so between 40 and 130 batteries. I only have 47 left so I just hope that''s enough?


    Well, the Devoured are resistant to elemental effects. You could just make a normal cannon. S~ea??h the N?vel?ire.net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    A cannon isn''t a terrible idea, the issue is I have to hold and aim it. Or even worse, set it up somewhere where I can''t aim it. If I''m going to have any chance of hitting the king, he needs to be held still. In that case, why wouldn''t I just walk up to him and hit him with the axe?


    Fair enough. Sounds like you need a trap of some kind then. Something that can hold him.


    Without the castle being able to just eat it.


    Speaking of the castle, you should be able to neutralize it, at least somewhat.


    How?


    Binding a soul to an inanimate object means it can move, but it can''t just move without expending any energy.


    Mana.


    Exactly. Energy is for living cells, mana is for¡­ everything else.


    In that case, I think I know what to do.


    Based on his and Grim''s estimate, Felix had 2 more days to get the ring and come up with a plan for how to deal with Erolan. Ideally Felix wanted to spend as little time as possible dealing with the king so he had as much time left afterwards as possible. Unfortunately, the plan he had, was going to take at least half a day.


    Felix pulled pre-affinized Starmetal ingots from his inventory one by one and started molding them to shape. He started with making chains as they were the simplest object he would have to make. He molded the links into each-other and then attached a hook to the links every meter or so. This would make it so he could hook the chain into itself and shorten it if needed.


    Once he had more chain than he thought was necessary, he started working on harpoons. He made them a meter long with small permanent barbs and larger barbs that extended on impact. He made 10 of them and fastened loops to the ends so he could hook the chains onto them.


    After that, he made two tubes that could be used to fire the harpoons from his hand with the inscribed force spell. Counterintuitively to Felix, using force spells had no recoil so the weight of the tube made no difference. After some brief testing, he made small adjustments to both the harpoons and the tubes to make sure his aim would be acceptable then moved on to the main event.


    Ultimately, he didn''t have a great way of killing the Devoured king in a single shot, like a gun, the alternative then was to make it impossible for the king to hurt him, let alone kill him. Felix started with a large capsule shape that would make up the torso then simple tubes for the arms and legs.


    From there, he morphed a hole into the back and climbed into the suit then morphed the different pieces around him to allow as much movement as possible. His ultimate goal was to have the suit be impenetrable for anything the size of the king''s sword or larger. He also didn''t need to have much mobility, just enough to turn and walk.


    He had no intention of swinging a weapon or dodging an attack, all he needed to do was shoot a harpoon into the king so he could chain him to the ground. Ideally the suit would also make it difficult for the castle itself to crush him, or at least he hoped it would.


    In the end, his suit looked ridiculous and wearing it, he could barely walk but he was happy with how much protection it offered. He made sure to bend the joints to their extreme, making sure a hole didn''t open up and it''s range of motion wouldn''t let the king just break all of Felix''s joints. He was pretty sure he had thought of everything.


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    He thought about the king simply blasting him with fire and trying to cook him alive but figured at that point, it would just come down to mana capacity, which he should win. The other option for the king was to throw Felix around and try to kill him with blunt force from having his body rattling around inside. Felix was hoping the king wasn''t strong enough for that though and if he was, Felix''s spells should be able to make up the difference.


    Felix stowed the suit along with the chains and harpoons into his inventory then flew back up to the castle. The last thing he had to do was to reverse the mana spells he had surrounded the castle with so the castle would have a hard time restoring it''s mana. With all the devoured creatures and guards dead, all he had to do was walk around the castle and spin the spell forms around.


    Before he did that though, he didn''t want to waste the mana already suffusing the aether around the castle so he walked into the courtyard and began recollecting it. He created as many batteries of solid mana as fast as he could while he flew around and absorbed as much mana as possible. In the end, he only managed to make 25 batteries before the aether around the castle fell to a level he was satisfied with.


    Felix reversed the spell formations to push mana away from the castle then walked into the courtyard, made some final modifications then climbed into his suit. He created and fused an extra two tubes to the outside of his suit then filled them with harpoons. He finally climbed into the suit then walked up to the castle doors.


    The first floor was exactly as he had seen from the outside, a long hall flanked by pillars on either side and ending in an imperial staircase on the other end. He wanted to check out the rooms he hadn''t seen into from the windows but figured there would be time for that later.


    Felix slowly took one loud clanging step after another and slowly walked into the center of the room, patiently waiting for the castle to make a move. As expected, the pillars on either side of the room lifted off from the ground and disappeared into the ceiling. One of them reappeared right above Felix''s head and smashed down as if he was a whack-a-mole.


    The pillar knocked him onto his back but the suit stopped it from doing any damage. The pillar lifted itself up and the carpet wrapped itself around Felix''s suit to hold him steady. Felix put his palm onto the ground and started pulling as much mana as he could out of the stone floor. There was far more mana than there would be suffusing any normal material but it only took him a couple seconds to pull most of it out. The carpet fell limply to the ground right before the pillar struck down again.


    As soon as the pillar struck, Felix pulled mana from it as fast as he could. This time, the castle knew what he was doing and it fought back. Felix had never felt anything quite like it, fighting against another soul for control over mana. It was interesting at first, but the castle didn''t stand a chance and barely even slowed him down.


    Felix pulled the mana into a new battery he was creating, just so he had somewhere to put it. Once the mana level within the pillar was approaching normalcy, Felix heard a loud crack followed by a crumbling noise. The pillar slowly tilted to the side then toppled over as it had separated from the ceiling above him.


    As soon as he managed to stand up, through the use of force spells, two pillars smashed into his suit from either side. As soon as they struck, they pulled back quickly and two more pillars struck again, perpendicular from the first ones. Felix pulled his arms into the chest plate of the armor just in case and manually pulled mana from everything around him.


    He created a vortex similar to the one he used to collect mana into his core and the one he used when creating mana engines. The vortex grew until it was as big as he could sustain, reaching over a meter in every direction. The pillars continued their rapid strikes but one by one, Felix sucked them dry and they fell to the ground, unmoving.


    Felix accelerated the vortex as much as he could so the pull was as strong as possible then slowly walked towards the stairs at the end of the room. Before he got there though, the entire ceiling dropped downwards. It was too slow to be an attack and the ceiling above him remained so Felix simply waited and watched as the throne room was lowered by a floor. The pillars from the room above came with the floor as did the throne and the devoured king that sat upon it. The king either didn''t care or didn''t notice the floor beneath him slowly descending like the biggest elevator ever. He lounged upon his throne and indifferently looked towards Felix.


    As soon as the floor stopped moving, the king lazily rose to his feet and lifted his sword from the ground. He took a few steps towards Felix then suddenly shot himself forwards. Felix was ready for the attack but knew he had no chance of dodging it so instead, he readied a harpoon. The king feinted with their sword then launched the momentum from shooting themself forwards into a kick knocking Felix''s suit back into the stairs.


    The suit smacked the stairs and rolled upwards while Felix, inside of it, rattled around. He lost a large chunk of his health just from being smacked against the inside of his suit, far more than he expected. He had managed to launch the spear but once his vision stopped spinning, he saw the king standing unharmed above him.


    The king was standing a top the suit and started pulling on the left arm. Felix quickly pulled his arm into the chest plate of the suit just in case and shoved mana into one of the spears on the outside of his suit. Just as the spear fired off, the king ripped the arm off at the elbow joint and the spear shot past his head and into the ceiling.


    Felix quickly started sealing the left arm of his suit but wasn''t fast enough to avoid the king shoving his sword inside. It couldn''t go very deep, but it was enough to rip through Felix''s upper left arm. The king pulled the sword out to strike again and Felix managed to seal the hole.


    The king jumped off and Felix sighed with relief that he didn''t go for the other arm but was interrupted by a pillar rocketing out of the wall behind him. It smashed itself into his suit and shot him across the room, once again smacking him just as hard against the inside of the suit. The vortex had pulled a lot of mana from it, but the castle hadn''t let go so it simply lay there. The other harpoon from his suit was stuck in the wall and held his suit aloft for a few seconds before it slid off and fell to the ground.


    As soon as his suit clattered to the ground, the king was on top of him again and started pulling on the other arm. Felix decided to sacrifice it and pulled out another harpoon. He quickly made a small hole in the front of the suit and stuck the harpoon through, firing as quickly as he could. This time, the king was still pulling on the arm when the harpoon buried itself into his abdomen.


    This harpoon had a chain attached to it and Felix held onto the other end. The harpoon interrupted the king''s attempt as he jumped back to avoid further injury. Felix reached up and quickly hooked the end of the chain to the harpoon in the wall above him before the castle once again launched him across the room.


    He cushioned the blow as much as he could with feather fall. Though it didn''t make it harmless, it helped. As soon as Felix hit the wall, he stuck a harpoon into it then hooked one end of a chain to it and ran towards the king with the other. The king had tried to leap at Felix, following his trajectory but the chain attached to the harpoon in his abdomen held him back.


    Felix clanged towards the king and fired a spear attached to the second chain from a dozen meters back while the king was busy pulling on the harpoon in his stomach. The harpoon landed in his left arm and Felix immediately pulled on the chain, hooking it onto itself to tighten it as much as possible.


    The king was limited by the chains to just a few meters of movement in either direction but it was more than Felix wanted. He clanged his way over to a spear he had missed with earlier that was stuck in a stationary pillar then hooked a chain to it. He fired the other end into the king''s flailing right arm then tightened the chain as much as he could. He circled around the king as he tried to break free of the chains but all it did was create slack in the chain nearest Felix. Felix hooked the chains with slack into themselves and continued circling until the king was barely able to move.


    The castle tried to attack Felix a few times, but each and every time it did, it''s attack was cut short as it was running out of mana and wasn''t nearly as fast as it had been before. Finally, Felix morphed the starmetal so there was an opening in his suit and climbed his way out of it.


    He gulped at the fresh air and stretched out then wiped the blood from his face and pulled out the axe. Now that the king was chained up and could barely move his arms, his speed and strength didn''t matter at all. Felix picked up and stowed his sword, which seemed to just be a simple steel longsword with durability enchantments, then started dismembering the king.


    He started with his legs, which took a handful of strikes to sever, almost like he was trying to cut down a large tree. Felix left the arms because they were being used to hold the chains, and he skipped straight to his head. It took him almost a dozen strikes to fully behead the king and finally receive the kill notification.


    Ding You have slain a [D] Partially King of Kroterra: Devoured (Lvl 902)


    Real shame these don''t give any experience.


    Their stats are also massively reduced. There is no way you''d be able to take out a normal level 902 like that. The only reason you could kill this one is cause it''s really dumb.


    Yeah, you''re right. Still seems like a shame. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 Chapter 165 - Book 69

    Felix quickly verified that the last seal wasn''t in the king''s corpse then collected all the starmetal he had strewn about the room. Once he was done with that, he didn''t bother checking the random rooms all around and instead focused in on the mana within the castle walls.


    He could feel it being pushed up from below so he head for the stairs. A couple dozen meters away, the castle realized where he was heading and tried to seal the entrance but Felix launched himself towards it and managed to stop it short. The stone floor stopped moving and finally crumbled as he sucked all the remaining mana from it.


    Heading downstairs, Felix watched the castle attempt to stop him by moving walls but he could feel he was already too close to the seal for it to matter. He crumbled all of the castle''s feeble attempts with his mana control and made his way to the center of a large open room filled with crates, barrels and sacks.


    There were four doors all around the room but Felix could feel the seal wasn''t in any of them, it was about a meter below him. He reached down and pulled all of the mana out of the stone below him. The castle tried fighting back, and it was much stronger this close to the seal, but it didn''t make any difference against Felix''s mana control. He suspected it also had to do with the ring being sealed, if it was unsealed or an actually sentient being, it would have been much harder.


    With the castle neutralized, Felix began drilling into the floor below him as carefully as he could. As he got closer, he heard stone grinding against itself and smashing into walls above him, the tantrum and resulting sounds growing louder the closer he got. He needed to find the seal but also needed to avoid damaging it at all costs.


    Once he could feel it was just a few centimeters away, he stowed the drill and started enchanting the rock to be as flexible as possible. It took thousands of mana, but he managed to make the rock soft like clay and simply reached his fingers into it. His hand clasped around a small golf ball sized object and he pulled. The sounds above him immediately stopped as the seal was freed from the castle.


    Felix took a brief glance at the bright white diamond looking seal before storing it in his soul space, along with the other two seals. With the king defeated and the seal secured, Felix finally took a look around the basement. The door to the left seemed to be guard''s quarters, judging from the weapon racks and beds, though nothing of value remained. The door to the right contained contained a dungeon with a few skeletons in the cages along with chains and torture tools. The two doors on the far wall were more interesting though.


    The first one seemed to have once been a trophy room with stuffed beasts, book cases, weapon and armor stands all laid out neatly around the room. Nothing of value was left but Felix suspected Erolan had already sorted through it and had stored anything of value in the sarcophagi above or in vaults throughout the city.


    The interesting part of the room though, was what was laid out over the floors and hung on the walls in front of the trophies. All over the place were large sheets of paper with arcane diagrams and figures. There was also a large book lying on the ground with hand written notes. Upon closer examination, Felix confirmed that the book was just over halfway full and had been written by Erolan.


    He made sure everything was scanned and stored safely on the permanent storage shelves in his mind then left the room and let Grim sort through it all. Felix walked over to the last door and walked down a long staircase that was clearly not part of the original castle. At the bottom, he heaved open a thick metal door and walked into a large square room lined with the same metal as the door on all surfaces.


    All over the walls were recessed cubbies that were just big enough to hold their contents. Looking closer at the objects stored in the room, Felix realized why this room was almost a kilometer further underground from the rest of the castle, they were unfinished and experimental vaults.


    Felix left the room and closed the door behind him then ascended the stairs back into the main basement. He set himself up in the middle of the room and slept while Grim sorted through the notes. He had lost over half of his health just from being banged around the inside of the suit and his arm was still healing from begin stabbed earlier.


    He slept for just a few hours but it seemed to be all he needed as he felt much better afterwards. He ran through his daily workout routine along with stretches and the dragon dance steps, adding force to the movements as he did. Once he was done with that, he talked to Grim about what they had found in the basement.


    Grim confirmed the notes were all about Erolan''s discoveries and experiments with stealing vaults and getting through their defenses afterwards. It seemed Erolan had been looking into how to create portals of his own but stopped when he realized he couldn''t use them to teleport behind enemy lines.


    Apparently, it was possible to set up an anchor for portals and teleportation so that all teleportation of any kind was redirected to a specific point. According to Erolan, almost all empires used the anchors to create kill zones for anything that tried to teleport in. Erolan had tried to circumvent this but by the end of the notes, he hadn''t found a way to do so.


    Felix read through the notes himself, both from genuine interest and in the hopes that there was something to help him deal with Erolan in them. Erolan didn''t have much in terms of how the portals themselves worked and he seems to have mostly been piecing together what he could find.


    All of his experiments involved splicing together spell forms he had found and not much on their actual function or structure. He had come to some interesting discoveries though, like the anchors. This was all new to Grim too as the only form of teleportation he knew was short range and was apparently completely different from portals.


    Along with anchors that certain empires created and used to protect themselves, there were also natural anchors all around the universe. The biggest natural anchors were black holes, followed by stars. Planets were also anchors but apparently they weren''t strong enough to redirect anything but childish attempts at teleportation by any noticeable amount. Felix had an idea but kept reading through the notes a few times hoping to find anything better but ultimately decided it was his best chance.


    You mentioned one way to destroy a magic item is with a black hole. What if we open a porta-


    No. Seriously? Think that through. You really want to open a portal within the vicinity of a black hole. Best case scenario, the black hole interferes with the portal from the other side and makes it unusable. Worst case, this entire planet is sucked into it with no hope of getting out. Judging from Erolan''s notes too, it wouldn''t be possible to open a portal anywhere close to a black hole because it would just get redirected into it.


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    Yeah, you''re right. Would a star be enough to destroy it?


    Probably. Almost definitely. Same problem though.


    Ok so we open a portal near a star and throw the seal into it. We could even throw Erolan''s body into it too.


    That sounds like a slightly less terrible but still awful idea. You would need to be sure you don''t open it too close. There''s a fine line between too far away for it to pull him in and too close where the portal itself get''s pulled into the star. At that distance too, if my rough math is right, it woiuld take years for his body and the seal to fall into the star.


    Years? Damn, guess we need to figure something else out then. It would destroy the item though, right?


    It should destroy the item.


    Should?


    I''ve never heard of anything capable of surviving that but I had also never heard of anything like you before so¡­


    Do I pull it out of the seal before I throw it in or?


    No, definitely not. The second you pull it out, he wakes up.


    That''s another question, which one do I get rid of?


    I''d be inclined to say body, but we don''t actually know what they do yet. You should probably open the soul seal first.


    Won''t that wake him up?


    You just need to keep the item in your soul space. Do not remove it until we are certain he''s gone.


    Let''s figure out the portals first.


    Felix and Grim started poring through Erolan''s research notes along with all his diagrams and experiments in the metal lined vault room. The vast majority of vaults Erolan found and all of the vaults used in Ky''bel were based on anchors. The portal to enter the vault and the one within it each used anchors and pointed to each-other. This made it so it didn''t matter how each of them moved relative to each-other. As long as neither of them were too close to a larger anchor like a black hole, the portals would always lead to the other anchor.


    The other type of portal was one that didn''t target an anchor. These portals targeted specific locations either relative to their origin or with absolute coordinates. Relative portals were more cost efficient to make so long as the distance was small. Portals targeting an absolute position were always consistent in their mana cost. These types of portals were apparently rarely used though because of how much more complicated, dangerous and expensive they were.


    There was a spell for measuring the coordinates of an object you could see but even then, portals targeting coordinates were finicky. The risk of the portal exploding or being sucked to an anchor were very high. Anchored portals were consistent and easy to use, all you needed was an anchor at the destination that you knew. Unfortunately, Felix didn''t have any anchors in range of a star so he would have to figure something else out.


    He thought about using relative positioning but he didn''t know what was outside of the bubble that contained the world event and didn''t want to risk it. The issue with absolute positioning was that he needed some coordinates to start from that he knew weren''t too close to a black hole or anything. Luckily, a few of the remaining vaults in Erolan''s metal lined room had been repurposed.


    Erolan had repurposed a few of the vaults to point to specific locations he was interested in. There were two that pointed to cities he traded with and a couple that pointed to locations in the orbit of random planets that he had listed as potential escape routes. The only problem was that when Erolan was creating these they might have existed, but it had been so long those points could be anywhere now. Unfortunately it was looking like that was a risk he was going to have to take. He had time to figure it out though because first he needed to figure out how to create a portal.


    He started with a short portal, one that would simply travel a few meters across a room. Theoretically, that should make it cheap and Felix hoped would also be the safest. The spell form was far too complicated for him to simply cast in front of him like he did with other spells so he instead settled on using his quill to inscribe it into the wall.


    His hope was that by casting one portal, he would be able to get a sense for how things should work. Then when he had to cast a portal into the universe, he would have a good idea if things were working properly. Erolan had some notes on short range portals, though none as short as what Felix planned. Erolan had once looked into using this type of portal for trade routes and travel throughout the city. Ultimately, he had decided against it both because the mana cost was too high and because anchors were simpler and safer.


    Erolan''s notes detailed portals that would bridge a distance of a few hundred kilometers in a straight line along with how to change that distance. The distance of the portal''s destination was dependent on minute changes to the spell form. Felix simply replicated one of these highway portals on the wall and altered the distance to be a much shorter range. He checked over his inscriptions a dozen times and had Grim look over them as well before he even thought about using it. Once he was certain though, he climbed back into his starmetal suit, just in case, and began pumping mana into the inscribed spell.


    As mana poured into the spell form, Felix paid careful attention to how it spread hoping to detect any small flaws before they caused a massive explosion. As the mana spread out, the small sections he had made the minor adjustments to, the coordinates, continued to suck mana into them like nothing he had ever seen before. S~ea??h the N?velFire.n§×t website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    By the time he had poured in half a million mana, the spell form didn''t even seem close to full but he started to notice the inscription was starting to degrade. Felix immediately stopped pumping mana and pulled as much as he could back out of it. It wasn''t any specific flaw in his inscription that was failing, it was the entire inscription itself. Felix realized a spell form inscribed into a stone wall was simply incapable of handling large amounts of mana. It wasn''t nearly stable or precise enough.


    He realized he would have to create the spell form itself out of a material, like how permanent enchantments used inlaid metals. He had some enchantment inlaying metals from the dungeons back in the tutorial, but not enough malleable inlay for this venture. He had unmalleable inlay but he didn''t have a good way of molding it at the moment.


    What he did have was starmetal but when he tested it, the starmetal''s mana conductivity was awful, possibly even worse than stone. The other material he had on hand that was easily moldable was solid mana but he was pretty sure it wasn''t safe to use mana to make the spell form, for a spell that consumed mana. What he could do though was use it as a mold. Felix tested the method with a few simple spells like Fire Bolt and Gust and it seemed to work perfectly.


    First, he used solid mana to form the spell form, then he covered and encased that in a sheet of star metal. When he removed the solid mana, he was left with a perfect mold of the spell. From there, he simply filled the mold with mana, using his mana control just to hold it in and keep it moving, and the spell would cast.


    Moving back to the portal spell form, Felix formed the mold and set the sheet of starmetal against the wall so the other end wouldn''t be under ground. He began filling the mold with mana and paid careful attention to its flow. This time, the spell form filled out perfectly with no apparent issues other than that he completely ran out of mana. He had poured in just over two million mana and if he had to guess, the spell needed another million or so more.


    He started pulling out batteries to complete the spell form but once he was about 90% of the way there, he started to sense minor flaws in his spell form. He almost tried to fix them on the spot but ultimately decided against it. He solidified all the mana he had used into batteries then went about fixing all of the minor flaws he had detected.


    Then, he used the same mana to refill the spell form. He had to iterate a dozen times and consult Erolan''s notes twice before he was ready to fully cast the spell. The last half dozen iterations were just him reassuring himself because he hadn''t actually found any flaws. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 Chapter 166 - Book 70

    Equipping the starmetal suit once again, just to be safe, Felix poured mana into the spell form. Right when the spell was about to cast, Felix felt the spell form shift slightly. The nodes he had modified to change the distance of the destination portal, the targeting nodes, moved just a hair. It was so minute that in any other spell he would have ignored it entirely, in this one, in that specific place he knew something had happened.


    He was about to stop the spell but then hesitated for a few seconds. He had already verified the spell form multiple times and knew that what he really needed to further improve, was to actually cast a portal. It also wasn''t a large flaw that was quickly spreading. The spell form had slightly shifted but the spell actually seemed more stable than it had before. Hesitantly, he pushed the last bit of mana into the spell and braced himself for whatever happened.


    Anticlimactically, a circle appeared in the air in front of the spell. There was no sound, no large flashing of light, just a simple circle two meters in diameter. Carefully craning his head to peer through the circle without putting any part of himself through it, Felix saw a small metal lined room with a large metal door.


    It took him a few seconds to realize this was the room Erolan had added below him. It took him a few minutes again to figure out why the portal had been opened there. Initially he thought he had simply screwed up the modifications to the spell form, because it was highly likely they weren''t perfect. He eventually put it together though that the room beneath him contained multiple anchors which was why the coordinates had shifted themselves.


    He continued to pump a few thousand mana a second into the spell form to maintain the portal and threw a few random objects through it. Then he stopped supplying mana and watched the circle simply vanish just as suddenly as it had appeared. After verifying there was nothing left in the room in terms of spell forms or mana that might explode, Felix ran down to the vault and found all of the items he had thrown through.


    Unfortunately, he was severely limited in terms of how much he could experiment because of how much mana the portals consumed. Some rough math based on Erolan''s findings put the cost of a portal with an absolute target at around 20 to 25 million mana. Even the one he had just cast which was supposed to be relatively cheap had cost more than his entire mana pool.


    There was no way he could cast multiple portals so he needed to get it as close as possible on his first attempt. Also given how much time he had left in the world event, he had to spend as much time as possible collecting mana. Ultimately, he was just going to have to cast the portal and hope. Unfortunately, Felix didn''t have access to the absolute coordinates of a star but it wasn''t impossible for him to find them.


    Hey Grim, hear me out before you say no. What if I just open a portal and let a star suck it in? I could put the body and seal in a vault then set up a portal to open after a short delay. Then I close the portal to the vault and¡­ presto?


    Actually¡­ that''s not the worst idea ever. You would need coordinates that were at least close to one and putting a delay on a ritual isn''t too difficult, I''ve never heard of it being done but, I don''t see why you couldn''t? It would definitely destroy the item though, at least I''m almost certain it would.


    Yeah, I was thinking I would open one then use the coordinate measuring spell on a any star in the sky. Then I set up the ritual with those coordinates and stars are natural anchors right? So, the risk of it being sucked somewhere else is essentially 0, right?


    Yeah. Your logic is sound as far as I can tell. You just have to hope you get everything right the first time. It''s not like you can open that vault back up again, ever, to check if it worked.


    Yeah. I also don''t have enough time or mana to try again. Hopefully I get enough experience with the first portal I have to cast. sea??h th§× N?velFire(.)net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    Felix wanted to get just a little more experience with portals before he started working on his final attempt so he started experimenting. Felix used the same mold he had first used, with some minor modifications, and poured mana into it, much faster this time because he knew it worked. This time, after the spell had been cast, Felix reached out for the remaining spell form. Most of the mana had been consumed but a a thin outline was left behind that he channeled mana into.


    Felix, on a whim, slightly nudged the coordinates in the spell form but felt something pushing against him. He continued to gradually push against it until finally, the spell form gave way. The portal itself, on his side, didn''t move but all of a sudden, light poured through the opening. Felix almost let go of the spell but the warm sunshine on his face stopped him. He nudged on the rest of the targeting nodes and found them much easier to move now that he was out of range of the anchors.


    All he really needed was to get a feel for what functional portals were like in different situations. Once he had moved it around for a few minutes to scour the city above, Felix smiled. Not only would this make finding a star he could use to dispose of Erolan and a seal much easier, but he also realized he had a little more time than he had expected.


    Looking down over Ky''bel, Felix had seen that the majority of movement within the city was still a few kilometers from the outer wall. He still had a couple days until they had finally searched through everything. There were also very few people in and around the camps on the outskirts, so it wasn''t like they were preparing themselves to assemble the key and enter the final vault. Ideally he''d have liked more time, but he should have just enough for him to collect the necessary mana by his estimate.


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    Ding You have gained 14 levels in [D - Arcane] Mana Engineer (202 => 216)


    Felix didn''t waste any more time and left the basement then headed out past the castle gate. He carefully increased the size and speed of the vortex that fueled his mana core as much as he could. Then, he solidified mana pulled from his core as quickly as he could and stowed the resulting batteries in his inventory.


    He quickly realized though that the second battery was slower than the first and the third much slower than that. The aether around him was still slow for whatever reason. Since the mana wasn''t coming to him, Felix flew into the air and flew in a spiral outwards from the castle so he could collect as much mana as possible.


    As he flew into the air, he noticed the aether was more responsive and less sluggish the higher he got. It was also almost imperceptibly more sluggish on the outskirts of town and to the south, though it was so slight he wasn''t sure if he was imagining it to confirm his own theory.


    Given the aether was more responsive up high, close to Ky''bel, he theorized it had something to do with how recently and how often the aether had been used. While his ruminations didn''t affect his mana collection in any way, it was a suitable pass time that surprisingly resulted in another profession level.


    Ding You have gained a level in [D - Arcane] Mana Engineer (216 => 217)


    To be certain he had enough mana, Felix didn''t stop until he had created 251 batteries. He was going to stop at 250 but decided he would make one more just to be safe. Felix flew straight back to the castle and walked down to the basement. He thought about getting rid of his mana collection spells that were currently keeping the castle as a low aether area but decided against it.


    He wasn''t entirely sure it would make a difference, but he figured the lower the aether was, the lower the chance it might interfere in some way with his portals. Not that he had ever seen or heard of it happening, he just didn''t exactly know how sensitive portal spells were. In the end, he figured he was better off leaving it the way it was while he had been experimenting.


    Felix didn''t know how much time he''d have left so he skipped his morning routine and got to work right away. The first thing he had to do was find a suitable vault he could destroy. While in theory any vault would do, Felix and Grim were pretty sure at least some of the vaults were located deep within some planets.


    If there were people living on the surface of those planets, Felix''s portal into the core of a star would almost certainly kill them if it didn''t immediately collapse. He had no intention of risking an accidental mass genocide so they combed through the vaults to find one they were certain would have minimal side effects.


    Looking through Erolan''s notes, Grim had found the best candidate for the first portal, a barren planet Erolan had planned on using as a plan B escape route. The conditions on the planet itself were harsh and unlivable meaning it was unlikely anyone would find him there. What made this the best choice in Grim''s opinion was that there was no life on the planet or any sign of life nearby. This meant it was unlikely that a city had sprung up or a god had claimed it.


    Felix also didn''t want to try his experiment on the surface of the barren planet they were going to use. He was pretty sure he couldn''t breathe on the planet and he was worried there might be something like solar radiation that might interfere with the portals. He had no idea if that was even possible but he had no intention of risking it.


    Looking through the vaults Erolan had kept to himself below the castle, Felix found the perfect candidate. The vault was supposedly located inside of a massive asteroid and Erolan had kept it just in case he had needed to store something particularly dangerous. Felix was initially worried that the asteroid might not exist anymore but theoretically, if that were the case, the anchor located within the asteroid would also be destroyed. He wasn''t exactly sure what would happen but he was pretty sure opening a portal that pointed at an anchor that didn''t exist probably wouldn''t be too dangerous, he hoped.


    The first step of his plan, Felix set up the entrance to the vault he had chosen in the center of the basement. It already had a battery built into the key so all Felix had to do was activate it. Once it was active though, it required mana to sustain itself while it was open and Erolan had achieved this with ley lines. Throughout the entire city, he had set up channels of mana that fed the vaults scattered about. Apparently portals using anchors were so cheap, that all the ley lines really did was collect up the aether and direct it. Erolan didn''t have any kind of mana engine or massive battery.


    Felix placed the key to the vault in the middle of the room and set up two batteries to supply it with mana once it was open. In theory one would be far more than enough but he also didn''t want to get stuck in there so he added a second for redundancy. Also, now that he had access to it, he used the coordinate measuring spell to find the absolute coordinates of the room around him.


    As soon as the spell displayed the coordinates in front of him, Felix could have sworn the symbols seemed vaguely familiar. He hadn''t seen these symbols specifically before, but he had seen something very similar. He didn''t worry about it too much because he would likely start recognizing them in the future, if he saw them again. Felix memorized the symbols so that he could open a portal back here if he accidentally got himself stuck in the vault or somewhere else.


    Felix activated the vault key and a two meter wide portal appeared before him shortly followed by a rapid gust of wind and the air around him suddenly dropping in temperature. Peering through, Felix saw what appeared to be a large open cave with dull rock in every direction he looked. He was sure it was some boring combination of minerals that asteroids typically consisted of, his only hope was that it was able to provide some amount of minor insulation.


    Felix began pouring heat into the asteroid to ensure the vault wasn''t fatally cold and used a simple wind spell to cycle the air and keep it even. He only needed it to be workable for a few hours while he finished setting everything up. He didn''t need it to be warm, and he would gladly settle for it not being close to absolute zero. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 Chapter 167 - Book 71

    Once the asteroid vault was sufficiently warm such that it wasn''t instantly killing his exposed flesh, Felix entered the vault and looked around. However, after stepping inside the vault, Felix realized that he had already seen everything. The entrance portal was set upon one of the walls and there were no hidden passageways, nooks or crannies.


    The cave was easily large enough for what Felix had planned and luckily the floor was relatively flat, likely by design. It wasn''t flat enough for him to inscribe the portal directly onto it, not that he would anyways, but it was good enough that he could build off of it. More specifically, Felix planned to add a layer of starmetal across the entire floor that he could use to inscribe spells upon.


    Felix didn''t waste any more time and first reverted his starmetal suit into a large mass of metal that he started laying across the floor. Once he ran out of starmetal from the suit, he started pulling ingots out of his inventory and adding them in as well. His goal was a perfectly flat circle about 3 meters across.


    The biggest obstacle he had to work around was the lack of gravity in the asteroid, luckily a single of simple force spell provided a perfect facsimile of gravity that made it much easier to work. The rest of the work was relatively easy. The circle was laid out and flattened without issue and Felix began inscribing the portal spell he planned on using into the starmetal. He still didn''t have coordinates for a star yet but he could simply inscribe the rest of the spell for now and add in the coordinates afterwards.


    Once the portal spell, minus the coordinates, was ready in the asteroid vault, Felix headed back into the castle basement and began constructing a different portal spell. In Erolan''s research notes, Felix and Grim found multiple coordinates that supposedly led to random locations in the middle of space.


    At some point he had tried to find a pattern with the coordinates so he could guess the coordinates of specific locations but there was no mention of him ever succeeding. As for the random locations he still had recorded, Felix theorized he kept them around for disposal of sensitive materials, bodies and otherwise.


    Felix chose one of them at random and started to construct another portal with the coordinates, this time about the size of a large coin. He knew he was likely opening a portal into empty space meaning the air in the room around him would be sucked into it.


    Theoretically, according to the multitudes of physics books he had memorized, the smaller the portal, the less force the vacuum would apply. He needed it to be big enough for him to cast a spell through it though so he didn''t make it miniscule. He also wasn''t sure a portal the size of a pinprick would even be stable. He spent a few hours designing the spell with solid mana and visually inspecting it for flaws.


    Once he was certain the portal spell form was as perfect as he could make it on his first try, Felix inset the spell form into a new starmetal sheet then reabsorbed the solid mana. Left with a massive spell form made of channels, Felix moved onto the next step. He added a few million mana to the empty channels and experimented with it in an attempt to find any flaws. He pushed mana forcefully around and tested areas he knew were a problem on the last portal and in previous spell forms he had cast. He found a few minor issues that he fixed but was interrupted by a System screen before he could actually open the portal itself.


    World Event


    All 12 fragments of the key to the final vault of Ky''bel have been assembled. The final vault is now open. The portal will remain open for one hour at which point it will be sealed. If you choose not to enter the final vault, you may instead return to Trenus. Those who enter the vault will not return to Ky''bel afterwards, so do not leave anything behind. Heading through the portal will bring you to Erolan''s champion in it''s lair. If defeated, those who participate will have one day to raid the final vault.


    You have one hour to enter the final vault, if you do not do so you will be returned to Trenus.


    Wait, is that different? I thought the key was supposed to summon Erolan''s pet then defeating it would then let them get in? Am I misremembering that? Also what gives, I thought I had a day once it was opened?


    I don''t think so, that''s how I remember it to. Maybe we both misinterpreted it? I¡­ guess you should have saved it in your library?


    Just a few moments later, almost as if it was answering their questions, another System screen appeared.


    World Event: Special Quest


    You, Felix Kade, have decided to forgo most of the treasures of the vaults throughout the city along with the final vault. Instead you have fixated on the fallen kingdom of Kroterra and Erolan''s body along with his personal treasures. Your familiar has already entered the final vault and will act as a participant, subject to the same rules they are.


    You will have one day alone in the World Event starting in one hour. Any attempt to open a portal with absolute coordinates, outside of the world event space, within the next hour, will fail. You may prepare as you see fit for the next hour. In 25 hours you will be returned to Trenus. If you unseal Erolan and he bests you, he will be returned to the multiverse. Should you succeed in killing Erolan and unbinding any pieces of the Devourer set, you will be eligible for bonus rewards.


    Rewards: Unbound pieces of the Devourer set. Any remaining pieces of Erolan''s mind, body and soul will be added to the remaining pieces of the Devourer set once bound to you. You will be provided the portal coordinates to the capital city of the multiverse. Additionally, the progenitor of your class has agreed to reward you with the full class should you succeed. Lastly, you will be given a crystal tied to a pocket dimension in which you may relocate your tower from Trenus.


    Conditions: Should you succeed, you will have 6 months left on Trenus at which point you will be forced to leave the integration universe entirely. If you do not leave yourself, you will be ejected to a random location within the multiverse.


    Warning: Once you leave, you will be unable to return to Trenus until the integration is complete. If you leave without choosing a successor for Atalus and the Stormbringer''s Demesne, they will be forfeit and free to claim. If you do not accept this quest and it''s conditions, you will be subject to the same restrictions as everyone else and be forced to either enter the final vault or return to Trenus.


    Do you accept this quest and it''s conditions?


    Yes.


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    No.


    After pausing for a few minutes of silence, mind completely blank, Felix read through the unexpected second prompt again. The second time because to make sure he had read it properly and the third to be sure he got everything. Though there were downsides, Felix didn''t have much to think through, he already knew his answer.


    Yes.


    So, we have just under 25 hours to finish this.


    Yup. Then I''m getting kicked out of the integration universe.


    Yeah that was¡­ unexpected.


    I was going to end up leaving anyways, or at least trying to. It''s just¡­ being forced out is different¡­ I guess this means the System thinks it''s possible then? Killing Erolan and destroying a seal?


    I guess? I mean, not necessarily. Maybe it thinks we are more likely to unseal him than we are to anything else.


    Maybe. Then why even give us the quest, it mentions success so it must be a possible outcome, no matter how unlikely. I know we talked about it but up to now I still wasn''t convinced it was even possible for any of this to work. It''s all just so far¡­ outside my imagination even. Even just opening a short range portal was a little mind bending. This almost feels like¡­ encouragement? or an endorsement? S§×arch* The ¦Çov§×lFire .net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    While I get it, portals and teleportation seem like a godlike ability to some, they really aren''t that crazy. Anchors screw them over and they aren''t exactly easy to use and cast. Also most people can''t move the mana while the portal is open.


    I thought you didn''t know about portals before Erolan''s notes?


    I knew about them, I just had no idea how to cast one. It was so commonplace in my universe that it wasn''t really a secret. No one bothered to store it in my pages. I had heard about them though. Seen a few in my own travels.


    Commonplace? Really?


    Yeah. Transportation of people, goods and anything else.


    Wow. It just seems¡­ insane. People back on earth had dreamed about instantly moving from one place to another for thousands of years. Now I''m just¡­ doing it¡­ and I''m only in the D grade.


    You also have more mana in your mana pool than most people in B grade or even more. Portals are usually an endeavor taken on by a large group or with a lot of preparation, at least in my universe.


    Fair enough¡­ still.


    Theoretically, 25 hours was plenty. Felix already knew what he needed to do and didn''t think it would take that long. In reality, he expected there to be complications that slowed him down so he moved as quickly as he could.


    He wasn''t certain the portal spell form was perfect yet, but he had exactly one hour where he couldn''t actually open it anyways so he immediately started testing the spell. He moved mana through the channels, compared the spell form to the vault keys and notes as well as examined the spell as many times as he could before the hour was up.


    With nothing else delaying him, forcefully or otherwise, Felix started pouring mana into the portal''s spell form. He corrected and adjusted for minor flaws with his mana control as he went but nothing major enough for him to stop channeling mana altogether. Exactly as expected, a small circle just a few inches wide appeared directly above the spell form with no forewarning whatsoever.


    This one however, was accompanied by a slight popping noise then a rush of air being sucked into it. The force wasn''t nearly enough to pull him towards the portal but it did create a strong breeze in the chamber. He didn''t waste any time and peered through into the inky black beyond. Unfortunately, he didn''t see anything though so he quickly reached out for the spell form with his mana senses and began manipulating the spell form, ever slightly.


    Felix rotated the portal around until he spotted a few pinpricks of light through it. He chose the brightest one and focused on it while he cast the coordinate measuring spell. In theory, the spell could measure the coordinates of anything he could see but he wasn''t exactly sure how that would work. In the room around him, it was instantaneous. Across space, pointing towards something that was easily thousands of lightyears away, Felix just hoped the spell didn''t try to actually measure the distance to it''s target.


    Luckily, the spell just as instantaneously as it had when pointed at the wall, created a series of coordinates in the air in front of him. It felt different in an almost indescribable way but he just attributed it to the weird circumstances under which the spell was being cast. Felix quickly memorized them and then repeated the spell a few more times on the same star, and a few more times on the other two pinpricks of light he saw.


    The spells returned the same coordinates every time so Felix was pretty sure they were accurate and wasn''t too worried when he closed the portal. He quickly added coordinates to the spell form on the floor of the asteroid vault and reheated the room. He then worked on the simple spell work that would cause the portal to cast on a delay. All he ended up creating was a massive spell form that did nothing except hold mana surrounding the portal spell form. He connected that to the portal spell form with some simple enchantments nodes that artificially created a delay just by being slow.


    By his calculations and experiments, the spell would be delayed from casting for a few minutes. He wanted more of a delay, but any more than that and he wasn''t sure his makeshift spell form would be able to handle the amount of mana flowing through it. Even now, he was mostly hoping and doing whatever experiments he could to reassure himself. Lastly, Felix triple checked the portal spell form using the knowledge he had gained from the last portal he had just cast.


    With the other portals, Felix had held the mana into the mold. With this one, he wouldn''t be around to do that so, once he had tested it for a couple hours to satisfaction, Felix pulled out the materials for inlaying enchantments he had gotten in the tutorial.


    Though the materials were E grade materials mostly, they seemed to hold up to his testing and were more stable than just pouring raw mana into empty channels. He found that he just had to make them thick enough, too thin and they would melt. Felix quickly formed a large tank out of starmetal with a small tube running out of the bottom. He placed ingots of inlay material into the tank and heated it with a Pocket Star in the middle of the tank. The material slowly liquefied and poured out of the tank and into the starmetal mold on the floor.


    Felix paid careful attention to make sure the material poured in evenly and as flawlessly as he could manage. The funnel that he poured the inlay material through was tiny, which made it a slow process, but ultimately he wouldn''t have dared go any faster anyway and rush it. With the entire spell form complete, Felix tested and modified it until it was as perfect as he was going to be able to manage.


    Finally, Felix flew up to where he knew Erolan''s body lay. It lay there, unmoved from where he remembered it, in the exact same position. Completely still other than the slow and slight expansion and contraction of his chest, breathing at the exact same rate as he remembered. The body was tall, muscular and his skin was shiny, almost like a carapace. The worst part of all though, was the face that for some reason held 5 eyes and just generally disgusted Felix.


    Initially, he intended on cutting Erolan up into small pieces and carting those down to the portal room but when he tried to remove his head with the axe, Felix found he could just barely scratch his neck.


    Erolan showed no signs of rousing with an axe to his neck though so Felix felt a little less nervous removing the chains from around his body. Erolan was technically still alive so Felix couldn''t stow his massive body in his inventory, instead Felix carried it. Erolan was far heavier than he had expected but it wasn''t unmanageable. Felix placed the body in the asteroid vault off to the side so it wouldn''t interfere with the portal. He was pretty sure it didn''t matter how close the body was considering what he was planning. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 Chapter 168 - Book 72

    The last thing Felix needed to do was to figure out which piece he was destroying. He was inclined to just throw two of them in at once and be safe but Grim assured him one would be enough. Felix pushed his consciousness into his soul space and shattered the seal that he was almost certain contained the soul ring. The clear crystal that used to hold the seal opened to reveal a clear band with a ribbon of white and a thread of gold dancing around within.


    [B - Ancient] Soul Devouring Ring


    [Set Piece][Growth][Soul Bound][Currently Bound]


    This ring is one of three parts of the Devourer Set. The set itself predates The System and nothing about it''s origin or history before The System is known.


    This ring can be soul bound allowing the item to grow alongside the wielder. While equipped and bound, the ring can be used to absorb the souls of defeated enemies. These souls can then be harvested to bolster the wielder''s stats. The leftovers of harvested souls will then be absorbed by the ring to upgrade it''s abilities or be stored. Stored soul fragments can be harnessed to launch attacks directly upon a living soul.


    Hidden: Further effects unlocked through growth of the currently bound user are hidden and will revert upon being unbound along with the item''s grade.


    [0/2] Set Bonus: Persona.


    With at least two pieces of the set bound and equipped, the wielder may use the leftovers from harvested souls to craft a persona. This persona has separate stats from the wielder that grow along with the user. With the Soul Devouring Ring, the persona will have separate stats for DEX, AGI, PER, VIT, END. The persona is effectively a separate soul wrapped around the wielder''s soul. This completely hides the wielder''s soul and can act as a form of protection when equipped. Some skills may be inaccessible while a persona is active.


    [0/3] Set Bonus: Domination.


    With all three pieces of the set bound and equipped, the wielder may dominate living creatures by devouring a portion of their mind, body and soul. The remaining portion, if sufficient, will leave behind a creature that that is obedient the wielder. This effect will only work when the wielder is significantly stronger than the target. Depending on how much is left behind, the target may end up being more or less capable and may not be entirely obedient.


    [0/3] Set Bonus: Living Persona


    With all three pieces of the set bound and equipped, the wielder may take on the form of devoured enemies. Their mind, body and soul can be nearly perfectly imitated. The persona may also be altered at will.


    B grade. Shit.


    Thankfully, it shouldn''t matter when you expose him to the center of a star.


    Thank goodness for overkill.


    So which piece are you going to destroy?


    Initially I was thinking body. Intelligence matters more to me anyways.


    Now?


    How useful would a separate mind wrapped around my mind be?


    I don''t think it would work the same way as the soul ring.


    Maybe not, but I can think of plenty of great uses for a separate body wrapped around my own, not to mention a perfect disguise. Honestly, I also don''t have any interest in devouring the minds of the enemies I defeat either. If the other ring can bolster my physical stats though¡­


    You can already do that yourself. Just modify your body manually. I also seriously doubt that''s what the Blood Ring will do. Having it increase your body''s stats seems¡­ less plausible. I can''t even imagine how a magic item would do that, nor have I ever heard of anything remotely similar.


    I guess¡­


    Sounds like you''re already convinced.


    Honestly, I don''t want to devour anything''s mind. That just sounds wrong to me on some level. You think it''s the wrong decision?


    No. We can''t know until we actually read its description anyways. Maybe the effect is completely different. Not sure what the Mind one will do. I highly doubt it will increase your intelligence directly. As the diary said, it has something to do with memories.


    Oh right. How does that work. Could I just watch them?


    I mean yeah, it''s not like it''s going to alter your personality directly or add grey matter into your head.


    Oh¡­ gross. So then what the hell does the blood ring do?


    Well the soul ring doesn''t actually harvest souls itself, right? The blood ring probably just stores blood or bodies.


    That doesn''t sound very useful.


    Well I imagine it doesn''t just store them. The soul ring lets you harvest the souls it contains. I imagine the blood ring lets you do something with the bodies.


    Then the Mind one contains memories for processing?


    Probably.


    The biggest downside is that I don''t need a persona that has a separate intelligence¡­ Wait a second, is it possible to read memories some other way?


    Not trivially¡­ it''s not impossible. It''s also going to be possible to do whatever the blood ring does as well, it''s not like it does something entirely unique and otherwise impossible. It predates the system so it doesn''t have any system fuckery, that means whatever it does do is entirely possible to replicate.


    So how would one go about retrieving memories? I don''t really need it right now but I could see it being useful in the future.


    Great question. Without the system I would say necromancy, temporarily bind your soul or a chunk of anima to their body then you can ask them anything you want. It''s not perfect though because you aren''t actually taking out the memories, you''re just talking to a person. You''re relying on any remnant memories around their body or in their brain. If you could transfer memories into and out of your soul it would be a lot easier? Using or abusing the system¡­ I have no idea.


    What if I upgraded my scan literature skill? Expanded it''s uses. Books and memories aren''t that far apart¡­ conceptually they''re both a recording of information¡­ sort of.


    One of them exists physically though¡­


    Yeah¡­ Wait, would it be possible to consume memories then use those to say learn a language or a martial art or something like that?


    This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.


    Sort of. You could greatly accelerate your own learning but you would still need to work at it yourself. If you consumed both the experience stored within their soul as well as the memory of the event, you would only need a tiny fraction of the time to tailor it to yourself. The Mind piece of the set, the crown, would just store them though. It''s not like the soul ring harvests the souls it stores for you, you have to do that. With the crown, you would still need a way to absorb those memories yourself.


    Also, honestly, I don''t want to be storing memories until I have a way of separating them from my own in my head.


    That is an excellent call.


    Ok, so we toss the crown?


    Yeah.


    Ok, then we''re in agreement. Should I open the blood ring seal now then?


    It probably doesn''t matter, but I would wait just in case. Once it''s open, you can''t exactly close it, this is a one way decision.


    Fair enough, and I''m throwing the crown into the portal while sealed?


    Yes. Then hope the overkill is enough to wipe them both out at the exact same instant.


    Yeah, if the seal breaks before the item is destroyed he''d wake up.


    Exactly.


    With everything ready, Felix pulled the blue translucent orb from his soul space that held the crown then changed his mind and put it back. He decided he would take it out and place it in the vault at the last minute.


    Felix pulled out the mana he would need in the form of batteries and began moving them into the spell form surrounding the portal that would hold and delay the flow of mana for a few minutes. The mana surged through the surrounding spell form then slowly leaked into the portal spell form. It seemed to work exactly as he had hoped and by all indications, it worked perfectly.


    Ironically, Felix had almost been hoping something might go wrong. Up until he had read The System message, the one for him alone, he hadn''t really internalized any of his plan. He didn''t think any of it was possible, but now it was real. Not only did The System think it was possible, it also thought it was possible for him to fail and accidentally resurrect Erolan.


    All in all, the worst part about that for him would be that he failed. He wasn''t overly worried about Erolan being free again because he suspected in the grand scheme of the multiverse that he wasn''t that big of a deal. How could he be, he was only in the B grade. Felix himself was offered an evolution that would have put him in the A grade. Multiple times now Grim had also gotten answers from The Guild of Answers that referred to gods. How could a lowly B grade be anything to them.


    What really mattered to Felix was not the fate of the multiverse with some crazy mass murderer on the loose, it was his own success. He had no idea if failure meant death but considering he was just barely in the D grade and he was messing with someone in the B grade along with portals and stars, he suspected as much.


    As he completed his preparations, set up the portal and began pouring mana into it, his nerves grew until he could hear his heartbeat above all else. It didn''t help that there was no other noise around him to mask it, leaving his heartbeat undisturbed as it pounded his head.


    The mana poured through the spell form and rushed through the inlaid materials, filling the channels and forming the beginnings of a spell. Felix stuck around and prepared himself to duck out when there was just a minute or so left. He didn''t want to cut it too close but he also wanted to be able to catch anything that might go wrong, before it became catastrophic.


    As the portal spell form filled on a delay, Felix watched as much earlier than the last time he had witnessed a portal be redirected, the coordinates in the spell aggressively shifted and snapped into a new form. He made sure to pour in a few million more mana than was necessary as the portal approached completion.


    Finally, he pulled out the blue orb like seal and pulled his arm back to toss it, then quickly decided against that idea. He quickly flew over to the opposite side from Erolan''s body and placed it on the rocky floor in the room. There was no doubt in his mind that the blue orb held the crown, just given the nature of the Devoured that held it along with their abilities.


    As soon as he left, he knew the gravity would fail and both the orb and body would float away, he just hoped it didn''t make any difference to the spell form. Felix leapt a few meters through the entry portal and quickly cut the mana to the vault key with his mana control as soon as he passed all the way through.


    Realistically, Felix had no way of knowing if any of it worked. He initially thought he could simply reidentify the soul ring but Grim pointed out that he would need to remove it from his soul space first. In the soul space, just like the seals that had been crafted from other soul spaces, the ring wouldn''t be able to unbind itself.


    Felix had no intention of pulling it out though because if he pulled it out too early, Erolan could simply wake up and portal home which Felix was avoiding at all costs. Alternatively, he had the quest. He suspected it would simply mark itself as complete if he succeeded since it needed to provide him with rewards. The issue was, he didn''t know exactly how to complete it.


    The quest said he had to kill Erolan and unbind the remaining Devourer set pieces, but that likely meant he would need to expose them. Ultimately, he had no good way of knowing so he simply waited and hoped for some kind of sign. To pass the time, he initially started forming mana batteries despite the low and sluggish aether around him.


    He didn''t bother flying around or getting rid of his aether isolating spells, instead he just fought against them. He told himself it was to practice but it was also because he needed something to distract him and he suspected the monotonous process of forming a battery normally just wouldn''t cut it.


    After a few minutes, Felix decided to open the other seal, in his soul space so he could identify the blood ring. He had avoided doing so before incase he changed his mind and to give him more flexibility but at this point it was far too late. Within his soul space, Felix barely nudged the deep red gem and it simply shattered. What was left behind was a translucent ring with a crimson ribbon dancing around the band.


    [B - Ancient] Blood Devouring Ring


    [Set Piece][Growth][Soul Bound][Currently Bound]


    This ring is one of three parts of the Devourer Set. The set itself predates The System and nothing about it''s origin or history before The System is known.


    This ring can be soul bound allowing the item to grow alongside the wielder. While equipped and bound, the ring can be used to absorb the bodies of defeated enemies. These bodies can then be harvested to bolster the wielder''s stats. The leftovers of harvested bodies will then be absorbed by the ring to upgrade it''s abilities or be stored. Stored organic matter can be transformed into usable material and be used to replenish the wielder''s body, healing and restoring them.


    Hidden: Further effects unlocked through growth of the currently bound user are hidden and will revert upon being unbound along with the item''s grade. S§×ar?h the Novel?ire(.)ne*t website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    [0/2] Set Bonus: Persona.


    With at least two pieces of the set bound and equipped, the wielder may use the leftovers from harvested bodies to craft a persona. This persona has separate stats from the wielder that grow along with the user. With the Blood Devouring Ring, the persona will have separate stats for STR, AGI, VIT, END. The persona is effectively a separate body the wielder may possess while theirs is held within the ring. This completely hides the wielder''s body and can act as a form of protection when equipped. Some skills may be inaccessible while a persona is active. Should the body sustain too much damage, the wielder''s body will be forcefully ejected from the ring while the persona recovers.


    [0/3] Set Bonus: Domination.


    With all three pieces of the set bound and equipped, the wielder may dominate living creatures by devouring a portion of their mind, body and soul. The remaining portion, if sufficient, will leave behind a creature that that is obedient the wielder. This effect will only work when the wielder is significantly stronger than the target. Depending on how much is left behind, the target may end up being more or less capable and may not be entirely obedient.


    [0/3] Set Bonus: Living Persona


    With all three pieces of the set bound and equipped, the wielder may take on the form of devoured enemies. Their mind, body and soul can be nearly perfectly imitated. The persona may also be altered at will.


    I thought the persona already had it''s own agility, vitality and endurance with the soul ring? I guess the soul ring only contributes a portion and this contributes more to those stats as well? I wonder what portion I lost by destroying the crown.


    You don''t know that''s it''s been destroyed just yet.


    Fair enough. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 Chapter 169 - Book 73

    Reminded of his previous worries, Felix went back to slowly forming mana batteries then stowing them in his inventory. Overall, they were forming far slower than he knew he was capable of in part because of the mana around him and in part because he wasn''t entirely focused on the task at hand.


    As he formed the batteries, Felix juggled orbs of mana around his head, shifting their attunements, energy levels and state. He spun them around, made them collide and dance. It was something to keep another part of his mind occupied but it was also something he was doing as a habit, an evolution from fidgeting before the integration.


    It was also a sign to just how second nature mana had become to Felix, how familiar it was. He had only relatively recently discovered mana and yet again, he still felt like controlling mana had always been a part of him.


    Suddenly Felix''s ribs were crushed and his lungs collapsed as his body was slammed into a hard surface. He felt his head smack against it then felt his skull vibrate from the impact. His ears reverberated a harsh sound and he wasn''t sure if it existed or was caused by his brain rattling around in his skull.


    In an instant, his body was battered and bruised. He vaguely felt that his bones in his elbows, shoulder blades, skull, ribs, pelvis and heels were fractured just from the impact. His head was still ringing and he didn''t want to open his eyes just yet so as to not berate his brain with more sensation.


    He tried to restore air into his lungs, but felt he couldn''t no matter how hard he tried to expand his chest. He felt his flesh immediately reacting and trying to stitch together the scrapes he had sustained but most of his injuries weren''t on the surface, so he knew it wouldn''t do much good. His natural regeneration was working as hard as it could but it felt far too slow to matter at this point.


    As he adjusted and recovered his senses, Felix felt his neck being crushed and his chest compressed. His eyes shot open and he was immediately greeted by the sight of the most disgusting face he had ever remembered seeing.


    He looked into the eye that was examining him as the other four darted around the room. Each one was a different color and their pupils contracted and dilated completely independently from each-other. There were also 4 different pupil shapes among them which seemed excessive to Felix.


    Felix traced Erolan''s only other still eye and saw he was examining one of Felix''s unfinished mana batteries that he held in his other hand. Felix''s eyes darted around to try and glean anything else he could from around him but saw nothing other than Erolan holding him to the wall.


    Instinctively, Felix identified him even though he had already done so before.


    [? - ???] Erolan (Lvl ????)


    Felix heard a surprisingly smooth, human sounding voice, "Oh, sorry. Force of habit. Try again."


    [C - Human] Erolan (Lvl 1973)


    Human is a rarity?


    It''s a skill and it''s been a damn long time since he''s used it. Now focus.


    Before he could focus on anything he saw two of Erolan''s other eyes, that had been darting around, suddenly look directly at him.


    "Who are you speaking with?"


    Felix could draw no breath so he couldn''t quite respond, not that he had any intention of doing so. He was worried though that it wouldn''t matter either way and that Erolan had some way of reading his thoughts considering, he somehow knew he was communicating with Grim.


    "D grade? You are an odd specimen aren''t you? I observed you as you sat and performed countless miracles with mana all around you¡­ like it was nothing." Erolan''s leaned in until his face was just half an inch from Felix''s.


    Felix tried to cast a Force spell to push Erolan off of him but, even though he could prepare the spell form in a fraction of a second, he wasn''t able to finish it. Pain shot through Felix''s entire body, significant enough that it took him a moment to find it''s source. Something, likely Erolan''s fingers, had buried themselves in his forearm causing enough pain for him to let go of his spell.


    "More miracles. You cast spells without¡­ anything. As easily as you¡­" Erolan exhaled and blew on Felix''s face, "breathe."


    Felix cast the fastest spell he thought might help, because he had to do something and actually managed to fully cast an vastly overpowered Fire Blast into Erolan''s chest. Felix had been hoping it might be enough to let him breathe but all he managed to do was lightly burn himself as the fire bounced off Erolan''s skin.


    Erolan looked down and frowned then punched Felix in the gut hard enough to fracture his spine, not from hitting the wall but from his fist. Luckily he had let go of Felix''s neck at the same time so Felix was able to gasp for air just as he hit the ground.


    He immediately pumped mana into his boots as much and as fast as he could but right as he left the ground, he felt something grip him around the ankle and smack his body into the ground like a whip.


    Felix was pretty sure the majority of his bones were fractured at this point, at least that''s what it felt like. He scrambled to his feet, avoiding any spells since Erolan could somehow detect them, then looked over his shoulder. Erolan seemed to just be letting him go so he didn''t question it and started running.


    He dulled his pain so he could run freely, even if it did make his injuries worse. He made it to the basement stairs and starting jumping up five steps at a time. He glanced over his shoulder and saw Erolan calmly following him at a very casual pace with no worry he would lose Felix.


    Felix heard the unfittingly smooth voice bellow out from behind him, "You dulled your pain enough to run. Fascinating."


    Felix made it to the main floor of the castle and immediately scrambled to the door. He looked over his shoulder and didn''t see Erolan so he started casting a force spell to push him along.


    Before he had even fully assembled the spell form, Erolan''s foot broke the skin on his thigh. Felix smacked into a fallen pillar he had previously created and fell to the ground. He vaguely felt blood pouring down his leg from a series of three puncture marks on the outside of his thigh left by Erolan''s clawed foot.


    Felix had gotten the message at this point and didn''t touch mana in any way. He just stumbled towards the front door, moving as quickly as he could manage.


    His health had dropped to just a sixth of his maximum, which was far more than he was expecting. He risked a glance over his shoulder saw Erolan in the middle of the castle main hall, bending over a pillar. He seemed to be examining it but Felix didn''t think about it until he heard Erolan''s smooth voice once again, "Hmm¡­ What happened here¡­"


    Felix didn''t answer him, he didn''t even register the words, he just ran through the castle doorway and into the courtyard. He stumbled over the corpses he had left behind and tripped a few times but looking back, Erolan was nowhere.


    He didn''t even think about casting a spell and just focused on healing as quickly as he could. He directed as much of his focus as he could to manually directing his cells, pushing them to rebuild faster. The rest of his focus was dedicated just to moving as fast as he could without tripping.


    He didn''t actually think he could outrun Erolan but he didn''t seem to be actively chasing him so Felix''s only hope at this point was to hide. He had no idea what would happen to the quest if they both lived but right now but, it was the only option he could think of.


    Felix pushed through the small opening in the castle gates and looked over his shoulder once again. Though he had just looked a few seconds ago and he was nowhere to be found, now Felix saw Erolan standing in the middle of the courtyard looking around at all the carnage like he didn''t have a care in the world.


    Felix winced upon hearing his voice echo through the courtyard behind him, "Oh youth. How wonderful it would be to be¡­ young again. Maybe I''ll have to¡­"


    He monitored his health and saw it had climbed all the way to a third and his bleeding leg and arm had already closed up. Felix decided it was enough and veered off to the right then jumped off the cliff.


    His steam producing enchantments were still going but they had long since run out of water. That didn''t matter to Felix as he immediately cast a series of spells and shot himself off into the city. The enchantments were still running without water, which hopefully meant they would mask Felix''s use of spells. He didn''t bother looking back but he didn''t need to as Erolan''s sudden screaming was the only intentional sound in the entire hidden kingdom.


    Felix almost dropped his spells when he heard it but managed to hold on despite the shock. Erolan''s scream echoed throughout the kingdom and lasted far longer than Felix could have managed himself.


    After a long moment, the screeching morphed into a laugh that was far louder than Felix would have thought possible.


    Felix managed to dart into the city a few hundred meters before he heard Erolan somewhere behind him, "This was once the source of much of my anguish. I called this ''The greatest mistake I had ever made.''''"


    Eorolan couldn''t contain the laughter and it leaked out as he continued, "but this¡­ this was more like¡­ my rebirth." Then Erolan broke out in raucous chortling.


    Felix didn''t dare trap himself in a building and instead just weaved through them as fast as he could. He also didn''t bother trying to be stealthy just yet, he wasn''t nearly good enough to fool Erolan, he didn''t even consider the possibility.


    "I noticed you made modifications to your body."


    Felix heard what sounded like an explosion behind him but he didn''t check.


    "Troll flesh, I believe?"


    Another explosion, and to Felix, it sounded almost wet in a weird way.


    "There''s something else in your skin too."


    This time, Felix heard a more distinct wet squishing noise right after the explosion.


    "Bones¡­"


    Felix realized the explosion was more like a pop, like Erolan had thrown a water balloon at a wall.


    "Definitely not the decisions I would have made."


    Felix already knew what was happening, but he had no idea why or how. His theory was confirmed when he saw chunks of blackened flesh splatter against the wall to his left.


    "Only barely in the D grade¡­"


    Felix heard another pop from some Devoured but this one was farther off and to his right.


    "What a wonder you are¡­"


    Felix darted through buildings and kept himself behind cover as much as he could. This area of the city was covered in extravagant mansions and equally extravagant yards. Unfortunately those yards were rather open as any vegetation they had once held, were long gone.


    "You know I dreamt about making such¡­ clean¡­ modifications. Only I didn''t even consider modifying my body until I was¡­ much older."


    Felix heard another explosion like sound except this time, it was obviously not a Devoured and involved a much more stone like material.


    "What''s your secret? An rare race perhaps?"


    He loudly giggled once again, "Something¡­ rarer than rare?"


    Erolan laughed out at his own joke then the laughter vanished in an instant, "That still doesn''t explain the mana¡­ miracles."


    Felix was increasingly tempted to talk to Grim but considering Erolan had detected that before, there was no guarantee he wouldn''t be able to detect it now. Felix was starting to have the inklings of an idea but he needed Grim''s confirmation because he still didn''t really understand much about souls. He assumed it would be harder when Erolan wasn''t so close to him but he didn''t risk it, not yet.


    "I take it it was you that woke me?"


    Erolan laughed out, "it it." Which for some reason caused him to cackle.


    Another stony explosion sounded out behind him followed by a series of wet explosions that almost seemed like a chain reaction, at least audibly.


    "I noticed you destroyed one of the set pieces."


    Felix heard a series of loud noises but he couldn''t identify them. These were far off to the right and actually ahead of him. Felix had no idea if Erolan knew exactly where he was and was circling him or had a vague idea of where he was and was searching for him.


    If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    "I haven''t had this much¡­ control. Haven''t had his much¡­ soul in my body¡­ in a long time. I almost forgot what it felt like. Maybe with this I could have¡­"


    Erolan screamed out all of a sudden, "NOOOOOOOO!"


    Felix had no idea what was happening but he just ran. He checked his map and saw that he was approaching the Wyverns cave and just hoped that the burnt area would be enough to distract Erolan for a few moments so he could head out a different way.


    "I was mad at first¡­ furious. Now, I''m just¡­ curious."


    Felix thought to himself alone so he didn''t risk detection, He has to be rhyming on purpose, right?


    "How did you manage to so¡­ thoroughly destroy my body and the seal?"


    Felix checked his map once again and saw he was just a kilometer or so from the burnt area of the map so he started veering right, towards the denser buildings of the kingdom.


    "Is this where¡­ you destroyed the seal? What¡­"


    Felix immediately turned using his map to direct himself and shot off towards the castle. He flew as fast as he could without crashing but didn''t dare push himself over the rooves. He needed to stay hidden.


    He was gambling in a sense. If Erolan was at the burnt area, the Wyvern''s old domain, that meant he was at least a kilometer away from Felix, likely more. Felix was gambling that his mana senses didn''t have that kind of range.


    He had no idea if he had been right but he felt much better with his decision when he heard Erolan''s voice from far off behind him.


    "This can''t be¡­ It''s not¡­ obliterated enough¡­ These buildings are too¡­"


    Erolan laughed out again, filling the entire underground kingdom with his raucous chortling.


    Given his mana senses didn''t seem to reach Felix, Felix made another gamble and talked to Grim. Even if he wasn''t talking to him directly, Grim had access to his head and Felix was confident he had been watching everything, including his thoughts, for the last few minutes.


    Felix wasted no time and cut right to it, Will it work?


    It took Grim a second to do the same, If you ca- Yes.


    Felix mentally nodded then shot directly towards the ceiling above the castle. He didn''t look over his shoulder but he knew Erolan saw him.


    Felix shot through the air faster than he would ever fly under normal circumstances and prepared a series of Force Bombs right as he got within a hundred meters of the ceiling.


    He looked back over his shoulder and saw a tiny spec that he knew was Erolan, still standing in the burnt area around the Wyvern''s old cave. Felix only looked at him for a fraction of a second but he could have sworn Erolan''s head was cocked.


    Felix released his spells into the ceiling and reopened an almost perfectly square hole that had been completely hidden just a second ago.


    As soon as the light from the world above poured through the hole, Felix heard Erolan screeching once again. This time it was loud enough that Felix winced as he flew through the hole and shot himself over the city of Ky''bel. He mentally thanked himself that he didn''t weld the hatch shut or anything like that.


    He immediately used his vantage point to look around and confirm that no one else was in the world event with him. The System had already said that would be the case but he had to confirm for himself, otherwise there was a much higher chance his plan would fail. He had to be the only one around.


    Felix caught his own momentum and shot himself down to the street in the outer district right as Erolan''s screeching passed through the opening Felix had reopened.


    Felix did his best to hide behind a building and just listened as the only plan he could come up with, progressed.


    "This¡­ my city¡­ we''re¡­"


    Erolan started laughing once again but without the cave to echo it, it wasn''t quite as ominous to Felix. It was no longer coming a little bit from everywhere at once. Erolan was about a kilometer behind him, on top of a building and slightly the right.


    Being able to pinpoint his location from his voice alone made Felix feel a lot better but it definitely didn''t make him feel good about what was happening.


    "It all makes sense now¡­ you''re so young¡­ your hubris¡­"


    Erolan moaned loudly such that if anyone else were in the city or around it, they would have heard him clearly.


    "I''ve been turned into an integration event."


    Felix heard a building collapse around where he knew Erolan was then heard his voice way off to his left, no longer behind him but further away.


    "You know. I bet The System didn''t even consider my waking up. You¡­ you just had to defy the odds though, didn''t you?"


    Another building collapsed to Felix''s left and suddenly Erolan''s voice came from a half kilometer in front of him.


    "You know¡­ if you weren''t so strong¡­ so much stronger than¡­" Erolan moaned again, "all the other integrateds¡­ the undercity probably wouldn''t even exist right now. System had to have something at the right level for you to fight."


    Felix thought only to himself again, Nova.


    "I take it everyone else is in my personal vault? In the statue?"


    Felix''s heart started beating even faster, which he didn''t think was possible given how fast it already had been. If Erolan knew that, his plan was much less likely to work.


    "System probably won''t let me in there¡­ How did we end up here¡­ alone? I wonder¡­"


    Felix actually felt himself calm a little bit. Whether or not it worked out, Felix didn''t really have a choice but to try. He still hadn''t thought of anything else. Luckily for Felix, though he was understandably completely insane, Erolan was actually kind of easy to read. Felix heard his every emotion in his voice as he spoke. Felix knew what Erolan wanted, at least something he wanted, and he intended on giving it to him.


    Suddenly Felix heard another building collapse followed shortly after by another. Buildings all around him in every direction were collapsing completely at random. Though it was just a matter of time until Erolan found him, Felix had no idea what he was doing. If he continued destroying buildings at random, it would take him forever to find Felix.


    Felix''s throat was cut off once again and Erolan''s face appeared right in front of him.


    "Something¡­ about you¡­ you decided to¡­" S§×arch* The N??elFir§×.net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    Erolan screamed the word, "TRY!" right into Felix''s face then continued at a normal volume again.


    "Someone at the edge of B grade? Why? Just¡­ hubris?"


    Erolan peered at Felix from so close to his face that it almost seemed like he was looking into him.


    "I guess you need that kind of hubris to excel, the trick is knowing where the line is¡­ You don''t seem to really understand the difference between the grades yet."


    Erolan just looked at Felix and though his intonations varied wildly giving away his every emotion, his face remained completely unmoving, stoic. In Felix''s mind, it was far creepier than if his face did actually move at all.


    "I''ll figure out all your secr- soon enough. I had a lot of¡­ time to think- imprisoned, and I realized I have many regrets- my past."


    Felix just assumed his weird speech was a product of his being sealed with nothing but his own mind as company for at least thousands of years but he had no idea why it only seemed to be happening now.


    Erolan sighed, "I thought about my upcoming evolution and- over the decisions¡­ I even reversed my evolution, devoured a- myself so I could go back, the timing was obviously¡­ unfortunate-"


    Erolan suddenly stopped speaking and just screamed into Felix''s face.


    "hand and all but¡­ I realized there were too many things I wish- differently. Modifications I wish I hadn''t made, others I wish- People I wish I hadn''t angered and¡­ so many¡­ more."


    As Erolan spoke, Felix''s relief mounted. It took every bit of his will to control his body and his reactions, to hide them.


    "Your race and whatever other secrets you might hold¡­ they sound like the perfect¡­ restart? The- you''re currently an integrated¡­ It''s too perfect- opportunity to pass up. Don''t worry, this won''t take long."


    Erolan leapt into the air with Felix''s body held by the neck. He hopped over the rooves of buildings and towards the center of the city. He dug his claws into the side of the second layer and climbed upwards with ease then continued his parkour towards the innermost layer.


    He walked through the garden in front of his house and placed a hand on one of the Devoured gardeners as he walked by. The gardener exploded in a shower of mostly dry, blackened chunks of flesh, a few of which painted Felix''s body as he was dragged through the grass.


    Erolan walked into the house and over to the trap door where he tried to do something Felix couldn''t see then got frustrated and simply ripped the trap door free. He hopped down and dragged Felix through the sarcophagi looking preservation containers to the middle of the area.


    Felix felt himself get swung around then felt his body smack down against something hard. When he looked around, he realized he was now lying on the same table where Erolan had been chained up, just hours ago.


    Felix felt his head get lifted from the table then heard a flicking noise accompanied by a sharp pain in the back of his neck. He knew his pain was dulled but suddenly, he felt nothing. His entire body went limp. Erolan arranged Felix''s limbs on either side of his motionless body then disappeared from sight.


    Felix could still vaguely feel his neck slowly healing itself and knew that given enough time, he would be fully restored but it would take hours that he didn''t have. Not that he thought Erolan would let it get that far anyways.


    After moving around the room outside of Felix''s vision for a few minutes then disappearing entirely for an annoyingly suspenseful hour or so, Felix once again saw Erolan''s face as he stood over him. He wasted no more time and started cutting through Felix''s armor with the sharp claw on his finger. It wasn''t a trivial affair but it also didn''t seem to be very difficult for him either.


    Erolan stripped Felix completely naked, discarding his Kraken Slayer set onto the floor. Once that was done, he carefully rolled Felix onto his side and started measuring and marking specific locations on his body.


    "Do you know how a soul is attached to it''s body?"


    Felix knew that Erolan knew he had no way to speak with his body paralyzed so he simply let him continue.


    "There are specific points along the body¡­ seven of them¡­ where the soul is particularly¡­ attached. It is bound to the entire body yes¡­ but at those seven points, the connection is much stronger."


    Erolan continued to work as he spoke and for some unknown reason, explained his process.


    "Right now, I am going to sever those connections one by one on your body. Don''t worry, I need to make sure your body stays alive."


    It wasn''t like Erolan explaining himself helped Felix in any way. He was completely stuck and though he could cast something, Erolan would surely catch it and stop him. It annoyed Felix because he was like an evil super villain trope, giving their victim enough time to think of something while they explained their entire plan. He had no idea if this was just who he was or if the thousands of years stuck in his own mind had warped him but it just made Felix feel weird about the whole thing.


    It was a stupid thought to have at a time like this, when his body was being meticulously peeled off of his soul. He couldn''t help himself though and any thought to distract him so he didn''t give away his relief was welcome, even if he was paralyzed and that chance was already low.


    Felix had already inferred what Erolan was about to say next and if he was right, his plan had somehow, miraculously, worked.


    "Once you are left with just a single connection, I will bind my own soul to the other six. At that point, your soul will be exposed to mine and I will simply drive you out. Your body will be mine and I will return to your integration, as you."


    Erolan continued to make incisions traveling up Felix''s body that he didn''t really feel until he made one on Felix''s neck that he actually slightly felt through his dulled sense of pain. The next incision was on Felix''s forehead followed by a quick series of movements within the cut.


    He hadn''t realized it before because he couldn''t see or feel most of the other incisions but it seemed Erolan was doing more than just making a simple cut.


    As soon as Erolan was done with Felix''s forehead, Felix started to feel all of his senses dull themselves. To him, it felt like he was falling asleep, like he was falling into an out of body experience. His vision blurred, sounds shrank around him and the feeling of his body that remained gradually lessened.


    With the final incisions on the top of Felix''s head complete, Felix just barely registered what was happening around him. He felt like he just couldn''t connect with his own senses and there was nothing he could do. The experience, while different, was very familiar to Felix. It felt just like when he had woken up during his evolution and just like he had then, Felix entered his Soul Garden. This time, he found Grim pacing back and forth.


    "I can''t believe that worked." Grim said with almost disappointment.


    Felix dropped himself to the ground and just lay in the grass, staring up at his simulated sky above, "I think I might be the luckiest fucker to ever live."


    Grim hesitated as he pivoted, "I don''t know¡­ you¡­ you did it. You got him to-"


    Felix sighed, "Accidentally do the stupidest thing he could have possibly done? I didn''t think he''d do that. I was just hoping¡­"


    Grim shrugged, "It worked out I guess."


    Felix closed his eyes, "That was idiotic. I don''t really care if it worked out or not."


    Grim sighed, "It is what it is. I¡­ didn''t think¡­ We should have planned better."


    Felix ignored the comment as he had already thought it, it was obvious. Instead he asked something he had been wondering, "How did he come back if the seal was destroyed?"


    Grim shrugged, "He probably had chunks of his body or something else bound to pieces of his soul buried all over the place. When his full body died¡­"


    Felix groaned, "It simply bounced back to one of those pieces."


    Grim dropped his shoulders, "Yup."


    Felix shook his head, "Damn. We easily could have foreseen that."


    Grim nodded, "We definitely should have."


    Felix chuckled a little, "Well, thank¡­ the system I guess? for hubris¡­"


    Grim smirked which was an odd sight as the arcane symbols on his book face slightly contorted. As odd as it was initially, it almost immediately got the point across, "The irony."


    Felix took a deep breath, "¡­ I''m sorry."


    Grim sighed, "You don''t have to apologize to me. I could have stopped you. It''s both of our faults equally¡­ actually, mine more so because I could have known. You''re just learning all of this stuff for the first time."


    Felix shrugged, "It''s my body, I pilot it. I could have been a lot more careful about all that."


    Grim stopped pacing and stood over Felix, looking down at him, "Honestly, I''m impressed. I knew you would fight no matter what, even though those odds were¡­"


    "Dogshit?" Felix offered.


    Grim shrugged, "Yeah. I know it''s your nature to never give up, never give in. To fight until the end." Grim cocked his head towards the sandy area, gesturing towards the stone monolith that represented Felix''s conviction.


    Grim continued, "Still, I don''t think I would have tried let alone have thought about that¡­"


    Felix rolled his eyes, "Complete clusterfuck of a plan?"


    Grim nodded.


    Felix sat up and put his arms on his knees, "So is there anything to do now?"


    Grim walked towards the tree just a few meters in front of Felix and didn''t even turn as he spoke, it wasn''t necessary, "Just wait it out."


    Felix felt bad asking, introducing doubt, but he had to, "Is there any risk¡­?"


    Grim spoke at the exact same volume and though his voice started to become hard to hear through the wind, the Soul Garden was Felix, he heard everything, "That he''ll overpower your soul? Nah. If he goes through with what he said, he''s just gonna kill himself. No remnant, no nothing."


    Felix sighed in relief, "Any chance I just push him out?"


    Grim shrugged, "Remember what happened to those souls you tried to harvest? The ones you put in your soul space?"


    Felix nodded, "Even though he''s in the B grade?"


    Grim shrugged, "Unless I''m gravely mistaken."


    Felix inhaled deeply then slowly exhaled, "What if he did win? What if he pushed me out, what then?"


    Grim pulled out a book and took a seat against the tree, "You''d become a remnant. Kind of like a ghost I guess. Your soul would live on without a body."


    Felix thought about it for a few seconds, "I''d have to find a body then. Could I have become a sprite?"


    Grim chuckled, "Hah! Yeah, I guess you could have. Either way, it would take a few thousand years at least to reattune you to a body of any kind."


    Felix nodded slowly then, he couldn''t resist, "How much longer do you think¡­"


    Grim shrugged as he read, "Not too much longer. You could probably try and go back now if you want. Healing from all the incisions is going to take much longer than his suicide will."


    Felix nodded more intently this time, now that he had some kind of assurance and direction, "In that case¡­ I should probably stay here to accelerate the healing."


    Grim shrugged then continued reading his book. Felix on the other hand walked over to the wooden platform he had floating in the water and started meditating. Instead of meditating as a skill, Felix simply tried his best to clear his mind and relax. He was still a little pent up from nerves and adrenaline.


    Just because his body had sustained all the injuries, didn''t mean there wasn''t a lasting effect on his soul. The experience that had just happened, him staring certain death in the face and knowing it was his fault, was still fresh. Then the relief when he realized that he wasn''t going to die, that he was so inordinately lucky that he would actually make it out of this situation. It was a roller coaster that he needed to process.


    The feeling that lingered the most though, the one he felt above all the others, was disappointment. Getting into a situation like that sucked, but what was even worse for Felix, was that the biggest reason he was going to make it out, was simple luck. His clusterfuck of a plan was possibly the longest shot ever, where he had to rely on a bunch of assumptions and just pray he was right and his enemy was what exactly what they seemed to be. The fact that it had actually worked out was a miracle. By Felix''s account, he had deserved to die.


    It took him some time to finally process everything and simply accept what had happened but once he did, he decided it was time to go back. Felix breathed in one last time then returned his consciousness to his body. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 Chapter 170 - Book 74

    Felix immediately felt aches and pains all over from the bruising, cuts and incisions. He took that as a good sign though, that he could actually feel his entire body, it meant his nervous system was somewhat intact once more.


    Opening his eyes, Felix saw the blank ceiling above him. He slowly sat up and looked around. To his left, he saw Erolan''s body slumped on the ground against the table. Looking down, he saw his own naked corpse and released a breath he only just realized he had been holding.


    He pulled himself over to the right side of the table and hopped off onto the ground. He winced at the slight pains that shot up his legs when he landed then carefully picked up and draped his Kraken Slayer set across his body. As soon as each piece was situated, he held the torn edges together and channeled mana into them.


    Once his armor was completely repaired, Felix decided to check something with Grim before potentially killing himself once more.


    It''s safe now to remove the rings from my soul space?


    Yeah.


    Are we sure?


    Yes I''m sure this time. I can''t think of any way to have your core soul obliterated and still have enough left lying around to survive. It''s not possible. He also couldn''t have even tried to force you out without it.


    Should I maybe find all the pieces of his body left lying around first? Just in case?


    I think he did that for you, see that pile of body parts over there?


    Felix looked in the direction Grim had mentally nudged him in and saw a small pile of heads and torsos, all Erolan''s, against the wall.


    Gross. Why? and when?


    Probably wanted as much of his soul in tact as possible for the operation, pushing someone out of their own body is no small feat even if you''re in the B grade and they''re in the D grade. As for when, probably that hour where he just disappeared.


    So we''re sure¡­ This time¡­


    Yeah. He''d have already come back by now if he was still around.


    Even as sure as Grim was, Felix wasn''t convinced. He grasped at anything that might reassure him and pulled up his quest screen


    World Event: Special Quest


    You, Felix Kade, have decided to forgo most of the treasures of the vaults throughout the city along with the final vault. Instead you have fixated on the fallen kingdom of Kroterra and Erolan''s body along with his personal treasures. Your familiar has already entered the final vault and will act as a participant, subject to the same rules they are.


    (1/2) Kill Erolan [Complete]


    (2/2) Unbind the remaining pieces of the Devourer Set


    Good enough for me.


    Felix waited a few minutes to be sure Erolan''s body was dead. He even stored the body along with the pile of limbs and viscera in his inventory to be sure it was all dead, since he knew he couldn''t stow anything living. Then, he pulled the Blood Ring out of his inventory and placed it on the ring finger of his left hand followed by the Soul Ring on his right ring finger, perfectly opposite the blood ring. He bound the two items the same way he had bound the axe and was rewarded with a System screen.


    World Event: Special Quest


    You have competed the quest.


    You have successfully achieved all objectives.


    Congratulations.


    Felix sighed in relief and took deep breaths.


    World Event: Special Quest


    Rewards


    Rewards will be granted upon leaving the World Event. Would you like to leave the world event now?


    Yes.


    No. Sear?h the N?velFire.n§×t website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    Yes.


    Felix immediately decided to leave because he didn''t want to spend any more time than was necessary in that place. He had already almost gotten himself killed by messing with things far stronger than he was and he had no intention of sticking around and giving himself a chance to make that mistake again.


    He knew he would probably do something just as stupid, somewhat accidentally, in the future as he pushed himself to higher levels. For now though, he was happy with the relative safety that was Trenus. There were higher level creatures on Trenus, but nothing he couldn''t handle, he was confident of that. Ironically, he figured that was likely why The System was officially kicking him out. Although, he figured it likely also had to do with protecting the other integrateds, just in case.


    Looking around, Felix found that he was right back where he had left, in the central building of Atalus. He had expected to find himself in the reward room but didn''t question it too much. A few other screens appeared before him but he ignored them for now and immediately teleported himself to his tower.


    He was happy to find his mana engine whirring away meaning it hadn''t filled itself or exploded while he was gone. It was however, very close to being full. Felix quickly descended to his bed chambers and laid his hand on the podium to spend some mana. He didn''t have the requirements to upgrade it to C grade, not even close, but he did have enough for just about everything else.


    He scrolled through a massive array of options but ended up just making the tower a few meters wider. It cost a ton of mana and he figured it would always be useful down the road.


    With that complete, Felix finally looked through the screens that had appeared before, that he had initially ignored.


    World Event: Special Quest


    If you come across this story on Amazon, it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it.


    Rewards


    You have equipped two unbound pieces of the Devourer set.


    The remaining portions of Erolan''s Soul has been added to the Soul Ring.


    The remainder of Erolan''s body is in your inventory.


    The Portal Coordinates to the capital city of the multiverse have been added to your inventory.


    Your class has been upgraded.


    The crystal, added to your inventory can be activated to store your tower within it.


    Note: As around 60% of Erolan''s soul was destroyed, only the remaining portion will be transferred to the Soul Devouring Ring.


    It''s super weird that I got the class upgrade without actually having harvested any souls¡­ right?


    Maybe that''s not the point of the test?


    Then what the hell was it?


    I don''t know, it''s just a guess. Don''t ask me, I''m with you on this one. You''re just going to have to find the progenitor and ask them.


    Alright, fair enough. I was just expressing my confusion. Speaking of¡­ I take it I''m not getting experience for that kill then?


    I think the way the kill happened was too weird. You killed him but¡­ normally you kill something and The System will do something with their soul and your experience right?


    Right, but his soul was¡­


    Yeah.


    So I don''t even get credit?


    Doesn''t seem like it. You didn''t even get a title right?


    Oh right. Damn. Stupid System.


    It does get¡­ weirder and weirder the more we learn about and¡­ interact with it.


    The first thing Felix did was to dump all the pieces of Erolan''s body from his inventory onto the ground. Once there, he reached out with his willpower and used the blood ring to absorb them all. The ring responded immediately and the whole body, along with all the miscellaneous pieces, liquefied into a dark red stream that poured into the ring on his right hand. Once the streams had disappeared, the dust that remained from their corpses was carried away by the wind and left no trace that anything had been there previously.


    Next, he searched through his inventory and found the coordinates for the capital city of the multiverse. Pulling it out of his inventory, he was rather surprised to find a simple piece of paper with the coordinates written out. He was expecting a solid disc or metal plate for some reason, not that a piece of paper wasn''t the perfect medium, he just expected something more substantial.


    The paper did seem to be some D grade material or better considering how tough it was, it just didn''t fit with what Felix had expected. He didn''t think about it for too long though and memorized the coordinates then had Grim file them away in long term storage just to be sure he always had them.


    He stowed the slip of paper in his inventory and then pulled out the crystal that would contain his tower. The crystal that appeared in his hand was about the size of a large marble, a couple inches in diameter. Looking into it, the crystal looked like it was a dark grey or black but, looking around the edges, Felix quickly realized it was actually clear and that something inside of it was giving it the color he was seeing.


    [D - Mythic] Pocket Home


    [Empty]


    This orb contains a limited size pocket dimension within. Once filled, the user may channel mana into the orb then touch it to a surface to open a portal to the contents. Once inside, simply repeat the process to open a portal back to the location you originally left from. When inside, the portal will not exist in the outside world. This pocket dimension is completely isolated from the outside universe. Once filled, the pocket dimension will need to be manually emptied and filled to replace the contents. If the object within the space grows, it is possible for the pocket dimension to be pierced and collapse. The orb will glow red when the bounds of the pocket dimension are being pushed.


    Note: To initially fill the pocket dimension, simply channel mana into the orb and press it against the object you wish to move.


    Felix thought about waiting to move the tower so he still had somewhere to teleport to on this continent then quickly changed his mind. If there were any issues, he wanted to deal with them right away. To solve his dilemma though, he quickly pulled out some Starmetal and inlay material then crafted what he hoped would work as a portal anchor based on Erolan''s research.


    He was reasonably confident it would work as it wasn''t overly complicated or strong. As a backup, he also cast the coordinate measuring spell and filed those coordinates away in his long term memory.


    With all his preparations and fail-safes complete, he started channeling mana into the Pocket Home orb. It took a lot more mana than Felix was expecting but after just under a million mana, the orb glowed white and he pressed it against the outside of the tower. He waited a few seconds then suddenly started falling.


    Looking down he saw the ground beneath his feet had disappeared and now he fell into the center of a crater a few hundred meters wide. He instantly prepared and cast a simple Feather Fall and allowed himself to float down gracefully.


    Looking around, as he fell, he saw that essentially a perfect sphere centered around the base of the tower had simply vanished. He already suspected where it had gone and as soon as he landed, he activated the orb to be sure. He placed the portal on the edge of the crater, figuring the freshly revealed stone was probably solid enough.


    This time, the orb took just a few thousand mana before it glowed. He pressed it against the relatively flat stony surface and a 2 meter wide portal appeared, centered around where he had made contact with the orb.


    Peering through the portal, Felix saw the mountain surface that had disappeared just in front of him and absolutely nothing else. Inside, it was completely dark with no source of light whatsoever. Felix cast a light spell which revealed his tower at the center of the mountain chunk. Felix stepped through and immediately started floating into the air.


    No gravity, no light. Lovely.


    He cast a couple of force spells to propel himself over to the tower and flew all the way up to the top where he was happy to find his mana engine whirring away. It seemed to have no trouble pulling in mana even though theoretically this pocket dimension was isolated from the greater universe.


    He suspected that either that wasn''t entirely true or there was something about mana he was missing but he didn''t dwell on it too much because it could very well be both. He also had no way of actually figuring it out at the moment so he filed the questions away so he could look into them when he arrived at the capital city.


    He was hoping there was a lot more information there than he currently had access to. He knew realistically there had to be, he was just hoping it wasn''t restricted or very expensive. There were quite a few things Felix had come across now that he could realistically have Grim ask The Guild of Answers, but felt like he was better off just finding a book on the subject. He didn''t really know what to ask and posting a torrent of unspecific questions would just be wasting his credits.


    What he really needed was a lot more introductory texts so he could drill down on specific topics that arose and he would know what to look into specifically. He was hoping it would be trivial for him to find basic knowledge in the capital city but realistically, he had no idea.


    There was no guarantee that the city operated anything like he was used to so he just decided to wait and see. All he could do for the next six months was to prepare himself as much as he could for what was to come then deal with things as they came.


    For now, he had a Pocket Home to fix. Over a period of a dozen or so hours, Felix opened up a large area in the basement of his tower where he relocated the mana engine. In the future, he planned on creating channels for mana to travel up the tower so he had a large reserve to tap into from wherever he needed it.


    He could then run the mana to lights and other enchantments all over the place. He could also then add a simple light and heat source above the tower and maybe even grow something on the land that had tagged along with his tower. He didn''t have anything in mind at the moment though, it was just a fantasy so, once he finished with the gravity simulating spell, he activated the orb against the wall of the tower and stepped back onto Trenus. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 Chapter 171 - Book 75

    The next thing he wanted to do was sit down and read through his new class. He figured there was a chance his soul harvesting abilities would be upgraded by the class. Until he was certain he was going to get as much out of it as possible, he didn''t want to even start looking at the remnants of Erolan''s soul.


    [D - Legendary] Reaper


    The Reaper class is the final form of the Soul Harvester. This class is designed to maximize the wielder''s abilities and allow them to reap the souls of the fallen. By succeeding with the Soul Harvester class you have demonstrated an affinity for harvesting souls and shown that you don''t need a class to succeed. This class is designed to augment and amplify the natural abilities of the wielder above all else. It''s goal is not to grant new abilities and make the wielder great at them but rather to accelerate and amplify what is already there.


    Note: This class comes with some required class skills.


    Warning: Consuming souls that are stronger than your own could have adverse side effects.


    +0 per level


    [D - Legendary] Reaper


    General Skills:


    Predator''s Stealth (Epic) => Reaper''s Movement (Legendary)


    Soul Harvest (Epic) => Soul Reap (Legendary)


    Note: Soul Reap modified to accommodate Soul Ring.


    Mana Sight (Uncommon) => Reaper''s Sense (Legendary)


    Bond Familiar (Uncommon) => Reaper''s Bond (Legendary)


    Innate Skills:


    + Reaper''s Mantle (Legendary)


    Holy shit. Everything? Really?


    Dragon''s Dance wasn''t upgraded.


    Oh yeah. Still¡­ Almost everything upgraded to Legendary skills¡­


    Class: [Reaper''s Movement (Legendary) This skill amplifies the user''s movements in every way. If the user is moving silently it will dampen any sounds produced. If the user is moving through the shadows, it will dampen any light reflected off of them. If they are traveling quickly, they will move faster. This skill is heavily dependent on and scales with both your perception and dexterity. This skill can make you undetectable, but scales heavily based on the user''s own abilities. If they are already very stealthy, this skill will make them undetectable. This skill will not make someone who is not stealthy suddenly great at it.]


    Class: [Soul Reap (Legendary) Upon slaying an enemy with a soul, and storing it in the soul ring, you may automatically have souls be harvested. Souls in the ring will be processed for a period of time that varies based on your own soul''s strength. You may currently hold (5000 common) souls in the soul ring for processing, based on it''s size. Once processed, a portion of their soul is integrated into your own granting you a portion of their stats. The gained stats are dependent on the strength of the defeated soul and your processing efficiency.]


    Class: [Reaper''s Senses (Legendary) This skill augments the wielder''s vision with the inclusion of their other senses. Mana, souls, heat, smells and anything else the user can sense will be amplified. This skill also amplifies your senses to be more attuned to the world around you. This skill heavily scales on the user''s perception. This skill will not reveal anything that the user cannot detect on their own.]


    Class: [Reaper''s Bond (Legendary) Bond with a creature to gain effects dependent on the creature. The strength of your bond with the creature and the level of the creature affect the strength of the effects you gain. Large level differentials could result in a bond breaking entirely. You and the creature will affect each others advancements. The bonded creature will also benefit from the user''s reaper skills, if applicable.]


    Innate: [Reaper''s Mantle (Legendary) This skill is innate to your class. The reaper''s mantle is a black cloak that is both an item and a part of the user. It can be equipped and stowed at will and it''s abilities and stats are dependent on the user. The mantle can also reap the effects of other cloaks to replicate them at will. The mantle may be manually modified to use a different material, be enchanted or even decorated based on what it has been fed. All modifications become a part of the cloak. Upon destruction, the cloak may be resummoned so long as the user remains alive. It''s durability scales with the user''s endurance and the other cloaks it has reaped. The Reaper''s Mantle covers both the user''s body and head by default but may be modified. This skill will not circumvent standard enchantment interference.]


    Huh. Don''t get me wrong, I''m not complaining¡­ but other than the bond skill¡­ these kind of suck, no?


    Yeah, kind of.


    They don''t actually let me do anything new or cool. They just¡­ amplify things? If I suck at stealth, that skill isn''t going to do anything.


    Yeah, guess you''re going to have to learn how to be stealthy then.


    Why the hell are they Legendary the- don''t answer, I know. It''s cause of their cap.


    That''s my guess at least.


    So I just need to get there then. To the cap?


    Isn''t that what you wanted to do anyways?


    No. Sort of? Not everything. I had no plans on being the best at hand to hand combat or stealth. I''m never going to be the best with an axe. Stealth does sound useful though so I''m not opposed to that one. I just want to learn enough of everything to have options. I want the chance to react and respond and not be caught off guard by something I''ve never seen before.


    Felix made sure the Soul Reap skill was deactivated so he could take a look at manual soul harvesting first then activated his Reaper''s Mantle skill. As soon as he did, a cloak that seemed to be made of either shadow or black smoke appeared on Felix''s shoulders. It took him a few seconds to realize it had appeared though because it weighed nothing so he didn''t feel it at all.


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    He tested it out and found that it was incredibly fragile and essentially provided nothing of value other than aesthetics at the moment. He assumed it would become incredibly useful once he upgraded it, but for now it was essentially a costume. He deactivated the skill because he didn''t want to walk around with a trail of shadows behind him.


    Felix was about to start working on Soul Harvesting, or Reaping but was interrupted by a system screen.


    World Event


    The first ever Trenus World Event is now complete. All participants that survived have returned and the bonus rewards for the final vault and the battle with Erolan''s pet will now be distributed.


    Stats:


    Deaths: 376


    Total Damage Dealt: 42.34 Billion


    Total Damage Taken: 4.70 Million


    Participants: 7,841


    Final Vault Rewards:


    100 Billion Credits x Participation (0.5%) = 500 Million Credits


    I take it that was Nova''s participation?


    Probably. Makes sense it''s so high¡­ given its level compared to everyone else.


    Auction


    With the first ever Trenus World Event complete, there will be an auction held in 24 hours. This auction will be open for anyone who participated in the World Event along with one guest each. You will be allowed to post any items you found in the world event as well as anything else you wish to auction off, with some restrictions. There will also be other items available for purchase that have been tailored based on prominent participants, cities and their needs.


    24 hours? That''s it?


    As much as Felix wanted to get started on Soul Reaping and Erolan''s soul, now that everyone was back and there was an auction in 24 hours, he had other things he had to get sorted first.


    The first thing Felix did was teleport back to Atalus. It hadn''t quite been a day since his last teleport but the reset time for it had passed so it worked without issue. He immediately found himself on the steps to the main building, as expected, and walked inside.


    All around him and the building stood the crowd of people that had just participated in the event. They had all reappeared where they had left and though a lot of them had scurried off back into the city, a good number of them were loitering about and sharing stories with each-other. Felix paid them no mind and walked straight into the main building.


    He wanted to make sure he caught everyone he needed to talk to and luckily, it seemed no one had left yet. Felix walked over to Noah who was standing next to Amelia and talking with Benjamin. He had no intention of interrupting them and was happy to wait until they finished but Noah noticed Felix as soon as he approached and turned to him.


    "Felix. We were wondering if you had died in one of the vaults."


    "Really?"


    "Nah, I can see your status through some city management stuff so I know you didn''t die."


    "Oh."


    "You did miss the big surprise."


    "What was that?"


    "Remember Silas?"


    "The leader of Lav''Gur? The guy who replaced Ashok and tried to make himself leader of the world?"


    "Yeah, exactly. He tried to kill all of us¡­ Was interesting."


    "Wait, what?"


    "It''s not as big a deal as it sounds. Wasn''t really a very well thought out plan. He just tried to betray us during the big fight. Might have worked had Amani not seen right through it."


    "Oh, that''s good. What¡­ did he do?"


    "Tried to lay traps so we ''tragically'' got caught in them and died to Erolan''s pet. Had some of his city''s residents helping him too. Amani noticed Silas acting weirdly then put everything together. She found and then quickly cleared out all most of the traps."


    "Oh, glad to hear it all worked out. What about Silas?"


    "Oh he died. Accidentally got caught by Erolan''s pet as he tried to run away."


    "So what happens to Lav''Gur now?"


    "Good question. Probably someone else claims power. Hopefully they aren''t as self righteous."


    "I see. What was Erolan''s pet anyways?" sea??h th§× N?vel(F)ire.¦Çet website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    "Some creature called a Ralmeran. Or¡­ maybe that was it''s name? Not sure. Think massive monkey like thing with three heads, six legs and hundreds of hard, scaled tentacles. The tentacles burrowed through the ground like roots and caught people unaware."


    "I''m actually having a hard time imagining what that looks like."


    "Guess you would have had to see it. I take it you found something better to do than help with Erolan''s pet?"


    "Yeah, sort of. Sorry, I know you probably wanted me there to help¡­"


    Noah shrugged, "Don''t worry about it."


    "You''re not mad?"


    Noah sighed then put his hand on Felix''s shoulder "Look I¡­ I''ve come around on the issue, at least on a small part of it. I was mad for a while but¡­ I told Amelia about it, more to rant than anything but much to my chagrin, she kind of agreed with you, not fully but, still. I get it now, I know I can''t shoulder the lives of everyone in the city. Especially now, in the multiverse, people die and I just need to accept that. I know you can''t just always be there and people need to be capable of handling themself."


    Noah looked into Felix''s eyes with intensity and his grip on Felix''s shoulder tightened, "What I will do though and what you should have done, is make sure the innocent and those who don''t want to fight, don''t have to. If they are willing to accept the danger, then so be it, but everyone else, they deserve to be protected. If we had lost the war, what would have happened to the innocents, the ones in the bunkers?"


    Felix just nodded along solemnly, he knew this was an emotional issue for Noah, "You''re saying I didn''t have to participate in the war and baby the citizens, but if we had lost, I should have protected them? Helped them escape? Or even provided safe haven for anyone that didn''t want to fight?"


    Noah shrugged, "Something like that. If you don''t want to stand and defend the city, I don''t agree with that decision, but we have a right to know that. Then if we decide to fight for it ourselves, that''s on us. You lied to the people of the city and pretended you were helping. What if some people only fought because they thought their fearless protector was there to lead the charge and¡­ protect them?"


    "That''s not unreasonable. I get my decision¡­ what I did¡­ not taking out their siege weapons and essentially forcing the war on the city, I know most people would think of me as a psychopath. The way I see it though, the city is battle hardened and capable. They''re as ready as they can be to defend themselves if the need arises."


    "That''s¡­ I get what you''re saying but¡­ A lot of people died that didn''t have to. You totally could have had people fight and train then swooped in and saved them if they were about to die."


    Felix sighed, "Yeah but without the threat of death¡­ is it really proper training for¡­" Felix gestured around him, "everything else?"


    "That''s¡­ idiotic"


    Felix shrugged, "Idiotic or psychopathic?"


    Noah winced, "Maybe not idiotic¡­ definitely¡­ misanthropic?"


    Felix slumped his shoulders, "Sure¡­ As I said, I can''t always be there though, even more so now. Maybe we should think up more escape options."


    Noah frowned, "What do you mean ''even more so now?''"


    Felix looked at Noah with a very serious expression, "Look, some shit happened and we should probably talk about it before the auction." . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 Chapter 172 - Book 76

    Sensing Felix growing more serious Noah nodded and sat at the main table in the center of the room. Felix gestured for Benjamin and Amelia to sit as well. Will and Alan were already seated next to each-other and were showering Nova with attention who was happily basking in it on the table. They quickly sensed something was wrong though and both went silent, though they continued to pet Nova.


    Felix waited a moment or two so he could build his resolve and for the tension to build just a little, "I''m getting kicked off of the planet."


    Noah immediately stood up, his chair scratching against the floor loudly, "What? What do you mean?"


    "I got a special quest in the World Event. Instead of participating in the final vault, I¡­ there was something else I had to do. Anyways, I¡­ barely, succeeded in the quest and it was totally worth it but one of the conditions was that 6 months from now, I would have to leave Trenus and the integration as a whole."


    Noah shook his head as he tried to process everything, "Where will you go? Why? I don''t¡­ What will happen to¡­ your tower, your continent?"


    "Wait, your continent?" Benjamin, Will and Alan all said in unison.


    Felix nodded seriously, he was expecting all of these questions, "I was granted portal coordinates to the capital city of the multiverse so I''ll head there. Why? Not entirely sure but I think it''s worried I might screw with things a little too much. That or it''s protecting all of you just in case I go crazy. For the continent, not sure but I''ll probably have to choose a descendent. Tower gets to come with me." Turning to Benjamin, Will and Alan, "Yeah surprise, I''m the Stormbringer. It''s my continent. I thought Noah told you that''s where I was living, outside of the city?"


    All three of them looked at Noah with a frown then Benjamin said, "He just said you were camping while killing things in the wild."


    "It was too complicated." Noah said then turned back to the more important topic at hand, "Portal coordinates? You can open portals now?"


    Felix nodded, "Yeah. Which is something else we should talk about. Before I leave, I was thinking we connect up any of the Major cities that we can with portals."


    Benjamin put his hand down on the table, "Hold on¡­ You think The System is worried about you¡­ killing us?"


    Felix shrugged, "I have no idea. That''s my best guess. If it was just giving me an opportunity, it wouldn''t have banished me from ever coming back."


    "Are you really that much higher level than us?" Alan asked meekly.


    "No. I''m currently level 176 in my race."


    Alan frowned, "Then¡­"


    Felix quickly verified nothing had changed, "My familiar is level 353 for context. I can''t explain it all but¡­ things seem to be a little different for me. The reason I stayed behind, the special quest, gave me some cool magic items that I could definitely see¡­ Well let''s just say I could see someone else being tempted to slaughter every living thing on the planet."


    Alan''s hand immediately recoiled from petting Nova, "Someone else?"


    Felix smirked, "Well, I have no intention of doing that."


    Will overexaggerated his relief, "Thank System for that¡­"


    "So what about the auction?" Noah asked.


    Felix leaned back a little, "Right, we should figure out what the plan is so we can buy anything we might need. I thought the¡­ news might influence your purchases too so¡­"


    Noah nodded once, "Yeah, it will¡­ What do you need for the portals?"


    Felix tilted his head up as he thought, "We should pick up as many flawless crystals as we can for mana batteries. Raw D grade materials for portal surfaces and rooms to contain them. Buy any defenses and weapons you might need for the city once I''m gone."


    Noah nodded seriously having fully entered city planner mode, "Ok, are you gonna go with us to the auction?"


    Felix nodded, "I have no qualms with that, assuming that''s how it works I guess? Otherwise, we can find each-other."


    Noah lightly nodded as his head was clearly somewhere else, focused on planning and figuring out what was next, "Yeah, you can use the city''s coffers for anything you need as well."


    Felix smiled though he didn''t think that would be necessary and he definitely didn''t mind spending a little bit for the city out of pocket, "Thanks."


    Noah quickly moved on, his brain actively thinking through everything that needed to happen, "I guess we need to shift the government over a little sooner than we thought."


    Felix smiled, "Yeah, I can transfer the city over to you whenever you''d like."


    Noah shook his head, "No. Transfer it to the council when we set that up. Also¡­ maybe we should wait until there''s just a month or so left."


    Felix shrugged, he understood the reasoning and did not mind being a nuclear deterrent for a little while longer, if that became necessary, "Sure, just let me know."


    Noah bit his bottom lip, "I''ll find somewhere to house the portals, probably don''t want them inside the city."


    Felix tried to seem as agreeable and cooperative as possible, he was kind of dropping this on him out of the blue so the least he could do was help as much as possible. He did respect Noah after all and appreciated all he had done in Felix''s stead with the city, "Wherever you''d like."


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    "Wait, so that''s it? Your leaving and you can''t come back?" Will asked, ceasing the slight pause in the previously rapid fire between Noah''s planning and Felix''s immediate agreements.


    Felix turned to him and almost chuckled at how shocked he looked, "In 6 months, yes."


    Will looked to Alan then back to Felix, "Can I have your continent?"


    Felix snorted, "No."


    Alan elbowed Will in the arm, "It was worth a shot¡­"


    "Speaking of, what are you going to do with that?" Noah asked.


    Felix shrugged, "Gift it to Atalus? Escape route maybe?"


    Noah tilted his head, "That''s not the worst idea¡­"


    Felix nodded curtly, "Think about it and let me know if you have a use for it. I obviously can''t use it. If you can''t think of anything, maybe I set up a portal and let all the cities use it as a training ground or a neutral meeting place or both. Besides that, I also have some items that someone might find interesting. I am not in the need of cash right now and I''ve been told there''s a perfect match for one of the items here already." Felix pulled out the Dragon Mother''s Ring and held it out to Noah, "Could you make sure this gets to Kenneth before the auction? I don''t want him buying anything this might overlap or interfere with."


    Noah reached out and took the ring, taking a second to identify it himself then he nodded, "Sure thing."


    Felix stood from the table, "Is there anything you need from me before the auction?"


    Noah nodded, "Yeah, let''s go over some initial plans."


    Felix just nodded curtly once again, "Of course."


    Nova noticed Felix getting up and the others leaving so they ran across the table and nestled into Felix''s robes.


    Felix and Noah spent a few hours running around the city collecting and taking stock of the materials they had on hand. Near the end, they stopped by Henry''s forge to get him working on platforms and rooms for the portals.


    Henry managed to get Felix to stay behind as Noah ran off so he could run some ideas by him. At first Felix thought he was going to be looking at spell-cannon designs but that only took a few minutes.


    Henry looked to Felix seriously, like he had been waiting to ask this question for some time now, "So, what do you think of my class?"


    Felix shrugged, "Seems fine to me."


    Henry nodded, evidently relieved by Felix''s approval, "Really? You think it''ll work out with the cannon? I still need some physical stats for working in the forge and surviving but it gives a good amount of intelligence too. I just stuck with what I knew for the world event, wasn''t quite ready to test it all out just yet. Maybe in the next one."


    Felix mentally shrugged as he realized Henry had probably evolved his race before his class. He hadn''t waited to synchronize them. Before now he hadn''t thought of any reason someone wouldn''t synchronize them though honestly, he hadn''t thought about it for long.


    Felix just shrugged, "Yup, seems good to me."


    Henry nodded and continued clearly to "I''m hoping I can evolve my profession into something with a higher rarity that hopefully gives more stats but for now, it should do the trick. As for skills, what do you think of these."


    Mostly to be polite, and because Henry had helped Felix a lot over the last year or so, Felix stuck around and listened to all of Henry''s musings. He hid his annoyance as best he could and offered insight where he could but ultimately, Felix didn''t care. He wasn''t sure if he was being asked because he created the original cannon or because he was the strongest around, but he was not invested in trying to figure out an optimal build for someone else.


    Ultimately, even with his own class, race, profession and skills, he was taking what sounded cool and interesting or what Grim recommended. He wasn''t thinking about it too hard because he didn''t have enough information to theory craft it. All he really wanted to do, all he really cared about, was magic. Casting spells, enchanting and figuring out how mana, spell forms and nodes all interacted, that was what really interested him. That and harrowing battles, though those had brought him eerily close to death as of late.


    Once he managed to slip away from Henry''s barrage of questions, Felix went and sought out Benjamin who seemed to be somewhere in the residential district. Felix flew over multiple neighborhoods of middle class housing until he arrived at a larger estate with a massive backyard. Checking his map, Benjamin seemed to be alone so he dropped down in front of the building and knocked on the front door.


    "Furniture delivery!" Felix jokingly called out.


    After a few moments, Bejamin opened the door, "Felix, I thought you would be busy with Noah?"


    Felix nodded, "I think we have everything we need figured out. I also wanted to get you the furniture as soon as possible so you would know if you wanted to buy anything from the auction."


    Benjamin looked a little surprised, pleasantly so, "Oh, thank you. Did you already deliver some to Will and Alan?"


    Felix shook his head, "No, came to you first."


    Benjamin shook his head, "Oh, you should give them whatever they need first. They actually have other people living with them. Here, I''ll go with you." Benjamin walked out and closed his front door then led Felix down the street to the house directly next door.


    Felix looked back at Benjamin''s house, which was just a couple hundred meters away, "You guys live right beside each-other?"


    Benjamin smirked, "Yeah. Noah offered us a selection of houses and land because of our contributions in the war, back in the tutorial¡­ and maybe a little nepotism. This is Alan''s house, the one on the other side of mine is Will''s."


    Felix looked over and saw another similar looking house to Benjamin''s, "You said you don''t have anyone living with you?"


    Benjamin shrugged, "Had a wife back before the tutorial but she passed ten years ago now, cancer. The treatment made her infertile and so we never had kids. After my tour in the army where I met them, Will and I ended up helping out with Alan''s kids a fair bit while he worked through his PTSD. They even call me uncle. Now we both help out where we can with Will''s kids."


    Felix couldn''t come up with anything more to say other than, "Sorry¡­"


    "For what? Life''s great. Shit sucked back then but it''s better now, we got through it together." Benjamin chuckled, "If you have trouble hearing that, don''t ask about Alan''s family."


    Felix asked before fully processing Benjamin''s words, "Why?"


    Benjamin smirked, "Well, you asked. His wife died in her tutorial. His kids were old enough to have moved out so he doesn''t have to take care of them but it was still¡­ hard¡­ on all of them. And us I guess but you know¡­ she wasn''t our wife or mother, just a close friend."


    Felix was having trouble formulating words, while that all sounded awful to him, he was having trouble empathizing and didn''t want to seem rude, "Oh¡­"


    Benjamin shrugged, "It happens. He''s been dealing with it rather well. I think it''s because he dealt with his PTSD that now he''s more¡­ capable of dealing with that kind of thing? I don''t know but¡­ it''s one of the reasons I think he''d make a great scout leader by the way."


    Felix hung his head a little, it seemed like an appropriate thing to do to him, "Yeah¡­ I guess."


    Benjamin took a big breath and brightened his tone, "Anyways, things are good now. We have meals together and hang out all the time when we aren''t out grinding levels."


    Felix just nodded, even though to him, that sounded slightly painful, "That sounds¡­ nice." Sear?h the nov§×lF~ire.net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    Benjamin smiled and nodded, "It is. Anyways, as I said Alan''s kids are old enough that they moved out the year before the tutorial. Afterwards, they moved back in with him, here. I figure since they''re older and mostly higher level, they will get more use out of the higher grade furniture."


    Felix frowned, "Mostly?"


    Benjamin smirked, "One of Will''s kids took to the tutorial like a fish to water. She loves everything about it she almost hit D grade in time for the world event. That might not sound that impressive to us, but she''s 13."


    Felix was genuinely surprised and his face showed it, "Woah. That is impressive."


    Benjamin smiled and nodded then turned to the door and knocked loudly, calling out, "It''s Benjamin and Felix, can we come in?"


    "Sure." Felix heard in response. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 Chapter 173 - Book 77

    Benjamin opened the door and walked inside then Felix followed suit, closing the door behind him. Inside, the house opened up into a large living room with the kitchen beyond that. It wasn''t overly interesting or diverse, but it was strongly reminiscent of homes from earth, like the one Felix had grown up in.


    Unlike the houses Felix had explored in the world event that used complex materials and had thematic designs making them feel more like theme park attractions than homes, Alan''s house felt like a home to Felix.


    Sitting in the living room was a young man, just a few years younger than Felix by his estimate, that bore a striking resemblance to Alan. Walking into the living room from the kitchen was a young woman, around the same age as the man but she looked drastically different. Impressively, both had just pushed through into the D grade sitting at levels just over a hundred.


    Benjamin stepped forwards, patted the man on the shoulder and hugged the woman.


    "Hey uncle Benjy." The woman said as Bejamin hugged her.


    "Hey Sam." He responded then turned back to Felix, "Sam, Eric, this is Felix. Felix, Sam and Eric." Benjamin said gesturing towards the woman then the man.


    The man looked up and nodded while the young woman, Sam, reached out her hand towards Felix, "Nice to meet you. I take it you know my dad, Alan?"


    Felix took her hand and shook it, "Yeah."


    "Alan home?" Benjamin asked.


    "Should be. DAD!?" Sam called upstairs then continued, "Normally he would have heard you come in but I think he might be meditating."


    A faint response came from upstairs, "Coming." A few moments later, Felix saw but oddly, didn''t hear, Alan descend the stairs to his left.


    "Oh, Felix. What are you doing here?"


    "Furniture delivery."


    "Oh right. I forgot about that. You already get some to Will and Benjamin?"


    "He recommended we get it to you first."


    "Oh¡­ thanks. These are my kids. I take it Benjamin introduced you?"


    "Yup" Felix nodded.


    "So how''d you guys meet?" Sam asked.


    "Uh¡­ Good question." Alan looked to Benjamin.


    "We''ll tell you the whole of it some other time. Felix owned Tri-Peak and now owns Atalus."


    "Wait what? He owns the city?" Eric chimed in.


    "Yeah, he claimed a fort back in our tutorial. We met him, agreed to move cities and he kind of just ended up owning all the forts at the end. Here, he founded Atalus." S~ea??h the n?vel_Fire.¦Çet website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    Sam looked incredulously at Benjamin then her dad for a few moments before finally deciding they were being serious. A moment later, she dropped to one knee and bowed to Felix.


    Felix looked at her with disgust and Benjamin started giggling.


    Felix looked to Benjamin then Alan for support but found none from either of them, "Uh, please don''t bow to me. It''s weird."


    Sam jumped to her feet but kept her head hung a little to the side, "Sorry¡­ just¡­ you''re like¡­ a king? Isn''t that what I''m supposed to do?"


    Felix scowled, "I''m not a king."


    "Well actually¡­ you own the city by yourself and will choose your successor. You weren''t elected and you don''t rule by force¡­ intentionally." Benjamin mused.


    Felix''s scowl deepened, "What do you mean intentionally?"


    Benjamin smirked, "Well, whether or not it''s on purpose, I don''t think anyone else is ballsy enough to take you on and try to take over. Anyone who would want to is too scared of fighting you."


    Felix''s scowl vanished and instead, his face reflected his confusion, "Is my reputation that bad?"


    "That good." Eric nodded in respect.


    Felix raised a brow, "What¡­ do you mean?"


    Though Felix could very likely have guessed at what his reputation was, he didn''t really spend any time thinking about how other people saw him.


    Eric shrugged, "You''re basically a myth to most people at this point."


    Felix shook his head, "Lot''s of people have seen me around. I''ve met all the other world leaders and I go shopping and talk to Henry¡­"


    "Do you have any idea how many people live in this city? You''ve talked to a handful of people. You may walk into normal stores but no one recognizes you because we''re amongst the only ones who know you." Benjamin countered.


    "You aren''t a very public leader." Alan said nodding his head.


    Felix sighed, "Not much of a leader at all to be honest¡­"


    Alan shrugged, "It''s not that bad. You put us in good hands with Noah. I honestly don''t think we need a more involved leader like Orselle and Sprouts have."


    Felix shrugged, "Well, you guys can all decide how you want to lead soon enough."


    Eric''s brow furrowed, "Wait, what?"


    Alan nodded lightly as he understood what Felix was getting at, "So a council then, not an elected leader or something like that?"


    Felix nodded, "That''s the current plan. Noah and I will probably choose people for the initial council. You can have people voted onto and off of it later on."


    Alan nodded deeply, almost bowed, "I see. Well, I appreciate being included on the first council."


    "Should we take a look at the furniture?" Benjamin cut in.


    Alan placed a hand on Benjamin''s shoulder, "How about we invite Will and the kids over and we can sort it all out together?"


    "Good idea. I''ll go see if he''s home." Benjamin nodded then walked back outside.


    "So you own the city huh?" Eric asked.


    Felix smiled politely, "Yes."


    This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.


    Eric looked over Felix, visually assessing him, "Does that mean you''re like, super strong? I can''t identify you but that could just be a skill."


    Felix thought about how best to answer that question but all that came out was, "Uh¡­"


    "Eric. Yes." Alan answered for him.


    "You definitely are not what I was expecting." Sam cut in.


    Felix cocked a brow, "What were you expecting?"


    Sam shrugged, "Taller? Scarier? More¡­ inhuman?"


    Felix frowned, "Inhuman?"


    Sam tilted her head, "Yeah. You don''t have horns or multiple arms or anything."


    Felix just looked at Alan because he wasn''t sure what he was supposed to say. Before Alan could say anything though, she continued, "It''s just with all the rumors you know. You look so¡­ normal. Like a guy you''d see on the street. Your armor is cool but it''s not the coolest I''ve seen. I don''t know¡­ I just expected¡­ at least¡­ your eyes to glow or something."


    Felix thought about creating two light spells to make his eyes glow, but quickly decided against it. Instead, he just shrugged.


    "So my dad''s gonna be on the council?" Eric asked.


    Felix nodded, "Assuming he agrees. I was kind of hoping he would be our spymaster or whatever that position would be called."


    "Yeah, he mentioned something like that." Eric looked over the couch back towards his dad.


    "We''ve been trying to convince him to take the job so he can hire the two of us as spies." Sam smiled.


    "Even if he doesn''t, we''d apply." Eric cut in.


    "But it would be nice if our boss was our dad." Sam shrugged.


    That sounds awful. Wouldn''t Alan constantly second guess sending them on missions so he wasn''t putting them in too much danger?.


    Maybe they just want to be close, after their mother and his wife¡­


    They already live together. To each their own, but that sounds awful to me.


    "Well, the offer stands. Just let us know." Felix said, making it clear he was referring to Alan.


    Alan just nodded.


    Felix figured this was a decent time to ask something he had been wondering for a little while now but never found the opportunity to ask, "Quick question by the way, Benjamin said Will''s kids are young, how does the tutorial work for them?"


    Alan nodded, "They get a special tutorial that''s almost entirely education and training. They''re allowed to fight monsters too but it''s very controlled. Think futuristic boarding school. The parents can also video call with the kids once a week or so and can check up on their status pages anytime they want."


    Felix frowned, "Huh, I¡­ guess that makes sense?"


    Alan shrugged, "Apparently it''s just adjusting to the way our world was. Some worlds are less family focused and the kids end up in a similar tutorial to ours."


    Felix''s face contorted with disgust, "I wouldn''t want to be a parent on one of those worlds."


    Alan chuckled, "Yeah, that''s what I said."


    Around that time, the front door opened once again and Benjamin held the door open for three small children to scurry in, one by one.


    First there were two young boys who looked identical and were about 8 years old, impressively both at level 24, which was far higher than Felix expected for anyone so young. After they ran in, and competed to be first, a young girl casually walked through. She appeared to be about 13 but her expression and dignity made her seem much older. She had long, straight jet black hair with violet eyes that occasionally flickered pink. She also wore a long light grey and blue dress that was either completely weightless or was enchanted to seem like it fluttered in the breeze at all times.


    [D - Special] Child of the Tempest (Lvl 101)


    [D - Epic] Emissary of the Raging Wind (Lvl 100)


    [D - Special] Shadow Mercenary (Lvl 102)


    She''s only 13? That''s insane.


    You aren''t that much older.


    It''s a big difference for humans.


    Wasn''t that big in my universe.


    Really? At 13 you''re so immature and¡­


    And you aren''t? You''re the epitome of wisdom and maturity?


    Not what I''m saying.


    I know. You do seem to think age matters more than it actually does though. You''ll see once we leave the integration. Especially in an integration universe where everything seems to be tailored to you gaining levels quickly and with relative safety. 13 is young but you''ve hit puberty, you can think for yourself and you can fight. That''s all it really takes.


    After her, Will and another man Felix didn''t know walked in followed finally, by Benjamin who closed the door behind him. Though the living room wasn''t huge, it still managed to comfortably fit everyone standing around, though some stood with a foot in the dining room or entryway.


    "Hi. I''m Jarod, Will''s husband." The man who walked in just after Will, the only adult Felix didn''t recognize, offered his hand to Felix.


    Felix took it and shook, "Felix."


    Jarod smiled widely, "Pleasure to meet you."


    "You too." Felix turned to include Will and Benjamin in the conversation and continued, "Your daughter''s class, race and profession are¡­ impressive. Let alone her level."


    "You can see them?" Benjamin and Will said almost in unison, both of their faces painted with shock.


    "Uh¡­ Yes?"


    The girl in question overheard what they were saying and walked over, though didn''t say anything immediately.


    Will smiled at her with his annoyance evident, "She won''t tell us what they are, and she won''t tell us why she isn''t telling us."


    "We figured it was just a rebellious teenager thing." Benjamin shrugged.


    Felix looked at each of them in turn, "I don''t think I should tell you then. If it''s against her wishes, I don''t want to get in the middle of this."


    "You can really see my class, race and profession?" The girl looked up at Felix and spoke for the first time since entering the room.


    Felix looked down at her and nodded, "Yeah. I think it''s a part of owning the city."


    "I see." She sighed, "If you can see them, you can tell them."


    Felix frowned a little at how suddenly she seemed to change her mind on, "Are you sure?"


    She sighed, "It''s my profession. You can see it right? I just didn''t want them to be worried."


    Felix nodded, "Ah."


    Will, Jarod and Benjamin looked at him expectedly, but Felix turned to the girl, "I''m Felix by the way."


    She smiled at him, "Evangeline, but everyone just calls me Eva."


    Felix smiled back, "Well Eva, I think if you''re ok with them knowing, you should probably be the one to tell them."


    Eva nodded, "You''re right."


    Instead of telling them, Eva shared her status screen with both her parents and Benjamin. After a few moments, Will looked at her, "Eva, I will always worry about you being safe, but I''m not gonna stop you because of it. Honestly, you''re probably stronger than I am right now. Other than Felix and his familiar, you''re almost definitely the strongest in the room. You''ll always be my little girl, but it seems like you can judge your capabilities better than I ever could."


    "We''ll all do our best to advise you and we might not be ecstatic about you being in danger." Benjamin said.


    "But we aren''t going to stop you." Jarod added.


    "Thanks." Eva hugged her parents then Benjamin in turn then turned to Felix, "You have a familiar?"


    Felix reached into his robe and pulled Nova out. Holding their sleeping form in one hand, Felix offered them to Eva.


    Eva reached out and carefully took the cat from him. Out of the corner of his eye Felix saw Alan wince then quickly calm down. Eva looked back up at Felix, "What level are you? and what level is¡­"


    "Nova. They''re level 353, I''m 176."


    She scowled but was otherwise undisturbed by the ridiculous level of the tiny kitten in her arms, "Why are you so much lower?"


    Felix sighed, "I took a weird class and got stuck for a little while. I figured it out now and it should be worth it in the long run. Also the world event wasn''t the best place to level up. The creatures were¡­ different. That''s where we picked up all this furniture though."


    She looked up at him with confusion as this was clearly the first she had heard about it, "Furniture?"


    Felix nodded, "Yup. I came here to deliver it."


    Everyone around the room organized themselves with Will''s two youngest, who were in fact twins named Leo and Ethan, in the middle of the room. They proceeded to fight over all the furniture, even the useless pieces but luckily got bored after just a few. Contrary to Benjamin''s wise idea of having the older kids choose the furniture first because they could actually use it, both Ethan and Leo got first choice because of how vocal they were, followed by Eva because she was their sister.


    Shortly after that, all three of Will''s kids started wrestling with Nova who was more than happy to play. Felix was a little worried about Nova not being careful enough with the low level twins at first. His fears quickly subsided though when he saw that Nova had morphed their body into a what was essentially a large plush toy.


    The rest of them didn''t care too much about who got which piece of furniture but were still immensely grateful to Felix for carrying it all. He appreciated the gratitude but felt a little guilty considering it cost him literally nothing to carry it all for them. After all the furniture was allocated, Felix was still left with a few pieces for himself which he appreciated though he didn''t care if any of it was left for him at all. He was planning on just upgrading the existing furniture in his tower to D grade at this point. Having extras wasn''t a terrible idea though so he simply left them in his inventory.


    After all the furniture had been allocated, they sat around and talked for a few hours before Felix found a point where he could politely duck out. It was nice spending time in what felt like a normal atmosphere from before the integration after a year or so but it was still a lot of people and that was never really Felix''s scene. Felix retrieved Nova and bid his farewell to everyone inside, even though he would see a bunch of them again at the auction in less than a day, then ran back to the city hall building. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 Chapter 174 - Book 78

    Felix placed his pocket home marble against a random wall in the city hall building and channeled mana into it. Just as it had every time before, a portal into complete darkness appeared and Felix stepped through.


    He quickly illuminated the environment with a spell and ascended his tower to the lab floor where he settled in for the time being. He set up a couple light spells that should last for a few days and placed them against the walls. They were a weird combination of enchantments, wards and spells that at first, Felix wasn''t entirely sure would work, but seemed to have no issues whatsoever.


    Before looking into any amount of soul harvesting, Felix decided he was going to start working on something else. As he and Noah had been running around the city taking stock of what they had, Felix made sure to pick up a few sets of the materials for himself. He hadn''t actually tried to make a mana battery yet and after checking in with Henry, neither had he. During the world event, Felix had found multiple large gemstones in the vaults he had plundered so, the rarest and most expensive material was already accounted for.


    The blueprint he had memorized from the puzzle dungeon in the tutorial mentioned that the more flawless and solid a gemstone, the better the battery. On the other hand, even gemstones with flaws could make batteries, they just likely wouldn''t hold as much mana and were more likely to break down.


    In theory, with an actually flawless gem, the battery could last virtually forever as long as it wasn''t broken externally. With flawed gems, the mana running through the gem constantly would aggravate the flaws and over time, they would grow and the battery would break. Luckily, a battery breaking wasn''t a very violent reaction, it usually just started leaking until it couldn''t hold mana any more.


    He figured he should be practicing before he committed to using his best materials so he pulled out the gemstone he had the least hope for. It was a small greenish gemstone with some visible cracks deep inside of it. It was far from flawless and even it''s shape was slightly deformed. In theory it would work fine, it would just be a little harder to work around the flaws. With the other gemstones, he would wait until he had better materials for the rest of it and more experience overall.


    The basic theory was simple, a gemstone was atomically stable enough with a crystalline structure to be able to hold mana without it spilling or leaking out. It worked similarly to how souls worked, holding onto mana like a mana pool. At least, that was how the blueprint had described it.


    The other materials were simply to aid in the transfer in and out of the battery as well as the collection of aether to recharge it. The blueprint he had were for batteries that wouldn''t recharge themselves, requiring manual input for them to refill. Looking through the plans though, Felix had a rough idea of how he would make them automatically refill themselves. For now, he wanted to make some exactly to the specifications just to gain experience.


    Using the same method as he had in the world event, with a solid mana form and Starmetal cast, Felix created the inscriptions for the outer housing of the batteries. To him, they looked essentially like an enchantment. He was pretty sure he could identify almost all of the individual components of the inscription which was why he was also confident he would be able to modify them in the future.


    First, there was a series of channels that connected around the battery like a net. They would balance out the mana flowing in and out of the battery. For a flawed gem, he had to inspect the flaws and remove sections of the channels to minimize how much mana flowed through the flaws.


    Those channels then had some components to normalize and even out the mana flow and some limiters so mana wasn''t shoved in or yanked out too quickly. Surrounding the channels and the gemstone at the center, the blueprints suggested creating a housing. The housing was mostly for durability of the enchantments but it would also need to be mana conductive so the battery was usable at all. sea??h th§× N?velFire.n§×t website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    Lastly, to prepare the gemstone itself to store mana, it had to undergo a specific process. The gemstone had to be placed at the center of a complex spell formation that would push mana into it slowly. Then, he had to stop the spell formation and allow the gem to sit, filled with mana, for a period of time. Once it had sat long enough, Felix would start the spell formation again and continue the process. Finally, Felix would have to pull the gemstone off the formation when he thought it was full enough. This part had a high failure rate so it was recommended to be the first step before making the housing but, Felix had wanted to get a better idea of how the crystal would be used and how the mana would flow.


    Knowing when to let the crystal sit, how long to leave it alone, when to start going again, how many times to repeat and when he was done was supposedly more of an art than a science. Being good at the process meant getting the more mana into a crystal and therefore a bigger battery. If it was done poorly, he either wouldn''t get much out of the crystal or it could pop like a balloon, especially if the gemstone was significantly flawed. Luckily it supposedly wasn''t a violent pop and was more like a crumble with some minimal force behind it.


    Felix finished forming and modifying the channels to accommodate the gemstone''s flaws and formed a suitable housing fairly quickly. After that, he carefully placed the gemstone in the center of the specified spell formation and watched, both visually and with his mana senses. He thought about making the spell formation into a ritual so he could simply place the gemstone on the ground but he decided against it. Instead, Felix simply formed the spell formation in the air with his own mana and lowered it onto the gemstone.


    For any normal person watching, Felix suspected there would be nothing to see. The gemstone simply lay on the ground, completely still with no glow or any other visual indication of what was happening. For Felix, due to his Reaper''s Sense which evolved from Mana Sight and showed him visually what his mana senses sensed, it was actually rather interesting. The spell formation first collected the aether and cycled mana around the gemstone slowly pushing mana in from all sides. Once it completed a cycle, it would push from all directions at once then go back to cycling around.


    On top of that, Felix sensed and therefore saw, the attunement and energy levels of the aether being shoved into the gemstone. He suspected one of the reasons knowing when to stop flooding the gemstone with mana was more of an art than a science, was because of the variance in aether.


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


    Looking inside the gemstone with his mana senses, he could tell the most instability was caused when high energy mana of a few specific attunements passed over the flaws. What happened was that the mana would get caught on the flaw like a hiccup. With the high energy mana, the hiccups were more aggressive and jumped further. He suspected they caused more damage to the gemstone but had no way to confirm that without some very specialized tools that he didn''t have.


    Eventually, after a half hour or so, the gemstone crumbled and small pieces of it were scattered across the floor up to a meter or so away. Felix had been completely distracted examining the mana and had forgotten to let the mana sit, pausing the spell. Felix had expected it to crumble though and luckily had a few dozen gemstones he could keep practicing with.


    He pulled out the next most flawed gemstone he had found, a small red gem which looked like it had been split off from a larger crystal. Once again, Felix formed the spell, placed it onto the ruby like gem and watched. This time, he didn''t bother making a housing or channels as he figured he should wait until this part was complete and had a decent idea of how they would work. Once he had a viable gem that had been prepped with mana, he would simply modify his original channels to fit that gem.


    Felix watched the mana be forced into the gemstone from each side and once again, watched as the mana forced it''s way past the internal flaws of the crystal. This time, he also spun the red gem just a little every time the spell completed a cycle. The blueprint hadn''t mentioned it but he figured it made sense given what the spell was actually doing.


    He paused for a bit between each cycle, as the blueprint had mentioned, and hoped that that would be enough. Once again, the ruby shattered after a dozen or so cycles. Felix was trying to pay attention to when it was at it''s limit but as far as he could tell, it just suddenly exploded. They seemed exactly the same they had before he started pumping mana into them.


    For his third attempt, Felix ditched the spell entirely. Instead, he intended on replicating what it was doing simply using his mana control. Realistically, it didn''t seem like it would be that difficult and it would give him more control over the process. He also planned on expanding the process.


    Instead of a two dimensional circle around the crystal, there was no reason he couldn''t push mana in from every direction, in a cycle then finally, at once like the spell did. Above all, he was also going to neutralize all the mana he used so that only the lowest energy, unattuned mana was being forced into the gems. His hope was that this would greatly decrease the stress put on the crystal and so it would be less likely to explode.


    He pulled out another green crystal, this one a darker and deeper green rather than a light almost teal green like the first one had been. This time, Felix placed the crystal onto one spell that simply lifted it up into the air using a little force. With it floating in front of him, Felix then started pushing mana into the gemstone in small bursts, cycling them around it''s surface in three dimensions. Once he had gone all the way around, Felix pushed a small burst in from all directions. As soon as he did so, the crystal burst into a thousand pieces. Considering it had only taken him about 5 minutes, he was pretty sure he had done something wrong.


    It was entirely possible the gem was actually far more flawed than the previous two and he just hadn''t noticed. It was also possible that this gem had less flaws but they were more significant. Ultimately, he couldn''t be sure.


    What he really needed was to get one to succeed then work from there. Also, having access to better tools so he could examine the inside of the crystal would make the entire process much easier. He thought about what tools he could use so he could feel the inside of the crystal and realized he didn''t need any, or rather had all the tools he needed already. He honestly felt a little stupid he hadn''t thought of it earlier.


    Felix pulled out the next crystal and stuck it in his soul space, then changed his mind and dumped them all into his soul space. In his soul space, it was possible for him to examine the inside of the gems to a certain extent so he could better judge which of them were the most flawed.


    Once he picked one out, he began using his mana control to push mana into the crystalline structure. In his soul space, he was able to see so much more of the crystal. As the mana was pushed through the crystal and bounced around inside, he saw the structure start to vibrate slightly every time it pushed through a flaw or bounced off a face.


    This time, Felix stopped pushing mana through the gem and let it rest whenever he felt like the internal vibrations were too much. He would let them calm down then start again.


    Now he felt like he had a much clearer idea and better understanding of what was going on. After about thirty minutes, he stopped entirely and let the gem rest for a little while to fully cure. While he waited, he pulled the finished housing out of his inventory. He quickly adjusted the channels and housings he had previously made and retrofit them to this gem then identified the resultant battery.


    [E - Uncommon] Mana Battery (172/172)


    [Very Slow][Tiny]


    A battery containing mana.


    Wow. That''s even worse than the ones I found in the very first tutorial dungeon I ever entered.


    Felix tossed the battery in his inventory and turned back to the gems remaining in his inventory. For the next few hours, until the auction, Felix pushed gems right to their limit so they would shatter and he could examine why. His best guess was that the internal resonance from all the vibrations caused them to crumble.


    He didn''t manage to get any gem to their limit without crumbling but, he had a much better idea of how far he could push them. He only managed to fashion a single other battery and still hadn''t managed to beat the batteries he had found in the tutorial.


    [E - Uncommon] Mana Battery (213/213)


    [Very Slow][Small]


    A battery containing mana.


    He was very happy with his progress though. He figured without more in depth instruction from a person or book, trial and error was basically his only option. He was more than happy to blow through a thousand gems if it took him a thousand tries to make great batteries. He knew it would take much longer than that to master the process but he hoped the batteries would at least be usable by that point. He didn''t have any more time to practice now though as the system screen for the auction appeared before him.


    Auction


    Welcome to the post world event auction! You participated in the world event and have been automatically invited to the auction. Anything you store in your inventory or have equipped will be teleported there with you and the same will apply when you return. Any items you wish to auction off should be on your person when you are teleported as it will not be possible to retrieve them later.


    You have not chosen to invite anyone to the event as your guest.


    You will be teleported to the auction in 5 minutes.


    Felix quickly grabbed Nova and had them clean up the gem fragments on the floor and in his soul space, which they were more than happy to do. After that, he placed them in their usual nook in his robes, resting against his chest and waited 5 minutes until he was suddenly teleported. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 Chapter 175 - Book 79

    As always when he was teleported, Felix felt a sudden lurch in the aether then looked around and instantly found himself in a large room where part of the floor was sloped and led to a curved wall. On the other end of the room, at the top of the slope, was a large table resting on a flat floor with no chairs around it. Instead of chairs, there was simply ample space around the table for people to walk by without it ever really getting cramped. Along the sloped floor, on either side of the room were a dozen chairs laid out in 3 rows that all faced down the slope towards the curved wall. S~ea??h the nov§×lF~ire.net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    The only thing in the room other than furniture and what Felix brought with him, was a small lockbox in the center of the table. It looked like a miniature wooden chest that was either a normal chest shrunk down or a scale replica one might use for jewelry. It was not an ornate chest, instead it was clean and unmarred with no visible imperfections to Felix''s eye. Felix walked towards the chest and carefully tilted open the top. Inside, the chest appeared to be filled with small coins of various shapes, sizes and colors.


    Felix reached his hand in and pulled a handful out confirming what he already suspected, the tokens were more faction tokens, like the ones he had received at the end of the tutorial. Felix stored the entire handful in his inventory then reached in and pulled out another. He repeated the process far more times than he thought would be necessary as the chest was much larger inside that it appeared to be on the outside. Eventually, he just stuck his hand in and stowed everything it touched to make the process faster.


    As soon as he finished stowing all the tokens, Felix pulled his hand out and started to examine the chest except it suddenly vanished. He wanted to see if he could have taken it with him but it seemed like The System had thought of that. Felix had no interest in sorting through the tokens himself so he let Grim have a look while he walked towards the door at the back of the room.


    As soon as his hand made contact with the door, as it didn''t seem to have a handle, he was presented with the option to request a visit to another room or leave the room. Since he wasn''t sure who to visit first and didn''t know if they would be in their rooms or not, Felix simply chose to leave the room. Before he could open it though, another screen suddenly appeared.


    Auction


    The auction will start in one hour with the basic items presented by a screen. During this period, anyone will be able to list the items they are carrying, with some restrictions, and bid on items they desire. After a period of 2 hours for that auction, the tailored items will be presented on stage for anyone to bid on.


    Does it seem odd you have to bid on your tailored item?


    Maybe it''s just in case you don''t want the item?


    Then you could just sell it though.


    Yeah. No idea.


    Felix dismissed the screen then immediately realized the door he was touching had simply disappeared revealing a large curved hallway. The curve was in the opposite direction from the curved wall in the room and was immense. If Felix had to guess, the curve''s diameter was around a half kilometer across. He looked to the left and right and saw multiple doors just like the one he had exited through every few dozen meters and even saw a couple other individuals in the hall.


    Felix avoided everyone and made sure it was difficult for any of them to strike up a conversation with him by rushing down the hall towards the lobby. Luckily, there were signs along the hall so he didn''t have to run around aimlessly until he found where he was.


    Following the curved hall, Felix ran far faster than would be polite in a normal theater and arrived at a large double stair case leading downwards. As Felix descended, he passed by multiple other floors and the number of people in the stairway steadily grew. Felix ignored both the floors and the people, getting past the latter by simply flying along the ceiling, over their heads.


    Finally, after what had felt like over a dozen floors, though Felix wasn''t counting, the stairs ended on a beautifully tiled floor. Felix stepped out and dropped himself to the ground as he looked around.


    The lobby seemed to just be a massive open room with small seating nooks and tables scattered about. In the very center, was a massive table with various foods and drinks.


    Felix knew there would be at most 20 thousand people at the auction and, though people were still adjusting themselves and filtering in, he was certain this room could fit them all comfortably. Even if 20 thousand people did attend, and they were all in the lobby at once, there would be ample room for everyone to move around between each-other without making physical contact with anyone.


    Luckily, the room was split up a little bit so that it wasn''t just a pile of people in a room. Looking around, Felix saw a series of 8 signs along the walls that each had the names of one of the major cities. Then there were individual booths and areas where people could choose what to have on the signs.


    There were a few immature signs already but most of them were more interesting. There were signs for blacksmiths to congregate under, leatherworkers, people who wanted friends, and two that seemed to be for match making. Felix figured those would all normalize themselves as more people entered the lobby and ignored all those signs for now.


    Felix walked over to the sign that depicted Atalus on it and floated into the air so he didn''t have to push through the surrounding crowd of people. Under the Atalus sign, Felix saw a series of booths, couches, tables and sitting areas laid out all over the place with some space to just stand as well.


    He found what he was looking for almost immediately though and flew over to the table where Noah and Amelia sat. He also saw Benjamin, Will and Alan at various other tables but he figured Noah was most likely to know what the plan was.


    Noah and Amelia were sitting on a half circle couch surrounding a table with two other individuals that Felix didn''t recognize. He didn''t exactly want to interrupt their conversation but when he realized the crowd around the table were mostly people waiting their turn to talk as well, he decided he didn''t care. Floating over everyone''s heads and cutting the line, Felix lowered himself next to the couch on the end Noah was sitting on which caused more than a few dirty looks in his direction.


    Felix ignored the glares and just looked towards Noah, "Sorry to interrupt. Which room Noah?"


    Noah turned to Felix, "Did you get a booth too?"


    Felix cofirmed, "Yeah."


    Noah nodded in acknowledgement, "Me too. Go to my room. Atalus leadership will be there and I believe Amani might join."


    "Sounds good." Felix forced a polite smile then flew off.


    He quickly stopped by the large table in the middle covered in food that seemed to infinitely replenish itself as soon as any item had been eaten. There were all kinds of foods from different cultures back on earth and many foods that were clearly not from earth.


    Felix started on one end and sampled everything that smelled and looked appetizing until he was completely full. He even felt like he was being picky but when he looked ahead, he realized he had only sampled one twentieth of the table. He briefly tried to store items in his inventory and the Kryptos Repository but found that to be impossible. He gave up and quickly picked up a few more items, stuffed them into his mouth and floated back up to the ceiling then shot towards the staircase.


    Stolen novel; please report.


    As he ascended the staircase back to his room, he received multiple requests for people to visit his room. None of them were from people he recognized so he declined and ignored them all. They started getting annoying after a dozen or so but luckily they slowed down significantly after that. By the time he got back to his room, they had almost entirely stopped appearing.


    As he floated over to his door, he noticed a handful of people waiting around in the hall for someone to approach. Ahead of him in the hall he watched as someone left their room and the people in the hall scurried over to strike up a conversation. He overheard enough of it to realize they were just trying to befriend anyone on the top floor so he shot towards his door and disappeared before they could peel off their last victim.


    His room was exactly as he remembered it but he barely glanced at it this time. As soon as he appeared inside his room he turned around and placed his hand against the door to leave. This time, he chose to visit a room and thought of Noah. After a few moments, the door opened and instead of the hall on the other side, he saw a room that looked identical to his own just mirrored. Felix walked through the doorway and looked around at Noah''s room.


    The room was completely identical to Felix''s except, he had no way of knowing if there was once a token chest in the middle of the table since he knew that they disappeared once emptied. The only other differentiating factor to the room was that Noah''s room had someone in it, sitting in one of the chairs facing forwards. They noticed him walk in right away and looked over their shoulder to him.


    "Oh¡­ Hello Felix."


    "Hey Eva."


    Felix took one of the seats in a different row and across the aisle from Eva and was more than happy to just sit. They both comfortably sat in silence for a few minutes that neither of them dared break until Will and Alan walked through the door and into the room. Will sat next to Eva and Alan sat across the aisle from them in the same row, just a few empty meters between them.


    As soon as they sat down, Will reached his arm over the back of his chair and turned his head to Felix, "We saw you float into the lobby talk to Noah then fly off. Wish I could have avoided socializing like that."


    "That''s a lie, you love socializing." Alan retorted.


    Will shrugged but kept his eyes focused on Felix, "Meh, sometimes. That was a lot of people, got tiring quickly. Also I wanted to talk to you Felix, I was wondering if I could pick your brain? Got a minute?"


    Felix shrugged, "Sure. What''s up?"


    Will nodded, "Basically, my build right now is entirely focused on fighting people one on one. I have skills to greatly increase my defense against all other attacks so long as I''m fighting. It costs a ton of energy but it get''s refunded if I do kill my target. Of course I use a rapier and I can get through most defenses. You have any thoughts on enchantments I should look out for, skills I should try and find? Any tips and tricks in general?"


    Uhhhh¡­ I get I''m an enchanter, but wouldn''t he know what enchantments would help him more than I would?


    Felix heard someone open the door behind him and quickly glanced over to see Benjamin. He turned back to Will, "I guess your goal then is to stay on your target and keep them from running away from and exhausting you? I guess make sure you have good mobility. Poisons probably aren''t fast acting enough to refund you energy when you need it but they might give you an edge. On the other hand, a blade that slows your opponent down, maybe even freezes them as you wound them, would work nicely I think."


    Will scratched at his cheek, "That''s not a bad idea. For mobility, did you have anything in specific in mind?"


    Felix shrugged, "Not really. I have jump spells on my boots that launch me around but maybe you just want to energy infuse instead."


    Will smiled and nodded, "Oh cool. I''ll look out for something like that, thanks."


    "Sure."


    "You maybe should also look into armor. Even just cloth with good enchantments to keep you mobile." Benjamin added in.


    "How much defense could enchantments on cloth offer? Is it worth it?" Will asked, clearly in Felix''s direction.


    Felix thought about it for a few seconds, "I had impenetrable cloth wraps in the E grade. So a decent amount."


    Not sure if that''s a thing in D grade but I''m sure¡­ I gotta look into enchanting cloth for defense myself.


    Will''s eyes went wide, "Woah, really?"


    The free advice session continued with Benjamin then Henry, who had just showed up asking Felix for his advice on their builds. Initially, with Will, Felix had been too caught off guard to realize it but the whole thing was rather exasperating.


    He felt like he was that one kid in the family that was good with computers so everyone else was asking him for tech support. It wasn''t so bad that he had to leave or shut it down but he was starting to realize he didn''t really fit in that well.


    The conversation evolved to almost everyone in the room arguing and sharing their thoughts on each-other''s builds. The only stand outs were Eva who remained silent and Felix who was doing his best to participate as little as possible, only contributing the bare minimum when someone addressed him directly.


    Noah and Amelia had showed up at some point along with Amani who avoided talking about her own build but did offer criticisms. Felix thought about ducking out with the excuse of getting more food but ultimately, he decided he could just sit through it.


    It wasn''t irritating anymore because they were rarely asking Felix his advice directly but it was more that he just didn''t really care about the conversation at hand. Everything anyone was looking for to improve their builds, he had at least a rough idea of a spell or enchantment he could make to accomplish. He started to feel like he was either a parent listening in on a conversation between children or just someone much older.


    A lot of the problems they were having he just didn''t have or already had solutions for. He started to feel more and more like he didn''t really belong as the conversations progressed. Up to this point, he hadn''t really had many in depth casual conversations with anyone so it had never really gotten to this point.


    When he talked to Noah he almost always had a purpose. With Benjamin, Will and Alan, he could only remember one casual conversation in the world event and they just told him about their families for a grand total of a minute. Even Amani, seemed to be enjoying herself as she deftly navigated the conversation to avoid the topic of her own build.


    Eva seemed to be somewhat of a kindred spirit, avoiding the conversation entirely but Felix wasn''t sure if it was just nerves from being in a room with entirely adults or something else. Also she was 13 so he wasn''t exactly looking to her for conversation.


    His feeling of alienation only got worse as the conversation drifted to things they missed about earth and things they did and didn''t like about the tutorial. Felix had done this before, sit and listen in on someone''s problems, mostly with David. The difference was usually that David was a certain kind of person that didn''t want emotional support or someone to commiserate with, he wanted someone to help him find solutions.


    Felix was more than happy to talk through David''s problems because he could just be honest, blunt and David listened. Here, he found he disagreed with just about everyone and the entire topic of conversation was just so pointless to him. He distracted his mind by practicing spell forms and juggling mana but even then, he couldn''t help but get a little annoyed.


    They were in the integration, their universe had changed. There was no point in reminiscing about how much less danger you had felt on earth. This was reality and in Felix''s mind, there was nothing to do but accept it.


    As much as he didn''t like being exiled from the integration universe, his home universe, he couldn''t help but slowly come to terms with and actually feel like it was the right call. He should have fallen far behind everyone else with the massive risk he had taken with his class. Looking around though, he knew that would never be the case, not here.


    Felix''s musings about being kicked out were interrupted when the conversation shifted to a few people poking Felix to talk about his own build.


    "Just a lot of long term investments I guess. I seem to have my current level more or less handled so I''m just trying to abuse that to accelerate myself as much as possible at the expense of¡­ well, the now."


    "You''re still a caster though right? and an enchanter? or some derivative of those?" Will queried.


    "More or less." Felix shrugged.


    "I''m just surprised you stayed human." Benjamin said.


    "Isn''t that risky? If everything else starts to outgrow you, you could fall behind. You don''t want your city to be conquered or someone to assassinate you like Ashok and Lav''Gur." Amani chimed in.


    Felix smiled, "That''s not really going to be a problem. I''m stepping down in the next few months."


    Amani shot forwards in shock and leaned towards him, "What? Really? Will Noah run the city? What are you gonna do?"


    Felix tilted his head back and forth, "We''re gonna try going with something like an oligarchy for now. I''m going on vacation, sort of."


    Amani leaned forwards and tensed, "When?"


    "In 6 months."


    She relaxed, "I see."


    Everyone else in the room except for Eva, who was still silent, knew about Felix''s exile and Amani seemed satisfied for the time being so, the conversation shifted over to other small talk topics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 Chapter 176 - Book 80

    The wait time before the first phase of the auction passed quickly for everyone except Felix ending when the screens for the initial phase appeared before them. Felix didn''t really have anything to sell. He had thought about selling some of the clutter but ultimately decided he would rather keep it, didn''t care about it''s meager value, or would rather sell it in the capital city in just a few months. So, instead of posting items, Felix spent the first few minutes setting up a filter.


    He was able to make it as complicated as he wanted so he added some parameters. First he had it display to him any and all gemstones so he could practice making mana batteries. The second thing he had it display for him was poisons. He wanted to start consuming them so he could analyze and make countermeasures for as many as possible. He also had it looking for high rarity items in general but specifically cloaks, hats, bracelets, rings, earrings, necklaces, and charms.


    Those were all the items he was still missing so he figured if he might as well look out for them, even if his hopes weren''t high for their quality. He suspected most items that were of the highest rarities would be kept or sold privately but figured it was worth looking out for no matter what. On top of that, he was very likely to find something far better outside of the integration universe.


    Felix also added some other things like spells, spell scrolls, consumables and rare materials for Nova. Lastly, Felix set his filter to look for books of any kind. Knowledge was power and he had a library in his head with plenty of room remaining. Once he finished with his filter, he set up an auto-bid for any gemstones under a million credits and with prices set at up to a 100% over the System recommended price.


    Not all items would be sold auction style apparently and his auto-bid would automatically buy anything that wasn''t sold that way, as long as no one else had an auto-buy for those items. The items that did require bidding would result in a bidding war. If an item exceeded his limit, it would notify him and he could then manually take over if he wanted to.


    He spent 20 minutes or so switching between his own filter and the entire catalogue sorted by rarity, looking for anything that stood out to him. His auto-bid would handle the gemstones for him and he would simply sell them back to the city at cost when the auction was over. He had a similar number of credits to the city''s coffers at the moment so it wasn''t really an issue for him to buy the gemstones himself and get reimbursed later. It also meant they wouldn''t be competing against each-other, accidentally bidding on the same items.


    Noah was busy looking for defensive and offensive options for the city and he asked for Felix''s help a few times but seemed to be handling it almost entirely himself. Whenever he did ask for assistance, he sent Felix the item to look at while he continued to buy and bid on what looked like a hundred items at once. Felix felt a wave of gratitude that he had found Noah and that he didn''t have to deal with buying items for the city as a whole.


    In fact, as he looked around he felt like he was the least invested in the auction itself. He knew the second phase might hold more engaging items for him but as it was, his filter and auto-bid handled almost everything for him.


    Amani''s eyes were darting around the invisible screen as she handled things for her city. Amelia was also completely enraptured and manually tapping the screen as fast as she could, likely due to her job in the city. Benjamin, Will and Alan were all drooling over items and fooling around with each-other whenever they found something worth sharing. The only other one that seemed perfectly calm was Eva though Felix did see her eyes light up every few minutes when she saw something she wanted.


    Even though The System had spaced out and limited how many items were posted, the first hour still felt like a wave. After the first hour, the initial flood of items started to wane and most of what was left was either overpriced or uninteresting to everyone in attendance. There were a some people who had held onto their items and only posted them near the end so they weren''t lost in the initial burst but they weren''t many. Felix had to handle a few auctions himself but overall, his auto-bid had been working so well for him, that he ended up setting it up for other items as well.


    In the end, he didn''t buy many high grade anything, other than a few cloaks manually. Everything else didn''t really seem worth the prices people were asking for and bidding. There were some rings that were interesting to him but they went for way more than he was willing to pay, even though he was absurdly wealthy. He was hoping the items in the second phase were more interesting but if not, he had an entire multiverse to search for items in just 6 months time.


    The cloaks he bought were somewhat interesting but he only bought them because his cloak could eat them. One was a scaled cloak made from snake skin, another was made of chainmail so fine it felt like cloth and the last lightly muffled sounds. He knew he could probably figure out the enchantment himself for muffling sound, but this one wasn''t traditionally enchanted so he figured he might as well feed it. In terms of rare materials, Felix bought a huge array of woods, metals, stones, plants and other weird items for Nova to eat. Anything that was a raw material he didn''t already have and wasn''t ridiculously overpriced or came from the world event, he bought.


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    He ended up with a few thousand gemstones which he was super happy with and a few hundred weird materials for Nova. Some of the gemstones even appeared to be flawless, which he was super happy about. Overall, he ended up spending less than he had expected.


    The most expensive thing he ended up buying was a metal for Nova that he spent a few million credits on. He wasn''t planning on blowing that much for a raw material but it was D grade Epic and had some cool properties where it would phase between a liquid and a solid when struck. He did end up ignoring a few hundred gemstones that were ridiculously overpriced and a bunch of materials where the bidding had gotten out of hand.


    Overall though, Felix was very satisfied with everything he had bought. He even had a small pile of a few hundred vials of poison even though he hadn''t bought any of them himself. He had quickly realized he had no idea what to look for so he ended up setting up another auto-bid similar to his other''s in the first few minutes.


    All the items would be distributed at the end of the auction so, even if someone bought more than they could fit in their inventory, it wouldn''t be an issue. There was a short break of just 10 minutes between the end of the first phase and the second phase so Noah confirmed that Felix had gotten what he needed and together they reviewed some of Noah''s purchases.


    Noah had handled all of the necessary materials for the portals and rooms. Initially Felix was planning on doing so but Noah had skills that rewarded him based on how much he helped out with improving the city. He had Felix detail out the necessary materials and then bought everything he could. He bought lots of different materials both for inlaying and tons of others just for the city in general.


    It seemed like Noah had gotten everything they needed and Felix was impressed with just how much he was able to purchase and how many auctions he handled. Apparently some of his skills that helped manage the city translated to the auction somewhat but it was still impressive. Noah had managed to spend almost half of the city''s coffers on a ridiculous amount of auctions.


    He hadn''t spent all of it himself as he had some more minor thing''s tasked to merchants he trusted and had used some filters, but everything that mattered, he had bought himself. The merchants were mostly looking out for good deals and Noah was partially ingratiating them to the city for when the portals opened up trade between the cities.


    He had admitted it likely would have been better to have a merchant manage all the trades as they had better suited skills, but he just didn''t have anyone he trusted enough yet. Every merchant he had met, he expected to leave as soon as a better deal came along. Ultimately though, he said and seemed to Felix like he was satisfied with the end result.


    During the break period, Will and Benjamin went to restock their plates and Amani went to talk with some people though said she would be back for the second phase. At this point Felix was curious so he asked Alan, "Did you not bring a plus one? I assume Eva came with Will."


    Alan rolled his eyes, "Yeah, she did. I did bring a plus one, so did Benjamin. Both my kids are here but they''re so fond of the idea of becoming spies that they managed to talk their way into other rooms. They''re mostly just paying attention to their purchases and seeing what they can overhear."


    Felix couldn''t help but smile at their initiative, "Oh. Have you decided if you want to be spymaster yet?"


    Alan sighed, "I''ll probably say yes. Just give me a week or so after the auction to chill."


    Felix nodded, "Of course."


    Alan cocked his head, "Aren''t you leaving though? That job is more of a Noah thing now, isn''t it?"


    Felix shrugged, "Yeah. I was just curious. Seemed odd to me that you guys didn''t bring anyone, that''s all."


    Alan slumped a little in his chair, "Yeah¡­ Not sure I love what they''re doing but they''re also more than old enough to manage themselves. Get anything interesting?"


    Felix shook his head, "Not really. Just random supplies. You?"


    Alan shrugged, "I got a bunch of arrows, some potions, poisons, backup armor things like that. Hoping for more in the second phase."


    Felix nodded in agreement, "Yeah, me t-"


    They were interrupted by the appearance of a system screen indicating the start of the second phase.


    Auction


    The second phase of the auction will have items presented on the stage at the front of the auditorium with informational screens available. You will be provided the basic identification of the item as well as some supplementary information then bids will be submitted through a screen. All bids in this phase of the auction are public.


    There are 103 items up for auction in this phase all submitted by The System. Some are tailored to specific people as potential rewards others are general. There will be a 10 second window after each bid is submitted for a new bid to be entered. If a bid is not made in the allotted time, the item is sold to the highest bidder. All bidding starts at 50% of the recommended pricing.


    Felix looked around the room, "What stage?"


    Noah looked at Felix, chuckled, then rose from his seat and pressed his hand against the large curved wall at the front of the room. After a few seconds, the wall disappeared and revealed the largest theater that Felix had ever seen. He suspected there were likely theaters just as big or bigger back on earth but he hadn''t visited many theaters in his life so this was easily the biggest he had seen. It reminded him of a large stadium that had been cut in half.


    Though he expected the room to be dark and decorated with an older style, it was instead almost entirely marble and stone work. With the curved wall gone in Noah''s room, there was a railing at the front of the booth. Felix looked down and saw a huge array of seats arranged in curved rows all facing and descending towards the stage at the front. Between the booths were massive stone pillars with some minimal and tasteful, in Felix''s opinion, carved patterns. The stage was a simple platform that looked like it was made of a dark concrete or slate stone but there were no doors to a back stage or curtains of any kind.


    Instead, Felix watched as the first item for auction was lifted out of the previously seamless surface of the stage on a small pedestal. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . S§×arch* The Nov§×l?ire.n(e)t website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.

 Chapter 177 - Book 81

    The first item up for auction in the second phase appeared to be an ornate suit of plate armor. It looked like it was made of an almost white metal and had large pauldrons that almost looked like shields themselves.


    Between the hundreds of interlocking metal plates, Felix saw hints of a dark chain mail that helped hold everything together. Lastly, the helmet was a completely seamless piece of metal that had no holes for sight or breathing but did have a massive golden mane that poured down over the back of the armor.


    It was magnificent looking and sounding with a rarity of Legendary and an effect that allowed the wielder to protect both themselves and their allies in golden light. It was also completely useless to Felix so he didn''t even bother fully reading through the informational screen.


    As the bids poured in, quickly raising the price to triple what it had started at, Felix started reviewing his previous purchases and mentally planning through his next steps. As he was lost in thought, Amani returned to the room and sat down right next to him, hopping over the back of the chair and landing so gracefully, Felix almost didn''t notice her.


    "Not interested in trying out plate armor?" She teased.


    Felix didn''t even look at her, "Nope."


    "I noticed you also prefer a more¡­ subtle color scheme." Felix could hear the smirk in her voice.


    Looking down at his almost entirely black ensemble, Felix just shrugged then asked something he had been wondering for the last hour or so, "Don''t take this the wrong way, but why are you here with us instead of with your city?"


    Amani feigned offense, "What do you mean, maybe I just enjoy your company."


    Felix ignored the comment because he knew she was just teasing him, "For the second part I guess it doesn''t matter¡­ but for the first, don''t you want to coordinate with your city?"


    Amani nodded, "I delegated pretty much everything. I own the city but the vast majority of the work actually running it is done by people far more competent than I at such a task. Not unlike Noah, except, I don''t trust it all to just one person. All I had to do was buy for myself or look for items I thought were interesting. Why were you buying so many gemstones? Starting a collection?"


    Felix was genuinely surprised, which helped sell the act, "What do you mean?"


    Amani smirked, "I was mostly paying attention to your and everyone else''s purchase histories and auto-bids. Seeing how many gemstones you ended up buying, I was tempted to buy some myself. Do you know something I don''t? Care to share with the class?"


    Felix just shrugged, "Side project."


    I didn''t even know you could do that.


    Grim mentally shrugged, Maybe she has to be in the same booth as you? I can''t imagine you can do that for anyone.


    Maybe.


    Amani gave an exaggerated nod, "That what all the poisons are for too? Planning on murdering someone then encrusting their coffin with jewels?"


    Felix just looked at her sternly for a few seconds before responding, "No those are food."


    Amani cocked a brow, "Oh of course. That''s what all the raw materials are for too?"


    Felix shrugged, "Yup. Nova get''s hungry."


    Amani finally bore a more serious expression, "Oh, right. Actually¡­ that makes sense."


    Felix nodded, "The poisons are so I can try and build a tolerance, so food as well."


    Amani nodded, finally realizing he was actually being serious and apparently having finished with her teasing, "Ah¡­ Look, I''m not here just to spend more time with you¡­ well actually, kind of?"


    Felix just raised an eyebrow and waited for her to continue.


    Amani tilted her head a little, "I need a favor."


    Felix was fully expecting her to ask for something he didn''t want to do like give advice but, he gave her the benefit of the doubt because she seemed to be nervous which was out of character for her.


    Amani sighed after finally building up the courage, "I need to borrow your familiar."


    Felix cocked a brow, "Nova? What for?"


    Amani hurried to explain, "I''ve got a problem I need to deal with. I can pay yo-"


    Felix cut her off, "You don''t need to pay me but¡­ Nova might take a cut. I take it you need to kill something and that''s why you need my familiar? They might eat the corpse, just be aware."


    Amani shook her head adamantly, "That''s fine with me. I just need it gone."


    Felix nodded, he could appreciate her willingness to sacrifice rare materials for, presumably, the safety of her city. Not that it was a trade he would have made. "What is it?"


    Amani looked at Felix for a couple of seconds then sighed, "I don''t know."


    Felix''s head tilted slightly, his brow still cocked, "Level?"


    She just shook her head.


    Felix''s head tilted a little further, then shook his head to clear it, "While I think Nova can handle themselves just fine, I''m not sure I''m super keen on the idea of throwing my familiar at some unknown creature."


    Amani crossed her arms, "Your familiar is a stupidly high level and it''s not like it would be alone. I''ll go with it just¡­ probably won''t be able to participate in the fight."


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    Felix shook his head at her logic, "Why just my familiar? Why not me too?"


    Amani sighed, "Honestly¡­ I just thought I might be able to bring Nova back with me. It would take you a little while to get there plus I figured you might be kind of busy."


    Felix smiled, "Oh. I think I can fix that actually."


    It was Amani''s turn to cock a brow, "What do you mean?"


    Felix shrugged, "I can go back with you, kind of. How urgent is it?"


    Amani looked completely serious again, "As soon as possible."


    Felix nodded, "Alright you can borrow Nova but, I''m coming with. Deal?"


    Amani nodded, "Yeah but, you aren''t allowed to kill yourself. While I don''t know it''s level, it''s at least 500 or so."


    Felix just looked at her for a few seconds before finding the right question to clarify, "How do you know that?"


    Amani sighed, "I''ll tell you more if- when you get to Orselle."


    Felix sighed, "Anything else you know about it?"


    Amani sighed in turn, "No, unfortunately not."


    Felix smirked a little, "You were willing to sacrifice my cat?"


    Amani shrugged, "It''s less important than you are. Now that I know you''re stepping down, I guess you''re expendable too." Amani said with a smirk.


    "Ouch." Felix said with a completely serious tone.


    The first item, the Legendary plate armor, was sold to someone in a box seat across the theater from Felix and the item was then lowered back beneath the floor. Felix didn''t catch how much the last item had gone for himself but asked Noah and apparently it had sold for just under a hundred million credits. Another item took it''s place and rose up from the stage on a pedestal. Felix peered over the railing but as soon as he saw it was a great sword, he immediately sat back down.


    Items continued to be presented and bid on, but at first, none of them were even remotely interesting to Felix. They were all either unsuited to him, too low rarity to matter or not nearly worth the price to him. There were bows, daggers, gauntlets, boots and a huge variety of other items. They had effects ranging from fire immunity and trails to flight. The most interesting thing to Felix in the first 70 or so items was a pair of gauntlets that encased themselves in lightning but that was only because they looked cool.


    After the first batch, the items on display got a little more interesting. Instead of items for specific people, the items turned into buildings and items that would benefit large factions or even cities as a whole. The first one of these items was a large theater. The description mentioned that it was a similar size to the theater they were currently in. If bought, the building could be placed down at a location of the buyer''s choosing. Talking to Noah, it seemed like although the building seemed interesting and he''d be happy to have it, it wasn''t worth more than a hundred million or so to them. S§×ar?h the novel(F~)ire.net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    Unfortunately, the bidding quickly exceeded a hundred million so Noah didn''t even bother bidding on it. A few more buildings that weren''t worth much to Atalus passed by including a library, which was tempting but they simply couldn''t justify it given the fact that they already had one. Their library was smaller, more tailored to locking information up, and didn''t look like an architectural or historical monument, but it was functional.


    With each item that appeared, the winning bids just kept climbing. It seemed like the other cities were either taxing their citizens much more than Atalus or they were pooling their money together with their wealthiest citizens. Either way, some of the bids got ridiculously high and if the trend continued the winning bids would quickly exceed what Felix or Atalus could buy by themselves. Luckily that likely meant the other cities didn''t have a ton of credits left for the later items, but neither Felix nor Noah were betting on that.


    Out of respect alone, they didn''t bother bidding on the Greenhouse when Amani''s eyes lit up. She had to bid against a few other''s but it seemed like her main competitor also dropped out early out of respect, gratitude for saving them from Silas or for some more mundane reason. She managed to buy the greenhouse for a meager 250 million credits, the lowest price any item had been sold for in a while.


    A few items later, Jackie bought herself a massive Lumber Mill for 30 billion credits. That item also didn''t seem to have quite as much competition because it didn''t seem like anyone else would even be able to fully utilize it. Her city was located deep in the largest forest on the planet, according to the map, so she actually stood a chance of filling it, if she needed a ridiculous amount of lumber.


    The first item Atalus bought was a stone processing plant for a hundred billion credits. Given their location right on the edge of a mountain range, the plant would allow them to massively accelerate the city''s growth. It also meant that more of their buildings would be made of a strong and sturdy material which was a positive all around. Furthermore, for defensive structures like walls, the plant would be invaluable.


    The next item Atalus bid on was a surveillance tower. While the name itself didn''t pique Felix''s interest, the description and sample image did. The tower was a massive structure that looked taller than any building back on earth. At the top, the tower was equipped with visual and auditory surveillance methods while the bottom would detect vibrations beneath the ground. It was incredibly impressive but Noah dropped out of the running when the bidding hit 500 billion credits. Noah said he just couldn''t justify spending that much. It ended up selling for 750 billion to Sprouts.


    Noah also bid on a shield for the city walls that could be erected to protect the walls from specific attacks. He dropped out very quickly when Felix told him he could probably create something similar, not nearly as powerful but similar in function.


    The description said that the shield could either defend from strong hits in specific locations or provide a large scale shield across the entire wall that was much more fragile. Felix figured some simple wards with shields connected to a massive battery would give a similar effect to the localized shield. The biggest issue was just being able to inscribe the ward across the entire wall.


    In theory though, he figured he might be able to make a mold and have someone else mass produce the inlay material. Then all he would have to do is verify it and have the builder''s add it to the wall.


    Even though he was musing to more than he was assuring Noah that he could replicate it, Noah admitted that they didn''t actually need the item. He was happier with just saving money for the later items and was bidding for two reasons. First was simple strategy, driving up the bids to make sure other''s were using their money and second was incase he did happen to win with his meager bids. Even if his bids weren''t very high, just making it seem like Atalus wanted the item, making it seem more desired which made others want it for themselves even more.


    The shield for the wall ended up going to Martin and Snowvale. The 6th item from the end was an item that neither Felix nor Noah were super interested in. It was a forge heart. Apparently, it would supply enough heat for almost a hundred forges and was hot enough to melt down all materials in the D grade. While it was tempting, Noah was inclined to just let Jack have it. Felix thought about using it as a heat and light source in his pocket dimension home but ultimately decided he''d rather just do it himself with mana and that it wasn''t worth the price.


    They were both happy to just let Jack have it for 100 billion credits when suddenly Noah frowned then a moment later, the door to the room burst open revealing a panting Henry.


    "Buy it god dammit. Bid on the damn item!"


    Felix just reacted and bid on the heart for 101 billion, mostly to give Henry time to explain. Jack almost immediately bid again for 110 billion which only gave Henry 10 seconds to explain.


    "I have trouble melting most D grade materials now. With the portals going up soon, we could rent out forges. Will pay for itself in a year. Think about how useful armor and weapons are. They''re only going to be-"


    Henry kept talking but Noah had already bid 150 billion. Looking across the theater, Felix saw Jack sitting atop a balcony looking straight at them. They briefly made eye contact and Jack cocked his head. Felix just looked at him and after a few moments, Jack nodded then pointed at Felix followed by himself then sat down. No one else seemed to want the forge heart surprisingly so Atalus managed to pick it up for just 150 billion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 Chapter 178 - Book 82

    The next item caught all of them by surprise. The pedestal rose to reveal, not a scale model of a building again, but rather another item. Atop the pedestal sat a vicious looking great sword crafted from the bone of some creature. It seemed to be a single piece of bone with leather wrapped around the bottom to form a handle. The blade was only sharpened on one side and the natural jagged nature of the bone gave the weapon a brutal look.


    [D - Legendary] Savage Fang of the Beast


    [Growth][Soul Bound]


    This blade is crafted from the fang of a creature that lived it''s entire life on the hunt. It retains both the power and will of the creature it was crafted from. S§×ar?h the N?vel(F)ire.¦Çet website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    This blade can be soul bound allowing the item to grow alongside the wielder. While equipped, the blade can be used to activate beast mode wherein the wielder grows much stronger and faster. During beast mode, the wielder consumes their health as well as their energy to swing the blade. Every enemy slain during beast mode, refunds a portion of the health and energy spent to use the blade.


    A few individuals scattered about the theater bid on the blade but none of the wealthier individuals bothered except Jack. The item was clearly tailored to him, according to Noah, and everyone else was respectful of that fact. He managed to outbid everyone else at a meager 400 million credits.


    The sharp drop in winning bids was a little jarring but Felix figured no one could justify pooling their credits or using their city''s coffers on items that could only be used by just one person. The next item on the pedestal was a long bow made from a material that seemed to reflect no light whatsoever. It was completely black and had little to no ornamentation at all. It was simple, clean and dark. The weirdest part visually though was the lack of a draw string on the bow.


    [D - Legendary] Death''s Whisper


    [Growth][Soul Bound]


    They say death''s whisper is completely silent to the living, if you hear it, you''re already dead. This bow is said to have been crafted from the shadows themselves. When drawn, an arrow made of shadow will solidify upon the bow at the cost of energy. These arrows remain solid for a period of one minute and make no sound as they pass through the air.


    This bow can be soul bound allowing the item to grow alongside the wielder. When striking a target undetected, the arrows fired from this bow will allow the wielder to track the target. After having hit the target once, all subsequent arrows can redirect themselves midair to hit any tracked target. Arrows that redirect themselves to tracked targets will be invisible during flight.


    Felix confirmed with Noah that the bow was likely tailored to Jackie who had contributed a lot to the final battle. Though the bow was cool, the only reason Felix thought about bidding at all was to gift it to Alan because it seemed like the perfect bow for a Spymaster. He wasn''t willing to step on Jackie''s toes though and cause political issues between the cities so instead, he let the auction proceed.


    The bidding quickly hit a 100 million credits at which point many of bidders dropped out. Surprisingly though, Jackie still hadn''t bid on the bow at all. Felix looked across the theater and scanned the balconies until he found her. As soon as he laid his eyes on her, as if she knew, her head turned and made eye contact with him.


    Felix just stared at her for a few seconds and cocked his head slightly. She shook her head and raised her hands indicating she didn''t want it at all. Felix immediately bid 150 million and everyone else seemed to just back off so he, surprisingly, won the bid. Noah looked at him questioningly but he just ignored the look and figured it was probably obvious why he had bought the bow.


    The next item to rise out of the stage was a simple set of leather armor. The armor was a very light tan color with no buckles, rivets or straps anywhere to be seen. It was made of multiple panels but how they were all stuck together was a complete mystery to Felix.


    [D - Legendary] Armor of the Sand Spirit


    [Growth][Soul Bound]


    This armor was once worn by the guardian of the sands. A sand spirit that was often seen wearing a humanoid shape equipped with armor and weapons. The armor retains some of their power over sand.


    This armor can be soul bound allowing the item to grow alongside the wielder. While wearing this armor, the user can use sand to both shield themselves from attacks and hide themselves. This armor allows the wearer to travel through the sand with great ease.


    Felix immediately looked over at Amani sitting next to him, already knowing who the item was for. She continued to bid as Felix overheard Noah wondering why her tailored reward wasn''t later on in the show. Felix realized they had both made the assumption that the later the item, the larger the contribution.


    They had no way to know, but it seemed logical to the both of them. Unfortunately, they had both assumed Amani and Jackie had contributed among the most which made their guess seem less plausible.


    Amani won the bidding at just 100 million credits, likely due to how specific the item was. It was very useful in a sandy environment and essentially just legendary leather armor with no effects anywhere else.


    The next item was a leather belt with a half dozen identical green gems evenly spaced around it. While the item wasn''t visually exciting or even appealing to Felix, it''s effects were incredibly interesting, though not for him specifically.


    [D - Legendary] Belt of the Creator


    [Growth][Soul Bound]


    This belt was crafted by a master engineer with the burning desire to further his craft.


    This belt can be soul bound allowing the item to grow alongside the wielder. While wearing this belt, the user can remove and fuse one of the nexus stone to a creation of theirs to increase their connection. While worn, all fused creations can be sensed and controlled to a limited degree.


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    Felix didn''t intend on bidding on it at all, he just thought the effect was super cool. It wasn''t something he had really considered before but it made perfect sense. Based on his experience with soul bound items so far, he figured the gems likely each had souls or a piece of one and they used that to sense and control the fused creation.


    He knew exactly who the item was intended for and was happy to see them win it for just under a hundred million credits. It seemed like the item was so specialized, it wasn''t nearly as popular as the others.


    There was only one item left to be presented and Felix heard Noah ask the room, "If that was Martin, and Amani and Jackie were before that¡­ who the hell is left? Who contributed more?"


    Noah looked at Felix for a minute but he just shrugged, "I wasn''t even there."


    "Oh yeah, where the hell were you by the way?" Amani turned to him.


    Felix brushed her off, "Busy."


    Amani rolled her eyes, "Uh huh."


    Felix looked back at Benjamin, Henry, Will and Alan but they all seemed convinced it wasn''t them.


    Finally, Felix looked over towards Noah, "What about you Noah?"


    Noah snorted, "Hell no, I did not contribute enough for one of those."


    They all turned back to the stage as the pedestal began to rise and reveal, what looked like a huge lump of some dark grey metal shaped like a boulder.


    [D - Legendary] Demitium


    [Raw Material]


    Though not the strongest or hardest material, Demitium is a metal often coveted for it''s unique property of storing different forms of energy. When it''s hit, scratched or struck, some of the energy is released. By storing specific kinds of energy, it''s material properties can also be manipulated. This makes weapons and armor created using the material have interesting and unique effects. It is also highly valuable for crafting specific items and machines and is often irreplaceable in those applications due to it''s nature.


    Given enough energy, the material''s grade can be artificially upgraded. Upon losing enough energy and remaining at a low energy state for long periods of time, it''s grade lowers.


    For a moment Felix thought it might be another item for Martin or maybe even Henry and was ready to bid on it anyways for Nova but he realized that likely wasn''t the case.


    Felix turned to Noah first for confirmation, "Am I right in assumin-"


    "Yes, it''s for Nova" Noah answered before Felix even finished.


    Felix looked over to Amani who also nodded and back to Henry who''s eyes were wide as he read through the item.


    "Did Nova really contribute that much?" Felix asked mostly to the room.


    "Oh yeah. Just didn''t think they''d be included given they''re¡­ you know, a familiar." Noah shrugged.


    "She was invaluable." Amani assured him.


    "If you don''t bid on it, I will." Henry said.


    Felix looked over at his screen and saw the bidding had almost reached a hundred million credits, which was surprising to him given that it was a raw material instead of a crafted item. He realized that people were probably just excited by the idea of a material that could upgrade it''s grade though. He immediately bid 200 million and the vast majority of the people bidding on the item suddenly couldn''t afford to bid anymore. A few stuck around though, the ones that had been saving their credits for the last item he figured.


    While the others mostly increased the bid by just a million or so, Felix increased the bid by 25 million every time. He continually raised the bid by an impolite amount to try and push everyone else to back off. He eventually won but had to spend 312 million credits to get it. While it was a lot of money, it was still less than the 500 million he had been awarded for Nova''s contributions in the world event. So in his mind, Nova had essentially paid for it themselves.


    That item had been the last one of the second stage so the Auction was effectively over. Felix was presented with a screen that listed out all the items he had bought. They could either be placed in front of him when he got back or given to him now as it would all fit into his inventory.


    He simply chose to take it all now and they were all automatically added. His credits had already been reserved when he had made bids and now it was all deducted. From the first stage, he had spent just over 200 million credits on all the various items. Overall then, with the Demitium and Death''s Whisper Felix had spent around 662 million credits.


    It was more than he had received from Nova''s contribution for the final boss in the world event, but not by much. Even if he hadn''t gotten any credits from Nova''s contributions, he would have been happy to spend that much. He was both surprised and happy to realize how little he had actually spent. He had no idea how much credits were worth in the grander multiverse let alone the capital city, but he wanted to keep as many credits as he could on hand.


    As everyone collected their items, Felix walked right over to Alan and pulled Death''s Whisper out of his inventory and handed it to him.


    Alan just frowned and shook his head, "I can''t take this."


    Felix smirked, "Alright. Hey Will, any interest?"


    Will nodded and played along, "You know, I had been thinking about trying out a bow."


    Alan ignored their jesting and looked up at Felix with a serious expression, "Felix, you spent a lot of credits on that."


    Felix sighed with a little more exasperation than he would have liked, "Would you just take the bow? Congratulations on being Spymaster, or don''t take the job and just get a cool bow. I don''t really care. I saw the bow and Jackie said she didn''t want it, I figured it suited you."


    Benjamin leaned his head into the conversation, "Take the damn bow."


    Alan tentatively reached his hand out, clearly still unsure if he should or could but Felix made the decision for him and lightly tossed the bow at his chest.


    Alan''s frown deepened, "You sure Jackie didn''t want it? It''s really ok if I take it?"


    Felix shrugged, "Yeah, she said no for whatever reason."


    Felix walked away before Alan could argue any further and walked over to Amani. He had her wait a few minutes before leaving and quickly made a portal anchor using a plate of Starmetal and some soft inlay material that he didn''t actually have to metal down. It wouldn''t be permanent and would degrade after a few days, but that should be more than enough time.


    He handed her the disc of greenish metal and told her to drop it somewhere relatively open when she got back. She clearly had a few questions but refrained from asking them hopefully because she trusted him.


    Before leaving the auction, Felix quickly made up temporary portal anchors for each of the other cities. He had initially been planning on just flying out to them and hadn''t even considered handing them portal anchors until Amani had asked for help as soon as possible.


    Now that he had the idea though, he got Noah, Benjamin, Will and Alan to go ask the other leaders to hang back for a few minutes. He made the anchors as quickly as he could and just resolved himself to use them before they degraded in the next few days.


    As he finished them, he handed the anchors off to Noah who delegated their distribution to anyone who would help. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 Chapter 179 - Book 83

    With everything he had wanted to do in the auction done, Felix initiated the teleport back to Trenus. He appeared back in the city council building and immediately touched his pocket home marble to a wall. He walked in and illuminated the area with a spell then pulled Nova out of his robes and lightly tossed them.


    Nova floated to the ground slowly as if they weighed almost nothing and as if they were a real cat, landed on their feet. Felix began dumping all of the random materials he had bought in the first stage to the ground. Nova sat there staring at everything he placed down like a well trained dog until Felix gave them permission to consume any and all of it.


    Nova wasted no time in expanding their jaw to a ridiculous and monstrous extent then sucking in the materials like a vacuum cleaner. Felix paid a bit of attention to the emotions pouring through their soul bond and smiled at how elated Nova was with all the new materials. It actually made him excited to see how Nova would react to the Demitium. Instead of just dropping it right away, Felix waited until Nova had consumed all the other materials then made sure they were paying attention as he pulled it out of his inventory.


    Nova didn''t quite give the reaction Felix was hoping for. Instead of excitement or elation, he felt just confusion. Felix carefully lowered the lump down onto the ground and gave Nova permission. They walked up and pawed at it, sniffed it and even licked it. After circling it a few times, Nova grew into a large metal panther who''s head was almost as tall as Felix was even though all four paws touched the ground. Nova swiped at the material with bright claws and was immediately launched backwards a couple meters from a burst of Fire, Sound, Lightning, Light and Force all at once.


    Nova rolled to their feet and cautiously paced back and forth while staring down the lump. After almost a minute they finally approached again and licked the material once again. Now, Felix finally felt something he had been hoping to feel, hunger. Nova finally wanted it so Felix assured them it was all theirs.


    The boulder was almost spherical and it''s diameter was at least two thirds of Felix''s height so it was rather massive. The only reason he was able to hold it outside of his inventory was that he was the one holding himself to the ground, he still didn''t have any gravity in his pocket home. Given it''s size, Felix wasn''t expecting Nova to eat the entire thing in one bite but he also didn''t realize, until now, how that was a problem. If Nova tried to take bites out of it, it would fight back.


    Either, he or Nova would have to completely drain the material or separate it into smaller pieces in a non-violent way. Luckily for him, Nova seemed to already know what to do. They hopped up, reverting to their kitten form in the air, and landed on the Demitium lump.


    Nova curled themselves up and started licking at the material. With each lick, a small stream of the material was sucked off of the lump and into Nova''s maw using their control over matter. Ultimately, it was going to take a while, but eventually they should be able to consume the entire thing.


    Felix checked with Nova and made sure they were ok with staying in his pocket home without him then he walked back out into the city council building. He saw Noah talking with Amelia at the table and approached them just as Amelia kissed Noah then walked towards the exit. She waved at him and he smiled, nodded and waved back.


    Felix approached the now lone Noah, "I promised Amani I would help her with something as soon as possible so I''m going to go do that. Do you need anything from me right now?"


    Noah just gave him a slight nod, "How long is it going to take?"


    "Probably just a day or so if I had to guess. Maybe two."


    "Will you set up a permanent portal while you''re there?"


    "Yeah, this can be our test run or initial prototype. Figure out the kinks before we expand."


    Noah nodded, "Okay, have fun. Don''t forget about the batteries and molds for the wall shields you promised me."


    "I don''t remember promising you, but I''ll give them to Henry as soon as I get back."


    "Fine. Have fun, don''t die."


    "Thanks, likewise."


    Felix quickly rushed over to Henry''s forge and got his help making the first prototype of a permanent portal anchor that he could test and iterate on. He made two, one for Orselle and one for Atalus. Felix stowed the Orselle anchor and quickly ran the Atalus back to Noah who would keep it safe for now. Once the portal network was opened up, they would put it somewhere outside the city but for now, it would only ever be Felix himself using it so there wasn''t much risk of it being using nefariously.


    With all his preparations complete, Felix flew out of the city and up into the mountains a few kilometers then cast the portal spell. With a portal directed at an anchor, the portal required much less mana and was far less complex. He quickly whipped up a simple mold and used his mana control along with some soft inlay material to keep the mana contained to the spell''s channels.


    On top of it''s lower cost, in Felix''s short experience, anchored portals were far less prone to errors. As Felix cast the spell, he watched as some minor flaws he had made were completely ironed out as he funneled mana into the spell. He had to fix some initially but once the spell started ramping up, it was like it snapped itself into place. The mana rushing through the spell form pushed itself to one side of the inlay material at the flaws to smooth out the channels.


    After a mere 2 million mana, a circle about 2 meters in diameter appeared before him without a sound, flash of light or any other indication of it''s appearance. It did however have light pouring through it from the hot desert sun. Where Felix was, in the mountains near Atalus, the sky was overcast and grey with the sun just a few hours from it''s peak. Through the portal, Felix saw clear skies and a bright, hot desert sun that was a few hours past it''s peak.


    Other than the sun and a whole lot of sand, Felix saw nothing. He prepared a handful of spells including a mana shield that would completely encase him then stepped through the portal. He was immediately struck by just how ridiculously hot it was and even put up his hood to try and block some of the light. He looked around the portal and saw a massive sprawling city almost a kilometer behind it.


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    The walls around the city were made of a sandstone like material and were constantly manned with at least a guard per meter. At the top of the wall, there was a canopy made of wood posts and cloth to protect the guards atop the wall from the blazing sun. Peaking over the wall, Felix saw buildings made of a similar sand stone with canopies stretched across the buildings to block the sun for anyone walking on the roads between them.


    He couldn''t see much of the city from his angle just peering over the wall but from what he did see, he was impressed. The only part that stood out to him was the number of active guards. He was pretty sure they weren''t there to stop him, even though they did notice and point him out.


    He didn''t approach the city because although Amani should have told them he was coming, he didn''t want to risk them thinking he was an enemy. Luckily, it only took a few minutes for him to spot someone rushing through the desert towards him. He quickly grabbed the portal mold then released his hold on the portal spell and picked up the makeshift anchor he had given Amani from the sand as they approached.


    He wasn''t exactly sure how they were moving or who it was, but he saw a mostly humanoid shape rushing towards him. It almost seemed like a ghost made of sand that flowed from the dunes beneath them and billowed out around them.


    Eventually he realized it was in fact Amani, in her new armor. She shot over and stopped just a meter to the side of him and surprisingly didn''t spray him with any sand, though he wasn''t sure if she had avoided doing so purposefully or not. The sand around her fell to the ground and revealed her armor which seemed to fit her perfectly, likely due to magic.


    Amani just looked at him like she was trying to figure out if he was real or not, "How in the hell¡­"


    Felix shrugged, "Portals. Any interest in setting one up between our cities?"


    Amani nodded slowly, "I can see that, I meant how did you create one? Look, how about you help me with this and we can talk about it. Is this what you were busy with while we were in the final vault?"


    Felix shrugged again, "Some of it."


    Amani shook her head, "Alright well, follow me back to the city before the next wave."


    Felix cocked a brow, "Wave?"


    Amani smirked, "You''ll see." S§×ar?h the novel(F~)ire.net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    Sand twisted up from the dunes and re-encased her legs though left her body visible this time as she shot off back towards the city. Felix flew up a few meters into the air so he didn''t disturb the sand too much then shot off alongside her.


    They reached the city in no time and the guards activated some mechanism that caused a small opening in the otherwise seamless wall to turn to sand. As soon as they passed through the opening, the sand reformed itself into the wall leaving no sign that it had opened at all.


    Amani gestured upwards then ran, or glided, up the wall with her legs still encased in sand. Felix simply flew up next to her and the guards made room for them atop the walls.


    Below the shade of the canopy Felix finally removed his hood then manually shook out his robes to air himself out. Even though his body regulated temperature much more efficiently and even produced less heat as a byproduct, he had still been sweating under the desert sun. He ran mana through his robes instinctively to clean them then remembered, these robes didn''t have that function.


    A gruff looking man in plated leather that made no sense for the climate grunted in his direction, "Nice ter see yer a person."


    Felix looked over at the guard that had spoken to him but was at a loss for words.


    The man grunted again, "Y''appeared in the middle of the desert outta portal wearing all black. We thought you might be death itself coming to claim our souls."


    Another guard chimed in over their shoulder as they walked by, "We weren''t sure what to do with you until Amani came running and told us she knew you."


    Felix just looked at Amani, "You didn''t tell them when you put the portal anchor down?"


    Amani rolled her eyes, "Oh, is that what that was? And no, I didn''t. I was a little rushed mind you. You handed me a random magic item you crafted on the spot. I didn''t know it wasn''t a bomb."


    Felix frowned, "You really think I''d hand you a bomb?"


    Amani shrugged, "I can''t be too careful."


    Felix rolled his eyes.


    The gruff guard who had initially addressed Felix suddenly yelled out, "Wave incoming! Get yer''selves ready for battle!"


    Felix figured the answer to the question he was tempted to ask was right behind him so he simply turned around and looked out into the desert. Right on the horizon, Felix saw a massive cloud of sand gradually approaching them.


    He assumed it was actually moving very fast given how far the horizon was on Trenus, but it was hard to tell for that very reason. As it got closer though, it became much clearer that the encroaching cloud of sand hid, or rather was caused by, a massive stampede of creatures.


    It didn''t take too long for their forms to become clear enough for Felix to start identifying them. In general, their levels varied from around a hundred to all the way up to 300 with the average around 250. The wave was also an odd amalgamation of creatures with giant wasps, worms, scorpions, rabid dog monsters, some two legged ostrich looking dinosaur things and everything in between.


    Honestly, it was an odd sight. In Felix''s experience so far, it was rare that multiple species especially of such vastly different levels co-existed without trying to kill each-other in the multiverse. He couldn''t really think of another situation where he had seen multiple species just ignore each-other unless they were vastly different levels and not even worth the time. In this case, he would have expected them to try and kill each-other but either they all had something more important to do, or they didn''t want to for some reason.


    As the wave approached, Felix saw the guards on the walls setting themselves up for battle out of the corner of his eye. Though none of them were high D grade or anywhere near the highest level creatures in the stampede, they prepared themselves anyways. They set up cannons, nets and ballistae then pulled out bows and other long and medium range weaponry including some larger siege equipment.


    As soon as the first monsters in the stampede were a few hundred meters or so away, the guards started firing the cannons. At first Felix had thought they had terrible aim but he realized that wasn''t the case at all.


    Surprisingly to Felix, they didn''t fire the cannons at the creatures at all, instead they aimed in front of and to the side of the creatures. The creatures in the front, which tended to be some of the lowest level creatures, immediately reacted and changed course. As the rest of the stampede approached, Felix realized this was the goal, simply to redirect the wave of monsters instead of trying to fight them head on.


    For the most part, it worked. Catapults, cannons, ballistae and casters with large spells diverted the majority of the wave and convinced them to go around the city. There were stragglers, slightly more tenacious beasts that continued to head directly for the city. Most of them were higher level around 300 but with the combined focus of a couple cannons, some casters and a lot of arrows, they were quickly slain.


    Overall the wave of monsters was dealt with far faster than Felix had expected. It had only taken them 20 minutes or so to divert everything and another 10 to deal with the more stubborn creatures.


    The guards on the walls seemed to have solutions for everything that came up. When a flying monster approached, they had an explosive shot that would explode midair to divert it. When a creature burrowed under the ground, they had ballista bolts that vibrated when they struck the ground. Even through the sand, the vibrations were enough to divert them.


    None of the initial wave tried to actually fight back but some of the stubborn monsters far in the back did. The guards had large metal plates they pulled up with ropes to block the strikes and sometimes the wall would morph into sand to eat the attack. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 Chapter 180 - Book 84

    Once the wave was completely dealt with, Amani led Felix back down the wall and walked with him into the city.


    Felix looked over at Amani as they walked and nodded, "You guys seem to have this down to a science."


    Amani sighed, "We''ve been dealing with this from the start pretty much. Unfortunately, it''s gotten worse over time though. We didn''t use to have to deal with monsters in the 300s. A few days ago there were some at 400."


    Felix nodded, "Which is why you think it''s at least level 500?"


    Amani nodded, "Exactly. We can mostly deal with a few creatures at that level when they run at the wall but I can''t go out and fight it in the middle of the desert. Even if I sent an army, they would have to fight their way there through high level monsters. Without the wall and cannons¡­"


    "I see."


    Amani sighed again, "We thought about creating large mobile tanks to try and deal with it but we haven''t had the time to figure it all out. The monster waves have been increasing in level too quickly so we''re just trying to keep up with making new cannons and ballista bolts. You saw the vibrating shot? That''s something we only came up with in the last few weeks."


    "They do seem to be running away from something, how do you know it''s a creature and not a natural disaster or something?"


    Amani shrugged, "I don''t. I also don''t have the ability to fly and investigate it."


    Felix dismissed her jab with a wave, "Yeah yeah gotcha. You coming with me or are you gonna hang back?"


    Amani smirked and winked at him, "If you''ll have me."


    "Sure. Let me just grab Nova real quick." Felix said as he walked into the closest alley and pressed his pocket home marble against the wall. Amani looked at him with wide eyes as he mentally nudged Nova through their bond to come to him. They reluctantly stopped licking the large hunk of Demitium and jumped in one leap straight to Felix. As soon as Nova passed through the portal they dropped slightly as they got used to the gravity then floated back up and crawled into Felix''s robe.


    "What the hell is that?" Amani looked incredulously at the portal.


    "My house, long story. Come on let''s go." Felix gestured her over towards Nova with his hand.


    Felix conveyed the mental image of Nova turning back into their larger form and flying with Amani on their back and tried to make it more of a polite ask than a command. He wasn''t sure how clearly that intention was conveyed but Nova didn''t seem to mind. They hopped back out of his robes and quickly grew to the size of a large panther. Felix gestured for Amani to climb onto their back then Felix flew up into the air followed by Nova and Amani.


    Felix immediately flew towards the monster wave''s origin, or his best guess of where it had come from. As soon as they passed over the wall, Felix pulled his hood up to completely cover himself from the sun and then cast a cooling spell inside his robes. Effectively, it felt like he had his own personal little air conditioner for his body and he was loving it. Amani had simply pulled a small sack with a draw string out of her inventory then had sand pour out of it and create a small personal parasol. Finally Nova, just didn''t seem to care.


    They flew over the horizon until the city wasn''t visible behind them anymore and continued flying over a vast sea of sand, in every direction, for a couple hours. Felix was worried he would veer slightly off course so he checked his map fairly consistently to make sure the flight was more or less straight.


    As they flew over the dunes, Felix saw surprisingly few monsters around. Given the density of the wave, he had expected to see monsters just about everywhere. Instead, there were a few creatures here and there, some birds and some burrowed but nothing to indicate a large wave of monsters would head towards the city any time soon.


    Felix didn''t even have to deal with anything attacking them, it seemed like everything around was happy to just leave them be. He wondered if it had to do with the fact that a monster wave had just recently run towards the city but he wouldn''t know for sure until he found the source and figured out what was happening.


    The landscape gradually changed from a sea of sand to a sea of sand with some rocks poking out. Those rocks gradually turned into boulders and those boulders into larger mountains. Eventually the space between the mountains deepened and they flew over an area of the desert filled with canyons and plateaus.


    Everything become perpendicular with vertical cliff faces and horizontal plateaus in every direction. The canyons themselves varied in depth from a few hundred meters to just a dozen meters deep as they twisted and wound themselves around the desert.


    Felix lowered himself to the ground at the top of one of the plateaus and Nova landed next to him a few moments later.


    Felix addressed Amani without looking at her, "How much time between waves usually?"


    "We get them once every 12 hours or so."


    "So one should be arriving in 8 hours or so?"


    "Yeah, something like that."


    "Ok then, if the monsters take 6 hours or so to run all the way to the city, it should start in just a couple hours. Should we set up here and wait? Either the wave starts further down or we flew too far. Either way, the wave likely isn''t directional. Based on where it seems to start, we can continue moving towards the source. If we''re lucky, we might be able to see what causes it."


    "Sure." Amani said as she hopped off Nova''s back, "Whatever will we do for 2 hours then?"


    Felix just threw out the first thing that came to mind, "Wanna spar?"


    Amani''s eyes lit up, "Definitely. Aren''t you a caster though?"


    Felix shrugged again, "Yeah, but it sounds fun. Teach me some sword play or something."


    Amani cocked a brow, "Oh, what are you gonna teach me in return?"


    Felix cocked his head, "I can''t exactly teach you how to cast spells or anything."


    Amani smiled, "How about this, I''ll teach you some swordplay and you show me your ''house'' as you called it."


    "You mean the inside?"


    "Yeah."


    Felix shrugged, "Sure. After all this mess though?"


    Amani seemed to be happy with the trade, "Sounds good to me."


    Felix quickly replicated both of Amani''s swords from Starmetal ingots and made himself a sword as well. He made sure none of the edges were sharp and with Amani''s guidance, made sure the balance was right. Once that was done, they sparred. They started with a handful of bouts so Amani could get a better idea of Felix''s skill. From there, she gave him pointers and advice.


    "You''re footwork isn''t awful but it''s not meant for swordplay."


    Felix looked down at his feet and realized his feet had been naturally falling into the mobility stances from the Dragon''s Dance.


    "It''s like you''re constantly ready to run away but you have no stability. You''ll never be able to strike back like that, if you even tried I would just knock you over."


    Amani helped him plant his feet better so he had more stability and power, as she had said, from his lower body then they continued to spar. Though Amani continued to essentially pummel Felix in their bouts, he was having a blast.


    She had offered to slow their bouts down so he could see what was happening better but he refused outright. It was a challenge and Felix found it exhilarating just trying to survive against her. He had no hope of ever striking back but he was totally ok with that. At one point he had landed a blow but he immediately called out Amani for letting him hit her.


    After that, Felix got pummeled over and over for almost 3 hours. Luckily, due to his energy constantly replenishing itself from his mana stores along with his manual regeneration, he was in peak condition the entire time. Amani was worried at first that he would wear himself out before they met whatever was out here but he assured her he would be fine.


    After almost 3 hours, as Amani knocked Felix to the ground once again and poked his chest with the dull point of her sparring sword Felix saw something in the sky.


    Flying far above them and circling outwards from the cliffs ahead of them, was a massive flying creature. The creature had a long neck and tail with large bat like wings but Felix couldn''t make out much because of the setting sun right behind it.


    He quickly hopped to his feet and pointed it out to Amani. They didn''t make any moves at first but simply watched as it raced into the desert for a few kilometers before diving down at some creature. The creature stood no chance as the flying monster dove down far faster than it''s prey could react and snatched it in its jaws. The flying creature immediately flicked it''s head up and swallowed the creature whole then leapt into the air and flew off to look for more prey.


    Felix identified the creature but had no idea what he was seeing.


    [D - Legendary] Endycor (Lvl 217)


    He had a very apt name for it, but he knew that wasn''t possible so he had no idea what to call it.


    "It''s a dragon." Amani said.


    He quickly realized he had names on for identification and switched it back to race.


    [D - Legendary] Infant Dragon (Lvl 217)


    Felix already knew identify relied on his own knowledge so he knew that was simply the best name he had for what he was seeing, not that it actually was a dragon.


    Felix shook his head as he corrected her, "No. Identify doesn''t actually give you a creatur-"


    "I know. I have a skill that gives me the real name. That''s a dragon."


    Felix shook his head, "Your skills wrong. It can''t be."


    Amani crossed her arms, "Oh? My skill is wrong? Is it an illusion? Because I don''t think those creatures it''s eating think it''s an illusion."


    Felix shook his head again, "It''s not possible. Dragons don''t exist below the B grade."


    Amani shrugged, "I mean it''s an infant."


    Felix''s head began to slow, "Still."


    Amani finally turned to him and pointed at it, "Ok, what is that then? Explain."


    Felix sighed, "It''s impossible is what it is."


    They continued to watch as Endycor darted around the desert catching prey and filling it''s belly for a half hour. Nothing was safe as Endycor dug it''s head down into hole to rip burrowed creatures out and caught anything that tried to run away.


    Endycor wasn''t thorough by any means, it simply chased after whatever seemed to be the most fun. Anything that tried to run too fast, hide or burrow. It was like it was playing a game. As Endycor flew around and ate it''s fill, more and more creatures started to run away in every direction.


    Though he didn''t see it first hand, Felix had a pretty good idea of why waves of monsters were rushing out in every direction. Endycor scared off creatures up to level 500 and Felix suspected that when they started running, the lower level creatures around them would start running too.


    That effect snowballed into a wave of monsters rushing at the city. As the monsters were spread out further with each of Endycor''s hunts, the levels of the monsters reaching the city would increase.


    Felix just didn''t know if it was some kind of skill Endycor had to instill fear or just it''s natural presence. Considering how far it caused everything to run, he assumed it was a skill of some kind. The other part he couldn''t explain was how the monsters kept replenishing themselves.


    The last creature Endycor caught was something that looked like a large bipedal camel, more akin to a bird than a mammal. Endycor didn''t eat this one whole as it was much bigger than it''s maw and instead it held it in it''s jaw as it took to the air and flew back towards the canyons. Felix quickly jumped into the air and started following from a safe distance with Nova and Amani behind him.


    Amani yelled out in a hushed tone, "Felix! We can''t just chase it."


    Felix called back, "Why not?"


    Amani snapped back, "You said Dragon''s don''t exist below the B grade, right? If that''s just the baby, we don''t want to run into a B grade mama dragon."


    Felix shook his head, "Not possible."


    Amani growled, "You''ve already said that, multiple times."


    Felix shrugged, "You''re welcome to stay behind if you''d like."


    Amani sighed, "Fine, just¡­ be safe."


    As he flew, Felix heard Grim in his head, If that really is a baby dragon¡­


    Yeah¡­ How the hell is it here?


    Grim voiced Felix''s thoughts even though he could literally read them out of a book, You think it was a natural birth then?


    Has to be, right?


    Grim communicated a mental shrug to Felix, I guess. Maybe whoever the guild set us up with was just wrong. Can''t be though, they audit all the answers themselves.


    So the entire guild and/or the multiverse thinks one thing, and it''s wrong?


    Yeah¡­ not likely. It has to be a natural birth then. Those haven''t been seen for a hundred integrations from my understanding.


    Felix unintentionally nodded his actual head slightly, Right so it wasn''t wrong, just inaccurate? Misinformed?


    You think the mama dragon is really gonna be there?


    Grim almost chuckled, No. I''m with you on that one, there''s no way.


    They continued to follow Endycor all the way to the center of the canyons then they watched as it dove down into one of the deeper ones. They watched from the top of the canyon as the dragon pranced it''s meal into a large cave on the canyon wall across from the where they stood.


    Felix stepped forwards to the edge of the canyon and dropped down to the canyon floor as quietly as he could. Nova was following him but he made sure they stayed a fair bit behind him just in case.


    He had a Mana Shield spell along with multiple jump spells ready to go so he could protect himself and get out at a moments notice. He had no intention of fighting it right now, really he just wanted to figure out what the hell was happening.


    Even though both him and Grim were convinced there were no adult dragons in the integration, he was still half expecting to come face to face with one as he walked into the cave.


    The cave in question was massive at nearly 15 meters wide and was mostly consistent in size as he walked. He was planning on casting a small light spell but found he didn''t have to at all. The setting desert sun pointed directly into the cave and even a few hundred meters in, the light bounced enough to keep his surroundings visible.


    Suddenly, a rush of hot air blasted through the cavern past Felix so he instinctively cast a Mana Shield in front of him. After a few seconds of nothing else happening, he decided it wasn''t necessary. He dismissed the spell form and continued walking as waves of hot air rushed by him every minute or so.


    Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.


    Eventually, the hot air was accompanied by a bright orange light ahead of him along with with a guttural coughing. He wasn''t sure if Endycor was cooking or fighting something but he knew they definitely weren''t trying to attack him.


    Felix did his best to walk stealthily, carefully stepping through the cavern and naturally falling into some of the footwork from the Dragon''s Dance mobility steps. He finally turned a wide corner of the cave and caught sight of the creature he was following.


    This deep into the cave, the light coming from the entrance was dim at best and Felix would have had a hard time seeing were it not for the small burst of flame about every minute.


    The cave opened up just a dozen meters ahead of Felix into a larger open space that held a dragon prancing around in a circle. The dragon looked more or less exactly as Felix imagined a dragon would look, just a little smaller. It was covered head to toe in mostly dark crimson scales broken up by wavy stripes of white that almost resembled the edge of fire.


    The dragon that walked in a circle in the middle of the cave stopped every minute or so and opened it''s maw then coughed out a small burst of flame that was more sparks and voluminous black smoke than inferno. The dragon then shook it''s head and continued to circle around the cave.


    Felix slowly approached just a few meters further back so he could get a better look at the rest of the cave and make sure there was no adult dragon waiting for him. As soon as he took a few more steps forwards, the Dragon''s nostrils flared and his head flicked over in Felix''s direction.


    Felix froze and instantly cast his prepared Mana Shield then pushed mana towards his boots so he could jump away. The dragon looked at Felix for a moment or two then simply looked away. Felix quickly stopped the mana flowing into his boots and cautiously approached with his Mana Shield still cast in front of him.


    The dragon had stopped pacing now that Felix approached but it didn''t seem to regard Felix as anything really. It looked away from him and continued it''s pitiful attempt at breathing fire but now pointed at the wall. In the back of the cave Felix saw the corpse of the creature the dragon had carried back with it still in tact so he hoped that meant it wasn''t hungry.


    After a few more steps forwards the dragon stopped it''s practicing and walked straight at Felix. Were it not for the fact that the dragon walked so non chalantly towards him, Felix would have ran. Instead, he stood with his Mana Shield before him and waited to see what it would do.


    The dragon walked right up to him then stretched it''s neck downwards until it was just a meter from Felix''s shield then it tried to breathe fire at him. Felix had seen it''s attempts at breathing fire so he simply waited and let it happen.


    As expected, the smoke and sparks bounced off his mana shield, barely costing him a few hundred mana then the dragon closed it''s mouth and walked up to Felix until it''s body was just in front of him. Felix stared at the dragon and waited but the dragon didn''t move. He wasn''t sure what to do but it seemed like the dragon was waiting for something.


    After almost a minute, the dragon breathed a small burst of smoke and sparks onto his shield once again then rose back up and waited. Felix had an idea of what to do but he was also pretty sure it was a terrible idea.


    He prepared another Mana Shield spell as a backup before dropping the one in front of him then quickly made some minor upgrades and adjustments to his Flame Thrower spell that he hadn''t used in a long time. He formed the spell and placed it just inside his mouth, behind his teeth, opened his mouth and shot fire forwards onto the dragon.


    The flames from the spell spread out from a tiny stream that passed between his open lips into a larger column of fire that washed over the body of Endycor. Felix kept the stream going for half a minute then stopped it and readied his Mana Shield in case he had misread the situation, which was highly likely.


    As soon as Felix''s makeshift fire breath abated, the dragon hopped up into the air and danced in a circle roaring and yapping as it skipped around in a circle. Felix wasn''t sure if it was trying to talk or really what it was doing but it continued for a few minutes then reached it''s head down and sniffed Felix.


    It''s head rose once again and it finally made a threatening move, jumping into the air directly on top of Felix. Felix immediately cast his Mana Shield and held it above him, confident it would be able to hold it back then mentally called for Nova to rush into the cave as well.


    The dragon landed on the Mana Shield and it''s body folded around it costing Felix a few thousand mana but otherwise leaving him untouched. Nova appeared almost instantly though Felix couldn''t exactly see anything as he was still surrounding by scales on all sides. He could however, feel how close they were through his soul bond.


    He quickly conveyed what he needed Nova to do and got a very excited response in return then waited. He heard and felt a low rumble all around him as the dragon''s scales vibrated for a few moments then shortly afterwards, leapt off of Felix and into the air. Felix repositioned his Mana Shield and backed up a little to give Nova and Endycor room then watched as two dragons essentially wrestled.


    Nova''s dragon form, or imitation of a dragon, was muddy but getting significantly better by the second as they saw and experienced Endycor''s body. Felix made sure Nova knew not to try and fight or eat the dragon then instructed them on how to greet it and luckily, it seemed to have worked.


    Nova was still significantly smaller than Endycor at just under half the size overall but luckily, it was pretty hard to actually injure them because they could simply reform sections of their body. Nova was still sustaining injuries as they played but none of them were significant in large part because they had made their body significantly elastic, like a rubber toy.


    When Endycor jumped onto them or lightly bit them, Nova''s body would simply deform then bounce back. They both took turns bathing each-other in fire, Nova using a spell and Endycor trying their best to actually produce a flame but neither of them were significantly hurting each-other. It seemed like Endycor had a very high resistance to heat and flames so Nova didn''t have to worry while Endycor had trouble doing any damage with plumes of smoke. sea??h th§× ¦Çov§×lFire .net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    They wrestled for a few minutes then Felix caught sight of Amani creeping her way into the cave. He carefully circled around the duo as they crashed into the sides of the cave and made his way over to her. She carefully crept up next to him and watched then frowned after a few moments.


    Amani whispered to Felix, barely audibly, "Are they just playing with each-other?"


    Felix nodded and didn''t bother whispering, "Yup."


    Amani nodded, "So what''s the plan? Are you going to be able to kill it?"


    Felix looked at her and frowned, "Kill it?"


    Amani just looked at Felix.


    Felix shook his head, "I''m not killing it and I told Nova not to."


    Amani shook her head incredulously, "Why not? I''m sure it would give you tons of experience. Plus, dragonhide seems like an awesome resource. You could sell it or make some sweet armor with it."


    Felix closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose, "Why not? Because from everything I''ve heard, this creature is essentially a miracle. Also, at some point in it''s future, it will be just as smart and sentient as any of us. I''d feel like I was killing a baby."


    Amani cocked her head, "Couldn''t that be true about almost any creature you kill? Except maybe the Devoured. What''s different about this one? Why''s it a miracle?"


    Felix sighed, "I guess. Did you get tokens at the end of the tutorial and in the auction?"


    Amani nodded, her voice gradually loudening to a normal volume, "Yeah a bunch."


    Felix nodded, "Did you get one from The Guild of Answers?"


    Amani shrugged, "Yup. Been using it for tons of stuff. Super helpful for choosing classes and figuring out city layouts and stuff."


    Felix just nodded again, "Ask it about Dragons. See what you get as an answer."


    Amani sighed, "Can''t you just tell me?"


    Felix tilted his head back and forth, "I could but I don''t think I can convey the significance properly. I''m hoping you getting the answer from some unknown high level entity in the multiverse will mean more. Just humor me."


    Amani threw her hands up as she relented, "Alright sure."


    Amani backed up into the cave entrance while she sent a question using the token and Felix continued to just watch Nova and Endycor. They were now taking turns breathing fire into each-other''s mouths then burping, or rather simulating the sound and air of a burp in Nova''s case. It only took a minute or two for Amani to get her answer and walk back over to Felix.


    Amani nodded, "Ok I get it now. I know why you said this was impossible."


    Felix was just happy they didn''t have to argue about this anymore, "Yeah."


    Amani frowned, "How''s it here?"


    Felix chuckled, "Been trying to figure that out."


    Amani nodded, the situation was a little more dire for her than Felix so she remained completely serious, "So what do we do? We can''t just leave it here. I''m okay with not killing it but¡­ Felix, my city isn''t going to survive these waves if they continue."


    Felix nodded, "Yeah I know. I''ve actually got an idea but it''s gonna take me at least an hour."


    Amani nodded, just happy there was a plan, "What is it?"


    Felix shrugged, "We just relocate it."


    Amani frowned, "Won''t that just delay the waves?"


    Felix finished his sentence, "To another continent."


    "Uh¡­" Amani seemed to have trouble closing her mouth for a few seconds, "Which one?"


    Felix crossed his arms, "Stormbringer''s."


    Amani cocked her head, "Your continent? Can you open a portal there?"


    Felix nodded slightly then caught himself and realized what she had just said, "Ye-¡­ I can. How did you know?"


    Amani snorted like it had been obvious, "The story of how your integration went. How there was one person who killed the final boss. Then you can fly, are constantly the highest level, your familiar is stupidly strong and you got a special quest in the world event. It just made the most sense. Completely unfair you got a continent by the way. Do you really need all that space?"


    Felix frowned in annoyance, "Wha- no. I didn''t choose to claim an entire continent, it kind of just happened."


    Amani shook her head slightly, "Uh huh. Sure it did."


    "Do you want this thing out of here or not?"


    "Oh by all means. Please relocate the dragon, oh great Stormbringer."


    "Stop, too far." Felix said with no mirth in his voice whatsoever. He already didn''t love the nickname and her chastising him for an accident then not believing him about it was just frustrating.


    Amani rolled her eyes and walked away.


    Felix backed up a little bit to give himself and the dragon duo more room then pulled out some Starmetal and inlay material. He first pulled out the anchor Henry had made him for Orselle and tossed it on the ground in the cave then started working on a different portal. He modified his existing portal mold so that the spell form created a portal with a much larger diameter than any he had previously cast. He needed it to be large enough for Endycor to fit through and up to this point, he hadn''t actually tried to manipulate portal sizes much at all.


    Luckily, it was a simple endeavor. It cost him a decent amount more mana but not nearly a proportional amount more. He mentally prepped Nova then began funneling mana into the portal at the cave''s entrance. There were some minor flaws he had to fix but only had to restart the spell once.


    He silently thanked his past self for leaving an anchor behind on the continent because targeting an anchor, the entire spell was relatively easy. As soon as he had funneled enough mana into the spell, which took a little while to pull in from the ambient, a large 10 meter wide portal suddenly appeared in the air.


    This time, the portal was accompanied by a sound, of sorts. As soon as the path was open, a rush of air was pulled into the portal with a loud whoosh that evened itself out into the whistle of wind after the initial burst. It was dark as night through the portal so very little light actually poured through but it was still a completely different atmosphere. The portal had opened up facing the forest, away from the volcano.


    Endycor immediately stopped wrestling with Nova and seemed to be transfixed as they looked through the portal. They approached slowly but stopped about ten meters away and just stared.


    Felix had Nova walk through to demonstrate for and motivate Endycor to do the same but Endycor just wouldn''t move. Felix tried to have Nova breath fire on Endycor again, through the portal, causing Endycor to pace and whine right in front of the portal. They feigned walking into it a few times but decided against it at the last minute.


    They seemed to want to go through but something was stopping them from doing so. Endycor eventually just backed up blew smoke in Nova''s direction then continued to pace and whine.


    If only I could speak dragon.


    Grim frowned in Felix''s head, I don''t think it''s actually speaking.


    Yeah I figured this was more toddler animal noises than actual words. Still would be nice to understand it.


    Felix tried pulled meat out of his inventory and throwing it through. He tried pushing them lightly. He even tried replying to the dragon with screeches and whines of his own, but that just caused Endycor to look at him with a funny look.


    Eventually he just sat and watched while Endycor paced around in circles, scratching the walls and generally seeming to be conflicted. Eventually it stopped moving entirely once again and simply laid down on the cave floor, seemingly sulking.


    Felix continued to try things and was tempted more and more with everything he tried to just force the issue. Eventually though, he figured it out. He started trying to replicate as many environmental factors as he could for Endycor and finally, he made a cave.


    He walked through the portal himself and closed it then used spells to carve out a cave where his tower had been removed from the volcano side. He used a spell form with enchantment nodes to soften the rock then spells to pull it free, tossing large chunks of rock down the mountain side. He wasn''t sure it would work at all so he only made it 10 meters or so deep then cast a portal back to the anchor he had left in the cave.


    He made sure the portal pointed at the cave, in case that made a difference and as soon as the portal opened, Endycor saw the cave and leapt through the portal.


    That was the difference maker?


    Nova and Endycor wrestled some more while Felix made the cave even deeper, now that he knew he wasn''t wasting his time. He made the cave curve to the side a little bit so Endycor wasn''t exposed and opened up the end a little to give them room to move. As he worked, Endycor ran around and scratched walls, seemingly trying to help but was really just getting in the way.


    Once Felix was satisfied with the cave, he hopped out and took to the air. Nova was having fun and expressed their intent to stay with Endycor for now so Felix flew up the volcano until he was a fair distance away and opened a normal sized portal back to the cave he had found Endycor in.


    He just wanted to make sure he didn''t tease or tempt Endycor by showing them their old home again but he felt Nova far enough away that he was certain it wouldn''t be an issue. Once the portal was open, Felix stepped through and picked up the permanent anchor he had for Orselle then tossed it through. As soon as it passed through the portal, the portal closed.


    Felix had decided to repurpose the anchor to be the new permanent anchor on his continent, or at least more permanent than the makeshift anchor he had left there originally. He was getting worried it might degrade or something and considering he had to retrieve Nova at some point, he decided it was worth the sacrifice.


    Back in the cave, Felix closed the portal then started walking out of the cave but stopped himself. He quickly scurried around the cave and collected all the dragon scales that had fallen off of Endycor when they were wrestling with Nova


    He quickly scanned the cave to make sure he got all of them then walked back out of the cave and into the canyon. He surprisingly found Amani sitting just outside the cave. Felix had expected her to go back to the city with her sand traveling ability considering how long it had taken him to carve out a cave.


    Felix looked down at her, "You''re still here."


    Amani shrugged, "You are my ride."


    "You could have easily made it back yourself."


    "Yeah, I could have¡­ Look, sorry."


    Felix winced mentally but managed to keep it from reaching his face, For what?


    He just brushed her off with a gesture, "Don''t worry about it. Wanna head back now?"


    Amani looked off into the distance wistfully, "I shouldn''t have been so short with you and the whole continent thing. I have no reason to distrust you. I just don''t think it''s fair I had to deal with the desert and¡­ I look at you and how much stronger you are and I get a little¡­ mad."


    I¡­ don''t care. I literally forgot about the whole thing two seconds later. Also, that''s just¡­ dumb.


    Grim chuckled, You humans and your irrational emotions.


    Felix just ignored her full apology, it felt wrong to forgive her when he cared so little about the whole thing, "Do you want to head back then?"


    Amani nodded, seemingly relieved that Felix wasn''t mad at her, "Yeah, I guess. You dealt with it then?"


    Felix nodded, "Yup. Unless it flies back here then I don''t know what to do."


    Amani smiled, "Finger''s crossed then. Where''s Nova?"


    Felix shrugged, "They wanted to stay with the dragon."


    Amani nodded slowly, "I see. So I get to ride you back to the city then?"


    Felix shook his head, "Nope, no need. I''ve been practicing and I should be able to carry you alongside me with spells."


    To demonstrate, Felix flew up into the air and simultaneously lifted Amani up a few meters away from him with a few force spells.


    Amani flailed about as she rose into the air, "Woah woah hold on. I don''t know tha-"


    Felix didn''t even listen to the rest and instead just lifted her into the air and flew off towards the city. Whatever her concerns were, they quickly subsided as they flew over the desert. He saw her face relax and her arms stretch out next to her. It seemed to him like she might actually be enjoying herself.


    Felix prepared a Feather Fall spell just in case then used an extra force spell to have Amani spin around him then spin around herself. She giggled a little, unable to hold back a laugh as they flew.


    The sun had just crossed over the horizon and the temperature was moderate enough that Felix didn''t need to supplement it with spells. They flew across the desert towards the city, completely unhindered by any monsters or creatures, though Felix suspected that was a lasting effect from Endycor''s last hunt. Given enough time, it would be much harder for anyone to just fly through the desert unbothered.


    They made it back in just a few hours and Felix flew them right up to the wall. He lowered her to the ground and together, they walked through the wall and into the city.


    Felix addressed her as his mind had long since moved onto the next thing, "So, we still on for a portal between the cities?"


    Amani nodded as they walked, "Yeah. That''s ok with me. Can we test it outside the city at first though?"


    Felix nodded, "Of course. You can put it wherever you''d like. We''re planning on having a teleport station, like a train station, a few kilometers outside Atalus. Just in case."


    Amani cocked a brow and looked at him, "Are you going to connect all the cities?"


    Felix shrugged, "If they''re willing."


    Amani smirked, "So we''re the first?"


    Felix nodded, "Yup."


    Amani leaned in and clasped her hands behind her back, "Is it cause of our special connection?"


    Felix just kept walking, "It''s because you asked me, or rather Nova, to help you with a problem."


    Amani stood straight again and looked ahead, "I see. Are you¡­ are you mad at me?"


    Felix frowned, he knew what she meant but he asked anyways because in his mind, there was nothing to be mad about, "For what?"


    Amani''s head fell a little and her feet dragged just a little, "Just¡­ are we ok? You aren''t mad at me for being short with you earlier? You know the whole continent thing, you didn''t try to claim it yourself?"


    Felix sighed, "I didn''t care then, and I don''t think it''s possible for me to care less now. We''re exactly the same as before."


    Amani nodded, once again relieved, "Okay good. Maybe we can set up another sparring session later then? Maybe when the portals are all set up, yeah?"


    Felix shrugged, "Sure. I''m game. You also wanted to see the inside of my house. You want me to show you now then?"


    Amani skipped once as they walked, "Some other time."


    Felix nodded, "Okay, if you could just point me somewhere you''re comfortable with a portal, I''ll start working on that."


    Amani cocked her head and looked at him, "You don''t want to sleep first?"


    Felix shook his head, "Not tired at the moment."


    She shrugged, "Alright, sure."


    Amani led Felix to an area just outside of the city after consulting with some people she introduced as her city planners and Felix started working on a larger, permanent portal anchor. She left after making sure he had what he needed and went to sleep. As she headed back into the city, Felix noticed she whispered something to the guards and they seemed to be occasionally eying him from atop the wall.


    He started working iterated on his initial prototype for a permanent spell formation. If the improvements he made actually made a difference, he would make sure they ended up in Henry''s rendition for the actual version later on.


    He was doing his best with what he had just in case he didn''t come back for a while but even then, he wasn''t confident this would last for more than a few months. He was starting to realize he needed a better way to process materials because what he was currently doing, melting inlay material in a Starmetal vat was just tedious. He resolved himself to look into it later, potentially adding forges or other tools to the lab in his tower at a later date.


    Though his processing methods were unideal at best, it only took Felix a couple hours to make a portal anchor that he was pretty sure would last at least a few months. He didn''t have enough experience to tell exactly how long it would last, but he figured a month was a decent enough guess.


    He looked around and chose the area around him that was the flattest then walked over and planted the anchor as best he could. He was almost certain it would move eventually, he was just hoping he made it back by then so Amani could create a more permanent surface for it.


    Felix modified the mold and inlay material from teleporting Endycor to quickly construct a portal spell back to the Atalus anchor he had left with Noah. The modifications were minor as all he had to change was the size of the portal and the anchor location.


    Realistically he could have left the size the same, but Felix changed it anyways just in case Noah had put the anchor close to a wall. He wasn''t sure what would happen in that situation, but he added it to the list of things he needed to figure out about portals along with what happened if it closed with his arm still through it.


    The portal unceremoniously opened with a light breeze from the pressure difference and Felix stepped through into the Atalus city hall building. Looking around, he didn''t see anyone and figured they were likely asleep considering how early in the morning it was.


    Felix thought about checking to see if Henry was still awake, since he tended to stay up late and often all night in his forge, but Felix decided to just wait till morning. He had something else he had been yearning to do and now seemed like the perfect time to do it. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 Chapter 181 - Book 85

    Felix channeled mana into his pocket home marble and pressed it against the wall of the town hall then stepped through. He illuminated the area with a simple light spell and held himself to the ground with a force spell. He also quickly grabbed the Demitium chunk that had floated itself into the air and brought it back to the ground. He didn''t have straps or anything to hold it down so he just left it and decided he would figure it out later.


    He mentally made some notes on how he wanted his future gravity spell to be adjustable in case he had to deal with heavy objects like the Demitium. Ideally he would be able to turn it off for specific objects, but he wasn''t sure how that would work. He also realized he would need some sort of heat source along with light though he wasn''t sure where the heat was leaking out. In theory it was a closed system so the heat should remain in the pocket dimension but every time he walked in, it was a few degrees colder.


    He tabled all that for now and resolved to look into it more thoroughly outside of the integration. Felix headed towards his tower and up to the library where he sat down in the most comfortable arm chair he had and entered his soul garden. He found Grim sitting on the circular wooden platform that floated in the pond reading some book.


    Felix walked up to the edge of the water, "So how do I do this?"


    Grim didn''t look up from the book he was reading, "Do you really want to practice on the souls you have now?"


    "Oh shit. I was so excited to finally start doing this. Ugh¡­ I''ll be right back."


    Felix immediately exited his soul garden, then his pocket home, the Atalus council building and finally Atalus itself. He flew upwards towards the massive forest to the north and immediately dropped down to the forest floor when he spotted a small pack of Uncommon Dire Wolves with levels in the low 200s. He made quick work of them with Lightning Bolts so they had no chance to dodge. He gained a single level which was disappointing but expected considering how trivial it was for him to kill them.


    Felix stood on the forest floor with a dozen corpses, activated his soul and blood ring then simply watched. He stood in awe as streams of crimson red and golden white from each body entered the rings on his right and left hands respectively. He knew he could have moved around, he knew he didn''t need to stand still, but he did anyways. Regardless of how the rings actually worked, Felix mentally commended their creator because they did look damn cool.


    Felix quickly touched his pocket home marble to the surface of a large tree and walked back up to this tower, leaving behind nothing more than dust in the forest. He once again settled himself into the most comfortable armchair he could find and entered his soul garden. He found Grim exactly where he had been when he left, though holding a different book this time.


    Felix nodded, finally prepared, "Alright, mind walking me through this?"


    Grim shrugged, though still didn''t look up from his book, "I can guide you through the basics. I don''t know much more than that unfortunately. In my universe, everyone did this to some degree with varying techniques. The knowledge wasn''t really forbidden so it wasn''t recorded in me."


    Felix shrugged and sat down, "I''ll take what I can get."


    Grim placed the book on the platform in front of him and looked up, "Alright first things first, you need to shift your attention or, consciousness rather, into the soul ring. Focus on one soul and try to rip out what you can. You know the basic structure of a soul, try sifting through it and separate out what you can use and what you can''t. In theory you could just take the entirety of their souls and incorporate them into yours but that would be problematic."


    Felix nodded, "Wouldn''t be fully responsive and I''d have more wolf like emotions and reactions?"


    Grim nodded, "Among other things, yeah. The art is taking some while not taking too much. Even with your monstrous soul, you don''t want to be getting weird feedback from your outer soul or have it react in a weird way. It might add a bodily instinct you don''t want. Try to avoid that."


    Felix nodded again, "Gotcha. How do I know how much is too much?" Sear?h the NovelFire.net* website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    Grim shrugged, "You don''t, most people from my universe erred on the safe side taking only what they absolutely knew what safe. Getting as close to the line as possible, that''s how you get really good at it."


    Felix cocked his head, "Or you could just absorb a lot of souls right?"


    Grim shrugged again, "Yup. That becomes exponentially harder the stronger you and they are though."


    "Gotcha, thanks."


    Felix sat down in a meditative pose in the sandy area of his soul garden, next to his conviction monolith and focused in on the ring on his left hand. It took him a few minutes to figure out just how to make it comfortable but it was so similar to his own soul space, that Felix was able to pull his attention into the ring faster than he had expected.


    Looking around with his soul senses, Felix saw 12 small balls of what felt like golden white smoke. He could feel a bit of what the souls experienced and he got a lot of what he had felt from Nova before their D grade evolution. Separated by distance, just a short ways away from the 12 Dire Wolf souls that were grouped separately, Felix saw the remainder of Erolan''s soul.


    From what he could see, it looked to be damaged. It wasn''t quite like his soul had a bite taken out of it but he could tell a decent chunk was completely missing. The edges of the soul were jagged and the sensations, emotions and instincts he felt coming from it were stunted and incomplete.


    Even though it was clearly damaged, Felix could easily tell it was significantly stronger from even all of the Dire Wolf souls combined. He quickly confirmed it didn''t appear to be degrading then left the remainder of Erolan''s soul be for now and instead looked towards the Dire Wolf souls. He pulled one of the souls away from the others and just focused on analyzing it as best he could. The soul consisted of the core soul at the center followed by 3 other layers.


    Felix had a hard time seeing through the outer layers so he started examining them from the outside and figured he would just peel them back one by one. The outer most layer seemed to be a layer that was just one step removed from ambient anima. It was soul matter that was essentially just stuck to the outside of the soul.


    As Felix focused on and examined it, he started to form a pretty good idea of why. The outer most layer of the soul seemed to be ambient anima that held beliefs and experiences that resonated with the core soul. As the Dire Wolf walked around, this anima would stick to the outside of the soul like a magnet.


    He had no idea if there was any value to this layer but he couldn''t find anything that indicated it had any and Grim didn''t know so he simply peeled it back and let the ring absorb it. The next layer was more of a natural defensive layer. It wasn''t overly complicated and was more like a layer of fat to protect the next layer than anything. As Felix pulled it back, it didn''t fight him or consciously resist him so Felix mused at it''s effectiveness as a defensive layer.


    He thought about making a defensive layer for his own soul but he already knew it wasn''t necessary given the nature of his soul. It would also be clutter that Felix didn''t want around. He wasn''t sure if it would actively hurt him to have it in any way, but he also didn''t want any defensive layers like this one. If he was going to create a defensive layer, he wanted one that actively defended him or one that was more offensive and fought back.


    He wouldn''t have used any of the Dire Wolves defensive layers anyways though so he simply tossed it away to be absorbed by the ring. The next layer, the one encasing the core soul, Felix knew had value. From his conversation with the Guru in the desert of the second quest dungeon way back in the tutorial, he knew this layer was supposed to hold all the relevant stats. The core soul would then hold other things like core experiences and the personality of the wolf, which wasn''t useful to him.


    Felix carefully examined this layer and poked and prodded it until he had a rough idea of what it was. He took a look at his own soul and started to compare the two so he knew how to incorporate it properly. His own soul was a little different than the Dire Wolf''s, it was both simpler with less layers but at the same time, so much more complex.


    He had his anomalous core soul at the center, the densest soul he or Grim had ever seen. The layer outside of that was similar to the Dire Wolf''s, he could tell it contained some of his stats, a lot of his dexterity and a decent amount of his vitality. It also contained some of his endurance and agility but only a small portion of his intelligence and a miniscule portion of his strength. It seemed to be warped through from the conviction he knew about and possibly others he didn''t.


    From what he could tell, this layer of his soul was responsible for the will power to do things and his control over his body. The ability for his body to heal and not give up was strongly rooted in his soul while his ability to lift something heavy required a lot more of his body and only a modicum of willpower by comparison.


    The biggest difference between his soul''s second layer and the wolf''s was structure and density. The wolf''s second layer was uniform in density and flowed around a little bit almost like it''s core soul was a planet and the second layer was the ocean covering it. That ocean flowed and moved with the winds, growing thicker and thinner as it morphed around the core soul.


    Felix''s second layer, was almost like a solid. It did not morph or move about, as far as he could see. It was also structured such that the layer grew gradually thinner towards the outside. The densest area was right against his core soul but he had no what the structure meant or if it held any tangible benefits. Lastly, there was something he couldn''t quite pinpoint that simply felt different to him, he assumed it was his convictions though and just hoped they wouldn''t hinder the process.


    The last layer of Felix''s soul was much like the Dire Wolf''s, consisting of mostly ambient anima that had stuck to his soul. The difference was that Felix''s layer was massive. He wasn''t sure if he should be considering it part of his soul at all but it was there.


    He revised his theory about how that last layer was formed because if it just had to do with walking around, his wouldn''t have been so big. He figured it must have had to have something to do with strength of the soul. He ignored that for now and tabled it to think about at some other time.


    Looking back to the Dire Wolf soul he had been working on, Felix started to more aggressively poke and prod the Dire Wolf''s second layer. He wanted to try and rip out all the emotions and instincts he could before he even thought about incorporating any of it.


    He found areas that gave him the impression of a fight or flight response and how it would react in those situations, he removed those entirely. He found areas that cared for it''s pack, he removed that. He found another portion that held it''s experiences of being hungry, tired, angry and afraid. He completely removed those too.


    He continued to sift through the layer until he found no sensation or experience at all and was left with a small piece of it''s soul that Felix pulled out of the ring and into his own soul. It was a small enough piece that Felix felt confident he could deal with any minor mistakes he had made.


    He was easily able to push the small piece into the second layer of his own soul and then he watched. The small piece was quickly crushed and compressed against Felix''s core soul and slowly, the line between the piece he had just added and the second layer itself started to disappear. He quickly checked his stats and saw that he had netted himself a single point in dexterity and vitality. He wasn''t sure if he had gained nothing in the other stats or if he had simply gained less than a point. Overall though, he wasn''t dissatisfied with the result.


    Though the stat gains themselves weren''t awesome, Felix wasn''t too concerned. This was his first attempt and he was pretty sure he could up his efficiency tremendously. He also considered how trivial it had been to kill the Dire Wolves and the fact that he could simply let his skills do the harvesting for him passively.


    He was pretty sure the stat gains wouldn''t be linear, at least not for the same creature, just based on how everything else he was doing worked. It also just didn''t make sense to him, simply incorporating more of the same thing rather than increasing the overall strength, density and quality. However, that wouldn''t be an issue for him either as he was easily capable of killing large swathes of different enemies with his spells and absurd mana pool.


    He did make a mental note to cultivate in a sense at some point in the future where he would compress and realign his soul so it didn''t become too inflated or bogged down. He didn''t think it would be an issue necessarily, it was more of a desire to keep his soul, the core of his being, as elegant and simple as he could.


    With the rest of the Dire Wolves, Felix gradually increased his efficiency until he didn''t have any creative ideas to improve it further. He also compared his own efficiency and stat gain to that of the Soul Reap skill. The Soul Reap skill seemed to have the exact same efficiency as him simply harvesting them manually. The big advantage being he didn''t have to actively harvest them. He ended up getting to about 20% efficiency by the end which was a huge improvement over the 10% or so he had started with.


    The stats gained from the dire wolves started to shrink drastically as he harvested them, as expected, but Felix could feel himself getting better at separating the souls from their feelings. He found that he didn''t need to be too careful with the feelings because even though he accidentally incorporated some errant experiences, his own soul seemed to slowly degrade them. He knew he couldn''t just incorporate the entire second layer of the creature''s soul, eventually it would build up, but he was comfortable with letting a little bit through for the time being.


    He figured he would check his second layer every once in a while and make sure there wasn''t anything lingering, but so far it seemed like any leftover experiences would eventually disappear. He wasn''t ready to waste Erolan''s soul just yet, at least not until he was certain he had made the process as efficient as possible.


    Felix returned his attention to his body and exited his pocket home then ran through the forest and collected some more Dire Wolf souls so he could keep practicing. He wanted some other creature''s soul to test as well but it seemed like the area around him was dominated by the Dire Wolves and he was too focused on the task at hand to travel too far.


    He didn''t manage to get his efficiency any higher than 20% but he did manage to build his own confidence. He was certain by the 53rd Dire Wolf soul that he hadn''t absorbed anything more than he wanted to and that his efficiency was as good as it was going to get for now.


    He had gained 2 more levels which was a nice side benefit as well.


    He thought about holding onto Erolan''s soul until he had time to get more information hopefully in the capital city of the multiverse but ultimately decided against it. Anything left over from his inefficiency would simply be absorbed by the ring which meant it wouldn''t be wasted at all. He was also worried that the soul might degrade over a longer period of time so the sooner he did anything with it, the better.


    Before he touched Erolan''s soul though, Felix looked into the blood ring. The inside was much the same as the soul ring except instead of souls, it contained blood and cells. He didn''t need light to see as the blood ring, when soul bound to him, gave him similar control to his own soul space. Inside, he sensed multiple balls of cells being stored. There was a ball of blood, a ball of muscular cells, bone cells and every other tissue, organ and component of the Dire Wolves. He let the ring absorb most of the Dire Wolves since he didn''t see anything interesting in their cells that he wanted to incorporate into his own body.


    The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.


    The next thing he did was sort through all the garbage he had stored in multiple places. Felix had the bodies and limbs of Erolan along with the corpses of all the world bosses in his inventory. He also had the world boss'' souls in his charm. Now that he had the Blood and Soul Devouring Rings, he wanted to move everything around so they were all where they belonged. Once all that was done, Felix consciously entered into his Soul ring once again and started manually examining the world boss souls along with Erolan''s.


    He was looking for anything that was significantly different or anything that would give him pause but found nothing. Were he to harvest them himself, Felix would have done little to nothing differently from the Dire Wolves. Erolan had a few more defensive layers to his soul but nothing Felix was impressed with.


    Erolan''s soul actually reminded Felix of Erolan''s body. It gave him the impression that it was an amalgamation of many different souls. Unfortunately, that also made it a bit incohesive and Felix started to doubt how much he would actually get out of it. To him, it seemed like Erolan was taking many shortcuts to keep himself progressing that Felix was not happy with and never would have taken himself.


    He finished examining all the souls then activated his skill to passively harvest them.


    Ding You have become more proficient with the Class skill: [Legendary] Soul Reap (Novice I => Novice II)


    [Legendary - Novice II] Soul Reap


    Processing of 11 souls started.


    Estimated processing time: 7014 seconds.


    Oh, Novice II now? Nice.


    He returned his consciousness to his own body then started working on other things. He planned on looking into the persona ability of the rings but before that he wanted to identify his rings again to see if anything had changed.


    [D - Ancient] Blood Devouring Ring


    [Set Piece][Growth][Soul Bound][Currently Bound]


    This ring is one of three parts of the Devourer Set. The set itself predates The System and nothing about it''s origin or history before The System is known.


    This ring can be soul bound allowing the item to grow alongside the wielder. While equipped and bound, the ring can be used to absorb the bodies of defeated enemies. These bodies can then be harvested to bolster the wielder''s stats. The leftovers of harvested bodies will then be absorbed by the ring to upgrade it''s abilities or be stored. Stored organic matter can be transformed into usable material and be used to replenish the wielder''s body, healing and restoring them.


    [0/2] Set Bonus: Persona.


    With at least two pieces of the set bound and equipped, the wielder may use the leftovers from harvested bodies to craft a persona. This persona has separate stats from the wielder that grow along with the user. With the Blood Devouring Ring, the persona will have separate stats for STR, AGI, VIT, END. The persona is effectively a separate body the wielder may possess while theirs is held within the ring. This completely hides the wielder''s body and can act as a form of protection when equipped. Some skills may be inaccessible while a persona is active. Should the body sustain too much damage, the wielder''s body will be forcefully ejected from the ring while the persona recovers.


    [D - Ancient] Soul Devouring Ring


    [Set Piece][Growth][Soul Bound][Currently Bound]


    This ring is one of three parts of the Devourer Set. The set itself predates The System and nothing about it''s origin or history before The System is known.


    This ring can be soul bound allowing the item to grow alongside the wielder. While equipped and bound, the ring can be used to absorb the souls of defeated enemies. These souls can then be harvested to bolster the wielder''s stats. The leftovers of harvested souls will then be absorbed by the ring to upgrade it''s abilities or be stored. Stored soul fragments can be harnessed to launch attacks directly upon a living soul.


    [0/2] Set Bonus: Persona.


    With at least two pieces of the set bound and equipped, the wielder may use the leftovers from harvested souls to craft a persona. This persona has separate stats from the wielder that grow along with the user. With the Soul Devouring Ring, the persona will have separate stats for DEX, AGI, PER, VIT, END. The persona is effectively a separate soul wrapped around the wielder''s soul. This completely hides the wielder''s soul and can act as a form of protection when equipped. Some skills may be inaccessible while a persona is active.


    While Felix had expected the changes he saw, he was still somewhat disappointed to see two entire set effects just vanish from the items. He didn''t dwell on the lost effects though since realistically, he didn''t really think he ever wanted to use them. He also wasn''t sure if he really had a use for the Persona effect but he figured he might as well use it.


    He wasn''t sure what he was going to do with the Persona, what body he wanted to take on so he entered his mental library and started sifting through different components he thought were cool or useful.


    While Felix would never modify his body to the point Erolan had, becoming unfamiliar with his own body and visage, the Persona was a different story. He had no qualms with making the Persona wildly different from himself because from what he understood, it was just a suit of armor, in a sense.


    He also figured the Persona was a great way to test modifications before he made them to his own body and soul. Unfortunately, it wouldn''t have a brain or mind he could test from what he could tell, which was where he needed a testing ground the most.


    Thinking through different bodies and parts he had seen in the past, Felix isolated everything he wanted. As much as scales, wings and tails were cool, they didn''t add much value to him that he couldn''t easily replicate with spells. What he really needed were three things, a strong and durable suit of armor, a disguise, and a testing ground for body modifications. Other than that, he didn''t have anything in particular he wanted. The body that fit that description for him was simply a large and strong human body.


    While he could have made the cross between a dragon and a human, he wasn''t sure how the scales would perform and didn''t want to risk being hunted down. He also wasn''t intimately familiar with scales and how they were produced and attached.


    Instead, he mentally pictured a large male body, making it just short of 3 meters tall, with large muscles all over. He gave them messy dark brown hair cut short so it would never interfere and a trimmed beard, just to differentiate it from himself.


    The other huge advantage to having a large muscular body was that Eretheas, the axe, was the perfect weapon for it. He had no intention of using the body to seriously fight with the axe, but the axe gave it more credibility. If the disguise was just a large guy with nothing else, Felix suspected it would seem too out of place.


    At least with a weapon, they just seemed like a barbarian that decided against armor. He could have bought himself a set of plate armor but he really disliked the idea of armor restricting his movements and it really wasn''t necessary for him. He was also partially counting on being able to figure out a more thorough Mage Armor spell once he had more shaping nodes from the capital city.


    Creating the body itself really wasn''t complicated. He simply took cells that were stored in the Blood Ring then reused what he could and reconfigured what he couldn''t. He was planning on using the Persona as a testing ground anyways, so he went a little wild at first with the modifications. He had a lot of source material from all of the world bosses she he miniaturized the Kraken heart and used it''s blood then used the Turtle and Griffin''s body for the muscles. He threw in a little of all the other world bosses and even some of Erolan''s body as well.


    In the end, the body was completely non functional and a total mess. He was somewhat expecting that to happen, but at the same time, he was hoping he wouldn''t have to worry about it''s viability. Instead, he scrapped the whole thing and just made a large human body using his own as a template.


    The entire process was much easier than he expected because the Ring''s ability didn''t make him do it all himself from scratch. It wasn''t like he had to play god and literally make a body from scratch. It was more like he was picking and choosing parts then it fit them together.


    In this case, he simply willed it to recreate his own body then made it bigger, made the bones much denser and used some small samples of cells from the world bosses. He also swapped out a lot of the muscular cells with the Turtle and Griffin''s cells then with a few other changes here and there, he was done.


    None of his modifications were significant so, what he ended up with looked exactly like he had imagined it. He modified the face as much as he could while keeping it normal looking so it wasn''t just his own face with a different body. The body was inert and dead but functional, according to the ring. The ring seemed to preserve the corpse despite being essentially dead so, with all his worries quelled, he exited the Blood Ring and moved his consciousness over to the Soul Ring.


    Crafting a soul for the Persona was a far easier process. It was more manual, but he didn''t have to look at anything at a cellular level. He was also so much more familiar with souls and their structure, and they were far less complex, so he was able to do more with it.


    Since he knew this Persona''s soul would essentially wrap itself around his own, Felix started with a layer that he made from his own soul. He pulled out a large portion of the outer layer of his own soul, the one made up almost entirely of ambient anima, and fed it to the ring. He used that to craft as dense a layer as he possibly could.


    His hope was just that his own soul would be less likely to rip this one apart when they made contact. It was possible his soul bond would prevent that, but he figured it was a good starting point. Outside of that, Felix started pulling components out of the left over''s from the harvested souls that he liked. All he had on hand were the wolves, since the world bosses and Erolan were still harvesting but he figured he would work on it later as well.


    The most prevalent thing he could find in the leftovers of the wolf souls was bloodlust. He liked the idea of bloodlust especially with the body he had already crafted for it so Felix refined that as much as he could and formed a layer from it. What he really wanted was a layer to the soul that was offensive, something that could fight back if need be. He was not familiar at all with soul attacks but he had a decent idea of what he wanted based on his experience ripping souls apart.


    Sifting through the wolf souls, Felix found the fight or flight response and stripped out all the experiences that indicated flight as best he could. What he was left with was a tiny portion of pure aggression that would attack anything it came across. He molded this with the bloodlust and fostered it as much as he could so it wouldn''t get overwhelmed then left it alone. Unfortunately, he couldn''t really test it because it wouldn''t attack him.


    Once he had the leftovers from the world bosses'' along with Erolan''s soul, he would be much closer to done. He also planned on going out and hunting for specific components he wanted to incorporate, but he decided it wasn''t the time for that now.


    Lastly, Felix tested out his Persona. Activating the ability was a simple exertion of his will into the rings. Once activated, Felix watched as hundreds of thing crimson red and glowing white streams poured out of the rings and wrapped themselves around him. He instinctively panicked a little as they closed around his mouth, nose and eyes but forcefully calmed himself down and waited. It only took a few seconds in total and once it was complete, Felix had to visually look over his own body to make sure it had worked.


    The Persona was completely seamless, it was a perfect transition from what he could tell. He couldn''t feel his real body inside so he checked the Blood Ring then immediately looked away as looking at his own body was a weird experience. He stretched and moved around in his Persona so he could get a better sense of how it felt. He ran, jumped, and even swung Eretheas around.


    The sensation of being in a much taller, larger and stronger body was a weird one but Felix quickly got used to it because it wasn''t too different from his own body. He silently thanked himself that he hadn''t created a dragon body or something wildly different then looked towards his soul.


    Though the layer was weak, his Persona did in fact add two outer layers to his own soul where the outer one radiated bloodlust and aggression. He was pretty happy with the souls structure though, not it''s strength. The body on the other hand, was the opposite. He was pretty sure he had gone overboard with the muscles.


    He reverted back to his own body and started tuning the body so it was more mobile and less restricted by it''s own muscles. As he was fine tuning the Persona''s body for the third time, Felix was interrupted by a screen.


    [Legendary - Novice II] Soul Reap


    Souls Processed!


    11 souls you previously harvested have been processed. The harvested parts have been integrated into your soul, strengthening and improving it.


    Stats gained: 957 STR, 569 DEX, 560 AGI, 151 PER, 2 INT, 1098 VIT, 991 END.


    Holy shit.


    Felix quickly looked through the break down and saw that the majority of the stats came from Erolan''s soul, the vast majority. There was a decent amount of vitality from the Kraken and a few points from each of the other world bosses but overall, not many.


    He wasn''t complaining though because he did some quick math and realized he was already beating what he would have gained per level from choosing the custom class. Coupled with the skills that seemed like they would become far more useful later on, Felix was very happy with his class choice.


    Over time he was sure the stats would even out because he wasn''t going to be reaping a peak C grade soul, again, anytime soon. It was still a nice boost and a good head start. It also made him feel a lot better about the last few months of essentially stagnating with his class.


    He quickly used the leftovers from Erolan''s soul along with the world bosses to grow his Persona''s soul. He isolated then integrated the bloodlust and aggression from the leftovers then looked for anything else of value.


    The last part that he ended up fixating on was present in each and every one of the souls, domination. Each of the 11 souls he was looking through were from creatures that considered themselves far above everything else, they were superior and they knew it. This ended up seeping into their souls to different extents and resulted in a portion that just screamed their desire to dominate.


    Felix ripped that out and melded it to the best of his ability with the the outer layer of the Persona and ended up with something he was much more satisfied with. Over time and as Felix reaped more souls, the Persona would become more solid and defined but he was very happy with his initial creation.


    The aspects of Domination, Bloodlust and the unbridled aggression were all highly compatible with each-other and together he realized they were all subsets, to some degree, of the greater curse of hunger. He had no intention of making it any closer to hunger itself and he fully intended on keeping it focused and specialized in the future. It was still useful to know though both so he could avoid the curse itself and so he knew what else would and wouldn''t be compatible.


    He toyed around with the Persona a little more then spent some time practicing with batteries now that he had a ton of gemstones to work with. He didn''t make a ton of progress by the time he headed back to Atalus but he was slowly figuring it out. He went through a few hundred by the time he decided to check and see if Noah was awake and had managed to make a battery with a capacity of 386, his best attempt.


    He had still shattered the vast majority of the gems but mostly because he needed to continue pushing their limits. He needed to get the batteries to a point where they were usable for at least the city and portals then eventually he wanted them to be useful for his own uses. Unfortunately, he would need them to hold a ton more mana for that to happen.


    He quickly flew back to Atalus, in his own body, and quickly found Noah using his map. Luckily, he wasn''t at his home so Felix didn''t feel like he was intruding when he purposefully ran into him on the streets. Together, he Noah and Henry reviewed their plans for the portals. They reviewed the anchors Henry had made then went to the site where they were officially placing them. The building had already been erected but it wasn''t complete as Henry still needed to line the inside with more durable materials incase someone tried to throw a bomb through.


    Felix tested and tuned the portal anchors then more permanent portal spells between Atalus and Orselle. He mostly tuned the size of the portal, making it 3 meters wide so it could support transporting some objects and larger people through but still didn''t consume too much mana to maintain. Once he was happy with the spell, he worked with Henry to create a permanent platform containing the inlay for the spell. Felix then spent some time with Henry creating large arrays that would collect mana then used long channels to move it to the portal house.


    Arranged around the portals in a circle, Felix had a dozen arrays that would collect a couple hundred mana per second each. That mana was then sent down long cables containing mana conductive material to the portals that would use the mana to sustain themselves.


    While he could have created the same structure at each of the cities, he decided he didn''t want to waste time on it himself so instead, he had Henry get a friend of his to draw up some schematics. That way, if the other cities wanted it for themselves, they could spend the time making them. He would help tune them and make sure they worked of course, but that shouldn''t take him too much time.


    The portal between Orselle and Atalus was operational and they even had a few test runs with people walking through them. It took some convincing but once Felix demonstrated that even if a portal was closed with an object only halfway through it, the object would simply be wherever most of it was. If he pushed his arm through and closed it, his arm remained on his body as if nothing had happened. He wasn''t entirely sure why it worked that way, but he was happy it did.


    The last thing Felix needed to do for the portals to be fully operational was to make his way out to each of the other cities and replace their anchors with permanent ones. Then they could simply open the permanent portals from Atalus'' side. Before that though, Noah had Felix create some enchantments and spell formations that he could add to the city walls.


    Felix spent a few days experimenting and came up with a very basic set of inscriptions that would essentially allow Noah to erect a shield at a few predetermined locations. The inscription would draw mana from the Mana Engine below the council room and also provided a very light hardening and elasticity enchantment to the wall itself.


    It wasn''t a thorough defense and not one Felix would have been happy with if he were planning against an immediate threat. Noah was very happy with it though and said it was a great starting point until more enchanter''s in the city were on Felix''s level and could actually improve or expand it.


    They talked about some offensive options too but they ended up agreeing that the city was probably better off relying on Henry and the crafters to make weapons. They had the turtle cannons from the tutorial for now and they were sufficient at the moment but eventually, Noah wanted more.


    The last thing Felix helped Noah with was digging out escape tunnels from the city. Noah''s biggest takeaway from the war at the end of the tutorial was that he wanted a way for the innocents to stay out of it no matter what happened. Along with Henry and some massive drilling equipment, they created some long tunnels and multiple portals that could be activated a single time for about an hour for people to escape.


    After that, Noah and Felix let Henry work on designing forges to utilize the Forge Heart they had bought. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 Chapter 182 - Book 86

    With everything he had to do in the city itself complete, it was time for Felix to set off on his journey north, towards The Lodge. His planned route was The Lodge, then east to Snowvale and Trelas on the same continent. If any of the anchors had degraded or the portals failed for some other reason, he would minimize how far he had to fly.


    After that he would open a portal to Orselle then head east to Coastwatch and finally Sprouts. They weren''t sure about Lav''Gur just yet as their whole situation was still a little up in the air but, Felix hoped Noah would have a plan by the time he finished with the others. If not, he was confident they could all figure it out by then.


    He started by flying up into the mountains, far enough from the city that he was confident they weren''t in danger then he repurposed his portal spell form to point towards The Lodge''s temporary anchor. Once complete, he channeled mana into the mold which he knew had minimal flaws right up until, nothing happened.


    His mana stopped funneling into it entirely and reabsorbed what he could then sighed.


    I guess this means the anchors already degraded.


    Yeah or were otherwise destroyed.


    What do you mean?


    If the city leaders didn''t trust you enough to protect them or were cautious and threw the anchor far outside of their city¡­


    Shit. It would be like a natural treasure with the amount of Starmetal I used to make them.


    Exactly.


    So some random creature probably gnawed them to bits.


    If the city leaders didn''t fully trust you.


    Damn.


    You could estimate the distance and open a portal in their direction?


    That''s¡­ wouldn''t that cost more than my entire mana pool?


    Close to it.


    Flying it is I guess.


    Felix quickly morphed and tried the portal to each of the different temporary city anchors but found that none of them seemed to function. With that settled, he flew up into the air and shot off towards The Lodge.


    It took him almost two days to fly through the forest and make it to The Lodge up north. He though about flying over the forest but figured that would be boring so instead he flew directly through it.


    Not only did he get in a lot of practice flying as he had to weave his way through the trees, but Felix also hunted as he flew. He only bothered killing creatures at around level 200 or so. Any lower and they weren''t worth the experience or even the stats from harvesting and any higher and it would be a waste of time for him to kill it. He did plan on going out and searching for high level creatures to fight once he was done with the portals but until then, he had somewhere to be.


    He also spotted a handful of settlements amongst the trees as he flew that drastically varied in size. He knew they still couldn''t declare themselves as cities just yet because the vote was blocking it but he still found it interesting to see settlements outside of the major cities. Felix wasn''t actually expecting it only because he hadn''t even thought about it before. He didn''t bother visiting any of them and simply kept flying towards The Lodge.


    He found The Lodge buried in the forest and built around a central grove area with a small lake that was fed by a river and surrounded by cliffs on one side. The houses were almost entirely made of wood as Felix had expected and were arranged amongst the trees like tree houses. There were some bridges so residents could walk between the buildings but not many.


    For the most part, it seemed like people were happy to simply climb ladders, to reach any building they wanted to reach. Felix saw some people shooting up the ladders, pulling themselves up so quickly they essentially jumped. He saw others simply hop off from their buildings a dozen meters in the air landing gracefully on the ground below.


    The city didn''t seem to have a wall of any kind and Felix couldn''t see any guards that were restricting entry. There were some people in the trees keeping watch but no one seemed to care when he simply flew into the city. He explored some of the shops and buildings in the city and was most surprised to see a temple but in general, didn''t see anything worth buying during his brief perusal. He headed straight for the one larger stone building near the lake in the middle and flew right up to the door, finally getting some dirty looks from the people around.


    He had no idea where to find Jackie or her city planner but he figured the building right near the middle, the only one made of stone in sight, was the right call. Considering the dirty looks he got when he knocked, he was betting he was right. Almost a minute after Felix knocked, and just a few seconds before he would have knocked again, the door opened to reveal a short, somewhat pudgy man with dark skin, wearing long purple robes with an animated smoke imprint.


    The man frowned at Felix, "Uh¡­ hello?"


    Felix nodded, "Hi, I''m Felix. I''ve come from Atalus with an offer. I take it you know about the anchor?"


    The man''s frown deepened, "The what?"


    Guess not.


    He shook his head to clear it then cocked his head, "From Atalus? Sorry¡­ come in, we don''t get many knocks here, let alone visitors from other cities."


    Felix nodded, "Hopefully we can change that."


    The man gave Felix a curious look then opened the door wide and invited him in. He directed Felix to one of the two chairs in the room then hurried off into another room. He came back a few minutes later with a tea pot and two cups. He poured Felix a cup before he could properly refuse then poured himself one as well.


    The man took the seat opposite Felix, "So you''re here from Atalus? The major city right?"


    Felix nodded, "Yup."


    The man smiled warmly, "I know Jackie''s met some of you at the world event and then more at the auction. I guess you didn''t go to those then?"


    Felix nodded again, "I was there."


    The man frowned, "Oh. Wait¡­ how did you get here then?"


    As they talked, the man nervously looked at Felix''s cup multiple times hinting to Felix that something was up. He was curious though so, he gave it whiff and raised the cup to his lips. He didn''t actually take a sip, he just let it rest against his lips then put the cup back down. The man visibly relaxed and Felix struggled not to audibly sigh when the man in front of him was so bad at keeping a straight face.


    Felix shook his head slightly, he couldn''t resist, "Anyone ever told you you''d be terrible at poker?"


    "Sorry?"


    "Nothing."


    Felix waited and mentally kept track of the liquid as just a tiny portion of it passed into his blood stream from his lips. He simply let it go and watched while it didn''t actually attack anything and instead simply sought to shift some of the chemistry in his brain. He had a good feeling what it would do so he manually directed his body to attack and metabolize the liquid then feigned taking another sip of the tea.


    Felix decided to be a little cheeky, "This tea is excellent by the way, what is it?"


    The man''s smile widened well beyond just being friendly, "Oh just a personal blend of herbs from my garden. I can get you some if you''d like to take it home with you?"


    Felix nodded, "Sure, maybe after our meeting. I was hoping to find Jackie or her city planner, is that you by chance?"


    The man gave a short bow in his seat, "That''s me. I''m Miron by the way."


    Felix smiled to be friendly, "Pleasure to meet you Miron. I''m here b-"


    Miron held his hand up, "Hold on, I called Jackie back here just after you showed up, she should be here soon."


    Felix took a deep breath, "How soon?"


    "Usually only takes her a few minutes."


    Felix took another sip of the tea and this time, he pulled all of it into his soul space through his tongue. Any of it that managed to pass through his tongue and into his blood stream, he simply forcefully metabolized. After Felix finished his cup, Miron stood up and walked out of the room for a few moments then walked back in and sat down with a smile.


    Miron leaned forwards as if he was finally interested in the conversation, "So where are you really from?"


    Felix just looked at him blankly, "Atalus."


    He frowned, "Who are you?"


    "Felix Kade."


    At that moment, Felix heard a door opening but not the one he had come through. He waited a few moments then saw Jackie walk into the room from the back of the building.


    "He''s the founder, leader, owner or whatever of Atalus." She added.


    "Oh Jackie." Miron''s face immediately paled.


    Jackie poured some of the tea into Miron''s cup to refill it then downed it in one gulp.


    She sighed, "Why do you try this on everyone who visits?"


    Miron hurried to explain himself, "It''s good experience and I couldn''t be sure I mean, how did he get here so fast if he was at the auction an-"


    Jackie shrugged as she replaced the tea cup on the table, "Probably just flew over here. Wouldn''t take him more than a couple days?"


    "Yeah just under two." Felix nodded.


    She nodded, "I take it you just destroyed the serum?"


    Felix shrugged, "Didn''t actually drink most of the tea."


    She turned to the man and shook her head, "See Miron? You would have just been dead anyways."


    Miron scoffed, "Surely not. You were just a few minutes away, I''m sure I-"


    Jackie just blandly added, "He''d just kill me too."


    Miron''s face paled even further, something Felix didn''t think was possible then he looked at Felix and fell back in his chair a little trying to get away.


    Jackie turned to Felix, "So what''s up Felix?"


    "Trying to set up portals between the cities. Remember the portal anchor we gave you at the end of the auction, it didn''t actually work so now I have to fly around. I take it you''re still interested?"


    Jackie cocked her head, "That''s what that was?"


    "Didn''t¡­ they explain what it was to you?"


    She shrugged, "They said something, I tried to listen but I don''t think they fully understood themselves."


    Yeah that''s¡­ my bad.


    "Sorry, we were a little rushed. You interested in having portals connecting our cities?"


    "Yeah, I don''t see why not." Jackie nodded then looked towards Miron, "Can you figure that out then? I take it Felix still has to head to all the other cities too?"


    Felix nodded, "Yeah, I''d like to be on my way as soon as possible. Hey Jackie, quick question¡­"


    She smirked, "The bow?"


    "Yeah."


    She sighed, "I had been thinking I needed a better way to track down my prey for a little while now. As soon as I saw the bow though, I realized I didn''t want to rely on an item to do that. I want to track them myself."


    Felix smiled, "Gotcha, well thanks I guess."


    "Sure." She shrugged then turned towards the back door.


    "Wait wait hold on. You can''t just leave me with hi- JACKIE! I thought you were the strongest." Miron whispered completely ineffectively in her direction.


    Jackie crossed her arms and shook her head, "Nope. It''s him then his familiar then me, I think? Not totally sure, that one''s weird to gauge. Then it''s probably Amani or the weird the old guy from Coastwatch."


    "Han?" Felix offered.


    She snapped her fingers, "Yeah, him. Martin''s also weird though so not sure about him."


    Felix cocked a brow, "I''m surprised you put me above my familiar, is that based on level or did you just put me above because it''s my familiar?"


    Jackie shook her head, "Nah, it''s based on instinct sort of. It''s not level at all. I just look at something and get a feeling."


    Felix looked at her with just a hint of jealousy, "That''s useful."


    Jackie just shrugged and took a few steps towards the back door where she had entered through.


    Miron scrambled out of his chair towards her, "Wait, Jackie! Are we really just gonna connect the cities? With portals? How does that even work? How do you know he won''t just kill me?"


    Jackie chuckled, "I don''t. I just couldn''t stop him."


    Miron shot a glance back at Felix, "Surely if we work together and maybe call the gu-"


    Jackie just kept walking, "Nope. Doesn''t matter though, he''s not gonna kill you, right Felix?"


    Felix called over towards them, "Didn''t even occur to me."


    Jackie looked over her shoulder at Miron, "See? You aren''t worth the experience."


    Miron stood in front of her seemingly trying to stop her, "THAT''S THE ONLY REASON?"


    Jackie just pushed him aside, "I don''t know and stop yelling. Ask him if you want, I''m heading back out."


    With that said, Jackie finally managed to leave the building and disappear. It took Miron a few more minutes to finally calm down but once they did, they were actually very competent. They very quickly adapted to the idea of portals in their city and set up the perfect place for them to be. Felix dropped the permanent anchor Henry had made and gave Miron some basic directions and the schematics in case they wanted to connect their city with the others.


    He briefly tested and demonstrated the portal to Miron who, now that he had wrapped his head around the idea, actually seemed excited. With everything set up, Felix bid Miron farewell and flew off.


    Felix flew directly east, using his map to navigate, flying over almost entirely water. It made for an extremely boring flight where he didn''t find anything on the surface to kill. By the time he hit the coast of the wintery continent he was aiming for, he could already see Snowvale and they had cleared everything out around them so there was nothing to hunt.


    Felix flew in over the coast and shot towards the large metal walls of Snowvale but stopped short to dodge when he saw a series of spells fire off in his direction. He dodged fire spells, ice spells and lightning spells then a series of odder less specific spells like sound and light.


    The sound spell actually destroyed his eardrums but he quickly repaired them with a burst of energy and mana. He didn''t intend on sieging the city and he didn''t have a good way of introducing himself so he was stuck with a bad way of introducing himself.


    It seemed all of the defenses he was up against were automated so what he needed to do was trigger an alarm of some kind so a real person came to check what was happening. The best way he could think of to do that, was to either damage the wall or be loud enough to be worthy of investigation.


    If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.


    Felix thought about it for a minute then realized, there were probably real people manning the wall at some point. He knew Trelas and Snowvale worked together and Jack and Martin were friends so he assumed they visited each-other.


    Based on that assumption, Felix circled the city towards it''s closest point to Trelas. He actually ended up finding the gate a little further than that, with a road heading more inland and less south towards Trelas. The gate was very similar to the rest of the wall consisting of a large metal door with enchantments on the inside, judging from Felix''s mana senses. He couldn''t actually tell what they did from this distance, he just had a general sense that they were there.


    Unfortunately, he didn''t see anyone manning the walls as he flew, even around the gate they seemed to be entirely automated. Felix didn''t really see any other option so he started firing off a series of Force Balls at the gate. He tried to make them strong enough for anyone inside to hear but also weak enough that didn''t do any damage. He added some sound to the spell but the sound of the defenses that immediately targeted him were almost deafening.


    Cannons, spells and machines all around the gate whirred to life and began targeting him. Felix wasn''t deluded into thinking he could just tank it all and even if he thought he might be able to, he wasn''t going to risk it. Instead, he backed up as far as he could and began practicing his long range spells. Up to this point, his range had been fine and he hadn''t felt the need for longer range, but this presented a great opportunity to practice in case he did need the range in the future.


    He adjusted the initial velocity of the Force Balls as well as their density so the balls stayed in tact longer. He had a few that burst too quickly and a few that didn''t burst at all even when they hit the gate. He was starting to see some of the wisdom in using a spell list.


    Felix suspected The System adjusted spells so they exploded at the right time always, independent of the range. He was also pretty sure he could just use some more complicated spell work to figure it out for him but that was something that would have to wait until he had more conditional spell nodes.


    It took almost a half hour for the defenses to die down and at first, Felix thought they had run out of mana. He stopped his barrage of spells anyways and took a look at the gate. He had done some damage to it, small dents here and there but nothing major. A few moments after his barrage stopped, the gates separated down the middle and slid open. The two halves disappeared into the wall and revealed a familiar face.


    Felix waved then shot over to wall and closed the distance, "Hey Martin. Sorry about your gate."


    Martin chuckled, "Hey Felix, don''t worry about it. The damage seems to be superficial but I''ll investigate it later. What are you doing here and did you fly here?"


    Felix nodded, "Yeah I did. Unfortunately, it seems like the portal anchors didn''t work."


    Martin winced, "That¡­ might have been my fault."


    Felix cocked his head.


    Martin shrugged, "I couldn''t resist¡­ experimenting."


    Felix chuckled, "Fair enough. You still interested in being a part of the portal network?"


    Martin nodded enthusiastically, "Yes, I am very interested. Any chance you could teach me?"


    Felix smiled, "I can give you what I know about them. I also have schematics drawn up in case you want to have portals to cities other than Atalus. For now, all the portals connect to Atalus because that''s where we''ll open them from and supply them with mana."


    Martin nodded along as Felix spoke, "So if I want a portal to say, Trelas, I just need to supply the mana?"


    Felix nodded, "You also have to set up the portal¡­ ritual. But, once I deliver them an anchor, yes."


    Martin smiled, "I am very in. Come on in I''ll show you where I want it."


    Martin led Felix into the city, though Felix was tempted to call it a compound. All of the buildings he saw seemed to be made of metal of different kinds though he was certain they were more complicated than that because if they were simple metal structures, they would be cold and unhabitable inside. Most of the buildings stretched a half dozen stories into the sky and each of them seemed to serve multiple purposes and house multiple citizens.


    Martin led Felix to an area that with larger buildings that seemed to be workshops, forges and factories.


    Felix spent an hour or so writing out and explaining portals as best he could to Martin. Though the mana cost would be astronomical for Martin, he still seemed to have some use in mind for them and Felix was happy to share.


    Martin took the schematics as well but Felix was pretty sure he wouldn''t actually use them because he clearly had his own mana collection system set up throughout the city.


    In Martin''s workshop, Felix felt mana coursing in through large cabling and channels from all over. Tracing it visually, he saw endpoints where Martin could simply reach over and access the mana whenever he needed it.


    They talked about portals for about an hour then Martin showed Felix some of the other things he had been working on, at Felix''s request. It seemed as thought Martin was entirely focused on the fusion of machinery and magic. He had all kinds of buggies, snowmobiles, and a large variety of weapons. He had also been working on a plane, despite his previous reservations and a large mech suit. He had made a mech suit before, but said that this one was far more impressive.


    The mech suit Martin was working on just had a skeleton and no actual internals yet, but it was at least 5 meters tall. After some discussion, Martin admitted the only way this was possible for him currently, was with the mana engine Felix had given him in the world event.


    All the stuff Martin was working on was super interesting to Felix and incredibly impressive. He didn''t have nearly the mana control or senses Felix had and yet it seemed like he was close to on par with Felix as an enchanter.


    On top of that, Martin was plagued by the same lack of knowledge Felix was which made it all the more impressive he was able to create all the things he did. Though they were rough and Felix was certain with more knowledge they would be far more sophisticated, they were still probably the most impressive things he had seen a human create. He strongly suspected that once his mech suit was online, Martin would be the strongest person on the planet, especially since Felix was leaving.


    They talked about enchantments and machines for a few more hours then Felix bid Martin farewell and shot off towards Trelas.


    Snowvale was surrounded by large icy plains and tundra with little to no vegetation. Though many of them seemed to be hiding or possibly below the surface, Felix found some creatures he could hunt down and absorb though they didn''t give him much in the way of levels. He was gaining a anywhere from 1 to about 20 in any given stat across all the creatures he had killed on his flight. He knew if he put himself in more danger he would gain more levels but for now, he was happy with just absorbing some stats.


    As he traveled south, the barren tundra began to sprout some vegetation that eventually grew into a sprawling, snow covered, evergreen forest that seemed to cover the majority of the south end. Felix found a few more creatures there but didn''t have much time to hunt as he was already very close to Trelas.


    In contrast to Martin''s mechanical marvel of a city, Trelas was far more rugged looking. The entire city seemed to be built out of a combination of ice and wood. The outer wall was made mostly of a hard, deep blue ice while the rooves and some columns holding buildings up were made of dark wood. There were no automated defenses as Felix approached, just normal guards that were incredibly welcoming even though they had no idea who Felix was.


    From over a kilometer out they opened the gate and as Felix approached, they all greeted him warmly and even offered him a warm pelt. He refused as he was regulating his own body temperature with a basic heat spell and it was more than enough but he thanked them anyways.


    The guards walked him straight through the city to a large squared off building made almost entirely of ice. It was at least 3 or 4 stories tall and as wide as three houses put together. The guard that walked him there knocked on the door then waved to him and headed back to their post.


    Felix waited for a few moments then the door opened to reveal Jack.


    As soon as Jack saw Felix his eyes lit up and he smiled wide, "Felix, what a surprise. You just come for a visit?"


    Felix chuckled, at this point he was just running with the assumption that the anchors hadn''t properly been explained at all, "Any interest in a portal from here to Snowvale and Atalus. Or just Snowvale if you''d prefer?"


    Jack cocked his head, "Yeah, didn''t you already give me an anchor for that?"


    Felix nodded slowly, "Yeah¡­ what did you do with it?"


    Jack just pointed over to the inside of the building he was in, "It''s right there."


    Felix looked over and saw that the change in temperature had completely warped the cruddy inlay material he had chosen on short notice.


    Whoops.


    Jack smiled, "Both of those portals sound great by the way. That''s possible right now?"


    Felix nodded, "Yes it is. I was just at Snowvale. Once I''m done here I''ll open a portal to Orselle and fly west to Coastwatch."


    Jack nodded along, "So you want to set up a whole transportation network then?"


    Felix smiled, "Ideally we''d like to connect them all up."


    Jack''s smile widened and he slapped Felix on the shoulder, "That''s awesome. Yeah, I am super in. What do you need from me?"


    Felix chuckled a little at how friendly and open he was, "For the Atalus portal, we''ll supply the mana and for the portal to Snowvale I suspect they''ll supply the mana. If you want any other portals, I can give you the schematics but it''s up to you to build them."


    Jack shrugged and nodded, "Fair enough. Can we go to Atalus then to another city from there?"


    Felix shrugged, "Yeah, totally. I don''t see why not."


    Jack smiled, "Well, that sounds great to me."


    Felix couldn''t help but smile back, "Alright perfect, I''ll set it up."


    Jack smirked a little and leaned forwards like he was about to tell Felix a secret, "Any chance you could get me to Atalus when you portal out?"


    Felix frowned, "Sure, there''s already a portal to Atalus in Orselle. When I teleport there, you could just walk straight through. Why?"


    Jack offered Felix an innocent shrug, "I want to see your city. See the shops, enjoy the weather."


    Jack had Felix set up the anchor right in the middle of the city. When Felix asked why, he said he wanted the heat from the connected cities to warm the place up a little. Once it was in place, Felix opened a portal to Orselle''s anchor.


    He had already tested what happened when two portals were opened to the same anchor and ultimately, it was rather boring. The portals simply opened back to back. If a third was added, they formed a triangle around the anchor. He hadn''t tried four or more but he figured they probably wouldn''t explode or anything.


    As soon as the portal was opened, hot air rushed through the portal and washed over both Jack and Felix''s face. Jack basked in it for a few seconds while Felix simply stepped through. Jack followed just behind him and immediately stowed his thick furs until he was completely bare on top. Felix walked around the portal and pointed through the other side towards the green plains surrounding Atalus.


    Jack looked through an marveled at the sights.


    He took one step through the portal then looked back at over his shoulder, "Hey Felix, before I go. Any chance you could do me a favor? You know in exchange for dropping out of the bidding on the forge heart?"


    Felix frowned because he wasn''t sure he actually owed him a favor for that, "Sure, what do you need?"


    Jack smiled, "I was interested in the forge heart not for the forging, we use animal based weapons mostly anyways. I thought I might be able to use it to warm the entire city up a little though. I know Martin has his fancy mana array which is cool but way too complicated for me. Any chance you could make a perpetual fan or something to pull air from Orselle into the city?"


    Felix thought about it for a moment and even though he didn''t feel like he actually owed Jack anything for dropping out of the bidding, he was still inclined to agree. Jack was one of the friendliest and most genuine people Felix had met. He had played the political game a little bit when they first met but it was entirely in service of protecting his friend, Martin. Every other time Felix interacted with Jack, he was warm, sincere and always smiling.


    Felix nodded, "Sure. Can I come back and set it up after I finish delivering these portals?"


    Jack smiled and nodded, "Yeah of course. I guess I''ll see you back at Trelas then¡­ probably. I might go visit all the other cities. If I''m not there, just set up the portal where the anchor is. If you need anything, just ask anyone and they should point you in the right direction."


    Felix chuckled, "Sure thing. Have fun I guess."


    "Thanks, I definitely will and you too." Jack waved and walked through the portal to Atalus then Felix dismissed the portal from Trelas and flew off to the west.


    There were some small islands between the cities but it was still ocean for the most part which meant Felix didn''t find many creatures to hunt. The two cities were actually the two closest to each-other on the planet so it didn''t take him more than a handful of hours to reach the port city of Coastwatch.


    The city was very obviously designed around the massive docks right on the coast. There were hundreds of boats ranging from small personal crafts to massive ships with multiple sails.


    The most impressive boat of all was a long ship that was relatively short and flat. It wasn''t the biggest boat by any means but it was reinforced elegantly with metal plating and seemed to float above the water, barely touching it. It only had one sail from what Felix could see but it also had oars and a whole lot of cannons and harpoons. It also had a name with a symbol next to it, The Clover.


    He flew over the docks themselves and landed amongst the wooden buildings around the coast. He walked into the first building he saw with an open door and asked for Han. He was immediately directed back to the docks, to The Clover, the boat he had been so impressed by. He turned back around and walked over to the docks but the ship was gone. It had only been a few minutes and yet somehow it had disappeared.


    He assumed it had just set sail so he flew up into the air and searched the water for the vessel. It only took him a few seconds to spot it racing through the water faster than he ever would have expected.


    Felix immediately shot himself towards it from above. It took him a few minutes to catch up but once he did, he had to dodge a series of harpoons, one of which he was forced to block with a Mana Shield. It cost him an impressive 8 thousand mana to block but luckily, once he did, the vessel seemed to realize he wasn''t a threat.


    Felix dropped down onto the vessel and got a few guilty looks but ignored them and headed straight for the captains chambers which he assumed were at the back. Sure enough, Felix opened a door and saw Han in a room at the end of a hall. He walked over to him and waited while he stared at a blank desk.


    Han finally looked up and furrowed his brow, "Oi, yer Felix, ye?"


    Felix nodded once, "That I am."


    Han fell back into his chair, "What are ye doing here?"


    "Looking for you. Any interest in having a portal connecting your city to Atalus?"


    "Sure. I can''t really say no to that. Ye can really do that?"


    I know it''s my fault the anchors weren''t explained and protected but¡­ damn. Wish I had thought of it sooner. Could have had Henry make the permanent anchors ahead of time.


    "Yes I can. Do you care where I put it?"


    "Nope. Just put it somewhere near the docks. Ye find free land, feel free to just drop it."


    "Sounds good." Felix turned around and walked right out of the ship then flew back to shore. He looked around for a little while then just shrugged and walked to the end of the one of the docks. He placed the anchor on the deck boards and set it up then flew off to the last city on his journey.


    Heading to sprouts, there were a couple more towns and not-quite-cities in the plains but nothing of note. Felix found a few more creatures to hunt but ended up ignoring a lot of them. He was so close to finished that he really just wanted to get to Sprouts so he could move on to everything else he wanted to do.


    If Felix didn''t know better, he wouldn''t have thought Sprouts was a major city at first. The outer area he flew over was entirely rural and covered in farms. He flew over them for a half hour or so and found a denser collection of buildings in the middle but even they looked like cottages and barns more than buildings he expected to see in a city.


    He wasn''t sure where to look for Otto because no building stood out among the others so he just found the first person and asked. He was directed to a large farm just a few kilometers away and flew over in it''s direction. He had to ask a few more times before he finally found it but eventually, he spotted the large Demi-Giant tending to his crops.


    Felix dropped down but didn''t land because he was worried he might disturb the field.


    Felix waved, "Hello Otto. Not sure if yo-"


    "Felix, I remember." He said without even looking up to see him.


    Felix waited a few moments for Otto to finish whatever he was doing, "I didn''t realize farm work was so meticulous."


    Otto sighed, "It''s these stupid plants I bought at the auction. They''re supposed to produce fruit that boosts your energy recovery rate and strength but they''re so fickle."


    "Have you managed to try them yet?"


    "Nope, this is the first batch. Most crops we grow take just a few days because of skills, spells and whatnot. These guys apparently could take up to a year normally. I''m hoping I can shorten that to a few months or less though."


    Felix nodded with respect and more than a little admiration, "Woah, yeah good luck."


    Otto clapped his hands together to get rid of the dirt, "Thanks. You make the trip for a particular reason or just to visit and say hi?" Sear?h the NovelFire.net* website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    Felix sighed at another person who had not gotten the proper explanation, "Portals, any interest?"


    Otto smiled and nodded, "Yes. Very much so. We have far more food than we can handle and we need more people to sell it all to."


    Felix smiled, "Perfect, I know Atalus at least is interested. I have schematics so you can open your own portals to the other cities too, if you''d like."


    Otto shrugged, "Even just the one would be perfect for us but I won''t say no to more. I''ll have some of my more magically inclined citizens take a look."


    "Sounds good."


    Otto had Felix place the anchor just outside of the city center then offered him a meal in return. He was inclined to refuse just so he could get back sooner but Otto convinced him when he told Felix about the effects.


    After just a few short minutes of cooking, Otto served Felix a large meat roast with cooked vegetables and some unidentifiable grain. It was one of the best meals Felix had ever tasted in his life and he wasted no time scarfing it down.


    As soon as he had taken his first bite, Felix noticed the effects. Otto had said they would take about 10 minutes to kick in but Felix was very aware of his own body. As he swallowed each bite, the food dissolved far faster than any other food Felix had eaten and it immediately started to energize the cells it affected.


    Instead of directly giving energy to them, it seemed to have an effect where it caused them to speed up their movements slightly. It created a lot more internal body heat and Felix even had to cool himself down but looking at his status sheet, it had also increased his agility by about 10%.


    Otto said the buff should last for a few hours then it would gradually wear off. Felix thanked him for the food then opened a portal back to Atalus.


    Walking over to the portal terminal they had set up, Felix found that Henry had already completed everything he needed to do so Felix opened the portals from Atalus to the other cities. He opened them one by one with about an hour between so he could make sure everything was stable. He also checked on his massive mana collection arrays and found that they seemed to be working as expected.


    Maintaining the portals ended up taking far more mana than Felix had expected but luckily, he had made the mana collection arrays have enough headroom that they would be able to sustain them. The overall redundancy would be reduced, but it was still functional and the whole system would still survive if two of the arrays were damaged.


    Felix gave all the information to Noah while they watched a small trickle of people pass through the portals to and from Atalus. Some cities like Trelas, had a large amount of people coming in, other''s like Coastwatch barely had any.


    While Felix was away, Noah and Will had set up the foundation for an official police force, rather than Noah just directing people to deal with the random crimes that occurred. Their hope was that it would help with any unsavory visitors that came through the portals. Alan had also officially started as Spymaster but Noah didn''t give Felix any other details while they were standing out in the open.


    With all of that done, Felix headed back to Trelas through the portal to complete the last errand he had agreed to. It took him half a day to finish designing and creating a permanent setup for pulling air from Orselle into Trelas.


    He had to wait a day or so for Henry to finish making another permanent portal base and mana collection array to power it. In the meantime he practiced his spell formation and toyed around with his Persona body.


    He was planning on looking into mana channels more seriously now that he had a practice body he didn''t care too much about screwing up with. Worst case scenario, he could just remake it. He only managed to complete some initial designs and very basic tests though with different forms of tissue. Through his experimentation, he quickly realized that he was going to need to find a creature with mana channels so he could replicate their tissue because he was having no success.


    Once it was complete, Felix picked up the finished product from Henry and set it up in Trelas. The ventilation system didn''t help the entire city much but it did provide nice warm air to a large area in the middle of Trelas where Jack said he was going to put a park. After Felix finished that, he headed back to Atalus and met up with Noah and the initial council of Trenus.


    The first council was going to consist of Noah, Amelia, Benjamin, Will, Alan, Henry, and a few more individuals Noah had hand picked to represent different areas of the city. It was a large council and theoretically, their positions would become more concrete later on.


    For now, Will was the police captain, Alan the spymaster, Amelia the head builder, Noah the city planner. Everyone else''s roles or titles were still to be determined. Benjamin was going to be an ambassador of sorts and interface with the other cities to keep things amicable. The exact specifics of his role though were still not entirely laid out.


    Felix officially handed over the ownership of the city to the council. He was considered an honorary member of the council for as long as he was on the planet but it was really just a formality.


    They talked a bit about initial plans for the city and what they needed to do now that the portals were all open but Felix didn''t really pay any attention. He was completely distracted trying to figure out a way to manually modify and enhance his brain.


    Nothing had changed and he was still unwilling to modify the cells too much, but he had a couple ideas he wanted to pursue. Unfortunately, he didn''t have a great way to test them because his Persona''s brain was essentially inert. It just received signals from his own brain and translated them.


    Once the council meeting was done, Felix gifted Will his earrings that he still had but realized he had no use for. Will was police captain though and using them to interrogate people sounded like the perfect use case. He then flew himself far out of the city and opened a portal back to his continent.


    He quickly found, using his soul bond, Nova and Endycor hunting together in the forest. He didn''t disturb them at all but he did offer Endycor the continent. He wasn''t sure how The System would present the screen to them but they immediately accepted so he assumed it was understandable. He checked his map and sure enough, the continent''s name changed to Endycor''s Demesne. With that done, Felix had no more ties to the planet in any way and was free to leave at any time. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 Chapter 183 - Book 87

    Even though he still had over 5 months left, Felix was getting antsy to leave. Just the prospect of being able to explore and learn out in the actual multiverse without being restricted to System events and whatever information it felt like drip feeding him was enticing. The idea of being able to fight things stronger than him and actually be able to improve and grow more was exhilarating.


    Before he left though, Felix had one or two things he wanted to do. First, he wanted to level himself up to about 200 in his class. Secondly, he wanted to hunt more creatures to reap their souls. Luckily, he could easily do both at once.


    When he was flying from city to city, Felix had killed 85 random creatures and reaped their souls. While they had given him a decent number of stats, he had only gained a total of 4 levels. He was pretty sure it had to do with the fact that he was never really in danger at all and he wasn''t really learning anything. He was just killing them with one to three spells from the sky before they could really respond at all. With Lightning Bolts too, they couldn''t even really dodge him.


    In just the short time Nova had been hunting with Endycor on the other hand, they had gained 13 levels. He watched them hunt for a bit and saw they took turns fighting creatures that had levels in the high 300s to low 400s one on one. Endycor occasionally ate the creatures for sustenance but Nova ate everything they killed and the majority of what Endycor killed since the dragon couldn''t eat them all. Judging from the speed of how fast they killed things, Felix was pretty sure they had each killed around a couple hundred creatures since he had left them.


    Holy shit the D grade wall, huh? Just 13 levels from around 200 creatures with levels 14% higher than theirs. That''s rough.


    And apparently it get''s worse the higher you go.


    Damn.


    He let them be for now and flew off in a different direction. Felix headed north through the jungle into the densest part he had seen from the sky. While it was far safer and easier for him to fight creatures out in the open like the plains or rocky cliffs even further north, it would also likely mean less experience. He knew he needed to put himself in danger, take on actual risk in order to learn, grow and ultimately gain experience. Given how easy it was for him to kill things on this planet just by firing off a barrage of spells at them, he was planning on fighting with his Persona and Eretheas.


    Flying through the jungle, Felix came across a decent number of random creatures but it took him a while to find something worth actually fighting. He could have just killed everything he saw to harvest all their souls, but a lot of them were very small, low level creatures that he was pretty sure would give him maybe a single stat for every 1000 he killed. He wasn''t inclined to go on a killing spree when it was worth so little and not to mention how boring it would have been. Instead he didn''t waste any time and rushed through the jungle until he found something actually worth fighting.


    What he ended up settling on was a creature that looked like a green tiger, at first. Felix had seen a few of them in a small area and each of them were around level 255 give or take a few. He was going to ignore them because they were simply uncommon but out of the corner of his eye, he saw one of them change.


    The color of their fur shifted to keep them hidden amongst the jungle. As they pounced on their prey, some bird like creature, the fur shifted again to a vibrant red color as the tiger leapt across the jungle. The fur reverted to camouflaging the creature as it ate but Felix was already interested.


    He quickly took a look at his status screen before shifting into his persona and allocating his 30 free points into intelligence.


    Name:Felix KadeFREE0Innate:Ascendant Prodigy: Mana (Wizard)STR7089Class:[D - Legendary] Reaper (Lvl 142)DEX10809Race:[D - Unique] Wanderer (Lvl 179)AGI6329Profession:[D - Arcane] Mana Engineer (Lvl 217)PER9599Health:64050/64050VIT6405Mana:2337060/2337060INT21246Energy:310920/310920END7773


    He looked at his status screen and it just confirmed to him that he had made the right choice of class and race. Though he still hadn''t caught up to the alternatives yet, he had made massive progress in a very short period. While he could have have Grim teach him basic soul harvesting and gone with the custom class or something else with higher stats, he would have missed out on the skills.


    While he was initially disappointed with the Reaper skills because they offered him essentially nothing currently, he recognized their value. They were essentially percentage increases to his stats in a way which was infinitely more valuable than base stats to him right now. He suspected as he leveled and grew, they would become even more important too.


    Looking at the tigers, he estimated his stats alone were much higher than theirs. He knew he was towing a weird line where he was stronger than just about everything around his level.


    Unfortunately, he couldn''t just hunt down anything because the higher the level gap got, the more likely they would have some trick up their sleeve that Felix would have a hard time dealing with. His experience and therefore level, were in catchup mode because his level was not representative of how strong he actually was. Luckily, that meant he would be able to level quickly, if he found himself the right fights.


    For now, his goal was to hit about level 200 before he left the integration. No amount of leveling was going to make him the strongest once he left but it would make him safer. Too much leveling and he risked finding some information that made him regret decisions. He could realistically sit on the planet and grind out levels for the next 5 months, but he knew that would have been way too boring for him. Instead, he set himself a reasonable goal of 200.


    Felix activated the Persona causing streams of red and white to pour out of his rings and surround his body. After a few seconds, he stretched himself out and pulled out Eretheas then approached the hungry tiger.


    [D - Uncommon] Chameleon Tiger (Lvl 249)


    Felix took two steps forwards and the tiger instantly went from gnawing on bird bones to wrapping it''s jaw''s around Felix''s axe arm. It''s teeth sunk into his flesh and it''s jaw squeezed causing Felix to feel his bones fracture. He dropped the axe instinctively then reached over with his other hand and tried to strangle the cat.


    As much as he squeezed though, his one hand alone just wasn''t big enough to wrap around it''s neck. Felix reached down and felt around with his left hand for the axe then, as soon as his fingers brushed it''s shaft, ripped it out of the ground right up into the Tiger''s body.


    The Tiger yelped but barely moved because Felix''s swing was pitiful, even by Felix''s standards. He dropped the axe again, this time on purpose and started to punch the tiger in it''s head. By the third punch, the tiger had completely broken through his arm bones crushing his muscles against each-other and tearing through his flesh. Felix gritted his teeth against the pain then dulled it to keep himself focused. He continued to punch, scratch and tear at the tiger''s face until it finally let go, leaping back 10 meters from Felix.


    He quickly looked down at his now useless right arm and just saw streams of crimson pouring out of his arm and pooling on the ground, some of it splashing onto the axe. He reached his left hand down and ripped the axe out of the ground, straining to move it. He lowered the weight of the axe but realized, his strength in this form was actually lower than his normal body because he still hadn''t absorbed enough to strengthen it much.


    Once he realized that, he lowered the axe''s weight and started supplementing his movements with force spells, like he had been practicing before. It made it at least possible to swing with a modicum of force, rather than utterly pitifully. Felix leapt forwards, with a force spell propelling him, and swung the axe down at the Tiger. The Tiger''s fur shifted slightly blue-white as it stepped to the side and Felix buried the axe into the ground. He was having trouble seeing the creature move which confused him at first because he had tracked it perfectly when it hunted the bird.


    He connected the dots almost immediately though realizing it wasn''t just strength his Persona was lacking. Though it shared a portion of his actual stats, the portion of stats that came solely from his Persona''s body, were significantly lacking. He had a lot of work to do to make the body actually usable in any useful capacity.


    Unfortunately he didn''t have a status screen for the Persona, activating it just brought up his own, so all he could do was estimate. If he had to venture a guess, he was thinking it was about a third to a half of his own stats. His intelligence felt lower to him even though in theory it shouldn''t have been but he didn''t think too much on it now.


    Felix ripped the axe out of the ground as the Tiger slashed at his left thigh, opening a deep wound that bleed profusely, just like his right arm. He immediately swung the axe to the left but the Tiger simply turned slightly blue again and jumped back a few meters.


    These fuckers are so much harder than the Devoured, even though they had almost three times it''s levels.


    Yeah but their stats were less than halved.


    And they were super predictable.


    Yeah, they fought completely brainlessly, imitating random movements they had made when they lived.


    Do I just suck?


    Yes. Like a lot. You have little to no actual battle experience. How often do you actually have to fight anything?


    Yeah, rarely. Hopefully I can find some better fights outside of the integration.


    Well hurry up so you can leave then.


    I know, I know I''m on it.


    Before Felix could swing again, the Tiger leapt up almost above Felix''s head and reached it''s claws forwards with it''s maw open and aimed at his neck.


    Fuck it.


    Instead of dodging or trying to block the bite with his arm, Felix simply let it come and started swinging the axe up into it. Considering the body he was using was more or less just a suit of armor and not actually his real body, he was guaranteed to survive the otherwise fatal blow.


    The tiger dug it''s claws into Felix''s shoulders and pulled it''s maw around his neck then clamped down just as Eretheas made contact with it''s stomach. The axe head ripped right through it''s body, showering Felix''s head in blood and viscera and ending the Tiger''s life before it''s jaw could break his neck.


    Felix dropped the axe again and ripped it''s jaw off his neck then activated his rings as his vision blurred. The familiar streams of crimson and golden white poured into Felix''s rings except this time, the streams had another effect. As they poured into his rings, specifically the blood ring, Felix suddenly felt reinvigorated. His wounds stopped bleeding and sealed up, even his arm bones fused themselves back together. Mentally reviewing his Persona, he wasn''t in tip top shape, but he was pretty close.


    Unfortunately, he didn''t know if that meant there was less harvested materials in the ring. It was likely, but to Felix, it didn''t matter. He should still have more than enough to strengthen his Persona considering how big the Tiger''s body was. Most importantly though, Felix had samples of the Tiger''s flesh and fur which he was super curious to check out. That could wait till later though as Felix had more Tigers to slay.


    Ding You have slain [D - Uncommon] Chameleon Tiger (Lvl 249)


    Ding You have gained 24 levels in [D - Legendary] Reaper (142 => 166)


    Holy shit.


    Running around the jungle and bringing his Persona to the brink of death a few times, Felix managed to slay a total of 14 more Tigers after the first one. He had gotten marginally better at staying alive but he was still getting injured far more than was sustainable in any normal battle.


    Ding You have slain 14 [D - Uncommon] Chameleon Tiger (Lvl 250-258)


    Ding You have gained 48 levels in [D - Legendary] Reaper (166 => 214)


    He had already surpassed his goal of level 200 about 7 Tigers back but Felix was having fun so he kept going. He would have slain a few more too had he not spotted an even more interesting creature to hunt off in the distance.


    A few hundred meters in front of him, in the middle of the jungle, Felix saw a creature that he would best describe as a furry Salamander. It looked like a giant Salamander with 6 legs and fur except that the way it moved was completely foreign. Instead of walking, it''s limbs, terminated with hands, reached out and grabbed the trunks of the trees around it pulling it''s body along through the trees. It moved like it was slithering through the air and honestly, Felix couldn''t tell which side was up with the creature.


    As it slithered and Felix watched, he saw the creature flip itself over and continue on like nothing had happened more than a few times. It had an identical set of eyes and nostrils on the other side of it''s head too so Felix wasn''t sure at first if he hadn''t imagined it flipping over. At almost 20 meters or so from head to tip of it''s tail, the trees around it creaked and bent as it grabbed and pushed off of them.


    [D - Rare] Jungle Monkey-Salamander (Lvl 271)


    I fucking hate this identification shit. Give me it''s real name please. Remind me to look for something to fix this as soon as we get to the city.


    Noted.


    Felix made sure he was all healed up using the bodies he had harvested into The Blood Ring then readied the axe and approached. The more he had fought the Tigers, the more he had realized that he actually had no instincts for fighting. So to try and make up for his lack of instincts, instead of just randomly swinging on the spot, Felix decided he would go into the fight with a plan. For this fight, his plan was to just dodge and avoid the creature''s strikes until he had a good idea of how it would attack. Then, he would try and figure out where his best openings were and capitalize on those.


    Unfortunately, this was a real creature not a video game boss or a Devoured so it wasn''t going to be perfectly predictable, it would definitely adapt as the fight progressed. Having a plan though was still better in Felix''s mind than going in blind and just swinging, even though he found that incredibly fun. He also found winning and improving fun though so that was the plan for the Salamander.


    Felix made sure the Salamander saw him by hitting it with a very light Mana Bolt then stood his ground and held Eretheas close to his chest and lowered it''s weight.


    The Salamander immediately started pulling itself through the trees towards Felix, pulling a couple of smaller trees right out of the ground in the process. Felix was expecting it to try and bite him first and foremost so he prepared himself to jump back and to the side. Instead, as it approached him, Felix realized it was aiming a few meters above his head. As soon as it was above him, it pulled upwards on the trees and shot it''s body downwards.


    Luckily, the jump spells Felix had prepared were trivial to redirect so he did so and jumped horizontally as fast as he could. He barely managed to get out unharmed though as his foot had brushed along the underside of the creature in the process. Luckily it didn''t get smashed into the ground, but it was much closer than Felix would have liked.


    As soon as Felix landed, he jumped again as he saw the Salamander''s middle arm reach out to grab him. He managed to avoid the thumb but it''s fingers still brushed against his body and knocked him to the side instead of grabbing him. The Salamander took the time to pull itself off the ground so Felix quickly righted himself. He looked in its direction and saw it swing its head around the tree and go for a bite.


    Felix was ready for it and jumped back but he wasn''t ready for the Salamander to shoot itself forwards using the trees for leverage. Instead of just having to jump back a few meters, Felix had to have jumped back at least 10 or more. Unfortunately, he hadn''t and he wasn''t fast enough to readjust in midair with spells. The Salamander managed to clamp it''s mouth down on the upper half of Felix''s body and it''s array of tiny sharp teeth shredded through his skin.


    Not exactly the opening I was hoping for¡­


    Felix had been holding the axe close to his chest so it was in the maw with him. As he felt himself get lifted off the ground and high up into the air, he started swinging wildly with the axe. Everywhere he swung was bound to hit something so as long as he avoided hitting himself, he figured he would be winning. He ended up with hundreds of cuts along the outsides of his arms as they brushed against it''s teeth that covered the inside of it''s mouth but he did feel the axe make contact many times.


    He wasn''t able to swing it very far or with much force considering the confined space but it was better than nothing and he didn''t want to trivialize the fight with spells.


    Felix finally felt himself get released from it''s grip and pulled his arms in close to avoid further lacerations. Looking down though, he realized the Salamander had released him so they could fully swallow him. He quickly activated the jump spells in his boots and shot himself up and to the right, completely avoiding being swallowed then swung the axe down towards the creature as he fell. He augmented his swing with force, as he had been with most of his movements when possible, but this time with much more than he normally used.


    The axe swung down and caught on the Salamander''s right jaw just as it closed it''s mouth then completely tore through the joint. The axe head popped out the back right of it''s head and Felix caught himself before his body smashed into the ground.


    The Salamander faltered, letting go of the trees and falling to the ground but quickly recovered before Felix could land another strike. Felix readied himself for it''s next attack but ended up just screaming in frustration when it launched itself up and tried to run away.


    Felix immediately shot himself up as high as he could with a single burst and then shot himself towards the Salamander trying to land another swing as he fell onto it. The Salamander saw him coming though and slithered around a different tree, completely avoiding him.


    Felix shot himself forwards, using the trees to jump off of where he could and chased after the Salamander through the jungle. He tried multiple times to just swing down and hit it but he refused to simply hit it with a Lightning Bolt because that would have been too easy and in his mind, giving up or cheating. Instead he relentlessly chased it through the jungle blowing through almost half of his mana just flying and restoring his energy pool before he saw it start to slow down.


    If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.


    The Salamander first slipped when it tried to grab a tree then stumbled slightly, a few minutes later it stumbled again and Felix was able to pounce forwards. He finally managed to land on it''s back without it squirming aside. Before it could try and push him off, Felix reached down and grabbed a handful of it''s fur with his left hand then battered it with Eretheas using his right. He crawled forwards and repeated the process until finally, he got a kill notification.


    Ding You have slain [D - Rare] Jungle Monkey-Salamander (Lvl 271)


    Ding You have gained 7 levels in [D - Legendary] Reaper (214 => 221)


    The Salamander''s corpse along with Felix on top of it, dropped to the ground. As soon as it crashed into the jungle floor, Felix activated his rings and then fell to the ground himself as it''s body disappeared leaving behind a small wisp of dust that blew away.


    Even more so than when he had Devoured the Tigers, Felix felt completely rejuvenated and healthy. Looking at the stats he gained from harvesting the creature''s soul, after the requisite time for his skill to work, he had also gained about 20% more stats from it when compared to the tigers.


    Difference between Uncommon and Rare I guess.


    Felix dropped the Persona and reverted to his own body then opened a portal to Atalus. He had to fight off a couple of creatures that tried to get the drop on him in the middle of the jungle but none of them required he actually pay them much attention. He already had the mold for the portal, so all he had to do was alter it slightly and push mana into it, something he could easily do while fighting off random and weak jungle creatures.


    The portal opened and Felix stepped through into a small crowd of people that were passing in and out of the portals around him. He avoided the entire situation and just flew up into the air then shot himself into the commerce district of Atalus.


    He had a couple of things he wanted to buy before he left. The first thing he purchased was a basic set of durable clothing for his Persona. As much as he didn''t care about walking around naked, especially in his Persona in the middle of the jungle, other people tended to care. He had to get them custom tailored to fit but that only took an hour or so. In the meantime, he stocked up on various foods and supplies and generally perused the various shops.


    Once he had the clothes in hand he headed over to the council building and opened the entrance to his Pocket Home on the wall inside. The last thing he had to do was make Mana Batteries for both himself and the city. He had a few thousand gemstones to get through so he started where he had left off, with the most flawed gemstones.


    As expected, he didn''t have any major breakthroughs but after causing a few hundred gemstones to burst, he was getting a better idea of when to stop. By the time he had consumed a thousand, he had ended up with a just under a hundred small batteries with capacities ranging from 150 to 300.


    As he continued through his progression of gemstones, the capacities he ended up with grew exponentially as the gemstones approached flawlessness. By the time he had gone through another thousand, he had made a couple hundred more batteries but their capacities ranged from 300 to just over a thousand.


    After that, he only had a few hundred more so he was as careful as he could be. He managed to make a couple of batteries with capacities of 2314 and 4286 but he still hadn''t touched the last 5 gemstones he had been saving. Even though the gems used to create the 4286 and 2314 batteries were close to flawless, they still had minor flaws, tiny cracks and minor chips.


    The last 5 Felix had reserved, were entirely flawless to his eye. The first three were a small ruby with a perfectly spherical shape, an emerald beautifully cut with a triangular shape and a yellow gem called an Agyracrase, according to his ring, with a square shape.


    The last two were both the largest and most impressive to Felix, a diamond with a round cut and a deep blue gem cut into a perfect icosahedron with chamfered edges. The blue gem intrigued Felix the most and he had actually overspent a little on it in the auction because he liked the color so much. It looked almost like a sapphire in but under harsh light, it lightened to a beautiful almost baby blue. It was called a Caerulite, according to his ring and the auction.


    He had sorted them by size because his previous sorting method of how flawed they were didn''t work without any discernible flaws.


    Starting with the ruby, Felix did the same thing he had done with all the other gems. In his soul space, he pulled in a stream of mana from his mana pool and filtered it until it was as close to inert as he could make it. Once he couldn''t see any attunements or energy levels at all, he progressively pushed the mana into the gem from all sides. Once that cycle was complete, he pushed mana in from all sides at once then he looked inside as best he could and tried to feel out any vibrations or instability.


    With every other gem up to this point, he had had to wait and let the gem rest so it could restabilize. When he completed the next cycle, it would become unstable again, even worse than the last time. Each and every cycle the instability got worse and Felix just had to know when the instability on the next cycle would be too much so he could stop.


    With this gem, there was no instability he could detect, which was both scary and promising at the same time. On the one hand, it meant the gem would likely produce a huge battery, on the other, it meant Felix had no idea when to stop.


    He let it rest for a few minutes anyways, just to be sure then continued on with another cycle. He managed to get through another 50 cycles before he decided he had to change something. He started to gradually increase the amount of mana he was pushing into the gem with each cycle until, by the 100th cycle, he was pushing almost a thousand mana into the gem at once. Only by the 129th cycle did he feel any kind of vibration at which point he resumed his previous process of letting it rest until it became stable again.


    Unfortunately, without flaws, he had no idea how much instability was too much. With the other''s, he estimated it based on how flawed the gem was. Now, he would just be guessing. He ended up stopping when he hit 250,000 mana exactly, adjusting the last cycle to make it precise because he had finally matched his standard consumable battery size. It wasn''t the most useful to him, but to Grim or the city, it would be enormous.


    He decided to allocate the batteries once he finished but until then, he continued with the emerald. He managed to push that one to 436,000 before he stopped because he had never seen so much instability in a gem before.


    Moving onto the Agyracrase, Felix paid very close attention to the gem and started with a lot more mana per cycle. This time, he was fully prepared to have it burst because he needed to know how much a flawless gem could take. By the time he hit 750,000 mana, the gem itself was vibrating visibly instead of just internally. He was committed to seeing how far it could go though so he continued until he hit just over a million mana and the gem vibrated just a little then instead of the vibrations dying down, they increased until the gem shook and finally exploded.


    Paying careful attention to the gem, Felix had an idea for an improvement he could make on his process. Instead of sending bursts of mana at individual points along it''s surface one by one, Felix decided to instead create a wave of sorts that pushed mana into the gem more gradually but would still hit every point an equal amount. He figured since he had learned by adapting from a spell form, the spell form just didn''t have the ability to make a clean wave or this was easier to make. If it had created a clean wave of mana, the spell form would likely be far more complicated and therefore a higher grade spell.


    At least, he was hoping that was the case, either way he didn''t think it would hurt the gemstone and he was willing to potentially ruin the diamond, especially if it was a marked improvement. Starting with less mana than he had on the Agyracrase, Felix created a small wave of mana and pushed it into the gem then gradually moved the wave around to push mana in from all directions.


    Once he had completely covered it''s surface, he applied a burst of mana from all sides. Instead of pushing it in suddenly, he increased the pressure from all sides more gradually like a wave then backed off in the same way.


    He continued this cycle and very quickly hit a million mana as he increased the amount of mana he was using with each and every cycle. By the time he hit 4 million, the vibrations were far less noticeable and Felix excitedly pressed onwards. Unfortunately, by the time he had hit 4 and a half million, the gem suddenly exploded with no warning. He had been paying careful attention to the gem and even though he didn''t sense it visibly shake, it had still exploded. In hind sight, he suspected there had been an internal flaw in the gem that he had either missed or had no hope of seeing.


    While it was possible his new method caused more strain on the gem just in a different way, he had no way of knowing for sure because no two gems were identical. With only one gem left, Felix was left with the conundrum of whether or not he should continue using his new method or go back to the old one he had more experience with.


    Ultimately, he decided to use the new method because it wasn''t the end of the world if he failed. He would give the city the 250k mana battery and Grim the 436k battery so this one was for himself. He didn''t need a battery immediately and suspected he would be able to find more gems outside the integration so he could try again soon.


    All the smaller batteries he had made he would either sell or more likely just hand off to Noah to do whatever he wanted with them because he had no real use for them. At this point, a few hundred to a thousand mana was nothing to him and even if he used them for magical contraptions, they wouldn''t be sufficient for much.


    Felix carefully examined the Caerulite in his soul space a few times before he finally started. He wanted to make sure he couldn''t see any flaws. Once he had confirmed his previous examination''s results, he started with his new method and pushed mana into the gem.


    He started at a thousand mana and then doubled the amount in the gem with every cycle until the gem showed any signs of instability. It was slightly risky, but in his experience with all the flawed gemstones, shouldn''t result in a premature explosion. That only happened to three of the gems he had worked on, in total.


    He pushed mana into the gem all the way up to 1 million without seeing any instability whatsoever so he doubled it once again to just over 2 million mana. At that point, the entire gem started to almost pulsate when he completed the cycle. He let it rest while he collected enough aether to perform another cycle, with the portal to his pocket home open so he could pull from the real world.


    Once he had enough to do another he performed a cycle with just a million mana. As he pushed mana in he noticed the vibrations almost immediately ramp up so he stopped himself short. He had at that point managed to pour in a grand total of 4.1 million mana, which was already far larger than his own mana pool.


    Instead of risking it any further, he stopped, let the gem rest and cure before it''s final transfer into a housing. While he waited, he worked on a simply housing for the battery. The plans he had for mana batteries included a housing that evened out the mana entering and exiting the battery so the transfer was more distributed.


    It also stopped too much mana from being pulled out or put in at once. The design was basic and functional but Felix was pretty sure he could do better. The housing was designed with E grade batteries in mind, not that batteries really had grades, just capacities.


    As Felix made more batteries, he had noticed that the materials only indirectly affected the grade of the battery. The determining factor was the capacity. The two he planned on giving to the city and Grim were C grade batteries. The one he had just finished the initial phase for, he suspected would be at least in the C grade. Given it''s insane capacity, Felix felt it deserved a more appropriate housing than just the default design.


    Felix''s adjustments used a different lattice around the battery as well as more complicated channels. He also added a small mana collection array so the battery would refill itself, albeit slowly. He used the best inlay materials he had for the inscriptions and Starmetal for the outside. Once the housing was complete and the gem had cured, he carefully placed the prepped gem into the housing and sealed it.


    [B - Common] Mana Battery (4,100,000/4,100,000)


    [Large][Slow][Very Slow Recharge]


    A battery containing mana.


    4.1 M is B grade Common?


    Seems like it.


    Well I would say that was a resounding success.


    Ding You have gained 5 levels in [D - Arcane] Mana Engineer (217 => 222) Sear?h the ¦Çov§×lFire .net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    Felix pulled Grim out of his soul space and fed him the 436k mana battery then put him back. He exited his pocket home and conveniently found Noah right inside the council building.


    Noah immediately turned towards Felix and cocked a brow, "Did you just portal in here?"


    "No, that''s where my tower is now, pocket dimension."


    "Oh, of course."


    "Anyways, I have something for you." Felix handed him the completed 250k mana battery with a basic housing. It wouldn''t recharge itself, but it was functional.


    Noah stared down at it with wide eyes, "Woah, this is huge. Thank you. What does the city owe you?"


    Felix waved him off, "Oh, don''t worry about it. Think of it as my going away gift to Atalus I guess."


    "Shouldn''t we be the ones giving you gifts in this situation?"


    Felix shrugged, "Meh. I also have a couple hundred small ones I don''t need. I could sell them, but honestly I''m eager to get going."


    Noah frowned, "Wait, you''re leaving? Like soon?"


    "Yeah."


    Noah''s frown deepened, "Don''t you still have 5 months?"


    Felix shrugged, "Sure, but¡­ why wait?"


    Noah shook his head as he processed, "Oh my god, uh ok. You won''t leave until later today right?"


    "I was planning on leaving as soon as I gave this to you."


    Noah shook his head adamantly, "You can''t just leave like that. Did you already say goodbye to Benjamin, Will, Alan, Henry, Amelia?"


    Felix just looked at him blankly, "No."


    Noah sighed, "At least let me get them, I''m sure they''ll want to say bye to you."


    Felix nodded, "Fine. I''ll go grab Nova then open the portal from here."


    Noah smiled, "Perfect, how long will that take you?"


    Felix shrugged, "I don''t know a few minutes?"


    "That''s not long enough. Grab Nova and if I''m not back here by the time you get back, wait for me ok?" Noah said as he started walking towards the door, clearly in a hurry.


    Felix sighed, "Sure."


    "Alright, see you in a few." Noah nodded to Felix then rushed out of the building and disappeared.


    Felix pulled out the Starmetal mold he had been using and adjusted the anchor to the one on Endycor''s continent then funneled mana into the spell. He stepped through and mentally nudged Nova to come to him through their soul bond.


    He didn''t get a specific response but he saw Nova ascend out of the jungle way off in the distance. Endycor shot into the air next to them and they seemed to be racing towards him. He quickly darted off to the side so the dragon didn''t accidentally launch itself through the open portal and waited.


    It took them a little while to make it there during which time both of them cheated countless times. Instead of just racing, they attacked each-other in the air to try and make the other lose. By the time they crashed into the mountain on either side of Felix, Endycor was visibly panting and Felix could tell Nova was tired through their soul bond, despite their appearance.


    Felix had thought about dragging Endycor around with him but he already knew it wasn''t really safe for baby dragons in the multiverse and he couldn''t protect them from being hunted down. It was ultimately safer for the dragon to stay in the integration universe, which was a miracle in and of itself and Felix suspected the only reason it was born.


    Felix communicated to Nova that it was time to leave and that they would likely never see Endycor again. Nova was sad but quickly accepted that fact then seemed to somehow communicate it to Endycor as well.


    They screeched and paced in a circle then sulked a little but Nova breathed fire onto the dragon and they breathed back. That was apparently all that needed to happen because then Nova morphed back into a small cat and hopped into the folds of Felix''s robes. Felix carried Nova back to the portal while Endycor continued to sulk. He stepped through back into the council room then closed the portal to Endycor''s demesne.


    There was no one else in the building and even though he had agreed to wait, he was tempted to just open the portal now and leave. He decided against doing so because he did respect Noah, Benjamin and the others and doing so would be kind of rude and mean. He did get everything ready though. Using the mold he had used to get to Endycor''s demesne, Felix morphed the spell form mold and inlay material inside it into a new spell form. The portal spell form that targeted coordinates wasn''t drastically different from the anchor one, but it was different.


    Overall, it was more complex but held the same general shape and layout. All he had to do though was melt the inlay material until it was liquid then morph the mold into the new form. It didn''t take him long to shift it so he spent time checking his work by channeling his entire mana pool into the spell. It wasn''t enough to activate it, but it was enough for him to find a few flaws that he quickly fixed. Once he was done with that, he reabsorbed all the mana and sat at the table in the middle of the room.


    He fed Nova all the gem shards from the batteries that had exploded in his soul space and dumped all the smaller mana battery gems on the table for Noah to sort through later. None of them had housings but Henry had the schematics to make them. He also transferred everything from his inventory into his soul space.


    If he was right, there was no such thing as an inventory outside of the integration and he didn''t want all his shit dropping to the floor in front of him. All of the souls in his ring had been processed by now so Felix put all free points into intelligence and took a quick peek at his status screen now that he was ready to leave.


    Name:Felix KadeFREE0Innate:Ascendant Prodigy: Mana (Wizard)STR7902Class:[D - Legendary] Reaper (Lvl 221)DEX11839Race:[D - Unique] Wanderer (Lvl 221)AGI7165Profession:[D - Arcane] Mana Engineer (Lvl 222)PER10596Health:72490/72490VIT7249Mana:2564870/2564870INT23317Energy:343760/343760END8594


    This is it, this is what I leave the integration with. Think it''s enough?


    Probably fine, no real way to know though, right?


    As Felix waited for Noah, he created balls of mana in the air above him and started juggling them, constantly shifting their attunements and energy levels as he did. Shortly after he started, Nova popped out of his robes and started flying through the air to try and catch them.


    Juggling alone wasn''t enough for Felix anymore so he also crafted spell forms behind his back at the same time so Nova wouldn''t try and eat them. He played with Nova like that, him practicing his mana control and Nova just darting through the air to chase the tasty mana balls for almost an hour before Noah ran through the door.


    Noah audibly exhaled as he skidded into the room, "Oh thank god, I thought you might just leave anyways."


    Felix snorted, "I honestly thought about it."


    Noah shrugged, "Well, you stayed. Thanks."


    Following Noah were Benjamin, Will and Alan who all walked up to him and shook his hand.


    "Thanks John, for everything." Benjamin smiled and winked.


    "Felix." Alan just nodded.


    "So¡­ you bought Alan that bow and you enchanted Benjamin''s armor¡­ did you get me anything?" Will said with a mischievous grin.


    Felix thought about it for a moment then pulled out a blank spell scroll from his inventory along with his Parroukan Feather Quill.


    "I was kidding¡­" Will said as Felix leaned over the table and quickly traced out a Fire Ball spell form. Then he pulled out another and traced out a Lightning Bolt spell form. He reached out onto the table and grabbed the biggest battery gems he had made then handed all of them to Will.


    "Bring these to Henry, he''ll know what to do. This is Fire Ball and this is Lightning Bolt. Have fun, don''t kill anyone."


    Will looked down the bundle with wide eyes but couldn''t help himself, "Wow, you really put a lot of thought into that¡­"


    Felix shrugged, "If you don''t wan-"


    "No no, I want it. Thanks." Will took them and smiled then surprised Felix by hugging him. Felix hugged him back. Over Will''s shoulder, he saw Amelia walk in followed by Henry a few seconds later.


    "Are those all¡­" Henry said pointing to the table.


    Felix nodded, "Yeah, mana battery gems. Just need housings."


    Henry frowned, "How big?"


    "They vary."


    Henry nodded, "You leaving them here?"


    Felix nodded, "Yup."


    Henry nodded again, "I''ll ask Noah. Felix, thank you for everything. Stay safe out there, yeah?"


    "I''ll try."


    Henry shook Felix''s hand then walked over to the table and started sorting through the gems.


    Amelia just hugged Felix then smiled at him.


    Noah was the only one left and he walked up to Felix and shook his hand, "Thanks Felix. I know we disagreed¡­ disagree about some things but, you were a great city owner."


    Felix tilted his head, "Great?"


    Noah tilted his head in turn, "Well¡­ you left the important parts to people who knew better and did your best to assist us. From some of the stories I''ve heard¡­ I can''t really complain about how you actually ran the city."


    Felix cocked a brow and smirked, "You mean how you ran the city."


    Noah smiled, "Exactly."


    Felix shrugged, "Well, thank you. Now all you have to do is be better."


    Noah nodded, "I''ll try, well¡­ the council will."


    Felix tilted his head forwards in assent, "Of course."


    Noah sighed, "So this is it? You sure you don''t wan-"


    Felix didn''t want to let him start an argument at all, "Yes. This is it."


    Noah nodded, "So¡­ how do you get out of here?"


    Felix just pointed to the wall behind him, "I just open a portal."


    Noah frowned, "Just¡­ right here?"


    "Yup." Felix said then pointed at the spell form mold he had left on the ground.


    Noah just looked at him expectantly so he walked over and started channeling mana into the spell form. He blew through half of his own mana pool then started drawing on the battery he had just created. Unfortunately, it wasn''t very useful.


    Felix quickly realized that although the battery held a lot of mana, it was very slow to pull the mana out of it. He used it and the aether to slowly fill the spell form until finally, a portal appeared above the mold.


    Damn. Gonna have to revisit batteries later.


    He looked through and saw a large mostly white room with intricate arcane symbols inlaid with an emerald green material on the walls and floor. Through the portal, just a few meters away, there was a door on the wall but otherwise, it was simply an empty room from what he could see. The portal coordinates had shifted slightly when he had cast the spell but not by much. From what he could tell, there was nothing wrong with it.


    "You sure that''s right?" Felix heard Noah ask from behind him.


    Felix frowned, "What do you mean?"


    Noah pointed at it, "I mean it''s just black. How do you know what''s on the other side?"


    Felix''s frown deepened, "What do you mean?"


    Noah leaned forwards a little, "Through the portal, it''s just pitch black. Like there''s nothing there."


    Felix tilted his head, "I can see through it? It''s not black at all."


    Looking around the room, Felix realized he was the only one.


    Felix''s shoulders dropped as he realized what was happening, "Oh, guess you aren''t allowed to see outside the integration¡­"


    Noah sighed, "Well that''s disappointing."


    Felix shrugged, "Sorry."


    Noah scoffed, "It''s not your fault. Anyways¡­ Felix, it''s been a pleasure."


    Felix nodded to him, "Likewise, thanks for managing my city for me."


    Noah smiled, "No problem."


    Felix looked at everyone one last time then quickly opened his pocket home and lightly tossed Nova in. He felt a little bad just tossing them when they looked like a kitten, but they floated back over to the Demitium chunk and seemed elated to continue licking it. He closed his home then turned back to the portal. He lifted his foot to step forwards but was interrupted by The System.


    Congratulations!


    You have received a new title.


    Exile: 256th integration


    Earned for being exiled from the 256th integration.


    Warning


    You will not have access to an inventory outside of the integration universe. Transfer anything you wish to keep with you now.


    He had already expected the second screen and could care less about the first. He dismissed them both then finally, he stepped through the portal into the completely empty white room and let go of his portal spell, completely cutting himself off from the integration and his home universe. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 Chapter 184 - Book 1

    Felix looked around at the room around him that was made of some material he had no hope of identifying. The mostly white walls and floor were marred only by the door and the arcane symbols from a lightly glowing emerald green inlay. The ceiling was completely black, as if there was no ceiling at all and the room simply continued upwards forever.


    Felix took a breath, and silently thanked The System that he could breathe here, then took a step towards the door. Before his foot even made contact with the floor in front of him though, the door slid open in an instant. Standing in the doorway was what appeared to be a man except he had 2 pairs of eyes and a single horn that curved back originating in his forehead. His skin was a dark reddish brown color and he had a short black beard. Otherwise, he appeared completely humanoid. He wore a white full length robe and held a small sheet of metal in his hand.


    "Is this your first time here?"


    "Yes." Felix responded.


    "Makes sense. We haven''t seen a portal spell that ancient in¡­ well it''s ancient so." The man shrugged.


    Felix didn''t know what to say to that so he just stayed silent.


    "You also used¡­ very precise coordinates¡­ Where the hell did you get those?"


    "System."


    "That''s¡­ unusual. Sorry, doesn''t matter. This is your first time here so we''ll need to register you. Do you mind if I perform a preliminary scan?" The man tapped away at the sheet of metal in his hand, not bothering to look up.


    "No." Felix shrugged.


    "Excellent." The man gave a brief nod.


    The man simply stared at Felix for a few minutes then tapped once on the sheet of metal in his hand.


    He sighed, "Alright¡­ guess we do this the ancient way as well then. Could I have your name please?"


    "Felix Kade."


    "Two names? First and last?"


    "Yes¡­"


    "Alright. Grade and level?"


    "D, 221."


    "Perfect. Human? At least originally?"


    "Yes."


    "Alright. Are you carrying anything inordinately dangerous?"


    Felix thought through Eretheas, Grim and the two rings he wore then cautiously said, "¡­ Yes?"


    The man simply nodded, "Alright. You can go now. Please head through this door and just follow the hall."


    The man stepped aside and Felix walked through the door into a hallway that led in exactly a single direction. He followed it, along with the couple of times it made a turn and ended up at a large desk made of some unidentifiable material with a Drakene behind the counter. Seeing as there was nothing else in the room other than a door on the opposite wall, Felix walked up to the desk.


    The Drakene spoke to him from behind the counter, the eagerness in her voice apparent, "I take it you''re Felix Kade?"


    "I am."


    She leaned over the table and looked at him.


    "Alright. Let''s get you registered then and you can be on your way"


    The Drakene spent a few seconds doing something behind the counter then she reached out and handed a small disk to Felix. The disk was about the size of a large coin and had multiple holes around the outside. In it''s center, it read Felix Kade.


    "This is your registration. Try to keep it with you at all times. It identifies you and acts as a membership for public buildings like the library as well as some private buildings."


    "Library?"


    "Yup. Just look for the castle, it should be pretty easy to see from here. As for the rest of the city, your map should update automatically so you can just check that."


    "Oh, awesome."


    "Since this is your first time here and we can''t tell where you came from, try not to do anything stupid. The punishment for all crimes is permanent exile from the city. On the flip side though, everyone is pretty lenient about enforcement. If you do need help, just channel mana into your registration and an officer will come running. Try to avoid false summons though."


    Felix frowned, "What''s the punishment?"


    "There isn''t one. You might get fined or something if you do it too often but it''s more about wasted resources than anything."


    "I see. In terms of stupid things I shouldn''t do? Just in case my idea of stupid is different from the city''s?"


    "I have a list here if you''d like but steal, murder and so on. If you do steal, you''ll be given the chance to return or pay for what you stole to avoid punishment. As long as the other person explicitly consents to a fight, if you kill them you probably won''t be punished. Try to avoid fighting in general though because it tends to cause damage to the city which is strictly enforced."


    "I see."


    "In general, if you do something that somebody doesn''t like, they''ll call an officer over and they''ll sort it out on the spot. What else¡­ oh right, if you lose your registration, you can simply get someone else to summon an officer to escort you or head back to this building and we can get you a new one. Don''t worry about it being stolen, it''s keyed to you alone and impossible to forge."


    "Is there a cost to losing it?"


    "Nope. Again, you might get fined if you lose it repeatedly but that''s more preventative than recuperative. If you need to teleport back to the city, try to use the anchor on the back of your registration instead of the coordinates."


    Felix looked down at the small disk in his hands and flipped it over revealing, a portal anchor. The anchor symbol was far more complicated than the other''s he had seen, but he didn''t see any reason why it couldn''t function exactly the same.


    Mostly out of curiosity, Felix cocked his head, "Why?"


    She shrugged, "It''s easier on the teleportation anchor multiplexors. It''s not a huge deal but it''s less annoying."


    "The what?"


    The Drakene pointed towards the exit door, "You can go to the teleportation hub out that way and ask them or head to the library, they should have some information on it."


    Felix frowned and looked towards the hall he had come from, "Isn''t the teleportation hub just down the hall?"


    She shook her head, "Nope. It''s on the other end of the city."


    Felix took a step to the right and looked down the hall he had come from with a confused expression on his face.


    She nodded in understanding, "Yeah, that happens. You probably walked through a portal without knowing it."


    Damn I was so distracted I didn''t even notice the lurch in aether.


    She tapped at something behind the counter then looked over it again, "Can you fly?"


    "Uh¡­ yes?"


    She nodded, "Would you like to apply for a flying license now?"


    "What does that entail?"


    "Speed and maneuverability test. That determines how high you''re allowed to fly in the city."


    Felix shrugged, "Alright yeah, we can do that right here?"


    She nodded, "Yup, just head through the door at the end of this hall and loop around the track as fast as you can. Feel free to go around as many times as you like. Once you''re done, just stop for a few seconds and the course will change to an obstacle course. Loop around that as well then come back here."


    Felix followed her directions and headed down the hall she pointed towards which was the same one he had come from. At the end of it, he walked up to a sliding door that automatically opened and revealed a long circular race track. Felix walked into the room and onto the track then flew up into the air and started circling. Theoretically, he wasn''t sure if there was a limit to how fast he could go, it would just consume exponentially more mana. He also wasn''t comfortable going too quickly so he limited himself to how fast he would normally travel at.


    He looped around a few times then stopped and suddenly, a series of obstacles appeared consisting mostly of walls and balls. He circled around the track and avoided them as best he could but they started moving slightly as he flew. He slowed down a little to make sure he didn''t run into anything but managed to mostly avoid them. Once he was done, he stopped and started lowering himself to the ground but then, couldn''t help himself from reaching his hand out towards one of the walls.


    His hand simply passed right through it, which he was somewhat expecting. He hoped that didn''t count against him but he was too curious to resist. He dropped himself, fell to the ground then walked back through the door he had come in through and back over to the desk.


    She started speaking without even looking over at him, "Alright, I''ve updated your registration to include your license. You have access to green flyways. If you become faster in the future, just summon an officer and they''ll escort you up to blue level. If you can keep up with the speed, your access will be upgraded on the spot."


    Felix nodded, "What''s above blue?"


    She shook her head, "Blue is the highest. It has no maximum speed. Try not to fly through red or green flyways too quickly, if you''re much faster than everyone around you, you''re going too fast."


    Felix nodded, "Stupid question probably, are the ''flyways'' labeled?"


    She nodded, "You''ll understand when you see them."


    "Uh, ok."


    She looked over the counter and smiled at him, "Do you have any questions at all or need anything further from me?"


    "Uh¡­ what''s the city called?"


    Her eyes widened a little, "Oh, you''re that new. Well, welcome to Telviras, often referred to as the capital of the multiverse. We are currently located on the planet of Am''Dorez. Anything else?"


    "Uh¡­ Oh, how do people¡­ level up? I take it there aren''t just creatures to fight roaming around."


    "Good question. Most people teleport out of the city. If you don''t have anywhere to go though, there''s the adventurer''s guild where you can take various jobs. Some will have creatures you can safely slay for experience."


    Felix nodded, "Where''s that?"


    "Refer to your map. Don''t worry, it''s pretty hard to miss it. You might want to use a portal spire to get there from the library but it''s up to you."


    "A what?"


    She smiled, though Felix could tell it got just a touch faker every time, "You''ll see what I mean. Any other questions?"


    Felix shrugged, "Not at the moment I guess."


    She nodded, "If you do have any more questions, the library is a great place to ask. You can also come back here, to the registration center at any time. Feel free to leave this room through that door whenever you feel ready."


    The Drakene woman pointed to the door on the opposite wall from her desk, the only other door in the room. Felix thought for a moment to see if he could think of anything he should ask her but failed to come up with anything. He walked across the room and up to the door which slid open as he approached. Light poured in from the outside and blinded Felix for a few moments while his eyes adjusted.


    Once he could see again, Felix looked out from the top of a large tower down upon a sprawling city that was very different from what he had expected. Instead of an incredibly dense city with sky scrapers everywhere, the city instead seemed to be made up of architectural marvels covering the ground.


    In total though, the vast majority of buildings maxed out at around 5 stories. Each and every building looked like they might be historical monuments with intricate carvings, lattice work and structures. They all seemed to differ in style fairly drastically with some Victorian, some modern and other''s that were just plain weird.


    The weirdest thing about each of the buildings though was that they were each covered in doors. Felix saw buildings he could normally expect to have maybe a single door instead have 50 doors laid out on it''s front side in 5 rows of 10. The doors were perfectly uniform and fit the buildings they were attached to but each one of them had completely unique signage.


    He also saw doors on each side of the buildings, not just their fronts, though he was starting to think they didn''t actually have fronts at all. He was just so used to buildings having fronts and backs that he had assumed these did and looked for them.


    Between each of the buildings, on every side, there was more than enough room for people to move about and travel. Within those paths, arranged in a grid pattern around the city, Felix saw what he assumed were the portal spires. They were the only structures other than the one he was standing on and a few other odd exceptions he could spot that stood high in the sky.


    The portal spires were simply tall, thin spires with 4 sets of 4 evenly spaced portals on each side of the spires for a total of 16 portals per spire. He saw people entering and exiting from the portals all over the city, running through the pathways and flying over the city, all going about their day.


    The first thing he did was head directly to the library. As the Drakene woman had mentioned, the library was impossible to miss. It was one of the very rare exceptional buildings that stood far above the other buildings in the city. Felix confirmed using his map, but he saw and immediately assumed the massive castle made of sleek black stone off in the distance was the library. It was made entirely of angular walls, towers, parapets and main structure, not a single curve in sight. As far as he could tell, though it had many doors on the side he could see, it didn''t have nearly as many as most other structures in the city.


    He stepped off the balcony with no railing he had walked out onto and flew out just far enough to look back. The registration center he had just exited looked like a massive rectangular tower that ascended far into the air above him and extending an unknown height past the cloud cover above. Other than the balcony he had just stepped off of, there were thousands of balconies just like his all arranged in a grid pattern, each one with it''s own door.


    As far as he could see, it was by far the tallest building in the city, though the city extended over the horizon in every direction he looked so he had no idea whether or not that was accurate. Felix oriented himself towards the library and started flying in it''s direction, very aware of how fast he was going so he didn''t break the law. As soon as he got about a kilometer out from the registration center, he noticed a small floating ball in the air. It glowed a bright green color and seemed to be fixed in place, completely ignorant of the breeze.


    Looking above and below it, Felix saw a ball where the top half was blue and the bottom green just a few hundred meters above. Below it, there was another few green balls before he saw a ball with it''s top half in green and bottom in red.


    Flyway height indicators I guess.


    Felix made sure he was between the green balls then shot off towards the library. As he flew, thousands of people darted off in different directions, some passing him going in the same direction just faster than he was. Others, flew perpendicularly and others at random angles. Not everyone flew with their own bodies either, while some had wings or flew magically like Felix, other''s rode small vehicles.


    Felix saw vehicles that people straddled like bikes, other''s they stood on like surf boards. Some were much larger like cars but those were entirely located in the blue zone above him. There was no order to how and where people flew, no side of the street to stay on or lanes to stay in. Felix thought it was complete chaos and wondered to himself how there weren''t constant collisions. Just a few minutes after that thought though, he actually saw a collision.


    Two humanoid creatures with unidentifiable races due to their clothes, smashed into each-other in the air. One of them fell a little then recovered and the other plummeted to the ground. The one that had recovered simply continued on their way and the other continued to fall until someone caught them and flew off.


    Having seen the blatant disregard for the collision, Felix started watching around him vigilantly to avoid colliding himself. Luckily, it seemed that was a rare occurrence because he didn''t notice any other collisions as he flew. People seemed to be relatively aware of their surroundings and completely able to maneuver around each-other so Felix''s worries were slowly quelled.


    It took him a few hours to reach the library which was far more than Felix had expected. Looking out over the city and seeing the castle in the distance, he hadn''t actually realized how big the castle was and how far away the horizon was. He was so used to Earth and then Trenus that he had seen the castle about a third of the way to the horizon and thought it wouldn''t be that far away. He was completely misjudging the planet and the size of the building before him though.


    Whether or not the castle library was built by or for Giants, Felix thought it would very comfortably house them. While the doors themselves were large at about 10 meters tall, they were not proportional to the rest of the massive structure. The towers that marked the corners of the castle walls were perfect squares and hundreds of meters wide.


    Felix had no idea which of the 5 doors he saw to head towards so he simply stopped in the middle of the air, as he had seen others do, and checked his map. He had opened the map briefly to confirm this was in fact the library before, but hadn''t noticed anything different about Telviras'' map. He saw the general layout of the city just as his map had shown him for Atalus.


    Now though, Felix zoomed in. As soon as he did, the buildings around him came into focus. The library was so massive that it quickly dominated his map but as soon as it had, Felix saw small arrows and labels indicating the function of each door. The one he headed towards was the general door because realistically, he had no idea where to find anything yet. The other doors indicated a vault, study, fiction and a memory section.


    Felix approached the large double doors at the center of the wall that said ''General'' above them and entered into the library. The first thing he noticed was that no matter how large the building had been on the outside, the inside was bigger. As expected, there were thousands of bookshelves arranged neatly on each of the countless floors that stretched both above and below him farther than he could see.


    Initially, he had hoped he might be able to scan the library''s contents with his skill, though he knew it was far fetched. He then saw the actual building and realized how massive it was. Now, standing inside where the library was so much larger than the exterior of its building would suggest, he knew it was impossible. Even if he had the time to scan it in it''s entirety, there was no way his head could store all of this. Not now and Felix wasn''t sure if it could ever.


    On the floor he was on, Felix saw a massive array of desks though only the ones with customers had librarians behind them. Felix quickly walked forwards so he wasn''t in the flow of constant traffic moving in and out of the building and hesitantly approached one of the desks.


    As soon as he got within a meter of it, a librarian from somewhere deep in the shelves zipped over so quickly, Felix wasn''t sure they hadn''t just appeared on the spot. They seemed to be an elf of some sort judging from the ears but he couldn''t actually identify their race so he swapped his identification back to defaulting to names.


    [?] Sarseyran (Lvl ?)


    The elf nodded in Felix''s direction then reached his hand out, "May I have your registration please?"


    Felix handed her the disk he had been given just a few hours ago and waited. Sarseyran almost immediately handed it back to him and nodded, "First time then."


    Felix smiled, "Yup."


    He nodded once, "Is there something in specific you''re urgently looking for or would you like a tour and general information?"


    Felix nodded, "Can I get the tour and general information then ask specific questions afterwards? How much time do I get?"


    The man smiled, "I''m your personal librarian for as long as you need, within reason. You are welcome to ask me anything."


    Felix cocked a brow, he had a lot of questions, "What''s reason?"


    The man shrugged, "A hundred days? It''s completely up to me and I have nothing scheduled till around then."


    Felix scoffed, "Oh, alright that''s more than enough."


    "Thought so." Sarseyran walked around the desk and into the shelves. Felix assumed he was supposed to follow so he did.


    "This is the grand Telviran library built within the former castle of the empire, Am''Etaros. As you al-, likely already know, we stand on the planet of Am''Dorez. This planet most notably, before Telviras, housed the empire, Am''Etaros. As the empire grew, the city of Telviras, originally a vassal state, declared it''s independence with the full support of the emperor. Over time, the Am''Etaron empire fell to ruin but the city of Telviras, thrived."


    Felix nodded along as Sarseyran spoke, "Who was the emperor?"


    It''s gotta be some mythological person we''ve heard about right?


    "A man named Amos Etaros. I know, creative empire naming scheme."


    Nope.


    "The city of Telviras was located centrally to multiple notable surrounding star systems and through it''s neutrality from the empire and any religion, it became a hub for just about anything and everything. Once Am''Etaros had fallen the city was free to expand to the rest of the planet. It quickly tore down most of the old city but kept it''s more notable buildings, like the castle, and simply restored, repurposed and relocated them."


    Felix frowned and looked around him, "This castle was moved?"


    The man shook his head, "No, some of the churches and other more impressive structures were moved to fit within the city''s grid layout. The castle was not moved, that would be¡­ difficult to say the least."


    No kidding. Though maybe a god?


    "Given the city''s independence and neutrality, people flocked both to trade and live within it. The city grew as did the library we stand in now. It now houses the single largest collection of books in the multiverse¡­ well, that we know about."


    Felix frowned again, "What do you mean?"


    "It''s possible a god''s personal collection is larger but¡­ I doubt it. This collection of knowledge was started some time in the first few epochs of the city''s founding which was, itself, during the first integration. Maybe C- It''s unlikely."


    Felix''s frown grew deeper, "Epoch?"


    The man frowned as well, "I see, you''re that new. Not sure what measure of date and time you used but here, the generally accepted measures are one day for the full rotation of Am''Dorez. 10 days is a dekad. 4 dekads is a term. 10 terms is an epoch."


    Not that far off from week, month, year. It''s just 10 days instead of 7, 40 days instead of 28, 29, 30 or 31 and 400 days instead of 365. At least the divisions are nicer I guess.


    Felix looked around him in awe, "So this is almost guaranteed to be the largest collection of knowledge in the multiverse?"


    He nodded, "Highly likely."


    "Does that mean some of just about all knowledge is here?"


    The man scoffed, "No, not even close. The biggest gaps in the collection are secret technique, skill, profession and class manuals. Those are generally closely guarded by those who own them, which is most notably, the gods and their factions."


    "So this is all publicly available content in here?"


    Sarseyran nodded, "In the general section, yes. In the vault there are areas reserved for those who have access and those will contain¡­ well anything. I obviously can''t just go in and look so I don''t really know. The other sections are just more specific but more of the same and all publicly available."


    "Even the memories?"


    He nodded again, "Yup. That section just doesn''t contain any books, as you may have guessed¡­ it contains memories."


    "So I can read anything in here?"


    "Yes. It''s all publicly available. Try not to destroy or damage anything. We have replacements but we would still prefer if you avoided doing so. You are welcome to read, rent a copy or even purchase a copy of anything in here. It''s all run by The System so it should be pretty intuitive."


    I guess my library was run by The System too¡­


    "The shelves are organized based on topics. Each floor is a general topic, some topics covering multiple floors. From there, it get''s more specific. If you''re having trouble finding something, ask a librarian or use your map, it will show you the different sections of the library."


    Sarseyran led Felix to a large empty table in the middle area of the library, right next to the railing that surrounded a massive hole for traveling between floors.


    "Do you have any questions about the library itself or would you like to move on to specific information you''re looking for?"


    Felix nodded, "Eramith?"


    The man nodded immediately, "Widely considered to be the most prestigious educational institute in the multiverse, which is impressive given that it''s more or less neutral."


    Felix cocked a brow, "More or less?"


    "Just like the city, it''s neutral. Neutrality is a gradient though and I would say Telviras is more neutral than The Eramith Academy. Well¡­ yeah."


    Felix nodded, "Where is it?"


    "Are¡­ do you want the specific universe, star system, planet or something else?"


    Felix shook his head, "Oh, I guess I didn''t really think about that properly. How do I get in?"


    He looked at Felix with an odd expression, "By being one of the top few thousand individuals in the entire multiverse."


    Felix just looked at Sarseyran expecting them to go on, even though they seemed to believe that was a sufficient answer. Felix waited for a few seconds before they relented and continued, "The admission process is complicated. Generally you get chosen ahead of time and receive an invitation to apply at all. You''ll have to head to the school for the admission tests then assuming you pass, you''ll be admitted. Most people apply at around level 500 but that is not a hard requirement."


    Felix nodded, "How do I get there?"


    Sarseyran darted off into the shelves then ran back to the table they were standing around with a massive book in his hands. He placed it on the table and flipped to the first page then pointed.


    "That''s the portal anchor. Just bring it to the teleportation hub and get them to open a portal for you. You will need to provide your invitation and you''ll have to wait till the admissions are open, which should happen in about an epoch¡­ I think. Otherwise you won''t even be allowed to open the portal."


    "Could you get me a more exact date?"


    "I can¡­ one second please." The librarian darted off again, taking the book with them and no doubt replacing it, before hurrying back over to the table.


    "In 412 days, 13 hours admissions will be open."


    Felix nodded, "How often is the application open?"


    "Once every 100 epochs."


    Damn. So I have just over 400 days to hang out in the city I guess.


    You''re going to the school then?


    Felix mentally shrugged, I have a scholarship, I''ve already been accepted and it''s the most prestigious school in the multiverse. Seems stupid not to go.


    Grim mentally nodded, Agreed.


    So in the meantime¡­ adventurer''s guild I guess?


    That covers your class, what about your profession?


    Oh good call. Guess I can get a job.


    "How does money work, I take it credits are accepted?"


    "Yes. E grade credits are the base form but you will see some things priced in D, C, B and so on."


    "Do I need to pay taxes to the city if I buy things or get a job?"


    "Nope. No taxation."


    How the hell does that work?


    "Where would I go about finding a job?"


    "There are various job boards around the city, this happens to be the largest and most central one. I can retrieve some if you''d like, what kind of job are you looking for?"


    "Enchanting, I guess."


    Sarseyran just looked at Felix for a second or two but didn''t say anything then slightly shrugged and darted off into the shelves once again. He returned a few seconds later with another massive tome that was half his height and proportionally as thick. He placed it gently on the table then opened it to a random page near the middle. Felix looked down at the book and watched as ink morphed and shifted within the page to form, dissolve and reform job postings constantly.


    "How do you want to filter them?"


    "I guess C or D grade?"


    Sarseyran nodded, "Large or small establishment?"


    "What''s large mean?"


    "Largest enchanting operation in the city is Voyage''s enchanting plant with a few hundred thousand working there."


    "Small, very small by that standard. Let''s say 6 to 20 people I guess."


    He nodded then flipped the pages a few times until he was left with a list that moved around much less than the last one Felix had seen.


    Sarseyran looked up from the book, at Felix, "Anything else? This is still a really long list."


    Felix frowned, "How long?"


    "Tens of thousands."


    Felix just gaped.


    Fucking city is massive.


    Felix shrugged, "How about job posting has been active for only a few dekads at most?"


    "Would you prefer number of rejected applicants?"


    Felix nodded, "Yes actually. Can you show me the top and bottom 1% of the list according to rejected applicants?"


    "Yes I can, just give me a second." Sarseyran then flipped the pages seemingly at random, to Felix, until they ended up with a smaller but still massive list. Felix took a peek at the list and saw the bottom 1% of the list was entirely brand new postings so he got Sarseyran to remove those. He had been hoping their might be a hidden gem of some kind down there but with the robust filtering system at play, it appeared that wasn''t the case.


    Sarseyran looked at Felix, "Pay?"


    Felix shrugged, "Sure I guess sort that by the top 1% again."


    Sarseyran looked at him like he was an idiot, "Alright, these are going to be the most exclusive jobs you realize?"


    Felix shrugged again, "Yeah, I might as well apply and see." sea??h th§× N?vel(F)ire.¦Çet website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    Sarseyran snorted and shook his head, "Good luck. I''ve got 4 postings for you. Give me just a second and I''ll get you their information."


    The librarian darted off with the job posting book in tow then returned about a minute later with a sheet of paper that he handed to Felix.


    Sarseyran handed Felix the paper with a smile, "Here you go. You should be able to find them all using your map''s search function pretty easily."


    Felix frowned, "I can search on my map?"


    Sarseyran shook his head almost imperceptibly, "Yes you can. You can also filter down places similarly to how I just did."


    "That''s ridiculously convenient."


    He nodded, "Yes it is. Any other questions?"


    "If I want to buy and sell things, where do I go?"


    "Depends on the item. You could look for a large store or a more specialized one, depending on the value of the item and how much you value your time."


    Felix nodded, "Okay but, any store will buy things from me?"


    "Generally yes, assuming they would carry that item. The Voyage department store won''t, they only carry Voyage made products and they don''t buy those back from you."


    I guess it''s just a big company?


    "I''m likely heading to the adventurer''s guild next, anything I should know?"


    "They''ll probably tell you all this when you get there but don''t exaggerate your ability. Try to be as accurate as possible. If you do exaggerate, you could end up on a job you can''t handle which could mean death. Be picky with the jobs you take, some will be undesirable and some will try to hide that fact."


    "Glad I asked. I can''t think of anything else."


    "Okay well, good luck." Sarseyran nodded to Felix then disappeared amongst the bookshelves.


    Felix had a decent number of things he needed more knowledge on but most of them were spell forms, enchantments and mana. He also had quite a few general questions but none of them were urgent and they were almost entirely curiosity. He figured he would come back and ask another time because he wanted to get settled as quickly as possible.


    The first thing he had to do was register himself at the adventurer''s guild. Opening his map, Felix willed the search function to appear and quickly found the adventurer''s guild south-south-west of the library. Judging from his map, the adventurer''s guild was about as far from the library as Trenus''s entire circumference times anywhere from 3 to 5. It was hard to estimate given the distance but he was definitely interested in the Drakene registration desk lady''s recommendation to look at the portal spires.


    Felix looked around at the countless books around him and promised himself that he would return then exited the building and flew off towards the nearest portal spire. He approached it from the air and examined it briefly but it was fairly self explanatory. The bottom portal had a 0 above it, the one above that had a 1. The topmost portal had a 3 above it. Felix shrugged and flew into the bottom portal, matching the speed of the other people at that height.


    As he had expected, he appeared exactly one spire away in the direction he had flown. He flew back through it just to confirm then flew into the one above that. This time, he traveled much further than he expected, 10 spires to be exact. When he tested the one above that, he traveled 10 times further again for a hundred spires. As expected, the last portal at the top of the spire sent him one thousand spires away.


    Felix oriented himself southwards then flew through the top portal. He had much further to go though so he looped around the spire and went through the top portal pointing south once again. He continued to fly through portals and loop around the spires until he slightly overshot his journey then readjusted and flew west.


    Instead of taking him weeks, or dekads, the journey had taken him less than an hour in total. If he had been more proficient with the portal spires too, he could have reduced that even further.


    The adventurer''s guild was another one of the buildings that seemed to be an exception to the low rise rule. The building looked to Felix like an ancient temple that just refused to decay. It was an odd sight to wrap his mind around because while the tower was covered in multicolored plant life and vegetation, the intricate stonework he saw peeking through was completely unmarred by the throes of time. There were no missing chunks or discoloration of any kind, it looked pristine, from the small chunks of the structure he could actually see. It seemed as though the vegetation had been placed all over the tower purposefully and then it was left to grow however they pleased.


    He saw a vast grid array of doors all around the top section of the structure starting from the second story and continuing all the way up to the cloud cover above. Looking at his map, those seemed to be individual rooms, according to the ones it labeled. Some didn''t have labels at all either because they were kept secret or they simply weren''t relevant to him.


    The main doors on the bottom floor, were a set of large stone slabs about 30 meters high that were folded open, flanked by the statues of two beasts Felix couldn''t identify. One looked like a lion with far too many heads and the other appeared to be a dinosaur or something closely resembling one.


    Felix walked in through the doors and once again, stepped into a space far larger than the building should have been able to contain. Directly in front of him was a large circular desk with multiple people standing within it. Along the sides of both walls were individual desks separated by small dividing walls, almost like cubicles. Between those and all across the floor were thousands of tables, benches, couches, booths, small rooms and a whole lot of people occupying them. On the far wall Felix saw a long unseparated bar that seemed to serve food and drinks. Lastly, turning around to figure out what the crowds were looking at, Felix saw large boards covering the wall behind him that seemed to contain thousands of contracts.


    Felix approached the large circular desk in the middle of the room and directly in front of him because it had a sign that read, ''Main Information Desk.'' He had to wait a few seconds for a couple other people to be dealt with before he could step right up to the counter. A human man wearing what Felix would call a variant on a tuxedo turned to him.


    "Hello, what can I help you with?"


    Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.


    "I''m-"


    "Registration? Head over to desk number 482."


    Felix followed the man''s finger as he pointed and headed over to one of the desks separated into a boot on the right wall. Desk number 482 was a fair distance into the building which meant Felix got a good view of a lot of the people inside.


    Some of them seemed to know each-other as they talked and laughed together, other''s seemed to be waiting for someone. Amongst the thousands of people Felix had glanced over, he had seen thousands of races. He wasn''t sure if there was simply a lot of variance in each individual race but the number of skin colors, heights, horns, orifices, limbs all varied drastically. The majority of people he saw were either human, elves, Drakene, and another race he wasn''t sure what to call. Those races made up about 60% to 70% of the population and the rest all looked unique.


    Approaching desk 482, he saw standing behind the desk, a female of that common race he couldn''t identify. She was about 30% taller than him with dark grey skin and two curved horns that originated on her forehead. She had long, dark red hair and wore a pale blue dress.


    She spoke as he approached, "You''re here to register with the guild?"


    "I am."


    She reached her hand out, "Could I have your registration please."


    Felix handed her the disk which she took for just a few seconds then handed back to him.


    She tapped away at something as she spoke, "Will you be taking or posting jobs?"


    "Taking. Do I have to register again to post jobs? Or am I not allowed?"


    "You can post, just have to go through a different process. A lot of it''s the same we just want to make sure you''re credible and have the funds to pay out the reward. With taking jobs, we want to make sure your skill level is at least close to what you think it is. Keeps you safe and the job poster happy."


    Felix nodded, "I see. Just taking jobs for now."


    She smiled, "Alrighty. Are you willing to share your stats with the guild so we can recommend jobs for you?"


    Felix winced a little, "No¡­"


    She smiled and nodded, "Alrighty, no problem. If there were 5 of you with different classes but similar total stats, with your ideal party composition, what''s the highest level creature you could take in a head to head fight?"


    What the hell kind of question is that?


    Felix was pretty sure the answer was at least close to the C grade but he didn''t want it to be too unbelievable, "Uh 750?"


    She looked at him with a cocked brow then shrugged, "Alrighty. Do you have any specializations outside of combat or is combat your focus?"


    Felix winced again, "Mana?"


    She leaned forwards, her brow still cocked, "Sorry, could you be more specific?"


    "Not really?"


    Her head tilted to the side a little, "Like¡­ enchanting, engineering, contraptions, spells, rituals, magical creatures¡­"


    "Yes?"


    She just looked at him blankly for a minute then nodded, "Alrighty. Would you be willing to take a proficiency test to validate your proficiency?"


    "What kind of test?"


    She sighed, "In this case, likely a mana control skill cube. That''s the best I can do for something as general as: ''Mana.''"


    A mana control cube is enough for all that?


    Felix shrugged, "Sure."


    "Alrighty, I''ll be right back." She opened a door behind her that Felix didn''t even realize was there then disappeared for a few minutes. When she came back, she handed Felix a metal cube that Felix needed two hands to hold.


    [D - Special] Skill Test Cube: Mana Control


    A skill testing cube to test mana control.


    AKA: Puzzle Box, Enigma Cube etc.


    Felix took it and pushed mana into it, felt the cube respond and then solved it in under a minute or so. The box popped open but there wasn''t anything inside. He handed the cube back to the woman, over the desk.


    "Uh¡­ One second please." She took the cube then disappeared again. She returned a few minutes later with another cube, this one Felix could hold in one hand.


    [C - Rare] Skill Test Cube: Mana Control


    A skill testing cube to test mana control.


    AKA: Puzzle Box, Enigma Cube etc.


    Felix took the cube from her hands and pushed some mana into it. This one required him to supply almost a million mana which was absurd but it wasn''t very difficult. All in all, they didn''t even come close to how hard the Arcane one had been that Grim was stored inside of. He completed the C grade cube in about 10 minutes, mostly limited by how fast he could pump mana into it, then handed it back to her.


    She seemed to be ready for that so she reached under the desk and pulled out another cube, this one seemed to be made entirely of stone, which was just weird to Felix. It was only a few inches wide which Felix greatly appreciated because the first cube, the big one, was just unnecessarily unwieldy in his eyes.


    [D - Epic] Skill Test Cube: Mana Control


    A skill testing cube to test mana control.


    AKA: Puzzle Box, Enigma Cube etc.


    Back to D grade?


    Remember that Mind, Body, Mana book?


    Yeah I know, highest ever completed was an Epic skill cube. How out of date do we think that book is?


    Might want to be careful with this one.


    Felix looked up at the woman while he held the skill cube just below the desk and started pushing mana into it, "Has this cube ever been opened?"


    "A couple of times¡­ Maybe three actually? We don''t keep records lying around."


    "I read a book a while back that claimed a B - Epic Mana control cube was the greatest mana control feat ever accomplished. Was that a really old edition?"


    "Yeah, that would have had to have been transcribed at least¡­ a hundred integrations back? I''m honestly not up to date on these things myself, but I''m pretty sure someone did a legendary one a few integrations ago. It was kind of a big deal and lots of rumors were started around it."


    Seems safe to open it.


    Agreed.


    "I see. Where could I get more information on feats like that in general?" As Felix distracted the woman, he completed the box just below the desk and opened it.


    "Probably just ask a librarian, that''s what I''d do."


    Felix feigned a nod so he could quickly glance down and saw that the cube was empty, so it had in fact been previously opened.


    "Thanks. Here you go." He handed her the cube and she just stared at him blankly for a few seconds. She seemed to be having trouble processing what happened but she managed to slowly reach out and take the cube from his hands.


    "Alrighty¡­ uh¡­ give me a second please."


    Oh shit.


    She disappeared through the door behind her then came back a few minutes later.


    "Sorry about that. I just had to get approval to put a Grand Master tier proficiency on your sheet. Anything else you want listed?"


    "Listed? How does this work exactly?"


    "There are two different ways to get a job here. One, you can look for an open job that anyone can accept and take that. The alternative is to be specifically requested for a job. Either a preestablished team has a specific need or the poster needs a specific skill so they filter out and look for people. You''ll appear under mana proficiency filters, if you''re okay with that?"


    "That''s fine. What are the chances I get requested?"


    "I''d say fairly high. Grand Master tier proficiencies are very rare."


    "How rare?"


    "There''s a decent chance you''re the only active adventurer with a Grand Master tier ''mana'' proficiency. If not there probably aren''t more than a few if I had to guess."


    "Can we list that as Expert instead of Grand Master?"


    "I can. If you''d like, we can have the internal proficiency be Grand Master then we''ll only ever show anyone Expert. That way you can upgrade it if you need to in the future."


    "Sure, that sounds fine. How common is it to downplay like that?"


    "Not common but it happens. Some people just like to play it safe."


    "Gotcha, yeah let''s list it as Expert."


    "Alrighty. I have unproven combat proficiency at high D grade with an Expert tier Mana proficiency. You''ll appear in searches that require experience with enchantments, wards, contraptions, rituals, magical creatures and spells. Is that all accurate?"


    Is it not weird that a mana control cube is enough for all that? I don''t have that much experience with crafting rituals or even enchantments.


    Grim mentally shrugged, I guess it''s just so rare to beat mana control boxes with that rarity that they just¡­ assume?


    Still¡­


    It probably wouldn''t be enough for an expert proficiency in rituals I would guess. You have an expert proficiency in mana and that means you have some ability or experience with rituals and so on? I guess?


    Felix mentally nodded along, Yeah, I guess that makes more sense. It''s like if you had expert proficiency at blacksmithing. That doesn''t necessarily mean you''ve ever made a sword in your life and you aren''t an expert swordsmith.


    But your experience with a forge would translate somewhat.


    So they list it anyways.


    Grim mentally nodded, Something like that.


    "Yeah, sounds good to me."


    "Alrighty. Would you like to be listed by your name or would you rather go by a pseudonym?"


    "My name is fine."


    "Alrighty. Lastly, are you ok with your location being shared with other adventurers?"


    "Why¡­?"


    "Basically, if someone finds you in a search, which I assume you''re alright with?"


    "Yeah, that''s fine."


    "If someone finds you in a search and they want you for a job, they can request your location. As long as they have a legitimate job and are registered with the guild, we''ll give them your location. Then they can go find you and pitch you the job."


    "Oh, that''s fine."


    "Alrighty. That usually only happens if it''s urgent, otherwise they''ll leave a message with the guild. Make sure you come to a desk to check your messages when you can."


    "Okay, anything else I should know?"


    She smiled, "Nope. You should be good. Is there anything else I can help you with today?"


    "Is there anything else I can do here?"


    "Other than apply for and take contracts you can buy food or drinks at the back bar, sell items to the guild itself and rent rooms. That''s most of what we do."


    Felix nodded, "I don''t need any of that right now. Thanks, I guess that''s everything for now."


    "Alrighty. Feel free to come back anytime if you have any questions or concerns."


    "Thanks."


    Felix nodded to the clerk then turned around and headed back to the front door. Before he looked into any jobs from the guild he wanted to at least apply to the enchanting shops. He had a list of 4 job postings from all over the city. Looking towards the sky, the sun was only just past it''s peak.


    He pulled up the clock The System provided him and saw it was only two pm, though he wasn''t exactly sure if the days were the same length here as they were on earth and Trenus. He doubted it just because of the size of the planet but he didn''t want to head back to the library at the moment and also didn''t want to ask a random person.


    He also had no idea how long the typical work day was or how long the shops would be open. He just figured he would keep applying until he got through his list or the sun set. He started with the first job on the list, an enchanting shop called The Griffin''s Claw Enchanting Shop. It was mostly east from the adventurer''s guild a fair distance away so Felix located the nearest portal spire and shot off in it''s direction.


    Using his map, he pinpointed the shop as the 3rd door from the left on the second row from the bottom of a metal looking building that was almost perfectly reflective. He flew over and opened the door to the shop then walked into the lobby. Though he couldn''t see the majority of the shop located behind the front counter, the lobby area alone was far bigger than it should have been. Once again, looking from the outside with the doors half a meter apart from each-other, the inside of the shop had no right being as large as it was.


    There was a young man who appeared to be a cross between a man and a wolf standing behind the desk.


    "Here to pickup or commission?"


    Felix smiled, "Looking for a job actually."


    He nodded, "How much enchanting experience do you have?"


    "I''ve been enchanting for just over an epoch or so."


    The wolf man winced, "Uh¡­ you have an enchanting based profession?"


    Felix tilted his head, "Sort of. It includes enchanting as part of it."


    He smiled at Felix with more than a little pity in his eyes, "D''ya have any of your work on you?"


    "I enchanted my armor? Though it''s more spell inscriptions than enchantments¡­"


    The wolf man rubbed his forehead, "Uh¡­ Look, kid I think this job might be a little above you. Try to find someone to apprentice under for at least 5 epochs or so then come back. Bring your best work with you too. We''re always hiring and I''m sure we''d be happy to talk then but right now, you just don''t have enough experience."


    Felix nodded, "Alright, thanks for your time then."


    Felix politely nodded and walked back out the door.


    Well that was a bust.


    Grim mentally sighed, You could have revealed at least a little bit more to him.


    I could have but¡­ honestly, that''s not the kind of shop I want to work for. Judging from the conversation alone, it''s just not my vibe. Considering there were thousands of job postings, I think I can afford to be a little picky.


    Alright, up to you.


    I mean worst case I can come back and show them my Expert proficiency, that would probably be enough¡­ right? I think?


    Whether or not he could have convinced them, Felix didn''t love the fact that the wolf man didn''t even seem to consider him at all. While he knew he was lacking in a lot of aspects of enchanting, he also knew he wasn''t a bad enchanter. What he was really missing was knowledge, he believed he had the skill. He decided though that if all 4 of the postings he was heading to rejected him, he would spend some time designing and enchanting something he could show off.


    What he was hoping for was someone who was willing to take hire Felix even though his knowledge was severely lacking based on his potential and skill. He knew that was a tough ask but he was willing to try anyways. Ideally they gave him a practical test as part of the interview.


    The second shop was located in a gothic looking building with dark stone, pillars and intricate tracery on the doors. Each door was separated by a tall pillar and guarded by their very own completely unique gargoyle. The one above the door for the Precision Enchantments shop appeared to be a gargoyle scribing something with a quill onto a breastplate.


    Felix approached then opened the door and looked into a large open workspace with barely anything in it. There were a couple of desks laid out around the room and an assortment of tools but given the size of the room, it was practically empty. There were a handful of boxes and bins in the back corner and sitting upon them, was a man about half of Felix''s height who appeared to be reading a book. Felix didn''t see anyone else in the room.


    The man looked over at Felix as he entered and hopped off the boxes, "Sorry about the mess, we''re kind of still setting up. If you''re looking for us to enchant something for ya, it might take a bit longer than it normally would. I can assure you the quality''ll be top notch though."


    "Actually, I''m here about the job you posted?"


    The man''s eyes widened a little then he sighed, "Oh¡­ sorry but, you''re not what we''re lookin for."


    Felix tilted his head and frowned in confusion, "What are you looking for?"


    "Nothing against you, you may have a ridiculous amount of raw talent. We just started up, me and some buddies of mine. We want to create an enchanting shop where it''s just a small group of highly experienced enchanters. Ideally, we want everyone to bring over their clients too."


    Felix nodded, "Ah, makes sense."


    "Yeah, sorry about that. Good luck with the job search!"


    "Thanks."


    Though it was disappointing, Felix felt like that interview went a lot better than the last. Though he wasn''t even really considered, again, the man was nice and his reasoning was solid. Felix was just hoping the trend continued.


    He wasted no time as he headed towards the next enchanting shop which was a fair distance away. Checking the System provided clock, it was just after 3. He expected he would make it to the next shop by about 4 but he wasn''t sure when they would close and head home, he just hoped he was going to make it in time.


    He arrived at the building just after 4 which was later than he had hoped but still acceptable. The building was a large old stone building reminiscent of ancient Roman ruins, except in pristine condition. Around each door there were pillars that started from a small landing and rose up to an arch above them. The entire building seemed to be made of some kind of marble and the doors themselves each had the shops signage carved into them.


    He quickly found the door that indicated ''Inscripticae'' and pulled it open. Inside, the building did not match the outside. There was a desk off to the right that was only a few meters long. Past that, Felix saw multiple doors on each side of the hall, each one just a few meters from the next.


    Behind the desk, or anywhere else in the entire shop as far as he could see, there was no one there. He simply walked up to the desk and waited for a few minutes then got impatient.


    Felix leaned over the counter and called out, "Hello?"


    "Coming!" Felix heard a woman''s voice call back.


    He waited for a few minutes before a tall horned woman with light brown skin and long white hair ran in from around the corner.


    She chuckled as she slid in behind the front desk, "Sorry about that, didn''t have any appointments and we rarely get walk-ins. What can I do for you?"


    Felix nodded, "I''m here about a job posting."


    She looked at him with a raised eyebrow and a cheeky smirk, "Are you now? One second."


    She disappeared again back where she came from and Felix heard her call out, "Aldahn, you''ve got another applicant!"


    A few moments passed before what looked mostly like a human man appeared behind the desk. The only thing separating him from a human as far as Felix could tell, was that he had four eyes.


    The man looked at Felix with a knowing smirk, "You here to apply as an enchanter?"


    "I am."


    "Excellent. I''ll meet you in one of the meeting rooms just down that hall." Then he hurried out from behind the desk and disappeared. Felix looked down the hall at the series of about 10 doors.


    He didn''t say which one.


    Felix walked over in front of the doors and waited. A few moments later, he head a door closing behind the third one so he he opened it and walked in. He saw the four eyed man, Aldahn he assumed, sitting at the table in the middle smiling at him. Felix closed the door behind him and sat down.


    The man smiled and nodded, "Excellent, you found the right room."


    Felix frowned, "Was that a test?"


    He shrugged, "Sorta. Did you just check each one in a line?"


    Felix shook his head, "Nope. Waited for you to close your door and heard it."


    He smiled, "Name?"


    "Felix Kade."


    He nodded and stared at Felix with four piercing eyes, "You a good enchanter?"


    "I think so."


    "So if we asked you to-" At that moment, the four eyed man was interrupted by the door behind him opening to reveal a very tall, very muscular man with slate grey skin and two horns. He had long black hair and a scruffy beard that looked more like he was unshaven then it was a particular choice. He wore a leather apron, a white shirt and simple brown pants. Hanging in the neckline of his shirt, was a pair of glasses that Felix thought would be too small for his face.


    The man looked down at the four eyed individual and sighed, "Inorim, get the hell out of here."


    The man in front of Felix turned back, "Oh come on, you didn''t even let me get to the punchline."


    "Get out." The large man said with more exhaustion than exasperation.


    "Sorry boss. He''s a smart kid that one." The man that had been sitting across from Felix got up and squeezed through the doorway and around the large muscular man that had interrupted them. After Inorim, apparently not Aldahn, left, they closed the door behind them and the real Aldahn sat down.


    "Sorry about that." He said through a sigh. "Inorim goes a little too far sometimes. I''m Aldahn, I own the shop."


    Felix smiled, glad that wasn''t the boss, "Felix Kade. No worries."


    He leaned back in his chair adding to the look of being generally exhausted, "So Felix, what are you looking for?"


    "I''m looking for a job as an enchanter. I''ve already been to two places and I know I''m only in the early D grade and I don''t have any classical training."


    "Oh, you''re here about the job." Aldahn looked pensive for a second while he crossed his arms, then he shrugged, "I''ve got no problem with any of that. Are you any good?"


    "I think so." Felix said confidently.


    "I guess we''ll find out. Where are you from by the way?"


    "Uh¡­"


    Aldahn shook his head, "It''s totally fine if you don''t want to say. What do you mean by no classical training?"


    "I''m completely self taught¡­ sort of. I''ve been taught through some books but most of what I know is from System dungeons."


    Aldahn squinted at Felix, "System dungeons? As in multiple? You learned enchanting from them¡­" Aldahn just frowned, "Wait¡­ are you¡­ you''re from the integration? You''re an integrated? The 256th?"


    Oh shit, I guess dungeons aren''t that common in the rest of the multiverse. Well, that didn''t take very long.


    Felix sighed, "Yeah¡­"


    "Holy shit. Why didn''t you just say so?" Aldahn went from looking exhausted in general to sitting up and engaged in an instant.


    Felix was a bit taken aback by his sudden enthusiasm, "I wasn''t sure how people would react, whether or not I should tell people."


    He nodded, "Guess you wouldn''t. Well, I''m glad you didn''t, otherwise those other two places you applied to probably would have hired you on the spot."


    Felix frowned, "Really? I kind of doubt that. Why?"


    "The integration started what, an epoch ago? You might be the fastest integration escapee I''ve ever heard of. Any escapee is usually ridiculously talented, that''s the only way The System lets you out."


    Felix winced, "I''m not sure about ridiculously talented. It kind of kicked me out though so I didn''t really have much of a choice."


    Aldahn frowned again, "Kicked you out? What do you mean?"


    Felix shrugged, "It told me I had to leave."


    "Huh¡­ Look kid, I''m very interested in hiring you. I''m not just gonna hire you outright though without some kind of test. Before all that, would you mind giving me the whole story? Honestly, I''m just curious. Can you show me the title by the way?"


    "How about I give you the whole story after the test? I''d rather not go around giving the whole story to just anyone¡­" Felix quickly equipped the title he had gotten which caused Aldahn to frown then shrug and seemingly accept it. Felix dismissed the title because he did not want that to appear when he was identified.


    "Sure, fine by me. You don''t have to tell me anything at all by the way, if you''d rather not. Just sounds interesting is all. I know you don''t have much classical training and you aren''t familiar with all the terminology and whatnot, but I can work around that. You up to do a test right now?"


    "Yeah, I''m ready."


    "Alright perfect, follow me into the shop."


    Aldahn stood up from the table and opened the door behind him then walked through it. Felix followed suit and entered into a large area with about 20 large work tables laid out in a grid 5 by 4. Each one was equipped with a complete set of tools, most of which Felix couldn''t even identify.


    In one of the corners of the room, one of the work tables was much larger than the others and was spaced out separately. It was easily big enough for 5 people to work at it without ever interfering with each-other.


    Running along the far left wall, there was a staircase that led up to a room with a large window overlooking the shop. Felix could see a few people in there but not much else about the room.


    Aldahn led him to one of the work tables and gestured for Felix to stand on one side of it. Looking around, Felix saw Inorim, who winked at him, along with the woman, who had initially met him at the front desk, working at their own tables.


    Aldahn nodded to Felix, "Alright, test is simple. I''m gonna give you some enchantments and I want you to see if you can find any flaws with them. If you do, fix them if you can, just identify them if you can''t. After that, I''ll get you to try and replicate some enchantments and I''ll provide some nodes for you. The vast majority of them will be unnecessary but a few of them will be useful. If you can, try to verbalize your thought process. That work for you?"


    Felix nodded, "Sounds good to me."


    Aldahn smiled then walked over to the far left wall and through a door beneath the staircase. He came back a few minutes later with a simple breastplate and laid it down on the table in front of Felix then crossed his arms and watched.


    The first thing Felix did was pick it up and examine it both with his mana senses and visually. Thanks to his, previously Mana Sight now Reaper''s Sense skill, he could actually see the enchantment which he knew wasn''t supposed to be visible. He followed the enchantment around the breastplate and found multiple inactive sections.


    They didn''t seem to be flawed though, just large dead ends. He really didn''t want to just hit it in case it retaliated somehow so instead, he forced the issue. Using his mana control, Felix pushed mana through the entire enchantment so he could map it out. He only used a trickle but even then, he could tell what the function of the enchantment was.


    Felix spoke without looking up from the breastplate, "This ignites itself when hit. It seems to spew fire out in all directions, is that¡­ a desirable effect?"


    Aldahn nodded, his poker face completely flawless, "In this case, yes. This was initially designed for a sentient Fire Elemental."


    "Alright then that''s not a flaw. It''s rough though. I''m not sure how to fix it exactly but¡­ right here in the middle, the mana is all turbulent. When the breastplate is struck, the mana rushes far too quickly through the channels. Either swap out the channels or even out the flow with a rate limiting node."


    Aldahn just looked at him blankly, "Is that all?"


    Felix shrugged, "Most of it. Everything else is minor. This is a major design flaw. There are a few kinks here and here and this node is imperfect but those are so minor in comparison. Do you want me to fix them?"


    Aldahn nodded, "If you can."


    Felix winced, "Any chance you could supply me with a quill? Mine is only E grade."


    Aldahn pointed towards the desk, "Of course. Check the top drawer on the left."


    Felix backed up a step and opened the indicated drawer and saw about 50 quills all neatly organized in a horizontal quill holder. He carefully examined them and was tempted to ask which was the one he could use then thought better of it. The quills were organized by tip size, as far as he could tell. He looked at the breastplate and picked up the quill he thought was the right size then pushed mana into it.


    Immediately, the quill heated up until the tip was red hot. Felix shook his head, pulled all the mana back out then replaced it in the drawer. He picked up the quill of an almost identical size next to it and supplied some mana. It began vibrating. He tested a few others until he settled on a quill that seemed to be sharp so it could scrape itself into a material.


    Looking at the breastplate, Felix tested a tiny corner of it on the inside so it wasn''t visible then carefully adjusted the kinks and flawed nodes to the best of his ability. The enchantment was so fine that it was actually kind of difficult for him to get it exactly as he had imagined it, but he didn''t make it any worse. It was better, but not perfect. To a trained eye, his minor fixes would stand out though as evident patch work.


    He was about to declare he was finished but then he took another look at the turbulent area in the middle of the breastplate and decided to try his hand at fixing it. Instead of adding a rate limiting node which would be impossible without sanding out the enchantment and starting fresh, Felix instead rerouted some of the channels to make the flow of mana less aggressive. Instead of rushing in one direction them smashing into a wall, now it would rush in the same direction but be redirected around a loop and into the intended channel a little more gracefully.


    Ding You have gained a level in [D - Arcane] Mana Engineer (222 => 223)


    "Alright, it''s not perfect and this should really be redesigned, but I think this is better."


    Aldahn nodded, "I agree. On both points. That''s why this was in the back room, it was a prototype. Ended up scrapping the enchantment and starting from scratch. Not the worst fix though, if it was necessary to salvage the enchantment for some reason. Onto the next part."


    Aldahn reached forwards and took the breastplate then tossed it onto an empty table to his right. He then picked up two boots up and placed them on the table followed by a book.


    "Replicate the enchantment as best you can. This book is a list of some enchantment nodes with their various effects and uses."


    Felix looked at the two boots and immediately picked out the one that was enchanted. He examined it and it''s enchantment with his mana senses. His best guess at what it did was hold the person to a surface so they could walk freely up walls and along ceilings.


    Felix frowned, "Am I to replicate the enchantment exactly or the effect?"


    Aldahn raised a brow, "What''s the difference?"


    "I don''t think this boot is very optimal at what it''s trying to do."


    "By all means, as long as the effect is the same."


    Felix quickly flipped through the book Aldahn had provided to make it look like he was actually reading it. He had Grim file the book away in permanent storage then looked back at the enchanted boot. He ran a tiny trickle of mana through the enchantment just to make sure he hadn''t missed anything and in doing so, actually identified the entire enchantment.


    Looking over the enchantment design mentally, he was able to cross reference the book and find every single node except one. He knew he was kind of cheating since most people couldn''t do what he was doing, but it was a test of his skills so he didn''t feel too bad about it.


    Realizing Aldahn was also tricking him a little with a node that wasn''t in the book, he felt even less bad about using his mana senses and control so liberally. Unfortunately, he had no idea what the node did himself so he isolated it and turned it into a very basic spell that just supplied it mana. He cast the spell under the desk on his foot with just a trickle of mana and realized it was just a dead node. It didn''t seem to do anything at all.


    Felix looked up at Aldahn and frowned, "Why is there a dead node here?"


    Aldahn frowned, "A what? What do you mean?"


    "This." Felix reached over and picked up a piece of paper then drew out the node on it.


    Aldahn smiled a little, "Huh¡­ Which one does it look like the most in the book?"


    "I guess this one?" Felix instantly flipped to the exact page and pointed which earned him a curious look from Aldahn.


    Aldahn allowed himself a full smile now, "Yeah, exactly. That''s what it was supposed to be. It was so flawed though that¡­ well, as you said, it''s dead."


    Felix nodded, "Do you want me to replicate the intended effect then or the actual effect?"


    "Intended if you can."


    Felix looked through the quills in the drawer and picked one out that got hot but not red hot and was about the size he thought was right. He took a few minutes to mentally redesign the enchantment, which was much easier when he had something to start from, and made some adjustments of his own.


    Instead of one large node, Felix split the antigravity effect into multiple smaller nodes then increased the force of the new, force nodes. He also replaced the dead node with it''s working version which would help distribute the force according to the enchantment node index.


    As soon as he had the enchantment mentally drawn out, he got to work inscribing it into the boot. It took him about an hour but Aldahn stood there the entire time completely unfazed and unmoving the entire time as far as Felix could tell.


    Once he was done with it, he picked it up and pushed mana into it then stuck it to the side of the desk. It seemed to work properly and his mana senses didn''t indicate anything wrong with it so he detached it and handed it to Aldahn. He looked it over then tossed it to Inorim who immediately put it on his left foot and hopped up the wall. Inorim gave them a thumbs up then backflipped back onto the ground and tossed the boot back to Aldahn.


    Ding You have gained 4 levels in [D - Arcane] Mana Engineer (223 => 227)


    Aldahn smiled and nodded, "Not bad kid. I had another one but we can just skip that. How did you identify the entire enchantment well enough that you could draw out the dead node?"


    Felix offered the lie he had already prepared, "Class skill actually."


    Aldahn cocked a brow but didn''t seem too shocked, "Really? That''s rather¡­ unique."


    Felix shrugged, "Yeah, not unique but, I got lucky."


    "Alright, you definitely pass. Any chance you''d be willing to give me the whole story now?"


    Felix shook his head in disbelief, "So¡­ I''m hired?"


    Aldahn nodded, "Yes kid, you''re in."


    "Then yeah, sure."


    Aldahn led Felix to one of the meeting room again and Felix proceeded to give Aldahn the abridged version of his tutorial, world event and subsequent exile from the 256th integration.


    Aldahn''s face contorted in disgust, "You opened a portal with an empty mold?"


    Felix shrugged defensively, "I guess so, though this is the first I''m hearing that te-"


    Aldahn winced, "And you didn''t kill yourself?"


    "Uh, well¡­"


    "You are either ridiculously talented, lucky as shit or definitely both. Or you''re lying"


    Felix just shrugged, "I guess you''ll have to be the judge of that."


    "Oh, cheeky. I think you''ll fit in just fine around here. You have a place to stay in the city yet? Sounds like you just arrived?"


    "No but, sort of? I don''t really sleep much these days anyways."


    "Well, I''ve got a nap room set up in the back, if you need to use it, it''s open to all employees. I take it you have all your belongings on you? Don''t need to set them up anywhere?"


    Felix shrugged, "Nope, I''ve got everything I need on me."


    "Alright, well I don''t know if there''s anything else you need to do in the city but let me know when you''re ready for a job and I''ll find you something."


    "Actually¡­ this was my last stop. I''m open to anything you''ve got right now?"


    Aldahn nodded, "Your enchantment was good but primitive. You don''t actually know any conditional nodes, calculation nodes, sensory nodes, measurement nodes or any of those, do you?"


    Felix shook his head and failed to hold back a smile, "Uh, no. I''ve never heard of any of those actually."


    "Yeah, I could tell. No worries though, I''m sure you''ll be able to figure it out pretty quickly. Let me think¡­ Alright, we''ve got a few pieces going out. I want you to look them over for any flaws you can find. I''m not expecting you to find anything but it should be a good first step so you can get more familiar with our work. I''ll also give you some books you can borrow about enchanting. They''ll have the terminology and techniques we use around here. Let me know when you finish reading them then I can have you sit in on some design meetings. I''ll stick you on shadow duty for a bit and you can review the other''s individual projects. Then I''ll have you assist with projects and once I think you''re ready, I''ll assign you a personal client."


    "Sounds good."


    "Alright, follow me."


    Aldahn walked over to the storage room he had previously retrieved the flawed breastplate from and Felix waited just outside the door. He saw Inorim give him a big smile and a thumbs up while he waited. Aldahn walked out of the storage room after a couple of minutes with a small pile of textbooks in his arms. He led Felix up the stairs into the room that overlooked the shop.


    The room, now that Felix could see it, was rather simple. In the middle of the room was a large table that would comfortably sit at least a dozen people. On all the wall opposite the window there was a chalkboard split into five columns, three of which were filled. On the opposite two walls were hangers that currently held three items.


    Aldahn placed the pile of books down on the table, "Here are the enchanting books. When you''re done with them, just stick them back in the storage room. Don''t worry about where, it''s a mess down there anyways."


    "Ok."


    "These," Aldahn said as he walked over to the items hanging on either side of the room, "Are the items we have going out soon. Look over them, if you find anything at all or just have questions, ask someone. I promise no one will be offended if you do find anything or annoyed if you have questions. Once you''ve looked over something and are happy with it, put your name on the board under the item."


    "Does everyone review every item?"


    "No, that would be a waste of time. If someone has time or specific concerns they''ll look it over. Usually the enchanter who made it will ask specific people to look it over. You''re welcome to take the items to an empty work table if you feel you need any tools, just don''t modify them yourself unless you''ve asked the creator."


    "Of course."


    "Okay perfect. Let me know when you''re done with those textbooks."


    "I will."


    "Oh and everyone here is friendly, feel free to introduce yourself. Ask questions about anything, I know you''re an integrated so. I''m sure anyone would be happy to answer any questions you have. I won''t tell them you''re integrated, if you want to tell them it''s totally up to you."


    "Thanks, I appreciate it."


    "Sure." Aldahn nodded to Felix then walked out of the room, down the stairs and out of sight.


    Felix had already finished passively scanning the textbooks and he planned on reading them mentally but he didn''t want to be seen putting them back just yet. He also wanted to get as much as he could out of the books and he figured having practical examples would be hugely beneficial for him. So, before he started reading the books, Felix looked over the items on the walls.


    The first item was a set of armor that was somewhere between plate and leather. It was like leather armor with metal plates fastened over the more static areas. Felix picked it up off the hangers on the wall and immediately noted that it was unnaturally light. He couldn''t know if its weight was due to the material or the enchantment though until he analyzed it.


    Felix placed the armor on the table and immediately started running a tiny trickle of mana through it''s channels so he could map out the entire enchantment. The enchantment was far more complicated than Felix had ever encountered and the vast majority of it he couldn''t identify. He was able to trivially map the entire thing though so he had it''s design memorized.


    After he had fully analyzed the enchantment of the armor, Felix replaced it on it''s hangers then looked at the next of the three items. Hanging on the opposite end of the same wall as the armor, was something Felix couldn''t quite identify at first. It was a small platform, just half a meter wide and sticking out of one side of it was a pole about a meter long. The top of the pole then split into two. Felix took it off the hanger and realized it was a vehicle of some sort where the top of the pole split into handles.


    He performed the same operation he had with the armor, running mana through the entire enchantment and mapping it out mentally. The enchantment on the vehicle was equally as complex as the last except Felix actually sort of recognized some of the nodes. He hadn''t seen them specifically anywhere but he could tell they were variants on force nodes.


    The last item wasn''t actually hanging on the wall but rather placed against it on the ground. It appeared to be a large cube a few meters wide made of a painted ceramic of some kind. Felix didn''t want to try and lift it onto the table so instead he just examined it right where it was. The box had a door on the front and the inside looked much the same as the outside. Analyzing the enchantments, Felix realized it was some kind of oven, though unnecessarily complicated if it was just that.


    With all the enchantment designs mapped and memorized, Felix chose a seat at the table and entered his soul space. He had all the textbooks stored away and his Soul Garden Meditation allowed him to perceptually dilate time so he could effectively speed read.


    The first thing he did was set himself up on the open field area and conjure large whiteboards with the enchantments he had memorized all drawn out. He arranged them so they surrounded him then he had Grim retrieve all the textbooks for him, since Grim knew the filing system best.


    Felix tried to organize the books based on their content level but found there wasn''t any obvious progression between them. Each book seemed to focus on different areas and types of nodes. Before he started reading, Felix also conjured another board so he could record and file away all the new nodes he found in the books.


    While Felix could have just scanned the books and left it at that, he wouldn''t actually have an understanding of their content. The data itself would be stored forever but none of it would have actually been processed until he read them himself.


    He started with conditional nodes and learned about enchantment nodes that could activate or deactivate themselves based on set conditions. Some were complicated, others were very simple requiring just a third input to activate or deactivate them. They also just expanded from there with conditional nodes that could toggle themselves between two output channels based on a condition. Other nodes that could alter the mana going through them based on a set condition.


    The majority of the book was just introducing the nodes, listing them out then giving a brief description of their use along with some minor examples. It wasn''t very in depth into their uses or edge cases at all, but it was functional.


    The next book he read was the sensory nodes book. This one was simple enough and it allowed a node to essentially read things about the outside world. They didn''t get much more complicated than that in the first half of the book. The second half went into measurement nodes though which were more precise.


    Instead of binarily determining if something was in front of the node, they could measure their distance, size, color, even smell among a thousand other things. Different nodes had different levels of precision and that precision usually had tradeoffs in response time and sensitivity to fluctuations in mana.


    The next book he looked at was all about calculations. They were nodes that could take the numbers from measurement nodes and use them in calculations. These had the same precision levels and tradeoffs as the measurement nodes as well. The book also included some conditional nodes that could use those numbers to alter their outputs, though nothing the first book hadn''t included.


    The last book he looked at dealt with mana stability for the most part. As he had seen in the previous two books he had read, the more precise nodes were susceptible to error when there were large fluctuations in their input mana. The solution to this was to normalize and smooth out the input mana using other nodes. It was possible to have the source mana be stable but that it was unreliable in general to count on that always being the case. In some situations where the use case was controlled they wouldn''t matter but in most cases where mana was supplied by the user or the aether, it mattered a lot.


    Attunement, energy level and quantity fluctuations all had potentially adverse effects on enchantments. The book included all kinds of nodes but also sections of enchantments that could be used to mitigate those risks. There were combinations of nodes that resulted in very smooth mana and recipes for how to reach even higher levels of precision. The most common tradeoff was that they consumed mana to function which exponentially multiplied the required input mana. The book had all kinds of tips and tricks that had been developed over time to deal with these tradeoffs and their ideal use cases.


    As Felix read, he took notes on each of the different nodes he had seen along with the recipes, tips and tricks then had them all filed away in the library by Grim. He knew most of it off the top of his head but having notes to refer back to was just good practice in Felix''s mind.


    The last book he read just detailed out some common enchantments, famous historical enchantments and just plain notable ones along with why and how they utilized different nodes. This one was more about expanding his understanding and solidifying what he had just learned along with giving him some second hand experience. He didn''t take notes on this one but he did read it all the way through with rabid fascination towards it''s contents.


    Once he was finished, he looked through all the enchantments he had previously mapped out on the whiteboards around him and began recognizing sections and actually understanding them. It took him a half hour to fully understand each, but it was so entertaining to Felix that it had felt like just a minute had gone by in total.


    The armor seemed to read incoming energy of any kind then use mana to create a defense. The majority of the enchantment worked towards deflecting incoming strikes but there was a small section that would deal with energy like fire and lightning. For those it mostly erected a shield to avoid collateral damage.


    The vehicle measured the desired speed and direction, based on the tilt of the handles, and the user''s weight then calculated how much force to output. It also smoothed out the acceleration and deceleration so it wasn''t a harmful burst and was able to counteract some of the effects of external forces like strong wind. Felix knew just by looking at the enchantment design that it would falter and act erratically at extreme temperatures, but he was running under the assumption that that wasn''t relevant.


    The last item, the cube was actually an oven of a sort. It was incredibly precise with it''s heating and ability to maintain it''s internal temperature. By Felix''s estimation, it was precise enough that the internal temperature shouldn''t fluctuate more than a degree per 1,000 degrees outside the cube. It had all kinds of nodes to normalize the input mana followed by calculation nodes and heating and cooling nodes to maintain it''s internal temperature.


    Overall, Felix didn''t see any major flaws in the enchantments. There were some sections where he didn''t understand why they used some nodes or patterns over other''s and some small sections he knew were turbulent. Overall though, he just marveled at the possibilities. Just looking at the items and having read the books, he felt like his mind had expanded and he was able to do so much more.


    Thinking back to the end of the world event, when he had sieged the castle with antigravity enchantments. He now had the nodes, from the node index he had memorized earlier, to target only creatures and only creatures below a certain weight.


    If he had to do the same thing again, he could do it with about a tenth of the overall mana cost because he wouldn''t waste any on targeting buildings or heavy creatures. He could also have the force applied be the exact right amount instead of being complete overkill on some guards and not quite enough on others.


    These nodes were also usable in spell formations, at least he assumed they were since he had adapted enchantment nodes before. He figured it should be possible to have self targeting spells and spells that specifically countered incoming effects. He could now realistically create a mana shield that cast itself to block incoming attacks. It wouldn''t be perfect, but it was a hell of a lot better than what he had now.


    Felix quickly jotted down all his notes and mostly questions about the enchantments onto a board then exited his soul space. As his consciousness returned to his body and he opened his eyes, he saw two women sitting across the table looking at him, one of which had met him at the front counter. The other, appeared to be an elf of some kind and wore a full set of leather armor.


    Ding You have gained 6 levels in [D - Arcane] Mana Engineer (227 => 233)


    "You''re finally awake." The elf noted.


    The one he had already met smirked, "Oh hey, I guess Aldahn liked you enough to hire you then."


    "Guess so." Felix shrugged.


    "I''m Fralyna by the way." The tall, horned woman with white hair, the one he had first met, smiled at him.


    "Edemari." The elf said.


    "Felix. Pleasure to meet you guys."


    "What did Aldahn assign you?" The elf asked.


    "Read these books and look over the enchantments on these items." Felix pointed.


    "Ah, makes sense. Well you better get on it then, those books aren''t gonna read themselves." Edemari nodded and shrugged.


    Felix tilted his head, "I already read them all."


    Edemari frowned and turned to Fralyna, "Huh? Fral, didn''t you say he showed up a few hours ago?"


    She nodded and her smirk grew, "Yup."


    Edemari''s from deepened, "And he''s been sitting there meditating for the last couple of hours at least."


    Fralyna nodded, "Correct again Mari."


    The elf looked at him, "That is an interesting selection of skills you have."


    Felix shrugged.


    Fralyna smiled, "Are you gonna analyze the items now? I can show you how the inspection tools work if you need?"


    Felix shook his head, "Nope. Done with that too."


    Edemari leaned forwards, her face covered in disbelief, "Are you now? Do you have notes?"


    Felix nodded, "I do."


    Edemari nodded, "Well, lay em on me. I made the armor over there."


    "Oh perfect." Felix pulled up the notes he had jotted down in his vision then walked over and pulled the armor off the wall. He placed it down on the table then looked at the elf. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Fralyna smirking and watching.


    "You aren''t gonna be offended if I question a bunch of your decisions are you? I am sort of new at this."


    "Kid, you don''t need worry about any of that. Aldahn doesn''t hire anyone who cares about that kind of shit. Worst case, you learn things. Best case, you find something wrong with it and I get to fix it before the client finds it." Edemari stood up across from him, just on the other side of the armor.


    "Alright perfect."


    Felix proceeded to question about a dozen of the decisions she had made most of which she had justifications for, some of which she admitted the option he offered was equivalent. When he pointed out turbulent areas she shrugged and asked what he would do about them.


    Unfortunately, he realized the issue at that point, that neither of them had any good solutions to fix it. Ultimately, it wasn''t a big deal, it was just that that area of the enchantment, was almost guaranteed to fail first when it did fail in a few thousand epochs or so.


    When he was done, Felix wrote his name on the chalk board as having approved the item. Neither of the other two enchanters for the other items were in the shop at the moment, since it was so late at night so Felix would wait until they were in to ask them. Apparently there were no set hours and Aldahn didn''t care when people were there and not there, just that they didn''t let their clients down if they could avoid it.


    "Guess I''ll tell Aldahn I finished with the books then. Is he still here?" Felix asked the two women.


    "Yeah, he has trouble sleeping so he''s almost always here. Luckily his high vitality keeps him relatively functional." Fralyna answered.


    Felix nodded like he understood, "That just from his race or¡­"


    Fralyn and Mari looked at each-other briefly before Fralyna answered him, "Nah, he used to be an adventurer. Pretty good one too."


    Felix frowned, "Are you both nocturnal then?"


    "I am, sort of. Sleeps just been weird the last little bit." Fralyna shrugged.


    "I just got back from an contract with the adventurer''s guild. Still a little too hyped up to sleep." Mari shrugged.


    "Shouldn''t you be sleeping too?" Fralyna smirked at him.


    Felix shrugged, "Not tired. Where could I find Aldahn then?"


    "I can show you to his office." Fralyna rose from her seat and walked towards the door. Felix followed her.


    As they walked down the stairs, Felix addressed her, "Weird question¡­ what''s your race called?"


    She stopped, turned and looked at him, "Kid, where the hell did Aldahn find you?"


    "Sorry?"


    "No need to apologize, you just must be from one of the most remote areas of the multiverse. Aldahn and I are Rhunar."


    Oh shit, like the middle finger in The Hand.


    "Ah, thank you."


    She chuckled to herself a little then led him to one of the doors in the hall just outside the hallway where Inorim had tested him. Aldahn''s office was the last room in the hall. Fralyna pointed it out then headed back into the shop and Felix walked over and knocked on the door.


    "Come in." Felix heard through an exhausted sigh. Felix opened the door and found Aldahn sitting at a desk in an otherwise relatively empty room fiddling with some kind of small metal tablet wearing his tiny glasses.


    Aldahn looked up and replaced his glasses on his shirt, "Oh, Felix. What''s up?"


    "I finished reading the books you gave me and analyzing the items. I already questioned Mari and approved the armor."


    Aldahn chuckled, "That was¡­ unnaturally fast. You really finished reading the books?"


    Felix nodded, "Yup."


    "Ok now I have to ask, how the hell?"


    Felix shrugged, "Time dilation skill."


    Aldahn frowned rather seriously, "You mean perceptual time dilation?"


    "I guess? I''m not actually dilating time I think, just when I meditate time moves slower."


    "Yeah ok. Makes sense. Okay well I''ll have you sit in on the next design meeting then. I got nothing else for you right now. Feel free to pursue personal projects in the shop or use the nap room next door until then."


    "Alright thanks¡­ Actually, any chance you could answer a few questions for me? I can''t tell if you''re busy¡­"


    "Nah, just killing time. Shoot."


    "All the buildings I''ve seen or entered in this city are bigger on the inside then they are on the outside. How does that work?"


    "It''s a spatial enchantment. When I say a spatial enchantment, I mean it. I don''t understand and could never replicate it. It was a gift the city got a while back and then basically built around it."


    "It''s that complex?"


    "I''ll show it to you next time I inspect it."


    "You have to inspect it?"


    "Nope. I''m the only one I know that does that. Think about it though, what would happen if the enchantment ever did fail?"


    "We would all be compressed into a tiny little box?"


    "Yeah, probably. Could be something more violent but basically, death. I don''t feel comfortable not inspecting it every once in a while."


    "Alright, thanks."


    Aldahn smiled, "My turn, how are you inspecting these enchantments without tools?"


    "I told you, class skill lets me see mana¡­ kind of¡­ I just map it with a tiny trickle of mana and memorize it."


    Aldahn shook his head to clear it, "That''s it? Wait, you memorize it?"


    "Memory skill, yeah."


    "Alright. Try to learn the tools anyways just in case. And do not ever do that with the spatial enchantments. They are way too¡­ honestly I don''t have any clue how they work, I just don''t want to risk it. Don''t even try to inspect them without me, got it?"


    "Yes, definitely not."


    Absolutely not running any mana through those to map them. That could be¡­ really bad.


    "Good."


    Felix sat down in the chair across from Aldahn, "Why''d you stop adventuring?"


    "Oh so we''re good friends now? You''re allowed to ask me personal questions?"


    Felix shrugged, "You don''t have to answer."


    "Nah, I''m just fucking with you kid. Yeah used to be an adventurer, I found my calling that''s all."


    Felix nodded, "There wasn''t some tragedy that traumatized you from adventuring ever again?"


    Aldahn smiled and shook his head, "No my beloved didn''t tragically die because I wasn''t strong enough to protect her or anything. I was on a job with a new guy, we needed some arcane knowledge to deal with some traps. I was curious so he explained what he did and how it worked. I loved it so much, I ended up dropping my profession levels and switching over. I don''t adventure anymore because it was a means to an end. Now I do this and I love it. Are you registered at the guild?"


    "Yeah."


    "As for tragedies, kid you need to be expecting them when you''re adventuring. They aren''t gonna happen all the time but they will happen and you just need to be okay with that. You get used to it, it''s part of the job."


    "Any other tips or advice for adventuring, I hear you were pretty good at it."


    "Who the hell told you that?"


    "Fralyna."


    "Of course she did. Be selective with the jobs you take, don''t take just anything."


    "Fair enough. I take it you don''t mind if I disappear for a few days to do a job?"


    "Nah, just let me know ahead of time. As long as you don''t have a client that requested you specifically, which may not happen for another epoch or two, no problem at all. Even then commissions usually take a few dekads so disappearing for a few days isn''t an issue."


    "Ok, thanks. When''s the next design meeting, do you know?"


    "No idea but, you''ll have at least a day''s notice so, as long as you''re here once a day ish, you won''t miss it. Got somewhere to be right now?"


    "I was thinking of exploring the city a little, finding more things to do."


    "Alright. Have fun and don''t get scammed."


    Felix frowned, "Is that an issue?"


    "Not usually, but you have no exposure to the rest of the multiverse. Maybe just ask one of us before you buy anything."


    "Alright, thanks."


    Aldahn just nodded and Felix left his office, leaving him to his peace. Though it was the middle of the night, Felix had some things he wanted to go looking for, now that he had a job, and he figured the library would still be open. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 Chapter 185 - Book 2

    Felix was finally free from the integration and it''s lack of information and he fully intended on capitalizing on it. It took him about a half hour to fly to the library using the portal spires which wasn''t ideal but it wasn''t too bad. Flying through the night, Felix first realized that the length of the days were exactly the same as back on Trenus and Earth, 24 hours, which was highly suspect. He also got to experience the city at night and it was a wonderous sight.


    The night sky was filled with nebula of some kind from the surrounding galaxies as well as comets from the asteroid belt above. It was a huge array of color that made it so no additional lighting was necessary in the city. Felix wasn''t sure if there were lights at all, for the cloudy nights, or if they simply didn''t need them. Either way, it was easy for Felix to see without any supplementary light.


    At the library, Felix got a librarian to lead him to a large array of books. First on his list were any books on the important historical events of the multiverse. Second, were any books on spell formation and enchanting. Anything he could find, even if it was repeat information, was welcome. Next he had the librarian lead him to books on classes, professions, races and skills. Even just basic information had a good chance of being entirely new to Felix.


    Lastly, Felix had the librarian lead him to a section with bestiaries and encyclopedias on monsters in the multiverse. Any amount of knowledge that would help him know what to expect, could potentially save his life. Even more than that though, Felix was on the hunt for creatures with mana channels, cores and anything that focused on intelligence or it''s mind.


    He needed some direction with the mana channels and cores and some inspiration for how to manually enhance his mind. If he could at least get the names of some creatures that looked promising, he figured he could go hunt them down for their corpse at some point.


    He had the librarian lead him to the shelves and wait for a few minutes while he scanned everything. At first the librarian looked at him funny but they seemed to realize what he was doing relatively quickly. Just running around and scanning everything took him a few hours which only gave him a few more hours to sift through all the information before dawn.


    He dismissed the librarian and walked over to one of the empty tables then meditated. First, he practiced the Dragon''s Dance steps in his soul garden. After that, he got to reading through the books and looking for anything useful with Grim''s help. Overall, he just ended up shoring up his knowledge.


    A lot of the information he had scanned was entirely repetitive and seemingly watered down for public consumption. As Sarseyran, the first librarian, had mentioned, any information that was more useful, was likely to be kept secret by large factions or sold. That way they could disseminate it in order to attract recruits or sell it for credits.


    They didn''t get through nearly all of the information he had scanned but by the time it was morning, Felix left the library and flew off into the city. Before he returned to the enchanting shop, Felix had somewhere else he wanted to visit that the librarian had helped him find.


    Although the Dragon Dance, and specifically it''s mobility half was a good fit for Felix, it also wasn''t the perfect fit. What Felix really needed was a martial art that focused entirely on avoiding damage and moving quickly. Ideally it would allow him to incorporate Force spells so he could move faster as well.


    He didn''t need to dodge his way into range of an enemy or keep himself in melee range ever. He needed to stay alive at all costs and the best way of doing that was to keep himself far away from his enemies. In just about any ranged battle, he should be able to win. In melee range, he ran the risk of hitting himself as well as the enemy which would probably result in him being his own biggest threat.


    What he was looking for was a way to move that focused itself entirely on avoiding attacks and getting from point A to B quickly. There was mobility for casters, but that focused a lot on keeping yourself stable and ready for the verbal and somatic components of a spell. Felix didn''t need those, in theory, he didn''t even have to look at his enemies. There was mobility for archers and stealth types but that focused on keeping line of sight and being able to eventually draw a bow. Felix didn''t have a bow so he had no need to keep his back straight and body stable so his arrow struck true.


    In sorting through the available martial arts and later, parkours, available to learn, Felix stumbled across and entire hobby that some people dedicated their lives to. It was essentially parkour casters. Instead of using their classes to kill monsters, level and become stronger it seemed like a lot of people were more than willing to use their classes for fun and just make money off their professions.


    He found a bunch of hobbies and unintended uses for people''s classes like competitive martial arts, archery and fencing. Straying even further from the intended path were casters who used their spell lists to craft items and fighters who used their skills to strike metal instead of striking an enemy. There were also entire tournaments dedicated to what essentially amounted to stealth tag.


    In theory it made perfect sense to Felix, the reality was just that he had never even considered it because he really wanted to dedicate himself to getting stronger. He was perfectly happy to throw himself at dangerous enemies and put his life at risk constantly just so he could get stronger and do it against more dangerous enemies again. He did recognize that not everyone wanted to do that though.


    Felix thought about it for a bit and realized he didn''t have some great motivation to get stronger like protecting loved ones or freedom or anything like that. He just loved the thrill of fighting and the feeling of getting stronger. Most of all though, he loved problem solving and magic, spells, mana and enchantments were all really scratching that itch for him. Fighting enemies really just gave him problems to solve.


    The building he was looking for was a building that looked like a large wooden log cabin made of trees that had been multiple kilometers tall. It was absolutely massive but to Felix, it just looked like someone had made a scale model of a log cabin. The doors were carved into small rectangles on the logs and the one Felix was looking for was the 13th from the left and 2nd from the top.


    The signage on the door read Valtrusiar: The School of Competitive Avoidance and Dodging. The entire hobby was created based on a small, pacifist society that originated on a distant planet. They lived amongst savage beasts and high level creatures but they found a way to survive.


    Instead of choosing classes that suited them and trying to fight the monsters, they chose caster as their class and used the spells for utility. To go out and gather food, water and other resources, they used their classes and maneuvered their way through certain death. This planet was called Valtrusia and once discovered, the hobby was named after them.


    Felix approached the large wooden door that matched the log cabin aesthetic perfectly, and knocked. It took a few moments for the door to open and reveal an entirely bald, dark skinned human who wore nothing more than tight shorts and a stern expression.


    "New student?"


    Felix nodded, "Interested."


    "Come in." The man stepped to the side revealing what essentially amounted to a massive obstacle course made of what entirely of what appeared to be a grey sand. There was no clear direction so Felix wasn''t sure it was a course so much as a large field filled with moving traps, platforms and obstacles.


    Felix walked forwards into the building then the man that had let him in closed the door behind him. He led Felix into a room off to the side that contained a small office. So far, Felix was really appreciating how direct this man was though his intensity seemed unnecessary to Felix.


    The man stared Felix down as if they were mortal enemies, "Casual interest or do you have a specific reason you want to learn?"


    "Combat."


    He shook his head once, "This isn''t what you''re looking for then. This is entirely focused on avoiding everything. You will not have openings to attack and if your enemy does open themselves up, you will not be ready to capitalize on it."


    Felix nodded, "I know. I''m okay with all of that."


    "If you''re intent on switching between forms, it''s not a terrible idea just know it won''t be fast. You may be able to choose the mobility for the situation but rarely will you have the opportunity to switch between them in the middle of a situation."


    Felix shook his head, "No intent on switching between forms. This one looks perfect for me."


    He nodded once, "Alright, if you are intent on learning, I will teach you. It costs 100 D an hour to use the course, 500 D an hour for tutelage which includes use of the course. You can show up any time you''d like and if there are already people here, I will simply teach you both. If there are too many people here, the capacity is about 5, then I''ll simply tell you to come back another time."


    Felix nodded, "Perfect. I don''t have time right now, but I''ll come back when I have a few hours to spare."


    Felix did actually have multiple hours to spare, he just wanted to ask one of the enchanters at the shop if he was getting ripped off.


    "I will see you then." The man nodded just as intensely as he spoke. Felix returned the nod and stood up.


    "I''m Felix by the way."


    The man just stared at Felix, "I know."


    Felix quickly identified the man and saw his name was ''Kukhomihto.''


    Felix nodded again then made his exit. He didn''t have anything else he really needed to do at the moment so he headed back to Inscripticae, the enchanting shop, to work on some personal projects.


    Felix didn''t see anyone in the shop when he got there but he just hopped over the counter and into the workshop. He assumed Fralyna and Edemari had gone home and Aldahn was likely in his office.


    Within the storage room, Felix opened the doorway to his Pocket Home and walked inside. He found Nova napping within a small divot at the top of the Demitium chunk. He flew by them and headed straight for the tower. The first thing he wanted to work on was making his Pocket Home less like a pocket dimension and more like a livable place.


    It was starting to get colder by a few degrees every time he visited. It was also still completely dark and there was no gravity whatsoever. Now that Felix had access to all kinds of nodes, he had a lot more freedom to design them however he liked. He started with light and heat because he figured it was going to be the simplest.


    Reading through the list of enchantment nodes in the index Aldahn had given him in the interview, Felix had gotten an idea for what he wanted to do. The light nodes were organized and tagged based on their output spectrum and efficiency curves based on how much input mana they got. He found one of them that was very inefficient at low input mana but very efficient at high input mana with an output spectrum that covered just about all light.


    He was hoping it''s output would allow him to replicate the feeling of the sun. Obviously a real star would be way hotter and brighter, but Felix could tune his to fit the area. It should even be possible for him to grow plants or grass around the tower at some point, though he wasn''t completely decided on whether or not that was a good idea.


    Having it simulate a sun though, he figured would make his pocket home feel more home like to him. He already had the mana engine whirring away in the basement he had created now all he had to do was wire it up to the rest of the tower. He spent a few hours running inlay material he had lying around from the tutorial dungeons all the way up the walls of his tower. He had multiple channels spread out across the walls each with different flow rates. That way, if he ever needed mana he could simply tap into a channel on a specific floor.


    The idea was similar to Martin''s workshop though Felix was pretty sure he would have done this regardless of if he had seen Martin''s workshop at all. It just made too much sense to him. Even earlier when he was looking around the Inscripticae workshop, he had felt mana coursing through channels to different areas of the floor. He assumed those were for the same purpose.


    As he moved upwards through the tower, he also inscribed small light spells, using a smaller and more efficient node, throughout his tower so he didn''t have to light it up himself with a spell. At the top, he got to work on his pseudo sun.


    The basic idea was simple, a large floating ball of light with a touch of heat, just to replace what was lost in the pocket universe. The inscribed spell for the light was simple and realistically, nothing other than the light node was new to him. He used other new nodes that were functionally equivalent to ones he had already known back in the integration, but just slightly more elegant or efficient. Realistically though, he could have functionally replicated the spell or gotten very close to it before.


    What was almost entirely new to Felix, was the heat portion of the spell he added. Instead of just providing a small amount of constant heat, Felix made the spell variable in it''s output. He didn''t want the temperature to slowly rise over time so he had the spell measure the temperature, then calculate how much heat it had to output.


    It was constantly remeasuring and adjusting itself which came at the cost of more mana, but for something like this the cost was negligible. In an enchantment on armor or a vehicle, the mana cost would matter much more, here he had a mana engine and the overall cost went up by a fraction of a percent so he didn''t worry about it.


    He spent a few minutes flying down to the ground and tuning the intensity of the light then came to the realization that his light shouldn''t be constant. Instead, he redid the lighting portion of the inscribed spell and used timing nodes along with multiple colors and mana rate limiters. When he was done, he set the time on the spell and let it go.


    Now, in theory, his Light spell would slowly alter it''s color and brightness, just slightly, to mirror the current time in Telviras. Over time he would adjust the timing nodes to make sure they were accurate and not drifting, but he was happy with it for now.


    Once he was done, he looked around as he thought about the gravity spell he was going to create but stopped himself short when he looked off into the distance. He wasn''t sure what to expect as he looked into the edge of a pocket universe, when he had done so before it was simply black.


    Now, with much more light coming from behind him, he saw the edges of the pocket dimension swirled and twisted with a wide array of colors. It was all very dull and though the colors varied wildly, they were all very close to black. He wasn''t sure what he was looking at but he figured he would check the library at a later time to figure it out.


    He refocused himself on his gravity spell and started testing. What he ended up settling on was differentiating objects by their overall mass. Instead of pulling on everything equally, like gravity did, which would take an absurd amount of mana for heavier objects, Felix simply didn''t pull on anything above a certain mass. Currently, that only excluded the tower itself and the Demitium chunk but in the future it may exclude other things he brought into the Pocket Home.


    He also, mostly because he was already measuring mass, had the spell only pull a certain amount based on an objects weight. That meant that just about everything that was affected by the pseduo-gravity spell would weigh the same amount. The hardest part was targeting different objects differently.


    What he ended up with was honestly, a mess of a ritual that worked in a similar way to the mana battery preparing spell. It essentially measured things in a circle one by one and decided how to affect them. He had it cycle fast enough that it wasn''t noticeable and ultimately, he was pretty happy with the result even if the execution was lacking.


    Ultimately, he knew it was crude and he knew he would improve it as he learned, but from what he currently knew, it was already a big step up from what he would have done in the integration. He also planned on asking Aldahn or the other enchanters if they had any tips for targeting things like he was doing but he didn''t want to do so at the moment.


    Instead, he ascended the tower up to the bedroom where the podium was and he started moving things around a little in the tower itself. The first thing he did was add windows without any glass in them. There was nothing in here he was worried about and it would let him enter and exit more freely. It would also allow him to grow a tree in the lobby if he wanted to, something he had talked about with Amelia and the interior designer, George.


    He wasn''t hard set on the idea, but it resurfaced itself in his mind when he had added the windows anyways. If he managed to find some delicious fruit or super rare tree he would look into it, but until then the lobby would remain spacious.


    Lastly, he sat down on the ground around the tower, that he realized he was going to have to terraform at some point so it wasn''t slanted from the mountain side he had ripped it off of. He pulled the bottles of poisons he had bought in the auction and began drinking them one by one.


    He started with just a drop then progressively more until he downed the whole bottle. His ultimate goal was to build techniques and potentially even organs within his body that would help deal with them. If his cells themselves managed to build a natural resistance, even better, but he wasn''t counting on that.


    It was hard work and as a result of the poisons various effects, he started to sweat all over. Some of them forced his cells into overdrive, working far faster than they should for no reason. He worked on reigning in the individual cells to listen to him above all else. This allowed him to build a greater level of control over them.


    If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. Sear?h the N?velFire(.)net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    Other poisons tried to make his cells go to sleep collectively, causing entire organs to fail, he once again manually reigned them in and forced them to ignore the chemicals. Most poisons were more boring and they simply attacked his organs, cells, muscles or even brain. Those he simply fought back with some manual attention.


    It took him a few hours to get through all the poisons he had bought and in the end, he was really happy he had. He could already feel himself getting better at dealing with the poisons when he swallowed the last few. He resolved himself to buy more poisons at some point in the future, though he was going to have to head back to the library to find a store.


    Felix quickly rerolled his flask to something that almost seemed like vinegar, but less harsh and settled on it simply because he needed something to cleanse his palate. All the poisons had had weird effects on his mouth not to mention their awful tastes. A lot of them were tasteless, but some of them were absolutely vile. He rolled it again, after downing a large quantity of the vinegar like liquid, to something that tasted like vegetable juice. It wasn''t his favorite but he wasn''t sure he could stomach something fruity at the moment so the much calmer vegetable juice felt right.


    He had done everything he wanted to for the moment so Felix exited the Pocket Home and the store room. Standing in the workshop, working at one of the tables, Felix saw someone new. As soon as he exited the store room, the tall man covered in reflective light green scales looked in his direction. He had gills on his neck that was slightly longer than a normal humans, webbed fingers and a face that looked like a humans was morphed until it resembled a fish. Its face was still mostly human, but definitely gave Felix the vibe of a fish''s face.


    "You the new hire?"


    "Felix."


    "Ezaldor. Nice to meet you."


    The fish man lowered his goggles then turned back to whatever he was working on. Felix had notes on the oven he wanted to review with Ezaldor but he didn''t bring that up now because he really wanted to bathe. He felt disgusting after all the excretions his body had produced when he fought back all the poisons.


    He quickly exited the shop and referred to his map. It took him a few minutes to sort through the thousands of results he got back from searching for a bath but eventually, he found one that suited him. He made sure to ignore all the large open baths that were more about socializing than anything else and also sorted them by price because all he wanted was clean water. As it turned out, people needed to bathe so there were multiple bath houses on every block.


    Felix chose the nearest one that fit his criteria then cleaned himself off. He ended up using the provided soaps which all had a musky scent that he had never smelled before then dried himself off with a spell and headed to his next destination. He got a very basic haircut and shave, because he didn''t overly care as long as his hair didn''t interfere then finally headed back to Inscripticae.


    Ezaldor was still exactly where he had left him so Felix walked right up to his table. Ezaldor seemed to be inspecting a ring that floated in front of him. He wore goggles and switched between a variety of tools that looked like magnifying glasses but square, probes, flimsy sheets and fabrics. Felix watched with confusion and realized he really did need to learn how all the tools worked at some point, even if it was just to satisfy his curiosity.


    Eventually, Ezaldor seemed to be done whatever he was doing and he looked up at Felix, "I''m done for now. What do you need?"


    "I was told to look over the¡­ oven? you made. You have time to go over some notes?"


    He nodded once, "Yes."


    Felix gestured to the ring with his head, "What does the ring do by the way?"


    "I don''t know."


    "I see."


    Together they walked up to the office room and Felix walked him through his thought process and the questions he had come up with. Ezaldor, though his answers were short, was actually incredibly insightful. He often answered Felix''s questions with drawings on the boards but had explanations for everything. Felix''s feeling, just from their short discussion, was that Ezaldor was one of the most knowledgeable enchanters he had ever spoken to.


    A lot of Felix''s questions were about why he chose one pattern over another and Ezaldor seemed to know the interactions between everything perfectly. He knew that using a specific pattern with a another specific pattern resulted in mild interference which would ultimately hurt the precision of the end result. He had answers that were so in depth and complicated, often taking into consideration the entire enchantment as a whole, that Felix''s mind was blown.


    Felix didn''t have any suggestions or concerns for him after he answered all of Felix''s questions so Felix wrote his name on the board and approved the piece. Ezaldor seemed to enjoy talking through the enchantments so Felix felt less bad about questioning his every decision and taking up multiple hours of his time. When they were done, Ezaldor headed back to his desk and continued inspecting his ring.


    The last person he was looking for to talk about the vehicle was someone named Krinitor. He hadn''t seen anyone new though so he decided to focus himself on other things once he checked in with Aldahn. He knocked on Aldahn''s door and opened the door after he was invited in.


    Aldahn looked up from his desk, "You done going over all the items yet?"


    "No, still haven''t met Krinitor."


    Aldahn sighed, "Oh right, I forgot he made the vehicle. He might be out for a while, how about we just go over it together?"


    "Sure."


    They walked up to the design room, as Felix had just learned it was called, and Felix went through his questions with Aldahn. If Ezaldor was knowledgeable, Aldahn was a genius. Though he hadn''t created the item, Felix asked him questions and he immediately caught on to what the intent was.


    Aldahn gave complex explanations with simple answers, something only someone who really understood their craft could offer. Not only did he consider the interactions between the enchantments, but he had insight from an obviously vast pool of experience so could determine when it was relevant or not.


    Ezaldor seemed like the kind of enchanter that tuned everything to perfection whereas Aldahn, could do that, but instead he knew when it was necessary and when it wasn''t. He would juggle and balance all the different aspects of an enchantment so they were balanced and functional. He knew when power was more desirable over precision or when efficiency was more important than anything else, down to specific patterns and nodes.


    By the end of their design review, Felix approved the item even though Aldahn himself had a few criticisms of his own.


    Felix looked back at Aldahn after writing his name on the board and approving the item, "Are you gonna bring those up to Krinitor?"


    Aldahn shook his head and shrugged a little, "Nah, they don''t matter enough. I might write them out or show him, but it''s not worth redoing the whole thing."


    Felix frowned, "Really? You had a lot of suggestions, I thought they would make a big difference especially all together?"


    "Nah, kid you''ll see as you gain more experience enchanting but tiny flaws, or rather imperfections, don''t matter in the D grade. The higher the grade, the more it matters. A grade enchantments for example, these would be catastrophic errors. This is just a D grade vehicle though so they won''t really make a difference."


    Felix tilted his head, "Why is that?"


    "Mostly the amount of mana or power, precision and complexity. A grade enchantments, and just higher grade enchantments, usually deal with one or more of those three. Think of them as levers sort of, if you raise all three to the max, you have a Divine level enchantment. If you just raise one to the max, it''s probably C grade."


    "Divine?"


    "Higher than S."


    "I didn''t know that was a thing."


    "It''s mostly just Gods."


    "Mostly?"


    "You don''t have to become a God when you get there, it''s a choice."


    I need to ask about gods at the library.


    Felix nodded slowly, "I see. Slightly unrelated question, how complicated would it be to have an enchantment that targeted every object in an area differently?"


    "Simultaneously? A standard enchantment, close to impossible without making an incredibly complex B grade enchantment, and that''s assuming it wasn''t a fixed set of targets. You could either cycle through them which is crude or the much better solution, arguably the correct solution, build a small mana computer."


    Felix''s head craned forwards, "A what?"


    Felix quickly addressed Grim mentally, Isn''t that what you think The System is?


    Yup.


    Aldahn nodded and looked at Felix with a frown, "I''m not sure what that''s being translated to but ''computer'', you have those in the integration or had them on your planet?"


    "Sorry, yeah we do just surprised to hear that word is all. Last time I heard it someone was theorizing The System was a massive mana computer."


    Aldahn nodded, "Not an unpopular theory, it has issues though. The System has sort of degraded in a weird way over time and it doesn''t exactly fit how a mana computer is known to work."


    Felix frowned, "Wait¡­ what do you mean?"


    "By what?"


    "Did you say it''s degraded?"


    Aldahn crossed his arms, "Degrading, slowly. Basically in the past some things were allowed and other''s were not. Over time, those rules have loosened and changed. For example, integrations used to allow Gods in from the start but apparently but that had issues. It''s been inconsistent and changed prompts or the rules to dungeons without telling people. Then there was an era where people thought they were just clever enough to find loop holes and they peddled these as secret techniques but, over time people realized that some things they weren''t allowed to do, suddenly they could."


    "Oh so it''s just¡­ changing it''s mind and evolving over time¡­ kind of?"


    Aldahn shrugged, "Sure if that makes you more comfortable. Not to make you worry but it''s done some weird shit over the years too. It''s been inconsistent, illogical at times and sometimes makes nonsense decisions. They are very rare but it happens and when they do, people typically panic for a few epochs then calm down again."


    That''s not ominous at all. What if it just made a random decision to kill me.


    I don''t think it would do that¡­


    "What do you mean illogical and weird? Would it ever decide to just randomly kill someone?"


    Aldahn shook his head, "Not directly. The one I remember was an integration that was shut down entirely but that could have been for any reason. I''ve heard that in the past, The System has saved people when there was no skill or spell involved. It''s also set up fights between someone and a monster way out of their league when the scenario was supposed to scale."


    Felix shrugged, "Those aren''t as bad as I expected."


    Aldahn chuckled a little, "Those are the ones I''ve heard about, I''m not that old. I''ve heard rumors that there have been much worse but you''d have to ask someone from the early integrations."


    "So you were saying people thought they were clever with loopholes, but they weren''t? The System was just changing?"


    Aldahn tiled his head back and forth a little, "Some of them were. Basically, a number of integrations ago, people played a game where they tried to abuse The System as much as possible, bending it''s rules right to the limit."


    "They don''t do that anymore?"


    "People slowly realized that what The System was best at, was just automating the minutiae, collecting information and marginally increasing your own capabilities. Not sure what skills you have but it''s pretty common knowledge that if you want to reach the very top, you need to avoid skills where The System is doing things you can''t do. What you want are skills you can do yourself but The System just automates."


    Felix frowned, "Why?"


    "There are issues with skills The System grants you. Basically there''s a hard cap on your understanding of the skill. That means your proficiency can never get higher than say Adept or so on those specific skills. That means you''ll be limited when you try to upgrade or combine them and they''ll ultimately just fall behind. Then there''s supposedly a limit to the skills themselves."


    "Limit? What do you mean?"


    "Somewhere between high B grade to low S grade depending on the skill, it just will not progress and start behaving weirdly. Let''s say you had a skill that made a supposedly impenetrable shield, at certain point it might just fail against some attacks that it should be able to block. Supposedly, there''s a hard ceiling and no real way to push through it with those kinds of skills. The System has gotten better about wording over time but it was an issue for a bit where skill descriptions would just lie to you. It''s never really rebuilt that trust though."


    "So I should only have skills that I could do myself?"


    "This is only really applicable to those who want to reach the peak. I don''t care anymore, most people don''t care at all. Having an unbreakable shield or skill that can bring you back once an epoch, is more valuable to most people than the prospect of potential, even if it only works up to the A grade. Most people don''t even get close to that anyways. It''s not necessary for everything either. I have a few skills that I can''t do without The System like translation skills, inspection skills, identification skills, some mobility skills which I would recommend no matter what."


    Felix nodded, "I see, I guess that makes sense, thanks. That reminds me, how do I get a skill or item so my identify doesn''t give me garbage names."


    Aldahn laughed out loud, "Hah! I forgot that was a thing. This is one of those degradations or bending-of-the-rules I was talking about. Many integrations ago, I would have pointed you to an item or skill, now there''s a way around either of those."


    "What''s that?"


    Aldahn smiled, "Just read a bestiary."


    Felix frowned at the crude solution, "Just memorize all the creatures that exist?"


    Aldahn shook his head, "No, I didn''t say memorize it, just read it. You don''t have to remember any of it. Someone figured out at some point, that as long as you had seen the name, basic description or even part of a creature''s etymology, you would identify it correctly."


    Felix''s face contorted in disbelief, "It''s that easy?"


    "Yeah. I just read a few at the library and I haven''t seen a weird name since¡­ I can''t even remember."


    I already scanned a bunch, think that''s enough?


    Grim offered a mental shrug, Sounds like it''s probably enough given how lenient he makes it seem.


    So I already solved the issue unintentionally?


    Seems like it.


    Felix mentally shared his confusion with Grim, That''s kind of weird isn''t it? The rules changing over time and loop holes?


    Sort of. I kind of expect it if The System is alive and growing.


    I thought you thought it was a mana computer. Now it''s alive?


    Grim chuckled a little, Those aren''t mutually exclusive.


    Felix threw his hands up, "Alright well that''s convenient, that was one of the first things I did."


    Aldahn nodded, "Perfect. We got side tracked but back to mana computers, It doesn''t have to be complicated. I''m not sure how complicated your normal computers were where you come from but you can make them very simple. In this case, all it would have to do is sense the objects in an area, then apply a different level of a spell to each."


    Felix nodded, "How do I go about making one? Or just learning the basics?"


    Aldahn gestured towards the corner of the workshop with this chin, "Check the store room, we need to make them every once in a while for complicated projects. If you''re interested, try making a calculator first. That was the first one I ever made."


    "That sounds like a great idea. Thanks."


    Aldahn nodded and started walking back towards his office, "Sure. Oh there''s gonna be a design meeting later today by the way, just be here in about 10 hours if you want to sit in."


    "Alright, I''ll be there. Thanks Aldahn."


    "Sure."


    Aldahn headed back to his office and Felix headed into the back store room. He found a few dusty tomes about mana computers among the piles of books and various failed enchantments. The entire room was a mess but luckily all Felix had to do was stand still while his skill scanned the books around him. He ended up sifting through the mess a little bit to maker sure he got everything because he wasn''t sure how his skill worked on books he couldn''t see.


    It was something he wasn''t sure about because up until now, he had entirely scanned books intentionally. He had always walked down library isles or stored books in his inventory to scan them. He was suspecting no considering the twinned diary hidden in the wall of Erolan''s apprentice but that book was special so he wasn''t certain. He didn''t find any books in the mess that he hadn''t scanned so he wasn''t sure if his skill was scanning through the mess, the walls or neither. He planned some tests for the future in the library then exited the storeroom.


    He headed up to the design room and chose a chair then sat down and entered his soul garden. He had Grim retrieve the books for him then started reading. The basic concept was simple, it was a computer and seemed to work similarly to how computers worked on earth. They used mana instead of transistors and they weren''t generally as advanced as computers on earth, but their functions were similar. As far as Felix could tell, unless the books he was reading were very old, mana computers were mostly used to store information and compute numbers.


    He couldn''t find any mention of smart phones, video games or anything even close to that complicated. There weren''t even screens as far as he could tell. They were almost exclusively used to automate basic tasks in enchanting and the real world. It seemed like the registration office of Telviras for example would use a mana computer to store and sort the registration records. It wasn''t anything complicated like a spread sheet that required a functional user interface though, it was more like a massive calculator that just sorted and retrieved records. More similar to an automated physical database with robot arms.


    Felix had no idea why they didn''t get more complicated until he got closer to the end of the first book he read and it explained why. Apparently, as the computers got bigger and more complicated, the common notion was to shrink it, unfortunately, mana was generally not stable enough to shrink very far. Instead, mana computers were limited to a specific size. Apparently normal computers had existed at some point but had lost popularity because people got smarter with levels and computers were incredibly fragile.


    Not even just physically but general interference from mana, spells, skills and the daily lives of powerful entities resulted in constant data corruption and miscalculations. Shielding them became nearly impossible if anyone ever intended on interacting with the machine because any connection would carry corruption back to the system. Even then, ambient mana alone tended to cause huge issues for traditional computers.


    Eventually the mana computer was invented but it had issues and therefore never really progressed past a certain point. There are some active experiments being conducted that the book mentioned where researchers were trying different forms of mana along with biological byproducts but as of the publishing date, none had bore fruit.


    The next couple of books Felix read through detailed the basic mechanics of a mana computer, how they were commonly made and how they could be used. A basic mana computer was just a large array of nodes that could compute an output from given inputs. The calculator Aldahn had mentioned, simply added two numbers. The biggest difference between mana computers and normal computers, other than just complexity, was that mana computers were analog computers rather than digital computers.


    Instead of 0s and 1s, the computers functioned on a huge range of values that were entirely determined by how it was made. The range could be from a single point of mana to a hundred points or from a fraction of a point up to a single point if it was precise enough. The smaller they got though, the more unstable they were and more likely for values to be completely incorrect.


    The calculator would just add the mana values of two inputs then output a number based on how it was tuned to read it''s inputs. The basic version the book described used the calculator to calculate the amount of mana in points, the most easily verifiable quantity. It was actually a trivial enchantment but Felix followed along nonetheless.


    The second version it described was more complicated and would allow him to multiply two numbers. Instead of actually multiplying the numbers though, the way it worked was that it altered the way it measured one of it''s inputs so that the result was the multiplication of the two numbers.


    From there, it didn''t detail out entire projects but just detailed some basic theory on how higher level computers would work. For Felix''s project of his gravity spell, he needed a very complicated mana computer. He started working on a basic design and adjusted it as he read through the books.


    He was still missing a lot of components but it''s basic form was there, it would cycle through a given set of inputs and output some calculations for each. What he needed was to have the calculations be the amount of force based on mass along with the direction and distance to the object.


    Eventually he finished reading the books and headed back over to Aldahn''s office with his mana computer prototype.


    Aldahn looked up and frowned, "Kid, do you think I just sit around here and have infinite time so I can just answer whatever question pops into your head?"


    "If you''re busy I can come back."


    He sighed and shook his head, "No, never mind. I was just trying to mess with you. Unless I''m at a work table I''m usually not busy. What''s up?"


    "Mind going over this mana computer design with me?"


    "Sure¡­ That was a lot faster than¡­ right, perceptual time dilation."


    Felix just nodded then they headed to the design room where Felix drew out the basic plans for the mana computer he had come up with on the board. Aldahn immediately had a bunch of notes and over the next few hours, Felix felt like the books he had read were meant for babies compared to what Aldahn knew.


    Not only did he help Felix completely rework the computer to be more efficient, but he found and dealt with problems before Felix had even realized they existed. All the components Felix was missing, Aldahn simply drew out nodes, patterns and channels filling in all the blanks Felix had.


    After a few hours, Ezaldor walked up into the design room and joined in. He offered a few suggestions and Aldahn mostly agreed but occasionally, it seemed like Ezaldor was learning as much as Felix was from Aldahn


    A lot of their differences ended up just being preferential with Ezaldor focused on precision above all else and Aldahn offered different options depending on what Felix wanted. Felix most often went with efficiency because he didn''t see power or precision being a concern, neither of them really mattered to him at all.


    A half hour or so after Ezaldor had joined them, they cut their conversation short because Fralyna, Edemari and Inorim had arrived and the design meeting was set to start soon. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 Chapter 186 - Book 3

    Once everyone had arrived and taken seats, Aldahn stood up and addressed everyone, "Alright, commission is a large weapon, ideally a great-sword. Desired effects are the basic, swing harder be sharper but with a twist. The client wants to be able to record a series of movements and then play them back."


    "How many recordings?" Ezaldor asked.


    "Just the one." Aldahn looked over at Fralyna, "Fralyna, you just finished the armor, want to take this one?"


    She nodded with a wide smile, "Sure thing boss."


    Aldahn nodded, "Alright. Need a minute or do you have a basic design in mind?"


    "I got it." She stood up and replaced Aldahn in front of the board then began to draw out a series of enchantments.


    The basic part of the enchantment, the swing harder and be sharper part was so common she just wrote it out and no one had any notes on it. They moved immediately to the more complicated part, the recording and playback portion.


    She drew out some enchantments that would be able to produce a large amount of force in all directions and wired them all towards the pommel. Everyone except Felix provided notes or had questions and over the course of a few hours, they fine tuned the enchantments until they were perfect.


    They ended up with force enchantments across the entire blade so there wasn''t any leverage concerns along with a ton of measurement nodes. All of those were run with channels into the pommel. The battery that would be used for playback was going to be set in the cross guard. The meeting was clearly dying down after the third hour as the comments and questions become fewer and far between.


    Felix finally saw it as a good time for him to ask some questions that had eating at him, "What''s going into the pommel? Is it just a mana computer?"


    "Noooo. Mana computer that size would be way too expensive." Inorim shook his head.


    "Soul gem." Ezaldor stated.


    "A what?" Felix just stared.


    "You''ve been to the library, right?" Fralyna offered.


    Felix nodded, "Yeah."


    She smiled, "Ever been into the memory section?"


    He shook his head, "No, not yet."


    She tilted her head to the side with the same wide smile, "You know about mana batteries right?"


    "Yeah."


    She shrugged, "Same thing just with souls. Great for storing memories. In this case, recording and playing something back is just a memory, isn''t it?"


    "I guess?"


    "I assume the client''s budget is¡­ fucking huge?" Fralyna addressed Aldahn.


    He just nodded.


    "Yeah, soul gem it is then." Fralyna smiled.


    "Looks like that''s it then. Fralyna, you mind if Felix here shadows you for this one?"


    She smiled and nodded, "Sounds good to me. I can get him to actually do stuff for me, right?"


    Aldahn nodded, "Course, it''s your responsibility if it doesn''t turn out though."


    She just shrugged and smiled, "He''s a smart kid." Then she winked at him.


    Aldahn just shook his head and headed back to his office. The others in the room, other than Fralyna and Felix headed down to the workshop or left Inscripticae entirely.


    Felix looked up at her, "Do you actually need me to do anything then or¡­"


    Fralyna smiled, "Yup. Well, no I don''t need you to do anything but, if you''re gonna assist me then I''m gonna take full advantage of you."


    Felix just looked at her.


    "I''ll go get the sword itself commissioned from a smith I know. Can you go buy a battery and a soul gem?"


    Felix shrugged, "Uh, I guess? What are the specs we need and how much do I pay for them?"


    "I''ll write it down for you. You can get some credits from Aldahn. For the mana battery, spend 100k C and for the soul gem 25 B. As long as they satisfy the requirements, get whatever the best deal you can for that much."


    "Uhm, alright."


    Fralyna wrote out the basic requirements for each of the gems. For the mana battery, it had to be at least B grade Rare and very fast transfer speed. For the soul gem, the requirements were D grade, 50k or better with control capabilities. Felix had no idea what the number for the soul gem signified but he figured he would find out soon enough.


    He headed down to Aldahn''s office and, after making sure Felix had specifications for the gems, Aldahn transferred him the funds. Felix thought it was odd how easily he gave him money until he realized Aldahn could probably just find and kill him fairly easily. Not that he was planning on running off with the funds, but the thought of what recourse the shop would have had did cross his mind.


    He started with the soul gem because those were the most interesting to him and headed to the library so he could filter down the stores more thoroughly. While his map had basic filtering capabilities, the library had much more in depth filtering. Specifically, he was looking for satisfaction, reliability ratings as well as how long the shops had been running for.


    He got a librarian to help him and sorted through the shops in the city until he found a few he liked. He had that sub list sorted by distance from Inscripticae then memorized them. He did the same thing with the mana battery shops then headed out.


    Walking into the first soul gem store on the list, Felix found exactly what he was expecting and yet, was still completely amazed. Inside, the store was a massive array of shelves that all held multicolored gems of various shapes, sizes and grades. Felix walked down the aisles and saw gems priced from as low as a few thousand D grade credits to a handful of gems that cost thousands of B grade credits locked away in the back.


    "Can I help you find something?" A tall four armed elf suddenly appeared behind Felix, who he was almost certain wasn''t there a second ago.


    "Uh sure, I''m looking for a D grade gem, 50k or better with control capabilities?"


    "Of course, follow me." The man led him three aisles down then a hundred gems deep before he stopped and tilted his head towards the shelf next to him.


    "These gems fit your criteria. All the gems in this aisle have control capabilities and they''re sorted by grade and capability score. These are around 50 thousand. Just come find me if you need anything else." The man nodded then walked off.


    Capability score?


    Felix looked through the gems and ended up walking down a little further into the aisle than he expected until he found one that cost 25 B. It was D grade with a 64k capability score. He reached forwards to pick the gem up off the shelf but his hand hit a solid wall he couldn''t see. Suddenly, the same man as before appeared behind him.


    "You would like to purchase that one?"


    Felix nodded a little guiltily after realizing it probably looked like he was trying to steal it, "Yes please."


    "Excellent."


    The man created a screen in front of Felix and he accepted the transaction then the gem disappeared from the shelf and appeared in Felix''s hand. He wrapped it into a pocket of his robes then nodded to the man and took his leave. He thought about putting it in his soul space, like he was with everything else but realized he probably shouldn''t do that considering what had happened to other soul based things in there.


    Instead, he placed it into the Kryptos Repository once he had left the building, an item he hadn''t really found a great use for just yet. He made sure to memorize the rune pattern he had used then flew off to the mana battery shop.


    The mana battery shop was completely different from the soul gem shop. The soul gem store was a vast, open store with filled shelves everywhere that were perfectly organized. This store, had shelves that seemed to contain a wide range of things. The shelves themselves and the space between them was a little cramped and they all led towards the back of the store where there was a long desk and a ton of room behind it.


    Behind the desk there was a larger human man with a huge mess of hair on his head and face. He stood in front of what seemed like either one or two massive machines that looked to Felix like they belonged in a factory of some sort.


    "Ya lookin fer somein specific?"


    Felix waited until he finished chewing whatever he was eating then realized it was a wad of gum or something of a similar functionality.


    "Need a mana battery minimum of B grade Rare, very fast transfer speed. Or better yet, whatever I can get for 100 thousand C."


    "Can do. Any preference on color or size?"


    "What do you mean?"


    "These''re the gems I have''n hand that''ll werk." He said pointing to a shelf with a couple of gems on it.


    "No preference¡­ I guess as small as possible?"


    "Sure. This yellow''n then." He said as he picked up a bright yellow gem from the shelf. Felix saw a transaction screen appear in front of him and he paid the man then watched in fascination as he placed the gem into the machine behind him. Felix felt, and saw thanks to his Reaper''s Sense skill, the gem being prepared for use in a battery.


    Where he had adapted a spell he had been given in the tutorial, this machine replicated the same end result with a completely different process. Felix watched as it measured the gem, finding it''s flaws and weaknesses by carefully running waves of mana through it. Then it shifted and began to rapidly berate the gem with mana and Felix struggled to follow as it darted around it in all dimensions. Instead of an arm moving around the gem physically, the gem was placed in a dome that had various nozzles placed all over it.


    Felix focused in on different sections and did his best to follow it. He found that in some areas, the machine used less pressure and intensity when it pushed mana into the gem. In others, it used more. At first he thought it was because it was working around the gems natural flaws but that wasn''t the case because the areas it was gentler on, changed. He continued to watch and feel it until he finally came to the conclusion that it was counteracting the internal vibrations by creating opposite vibrations to cancel out the others. Exactly how it was doing so, he had no idea.


    When it was done, it performed multiple passes of pushing mana into and out of the gem using progressively more mana until it was completely draining and filling the gem with every pass. It then waited a few minutes, repeated then made a cute little chime.


    The man reached in and pulled out the gem then spent a few moments choosing the right housing from a drawer. He placed the housing into a press and placed the gem inside then pressed it closed with a lever. Taking the battery out, he handed it to Felix.


    "There ya''go. Let me know if you need anything else."


    "Actually, how much are batteries? And what are their capacity breakpoints?"


    "Here." The man reached under the counter and retrieved a metal plate with a table engraved onto it and colored in by some unknown means.


    Felix looked over the chart and saw that the battery he had made would be worth about 100k D with the right housing. Everything in the C grade or below with a fast speed or less was relatively cheap. Everything above that just got exponentially more expensive.


    "Can I get 5 very fast C grade Special batteries?"


    He shrugged, "Sure. You want''em all the same?"


    "Doesn''t matter. Any chance you could make them self charging too?"


    "Yeah¡­ but, it''s gonner be slow."


    "How slow?"


    "A few dekads for a full charge, maybe?"


    "Okay, scratch that. Just the batteries then please."


    "Lemme see if I''ve enough gems in stock."


    The man walked through a door into a back room and Felix patiently waited. These batteries would each hold at least a million mana and Very Fast meant it would take him about a second to pull all of it out. There was also instant speed where he wouldn''t ever have to limit the rate he transferred mana because the gem was so far over spec, but those were a hundred times more expensive.


    Looking at his own battery, he was realizing it wasn''t ideal for what he had intended it be used for. To fully drain his Very Slow battery, it would take over ten minutes according to the chart, which was completely unusable in combat. With the higher speed gems though, he could realistically drain them in combat.


    It''s capacity was still impressive though so he planned on placing it inside his tower as a buffer just in case. Judging from the chart in front of him, the batteries would cost him about a third of his total wealth but that was easily worth it in his mind. In total, he was buying access to 5 million mana that he could pull on within a second, if he did so in parallel.


    The man walked back out of the back room, "Alright, I can do it but it''s gonna cost you. I can give''ya slight discount, for buying so many but no''much. It''ll bringin''it back down to the standard price."


    That set of sentences was completely useless.


    A screen appeared in front of Felix so he could confirm the transaction and he accepted, transferring the man 500 thousand D grade credits.


    "Alright, this is gonna take a bit so feel free to leave and come back if you''d like."


    "I''d like to watch if that''s alright."


    "Sure¡­ It''d be faster if I still had both machines running but this stupid machine is broken." The man said as he patted the machine on the right. "The techs are all backed up though so it won''t be fixed for at least a term''r two. Stupid thing is probably gonna cost me an arm and a leg too."


    Felix suddenly perked up, "Can I take a look at it?"


    The man just frowned in confusion, "Kid, you''re D grade and this thing costs more creds than you will ever see in your entire life."


    "I won''t touch it at all, just run it and I''ll watch. I''ll even buy the battery it makes from you."


    "Fine, just don''t complain if you get a bunk battery, ya hear?"


    Whether or not he could actually fix it, Felix was fascinated to watch a broken machine work, in the hopes that he would get more insight into their function and see what a ''bunk'' battery was. It would cost him a decent number of credits in the worst case scenario but he was more than willing to give it a shot anyways.


    The man placed one of the other gems onto the broken machine and activated it. Not only could Felix sense what the machine was doing, but he could compare the two of them as both machines whirred away side by side. The gems themselves weren''t identical but the process was close enough that he could see the differences. At first, he had no idea what was wrong with it but as the process continued and he focused in on the machine, he realized that the machine on the right, had gaps in it.


    Where the machine on the left would rapidly fire a wave of mana at the gem, the machine on the right fired a wave but it was like there was a big rock in the way. A chunk of the wave was just missing at one point in the dome.


    "Can you stop the one on the right?"


    The man looked at him for a few seconds then shrugged and hit a button which opened up the dome and he retrieved the gem from inside. With the dome open, Felix could see exactly which nozzle was failing because he could see residue mana leaking out from all the others.


    "It''s that one right there." Felix pointed.


    "The nozzle?"


    "Sure, that one in specific." Felix created a Light spell that produced a very thin beam, almost like a laser and pointed it at the one he was talking about.


    "I have a couple spares, let me see¡­" The man bent over and looked under the counter for a minute then popped back up with a small box in his hand.


    "If yer right kid, I''ll replace your bunk battery with a new one and give you a 10% discount for the rest of your life."


    "What if I''m wrong?"


    The man shrugged, "Nothing, it costs me nothing to try replacing it. I guess you get a bunk battery?"


    He then carefully removed the nozzle in question, using a special tool to twist it off then replaced it with the new one.


    "Why do you have spares and the tool if you can''t tell which one is failing?"


    "Usually, they don''t fail like''is. Most o''the time they just go pop. Then ya''just have the leftovers and some debris ye''need t''remove."


    "How often does that happen?"


    "Often enough that I have spares."


    "Ok, fair enough. How did you know it was broken?"


    "Gems were goin pop."


    He reached over and pulled a gem out from under the counter then placed it in the machine and started it. The machine on the left finished first and the man replaced it with a new gem while he pressed the completed one into a housing and handed it to Felix.


    [C - Special] Mana Battery (1,000,000/1,000,000)


    [Normal][Very Fast]


    A battery containing mana.


    Felix inspected the battery and though it wasn''t as impressive as the one he had gotten for Inscripticae, this one was his. He stowed it away in his soul space, mostly to make sure it wouldn''t explode or anything and sighed in relief when it seemed fine. He stowed the one for the shop in his bracelet anyways just to be safe.


    A half hour later, the machine on the right finished and the man poked and prodded the finished gem with a few tools before he looked up at Felix with a wide grin.


    "I''m Menan by the way."


    "Felix."


    "Well Felix, you have a lifetime 10% discount here at Over Capacity. You just saved me a lot o''money and a lot o''time."


    "Glad to hear it. That mean the other batteries will be done twice as fast?"


    "Yes sir, let me stick''em in now."


    A couple hours or so later, Felix walked out of the shop a very happy customer. He knew he would be back in the future, whether or not he would be buying gems or inspecting the machines some more.


    For the time being though, he had everything he needed so he headed back to Inscripticae and found Fralyna standing at an empty work table. He pulled the soul gem and battery out of the Kryptos Repository then placed them on the desk in front of her.


    She quickly examined the two then nodded, "Not bad kid. You did a little worse than I thought for that price on the soul gem, where''d you buy it?"


    "Spirit Fused Gems."


    She nodded knowingly, "Ah, that makes sense."


    "Is that not a good place to shop?"


    "It''s fine, you end up paying a lot for their reliability is all."


    "How is that¡­ a bad thing?"


    "A low reliability soul gem has about a 1% chance of failing after a thousand epochs. A high reliability soul gem has about a 1% chance of failing after a hundred thousand epochs."


    "Oh, that''s a decent dif-"


    "Of continuous use."


    "Oh¡­"


    "It''s alright, it''s a learning experience. I wouldn''t have sent you if it was vital to the project, no offense."


    "None taken."


    "The battery though, not bad. This battery is decent."


    "I ended up fixing his machine for him and he gave me a 10% discount for life."


    Fralyna just looked at him for upwards of a minute, "What?"


    "I¡­ got a-"


    "No I heard you. How''d you fix his machine?"


    "I just pointed at the broken nozzle." Felix shrugged.


    She just looked at him for a minute or so with a cocked brow then shook her head, "Kid you might be luckiest little¡­ What shop?"


    "Over Capacity."


    "Huh, I know Menan, good guy."


    "Seems nice enough."


    "Well, I guess we''re sending you to get all our batteries from now on."


    Felix just shrugged, "Sure."


    More chances to inspect that machine. Hopefully I can replicate the process myself soon enough.


    "The sword itself is gonna take some time. Have you used the material index from the store room yet?"


    "No but I have it memorized."


    She smirked, "Alright hotshot. The sword is made from an alloy that consists mostly of Asakantine, Ruclian and Satrium at a ratio of 5 to 4 to 1. What are it''s hardness, elastic and strength ratios?"


    Felix flipped through the book in his head then performed some simple math, "92, 10, 78. Assuming normal forging temperatures?"


    She just stared at him for a few seconds, "Alright, I have no idea. Can you go get the material index so I can verify that?"


    "Oh, sure." Felix hurried off to the store room and retrieved the book in question then handed it to Fralyna. She flipped through it''s pages a few times then nodded, "92, 10, 78. Alright kid. Good stuff. Now, I''ve already done it but it''s good practice, adjust the design from the meeting for those numbers."


    Felix nodded then walked over to another empty worktable and pulled on the roll of paper from the side. He picked up a normal quill that seemed to be enchanted to leave color on the page then traced out the enchantment with the numbers filled in. All he had to do was alter the size or mana flow to the different nodes based on whether or not it needed more hardness, strength or elasticity. It was a fairly menial task but it was the first time Felix had ever done it so he was more than happy to.


    "A little crude." Fralyna said looking over his modifications a short time later, "You''re better off limiting the flow of mana like this¡­" She said as she pulled her drawing out from under the table.


    Other than just the modifications, her drawing was a lot cleaner than Felix''s, even though he had essentially traced it. For the modifications, she used the more elegant looking solution of altering the channel thicknesses all the way from the source instead of the node size. In Felix''s mind, it was possible for those channels to be forced and the nodes to be overloaded, whereas a smaller node didn''t have that issue.


    Apparently though, just shrinking nodes alone had issues like failure rate and loss of precision that weren''t worth it for something like this. For a sword, if the material properties were inconsistent along the blade, it would have a high chance of breaking when it hit something due to internal stress from an inconsistent enchantment.


    Fralyna didn''t have anything else for him to do until the sword was done so he chose an empty work table and started assembling simple calculators using mana computers. Though Aldahn and Ezaldor had both already looked over his design for the final mana computer, he still wanted to have more experience with actually creating them ahead of time. The multiplication and division calculators were simple enough and only took him a half hour in total.


    It got a little more complicated when he made tiny computers to perform basic tasks like output the total mass of every object within a certain radius but eventually he figured that out too. He also had it point small laser lights at each of them and at that point, he figured he was ready. The final computer for his gravity spell he was planning on engraving onto a small slab of Starmetal but Aldahn saw and stopped him.


    "Starmetal is super useful for making a random tool you need on the job, terrible for enchantments though."


    "Why?"


    "Very low conductance and very high interference."


    Felix frowned, "Huh, I haven''t had issues with it so far."


    "What have you used it for?"


    "Portals mostly."


    "With an inlay material?"


    Most of the time¡­


    "Yeah."


    "Alright thank The System, that makes more sense. Don''t do that. You''re very likely to kill yourself doing that."


    "Why didn''t it kill me already then?"


    "System intervention, I don''t know. Just grab a random sheet of metal from the store room, anything is better than Starmetal."


    "Okay, will do. Thanks."


    Aldahn nodded and Felix retrieved a sheet of some unknown metal from the storeroom. He set it down on the table and Aldahn walked him through the different tools to draw out the enchantment, engrave it into the plate then inlay a high conductance material into it. The coolest part to Felix was when Aldahn showed him how to inlay.


    There was essentially a large vat hanging from the ceiling on rails that he pulled over. Felix poured some inlay material into it and activated it''s enchantment which melted it''s contents. The vat then fed the melted inlay through a long tube that terminated in a very pen like tip. Felix simply pulled the tip along the engraving and by pressing down on the small button, molten inlay material poured out.


    He was surprised he didn''t burn himself the entire time but he did screw up and have to cut back excess many times. The entire process was far more elegant than Felix''s rendition with a Starmetal vat that he held up with Force spells and poured directly into a mold. This allowed a much higher level of precision and was far more elegant, which Felix appreciated.


    The design of the computer itself had already been approved by Aldahn so Felix wasn''t worried about inlaying it, the rest though, he tested. He simply attached the rest of the system as raw spell forms to the computer and used his own mana to activate it. It took him a few tries and many curious glances from the others in the shop trying to figure out why they suddenly weighed more until he got it right but eventually, he was pretty sure he had it working exactly as intended. He inlayed the rest of the spell onto the sheet then put away all the tools he had used.


    He dragged the sheet with him into the store room then pulled it into his Pocket Home and set it up in the basement. He wired the entire spell form up to the mana engine and immediately felt himself pulled to the ground. The gravity was a little lighter than Trenus and noticeably lighter than Telviras but that was totally fine with Felix. He didn''t need the gravity to be intense or anything. It was also trivial to increase it but he left it for now.


    He then wired up the mana battery he had made back on Trenus and had it function as a buffer for the mana engine itself so nothing was drawing directly from it. In theory it might prevent any issues in the future if he pulled on the mana very quickly or there was a sudden drop in the ambient because he cast a big spell or something. He would still be limited by the transfer speed of the battery but he didn''t see himself exceeding that anytime soon.


    Ding You have gained 14 levels in [D - Arcane] Mana Engineer (233 => 247)


    14 for that and none for the light? I guess this uses a mana computer and the light wasn''t that difficult. Oh well, levels are levels.


    He walked back out of the tower and easily lifted the Demitium chunk up in the air, confirming the spell was working as intended then he replaced Nova''s bed on the ground and left his Pocket Home. He exited the store room and saw Aldahn just looking at him from across the workshop. Felix walked over to him.


    Aldahn crossed his arms, "You have a pocket dimension or something, don''t you?"


    Felix sighed, "How''d you know? Gravity or randomly disappearing in the store room?"


    "Both actually. Also it''s somewhat common for escapees."


    "How many escapees have you met?"


    Aldahn shook his head, "Just you. I''ve only heard about others. Most of them become powerful and famous so you hear about them when they happen."


    "Gross."


    "Hah! I hear ya kid. Just try not to become too powerful and you''ll be fine."


    "I''ll try." Felix said noncommittally. "Oh, separate question, is 100 D an hour for use of a course and 500 D an hour for direct tutelage a good price?"


    "Depends, what for?"


    Felix shrugged, "A martial art kind of?"


    "Then it''s a little low."


    "It''s not usually meant for combat."


    "Then it''s a little high, not much but a little. Not a complete rip off if you really need it. That''s assuming it''s not a Rare or higher skill, then it would be too good to be true. Honestly, I''m assuming it probably isn''t a skill at all at that price."


    Felix shrugged, "No idea."


    Aldahn nodded, "Doesn''t mean it isn''t worth it."


    Felix nodded, "Alright, thanks."


    "Sure thing. By the way, I came looking for you in the store room and didn''t find you, but I was looking for you because there''s someone at the front asking for you."


    "There''s someone looking for me?"


    "Yup. Feel free to take one of the empty meeting rooms, where we started the interview, if you need."


    "Thanks¡­"


    Felix walked over to the front and walked behind the counter so he could greet his completely unexpected visitor. Standing in the lobby was a tall looking man with a race Felix had never seen before. His skin was a dull grey color that leaned much closer to white than black but otherwise had no color in it whatsoever. He had angular tattoos that accentuated his face shape and his irises were almost as black as his pupils, only because of Felix''s high perception could he see his iris''. On top of it all, the part that seemed to differentiate him the most from humans, or elves considering his ears were slightly pointed, was his hair.


    A top his head, instead of hair, he had what looked like inky black smoke that stayed relatively stable with only slight movement. It resembled a spiky, if a little messy, hairstyle that suited him but definitely drew the eye. Accentuating the entire look and contrasting the dark tones of his body, he wore a set of completely white leather armor that looked to be about as high quality as Felix had ever seen. The armor wasn''t quite pristine, but it wasn''t dirty. It had a few scratches here and there and some minor signs of wear around the edges.


    Lastly, the man was tall, standing almost 7 feet according to Felix''s estimate and Felix could tell, even through the armor, that he probably had the most athletic build he had ever seen. Judging just from his body shape and what was visible alone, the man was covered in tight muscles that seemed to strike a balance between being sleek and mobile and strong at the same time.


    [C] Thezan (Lvl ?)


    Felix just frowned and looked at the man, "Uh¡­ Hello?"


    "You Felix Kade?"


    Felix nodded, "I am."


    "Perfect. I''ve got a contract and I need someone with arcane aptitudes."


    Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.


    Felix frowned as he reconfirmed Thezan''s grade, "Why me specifically?"


    Thezan nodded with respect for Felix''s to the point attitude, "A couple reasons, we had someone that fit that role a little while ago but they ran off, had a kid and quit the life. We don''t have time to build trust with someone new but you''re only in the D grade so we aren''t too worried about you stabbing us in the back. Also, your proficiency in ''mana?'' is the highest proficiency I''ve ever seen in something so general."


    Felix couldn''t really argue with any of that so he just shrugged, "Fair enough. You aren''t worried about me holding you back too much?"


    "Not in this case. We''re already a lot stronger than necessary for the job. Your registration with the guild also says you can handle yourself against high D grade creatures, that true?"


    Felix shrugged, "I believe it to be."


    Thezan looked at Felix for almost a minute then nodded, "Hmmmm. You do seem capable in a fight, you definitely aren''t falling behind at least. You also believe what you''re saying so, there may be some truth to it¡­"


    Felix looked at him with a frown then he continued, "It''s a skill. Maybe I''ll tell you about it one day. Anyway, wanna hear about the job?"


    "Yes I do." Felix cocked his head to the side, towards the client meeting rooms next to him. "First door." Then he walked back behind the counter and entered the first room. He got there a few seconds before Thezan so he quickly looked through some setting screens. Felix opened the screen for his own identification, something he had been meaning to do for a while now, and set it to show his grade and name. Thezan walked in a few moments later and took the seat opposite Felix.


    "The job is simple but¡­ they often start that way. Rumor has it an old, very much dead, empire from a few dozen integrations ago created a super weapon. We were contracted to search the ruins and track it down with funding for as many expeditions as it takes."


    "You need someone with magical aptitudes just in case?"


    "The super weapon itself is suspected to be some sort of spell or enchanted construct because the empire was well known for their magics. We suspect their castle, where we''re headed first, is covered in magical traps, enchantments, spells and so on. We need you to help deal with them. Don''t worry about detecting the traps too much, we can do that. We might need you to disable traps, magical defenses, provide insight if you can, that kind of thing."


    Felix nodded, "Alright, I''m interested."


    "Good. Couple of things you should know. The party is currently me and three others, plus you that''ll be 5. We split everything evenly, after any expenses. Loot is split evenly but I am king, if there''s an argument on the job, I settle it and that''s that. You are welcome to argue with me afterwards but do not ever deviate from my orders or argue with me on the job itself, got it?"


    Felix shrugged, "Sure. I assume within reason."


    "You seem like a smart kid, yes listen to everything if you can. If the situation drastically changes and I''m not there¡­ you get it?"


    "Yup. No problems with that."


    Thezan nodded and crossed his arms, "Anything else?"


    Felix leaned forwards in his seat, "Yes. What was the empire called? I want to go look them up at the library."


    "The Usorium empire. Good luck though, there isn''t much known about them in general."


    "Anything else I should know?"


    Thezan leaned back in his chair, "I''d like you to meet the party at the guild if you can, just stop by some time later today. We''ll head out tonight."


    "Okay I will let my boss know then go do some research and buy supplies. How long are you expecting this job to last?"


    Thezan''s eyes rolled upwards a bit as he thought through his answer, "This expedition, probably 3 days at most. If you come by a little earlier, we can grab supplies together. Those are expenses so anything you need we can buy with the client''s money."


    "Okay, perfect. How will I find you in the guild?"


    "Just ask for the Shade''s Wrath''s room. Stupid name, don''t ask." Thezan sighed.


    "Okay, I''ll see you in a few hours then."


    Thezan nodded to him, causing his shadow hair to lightly sway, then he rose and exited the room.


    Felix headed straight to Aldahn''s office and knocked.


    "Come in."


    Felix just leaned his head into the office, "I-"


    Aldahn didn''t even look up, "You need a few days to go on an adventure."


    "Yeah sort of, three days at most."


    Aldah shrugged, "No problem. You might miss out on the rest of the sword but maybe not¡­ smiths are annoyingly slow."


    "I can just shadow another job when I come back?"


    "Yeah totally. No worries. Just don''t get yourself killed out there, I saw his grade¡­"


    Felix nodded and chuckled, "They like me because they aren''t worried about me stabbing them in the back."


    "Hah! That''s a stupid reason¡­ Have you told them?"


    Felix sighed, "That I''m an integrated? No."


    Aldahn nodded in understanding, "You should. It won''t be a bad thing, I promise. It is good to know though so they don''t expect things from you that they shouldn''t. It will help them protect you."


    "You''re right. I''ll tell them."


    Aldahn waved him off, "Stay safe, don''t die."


    "Thanks."


    Before leaving, Felix chose an empty client meeting room in the shop and retrieved Nova from his Pocket Home. He carefully placed them in his robes then flew off to the library. He immediately headed into the general section and called over a librarian. Together they filtered down the innumerable books in the library to a list of just a few thousand containing mentions of the Usorium Empire. From that list, Felix filtered out all the books that only mentioned the name itself a single time outside of a sentence because there were many that contained lists of empires.


    The rest of the books numbered just under a thousand or so and Felix had the librarian retrieve each and every one of them for him. It didn''t take nearly as long as he had expected because apparently all librarians had ridiculous mobility skills from their professions that only applied within the library. Felix scanned all of the books and together, he and Grim sifted through all the information. The vast majority of them just contained rumors and hearsay which were valuable in their own right but not what Felix was looking for.


    In total, there were just three books that claimed to have any factual information. None of them mentioned anything about it''s location, not even a star system. Any information about when it existed was imprecise and all he got was a range of a couple integrations. The only information they did know for certain was that their magic was their greatest strength. Where other kingdoms had unique classes, training regimens, armies, smithing techniques or something else, the Usorium empire had magic.


    They employed the use of enchantments, unique spells, rituals, wards, and contraptions to rise to power and fell their foes. All accounts described the empire itself as a wonderous and magical place. Not only did they use magic to wage war and defend themselves, but they used magic in every aspect of their daily lives, more than anywhere else in the multiverse. They had mundane enchanted brooms to sweep for them, the roads were enchanted so people moved faster, the entire city was protected from the weather.


    None of these things were impressive now but back when the empire had been rising to power, they were completely novel.


    The empire was somewhat closed off and secretive but the weirdest part of all, was that all of a sudden they vanished. Somehow, the empire was thriving one day and completely gone the next. Most suspect it was the super weapon they were rumored to have built but no one knows for certain. A lot of the other books held wild rumors as to what happened but Felix and Grim completely ignored them, mostly because they were a little too ridiculous.


    Using his Soul Garden to sort through the information, it had only taken Felix and Grim a couple real world hours so not much time had passed at all. Felix really liked the idea of having experienced adventurers tell him what supplies he needed, and pay for them so he headed straight for the guild.


    Walking right up to the front desk, he was greeted by a Minotaur.


    "Felix Kade. What can we do for you?"


    Does everyone know my name or just¡­ it''s cause I''m registered now, never mind.


    "Looking for Shade''s Wrath, I hear they have a room?"


    "Yes. They''ve been expecting you. Head over to desk number 137 and they''ll take you."


    "Thanks."


    Felix walked to the desk the minotaur had indicated and met a tiny woman, just a couple feet tall, with pointed ears and glasses.


    "Felix Kade?"


    "That''s me."


    "Follow me."


    She hopped over the desk then led him over to a small room that Felix realized far later than he would have liked to admit, was an elevator. They ascended to some unknown floor without the small woman pressing, or even doing anything, then the door just opened. She led him to a door and then just walked away.


    Felix knocked and looked around and what looked like a very fancy hotel floor. The floor was marble and the walls were smooth stone. The doors were evenly spaced a few meters apart and all that was missing in Felix''s mind was an ice machine.


    The door opened after a few seconds revealing Thezan.


    "Oh, that was fast."


    Felix nodded, "You were right, not much information on them."


    "How much did you go through?"


    "Every book that mentioned them by name outside of a list in the general section of the library."


    Thezan frowned, "That''s¡­ more than we went through¡­ Come in."


    Thezan stepped aside revealing a room that looked nothing like a hotel room. It instead, looked like the inside of a massive house. Thezan led him through a lobby area and around a corner into a living room. On the couch there was a human woman with dirty blonde hair reading some book. Beyond the couch, there was what appeared to be an entire alchemy lab where a man just over 2 feet tall was concocting something.


    "This is Rathos." Thezan said pointing to the woman, "And that is Elric." He said pointing to the small man in the alchemy lab.


    Felix looked around the room, "You said there were 4 of you?"


    Thezan nodded, "Yeah, Aros is out right now. I think he''s buying ingredients."


    "You made it in time for the feast." The woman said without looking away from her book.


    "There''s something I should probably tell you before we commit to all this, shouldn''t be a deal breaker but who knows." Felix looked towards Thezan but saw Rathos'' eyebrow raise along with the side of her lip.


    Felix sighed, "I''m an integrated¡­ escapee? of the 256th"


    "Bullshit. It''s too early for that." Rathos immediately said, still without looking away from her book.


    "I have the title to prove it." Felix equipped his Exile title then waited for them to identify him.


    Rathos finally looked up from her book and smirked, "Kid, you''re not an escapee. You''re an exile."


    "The hell is that?" Felix heard Elric call out from the alchemy lab.


    Rathos smirked, "It''s like an escapee except he didn''t choose to leave, he was kicked out."


    "What''s the difference?" Thezan asked.


    "Well, an escapee usually outgrows the integration, becomes too strong to get much out of it. Exile''s are so strong, they''re a danger to everyone else in the integration. Basically no one else stood a chance, even collectively of stopping him. If he wanted to, Felix here could have completely dominated his integration and done whatever he wanted. Or simply wiped them all out without much difficulty." Rathos smiled wide, almost creepily.


    "I guess that does make me feel better about the whole low-level-D-grade-claiming-he-can-take-on-high-D-grade-enemies thing" Thezan shrugged.


    Elric called out from the back, "Wait, so integrated, you know just about nothing about¡­ the multiverse then?"


    "Nothing more than I''ve already learned." Felix shrugged.


    "Uh huh. Cheeky. Are you gonna be able to disable magical traps and wards then?" Thezan looked at him, clearly less sure of his choice in Felix.


    "I think so." Felix shrugged again.


    Thezan frowned, "Wait, how do you have an Expert proficiency then?"


    Felix shrugged, "I opened some mana control skill cubes for them."


    "Hey kid, come here." Elric called out.


    Felix walked around the couch and over to the alchemist, careful to not get too close, wary of the fumes.


    Elric pointed just below one of the flasks. "I dropped some acid on the burner enchantment here. Can you fix it?"


    Felix looked at the enchantment and saw a small chunk of it missing. His eyes darted to the flasks around it to look for a template enchantment but he realized all the other enchantments at the table were located under the table, for a good reason. For some reason, this one enchantment had been drawn on top of the table, completely separated from the others despite the fact that there was an enchantment directly below it already.


    Felix quickly realized it was a test and decided to be a little cheeky. He pulled out his quill and carefully filled in the rest of the enchantment, fighting his low grade quill the entire way.


    He wasn''t using any inlay and the surface was uneven from the acid that had been intentionally spilt on it but even then, his fix should last a few dekads at best, Felix suspected. He lifted his hand and backed away then smiled at Elric. Elric walked over and activated a switch which flooded the enchantment with mana and produced a cute little flame that shifted colors every few seconds, cycling through the rainbow.


    "Hah! Alright alright kid, not bad." Elric waved him off and Felix walked back over to the sitting area and took a seat opposite Rathos.


    Felix looked over at Thezan, "You said we could buy supplies together?"


    "Right, if you''re an integrated this is even more important. Yeah, we''ll buy some potions, elixirs, ropes¡­ What are you by the way?"


    Felix frowned, "What¡­ do you mean?"


    "Class."


    "Oh, caster¡­ derivative."


    "Okay, perfect. I''m a melee fighter so is Aros, who you haven''t met yet. Rathos is a rogue but really likes throwing daggers so she bounces in and out of close range. Elric is an archer and our alchemist. He makes us some potions but mostly poisons and acids for his arrows. I''ll be honest, not sure what supplies you might need as a caster specifically. We''ll ask Luther though."


    Felix nodded, "Luther?"


    "Proprietor of the shop we frequent. He gives us a discount in exchange for first dibs on anything we need to sell. It''s where we get most of our general supplies. We''ll head to an alchemist for potions specifically but just about anything else, he''s got it."


    Potions are fine but what I really need are more bodies to store in my ring. I can theoretically heal myself using it''s contents but it doesn''t contain any human cells right now¡­ or wanderer cells I guess.


    Well I only know one wanderer.


    Shit, I''m gonna have to cut off my arms aren''t I?


    If you want to use that feature, you probably are.


    I guess it''s good for me to know if I can actually regrow my limbs.


    Felix looked up at Thezan with a slightly guilty expression, "Semi unrelated, not necessary for this mission but figure you''d be the best person to ask¡­ where can I buy corpses?"


    Thezan crossed his arms, "Like animal corpses?"


    "Yeah. Magical creatures, things like that."


    Thezan shrugged, "Body broker. Chiseled Free is a good one Aros likes. If you ask him after the job he''d probably go with you."


    "Thanks, I''ll look for it."


    Thezan nodded, "Let''s just wait for Aros then we can go to Luther''s."


    "Isn''t he just gonna be cooking when he gets back?" Rathos countered.


    Thezan shrugged, "Yeah, probably. I''ll make him come with us though, he''ll have time to cook afterwards."


    Rathos giggled, "You know how he hates being rushed."


    Thezan sighed, "I''ll push back our departure if he needs it."


    "Damn right you will." Felix turned towards the new voice and saw a massive looking man. He was somewhere close to 8 feet tall, much taller than Felix and tall enough that it was hard to judge. Everyone about him though looked like he was just a man but bigger. He was wide and bound in massive muscles, entirely focused on strength at the cost of mobility, unlike Thezan. Other than that and his wide, flat and boxy facial features, he looked human and wore a simple shirt and pants.


    "Oh, you''re back." Thezan turned to greet Rathos.


    "I should have time to go to Luther''s with you guys. Just don''t spend too long gossiping." Aros rolled his eyes.


    "You can always leave early." Thezan countered.


    "Yeah yeah, this the kid?" Aros waved him off.


    Thezan looked at Felix, "Yup."


    "He''s an exile by the way." Rathos chimed in.


    Aros frowned, "I can see that. Not sure what it means but¡­"


    Felix realized he had forgotten about his title then quickly unequipped it.


    "Integrated, 256th." Elric called out.


    "This early?" Aros cocked a brow. Sear?h the n?velFire.net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    "He was kicked out for being too coooool." Rathos said with a smirk.


    Aros nodded slowly, "I see. Well, glad we snatched him up then."


    "Me too." Rathos said with another creepy smile.


    Thezan waved them all over, "Alright, lets head to Luther''s."


    Felix followed them to a different door than he had entered from and onto a large balcony. A break in the railing made room for them all to climb onto what looked like a large open car. There was a windshield but no roof, 4 rows of benches and no seatbelts anywhere. Thezan hopped into the front where Felix assumed he would be steering from but had no idea how as he saw no controls whatsoever. The others were behind him so Felix just hopped into the second row from the back and Aros sat next to him, much to Rathos'' annoyance.


    Once they were all in the vehicle, it shot off faster than Felix usually flew and possibly faster than he had ever flown. He saw them quickly rise up to the blue flyway height then dart off in a specific direction. They didn''t use the portal spires but Felix realized they weren''t necessary, the vehicle was very fast and their destination not far. Something about the enchantments also surrounded and protected them as they flew so the speed didn''t affect them at all. Even the sound of the wind rushing by was almost completely silent.


    Felix spent the entire ride examining the vehicle with his mana senses and growing increasingly fascinated by it''s design. It was precise, powerful and efficient all at once. It had countless redundancies and enchantments with effects he couldn''t even identify. There were some that kept them stable and other''s that just made them move. He knew some of it was protecting them from the wind and silencing the roar of the wind but he didn''t have the time or experience to figure out which part.


    They arrived at a shop called The Sleeping Genie in just over ten minutes and they all hopped out, leaving the vehicle floating next to the shop. As soon as the vehicle was stopped, Felix felt the batteries refilling themselves with mana. Thezan opened the door to the shop and walked in first, followed shortly after by the rest of his party and Felix.


    "Thezan, Elric, Rathos, Aros," The shop keep said each name with a slightly different tone and far more excitement than Felix would ever want someone to have when saying his own name, "It''s been far too long. I take it you have another job and you''ve come for supplies?"


    Thezan nodded, "That we have Luther."


    Luther was, as far as Felix could tell, a giant toad. There was nothing particularly different or unique about him as compared to any other toad Felix had seen other than that he was huge, he talked and he wore opulent robes. Felix had no idea how he moved about the shop and retrieved the normal sized magic items, but he figured he was about to find out.


    Around him, the shop was completely organized such that anything was easily found at first glance, even though his products were often abstract and arcane in nature. Felix saw all kinds of things he couldn''t identify without using the identify skill lining the walls. There were ropes that moved themselves, small vehicles, vases, scrolls, gems, weapons, armor, jewelry and a thousand other knick-knacks.


    "You brought a newcomer with you¡­ a weird one at that." Luther''s massive eyes squinted though his pupils were so big it was hard to confirm he was looking at Felix.


    Rathos smirked, "How so?"


    Luther croaked out with a smirk, "You know I''m not one to divulge another''s secrets¡­ but let''s just say he''s got some rather unique magical items, a race and class that are likely hidden and a very rare profession. Plus his familiar is adorable but¡­ a weird and somewhat concerning choice nonetheless."


    You just¡­ not one to divulge another''s secrets my ass. You just couldn''t get anymore than that when you identified me.


    Rathos looked at him with another creepy smile and he just ignored her. Luckily, Thezan brushed off the massive breach of privacy and moved on, "He''s a caster derivative and an enchanter, we have no idea what supplies to buy for that, any suggestions?"


    "That depends. Some good choices would be spell scrolls, quills, spell tablets, small consumable batteries, mana sensitive parchment, mana potions, materials for your spells if you need them, an embedded wand¡­ aside from the regular."


    "Any of that sound useful to you Felix?" Thezan turned to him.


    "Actually¡­ blank scrolls, the ones I have are low grade, a better general purpose quill, what are spell tablets?"


    "Like scrolls, less flimsy but less portable."


    "Okay scratch the scrolls, actually¡­ how much more are the tablets?"


    "About the same."


    "Tablets then, no scrolls, general purpose quill at least D grade, what''s an embedded wand?"


    "Wand with a spell in it."


    "Nah, that''s okay."


    Luther nodded his massive toad head, "What spells do you want on the tablets?"


    "Wait, I thought you meant blank tablets?"


    "Oh, I have those too¡­ I guess enchanter makes sense¡­ you''re a little low level¡­ and grade¡­ to be inscribing spells but, alright."


    "What spell tablets do you have?"


    "Don''t go thinking you can just read the spells off them. They''re embedded inside them."


    "Can you show me the spell''s effects?"


    "Sure, I have a back room where you can test''em. Not scrolls though since those are mostly single use. Here''s a list."


    A list floated over from behind the counter and Felix looked through it. A lot of the spells Felix could guess at what they did but a good number of them he had no idea. Either way, he fully planned on testing each and every one of them so he could memorize their spell forms. Luther was surprised when Felix asked to test and see all of them but didn''t refuse. He gave Felix directions to the back room where he found the tablets he had asked for already there, piled neatly in the corner.


    The room was just a large empty room where every surface other than the door seemed to be lined in some kind of stone or cement. Felix went through the spells one by one and pushed mana into them, mapping out the spell forms using his mana senses as he went. He couldn''t help but smile as he discovered all kinds of nodes and spell patterns he had never seen before.


    There were walls of force, walls of fire, flame throwers, shock traps, wind barriers, alarms, slow fields, flash bomb traps, anti gravity fields, mana walls and simple bombs. There were also more complicated spell like grease puddles which just lifted everything a few millimeters off the ground to remove friction and force traps that launched everything around it in a random direction. Overall, Felix probably could have come up with any of them himself, none of them were revolutionary or employed any novel techniques, they did however have new nodes.


    Most of them were shaping nodes but there were detection nodes as well and some stabilizing rings that were new to Felix. He was going to have to run some tests to figure out what their advantages and disadvantages were but he was just satisfied for now having learned them at all.


    Felix exited the room a short time later and informed Luther than all he needed was blank tablets, much to his dismay. Felix ended up buying 200 of them using the party funds. At first Thezan was hesitant but when he saw how cheap the blank C grade tablets were at just a few thousand standard D credits per, he gladly bought them. They also bought Felix a general purpose quill that he made sure worked on the tablets. It was a simple quill that was really only a quill in name and function because it looked like a pen. They even splurged for an Uncommon C grade quill, mostly because it only cost them a couple thousand D.


    Felix assured them all, multiple times, that he didn''t need any mana potions, consumable batteries or mana sensitive parchment, which could sometimes show enchantments through walls. They also bought a wide range of other random supplies like bottles of fresh air, ropes, spikes, caltrops, ball bearings, daggers and a set of warm cloaks for the party. Some of the others made purchases of their own but they were all done by the time Felix had left the back testing room so he didn''t get to see what they bought.


    They all thanked Luther and Thezan paid him for everything they had bought then they got back in the flying vehicle and zipped off to another store. They arrived after a short 5 minute or so flight at a shop called Bloodstone Alchemy. Felix followed the rest of the party inside and saw what appeared to be a combination between an alchemists shop and a green house, all wrapped up into a single store. Obviously the plants being grown were intended as ingredients for alchemy but Felix still hadn''t been expecting it.


    Instead of shelves with bottles of potions, poisons and elixirs, the shop had rows and rows of multi-tiered planters. Each one had their own enchantments acting as a light source, some brighter than others and some emitting unnatural colors.


    They were all enclosed and through his mana senses, Felix could tell they were both temperature and humidity controlled. He had trouble identifying the humidity control enchantments at first, but through process of elimination he eventually figured them out. He memorized the pressure and humidity measurement nodes that worked in tandem to determine when to pump humidity in and out of the enclosed space, just in case.


    As a party, they walked all the way to the back where the entire back section of the shop was a massive alchemical work station. There were desks set up in a large circle each holding a different vial, burner, alembic, lute, crucible or network of tubes. In the middle of the desks stood a Drakene with scales that varied wildly in color. There were splotches of white, red, blue, green, yellow and every other Felix thought possible for a Drakene''s scales. None of them were glowing or anything but they did cover almost the entire rainbow.


    Thezan walked over and leaned on the empty desk facing the front, "Hey Zufaris. We''re looking for supplies."


    She nodded, "The usssual?"


    "Yup. Make it for 5, last one is a human derivative."


    "Anythhhing for you thisss time Elric?"


    Elric shook his head as he crossed his arms, "Nah, I still haven''t run out of the last batch of materials you sold me. We aren''t actually expecting to run into anything anyways."


    "Fair enoughhh. What about the newww comer?"


    Felix walked up to the table next to Thezan, "I''ll be honest, I''ve never been to an alchemists shop before. What do you have?"


    She chuckled a little, "I don''t ssstock anything. I sssimply make what isss requesssted of me."


    "Can you give me an idea of things you could make?"


    "I can make potionsss to replenishhh your health, energy or mana. Health being by far my mossst popular ware. I can also make elixirsss to temporarily increassse your¡­ abilitiesss. If you ssso need them I can alssso make poisssonsss of various ssstrengthsss."


    "How much?"


    "For whichhh?"


    Felix shrugged, "All of them."


    "Uh¡­ Dependsss on the ssstrength."


    "I''d like one of every kind of elixir you can make. Any strength is fine but if you have multiple recipes for the same stat, I''ll take one of each of them. All poisons you can make and potions for health and energy, same as the elixirs, I''ll take all the recipes you have."


    "Uh¡­ kid, I think that''sss a lot more than you realizzze. I believe that would be about a few thousssand productsss. Neither you nor I have the time for that. I think I know what you''re getting at though. I take it your looking for different effectsss, right? As long as an elixir works using a different princcciple you want to try it? You''re trying to see if it will work with your race?"


    No, I want to replicate their effects without anything external at all.


    "Yeah, pretty much. How much would it cost for the smallest size of every different effect¡­ so to speak? Cheapest version of each I guess. Oh and could you label them so I know which ones to come back for?"


    "Yesss of courssse. Let''sss sssee here¡­"


    "Wait kid, you want all that and you aren''t even interested in mana potions at all?" Thezan asked.


    Felix shook his head, "Nah, don''t need em. I would be surprised if they did anything for me given all the skills I have dedicated to mana regeneration."


    "I¡­ see." Thezan frowned in confusion as he physically backed off a little bit to give Felix and the alchemist room.


    "I have one for dexssterity, 3 for ssstrength and 2 for the other¡­ attributesss. I have 1 instant health recipe and 1 instant energy potion. A few regeneration recccipessss for each and though the resssult is the same, the effectsss are slightly¡­ exssspanded. Asss for poisssonsss, I have a lot of those. Sssmallessst amount and cheapessst recccipe¡­"


    "Give me the best version of the regeneration potions then, with the expanded effects. Oh and strongest poisons please."


    "Just give him the ones I can''t do. I''ll give''ya batch of everything I can make kid." Elric added in.


    "Underssstood¡­ That''ll come out to 38,920 D grade creditsss. Letsss sssay 35 thousssand for sssuch a big purchassse?"


    That''s not nearly as much as I thought.


    I mean everything you asked for was a consumable with a temporary effect.


    I guess¡­


    "Uh kid, we aren''t paying for that¡­" Thezan said.


    "I know."


    "Thisss puchassse will take sssome time to make."


    "Can you have it ready in a few days? I can come pick it up after the job." Felix offered.


    "That would be accssseptable."


    "Perfect."


    Thezan leaned in a little, "We do need my order before the job, as soon as possible actually."


    "Of courssse. I''ll have it ready in a few. Feel free to wander around, sssmell the rosssesss."


    They all split up and wandered through the shop, Elric following Felix.


    "What the hell do you need poisons for kid? Aren''t you a caster?"


    "I am. I''m gonna eat them."


    Elric just looked at Felix, waiting for him to admit he was kidding but Felix was completely serious.


    "So you''re trying to build a tolerance? It takes more than one dose of a poison you know¡­"


    "Usually."


    Not if I can just manually force my cells to remember how to fight the poisons, keep the antibodies and so on.


    "How much do you need of each poison?"


    "Just a small vial, ideally enough to kill me."


    "Uh¡­ alright I can¡­ get you a vial of everything I have. Any chance I could¡­ watch you eat them?"


    Felix shrugged, "Sure."


    "I also have some new poisons I''m not sure about, would you be willing to test them out?"


    "Yeah, I''d love to."


    Elric''s eyes widened with glee, "Excellent."


    Felix walked around and occasionally glanced back towards the Drakene alchemist who was in the process of concocting at least a dozen different things at once. She darted between everything on the tables around her, often not even looking as she poured, transferred, heated and mixed things.


    He didn''t watch her the entire time though and he spent some time smelling the roses, as had been suggested to him. Some of the plants in the shop were either not sealed away in containers and or instead had vents that opened to the air around them. Felix walked through and smelled them, at first just because it was something to do but after the first few, he was completely hooked.


    They weren''t drug like or addictive but the sensation of smelling something that he had never even imagined before was exhilarating. Not every plant had a new smell to him, but about half of them did. Some just had weird combinations of smells he was unfamiliar with, others had smells he never expected to come from plants like chemical smells.


    By the time Felix circled around the entire shop, the alchemist finished with her work and packaged everything into a neat little package wrapped in cloth and string. Thezan took the goods and made them vanish right before Felix''s eyes then they headed back to the vehicle and flew back to the guild. They flew right up to the balcony outside the room they had left from though Felix had no idea how Thezan knew which balcony was the right one. There were thousands at the right height and they all looked the same to him. He assumed it was his map but it was still impressive in Felix''s mind, finding the right one.


    They walked back into the room and Rathos plopped herself back down on the couch, exactly where she had been before they left. Aros disappeared into another room so he could start cooking and Elric excitedly dragged Felix into the alchemy room. Felix didn''t get to see where Thezan disappeared to as he was too focused on trying to keep up with Elric.


    Elric looked at Felix, his face evidently filled with excitement, "Do you need anything before we do this?"


    "No, I just need to meditate."


    Elric nodded, "How long between the poisons?"


    Felix shrugged, "Depends on the poison, usually a few minutes sometimes up to 10 or so."


    "Perfect."


    Elric dragged a stool into the middle of the room and sat Felix on it then darted around to different desks where he retrieved various vials and started the alchemical process on some new concoctions. He ran over to Felix and handed him the first vial then backed up a step and stared at him with an intensity that made Felix a little wary of what he was about to drink.


    I did not intend to do this right before the job but I guess we have at least 6 hours until the feast anyways. It shouldn''t take me that long to recover.


    Felix took the vial from Elric and downed it right as Thezan walked into the room.


    Thezan grasped Elric''s tiny shoulder, "Wait Elric, which one did you give him?"


    "That necrosis one I had been fiddling with."


    Thezan''s face immediately filled with a combination of shock and rage, "WHY THE FUCK WOULD YOU DO THAT!?"


    Elric stumbled back a step, "I mean, he said he could handle it¡­"


    "That poison is meant to help us take out PEAK C grade creatures and he''s a CASTER, how much health do you think he actually has?"


    Felix cut in to try and help Elric out, "I currently have over 72 thousand."


    "SEE!?"


    Felix realized it was a mistake to cut in at all as Elric paled and looked at Felix.


    Thezan gritted his teeth, "You could have at least STARTED with something a little less potent, don''t ya think?"


    Felix ignored the rest of their argument, closed his eyes and meditated as he started to feel the poison seeping into his cells. The instant it hit a cell, the cell just keeled over and died. Then, the poison would use the remnants of the cell to feed itself and continue on to it''s neighbor. This made the necrosis spread much faster as it worked. Currently, there was poison ripping through his mouth and throat all the way down to his stomach where his stomach acid was helping to dilute it, but not by much.


    The first thing Felix did was try to slow the poison but he quickly realized he had no good way of doing that because he had no idea what it was actually doing. He calmed himself down with a deep breath then focused in on the cells right as they were attacked. At first he thought the poison was killing the cells and so he tried to have them defend themselves but they weren''t doing anything. At that point he realized it wasn''t killing the cells at all, it was activating the mechanism all cells had called apoptosis, tricking them into killing themselves.


    The function basically determined if the cell was no longer necessary or if it was damaged and malfunctioning in which case it would die off and get replaced. In this case, the poison seemed to be tricking his cells somehow into making them die off even though they were both healthy and necessary. The most logical way the poison should work is that it attacked the cells until they were damaged enough to die off but no matter where Felix looked, the poison wasn''t damaging his cells at all. Instead, it seemed to somehow be tricking them into thinking they weren''t necessary anymore.


    Felix had messed with the core functions of his cells before, rearranging and even making new ones but in all of those cases, he used a template and just fit the pieces together. In this case, he had to reconstruct or correct a piece that already existed, with no template on hand. The first thing he did was to force all the cells touching the poison to keep themselves alive, even if they thought they should be dying. It wasn''t a solution because he had essentially given himself pseudo-cancer, but for the time being, it stopped the spread of the poison.


    Now that he had more time to deal with it, Felix chose specific cells and started overriding them in different ways then freeing them from his manual hold. He watched them die off one by one, some living but being permanently flawed others still falling prey to the poison''s tricks. He started to run out of ideas to test so he reconfigured some of his cells around the poison to perfectly match Erolan''s, a once much higher grade creature, to see how they handled it.


    Instead of being tricked at all, the poison never had a chance to do anything to them as the cells simply digested it, turning it into energy. Felix looked through Erolan''s cells for the answer, trying to figure out why they weren''t tricked but he realized, it had nothing to do with not being tricked. His cells simply attacked and digested anything foreign and with the poison, it was destroyed before it ever had a chance to do anything.


    He was keen on the idea of replicating that effect with his own cells but that only stopped certain poisons. His cells weren''t generally as strong as Erolan''s and in the future, if he had to deal with stronger poisons, they might take too long for his cells to break down. He saved that modification for after he figured out how to keep his cells alive. He also figured he should probably make his cells more resilient in general so it was harder for poisons to penetrate them. That still didn''t solve the problem at hand though.


    What he wanted was to avoid having his cells get tricked at all. Unfortunately he had no idea how to make his cells actually smarter. He knew there was a nucleus which was something like the brain of the cell but in this case, having paid close attention to the poison, he knew it was two enzymes that were getting tricked. Somehow, he had to make his entire cell as a whole smarter. The only thing he could think of to do though was to infuse them with energy, mana or anima. He tested them in order, starting with energy.


    No matter how he infused them, they didn''t seem to become any smarter. They worked faster and got a little stronger but they were still tricked without fail. Infusing them with mana, of every different attunement and energy level didn''t make them any less likely to be tricked but it did have other interesting effects. It was hard to tell on an individual level per cell but it seemed like mana of different attunements would alter them slightly differently, but almost negligibly so. He filed away that knowledge and the experiments he would need to explore it for later. The last thing he tried was infusing his cells with anima, which did seem to work somewhat.


    At first he infused them with ambient anima but that resulted in cells that started to feel like they had separated themselves from his body. He quickly corrected his mistake though and instead, infused them with some of his own soul matter, compressed from the outer most layer. As soon as he did so, he knew this was the right solution. His ability to tell what was happening within the cell itself along with his control over them suddenly felt orders of magnitude more precise. He was able to give them basic commands like ''don''t get tricked'' and they seemed to listen when he let the poison loose once again. Not only that, but it seemed to make them significantly stronger, without any physical modifications.


    Unfortunately, in order to extend this effect to the rest of his body it was going to take him a few days of forging a new layer onto his soul that suffused his entire body. For now, he was happy that he had found a solution at all and simply set his cells to digest the poison, completely eliminating it from his system. He didn''t make all his cells strong enough to digest poison or resilient enough to prevent it from ever entering inside them, he saved those for when he had more time to do so.


    For now though, if he was inflicted by poisons in the future, he could simply morph the cells around the poison and deal with it. He also wanted to let the next poisons affect his unaltered, base cells so he could find new problems and new solutions. He didn''t want either of those other two changes to cause him to miss out on another important modifications he otherwise would have found.


    With that in mind, Felix reverted all his cells, exited his meditation and looked up at Elric, ready to drink down his next concoction, "What else you got?"


    "You''re done?" Elric said incredulously causing Thezan to turn to him and visually inspect him.


    Felix nodded, "Yup."


    Thezan leaned in with a concerned expression, "How much health do you have left?"


    Felix quickly checked his status screen, "Uhm¡­ all of it."


    Elric looked hurt, "What? It just¡­ didn''t affect you?"


    Felix shook his head, "I think my meditation just restored everything I had lost."


    Thezan frowned, "How much energy are you down then?"


    "Oh, none. I have skills though to restore my energy¡­"


    "See, he''s fine." Elric said with a guilty smile turning to Thezan.


    "Kid, share your health and energy with me." Thezan said very seriously.


    Felix shrugged and did so causing Thezan''s face to contort in confusion.


    "Huh¡­"


    "Can I¡­ give him more?" Elric asked apprehensively.


    Thezan shrugged, "I guess¡­ He''s in tip top shape it seems¡­ Alright, Kid, just make sure you stay that way for the actual job."


    Felix nodded once, "Of course. I might need a bathe after this but otherwise, I should be full or close to full health and energy."


    "There''s a bath upstairs you can use." Thezan gestured his head up the stairs.


    "Thanks."


    Thezan nodded then walked into the sitting room and sat down on the couch opposite Rathos, facing Elric and Felix. He, not so subtly, watched them from the corner of his eye while pretending to be occupied by something else.


    Elric leaned in as he examined Felix visually, "Before I give you another, how did you deal with that one so quickly?"


    Felix frowned, "How long did it take me?"


    "Just over 5 minutes maybe?"


    "Huh, thought it was longer than that¡­ The poison was basically tricking my cells into committing apoptosis. I gave myself cancer, then found a way to deal with the poison. I got rid of the cancer but now I have a way to deal with that kind of poison in the future."


    "Cancer? It tricks the cells into committing apoptosis?"


    "Yeah."


    Elric looked confused, "When you say trick¡­"


    "It was overriding the mechanism."


    "Not damaging the cells themselves?"


    Felix shook his head, "Nope, not at all. Then it eats the dead cell and expands."


    Elric looked at Felix for a few seconds, clearly lost in thought, then quickly turned around and started scribbling something into a notebook of some sort.


    "You got another for me while you think?"


    "Oh, good call¡­ Here, try this one." Elric handed him another vial and Felix downed it.


    They repeated this process of Felix consuming Elric''s poisons then explaining their effects to him as best he could for a few hours. It seemed that Elric tested poisons on himself as well, with his high resistance, but he couldn''t tell what was happening at a cellular level like Felix could without extensive investigation. He had microscopes and other equipment to do it, he said Felix was much faster though so he excitedly rushed through the poisons to try and get Felix to try them all. By the end, he had even given Felix multiple of the same poisons with slight modifications so he could determine which was the most effective and why.


    Thezan''s gaze had calmed down after an hour or so but he never left his seat across the next room. When they were done, Felix got Elric to point him to the bath room and followed his directions up the stairs and to the right. Aros called out from the kitchen and asked him to leave the water in the tub which he was happy to do. He passed by a few bedrooms until he finally found a massive bathroom containing a bath that was easily big enough for 20 people. He filled it with water from a faucet, which he was pretty sure functioned using a System fuckery portal, then heated it up using an enchantment on the tub itself.


    He used the soap that was already in the bathroom and marveled at how it seemed to use some sort of bacteria that ate dead skin and dirt. It smelled like nothing to Felix which was odd but it did leave him feeling very clean. Just before he left, he tested something he had just thought of and cooled the water down until it was just above freezing. He knew that cold showers had health benefits back on earth but now, he could essentially see his individual cells and how it affected them. Unfortunately, it seemed like either due to his upgraded race or body in general, his cells, organs, blood flow and muscles were completely unaffected as if the cold water didn''t even exist.


    He shrugged and left the bath after heating it back up, leaving the water as he had been asked then opened the door and found Aros standing there, leaning against the wall.


    "You done in there?"


    "Yup."


    "Excellent. I''d like to get washed up before the feast and I didn''t want to come in because you humans tend to be¡­ squeamish, with nudity."


    Felix shrugged, "I wouldn''t have cared but I appreciate the consideration nonetheless."


    "Of course." Aros walked into the bathroom, stripped and hopped into the tub. He had either forgotten to or had intentionally not closed the door.


    Felix headed back down and once Aros was done washing, they all sat down around a massive dinner table that left a few meters between each of them. Aros carried in plates of food from the kitchen that seemed to never end filling the entire surface of the table. Felix looked around and saw far more food than he thought they would be able to eat and he could identify just about none of it.


    They ate and talked about the mission though most of the conversation centered around Thezan telling Felix what to do in specific situations. None of it was new or surprising to Felix though, things like having a meeting point in case they got separated, asking one of them before he did anything, preferably Thezan, and letting them protect him if he got injured. He listened regardless because it was polite and he hoped it would quell some of Thezan''s evident anxiety at bringing someone new and under-leveled along with them.


    While the conversation was slightly monotonous, the food more than made up for it in Felix''s eyes. Not only did he discover a plethora of new tastes, textures and combinations, but the food had other effects. As he ate, Felix started to notice the food act weirdly once it was inside his stomach. Instead of simply digesting and breaking down into energy, like most food did, this food had other effects.


    Some bites seemed to suffuse his muscles making them slightly stronger and other bites increased his vitality and agility. None of it was a major effect, providing just a few percent here and there but it was more than nothing. Some of it was incredibly difficult to digest but Felix realized that was by design. It was intended to slowly release energy into his system over the next day or so as his digestive system slowly broke it down. It was completely unnecessary for Felix, who''s cells consumed mana to restore his energy, but it was an interesting effect and highly valuable to the others, Felix assumed.


    Surprisingly, they completely finished the food on the table, all of it having simply disappeared somewhat evenly amongst them.


    Thezan was the first to stand, "Alright, I want to be through the portal in 15 minutes. That means collect all your things and be standing at the door in 5."


    They all nodded and spread out, leaving the table covered in dishes. Felix simply walked over to the door and stood on the balcony since he had everything he needed on him. Nova seemed to have woken up from their nap because they peeked their head out of his robes for the first time and sent Felix waves of confusion as they looked out over the city.


    Stay close Nova, this one''s gonna be dangerous even for me.


    Nova meowed at him.


    Sure, I''ll let you know if it''s safe and there''s something for you to eat.


    "Is that a tra- matter sprite?" Felix heard Thezan from behind him.


    "Matter Spirit now, yeah."


    "Your familiar? It''s¡­ cursed?"


    "Yes and yes."


    "You are a weird kid. Be careful with that."


    "I am." Felix said as a response to both of his statements.


    Thezan nodded and hopped into the front seat of the vehicle. Nova disappeared into Felix''s robes again and Felix hopped into the back seat. The rest of the party joined them over the next few minutes and they shot off to the teleportation hub where Felix had first landed in Telviras. From the outside, the building looked like a massive portal spire with portals almost entirely covering the outside surface of the building. Each one seemed to lead to a different place. Felix saw deserts, oceans, mountains, lava, jungles, and a good number of fantastical environments he couldn''t come up with a name for.


    Instead of heading into any of them, Thezan flew the vehicle right up to a balcony then hopped out and walked through a door, into the building. The rest of the party, including Felix, followed him and they walked through a couple hallways ending up in a room that looked very similar to the one Felix had first arrived in. Thezan had a brief conversation with the human in the room then they manipulated some device and suddenly a portal opened in the middle of the room. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 Chapter 187 - Book 4

    Looking through the portal, Felix saw a completely undisturbed sheet of white covering the ground with a light snow falling from an overcast sky above. Thezan turned to them and handed out some of the general supplies including potions, the winter cloaks and chain. Felix quickly fed the winter cloak to his Reaper''s Mantle when no one was looking which just meant it suddenly disappeared from his back. He then set the Reaper''s Mantle to take it''s form and equipped it which made it look like he had simply equipped the cloak.


    He stowed the chain and other supplies in the Kryptos Repository, memorizing their rune patterns so he could retrieve them in the future and identified the potions as he stowed them. Luckily they were small vials so they were portable and actually fit in the band.


    [C - Common] Health Potion


    [Potion]


    Restores 100,000 health points when consumed.


    [C - Common] Regeneration Potion


    [Potion]


    Restores 200,000 health points over ten minutes when consumed.


    [C - Common] Energy Potion


    [Potion]


    Restores 100,000 energy points upon consumption.


    "Uh, Thezan¡­ these are little¡­ huge? for me."


    Except the energy one I guess.


    Thezan chuckled as he continued to stow the vials in his armor and wrap the chain around his waist, "Yeah, we only ever buy for C grades. They''ll work fine and it makes it less likely the client asks questions when I present them the bill. Not sure they would be as into the idea that I dragged a D grade into this one. Obviously they haven''t met you but¡­"


    "Got it. I take it they''ll work fine anyways?"


    Thezan nodded, "Of course."


    "Well thanks for these, hopefully I don''t need them."


    "Yeah¡­ hopefully."


    With all of his supplies stowed he saw everyone else in the party was ready and they stepped through the portal, into the endless sea of snow and towards the ancient ruined Usorium empire.


    Felix was the last one through the portal and it immediately closed behind him. He quickly wrapped his Reaper''s Mantle, which was currently in the form of a massive fur cloak, around himself and started to heat up the inside with heat spells.


    The snow reached about halfway up his thigh and though it was light and fluffy on the top layer, his ankles were buried in the densely packed snow below that. Felix looked ahead and saw the rest of the party simply trudging through, Elric sitting on Aros'' right shoulder.


    Felix had no interest in trudging through the snow because it was annoying and pointless. Instead, he thought about flying then reconsidered and pulled out a handful of Starmetal ingots that were affinized to his soul. He quickly fused them together and morphed them into the shape of a snowboard. He threw it onto the snow in front of him and made sure it didn''t sink in then flew up and stood on it himself. He had to make it a little bigger than was natural because the snow was so fluffy but he quickly found a shape that worked.


    As Felix started preparing the spells to propel himself forwards and replenished his own mana pool, he immediately noticed that the aether on this planet was different. It was both much denser and way more fluid than Trenus, the world event and the tutorial.


    Telviras'' aether was fluid but much thinner and acted a little odd because of all the enchantments at play. It flowed about somewhat erratically. Here it was like the mana was both denser and less viscous or just more ready to be moved about. He measured and memorized the coordinates at his feet incase he needed mana like this in the future.


    Using some simple Force spells to propel him, Felix shot across the snow and caught back up with the party. He wondered why they didn''t have a better way to travel through something like this but he quickly realized, the snow didn''t seem to affect them at all. They had cloaks to keep themselves warm but they didn''t trudge through the snow, they simply walked like it wasn''t even there.


    Stupid C grades.


    Elric was the first to see Felix shooting around on the snow and had Felix make him a sled for Aros to pull. Thezan quickly took notice and after a short discussion, Felix used more ingots, his snowboard and Elric''s sled to make a much larger sled they could all fit into. Initially Aros was happy to pull them, because his strength would make it so he barely felt it but Felix assured him he could propel them without running out of mana before they arrived.


    Felix addressed Thezan as they stepped into the sled, "Why didn''t you buy something like this sled back in the city?"


    Thezan shrugged, "No good way to move it. My bag doesn''t open wide enough to fit it. Enchantments also don''t really split up well so we can''t really break one into pieces and reassemble it."


    "Could have had a basic sled though and had Aros pull us?"


    "Wouldn''t have been any faster than just walking."


    Right, C grades. Snow, and the throes of time apparently, mean nothing to you¡­


    They all hopped into the sled Felix had made then he propelled them using Force spells over the snow. Thezan directed him and they traveled for hours. The landscape around them never changed once the entire time until they arrived at the edge of the landmass. The endless sea of snow ahead of them suddenly dropped off a cliff into an endless sea of deep blue, white capped rolling waves.


    As they slowly approached the city, a pit started to form at the bottom of Felix''s stomach. He assumed they were just nerves so he tried to suppress it but he found, he couldn''t. He could get rid of the physical sensation but the feeling originated from his soul, it was more instinctual. It was so minor though that he simply ignored it and chalked it up to excitement or fear of the unknown.


    Thezan had Felix turn to the left and they followed the cliff for a few more hours until they spotted a castle rising up over the horizon. The castle seemed to be located on top of a jagged peak in the cliff face and surrounding it from all sides, were the ruins of houses and shops. Nothing more than a corner or a pile of bricks remained for any given building in the city core itself. It almost seemed like some kind of natural disaster had ripped through the city specifically though, it was hard to tell because most of it was covered in snow.


    They followed the cliff face right to the edge of the city then slowed down so Felix could maneuver through the building remains. They occasionally hit things, some of them hidden by the snow, others unavoidable as Felix couldn''t turn on a dime but none of them complained.


    They ignored the entire city and headed straight for the castle in the center because it seemed to be almost entirely intact. They were hoping there would be records or clues as to the weapon''s whereabouts somewhere in there.


    The castle itself was the only building that didn''t lie in ruins. It seemed to only show minor signs of wear on the outside as far as Felix could tell. It stood at the highest point in the city with no towers or other ornaments outside of the main building itself. The main building was a monolithic structure of stone brickwork and windows that was at least a kilometer wide, though only a few stories tall.


    Felix could see that the top of the walls and the castle itself were crowned by a flat parapet making him initially think the outside was simply a wall. The only wrinkle in that theory being that Felix could see the ruins of a wall that once surrounded the entire structure of the castle.


    Felix pushed his makeshift sled, and the party sitting within it, right up to the front gates. The front gate had once sat in the middle of a stone wall that surrounded the castle itself but as the city fell to ruin, so did the wall and now, neither were effectively protecting anything. Felix could have pushed the sled through the gate area but Thezan told him to stop it there.


    Thezan turned to the group but looked mostly at Felix, "We don''t know what kind of traps or defenses they might still have lying around. At this point, we walk on foot and we move slowly. I''ll look for traps myself, kid, you try and see if you can find anything arcane, anywhere. Be careful and try not to trigger anything."


    They all nodded then carefully walked towards the front gates of the castle wall, following Thezan as he searched the area ahead and around him. Neither Thezan, nor anyone else following him saw or felt anything, including Felix, though no one other than Thezan was looking very hard. They managed to walk, or trudge in Felix''s case, through the snow and all the way to the front doors of the castle.


    The front doors seemed to be a massive set of double doors forged from some dark, almost black, metal. They were easily big enough for a large cart to pass through with room on either side and at least 20 meters tall, which almost inclined Felix to call it a gate. Thezan was the first to reach it and by the time Felix caught up a few minutes later, he was still examining it. The others stood around him but far enough that they were out of the way, with Elric on Aros'' shoulder so he didn''t suffocate in the snow.


    Felix waited a few minutes with the rest of the party until Thezan finally spoke, "Hey kid, get over here."


    Felix walked over to the gate and looked at it, side by side with Thezan.


    "Try to see if you get anything magical from the doors. Are they enchanted, trapped, warded, anything like that."


    Felix nodded even though Thezan wasn''t looking at him and reached out with his mana senses towards the door. He didn''t initially sense anything but he also knew that could just mean the enchantment was currently empty and mana would flow into it if triggered.


    Thinking back to how he had mapped out the enchantments on items in his interview, Felix started to reach out into the aether around him. He slowly started to spin all of it around him and as soon as any of it encountered the channels or nodes of an enchantment, they flowed through them.


    Channels and enchantments were made of highly mana conductive materials and therefore often provided the path of least resistance. All Felix had to do was pay attention to when the mana was redirected through one of these channels instead of simply spinning around him. This mana stood out amongst the rest of the mana and he immediately spotted an incredibly complex enchantment, or ward, on the door. He focused and spent a few minutes mapping it out before he realized, whatever it had once been, it was almost definitely inert now.


    Initially he had thought he was missing something because a large number of chunks seemed to be just missing from the enchantment but he quickly realized that was exactly what had happened. Tiny chunks of the enchantment had been ripped out all over the door resulting in about half of it just not existing.


    It looked to him almost like the enchantment on the alchemy table Elric had poured acid on. On the door though, it was more like someone had sprayed acid at the door with a power washer from a few meters away. The missing chunks seemed to be entirely random and made it impossible for Felix to either identify the enchantment or even salvage anything from it.


    "It was once enchanted or warded or something¡­ not anymore. Something happened and now the enchantment is¡­ broken."


    "Are you sure?" Thezan turned to him.


    "Yes. Over half of it is just¡­ missing."


    Thezan nodded and turned to the group behind him, "Ok. Aros?"


    "On it." Aros said as he cleared a small area of snow and placed Elric in it. He walked up to the door and Felix followed Thezan''s lead in stepping back.


    Aros walked up to the door, planted his feet then pushed on the door with both hands. The door didn''t move at all but Aros seemed satisfied with whatever he had done. He pulled both of his hands close to himself and flexed his muscles. Felix wasn''t entirely sure what was happening until just a few moments later, Aros'' exposed arms started to produce smoke that poured out the front of his cloak and disappeared into the air and falling snow around him.


    A few moments later, Felix could have sworn his arms had actually ignited themselves as he could see the faint flicker of flames through the edge of his cloak. Aros rolled his shoulders then pressed his arms to the door once again. Now that his arms were outside of the cloak, Felix could see that they actually did seem to be on fire, though the flames were spread across his arms and were under an inch tall at most. They were more like a candle flame than an inferno.


    This time, Aros'' finger''s slowly sank into the door until he had something to pull against and he leaned back as he wrenched the door open. Felix had expected whatever was holding the doors shut to break and for them to wildly swing open but instead, Aros ripped the doors off entirely and dropped them to the ground behind him.


    Felix watched and saw that the inside of the door also seemed to be visually blank so the enchantment had to have been embedded within the door itself. Aros'' arms returned to normal and Thezan walked right to the edge of the castle then peered in.


    Thezan addressed Felix without turning to him, "Kid, I want you checking for enchantments, wards anything arcane you can sense. I should be able to pick up on almost everything but I''m also not the most¡­ attuned to magic."


    "Of course." Felix nodded and followed closely behind Thezan. He kept the aether in a radius of a couple meters around him slowly spinning as he walked. He tried stretching himself further but found that at that range, even pushing it a small amount strained him so he reverted to just two meters.


    I really need to improve my mana control range. I know I could do better than this.


    In the first few meters, Felix stopped Thezan almost a dozen times as he sensed enchantments, spells and wards, everywhere. Every wall, floor tile, sconce, pillar, painting and inch of ceiling were covered in enchantments. Around the front doors, they were entirely destroyed, just like the enchantment on the front doors had been, but Felix stopped Thezan so they could examine them anyways. None of the nodes or channels were salvageable so Felix wasn''t learning anything new, but he was seriously starting to wonder about what had destroyed the enchantments in such an odd way.


    All of the enchantments Felix sensed were entirely embedded within objects so whatever had destroyed them, had somehow done so without damaging the outside of the object. Felix catalogued as much as he could of the enchantments in the front hall as they walked but it took them a hundred meters or so to find anything intact enough to function. Luckily, the first enchantment they encountered that functioned was a sconce that was enchanted to use aether to produce light.


    Felix hadn''t seen any of the nodes it used before so he filed them away in his mind to test out later. After the sconce, Thezan started to sense traps all over and had the party step in specific ways, avoiding certain tiles, leaping over a certain area and even crouching down. Felix listened to everything he asked and did his best to follow but was having a hard time not getting distracted.


    Every trap or trigger Thezan sensed was a collection of nodes and spell work Felix had never seen before. He didn''t spot a single node he could immediately identify, even when cross referencing the enchanting index at Inscripticae. He wasn''t sure if that was because these were novel or simply equivalent to other nodes, either way he memorized them all.


    As Thezan had them walk in the most convoluted ways to avoid triggering the traps around them, Felix couldn''t help but think there had to be a better way. There was no way the inhabitants of the castle itself had done what they were doing. Asking Thezan about it, he agreed but also said he had no idea what that would be. Thezan theorized It was possible it had something to do with race or there was a master switch to turn them off but he had no way of identifying it.


    Felix was started to get annoyed at his inability to identify anything so, he had Thezan stop so he could run some experiments. After assuring Thezan he wouldn''t do anything drastic they all stopped in a safe spot and Felix started to replicate the most common enchantments he had found throughout the hall.


    He started by recreating them in the air in front of him, as if they were spells, then supplying them mana. He protected himself with a mana shield just in case and assumed they had been pointing into the hall so he oriented them away from himself and the party.


    Felix started with an enchantment he had found mirrored on both sides of the wall just a few meters back. He ended up having to supply almost a half a million points of mana for the spell to finally cast and do something. Once it did cast, it created a massive eruption of fire that would have incinerated them, had they triggered it.


    The party immediately looked over at Felix when he filled the hall behind them with flames but he assured them everything was fine. He dissected the spell as much as he could, removing components and replacing them until he had identified almost everything. It wasn''t the most complicated enchantment Felix had ever seen and he knew Ezaldor would scoff at how imprecise it was.


    It was also possibly the least efficient enchantment he had ever messed with but it did look elegant. Somehow, the entire thing seemed to fit together really well. The nodes, channels and every shape of the enchantment looked like they were built to work together. Nothing was adapted or retrofit.


    In the end, he ended up with just a single collection of nodes he couldn''t identify so he filed those away. Repeating the process with every other complete enchantment he had found, he ended up with a large collection of traps that would have guaranteed their demise and consumed absurd quantities of mana.


    He also found that same collection of nodes, completely identical, in each of the enchantments he dissected. Unfortunately, even isolating the nodes, the most he could identify about them was that together, they functioned as a conditional component. Once triggered, if the condition was met, the trap would trigger.


    Even though he had isolated the component, he had no way to know what the condition was without a handful of hours of dissecting the pattern and identifying each individual node. He presented his findings to Thezan who was far more excited than he was.


    Thezan smiled at Felix excitedly, his eyes wide, "So you can figure out the key then? So we don''t have to keep looking for all the traps?"


    Felix winced a little, "Yes but not quickly. It would need at least 5 hours maybe way more."


    Thezan nodded and turned to the group, "That''s totally fine. We can wait 5 hours."


    Felix frowned, "Really? You don''t want to just¡­ keep going?"


    Thezan chuckled, "5 hours is nothing. Kid if you said it would take you 50 hours I would have said great, do it. Anyone have a problem with waiting for 8 hours or so?"


    They all just shrugged, Rathos pulling out her book and sitting against the wall, the other''s finding their own comfortable positions.


    Thezan looked back at Felix and smiled, "See?"


    I guess time is less meaningful when you have lived and will live for thousands of yea- epochs.


    Felix shrugged and went back to experimenting. With all the tools at his disposal from working at Inscripticae, even if he had only been there for a couple days, it was actually possible for Felix to identify the nodes. Before working at Inscripticae, it would have been impossible. Now, Felix took each node that seemed to have no outward effect and one by one, he attached them to a variety of other nodes. Some of his testing nodes would produce a light of a different color based on their input, others would supply a specific input.


    He found a few of the nodes were measurement nodes, one was a conditional trigger node and the rest were a combination of calculation and mana smoothing and normalization nodes. He removed the measurement nodes one by one and replaced them with basic nodes that just supplied mana. The trigger node he replaced with the light output node and slowly, he mapped out the range of values the calculation would produce based on it''s inputs.


    He had essentially mapped out a mathematical function so all that he had left to do was figure out what the measurement nodes were measuring. He attached a light output node to them and found that no matter what he pointed them at, they had wildly different readings. With the entire trigger assembled, he found nothing that seemed to trigger it to bypass the trap. Everything he pointed it at would have resulted in the trap triggering.


    He could have realistically just run around the castle pointing it at everything until something triggered it but that would require them to continue searching every inch for traps. He also could have reached out and manually triggered the condition with his mana control but unfortunately, his mana control range wasn''t enough to cover the entire hallway so they could have still triggered something.


    Instead, he resolved himself to figure out what the measurement nodes were actually measuring. He walked all the way back through the hall and out the front door holding the three measurement nodes connected to light outputs and trying to figure out what triggered them.


    As he pointed them at everything in sight, he started to mindlessly trace things, watching the light as it brightened, darkened and changed colors. The first time he noticed any of them do anything consistently was when he pointed them at a functioning sconce. He noticed that every one of the sconces he pointed at, as long as they functioned, resulted in a very similar output. He ran with that and tried to measure the same amount of light but quickly decided light wasn''t what the nodes were measuring. The next time he noticed consistent behavior was when he pointed it at himself.


    That was a weird result and he messed around with things until he realized, he still unconsciously had the heating spell on under his cloak. As soon as he disabled it, the output was random again. He had figured it out.


    Somehow, the nodes were collectively measuring mana. He tested his theory with different attunements and energy levels and ultimately confirmed it. Just 6 hours after starting, Felix pointed the entire triggering mechanism at a wall then rapidly switched through attunements and energy levels.


    He found the correct attunement and finally triggered the mechanism that would disable all the traps they had encountered so far. He found that luckily, the state of the mana didn''t matter, but the energy level and attunement it was looking for were incredibly precise.


    Unfortunately, he didn''t have a node that would produce that exact energy level or attunement so the best he could do was recreate and hold onto it. He couldn''t make solid balls of it and give them out because the attunement and energy levels would degrade and shift as the balls moved. He had to essentially hold the mana himself and keep it constant, unchanging.


    Ding You have gained 3 levels in [D -Arcane] Mana Engineer (247 => 250)


    He walked back through the hall from the front door, not bothering with any of Thezan''s acrobatic movements and yet, all the traps in the corridor remained dormant. Thezan saw him approach and almost said something to stop him, but held himself back.


    Thezan sighed slightly in relief, "I thought you had forgotten."


    Felix winced, "That would have been¡­ bad."


    Thezan chuckled, "You figured it out? What''s the trick?"


    Felix nodded, "Sort of. It''s very specific mana. I''m sure the real key was some spell node or enchantment that everyone wore on a bracelet, ring, necklace or something like that. The enchantment probably produced a tiny amount of the specific mana at all times. I have no way to find the enchantment though."


    Thezan looked a little dejected but mostly confused, "Oh¡­ so?"


    Felix smirked a little, "I can however, just make the mana myself and hold onto it."


    "And that means none of the traps will trigger?"


    Felix shrugged, "Seems like it. I''ll let you know if I sense one that isn''t disabled with this."


    "Yeah, be careful. If what you''re saying is true, they could have totally had different levels of access. So some rooms will require a different key."


    "If so, I should be able to find the key given a few minutes."


    "Really? That''s awesome. Alright, I''m still gonna search for traps but if you give me the go ahead that the traps I find are disabled, we''ll go through anyways."


    "Sounds good."


    Having found the key to disabling the traps only increased their speed by a bit because they didn''t have to vault around the hall. Thezan was still scrutinizing everything as he searched for traps. The hall that extended out from the massive front doors seemed to stretch for a few hundred meters before splitting off in two directions. They didn''t see any doors along the hall though they all suspected some had just been hidden. For now, they didn''t bother searching for them and instead mapped out the open areas of the castle.


    They continued down that first hall to a fork that split into three halls to the left, right and through a large set of double doors in front of them. They headed to the left first and started to actually find visible doors throughout the castle. They ignored all of the doors though and continued to map out the main hallway of the castle until they looped back around to the fork they had turned left at. The hall seemed to just loop around the castle with dozens of doors and rooms laid out along that hall.


    Arriving back at the fork where they had started the loop, Thezan had them look at the large double doors, examining them himself for traps along with Felix for enchantments. Felix found the enchantment to be some kind of trap with the same bypass mechanism as the others except that this one was tuned differently.


    He quickly mapped it out then cast it in the air as a spell and found the attunement and energy level that acted as the key. Now that he knew what he was looking for, it was trivial to get through, for him at least. He knew that for most people, this would be nearly impossible to crack since they couldn''t just flip through mana attunements and energy levels, map out enchantments and cast them as spells.


    Once Felix had the key, he confirmed with his mana control that the enchantment would be bypassed by simply feeding that individual section of the enchantment with mana. He assured Thezan it was disarmed then they pushed the doors open. They didn''t need Aros to open this one either, it simply swung open without issue.


    Past the doors lay a large open garden space that was clearly not meant for the deep winter this area was currently experiencing. Instead of a lush garden like the walls, benches, stonework pathways and gardening supplies suggested there would be, there was a deep layer of fluffy snow. The snow in the garden was much lighter than it was outside and when they opened the doors, a layer of the snow was blown back up into the air.


    The garden itself was like an extension of the hallway they had entered from just wider and open to the sky above. On either side of the garden hallway, the walls were made mostly of large windows that made the contents of the rooms entirely visible. On the right, there seemed to be a large library that was one half sitting area and one half book shelves. Across from the library on the left side, there was a dining room or feast hall, given how big the table was.


    At the end of the garden area in front of them, lay another set of large double doors. The garden also stretched to the right and left to wrap around the library and dining room, all along the closest windowed wall of the ballroom. They headed straight for the ballroom door and opened them, after making sure the enchantments were disabled, to reveal a massive ballroom, easily the largest room in the castle.


    The ballroom was very bright due to the walls of windows facing the garden and the sea and this was the first room Felix had found where the sconces were timed to dim themselves. On top of the windows, the ceiling in this room was transparent and stretched all the way up to the top of the building and would have revealed the sky above, were it not covered in snow at the moment.


    They searched the room for traps but didn''t actually find any. They were leaving hidden rooms for later so they didn''t search very thoroughly and instead, they headed back out to the circular hallway and started searching every room in the castle.


    They found bedrooms, servant''s quarters, kitchens, sitting rooms, bathing rooms, storage, closets, and a variety of lab like rooms. The lab rooms were distinguishable only because they had some desks, clamps and other discarded tools lying around. Nothing had any value anymore and there were no plans, remnants or signs of what they may have been working on, left behind.


    One of the lab room''s enchantments was destroyed in a similar fashion to the door except the effect was much more contained. It only seemed to have affected some of the enchantments in a very small radius, but Felix took note of that fact nonetheless. Whatever was destroying enchantments had been in this room at some point, though either only briefly or only while it was young or small, depending on what it was.


    As they searched the rooms, Felix had identified 3 more mana keys. A couple of them seemed to be redundant because the doors actually checked for two of them, but he memorized them anyways. The circular hallway became a staircase as they headed towards the back wall and descended then reascended on the other side of the building, completing its symmetry.


    The rooms against the back wall of the castle, the ones they had to descend to reach, resulted in the most mana keys. Each one of the dozen or so rooms had it''s own unique key that Felix identified then did his best to memorize. The issue was that they were so precise, up until now Felix had just been holding every key they identified in front of him. Now, he had more keys than he could hold and if his memory was slightly off, he wouldn''t be able to get through the traps. The bypass mechanism had the same issue of being far too precise.


    To get around this, Felix finally pulled out some of the blank slabs they had bought and his new general purpose quill, that looked like a pen. He used mana to trace out the section of the enchantment that detected the keys and wrote each one out on a slab, testing them after he was done to ensure they were nearly identical. He stowed those so he could later test his keys or tune them to the exact right values if needed.


    The rooms themselves along the back wall of the castle seemed to be large bedrooms, each one with a glass wall that overlooked the ocean behind the castle. They didn''t find anything of value in the rooms, just furniture that had broken down and scraps of cloth for the most part. They circled all the way back around to the front of the building and Thezan along with Rathos, much to Felix''s surprise, started examining the walls, floors and ceilings for any hidden rooms.


    Felix had already examined the halls and he didn''t feel the need to do so again so he simply followed along with Elric and Aros. As he waited for them to potentially find something, he tuned into Nova and immediately felt a wave of fear, something he had never expected to feel from Nova, not after they first learned how to fight.


    He had expected Nova to be ravenous, as their race suggested, and be begging Felix to let them take a bite out of everything. Instead, they were paralyzed in fear and when Felix questioned them, they simply berated him with images of the Demitium chunk and his Pocket Home.


    Felix got the message and had no interest in torturing his familiar so he asked Thezan if he could head outside for a moment and he agreed. They waited in an untrapped room while Felix, their key bearer, ran outside and quickly opened the portal to his Pocket Home. As soon as the portal opened, Nova sensed it somehow and dove through then hid themselves behind the Demitium chunk.


    Well, hopefully¡­ hopefully they aren''t right to be scared¡­ what the hell are they sensing though?


    Felix closed the portal and rejoined the party then addressed Thezan, "Hey, Thezan¡­"


    Thezan looked over his shoulder, "Yeah?"


    Felix fidgeted with a small ball of mana next to his head, "Maybe we should be¡­ a little more careful."


    Thezan raised his eyebrow, "This coming from the kid who walked through twenty deadly traps just to test that he had the right key just a few hours ago?"


    Felix winced, "Yeah¡­ I just had to let my familiar sit back because they were¡­ scared."


    "Yeah I''ve been feeling it too, animal instincts skill, something isn''t right here." Elric chimed in.


    "Me too, I thought it was just the weapon but¡­ maybe it''s something else?" Aros added.


    They looked at Rathos to see if she had felt it as well but she just shrugged, "Don''t look at me, I don''t have instincts like yours. I like the danger."


    Thezan sighed, "Of course you do. If you guys want to leave now, we don''t have to continue. I''m not gonna force us to finish this. Even if it''s just a gut instinct."


    "I think we can keep going, just¡­ maybe we should¡­ let''s just be careful." Felix said.


    Both Aros and Elric nodded, neither of them having anything insightful to add so the group continued, a little slower and little more carefully than they had before. Felix couldn''t speak for the rest of the party but the slight pit in his stomach, the one that had slowly formed as they approached the city, was starting to grow and make itself more known. He wasn''t sure if it was there for the same reason Nova had been so afraid, but whatever it was, it was getting worse.


    He managed to distract himself by trying to get into a few hidden rooms that Rathos had found but ultimately, he had to just disable the enchantments so Aros could freely rip them open. The mechanism for opening them was embedded too far into the wall so Felix''s mana senses couldn''t reach them. Instead, he simply disabled the detection part of the enchantment by holding the mana still and keeping it from passing through the enchantment in the door. While he manually disabled it, Aros ripped a hole right through the door and they were able to enter.


    He pointed out the enchantment to Aros once they entered the room and he disabled them by simply punching a hole in the wall. The first hidden room they found was completely empty. They had no way of knowing what its use once was other than the fact that the enchantment would have destroyed anything inside in a blazing inferno.


    They continued searching through the castle finding a number of hidden rooms that were similarly empty, all of the ones they found in fact. By the time they had searched everything, they were started to get a little worried that someone had already been here and looted the place before them.


    They headed through the library and Felix scanned every book remaining on the shelves. Unfortunately, there didn''t seem to be anything of value left behind. Only about 20% of the books remained judging from how much shelf space there was and all of them were novels, fictional stories, and other books holding useless information. Checking the dining room, they found a large table and a hidden passage that led to the kitchen but otherwise, there was no dishware, utensils, crates or barrels, just empty space and debris.


    The last room they checked for hidden passages was the ball room. It was the biggest and most central chamber which made it the most likely to be hiding a secret laboratory. The entire party suspected what they were looking for was hidden underground, considering the entirety of the castle''s floorplan was already accounted for. They started with the floor but even with Felix, Elric and Aros all looking alongside Thezan and Rathos, they didn''t find anything amiss. Nothing to indicate a hidden room, passage or a secret of any kind.


    The worst case scenario was that there was nothing in the castle at all, either there never had been anything or it was already taken by looters. After that would be if the secret their employer had heard rumors about was hidden behind a portal. In that case, it was entirely possible they wouldn''t find it at all.


    Looking over the rest of the room, just to be certain, Rathos spotted something on one of the windows that overlooked the ocean. It looked the same to everyone else except for Felix. Though he had kept the aether around him spinning, he clearly hadn''t been scrutinizing everything. He had walked around the room in a grid like fashion so he covered everything but he clearly wasn''t paying enough attention because upon looking at the window again, he realized she was right.


    He hadn''t initially seen it because the window she had pointed out, was a masterwork of enchantment and spellwork. The window itself looked just like all of the other windows in the room, there was nothing visually differentiating this window from the rest. As Felix re-examined the window though, he realized there was an enchantment embedded in the cames and frame of the window. It was confined to such a thin space between the panes of glass that he had mistaken the mana flowing through it easily as just being a property of the window came material.


    Upon examining it closer though, he managed to spot the enchantment that had somehow been designed to fit within the shape of the window. The nodes were either compressed and shrunk down where possible or fit into the joints and frame where it wasn''t. The channel work alone to fit everything together and make sure none of it interfered with itself or was affected by the channel length was mind blowing to Felix.


    With all the projects he had seen at Inscripticae so far, and just about every other enchantment he had worked on, the enchantments and the items were designed together. Or in the case of his armor and some of the weapons he had enchanted, the enchantment was designed for the item but the extent of that was laying it out. On this window, the enchantment had to be laid out, nodes and channels carefully modified and planned, the entire thing was engineered to a ridiculous degree and Felix couldn''t help but marvel at it.


    He didn''t want to waste any more of the party''s time than was necessary though so he carefully mapped out the enchantment then moved the design around mentally until it was less confined. He relocated everything so he could properly examine the enchantment without being limited by the confines of the window cames. He isolated what he could and eventually found the same bypass mechanism that was in all the other traps and doors except, this one acted as a trigger instead of a bypass.


    Felix recreated it with mana and cast the spell then isolated the frequencies required to open the door. This one required a specific quantity alongside the usual attunement and energy level but once Felix found it, the window suddenly disappeared. In it''s place, fit perfectly within the window''s frame, lay a passage to a large open corridor.


    Ding You have gained a level in [D -Arcane] Mana Engineer (250 => 251)


    The portal was so seamlessly fit within the window that it looked like an open doorway, rather than a portal. If it weren''t for the ocean and falling snow they could see through the windows directly next to it, they might have assumed it was just a doorway.


    Find this and other great novels on the author''s preferred platform. Support original creators!


    Thezan smiled and nodded at Felix as he passed him to start searching for traps. Rathos was next with some sort of skill to find hidden rooms and secrets herself, followed by Felix then Elric and Aros behind him.


    They descended a stone staircase for almost a kilometer before finally landing in a massive open cavern with stone pillars randomly arranged throughout the room. Each of the pillars seemed to give off their own glow using some kind of natural chemical luminescence, as Felix sensed nothing supplying them mana. There were a number of branching hallways off of the main cavern that seemed to be randomly placed along the wall.


    They stuck close together as they explored the cavern, Thezan, Rathos and Felix keeping their skills and senses peeled for traps. Neither Thezan nor Rathos sensed anything and Felix was completely overwhelmed. Everywhere around him there was a hum of magic and enchantments. He could feel the remnants of spells, magical constructs, enchantments, rituals and wards everywhere.


    On top of that, the ambient anima was almost vibrating. It was stunted and jittering in a way Felix had never felt before. Distracting him from all of that, was the pit in his stomach that had suddenly morphed itself into an actual feeling. His best description of it was a combination of dread, anxiety and relief.


    He would have said the combination of feelings he felt were opposites of each-other before but now that he felt them, he knew that wasn''t the case. The dread and anxiety were simple but the relief was like he had fallen back to a stressful time he was very familiar with. Like he had spent a long time in a situation that had filled him with dread and anxiety, the relief was him returning to that situation, something he knew well. He did his best to suppress the feelings because they made no sense but all he could really do was suppress his physical response to them. The feelings themselves seemed to be instinctual, coming from his soul, so he couldn''t stop them.


    They carefully wandered around the main section of the cavern but didn''t find anything indicating traps, danger, monsters or even magic that still existed. Everything Felix felt was like a memory held by the aether and the occasional remnant of an enchantment. None of them were complete and the most he found was a fraction of a node on a pillar.


    Thezan eventually turned to the group after they had finished fruitlessly explored the main cavern area, "Aros, Elric, Rathos you guys take this hallway and clear them clockwise. The kid and I will take this one and move counter clockwise. Be careful and if you find anything, wait for us in this room and we can explore together."


    They nodded and grouped up then walked off into the cave Thezan had pointed out then Felix followed Thezan into the cave next to it.


    Felix addressed Thezan as they walked, "What if there are traps or something? Shouldn''t we stick together so we''re more likely to detect them."


    Thezan didn''t bother turning to look at Felix as he answered him, "Yes, we should. Honestly though, we should be high enough level that it doesn''t matter."


    "Why take this job at all then? If you''re so much higher level?"


    "Two reasons. I''ve worked with this contract broker for a couple epochs now, I trust them. Second reason, the client is paying a stupid amount of money. They''re worried something might come up and they want a higher level group to be able to handle anything that does come up, cleanly."


    "That''s why you were more inclined to take on someone who''s on the low end of the D grade?"


    "Exactly. You''re skills are top notch by the way so that''s not an issue, but I wouldn''t take you somewhere we expected a high level fight. Can''t guarantee I''d be able to keep you safe."


    "So you knew the odds of us having to fight here were low."


    "And if we did have to fight, we don''t expect anything to be higher than level 1000 at most. We should be able to handle it and keep you completely safe. The only creatures we expected to find were Drakelings which the city was semi famous for. They''re super weak though so no need to worry about them."


    "How much is a stupid amount of money? I don''t exactly know the value of money just yet."


    "It''s not too complicated, general rule of thumb is that adventuring tends to pay a little better than anything else because of the danger. A normal C grade adventuring group is worth a few thousand C creds per adventure, varying based on the danger, length, skill set and so on. We tend to only take jobs if the total reward is around 500k C."


    "So you guys are a little more elite then?"


    "Yeah, kind of. It has to do more with skill set than anything else. I only work with clients I trust or through referrals. They know we''re worth it and I can trust them not to give us shit contracts."


    "So this job?"


    "1 A cred."


    "Holy shit. That''s¡­ 2 million times¡­"


    "Yeah."


    "Who the hell would pay that much for a C grade team?"


    "It''s probably a god or demigod. Their perception of the value of money tends to be warped."


    "Wouldn''t they have their own people like¡­ followers to do that? Couldn''t they hire a much higher level party with that too?"


    "I forgot you''re an integrated. Gods in the multiverse don''t exactly work like that¡­ but, you aren''t entirely wrong. They still would have likely paid them. There are lots of reasons to use adventurers instead of followers though. They might just not have any followers equipped for something like this. But yeah, they totally could have. No idea why they wanted us, I''m not complaining though."


    Mental note to read up on gods in the library.


    "So the broker won''t tell you who the client is?"


    "They asked to stay anonymous, not an uncommon request. They also asked us not to talk about the job with anyone else, unless necessary."


    "So I probably shouldn''t have talked to the librarian then?"


    Thezan shrugged, "I would consider that necessary so don''t worry about it. Plus, the broker already told us it was fine to do research, don''t see why you wouldn''t be able to as well."


    They looked around at what appeared to be a workshop except that it was completely empty. They were only able to guess at the room''s function based on the desks that lay against the walls.


    Thezan turned to Felix, "You don''t sense anything in here, do you?"


    "Nope, more of the same."


    "Alright, next cave then."


    The next hall appeared to be a massive storeroom judging from the empty crates and sealed metal rooms but it had obviously been cleared out at some point because there was nothing left. The next hall they checked was almost a quarter of the way around the main chamber and was spaced the furthest from any of the other halls off the main cavern. As they approached the hall, the instinctual feeling Felix had been experienced grew sharply.


    Up to now it had steadily grown such that he didn''t really noticed it growing until he paid attention to it. As they walked into the hall though, the feel mounted until it was almost suffocating. He had Thezan stop so he could calm himself.


    Thezan reached back and held Felix up by the shoulder, "You ok?"


    "Yeah¡­ I just¡­ need a minute." Felix said through deep breaths.


    Thezan nodded, "I feel it too now¡­ I felt it before but now¡­ it''s different here."


    Felix gasped for air, "Yeah. Something¡­ is¡­ in there."


    Thezan sighed, "Or was, judging from how empty every other room was."


    Felix frowned and barely managed to look up at Thezan, "You think this feeling¡­ is from something that¡­ used¡­ to be in there?"


    "I think it''s unlikely whatever it was was left behind. Especially if¡­"


    Felix looked towards Thezan but he seemed to have decided against continuing his sentence. Felix eventually managed to recover his breath, forcefully calm himself then nodded to Thezan. They both agreed to immediately turn around if they found anything that concerned them but Thezan seemed convinced they could take a peek.


    The hall was almost a kilometer long, far longer than any of the others and terminated at a massive circular room. As Thezan had expected, the room was entirely empty. The walls were completely smooth while the floor and ceiling were perfectly flat and almost a hundred meters apart. At a hundred meters across, the room was more or less proportional but Felix was surprised to find no spatial enchantments in the room, at least none he could sense.


    The room was entirely naturally carved, despite how gigantic it was. The only other thing he felt was that the aether was far worse in this room than anywhere else. In the main cavern, the aether had been disjointed and jittery. Here, it was even more so, it was broken even.


    The aether usually swirled around and flowed with an invisible current. On Telviras, the current was fast and turbulent. In this room, it suddenly stopped, started, switched direction, tensed and compressed itself then exploded back outwards entirely at random.


    Felix was about to mention it to Thezan but when he looked for him, he saw him staring intently at the ground in the middle of the room. Felix waited for a few minutes because he looked more intense than ever then heard him sigh. Thezan turned around and walked right past Felix out into the hall.


    "Rathos!"


    Felix took the opportunity to glance at the floor where Thezan had been looking and saw a small metal coin in the center of the floor. Thezan walked back into the room and walked right back over to stand over the coin. Rathos walked in about a minute later and walked right up to Thezan, looking down where he pointed.


    Thezan sighed, "Rathos, you know what this means¡­"


    She shrugged, "Yeah¡­ Ravens."


    "We have to go talk to them."


    "Yeah." Rathos didn''t seem nearly as concerned as Thezan did, judging from her light tone.


    "You ok with that?"


    "Thez, I''m not the one that has an issue with them."


    "I''m not the one that used to be one."


    Rathos shrugged, "You gonna bring the kid?"


    "I kind of have to don''t I?"


    "No, but you should. Kid is kind of a miracle find, isn''t he?"


    "He''s right behind you, you know?"


    "Of course I know. I''m not blind."


    "Why do you have to take me?" Felix cut in.


    "You''re the most capable person to detect remnants of the Usorium empire. Also, you seem to be the most sensitive to whatever this is and you can probably figure out who has it, considering they likely have a key." Thezan offered.


    Felix frowned, "They likely have a key? Why''s that?"


    "It''s just how they work kid." Rathos said.


    Felix gestured back towards the door, "Are the others coming?"


    "Nah. It''s not dangerous¡­ I just don''t really¡­ like them. Smaller group is better for this." Thezan sighed.


    Felix frowned, "Are they gonna be ok with that?"


    Thezan shrugged, "They still get paid for a work they don''t have to do¡­ they''ll be fine."


    Rathos looked over at Thezan, "We''ll likely need to buy it back."


    "Yeah, I''ll talk to Dogran." Thezan looked towards Felix and explained, "The broker. He''ll contact the client and get us access to the funds we need."


    Thezan and Rathos looked at each-other for a brief moment, Rathos gave him a slight nod and he sighed in response. They both walked out of the room and Felix took another quick glance at the coin. It seemed to be made of gold and had the symbol of a dead animal carcass on the face.


    Felix followed the pair back out into the main cavern where they met up with Aros and Elric.


    Thezan addressed the whole group once they had reassembled, "Looks like what we''re looking for isn''t in here. Let''s clear out the rest of the caves and see if they left anything behind."


    "Ravens?" Aros asked.


    Thezan reluctantly nodded.


    "Should we even bother to keep looking?" Aros asked the group.


    "They''ve missed things before." Rathos shrugged.


    "We''re already here." Elric offered.


    They split back into their respective groups and continued searching. The room next to the one with the coin appeared to be some kind of dungeon or zoo. The majority of the cages were smaller than Felix would have expected for a humanoid creature and they were laid out in groups that were separated from each-other. The groups of cages were laid out in their own cubbies that were located at the ends of the winding and branching halls.


    On the stone wall inside of just about every cage they came across, Felix saw holes and some of them had their bars chewed down until the cages were connected.


    Felix turned to the more experienced adventurer in the room, "Any idea what would make holes in the wall like that? Or what the cages might be for?"


    Thezan shrugged, "No idea. Best guess is Drakelings since the city was kind of known for them¡­ They wouldn''t be able to dig holes like that though¡­"


    "Ventilation?" Felix offered.


    "Without grates?"


    "Maybe they were enchanted?" Felix shrugged.


    "Do you sense anything like that?"


    "No, nothing."


    "You have a Light spell, right?"


    "Yup."


    "Wanna shine it in one and maybe we can figure out how they were made?"


    "Sure."


    Felix quickly assembled a simple directional Light spell and cast it towards one of the cages. As soon as he did, the ground started rumbling and they heard a series of distant screeches. Felix immediately killed the light but judging from Thezan''s reaction, the damage was done.


    Thezan grabbed Felix by the arm ran back out through the winding tunnels towards the main corridor. During Felix''s first heartbeat since Thezan grabbed him, the screeches got to the point where they drowned out all other sound and they would need to yell to hear each-other. In the second heartbeat, right as Felix was turning himself to follow Thezan and keep his feet beneath him, he caught a glimpse of something shoving it''s way out of one of the holes.


    The creature appeared to be some kind of lizard at first with a small but proportionally long, crocodile like snout. In the next heartbeat, Felix took a couple steps forwards and heard the rumbling all around them reach a crescendo as the walls began to crack, adding to the symphony of dread.


    They made it another two steps in the next heartbeat as a large chunk of the wall to their left exploded outwards. Behind it, there was a swarm of small lizard like creatures. They had long snouts and two back legs. Their only front limbs were wings and their scales were either tiny or non existent.


    Felix would have actually found them cute had they not been clearly diseased in some way. All of the ones he saw at a quick glance had chunks of missing flesh, gaping wounds and some even had chunks of their skulls and other bones completely exposed. On top of it all, their eyes were completely black which gave their wide ravenous look a menacing touch.


    Felix didn''t dare take the moment required to identify them just yet, not when he heard the cave crumbling around him, countless claws scraping along the stone and a cacophony of wings smacking the air. With Thezan pulling him along, he simply ran and did his best to keep up and stay on his feet.


    Guided by the arm, Felix looked back just in time to use the force spell inscribed into his boots to dodge a falling chunk of the cave. The creatures seemed to be even further enraged by his actions though as they impossibly seemed to get louder and rush towards him even more fervently. As soon as he landed, Thezan yanked him to the side and away from another chunk of falling stone.


    They continued to run but the creatures were pouring in from everywhere, including the cave walls in front of them. With every step, the swarm closed in. The growing swarm along with the falling debris, Felix wasn''t sure if they were going to make it at all. The slowly strobing glow that the pillars emitted in the main chamber, their only source of light, was slowly being suffocated from all around them.


    Thezan used his other arm to pull out his sword and started swinging it through the swarm to try and make some room. As soon as his blade flicked out of the mass of creatures, Felix thought the blade had broken but realized it was just covered in shadow that poured off of it with some kind of skill. With the creatures pouring in from all sides, Felix quickly risked a glance at one as they ran through the path Thezan carved.


    [D - Cursed] Drakeling (Lvl 751)


    They''re¡­ cursed?


    He didn''t have time to think about it though as Thezan yanked Felix''s arm as hard as he could and pulled him through the swarm and debris. Claws and teeth scraped through Felix''s armor and tore through his flesh while the stone debris battered and bruised him. Even though it had caused him to lose over half of his health, he felt immense gratitude to Thezan for pulling him free.


    He didn''t have time to voice his gratitude though as the swarm of Drakelings poured out of the cave they had been searching. Now that they had a large open chamber in front of them, Felix felt safe enough to look back. As soon as he did, his false sense of security assuring him they had gotten through the worst of it, shattered.


    He saw the swarm pouring out of the small cave opening but at the same time, the entire wall around it started to crumble. The swarm poured in around every chunk of stone that fell and suddenly there were cursed Drakelings and flying debris forming a massive wave that flew in their direction.


    Thezan pulled something out of a spatial storage that looked like a metal disc to Felix. He fiddled with it for a few seconds and Felix felt a surge of mana then, nothing. After a few seconds he groaned and put it away again. To their right, Felix saw the other three pop out of their cave and immediately sprint towards the staircase.


    They were both coming in from different angles but they should arrive at the same time and meet each-other there if nothing went wrong. As soon as Felix had that thought, he heard the loudest crack yet from his left and immediately flicked his head over just in time to see one of the massive pillars shatter.


    The cave it was holding up, the ceiling above them began to crumble and suddenly debris was falling from above as well. The cracks spread through the ceiling far faster than they were running, almost as if the cave had already been right on the verge of collapsing. As he had come to expect at this point, the crumbling ceiling revealed an even larger mass of cursed Drakelings.


    The pillar to Felix''s immediate left was just the beginning. It seemed that with every step they took, another pillar shattered. At first they crumbled but then they started exploding outwards, shooting debris in every direction. Looking around, there were Drakelings and stone flying everywhere and Felix started to lose sight of their exit and the rest of the party. Luckily, Thezan was paying attention and reached back grabbing Felix and dragging him along in the right direction.


    Thezan had actually been right in front of him but he was now covered in shadow and with gravel flying everywhere, it was almost impossible for Felix to spot him while running and dodging at the same time. Felix was getting hit from every side and the scrapes and bruises he had sustained from being ripped out of the cave were starting to shoot pain through his body.


    He had Grim keep an eye on his health so he didn''t accidentally kill himself then dulled his pain and overloaded his cells with energy. He just hoped his buffed regeneration would be able to keep up. Worst case he could down a potion but that would be hard to do while running full tilt and dodging incoming projectiles from every direction.


    Felix''s health was still steadily dropping, despite his regeneration, as he was pelted and scratched from every direction. He was growing more worried that he would need to do something as his health dropped just below 30% from a particularly nasty scratch but luckily, they just broke through the front of the wave.


    No longer pushing through a wall of black, surrounded by debris and Drakelings on every side, they ran even faster than before across the rapidly shrinking open expanse. Felix thought about making himself faster with spells but once again, he hesitated and decided against it, just incase it enraged and sped the swarm up even further. While he was confident Thezan and the rest of Shade''s Wrath could run faster than they were, the swarm was also an uncoordinated mass.


    He was worried about what might happen if he gave them a target they could all hunt down and head towards. The Drakelings were currently pouring towards them more out of necessity because of the empty cave ahead. If they were actively rushing towards him, he wasn''t sure he could outrun their levels.


    Felix followed Thezan as they veered off to the right and towards the rest of the group now that they had room to move and were slightly outpacing the calamity behind them. Now that they had gotten closer, Felix saw Elric sitting on Aros'' shoulder that was, along with the rest of his body, on fire. The same skill or effect he had used on his arms to get through the front door, was now spread across his entire body except this time, it wasn''t a candle flame at all.


    Rathos yelled out as they approached, "What the hell are these things?"


    Thezan yelled back, "No idea. Seems like they were in the walls the entire time."


    Elric cut in from Aros'' shoulder, "Well fuck, that went to shit real quick."


    Rathos smiled wildly, "Just like old times."


    "Yeah, not in a good way." Thezan grumbled then continued, "Felix, can you cut the portal once we jump through?"


    "Definitely." Felix called back.


    "Alright then that''s the plan. We make it to stairs and seal the cave off behind us." Thezan looked to the others to make sure everyone was on board.


    "You already try an escape portal? This seems like a damn good time to use one." Aros yelled out.


    "Yeah, didn''t work." Thezan shook his head slightly as he ran ahead a bit, leading the group.


    "Stairs it is then." Elric yelled as he lobbed vials and bottles into the swarm behind them.


    Felix risked a glance back and saw multicolored explosions of gas explode against the wave only to be swallowed up just a moment later. He was pretty sure Elric''s concoctions were killing them they just weren''t doing enough to make a visible dent in the swarm. Elric continued to lob a stream of alchemical mixtures into the wave though, undeterred by it''s apparent lack of effect.


    A handful of Drakelings managed to break free and reach them. Aros caught any that flew into his reach and simply crushed them, against each-other, into the floor, in his fist and against his forehead. If one was a little further off, Elric pulled his bow out of nowhere, fired an arrow that put it down then the bow vanished again, all in a matter of moments.


    Thezan flicked his sword faster than Felix could follow and Rathos simply threw daggers that she seemed to have an endless supply of and that she pulled out of nowhere. Felix decided to risk it since they were gaining distance from the main wave and constructed a series of Fire Balls. Constructing the spells was harder than he expected, almost as if the mana was fighting him as he struggled to pull them into shape. He ended up giving up on two of them so he could focus his attention on the other two.


    Finally completed, two red beads flew over his shoulders and exploded against the wave. Felix was pretty sure he didn''t actually manage to kill anything given his lack of experience and the Drakeling''s levels.


    Elric looked at him in shock, "Wait, you can cast spells?"


    Felix yelled back, "Yeah, it''s not easy. Normally I could have fired four at once."


    "Huh." Thezan quickly glanced at him and frowned.


    "All my mana''s been wigging out, been stuck with energy and just plain skills." Elric said as he pulled out, drew his bow and downed another Drakeling with an arrow all in less than a second.


    Rathos nodded, "Same. Can''t use my spectral daggers, they just fall apart."


    Felix looked at Aros but he just shrugged, "I don''t use mana."


    As they closed the last couple hundred meters to the stairway, the cracks in the cave started to stretch and spread into the ceiling above them and the wall around the staircase. Thezan rocketed up dozens of steps at once followed by Felix who was shoved through after him. By the time the rest of them were on the stairs, the wall around them started to crumble, albeit slower and less suddenly than the rest of the cave had.


    Thezan got a hundred meters ahead of Felix and reached the now blank wall ahead of them a few seconds before Felix did.


    Thezan turned back towards the swarm frantically, "Looks like our escape is gone."


    "Well shit." Rathos said from right over Felix''s shoulder as she looked at the blank wall.


    Aros and Elric just backed down the steps a few meters and did their best to deal with the Drakeling''s that squirmed in.


    "Looks like it''s the same as our skills, mana''s fucked" Thezan gave his best guess.


    "You ever encounter something like this?" Rathos looked over her shoulder, her voice ironically filled with excitement.


    "Nope. First time for me." Thezan said through a sigh.


    "Do we seriously have no way out of this fucking hole?" Elric yelled back.


    Felix focused in on the blank wall and immediately felt the portal spell form embedded behind the stone. It had some mana in it but it was slowly leaking out down and to the left. He followed the mana as it poured out and found a break in it''s mana source within the wall. There were multiple redundant mana sources in the wall, all of them were broken somewhere though.


    "Mana was cut off. I can power it but I need a minute or so." Felix offered. He was confident he could fight back against whatever was screwing with the mana, he just wasn''t sure how long it would take him.


    "Seriously?" Thezan asked more to make sure Felix was certain than out of disbelief.


    "Yes?"


    Thezan sighed, "We can try to hold them off, fucking get to it. Any idea how long?"


    "No idea, but I''ll work as fast as I can."


    Thezan just nodded once then kicked off the wall and shot back behind Felix. Rathos followed him and they joined up with Aros and Elric to hold off the swarm pushing up the stairway.


    Felix wasted no time and got to work. He already knew where the spell form was embedded in the wall, all he had to do was fill it with mana and hold back the leaks. Felix pulled out the first of the batteries he had bought and started funneling mana from it, into the portal spell form in the wall.


    The instant he pulled it out, the screeching behind him got noticeable louder and the mana in the battery, tried to break itself free. Felix held onto it and fought back but had to direct most of his focus to the stream of mana between the battery and the spell form. Without something holding it together, it was pushing itself outwards and away. He directed it but as if it had a will of it''s own, it fought back.


    Felix managed to keep it mostly steady but he wasn''t pulling out of the battery nearly as fast as he could have under normal circumstances. As he strained against the invisible forces fighting for control over his mana, the portal spell form filled but it only got worse. Not only was mana being pushed towards the leaky inputs, but the mana within the spell form itself was also fighting back.


    All Felix had ever experienced indicated that mana was like water or electricity, it took the path of least resistance. In this case, it struggled to push itself and darted around at random. Instead of following the spell form and creating a nice flow so the spell could cast, it was like a puddle in a storm, being blown away.


    Felix split his focus between the spell form itself and the mana flowing into it. He had no idea how the rest of the party were faring behind him but it didn''t matter. Either they held the swarm off long enough or they didn''t. All Felix had to worry about was securing their escape as quickly as possible.


    Until now, had never had to actively fight against something and Felix had never felt like he urgently needed to improve his mana control. Not in the same way. In the past he had to improve until he could cast more spells or more complex spells but never had he had to improve so he could fight back. It was a weird feeling like he had lost something he used to be capable of instead of him trying to reach a goal.


    The feeling was completely different and made him feel a little disgusted with himself that he hadn''t been practicing as hard as he could have. With this portal spell form, if there wasn''t an inscribed spell within the wall, he would have no hope of raw casting the spell in the air. It was only remotely possible because of the channels and the inlay that formed a predetermined path for the mana to travel.


    All Felix had to do was keep it moving the way it naturally wanted to. He had his eyes closed and teeth clenched as he strained his will against the mana. He ended up leaking some of it but as he strained and pushed, he got better. As the mana filled the spell form, it got easier.


    He swapped his empty battery for another and continued all over again, pulling the mana out of the battery and channeling it with half of his will into the spell form. The other half, holding the mana in the spell form, away from the leaks and flowing around the channels smoothly.


    This portal took a lot less mana than he was expecting and by the time he had drained about half of the second battery, he felt something click. He opened his eyes just in time to see the ground rushing towards him as he was shoved through the portal. As he fell, he focused solely on holding onto the portal spell form and keeping it active.


    He immediately rolled over so he could see the portal and watched as Elric leapt through followed by Aros who had a handful of Drakelings latched onto him. Felix confirmed that Thezan and Rathos were next to him then he reached out with his mana control and ripped the mana out of the portal just to be safe. It was about to fall apart itself anyway as Felix had let go, no longer imposing his will on the mana but, that could have taken multiple seconds during which more Drakelings would pour through.


    Aros ripped off and crushed Drakelings one by one until all that as left was a pile of mush then he closed his eyes and took a deep breath. As he exhaled, the flames that covered his body died down and disappeared, his muscles relaxed and he went back to looking like a normal, albeit large, human man.


    "Well that was fun." Rathos said as she stretched her back.


    "Well done kid." Thezan reached down and placed a hand on Felix''s shoulder.


    Felix looked up at Thezan, "What would you guys have done if I wasn''t there?"


    "Probably would have had to sit on the stairs and wait for the whole cave to collapse." Aros shrugged.


    "Then we would wait for the swarm to calm down and fight our way through them." Rathos said with more enthusiasm than he expected.


    "There had to be a way out, ventilation or otherwise. Those Drakelings didn''t survive off eating stone all this time." Elric added in.


    "Worst case we dig a tunnel of our own and seal it off behind us. Maybe we dig far enough to get away from the weird mana fuckery. What was up with that by the way, any idea?" Thezan crouched down so he was at eye level with Felix.


    Felix looked down at his hands as he shook his head, "No idea. It was like I was constantly fighting someone or¡­ something, for control of the mana. Normally I shape spells and maybe I can''t hold them all but that''s just because I can''t pay attention to and hold all of it at once. This was like every little bit of mana was fighting against me. It wanted to do something else but it wasn''t uniform. It just fought back for the sake of fighting back. At least¡­ that''s what it felt like¡­"


    "Huh. Maybe it has to do with whatever we were sent here to retrieve." Thezan looked to the rest of the group.


    "Especially if just it''s remnant was that hard to deal with." Elric nodded.


    "Or it was the swarm itself. Did you see how they were¡­ zombie like?" Rathos dropped, cross legged onto the floor and held onto her ankles with her hands. To Felix, she looked like an excited child sitting down for story time.


    Aros crossed his arms and leaned against one of the windows, "They definitely weren''t undead."


    "Yeah but they were cursed." Rathos tilted her head all the way back to look at Aros.


    Thezan rose to his feet, "Weird. Think we should head out so nothing else has a chance to go wrong?"


    Felix nodded then rose to his feet then started pumping mana into his robes so they started healing themselves. Felix followed Thezan to the other end of the ballroom but stopped and turned when he heard Aros behind him.


    "Shit."


    Looking back at Aros they saw what he saw. Through the windows behind them, a swarm of black flying creatures swarmed upwards from nowhere. The view of the ocean was quickly blocked as the loose smattering of Drakelings slowly grew denser and approached a solid mass. Aros ran towards them and just barely managed to avoid the shards of glass pouring through the window as the Drakeling swarm chased after them.


    They all turned towards the door together but before they even opened it, they heard the familiar sound of stone crumbling. Through the windows that pointed to the garden, they saw a sinkhole open up in the ground and a column of cursed Drakelings pour through the snow.


    Thezan turned from the door and pointed at the right wall, "Aros!"


    "On it."


    Aros ran towards the solid wall, his body igniting as he ran. He sped up right until he reached the wall and swung both fists forwards at once, ripping a hole right through it. Felix heard a massive cracking sound and was impressed with how strong Aros was until he looked to the right and realized it wasn''t Aros that had made that sound at all.


    The entire floor of the ballroom starting from the side facing the cliff face was starting to crumble and fall off into the ocean. The wall remained, suspended by the castle around it but the floor beneath that was slowly falling away.


    Felix sprinted, just behind Thezan, towards the hole Aros had opened. To their left, the Drakeling swarm that had shot out of the sinkhole started pouring through the windows. On the right, the Drakeling swarm that had come from nowhere was also pouring in but the floor was also crumbling away.


    Thezan grabbed Felix''s arm like he had before but this time he actually physically dragged Felix through the hole in the wall because he wasn''t fast enough to keep up. They poured out right on top of the staircase and looking to the right, the castle and bedrooms were already starting to crumble away and fall down the cliff.


    Thezan continued to drag Felix through the hall, left and away from the crumbling floor. He was initially worried about the traps as he didn''t have the keys ready but they seemed to be just as dysfunctional as the portal out had been.


    They ran up the stairs and started down the hall. Felix was being smacked against the stairs then the floor and walls but, he was still eternally grateful Thezan dragged him. To keep himself from dying he quickly downed the regeneration potion Thezan had given him earlier. It was a challenge to get it down his throat without spilling but, it was doable.


    He didn''t have time to examine it''s effects but he immediately felt it going to work stitching his body back together and accelerating the effects of his skin''s troll cell layer. It lasted for ten minutes and was complete overkill for him which meant it should be able to completely heal him from nothing in just a couple minutes. It should last until they had made it out though which meant he should be able to stay completely topped up until then.


    Aros and Elric were a hundred meters or so ahead of Rathos who was just in front of Thezan as they ran. Just as Aros turned the corner ahead of them, the floor between the two groups crumbled and a column of Drakelings poured through so quickly, they smacked themselves against the ceiling.


    The swarm quickly spread out in every direction and Thezan immediately spun around, careful not to swing Felix''s body into a wall, and rushed away from the Drakelings. Rathos was already ahead of him and she opened one of the doors then beckoned them inside. Thezan threw Felix inside then ran in just before Rathos closed the door.


    Felix rolled himself over and got to his feet, his bruises already healing over from the regeneration potion he had downed earlier.


    "Sorry about dragging and¡­ well tossing you around." Thezan looked guiltily towards Felix.


    Felix shook his head as he adjusted his robes, "Seriously, don''t worry about me. I appreciate you keeping me from dying."


    "So what the hell do we do now? The hall is a circle and they''ve filled it. In about 2 minutes, the floor beneath us is gonna start crumbling away. Without Aros, we don''t have a good way to open a wall up either." Rathos leaned against the wall next to the door she had just closed, ready in case something happened.


    "I''ve got bombs but we would have to leave the room." Thezan paced across the middle of the room.


    "Me too." Rathos crossed her arms.


    "I guess I can try to distract them. Get them to follow me then you can escort Felix out of here." Thezan suggested.


    "That could work. Then you meet up with us outside the castle?" Rathos nodded.


    "Exactly. Back where we first landed on this planet?" Thezan stopped pacing and looked towards Rathos.


    "Sounds good to me. How are you gonna pull them to you?" Rathos started flipping a dagger into the air and catching it.


    "You saw how they got all crazy every time Felix used a spell right?" Thezan started pacing again, this time invigorated with the prospect of an idea.


    "Yup." Rathos tossed the dagger into the air.


    "My armor should still work despite the weird mana, it''s just an enchantment." Thezan started nodding as he walked.


    Felix frowned because everything he knew was telling him that was not the case.


    "Isn''t that brand new? You haven''t tested the effect in battle yet?" Rathos caught the dagger then tossed it right back into the air, this time without any spin.


    "No but as long as it does something, it should attract them, right?" Thezan pivoted on one foot by kicking off the wall.


    "I guess." Rathos threw another dagger and hit the one that was already in the air. Instead of tumbling uncontrollably, the original dagger was bounced back into the air and she caught the second one as it bounced back into her hand.


    "What does it do?" Felix was sitting against the wall and up to this point, had mostly been listening as he didn''t have anything substantial to offer.


    "It''s supposed to make him stealthier. Something complicated with calculating the environment then eating light in a natural way so it doesn''t look like a big dark hole." Rathos bounced the dagger back up, keeping it in the air with her other dagger.


    "Right now all that matters is that it uses mana and is a big complicated enchantment. Should make me the perfect target." Thezan looked to Felix while he adjusted his armor.


    "And you''ll be fine getting away from the swarm afterwards?" Felix confirmed.


    "Oh yeah. Don''t worry about me." Thezan smirked a little.


    "If it wasn''t for you, Aros, Elric, Thezan and I could probably just walk out of here." Rathos finally caught the dagger she had kept suspended, "So, we got a plan?"


    Thezan nodded, "Let''s do it. Wait half a minute or until you don''t detect anything outside the door, got it?"


    Rathos nodded and Thezan took a breath. He looked down at his armor then started cycling mana through it. Felix immediately felt Thezan''s mana pour through the incredibly intricate enchantment embedded within his armor and quickly ramp up until suddenly, the light in the room from the gems on the walls vanished.


    Then just a moment later, they came back along with a brand new light. Felix expected to see Thezan gone but instead he was standing exactly where he had started. On his left arm, there was now a stream of rainbow colored light pouring out into the room. The light shifted and pulsed along with the mana that Felix could see leaking out of the armor.


    "Well shit." Thezan said through gritted teeth.


    "I take it-" Felix started.


    "No, it''s not supposed to do that." Thezan cut him off.


    Felix had no idea why it had happened but he could tell what was happening. Part of the enchantment had somehow burst and now the mana was leaking out of the armor. The mana was largely attuned as light mana so some of it naturally transformed into light.


    They all turned their heads towards the door as they heard loud clawing on the other side. Felix shot to his feet and ran over to the door. He grabbed hold of the excess mana in Thezan''s armor and ripped it free then dragged it over and shoved it through the door.


    The screeching immediately intensified right across the door but the scratching thankfully stopped.


    Thezan sighed, "I''ll swap sets, just give me a minute."


    Felix stopped him, "Can I look at it? I might be able to patch it up."


    Thezan looked at him very seriously, "You have 30 seconds."


    Felix nodded and hopped over then immediately started examining the armor. He used the tiniest droplet of mana he could and moved it through the channels in the armor to map out the area around the burst. He was just hoping that if he used a tiny amount of mana, it wouldn''t attract the swarm.


    He only mapped the area directly around the failure to see if he could repair it in some way and he was pretty sure he could at least patch it. Though visually there was no damage to the armor, to Felix''s vision, with Reaper''s Senses, he saw the mana channels were completely separated. It looked like the armor had been cut or there was a gash in it.


    Felix looked Thezan in the eye, "I can patch it if you give me a minute or so."


    Thezan looked at Felix for a few seconds, "Fine, do it."


    Felix nodded then pulled some soft inlay material and Starmetal out of his soul space. He quickly morphed the two together and made a plate of sorts with matching channels on the inside. He formed the inlay into small spikes that would dig into the armor and hopefully connect to the channels underneath. He carefully placed it over Thezan''s arm then pushed it into his armor.


    Felix made sure the connections were in place and had to reseat it a few times before he went to fasten it with some rope. Thezan stopped him though, thanked him then pulled some leather straps out of his own spatial storage and fastened it himself.


    Felix didn''t have time to map much of the armor and he was mostly focused on the break itself at the time. Now that he had time to look over it though, he quickly examined the area he had mapped in his memory and was very confused.


    It seemed to Felix like the person that enchanted the armor had combined a bunch of separate enchantments without having any idea how to properly connect them together. Some parts were expertly connected but others just¡­ weren''t.


    Felix''s best guess was that either someone had started it then someone else had finished it. Alternatively it was possible someone had had help with part of it or had found templates to copy for some parts but not others. Either way, the entire thing was an ambitious mess from Felix''s first glance. He didn''t say any of that though, he didn''t have enough experience and renown to back up his claims.


    He did start remapping some sections in the back of his mind though, almost like he was fidgeting with something without directly focusing on it.


    Thezan shook his arm a little then briefly tested the enchantment by running mana through it, "Thanks Felix."


    "Of course." Felix nodded


    "Alright. It seems like I shouldn''t actually trust my armor any more. We''ll fall back to it if we can''t come up with a new plan." Thezan looked to the other two in the room, "Any bright ideas?"


    "If we had Aros or Elric we might be able to fight our way out." Rathos held a dagger standing on the tip of her finger, completely stationary like it was being held by an invisible force.


    "You two can''t fight these things?" Felix looked at them incredulously.


    Thezan shrugged, "Could. She just means they''re more¡­ focused on area of effect. We are much better at dealing with targets one on one. It would take way too long for us to fight through that swarm."


    "We could just run through?" Rathos smiled with a wicked smile that made Felix a little uncomfortable.


    "What if we go with a distraction just¡­ a different one?" Felix offered.


    "You make some spells or something on the tablets then we throw them out and hope they last long enough that we can run through?" Thezan had clearly already thought of it, "Only issue is can you make the spell tablets last long enough?"


    "I can make little balls of force so nothing can actually reach them. Have them use mana to push anything and everything away." Felix suggested.


    "How long will they last against the swarm pushing in on them from every direction?" Thezan crossed his arms.


    "Not that long¡­ Actually¡­" Felix''s eyes rolled upwards as he thought through the spell formation in his head. It took him a little bit to come up with something that would fit on the tablet and not waste a ton of mana but he was pretty sure he had a decent idea.


    He explained what the tablets would do to Thezan who admitted it had a chance of working.


    "Worst case, we run out of here and I''ll carry you, try to shield you from the swarm." Thezan nodded as he thought things through in his head, "How long is it gonna take you?"


    Felix shrugged then pulled out a spell tablet and his quill then started inscribing the spell he had come up with onto the tablet. He didn''t have a good way of testing it because any mana expenditure was sure to attract the swarm so he tried to think through everything and just hoped they would work. He ended up making about 20 of them, with the last 18 taking just as long as the first two had.


    Ding You have gained a level in [D -Arcane] Mana Engineer (251 => 252)


    "Ok second problem. The second we open that door, we need the other side to be clear or we need the distractions to be really loud." Thezan said standing next to the door.


    "I can clear it¡­ I think¡­" Felix walked up to the door and started designing a simple spell that was just a lot of force pushing away in every direction. He put it together as fast as he could which inevitably attracted the attention of the swarm outside. It only took him a few seconds to put the spell together once he had designed it but that was more than long enough for the clawing at the door to start.


    Felix moved the spell just outside of the door and pushed mana recklessly into the spell then cast it. He heard a loud boom from the other side of the door and the clawing completely stopped. Felix picked up the tablets and started filling them with mana and handing them off to Thezan.


    Thezan opened the door just a crack then wide open once he saw the opening Felix had made in the swarm. He started throwing the tablets out the door and they immediately darted through the air and down the hall. Felix continued to hand tablets to Thezan and he threw them in random directions to try and thin out the swarm.


    All the Drakelings that had been pushed against the wall across from the door had recovered but instead of looking at them, they mostly seemed to follow after the flying tablets. Thezan walked out and beckoned the other two to follow him as they walked down the hall towards the front door.


    Looking over his shoulder, Felix saw the collapsing of the castle was still a couple dozen meters from the room they were in but was actively creeping towards them. Thezan and Rathos both dealt with Drakelings that strayed from the swarm. There weren''t many but when Thezan held his hand behind him and Felix filled the tablets with mana, a small group of them would come rushing around the corner towards them. They always flew after the tablets once they were thrown but Thezan and Rathos made sure none of them had a chance to even try and bite or claw them.


    They made it to the door and threw out all the rest of the tablets through the halls so the swarm didn''t follow them. They didn''t bother pulling out the sled just yet because they needed mana or someone to push it. Instead, they trekked through the snow at a light jog to try and gain enough distance that they wouldn''t be detected.


    They threw a few more tablets along the way to see if the swarm could detect them and by the time they had made it a few kilometers away, Thezan decided they were far enough.


    "Where are the other two?" Felix looked around at the snow covered expanse around them.


    "First landed on the planet. That wasn''t just a random spot, it''s our usual meeting point when everything goes to shit." Thezan pointed ahead of them and slightly to the left.


    "Which happens often." Rathos leaned in to whisper into Felix''s ear.


    "Used to¡­ Used to happen often." Thezan corrected, clearly having heard Rathos.


    Rathos just waved him off.


    Felix pulled out the sled and they all got in then immediately turned around to see what the loud ominous sound behind them was. Looking back, the castle and the city in front of it that had once sat on the edge of the cliff had finally crumbled and fallen into the ocean beyond. The swarm of Drakelings flew up into the air and circled around the area as it happened which from this distance, just looked like a massive cloud of black.


    They looked at each-other and shrugged then Felix cast some force spells and used his map to guide them towards the meeting location. They arrived a short while later but had to wait a couple hours longer for Aros and Elric to come running through the snow to them.


    They just nodded to each-other when they arrived and Thezan rose to his feet, "Let''s try this again, shall we?"


    He pulled a familiar disc out of his spatial storage then tossed it onto the snow. The disc hummed with mana in Felix''s mana senses then suddenly a portal appeared above it. Unfortunately, the spell was System Fuckery so Felix couldn''t memorize and copy it. He felt the mana useless spinning around then suddenly disappear in an unnatural way. They walked through one by one into a familiar room then the portal winked out.


    Felix leaned over to Thezan, "Does the portal disc thing just¡­ sit there forever?"


    "They self destruct after being used." Thezan walked up to the door and it simply opened then he turned and walked down the hall to the left.


    The rest of the party followed after him in no particular order and then filed into the vehicle they had arrived in. Thezan drove them back to the guild where they scattered into the main sitting area of the familiar mansion like apartment.


    Thezan turned and addressed the group, "Alright we''ll sleep here for another night then checkout tomorrow. Elric, make sure you get everything packed up before then this time."


    Elric just saluted Thezan then walked over to his alchemy desks. Sear?h the n?velFire.net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    The others wandered off leaving Thezan and Felix standing in the sitting room.


    Felix looked up at Thezan, "So what now?"


    "Now I see if I can get a meeting with Dogran. I''ll let him know about the Ravens and see if they want us to keep chasing this thing. It might take a while for him to contact the client then there''s the Ravens¡­ just sit tight. I''ll come find you when we head out."


    Felix nodded once, "Any idea how long?"


    Thezan shrugged, "A term or two if I had to guess."


    "Oh¡­ ok then. What will you do in the meantime?"


    "Go home. Relax with my family." Thezan shrugged.


    "Oh¡­ that makes sense. You guys just check into a room just to prepare for a job then?" Felix asked as he looked around.


    "Sort of. We used pay for a room at all times for the team to use but recently it''s gotten too expensive." Thezan nodded and placed his hands on his hips.


    "The price increased?" Felix frowned because he already knew how much they were getting paid.


    "Yeah. It''s based on demand and the last 5 Epochs or so the adventurer''s guild has been super busy, way more adventurers and jobs than normal. It''s just not worth it anymore. Anything more than prepping for a mission and I can''t justify the cost. Even if our client is paying us a stupid amount of creds."


    "It''s busier than usual?" Felix frowned.


    "Way busier. No idea why but yeah, like I said, there have been way more contracts and way more adventurers."


    "Has this happened before?" Felix looked up at Thezan with his confusion displayed loudly on his face.


    Thezan just shrugged, "Not that I''ve ever seen or heard of."


    "Doesn''t that seem weird to you?"


    Thezan shook his head, "No. Could be any number of reasons and no point in worrying about it, right?"


    "I guess."


    "Anyway. You did a great job today kid. I''ll leave your pay with the guild once I get it but just be aware, the client may only give us part of it now and the rest when we actually find the thing they''re looking for. It may take a while."


    "Alright, thanks." Felix turned and took a step then decided he was better off saying something and turned back around. He took a spell tablet out of his inventory and quickly drew out a diagram as he spoke, "I know I''m not very high level and I''m only just learning how to enchant things¡­ You''re armor''s enchantments are¡­ kind of a mess."


    Thezan raised an eyebrow and cocked his head, "What do you mean?"


    "I mean it''s a mess. Here, I''m not great at it and I know multiple people who can do way better this, but even this is better than whatever is currently in or on your armor." Felix handed him the tablet.


    He had inscribed the enchantment around Thezan''s arm with the most basic of changes. Just simple things like altering the channels slightly to have the enchantments connect together less crudely. He didn''t spend enough time to alter anything dramatically and he didn''t have the experience to properly fix it, but he knew enough to make minor changes.


    Thezan took the tablet and nodded, "I''ll look into it."


    Felix nodded then walked to the door and left. He descended the elevator that still amazed him with how seamless it was then flew off back to Inscripticae. Though he had plans to do a handful of other things, he wanted to check in with Aldahn and Fralyna first. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 Chapter 188 - Book 5

    The sky was dark as Felix flew though the city that was lit up once again by the nebula and other artifacts of space around the planet. He used the portal spires and zipped through them until he arrived back at the familiar white stone building that held Inscripticae along with dozens of other spatially expanded shops.


    Heading inside, he walked into the shop but found it completely empty. He hopped into the air and peeked into the design room but didn''t see anyone through the window so he walked over to Aldan''s office and knocked.


    "Come in."


    Felix opened the door and found Aldahn sitting at his desk tinkering with something tiny using a very long and very precise quill.


    "You''re back." Aldahn remarked without looking up.


    "I am."


    "How''d it go?"


    "Kinda shit I guess. No one died and no one is permanently hurt but¡­"


    "Sounds like it could have been worse then."


    "Yeah¡­ I guess I''ll just hang out until Fralyna get''s back. I take it she hasn''t finished the sword without me just yet, has she?"


    Aldahn snorted, "Nope. Hasn''t even gotten the sword from her blacksmith yet."


    "Perfect¡­ Hey uh¡­ quick question, was the adventurer''s guild ever much busier than usual when you frequented it?"


    "Haven''t been there in a while. It''s been pretty steady as long as I was there, no big fluctuations, at least nothing that''s lasted more than a term or so." Aldahn shrugged.


    "I see. Apparently it''s been super busy the last 5 epochs. Any idea what might cause that?"


    Aldahn scoffed, "I don''t know, a god is making a move? Well, that alone wouldn''t do it. It could just be prep for the integration."


    "What do you mean?"


    "Well integrations mean more people but it also means kind of a wave of events, dungeons and things like that. Big influx of resources too."


    "I see¡­ Thanks, I''ll just be in the shop then."


    Aldahn nodded and continued working on whatever he was tinkering with.


    Felix headed into the workshop and chose an empty station, one that wasn''t already claimed by a mess or project laying on top of it. He had a ton of things he wanted to do but the most urgent item on his mind was redoing all of the enchantments on his armor.


    He had already identified issues with his current enchantments back before he had left the integration, now he actually had the tools to design something that addressed those issues. His encounter with the Drakeling swarm had also highlighted for him how much he needed solid defensive options.


    Having his armor automatically react to the swarm would have been a terrible idea, like covering himself in honey to protect from a swarm of bears. However, it would have kept their claws from shredding through his armor and his health from dipping so low that he needed to drink a regeneration potion. In the future he was hoping it would be possible to make it so it was undetectable but he had no idea how to do that at the moment.


    The first thing he did was go through the shaping nodes he knew. Whether or not he enchanted his armor to generate mana shields and use force to deflect attacks, he also wanted to create a Mage Armor spell. There weren''t shaping nodes for pauldrons or anything like that but Grim drew his attention to a book he had memorized from the store room.


    The book detailed a method to create complex shapes a shaping node didn''t necessarily exist for. It wasn''t a complicated process but it was rather involved. Felix spent time testing and shaping all the different pieces of armor he would have to make mostly through trial and error. He was sure this spell already existed but he was also pretty sure it would cost him a lot of credits to just buy it. He also found it fun and thought it was good practice to create spells.


    He created bracers, pauldrons, greaves and interlocking plates for his midsection and other areas that required flexibility. He spent hours working through all the different pieces, shaping them to satisfaction. He didn''t quite manage to finish shaping all the different pieces but he got about 75% of the way through when he was interrupted by a new face in the shop who walked right up to him.


    A chromatic scaled Drakene wearing a cloak, pants, sandals and nothing else walked right up to his desk. Their shoes didn''t fully cover their feet but were more like fingerless gloves as their claws were exposed, which was why he considered them sandals. The pants were a long and billowy black silk and the cloak was completely black from the outside. From the inside though, the cloak was a kaleidoscope of colors that shifted and morphed in the light.


    Looking into their chest, which was at eye height for Felix, he saw his face perfectly reflected thousands of times in their scales. The scales also reflected the interior of the cloak, which created a weird effect where each scale looked to be alive. Felix assumed that was the desired effect.


    The Drakene didn''t look like he pleased to see him, likely due to his crossed arms and defensive posture but Felix introduced himself anyways.


    "Hello. I''m Felix¡­"


    Felix trailed off as the Drakene''s eyes wandered up and down Felix''s body. He stepped around the desk and continued to inspect him then walked all the way back to where he had been standing before.


    "You''re the new enchanter then. I am Krinitor." The Drakene man bowed deeply with one arm against his chest and the other extended off to the side.


    "Uh¡­"


    "Kraken leather?"


    The out of the blue question completely threw Felix off, "¡­ yes?"


    "The style is a little¡­ dated but, classy nonetheless. An excellent set. I take it you''re either a caster or a pugilist of some kind?"


    "Caster derivative, yeah."


    "No cloak?"


    "Not at the moment."


    "May I see your cloak?"


    "Oh I just wear whatever I need like a warm pelt cloak in frigid climates for example. Haven''t found one in particular that I like just yet." Felix lied.


    "I see. Do you wear this all the time or is this simply your adventuring gear?"


    "Uh¡­ both? This is just what I wear¡­ always? Should I have other clothes?"


    "Of course you should."


    "I''ll have to go buy some then."


    "Yes, you should." Krinitor nodded then walked off. He spoke so neutrally that it didn''t seem like he judged Felix at all, it was more like he was stating facts.


    What the fuck was that¡­


    Felix didn''t think about it too much and turned back to his work on the Mage Armor spell. He just barely managed to finish up the last of the initial shaping a few hours later when Fralyna along with Edemari walked into the workshop together.


    "Oh Felix, you''re back." Fralyna greeted him with a warm smile.


    "I am. I hear the sword isn''t ready yet?"


    "Don''t even get me started. The smith is really dragging his feet with this one. He complains about being too busy and all that but his forge isn''t even lit when I go check on him. ''It''ll be done soon'' he says."


    Felix shrugged, "Alright well, I guess you can''t really rush something like that."


    "Yeah. Whatever." Fralyna sighed as her shoulders dropped.


    "I take it you finally met Krinitor?" Edemari smirked.


    "I did, just a few hours ago. How did you know?" Felix frowned.


    "I saw him sketching you in one of the meeting rooms." Edemari''s smirk grew.


    "I see. He just asked me about my clothes. I take it he''s sketching me in different outfits?" Felix shrugged.


    "Yeah. He''s very¡­ into fashion." Fralyna smiled and cocked her head a little.


    "Tried to get Fral and I to let him make us clothing that wasn''t¡­ what was it?" Edemari looked at Fralyna.


    "So out of fashion it was an offense to those around us." Fralyna looked back at Edemari.


    "Something like that." Edemari nodded.


    "Did you let him?" Felix looked at both of them.


    "Not when he quoted us a price." Edemari smirked.


    Fralyna did some quick mental math, "Something in the neighborhood of 4 times what I make in an epoch?"


    "Yeah triple that for me." Edemari laughed, "Plus I took a look at his sketches and¡­ They weren''t exactly my style."


    "Very fashionable though." Fralyna gave them a very exaggerated nod.


    "I didn''t realize fashion was¡­ existed?" Felix shrugged, "I just assumed everyone would wear whatever they could get their hands on that was the strongest."


    "That''s what we do," Edemari tilted her head towards Fralyna, "but apparently that''s an offense and whatnot. Most of the fashion trends are just based on the most popular or strongest god at the moment. Though¡­ that hasn''t changed much¡­ ever really¡­"


    Edemari kind of trailed off at the end of her thought but before Felix could ask her to expand on it, Fralyna looked at Edemari but was clearly still talking to Felix, "Just¡­ if he asks to design you a set¡­"


    "Ask him how much it''ll cost first." Edemari nodded.


    "And maybe make sure he shows you a sketch before you agree¡­ if you can afford it." Fralyna scrunched up her nose and giggled.


    "Yeah." Edemari shrugged and nodded.


    "I see. Thanks for the¡­ tips." Felix smiled.


    They nodded then walked off together, giggling all the way up to the design room that overlooked the workshop.


    Instead of turning back to his Mage Armor spell, Felix looked at the time and decided he would work on assembling it all together later. Now that it wasn''t the middle of the night, he headed out and used his map to find himself a haircut and shave followed by a bath. The haircut was easy to find even when Felix limited himself to pacifist barbers. For the bath, he simply went back to the same place he had gone last time.


    While he had some idle time flying and being pampered, he manually filled his batteries to make sure they were full and ready, since he didn''t opt for the automatic recharging versions.


    Now, he was much cleaner and more presentable, not that he overly cared but his hair had been getting annoyingly long. He headed over to the Valtrusiar: The School of Competitive Avoidance and Dodging. Walking through the front door, he found Kukhomihto standing at the edge of the training area deep in thought. The course that previously filled the room was completely gone and all that was left was a field of grey sand.


    He waited for a couple minutes then started to doubt whether or not Kukhomihto even knew he was there. He walked up next to him and introduced himself just in case.


    "Hi Kukhomihto? I''m Felix. I was here a bit ago asking about classes and whatnot?"


    Kukhomihto spoke without moving anything but his mouth, "I remember."


    Felix squinted, trying desperately to read anything from the man, "I was hoping for¡­ tutelage?"


    The man turned to Felix with a very stern expression and looked at him for a few seconds then nodded, "Call me Mihto. One time fee of 10,000 D and I will provide you with all of the spells you will need. We will tailor the spells to your spell list then you give me 500 D and I will teach you for an hour."


    Felix nodded and accepted the transaction screen that appeared for the first 10,000 D. His first instinct was to ask Aldahn if 10k D was overpriced but ultimately, it wasn''t much to him and the prospect of more spells was very enticing.


    Mihto nodded to Felix then led him to the same office room they had met in before. He pulled a large tome out from underneath the desk then looked up at Felix, with the same stern expression he always seemed to wear, one that made him look like he was constantly about to scold Felix.


    Mihto stared directly into Felix''s eyes, "How many spells on your list will you dedicate to this?"


    "Uh¡­ All of them?"


    He didn''t react to that and simply flipped through the book to one of the later pages then turned it towards Felix.


    "These work well together." He pointed to a grouping of 7 spells that each seemed to be some sort of mobility spells from Felix''s first glance. He looked through the spells and was about to memorize them then quickly took a look at how long it would be until the entire book in front of him was scanned. He only had another 20 seconds so he stalled a little and pretended to look them over very carefully.


    His ruse was only partially a ruse as he was actually examining the spells. For the most part, they seemed to use force but other than that, he wasn''t sure what they actually did. A lot of the spell components he was looking at were completely novel to him.


    "If you do not like these spells or have more slots, there are other spells in this book. Now that you have paid the initial fee, you may come into this room at any time and switch your spells."


    Felix felt a tiny pang of guilt for scanning the book without permission but that quickly subsided considering he had full permission to read through the book at will.


    "So this book contains a bunch of spells then?"


    Mihto gave him a single sharp nod, "Depending on how many spell slots you dedicate, the spells are more or less complex."


    "What if I only dedicated a couple slots, what spells would you recommend then?"


    Mihto reached out and flipped towards the start of the book and pointed to a set of spells that were more complicated than even the portal spell forms Felix knew.


    "What do these¡­ do?"


    "Many things."


    "The ones you showed me before, what do those do?"


    "Less things, individually."


    Felix gasped in realization, "Oh wait¡­ so you use less slots you get more versatile spells. You use more slots and you get more variety so you have more options to choose from?"


    Mihto frowned in a way that indicated Felix was close to right, "Less things, less mana."


    "Wait so the more complex spells can do the same things as the less complex ones but they are less efficient?"


    "Yes."


    "I see. Thank you. Let''s just say, out of curiosity, if I had hundreds of spell slots¡­ what spells would you recommend?"


    Mihto reached behind him and picked up a different book that Felix hadn''t even noticed before and placed it on top of the other already open book.


    "Base spells." Mihto said as he opened the book to the first page and pointed.


    Looking at the book, the spells seemed to be a combination of super complicated spells and very simple spells. Some were only slightly more complicated than the spells Felix used now. Others were the most complicated spells Mihto had shown him. Felix spent some time flipping through the book until the book was completely scanned then Mihto led him back out into the main chamber.


    "No spells, no skills." Mihto looked at Felix who nodded in acknowledgement.


    Mihto did something and all of a sudden, the large grey sandbox in the middle of the room completely changed. The sand morphed and floated into the air until it transformed into a series of platforms that led from one end to the other. Mihto pointed and Felix walked over to the start of the course then looked back over at Mihto.


    He didn''t seem like he was going to tell him to start or count him down so Felix just went for it. He reluctantly disabled his energy cycling and Reaper''s Movement, as Mihto had said no skills, and even drained his body of energy to starve his muscles. He wanted to return to basics, show himself completely raw to Mihto and then build up from there. He hopped off the edge onto the first platform and found it was as solid as stone, despite being clearly made of grey powder.


    Felix didn''t exactly rush himself but he also didn''t move slowly. He wanted Mihto to have a good idea of where he was at so he could get the most out of his tutelage. There was no desire in him to show off or hold back. Any of that would have been a waste of both of their time.


    After his first run through, Mihto did something and the entire course shifted. It was very similar to the last one but the platforms were in different locations and were all about half the size of the last ones. He once again ran and jumped across the platforms and Mihto shrunk them once again. This time Felix had to slow himself down so he didn''t miss any of them as they were barely bigger than his foot alone.


    He made it to the other side and this time, Mihto actually offered him direction. Felix''s footing and steps had morphed over time as he had been practicing the Dragon''s Dance, so he had some idea of how he should be moving and stepping. It was a little awkward for him without spells and energy cycling but he wouldn''t have said his footing and movement was bad.


    Mihto didn''t say much but he had a lot of adjustments. At first he had Felix turning his foot in a slightly different way then he had him run the course 20 times. Then, he had Felix bend his ankles, then his knees slightly more or less depending on the angles of the platforms and the distance to his next platform. He had Felix run through the course another 20 times with each adjustment in mind.


    He continued to point out minor adjustments to Felix then had him ingrain them as much as possible by running the course with them in mind. He still slipped up and felt himself falling back into old habits, 20 times wasn''t nearly enough to make it instinct, but he was getting better and he was feeling the effects.


    Though he essentially had unlimited energy, he could still tell how much he was expending and through Mihto''s tutelage, he was getting more efficient. His muscles were being used more appropriately and directly, instead of being slightly twisted. He landed on the platforms and found himself standing and feeling stable instead of having to immediately slightly adjust himself. On top of all that, he found himself able to jump farther than before, even with his muscles completely starved of energy.


    By the time Mihto had started to adjust Felix''s waist, many hours had passed and Felix was starting to have too much he had to keep in his head and think about. He had a good idea now of what to work on so he bid Mihto farewell and decided he would come back once he had completely solidified Mihto''s adjustments. Once it was all instinctual to him, he would have Mihto further adjust him.


    After leaving the Valtrusiar school, Felix headed straight for the library. He had quite a few things he wanted to look up and even a few things he wanted to test.


    He entered the general section of the library and didn''t bother summoning a librarian just yet. Instead he walked right over to a shelf and confirmed his earlier hypothesis that he could not, in fact, scan books he couldn''t see. He figured he could probably upgrade the skill to get there eventually but he still wasn''t entirely sure what he was going to do with the skill. The skill was not something he could do on his own and based on what Aldahn had said, that wasn''t the best idea.


    Even if he kept it, because it was incredibly useful, he had no idea how he wanted evolve it other than a vague notion that maybe he could use it to read memories. That idea was a long shot though and he didn''t have any clear path from the current skill to that goal, in mind.


    With that experiment complete, Felix had Grim prepare himself and the mental library then he started to slowly walk through the shelves with his Scan Literature skill active. He was mostly testing to try and find the limit of his mind, how much his library could actually hold, but he didn''t just walk around and wait.


    While he had no idea how he would possibly scan books in a radius on his own, he figured he might be able to learn how his skill was doing it. As he walked through the shelves, Felix focused in on the skill itself. His goal was to get even an inkling of an idea as to what it was actually doing.


    He found it incredibly hard to pinpoint and ended up disabling everything he could to try and isolate it. He disabled all of his skills and even found himself stilling the aether around him so it didn''t interfere with his mana senses. He couldn''t keep it perfectly still as he was in a magical library that used mana in complex ways but he settled on keeping it as calm as he could.


    He focused in on each of his senses, one by one, cycling through them until he finally settled on his soul senses. Those were the senses he was the least familiar with so he couldn''t be certain, but it seemed to him like this was the main focus of the skill. Somehow, it seemed to be using the ambient Anima to both sense and even read the books around him.


    Ding You have become more proficient with the General skill: [Epic] Scan Literature (Initiate XVI => Initiate XIX)


    Woah, that''s a lot more than I was expecting. Actually¡­ I wasn''t expecting it to go up at all, still that seems like a lot. I guess it was an important insight or realization?


    Felix sighed in relief a little as he had been growing increasingly worried that the skill was actually entirely system fuckery and not actually a skill at all. This meant he didn''t need to get rid of the skill and instead, he could learn to do it all on his own. Then he could actively increase his proficiency in the skill and evolve it in any direction he wanted.


    It had taken him a half hour to get an idea of how his skill worked and by that point, his library was about 80% full according to Grim''s estimate of it''s physical size. He didn''t actually want to find out what would happen if he tried to overfill it in case it hurt him or some information leaked out to make room. Unfortunately though, he had no way of knowing if his mental library was actually getting close to full or if it was just the physical constraints of the building he had visualized when he first put it together.


    He and Grim agreed he had to find out so he chose an empty spot in the library and entered his mental palace where he found Grim. Looking around him, it finally looked like a real library to him, now that almost all of the shelves were actually filled with books. What he was going to try to do was to expand the library itself. His skill mentioned that he would have to destroy the library first, which would cause all the memories to be lost, but he was hoping there was another way.


    He didn''t really need to keep all the information in the library, just the information he had in there before his most recent stroll through the Telviras library. He had had Grim isolate that information so he could easily separate it out and find a way to preserve it.


    Felix turned to Grim, "Before we do anything. We should have a backup just in case. Ideally more than one."


    "What did you have in mind?"


    "You know how Fralyna and I are going to use a soul gem for the sword? And how a section of the Telviras library is memory with soul gems?"


    "Yeah¡­"


    "First backup, I look into soul gems and see if I can store all this. Second backup, if soul gems are just crystals with souls bound to them, why couldn''t I store memories in my own soul?"


    "You can¡­ issue is they don''t always come back out the same¡­"


    "What do you mean?"


    "Your soul isn''t built to handle memories with concrete information, it''s more about experiences, emotions, trauma that kind of thing."


    "So the crystal helps to stabilize the soul and the memory stored inside then?"


    Grim shrugged, "That seems to be the case, yeah."


    "You were designed to hold and preserve information, how do you do it?"


    Grim chuckled, "I''m a book. That''s kind of what books do."


    "But not everything is just written out on your pages right?"


    Grim nodded, "Nope. That''s exactly what happens."


    "Oh¡­ Can you hold a backup of this information for me then?"


    Grim bowed slightly for effect, "I can and already did."


    "Perfect. That''s three then. I''ll go look into soul ge- any chance we scanned a book on soul gems at some point?"


    "Sort of, they''re mentioned a few times. I don''t think they''ll be big enough to hold this much information or you would have to buy a lot of them." Grim gestured to the shelves around them.


    "Alright scratch that then. Two backups should be enough. I''ll at least try to store this in my Soul Garden and we''ll just see what happens."


    Felix thought about the best way to move the books then realized he was overthinking it and shifted his consciousness to his Soul Garden. He walked over to the open grassy field and summoned the information he wanted from his head. It took a few moments of intent and focus but he managed to replicate the book shelves and have them appear before him.


    He quickly pulled out and flipped through a couple of the books and found they seemed to be exactly the same as he remembered them. He had no intention of leaving it up to chance though so he decided he would wait a little while and see if they degraded.


    The first thing he did was something he had been planning on doing already. Now that he was learning something that suited him much better than the Dragon Dance, he was inclined to drop it entirely. At least for the time being, he wasn''t going to have it be a part of his daily routine anymore.


    Instead, he walked over to the large open sandy area of his Soul Garden and focused in on his memory of the course Mihto had created for him. He had the sand morph and form something similar but with a different layout. Unlike Mihto''s course that required him to shift it somehow, Felix''s course wasn''t limited by anything other than his imagination. Though he wasn''t going to get too wild with gravity switching directions or anything just yet, he could at least make it endless.


    He hopped over to the beginning and started leaping through the course with the platforms moving beneath him at a steady pace. With no air resistance, his speed in the air when he jumped was maintained so he effectively had a perfect treadmill. It ate up some of his focus to keep it generating and moving but he decided it was worth it.


    He could have simply teleported himself from the end to the start repeatedly but that put a hard stop in his concentration. This way, even if generating the course was a slight distraction, he could keep himself focused on how he was moving without having to stop and reset himself.


    Felix pared down his focus to just his feet then, only once that was instinctual, did he think about his ankles, then his knees and so on. He had Grim stop him once he had spent a few hours of Soul Garden time then he checked on the books he had copied and stored in his soul.


    As far as he could tell, the information hadn''t shifted, changed or degraded in any way. Felix willed the information in his soul to resynchronize with the information in his head one last time then moved himself back to his mind palace. Even with two backups of the information he wanted to keep, Felix fully intended on keeping the information in his head from being destroyed anyways.


    In theory, at least in Felix''s mind, he wasn''t actually reconstructing anything. All he wanted to do was renovate a little. He realized, especially after having visited the Telviras library, that he was limiting himself for no reason. HIs library didn''t need to be physically possible, he just had to be able to picture it. With that in mind, he spent some time designing something that wouldn''t require him to renovate again anytime soon.


    He thought about making it extra dimensional but quickly scrapped that idea because although he had some familiarity with it, it wasn''t enough for him to be confident in his visualization. The best he could do for now was simply have it be endless. He saw no reason why he couldn''t walk between shelves of books and have the central area of the library repeat itself endlessly, almost like having mirrors on both walls.


    That way he could be sure the limits to how much he was storing would be the limits of his own mind and not actually the limits of the physical space he had visualized.


    He also didn''t limit himself to having it be endless in just one direction either. Felix had a solid visualization of a non-Euclidean space and so, no matter how many stairs he ascended, the ceiling would remain the same distance above him.


    He had used a mind palace to study and remember information back on earth. That had evolved into a skill where The System had helped him in visualizing and creating something more solid and capable. In theory though, all this was in his head. He saw no indication that The System was creating the library or maintaining it so, he didn''t really see why he couldn''t bend the skill to his will a little bit. He was pretty sure The System was helping keep things stable and just making the process easier.


    If he was feeling particularly daring, he considered even disabling or dropping the skill entirely and trying to replicate it himself. Unfortunately, he wasn''t that confident so he settled on pushing the limits of the skill instead. He also wasn''t quite ready to not have The System helping out, as minor as it may have been.


    Walking over to the edge of the library, right up to the wall Felix simply pushed. He focused in on the new visualization he had created and focused his intent on morphing the library to this new form.


    He pushed both physically and mentally against the wall until all of a sudden, all the resistance he had been pushing against simply vanished. He saw the center of the library before him and turning around, he saw the center of the library behind him. He had created a library with endless shelves in every direction and a core section, with the tables, that would remain a constant no matter where he was.


    Walking back to the center of the library behind him, he found all the information he had backed up, exactly where he had left it. Before returning his consciousness to his body so he could review his skill, he quickly compared his mind''s version of the information against Grim''s and his soul''s backup. They all seemed to agree so Felix returned to his body but, left the information in his soul both as another backup and as an experiment.


    Ding You have altered the General skill: [Special] Memory Palace (Initiate IV => Initiate XI)


    Felix pulled up the skill description and shook his head when he saw the minor changes to it''s description.


    [Memory Palace (Special) Using the mental map of a location you are familiar with you can memorize a plethora of abstract information. This skill allows you to construct a Memory Palace from scratch, using this mental map to store information directly. Visiting this Memory Palace you can retrieve any of the information stored within. This skill can be upgraded. The capacity of your memory palace is dependent on your intelligence, the size of your palace and the general capacity of the user. You may reconstruct your palace from scratch at any time by first destroying your current palace. Any memories left behind upon destruction will be lost. You may also make small changes to the library by re-visualizing it. ]


    Even though that was a minor copy change, I can''t complain about the skill proficiency. Not exactly sure if it actually does anything for me but it does feel good.


    The more you understand about a skill the better right?


    Felix nodded, Yeah, then I can upgrade and enhance it with that understanding.


    And you''ll be more proficient with just using it. You should be able to get more out of the skill, in theory at least.


    You know¡­ given how my soul was able to store all that information¡­ I have an idea.


    Grim quickly read through his current thought process, Yeah I have no idea what that would do. Be careful though.


    It''s the best idea I''ve got.


    Maybe let''s read some books on mind enhancement first.


    Of course, I''m not just gonna jump right into it.


    Now that his mental library was visually bigger, Felix cruised through the Telviran library and continued to scan random books around him in an attempt to find the limits of his mind. His best guess was that he would start to forget some things in favor of the new information and worst case, if it was the information he wanted to keep, he currently had two backups.


    He found himself walking through the shelves with plenty of time on his hands and currently no interest in watching his skill work so instead, he practiced creating spell forms. It had been some time since he had practiced doing so and found he had gotten a little complacent. He had been stuck using the same spells over and over for such a long time that he hadn''t felt the need to practice as much.


    Now that he had messed around with portal spell forms, seen enchantments that were too complicated for him to understand and had new spells from Mihto''s books, he felt the need to train again. He picked out a handful of the most complicated spells in Mihto''s books and created them as fast as he could then dismissed them. He rotated to a different spell form and repeated the process.


    To get the most out of the time he had, he also started pushing his range as much as he could. He cast the spells right on the edge of where he could control mana proficiently, which was a couple meters, then dismissed them. Once he had cycled through all the spells a few times and had a decent visualization of them, he started casting as many of them as he could, at once.


    He was disappointed to find he could only manage three of them at once if he really focused and if cast them close to his body. If just one of them was cast at the limit of his range, he could barely cast even one more close to himself. He knew these were more complicated and he reassured himself by casting a dozen Fire Bolts all over the place.


    His original idea of spell levels and slots was resurfacing in his mind and giving him confidence that he wasn''t falling behind, he had instead leveled up in a sense and just had to get used to things. It took them another hour until Grim called Felix into his Memory Palace.


    He showed him a specific book, not one he had tried to preserve but just a random scan from the library, and opened it to reveal blurry pages. Felix returned to his body and walked back over to the specific book and confirmed that it did in fact, have information inside of it.


    In theory, that meant the capacity of his Memory Palace was somewhere in the neighborhood of a couple hundred thousand books. It was more than he had imagined and far more than he had any use for but, it was still a limit and he had every intention of breaking it.


    With all of his experiments complete, Felix headed over to a librarian''s desk and summoned some help. He had the librarian retrieve a couple of books for him while Grim got rid of the useless information he had scanned. They ended up keeping a handful of the books around and some notes from others but he had been walking through a section of the library on the history of different ingredients in mundane cooking. There wasn''t much information they wanted to keep so the vast majority of it was forcefully forgotten.


    Felix found it both odd and concerning that he couldn''t actually feel his mind getting full and felt nothing when Grim tossed some of the books out. He thought he might feel at least a little burdened then unburdened but even focusing on it, he felt nothing. He definitely wanted some kind of warning system in place for if it got full in the future but had no idea where to start with that.


    The librarian returned after a few minutes with multiple tall stacks of books that he placed on a desk. Felix scanned the books then had the librarian put them away again, much to their confusion. He dismissed them for the time being and had Grim sift through them while he flew back out of the library.


    He didn''t fly far though and simply flew over a couple doors to the memory section of the library mostly out of curiosity. Grim was occupied sorting through all the books they had scanned then augmenting the information by posing questions to The Guild of Answers.


    The books covered a wide variety of topics including what were gods, who were the current gods and what were their relative strengths. There was even one on previous fashion trends, mostly because he found it interesting that they were dictated by the strength of the gods.


    He had also had the librarian find him books on spells, enchantments and nodes for each. Some books on mana, mana cores, mana channels, mana computers and mind enhancement. Impressive feats throughout the multiverse, historical accounts on multiversal records involving mana and mana control especially.


    That covered everything he had had questions about recently that he thought the library could answer and if he had forgotten anything, he could always come back.


    Flying into the memory section, Felix was somewhat surprised the library looked so different. There were no open shelves but instead, Felix walked into some kind of lobby. He walked up to the front desk, provided his registration then was directed to a room where he waited. It took almost 10 minutes for someone to enter the room and help him, which was way longer than he had ever had to wait for a librarian in the general section.


    He explained he was mostly just curious about the memory crystals but recently he had been looking into the topics of gods, spells, enchantments and mana.


    "Not sure what we have for mana but gods, that we can definitely do. I can bring out some of our most popular god based memories?" The librarian offered.


    "Sure, that sounds great."


    The librarian nodded to him then vanished once again through the door they had entered from. It took them a barely a minute to return with a few small gems that looked like large marbles more than anything to Felix.


    The librarian sat down at the table, across from Felix, then placed one of the marbles in a small divot at the center of the table.


    "Please touch the memory orb with one finger."


    Felix nodded then reached forwards and touched the orb with his index finger.


    "Now simply imagine you are pushing a small stream of yourself from your body and into the orb. It may take a few tries at first. Do your best to hold on as well no matter how intense the memory gets."


    Felix nodded in acknowledgement then followed along with their instructions. He knew memory orbs were soul gems so he imagined a stream of anima being pushed through his finger into the gem and immediately felt his senses go dark.


    He still had access to his senses, he could feel them but, it was like they were distant and a curtain had been drawn over them. Instead, they were replaced in a sense. It was nothing like watching a movie or playing a video game, instead it was like he was the person in the memory.


    Felix walked through a town that had clearly been ravaged by some sort of battle. The earth was a dark gray gravel and ash while the buildings themselves, the small homes that lined the streets along with the shops and churches up ahead were all smoldering and damaged. He saw rooves caved in, walls with large holes in them and worst of all, corpses.


    Everywhere he looked, there were pools of blood that soaked into the ashen ground and suits of armor that did little to hide the eviscerated corpses they held. Weapons and scraps of armor were strewn about and he felt himself stumble towards the central square ahead of him.


    The fountain in the center of the square was broken and no longer produced any water. The drain was completely clogged and so, the liquid in the basin was permanently stained from the corpses at the bottom of it and contained mostly blood. Despite the smell of copper and rot permeating the air, getting stronger as he approached, Felix was so thirsty.


    It didn''t matter to him. He couldn''t think about what kind of disease he might get from drinking the thick red liquid, he just needed to drink. He stumbled and tripped over the loose cobblestone road, smacking his knees and palms against the road but even then, his strength failed him. His head crashed down against the stones and bloodied his brow. He could feel his blood pouring down over his face but he ignored it all.


    He reached forwards and dug his nails into the road before him then pulled, dragging his body along the road. The loose rags he wore did nothing to prevent his skin from tearing and breaking. His nails cracked and bent but none of that mattered, if he didn''t drink soon, he would surely perish.


    Felix dragged himself along, pushing aside the corpses and discarded weapons thinking about nothing but the pain in his throat. He finally reached up and pulled on a corpse that hung over the edge of the fountain and pulled himself up but, he weighed too much. The corpse fell and toppled over him before rolling into the street. In his mind he cursed at how it made no sense that he was so lacking in water and yet, he still weighed more than this corpse.


    He instead reached for the lip of the basin and pushed off the cobbles with his other hand. He pushed with the last of his strength and pulled his chin over the edge. He couldn''t pull himself any further though so he reached forwards with his shaky hands and cupped the warm liquid.


    He pulled the viscous red fluid towards him but he was stopped. A delicate hand held his wrist with just enough strength to stop him from drinking. They didn''t clamp down, they didn''t need to. Felix didn''t have the strength left to fight them. He didn''t have the strength to resist as he felt his body lifted into the air and over to the fountain.


    Instead of the fountain though, he found himself laid carefully against the softest white dress he had ever felt. He felt a hand reach behind his neck and hold up his head as the cleanest water he had ever seen was gently poured into his mouth. It was just slightly cooler than the air and it tasted sweet as it passed over his tongue.


    As he drank he looked up through the tears that, despite the dehydration, welled in his eyes. He saw the face of a young woman, no older than 25 with brown hair, brown eyes and the most delicate features. Though they were far too young to have given birth to Felix, he was far older than her, he looked up and he felt like this had to be his mother.


    Her embrace, her delicate touch and the feeling of warmth and comfort that filled him as she looked into his eyes. Her expression of deep caring and a feeling of unconditional love filled his heart. All of it brought him back, reminded him of something he had never actually experienced before, but something he knew nonetheless. It was a feeling everyone recognized even if they had never felt it themselves firsthand, the feeling of motherly love.


    Suddenly Felix looked around and found himself in a grey room sitting across from someone with his finger on a marble and he stumbled back, leaning his chair against the wall behind him. He quickly came to his senses, filtered out the memory and separated himself from it then, immediately pulled his flask out of his soul space.


    He hadn''t felt thirsty before but the memory was so real and visceral, he drank nonetheless. He ended up rolling it until he found something relatively neutral which was only flavored with some vegetable that he could barely taste.


    The librarian nodded knowingly, no laughter or judgement in their eyes, "That''s the most common reaction to that one."


    Felix scoffed, "That one''s popular?"


    "Most people who come back to watch it skip through right to the end."


    Felix sighed, "Oh, I didn''t realize I could do that."


    "Sure, it''s a memory. Just think ahead and you kind of skip forwards. Ready for the next?"


    Felix relaxed into the chair, "In a second¡­ who was that?"


    "Oh¡­ that, is The Holy Mother."


    Grim added some context from the books he had been parsing, A neutral god.


    What does neutral mean?


    We''ll talk about it later. They seem to be one of the stronger gods from what I''ve gathered so far.


    Felix mentally transmitted his confusion to Grim, Why?


    I''m expecting¡­ hoping, one of the other memories will give you a little more context.


    Alright.


    Felix nodded to the librarian, "Ok, I''m ready for the next."


    The librarian nodded and quickly swapped the orb on the desk for another. Felix had no idea if the colors actually meant anything but the last was milky white and this one was a light green color. Felix took a breath and readied himself then reached forwards with his finger then dove into the memory.


    Felix stood on the dirt road just outside of his house and, along with each and every one of his neighbors, looked upwards. The sky above was dark and filled with clouds that brightened in flashes and shook the ground with distant thunder. Before them the mountain that had sat at the center of their village for centuries, the same one he and his father before him had climbed to pray upon each and every epoch¡­ The mountain was split right down the middle like a godly blade had simply cleaved it in two.


    From the depths of the ground where the mountain had split poured a geyser of bright red heat. It reached far above where the mountain peak had once stood and sprayed out in every direction. The ground shook as it cried molten tears into the sky adding to the quake below them. None of his neighbors, his friends and even his family ran though. They all stood, frozen, and simply watched as death approached, because there was no where to run.


    Behind them, covering their escape, was a wave that crested into the heavens. The wave was not close enough to spray them just yet, but it was big enough to hide the horizon despite it''s distance. Along with it, came more rumbling of the earth, the stone beneath their feet trembled and cracked.


    A globule of molten stone fell a few hundred meters to his right. Looking over, he saw a house get destroyed and watched as the people around it scurried. He could even feel the heat as the magma splashed around them. He took no step though, his muscles did not tense. He stared death in the face and the inevitability of it kept him calm.


    He closed his eyes and took a breath, breathing in the fresh air that came before a storm, the ash that signified his coming doom and the salty ocean mist that he had grown to love. Truly, this was the end of times. The apocalypse, it had arrived. Felix opened his eyes, oddly calm, ready to accept and face his death but as he looked ahead, he saw not death but a man.


    Just barely, at the edge of his vision, floating through the ash, flying high above the mountain. Felix couldn''t see what the man wore or what he looked like, he could barely see his silhouette. What he did next though, he saw with perfect clarity.


    The man reached up lifting a staff above his head. The end of the staff glowed a bright cerulean light then all of a sudden, a massive circle appeared above the split mountain. The circle fell and swallowed the geyser of lava as it descended into the mountain and disappeared.


    With one imminent source of death averted, Felix turned around and watched as another massive circle appeared and suddenly, a gap the size of the island was carved out of the tidal wave behind them. The circle disappeared and all that was left was a relatively rough and high tide.


    Looking up, Felix saw one last circle appear and drag itself through the storm clouds above, swallowing them whole as if it was painting a blue sky above them. Within seconds, the apocalypse was gone and Felix realized how wrong he was. He had not opened his eyes and seen a man, he had opened his eyes seen a god and he had witnessed the miracles they brought along with them.


    Felix coughed as the memory subsided and the feeling of ash in his throat lingered. He took another drink from his flask just to replace the sensation and reset his nerves then pulled his finger away from the marble on the desk. He nodded to the librarian and they switched the orbs out once again.


    Before reaching out again, he looked up at the librarian, "Which one was that?"


    "That was Edras."


    Grim added some more context, Not a neutral god. Also one of the strongest it seems.


    Felix reached forwards and touched the orb before him again, this one was filled with an ominous dark blue cloud, almost like an arcane storm trapped within. Felix took one last swig of his flask then put it down and pushed himself into the memory.


    Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.


    Felix stood on the top of a mountain and peered hundreds of kilometers away, through the clouds around him, to the peak of another mountain. Using his high perception score and Farsight skill, he saw clearly, a man, standing atop the mountain peak before him, as if he were a mere 20 meters away.


    The man was massive, though it was hard to tell from here with nothing around him, he knew. He had seen this man before. He had chased him down and he was here specifically to watch what happened next.


    The man stood atop the mountain wearing thick animal hides around his legs though his feet were bare. His torso, though not protected by any armor or clothing, was covered in intricate tattoos that allowed him to unleash and channel his power. He had seen it before, he knew what was coming and even still, he couldn''t help but stare in awe at the raw power before him.


    The man''s hair was long and brown and met his unruly beard just below his chin where it all blended together and was completely homogenous. His brow was furrowed and his eyes glared upwards with such intensity, the look alone, though it wasn''t directed at him at all, sent chills running throughout Felix''s body.


    He pulled the blade of his massive axe up out of the permanent ice below him with a simple flick of his wrist as shadow descended through the blizzard above. Though he couldn''t see the creature itself through the clouds, their silhouette gave them away. They blocked out the meager amount of light that poured through the clouds and cast a shapely shadow upon the mountain.


    The creature was so large, it would have been too colossal to live within the mountains below them, its body almost half their size. The shadow of its tail stretched well past the base of the mountain and into the valley below. Though Felix stood hundreds of kilometers away, he was worried he still might be too close as he saw the creature''s wingspan.


    The man on the mountain continued to glare into the sky and suddenly, his eyes started glowing a light blue, almost white light. They brightened until suddenly, small sparks of lightning arced out of them into the snow flakes and hail around him. It was subtle and had Felix not been focusing in on it specifically, not known it was coming, he would have missed it from this distance. It was all part of the experience though and it was something he had to capture.


    The head of the creature above finally broke through the clouds and it''s massive scales were almost as large as the man on the mountain. It''s massive toothy maw opened a little and blew a stream of smoke over the man. The smoke simply passed over him, a few seconds later it subsided and he stood perfectly still, in the exact same place as if nothing had happened at all.


    The dragon descended further and each of it''s six claws dug into the ice of the mountain to hold itself aloft. It''s long neck twisted upwards and around the man but he simply stared forwards, undeterred.


    The man slowly lifted his axe into the air then lazily swung it to the side. The dragon shifted far faster than it should be allowed to move at its size and twisted it''s neck to avoid the almost invisible blade that flew by.


    The dragon almost seemed to chuckle then the man nodded. He crouched down a little and vanished. Felix quickly darted his eyes around but it was the dragon that gave his new position away as it recoiled from pain on it''s neck.


    It''s scales all clicked into place creating a cascading noise as they clacked against each-other and the man jumped back off the dragon again. Felix looked around once more and this time, the dragon jumped into the air and beat it''s massive wings, almost blowing him away with the wind they created.


    Felix had to use his shielding skill to keep himself standing and alive. Even with it''s long cooldown and high resource cost, it was well worth it. It would at least remain for a minute so he should have enough time to catch the rest of the battle.


    The dragon ascended into the air just a kilometer or so and twisted about in circles. Felix tried his best but it was hard to follow the fight with the man leaping around, disappearing every time his knees bent and the dragon twisting around, constantly blocking the view.


    Felix could see enough though, the man jumped from neck to back to underbelly and smashed his axe into the dragon''s scales. Though it looked to be completely ineffective to him, the dragon seemed to be writhing around to avoid further strikes.


    Suddenly the battle ramped up. A flash of light on the dragon''s shoulder caused Felix to instantly use his Far Sight skill to zoom in further. The tattoos on the man''s arms suddenly lit up perfectly matching his eyes as lightning arced along his body. The arcs were limited to his arms at first but as soon as he swung his axe down, a swing the dragon had no hope of avoiding, a massive bolt of lightning was called down from the sky above and struck the dragon along with the blade.


    As Felix''s vision readjusted, he saw a massive bloody gash in the dragon''s shoulder and he couldn''t help but smile. He quickly looked around and found the man back on the mountain glaring up at the dragon as it flew off a kilometer away then stretched it''s maw open.


    Even through the blizzard that raged around them, Felix saw smoke begin to pour out of the dragon''s body. It''s scales clattered against each-other once again and suddenly they were all backlit by a growing yellow light. Within just a moment of their maw opening, the dragon released a beam of searing yellow fire that struck the man dead on. The beam was man times taller and wider than he was so there was no doubt in Felix''s mind that he had been hit.


    Felix felt a pang of worry growing in his stomach as the yellow backlight on the dragon''s scales turned into actual jets of flame all along it''s body. The flames grew and brightened as they slowly shifted from yellow over to white.


    The flames poured into the mountain and melted the stone around it creating a massive crater as the ice that had once covered the mountain peak was instantly vaporized. The beam widened and the dragon''s head leaned forwards then the mountain broke as the fire finally poured out of the other side, having melted cleanly through.


    Then, the flames kept going as they slowly shifted over to a shade of blue. For the first time, Felix had to readjust himself in the memory because the shade of blue was not a shade he had ever actually seen before. It was outside his visual range but he quickly re-immersed himself so he could watch the rest.


    Molten rock sprayed outwards and the mountain continued to melt just from the sheer heat of the flames pouring through it. The dragon released one last burst of flames that exploded outwards over the mountain, expanding the crater, before it finally closed it''s maw.


    Standing exactly where he had been, on a thin cliff of stone, stood the massive axe wielding god with bright green chest tattoos and a smoldering body. The stone beneath him was a perfect triangle as if the beam had been been split around him, everything behind him completely protected. He looked up at the dragon, bent his knees, then disappeared. This time, his tattoos glowed a yellow color as he smashed down into the dragon''s neck.


    Instead of digging in with the blade, it almost seemed like he was hitting it with a hammer as the dragon was smashed into the ground a little faster with every strike. He smashed his axe into it''s neck one last time when it finally crashed into the ground then leapt once again.


    Felix found the god standing on the ground next to it''s head this time and he held it''s massive throat in what appeared to be a single handed choke hold, a physically impossible feat. His tattoos glowed slightly blue and purple as he slit the dragon''s throat with his axe then he disappeared again. Felix found him at the dragon''s chest where he carved into it with his axe, a red glow covering his arms.


    Felix opened his eyes and immediately adjusted to exiting the memory this time. He had gotten used to it and this memory was less visceral and immersive than the others, making it much easier.


    The librarian looked at Felix excitedly as he noticed him come to his senses, "That one might be our most popular. ''The Last Dragon Hunt'' we call it. Though, all of the memories of the warrior are very popular."


    "Are they all battles?"


    The librarian scoffed, "I mean¡­ yeah? What else¡­ did you expect from the warrior? Actually, what else did you want?"


    Felix put raised his hands in surrender, "No sorry, just curious."


    Grim, any chance you know his name?


    Yeah, it''s Rhonan. This one is¡­ not neutral.


    Felix nodded mentally as he took another sip out of habit, Also one of the strongest?


    Uh¡­ not one of. THE strongest. By a lot¡­ it seems.


    Felix shrugged, Huh.


    The librarian looked at him a little confused, "That''s all of the memories I retrieved. I can get more if you''d like?"


    "No, thank you. That was more than enough."


    The librarian nodded and Felix bid him a quick farewell then exited the library entirely. Grim was still sorting through the information they had scanned so Felix flew back over to Inscripticae so he could start designing his mage armor spell and an enchantment for his cloak.


    He walked into the workshop and quickly glancing around, he saw the backs of Fralyna and Edemari''s heads through the window in the design room. He didn''t see anyone else but he assumed Aldahn was in his office, as he tended to be.


    Felix chose an unclaimed desk once again and sat down on the stool. He first reviewed all the different shaping nodes he had made for his mage armor spell and tested them in unison. He wanted to make sure all the pieces fit together properly and they didn''t interfere with each-other. Once that was done, he spent some time fiddling with the spell to cast them but then got side tracked over by his ideas for a cloak enchantment.


    What he wanted was to utilize all the different sense and measurement nodes he had come across to reactively deploy efficient defenses to any attack he faced. If an arrow flew at him, he wanted it to try and divert it if possible and block it if not. If a spell flew at him, he wanted to counter it''s element or crush it if possible. If all else failed, deploy a mana shield or the localized section of his mage armor spell.


    He knew he had all the tools at his disposal to accomplish it, he just had to spend the time to design it. Felix sat on the stool and meditated, fully leveraging his perceptual time dilation as much as he could. He spent more time designing than he normally would and avoided any actual experiments because he wanted to maximize his meditation.


    If he ran into a specific wall or something he had to test, he would have ended the meditation but that wasn''t what caused him to stop meditating. Instead, he felt a light tapping on his shoulder that caused him to end his meditation and look over his shoulder.


    Standing behind him, he saw the horned, wide eyed and smiling Fralyna.


    Felix swiveled in her direction on the stool, "Hey uh¡­ what can I do for you?"


    "Any idea how long you''ll be just sitting there doing nothing?"


    Felix was completely thrown off, "I''m not¡­ doing nothing. Is this¡­ a problem?"


    Fralyna quickly waved her hands back and forth, "No no no, sorry. I know you aren''t, it''s not a problem. Seeing you just gave me an idea¡­ Can you go to the smith''s and pretend you''re waiting on him? You don''t need to stay forever. It''s just that it always seems to light a fire under his ass when I show up, I just don''t have the patience to sit and wait on him."


    "Oh, yeah I can definitely do that." Suddenly Felix had an idea and continued, "Actually, could you do me a favor in return?"


    Fralyna cocked her head and smirked, "Depends on what the favor is."


    "I just want an hour of your time. I have some¡­ questions, that''s all."


    Fralyna''s smile faded a little when she heard the mundane request and she shrugged, "Sure, no problem with that."


    Fralyna handed Felix a small metal disc, slightly bigger than a coin. Apparently the disc was like a dry cleaning ticket and would let him pick up the sword if it was finished. She gave him the name of the shop which was uncreatively just named, Krazol''s Forge.


    Felix had plenty of things he wanted to do and most of them could be done in his head or while sitting still so he flew off towards Krazol''s Forge. He darted through a handful of portal spires until he found a large metal looking building with multiple doors that almost looked like vault doors given their thickness. He quickly located the one with signage for the forge he was looking for and headed in.


    The inside of the forge was nothing special to Felix. There was a desk in the small lobby area and the forge itself was open to the front. Without taking any steps into it, Felix could see the entirety of the forge right from the front door. The thing that did throw him off a little bit was that it wasn''t particularly hot.


    He figured they had some kind of magic ventilation at work but he had no idea how that worked with the spatial enchantments and didn''t actually see any vents himself. He figured it might be a series of portals that were just hidden away but either way, his curiosity was piqued.


    He walked up to the empty desk and someone in the shop immediately noticed him. He waited for a few minutes until someone washed their hands and walked over to the desk. He simply wordlessly handed them the metal disc and they did something behind the counter before nodding, returning the disc to Felix then walking back into the forge area.


    It took another few minutes before an older looking man with white hair and very roughly cut mutton chops walked over to the desk. As he got closer, Felix''s confidence that he hadn''t chosen his haircut intentionally grew. Though the hair on his cheeks was the longest, the hair around his mouth was at completely different states of growth.


    "Y''aren''t Fral."


    Felix knew what Fralyna wanted him to do so he decided to play it up a little and mount the pressure on the smith.


    "Nope. I''m shadowing her for this project. She asked me to come and wait for the sword because she figured it should be close to done by now, right?"


    "That fug''n¡­ stup''d ''chanters¡­" The man grumbled, "It ain''t done yet. Y''can wait ov''r there." He pointed to a number of chairs that were actually in the forge itself.


    Considering how annoyed he seemed that Fralyna was obviously pressuring him to work faster, it seemed an odd choice to Felix that the forge was just open to the lobby. Furthermore, the chairs for clients to wait in were in the forge area itself. Though honestly, he was starting to think that this wasn''t Krazol himself and he figured it probably wasn''t his choice to have the forge open.


    Felix walked over and took a seat then watched the man walk over to one of the forges, audibly grumbling the entire way over. Felix had some enchantment planning he wanted to work on but was curious enough to watch for a few minutes so he observed.


    The man pulled a rough looking sword off a large table to the side and pulled it over to a massive metal slab with weird grooves in it. He placed the sword into one of the grooves so it was held at an angle then secured it with some kind of clay. After that, Felix barely caught his foot moving and activating a pedal then he pulled out a tiny hammer and started tapping at the sword.


    Though his mana senses weren''t precise enough at this distance to tell what was happening, Felix could tell mana was moving through the table, clay and sword. That got him interested enough to get to his feet and take a few steps forwards so he could get a better sense. He continued to inch his way closer doing his absolute best to wrestle his curiosity against his inclination to not interfere and bother the smith too much.


    Unfortunately, he failed and the smith noticed him. He tried to ignore Felix but after a few minutes of failing to do that, he turned to him, face filled with anger, "I''m workin fast as I can, kid."


    Felix winced, "I know sorry. Just¡­ what is happening here? There isn''t much heat at all as far as I can see."


    His face immediately relaxed, "Y''ain''t ever seen someone cold forge before?"


    "I¡­ no." Felix shook his head and equipped the most innocent expression he could come up with.


    The man beckoned Felix over with a quick tilt of his head, "We use ''chantments to soften the metal."


    As he spoke, Felix, now standing directly across the large metal slab from the smith, could actually tell what was happening with all the mana. The clay seemed to just have mana poured into it and from Felix''s perspective, it seemed to be completely hard now as it didn''t shift or move when the sword was hammered.


    The enchantments used some of the nodes from the book Felix had memorized back at Inscripticae though some of them were new to him. Felix also noticed that the more the smith spoke, the less annoyed he seemed, the less he grumbled and as he got more excited, obviously passionate about his work, his speech became clearer.


    "The ''chantment''s proprietary to''is shop"


    Felix didn''t mention that he now had them memorized and decided he would keep that to himself.


    "We lower the hardness and ''lasticity o'' the metal. Then, I can shape it."


    "I promise I''m not trying to rush you, why such a small hammer and such delicate strikes?"


    "Ah, the metal. This sword''s made o'' an alloy o'' about a hundred different metals."


    "Really? Fral just mentioned Asakantine, Ruclian and Satrium."


    "Those''re alloys consisting o''bunch o''metals each."


    "Hence, hundreds of different metals?"


    "Yup. Takes delicate strikes n'' careful work to keep em all balanced. Else, it''ll crack or ''splode on ye."


    "How does that work?"


    "Well, we mix em in a big vat with a lot o'' chemicals. They keep em neutral ''nd unreactive. Use some ''chantments too. We pour em to''a big block then shape it with a hammer like this."


    "Why not a mold?"


    "Th''are issues with a mold. More likely to ''splode on ya. The metal also don''t really like the molds. It tends to warp soon as ye remove it. This way, I can be careful to work around the stressors init."


    "I see."


    Felix continued to ask questions about the process while the smith worked which actually seemed to make him work faster and more passionately than before. After a few minutes Felix had satisfied his curiosity but he continued to ask questions just to keep the conversation flowing and the smith working ardently.


    At the same time though, because he no longer cared about the conversation itself, he started practicing his spell formations. He continued the same practice he had been doing at the library so he could train his casting speed, range and improve how many spell levels he could cast at once. He made sure to keep all the spell forms as far from the forges as possible because he didn''t want to accidentally interfere with them.


    It took a few hours for the smith to finish with their conversation devolving into the specifics of the alloy and alternative alloys for the last two hours. Felix had most of what the smith said memorized but he definitely zoned out when he started listing the hundred some metals in the sword itself along with their ratios.


    When the sword was done, the smith quickly polished it then wrapped it in a thick cloth before handing it to Felix. The blade was still slightly dull but apparently that was so that it was easier to work with when they enchanted it. He exchanged the sword for the metal disc and Felix carefully held the sword in his hands.


    "Thank you for putting up with my questions, I''m Felix by the way."


    The smith waved him off, "Mogen."


    Felix walked towards the door and just before he walked out, he stowed the sword in his bracelet, having to combine a bunch of pockets to fit it. Luckily, the cross guard was wrapped separately from the blade so it actually fit, were they attached, he wouldn''t have been able to fit it at all.


    He flew back over to Inscripticae and continued to practice his spell formations as he flew but dropped them whenever he passed through the portal spires, just in case.


    He was actually surprised to find Edemari and Fralyna still sitting in the design room so he pulled the sword out and carried it up the stairs to them.


    "Wow that was faster than I expected. You must''ve really annoyed the hell out of Mogen." Fralyna smirked as she took the blade from him and placed it on the table.


    Felix shrugged, "Guess so."


    Fralyna unwrapped the blade and nodded while she inspected it. She backed up and looked to Edemari, "Mari." Fralyna gestured to the blade.


    Edemari walked up to it and gripped it by the tang. The sword was a little too big for her by Felix''s judgement but she backed up to get some room and swung it around with ease. She nodded then walked over to the stairs and hopped off the side into the workshop. She swung around a little more aggressively in the extra space then walked over to the big table off in the corner. Sear?h the n??el Fire.n§×t website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    Surprising Felix, she whacked the sword against the table from every angle making a cacophonous racket echo through the shop. After a hundred strikes or so she nodded and hopped back up the entire stair case then placed the sword back down on the table in the design room.


    Edemari shrugged, "Great-swords aren''t really my thing and there''s no handle but, it seems top notch."


    "Perfect. Considering how much it cost?" Fralyna crossed her arms.


    "I mean, I wouldn''t pay that much." Edemari smirked, "Seems good though. Client should like it."


    "How much was it?" Felix asked.


    "25 B." Fralyna said matter of factly.


    Holy shit.


    "Wait, how much is the final product gonna cost, after enchanting and all that?" Felix looked between the two of them.


    "Probably¡­ A few thousand B?" Fralyna shrugged looking at Edemari.


    Edemari just shrugged and nodded, seemingly in agreement.


    Definitely not as rich as I thought I was after the tutorial.


    Fralyna pivoted and turned to Felix, "So, you said you had questions?"


    "Right."


    Felix had thought about it for a little while and had ultimately decided to tell Fralyna and eventually, the others in the shop, that he was integrated. Ultimately, he could read all the books he wanted but he needed actual perspectives from people and questioning random people would bring more attention than he wanted. Whenever he vaguely hinted at not knowing the gods or something basic, people looked at him like he was a pariah.


    The enchanters in the shop seemed to be the most trustworthy people he had on hand and this would help them know what to expect of him. It would also give him easy access to people he could pose simple questions to in the future. He had thought about tracking down Thezan and the Shade''s Wrath but ultimately, this was easier in the long run.


    "So¡­ I''m an integrated esca- exile I guess." Felix said as he flashed the title to prove his point.


    "Huh. Actually¡­ that explains a lot." Fralyna said as she sat down on one of the chairs at the table.


    "I told you there was something weird about this kid." Edemari said in a very I-told-you-so way to Fralyna.


    Fralyna just waved her off and looked at Felix, "That explains you asking me my race¡­ So you were you all humans then?"


    "Yeah. At least, my planet was. There could be more planets in an integration right?"


    Edemari took a seat as well, "Wow you really did get out early if it hadn''t introduced you to other planets then."


    Felix kept standing, "How many are there usually?"


    Edemari leaned back in her seat, "A dozen or so populated planets I think¡­ usually. They all get integrated then slowly introduced to each-other and the resource planets The System created."


    Felix looked at both of them, "What are those?"


    Edemari smirked a little, "Woah, you got out really early then, damn. Just planets with no people on them. System grows them just to grow resources and whatnot. Let''s you use them, pick em clean and so on. Some are saved and distributed throughout the multiverse. Some of the resources are just farmed and distributed. Some are turned into dungeons or events."


    Felix nodded, "I see. Is this all just common knowledge then?"


    Fralyna shook her head, "We''ve been researching the integration because we knew it was coming up. All of this is from a our research at the library."


    Edemari leaned forwards a little, "You said you had specific questions?"


    "Yeah. I read some books at the library but¡­ I want to know how people actually think. Gods?"


    Fralyna looked at him with a frown, "Like, what are they, who are they, what can or do they do?"


    Felix smiled a little guiltily, "Yes."


    Edemari chuckled, "Integrated, right."


    Fralyna''s eyes shot upwards as she thought, "Well as for who, there''s obviously Cal. You''ve heard of Cal, right?"


    Felix shook his head and shrugged.


    Fralyna looked at him with wide eyes, "Damn. Vo Rhonan Callahan. The Warrior. The Original God. The Last Primordial."


    Edemari leaned back again and placed her hands behind her head then added, "Slayer and Protector of the Dragons. Head of the Archons. And by far¡­ the strongest god."


    "I did actually watch a memory of Rhonan fighting a Dragon on a mountain. Didn''t realize he¡­ Cal?"


    Edemari grinned, "Yeah, long story but basically, a while back a memory crystal leaked where a different god or demigod close to him called him Cal."


    "People being people, picked up the nickname and now it''s pretty common to just call him Cal." Fralyna shrugged.


    Edemari lifted her feet into the air and balanced her chair on it''s back two legs, "Keep in mind this was a long ass time ago."


    "Did you watch any of his other battles?" Fralyna leaned forwards a little.


    "My favorite is the Primordial." Edemari lowered her hands to her stomach but the chair remained perfectly balanced.


    Fralyna''s eyes brightened, "I like the Chimera from the early days. Easier to follow."


    "I didn''t watch any other memories of him. I watched one of the Holy Mother then one of Edras. What''s a primordial?"


    Fralyna shrugged, "Creatures from before The System. Calling Cal ''The Last Primordial'' doesn''t actually make any sense but¡­"


    Edemari continued, "The primordials are much stronger than the gods, except Cal."


    Fralyna added, "He''s the only being born after The System that''s ever even been close to their level."


    Edemari tilted her head back, "Only one to actually ever fight and kill one."


    Felix frowned, "Who are they?"


    Fralyna cocked her head, "The primordials? Some are creatures others are people but no one really knows what they are. Except the one Cal killed, that one we know. It was a massive three headed ape like thing."


    Edemari added in matter of factly, "People have good guesses but they aren''t exactly public figures. Not the way gods are. They don''t need to be."


    "What do you mean?"


    "Well just the way gods work¡­ Right, integrated¡­" Edemari nodded, "Basically worshipping a god means you''re choosing your afterlife."


    "Wait¡­ what?"


    Edemari continued, "Yeah you said you saw memories of The Holy Mother and Edras right? Them, as well as Cal, each have their own afterlife. Cal''s is called Valhalla. The Holy Mother''s is The Garden. Edras'' is The Academy."


    Valhalla¡­ as in¡­


    Grim shrugged, I guess.


    Felix looked at them, his confusion painted all over his face, "How does that work? You just pray to them and then when you die¡­"


    Fralyna shook her head, "No, nothing like that. To worship a god means you are binding your soul to theirs in a contract of sorts. When you die, your soul goes to their afterlife. It''s a permanent decision."


    Edemari shrugged, "You don''t have to choose one and it''s not that big a deal who you choose. Edras and Cal have been on opposite sides for a while but it''s not like their worshippers will fight each-other or anything. Almost no one is that invested."


    "What do you mean opposite sides?"


    Fralyna explained, "Mari mentioned the Archons before right? Basically they''re just an alliance of gods that share a set of laws and rules. Together they oversee the largest section of the multiverse compared to any other gods or alliances. Edras is the leader of the second largest alliance."


    Felix frowned, "How many in each?"


    Fralyna looked to Edemari for help, "Uh¡­ 50 something Archons vs 30 ish or something like that?"


    Edemari just shrugged and nodded.


    "Are there other alliances?"


    Fralyna shrugged and made an expression that clearly indicated they didn''t matter much, "A handful but they only have a few gods in them and they''re mostly about proximity not some ideals or mission. Most of the other gods are just neutral. Not part of either of the big ones."


    "What are the ideals?"


    Edemari sighed, "The archons are pretty loose just general stuff. They don''t worry about it, don''t really enforce much of anything. Edras'' faction wants to end the whole ''factions hoarding information thing.'' He wants everything to be more open or something like that. Honestly, I don''t really know."


    Felix was curious about that and wanted to ask more on it but they both seemed so uninterested that he decided he would just ask Grim about the books and ask The Guild of Answers if necessary.


    "So¡­ you said fashion follows the strongest gods? If Cal is the strongest and has been for a while¡­ fashion must be pretty boring, no?"


    "Yes, very much so¡­ One sec." Edemari popped out of her chair, vaulting over the back rest while still balancing it on it''s back two legs before she lowered it to the ground and disappeared from the room.


    She returned a few minutes later with a very shiny and very confused Drakene in tow.


    Edemari gestured towards Felix, "He was asking how fashion changes if Cal is the strongest and has been forever."


    Krinitor''s face went from confused to excited in an instant, "Ah well, that''s a reasonable question. You see it is definitely desirable to imitate The Great Warrior himself. Over time though, he hasn''t changed his look much so, the more fashion inclined have deviated. Rhonan''s look is definitely a classic but most people like to wear shirts and not everyone is into pelts or bare feet so¡­ We adapted."


    Krinitor walked forward and pulled a massive square sketch book out of nowhere and dropped it on the table then flipped through to a specific page. He pointed at a drawing of what appeared to be a rather burly and buff elf wearing clean clothes that resembled a suit with less buttons and more leather straps. Over all of it though, he wore a long animal pelt as a cloak.


    The drawing itself was spectacular in Felix''s opinion. It was obvious it wasn''t a picture but it was very close to photorealistic. The depth and detail, especially in the fur and layers of cloth, made it look incredibly realistic. It was also fully colored, which was completely unexpected for Felix in a sketchbook and helped a lot.


    Krinitor was obviously incredibly passionate about fashion, "See this outfit uses leather straps and a pelt cloak to pay homage but this is a little obvious. There are more subtle ways too."


    Felix leaned in closer to examine the details, "Krinitor, this drawing is amazing."


    "Oh, thank you."


    Felix turned his head to look up at Krinitor, "What do you mean more subtle? And do all fashionable outfits pay homage to The Warrior?"


    "Most of them do. He may not be the focus but¡­ he''s very popular for a good reason."


    Krinitor flipped through a few other outfits in his sketchbook. Some of them paid homage solely through their use of leather, which was a natural material, something Rhonan seemed to prefer. Others were more obvious such as cloaks with axe prints covering them or even some outfits that reminded Felix of graphic tee shirts.


    Krinitor grew increasingly excited as he flipped through his sketchbook and eventually built up the courage to show Felix a recent sketch. Felix immediately recognized the person in the sketch, which wasn''t a difficult task given Krinitor''s drawing skill, "That''s me."


    "Yes. I uh¡­ it''s a hobby of mine to design outfits for people. Try to accentuate their specific features while taking into account their day to day lives and so on."


    There were a few simple sketches that were clearly unfinished of Felix in various outfits but Krinitor pointed to the only one that was fully colored and shaded. The sketch had Felix wearing a simple black robe that lay open in the front with a high black collar that framed his neck and head. Beneath the robe, there was a deep blue shirt with long sleeves that grew tighter around the wrists. It cascaded down the body and gave the outfit color where it peeked through the robe and cloak above. The robe hung loosely near the bottom and hung almost to his knees.


    On top of the entire thing, was not quite a cloak. In Felix''s mind, a cloak didn''t have sleeves, this looked more like a large white coat. It was completely white and the sleeves hung loosely around his wrists but were cut shorter than the robe beneath.


    The cloak or coat hung a little further than the robe, reaching right above his ankles, just high enough that it would never get caught or be in the way. The black robe was only visible where it peaked out beneath the cloak above it and it served to outline the outfit around it. The pants also matched the robes and were a similar black style with a looser fit that disappeared into the tops of two brown leather boots.


    Imprinted onto the cloak, in a color that perfectly matched the blue of the shirt, was a series of what looked almost like spells and enchantments were they not so angular. The entire outfit was made to go together. The colors complimented each-other, the necklines cascaded into each-other and each sleeve layered on top of each-other. It had depth and texture and, though Felix had no real fashion experience before or after the integration, it looked good to him.


    Krinitor traced his finger along the outfit as he spoke, "This is a bit more of a formal style and the homage to The Warrior is simply in the pattern of the cloak."


    Felix nodded along, it was subtle but evident now that he knew what to look for, "To match his tattoos?"


    Krinitor nodded, "Exactly."


    Fralyna and Edemari grew curious at this point so they stood and walked over, peering into the sketch book.


    Fralyna saw the sketch and scoffed incredulously, "What the hell is that?"


    Felix looked at her with confusion and she rolled her eyes, "Show him the one you did for me."


    Krinitor averted his gaze, "It''s uh¡­ in my other¡­ sketchbook."


    Fralyna just shook her head, "You have it on you, I know you do."


    Krinitor grumbled a little then pulled another sketchbook out of nowhere and placed it on the table. He flipped through to a page with a perfectly recognizable drawing of Fralyna. In the drawing she wore a completely ridiculous, in Felix''s opinion, white dress. It was evidently paying homage to The Holy Mother but it was extravagant with fabric everywhere, like a wedding dress had exploded onto her.


    Krinitor immediately jumped to it''s defense before Felix said anything, "It was the fashion at the time. Now the style is more¡­ subtle" He pushed the book aside and pointed back at the drawing of Felix, "like this. Also" He looked to Fralyna but failed to meet her gaze, "you don''t really fight anymore so¡­"


    Edemari immediately jumped on that, "I do. I still fight, so why does mine look just as absurd huh?"


    Krinitor shrunk a little, "Yours was more functional."


    Edemari guffawed, "Show him." She gestured towards Felix with her head.


    Krinitor flipped a few pages into the book and pointed at Edemari in an equally ridiculous outfit. Hers had pants and a shirt but it also had spikes that curved out of her hips, elbows, shoulders and knees. Felix wasn''t sure if it was supposed to be armor or clothing.


    Krinitor scrambled, "See this would be much easier to move in and can''t you see the layering? A-And the materials I noted here? It''s clearly more functional¡­"


    Edemari rolled her eyes, "Super functional, it also costs more creds then I think I''ve ever personally owned at once."


    Felix looked incredulously at Krinitor, "How much?"


    He looked up from his sulking a bit, "For hers?"


    "Or mine." Felix shrugged.


    Krinitor sighed as his head dropped a little, "A few 100,000 B or so¡­"


    Felix frowned a little, "What would it be made of? Are they just clothes or do they offer any defensive function?"


    Krinitor''s expression brightened a little, "I would only choose the highest quality materials. The price I gave is for materials and labor I cannot do. My design work and labor is free of charge. This would use peak defensive cloth for C grade because we have to plan for the future of course. You''re an enchanter so I would choose cloth that is receptive to enchantments and regenerates with mana, exactly the same as Kraken''s leather.."


    Felix thought about it for a few moments, "How long to make it?"


    Krinitor''s shoulders fell a little, "It would probably take¡­ maybe¡­ about¡­ half an epoch?"


    After having talked with Thezan, Felix already knew how much he was going to be paid for the last job and he was pretty sure he could afford it. What he didn''t know was how much tuition would be at Eramith. He had a scholarship but he didn''t know if that was the kind of scholarship that paid for everything every epoch or if it was the kind that paid for part of it.


    Felix looked to Krinitor, "Well it sounds great, unfortunately I''m not sure I can afford it right now. I''ll get back to you though."


    Krinitor nodded, "Of course. I appreciate the interest nonetheless."


    Krinitor smiled but didn''t look hopeful. He nodded to all of them then dejectedly walked out of the room and disappeared. Felix turned back to the two women and they were both looking at him incredulously, neither of them even remotely believing he could afford it at all.


    He ignored their expressions and barreled through to something else he had been wondering about, "Soul spaces?"


    Fralyna chuckled a little, "Don''t worry about that until around the A grade. You need a certain amount of soul strength. You can start working towards it and get there early but don''t worry about it too much now, that kind of training will just be a waste of time."


    Edemari nodded, "You already have a spatial storage item, right?"


    Felix nodded, "Yes. The opening is a little¡­ small."


    Fralyna just shook her head, "Just buy something cheap then. Not too cheap, but yeah."


    Felix asked them a handful of more mundane questions and they questioned him for a bit about the integration and what it was like. After that he and Fralyna walked down to the shop and brought the sword with them. She already had the enchantment all laid out and she had Felix review it with her a final time.


    They adjusted it to fit the sword better, now that they had the exact dimensions and shape in front of them then, Fralyna prepped the sword by cleaning it with a special chemical bath. She chose a specific quill from the drawer and began drawing out the enchantment. The quill didn''t seem to actually be engraving the enchantment like Felix thought though, rather it looked like she was drawing it out with a pencil.


    It turned out, he was mostly right. Once she was done they scrutinized the enchantment and even had Krinitor, who they found in a meeting room, and Edemari look it over. Once everyone approved, she went ahead and traced it out with a different quill. This one only made a very slight scratch in the metal itself. Once she completely finished with that, she used a different quill that followed the scratch she had previously made and engraved even deeper into the blade.


    They took a break after that as they had spent almost three days straight working on the enchantments and Fralyna said she desperately needed to sleep. She claimed the nap room for herself and Felix briefly checked in on Nova who had happily gotten their way through a quarter of the Demitium chunk.


    Felix knew he had an order he still had to pickup from Zufaris at Bloodstone Alchemy but it was the middle of the night. He could have gone in the morning but he didn''t want to miss or skip out on any of the enchantment process. Realistically, the order would wait for him. There was no rush.


    Felix thought about working on his Mage Armor spell or his Cloak enchantment but decided against that. Instead, he sat down on the stool behind the table that held the sword and began meditating. He entered his Soul Garden and began running his endless treadmill that was a makeshift rendition of Mihto''s obstacle course. He found it much easier within his own soul space to observe himself, so to speak, and pay attention to his own mistakes, which was a huge boon.


    He spent an hour of Soul Garden time doing that then moved onto something else. He took a quick peek at the books he had stored in his soul space and was disappointed. The information in the books had started to warp a little bit. It reminded him of trying to read a book within a dream. The words weren''t really there and they didn''t really make sense but at the same time, it was all recognizable to a certain degree.


    He knew Grim was still sorting through the books he had scanned on mental enhancements but it was still disappointing to see the issues with this particular avenue. Either way, he fully planned on suffusing his entire body with a new layer of his soul, both to fight poisons and because the more he thought about it, the more it felt like a good idea.


    Before doing anything with his own soul and body, Felix had the perfect testing ground on his fingers so he started with his Persona. He shifted his consciousness over to the soul ring and started creating a new layer on its soul. He fashioned the layer from the leftovers of souls that he had let drift around in the ring.


    Some of those scraps had been absorbed by the ring but only a miniscule amount. There were still scraps of anima grouped together that had faint intentions left in them. For this layer he wanted the soul to be as much his soul as he could make it. For his real soul, he figured he would likely use a combination of his soul''s second layer and the ambient mana that followed him around and acted as a third layer.


    For this, he didn''t worry about it as much as he would with his own soul, but he still spent some time affinizing the soul matter to himself. What he ended up doing was taking the leftover pieces of random creature''s souls and pulling them into his soul space. As expected, they were instantly obliterated and all that was left was what felt like empty anima that was lightly affinized to him. He pulled in all the scraps he could find then compressed them within his soul space.


    He fashioned a dense chunk of anima that was very amenable to his soul but not necessarily part of his soul. For this experiment, he decided that was likely enough. Felix pushed the soul matter back out into the ring and fused it just outside the second layer of his Persona''s soul. Now, between the second layer that held stats and controlled his body and the fourth layer that was the defensive layer he had crafted earlier, there was a new layer.


    The new third layer was ridiculously thin and wouldn''t nearly be enough to suffuse the entirety of his Persona''s body, not even close. It was a good start though and Felix was happy with the progress. To go any further, he knew he was going to have to find a whole lot of enemies to kill.


    In fact, going out and killing swathes of enemies had the potential to solve a few of his other problems too. It was looking increasingly likely that he was going to have to take a vacation to go grind out some monsters in the near future.


    Before he did that though, he definitely wanted to finish up with his new defensive and maybe even some new offensive spells. Felix returned his consciousness to his body and looked around at the empty workshop around him. He checked the time and saw it was early morning then asked Aldahn who said Fralyna was still fast asleep. By his estimate, she would sleep for a few more hours at least so Felix headed out.


    The first place he headed was Bloodstone Alchemy. Unfortunately, the shop wasn''t open so he turned right around and headed straight for the Valtrusiar school. Mihto was in fact awake and there were no other customers in the shop. Felix paid him for a couple hours of tutelage and had Mihto give him further adjustments to his movement. He had a dozen adjustments for Felix to make which would keep him occupied in his Soul Garden for at least another dekad or so.


    Once the two hours he had paid for were up, Felix headed to a nearby private bath and bathed then flew off back to Bloodstone Alchemy. This time, it was open, so Felix walked in and greeted Zufaris, the multicolored Drakene.


    "Ah, you are here to pickup your order, yesss?"


    "I am."


    "Exsssellent. I added in a few extra goodiesss free of charge."


    "Thank you, I appreciate it." Felix smiled and accepted the transfer when the transaction screen appeared before him. Zufaris handed him a large crate that was packed expertly with cloth between each of the various sized bottles and vials. Felix pulled a few out and saw that they were in fact, labeled. He thanked the alchemist again and walked out of the shop. He dropped the container into his soul space right as he walked out the door then flew off back to Inscripticae.


    There, he sat down at the same desk and waited for Fralyna to wake up. As he waited, he started downing the various poisons Zufaris had given him in a random order. Some were weirdly acidic others were necrotic, some were biological and bacteria based others were smart spores and some, were just plain colored water.


    The first poison Felix came across that threw him off was supposed to be a C grade poison. The vial looked like any other with a weird green mixture inside it but upon drinking it, Felix found it was entirely tasteless and to him, undetectable if it were slipped into something. Going through his normal routine, Felix paid careful attention to what the poison did and found that it did, absolutely nothing.


    He was annoyed that Zufaris had scammed him at first until he saw his health rapidly declining. He looked through his entire body and the only thing that was wrong with it was that it was slowly giving up. The poison itself though, hadn''t done anything. Felix meditated to counter his declining health but all he managed to do was slow it down so he reluctantly took a sip of the C grade health potion Thezan had given him.


    Luckily, splitting it worked fine and he gained a small burst of health. He continued to watch the poison and look over his body, now examining the potion as much as the poison. Neither of them seemed to do anything. They didn''t even leave his stomach and yet their effects took hold in an instant.


    Fucking¡­ System¡­ fuckery.


    Felix realized what was happening and just sat in silence, sipping at his health potion while the poison wore off. He practiced his spell formation off to the side but it didn''t distract him from how annoyed he was. Once it had worn off, Felix resumed his consumption of poisons and luckily, didn''t find a single other System Fuckery poison over the next couple hours.


    Fralyna had woken up just an hour into Felix''s poison buffet but waved him off as she left the shop to bathe and eat. Felix shrugged and continued downing poisons until she came back looking refreshed with renewed motivation.


    They went back to enchanting the sword together and managed to finish the removal of material stage. All in all, they hadn''t removed that much material and the grooves themselves were small once Felix backed up. Fralyna walked to a corner of the shop and pulled over the vat on rails. She filled it with the appropriate inlay, swapped out the tip then handed Felix the quill.


    She let Felix do some of it because all they had to do to fix any mistake here was heat the blade. The melting point of the inlay was much lower than the blade itself. Once they finished with that, switching out every few hours at Fralyna''s direction, they reviewed the entire thing. She then retrieved a handle and cross guard which they enchanted and test fit onto the blade itself.


    Before they coated everything and essentially sealed it in, Fralyna told him they had to test the entire thing as a whole. Actually use the enchantment. She pulled out the soul gem and mana battery that they fitted into the sword then brought it over to the corner of the workshop. Felix helped her push aside some desks to make a big empty space where she powered up the enchantment and slowly swung the blade a few times.


    Then, she activated the replay function which was on a delay of a second and backed up. The blade remained floating in the air where she had left it and after a second, it perfectly traced out the movements she had made.


    Felix just looked at it with a completely dumbfounded expression. She walked back over and gave it a much longer sequence of commands and watched it completely analytically. Felix was both amazed at the enchantment itself and the fact that it had just worked on their first try. Fralyna was much less impressed but she was thoroughly entertained by Felix''s reaction nonetheless.


    After the initial testing phase Fralyna seemed overall happy with the enchantments so she brought the assembled sword over to Aldahn who started affinizing the entire blade. She went off to eat and invited Felix to join her but he decided he wanted to watch Aldahn, which he luckily didn''t seem to mind at all.


    Felix watched Aldahn grab the soul gem pommel with one hand and the blade with the other and questioned him, "What does affinizing the blade entail?"


    Aldahn didn''t even look up from the sword, "Well affinizing-"


    Felix interrupted him, "Sorry, I know what that is and it looks like what I had to do with Starmetal. Is it similar at all?"


    Aldahn nodded and tilted his head back and forth slightly, "Yes. Sort of. Instead of using your own soul, the goal here is to have the soul gem bind itself to the entire blade. Instead of being a soul gem glued to the end of a sword, it becomes a sword with a soul that happens to mostly be located in the pommel."


    Felix nodded in understanding despite Aldahn being entirely focused on the sword, "So you push the soul out of the soul gem and cycle it through the entire blade?"


    "Yeah, basically. It''s a lot more delicate than Starmetal affinization otherwise I''d let you try it. It also requires a decent amount of soul strength and precision. Unfortunately, if I let you try and you¡­ screwed it up, you could actually damage the soul gem and the blade."


    Felix frowned, "How would that damage the blade?"


    "The blade gets affinized to the soul gem, soul gem breaks, now you have a blade affinized to a soul that doesn''t really exist anymore¡­ sort of. Parts of this soul will exist in other soul gems so¡­"


    Felix sighed as he understood the concern, "It will remained affinized and unusable until it eventually wears down and resets itself."


    Aldahn smiled, "Exactly."


    "So why couldn''t Fralyna do this?"


    "I''m the only one in the shop at the moment with the soul strength and soul manipulation experience to properly do this. Luckily we don''t work with soul gems too often so, it''s not a big deal."


    "Not sure if this is an inappropriate question¡­ what level are you compared to all of them? I can''t actually identify any of you?"


    Aldahn nodded upwards towards where the identification usually appeared and Felix identified him.


    [B] Aldahn (Lvl 2731)


    Aldahn reset his identification settings once he had confirmed Felix had seen it, "The others are mostly low to mid C grade. You can ask them if you want more specifics."


    "Thanks."


    After a few moments of silence, Felix had a thought, "You don''t often work with soul gems but I take it using souls in enchantments is¡­ higher tier in general?"


    Aldahn shrugged slightly, "For the most part."


    "What''s the peak of enchanting then?"


    Aldahn actually looked up from the sword and his eyes darted upwards as he thought about the question, "Traditional enchanting or¡­?"


    Felix frowned, "Non traditional enchanting? What is¡­ What does that mean?"


    Aldahn sighed, "I guess you could call this non traditional enchanting? I wouldn''t though. More like enchanting where there is no mana circuitry or nodes at all, just a soul. Pretty much any sentient weapon, though¡­ I guess those could have mana circuitry¡­ whatever. As for the peak of¡­ everything? Those would be Primordial echoes, which ironically are very simple to make." Aldahn smirked, "All you have to do is craft something from SSS or Divine grade materials, at minimum, then embed a significant piece of a primordial''s soul into it, at least in theory."


    Felix shook his head as he tried to parse what Aldahn had just said, "Wait¡­ what?"


    "Not easy, but simple."


    "Sorry, I got that¡­ How many of those exist?"


    "Unknown. We, the collective society we, know of a few of them but there are definitely more than just those. I know there''s a sword that people often call, the original sword but it''s almost definitely not that, just logically. There''s also a bow and an axe but I don''t know much about those."


    "Where are they or who¡­ wields them? Is Cal''s axe a primordial echo? Are they all weapons?"


    Aldahn shrugged again, "No one really knows. A good guess is that Rhonan has a few stashed away in a vault somewhere. Likely a number of them are held by the living primordials. Rhonan''s axe is not an echo though. Long story but we can be pretty sure of that."


    Felix nodded, "So that''s using souls and all that. What''s the peak of traditional enchanting then?"


    "I believe¡­" Aldahn squinted and looked towards Felix''s midsection, "You have one on your wrist."


    Felix lifted his arm, "You can identify things I have equipped?"


    Aldahn chuckled, "Nope. He has a particular style."


    "Kryptos?"


    "Yeah. One of the primordials we know about."


    "Why didn''t Edemari or Fralyna mention them when I asked about primordials?"


    "People tend to forget about them. No one has ever really seen them. We just get a whole bunch of enchanted items with their name strapped to them."


    "A whole bunch as in how many? How rare¡­ or valuable is my bracelet? Should I hide it?"


    Aldahn shook his head, "Nah. It''d be worth a fair bit but I''d guess it wouldn''t be too hard to replace. There are a lot of Kryptos items. Not in that you''ll see them that often just that it''s way more than you''d expect. Issue is, they aren''t usually that useful."


    "What do you mean?"


    Aldahn nodded towards Felix''s wrist, "Let me take a guess here, your bracelet is a spatial storage item?"


    "Yeah."


    "How do you get stuff in and out of it?"


    Felix looked down at the bracelet, "I¡­ align the bands to a specific pocket then reach through the bracelet."


    "Right so it''s super cool and incredibly complicated. An engineering and enchantment marvel. But, the opening is only as big as the bracelet and you have to align a bunch of symbols to get at anything? Not exactly fast access, is it?"


    "I guess not. It''s kind of huge though, in total."


    Aldahn shrugged, "Fair enough. Compare that to a relatively cheap spatial storage bag you can get where the opening is much bigger and it can be enchanted to have pockets and be organized. You can get more expensive ones too where you reach in and think about the thing you want and it appears in your hand."


    "So basically it''s not gonna get me mugged?"


    Aldahn looked up and contorted his face in confusion, "Mugged?"


    "Robbed in the street?"


    Aldahn thought about it for a second then shook his head, "Not sure that''s really a thing. Well, not in the city anyways. Out in the wilds maybe¡­ No, not likely. Kryptos items are common enough that it''s not a huge deal. At least, not from anyone you can''t deal with yourself. They are really cool though, aren''t they? From an enchantment perspective?"


    "Yeah, I didn''t realize this used actual mana channels though, are you sure about that?"


    "Pretty sure. Most of Kyrptos'' stuff does. Issue is it''s so complicated they are often impossible to examine or dissect even if they are. You could pull out a node but the way Kryptos uses them together, you''d never get much use out of them."


    "Good to know. Something to aspire to I guess."


    Aldahn snorted, "Sure kid."


    "Little off topic but¡­ any recommendations for skills I should add to my profession? I''ve been sitting on a lot of empty slots for a while now."


    Aldahn raised an eyebrow but his eyes were still locked onto the blade in his hands, "How long?"


    "I only got the two skills I have now close to the end of the E grade. Otherwise nothing."


    Aldahn cocked his head, "What was your profession before Enchanter?"


    "Well, it''s not exactly enchanter now either. It just includes enchanting as part of it. Same thing in the E grade, I took the direct evolution from my E grade profession."


    Aldahn shook his head quickly, "Wait, hold up. You had an enchanting profession in the E grade?"


    "Yeah. Why?"


    Aldahn nodded with wide eyes, "It''s very¡­ rare to get an enchanting profession in the E grade without being an apprentice or having direct tutelage."


    "Why?"


    "Requirements are too high. You''re messing with nodes, mana, channels putting them all together. Just the knowledge base alone is very high. Some people get them when they stumble upon textbooks or something of the like but even then they have to show an affinity for it."


    "That makes sense then. I was screwing around with my spells a lot at the start of E grade."


    Aldahn looked at him like he was a monster, "What?"


    "Just small stuff like making my Fire Bolt''s bigger and shoot faster mostly. Then make them channeled¡­ Nothing nearly as complicated as the enchanting we do here."


    "Huh. Well, I guess I now know why you were kicked out then."


    Felix winced, "Is that, that¡­ odd?"


    "Yes. It''s one, dangerous but also, time consuming. You have to reprepare each spell every time you tinker with it."


    "Prepare?"


    "Like, learn it? Slot it into your spell list."


    Oh¡­


    Felix just shrugged, unsure what to say about that.


    Aldahn sighed, "Anyways, yeah it''s weird. Skills¡­ I guess that depends, do you care about the peak or not?"


    Felix immediately recognized that he was referring to their last conversation about skills, "I care about the peak."


    Aldahn shrugged a little making it seem to Felix like he didn''t think that was the right call, but he didn''t mention it, "In that case¡­ hm¡­ It''s difficult with enchanting because there aren''t many skills that work that way, the best ones are probably Enchantment Simulation. It lets you simulate an enchantment before actually inscribing it so you know what it does, great for testing and not really something you can do yourself."


    Yes it is, I can.


    "You could take Enchantment Identification. It lets you identify an enchantment if you fully map it out. It''s mostly a convenience spell but it can be handy because identifying enchantments is kind of tedious."


    But if I can simulate it already¡­ what''s the point?


    "Mana Source can power enchantments using ambient mana outside of combat."


    I can also, already, do that.


    "You could pick up a variant of Enchantment Compatibility that will tell you how much two enchantments will interfere with each-other. Super useful if you plan on equipping a bunch of enchantments."


    Not a terrible idea but I don''t see why I wouldn''t be able to do something similar myself.


    Aldahn looked at Felix to gauge his reaction to the options he had already presented then continued, "Could grab Affinized Enchantments though, that one is quite a bit rarer so you''d need a high rarity profession. It basically binds you to all the enchantments you make and the ones you wear, given enough time. It embeds a small amount of anima in the enchanted piece and affinizes it to you. It''s nothing like a bond, not nearly that strong or versatile but it''ll let you sense and manipulate them a little bit. Before you say that you could eventually do this too, the advantage to the skill is that it doesn''t actually take a piece of your soul so you don''t have to regenerate it."


    Meh. I could do this right? How long does regeneration take?


    Depends. Took you a few months to regenerate from my and Nova''s soul bonds. You''re a little faster than normal but not much. You wouldn''t even need to though, from what he''s saying, you could probably just affinize ambient anima and it would be the same. Just like you did with that new layer on the Persona''s soul.


    Damn. At this point, I would consider swapping out my profession if it weren''t for the fact that it levels so easily based on things I already do.


    Yeah and the stats are kinda sweet.


    Yup.


    At this point it was obvious Aldahn was racking his brain, "The only other thing I can think of is identification skills. Identify Material Properties, Identify Arcane Material Properties, Identify Enchantment Node. Eventually you''ll know the materials well enough that you don''t need them but they won''t really have a limit in the same way Strong Enchantments or Durable Enchantments will. You said your profession includes other fields right? Maybe focus on those."


    "Those are just percent increases?"


    Aldahn sighed, "Yeah. It''s hard for enchanters because a lot of the skills are some percent stronger, more durable, more efficient enchantments. Obviously those are System based though¡­"


    "Yeah, System Fuckery?"


    "Yeah sure, that."


    "I ended up grabbing Tongues and Crafter''s Intuition, thoughts on those?"


    He shrugged again, "Not bad. Tongues is good if you ever need to read or understand speech but it depends on it''s rarity. It''s also one of those things that''s essential in a couple very specific situations and useless outside of that. Crafter''s Intuition won''t show you anything you wouldn''t have already caught given time, it''s just a little faster is all. Is that how you found the flaws during the interview?"


    "Actually¡­ no. I just¡­ mapped the enchantment and knew."


    "Yeah so, up to you if that''s useful. I tried it for a bit but found it ended up being slower than I was once I had enough experience. It also isn''t creative, where you might make a connection between two mostly unrelated things, it won''t. It will only show you flaws you''ve seen and identified before."


    "To be honest¡­ I forgot I even had that skill."


    Aldahn chuckled, "Yeah, that happens. It''s not activatable but it is at the same time. You need to kind of focus on using it or rather¡­ on finding flaws and stressors specifically. It''s definitely not a bad skill and is not one with a cap like Defensive Enchantments and Lethal Enchantments."


    Felix sighed, "More System Fuckery?"


    "Yup."


    "If I didn''t have tongues, how would I identify a language I don''t know?"


    Aldahn shrugged, "Books. If it''s spoken you''d have to memorize enough of it that you could either speak and recreate it perfectly or create a memory crystal and bring it to the library."


    "I see. Thanks for your help."


    Aldahn nodded, "Sur- OH! Pickup Quill Precision or something like it if you have something better in your profession."


    Felix cocked a brow, "Does it do anything more than I think it does?"


    "The big advantage is that it will essentially double or triple your dexterity when holding a quill or when enchanting. It lets you enchant beyond your body, if your mind can keep up."


    "As in, if I can design or think of an enchantment that is very detailed but my body wouldn''t normally be able to execute?"


    "Yes exactly but also, assuming your brain is capable of controlling a body at that level of precision. Eventually your body will catch up but being and enchanter and¡­ caster, right?"


    "Yeah."


    "Your mind will often move faster than your body can. This helps you bridge that gap, at least for enchanting."


    "Thanks."


    "Of course."


    Felix sat down and sorted through his skills while Aldahn finished affinizing the sword. He quickly looked through his available skills and found the ones Aldahn had mentioned that he was interested in. He picked up Identify Material Properties (Rare) and Identify Arcane Material Properties (Uncommon).


    The former let him know the properties of a sword, shield, armor or robe then he could adjust for that. It would tell him how elastic and hard a material was so he knew how to enchant it properly. The latter did something similar for inlay materials. It would work on any material, just like the former would, but it gave him different stats like mana conductivity, along with graphs for how it would react to mana. This would let him know how thick an inlay should be before it heated itself up and exploded, for example.


    He also grabbed Quill Precision (Rare) which didn''t actually specify how much it increased his dexterity, just that it helped him follow either a mental image or traced enchantment, more accurately. He looked for Identify Enchantment Node, the skill he was most excited for but found something else instead.


    Profession: [Identify Arcane Component (Arcane) This skill allows the user to identify any spell, enchantment, ritual or ward component. The provided information includes efficiency curves, power, attunements, input and output requirements along with feedback and interference generated.]


    As soon as he saw it though, he realized he didn''t need it at all. He had trouble in the past, specifically on the contract with Shade''s Wrath, identifying nodes. Once he read the skill though, he realized he should be able to create a spell form that would map all this out for him. Using his Memory Palace, he could then graph out efficiency curves himself. Given that was the case, that made this the perfect skill because all he would be relying on The System for, was automation.


    In future, he could then improve upon the identification process and theoretically, the skill would slowly improve. He dropped Crafter''s Intuition and accepted the skill then sifted through the rest of the list.


    The last skill he picked up was Identify Material Flaws (Special). This skill would allow him to examine an item and find it''s flaws, such as the ones he looked for in gems when he was making batteries. It would also allow him to avoid or work around any flaws in metal and cloth for armor or weapons. It was also something he could do with his Soul Space, but this would be faster and automated for him. He had to drop tongues for it but he was happy to do so given his perfect memory and it''s relatively low rarity.


    All the skills started at [Novice I] though he suspected his proficiency with Identify Arcane Component would increase as soon as he used it. He doubted he was considered a Novice at that at all, considering how difficult it would actually be for anyone else to do it.


    He also perused the Class and General skills as he was looking to drop Dragon''s Dance as a skill and had an empty General skill slot. He didn''t find anything for his class that really stood out to him though. In the general skills, there were a whole lot of weird skills that he wasn''t really interested in taking, but he did find it interesting that they existed.


    General: [Fashionista (Common) This skill allows you to select one piece in each of the standard equipment slots and designate them as your outfit. Any piece in your outfit will clean and repair itself upon activating this skill with a mana or energy cost. All pieces of clothing that are torn or removed from the worn piece will be destroyed upon activation. You may also slightly vary your outfit by altering it''s color and some minor physical aspects. This skill will also keep you groomed for a negligible mana or energy cost over time. Cost scales with material rarity, density and grade.]


    While the skill seemed useful, most of the clothes Felix wore were capable of regenerating themselves anyways. As for the rest of the skill, he wasn''t willing to dedicate an entire skill to grooming himself.


    General: [Aware (Uncommon) This skill increases your Perception and the range of your senses. You will be alerted of incoming danger so long as any of your senses detect it in any capacity. This skill scales heavily with your Perception. WARNING: This skill is incompatible with Reaper''s Senses and will replace it if taken.]


    Being informed of danger sounded great but replacing a Legendary skill with an Uncommon one sounded idiotic so Felix ignored it.


    General: [Toxin Affinity (Rare) This skill allows you to convert a portion of any toxins or poisons you ingest into something useful. The effects vary by the ingested substance and only a portion of it is converted. This skill scales heavily with Endurance. Higher grade toxins will be harder to digest and only a smaller portion of them will be converted.]


    While it was interesting, it was interesting because it gave Felix a little bit of a confidence boost because he had already started doing that himself. He had already pushed his cells to digest poisons and convert them to energy when he simulated Erolan''s cells. He didn''t even need to take the skill at all.


    Most of the other skills he saw were very much System Fuckery so he didn''t bother with them but one in particular stood out to him.


    General: [Studious (Rare) This skill will highlight mistakes you''ve made that you have been taught to avoid. This skill will not show you anything new but will aid in learning new skills and abilities. This skill scales heavily on the quality of your previous instruction. It will not correct incorrect teachings. This skill reinforces things you have already learned but haven''t fully grasped. This skill scales heavily with your Perception and Intelligence.]


    While it was a System Fuckery skill, Felix took it anyways. He had a free slot and it seemed useful to him. He was hoping it would bridge the gap between being under direct tutelage and being out in the real world.


    Though he wasn''t excited about every skill, he for the first time, had filled all his skill slots. He was satisfied with his skill selection so he simply waited for Aldahn to finish while he practiced his spell casting. He hadn''t made much progress in that he couldn''t cast a whole other spell, but it was getting progressively easier so he figured he was getting close. He was also pretty sure his range was increasing slightly but it was hard to tell because he wasn''t actually measuring it.


    Aldahn finished with the sword and handed it to Felix who carefully carried it back over to the worktable. He was more careful than he had to be but he was distracted and in awe at the transformation. Nothing had visually changed, not really, but it did look different. It was like an instinct or feeling he got when he looked at it. Before it was an enchanted piece of metal, a sword. Now it was like a whole entity.


    Even though he had contributed to it''s creation, it looked homogenous to him now, which was ironic because it wasn''t even done.


    Fralyna saw him walk out with the sword from the windowed design room and hurried down to finish the process. The first thing they did was disassemble the blade and coat the metal in some material that looked like resin to Felix. It dried completely differently though and created a very light coating on the entire blade that looked like an incredibly thin layer of glass. She said it helped to protect the enchantment.


    They fastened the cross guard to the blade then the handle followed by the pommel by fusing them to the metal itself. After that, they placed the blade on the table in the design room and Aldahn came up to approve it. Edemari also gave it a once over followed by Krinitor, who was still there. Aldahn had some notes but they were so minor, there was no need to actually do anything about them. They were just minor changes he had only thought of when he examined the final product.


    With three approvals, they sharpened the sword and placed it into one of the meeting rooms on a small enchanted stand that caused it to float and spin. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 Chapter 189 - Book 6

    Finally done with the sword, Fralyna dragged Felix into the design room where Edemari was.


    Fralyna tilted her head towards the door, "Come on, let''s go out to dinner."


    Felix almost immediately declined, "No thank you."


    Fralyna looked at him with a smile, "It''s tradition. I''m the main enchanter on the finished product so I pay."


    Edemari hopped to her feet, "I''m in."


    Fralyna hopped up a little in joy, "Great, we''ll grab Krinitor on our way out."


    Felix was about to protest but Fralyna looked at him with a stern expression that kind of threw him off, "It''ll be a couple hours at most. Unless you want to come dancing with Mari and I after¡­"


    Felix sneered, "Definitely not."


    Both Edemari and Fralyna chuckled, "Fair enough."


    Felix cocked his head, "What about Aldahn?"


    Fralyna shrugged, "Oh he always says no."


    Felix followed them down and while Fralyna grabbed Krinitor, Felix knocked on Aldahn''s door then opened it when he got permission to enter.


    "Fralyna is dragging me to a dinner because apparently it''s tradition¡­ She told me you always say no¡­ figured I should ask anyways?"


    Aldahn nodded, "I do¡­ usually say no. Answer is the same this time as well. I appreciate the invite though."


    "Sure." Felix smiled then closed his door and followed the others out to the front of the shop.


    Fralyna said something to Edemari that Felix didn''t quite catch and she just nodded. Once by one, the others hopped down off the edge and to the ground. Felix followed them with confusion and found he fell gracefully to the ground without the need to cast a spell at all.


    Ironically, he had rarely actually been on the ground in Telviras and though it was kind of dark because of all the shadows cast by the buildings around them, it wasn''t unpleasant. It was still immaculate with no garbage or dirt as far as he could see.


    Most of the ground between the buildings was taken up by a road that was almost exclusively filled by people walking, running and generally moving at various speeds. As it was in the sky, they seemed to all just be aware enough to not cause a ton of accidents which surprised Felix only because he knew that''s how it would be on earth. He knew stats made a big difference but still, seeing nothing directing traffic at intersections was a bit of a culture shock to Felix.


    They didn''t head into the streets though, instead they all followed Edemari below the building that held Inscripticae. Felix hadn''t even considered that there would be something below the building until now but it was so obvious in hindsight that Felix audibly groaned.


    They walked through a large opening and into a massive area that was certainly spatially expanded. It reminded Felix of the library because the level they were on was only one of a huge number he could see below them.


    He followed Edemari into a small room that he only realized was an elevator when they started descending. She led them through, what Felix now realized, was a parking lot, to her vehicle.


    Edemari hopped into the driver''s seat of what looked to Felix like a speedboat. It was easily big enough for all of them and the resemblances to a boat, only continued. Felix hopped into the cabin that had some seats but was mostly flat and saw that Fralyna had decided to remain standing. The floor was carpeted and the seats swiveled.


    The biggest difference he saw was the lack of a motor hanging off the back. When Edemari started the vehicle somehow, a process he was certain didn''t make use of a traditional key, he saw the alternative to the motor at the back.


    There were a series of tubes that jutted out just slightly from the back of the vehicle that looked like exhaust to Felix, were it not for the fact that they were more like rocket thrusters. Looking back at them, he saw a series of flames shooting out behind them. The vehicle didn''t lift into the air but instead, Edemari looked back at him and smiled, then they took off.


    It was ridiculously loud and obnoxious but sounded nothing like a car he had come to know. Instead it was like a rocket. They flew off into a large spiral ramp and followed it all the way up to the surface where they immediately accelerated.


    Felix had no idea what the top speed of the vehicle was but he wasn''t surprised when she ascended up to the blue speedway above them. He wasn''t sure if this was faster than Shade''s Wrath''s vehicle and it was hard to tell because this one had no enchanted protections from sound or wind. Whether or not it actually was, it felt significantly faster.


    Edemari seemed to know where they were going and she zipped through a series of portal spires in what Felix thought was completely random order. Checking his map, they were in fact heading more or less diagonally, she just seemed to have a penchant for not flying in a straight line.


    Edemari called out over her shoulder as they flew, "You ever fly in something like this before?"


    Felix correctly assumed she was talking to him so he walked up behind her chair so they didn''t have to yell as loudly over the wind and vehicle, "Sort of. Adventuring party had a vehicle that flew fas-¡­ not sure but, same speedway. Theirs was more¡­"


    Fralyna yelled out, "Elegant?"


    Felix nodded a little reluctantly, "Yeah."


    Fralyna leaned in as well, "I''ve been telling her she needs to get a normal mana vehicle but¡­"


    Edemari laughed maniacally, "Where''s the fun in that? Also, this is mana based."


    Felix frowned.


    Edemari shrugged, "Sometimes. I can switch between burning fuel or mana. Still uses mana to keep it smooth and steady but¡­ I just can''t let go of the smell, the feeling. Enchantments that simulate them just aren''t the same."


    Fralyna shook her head, "Yeah but it''s also less ridiculous."


    Edemari shrugged, "My husband used to love these things. I hated them. After he passed, I grew to love them too. Thankfully he''s gone so he won''t hear me say this, but he was totally right."


    Felix was taken about at how almost sacrilegious and nonchalant she was but he just assumed it had been a while.


    Edemari drove them over to a large mostly black building. Felix wasn''t sure if it was made of glass and was dark inside or made of obsidian.


    Edemari shot down through the flyways and into the parking area below the building, causing Felix to wonder if there were parking areas beneath every building. The parking area was just as black as the building above as Edemari flew in and into a very specific spot rather than the first available. Felix thought about questioning her but didn''t have the time as she and Fralyna rushed off to the elevator leaving him and Krinitor to catch up.


    Felix was expecting the elevator to open up onto the street but instead, it opened up to reveal a large room that was mostly white and green. The floors were some kind of marble like stone except instead of black or brown veins, the veins were all shades of a dark green emerald. The walls and bar to Felix''s right were entirely white along with just about everything else that was constructed.


    The green came mostly from the trees, vines, shrubs and ferns all over the inside of the building. Every single surface other than the floor was draped with verdant foliage that lightly rustled as they walked in.


    Edemari waved and smiled at someone then walked right in, down a series of halls and chose a specific room. She opened the door and sat down followed by Fralyna then Felix and Krinitor. Walking into the room, Felix was expecting white walls and foliage, just like outside. He was mostly right for every wall except the one across from the door which was actually, a massive window.


    Felix was pleasantly surprised to see a window in a spatially expanded building. It made the room they sat in seem much bigger than it actually was. Edemari and Fralyna sat on one bench and Felix sat next to Krinitor on the other.


    Before they had a chance to do or say anything, a screen appeared before Felix that listed off a massive list of various dishes and drinks. He looked through and realized he had no idea what he was looking at other than likely, food.


    He recognized a few words here and there like grilled, fried and salt but most of the ingredients, most of the cooking methods and definitely the names of the dishes were completely unfamiliar to him.


    If he had to guess, he would say he looked very lost and Fralyna chuckling supported that fact, "I''ll order for you Felix. If you don''t like something I order, I''ll eat it. No worries."


    Felix sighed in relief and closed the menu. It took the others a few minutes to fill in their initial orders then Edemari smirked and looked at Fralyna, "Isn''t he a little young for you?"


    Fralyna rolled her eyes, "You know why I did that and you know he is waayyy too young."


    Edemari waved her off, "Yeah yeah, I know. You''ve just been dragging your ass on the whole dating front for too long now."


    Krinitor leaned over and whispered to Felix, "How old are you?"


    Felix thought about it for a moment, "Twenty something epochs? Mid twenties?"


    How long has it been since the integration? Given my birthday¡­ then I''d have to convert it to epochs¡­ Ah nevermind, I don''t care.


    Krinitor recoiled and just looked at him. Felix shrugged and tuned back into the other conversation, not that he cared about the topic at hand, more that he was hoping they mentioned something interesting.


    "Maybe we''ll finally find someone for you later tonight when we¡­" Fralyna trailed off as she wiggled her shoulders.


    Edemari sighed in exasperation, "You know I''m perfectly happy as is."


    Fralyna "Your husband already gave you permission. You are allowed to have some fun you know."


    Felix frowned a little in confusion.


    Edemari had clearly had this same conversation many times, "I''m perfectly happy just visiting my husband."


    Felix''s frown deepened.


    "Mari, he''s dead. You can''t live your whole like just visiting your dead husband. All he does is ask what''s going on with you, nothing happens there. Whenever I visit him all he asks me is when I''m gonna find you someone. You know he wants you to be happy."


    Edemari sighed, "What if I don''t want to?"


    Felix couldn''t hold himself back any longer, "I''m sorry, what?"


    They both looked at him then Edemari cocked an eyebrow, "What?"


    "I''m sorry¡­ You visit your dead husband and¡­ have conversations¡­ with him?"


    Edemari snorted, "Right, I forgot. Guess we didn''t mention that part of the afterlives then, huh?"


    Krinitor looked to Felix, "You hadn''t heard about the afterlives?"


    Felix was just so taken aback he wasn''t sure what to say.


    Fralyna picked up his slack though and responded to Krinitor, "He''s from a pretty remote planet."


    Edemari chuckled a little, "Yeah some afterlives let you visit your loved ones. There are restricted times when it happens and there''s usually a negligible cost but¡­" Edemari trailed off a little and almost whispered the last bit of her sentence, "¡­it''s worth it."


    Felix managed to come back to his senses a little, "And Fralyna, you visit him too?"


    Fralyna smiled, "He is my brother."


    Felix''s eyes went wide as a few things clicked together in his head.


    Fralyna smirked, "Naturally, now that he''s gone, the responsibility of calling" Fralyna elbowed Edemari, "her Mari, fell to me."


    Edemari groaned, "Both of you know I hate that nickname."


    The conversation devolved from there and Felix zoned out a little bit. He started practicing his spell formations far above their heads and cycled through all the spells he knew.


    Considering it was the biggest city in the multiverse, Felix was starting to wonder how long it would take for the food to arrive. In his mind, he could think of many ways to prepare food rapidly with magic. He also knew there were ways to preserve food almost perfectly so they could have easily prepared the food ahead of time.


    His thoughts were interrupted when he realized the others weren''t talking anymore. He refocused on his sight and saw the two across from him just looking up. He looked up with them and saw his spell forms so he dismissed them to see what they were seeing behind them.


    As soon as he dismissed the spell forms, they both looked back down and looked around them. Felix made the connection and apparently his facial expression gave him away.


    Edemari looked at him with a cocked brow, "Felix¡­ what the hell are you doing?"


    Felix shrugged, "I''m just practice casting."


    Fralyna frowned, "Practicing your casting? Why?"


    Felix shrugged again and just pleaded in his mind for them to just buy the whole innocent integration kid act he was about to play, "It seemed like a good idea. I do it whenever I can. Back on my planet to get good at something, you practiced. I also workout, or¡­ I haven''t in a little while but I did back- a bit ago." He realized right at the end that Krinitor still didn''t know so he cut himself off.


    Edemari shrugged, "Not a bad call. Just uh¡­ maybe not offensive spells around other people?"


    Fralyna giggled, "Our danger senses were going a little crazy. They''d freak out then disappear in an instant then repeat."


    That''s¡­ I should have considered that.


    All this is new to you, you''re learning.


    Still¡­ I guess a soul based danger sense wouldn''t trigger because I have no intention of casting the spells or attacking at all so only System Fuckery Danger Sense skills would trigger. I wonder if it''s intentional that they notify the user no matter what, even if I had no intention of casting¡­


    They went back to their conversation that seemed to be focused on what their plans for the immediate future were. Felix zoned back out and gave vague generic answers when they asked him his plans. He didn''t actually want to give away his plans because they meant he would leave the shop and from what he had already gathered, going to Eramith was a big deal. As much as he appreciated them, their help and their patience with his questions, he didn''t feel anything when he lied which made it all the more believable.


    Shortly afterwards, the food arrived in as spectacular a fashion as Felix had hoped. Right before them, on top of the table, a horizontal portal appeared. It sat there for a few seconds, a warning so patrons could get out of the way, then a series of dishes started to slowly fall through it. They fell so slowly, they didn''t even make a sound when they hit the table.


    The dishes were organized and placed in front of each individual and there was just enough room between their respective mountains of food for a series of drinks to lower themselves. Felix looked at the absurd amount of food and had to readjust his expectations once again. He already knew sentients ate way more but it was still a shock, from what he had grown up with, to see this much for any individual person.


    He received a selection of cutlery and thought to wash his hands but saw no one else at the table was and Krinitor even ate with his claws. At first Felix was a little put off but then he realized, there was no amount of dirt or shit on his fingers that could actually cause him to be ill in any way. So long as he couldn''t taste anything or didn''t care, it didn''t actually make a tangible difference. He mentally shrugged, so as not to look weird, and dug into the plate closest to him.


    It was some sort of meat dish where he essentially speared the meat that was cooked on the rib cage and pulled it right off. It almost melted off the bone leaving a sharp rib standing off his plate behind it. He took a tentative bite and found it was gamey but the spices that were added balanced everything out a little bit.


    He finished the entirety of the plate leaving behind a sharp cage of white bone that almost looked like a flower to him. He continued to cycle through and sample dishes and found that he liked most of them. He didn''t love any of it and found them all lacking in comparison to the feast Aros had prepared for him.


    It simply wasn''t as mind blowing as Aros'' feast had been. There weren''t many completely novel flavors and tastes and those that were novel, weren''t delicious. They were new and they were good but they weren''t memorable. The piles of salted and spiced meat, which is what his plates mostly consisted of, were good and satisfying a craving he didn''t realize he had had but they just weren''t the same.


    He was actually the first one to finish his twelve plates, each one containing a dinner fit for at least 6 back on earth. He quickly checked in on his stomach and found the last bits of it melting away and turning to energy, leaving nothing behind.


    Fralyna immediately noticed him finish and checked in with him to see if he was still hungry. Though Felix didn''t actually ever really feel hungry, he suspected because of his use of mana to regenerate his energy, he said yes. He told her to choose only meat dishes this time since that was what he enjoyed the most and had her get him some new dishes to try.


    He wasn''t sure if he should feel guilty that he was ordering again on someone else''s dime but his worries vanished when Krinitor ordered another set of two dozen plates. His orders were staggered by some period of time to give them room at the table to actually eat them.


    Fralyna helped Felix at first and showed him what to do with the plates when he was done with them. She picked one of them up and basically tossed it at the window. He was shocked even though as soon as she started moving it, he fully expected a portal to open. Still, the action of her essentially throwing the plate at a window was a bit of a mind bender for Felix.


    He disposed of the rest of his plates and waited for his next order to arrive while the others finished eating and Edemari and Fralyna talked. Felix tried each of the drinks in turn, after smelling them to ensure they weren''t alcoholic. Even if they were, he wasn''t sure alcohol would have any effect on him, but he was inclined to avoid it nonetheless simply because he didn''t like the taste.


    He took only the slightest sip of each and paid very careful attention to his body but other than copious amounts of sweetener, the drinks seemed relatively harmless. Felix downed a couple of them and saved the others for after the rest of his food arrived.


    Felix graciously noticed that Fralyna and Edemari both avoided asking Felix questions about the integration and intentionally steered the conversation away if Krinitor led them in that direction. He didn''t mind answering questions but he didn''t feel like he trusted Krinitor enough to tell him about his origins just yet.


    Felix had shifted his practice over to only include non offensive spells and formed them in the air above him. He stuck mostly to MIhto''s more complicated spells because it was really starting to annoy him that he couldn''t cast more than two at once. Just to be extra safe, he also made sure to point all the spells at the wall.


    Everyone ordered a few more rounds of food and finished off their meals then the conversation continued, much to Felix''s dismay. He actually spent a few minutes trying to enter his Soul Garden and meditate with his eyes open but he found the sensory stimulation of the room around him was too much to do so.


    Luckily, the conversation didn''t last too long after the last dishes were returned. The only other thing Felix was curious about, even though he wasn''t the one paying for it, was the bill. Unfortunately it arrived via System screen so he didn''t get a chance to peek at it. He figured he could ride the wave of innocence and his integrated status to get away with just asking, "How much does a meal like this cost? This seemed like a lot of food."


    Fralyna chuckled a little, "20,000 D."


    Felix thought about it for a moment. That was a fraction of his currently available funds. It was also many orders of magnitude less than he would be paid just for shadowing Fralyna, let alone the adventuring mission he had taken.


    Felix frowned, "That''s it?"


    Edemari laughed out loud and Fralyna just shook her head, "People gotta eat. Can''t be too expensive if it doesn''t offer any buffs."


    Felix shrugged, "Fair enough I guess."


    They all stood and exited the room.


    As they walked down the hall back to the front door, Fralyna looked over her shoulder at Felix, "You sure you don''t want to come dancing with us? We can show you all the nightlife in the city. We''re gonna go to our favorite spot that always has a live band¡­"


    Felix fought the disgust that tried to make itself known on his face and just smiled, "No thank you."


    Fralyna fake pouted, "Alright. Can you find your own way back?"


    Felix nodded and bid them farewell as they descended the elevator with Krinitor who also wasn''t dancing but¡­ Felix wasn''t really paying attention to where he was going. He got a little turned around and it took him a minute to find the normal door but once he did, he immediately shot off towards the library.


    He kept his offensive spells out of his rotation as he flew to avoid scaring the other flyers as he flew by.


    Felix flight to the library was much slower than it would have been in a boat like Edemari''s but still, it didn''t take him more than an hour. He quickly found the information he was looking for, Eramith''s tuition. Apparently the tuition scaled based on the student''s grade. Each term would cost 500k credits of the grade higher than the student. For him, that was 500k C grade credits. He wanted to make sure he had enough without the scholarship because he didn''t know what percent it would cover but he was satisfied that he would have more than enough on his own.


    After that, he flew back over to Inscripticae and walked into the empty workshop. He chose a random desk then immediately started assembling the Mage Armor spell he had been working on. There were about a hundred plates that didn''t quite interlock but overlapped each-other. He had started with less but he also wanted to ensure that the armor didn''t hinder his movement much in case he had to wear it around.


    With such a high number of overlapping plates came a whole lot of nodes and fitting them all together, it was impossible for Felix to cast. It was far and away the most complicated spell he had ever even attempted to cast. Even the most complicated spells Mihto had shown him were significantly easier to wrap his mind around. This was all before he had started balancing the mana channeling to each of the plates with channels and limiters.


    In Felix''s opinion, the spell was a mess. He had no idea how to make it not a mess though other than splitting it up into chunks so, he did exactly that, inscribing each one onto a series of metal plates that he pulled out of his soul space. He was starting to run low on random materials but not low enough that he had to immediately replenish, low enough that he had to make a mental note though.


    He strapped the plates to his biceps, chest, back, thighs, calves and core then manually cast the helmet. Pumping mana into each of them in turn, they seemed to work. He then pumped mana into them one by one and immediately had a problem where the sections would push against each-other. He spent a few hours tuning everything before he tried walking in it.


    After that he spent a few more hours tuning it while he walked around before he managed to actually run in it. He continued tinkering until he could acrobatically jump around, not quite unhindered, but free enough that he was satisfied for the time being. Once he made all the pieces fit together, the only issue he had left was that the spells themselves were super finicky.


    He was using empty molds for the time being which he knew exacerbated the issue. He was having trouble holding them all steady with just his mana control but was hoping that once he actually made a final product, the spells would be more stable. As it was, they had a tendency to flicker out either entirely or partially. The mana in the spell form itself also leaked out and sometimes it kind of burst outwards instead of following the designated pathways.


    This was the first time he had ever really encountered this issue but this was also a combination of the most complicated spell forms he had ever worked with. He thought about manographing the spells into his Kraken leather robes but those were cloth. Given how finicky they were now, he was worried they might not function properly when they were folded or distorted from him running and vaulting around.


    Stolen novel; please report.


    He hadn''t had issues with that in the past, but he was worried it was a possibility. He decided he should probably just ask Aldahn because it was something he should know for the future.


    Felix walked over to the door to Aldahn''s office, the one facing the workshop, and knocked. He waited a few moments, far longer than he ever had to, and almost knocked again when he heard two voices, both of which he recognized, coming from the office.


    Felix cocked a brow and walked around the offices and into the lobby which was empty. He looked down the hall and noticed one of the meeting room doors was swung open just wide enough for a person to enter, which was not normal, so he walked over and peered inside. He almost immediately recognized the room as the one with the sword they had just enchanted so he expected to catch a glimpse of Fralyna''s client.


    Instead, Felix saw the back of a small halfling man that wore dark leather armor, a man he recognized and knew for a fact, was not the client. Felix walked over into the room and walked up next to Elric who was bent over the table inspecting the sword. He was courteous and didn''t touch it but his nose did get close.


    Felix walked over and grabbed the handle of the sword, lifting it into the air. Elric backed up with his superior reflexes and smiled at Felix. He opened his mouth to say something but before he could, Felix lazily swung the sword around in the air. Elric hopped a few steps back and frowned then Felix activated the main enchantment on the sword and joined Elric near the door.


    Elric watched in awe as the sword perfectly replicated Felix''s swings then just floated in place, as if it was affixed to or held by an invisible statue. Felix smirked at Elric''s reaction then walked over and replaced the blade on it''s stand. S§×ar?h the NovelFire.net* website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    He turned back to Elric and immediately saw the door swing all the way open, Aldahn and Thezan standing in the hall. Aldahn nodded to Felix and Thezan addressed him, "Hey Felix."


    Elric walked out and into the lobby followed by Felix who addressed Thezan as they walked, "Hello. What are you guys doing here?"


    Thezan smiled and gestured towards Aldahn with his head, "Had some business to take care of."


    Felix nodded, "Did you get your armor fixed?"


    Thezan rolled his eyes, "Sort of."


    They arrived in the lobby where Elric hopped up to sit on the counter while Aldahn stood in the hall and Thezan leaned against the wall. Felix took a seat and Thezan continued, "I went back to my enchanter with your¡­ suggestions. Plus, it was broken so I needed him to fix it. He took a look at your suggestions and basically ran me through all the problems they had and why they weren''t actually better. Stuff like: it''s na?ve, you didn''t consider the aetheric turmoil it would cause,"


    Felix''s head shot to Aldahn who just shrugged in response.


    Thezan continued, "The connections you used were actually a double edged sword and in this case, you were ignoring their drawbacks. He concluded by saying it made sense you were a novice enchanter but that you were a smart kid on the right track."


    Felix''s frown only deepened the more Thezan talked, despite the back handed compliments. He made sure to make mental notes of all the things Thezan''s enchanter had mentioned so he could ask Aldahn about them afterwards.


    Felix nodded slowly to feign like he understood, "So¡­ why are you here then? If I''m clearly such a novice enchanter, why even tell me at all? Surely you could find someone more capable to finish the contract with?"


    Thezan smirked, "Well¡­ I like you, so do the others" Thezan said as he looked at Elric who nodded and smiled, "plus¡­ do you remember that skill I said I''d tell you about one day?"


    "The one that let you¡­ read me or something like that?"


    Thezan half nodded, "Sort of, but yes that one. Today is not the day I explain it to you in full but one part of it is knowing when someone is lying or nervous. Well, my enchanter was lying his ass off. Made everything up."


    Aldahn tried to hide a giggle as Felix sighed in relief.


    Thezan smiled, "Anyways, needless to say I''m never going back there again. Then I thought¡­ I need a new enchanter¡­ who do I know that works at an enchanting shop. Anyways, you aren''t quite there yet where you can be my go to enchanter." Thezan gestured with his hand towards Aldahn, "Your boss on the other hand¡­ I''m not sure I''m good enough to be his client."


    Aldahn shook his head and rolled his eyes.


    Felix smiled, "He''s the best enchanter I know."


    Thezan nodded, "Probably the best one I''ve met. I''m glad all this ended up happening. I may have wasted some creds but," Thezan looked towards Aldahn, "I think it was definitely worth it in the long run. Anyone who can''t admit when they''re wrong, when they were bested or when someone else improved upon their work, is not someone I ever want to work with or employ. Disgusting trait." Thezan''s face contorted involuntarily.


    Aldahn and Elric both nodded along.


    Thezan fixed his face back into a smile and continued, "You know what one of the first things Aldahn here said when we started talking?"


    Felix just waited for the answer.


    "That you could be a better enchanter than him in a few epochs. Possibly less."


    Felix recoiled a little in disagreement then looked at Aldahn who shrugged, "It''s possible."


    Felix looked to Aldahn and changed the subject, "Did you take a look at the armor?"


    Aldahn half nodded, "Briefly."


    Felix nodded and asked the question that had been burning at him since he first examined it, "What the hell is up with his enchanter?"


    Aldahn laughed out loud then controlled himself enough to answer, "My guess is that they learned to enchant by slapping different enchantments they''d found together. Unfortunately, they aren''t creative enough or experienced enough to¡­ well, do it properly."


    Felix cocked his head and worded his next question to be as inoffensive as possible, "So Thezan was just unlucky then?"


    Before Aldahn could answer, Elric chimed in, "Or is he just an idiot?"


    Thezan snorted then Aldahn lowered and shook his head like he was disappointed, "No. Unfortunately it''s more common than you''d think. Not just in enchanting, though it''s especially bad in enchanting. People who pick up professions or jobs and don''t spend the time to learn them. Sometimes they just aren''t fit for the job other times they just don''t care enough. Either way, they need money and System skills can usually fill the gaps. The skills at least make it difficult to tell the difference if you aren''t an expert."


    Felix frowned a little as he thought through the implications of that fact.


    So I need to be careful that if I pay someone for something, they actually know what they''re doing and they aren''t faking it with skills.


    Guess so. Only if it really matters though.


    Right. That kind of¡­


    Sucks?


    Yeah.


    Felix looked back up to Thezan, "So you came here to upgrade your enchanter. Did you get a meeting with the broker?"


    Thezan nodded, "I met with Dogran. He''s contacting the client now but he did pay us for the first¡­ part? of the job."


    As Thezan finished his sentence, a transaction screen appeared before Felix offering him 200k B grade credits. He balked at the amount briefly before accepting the transaction and watching his available funds effectively multiply themselves by 200 billion.


    Felix looked at Thezan incredulously, "I thought that was for the whole job?"


    Thezan smirked, "Me too. Definitely not complaining though. He already paid for all our expenses too, no questions asked."


    Felix looked towards Aldahn, "Does this seem at all odd to you?"


    Aldahn cocked his head a little, "A little but not¡­ worryingly so. It''s probably a god or demigod that just wants things handled quickly and efficiently. As for why they chose a much lower grade team than their budget would allow¡­ some people, gods, factions influential people, pay attention to what higher grade teams are hired for. They may not be able to find out who they were hired by, but it''s not overly difficult to tail them and find out what they were hired to do."


    The logic seemed sound to Felix so he nodded along.


    Thezan shrugged, "Works out great for us."


    Felix shrugged, "Yeah, guess so¡­ Any idea how long until the next¡­ phase? of the contract?"


    Thezan nodded, "It''ll be at least a term. Even if Dogran got back to us today, we can''t go see¡­ there''s a waitlist, kind of. I''ll explain more then." Thezan was obviously trying to keep the details a secret from Aldahn.


    Aldahn nodded, "Ravens?" Then he looked at Felix, "You can''t see them unless there''s an auction or you get a meeting."


    Thezan looked at Aldahn a little surprised for a second then sighed dejectedly, clearly having failed, "Yeah."


    Elric just chuckled.


    Felix shrugged to try and indicate it wasn''t him that told Aldahn, "Alright thanks. I guess I''ll see you then?"


    Thezan nodded, "That''s all my business here." Then he looked at Elric.


    Elric hopped off the desk and looked up to Felix, "I finished up a full batch of all my poisons. want to give em a taste?" Elric offered a wide toothy smile.


    Felix nodded enthusiastically, "Yes please."


    Aldahn cocked a brow and Thezan just shook his head as he left.


    Felix looked over to Aldahn, "Can I borrow a meeting room?"


    Aldahn shook his head, "Yes but you better do this in the workshop."


    Felix shrugged and led Elric into the shop then chose an empty desk and borrowed it''s stool.


    Elric pulled another stool over and pulled a vial out of his soul space, "I watered down and lessened all the poisons so they aren''t very strong at all. They all still have the same effects though so you''ll still be able to build resistance to them."


    Elric was clearly a little scared now that he knew Felix had such a meager health pool. Felix just shrugged, "Alright." Then, he took the vial and downed it.


    He was vaguely aware of Aldahn standing across the shop behind him but he ignored him for now. Felix entered a meditation and immediately cycled through all the defenses he had prepared but hadn''t actually spread through his body yet. He manually modified his cells and experimented with various solutions.


    Felix continued to down vials of various colors, smells, consistencies and tastes then describe in as much detail as he could, what it was doing, or trying to do, to his body. Elric copied everything he said down into a notebook without even looking at what he was writing and Felix found he didn''t need to focus nearly as much as he had thought.


    Felix called out to Aldahn, who he could still sense standing behind him, "Enchanting cloth. Anything I need to watch out for? Be wary of?"


    Aldahn knew he was talking to him based on his volume, which was wholly unnecessary but got the point across, "Just need to make sure it doesn''t actually fold over such that the enchantment makes contact with itself. As long as it doesn''t touch itself, you''ll be fine. Mostly people use mana conductive thread then embroider that using a mana insulating thread. You can also manograph but that''s not¡­ durable, or reliable. Well, not for anything remotely complicated."


    Felix nodded, "Thanks."


    He continued downing each and every poison Elric had brought him and ultimately further solidified his previous ideas. He hadn''t actually come up with anything new but he wasn''t sure if he needed to. His existing solutions were working against each every one of them so he didn''t have any need to come up with anything new.


    The only thing that he learned was that infusing his cells with mana of different attunements did hold some value, though not much. The fact that it did anything though caused Felix''s mind to wander as he thought though the implications and what he could possibly do with that information in the future.


    No matter what he tried though, Felix couldn''t quite seem to digest the poisons into anything more than energy. He wasn''t disheartened though because he still wanted to do some more research into alchemy in general. The best idea he had come up with was to store some of the poisons once they were inert to his body and use them to fight other poisons. It wasn''t his favorite idea ever, but it was the most promising thing he had come up with.


    It took them the entire day and half of the night for Felix to finally get through all of Elric''s poisons. Aldahn had disappeared at some point and a few of the other enchanters in the shop had stopped to watch for a few minutes as they passed by.


    Elric thanked Felix a number of times and told him he would return with new concoctions at some point in the future. Felix was definitely not opposed to testing new poisons for him in the future, it was a win win for him and Elric.


    Elric left the shop after hitting on Fralyna a bit then Felix got back to working on his Mage Armor spell. He tuned the spell a little more then finalized the discs with inlay material. For his first iteration, he was pretty happy with it. Once he had used an inlay, it was much less finicky and far more stable. It also didn''t eat away at his concentration and focus, which was a huge benefit for actually using it in combat.


    After that, he started updating his most common spells. Using his new skill, Identify Arcane Component, Felix sifted through the nodes he knew from the books in Inscripticae, from the dungeons in the integration tutorial, the ones he had stolen from Luther''s shop and a few from the library.


    Grim had sorted through all of the information from the library and unfortunately, not many spells or spell nodes existed. There were some, almost a hundred in fact, but they were very basic, inefficient and actually worse than the ones he was already using. The enchantment nodes were the same, the ones in the library paled in comparison to the ones used at Inscripticae.


    Analyzing and comparing all the nodes he knew, the efficiency curves were the most important information Felix got out of his skill. They essentially plotted the efficiency of a spell node based on it''s input mana. Some nodes were very efficient at low mana inputs, some were very efficient at high mana inputs. Some nodes scaled exponentially, others scaled logarithmically towards their peak efficiency.


    The nodes he had found in the tutorial, the ones he had been using all this time, were very efficient when only supplied with a small amount of mana. Universally, they started to¡­ suck when he upcast them with more mana. Not only that, but he had stability curves as well that told him the chance of a node failing or leaking mana. For the most part, he didn''t have to worry about it but for some nodes, when they were orders of magnitude outside their standard operating inputs, they had high failure rates.


    Thinking back to the first Devoured he fought in the World Event, where he had essentially had his Lightning Bolt explode and fill his arm with mana, Felix now knew why. Looking at the stability curve, the node had such a high failure rate with that much mana as input that it was almost guaranteed to leak. He made a mental note to look into using hostile mana offensively, the same way it had attacked him.


    The efficiency curves also explained to him why his Lightning Bolt Spell had been so effective compared to everything else. His Electricity node was far more efficient at higher mana inputs than any of the other nodes he had.


    Looking at the stability curves for his nodes, he realized why the Gust spell he had cast with liquid mana was so violent, other than the fact that he had essentially upcast it by a few hundred times. The wind node he had been using had a nearly 100% failure rate at the levels of mana he had been pushing into it at the time.


    This also told him what a failure might look like. He was careful about generalizing that result though because he didn''t want to be wrong and accidentally have a node failure explode instead of being a unidirectional but relatively safe mess.


    Though most of the enchantment nodes listed out in Inscripticae were tuned to be more efficient with less mana, their standard operating range was still far higher than his old nodes. They were tuned for enchantments not spells but, enchantments here used more mana than most spells in the integration, especially the tutorial.


    The nodes had values for leakage, feedback and interference but Felix didn''t bother paying attention to them at the moment. All the information was recorded in his head just in case but for the moment, he just chose spells that were most efficient at 1% of his total mana and who''s efficiency scaled well if he were to upcast them. He figured with his manual mana regeneration along with his batteries, 1% was a good number.


    He ended up using a lot of the spell nodes he had essentially stolen from Luther the giant toad when he had tested the spell tablets, at least whenever they were applicable.


    Felix also spent some time briefly exerting his understanding of mana, spells and spell nodes using his identification skill. He pushed mana through them and identified their attunements manually then used various nodes and spells to identify it himself. None of it was better than his skill was, but it did showcase his understanding of how the skill worked, which was his intention.


    Ding You have become more proficient with the Profession skill: [Arcane] Identify Arcane Component (Novice I => Initiate IV)


    Though it did nothing for him now, it made him feel good and was also great set up for the future if he wanted to eventually evolve or combine the skill.


    Felix didn''t have anywhere to test the spells at the moment that didn''t involve opening a portal so he instead moved on to the next thing on his list.


    He was planning on heading to some planet so he could kill some monsters and gain some levels but far more importantly, so he could examine creatures with mana channels. He already had Grim sorting through planets and bestiaries then once he had a list, he would go to the Adventurer''s Guild to see if they had any open jobs on those planets for him. That way he could do multiple things at once.


    Now that he had the first iteration of his Mage Armor spell in order and his combat spells upgraded, pending testing, he only had one more thing on his list of things to do. On his way out he searched the meeting rooms and found Krinitor, "That outfit you designed me, it''ll last me well into the C grade, right?"


    It took Krinitor a second to process, "Yes. It would be¡­ not the best you could get in the C grade, but close to it."


    Felix nodded, "I have 200,000 B on me now with another 200,000 coming a few months from now. Is that enough?"


    Krinitor nodded, "More than."


    Felix nodded, "Alright, would you be willing to make it for me?"


    Krinitor''s face lit up, "I would be honored."


    Felix smiled, "I look forward to wearing it. Combat focused, remember. Oh also, no materials that will fail if I try to use them in the D grade. You know what I mean?"


    Krinitor nodded aggressively, "Of course."


    Though it would cost him a lot of money, Felix figured upgrading his armor to something in the C grade as soon as possible would be hugely beneficial to keeping himself alive. He had already confirmed that so long as it didn''t involve any System Fuckery in the materials or enchantments, the armor would work perfectly.


    He also didn''t have a ton of things he wanted to spend money on. He thought about upgrading his batteries but for now, he didn''t feel the need. While he could have picked up an absolutely massive battery with his new fortune, Felix was more inclined to make the batteries himself. He didn''t find himself running out of mana just about ever so he pushed that off for now. Also the only battery he would have bothered with would have cost him nearly his entire fortune, that he was quickly starting to realize wasn''t as much as it had seemed.


    The highest quality items for the C grade were already approaching A grade credits which was ridiculous to Felix. Given how many people, materials and items existed in the multiverse, he could understand why, it just seemed absurd to him. He had also confirmed that it was not worth buying common B grade armor because it would actually likely be worse than Epic or Legendary C grade armor.


    It might be more durable and have more protection, but only negligibly so and the effects of the C grade armor would likely far out weight it''s downsides. The very best items of each grade were far out of reach for most people within that grade given their prices. Only people who were ridiculously rich for their grade or who had benefactors or parents with higher grades would be able to buy them. Luckily, Felix was ridiculously rich for his grade, at least at the moment and he fully intended on making use of that fact to accelerate himself as much as possible.


    He flew out to the Valtrusiar school and found Mihto inside with another student, the first time Felix had ever seen anyone else in the shop. Felix nodded to him and headed into the office room where he scoured for any other books that might be hiding in there. Mihto had already given him full permission to use the office and books last time so Felix was just making sure.


    He didn''t actually find anything he hadn''t already scanned so he headed back out and paid Mihto for a few hours of tutelage. Felix planned on getting through as much training as he felt he needed before he headed out on a solo mission.


    Mihto actually split the course into two and had them run separate courses side by side. At first Felix was worried he was being scammed by having someone else there but he found making the course thinner had almost no effect on his training.


    Mihto was excellent at watching and paying attention to both of them even though they were clearly at far different levels. Felix was still adjusting his body without any augments and the other student was working on how best to incorporate their spells.


    Felix also made sure to block out all of the advice Mihto gave them because it was tailored to someone with a limited spell list and he would get advice of his own once he was there.


    To make the most of his time and money, Felix ran the course until Mihto had given him a handful of adjustments then he meditated and entered his Soul Garden. There, he ran his own rendition of Mihto''s course until he felt the adjustments solidify. After that, he would return to Mihto and repeat.


    It was the most focused and dedicated to the training Felix had ever been because he had a specific goal in mind and was willing to sit there until it was achieved. His progress in this time was evident and surprisingly to Felix, not surprising to Mihto. He actually seemed to expect the progress whenever Felix meditated and popped out with days worth of training.


    Felix suspected he didn''t know exactly what Felix was doing but rather that he had some experience with similar techniques. He didn''t say anything specific but he started mentioning Felix adjusting his mind and resetting his instincts in his meditation. In actuality Felix was doing none of that, though he realized the wisdom in it. Instead he was just smacking his head against it, training for days on end, until he got it.


    He didn''t have time to develop a new technique to realign his instincts though, at least he didn''t feel like he had time. His excitement for, potentially, finally figuring out mana channels caused him to speed through the training while trying desperately not to rush it.


    The other student left after a couple hours and a new one, more novice than Felix, trained for a couple hours some time later as well. Felix only had any idea of how long he had been training because he had to pay by the hour.


    By the time Mihto told him they would start using spells, Felix felt satisfied and ended his training there. He wanted to just keep going and add spells to his movements but he knew that was going to be a super complicated process so instead, he bid Mihto farewell.


    He already felt like he was so much more efficient and aware of his body and how to move. Even without the spells, when Felix turned back on his energy cycling and Reaper''s Movement, though he wasn''t sure how much the latter was helping, he felt like he had super powers.


    It was more than just the difference in stats and energy fueling his muscles too. Comparing himself and how he moved now to before, he could feel his muscles being activated more intently and directly. He thought back to how he had been before and was disgusted with himself at how much energy he had been wasting by engaging the wrong muscles and turning his joints in slightly the wrong way.


    He also never would have guessed how much of a difference it made. It felt like a new body to him where his best guess before would have been that it would make a minor difference at best. That level of difference exhilarated him, especially when he thought forwards to how spells would amplify it even further.


    For now though, he was kind of sick of waiting and that feeling had been warring with his desire to keep training for the last few hours. As soon as he saw a natural breakpoint, his excitement for mana channels won out.


    Felix headed to the Adventurer''s Guild while practicing spells above his head. He focused entirely on defensive skills because he didn''t want to trigger anyone''s danger senses as he flew. He did plan on practicing his offensive spells once he found a job. He would either do it on the planet itself or just before leaving.


    As he flew and practiced his spells, Grim gave him the rundown on the list he had assembled of the most promising beasts and planets.


    There were a lot of promising options, more than Felix had expected. There were planets with an abundance of a specific creatures and others with a wide ecosystem holding a few weird mana creatures. Some of the creatures were just odd, a lot of them were plants, but in general Felix was pretty happy with his options.


    They were also looking for creatures that were particularly strong so Felix could take a peek at their muscle structures. Grim had wisely pointed out though, that there were a number of mana channel creatures that seemed to use mana to enhance their muscles. Felix was happy with anything at this point and if it turned out that wasn''t enough, he would find a different planet with more mundane muscles and creatures.


    He arrived at the Adventurer''s Guild, walked in a few dozen meters then promptly turned himself around and joined the ever-present crowd milling about the open boards around the front door. He looked towards them but saw that they were completely blank. He was about to ask the desk but after a few seconds of looking at it, a System Screen appeared in front of him.


    The screen held a list of open job postings with the ability to filter and search through them. Felix ignored the screen for just a second so he could satisfy his curiosity. He looked away from the boards and the screen disappeared without being dismissed. He looked back towards them and, after a familiar few seconds, the screen reappeared.


    Felix thought it was weird that it wasn''t based on intent, considering it was already using The System for the screens.


    He looked through the open jobs screen and filtered it down to jobs on the list of planets he was interested in. That did use intent to a certain degree, all he had to do was think of the planet names and they would be selected, so it was very easy to use.


    Felix scrolled through a number of jobs that were either too specific, too boring or just weird. He didn''t want to escort anyone or retrieve some inconsequential item. No guarding quests or quests where he had to hunt down specific people, he didn''t want to have to deal with anything that had even a remote chance of biting him in the ass later on or turning political.


    He ended up settling on a job that sounded boring at first, but caught his attention because it was completely open such that any number of adventurer''s could apply. The job was essentially to go to this planet and retrieve as many corpses as possible. It mentioned some kind of competition and the range on levels was completely open but the pay was targeted at low to mid D grade.


    The biggest reason Felix chose this job in specific, was that the planet it was located on was super interesting to him. If he hadn''t found a job on that planet, he was seriously considering visiting it anyways.


    The fauna local to this planet, for whatever reason, had evolved in such a way that just about everything used mana in some way. Not all of them had cores or channels, but many did. Felix was certain they wouldn''t all be useful as some of them seemed to use the mana from their cores and channels for weird purposes like digestion. There was one animal in specific Grim had found that used mana to cook food once it was inside of it''s belly.


    A lot of the flora used mana in some ways but nothing significant as far as Grim had found. There were some alchemical ingredients that were Uncommon at best but nothing particularly valuable.


    Ideally, Felix would find enough creatures he could use to model his future Mana Channels off of that he wouldn''t need to visit anywhere else. A quest that involved killing massive swaths of enemies for rewards also perfectly aligned with that goal.


    He did not sign himself up as a participant just yet but saw that he had a half day or so until the event itself. That was more than enough time for him to prepare in Telviras so he headed to the only place he knew with a room he could test spells in.


    He arrived at Luther''s after almost a half hour of flying later and found the shop completely empty, save for Luther.


    Luther spotted him right as he walked in, "Ah, the newcomer. Shade''s baby. What can I do for you?"


    Felix ignored the condescending nickname entirely, "Any chance I could rent your testing room to test out spells of my own?"


    Luther blinked his massive toad eyes a couple times then croaked before responding, "I don''t see why not. The room is free to use if you buy anything though so why not just pick something?"


    Felix shrugged and grabbed, not quite the cheapest thing he could find, but something that was pretty close to it. He picked out a small orb that supposedly changed colors based on the weather. He picked it specifically so he could feed it to Nova and it only cost him a few thousand E grade credits.


    Luther let him into the testing room and Felix proceeded to blast every wall in the room with a huge series of spells. He masked the diversity of his non existent spell list by pulling out various inert spell tablets every time he cast something and pretended to tinker with them in between.


    He had some small adjustments to make, specifically to the channels and shaping nodes. The targeting nodes seemed to scale well with slightly more variance than before but nothing that was currently concerning him. The shaping nodes seemed to be overwhelmed so he swapped those out, something he had initially skipped because he didn''t think it would be necessary.


    The channels largely needed to be redesigned as the new ones he used were much less simple and balanced the mana while distributing it. They could also handle far more mana than the old ones so his spells were less prone to fall apart.


    He also tested something he had thought of when Aldahn had explained cloth enchanting to him. He had no need for it at the moment and he couldn''t see himself using it for a long time, but Felix took a relatively simple spell form and contorted it in the air. He was trying to test the viability of three dimensional spell forms.


    At some point he could see himself creating spells complex enough that three dimensions actually made them either possible or just easier. For now and for a long time, he knew he would never really need to use this knowledge. It worked perfectly, as Aldahn had said it would, so Felix filed the information away in case he needed it at some point.


    With all of his spells readjusted, except his mobility spells because he decided those were sufficient for now, Felix actually did fiddle with spell tablets. He had new mobility spells memorized, he just didn''t plan on using them and did not reinscribe his boots just yet.


    On the spell tablets, Felix inscribed all his new spells then tucked the tablets away for now. He planned on giving them to Nova but he didn''t want to open his Pocket Home here.


    Felix flew over to Inscripticae and walked over to an empty desk. He pulled out a metal disc and carefully inscribed the portal spell form using Telviras'' anchor from the back of his registration. Using his new Quill Precision skill, the process was far faster than it normally would have been for Felix. He didn''t have to move his hand nearly as slowly and could instead move at a normal pace with enough precision that he didn''t make any significant mistakes.


    Felix then filled the inscribed spell with inlay material from his soul space using the vat on rails above him. Once it was filled, he fused it to the disc using the least aggressive chemical mix they had in the shop and thankfully, it didn''t destroy his low grade metal disc.


    With that complete, he cleaned up after himself then ducked into the storage room and opened his Pocket Home. He found Nova napping on the Demitium chunk that now looked like someone had repeatedly smacked it with a red hot steel rod from every different direction.


    Nova was napping right on the middle of it and Felix nudged them through his bond to wake up. He would have felt a little bad were it not for the fact that Nova was never actually napping, they were just focused internally on digestion.


    As soon as they woke, they hopped up and down around Felix clearly displaying their excitement to see him. Felix fed them the spell tablets and they were more than smart enough to know what to do with them at this point. He did not need to explain them at all like he had the first time he had given them inscribed spells.


    He also fed them the orb he had bought which they ate but were less excited about. Felix had them choose an alternate form and had to insist multiple times that they could definitely not turn into a dragon.


    They settled on a Dire Wolf like form as tall as Felix''s nose that he had never seen before. Nova seemed to be mostly made of a light grey stone covered in dark grey fur. The fur looked somewhat shiny and upon closer inspection, Felix wasn''t sure if he should be calling it fur at all. It seemed to be made of a dark metal, though not one he could identify.


    Felix approved of the form and quickly switched his body over to that of his Persona then they walked out of the Pocket Home together into the now very cramped storage room.


    He pulled out the portal spell form disc he had created and filled it with mana, much to Nova''s interest. He held them away from it until the portal was complete then walked through, followed by Nova. He reached back and grabbed the disc from the other side and the portal simply closed when it passed through.


    He found himself in a familiar room and was shortly joined by a woman with a clipboard. Felix feigned ignorance and pretended to be new to the city. He quickly rushed through the registration process but had to retry the flying test three times because he wasn''t used to the much larger and heavier body. He had to give his name and ended up just blurting out the first thing that came to mind, Arthur.


    He was also happily surprised to find his voice was much deeper in his Persona, largely due to his making this body bigger than his own. He also purposefully changed his own pronunciations and intonations slightly to try and craft a different voice from his own.


    He ended up getting a registration for Nova too, something he didn''t think was possible but was happy to get anyways. Nova also got a flying license and just barely got permission for the green flyways after Felix explained that they had to avoid the obstacles, not chew or jump on them.


    Felix flew off back to the Adventurer''s guild with Nova in tow and registered himself quickly then signed up for the job as his Persona.


    He flew off to the teleportation hub and gave them the anchor provided by the Adventurer''s Guild contract. They opened up a portal for him and he followed Nova as they stepped through. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 Chapter 190 - Book 7

    Felix only looked through the portal for a moment before he stepped through but he saw what appeared to be a large open field filled with green and blue grass. Stepping through and getting a better look, the grass was almost striped like an animal. There were large waves of deep blue grass that transitioned into a pale green and back again and, upon closer inspection, Felix wasn''t even sure it was grass at all.


    Before Felix could get a closer look though, he turned around, towards the bustling sounds around him and found a dispersed crowd gathered around a large building behind them. The building was a simple grey box with nothing more than a door. It wasn''t very big and had nothing decorating it on the outside from what Felix could see.


    Checking the time, he knew he still had to wait for a bit before the event started so he started stretching. He hadn''t used his Persona in a while and though it was controlled as seamlessly as his own body, he wasn''t quite as familiar with it. Felix started out by stretching and finding the limits of his range of motion.


    Seeing what he was doing, Nova took a big bite out of the field then rolled over and started rubbing her back in the grass while she chewed on the grass. Felix quickly realized they were eating the grass with their teeth to try and hide the fact that they were a sprite. He sent a quick sense of gratitude over their bond then went back to stretching.


    Once he felt more comfortable, Felix switched over to the first steps of the Dragon Dance. He was going to drop the skill soon but it''s steps were still the best and most structured movements he knew to test his body. Once he ran through them once, he started tuning his mobility spells.


    Though he didn''t have his armor with inscriptions in his boots, he had been practicing and found he could cast about 15 Fire Bolts if he really stretched himself, and was standing perfectly still. He considered those to be essentially the base level of spell so he was at 15 total spell levels. At some point, he would formalize his categorizations but for now, he figured it would be enough.


    The mobility spells he used were somewhere between really complicated first level spells and very simple second level spells. He could cast about 10 of them at once and, if they were all the same, he could stretch himself to 12.


    The new versions of his Fire Balls, Lightning Bolts and other main combat spells, were around a level 3 in complexity from his estimates. Just forming the spell form in the air around him, without entirely dedicating his focus to them, he managed to cast 3 of them while forming mobility spells at the same time.


    He was totally happy with that and though he could have cast another combat spell if he were in his own body with the inscribed Kraken leather armor, his health pool would also be dramatically lower. He was more than happy to make that trade considering his Persona also gave him a disguise so he wouldn''t be noticed if he crushed this event.


    He was already worried about his work with Shade''s Wrath leading to unwanted attention so he was happy to do anything he could to minimize his presence in Telviras.


    Felix found he had to tune the mobility spells a little as his Persona was a fair bit heavier than he was but, the change was minimal. In the past he had simply grown spells to make them use more mana, physically increasing the spell''s size. While this worked fine, it didn''t scale well if he ever had to make a spell a hundred times stronger.


    Reading some of the enchanting manuals in Inscripticae, he knew there was a better way. Instead of increasing the physical size of the node, he would simply construct the spell form with the correct amount of mana. Instead of pushing mana into a form, he would simply use the entirety of the spell''s mana to form the spell.


    He had essentially done this back in the tutorial when he had created the Gust spell form with liquid mana. Liquid mana took too much time to create for him to use it liberally, but he didn''t need it. It would require some testing, but for now he was hoping he wouldn''t have to scale his spells at all because he had just revamped them with nodes that were more efficient with more mana.


    A few people glanced over as Felix vaulted around the open field and tested his spells but not many. It wasn''t a terribly odd sight and looking around, Felix saw some people sparring, others sharpening their weapons, some changing equipment all amongst an equal spread of loners and conversationalists.


    Felix''s actions made it difficult for anyone to come up and talk to him, which was a huge upside in his mind, not that there was much time to do so. Felix also spotted a couple dozen other people appear through portals while he waited.


    Everyone within the field he inspected was around level 500 or below which was actually rather surprising to Felix. He wasn''t the lowest level he spotted in the field, but he was pretty close to it. He had expected some individuals to have much higher levels, just looking for an easy job. Either way, it would make it easier for him if they were competing so he wasn''t complaining.


    Just about everyone in the field was staring at the lone building so Felix joined them and looked towards it as the time approached.


    Exactly on time, a short male Frostmyre with long slicked back hair that was streaked equal parts brown and white walked out of the building before them. He had familiar dark blue Frostmyre tattoos on his arms and chest but nothing else was visible to Felix as he wore a long, navy colored sleeveless robe that was open in the front.


    [B] Orav Jaldnir (Lvl 2486)


    The short Frostmyre man walked up a few steps then spoke loud enough for everyone in the field to hear.


    "Thank you all for accepting my contract. My name is Orav Jaldnir. You may call me researcher Orav, Professor Orav or just Orav. I teach and perform research at Tularth University mainly focused on mana. My current avenues of research are on magical beasts and their anatomy."


    "For those of you that are not aware, this planet is one of just a few that have been identified with a special property. At some point in the evolutionary cycle of the fauna on this planet, mana cores and channels appeared in the genome. This mutation proliferated as the fauna evolved. Whether or not those with the mutation drove everything else to extinction or the very base form of life on this planet started with it, is unknown."


    "What is known, is that every documented creature on this planet has evolved to have some degree of mana channels or cores within their body. I intend on researching these specific mutations. A few hundred epochs ago the university purchased the research rights to this planet and we began feeding the population so they would multiply."


    "Now it is time to harvest. Fear not, this planet has had its population artificially increased over the last hundred epochs through the use of aphrodisiacs and fertility boosters in their food. That being said, please do avoid destroying too much of the environment. Avoid forest fires and the like."


    They spent a hundred epochs preparing the planet for this research?


    I guess when you live for thousands of years.


    Still. What a waste of time.


    Grim chuckled, Yeah.


    "Your job is to collect the corpses of as many creatures on this planet as you can. If you feel confident in your ability to harvest them, you may extract their cores or mana organs yourself. However, all corpses, cores, and organs are to be brought here where they will be assessed. You will gain a number of points determined by the evaluation of what you turn in."


    "You may exchange those points for credits at any time. However, as an additional incentive, the 3 individuals who achieve the most points by the end will be rewarded with additional items from my personal collection. You may review the leaderboard at any time you are within the evaluation room behind me, it will appear as a System screen, simply summon it."


    "Damaged cores, organs or corpses will result in a lower point value. Typically, higher rarity creatures will result in more points. The value of the creatures you turn in will also decrease as my research supply grows. If you all turn in the same creatures, the last of you will be sorely disappointed with how many points you are awarded."


    "This event will last for 5 days or 120 hours starting from now. That is all, you may begin. I will be in the evaluation chamber if anyone has any remaining questions."


    All around Felix, people started darting off. Most of them just ran or leapt into the distance but a couple of them flew, a few of them had vehicles and some of them pulled out items that opened portals.


    Felix flew off in the direction he had seen the least people heading, towards a large mountain range just a few kilometers away. Felix had let Nova run off on their own and was willing to sacrifice the corpses they found. He figured he would find enough himself to make a decent showing. It would also increased the danger and his own experience gained.


    The first thing he noticed as he looked around was how much worse his stats were in his Persona. He knew they would get better as he absorbed more creatures but right now, he immediately noticed the drop.


    His flying speed hadn''t actually decreased because that was all based on his spells which were largely unaffected, but his comfort level with his normal flying speed had suffered dramatically. He couldn''t see as far and his senses in general were having trouble keeping up with his usual speed. On top of that, he felt like his head was filled with cotton or like there was a fog he was fighting through.


    His intelligence shouldn''t have been affected though so he slowed himself down and examined his body. His Persona''s head was essentially empty, there was a brain connected to his body but as far as he could tell, it was being sent all the commands to control his body from his real brain.


    It didn''t take him long to realize his energy cycling wasn''t working with his persona. He quickly set up the same cycling he had with his normal body but found it wasn''t as efficient with his Persona, so his stats still suffered. His normal body was also sealed inside the ring so it wasn''t really functioning the same way so, his real brain wasn''t having energy cycled into it.


    He figured he would figure it out at some point but since his spell damage had stopped scaling with Intelligence long ago, he figured it wouldn''t affect him too much.


    He was a little surprised he hadn''t noticed all this earlier, when he had been flying through the city but he realized then, he was flying with the crowd and just following the motions. He wasn''t focusing and trying to spot anything. He also hadn''t really noticed it at the end of the tutorial when he fought but he decided that was likely because he was distracted by all the other differences his Persona body had. They were all paths he''d flown before and he was a little distracted at the time.


    Felix quickly dismissed his musings and focused on flying faster so he could find creatures to slay as soon as possible. He flew over the blue and green field and finally spotted some movement at the foot of the mountain range.


    Just a short distance up the mountain, on the gravel slope, Felix spotted what looked to be a small group of bipedal chicken-goats with large unicorn horns.


    [D - Common] Bilnar (Lvl 204)


    Felix watched them as he approached from the air and they seemed to be hunting. The Bilnar''s would sniff along the ground for a little bit then back up a couple steps, charge forwards and bury their horns into the ground. Then, they pulled their horns free and buried their snouts in the hole they had created to presumably eat whatever it was they had killed.


    Felix flew directly over them then lowered himself until he was just a short distance above them and dropped to the ground. He pulled Eretheas out of his soul space as he fell and swung it down at one of the Bilnar''s who''s snout was currently buried in the ground.


    The axe struck close enough to where Felix had intended that it managed to, with a little help from a Force spell at just the right moment, completely sever it''s head.


    Felix''s feet landed on the gravel which, in combination with the fall, caused him a small amount of damage. The other Bilnar''s, upon seeing Felix''s Persona land, scattered and ran off in every direction.


    Felix didn''t bother chasing them down or trying to hit them with spells instead, he activated his soul ring and absorbed the soul of the one he had killed. Then, he reached down and stowed it''s body and head in his soul space.


    Ding You have slain a [D - Common] Bilnar (Lvl 204)


    He didn''t see anything nearby so he had Grim keep watch while he quickly examined the Bilnar''s body.


    As Orav had suggested all creatures on this planet had, the Bilnar''s had small mana cores they kept in their forehead that seemed to be connected to their horn. The horn itself was some kind of natural spell node that produced Force, from what Felix could tell. He pushed mana through it manually and found the mana''s attunement shifted as it passed through the horn.


    It was a good find but not particularly useful to him so he dropped the body out of his soul space and absorbed it into the blood ring. He kept the head in his soul space so he could hand it in for points later on.


    Felix flew along the foot of the mountain and dropped on top of a few more Bilnars as he found them but after killing 20 of them, he realized they were too widely spread to be efficient. He also didn''t overly care about their horns as he had no intention of integrating their horns into either of his bodies.


    Ding You have slain 19 [D - Common] Bilnar (Lvl 201-213)


    Instead, he switched course and continued ascending the mountain until he came across a group of large, rather aggressive bird like creatures. They had large arced wings and strong legs along with a long feathered tail that they swung back and forth as they flew to switch directions. They were also large enough for Felix''s Persona to have ridden them, or for them to be able to eat him in a few large bites.


    [D - Common] Alcalu (Lvl 231)


    As soon as Felix was within a short distance of them, they spotted and swarmed him. At first they just circled, but then they started to dive down to try and spear him with their beaks. As they circled and dove, Felix noticed the wind getting stronger as well, never to the point of being detrimental to the fight, but strong enough that he felt it on his Persona''s skin. Felix dodged the first few dives before he started to actually fight back.


    It would have been impossible for his shades to stay in range of them as they flew around so Felix decided to add some spells to his Persona''s fighting style. Felix waited for one to dive low then swung Eretheas down from over his right shoulder, the blade trailing a stream of fire behind it.


    He had timed the strike well but not well enough to be deadly so the blade scraped along it''s stomach but the fire scorched it''s entire underside. It tried to fly back up into the air but ended up crashing into the stone of the mountain just a hundred meters behind Felix.


    Before he could go and finish it off, the swarm above him shrieked and attacked, this time all at once.


    Suddenly, there were 11 mount sized birds all diving down at him from every different side, just slightly staggered to get in each-other''s way. Felix waited for the first one to be just a few meters away then unleashed the spell he had been preparing as he spun himself and the axe around.


    The axe trailed liquid fire behind him and with the help of just a little force, the fire spread out into a large circular wall of fire around him. The fire nor the axe could stop all of them though so Felix also cast a series of Mana Shields around himself, just to be safe.


    He couldn''t really see anything that happened other than the handful of large birds that smacked into his Mana Shields and collapsed.


    As the Alcalu bodies piled around him, Felix became sort of trapped and couldn''t really move so he waited for the wall of fire he had created to die down then looked around him.


    He had managed to kill about half of them, the ones that he had hit with the axe directly. The rest were singed and trying to hop away as their wings seemed to have suffered the most. Looking around, for some reason their wings were the most charred.


    Felix pounced on the nearest one that was trying to run and struck it with Eretheas, no spells necessary. He repeated the process, leaping into the air and bringing the axe down on all of the remaining creatures until they were all dead.


    Ding You have slain 11 [D - Common] Alcalu (Lvl 228-236)


    Ding You have gained a level in [D -Legendary] Reaper (221 => 222)


    He picked up the corpse that was the least damaged and stuck it in his soul space. He had to fight the urge to eat them as he salivated from the thought of cooked bird meat all around him. He had no idea what was going on with that, he hadn''t felt actual hunger in forever but he would deal with it later.


    First, he activated his soul ring to absorb all the souls around him then he examined the Alcalu''s body and found, once again, a small mana core located right between it''s shoulder blades. The core seemed to supply the bones in their wings with mana which gradually attuned it to wind and force mana, likely to help with their flying.


    He didn''t spot mana cores, channels or anything like that anywhere else though so Felix was free to eat.


    Running over to the other bodies, Felix essentially hacked them up with Eretheas, being careful to preserve the wings and mana core. Even still, he ended up with a lot of meat, though a lot of it he had to eat off the bone. He made sure it was thoroughly cooked and devoured three whole birds before he felt comfortable enough to figure out what the hell was happening.


    He sat down and felt at this mana and energy core then followed its connection to his body and immediately realized what was wrong. He quickly fixed the issue by connecting his Persona''s body directly to his mana and energy cores as well then observed as his body was flooded with energy and mana.


    Unfortunately, it seemed as though his Persona''s cells didn''t turn mana into energy as quickly as his own body did, though he had no idea why. In fact, it was so slow that he would essentially be forced to eat fairly often.


    It was an annoying set back that he hoped he could figure out soon but at the moment, he simply carved up the other birds and stored their cooked meat in his soul space. He harvested the remainder of the bodies with his blood ring and, having left one completely in tact, he found that he was losing out on a small chunk of stats by eating their breasts and legs.


    He stored their wings and back, containing their cores, and continued his way up the mountain. Instead of flying, Felix spent some time adjusting Mihto''s teachings about activating the right muscles and orienting his joints properly as he ran and leapt up the mountain. They were completely applicable but the motions were slightly different in his Persona''s body.


    He spotted a few more Alcalus but they were too far off for them to see him or him to bother chasing them. He only found a single other group of Alcalus that were close enough to fight. It only took him a few minutes this time to kill and pile up their corpses so he could chop them up.


    Once he had killed them all, Felix reached out to grab the first corpse to harvest it but as his hand lowered towards it, the entire pile vanished. His head shot up to look around and he barely spotted a blur disappearing behind a large boulder.


    [D] Merric (Lvl 382)


    Did that fucker just¡­


    Grim shared in Felix''s frustration, Damn.


    Felix audibly sighed, I guess I should have expected someone to do something like that. Just have to be more careful in the future.


    Felix made his way to the top of the mountain range without running into anything else of note and looked beyond it into a series of mountains and expansive valleys. Some had small streams within them which he hoped meant there would be creatures around.


    He chose the nearest body of water and leapt down the mountain side towards it.


    The stream within the valley was surrounded by a field of light blue grass and vibrant scattered wild flowers. There weren''t any trees he could see but the grass itself was easily tall enough for something to be hiding within.


    He hopped down towards it but caught himself before passing through the grass and instead flew over it. He flew along the edge of the stream at first and was about to veer further away from it when he heard a splashing sound that caused him to turn his head.


    He watched the water carefully and after a couple minutes, he spotted a purple and black striped maw splash out of the water for just a moment.


    Felix dropped himself to the marshy edge of the water and peered down into it. The creature was impossible for him to spot until he shined a Light spell into the water.


    It looked like a chunky salamander to Felix though it was hard to see even with the light as it''s body melded with the muck and algae on the bottom of the slow moving stream.


    [D - Rare] Vatorum (Lvl 259)


    Felix avoided the water but had other means of killing the creature. He summoned one shade below the water in front of it and one behind it. It took a few minutes but he finally managed to kill and dredge it''s corpse out of the stream. He looked around constantly but there was no sign of Merric anywhere. He quickly absorbed it''s soul into his soul ring then turned his attention to the corpse itself. He made sure to keep a hand on it at all times just in case.


    Ding You have slain a [D - Rare] Vatorum (Lvl 259)


    Ding You have gained a level in [D -Legendary] Reaper (222 => 224)


    It''s body was so big that it was hard and slow to move into his soul space, he had tried but it just felt like he was stretching himself too far. Instead, he examined it manually by running mana through it and seeing what happened. He found the core and node in it''s head and throat respectively. The node seemed to produce some kind of sound though it wasn''t audible to Felix with the amount of mana he sent through it.


    Felix messily extracted the core and node then absorbed the rest of it''s body into his blood ring. He looked around some more but didn''t spot any others so he moved on. He really wanted to find some creatures that were more tightly packed, ideally in a herd. Those would be the most efficient for collecting points.


    Not that that was his main reason for being here anyways, he was here to find usable mana cores and channels. The points were a side benefit but still, it was a competition and Felix had no intention of not at least trying.


    He ventured away from the stream and further into the plains as he ran through some simple designs for more spells he could use in his Persona.


    Felix was using his Persona as a disguise and he wanted it to seem like a completely different person. That meant they would have to have their own class, profession and so on. He didn''t have a separate class for his Persona but, his spell casting was completely unhindered. What he could do was to create, or more accurately simulate, his own class.


    He planned on figuring out a series of 15 skills that he could simulate with spells in his Persona. That way, if someone was paying really close attention, it wouldn''t be too obvious that his Persona wasn''t a real person.


    He had a number of ideas for spells he could use and as he flew over the field, he practiced and tuned the spell forms without actually casting them. The general idea was that his Persona would revolve around Eretheas. That way it might confuse people whether or not his fighting style came from the axe''s abilities or his own skills.


    He also wanted to avoid using spells that were too similar to his own spells, which is why he wasn''t using his new Mage Armor just yet.


    Flying over the field, Felix followed the valley that wove through a few mountains before opening up into a much larger plain. The grass was evidently shorter as Felix spotted a large herd of grazing animals.


    He wasn''t sure if they were bulls, bison, sheep or horses from a distance. As he approached though, he realized why he had been confused. Their bodies looked like muscular horses but their heads were more like a Bison''s. Adding to all the confusion, their horns were thick and curled around the sides of their heads coming to points in front of them.


    [D - Uncommon] Hirdaffa (Lvl 271)


    As Felix approached from the air, he got another feeling, similar to the one he had had in the cave with the Scav coin. This time, it was like a feeling of past pain. It felt like he had experienced incredible pain in his past and something was dredging it up, except he didn''t remember experiencing anything like this.


    He focused on it but it was so faint, he couldn''t tell where it was coming from at all. All he managed to figure out was that he was pretty sure it wasn''t his own memory of pain that he was feeling. It was more like a constant whisper carried by the wind, a faint symphony of pained cries. Felix trivially brushed aside the feeling because of how faint it was as he flew over the grazing herd.


    Felix once again dropped down from the sky into a group of them and this time, he tested out a new spell he had been screwing around with while flying.


    Felix''s massive Persona body landed just as he swung Eretheas down over his head and into the ground. Though he didn''t strike anything directly, he used the axe to drag down a spell that ionized the air along it''s arc. Smashing the axe down, the air in a large radius was ionized around it. Felix used a mana shield dome to keep himself safe then finally, he cast an overloaded spark that instantly spread out in every direction.


    Some of the Hirdaffas directly around him were hit by the sparks but none of them died. They bleated and started running away, luckily as a herd instead of scattering. Unfortunately, it didn''t seem like Felix had done much actual damage.


    He scrapped that spell for now, sending it back to the drawing board, and switched over to a different spell he had wanted to try.


    Felix shot himself forwards until he was in range of the herd then rapidly swung his axe through the air in the herd''s direction. His swing, along with the Force spell he had attached to the axe, caused a barrage of what looked like air blades to race towards the herd.


    The blades themselves were difficult to see but their effects were not. It was as though gashes had spontaneously opened up on random Hirdaffas within the herd. Blood trailed behind them as the injured bleated and slowed, falling away from the pack.


    Once isolated, the injured Hirdaffas finally showed off their mana organs. One of the injured who''s back leg was bleeding turned towards Felix then lit itself on fire. It charged at him creating a large trail of fire behind it.


    Felix jumped out of the way rather easily because of their initial distance but was immediately gashed along his stomach by the charge of a different Hirdaffa with a gash on it''s side. That one had charged so quickly, he barely had enough time to try and dodge it. It was not however, on fire at all.


    The last of the injured Hirdaffas charged at Felix after it''s eyes started glowing and it''s horns sparking. This one was just as slow as the first one had been but it started from much closer so Felix actually jumped up to avoid it.


    He forced himself back to the ground with a simple Force spell then leapt towards the Lightning Hirdaffa because it was the closest.


    This time, he struck down with Eretheas and buried the blade into the Hirdaffa''s shoulder at the same time as he cast a Lightning spell from as high up as he could. The Lightning Bolt only came down from a few meters in the air, but it still looked like he had called down a Lightning Bolt from the clouds above onto the Hirdaffa.


    It''s body stiffened before it crumpled to it''s side and skidded across the grass. Felix quickly hopped over and stowed the corpse before turning to leap at the Fire Hirdaffa. Before his feet left the ground though, he immediately changed course to avoid the rest of the herd that had apparently looped back around.


    The flaming and speedy Hirdaffas rejoined the herd and Felix flew over to collect the first body before it could be trampled.


    It took Felix about an hour to completely cull the herd, mostly because they each seemed to have different abilities. Some even combined two or more abilities but often they were significantly weaker than their single ability counterparts.


    Ding You have slain 62 [D - Uncommon] Hirdaffa (Lvl 268-281)


    Ding You have gained 31 levels in [D -Legendary] Reaper (224 => 255)


    They displayed the full range too, some created tremors in the earth, others lit themselves up to the point that they could blind anything looking at them. Though the effects varied wildly across the herd, examining their bodies, he found a lot of common organs.


    They all had mana cores around their sternums and common channels throughout their bodies. The differences lay in which channels and organs were active. As Felix tore through the various corpses, he found multiple organs in each body that were simply dead or disabled somehow.


    If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.


    He had no idea if they would be worth any points but he stored as many as he could. To make it easier on himself, he simply dragged the corpses into his Pocket Home which he opened on the side of a tree. Unfortunately, that meant he couldn''t absorb the bodies just yet. He did make sure to absorb their souls though.


    After culling the entirety of the first herd and safely storing their bodies, Felix flew out over the field to try and find another. It didn''t take him long to find the next herd or the one after that. The next 5 herds were a little harder to come by but he was still more than happy with his overall killing efficiency.


    He had his kill and level notifications disabled until he was done hunting down the herds and got a summary notification at the end.


    Ding You have slain 847 [D - Uncommon] Hirdaffa (Lvl 268-281)


    Ding You have gained 31 levels in [D -Legendary] Reaper (255 => 278)


    He stopped gaining levels around the fifth herd he had culled and he suspected it had something to do with the fact that he had exceeded their levels.


    He had ended up killing off 16 herds in total so he had just over 900 corpses piled in his Pocket Home to hand in. The last few had been so far apart and took so long for him to find that he decided he would head back and hand in what he had already.


    When he arrived back at the lonely building he had arrived in front of a few hours later, he had to wait in line behind two others before he could hand in his own haul. Luckily, it didn''t take long at all and Felix was surprised with how efficient they were.


    He didn''t get to see the evaluation himself but he did see the two in front of him step into the building then back out just a few minutes later. Considering how many beasts he had slain, he was expecting the evaluations to take much longer.


    When it was his turn, Felix stepped forwards and into the grey block of a building which unsurprisingly, was much bigger on the inside than it appeared to be on the outside.


    Inside, the building housed essentially a warehouse. There were an array of tables in front of Felix and behind those, the vast majority of the building was filled with mostly empty shelves. Some of the shelves held metal crates but they weren''t many.


    Felix approached the desk directly before him where Orav was standing and placed the corpses he had stored in his soul space on to the desk. As soon as he placed one down, Orav handed it off to someone else who took the Bilnar head over to an adjacent desk to examine. Felix made sure to keep a corpse or two from each species for himself just so he had something to reference in the future.


    Once Felix had gone through everything he wanted to in his soul space, he walked over to a nearby wall and touched his Pocket Home to it then walked in and started hauling out corpses. He felt a lot more comfortable showing it off now that he had seen multiple people on this job use items to open portals. He also now knew that spatial storage items were common and he was in his Persona''s body. If someone hunted him down for the item, they would be looking for someone that essentially didn''t exist.


    After the first two corpses, Orav walked up to Felix''s portal, looked inside then turned to Felix.


    "Would it be alright if I had some of my assistants walk in to accelerate the process of retrieving the corpses?"


    Felix shrugged then gruffly gave his assent with a grunt and a nod. For now, that was how he decided to play off his Persona''s personality.


    Orav nodded then waved a dozen assistants over who each walked in and retrieved corpses in an orderly fashion. With them retrieving the corpses, it only took a minute for his Pocket Home to be empty at which point he deactivated the entrance.


    The last assistant, before carrying the corpse back over to his desk, whispered something in Orav''s ear causing him to simply nod.


    Orav turned to Felix while the assistants examined the corpses, "Pardon, my assistant couldn''t help but notice the rather large Demitium chunk you have stored in your portable home. Is there any chance you would be willing to part with it? I can pay slightly over the fair market rate?"


    Felix shook his head, "It''s not mine to sell."


    Orav nodded, "I understand. It''s just become so rare lately that getting your hands on it has become¡­ troublesome. Any chance there''s more where you got yours?"


    Felix shook his head again, "One time System reward."


    The short Frostmyre man nodded, "Ah, that makes a good deal of sense."


    Orav seemed to completely accept that explanation but Felix kept it in the back of his mind that Orav had showed interest, just in case.


    Orav walked Felix back over to the middle desk and assured him it would take just a few minutes.


    While he waited, Felix pulled up the leaderboard and quickly scrolled through. It seemed to him as though only about three quarters of the participants had any points meaning the rest hadn''t handed anything in yet.


    In first place, he saw a familiar name, Merric. He held a massive lead of almost 8 times over the person in second place. They had a whopping 10.7 million points already and other than Merric, the points seemed to almost linearly decrease down to 0 where just under a quarter of the participants apparently hadn''t handed anything in yet.


    Fucking thief.


    As promised, it only took Orav''s assistants a couple minutes to fully evaluate Felix''s haul. He checked the leaderboard again and frowned when he had to scroll all the way down to 106th place to find his Persona''s name, Arthur. He had gotten a grand total of 364,333 points.


    Considering just how many he had brought in, he had been expecting to be somewhere in the top 10% at least. He had no idea how all these people were killing more efficiently than he had considering he could fly quickly and had nearly endless stamina.


    He asked Orav for a full breakdown which he provided along with some advice, "Try to avoid fire or lightning. Fire tends to destroy corpses, lightning tends to destroy mana channels. Cuts only decrease the grade a minimal amount because we can still follow the channels. Large scale destruction like this decreases it much more."


    Despite Orav''s advice, the vast majority of Felix''s points had come from the Hirdaffas both due to their quantity but also the relatively good condition their corpses were in. Felix nodded to Orav then walked out of the evaluation building.


    Walking back out of the evaluation building, Felix saw a half dozen people waiting to enter. Only one was in line though, the other five were standing in a small group and seemed to be handing corpses to one individual. Felix watched them for almost a minute at which point the individual walked over to stand in line.


    Son of a bitch. They''re pooling their points to try and get the special rewards.


    Grim chuckled in Felix''s mind, I mean, you can''t fault them. sea??h th§× n?velFire.net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    I guess not. Maybe that''s why almost a quarter of the participants haven''t handed anything in yet. How many participants are doing this?


    I wouldn''t be too worried. If they feel the need to do that, they probably aren''t very confident in their individual ability to compete anyways.


    Yeah I guess. There''s also Merric who''s just stealing corpses. Feels kind of gross that they''re in the lead right now.


    It is what it is.


    Yeah, we''ll see what happens as things even out over time. In the meantime, I need to find somewhere with more things I can kill. Ideally with high rarity, high density creatures.


    Felix looked in the direction he had just come back from and decided he would continue searching there. He had initially chosen that direction because the least people were heading there so he hoped that meant it would still be the least contested hunting ground.


    He flew back over the mountain range and the now much emptier fields and continued onwards. The fields stretched out a bit further to each side but it didn''t take long for him to spot a different biome creeping up over the horizon.


    In the distance he first saw ripples of heat in the air followed by a small cliff. That cliff fell just a few meters where there was a massive sea of dark orange sand. Floating atop the sandy dunes, Felix spotted specs of green that he realized, as he approached, were some kind of massive lily pads.


    Once he was close enough to identify the plants, he also realized the dunes within the sea of sand before him actually moved. Rather than the signature unmoving dunes that he had come to expect from a desert, the dunes in this desert shifted and moved as if very slow waves on an ocean.


    Felix floated over to just a half kilometer away and noted that the tide was calm at the moment, though he had no idea if that was always the case or not.


    He quickly prepared some spells to keep himself cool then flew out to the first lily pad and tested it out by poking it with spells and corpses until he was certain it wouldn''t try to eat him.


    Felix carefully landed on top of the large green plant and looked out into the distance. Behind him, he saw the green and blue field he had flown over with mountains peaking just over the horizon to the left and right. In front of him lay an endless sea of dark orange sand and green lily pads.


    Felix kneeled down at the edge of the lily pad, which was surprisingly stable no matter where he stepped, and ran his fingers through the sand.


    It was hot as hell but otherwise, felt exactly like sand except for the fact that it was a little too easy for him to run his hand through it. Instead of desert sand, it felt more like a viscous liquid. Felix flew up and over the sand in the hopes that he would find a jungle or other fauna rich biome.


    As he flew over the desert though, something glinting in the sand caught his eye. Felix quickly dropped to just above the sand so he could get a better look and found what seemed to be a small chunk of some kind of scaled creature. He couldn''t really figure out anything else about it because the piece was so small but the fact that it existed at all was curious.


    He decided to spend a little while investigating the desert because the scales meant it was less fauna empty than he had thought it was. At first he used Force spells to dig large cavities in the sand but he found nothing. He had been expecting to at least uncover some sand fish of some kind but there was simply nothing.


    He flew back into the air and continued flying over the desert. After another half hour of flying, he spotted another glint, this one was half of a head and looked to be some kind of weird fish. It was mangled so it was hard to tell what it was but there was one specific feature that had Felix very curious.


    On the mangled head, there was an eye. His assumption had been that these were sand fish but if they were, they wouldn''t use eyes at all. He confirmed to the best of his knowledge that the eye actually did process light and not vibrations by examining it''s structure. Felix found a lily pad nearby so he could land then looked down at the ever shifting desert.


    I guess there''s¡­ water? Beneath¡­? the sand¡­


    Before he started experimenting with diving in, Felix improved upon a different spell he had used a while back. If he wanted to try and explore the sand sea, he needed a way to breathe, even if he could hold his breath for over an hour at least. His solution for that in the past was to use a sphere of solid mana containing air to create a tank. Now, Felix had enough nodes that he could exclude his neck from a spell meaning, he could create a literal bubble of air using wind and force nodes.


    He used force nodes to isolate the bubble and keep the sand out and the wind nodes to actually create and replenish the air. He had been pretty sure before that there was something off about the wind node he had found in the tutorial. Comparing it to other nodes in the reference books Aldahn had leant him, it resembled a force node more than any of the air nodes.


    The air nodes in the reference text were some of the most complex nodes Felix had ever seen, and for a good reason. They seemed to actually be creating air from mana. There were hundreds of nodes for different gases, air compositions and densities along with different efficiencies for each.


    There was no math in the reference books themselves, but Felix was able to examine the nodes using his Identify Arcane Component skill. With some slight modifications to some other nodes he used for measurement, Felix could fill a sphere of solid mana with air and measure it''s change in weight.


    Ding You have become more proficient with the Profession skill: [Arcane] Identify Arcane Component (Initiate IV => Initiate V)


    Once he had manually calculated and measured it once, the skill now listed the output rate for all the other nodes he identified that produced matter. It was costly to produce enough air for him to breath, almost 15,000 mana per breath. On the other hand, he didn''t need to breath very often so he was pretty sure he could sustain the mana cost, at least for a while.


    He tested the spell by attaching it to his hand and submerging that into the sand to be sure it wouldn''t collapse or leak then designed some backup spells. If he got hit or distracted, Felix wanted to be able to erect a new bubble in an instant. He used a different air node that produced air much faster but less efficiently so he could instantly fill the bubble in that situation.


    After some thorough testing that involved submerging his head for extended periods of time, collapsing and reconstructing the bubble as well as sending it as deep as he could, Felix felt comfortable with his spell. He still had no way to see but he was hoping his ability to fly along with gravity would be enough for him to orient himself and escape if necessary. He also planned on going straight down and so long as he traveled along the stem of the lily pad he would have a safe path to return to the surface.


    With all his preparations complete, Felix sat on the edge of the lily pad with this feet in the sand and rose to a standing position. He fell into the sand faster than he had expected but still much slower than with water. It took him a few seconds to be completely submerged under the effects of gravity alone.


    He was pretty sure the sand should have been denser than he was and act more like a solid but for whatever reason, that wasn''t the case.


    Before he fell too far below the surface, Felix held himself just below the lily pad then ran his hand along it as he drifted over to it''s stem. Once he found it, he latched onto the thick green appendage and propelled himself downwards.


    He was worried he might encounter some kind of sand fish or worm that would be able to see him without him seeing them but he was confident he would be able to protect himself or escape either way.


    He did spend the time while he descended thinking about alternate ways of seeing so in situations like exactly this one, he wasn''t completely blind. He didn''t manage to come up with anything promising in the few seconds it took him to break through the bottom though.


    Felix had no idea what to expect but falling out of the sand and through the air was not it. He was still holding onto the stem of the lily pad so he latched onto it before he could actually fall any significant distance.


    Instead of water, the air was filled with some kind of thick pink gas. Looking down, Felix saw a vast ecosystem that looked a little bit like it belonged underwater.


    There were creatures that looked like fish except they were wide and flat with their side fins shaped like wings. They flew through the gas everywhere and reflected the light that emanated from each of the lily pad stems scattered throughout the area.


    The bottom was over a kilometer below him but as far as Felix could see in any direction, it was covered in a massive twisting coral reef that was covered in odd looking vegetation. There were also creatures of all kinds wandering the reef, many of which seemed to ignore gravity completely as they scurried along the side or bottom of a coral branch.


    It was a multicolored maze covered in a constant pink tinge and filled to the brim with life of all kinds. Felix couldn''t help but be reminded of a series of young girls toys or a princess movie with the pink tinge and fantastical colors.


    Looking around and identifying various creatures, Felix didn''t spot anything particularly threatening to him so he tentatively let go of the stem. He was ready to slow his fall immediately but found he didn''t have to at all. His buoyancy within the gas was enough that a fall wasn''t really a threat to him at all.


    As Felix fell to the ground, he saw off in the distance a large four legged creature with joints that were revered from what he expected, walk over to a specific spot and press itself into the coral. Every step it had taken caused a massive rumble that Felix had easily heard, despite the slight distortion caused by the sound passing through his air bubble. Due to it''s apparent massive weight, Felix hadn''t expected it to then launch itself off the ground and snatch one of the shiny flying fish in it''s maw.


    It managed to get the whole fish into it''s mouth but it''s chewing was messy and it actually lost two small pieces of the fish that floated up and away. Other flying creatures swooped in and caught those pieces before they reached the sand above though.


    Felix landed on a large twisting branch of coral and was immediately spotted by a wide array of creatures. Most of them scurried off but a few of them stuck around. Only one of them attacked him though while the others just watched.


    Felix dove to the side of a gout of flame that suddenly appeared before him. He landed and turned, seeing a hard carapace and a hundred crab like legs winding around the coral.


    [D - Rare] Ignaribus (Lvl 262)


    The flames themselves weren''t hard to avoid but the centipede like creature had already scurried through another hole in the coral before Felix had a chance to hit back.


    He waited for a little bit but saw no sign of it returning so he decided to move on. Felix hopped down the coral so he could reach a flat area instead of standing on the side of a twisting column.


    Felix jumped but completely forgot that his buoyancy made gravity feel weaker so he ended up jumping much farther than he had intended. As he glided through the thick pink mist around him, one of the four legged creatures that he had seen jump earlier lumbered it''s way below him.


    [D - Rare] Yaboleg (Lvl 291)


    Ah shit.


    Felix prepared a couple of Force spells to move himself along with one to swing the axe. He also prepared a Lightning Bolt that he attached to the axe head.


    The Yaboleg found a suitable spot on the coral just in front of Felix''s arc and lowered itself to the ground for just a moment before it launched itself through the air.


    Felix waited until it was in range then activated all of the spells he had prepared at once.


    The creature''s toothy maw stretched wide to accommodate Felix''s large Persona body but only got a meter away from it''s prey. Felix''s body stopped moving forwards and shot downwards as the axe swung down into the mouth and trailed little arcs of lightning all around the blade through the air.


    The Yaboleg was faster than Felix had expected and managed to snap it''s jaws around Felix''s shin before his axe came down onto it. It''s jaws immediately ripped through his flesh but was stopped by his bones. His axe swing spun his body around but only barely grazed the creature.


    Felix and the Yaboleg flipped and started spinning from the momentum of his swing as they fell through the air. The Lightning arced through the creature but that just caused it''s muscles to seize.


    Felix could feel blood pouring out of his leg and drenching the creature but he had already dulled the pain instinctively so it wouldn''t distract him. He found his sense of pain wasn''t quite as dulled as it was in his actual body, but it was enough for him to stay focused.


    They fell through the air as Felix prepared a few Force spells to orient them. He channeled and adjusted the mana in each to make it so the Yaboleg was under him then smashed them into the ground with another spell.


    The Yaboleg kicked and squirmed to try and reorient itself on top but it''s limbs found no purchase. It never released or even lightened the force of it''s bite though.


    They slammed into the ground and Felix felt his legs reverberate right before he tumbled to the ground with the creature as he had no way to find stability as he landed.


    Now that they were wrestling with each-other on the ground, it was much easier for Felix to tell that the creature was only a little bigger than his Persona''s body. It looked had a flat mouth that was clamped down on his leg along with a big tail. Between those two was just a small hard body.


    If it weren''t for the four massive legs that reached outwards like a spider''s, it''s body would be a quarter of Felix''s size at best.


    Felix summoned a shade behind the creature as they tumbled and swung as quickly as he could. They both rolled meaning so did the shade so the strike missed anything vital but the blade still sunk into it''s back leg.


    As Felix rolled back over, he saw his health plummeting and also saw the fish that flew above them circling overhead.


    Those fish like creatures had only really flown by themselves, as far as Felix had seen. Scattered and traveling for long periods in specific directions. Now, Felix watched them swarm together like a school of fish as they surrounded a cloud of red that slowly permeated the pink gas above.


    Felix realized he only had as long as it took the fish to follow his blood trail. He turned his attention to the Yaboleg and reached forwards with his left hand. He placed it into it''s mouth then prepared a new and improved Flamethrower.


    He already knew the pink gas wasn''t flammable as he was almost hit by a gout of flame earlier, so he was confident he wasn''t about to kill himself. He knew it would more than likely cook the end of his leg but that was a sacrifice he was willing to make considering the Blood Ring''s healing capabilities.


    He pointed the spell as far away from his own leg as he could while still keeping it in its gullet then pumped mana into it.


    He immediately felt his skin charring despite his dulled pain but luckily, the Yaboleg seemed to be faring much worse. The flames, rather than being pushed back out of it''s mouth as Felix had expected, actually vented out along the sides of it''s body. It seemed to have had some kind of gills or similar organ that were slowly shriveling as it''s body blackened around them.


    Ding You have slain a [D - Rare] Yaboleg (Lvl 291)


    Felix kept pouring the heat in until he saw the notification he had been waiting for then wrenched it''s jaw open. Its jaw surprisingly provided far more resistance than he had expected from a corpse and even forced him to use a Force spell.


    He quickly activated both his rings instead of keeping the corpse because it helped him partially restore his leg and there was a chance he could integrate parts of it''s body.


    Felix looked up and saw the swarm of flying fish spiraling downwards as they tracked his faint blood trail. He didn''t feel like he was in the best condition to fight them at the moment so he ignored them and leapt further into the coral reef with one leg.


    His other leg was charred to the point where it stopped bleeding then the internals were mostly restored by his use of the blood ring. The skin was still charred and mostly black but it was holding on, somehow.


    Felix caught himself at the top of his arc with Force spells and started flying so he didn''t have to land on his leg. His only goal at the moment was to make distance and he avoided flying too high so the Yabolegs didn''t jump at him.


    He had thought about killing and collecting the corpses of the flying fish swarm but he wasn''t sure how to do so while preserving their corpses and didn''t know how strong they were. He also now knew exactly how to attract another swarm, with a big pool of blood, so he simply decided to prepare himself so he could collect them in the future.


    Once his leg was fully restored, he would start experimenting on the fish until he could attract and capture entire swarms efficiently.


    Felix had instinctively continued heading in the same direction, away from the evaluation building. The further he flew though, the more the weird instinctual feeling of pain he had felt back in the field, grew. The same sensation he had felt earlier, it was ever present as he traveled but it was so faint he had easily ignored and even forgotten about it.


    Suddenly though, it had started to grow. The feeling went from the faintest of whispers on the wind to audible but distant screams. The feeling also grew more nuanced as Felix felt something along the lines of a migraine. He wasn''t experiencing it himself, but he could feel the experience of it saturating the anima.


    Felix continued to push the sensation away even though he was now able to tell that he was moving towards it. He couldn''t pinpoint even its exact direction but he could sort of tell that forwards would lead him closer. He didn''t want to go investigate it just yet because he still hadn''t fully explored the pink gaseous sea though. He figured he should be able to find a number of creatures he could dissect and integrate into his own body here as well as collect plenty of points for the competition.


    What he really needed was to sit down and manually work at his body, though he wasn''t sure how that would work on his Persona. The blood ring could restore him but, he had to absorb more bodies for it to do so, he had already expended its meager reserves.


    Once he deemed himself far enough from the commotion he had just been a part of, Felix started looking for a place to rest. There was no cover in the pink sea above him and he had no intention of resting in the middle of the desert so, he looked downwards, into the expanse of winding coral.


    It wasn''t hard for him to find a small alcove in the coral that was just too small to be a cave but still large enough for him to sit within. He covered the entrance in a sustained mana shield that had been upgraded from his new knowledge of enchantment nodes.


    He made it so that the spell would never pull on his mana hard enough to injure him through the use of limiters and buffers. With the only exit covered, Felix sat down and closed his eyes. While he was certain some creatures down here would burrow through the coral, he didn''t worry about it because there wasn''t much he could do except react. He had Grim focusing his senses outwards just in case.


    Felix''s consciousness flowed through his body but he found that the bodily control granted by his race, didn''t seem to extend to his Persona. He could use the blood ring to modify and control the body when it was within the ring itself but otherwise, he was severely limited.


    He couldn''t even assess the damage to his body from an internal perspective so he was stuck with the vague number that represented his health.


    Before he went out and killed something just to restore the meager health he had lost and potentially cause a commotion, Felix had work to do.


    He adjusted the Mana Shield spell he had created to make it opaque then deactivated his Persona. Back in his real body, he shifted his consciousness into the soul ring and started manually sifting through the soul matter he had absorbed.


    Felix had already deactivated the automatic harvesting earlier so he got a chance to look through them himself. He had no real adjustments to make to the harvesting process just yet, but he was looking for something new.


    His new soul layer had already been started, the one that he planned on suffusing his body with, but now he had more than enough soul matter to grow it substantially. He harvested what he could from the souls and added them to his own so he gained raw stats but made sure to preserve all the excess.


    He took the excess and wiped it clean of experiences, intent and anything else leftover from their previous hosts then compressed them in pieces. Each and every piece he carefully fused to and incorporated into the third layer of his Persona''s soul.


    As he fashioned the third layer, Felix spent a little while observing the second layer he was building over and realized it wasn''t exactly acting as he had intended it. Instead of just being a protective film over his own soul, it was actually contributing in large part to controlling his Persona''s body. It acted like a second layer did for a normal being with a normal soul.


    He realized he wasn''t sure it made much sense that the bodies didn''t share a second layer. If they did, his harvesting would be twice as efficient, theoretically.


    Couldn''t I have the souls share my soul''s second layer?


    You could, but it would defeat the purpose of having a Persona at all. You would appear, from every soul detection method, like the exact same person.


    I thought the core soul was¡­ the person?


    Yeah but like I said, no one can really interfere with a living being''s core soul.


    You can''t even read it?


    Not really.


    So if someone used highly trained soul senses on my Persona, they would see this second layer and that''s it?


    Yes.


    Huh¡­ In that case, I should probably expand his layer manually.


    I''ll be honest I''m not that well versed in souls but, if I had to guess, you''re probably leaving a lot of stats on the table right now by not doing so.


    Well shit.


    I didn''t realize it until you just mentioned it either.


    Felix didn''t have enough soul matter at the moment to correct his mistake, even if he compressed all the ambient anima he could along with his soul''s third layer, he would only negligibly increase its size. He was quickly realizing that was the real advantage to harvesting souls, not stealing stats, but the fact that living creatures were by far the densest packing of anima anywhere.


    The third layer he had been working on still wasn''t complete, it was only about half the size he needed it to be to completely suffuse his Persona''s body, but he had made a lot of progress.


    After that, he adjusted his Persona''s body and modified it. He minimized the cells of the world bosses because he was quickly realizing they weren''t efficient at all. He had only included a small portion of them in the body for testing purposes but they resulted in massive energy costs with little benefit.


    The world boss'' bodies were massive so the cells were able to work together but at the same time, they were all E grade except for the Kraken. The Kraken seemed to have just been so massive, that it relied on it''s size over everything else. He also only really had the heart and samples of it''s treated skin so he couldn''t do much with its cells.


    The creatures that were rare or above had cells that were far more useful to Felix than the World Bosses had. They were more tuned to his size and efficiency requirements.


    The one thing he kept was modifications to his bones that he had made by morphing the bone cells of some of the world bosses. The rest, he left to sit in small stores within the blood ring. If he ever needed them in future they would be there, but for now they simply sat.


    He was then able to manually break down some excess cells to restore his Persona''s leg though it was a patch job at best. He still needed to hunt something down and absorb them to fully restore it.


    Next, he started dissecting and examining the body of the Yaboleg. He quickly found it''s core located between it''s jaw and underbelly. Felix found it rather entertaining that the blood ring seemed to be confused by the mana core and instead of breaking it down into a ball like it did with other bodies, it simply floated through the space.


    Felix grabbed the mana core and examined it but found that it was essentially just a ball of gaseous mana held together within some kind of organ.


    He traced the organ''s connections into it''s legs and found that most of it''s legs consisted of bone and tissue that worked together to channel that mana. He quickly confirmed his assumption that they used force attuned mana by running mana through the legs then tried to incorporate the system into his Persona''s legs.


    Felix tried a few times before ultimately giving up because it just didn''t make sense. The organs were too big and would interfere with his body''s standard functions like walking. He really needed something more efficient.


    Ideally, he had mana channels then used his Persona''s half finished third layer to reattune the mana as needed. It wasn''t something he could test just yet but it was something for him to look forward to and work towards.


    Felix returned his consciousness to his real body then started experimenting with spells. He wanted to nail down a solid set of spells he could use in his Persona so that it had a believable set of skills. He had already messed around with a few but he was not liking the idea of just winging the rest of it.


    He ended up spending most of his time tuning his Fire and Lightning spells so they seemed more like reproducible skills then he designed something defensive. He didn''t want to use Mana Shields or Mage Armor so instead, he created what was essentially a Force Shield. The nature of Force made it so that the shield would either repel an attack or slow it down. He also made the shield conditional so it would resist attacks with as much force as it deemed necessary.


    In theory, with the shield active, attacks would be slowed to a halt before they reached his body, so long as he had enough mana to resist them.


    Felix reactivated his Persona and dropped the opaque Mana Shield then walked out onto the coral. Instead of moving upwards into the open sea, Felix instead decided to continue searching through the winding coral. He was pretty sure it would be easier for him to attack and defend in a confined space with spells that could fill the entirety of a nook or cranny. It was also harder for anything he fought to dodge, but that went both ways.


    He walked across the coral and returned his sense of pain to normal finding his leg, while damaged, was no longer in pain at all.


    Wait, what did I just do? I don''t have my racial control over my body with my Persona¡­ what am I doing when I dull pain in this body?


    Felix waited for a few moments but Grim didn''t bother answering.


    It''s my soul right? I''m tuning out the experience of pain?


    Grim finally deigned to respond, Yup. Same way you filtered out Nova''s emotions.


    Gotcha.


    Having been reminded of his familiar, Felix briefly tuned into Nova''s stream of emotions and found they seemed to be happy. He tuned their stream of emotions back out just so he didn''t feel everything they felt. He would still feel it if they were in danger, not that he could do much about that at the moment considering how far away they felt from their soul bond. It still made him feel better so he let that through.


    Felix wasn''t expecting much within the coral, maybe a few creatures and some small caves but as he walked, the branching tunnels just kept going. They grew narrower until Felix had to crouch but quickly widened after that. Felix continued to follow the paths that veered downwards in the hopes that he found the bottom.


    Instead of sand or rocks like he expected though, Felix hopped down a coral tunnel and flew off to the side through an exit. The coral just suddenly stopped like it had been cut open.


    Felix slowed himself down before he flew too far into what appeared to be almost an entire other layer to the biome. It wasn''t quite large enough for that but it looked like a massive cavern.


    The cavern floor was made up of jagged rocks and stone that looked cracked and broken all over. It reminded Felix of dried clay with its geometric patterns. Growing out of the ground there were pillars of coral that held the network he had just left aloft and between those, pools of multicolored liquids and vegetation. Random bits of the vegetation provided the entire area with very dim and varied light.


    Felix descended slowly to try and keep himself from drawing too much attention but had to quickly dodge a geyser that exploded beneath him.


    Once he was clear of it, Felix turned around and saw a stream of thick pink gas pouring out of the ground for a few moments before dissipating. He suddenly felt a weird sense of deja-vu from when he fought the alchemist Devoured camp.


    Lowering himself to the ground Felix avoided any of the other geysers as he landed upon a solid outcropping of stone. As he descended, he noticed the weird whispered screaming that the ambient anima carried with it grew, but only just slightly. He suppressed the sensation for now but resolved himself to investigate it soon.


    Looking around, Felix got a better look at the ground beneath the coral. The pools of multicolored liquids were shallow enough that vegetation grew out of them, but only them. There was no vegetation anywhere else making it look like a dead biome with individual oases scattered around.


    Each oasis was slightly different. One of them was a tiny forest with an array of trees growing out of it''s pond. Another was dominated by a single trunk that rose up from the center of its pond and held a large canopy aloft over the pond. Some had no trees at all and instead vines grew out of the pond, reaching out across the ground.


    Wherever the pillars of coral touched the pools of liquid, crystal growths appeared that were the same color as the liquid. This pattern of ponds with vegetation, coral pillars and the rare crystal growth stretched out as far as he could see in any direction.


    Oddly to Felix, the pink gas seemed to mostly be sucked up through the coral and into the area above making it much clearer in the under-coral. He suspected that had to do with the presence of an even thicker, colorless gas considering how buoyant he still was so he maintained the air bubble spell.


    Felix didn''t immediately sense any creatures nearby but he cast and maintained a Force Shield nonetheless. He had already learned his lesson from the first vault in the world event and he did not want to have to remove a crossbow bolt from his abdomen again.


    Walking over to the nearest pool, one with tall algae like plants growing out of it, Felix reached down and touched the pool with the tip of his finger. When he didn''t feel any kind of pain or other effect after a few minutes, despite his lack of fine grained senses in his Persona body, he scooped up a larger amount of it.


    Just looking at the liquid, he could feel the mana saturating it. The liquid he was looking at was a light green color but he couldn''t quite identify the suffused mana''s attunement. To him it seemed almost like a combination of multiple attunements but he knew it wasn''t just that. Only because he had just been messing around with gas, or more generally, matter producing nodes, he knew that multiple overlapping attunements of different strengths indicated something more complex.


    In his mind, attunements were still frequencies though he was ready to drop the analogy as soon as it fell apart. In this case though, it helped him tremendously in wrapping his mind around it all. The only thing he couldn''t quite figure out was why specific combinations of frequencies produced waves that created matter.


    Sensing the mana within the liquid, Felix realized it wasn''t as dense as pure liquid mana like he created, especially when it was on the brink of becoming a solid, but it was much denser than gaseous mana. He was mildly disappointed he hadn''t found a cool way to have more and denser mana but either way, it was interesting enough for him to try and collect it.


    Either he would find a use for it himself or it was possible he could hand it in for points instead of a core. Felix didn''t have much in the way of liquid storage containers but he had an idea of what to do anyways.


    Opening his Pocket home against a coral pillar, Felix walked inside and started digging by first softening the ground then ripping chunks free with explosive Force spells. He dug out a series of pools that he kept just over a meter apart and circled around the tower in the center. Luckily, the ground was largely made of large solid stone so the liquid wouldn''t seep into the ground.


    After that, Felix pulled out some Starmetal and formed it into a long tube that he bent once. With a simple Force spell inside of the tube, the liquid started to pump from the pool in the underground cavern, into his Pocket Home.


    The pool was only a few inches deep so there wasn''t much liquid for him to pump out, but it still took him a little while. As the liquid drained from the pool, the algae slowly fell to the ground like ribbons falling in slow motion. Felix cut a chunk off of one to examine it but other than being slimy, there didn''t seem to be much to it. It had more mana than a normal plant would but it didn''t seem to do anything with that mana.


    Felix left the algae and moved his makeshift pump over to a different pool filled with vines that twisted and knotted themselves together but only seemed to grow upwards. None of them passed through the threshold of the pool below them.


    The liquid in the pool that the vines grew out of was a dark ruddy color. As Felix drained this pool, the vines stretched themselves upwards and tightened into a solid pillar, removing all the space between themselves.


    There was once again, nothing of note at the bottom of the pool so Felix moved onto the next.


    The liquid and plant for the next pool was wholly uninteresting but this one intersected with a coral pillar and formed a crystal growth that traveled a number of meters upwards.


    Felix examined the crystals but as far as he could tell, they were just some kind of quartz. The crystal itself was incredibly low quality and brittle. With just a modicum of force applied to the crystals, they crumbled into a number of shards.


    He collected some of them just in case but he didn''t see any value in them at the moment.


    He continued draining pools as he moved, some of which had repeated attunements but he still kept them all separate just in case he had missed something. Surprisingly, he didn''t see much in terms of fauna in the under-coral at least for the first few hours while he drained pools. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 Chapter 191 - Book 8

    As he drained the third pool he had found that was suffused with ice mana and sported a cool blue color, Felix caught a glint of a silhouette darting through the shadows far off to his right. He quickly closed his Pocket Home and dropped the makeshift pump then prepared himself.


    He carefully looked around to try and spot the creature but it darted from pillar to pillar deep within the shadow. He caught a glimpse of movement to his left then another to his right, but closer. He spotted movement from, he wasn''t sure if it was a single or multiple creatures, every few seconds from every direction all around him.


    As he noticed the glimpses of movement getting closer, he prepared himself by erecting his Force Shield and holding Eretheas tightly in his hands. Even though he was ready for it, the creature still managed to sneak up on him and pounce from behind. Luckily, Felix''s shield was enough to slow it down and warn him.


    He felt a sudden jerk on his mana pool but significantly dampened to the point where it wasn''t harmful due to his improvements in spell craft.


    Felix spun around and came face to face with something that resembled a werewolf with leathery wing like fins along the sides of its head, between its claws and under its arms. The creature moved in slow motion as the force of its leap was slowed by Felix''s force shield and its claw struggled to swipe towards its prey.


    Felix started swinging Eretheas then dropped the Force Shield, because it would have resisted his swing as well. The creature started falling to the ground, all it''s momentum gone, but it still managed to twist and contort it''s body out of harm''s way.


    Now that it was on the ground, just a few meters from Felix, it moved much slower than Felix expected. Instead of darting around as quickly as the movement he had seen earlier, it seemed almost slow.


    [D - Rare] Dhantoa (Lvl 341)


    As Felix finished his swing with Eretheas, the creature reached an arm out and grabbed the axe''s shaft, pinning it to the ground. Felix tried to pull back on the axe but, even with a Force spell assisting him, the axe was completely stationary.


    Felix cast one of the spells he had planned out as part of his Persona''s skills and released a burst of flames around him using Force to propel it.


    All of a sudden, Felix yanked the axe back as all the force resisting him vanished. Looking around, the creature had vanished as far as Felix could tell.


    Felix recast his Force Shield and waited just a few seconds before the creature lunged at him faster than he could follow from his right. The creature once again hit Felix''s force wall and decelerated to a stand still where Felix swung out at them once more.


    This time, as Felix released the Force Shield, he simultaneously cast a Force spell to keep the creature suspended as he swung horizontally. He figured that should make it difficult for it to contort it''s way free.


    As Felix swung, he watched essentially in slow motion, as his eyes and brain were still much faster than his body, while the creature squirmed. It twisted, punched and kicked in every direction at a ridiculous speed. Felix saw just a blur of movement then, he felt a surge of mana before him and the creature slowed to a crawl as it reached out to try and hold the axe back.


    The creature was easily strong enough to overwhelm Felix''s Force Spell, overcoming his dampeners that were keeping him from hurting himself and it managed to stop the axe before it did anymore than open a shallow cut.


    In a blur just after another surge of mana, it was gone again. Felix recast his Force Shield and waited.


    This time, he held it still once again but he made sure it was close enough that he could fight it for control of it''s own mana. Within a couple meters of Felix, he completely overwhelmed it and with no surge of mana, the creature squirmed but with far less speed as the axe buried itself halfway into it''s abdomen.


    It was gushing blood as it tried to run but with the lower half of it''s body only half connected, it didn''t manage to get very far and Felix easily pounced after it. Felix finished severing its torso then hit it over the head with Eretheas'' handle to stop it from squirming at the end.


    Ding You have slain a [D - Rare] Dhantoa (Lvl 341)


    Ding You have gained 3 levels in [D -Legendary] Reaper (278 => 281)


    He immediately absorbed it''s soul then put it''s entire body into his Soul Space. He avoided using the blood ring because while the blood ring was great for storing, preserving and even examining and incorporating individual cells, it was not intended for examining entire systems. The blood ring split the bodies it absorbed into separated balls of cells creating essentially the most complicated jig saw puzzle ever.


    Felix quickly entered his Pocket Home on one of the pillars then shut the door behind him so he could focus without worrying about his surroundings.


    Within his soul space, Felix opened the body and started sifting through it''s internal organs using his mana senses to isolate the organs he was looking for. Though he wasn''t certain, he had a suspicion as to what was happening whenever the creature had surged with mana.


    It''s mana core was located opposite it''s heart and seemed to have an almost mirrored set of channels that matched it''s circulatory system. Felix didn''t spend long comparing them but at first glance, they seemed like a match to him. Those arteries branched out and passed through one of two organs that seemed to be altering the attunements of mana based on a valve inside of it''s core.


    He quickly mapped the two organs to see what their output attunements were.


    Felix didn''t see any other organs in the body that mattered to him so Felix dropped the body out of his Soul Space and absorbed it with the blood ring. The ring didn''t seem to care that the body had been in his soul space rather than being fresh, luckily.


    Once inside the blood ring, Felix started sifting through it''s cells and finally managed to find what he was looking for.


    The creature''s muscles, bones and to a lesser extent, flesh, all shifted when it pumped mana through them. When it pumped mana through them that was attuned to High Energy Force combined with a few other lesser amplitude frequencies, they became energized and jittery. Felix was almost certain it increased the creature''s Agility which is what made it so fast.


    When Low Energy Force mana, alongside some other lesser amplitude frequencies, flowed through the cells, they shifted to being energized but slower. They were also much stronger and carried with them much more force. Felix suspected this shift increased the creature''s Strength, which is what made it impossible for him to retrieve his pinned axe.


    The unfortunate part was that the cells, when shifted towards Strength or Agility, were severely lacking in the other stat. When they were strong, they were really slow and vice versa.


    If Felix was going to incorporate these organs and cells into his own body, which he was highly inclined to try, he had to figure out a way to avoid lowering his stats as a by product.


    Felix experimented with the cells and realized that rather than the cells themselves changing, it was more like the structure of the muscles, bones, flesh and organs were all shifting. The connections between them and how they communicated shifted the most. Sear?h the ¦ÇovelFire.¦Çet website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    As Felix experimented, something was constantly nagging him from the back of his mind. Finally, after he had spent almost an hour trying to come up with a solution, he realized what it was.


    The way the creature''s shifted between states of high Agility and high Strength reminded him of the tigers he had fought right before leaving the integration. The tigers shifted colors but Felix was pretty sure their stats had also changed though, to a much less significant degree.


    On a whim he looked through those cells that he had left preserved in some far off corner of the blood ring. Though he didn''t have the entire organs and had no way of reconstructing and examining its systems, he almost immediately found something useful.


    The tigers seemed to be capable of changing the cells themselves somehow though, they used energy to do so through some unidentifiable process.


    Felix''s ideal was combining the two so that his muscles didn''t literally shift underneath his skin but rather his cells themselves changed. He wasn''t sure exactly how to do it but he just started trying things. He also wasn''t even sure if it was possible to increase his Strength, Agility or even other stats significantly without changing the structure of his body. Either way, he limited himself to changing just the cells themselves, and he figured he might as well try.


    Examining the tiger cells, Felix tried to isolate what was causing the cells to change internally and how they were changing. He ended up with a rough idea for both but not nearly enough to act on. The cells seemed to be using energy to tighten and shrink or expand to different degrees by changing their excitement levels, sort of like a cell temperature.


    Since he found nothing substantial in the tiger cells, Felix instead ran through all the different cells at his disposal until he had a few populated categories. He tested the stats of the different cells and separated them by which ones were particularly agile, strong or endurant. He focused on those stats because they were the most identifiable and the most desirable to him at the moment.


    He compared the cells within their categories and between the categories and tried to isolate specific changes he could make to his own cells to replicate the effects. He didn''t end up with much he could actually work with though so he opted instead to supplement his knowledge by experimenting.


    He started modifying his cells in every different which way he could think of using mana and different mana attunements. He started with the attunements used by other creatures he had fought on this planet but quickly deviated from those when he found little to no effect.


    The issue was that the possibilities for attunements, when he was combining multiple frequencies at different amplitudes all while changing the energy levels, were literally infinite. On top of that, the attunements themselves were incredibly finicky so he had to be very precise.


    He tested one attunement, a variant of Electricity with a touch of Force and some of the Light spectrum and ended up with a cell that exploded. He ever slightly changed one of the component attunement frequencies and the cell seized up a little but seemed to otherwise be fine.


    The other issue was that it seemed to him like the attunements he found that worked, only worked on some cells but not others. He managed to tune and combine multiple attunements based on their constituent parts so that they affected both cells, but the resultant effect was lessened.


    For Strength, he focused on attunements that affected his muscles, Endurance his flesh and bones and finally for Agility he focused on his muscles again along with his nervous system.


    He examined the Dhantoa body again and found that the bones became flexible and very elastic when it were buffed its Agility but rigid and unbending when buffing their Strength. He briefly spent some time trying to replicate the effect but unfortunately, their bones seemed to be structured so drastically differently from his, that he scrapped the idea entirely.


    From there he spent time maximizing the effects of mana in his cells to get the most stats he could. He ended up with some tradeoffs that lowered other stats but ultimately they all balanced out as other constituent attunements buffed the stat back to normal. Overall he ended up with an increase in the desired stat with completely negligible or non-existent losses to his other stats.


    His end result was an increase of almost 50% more Strength and Agility and 25% Endurance when he switched over to those specifically.


    From there, he had to find a way to properly distribute the mana. Luckily, he didn''t need to modify his cells at all to accept the mana because he had tuned the attunements based on the cells currently in his Persona. All he had to do was find a way to distribute it. For the time being, he settled on manually changing the attunements and suffusing the blood within his heart.


    With some experimentation, he made the ability almost entirely passive so long as he didn''t have to switch from Agility to Strength to Endurance. He could more or less subconsciously draw mana into his heart, shift it''s attunement, then force it into his blood. He had to spend a little while until he was completely comfortable with the attunement and had it memorized but once he did, it was trivial to do.


    Switching between the modes took significant effort but he didn''t see himself switching mid battle just yet. When he was more comfortable with the effect, he would have actual mana channels and organs to process it all for him.


    In the meantime, he didn''t need the bodily control his real body offered at all because he was just releasing mana into his heart, his body didn''t need to do anything other than pump blood normally.


    He also made a mental note to look into having his heart or lungs embedded with a spell form that produced oxygen, like the one around his head, but decided he didn''t have time currently. He had spent enough time messing around and not enough time searching for more creatures and getting points.


    In the future though, he now had some direction in terms of what he needed his mana channels to be capable of.


    Exiting his Pocket Home, Felix didn''t see anything of note but he ramped up and maintained the new mana buff on his Strength. He thought about Agility but Strength made him do more damage with the axe and he didn''t feel like he was lacking much in the other areas at the moment.


    His Agility was significantly lower than other creatures but his Perception and Intelligence, which largely passed through from his real body, were much better. He was mostly able to keep track of enemies and could react to them with spells, it was just that his body was too slow to react and dodge on it''s own.


    He often felt like he was watching his Persona body and, he now realized to a much lesser extent his real body, move in slow motion.


    Felix continued to drain the pools of mana suffused liquids with various plants growing out of them as he traveled through the under-coral. He was disappointed to find that while odd, none of the plants seemed to have any particular use case he could find upon initial inspection.


    None of them were particularly tough or sharp so armor or weapons were out of the question. Other than that, the effects they produced were rather boring in Felix''s mind. It was possible they had value from an alchemical standpoint but Felix had no experience with alchemy, no desire to pursue it and more than enough credits at this point that they weren''t worth collecting. The only plant he actually bothered to take were lilies that grew over a pond of icy liquid.


    The lilies seemed to be almost frozen and their petals were sharp and lined with frost. Felix was mostly curious about what would happen if he dropped them into the other pools. Theoretically, it might be a good way for him to identify the attunements of the mana in the pool since they often held complicated combined attunements.


    He also encountered a couple more Dhantoa''s that he was able to slay much faster this time. It seemed like they were possibly territorial because as Felix walked from pool to pool, those were the only three creatures he encountered and they were spread far apart.


    Slaying the other two, he preserved their bodies as much as he could by simply beheading them then dropped them into a pile in his Pocket Home.


    Ding You have slain 2 [D - Rare] Dhantoa (Lvl 343 & 345)


    Ding You have gained 5 levels in [D -Legendary] Reaper (281 => 286)


    It was only once he had traveled a few kilometers out from where he killed the Dhantoas that he started encountering more creatures.


    As he ran through the under-coral, Felix maintained his Force Shield at all times. It didn''t completely surround him, but it got close.


    Suddenly he felt his mana jerk and spun around but there was nothing there. He still felt his mana being sucked into the spell so he looked up and saw just a meter above him, the bulbous end of a long and slimy tendril stuck in slow motion inside his Force Shield.


    Were he not restricting his spell pool for secrecy and so he actually gained experience, he would definitely have dropped a delayed explosion spell grenade onto the tendril, like he had used in one of the combat dungeons. Instead, he summoned a Shade directly on top of the bulbous end then ducked to the side and dropped his Force Shield.


    The tendril smacked into the ground along with the Shade but Felix was supplying plenty of mana so it wouldn''t dissipate. The tendril was then sucked up into the air in an instant, and Felix, after waiting just a second, started swinging wildly.


    He couldn''t see anything as it was too dark and the creature was too far above him, but he just kept slashing away. Just a few moments later, he stopped as he saw a mass of black slowly falling to the ground above him. As he slashed, he saw the creature contort and jostle until finally, it spit up his Shade who remained in the air as the creature continued to fall.


    Felix dismissed the shade and prepared to hit the creature when it got in range but instead, it''s tongue shot out, sending it''s body in the opposite direction for a few meters before the tongue found purchase. The body rocketed towards the end of it''s tongue and started scurrying it''s way around a coral pillar.


    Casting a simple Force spell, Felix launched himself at the pillar and with his buoyancy, traveled far faster than he had intended. His aim wasn''t great either so he had to adjust a couple times but he eventually managed to bury his axe into the coral like an ice pick.


    He yanked the axe free and stood up horizontally on the pillar using a single Force spell to overcome normal gravity and ran after it.


    The creature noticed Felix coming and tried to launch its tongue off towards the ceiling but Felix was ready for it this time. He cast his Force Shield spell in front of the creature and watched as it''s tongue bunched up in front of it.


    Felix ran over and swung down with his axe towards the creature that was clearly not used to melee combat as it just stood there. Felix buried the axe into it''s back then it''s legs to make sure it couldn''t run. The creature croaked out an awful cry just before it died and fell towards the ground.


    Ding You have slain a [D - Rare] Yiteriss (Lvl 402)


    Ding You have gained 17 levels in [D -Legendary] Reaper (286 => 303)


    Felix absorbed its soul before it even fell a meter through the air then hopped back down to the ground and stowed the corpse in his soul space on the way.


    He figured he would examine its body later on once he had other corpses to look at as well. He was happy to find his Strength buff seemed to be functional, not that he had needed it in the fight. He was just happy it hadn''t hindered him or revealed significant downsides.


    Felix let himself float down to the ground then continued traveling away from the evaluation building and roughly towards the weird sensation carried by the ambient anima, though he figured that was still far off.


    He encountered a few novel pools and sucked them up, making sure to check all of the crystals that formed on the bases of the coral pillars as he passed them. He still hadn''t found any that were remotely interesting but he held out hope.


    A few hours later, Felix finally managed to get the drop on a creature instead of the other way around. As he skirted around a coral pillar, he saw what looked to be something between a slug and a worm moving up the pillar.


    [D - Rare] Aucore (Lvl 361)


    Despite it''s low level, Felix was excited to see what it would do with its mana so he cast his Force Shield in front of him then summoned a shade next to the creature and swung. He had to make sure to avoid his own Force Shield with his swing but it wasn''t overly difficult to do so.


    The Aucore didn''t even seem to react until just before the axe came down when suddenly, its skin shifted, becoming matte and far less shiny and reflective. The axe smacked the creature on the back and it squished a little bit but it was like Felix had hit the high grade equivalent of a diamond. The axe didn''t penetrate it''s skin at all.


    Felix swung again and again, upping the force and weight of the swings to his limit but all he managed to do was harmlessly compress the creature over and over again.


    It didn''t even react, it simply kept moving like nothing at all had happened.


    Given his shade was having little to no impact whatsoever on the creature, Felix dismissed it and cautiously approached himself.


    The creature, as it seemed was its nature, didn''t seem to care so Felix managed to walk right up to it.


    He couldn''t help himself but experiment a little by first swinging the axe himself. As soon as it hit the creature, he felt like he had hit a floating chunk of ice. The skin was hard and impenetrable but the body underneath was gooey and flowed like water. The axe didn''t even scratch its back so he switched to spells.


    He quickly ran through his entire array of nodes from Fire to Lightning to even Sound. Nothing he did seemed to affect it much at all.


    This thing is like a fucking cockroach. It''ll still be here after the heat death of the multiverse.


    Despite having failed to injure the creature at all, Felix only felt excitement. He was pretty sure he could kill it, he was just really hoping he could find a way to incorporate it''s resilience into his own body.


    As with all the creatures on the planet, the Aucore used mana and every time Felix tried to injure it, he felt the mana within the creature surge. In theory he figured he could probably just hit it until it ran out of mana but he wanted to try something else.


    He still wasn''t sure what the best way to kill it while preserving it''s body was but he was confident he could injure it just my manually interrupting it''s mana flow.


    Orav had advised him to avoid Fire or Lightning because they caused too much damage to the body and mana structures so he was left with either trying to kill it with Sound or cutting it. Unfortunately Sound was just as likely to injure himself and he had no idea where to cut.


    Instead, Felix had already developed a spell that created a breathing bubble around his head, he figured all he would need to do was adapt it in order to suffocate creatures. Unfortunately, he was pretty sure that would take forever.


    He knew he was capable of holding his breath for hours and he was pretty sure a slug would easily be able to hold it for just as long if not longer. His best bet was using some kind of gas that would react with its body and kill it that way.


    Unfortunately he had no idea if it breathed oxygen but he figured he would give it a shot anyways since he only had experience with oxygen breathing creatures. He modified the spell to be a little more solid so it could safely contain more harmful gasses within it then expanded it to fit the entire slug. After that, he swapped out the fresh air generating nodes with nodes that would generate carbon monoxide.


    Felix cast the spell around the Aucore then simply stood behind it, taking a step every minute or so to keep up with it''s sluggish pace.


    It took far longer than Felix expected but after almost 20 minutes of waiting, he got the notification he was waiting for.


    Ding You have slain a [D - Rare] Aucore (Lvl 361)


    Felix had also been pushing his soul ring to activate so in the same instant the notification appeared, the Aucore''s golden white soul streamed the ring on his left hand. Felix reached down and stowed the body in his Soul Space then wiped the slime off on the coral before hopping back down to the ground.


    He had been relying on the subtle light coming from the various plants in the under-coral and only supplementing it when absolutely necessary but Felix was really hoping to find more Aucores.


    He quickly designed a spell then formed and fired it off. A small bead shot out of Felix''s hand that quickly vanished into the darkness before, just a few moments later, a burst of light sprung from the coral ahead of him. The Light lit up a wide area around it as long as it existed and he had designed it to stick around for a little while.


    Unfortunately, it died a few seconds later so Felix tuned and adjusted the spell until he got it right.


    Once the spell functioned as he wanted it to, Felix started firing off sustained balls of Light in every direction. Gradually he brightened the area from very dim light to completely lit.


    Looking around him, he couldn''t help but smile as he spotted possibly hundreds of Aucores dotted across the coral pillars around him.


    Felix jumped from pillar to pillar with a modified version of the spell he had used on the first Aucore. He made the ball much bigger which cost him a ton of mana but he also increased the Force around the outside to contain the Aucores within it.


    Felix jumped to a pillar, brought the spell near the Aucore and interrupted it''s mana manually so that it was sucked in, then jumped off to the next pillar.


    He was effectively jumping from pillar to pillar with a floating deathtrap behind him that contained a bunch of slugs. He continuously kept his soul ring active so the instant they died, he could harvest them. He made sure to stow a few of the bodies in his Soul Space and he absorbed a few with the blood ring but all the rest, went into a pile in his Pocket Home.


    Ding You have slain 301 [D - Rare] Aucore (Lvl 350-377)


    Ding You have gained 4 levels in [D -Legendary] Reaper (303 => 307)


    He would have kept hunting down the Aucore''s too were it not for the creature he spotted a little ways off that distracted him. He was just about to send a Persistent Light Orb up ahead so he could see but he stopped when he saw a series of glowing ribbons dancing through the air.


    They glowed with a dull blue glow and seemed to be drifting through the air, disappearing as they wove around coral pillars only to reappear and continue their dance. There were four of them that all seemed to be coming from or going in, the same direction.


    Firing off a Light, Felix brightened the area around the ribbons and immediately caught sight of the creature they were attached to.


    The four ribbons streamed off the back of what looked like a manta ray, though Felix had never seen one in person so he was mostly just guessing, flying through the air. Ditching his genocide of the Aucore population as he already had more than enough of them, Felix hopped his way across the coral pillars towards the creature.


    [D - Rare] Elpux (Lvl 436)


    As Felix jumped towards the creature, he realized it was actually much further, and much larger than he had initially thought. It wasn''t just a few meters across, it was more like dozens of meters. In order to swim through the pillars, it''s body twisted so it''s wings were vertical and it could fit through the, relatively, tight space.


    Felix erected his Force Shield then tried to get it''s attention with a Force projected swing of his axe. The swings hit the creature but instead of looping around to fight as Felix had expected, it simply started to fly away.


    Felix chased it down and jumped onto it''s back. He was about to swing down and kill it but the creature didn''t seem to mind him being on it''s back at all. He hesitated and started walking forwards to center himself better then used a Force spell to hold himself aboard.


    He cast and fired his Persistent Light Orb spell towards the front of the creature so everything was visible as it flew then simply looked around and observed for a bit.


    From his new found vantage point, as the creature soared through the under-coral, Felix realized it was actually rather boring. Although it was mystical and beautiful and from the standpoint of being interested in mana and visually diverse and vibrant, it was also incredibly monotonous.


    From Felix''s standpoint, it was a whole lot of the same thing in every direction. Just like the pink ocean above and the desert above that, it was an endless sea of the exact same thing for at least hundreds of kilometers in every direction.


    He fired off Light Orbs every once in a while, these ones lit their surroundings more thoroughly as they traveled, so he could potentially spot any dense concentrations of enemies. Unfortunately, he barely saw just a few of them way off in the distance, nothing dense enough for him to farm.


    While he wanted to go hunt down those creatures he had seen, what he was really hoping for was to spot something interesting, something worth his time.


    He practiced his spell formation and simply looked around for almost an hour before he spotted something. He quickly killed off his ride which had a ton of health but didn''t really fight back then absorbed it''s body and soul. He didn''t really think there was anything worth his time in the body and it was too big for him to store for points.


    Ding You have slain a [D - Rare] Elpux (Lvl 436)


    Ding You have gained a level in [D -Legendary] Reaper (307 => 308)


    Gliding down to the ground, Felix approached what seemed to be a school of fish. The fish were the kind he expected to see at the bottom of the ocean, fish that were far too ugly to live anywhere they could actually be seen.


    [D - Rare] Ubisk (Lvl 403)


    They swam through the air just like a school of fish swam through the sea which was odd to Felix only because this was the densest collection of anything he had seen in the under-coral.


    Felix fired off a few Light Orbs onto the surrounding pillars but stopped himself as he illuminated small pockets of other creatures all scattered about behind the school of fish.


    As soon as his lights hit, the fish swarmed them but, they seemed to just be curious because, that was all they did.


    Felix dropped himself down vertically then prepared a Force Shield along with a series of other spells then cast the bait.


    A sudden burst of Light sprung out of Eretheas as Felix held it over his head.


    As expected, the school of fish rushed towards the light, the school tightening into a stream because of how quickly they tried to move. As soon as the first few fish started to loop around the axe head, Felix cast his spell and a large ball of Force filled with carbon monoxide suddenly erupted.


    You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.


    It only took a few minutes for the first fish corpses to start falling to the ground through the hole he had made in the spell, their souls drained before they even reached it. Felix reached his foot forwards and stowed a few in his Soul Space then just stood still as the school''s curiosity killed them off.


    He was honestly surprised they were so stupid that they just keep coming and killing themselves making him think there was something more to their fascination with Light than just curiosity.


    Once the school was mostly dead, Felix shoved their corpses into his Pocket Home and leapt towards the pillars where a few Ubisks were still loitering around his lights. Normally he would have just left them, even if they were worth a few points. The issue was that they were completely blocking out his light.


    Ding You have slain 114 [D - Rare] Ubisk (Lvl 397-410)


    Ding You have gained 12 levels in [D -Legendary] Reaper (308 => 320)


    Well those were some easy levels.


    With his lights now unobstructed, Felix pounced towards his next prey, some kind of sea serpent with no eyes.


    [D - Rare] Evunda (Lvl 432)


    Felix jumped from creature to creature, their levels gradually increasing as he did so. He followed the levels, making sure he sought out the highest level enemies in the hopes that he was heading towards something interesting.


    Given it was a planet that had evolved with mana as a core part of it''s ecosystems, he was hoping if there was a natural treasure up ahead, it had something to do with mana.


    By the time he was exterminating enemies in the 450s, he finally spotted a change of scenery, somewhat. The ground, instead of being overall flat with rocks and outcroppings all over, started sloping downwards.


    Looking far off to his right, Felix saw pools of various mana attunements that touched the slope slowly dribbled into it. It wasn''t steep enough for them to drain themselves but there was a trickle that made it a few meters down before running out of momentum.


    Looking down the slope, Felix saw more creatures with their levels even higher so he leapt towards them.


    The slope gradually grew steeper as did the levels of the enemies he faced.


    Felix fought all kinds of monstrosities but unfortunately none with interesting abilities he had any desire to steal. The steepness of the ground overcame its natural friction as the pools of mana all around him didn''t fare well, pouring themselves into rivers that flowed slowly at first then combined and cascaded downwards.


    Though the enemies were rather boring, Felix was growing increasingly excited at what he would find at the bottom. The slope stopped growing steeper at around 45 degrees where Felix started to ignore creatures as he leapt down the slope.


    The other change of landscape the slope brought was the coral pillars. He didn''t spot a single one anywhere around him as he descended except for one massive pillar right ahead of him, at the bottom of the pit.


    He wasn''t even close to being in range to light it up but he did have to actually start paying attention as the creatures around him were not happy with him skipping the line. They started launching ranged attacks, charged at him and tried to crush him but he fought them off rather easily. He stored a few corpses in case he wanted to get a little creative with his body modifications later on but decided to keep pushing ahead for now.


    Even though he had been killing creatures over a hundred levels over his own, he had only gained 16 levels and he knew exactly why, the creatures were far too easy as prey. He decided he would stop and do some manual harvesting and integration as soon as he found either an interesting ability or a creature that actually challenged him.


    Luckily, it didn''t take him long to find one as even before the entirety of the massive coral pillar ahead of him came into view, he was suddenly attacked by a burst of Lightning from his right.


    It was one of the only things his Force Shield wouldn''t stop as he couldn''t effectively push back against it.


    The Lightning was more like an explosion than it was a directed attack as some of it burst into Felix''s body but even more of it arced into the ground around him.


    Felix immediately lost Eretheas to the slope as his muscles tensed and spasmed right after his health had plummeted by over 15k leaving him with just two thirds of his Persona''s health left. His health hadn''t stopped falling there though as the Lightning seemed to be sticking around within his body with a familiar sensation of cells burning and exploding along its path.


    Felix reached into his body and all at once, grabbed hold of the hostile mana, forcefully pushing it out of his body. The Lightning arced into the ground and dissipated harmlessly allowing him to turn towards his attacker.


    [D - Rare] Yaridore (Lvl 472)


    What he saw was essentially a mutant eel with long spines growing out of it''s body completely at random.


    Felix leapt towards and collected Eretheas then launched himself towards the creature as it charged it''s next attack.


    The exposed spines arced between themselves as the lightning grew before it curled itself into a ball and Lightning along with Lightning attuned High Energy mana burst out of it''s body in all directions.


    Felix was ready this time and had already cast his own Lightning spell just in front of himself. At the same time, he reached out with his mana control and readied himself to catch the hostile mana.


    The Lightning that burst out of the creature, all in the same instant, simply diverted itself into the ground in front of Felix following his own Lightning spell, almost like he had taken a bite out of the ball. At the same time, Felix caught the hostile mana as it surged towards him and simply threw it off to the side then leapt forwards.


    He raised Eretheas above his head as he came down on the creature and was already ready when it tried to charge itself. He reached out and held it''s mana as still as he could, leaving it unable to activate it''s spell then brought Eretheas down with a massive Force spell propelling it.


    The axe launched both Felix and the Yaridore towards the ground but the axe head caught on the creature''s hard spines and instead of slashing into it''s flesh, the creatures body simply contorted around the axe.


    Felix managed to cut a few of it''s spines shorter but ultimately, it looked to be largely uninjured as it''s body simply slithered away from the sharp edge of the axe. It was only pushed a dozen meters down before it slipped free and tried to slither away.


    He pursued with leaps and force projected slashes but the creature was agile and the attacks that did hit, were stopped short by it''s spines.


    Realizing he wasn''t really getting anywhere, Felix leapt after the creature and shot himself towards it''s head where he reached down and gripped it''s upper jaws. He cast a Force spell to push them downwards back to the ground where he could get more leverage as the creature bit into his fingers.


    It didn''t manage to cut through his bones but it did completely tear through his flesh with thousands of tiny razor like teeth. Felix pushed his hand further into it''s mouth until he felt the teeth disappear then drove his fist into the ground.


    The creature squirmed about, scraping Felix''s side with it''s spines but he ignored the damage and continued bashing it''s head into the ground with his fist deep inside it''s maw.


    With Eretheas in his other hand, he started chopping at it''s body just to add to the damage in the hopes that he could kill it before it ran all the way through his Persona''s dwindling health.


    Ding You have slain a [D - Rare] Yaridore (Lvl 472)


    Ding You have gained 15 levels in [D -Legendary] Reaper (336 => 351)


    With just under 5 thousand health left, just a tenth of his Persona''s pool, Felix activated his rings to free the corpse from his arm. The body turned to dust, removing the teeth from his arm and harmlessly drifting away.


    His health jumped back up to almost half which was very welcome but not nearly enough for him to continue onwards. Felix pressed his Pocket Home marble into the sloped ground and hopped through, closing his eyes so he could adjust to the sudden change in the direction of down.


    He hopped over the corpses littering the ground but dragged a few of the Aucore corpses along with him. He activated his blood ring once he was far away from the other corpses, turning the corpses he had dragged to dust and almost fully refilling his health.


    Before he went back outside, Felix created a couple more spells he could use in dire situations but specifically, he worked on one to deal with enemies that tried to run away from him. He didn''t want to be forced to always chase his enemies because eventually, they would be smart enough to lead him into a trap.


    What he settled on was a variation of Mana Javelin where he added barbs and a second half to the spell. A few moments after it hit a target, the Javelin would be launched backwards with a burst of Force. He tested it on a few large rocks he had pulled out of the ground when he was digging room for the pools earlier and was very happy with the results.


    After that, he quickly examined the bodies he had reserved for himself in his soul space. He sifted through their cells but didn''t find anything of value in any creature other than the Aucores, which he had saved for last.


    The Aucores were especially interesting because they seemed to be the most resilient thing Felix had found yet and they seemed to be accomplishing said feat with mana.


    He spent a few hours dissecting and examining them then tentatively added some of their cells to his Persona''s body to test them out. He only covered his arms from below his shoulder to just past his wrist but he figured that was enough for now. He didn''t even bother fully adapting and integrating the cells as this was intended more for him to learn about them then it was a permanent installation.


    Due to this, his arms became a yellow green color that felt nothing like skin and much more like jelly.


    He didn''t worry about it though and left his Pocket Home, heading back into the slowly descending pit.


    Continuing downwards, Felix caught sight of a couple creatures he chased down but nothing of note. He didn''t even lose much health so he preserved the bodies in his Soul Space until the next time he opened his Pocket Home. He did manage to net himself another 20 levels though.


    Felix finally managed to get close enough to the coral pillar at the center of the pit to actually see its bottom but unfortunately, the treasure seemed to be obscured by the pillar itself.


    From all around the pit, mana suffused liquids of various colors flowed and combined into a cacophonous rainbow that poured somewhere under the pillar. Felix was really hoping there was something there other than just a pool of mana suffused liquid. Ideally he was hoping for a gem or crystal growing out of it that he could possibly turn into a battery. Given the liquids feeding it, he figured the battery would have some awesome effects.


    Before he could figure out what was down there though, there were at least a couple of creatures he had to deal with.


    Wrapped around the coral pillar Felix saw what he thought was a massive plant at first until its body burst into flames for just a moment and he realized it was a massive serpent. The serpent had wound itself all the way around the pillar and given how large the pillar was, the serpent was colossal.


    From tip to tail, Felix was confident he would have to measure it in kilometers. Even just it''s girth was at least a hundred meters. Unfortunately he wasn''t close enough to identify it or discern any details other than its size.


    Before he could engage the serpent though, there was another creature circling the pillar, staying far enough away to respect the serpent but close enough that it was ready to dive in.


    As it swam around the pillar and towards him, Felix saw what looked to be a massive whale of some sort. It''s head and nose were more squared off though and it had three sets of fins along the sides of it''s body. The fins were long and rounded and seemed to act like wings as it soared towards him.


    As it got closer, Felix also realized it was covered in scales of various sizes with large scales covering it''s back and small scales within the joints.


    [D - Special] Damoth (Lvl 504)


    That sounds more like a name than a species.


    Felix readied himself as it circled closer then leapt into the air and onto it''s back. Ironically, the whale creature was significantly smaller than the serpent in the distance but it was still massive. It''s wing fins alone were easily big enough to play some kind of sport on them.


    Damoth seemed to either not notice or not care that Felix had leapt onto it''s back at first so Felix had plenty of time to prepare himself. He carefully crafted a number of spells he thought would be useful and held their spell forms orbiting around himself. He also put all his free points into Intelligence.


    Since he was able to entirely focus on them, he was able to use his focus to prepare 12 total spell levels of complexity with a couple mobility options along with a whole lot of attack options. He didn''t bother with any complicated defenses because realistically, against something as massive as Damoth, he was far better off just trying to avoid it''s attacks.


    Felix didn''t bother focusing on having Eretheas actually cut the creature because he didn''t think the size of the cut would make much of a difference. Instead, he used Eretheas as the vehicle to deliver his other spells.


    He started with charging up a mass of flames at the end of the axe, which was unaffected, and once the entire axe head was completely engulfed and as hot as he could make it, he swung down.


    It was so hot, even he was taking a modicum of damage just from being near it and even though he was trying to avoid fire to preserve the body, Felix didn''t think this amount was going to destroy much. On top of that, Felix wasn''t sure if he would even hand the corpse in for points at all. Not only was it far too big for him to move, he was also hoping it had awesome abilities he could steal.


    The superheated axe head and attached ball of flame slammed down into the creature''s back and exploded outwards, creating a small charred crater. Most of the flames were directed downwards but Felix still singed his legs and part of his pants.


    He quickly cast a cold spell to stop the flame from spreading as he ran forwards because he really didn''t want to not have pants. Felix ran further up the body so he could attack it from somewhere else but before he could get there, Damoth, moving far faster than they should be able to, spun around and dove towards the ground.


    They positioned their back so Felix would be sandwiched between the ground and its body as it spun to the side.


    Although it wasn''t incredibly fast, it was so big that Felix wasn''t sure he would make it in time. He cast his mobility spells and overcharged them by shoving mana into them as fast as he could causing him to fly far faster than he was comfortable with.


    He flew off to the side and smashed into the ground, just barely turning himself to the side so he didn''t break his neck.


    Felix activated the new cells in his right arm to try and absorb some of the blow but still felt his shoulder dislocate, ribs shatter and leg fracture. He rolled himself over and dulled as much of the pain as he could from his soul then looked towards Damoth.


    The whale seemed to be turning away from him so he happily took the time to get to his feet. Although his arm had survived, he was pretty sure his ribs would have fared much better if he hadn''t activated the Aucore cells. With his arm solidified, it transferred everything into his ribs rather than absorbing any of the impact at all.


    He forced his arm back into the socket and picked up Eretheas then turned towards Damoth and quickly realized they weren''t swimming away. Damoth had turned themself so they could crush Felix with their tail.


    Felix gritted his teeth and dropped all his prepared spells then started running to the side while he prepared a Force spell to get him out of the way.


    He made sure to aim himself into the air this time and launched himself once again, far faster than he was comfortable with.


    Before he managed to get his bearings again, he heard a massive explosion behind him from the tail hitting the ground. He cast a Force Shield in front of himself to slow down, then another when he immediately punched through the first.


    Once he had slowed down enough to control his flight, Felix looked back over his shoulder and saw the ground had simply shattered around Damoth''s tail. There was a huge crater than vaguely resembled the silhouette of its tail but it had also opened up large crevasses that reached out through the stone. Felix saw the ground already adjusting and crumbling into the newly created fissures as it settled.


    Damoth had used the momentum to push itself back into the air where it adjusted it''s flight to catch Felix. Felix was faster though so he flew ahead of Damoth while he quickly put together an upgrade on a spell he had used a long time ago.


    He looked back at the whale and stopped himself as he funneled almost a million mana into the newly upgraded spell. Damoth opened it''s maw to swallow Felix and he responded by launching a ball, easily large enough to contain his body, into it''s mouth.


    Felix waited right up until the ball was in it''s mouth then shot himself away from Damoth, continuing the chase.


    He flew with his head pivoting over his shoulder every few seconds to see if it had worked. When a couple minutes passed with not even a sound, Felix decided to try again.


    He stopped and cast the same Mana Shrapnel Bomb spell as before, using another million mana and waited. This time, he launched the ball into it''s throat as it approached then flew off out of the way so he wasn''t also eaten.


    Please don''t make me go in there myself.


    Grim mentally scoffed, Why the hell would you do that?


    Felix was surprised he had responded because his thought had been entirely rhetorical, Cause it''s easier to injure it from the inside¡­


    Grim was completely flabbergasted which came through both through their bond and in the voice he heard in his head, Possibly? Why would you assume that? What do you think it eats? It clearly has to have a hardened stomach to survive until they die in there. You could also just throw spells in there. Why¡­ why would you even think of doing that?


    I guess¡­ it''s a story from earth.


    Grim radiated confusion into his mind, A real one?


    Good question.


    Once again Felix watched the whale chase him from over his shoulder as nothing happened. He was starting to suspect Grim was right, that its stomach was just as resilient as it''s exterior so it could eat the creatures around here.


    He even tried placing a Shade inside its mouth and throat but they seemed to be just as ineffective as everything else. He tried one last time, this time with an upgraded Pocket Star.


    Damoth rushed towards him at its glacial flying speed and Felix charged up the star, slowly moving it away from himself so he didn''t burn. He couldn''t throw the star very far so he waited until it was very close then launched it towards the roof of it''s mouth, hoping to get somewhere close to its brain.


    As soon as he let go of the star, Felix launched himself away from Damoth as fast he was comfortable with and off to the side.


    This time something did happen, Felix''s eardrums were immediately shattered as he felt his body shake from Damoth''s groaning. Felix was free of it''s maw but still far too close. It''s head thrashed around in pain and accidentally knocked Felix flying towards the ground.


    He tried casting a spell to slow himself but only got off one spell that shattered almost instantly as it tried to slow him. He landed on his legs, his left fracturing and his right shattering after the damage he had sustained last time he had hit the ground.


    Damoth, enraged, turned towards Felix, who was struggling to stand, and charged much faster than they had earlier. Felix ran as fast as he could off to the side and put together the simplest Force spells he could think of because he just needed to get out of the way.


    He looked up and watched something the size of a sky scraper turn it''s body towards him as he scrambled to cast a spell and get out of the way. His brain and eyes moved faster than his cast speed this time and he watched in slow motion, as the outer ring formed for the Force spell around the inner node that he wove together. He pushed it to solidify and willed it to cast faster then suddenly, the spell form he had been constructing was out of range behind him and shattered.


    Felix flew off into the air, well out of the range of Damoth as they slammed their nose into the ground.


    What the fuck¡­ just happened.


    Felix could feel that Grim was just as confused as he was but it wasn''t the time to think about that. At the same time, he had brushed by Nova''s soul bond and felt joy and relaxation which caused him to chuckle.


    At least you''re having fun.


    Grim mentally chuckled, So are you.


    Yeah but¡­ well, yeah.


    Grim mentally chuckled again and Felix focused back on the fight.


    Damoth''s entire body had fallen to the ground and it seemed to be a little shaken from the impact. All around it''s head, the ground was falling apart as the multicolored liquids that were flowing down to the center of the pit were diverted.


    All the liquid in the area was suddenly rushing into the massive fissures and craters in the ground instead of flowing down to the coral pillar in the middle.


    Felix''s ears were still non functional so he was having a bit of trouble with his balance but still had a few thousand health left.


    Felix shot himself towards Damoth and stopped right on top of its head then increased Eretheas'' weight to the limit and slammed himself, and the axe, downwards with as much force as he could cast at once.


    He rotated himself so all the force went into the axe and so he would impact after it then thanked himself that he had kept his arm in tact with the Aucore cells earlier. He activated the Aucore flesh again to keep his arms working and roared, because it felt natural, as he prepared to finish Damoth.


    The axe slammed down into the creature''s head but Felix could barely tell what happened because at the same time, his shoulder joints were completely ripped apart. His body smacked into the creature just a moment later and his remaining leg was shattered followed by his hips fracturing beneath him.


    Ding You have slain [D - Special] Damoth (Lvl 504)


    Ding You have gained 27 levels in [D -Legendary] Reaper (356 => 383)


    Finally aware enough to figure out what had happened, Felix was astonished to see he still had just under a thousand health. He was completely expecting to temporarily destroy his Persona''s body in that last attack.


    He activated the soul ring then the blood ring. He didn''t even think about trying to store the body anywhere else. It was far too big for his soul space or his Pocket Home and he was willing to sacrifice the potential 40 thousand points, based on the chart he had seen.


    Unfortunately he would have to piece its systems together from their constituent cells but he felt like he was so close to dying that, at the moment, he didn''t really care. His Persona body was, as expected, fully restored from absorbing the body, making him much happier with his decision to do so. He fell to the ground slowly due to his buoyancy then looked towards the coral pillar in the center of the pit.


    What he saw though, was just the pillar. The serpent had vanished.


    Felix frowned and stepped towards it as the remaining dust from Damoth''s body drifted away then suddenly felt a searing pain all over his body and his vision when white then instantly black.


    He didn''t even have time to cast a spell before his health hit 0.


    Luckily he was in his Persona body so it burned away to reveal his real body where he instantly activated the Mage Armor spell he had inscribed into plates strapped to his body. The spell blocked the rest of the damage causing him to only take a few thousand points from the heat by the time the column of flame disappeared.


    Felix stowed Eretheas then launched himself into the air and caught sight of the serpent above him. Large enough to swallow Damoth, though it would have taken a few bites, Felix saw a massive serpent that was covered in bright, chromatic, fish like scales. The entire thing, aflame.


    It had multiple fins and gills with sharp spines and spikes covering the back of its head like a mane. Just behind the head, Felix caught sight of a portion of its body that twisted through the air effortlessly. It''s scales formed spikes and spines all over it''s body, some of the spines supporting fins, others were just there to protect it''s body it seemed.


    The serpent stared right at Felix with it''s mane flared and it''s mouth stretched wide as it roared with a terrible, unnaturally echoing screech that Felix had to muffle with his hands and hood.


    [D - Legendary] Mana Infused Leviathan (Lvl 572)


    The flames covering the creatures body suddenly blew away and the spines along it''s body retracted as its head shot towards Felix far faster than he was flying.


    Felix wasn''t willing to beat up his own body as much as his Persona''s so he didn''t launch himself to the side as fast as he could. He controlled his flight and overcharged his Mage Armor just in case.


    The Leviathan twisted it''s head to follow Felix''s flight and caught up to him in a matter of seconds. Felix cast a Force spell to launch himself in the opposite direction at the last second but had to brace himself against it''s sharp mane as its head rushed by.


    His boots luckily managed to keep him from being cut and his training with Mihto ensured his footing was stable. He pushed off the Leviathan''s head an instant before its body jolted with electricity for a brief moment, the spines reappearing suddenly to act as lightning rods and offering him enough forewarning.


    Felix was pretty sure it would have some kind of natural resistance to most of his spells because it engulfed its own body in them so often. He either had to find somewhere softer and less resistant, which likely wasn''t its insides as he was learning, or he had to use other spells. Ideally he didn''t want to ruin its body either because it was both worth a ton of points, and with a legendary race, he was excited to see what he could steal from it for himself.


    Felix settled on simple Force spells and so he dropped a barrage of 4 Force Bombs overpowered 8 times over behind himself as he flew away. 8 times was where the node started to fall off and become really inefficient so he didn''t dare go higher. With the spells he was using to fly, he couldn''t cast any more than 4 but when he dared a glance over his shoulder and saw it''s scaly flesh crater for a few moments before bouncing back, he was satisfied.


    Even if the damage wasn''t visually apparent, Felix was confident he was crushing and ultimately bruising its insides underneath. If it wasn''t showing wear soon though, he wouldn''t keep gambling on it and would try something else.


    The Leviathan flicked its body to the side to rapidly turn its head then used its body like a spring to launch its head forwards again. Felix was already ready to push himself aside but only managed to prepare two Force Bombs as counter attacks.


    He dropped them then launched himself to the side, avoiding its head entirely this time.


    Felix watched the spells hit which meant he didn''t see its tail swinging around from the other side. It whipped him towards the ground and shattered the Mage Armor around his left thigh, ripping through it and breaking the bone underneath in the process.


    He managed to catch himself before he hit because he had been launched mostly to the side instead of down and shot back at the middle of the Leviathan''s body as his spells slowed then reversed his momentum.


    The beads of Force raced through the air easily as fast as bullets but somehow, the Leviathan knew. It''s body twisted and the beads flew right by, completely harmless as they sounded off from the ground in the distance.


    Felix cursed under his breath and turned to keep track of the head, seeing it just a few dozen meters behind him. It''s eyes were glowing red and it''s mane lit up as its body was engulfed in flames starting from the head, in little bursts, towards the tail.


    Felix already knew this attack had almost instantly killed his Persona, which had almost the same health pool as he did so he knew he had to dodge it at all costs.


    He dropped all the spells he didn''t need and put every bit of focus he could muster into a Force spell to launch himself out of the way. He watched its maw open and the flames build in its throat, the light growing from non existent to blinding in fractions of a second as he constructed his spell.


    They both fired off at the same time, the stream of fire easily 50 meters wide appeared in the air where Felix had been as his spell launched him upwards and right through its edge. He felt his skin singe and burn then his muscles as the heat penetrated deep but it didn''t get further than that and he had limited his health lost to just over 20 thousand.


    The stream of fire dissipated quickly as the Leviathan''s head twisted around to bite at Felix once again. Felix was already preparing another Force spell but he only got it off right at the last instant. Its head shot by just barely a meter behind him but as soon as it realized it had missed, it immediately twisted its head away and used its neck to smack Felix aside.


    His Mage Armor ate the majority of the blow, but it had cost him a half a million mana to do so. Felix caught his momentum and spun himself around, maximizing the distance he had so he could prepare himself.


    Pulling out the batteries he had, Felix drained them as fast as he could before stowing them again as he quickly modified his Force Bomb spell form. Felix repaired his Mage Armor by simply recasting it then started constructing his new Force Bombs in the air around him.


    The Leviathan pursued with its spines retracted, which seemed to be making it faster somehow, but this time, Felix was ready.


    It, predictably, tried to bite at Felix so he dropped 3 of his new, Directed Force Bombs, onto its head and shot himself upwards at the same time.


    The beads raced towards its head and this time, they exploded just like last time except with more Force. The craters they temporarily created were wider and deeper before its skin bounced back into shape.


    The Leviathan''s spines extended in an instant then it''s body charged up with electricity. Felix didn''t really know where the attack would come from because its body was all around him so he quickly modified a spell and cast it.


    The attack as it turned out, came from everywhere. A barrage of Lightning fired out of the creature towards Felix from every meter of its massive serpentine body. The Lightning arced towards him but was diverted around him forming what appeared to be a ball of Lightning with Felix at it''s center.


    After a few moments, the Lightning died down and Felix immediately let loose the spells he had been preparing.


    Three tiny beads raced out from around him and struck the Leviathan along it''s body. He stuck with 8 times overpowered and on its body rather than its head, the effect was much more promising.


    Felix watched as its body, in three separate locations, was crushed under the force of an invisible explosion. The same craters as before appeared but along its body, they were twice as big and dug easily halfway into its body when they struck.


    Instead of bouncing back, its flesh seemed to be permanently marred by the spells, its body not quite straight after the attack.


    Felix redirected his flight towards the ground and baited the Leviathan into chasing him, dodging to the side at the last second when it inevitably tried to bite him. It''s head smacked into the ground but it seemed to almost bounce off, unfazed.


    It still gave Felix time to drop more Directed Force Bombs along its body though, an opportunity he didn''t dare waste.


    As the Leviathan turned towards him, he could tell it was slower and pained as it moved.


    Not much longer now.


    The Leviathan turned itself towards Felix but, unexpectedly, flew above him. Felix prepared himself for a wide array of possible attacks but wasn''t ready at all when it''s entire body started vibrating.


    It seemed to be starting from the spines as the creature vibrated gradually faster and generated a high pitch whining noise. Felix quickly cast an air bubble around himself to dampen the sound but his ear drums were still obliterated. He felt his body starting to vibrate as well but luckily, he only lost a couple thousand health.


    Looking over at the Leviathan, it seemed to be damaging itself in the process as well. Felix watched as some of its scales fell off, its crater like wounds opening as blood started pouring out.


    Seeing how much damage it seemed to be doing to itself, Felix just decided to sit and wait it out.


    After almost a minute, it died down but the Leviathan immediately had another attack ready. Felix fired off another trio of Directed Force Bombs during its brief transition period then pushed a little extra mana into his Mage Armor.


    Suddenly, the temperature started dropping rapidly. Felix quickly cast a spell to keep himself warm but frowned because he wasn''t sure how this was supposed to do much of anything. The room got colder but it wasn''t difficult to deal with cold temperatures, even for non spell casters.


    He figured the Leviathan was just running through the rest of its arsenal as a last resort and he sighed.


    He cast a duo of Directed Force Bombs, only two this time because he had to waste a spell level of focus on keeping himself warm.


    As soon as the Force spells hit, the Leviathan gave up on the Cold and it''s spines retracted. It turned itself away from Felix then rocketed away at its full speed.


    Seriously¡­


    Felix replaced the Force spells keeping him in the air with overpowered ones then prepared as many Feather Fall and Force Shields as he could with his remaining focus. He sent his own body careening through the not quite air after the Leviathan and even dropped a few thousand health from the g-force alone.


    He dropped a single Directed Force Bomb onto its back because he wasn''t willing to give up any of his other prepared spells and just barely hit it as it was difficult to aim at his current velocity.


    The Leviathan groaned out in pain and squirmed around as Felix tried to hit it again, taking an embarrassing 5 casts to finally hit it.


    Ding You have slain a [D - Legendary] Mana Infused Leviathan (Lvl 572)


    Ding You have gained 65 levels in [D -Legendary] Reaper (383 => 448)


    Holy shit.


    Felix quickly cast every one of the spells he had prepared, in sequence, to slow himself down as he activated his soul ring. The Leviathan''s body fell to the ground with a massive boom sending rocks, dust and mana suffused liquid in every direction.


    Felix pulled out Eretheas and carefully carved out a couple large sections of its side then stored them in his soul space. He activated his blood ring and the rest of the body turned into a thousand red ribbons and a bit of dust on the wind.


    Ultimately, the body was once again far too big for him to store. He figured he would get a good amount of points for the chunk he planned on handing in and based on the chart he had seen, wasn''t losing out on too many points if it was graded low.


    Before looking at the body or soul or anything, Felix flew off towards the pillar of coral at the center of the pit. He activated his Persona as he flew and caught himself just after switching back to his freshly restored Persona body.


    He figured it was unlikely anyone had seen him switching between them but didn''t want to risk doing that ever again, not that it had been his choice. Having a second body and in some situations, a second life, had essentially just saved him. It was possible he never would have been in that situation with his own body''s higher stats, but the peace of mind was enough for him to be very happy with his decision to apply to the job under the guise of his Persona.


    Felix fully expected all the scavengers that had been just been standing around and waiting to come running now that the Leviathan and Damoth were dead so he wouldn''t have much time.


    He reached the coral pillar relatively quickly and saw that it looked just like any other coral pillar, a massive winding trunk that erupted from the ground and held the sky aloft.


    Dropping himself down to the ground where the mana suffused liquids seemed to be draining out, Felix saw the coral pillar slowly grow until, it split. Near the bottom, the pillar branched out into multiple winding roots of coral that all reached into the ground. The roots were tightly knit so all the gaps were less than a meter wide and they seemed to almost form a sphere, like they were protecting something within.


    As Felix directed himself to fall into a gap in the roots, he saw the inside of the pillar come into view.


    At the bottom of the pit there appeared to be a well of some kind as the rainbow cacophony of colorful liquids all poured into a small pond without it seeming to grow at all. In the center of the pond, sat a single little sapling with a wooden stem and a pair of leaves.


    That''s¡­ that''s it?


    Suddenly Felix turned as he heard screeching just a short distance away to his right. He flew back out of the coral cage containing the sapling and saw a wave of monsters moving in from every direction. Some were closer than others and there was plenty of infighting, but the wave seemed adamant on reaching the sapling.


    Felix estimated he had just a couple minutes before they arrived so he dropped down to the ground and opened his Pocket Home against the coral next to him.


    He, as carefully as he could in just a minute, took Eretheas and slid the blade under the sapling then pulled it free from it''s current location. He had to cut through a number of crystals that the sapling seemed to be growing through but eventually, he got it free and placed it in his Pocket Home in a random mana suffused pool.


    He then closed his Pocket Home for now and confronted the wave. Once it was dealt with, he fully planned on draining the well below him.


    Popping out of the coral, Felix leapt at the nearest monster and swung Eretheas, the axe head entirely engulfed in flame. He slammed down into the creature, crushing it and creating a massive explosion of flame in every direction.


    Felix was equally bathed in flames but he flicked the axe to the right and beheaded some ugly fish then absorbed it''s body and his health was full again.


    He leapt towards another clump where a particularly big turtle creature was fighting against a pack of small shark like creatures. Felix swung the axe in a wide arc, projecting the slash a short distance then slammed the axe down and released a series of Lightning Bolts at the same time.


    He leapt towards another group and slashed at them one by one, absorbing a couple bodies along the way to keep himself topped up.


    Felix continued ripping through the wave which was much easier than he had expected as he absorbed bodies to restore himself. A lot of the creatures were distracted by the enemies all around them and the prospect of getting to the treasure at the bottom of the pit. It made it so that Felix could jump on and surprise most of the creatures, landing a solid blow right from the start. Once he had landed a single solid blow, all the creatures had been easy pickings from there.


    He slew the creatures as they approached in an attempt to keep them away because although the sapling was gone, which he assumed was the natural treasure, he wanted the liquid for himself. Also this was the densest collection of random creatures he had found to date so he was more than happy to slay them all and hand them in for points.


    He mostly avoided Fire and Lightning after his first few tests but still used them occasionally. Mostly relying on the axe and the ring, Felix ripped his way through the wave until there was nothing left. Though he hadn''t quite ran out of energy, he had gotten frighteningly close.


    He was a little disappointed he had only gained a single level from the entire wave but a level was a level and he didn''t complain.


    No other creatures dared get close to the treasure once the wave was dealt with so Felix collected all the bodies and piled them up then opened his Pocket Home.


    First things first, he had to create a spot for the tree to grow. It didn''t seem to require light at all since he had found it in the under-coral so he didn''t worry about that. Instead, he knew it had been growing in a well of mana suffused liquids so he dug out a hole as big as he could and ran small channels from each of the pools he had around his tower.


    Lastly, he expanded his makeshift pump to be much bigger and therefore much faster then set it up to drain the well in the pit and fill the hole in his Pocket Home.


    He activated the pump and strapped a consumable battery to it causing liquid to gush through like a fire hose. While the well drained from the under-coral, Felix started moving bodies over to a designated area, which was really just a large hole he dug out.


    He wanted them to be accessible and if they were all piled up neatly, he could move them out himself with a big Force spell, meaning he didn''t need to allow anyone inside.


    Once he was done organizing the corpses, he added the pile he had just created outside then checked on the well.


    As far as he could tell, the hole he had made in his Pocket Home was getting close to full but the well in the under-coral was at exactly the same as before. Considering he couldn''t really dig any deeper, Felix decided to test something he realistically should have tested a while ago.


    Walking over to the edge of the space, he poked at the edge of the pocket dimension. He found it was solid but flexible and elastic. He tried pushing against it more firmly with a large spell and found that it expanded itself outwards then, over the course of a few minutes, contracted back to it''s original size.


    He knew the item description had mentioned the space expanding but he hadn''t had any reason to try doing so until now.


    Felix walked over to the new hole he had been filling up and expanded it temporarily for the time being then dug a hole straight down, right next to it. Once he poked a hole right through the stone island, he moved the pump over and started filling that hole instead.


    He added additional pumps so the liquid moved faster and even supplemented the Force spells himself because it was taking so long.


    It took nearly an hour of adjusting, digging and re-fusing stone to his island but Felix finally started to see the effect he had been hoping for. Instead of the hole filling up like the last one had, the pressure of all the liquid simply pushed against the edge of the pocket dimension and it expanded outwards.


    As the liquid pumped in, the edge of the pocket dimension extended from right up against the stone island, to an inch away, then a few inches.


    Many hours later, the stone island became a proper island with a multicolored sea just a few meters below the ground level. Felix shaped the bottom so it was shaped somewhat like an hourglass and added some permanent enchantments to make sure it didn''t tip over.


    He had to extend his pumps a few times as the liquid level of the well in the under-coral finally started to lower. As the liquid lowered, it revealed the crystal formations Felix had had to cut through to retrieve the sapling. He carefully removed a big chunk of them and placed them in the deeper hole in the center then relocated the sapling there.


    Once he had finally completely drained the well outside, Felix made some final adjustments, deactivated his pumps after they pumped in some fresh air for a few minutes, then closed his Pocket Home. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 Chapter 192 - Book 9

    The next item on his agenda now that he had killed a bunch of creatures was to hand in the corpses for points and take a look at experimenting with his body. After that, he wanted to track down the weird whispering on the ambient anima he had been hearing. He knew he was close to it and he had every intention of figuring out what the hell it was.


    Felix dropped a temporary anchor where he stood and also measured and memorized the coordinates just in case. With that done, he opened a portal back to the evaluation chamber and stepped through.


    Looking up, it appeared to be morning as the sun was just rising over the horizon, not visible yet but the horizon sported a colorful gradient band.


    There was no one else in line so Felix walked right up and knocked on the door. It opened just a moment later and he stepped inside where he saw Orav holding the door for him.


    "Ah, the Pocket Home and Demitium, right?"


    Felix nodded, "Correct."


    Felix walked over to one of the walls that was out of the direct line of sight and opened his Pocket Home. He used a series of Force spells to move balls of corpses through the portal as big as he could fit through the opening.


    Orav didn''t even question him hiding the portal and once Felix had completely emptied his Pocket Home of corpses, he personally walked over to the desk and offered the chunk he had carved out of the Leviathan.


    Orav immediately took and examined it then smiled widely, "This is a great find. I appreciate you leaving enough for us to research and examine. I''d recon there''s enough here for¡­ S on quality."


    Felix''s eyes widened, he had been expecting a B and hoping for an A. S wasn''t the highest, that was SSS, but the difference in points was just 25% between S and SSS so Felix was ecstatic for an S in quality.


    He emptied the rest of the corpses he didn''t need from his soul space and Orav directed his assistants to retrieve the rest of Felix''s pile and assess them. Just like last time, it only took them a few minutes to sort through everything and for Felix''s points to be updated.


    Checking the leaderboard, Felix was disappointed to see he was only in 40th place with almost 47 million points. He had been expecting much better considering the Leviathan alone was worth 40 million and he did not expect many people to be killing creatures like it.


    Taking a peak at the top of the list, Felix saw Merric had been knocked down to third place with over 226 million points, an absolutely absurd number. Above him was someone named Arvum with just under 296 million and in first, was someone named Il Doras with just shy of 331 million points.


    Before heading back to the under-coral and hunting down the whispers, Felix walked over to Orav, "Any chance I could get a look at the prize for being first?"


    Orav nodded, "Of course. Follow me."


    Orav quickly directed his assistants then led Felix to the back of the Evaluation chamber warehouse and into a large office like room. Along the walls, Orav pointed him towards a row of display cases holding a handful of items.


    "First place can pick any one item they wish from these. Second will pick after them and third will pick last." Orav explained.


    Felix nodded and quickly looked through the items. The first was a stick about a foot long that split and spiraled around itself and coming to a point at the tip. He identified it.


    [D - Legendary] Wand of Elements


    [Wand][Weapon]


    This wand has been tuned to transform the very nature of magic itself and can be used to enhance your spells.


    All spells in your spell list are cast 50% faster, deal 25% more damage and, if applicable, have a 50% increased area of effect and range.


    When an elemental spell from your spell list is cast through the wand, gain a charge of the spell''s corresponding element. Said charges can be consumed to transform the element of other cast spells to the element of the charge or, if the spell cast has the same element type as the charge, enhance it. When a spell with the same element is cast multiple charges may be consumed to enhance it further.


    Fucking spell lists.


    Grim mentally chuckled, I mean, you can replicate the effect yourself. You can just increase the damage, range or area of effect yourself.


    Yeah, but it''s still a cool stick that I can''t use.


    Looking at the next item, Felix was equally as disappointed. It looked to be a cloak made of a rich purple silk.


    [D - Epic] Cloak of the Phantom


    [Cloak]


    This cloak is designed to grant the wielder movement worthy of a phantom.


    All mobility skills or spell list spells cast have 50% increased range and decreased cast time.


    NOTE: This effect does not function with Reaper''s skills.


    When a mobility spell from your spell list or skill is cast, you may choose to double the resource cost to camouflage yourself during the skill. You may also choose to double the resource cost again to render yourself invisible for a maximum of 1 second. This ability has a 30 seconds cooldown.


    NOTE: This effect does not function with Reaper''s skills.


    Ugh. At least it''s notifying me ahead of time.


    After that there was a full set of leather armor followed by a pair of boots and finally a hat. The armor had something to do with stealth skills and abilities and, handily included a note for Felix that it would not function with his reaper skills. The boots allowed the user to walk on any surface, including the air just by channeling mana into them. Considering Felix could just fly or create an imitation of that enchantment himself, he wasn''t interested.


    The hat was the most interesting to him but that was a low bar. It looked old and a bit worn around the edges, made of some kind of rough grey material.


    [D - Mythic] Mysterious Hat


    [Hat]


    The appearance of the hat changes based on the person wearing it.


    Huh.


    Felix pointed at the hat, "Wouldn''t this be extremely valuable?"


    Orav walked over and chuckled, "Don''t put too much weight into its rarity. This hat is nothing more than a party trick." He gestured to the other four items, "These were the items I used when I was in the D grade. I have since grown out of them. I put the hat here as a novelty more than anything."


    "I see. You ever try to sell it?"


    Orav crossed his arms and nodded, "I did. Got offered a grand total of 100,000 D."


    Felix scoffed, "That''s it? It''s Mythic though."


    Orav shrugged, "Doesn''t mean much if it isn''t useful to anyone."


    Felix nodded, "Alright. Thanks for showing me. I''m going to go find myself some more points now."


    Orav smiled, "See if you can track down any more Legendary creatures."


    Felix chuckled, "I''ll see what I can do but given there''s what, just under 10 hours left?"


    Orav chuckled, "Fair enough."


    Leaving the building, Felix walked around a corner and out of sight then opened a portal back to the under-coral.


    Though none of the items were of particular interest to Felix, he still wanted to win and fully planned on fighting for it. If he didn''t end up winning though, which seemed like a possibility, he decided he wouldn''t be too upset considering the meager prize pool. He had already gotten what he''d actually come to this planet for, corpses to copy from.


    Felix picked up the temporary anchor and made a mental note to properly craft and enchant dozens of these and store them in his soul space so he could place them down if he ever had to revisit a place.


    Sitting down in the cage of coral that once housed a natural treasure, Felix reverted his body back to his own. He then entered the soul ring first and started manually harvesting all the souls he had collected.


    He harvested them in chronological order only because that also allowed him to progress through them by level.


    His goal with manual harvesting was just to use all the excess to finish up the layer of his soul that would suffuse his body. Paying attention to his Soul Harvest skill, it seemed it was incapable of doing what he was doing, taking the excess and moving it into his Soul Space so it was effectively wiped clean. It made sense to him because even The System wasn''t supposed to be able to affect his Soul Space. That meant it couldn''t automate that step in the process.


    Ding You have become more proficient with the Class skill: [Legendary] Soul Reap (Novice II => Novice III)


    Felix harvested the souls as he always did, stripping out what was clean and he could use then integrating that into his own soul. Anything that screamed bloodlust, aggression or domination was fused to his Persona''s outer layer and finally everything else was treated just like a highly concentrated ball of anima.


    He cleaned and partially affinized the anima using his own soul then fused it into the suffusing layer of his Persona''s soul.


    By the time he got to Damoth''s soul, he had already finished the layer entirely. He could always make it denser and he fully intended on doing so eventually but before he got to that, he wanted to test the layer and if it worked, he would have to replicate it in his real body and would need even more anima to do so.


    Felix quickly removed all the Aucore cells on his Persona''s arms then swapped over to its body.


    He sat down and carefully manipulated the layer of soul he had created and fit it into all the cells of his body. He found he couldn''t just push it into a finger, he had to manually force it in, hold it there, and then fuse it to the cells themselves.


    As Erolan had so kindly demonstrated to Felix before, the connection points between the body and soul were spread far apart and there were realistically only 7 of them for most people. What he was effectively doing, at least in his mind, was connecting each and every cell of his body to his soul, creating countless anchor points and hopefully, making his cells stronger and smarter.


    Eventually he would look at connecting it on a deeper level but for now, this would be enough. It took him almost an hour to fully connect his hand to the layer of his soul but from there it became faster. It was much easier for him to fuse his soul to his body when he was able to start from somewhere, so extending it out from his hand to his whole arm took minutes rather than hours.


    Once he had finished suffusing his entire body, he walked around, stretched, jumped and generally felt out his Persona''s body. He didn''t have a stat sheet so he couldn''t be certain by how much, but Felix immediately felt the difference. His Strength, Agility, Vitality and Endurance had all increased by more than 50% by his estimates. His Dexterity and Perception also seemed a little better, but by around 10% if he had to guess.


    On top of all that though, his Persona body suddenly felt less like a puppet and much more like his real body. Ironically, it actually felt a little more comfortable to him right now but he suspected that would completely flip once he suffused his real body with his real soul.


    More subtly, he felt more in control of his Persona body on a micro level. He was more in tune with the cells and could give them direction. He didn''t have the same granular control he had with his real body, but he found he had more control over the modifications he had already made for example.


    He excitedly hopped back into his real body then looked into his blood ring and started examining the creatures he had killed in search of anything he could steal. Unfortunately everything up until Damoth was garbage. There was not a single cell that he found remotely interesting.


    Damoth though, had simple Force organs with a small network of cores that Felix thought was cool but didn''t bother with. It all required more space than he was willing to give up in his own body. Damoth did however, have some of the densest and just plain strongest muscles he had ever seen.


    The strongest muscles were in the tail so that''s where he drew the most inspiration from as he carefully replaced his own muscle cells with cells based on Damoth''s.


    When he was done, Felix popped back out of the ring, switched bodies and immediately felt both lighter and heavier at the same time. It was like his muscles had been stretched tighter over his entire body along with being denser. On the other hand, he walked around and felt much stronger.


    He tested out his muscles by increasing Eretheas'' weight until he could just barely lift it and swung the axe around. Other than obliterating some coral which was incredibly satisfying, Felix almost immediately noticed the downside as he used them. The muscle cells were incredibly inefficient and used thousands of energy per second.


    Considering his cycling was much worse in his Persona and his energy didn''t restore itself nearly as quickly, he wasn''t sure it was even a viable modification.


    On the other hand, he could swing Eretheas and completely obliterate his enemies just by punching them, at least that''s how he felt.


    He reverted back to his own body and moved back to the blood ring where, instead of looking at the Leviathan''s body, he compared his Persona''s body to his own. He wanted to try and figure out both why the energy cycling was less efficient and why he couldn''t restore his energy with mana.


    He only managed to find an answer to the first though which was just that he hadn''t trained his cells at all. In his real body, he had run, fought and exercised while starving his whole body of energy, causing it to grow accustomed to using less energy as they grew.


    His Persona body though was like a newborn and he hadn''t gotten around to training it. It also used new fresh cells every time he modified them. He made a mental note to start starving his Persona cells but he had reservations. Specifically, he was putting cells like Damoth''s and other large creatures in his Persona that weren''t efficient at all. He had no idea how they would react to being starved of energy. It might not even be possible at all to make them more efficient.


    Finally looking at the Leviathan, Felix dismissed most of its body because its muscles and organs were based mostly on structure and were too big respectively. What he was really interested in though were the specifics of the cells themselves.


    Just like the Chameleon Tigers, and the Dhantoas, it seemed to have temporarily buffed its stats by switching forms. Felix had somewhat adapted this into his Persona body but he couldn''t switch mid battle. The Leviathan had done exactly that and very efficiently so.


    Felix sifted through its mana organs and memorized the attunements they produced then compared its cells against his Persona''s and carefully modified them. He experimented with combining the attunements and cells, tuning them to get as much out of them as he could.


    What he ended up with was that instead of just buffing a single stat, he managed to buff two at once. He had also increased the amount he buffed them by 50% and found an efficient way to buff his vitality as well.


    He still didn''t have mana channels to support them yet so his changing the buff in the middle of battle was still a pipe dream, but when he exited the ring and swapped bodies, he was already elated.


    He switched the buff over to Strength and Agility because he didn''t want to keep watching his body move in slow motion and immediately noticed his Agility surpass his real body''s. The change was so drastic that he spent a little while adjusting and testing the limits on the ground, random stones and the coral pillars.


    As he grew more accustomed to the changes, he couldn''t help but feel exited for once he finally applied the same changes to his real body. His Persona was essentially a lab where he could test and experiment, doubling as a suit of armor that had already saved his life once before. Despite his Persona''s body''s advantages, his real body still felt more appropriate to him and given the same buffs, would easily surpass his Persona''s stats.


    He briefly toyed with the idea of making the two bodies look identical but quickly dismissed the idea because having a disguise, an alternate persona was too appealing to him. It allowed him to enter competitions and divert the attention away from himself.


    He definitely decided he needed to put more work into figuring it all out though.


    Flying off into the distance, Felix continued in the direction where he had previously sensed the whispers coming from. Felix tuned into his soul senses and really listened for what he had previously been blocking out.


    He adjusted his flight by a couple degrees at a time until he was pretty sure he had the right direction. He continued flying through the air and gradually, the whispers grew. They grew from whispers to noises and from noises to distant screams.


    It didn''t get any louder than that though. Felix found the origin point, or at least he thought so. As far as he could tell, when he moved in any direction the feeling was slowly drowned out. Unfortunately, looking around him, there was nothing.


    The under-coral had slightly changed in that there were no more mana pools but that just made everything incredibly dull. All he saw was the rocky cracked ground and countless coral pillars in every direction. There weren''t even many creatures around, any as far as he could see.


    Felix sighed as he realized there was likely nothing here anymore. His best guess was that something had happened around here long ago and the echo of it still permeated the ambient anima.


    He flew up to the coral roof above to try and find a cave to escape but stopped short. As he flew upwards, the screams grew just the slightest bit fainter.


    It''s fucking under me? How many more layers are there?


    Felix immediately shot himself down to the ground then launched Light Orbs off in every direction. While he could have just started digging down, he was certain that would take weeks so instead, he pulled out a portal spell form for Trelas and dropped it to the ground.


    Felix pushed just enough mana through its channels that it could hold its form then carefully pulled the mana free from the mold and held it aloft. He used every bit of his focus to keep the mana in place as he carefully modified the spell form.


    Almost immediately, he dropped it. It felt like what he was doing required at least 30 spell levels of focus and by his measurements, he had only ever achieved 15. He tried a few more times and got marginally farther but ultimately, decided he would have to cheat.


    Once he pulled the spell form made of mana free, he solidified it. The entire spell form became thread thin and incredibly fragile, but it held itself together without Felix having to do much.


    From there, he held it aloft as he carefully modified the spell form. Instead of an anchor, Felix swapped out the target to point in a direction, directly downwards. He had to modify the rest of the portal a little bit but ultimately, he was happy with the result.


    He spent a half hour scrutinizing its shape until he was confident enough to revert it to gaseous mana and start filling it.


    He couldn''t use an exact mold because he needed to modify its direction and distance during the cast. He could have made a new mold with an empty target like he had when he foolishly tried to kill Erolan, but he wanted to be able to cast portals without molds eventually and figured it was good practice.


    As it turned out, casting portals free form was easier on a certain level. The spell form''s flaws more often than not seemed to iron themselves out as the mana accelerated through the spell form.


    He quickly ran out of mana using just his pool so he pulled a battery out of his soul space and drained it, followed by another so his mana pool wasn''t empty.


    Just over 4 million mana later, a 2 meter wide circle appeared in the air before him. Looking through, he saw a whole lot of nothing. Even reaching his hand forwards, he simply hit solid stone. Felix pumped more mana into the spell form then started moving the target slowly.


    With the target being actively moved, the portal required a lot more mana to sustain it but Felix figured he had a few minutes worth of mana at least. He also didn''t dare move it too quickly so it didn''t suddenly need a burst of mana and risk the portal closing itself.


    Now that the spell was cast, it didn''t require as much active focus from him so he split his attention towards his soul senses where he tried to sense through the portal. At first he wasn''t getting much but as he moved it around, the screams grew so loud they echoed through the portal and Felix knew he had to be getting close.


    He continued pushing the portal downwards and zig zagging it back and forth until finally, the light from his Orbs pierced the veil of the portal and he was no longer staring at solid stone. Instead, he looked through the portal and saw the opposite end of a hallway carved directly out of the stone deep below him.


    He was certain he had found the right place because he had to actively fight back against the screaming now. Not only did his soul senses feel it, but somehow that had translated directly to his mind in the form of a piercing migraine. Were it not for the fact that it did no damage, he would have thought it was an attack.


    He took a couple minutes to get used to it before he picked up the mold he had used as a template and stepped through the portal.


    Felix erected his Force Shield around himself then shot a Light Orb towards the walls so he could see. Looking down the hallway, he saw a collapsed section to his left and a bend in the corridor on his right.


    He started with the collapsed section where he walked over and used his new found strength to remove large boulders from the pile and clear the way. His biggest problem was that he had nowhere to put the boulders he removed so he ended up opening his Pocket Home and just tossing them in.


    Once he had cleared enough, Felix spotted a trio of doors, one on each wall at the end of the hall. He first cleared all the rubble which seemed to have come from the ceiling, that had partially collapsed, then headed through the first one.


    The doors themselves were far thicker than Felix had been expecting and were heavily reinforced, likely why they had survived when the ceiling hadn''t. Even the hinges were still perfectly functional which Felix found simply astonishing.


    He ducked his Persona''s head a little to peer into the room and saw what appeared to be an operating theater. In the center of the room was a table with straps and chains dangling off of it. Along the walls were tables with various tools and on the walls, there were the remnants of arcane symbols that once depicted a series of spells.


    There was nothing he could glean from them though, not even an intact node as the wall appeared to have been completely charred and partially melted. The fact that any of the enchantment or spell work remained at all was a miracle.


    Felix looked through the tools and saw many scalpels of many different materials along with clamps, scissors, forceps and retractors. He didn''t touch any of them though and after looking around once, backed up and closed the door again. The room across the hall was a mirror of the first and even had the same charring on the walls.


    The last door, the one at the end of the hall, Felix opened to reveal what appeared to be a closet. He briefly looked through some of the shelves but just found gloves, tools, gauze, bandages and so on, nothing of interest.


    Turning around, Felix took a second to suppress the screaming he felt from the anima further then headed towards the opposite end of the hall. He followed it as it turned to the right where he was immediately greeted by windows on either side of the hall.


    Through each one of the windows, he saw what was essentially a cell. The vast majority of them contained skeletons and mush and judging from the variety, Felix was tempted to call this a zoo.


    The cells stretched on throughout the hall all the way to the end where it split off to the left and right. Felix looked right and saw a room at the end that was filled with broken glass. He walked over until he could look in and saw what was once a large cell, much bigger than the ones lining the walls.


    He didn''t bother walking into the room and instead turned around and checked the other hall. He followed it for a bit where he saw a few more larger cells but mostly just small cells. Surprisingly, he hadn''t seen a single cell that didn''t contain some kind of remains other than the ones that were broken open. Whenever this place had been functional, it had to have been completely full.


    He followed the hall right into a large open area that he suspected was once the lobby. He saw two other halls branching off of this one and off the last wall, a simple cylindrical room that he suspected had once been the portal destination, judging from the damaged anchor embedded in the floor.


    Felix turned away from the anchor and immediately got knocked to the ground by something hitting him in the face. His Force Shield had instantly broken which made Felix panic a little bit. He tried to push himself back up but his muscles were contracting against his will so he didn''t get far before he was kicked back a few meters.


    Once again, his muscles spasmed but this time, he pushed back with his Persona''s soul, now suffusing his cells, and almost immediately felt the effect dissipate. Felix hopped to his feet and turned to look at something that he was somewhat sure was once a Rhunar man.


    Now, Lightning arced between its horns and its body was a disgusting mess of flesh that had been fused together. In shape alone, it was humanoid but everything else made it an abomination.


    [D - Corrupted] Test Subject #7 (Lvl 298)


    Its level is so low. How is it punching and kicking me this hard?


    Felix got to his feet, quickly recast his air bubble, and walked forwards, not really feeling threatened by the creature that hadn''t even hit level 300. Before he could get closer than a few meters away though, the creature punched him in the stomach again and sent a burst of Lightning into his body.


    He pushed his cells to listen to him and ignore the Lightning to regain control of his body. It was still wreaking havoc but there wasn''t exactly much he could do about that at the moment. He pushed his cells to stay like that then walked right up to #7, taking a punch to the shoulder to do so.


    Felix pushed back against the punch and braced himself with a Force spell then wound up and punched forwards as hard as he could. His fist connected with #7''s chest and sent him flying into the far wall.


    They hit the stone and briefly slumped down before disappearing in a burst of Lightning and burying their foot in Felix''s side. He hadn''t been ready for an attack from that direction but he had the spell prepared so he caught himself after sliding just a meter away. Felix turned and stepped towards the creature then swung his arm forwards for a right hook but completely missed.


    Test Subject #7 had vanished from that spot then Felix felt a kick to the back of his knees followed very shortly by a punch to the right side of his head.


    Felix crumpled to the ground and then saw a burst of Lightning hit the ground right in front of his face. He rolled backwards and punched #7 in the gut while they were keeled over then once in the head while they were briefly in the air and unable to move.


    Using his left arm, Felix reached out to grab its neck but missed and instead got its arm. He reached up and curled his fingers around its throat with his free hand then held it aloft and examined it. As he did, the creature shrouded its entire body in arcs of Lightning and thrashed about in a blur.


    Somehow, this random creature was faster than he was by a decent margin. In theory, he figured his stats should have been higher than just about everything at his level and most things in his grade. This creature was below his level and somehow, had him beat. Even its strength was close despite his ridiculous modifications.


    Felix sighed, crushed its throat and punched it in the face then activated his soul ring and stowed the body in his soul space.


    Ding You have slain [D - Corrupted] Test Subject #7 (Lvl 298)


    He looked back at the room he was in and decided to head down the left hall, the one that mirrored the hall he had come from.


    Unfortunately, it seemed as though the hall was exactly the same as the one he had entered from, a mirror image and equally as empty. He headed back towards the lobby but on the way back, crumpled to his knees as he felt his entire body rattle, like it was ready to burst.


    Felix resisted the effect as much as he could and screamed at his cells to each individually fight back. It was enough to keep him alive and conscious for the minute or so it took him to rise to his feet and trudge through the effect towards its source.


    [D - Corrupted] Test Subject #2 (Lvl 254)


    Right in front of him there appeared to be a male elf that had its mouth open unnaturally large. Felix cast a quick Lightning Bolt at it as he walked just to shut it up for a second. The Lightning coursed through its body and caused it to tense up just long enough for Felix to leap forwards and punch it right in its open mouth.


    He felt his hand hit and crush something. Once #2 hit the ground, it immediately scrambled and tried to run away but it didn''t get further than a few meters before Felix beheaded it with Eretheas.


    He absorbed its soul and stowed the body in his soul space then looked towards the last room of the chamber.


    In fighting the two Test Subjects, Felix had lost just 5 of his almost 105 thousand health pool so he was confident he could keep looking. He erected his Force Shield again in case it provided value once again then took two steps forward and dropped to his knees.


    He hadn''t actually been attacked at all, he had just run out of energy without realizing it. Felix sighed and reverted to his real body where he could produce energy and meditated for a few minutes with Grim on the lookout.


    It currently took him just under an hour to fill his energy core while meditating which he was more than happy to wait for. He reactivated his Persona body and pressed on into the last hall of the lobby area.


    He walked down a hall and saw a series of doors along the walls. He opened one and found what had once been an office before it had been completely burned down. All of the doors yielded the same result, a charred office so Felix continued following the hall to it''s end where he saw a stair case that descended about 50 meters to a large metal door.


    Just in front of the door, Felix spotted what looked to be a female demon. She had entirely reddish skin and a single horn atop her head, just like the attendant at the teleportation hub that had first greeted him when he had arrived in Telviras.


    [D - Corrupted] Test Subject #4 (Lvl 316)


    Felix looked down at her for just a few moments before she noticed him and smiled. Felix was taken aback at first but cautiously waved nonetheless.


    She immediately started screaming, "MINE!"


    Though her screams weren''t nearly as loud or harmful as #4''s, hers carried a stream of Fire along with them. Felix jumped back a couple steps as the entire staircase and part of the hall way beyond was filled with flames.


    He swapped out his Force Shield for a normal Mana Shield then slowly walked forwards as the flames dissipated. He reached the end of the hall and looked down the staircase where the woman sat exactly where she had been before.


    She looked at him for a few seconds then Felix felt a huge tug on his mana as his Mana Shield blocked her fist followed almost immediately by a huge burst of flame.


    Judging from the mana expenditure alone, Felix was pretty sure that one punch would have taken at least half of his Persona''s health outright. Considering the Leviathan had done something similar but required time to build up the ability, Felix was a little terrified.


    Whatever had been done to this woman, whether or not it had made her crazy, had also imbued her with ridiculous Strength. The idea of figuring out what that was, especially considering her level was both exciting and a little worrisome, considering the apparent side effects that all three test subjects he met displayed.


    The woman struck the shield again with her opposite fist, draining a few hundred thousand mana once again. She alternated her fists and slammed against the shield making it obvious to Felix that in this war of attrition, he was bound to lose.


    He didn''t want to just drop the shield though because that would leave him completely open and he didn''t really have a great way of fighting her just yet. He started by launching her back into the ceiling of the stairs with a burst of Force, just to give himself some breathing room.


    She fell to the floor then, with a burst of flames beneath her feet, leapt at Felix faster than he could react to. She landed right in front of him leaving behind a trail of flames that quickly dissipated. This time, she smashed her head into the Shield, once again with flames appearing behind her head, like an afterimage.


    Felix kept the shield up but launched himself backwards this time, down the hall and away from #4. She slowly bent her legs then burst through the hallways, a trail of fire the only indication of where she had been.


    Felix jumped into the air and over her, allowing her momentum to build distance for him. He kept himself in the air and as she turned and bent her legs again to prepare for another leap, Felix hit her with a well timed, underpowered Lightning Bolt.


    He hit her just after her legs had tensed causing her to lose her ability to direct herself and instead of going forwards, she leapt straight up into the ceiling. Her head created a small crater in the stone above her and she fell to the ground like a rag doll. She was clearly dazed so Felix took the opportunity to cast a series of Force spells on her head.


    He lifted it up just an inch then slammed her skull back down into the stone floor repeatedly until he got the notification he was waiting for.


    Ding You have slain [D - Corrupted] Test Subject #4 (Lvl 316)


    Felix immediately activated his soul ring then leapt forwards and stowed her body in his soul space.


    It''s definitely ominous that all of them were completely insane.


    Yeah, it''s odd too. Erolan I understood because he had been left sealed in his body with just his own mind to talk to for a ridiculous amount of time. These people though¡­


    I mean we don''t know how long they''ve been here, right?


    This place wasn''t preserved by The System, so I couldn''t have been that long.


    I guess, still could have been a while.


    Felix briefly topped up his mana pool with one of the batteries then kept it in his hand and used his passive regeneration to recharge it as he walked up to the door #4 had been in front of.


    The large metal door looked almost like a vault door to Felix except that he didn''t see any obvious way of opening it. It was blackened and charred no doubt from #4''s attempts at getting in but the damage was superficial. The door didn''t appear to have been warped or melted in any way.


    Felix briefly tried a number of spells and simply running mana through the door but when nothing worked, he resorted to portals once again. He already had a mold he had made to get down here so he simply used it as a template and adjusted the direction and distance of the portal before filling it with mana.


    Now that he had done it once, or more likely because of the short distance, Felix found maintaining this spell form in the air as he filled it with mana much easier.


    As though a hole had suddenly been drilled through the door, Felix stepped through the almost two meter thick metal wall. Knowing now how thick it was, Felix wasn''t sure it was ever intended to open at all.


    Looking back at it from the other side as he pulled the mold back through and closed the portal, he didn''t see any hinges or door knobs so he was convinced the previous residents simply portaled across as well.


    It was odd though because beyond the metal wall, Felix looked into what looked almost like a massive library. Instead of just books though, the shelves were also filled with boxes, drawers, and stacks of files.


    The room had 10 sets of shelves that extended back almost a hundred meters and all the way up to the 3 meter ceiling above. He floated through each of the shelves making sure his skill was scanning everything and replacing the garbage he had in his Memory Palace''s shelves.


    Once everything had been scanned, Felix got a little more daring and examined some of the drawers. He had no reason to believe they would be trapped but he was as careful as he could be nonetheless.


    He knew he didn''t have any of the books or files that were hidden in boxes and drawers scanned until he saw them so if the drawers were set to destroy their contents upon being opened, he was screwed.


    Unfortunately, he wasn''t very well trained in finding traps or mechanisms like that so he first ran a wave of mana through the drawer to detect any channels or inlays but found none. To avoid any other possible issues, Felix decided to do something a little extravagant.


    He pulled his portal mold back out of his soul space and filled it with mana then drew out the spell form and made some adjustments. He minimized the size and distance to just a couple inches each then cast it in front of the drawer.


    Once he could see inside, his Scan Literature skill scanned the contents and he carefully moved the portal over to the next drawer. It cost him his entire mana pool to get through all the drawers and boxes but he decided it was well worth it.


    He started manually regenerating his mana with the vortex imagery in his mind as he finally dared to physically interact with the drawers. He opened one and then another, followed by every box and drawer in the room. It turned out none of them were trapped at all but Felix was still happy he had scanned the room the way he had ahead of time because it wasn''t worth the risk.


    To Felix, if his suspicions were correct, the information in this room was invaluable to him. Grim immediately started sorting through it all as Felix searched the room for anything that may have been hidden from direct sight.


    He didn''t actually find anything but decided he would come back and potentially be more destructive once he had completely cleared the building.


    The only exit off the library, other than wall he had walked through to get in, was a hall way on the opposite side of the room. Felix walked over and started exploring where he found multiple doors.


    He did his best to search for traps but when he found none, decided to just open the door. The door was locked though and Felix saw some kind of keyhole. He didn''t want to deal with it and decided he might as well get more practice in with portals.


    He filled the mold once again then lifted the spell form up and out then modified it and finally cast it. He stepped through the door and unlocked it from the inside then dragged the portal spell form with him and made sure all the doors off the hallways were unlocked. Once that was done, he dismissed the spell form and resumed manually regenerating mana into his pool, followed by his empty batteries.


    The rooms themselves appeared to all be offices except for one that was more like a lobby containing multiple doors to other rooms.


    All of the offices were largely identical with a desk in the middle, a chair and some book shelves on the walls. Felix searched through the completely mundane drawers and shelves finding almost exclusively more documents. There were some trinkets, office supplies and other clutter but he had no interest in them.


    He continued searching each of the offices and grew increasingly disappointed he wasn''t finding anything of value. Grim put him at ease though when he assured him the documents he was scanning were filled with incredibly valuable information.


    Once the mundane task of manually searching each office was complete, Felix headed into the last room of the hallway. The room appeared to be some kind of lounge, sitting area, kitchen with counters, tables, chairs, couches and once enchanted appliances. The cooling and preservation enchantments on the fridge were mundane and boring, nothing new as were the enchantments on everything else he found.


    He started opening doors after doing his best to check them for traps and the first few, appeared to be mundane storage closets. They contained shelves with everything from salt to extra bandages. He didn''t bother taking any of it and simply moved on until he found a room worth looking into.


    The first room he found other than storage, and the second last door in the room, was another office. This office though was much bigger than the ones he had just searched through. The office was generally laid out in a similar fashion except it had more book cases, a bigger desk along with a seating area and its own small kitchen. Felix determined it was clearly the executive office.


    He immediately walked over to the shelves where he made sure to scan everything before he walked over to the desk and opened all of the drawers. Inside he found some surgical tools, scalpels and a few other odds and ends along with plenty of documents and journals.


    He made sure he had everything in his Memory Palace before he started getting a little more aggressive with the furniture in an attempt to find anything that may have been hidden. As he walked over to the bookshelf and reached forwards to start pulling the books, Felix stopped himself.


    Looking at the shelf, there was about an inch of space from the edge of the shelf to the books and that space was covered in dust except for in front and around the books themselves. On the shelf around the book ends and empty space, the dust was settled and undisturbed.


    Once he saw it, Felix looked around and it became painfully obvious that someone else at some point had been here. Felix wasn''t trained to look for such things so it had taken him a while to notice but he quickly walked into a few of the other offices and the file room shaped like a library. He immediately recognized the same patterns in each of them.


    He quickly checked to see if the dust had been disturbed anywhere else but didn''t find any indication that information had been taken and not replaced.


    I guess we should be thankful they put everything back. Whoever they were.


    Or at least that''s how they made it look.


    Sure, fair enough.


    Walking back to the executive office, Felix pulled on all the books to see if he could find anything that had been hidden but found nothing.


    He didn''t bother tearing all the other rooms apart just yet and instead headed towards the last door he hadn''t searched, a large metal door, with a handle this time.


    Felix pulled the door open which took a noticeable but manageable amount of strength and revealed what looked to him like a warehouse sized, walk in refrigerator. The entire inside of the room was made of metal, including the walls and shelves. The shelves were laid out like a library or a warehouse and covered in metal crates of various sizes.


    The room itself was frigid, to the point where Felix had to cast a spell to heat himself up. He was pretty sure that If he wasn''t still maintaining the air bubble around his head, he would have gotten frost burn in his lungs.


    Felix stepped into the room and closed the door behind him, after making sure it didn''t have any kind of locking mechanism. He walked over to the first shelf and saw a label on the shelf itself that read: "DR-374: Jappemoth."


    The next one down from that read: "DR-521: Develkad."


    Felix carefully removed the box above the first label and set it down on the ground then pried open the top which was sealed with suction rather than anything physical.


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    Inside, he saw what appeared to be the corpse of a small bird. He closed the box again and opened the next one where rather than a corpse, he found what looked to be a set of organs carefully suspended in some liquid.


    Holy shit. Grim, you got any context I need to know?


    Yeah, I''ve gone through most of it. It''s exactly what it looks like.


    Got a ledger with a total count of some kind?


    Yeah, according to the logs kept in the fancy office, there should be 5852 total specimens.


    Holy shit. There''s no way I can move all this, is there?


    I don''t think it would fit in your Pocket Home, no.


    Alright new plan. I open a portal for Orav and let him down here so his assistants can just unload everything themselves. Before I do that though, can you direct me to-


    Yup, already on it. Two shelves to your left, 3rd shelf from the bottom, about a quarter of the way down. Look for BM-2.


    Felix followed Grim''s directions and found the label: "BM-2: Phoenix."


    After excitedly, but carefully, pulling the box down, Felix opened it to reveal a single wing. The wing had been plucked making it look kind of like a small muscular arm and it was not severed cleanly. Part of the shoulder and body were still attached to it along with some vertebrae.


    Felix very carefully reached down and touched the wing which actually killed a chunk of his finger due to the temperature, but he still managed to stow it in his soul space. Felix removed the label from the shelf so no one would have any idea what had been there then moved on to the next item Grim directed him to.


    All in all, he ended up taking 16 of the specimens for himself, making sure to get rid of the labels. Before he handed this location in though, he walked back into the offices and file room and, with Grim''s help identifying them, destroyed all of the records of what had been in the room. He didn''t want Orav to know what he had taken.


    With all that done, Felix pulled out the temporary anchor he had previously used and dropped it right in front of the door to the refrigerated warehouse. He kept the door closed so everything was preserved then carefully opened a portal back to the field in front of the evaluation chamber.


    After having used the mold to open portals throughout the office area of the facility, Felix was finding it much easier to hold the portal spell form steady. He no longer dropped the spell form or had to restart at all. He managed to hold it steady on his first try despite using coordinates which were more complicated.


    Felix stepped through, closed the portal and got in line for the evaluation chamber with just under an hour left. The line was over 20 people long so Felix was understandably worried he wouldn''t be able to get in. It seemed as though many people were trying to submit as much as they could right before the end.


    As he looked towards the front of the line, Felix felt much better about his odds of getting evaluated. It seemed as though Orav had expected and planned for this. There were multiple people being evaluated at once and, from the glimpses he caught through the door, he had what must of been hundreds of assistants.


    Despite his additional help, Felix was still surprised when he was at the front of the line just over 20 minutes later.


    Orav beckoned him forwards in a rush because there were another 20 or so people behind him.


    Orav pulled Felix aside without bringing him into the evaluation chamber at all, "How much approximately do you have to hand in?"


    "5836."


    Orav chuckled, "We''re going to evaluate the rest of the line. Even if we go over the time limit, don''t worry. Your submissions will still count. We just ended up with more heavy hitters than we expected."


    Felix nodded, "Sure. You''ll call me when you''re ready then?"


    Orav nodded, "Yes. Uh¡­ what''s your name? Your identification is¡­ weird."


    "Arthur."


    Orav nodded, "I''ll call on you soon."


    Felix nodded and walked over to the field. HIs submissions were guaranteed to count so he was more than happy to just sit and wait, he had plenty of things he wanted to do in the meantime anyways. Before he dealt with any of that though, Felix felt out his soul bond and felt Nova somewhere off to his right. Nova was a fair distance away but moving towards him very quickly so he simply waited.


    In the meantime, he worked on casting as many spell levels as he could. While he wanted to cast as many as possible and he would keep working at it, his immediate goal was to be able to raw cast the portal spell form without the mold. In order to do so he was going to have to double his current focus capacity which was getting increasingly difficult.


    Before now, he had felt himself making progress and in turn, he had been able to cast more and more spells in just a short time. Now, it felt like he had reached a wall of some kind. It wasn''t that he wasn''t progressing at all, it was just that he was starting to feel like he had reached the limit of his mind''s capacity or at least, he was getting close to it. He suspected he would be able to squeeze one more spell level of simultaneous casts but he wasn''t sure he could get any further than that as he was.


    He was really hoping he found a way to modify his mind as soon as possible so he could keep practicing. Until then though, he was starting to believe he was better off training and increasing his cast range and decreasing his cast time because his gains there were still very fast.


    Still, he couldn''t help but dream of a possible future where he could cast portals with a figurative snap of his fingers. After watching the memory crystal of Edras dealing with the natural disasters, the idea of using portals in combat had stuck with him.


    As Felix practiced, though he was focused on the spell forms, his eyes were pointed in Nova''s direction. He saw the field stretch out before him before it climbed up the side of a tall mountain. Suddenly, a dark figure topped by a white one bathed in an unnatural ray of sunlight darted around the mountain towards the evaluation chamber.


    As they got closer, Felix confirmed the dark figure was in fact Nova as a Dire Wolf but it took him a few seconds to figure out the figure on top of Nova. It seemed as though there was some sort of Drakene with milky white scales and matching plate armor riding them. On top of that, they held their sword aloft and seemed to be somehow summoning a beam of warm sunlight from above.


    He patiently waited as they soared through the air towards the evaluation chamber. Right as they got just a couple hundred meters away though, Nova, much to their rider''s confusion, veered downwards towards Felix.


    Felix chuckled as the Drakene fruitlessly tried to redirect Nova''s flight. Nova ran right up to Felix and jumped up onto him. Despite Felix''s, or his Persona Arthur''s, massive body, Nova as a Dire Wolf was still significantly bigger.


    Felix managed to remain standing though thanks in large part to his upgraded muscles, though he had to consume a large chunk of his energy to do so.


    "Hello." Felix pet and scratched Nova behind the ears, treating her much like he would a dog.


    "I apologize, I only recently befriended this beast and haven''t fully trained her just yet." The Drakene called down, still mounted to her back.


    Felix looked at him for a few seconds then winced, "You mean Wolfy, my familiar?"


    Fuck. I couldn''t think of a better name fast enough.


    The Drakene frowned, "Wolfy? No this is- Oh, I see. It seems I was mistaken. My apologies."


    The Drakene carefully dismounted Nova and tentatively pet her from the side then turned to Felix, "My name is Il Doras, please call me Doras."


    "Arthur."


    Doras reached his hand out, "Arthur, it is a pleasure to meet you. Wolfy here is a mighty fine companion. I can''t deny my excitement at having found her on this planet nor my disappointment that we now must part ways."


    Felix nodded, "Thank you."


    Doras quickly looked over Felix''s shoulder towards the line and nodded, "I must go collect my final points. Arthur, will you join me? Wolfy has some to hand in herself and I must explain this development to Orav."


    Felix shrugged, "Sure." Then followed Doras, along with Nova, into the line. Luckily, the line had dwindled to just a couple individuals who apparently didn''t have much to hand in because they were processed in under a minute.


    Orav looked into the line and saw Felix and Doras then beckoned Doras over. He walked forwards and Orav frowned.


    "Might I invite Arthur in with me? It seems I have overstepped. This," Doras gestured to Nova, "Is Wolfy and she is Arthur''s companion. Would it be possible to reallocate the points she has submitted to him?"


    Orav looked over to Arthur and nodded, "Hey Arthur, do you mind if we just deal with both of you at the same time?"


    Felix shrugged, "Sure." Then walked up and followed them into the building.


    Orav turned to the crowd in the field, "No more points may be submitted at this time. We will be evaluating these two and then we will announce and distribute the rewards. I apologize for the delay."


    Orav closed the door behind him then sighed and turned to Doras, "Alright, how much you got?"


    Doras just nodded then walked over to one of the walls. He closed his eyes, reached out one of his clawed fingers towards the wall then slowly his claw sunk into the stone. Felix found it a little odd he would outright damage the wall like that until his claw sunk deeper and a suddenly a golden light poured out of the point he touched.


    He pushed further and the light spread until it formed a circle just over 3 meters in diameter and he pushed his hand through. The light within the circle disappeared and revealed what looked to be a very impressively manicured garden. The edges of the portal remained the same golden light which Felix took note of only because it was different from any other portals he had ever seen.


    Doras led an army of assistants into the garden and after disappearing from sight for a brief moment, they streamed back out, each of them carrying a seemingly undamaged corpse.


    The assistants streaming out continued for almost 20 minutes having carried easily thousands of corpses. It took the assistants almost an hour to get through everything. Once Doras had shown the assistants where the corpses were, he tried to help them carry them out but it quickly became clear that he wasn''t helping because there was no one available for him to hand the corpse to.


    Once Doras realized this, he stepped over next to Felix and simply watched the progression of assistants.


    Felix was thoroughly impressed at how many corpses Doras had collected and couldn''t help himself but take a peek at the standings. Doras was still easily in first place with over 370 millions points and climbing.


    Felix couldn''t help himself so he looked over and identified him.


    [D] Herald of the Holy Mother: Il Doras (Lvl 734)


    Huh. I guess he''s¡­


    "Hey Doras, what''s your class?"


    "Paladin of the Holy Mother." He answered almost immediately.


    "This," Felix gestured to the procession of corpses being removed from his garden, "Is incredibly impressive."


    Doras chuckled, "It isn''t overly difficult for me to slay most creatures. My class is very useful in that regard. However, it is difficult for me to move around quickly. I have been in search of a steed to remedy this and Wolfy here was the best possible stand in I could have hoped for. She made it possible for me to move quickly then I simply slew enemies from her back as we traveled. Were it not for her, I''m certain I would have ended up with just a fraction of the enemies slain."


    Felix shrugged, "I mean, the vast majority of the points come from the higher rarity creatures. You must have slain at least a few of those?"


    Doras nodded, "I slew 4 Legendary creatures and somewhere between 30 and 40 Epic creatures."


    Felix''s eyes widened involuntarily, "4 legendaries? How did you even find 4 legendary creatures?"


    Doras smiled then patted Nova on the head, "Wolfy mostly. We traveled quickly and were fortunate enough to encounter so many."


    They chatted casually for a little while mostly about the creatures Doras had slain and Nova while Orav and his assistants finished up with Doras'' corpses. Once they were done, Doras closed the portal to his garden by simply making a fist then walked over to Orav.


    Felix quickly checked the leaderboard and saw Doras sitting at over 402 million points, a completely ridiculous number in Felix''s eyes, especially considering his own meager 47 million. Just under Doras was someone named Arvum with just shy of 370 million followed by Merric with almost 283 million points.


    Orav approached and looked up at Doras, "So the Dire Wolf''s points go to Arthur then?"


    Doras nodded, "Yes."


    Orav turned to Nova, "Speaking of, you have anything else to hand in?"


    Nova barked then walked over to the table and began vomiting some of the remains of creatures they had eaten. Were it not for the fact that they didn''t actually have saliva or stomach acid making the corpses completely clean, it would have been disgusting.


    Orav''s assistants examined the small pile in under a minute and Felix just watched his own point total jump just over 1 and a half million and Doras'' drop by about a million.


    Orav sighed, "Alright Arthur, you''re the last one."


    Felix nodded then pulled out the portal mold he had been using and raw cast a portal to the temporary anchor he had dropped. Once the portal was open, Orav backed away a few steps before Felix walked through towards the vault like door of the cold storage room.


    Orav tentatively took a step forwards and through the portal then waited patiently as Felix opened the door.


    Felix looked back and saw Orav just standing there in complete shock, "Where the fuck are we?"


    Felix shrugged, "Good question. There was this weird¡­ instinct? and so I followed it. Ended up here. Seems to be an old research facility for transplanting mana organs into people. Had to kill a few of the Test Subjects that just hadn''t quite died. This storage room was fully functional though."


    Orav frowned then walked up to a shelf and opened one of the boxes. He looked inside for a few seconds then closed, replaced it and opened the next one.


    Orav spoke to Felix without looking over as he continued to open boxes, "How many did you say there were again?"


    "5836 total boxes with something in them."


    Orav nodded, "I don''t suppose they kept records, did they?"


    Felix shook his head and lied, "None that I found."


    Orav nodded then walked back through the portal and into the warehouse. He disappeared into the shelves for a few minutes then walked back with a large shiny metal disc. He tossed it through the portal then gestured for Felix to close the door.


    Felix did so and followed him back out of the portal then closed that too. Orav placed some sort of large contraption down on the ground, slotted a disc in the middle, then placed a few small gems into the sockets around the outside.


    Felix paid careful attention as the batteries poured mana into the contraption and filled a spell form he did not recognize. He recognized a number of it''s components but 10% of them at most, including the anchor on the center disc Orav had slotted in.


    Felix immediately felt out and mapped the spell form then memorized it. His suspicions as to its function was confirmed just a few seconds later when a large 5 meter wide square appeared on the ground in front of it.


    Though the shape was different, looking through the square, Felix saw the exact same cold storage room he had just seen.


    Orav turned to his assistants, "Catalogue the specimens but don''t remove them. This storage room is just as good as ours so no reason to waste time or space. We''ll move them at a later date now that we have an anchor set up."


    They nodded then walked through the portal that was easily big enough for 5 to walk through at once.


    Orav turned to Felix and stretched out his hand causing Felix to raise a brow but shake it nonetheless, "This may have been the luckiest find on the entire planet."


    Felix shrugged, "Maybe."


    Not sure It''s really luck when I was basically dragged towards it by the ambient anima.


    Orav kept shaking Felix''s hand, "It''s astounding really. The fact that research had been performed here in the past is expected, this planet is rather odd. Even the¡­ nature of the experiments is something I could have predicted. The fact that it was so well hidden though, that it remained there for all this time. All those specimens preserved, truly extraordinary."


    Felix just nodded and tried to pull his hand back but against Orav, who was halfway through the B grade, he stood no chance and wasn''t sure Orav even noticed him pulling.


    Orav wasn''t even looking at Felix anymore, his gaze was firmly locked on the portal and what little he could see through it. Nonetheless, he kept talking, "Doesn''t it just fill you with excitement? What else could be out there, hidden away like little treasure caches. Secrets to be uncovered and- it''s exhilarating!"


    Felix just smiled and kept nodding.


    Orav looked over to the portal, back at Felix, at the portal, then finally realized he was still holding Felix''s hand. He quickly let go and recoiled out of embarrassment then scurried into the portal, "If you don''t mind, I''d like to look around a little more while my assistants assess everything."


    He was already gone by the time he finished talking.


    Felix sighed then turned back to Doras who was patiently waiting next to him, "I''m from a very remote planet and only heard about the gods recently, you mind telling me about your class and how it all works?"


    Doras bowed slightly, "Of course. The Holy Mother, or rather, one of her Demigods, formed a pact with me. In exchange for fealty, they grant me power and should I impress, they provide me with resources."


    "Power how and what resources?"


    "Resources are usually knowledge, credits, specific items. Could also involve trainers from the order or assistance from higher grade individuals if I need help upgrading a skill or some such. In terms of power, my class essentially."


    "So are you bonded or pacted?"


    "I formed a pact with one of her Demigods."


    "Through that you just get a great class then?"


    "Not exactly. I perform a soul bond with them because it makes taking orders, reading my intentions and locating me easier. It builds trust and makes it difficult to hide things. At the same time, The Holy Mother, or rather one of her followers, have taken the time to piece together a set of skills that would suit me. They select a class from a set of classes they are the progenitor''s of and distribute it. I graciously accept their tutelage and after just a few short epochs, I become far stronger than I ever could have hoped to become on my own."


    "So the pact itself isn''t giving you any stats or anything?"


    "No, it is merely a part of the contract, so to speak."


    "Does that mean you are bound to The Holy Mother''s afterlife too then?"


    "Yes, as part of the pact I also swore fealty to The Holy Mother, worship her and in doing so, locked in my selection of The Garden as my afterlife."


    "Was it worth it?"


    He looked over at Felix and smiled, "Very much so."


    "Are your evolutions all planned out then?"


    "Yes but not as of yet, they will be. As I approach my evolution, I will return to the order and they will tailor my evolutions as much as they can to suit me. This is in case I divert from the intended path, they simply adjust to me, items I''ve found, bonds I''ve made and things I''ve accomplished. They aid me in skill evolutions, along with race, class and profession of course."


    "Do you get any say?"


    "Of course. I tend to simply give them a direction in which I want to go and I personally tend not to disagree with the advice of Demigods. I do know of some in the order who prefer to carve their own path directly. They sift through the available classes, races and professions themselves and use the resources to pursue them."


    "Why The Holy Mother, why not Rhonan or any other god?"


    "Rhonan doesn''t do the same thing as far as I know but either way, The Holy Mother saved my life."


    Felix just frowned, still wondering about the fact that Rhonan didn''t have Paladins for some reason.


    Doras continued, "I as well originated from a rather remote planet. My father was a traveler from far away but he never spoke of it. There was¡­ a tragedy befell the secluded Drakene tribe I was raised within and my parents didn''t make it. I along with a handful of survivors managed to make it out and eventually, we were found. I was lost for many years in more ways than one. I eventually learned that my parents lived on, within The Garden. I visited them and¡­ I finally had direction. In the face of death, the gods said no and allow me to see my parents whenever I wish. That power is ineffable and I declared fealty shortly thereafter."


    Felix nodded, "It''s certainly impressive. Was a complete shock to me when I first heard about the afterlives."


    Doras chuckled and nodded, "Yes, for me as well."


    "Then I heard you can visit. That''s¡­."


    Doras nodded, "It''s a wonderful thing. Sometimes I feel like my brethren in the order, some of the people of the multiverse do not truly appreciate the miracle the gods offer them. They toy with their lives simply because they know they will live on within an afterlife. They slaughter without remorse and care not for their own lives."


    Felix winced.


    Doras'' head fell a little, "I sometimes feel as though the value of life is often¡­ lessened by the afterlives we have access to."


    Felix shrugged, "That''s just the tradeoff I guess. It''s bound to happen."


    Doras nodded, "Of course. It was inevitable and surely a trade I am willing to live with."


    They both remained silent for a few minutes before Doras spoke up, "This facility you found, might I inquire about it?"


    Felix shrugged, "Sure."


    "Orav mentioned they stored specimens in there? The experiments? What was this facility?"


    Felix shrugged, "It seems like they were implanting mana based organs into sapient creatures to see if they could make them stronger."


    "Did it work?"


    Grim answered Doras'' question in Felix''s head, Yes and no. None of them were sane. Not one.


    "I fought a few of them. They were definitely far stronger than their level would suggest. They weren''t exactly¡­ their brains were fried."


    Doras nodded solemnly, "I see, that is rather disturbing. Were there records on how many experiments they conducted?"


    Millions, possibly 100s of millions. I don''t have an exact number though.


    Felix held back from physically widening his eyes, "A lot."


    Doras frowned, "Then that is a lot of failed experiments to dispose of."


    Felix nodded, "Presumably at least one of the gods must have known about this place, right? At least one of the patients had to have chosen an afterlife?"


    Doras'' frown deepened, "Possibly. It seems likely they chose patients carefully to avoid those who were sworn. Found remote planets that hadn''t even heard of the gods."


    Felix shrugged, "Yeah, maybe. I didn''t see anything indicating that in the records though."


    Doras nodded, "I find it surprising they didn''t find any success whatsoever. Considering how well hidden they were and how plentiful their storage room was, they must have been both capable and intelligent."


    Grim provided some more information he had gotten from the records, They tried sedating the patients, charming them, hypnotizing them, wiping their memories but they always ended up with fractured minds within days of the surgery. They tried a lot and considered #4 their greatest success from early on. Not only were they unable to replicate her increase in power, but they never ended up with a more sane patient, ever again. At least, according to the records we found.


    Felix shrugged, "Apparently the closest they got was this fire lady I fought."


    Doras coughed as he tried to speak too fast, but quickly recovered, "You fought this specimen?"


    Felix nodded and told Doras about the fight and about how her strength was ridiculous, especially considering her level. Doras questioned him a bit more about his estimation of her increase in stats as well as the other two he had fought.


    They also spoke of the creatures Doras had slain which Felix was pretty sure he was downplaying. To confirm, Felix passively got a recollection of the events from Nova at the same time which were far more fantastical than Doras let on.


    As Doras described the fourth and last legendary creature he had slain, Felix''s face contorted into a frown.


    He waited patiently for Doras to finish his tale before confronting him, "Doras, why are you here?"


    Doras sighed, "Yes this job is beneath my capabilities. I will end up with some credits and an item but more importantly, I was seeking something for my evolution."


    "That makes more sense."


    Doras nodded, "My race is actually rather unique. After the tragedy that killed my parents we survivors had to live in the wilds for a time. We hunted and ate anything we could and this affected me and my evolution. I now search for specific creatures I can consume and in turn, purify my body. They confer me no benefits currently but they upgrade my next evolution."


    "Did you find any?"


    Doras sighed, "Unfortunately not."


    Felix frowned as he recalled the thousands of corpses being pulled from his garden storage, "What are you looking for specifically?"


    Doras smiled, "Though we Drakene are not descended from Dragons, I aim to mimic their majesty in some way or another."


    Felix frowned, "Isn''t that blasphemous?"


    Doras shook his head, "Yes, but I will never refer to myself as Draconic in any fashion. I am merely imitating them. The order has assured me that I am not crossing the line just yet but¡­ It is definitely a perilous path to take."


    Felix''s frown deepened, "Why tell me then?"


    Doras shrugged, "I like you¡­ I am also hoping you may have found a creature or specimen that I might purchase?"


    Felix nodded, "You''ll have to ask Orav about the specimens in the storage room, I didn''t catalogue them and there were no records," Felix kept up the lie, "but I also slew a Leviathan, is that close enough?"


    Doras'' eyes widened, "Yes, I- That is- How much?"


    Felix chuckled, "I gave the only piece I carved off to Orav. It was a big piece though so I would be surprised if he wasn''t willing to part with a small piece of it. How much do you need?"


    Doras shook his head rapidly, "A tiny morsel. The quantity is largely irrelevant."


    Felix cocked his head, "Couldn''t you just buy the corpses of creatures from the city?"


    Doras nodded, "I already have standing orders with every reputable corpse dealer in Telviras."


    "No Leviathans pop up in the shops yet?"


    "No Legendary creatures at all. Even Epic corpses are exceedingly scarce. Either due to value, rarity or both compounding with each-other."


    Orav''s assistants started to stream out of the storage room and Felix quickly checked the leaderboard to see his point total tick up the last few thousand to just over 370 million placing him just barely in second place. Though Felix didn''t care about the prizes themselves, it was immensely satisfying for him to watch Merric get pushed to fourth.


    Orav reluctantly stepped through the portal and after a quick conversation with Doras and Felix, agreed to provide Doras with a small sample of the Leviathan''s flesh. Felix had though about replicating it''s flesh on his own body then severing it and providing it to Doras himself but unfortunately, that would require him to switch bodies. He decided it wasn''t worth it and Doras already seemed elated with the small sliver Orav offered him.


    Orav quickly flicked through some screens then nodded to the two of them, "It seems as though you two are in first and second place. I will go announce the winners and call Arvum in then you may claim your prizes."


    The small frostmyre man disappeared through the only exterior door in the building Felix was aware of, leaving the two of them and Nova with a small army of his assistants. The assistants were in the process of sorting through the warehouse and paid them no mind.


    Felix had already seen the prizes himself so he started wandering over towards them. Doras followed and they spoke about each-other''s professions along the way. Doras'' profession was a variant of gardener or botanist though his explanation left Felix with more questions rather than a clear idea.


    They simply waited at the door to the office until Orav hurried over with a spectacled elf in tow.


    [D] Arvum (Lvl 426)


    The elf wore mostly leather armor but the way he walked, Felix wasn''t sure he had ever seen combat at all. He was meek and his gait timid, in an insecure way.


    Felix stared him down trying to figure out how he was in third place but quickly stopped when he realized he was scaring them.


    Orav opened up the door to his office and led them over to the display cases where Doras had first pick. Felix stood back and saw, out of the corner of his eye, Arvum staring at the leather armor that enhanced all stealth skills, except Felix''s Reaper skills.


    Doras looked over each item for just a few seconds before taking the wand. Felix had the next pick and he had no interest in any of the items at all.


    To try and help him decide, he turned to Orav, "Do you know which of these is worth the most?"


    Orav shrugged, "It''s all about the same. Wand was probably the most but when I briefly considered selling these to pay my way through schooling, they were all appraised within 5% of each-other or so except the wand was maybe 20% higher than that?"


    Felix nodded and just picked the hat. It was the only item he could actually use so on the minute chance he didn''t sell it, he would at least have something usable, even if it did nothing other than change it''s look. For the time being, he stowed it in his soul space.


    Arvum didn''t even look at the other items and immediately grabbed the leather armor as soon as Felix touched the hat.


    Orav nodded to them, "Thank you for performing so admirably. Some of my assistants are distributing credits to the rest of the participants as we speak. If you would like, I can do that for you three now."


    Felix and Doras nodded while Arvum continued to examine the leather armor with awe.


    Orav opened up transfer screens with each of them and Felix immediately accepted. The conversion rate was that each point was equal to 1000 E or a thousand points was equal to 1 D. Felix ended up with just over 370 thousand D. It didn''t really change his net worth by much considering the absurd sum Shade''s Wrath had paid him, but he wasn''t here to make money anyways. On the other hand, compared to how much Thezan thought was standard for a job, Felix had made a lot of money in a short period.


    Felix had gotten more than he had even hoped for with all the creatures he had slain. Though, he hadn''t dissected and integrated the Phoenix and other specimens he had taken for himself yet. Once he had, he would start focusing on other areas of improvement.


    His next biggest goal was to figure out a way of enhancing his mind. Though Grim had come across some mentions in the books Felix had scanned in the library, there was nothing promising. All the mentions involved targeting your racial evolution or using elixirs. Felix was interested in specific biological changes.


    Unfortunately, they found almost nothing on the subject anywhere. Most people were satisfied with their brains and if they needed to do something more complex, they referred to tools like mana computers. Even searching through bestiaries, they didn''t find any promising creatures for Felix to dissect and integrate.


    Unfortunately this left Felix with direction but no guidance. He already knew anima could be used to store memories. He planned on finding a way of using that but he had no previous experiments or research at his disposal to start from. On top of that, he couldn''t use his Persona as a testing ground because it didn''t really have its own mind.


    He briefly considered capturing and experimenting on creatures but realized it wouldn''t realistically do much because he was dealing with anima. It would be nearly impossible for him to cultivate a creature''s soul for it.


    Felix felt a tap on his shoulder that broke him out of his cogitation.


    Doras stood just in front of him and smiled, "Arthur, it was a pleasure to meet you. I hope our paths cross some time again in the future. Maybe you could even consider joining the order of The Holy Mother."


    Felix smiled, "Maybe."


    Doras nodded, "And your familiar, she is truly something special. You are lucky to have such a friend."


    Felix patted Nova''s head, "They''re pretty great."


    Doras frowned, "Is Wolfy not a she?"


    Felix shrugged, "Wolfy was a sprite now a spirit. Not sure they understand sex or gender for that matter."


    Doras'' frown deepened, "You may want to ask her about this. When I asked she seemed to have a clear preference."


    Felix looked down at Nova and tried to convey the idea of which they preferred, being referred to as she or he. Their response was rather surprising to Felix. She preferred she and the way Nova conveyed it to him, was through a series of memories. She showed some him memories he had never seen before of her fighting the Devoured with Amani in the world event. Of conversations between him and Amani where Amani referred to Nova as she.


    Finally he saw her hunting with Endycor, though he wasn''t entirely sure the relevance of those memories because he didn''t actually speak Dragon and the memories didn''t seem romantic or sexual at all. He got the general vibe from Nova who seemed to somewhat understand infant Dragon speak and who seemed convinced Endycor saw her as a she.


    Along with all the memories, Felix felt a fondness from Nova. A sense of friendship and slight loss. She was never going to see them again and it seemed she had been, and was fond of them both.


    Felix looked up at Doras, "It seems you were right. I appreciate you taking care of her throughout the event."


    Doras chuckled, "She did not need me to take care of her. But nevertheless, it was my pleasure."


    Doras nodded then walked through a portal of glowing light that closed shortly afterwards.


    Felix and Nova followed Orav and Arvum out of the temporary office and the warehouse into the field. Felix immediately noticed that at least half of the participants had already left.


    Orav closed the door behind him and Felix pulled out the portal mold and started pointing it towards Telviras, then changed his mind. He opened a portal into the under-coral where he had memorized the coordinates. As he walked through, he caught sight of Arvum calling over a massive vehicle that looked like it was intended for cargo. In the vehicle, he had countless objects that looked like turrets and bots.


    That is how they are in second and still seem like they''ve never actually fought anything themselves, because they haven''t. They''re worse than Martin.


    He closed the portal and recharged his mana pool while Nova ran from pool to pool drinking the liquid and eating the plants and crystals. He was going to open a portal back to Telviras immediately but decided to give Nova some time.


    He instead opened his Pocket Home against one of the coral pillars and stepped inside. He quickly checked on the sapling which had already grown it''s roots around the crystals and into the sea beneath it as well as into the stone around it.


    Felix was just happy to see that it was alive so he headed to an empty area of the stone ground and sat down. He entered his soul garden first and found Grim standing against the side of a tree, once again reading a book.


    Felix stretched out in the projection of his own body to get used to it as he spoke, "I''ve been thinking about the records in that testing facility."


    Grim closed his book and nodded, "You mean the fact that someone had been there before you but left everything behind?"


    Felix nodded, "We don''t know that they left everything but they certainly didn''t take everything of value."


    Grim nodded, "Definitely odd. It''s always possible it was a god or the servant of one and the information just wasn''t valuable to them."


    Felix squinted his eyes a little, "Still, this information doesn''t exist in the Telviras library. I feel like it''s fair to assume it doesn''t exist publicly anywhere in that case. That means even if you don''t have value for the information yourself, you could probably license or sell it, right? Then it would be far more valuable if you destroyed it."


    Grim cocked his head, "That''s true. Just because the information wasn''t valuable to them, doesn''t mean it wasn''t valuable at all. It''s also not like they didn''t want the information to get out because it was ethically problematic, it''s not like they burned and destroyed it all. Maybe they were just looking for something in specific but¡­ it still makes more sense to sell, license or destroy the information. Unless it is public just somewhere else? So it wasn''t worth it?"


    Felix frowned, "How thorough are the notes?"


    "You could replicate the surgeries almost perfectly if you so desired. As far as I can tell, everything is in there. There is also a ton of information on various beasts, their organs and mana in general. Nothing you don''t already know though."


    Felix looked up at the sky, "Makes you wonder how much information is out there that either someone decided wasn''t useful, actually got destroyed, or is private and only distributed to a specific faction. Not that I''m in any place to judge, that''s probably what I would have ended up doing with the Vault in Atalus. I don''t even mind paying for the information but if it''s held by a faction, I would probably have to soul bind myself to ensure my allegiance or something, like Doras. I am definitely not doing that."


    Grim nodded, "Yeah. Unfortunately, I''d bet you spells are some of the information that is most commonly sold, licensed or just kept secret."


    Felix sighed, "Yeah. That and classes, skills, professions since apparently you can license those if you created them."


    Grim frowned which just involved the arcane symbols on his book cover to twist and contort, "It seems odd to me that The System¡­ not only allows licensing of skills and classes but enables it. It''s basically encouragement at that point."


    Felix shrugged, "Why?"


    Grim sighed, "It''s just incongruous with how I think of The System I guess."


    "The more we learn about The System, the more I lean towards going around it as much as possible. It''s just too odd. Having it automate skills for me is nice. I haven''t really leveraged Quill Precision to do something I couldn''t have before but I like the idea of skills like that. On the other hand, I don''t really want to be locked into The System''s choices for race. Harvesting souls, I''m essentially going around The System''s natural leveling and dealing with my soul myself."


    Grim nodded, "You haven''t beaten The System options yet in terms of raw stats, but you''re getting much closer. As soon as you upgrade your own soul and suffuse your body, just like you did the Persona¡­"


    Felix nodded, "Yeah and if I can figure out the whole mind upgrade thing it might also grant me a ton of stats."


    Grim nodded again, "You should probably also look into making your soul harvesting more efficient. I''m sure it''s possible though suffusing your body might help with that too."


    Felix nodded in agreement, "You''re right, it is kind of falling behind. I should also find another job, at least before I head to Eramith, to harvest a bunch more. Did you find anything useful on the topic of enhancing my mind?"


    Grim sighed, "No. Nothing promising. I still think your previous direction or idea about using your soul somehow is probably the way to go."


    Felix nodded, "Alright. I guess I should probably start testing that then so we can iron out the kinks. What about the experiment logs, anything useful in there for upgrading my body?"


    Grim shrugged, "Not really. A lot of the experiments were heavy handed. The only thing is be cautious when you integrate things. Make sure the cells are compatible. I nor the notes know why all the patients went insane but you seem to be fine for now so¡­"


    Felix questioned Grim on some of the specifics of the phoenix and the other specimens he had taken just so he could get more background. Unfortunately, it seemed as though the notes were heavily focused on integrating the organs into the body so that they were controlled from the same nervous system.


    Both Grim and Felix suspected that might have played a role in the patients going insane. Luckily Felix didn''t need and had no intention of doing that. He had the unique advantage of having a matter spirit as his familiar and having a race, or in the case of his Persona the blood ring, that allowed him to properly integrate the organs.


    Instead of implanting them or growing them within his body using stem cells, Felix could modify the organ''s cells along with his own and control the cells on a more granular level. He was just hoping it was all enough to keep himself from going insane.


    He shifted his consciousness over to his soul space and started examining the specimens as non destructively as he could. The specimen he was most interested in and spent the most time examining was the Phoenix wing. There were also some other creatures that seemed to have unique bones, muscles, organs, skin, eyes, ears, nose and tongue.


    Though he hadn''t thought of it himself, Felix was very grateful that Grim had thought to preserve specimens with more acute senses. There were 4 specimens with unique eyes, most of which were literally eyeballs that had been surgically removed.


    One of them could see much farther than Felix''s standard eyes could, a nice improvement that he was happy to integrate. The next eye specimen he had was simply faster in the sense that he could switch from focusing on something close to him to something further away much faster.


    He also had one that would react to changes in light much faster and had a buffer in a sense that could deal with quick flashes of bright light, making sure he wasn''t momentarily blinded. Lastly and, for Felix, the most interesting, was an eye that could see a much larger spectrum of colors and was more sensitive in general to colors.


    While they were all interesting and from his initial examination, not difficult to integrate, Felix had no idea how to combine them all together. He suspected Erolan had reached a similar point but without Felix''s cell level control of his own body, likely just added eyes to his own head resulting in his 5 distinct eyes.


    Felix alternated through the eyes, integrating them into his Persona then testing and tuning them individually so he had a better idea of how they worked. They all seemed to require him to supply them with mana so he simply did so manually for the time being.


    He marveled at how he could focus in on Nova gnawing on a crystal formation and lapping up a colorful pond far off in the distance all the way through the open portal of his Pocket Home.


    He switched over to the fast eyes and could make out just a blur. He did however, immediately notice a difference in focusing speed of his eyes. He hadn''t noticed any issues before but now, he could immediately tell there was a brief delay when his normal eyes looked at something where they snapped into focus. With these, it felt like the lag was gone or just significantly smaller.


    He briefly tested the light reactive eyes and manually dilated his pupils, allowing him to see more in his Pocket Home and the dark under-coral but not by much. He disabled the light a top the tower in his Pocket Home and tested it then but there wasn''t much to see. He was allowing more light into his eyes but there wasn''t much light there in the first place.


    Lastly, Felix tested the eyes that allowed him to see more colors. It took a few minutes for the headache to pass and his brain to adjust but when it did, he felt a little underwhelmed. He reactivated the light a top his tower though and immediately felt differently.


    Looking at the stone of the ground below alone, it was no longer a small, uniform range of grey and brown. Now, he saw all these minerals and reflections all over the stone almost like someone had sprinkled it with sparkles. The mana liquid was more colorful as well with more distinction between the different shades.


    Instead of just a ruddy pool, he saw a pool of various shades of red intermingling and swirling together.


    Looking around, both inside his Pocket Home and out the portal he had left open into the under-coral, Felix found everything a little too vibrant and varied. It was like a drawing of a fantasy land with too many colors. He suspected he would adjust over time but his initial impression was that he was suddenly looking at a color vomit candy land all around him.


    Objects that used to be a single color or even ones that used to be black or grey were now either a whole range of shades or a mess of other colors. On the flip side, when he looked off into the distance where it was dark, he could vaguely see the infrared that was generated from the natural heat of a creature. He effectively had heat vision though it was unfiltered and so it was somewhat useless in any environment that wasn''t already very dark.


    From there, Felix started to try and combine the effects of the eyes together. Luckily, it seemed like most of the difference between them were focused on different areas of the eye. While the fast and far seeing eyes had the most differences in the lens and cornea, the light reactive eyes were focused on the iris and the muscles within and around it. The last eye, the color vomit one had a more complicated retina which had more variety of cells.


    The issue was that the differences were focused on a specific part but not isolated. The retina of the far and fast seeing eyes were also packed much denser. The light reactive eyes had a protective layer of cells over the retina that helped deal with bright flashes.


    He could have simply pieced together all the different pieces of the eyes and created a chimera like eye but he decided against that. Instead, he worked on combining them as much as he could. He started by combining all of them in pairs then gradually adding in a third to the pair.


    It took him a few hours of dilated time working through the kinks in his soul space followed by testing and iterating in the real world to end up with something he was happy with. He managed to maximize the effects while not deforming the shape of his eye and keeping his pupils circular but he unfortunately couldn''t maintain the color of his iris.


    The final design he ended up growing into his Persona were still blue but were slightly more vibrant and brighter with specs of purple. It wasn''t a huge change from his normal body''s eye color, which was the goal, but it was noticeable. Some would have considered them pretty but he just found the new color gaudy and out of place.


    After that he repeated the process with the two ear specimens. One of them was simply very sensitive without sacrificing resiliency. The other had a wider range of hearing and allowed him to manually tune out the top or bottom end of his hearing. In theory, he could have simply physically turned off his ability to hear the scream of Subject #2.


    Combining the two had more to do with the structure of the bones in his ears than the cells themselves but it still took him some time.


    He only had one specimen to replace his nose and tongue so he simply took the time to fit them into his body and cells.


    The two samples he had for his bones were completely separate, one with denser and more capable marrow that used mana to increase his vitality and immune system. The other had a different structure for the compact bone which he use alongside the modified minotaur cells he had already integrated.


    There were a couple organs that he looked through but none that he integrated just yet. They were simply stronger versions of his own that were fueled both with some mana alongside energy.


    Moving onto the muscle specimens, he actually got excited. The muscles he had were from some ape like creature that simply used mana alongside energy to fuel their muscles. He carefully modified Damoth''s muscles that he had already integrated and combined the two. Now it would take much longer for him to blow through his energy pool because he was using mana to partially fuel his muscles.


    Testing them, they weren''t efficient by any means but he figured he had at least doubled the time he could use his new muscles and that was without considering his energy regeneration.


    One of the more interesting specimens that Felix never would have thought of on his own made his nails stronger. They grew significantly slower as a result but that wasn''t a concern to him when he could simply force his cells to grow them faster if he needed to.


    He also combined the Aucore cells with a skin specimen and ended up with something he was much happier with. Now, instead of becoming completely solid, his skin would become harder but also have some elasticity along with a cushioning effect. In theory that would make it so he didn''t kill himself.


    He tested it by smashing boulders into himself with spells using his arm to block them with his skin hardened. He spent some time tuning it until he was satisfied with the balance between protection and safety.


    Lastly, he turned his attention to the most exciting specimen, the phoenix. He started by examining the bodies of Test Subjects #4 and #7. Subject #7, as confirmed by Grim and the records in the lab, had phoenix organs and cells in them. Subject #4 just simply reminded Felix of #7 and had a similar effect.


    He also had the phoenix wing itself to compare against which made it much easier for him to separate what the scientists had done from the actual cells.


    First, he wanted to simply see how it worked so he tried to just replicate the cells for the wing. Unfortunately, he couldn''t seem to do it. At first, his attempts to replicate it resulted in mush. He couldn''t seem to replicate the cells at all for whatever reason.


    He started troubleshooting until he realized he didn''t actually have the base materials to make the cells at all. When he created cells in The Blood Ring and his body, he wasn''t actually creating or changing any chemical compounds, nothing at the atomic level. He was simply piecing together different parts of cells.


    With the Phoenix cells, he was missing so much of it, that he couldn''t even create functioning cells at all.


    He wasn''t sure how to go about finding the components he needed, but apparently Grim did, You could get Nova to recreate them for you.


    Wait, really? I didn''t realize she was manipulating things on the atomic level.


    Yeah pretty early on but not quickly. Normally they can''t really manipulate energy, mana and on a macro level, their control of their own body suffers.


    What do you mean?


    Turning into an animal for example. Moving legs, arms, coordinating it all. sea??h th§× N?velFire(.)net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    Nova hasn''t had any issue with that though?


    Neither do most sprites as soon as they bond with a sapient humanoid.


    I see. For Nova specifically, her mana control also isn''t terrible.


    Correct.


    You think I have any amount of control over matter yet?


    We can test it out later but I suspect by the end of D grade, if you practice, you might be able to fly without any spells. Maybe not quickly or with any significant force, but maybe.


    Only because my control over the matter in my body is going to be higher, right? I couldn''t lift another person?


    Correct. Your precision is going to be abysmal too.


    Does Nova do that now?


    Remember her eating the Demitium?


    Oh right.


    Felix briefly dissected and separated out small pieces of the Phoenix wing making sure he had a small piece of every cell using cells from Test Subject #4 wherever possible. He tugged on his soul bond with Nova and felt them rocket towards him at a ridiculous speed.


    With his new eyes, he was able to see them pop out from behind a coral pillar way off in the distance then bound across the ground, pillars, plants and the air itself. Felix was scared for a second they would smack into him or the tower and started preparing spells but they decelerated as soon as they passed through the portal.


    Nova stopped right in front of him, a black Dire Wolf who''s head reached a couple meters off the ground.


    Felix pulled out the cells he had isolated and handed them to Nova who happily sucked them into her soul space. Before Felix had a chance to communicate what he wanted though, Nova sent him a few images of them eating his body.


    He was concerned for a few seconds until he figured out what they wanted. Nova could see all the different cells on his body that he had integrated. Instead of letting them just gnaw on him a little, he told them to wait a minute.


    He quickly isolated as many unique cells as he could and severed a small section of his flesh and fed it to Nova who was elated.


    After that they were very receptive and when Felix communicated that he wanted Nova to reproduce the cells he had first given them, they seemed confused. They didn''t refuse though and instead, Nova leapt out of his Pocket Home and started sucking in massive chunks of the coral pillars and ground.


    They looked like a vacuum cleaner that sucked up everything, regardless of whether or not it was tied down. Like a black hole, they simply removed large chunks of everything.


    Felix was astonished at how much they consumed but they just kept going. After almost a half hour of this, they hopped back over to Felix''s feet and communicated to him that it was going to take a little bit of time then started napping.


    In the meantime, Felix started testing the abilities he had gotten from Nova, to move matter. He started with a pebble that he held in his hands and simply tried to lift it up a little bit. He had no frame of reference for what the feeling was like so he simply focused and imagined it. He pushed his will as much as he could but it just wasn''t moving.


    He tried picturing it moving, relaxing, straining and focusing until finally, he got frustrated and the pebble suddenly shot out of his hand smacking into the edge of the pocket universe. If he hadn''t felt the burst of mana coming from his own mana core, he would have thought he had finally gotten it.


    What the fuck.


    Remember when you were fighting Damoth?


    Those were spells though, right? I felt the mana.


    I don''t know what they were, don''t ask me.


    Fuck.


    Felix retrieved another pebble and tried to replicate the feat but just couldn''t. He eventually gave up and went back to figuring out the Nova bond powers he should have by now. In order to figure out how it felt, he briefly woke Nova up and had them lift the pebble into the air.


    They shrugged and complied though were very confused. While they circled the pebble in the air in front of them, Felix fully tuned into their soul bond and let their feelings, emotions and experience wash over him.


    He was immediately bombarded with all kinds of senses he wasn''t used to and some he had never experienced at all. He felt things in and around his body that he didn''t actually feel but were being passed along from Nova. He felt hunger that was mostly sated but ever present and felt her willpower fighting against it.


    Most of all though, he felt matter itself. He could feel everything around Nova. All the air, ground and Felix himself. It was all there as a sense in the same way he felt mana all around him at all times.


    It took him a few minutes to process everything and despite the head ache, isolate the feeling of Nova moving the pebble. Instead of anything he had tried, it felt just different. He wasn''t sure he ever would have figured it out on his own. It was like when he first learned to sense mana. He just needed any idea of what to look for.


    Tuning their soul bond out again, Felix returned to his own body and let Nova go back to napping. He caught the pebble from the air and held it in his hand then just focused on feeling it.


    It took him almost an hour of staring at it before he felt a small spec of a brand new sense waking itself up. He couldn''t discern the stone''s composition, weight, or even it''s shape. He could however, feel a fuzzy blur in his palm, and that was more than he had felt before.


    He continued to hone the senses for another hour or so until Nova finally woke up. Unfortunately, he hadn''t really gotten any further than a fuzzy feeling.


    Nova immediately hopped up to their feet and vomited out a completely dry chunk of flesh that was almost as big as Felix was. It looked like a ball of flesh and it was completely disgusting in a body horror way. Felix didn''t mind at all though and excitedly stuck it in The Blood Ring.


    Before he could go back to trying to integrate the phoenix cells, Nova approached Felix and asked him a question through their soul bond. It took them a bit of back and forth for Felix to realize what they wanted but he eventually figured it out.


    He did his best to imagine what a phoenix might look like, considering the movement of Test Subject #4 he suspected they weren''t actually on fire all the time. Grim stopped him short because though he had never actually seen one himself, he had seen a picture of them in one of the bestiaries Felix had scanned.


    Felix quickly pulled up the memory and saw a beautiful bird that was no bigger than an eagle. It had an angular, trapezoidal beak and a mane of long colorful feathers that matched the feathers on it''s tail. It''s body was slim and covered in sharp looking feathers that were mostly blue some red feathers along the edges of it''s wings and neck.


    Felix pushed the image through to Nova as best he could through their soul bond and he watched as they morphed themselves on the spot to fit the image. He had provided feedback and helped them adjust as soul bonds weren''t ideal for communicating detailed images. Eventually though, Nova managed to get themselves to perfectly match the image as far as Felix could tell.


    Nova happily flew around the Pocket Home for a bit but didn''t eat anything despite the desire Felix felt from their soul bond when they sniffed at the sapling. Nova resisted though and happily bounded over to the Demitium chunk where they continued eating it.


    Inside The Blood Ring, Felix replicated the wing as accurately as he could and simply attached it to his back. Unlike all the other cells he had integrated recently, the phoenix wing wasn''t fueled by energy at all, it exclusively used mana. Unfortunately, it didn''t seem particularly strong by itself.


    Felix got used to the additional limb as he flapped it around and even forced it to grow feathers which were not in fact blue but rather a light purple.


    Finally, he fed it a burst of mana and launched himself into the edge of the pocket dimension with a massive explosion of fire. The outside was squishy and absorbed a lot of the impact but he still broke his own neck. He fell to the ground then waited until he regained full control of his body as his neck healed.


    Nova immediately flew over and Felix was touched that they were worried about him until he realized all he felt through their soul bond was curiosity at what he was doing. They poked at the wing on his back while he healed and demanded an explanation which he did his best to provide.


    Once they were satisfied, they flew off into the under-coral and started eating the ground again.


    Felix ignored them for now and turned his attention towards his back. Though he had only intended to supply a couple thousand mana, it seemed as though phoenixes didn''t pump mana to their wings but rather, the wings pulled mana out of their core.


    Looking at his pool which The System kindly estimated for him, he had actually spent almost a quarter million mana. After that, he spent a few hours trying to find a way to control how much mana he spent. At first, he simply manually held back the mana with his mana control.


    Unfortunately, in a fight if he wasn''t able to focus on it, he didn''t want to have any potential to kill himself. He messed with the cells until he finally found a specific set of muscles that contracted to shrink the mana channels in the wing. He carefully took control of those nerves manually with his soul and limited control over his body and forced them to shrink.


    This time, he leapt into the air with a small burst of fire but didn''t hit the edge of his pocket universe and instead fell back down gracefully with a simple Feather Fall. He had only consumed a couple thousand mana and was very happy with the result.


    The next step for him was incorporating it all into his muscles so that he could augment any movement with the same effect. Luckily, Test Subject #4 was a great starting point for Felix.


    He spent the most time trying to combine both Damoth''s muscles with the mana fueled ones with the phoenix cells. He didn''t want to always use the phoenix cells and wanted the option to use his body normally and not be weak. The phoenix cells, when they weren''t producing bursts of fire, were rather weak. Since he didn''t want to be trailing fire everywhere he went, he needed something in between.


    He also looked into Test Subject #7''s muscles which seemed to be a variation of the Phoenix cells in Test Subject #4. According to Grim, #7 was an attempt to replicate #4 which was the lab''s greatest accomplishment that they never quite managed to replicate or improve on.


    #7''s muscles relied on Lightning adjacent attunements and seemed to increase Agility more than Strength.


    What he ended up with was a hybrid approach that he was ultimately pretty happy with. He twisted all the muscles together in a way where the cells were mostly separate but relied on each-other to a certain degree. He was giving up almost 20% of his raw Strength in favor of doubling his Strength when he pumped mana into his cells. That 20% was easily made up though from the fact that he used more mana instead of just energy. He could now push the muscles harder without worrying about exhausting himself.


    Unfortunately, he was also convinced he would never move these muscles over to his real body, they just weren''t clean or elegant enough. If he found a way to remove the Fire and just use mana to generate Force, he would consider it though.


    He still hadn''t created mana channels yet but he figured he needed more time to design them. Now that he had more organs and parts of his body that required mana, he had plenty of requirements he could rely on to direct his design. He figured he would spend some free time on it back in Telviras.


    Felix briefly waited for Nova to finish gallivanting around the under-coral while training his matter senses. Once they were done, he closed the door to his Pocket Home, had Nova revert to a Dire Wolf and opened a portal back to Telviras.


    He presented his Persona''s registration, which wasn''t readable in his soul space, and flew off towards Inscripticae. Instead of heading for the entrance though, he instead flew down into the parking area beneath the building and opened his Pocket Home against a wall. He stepped inside with Nova and close the portal.


    Nova immediately reverted to their cat form when given permission and returned to eating the Demitium chunk. Felix reverted to his own body as well and checked on the sapling and everything else just to be sure before he left.


    Lastly, as he was walking towards the edge to open the exit, he quickly looked back and identified Nova.


    [D - Cursed] Nova, Ravenous Matter Spirit (Lvl 467)


    Felix chuckled when he realized his familiar was still surpassing him in level then opened the door and left. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 Chapter 193 - Book 10

    Flying up to Inscripticae''s front door, Felix entered the building and walked straight into the workshop at the back. He didn''t see anyone in at the moment but considering how dark it was outside, he wasn''t surprised.


    Before he committed himself to working on anything, he walked over to Aldahn''s office to briefly check in with him.


    Felix knocked on the door and almost immediately heard, "Come in!"


    Felix opened the door and Aldahn looked up, "Oh, Felix. You''re¡­ a fucking monster. Where the hell were you?"


    Felix frowned, "On a job with the guild, I tol-"


    Aldahn shook his head, "You more than doubled your class level in what, less than a dekad?"


    Felix shrugged, "It''s only been 5 days, right?"


    Aldahn scoffed, "My bad, half a dekad."


    Felix frowned, "Wait, you can see my levels separately? Can you see my class, race and profession?"


    Aldahn shrugged, "Kinda? I can see human, caster and enchanter. Same thing I see for everyone, it''s based on what I already know. I can''t see individual levels but I just assumed you didn''t increase your profession much which would mean your class had to have at least doubled, right?"


    Felix nodded, "I see. Yeah went from 221 to 449."


    Aldahn chuckled, "Just don''t expect that kind of leveling all the time. You''re probably still catching up to your own strength. It will slow down a lot."


    Felix shrugged, "So I''ve heard. Got any new contracts for me to shadow?"


    Aldahn nodded, "Actually yeah, we got a job just the other day. I haven''t assigned it yet but I think this job is actually perfect for you. I''ll assign it to Inorim and have you shadow him."


    Felix nodded, "When''s the design meeting?"


    Aldahn shook his head, "Won''t be one. It''s a pretty straight forward enchantment. I''ll get him to find you when I give him the details. Just check in at least daily for the next dekad or so if you can."


    Felix nodded, "Sure, no problem."


    "Oh also." Felix saw a transaction screen appear in front of him in which Aldahn was offering him 500 B, "For the sword you shadowed Fralyna on."


    Felix accepted the transaction, "Gotcha. Thanks."


    Felix left Aldahn to do whatever it was he did in his office and walked back into the workshop.


    His first task was to design a proper system of mana channels he could use. He headed up to the design room first and chose a random seat then started meditating. He walked into his Soul Garden and brought up multiple floating whiteboards in the grassy field where he started drawing.


    His goal was to accommodate all the organs and cells he had integrated and to provide them with mana of the proper attunement. He started with the requirements and worked backwards from there with the intention of fitting a mana core in his body right at the end. His entire philosophy was, at first, to create something that resembled his circulatory system because that seemed to be the best fit based on all the mana channel systems he had seen.


    He only managed to create a basic outline by the time he stopped. Felix had limited himself to working until early morning because he had other things he wanted to do within the city itself.


    Coming out of his meditation, Felix headed out into the city. First, he bathed then he found himself a store that specialized in enchantment and magic contraption materials. He ended up spending 100k D on various materials, mostly inlay materials.


    He also bought himself a new quill specifically for inlaying along with some low melting point inlay that he could easily fill channels with. He also bought hundreds of thin metal discs he could use to create various spells on the go that were slightly more reusable and larger than the spell tablets. The tablets were a little small to comfortably inscribe spells like portals.


    After that, Felix headed over to Mihto''s. He had officially gotten to the point where he had to add in spells to progress further and so before Mihto set him up with anything, he pulled out the spell books he had initially shown to Felix.


    Mihto looked across the desk at Felix with a very serious expression, "How many spell slots will you dedicate to this?"


    Felix didn''t really want to reveal too many of his secrets, but at the same time he didn''t want to hinder his own progress, "Let''s say infinite. I''m an enchanter and I plan on inscribing the spells. I got lucky with skills that make it so there realistically isn''t much of a spell limit for these kinds of spells."


    Mihto looked at him for a few seconds then nodded seriously and put away one of the books. He turned back to the desk and opened the other, "Longer route or do you want to rush it?"


    Felix frowned, "How much longer?"


    "Depends on you. Two more terms at most."


    "I can live with two more terms."


    Mihto nodded and flipped the page a few times, "Memorize these 5 spells."


    Felix did as Mihto asked though he thought it was odd he was just memorizing 5 spells. He nodded to Mihto indicating he had finished and Mihto picked up the book and led him back over to the course.


    He set up an obstacle course and had Felix run through it a couple dozen times with the spells. He started by having him cast just one spell at a time until he had worked his way up to casting all 5. After that, he created more complicated courses and had Felix use two spells, then three until finally he was using all 5 in the courses.


    Mihto had Felix run through a variety of courses using all 5 spells until Felix said he was comfortable with the spells.


    They weren''t complicated, just Force spells that pushed his body forwards mostly. Some of them were in large fast bursts, others were slow and some had gradual acceleration. A couple allowed him to maneuver in the air as well. They all seemed to target the core of his body too, dragging his limbs along with his torso.


    Once Felix told Mihto he was comfortable, Mihto simply nodded and brought up a new course. It didn''t look any different from the others so he set himself up at the start and leapt into it.


    He crouched, jumped and ran across various platforms of sand just as he had before. Felix kicked off a horizontal platform into the air and onto a vertical wall with the aim of running across it using one of the spells that would hold him to the surface. He took just two steps, ducked under a platform and leapt over a wall.


    Suddenly he was in the air with no platform around him, the nearest one being a short wall to his right. He looked over and cast the spell meant to maneuver him in the air but it just wasn''t fast enough. He missed the wall along with his chance to regain his footing and ended up flying out of the course.


    Had he been using his own spells, he could have easily flown or guided himself over to the wall but when he restricted himself to just the 5 Mihto had given him, he just didn''t see how it would be possible.


    He had failed some of the courses before but usually he got them within another couple tries. This time, he tried dozens of times but no matter how he timed it or angled his body, he just couldn''t make it. He frowned after his 25th failed attempt and walked over to Mihto who gave him a curt nod.


    Felix shook his head, "I don''t know how I''m supposed to do this one. It''s impossible, isn''t it?"


    Mihto nodded, "Yes." Then Mihto opened the book he had been holding and flipped to a page where he pointed at a pair of spells, "Memorize these and replace that one," He pointed to another, "With them."


    Felix nodded and did so, quickly experimenting with the spells and finding that they both did the same thing as the last, maneuvering in the air, but they had different use cases. One was a fast burst that barely moved him a meter, the other was slower but allowed him to move much further.


    This time Felix ran the course and completed it on the first try using the fast burst in place of the old spell. The next course Mihto constructed required Felix to use the short burst many times to rapidly maneuver between objects.


    After that, the course required long strides through the air where Felix leaned more on the second spell he had just been taught.


    He very quickly realized what Mihto was doing and what he had meant by the longer route. By starting Felix with simple spells then replacing them with more specialized version, he was trying to help Felix build an intuition for which spell was correct in which circumstance. While Felix already had some intuition because he had been using his own spells extensively, the spells Mihto taught him became even more complex and specialized. They didn''t get much more complex in spell form, just in versatility.


    Instead of targeting the core of his body, his center of gravity, the spells started to branch outwards and target the balls of his feet, his lower leg, his arms and so on. They also varied in terms of range and speed.


    Felix ended up spending almost the entire day with Mihto and by the end, Mihto had introduced him to the most versatile spell yet, a spell that allowed Felix to step or kick off in mid air. Judging from the spell form itself, it was perfectly resisting any force he applied and returning it to him, acting like a solid object.


    Felix ran through hundreds of courses with the spell he was dubbing Phantom Step. The spell was so much more versatile than all the others because not only could he create parts of the course himself, replacing missing platforms with the spell, but the combinations were endless.


    At first Mihto had limited him to one Phantom Step per course forcing him to use other spells and combine the spell with others, minimizing his reliance on it. While, once again, Felix could simply fly, by being limited to the spells Mihto had given him along with the restrictions of the course, Felix felt like he was starting to build a solid intuition.


    It wasn''t always optimal to just fly and utilizing a number of these spells when he flew, he could vastly improve his agility in the air.


    Eventually, Felix decided he should check back in at Inscripticae so he thanked and paid Mihto then flew off back to the enchanting shop.


    Walking into the workshop, Felix spotted Ezaldor completely engrossed in the same ring he had been examining the first time Felix had met him.


    Felix chose an empty desk and pulled out a half dozen of the metal discs he had bought earlier then began inscribing anchors onto them. He then filled the inscription with a semi-permanent inlay material and bathed the entire thing in a chemical bath to fuse the materials together. Now he had less fragile temporary anchors he could pull out whenever he needed them.


    With that done, Felix started experimenting with his Mage Armor spell. Now that he had the spell form for Phantom Step, he wanted to dissect and implement some of it into the Mage Armor. Having it be reactive or even just have an additional layer where it could push back against an incoming attack would make it far more effective.


    He didn''t get very far into it though before Inorim strolled over towards him, coming from Aldahn''s office. He walked up to Felix''s desk and bowed deeply to him, "It is my great honor to be enchanting with you Mr. Prodigy."


    Felix frowned and cocked a brow then waited for Inorim to say something else. He didn''t, instead he stood up and cocked a wide grin while waggling all of his brows.


    Felix sighed, "So what are we making?"


    Inorim nodded and his face grew a little more serious though his grin was ever present, "A standard scroll printer. Not a complicated enchantment but I''m sure we can find a way to make it fun."


    Felix frowned, "A scroll printer? How does that work?"


    Inorim shrugged, "I was hoping you could tell me."


    Felix shook his head, "I know you''re messing with me. How do you tell it what scroll to print?"


    Inorim chuckled, "With a template of course, silly."


    Felix just waited for Inorim to guide him. After a long awkward pause where Inorim just looked at Felix, Inorim finally sighed and gestured for Felix to follow then led him up to the design room.


    Inorim hopped into one of the chairs then leaned back and put his feet on the table, "Gimme your best shot at an enchantment."


    Felix frowned, "Can you show me what the templates look like?"


    Inorim sighed and dropped his head back, "Nah, more fun this way."


    Felix just sighed and looked at the boards around the room. They all had something written on them and he had no idea which ones he could erase. He looked at them for a few seconds trying to decide then Inorim just pointed at one, "Erase that one."


    Felix contorted his face, "Why that one?"


    Inorim smiled crazily again, "It''s Ezaldor''s."


    Felix was tempted to erase one of the other boards because he wasn''t sure Inorim wasn''t messing with him and Ezaldor but he didn''t really have a better reason. He walked over and erased the board then just started drawing out enchantments.


    Inorim laughed out loud causing Felix to stop and look at him, "We don''t have enough board space for you to draw out the entire enchantment. Just do a diagram."


    Felix nodded and erased what he had already written then abstracted out the components into sections. He knew there had to be one section that read the template then another that replicated that onto a scroll.


    Inorim looked at it and nodded, "A scroll printer can also usually adjust to the size of the scroll."


    Felix nodded and added in a middle section where it would process and transform the input. That section would take in information from a measurement of the scroll itself.


    Inorim smiled, "They can also usually repeat a template over a really long scroll or roll of fabric, like a ribbon, to make portable wards for example."


    Felix frowned and looked at the enchantment diagram then expanded out the processing section a bit.


    Inorim continued to add and clarify as Felix went until eventually, the diagram started to get really complicated and Felix wasn''t sure it could be enchanted at all.


    Inorim furrowed his brows but the smile never left his face, "Half of that diagram is processing. Wouldn''t it be nice if we could bundle that all up somehow?"


    Felix frowned and looked at the diagram for a few seconds then almost smacked himself on the forehead. He erased three quarters of the board and replaced it with a single node in the diagram that read, "Mana Computer."


    Felix sighed, "This is why Aldahn said this one would be perfect for me."


    Inorim didn''t respond to that but pointed over towards the input section, "How about we get a little more granular with that. How will it actually read the template? What does the reading that gets sent to the computer look like?"


    Felix nodded and expanded the input section. They continued like this with Inorim having Felix redo sections, replace nodes and add in functionality for hours. Inorim ultimately had to add in some things Felix didn''t even know about but in the end, the diagram was pretty thorough. Even without Inorim''s help, Felix was pretty sure with this diagram, he could make a good attempt at making this enchantment himself.


    The last step Inorim had him do was outline very detailed specifications for the actual mana flowing in and out of the mana computer on the inside.


    With that done, Inorim finally stood up and stretched himself out, "Alright diagram is good. Now we know the exact inputs and output of our computer, shouldn''t be too hard to make it. Let me know when you''ve got the first prototype done."


    Felix frowned but didn''t get a chance to say anything as Inorim scurried out of the room and completely left Inscripticae.


    Sighing, Felix walked down to an empty desk and started working. He used scrap materials from the storage room and did his best to create a mana computer that fit the specifications. It was far more complicated than the one he had made for his Pocket Home.


    Instead of just looping through items, this one took a large amount of data as input then processed and transformed that data according to settings and readings then output it.


    It took him a few hours to get a first prototype at which point he looked up and saw Inorim lying on the large enchantment table at the back.


    Felix walked over and presented him with his prototype. Inorim grabbed it, flipped it over once then tossed it over his head, "Wouldn''t it be nice if we could reuse the transformation part of the computer for multiple purposes?"


    Felix frowned, "What do you mean?"


    Inorim just shrugged indicating he had nothing more to say.


    Felix sighed and walked back over to the desk where he continued prototyping until he realized he had to change the diagram. While the diagram they had made was functional, it wasn''t elegant or efficient. If he manipulated the inputs and outputs just a little, he could significantly simplify the computer.


    When he asked Inorim if he could modify the diagram, Inorim just snorted, "Took you long enough."


    After just a couple iterations, he presented Inorim with a computer and he finally complimented the attempt, "Not bad." Then promptly tossed it into a pile with the others.


    Inorim hopped off the table and walked up to the design room with Felix in tow and erased the diagram entirely. He redrew it and expanded on every aspect, detailing specific enchantment nodes, channels and connections. In doing so, he started writing down numbers for the precision, attunements and variability of the mana between each node. He added some nodes to the connections to dampen the variability or increase the precision then finally drew out the computer in the middle.


    The computer itself had very similar inputs and outputs but now, Inorim had detailed the exact specifications of the inputs and outputs. He had the computer transforming the mana slightly to increase its precision or switch its attunement slightly to better fit a node in the output.


    In the end, Felix felt all his frustration at Inorim wash away. Inorim nodded and pointed at the computer then led Felix down to a desk where he had Felix make the computer but he watched over and scrutinized every step. He pointed out flaws and had Felix redo sections. He detailed techniques and pointed out the correct quills for Felix to use until they ended up with a much sleeker and elegant design.


    Inorim nodded, "Great, now let''s test it."


    He led Felix over to the storage room where he handed him a number of materials and had him carry them over to the large table in the corner.


    Together, they laid out and inscribed materials to form a large mess of metal plates connected by ribbons and all surrounding the prototype computer they had just made. They used an old quill as the writing head and constructed a small box of metal to feed scrolls through.


    Inorim finally showed Felix what a template looked like and they ran the enchantments through a test run.


    Felix watched and marveled at the jankiest magical contraption he had ever seen. Though it was a mess, it did exactly what it was supposed to as the quill drew out a spell onto a scroll.


    It took a few minutes for the contraption to finish at which point Felix examined the scroll and realized it was a mess. The spell was recognizable but it looked like it had been drawn by a child on a boat in a storm with a crayon.


    Inorim looked over his shoulder and nodded, "Looks good to me."


    Felix raised a brow and pushed mana into the scroll but Inorim quickly snatched the scroll from him before he could finish, "What the hell are you doing? Don''t try and cast this garbage, it might explode."


    Inorim sighed and continued, "It should be fine once we use the right materials. This mess of a prototype just has low precision."


    Felix nodded, "How do you know this is just from the materials and whatnot?"


    Inorim shrugged, "Experience."


    Inorim gave Felix a shopping list and they split up, each of them buying half of the required materials. This time Felix decided to just buy them himself and ask for reimbursement later.


    He only had to visit a couple shops for all the materials since he only had to buy enchantment materials. Inorim had assigned himself the housing along with the more complicated bits and pieces.


    They met back up in the workshop where Inorim had Felix draw out the enchantments on each piece in pencil while he slept.


    The next morning, Inorim adjusted the sketches and they continued. They spent days together carefully enchanting each piece. The part that took the longest, by far, was the computer. Inorim had Felix do the entire thing himself but stood by and made sure there was no chance Felix could mess it up. They used pencil then scratched the enchantment in then carefully inscribed it.


    For the first time since he had gotten the skill, Felix noticed Quill Precision at work. He felt it guiding him and correcting imperfections in his lines. At the level he was working at, his heartbeat, circulatory system and breaths noticeably moved the quill but the skill adjusted for that.


    Had he not had the skill, it wouldn''t have been possible for him to enchant the computer. He could have slowed or stopped the blood flow to his fingers but even then, it was too complicated. If he wasn''t restricted to such a small size or if he had been able to use his mana control somehow, it would have been doable. With a quill though, he just didn''t have the raw dexterity.


    Though it would add 100s of levels of complexity, Felix couldn''t help but wonder about putting mana computers into spells. It would allow him to cast all kinds of ridiculous spells that had unique effects per target, tracked targets by predicting their path of movement and even measuring their defenses and adapting to them.


    He wasn''t even close to that point yet though.


    They completed and assembled the entire printer without issue and from their initial tests, it seemed to work flawlessly. Aldahn gave his approval after looking it over for just a couple minutes and they had Ezaldor and Krinitor look it over as well.


    Once complete, they placed it in a room and left it. Inorim ordered food and ate it with Felix in the workshop where they talked about mana computers and enchantments mostly. After that Inorim scurried off and Felix talked to Aldahn about another job. Unfortunately, he didn''t have any at the moment so Felix decided to work on some of his own projects.


    All in all, Felix had gained 42 profession levels just from working on the mana printer job with Inorim. After that, Felix spent a dekad working with Mihto, designing mana channels and tuning up his Mage Armor.


    With Mihto, they had split even more of the spells and Felix had over 20 of them that he had to switch between. They had gotten increasingly specific as he trained to the point where they targeted specific points on his body in specific ways. Their versatility though only increased. The combinations of multiple spells in quick succession, or in Felix''s case at once, only multiplied the possibilities.


    He felt like he was getting close to a completed set of mana channels as well but then again, he had felt that way a few times now. He had a complete design but before he was willing to modify even his Persona''s body, he thoroughly checked it over. The past few times he had arrived at this same point, he had scrapped the whole thing and started over. He was just hoping he had finally designed a system he was willing to implement.


    Lastly, Felix hadn''t really gotten anywhere with his Mage Armor. He had toyed and tinkered with secondary layers that reacted to incoming attacks but he gradually realized over the dekad that it wasn''t worth combining the two spells. Instead, he was better off creating a whole new spell.


    In between all of that, Felix spent any extra focus he had on improving his matter senses. They weren''t precise but he was getting to the point where a pebble was a fuzzy object and he could differentiate it from the desk beneath it.


    Just a few days in, Felix had gotten paid 10 B for the scroll printer job which was much less than the other job and in terms of time taken, far less worth it, but in terms of experience, it had been equally as valuable.


    He fully intended to keep working on all three of those things in the future but Aldahn had finally assigned him another job shadowing Ezaldor this time.


    Though Inorim had pushed Felix to do most of the job himself, Ezaldor was more inclined to have Felix watch and learn through questions and observation. They worked together to craft a forge that could move it''s internal temperature by up to 500 degrees in under a second.


    At first Felix had thought they would use a mana computer to calculate and adjust the heat being input instantly but Ezaldor seemed to prefer using raw enchantments. Though it was complex, he wove together a massive enchantment that measured and adjusted based on the change in temperature over time.


    Though Felix hadn''t touched a quill once during his shadowing of the forge, he had learned as much as he had on all of the other jobs, if not more. Ezaldor''s obsession with precision resulted in obscure knowledge that continually impressed Felix. From the enchantment nodes they used to their sizes to the channels connecting them all the way to the pressure used on specific quills and the inlay material.


    In the end, Felix knew for a fact that all the precautions they had taken were complete overkill but it was impressive to watch nonetheless.


    He had learned a ton from Ezaldor but in Felix''s opinion, Ezaldor was too slow and meticulous. Ezaldor had taken two dekads to complete the forge and in Felix''s opinion, they could have been just as careful with half the time. He appreciated the insight though and didn''t complain once. Though he didn''t see himself implementing anything he had learned any time soon, he could see himself doing so in the future, albeit the distant future.


    While Felix had been watching, jotting notes and asking the occasional question, the entirety of his focus was never solely on the enchanting. Simply observing would never have been enough for that so, at the same time he had kept up his training. He switched every 12 hours between training his casting speed, mana control, range and his matter senses.


    Though he hadn''t been able to increase his spell focus by another level, he felt like he was marginally faster and the range of his mana control had definitively improved.


    Even with all the progress he was making, Felix couldn''t help but feel relieved when the project was finally complete. It netted him the most of any project yet, except his mission with Shade''s Wrath, at 1k B.


    After the job he checked in with Aldahn but he didn''t have any jobs at the moment meaning Felix had some time to himself.


    The first thing he did was start working on a whole new enchantment to replace his Mage Armor, or rather to supplement it. His Mage Armor had issues and he wanted to implement something at least somewhat reactive. He would keep his Mage Armor around but ultimately, it was felt clunky so he would only really be activating it when he really needed it.


    This new layer was more of an enchantment that activated a spell or a ward, but Felix was hoping it would fill the gap of keeping him safe even when he wasn''t aware of the danger.


    He was mostly performing research in the sense that he was testing the best defensive spells, detection spells and seeing how they all interacted with each-other. This one he planned on inscribing into his robes or cloak, he wasn''t sure which yet, so he also accounted for how they fared when contorted and folded like cloth tended to do.


    After a couple days of experimentation, Felix went back to looking at mana channels.


    His first design that he thought was complete but ultimately scrapped was just a replica of his circulatory system with some minor modifications. The issue with that though was that his circularly system wasn''t designed to deliver mana to the places he needed it most and it was difficult for him to adjust how much went where in his body. The amount of mana it distributed was uniform, which was not what he wanted.


    It also circulated blood which wasn''t necessary for Felix, he just needed to deliver not retrieve mana. Lastly, it held residual mana in the channels which limited how quickly he could swap between the attunements.


    His second attempt was a high pressure version of the first where the channels themselves were thinner and therefore mana flowed through them at higher pressures. This meant there was less mana in the channels so he could switch faster and theoretically he could just increase the flow rate to a specific organ when necessary.


    Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.


    Unfortunately, the high pressure system did not seem safe and he was not willing to put it in his body at all.


    The design he finally settled on was more akin to a networking system with a separate channel for each of the muscles and organs he had that required mana. He knew that this required a lot of space in his body but it was the best he could come up with. It also still had the issue of not switching very quickly between attunements if he wanted to switch between buffing his Agility, Strength and Endurance on the fly.


    His initial tests indicated it would take him about a second to fully switch between the buffs but the best part was that once he activated the transition, everything else was unconscious. In his Persona body, he implanted organs that produced attunements as close as he could get them and had them surround his core.


    His muscles and organs could draw mana from the core as needed meaning all he had to do was push himself harder and his muscles would pull whatever they needed. Lastly, his core which was within his mana pool itself was simply routed in where an animals core would go using squishy mana tubes.


    He hadn''t tested it much yet, just what he could do in his Pocket Home but he was already fairly happy with the result. He already saw areas he could improve but he didn''t have solutions to those problems yet so he didn''t worry about them.


    Once he had the channels fully implemented he started looking towards other projects. Aldahn still didn''t have a job for him to shadow so he started thinking about what else he could work on.


    Elric popped by again to feed Felix more concoctions but unfortunately, he hadn''t come up with anything particularly interesting. Most of the new poisons he fed Felix were stronger versions of the last poisons and synergistic combinations. Felix gave his feedback which was that they were much stronger now but he didn''t mention that they were still similarly useless on him.


    Elric''s visit did give Felix something to do though. Once Elric had left, Felix decided to finally start adding a layer to his actual soul. The experiment with suffusing his body with a soul layer had gone so well on his Persona, that he was ready to implement it on his real body.


    Given he cared a lot more about his real body and soul compared to his Persona though, Felix decided to do things a little differently. Instead of just lightly affinizing the anima to his soul Felix wanted to completely affinize the anima this time around. He also didn''t want to dilute his soul as much as he could avoid it so he planned on making the layer as dense as possible, instead of just settling for good enough this time.


    He started by simply taking all of the scraps in his soul ring, anything left behind that was filled with emotions, experiences and instincts and pulled it all into his Soul Space.


    As expected, the souls were instantly obliterated and simply became a part of the ambient anima floating around. There was simply nothing left, it was completely blank other than being slightly affinized to Felix through proximity alone.


    He continued to fill his Soul Space with all the scraps he had left over in the ring. He had already used a lot of it when he had done the same thing with his Persona but he still had Damoth and the Leviathan''s soul left over which was enough to start experimenting with.


    The next step in his plan was to fully affinize the anima he had collected in his Soul Space. Having affinized Starmetal before and having talked to Aldahn when he affinized the greatsword, Felix had a decent idea of what he wanted to do.


    Taking the anima within his Soul Space and manipulating it, Felix found, even in his Soul Space, he didn''t really have great control over it. He could move it around easily but he didn''t have any fine grained control. It was like trying to remove all the water from a pond with his hands.


    He took as much of it as he could though and pulled it through his actual soul, running it along the outside of his core soul while exerting his will onto it as much as he could. He had no idea if his exertion did anything, but it seemed right so he did it anyways.


    He took that anima and dragged it around until it felt just as much like his soul as the second layer did. Then, he repeated the process with another piece.


    This process took a lot of time especially considering Felix could only move a small amount at a time but it was progress. Once he had fully affinized all the anima in his Soul Space, Felix started experimenting with the next step.


    He took all the fully affinized anima, which was much easier to control now, and started to compress it down. His ultimate goal was for it to be as dense as his core soul was but he wasn''t even sure if that was possible. If it was, he wanted to see if he could compress his core soul further but it wasn''t something he would even consider trying for a long while.


    Felix managed to compress the anima down to same density as his second layer but found he couldn''t really push it any further than that. In the end, he figured he had enough anima for about a tenth of a percent of what he would need to complete the layer.


    From there, he compressed the vast majority of his third layer because it wasn''t doing anything for him but that only got him another tenth of a percent or so. What he really needed was to go slay hundreds of thousands of creatures to harvest their souls. It didn''t really matter how strong they were because the difference in soul quantity was low between high rarity or level and low rarity or level creatures.


    The anima around him, and everywhere he had ever felt it, was as thin as the air he breathed. He didn''t even attempt to collect the ambient anima because it was just a waste of time. Even some of the weakest souls he had harvested would account for multiple cubic kilometers of ambient anima, creature''s souls were just so much denser. Even if he could somehow collect the ambient anima across a vast area, it would never be worth it because he could simply harvest a few E grade creatures instead.


    Before he had a chance to portal to some random planet though, Felix checked in with Aldahn who had a new job for him to shadow. Felix was assigned to Fralyna again and they were enchanting a suit of armor.


    Apparently, Aldahn normally assigned weapons and armor to Edemari but recently, she had been heavily focused on adventuring so instead, the job was assigned to Fralyna.


    Felix started to suspect, and once asked Aldahn confirmed, that each of the enchanters had a specialty. Ezaldor''s was precision which typically landed him jobs involving highly specialized tools and equipment for crafting and professions. Inorim specialized in mana computers, Edemari focused on combat equipment and Fralyna, like Aldahn, didn''t really have a specialty or preference.


    Krinitor apparently didn''t really take jobs from Aldahn. Felix had found it odd that he hadn''t seen Krinitor in the shop much but apparently his specialty was clothes and he got jobs from a massive personal client list. A huge set of people went to him specifically for jobs. Apparently he also had some kind of deal but Aldahn told Felix he would have to ask Krinitor about it.


    The job he was shadowing Fralyna on was a large belt. Fralyna already had the specifications and she was waiting for him in the design room already.


    Felix found Fralyna lying on the table in the design room with a large leather belt on the table held just over her head. The belt was massive and looked like it might have fit his Persona and probably could have fit round any two of the enchanters in the shop at once. On top of that, the leather itself was cut into a thick band that could have covered the majority of Felix''s torso.


    On the belt there was a large metal buckle that depicted the screaming face of a creature that resembled a gorilla with large bull horns. The buckle was made entirely of a dark red metal and the leather itself was a light grey.


    [D - Uncommon] Belt


    [Belt]


    The signature belt of a particularly stubborn warrior enchanted to make the wielder run faster.


    Fralyna tilted her head back against the table to look at Felix, upside down, as he walked in then dropped back to a resting position, "What did Aldahn tell you about the job?"


    "Not much. I take we have to enchant this belt?"


    "Yup. I wrote out the requirements on the board. Any questions?"


    Felix looked up at the board near her feet and read through the requirements. The job was to remove the old enchantment and replace it with one that would fit in the upper echelon of C grade enchantments, low B grade if possible. No visible changes or damage to the belt itself, despite its D grade materials. Budget was 2000 B.


    Felix frowned, "What do they want enchanted onto it though? Like what effect?"


    Fralyna shrugged, "He told me to surprise him."


    Felix sighed, "Do you at least know how he fights?"


    She chuckled, "Yeah. He loaned me some memory crystals." She reached into a pocket and tossed Felix a memory crystal which he easily caught.


    Felix chose a seat at the table then slowly allowed his consciousness to drift into the gem. He made sure to keep himself only partially immersed in the memory though because he didn''t want to completely lose himself like he had before.


    The memory started somewhere in some kind of arena. Felix''s viewpoint was from the inside of the fighting area but whoever had originally had the memory, was sitting back and leaning against the wall.


    In the center of the arena a massive behemoth of a man stood off against a party of adventurers. The massive man wore a very familiar looking belt and was very far from human. They had massive rippling muscles beneath tanned leathery skin with claws for hands and a gorilla like face.


    The man in the memory turned to his left and Felix saw the rest of the client''s party standing there with him, completely uninterested in participating.


    The client leaned forwards and roared into his enemy''s faces which echoed throughout the arena then, he pounced. They scattered but his claw caught the edge of one of their cloaks as he swiped. No damage had been done but the cloak had caused the individual to trip and fall to the ground.


    Surprisingly to Felix, the client ignored them, seemingly unwilling to hit someone that was already down and instead they dug their claws into the stone ground beneath them. The rest of the party began launching arrows, throwing hand axes and firing spells at the client but none of them seemed to do much against his skin.


    The client flexed all their muscles for a second then yanked backwards and launched themselves at an archer. The archer didn''t move nearly fast enough and the client barreled into them like a cross between a cannon ball and a raging bull.


    The archer was instantly knocked out and the client bounced themselves off the wall and into the air where they soared in the direction of the caster.


    The caster constructed a shield in front of them then cast some kind of illusory double and going invisible themselves, which the original memory had instantly seen through. The client however, just didn''t really seem to care. They curled their body up and smashed through the shield then swiped through the illusion.


    As soon as they realized it was an illusion, they punched out to the left and the caster''s body smacked against the wall of the arena.


    With just two members left, the client seemed to be having fun. They leapt and launched themselves around the arena in an attempt to crush their opponents with their body. They were airborne for the majority of the time and the gorilla face on the belt started to make a lot of sense to Felix.


    The client easily beat down the last two party members then the memory ended.


    Felix tossed the crystal back to Fralyna who caught and pocketed it.


    Felix nodded despite the fact that he was outside of Fralyna''s field of vision, "So what''s the plan"


    She shrugged, "I don''t know, you tell me. What enchantment would you give him?"


    "What do you mean, you''re the experienced enchanter here."


    "Yeah yeah, I know what I would give him. What would you give him?"


    "I don''t know. He seems to have the whole force thing covered so maybe surround him in fire? Give him the option to slightly redirect in the air?"


    She shrugged, "Sure. Sounds good to me. What''s the first step?"


    Felix sighed when he realized Fralyna was likely going to treat him the same way Inorim had, "Probably paying a crafter to reinforce the belt. I know we''re just enchanters but it would be a waste to try and enchant the materials to survive high C or low B grade."


    She nodded, "Fair enough, what else?"


    "Probably want to plan out and infuse the enchantment before that though. We could probably get the enchantment to be embedded within the materials. Given they don''t wear much of anything else, there''s little worry about enchantment interference so we could realistically add a bunch of functions to it too. Probably need to embed some big mana gems in the buckle though."


    She shook her head, "No need. They''re a librarian and get a ton of Intelligence from that. They''re totally happy powering it entirely themselves."


    Felix nodded, "Well in that case, we could probably surround their body in fire considering the resiliency of their skin, redirect their flight in the air and maybe give them some way to slow they''re enemies down? What effects would you add?"


    She rolled over onto her side and propped her head up on her arm as she looked over at Felix, "I like the fire and redirecting flight thing. I was thinking we could also make his roaring a legitimate attack. On the whole slowing people down thing, we could make him impacting the ground actually dangerous."


    "So those four then? Along with some standard durability enchantments?"


    She nodded, "Yup, sounds good. Wanna draw me a plan on the board?"


    He nodded and walked over then began planning out the enchantment. After his first few attempts, Fralyna provided him with a small list of nodes she thought were appropriate for this level of enchantment and Felix worked them into the design.


    She guided and directed him mostly by giving him a general shape and having him fill in the blanks as opposed to Inorim who seemed to enjoy watching Felix erase the board.


    Once the basic design was finalized Fralyna guided him through choosing the appropriate materials from a number of menus she had. They detailed the properties of various proprietary materials from crafters she trusted and they reminded Felix of takeout menus.


    With the appropriate materials for reinforcement selected, they carefully picked out inlay materials and despite having a skill to identify them, Fralyna showed him things he had never considered. Realistically he hadn''t had any need to consider them until now but it was still fascinating to him.


    The next step was completely novel to Felix. They took a thin film and essentially used it to create a template. The material for the film was solid enough for them to inlay into it but at the same time, when it was heated, it would sublimate and evaporate leaving behind just the inlay material.


    The crafter could then sandwich the film between two materials and heat it which would transfer the inlay to the materials around it. The film was also mixed in with the same chemicals they used to fuse inlay materials so when it evaporated, the inlay would also fuse the materials together.


    Then, all they had to do was use a very high melting point inlay material so it retained its shape when it was fused. They also had to use different materials for the leather and the buckle but the majority of the enchantment was on the buckle anyways. All the enchantment nodes and channels on the belt itself were mostly for balance and support.


    Together, Fralyna and Felix delivered the film they had enchanted to their crafter of choice. Instead of heading to a forge or leatherworker specifically, Fralyna had chosen a crafter that was a pacifist and was apparently an expert in both professions.


    They didn''t have to wait long because Fralyna had already talked to them ahead of time and they had ordered and prepared all the materials. They both watched for an hour or so as the crafter fused parts and pieces they had already forged onto the belt along with coating it, treating it and making sure it looked exactly as it had originally. They also did the work of sanding off the old enchantment which had the added benefit of allowing them to replace more of the low grade materials.


    Once the crafter was finished with the belt, they brought it back to the shop where they placed it in a meeting room for whenever the client showed up. They had ended up getting the belt to C grade Epic, mostly because Fralyna had stopped them from making it any stronger than that. She assured Felix anything higher than that and the client wouldn''t have enough mana to use it. The only way it they could have it hit B grade was if the enchantment was incredibly complex.


    The belt ended up with the four features they had planned out. Encasing the wearer in fire which exploded outwards when they suddenly decelerated. It could also slightly redirect the client mid flight but not by much without wasting a ton of mana. His roar was also amplified through an enchantment that Felix found fascinating because rather than measuring and conditionally amplifying his voice when it was loud enough, it simply always amplified his voice.


    The amplification of his voice though was exponential. Anything lower than a roar and the effect was filtered out naturally through the imperfections of the enchantment. When they roared, the mana would overcome the minor resistance and amplify the roar many times over.


    Lastly, whenever they landed on the ground with enough force, they could choose to charge up and release a shockwave of force, wind and sound that could easily knock down their enemies.


    The two of them were happy with the result though their tests paled in comparison to what the client would do with the belt. Both Felix and Fralyna were excited to see how it worked for the client but they wouldn''t be around till morning.


    In the meantime, Fralyna insisted on dinner once again but this time, she decided they would order food to the shop directly which Felix was much happier with.


    The only other people in the shop were Aldahn and Krinitor who surprisingly, both joined them. Fralyna chose the restaurant and wrote down everyone''s orders then pushed mana into the sheet and before Felix had a chance to ask about it, it vanished.


    Just a short half hour later, someone showed up at the shop with the food which was transported in a spatial storage item that seemed to have been crafted specifically for that purpose. The spatial storage item reminded Felix of a short and stout microwave.


    They all helped carry in food and set themselves up at the large table in the workshop because there wasn''t enough space at the table in the design room for all the food they had ordered.


    They all stood around the table in the workshop and filled their individual plates whenever they felt the need making it feel a bit like a party to Felix, despite there only being 4 of them. Fralyna had mentioned the style of food they ate but Felix hadn''t been paying attention and realistically, it wouldn''t have meant anything to him anyways.


    The food mostly consisted of large vegetables that had been either hollowed out and filled with or covered in meat in some way or another. After taking his food, Felix walked over to one of the enchantment tables to borrow it''s stool and Aldahn walked over to stand next to him.


    Aldahn took a few bites then looked up at Felix, "Good job with the belt. I''ve been hearing only good things from the enchanters I assign you to so far which is great."


    Felix finished his bite before responding, "Good."


    Aldahn smiled, "I''ve been thinking I''ll start assigning you to some reverse shadow jobs. You lead the enchantment but we have someone more experience there for you to ask questions and just to verify everything."


    Felix nodded, "Sounds good to me."


    At that point Fralyna walked over and joined them, "I figure it''ll be just a couple more terms before you can take solo clients."


    Aldahn chuckled, "Maybe. If the right job comes along at that point¡­"


    Fralyna smirked, "You''ll be the fastest enchanter to have gotten a solo client here, at least since I''ve been here."


    Aldahn nodded, "Yup, fastest I''ve heard of."


    Felix shrugged, "Well, hopefully all goes well then."


    Krinitor finally joined them with a plate full of food and nodded to Felix, "I haven''t seen you work firsthand but I have approved a couple of the items you worked on. I''m impressed to say the least."


    Felix just smiled in response.


    Fralyna turned to Krinitor, "How''s Felix''s outfit coming along."


    Aldahn laughed and covered his mouth full of food with his hand, "Krinitor convinced you to let him make you something?"


    Felix nodded, "Yup. Looked good to me."


    Aldahn nodded, "Well if you liked the design then there''s nothing to worry about. Krinitor''s work is top notch."


    Felix smiled, "Good."


    Fralyna gestured at Krinitor with a tilt of her head, "You know why he has so many individual clients?"


    Felix shook his head.


    Fralyna looked at Krinitor instead of answering herself and he nodded, "My parents are somewhat well known tailors."


    Aldahn chuckled and Fralyna shook her head, "They are very well known. Very famous, very desirable work and," She leaned in and whispered louder than she had been talking, "very rich."


    Felix looked to Krinitor, "Why''d you decide to become an enchanter then instead of following in their footsteps?"


    Aldahn chuckled a little again as he took another bite while Krinitor shook his head, "I did. I''m a pacifist, I''m both a tailor and an enchanter."


    "Oh, that makes sense. Do you also work at their shop then?"


    Krinitor nodded, "Yup. I work here and there. That''s where most of my jobs and clients come in. Someone commissions something from my parents and they pay us and me to enchant it, well¡­ most of the time. Anything higher than B grade Epic goes to a specialist on clothing enchantments. I''m not quite there yet."


    Felix frowned, "Why offer to make me and before that, Edemari and Fralyna, outfits then? And why not to charge us for the labor?"


    Krinitor shrugged, "I like designing outfits for people. I don''t get to do it much. Usually I''m just crafting the designs my parents or their designers create. Design is more of a hobby for me at the moment."


    Felix held the food just outside his mouth while he asked, "Do they usually choose the materials then?"


    Krinitor chewed, swallowed then answered, "Yeah usually. Then it''s my job to work with the material no matter how difficult or stubborn it is."


    "Like what?"


    Krinitor shrugged, "Colossal turtle and wyvern leather is a pain in the ass to shape because its naturally so heat resistant. Some cloth made from plants need to be woven in a specific way, almost sculpted because the threads have shape memory."


    "Have you decided what materials to use for my outfit?"


    Krinitor nodded, "Almost definitely a combination of infused arachnid silk, regenerative plant fibers and some kind of metal alloy threads. I haven''t quite decided which as I''m still sourcing materials."


    Aldahn raised a brow at that causing Felix to look at him, "Is that not a good choice?"


    Aldahn shook his head, "It''s excessive, that''s all. Depending on what alloy is used and the type of arachnid silk, it could cost you well in excess of 100 million mana to regenerate the robes. I just don''t think its necessary for a caster to spend so much on their clothes. Scrolls, spells, wands are much more valuable."


    Krinitor nodded, "I wouldn''t use anything that expensive to regenerate but I figure he shouldn''t have to do it very often."


    Aldahn nodded, "While that''s true, I found it ridiculously useful in my adventuring days to be able to regenerate my armor in the middle of a job."


    Felix cut in, "You don''t have to worry about the mana cost of anything. I have a lot of skills to deal with all that."


    While 100 million was a lot for him at the moment, he figured he would get there at some point, possibly even in the C grade.


    Aldahn shrugged, "Fair enough but what about weight? You''re a caster so your strength nor endurance are going to be very high. You don''t want to run out of energy just carrying it around."


    Felix frowned, "It''s cloth, will that ever be a concern?"


    Krinitor nodded, "Depends on the alloy. We could go all the way and make it as defensive as most plate armor with the right alloy but that would come at the cost of it weighing a similar amount as plate armor or it would cost twice as much." S§×arch* The NovelFire.net* website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    Felix shook his head again, "Not a concern for me either, racial stuff."


    Krinitor looked at him with a curious expression for a few seconds before shrugging, "In that case, we could go with the highest defense possible which may or may not be heavy, depending on what I can find. The robe would be thick and use mostly alloy threads while the shirt would mostly be arachnid silk for comfort and mobility. Pants and cloak would be interwoven alloys and an arachnid silk combination, multi-layered of course."


    Felix looked between Krinitor and Aldahn, "How do you enchant it?"


    Aldahn smiled, "Actually, very easily. Infused arachnid silk has an interesting property. You can simply draw out an enchantment with mana and it''ll stick."


    "Hey Krinitor, you said you were sourcing materials, any chance I could see samples of the fabric or materials ahead of time?"


    Krinitor nodded, "Of course. You can come visit my parents shop. We have sample sizes of every material we''ve ever worked with."


    Felix nodded, "Perfect."


    Fralyna just shook her head, "Where are you getting enough creds to afford this?"


    Felix shrugged, "Adventuring job from maybe a god."


    Fralyna snorted, "Damn. You are one lucky kid."


    Aldahn nodded, "Oh yeah."


    Felix looked over at Aldahn, "By the way, I''m probably gonna need to go on a job for another day in the near future."


    Aldahn shrugged, "No problem. We don''t really have any jobs for you to lead on anyways."


    Felix nodded, "Perfect."


    They continued to chit chat about work and life while they finished up with the food. Aldahn was the first to disappear back to his office shortly followed by Fralyna who went home to sleep.


    Krinitor turned to Felix, "Would you like to visit my parents store now?"


    Felix shrugged, "Sure, are they open?"


    Krinitor smirked, "They''re always open."


    Felix followed Krinitor down to the parking area below the building where he hopped onto what looked like a futuristic motorcycle. He gestured for Felix to hop onto the only other seat which really seemed like more of a cargo area than anything.


    Krinitor hit some sort of button and suddenly the vehicle soundlessly popped up a meter into the air. He turned himself towards the exit and launched them faster than Felix had ever traveled before.


    He gripped the metal bars below him as hard as he could though it quickly became evident it wasn''t necessary. The vehicle flew faster than Felix could actually see, looking around everything was a blur, which made him worry as to Krinitor''s ability to navigate. They made use of multiple portal spires and Felix was only able to keep track of their location by bringing up his map.


    Despite the ridiculous speed at which they traveled, the ride was perfectly comfortable. Felix didn''t feel his stomach dropping, he didn''t even feel himself being pulled outwards when they made a sharp turn. It felt to him like it was all an illusion because there was just nothing.


    Once he realized how smooth the flight was, Felix calmed down enough to focus in on the mana flowing through the vehicle.


    Not only was this the most complicated vehicle Felix had flown in to date, but it also had by far the most mana flowing through it''s channels. Felix tried to make sense of any of it but all he got was a general idea of the mana flowing out of the batteries and into all the nodes in the vehicle.


    They arrived in just a few short minutes, cutting Felix''s analysis short, at a building that looked like a giant rock. Surprisingly to Felix, instead of heading for the bottom of the building, Krinitor flew straight at one of the doors on the side of the building that was easily big enough to fit any vehicle Felix had ever seen.


    The door slid out of the way as Krinitor approached and flew them over to an empty space in what looked like a massive open garage. Inside, there were no other vehicles though the space could have easily fit a hundred.


    Mostly because of the complexity and speed of the vehicle they had flown in on, Felix identified it as they hopped off.


    [B - Epic] Valenos Cycle S3


    [Vehicle]


    A cycle designed to be as fast as possible without sacrificing the comfort and luxury of a higher end vehicle.


    The only other item in the garage area was a portal frame on one of the walls. Felix had never seen one before but just looking over, it was immediately obvious what it was for and his identification confirmed it.


    [A - Rare] Caranor Reality Piercer L


    [Portal Frame]


    A portal frame that can open a portal to any anchor in the database, activated by intent.


    He didn''t get a chance to examine it though as Krinitor led him towards the only other door in the area.


    Felix followed him into a massive open room which looked more like a minimalist billionaires apartment than a store. There was a small sitting area, a circular platform in the middle and a couple of tables around that.


    The entire inside of the shop was made of some kind of slate stone with subtle ore veins and minerals that were just barely visible at the right angles. The walls were flat and held no decorations or shelves, the floor was mostly empty and the furniture itself looked elegant but not necessarily comfortable.


    Krinitor walked over to the sitting area and gestured for Felix to sit across from him.


    "So this is your parents shop?"


    Krinitor nodded, "This is Raidran''s." Then Krinitor looked over to the left just a second before a door sized section of the wall vanished to reveal two Drakene, "And these are my parents, Kordran and Rainoth."


    [A] Rainoth (Lvl ?)


    [A] Kordran (Lvl ?)


    Rainoth was a feminine Drakene with larger smooth scales that had a light blue color covering a slender figure all wrapped up in a loose shirt and tight pants. Kordran was a larger Drakene with sharp and rough scales that gave his entire body a lot of texture on top of a large manly body. His scales were a metallic black and he wore a very simple white shirt and brown pants.


    Rainoth walked over to them and lightly tilted her head in Felix''s direction then turned to Krinitor, "Krin, who''s this?"


    Krinitor stood up and hugged his mother then grasped forearms with his father before gesturing towards Felix with a tilt of his head, "This is Felix. He''s the newest enchanter at Inscripticae."


    Kordran walked over and Felix stood to grasp forearms with him, the same way Krinitor had, "Felix, a pleasure."


    His scales were sharp and dug into his hand a little as he squeezed but just enough to make an imprint, not enough to cause any damage. He politely squeezed firmly but with no real force which Felix greatly appreciated considering he was in the A grade.


    Krinitor took a breath and puffed up his chest a little bit as he stood just a touch taller then looked towards his parents, "Felix has agreed to purchase an outfit of my design."


    Rainoth smiled lightly, giving nothing away, "Wonderful." Her voice was perfectly polite and joyful though Felix got the impression, just instinctually, that she was hiding her true feelings on the matter.


    She looked over to Kordran who nodded then walked over to the front of the shop. Felix didn''t get a chance to see what he was doing as Krinitor and Rainoth led him over to the circular platform in the middle of the room.


    By the time he stepped up onto it and walked to the center, Kordran had already joined them.


    The platform itself turned so Felix was facing them then Rainoth nodded in Felix''s direction, "Could you please remove your clothes for me?"


    Felix nodded and stowed the Kraken set right off his body leaving him completely naked. The three Drakene looked him over, Rainoth circling around the platform and Kordran visually measuring him from a distance.


    Rainoth made a full circle then rejoined Kordran at Krinitor''s side, "Krin, can you show us the design?"


    Krinitor nodded and pulled a sketchbook out of nowhere. This book was much larger than the one Felix had originally seen the outfit in. He flipped to one of the first pages and handed it to his mother. Kordran looked over her arm and examined it with her then looked up at Felix, "Pugilist?"


    Felix shook his head, "Caster actually."


    He nodded, "You''ve done well to keep your body from falling too far behind then."


    Felix just nodded in acknowledgement.


    Rainoth frowned at the drawing then walked towards and behind the stage Felix was standing on. After a few seconds, a wall descended from the ceiling just a couple meters behind the stage then Krinitor''s sketch appeared on the wall.


    The drawing was slightly different from Krinitor''s original sketch of the outfit but the general form and shape was the same. It was both more and less refined. The drawing itself had more detail but the outfit had also been dissected and Krinitor had made notes on various sections about materials, weave, fabrics, textures, density, thread thickness and even color.


    Rainoth looked at Felix, "You like this design?"


    Felix nodded, "I think it looks good."


    She nodded in acknowledgement, once again giving nothing away and turned back to the outfit, "Krin, you sure about these materials?"


    Krinitor nodded, "I am."


    She frowned, "What about the Anlyth, isn''t that a little heavy for a caster?"


    Kordran shook his head, "He can handle it. He''s got the strength to spare."


    She nodded, "That may be but why not something a little lighter like, Rhanium? That way the cost to regenerate isn''t quite so high either."


    Krinitor shook his head, "Too soft and that''s not a concern for Felix."


    "Soft? Aren''t you both enchanters?"


    Krinitor nodded, "Yes. Which is why I don''t want him to have to waste precious enchantment space fixing flaws in the material."


    She frowned, "Fine." She sighed, "We have a lot of extra Eldrathil in the back from you know who, use that."


    Krinitor shook his head quickly and looked at her with eyes that seemed to communicate everything, "Mom."


    She nodded, "Krin, it''s ok."


    Kordran smiled wide for some reason and Krinitor looked taken aback, "Are you sure?"


    She sighed again and nodded, "Yes."


    Krinitor frowned, "How sure?"


    She furrowed her brow, "Do you want me to change my mind?"


    Krinitor looked at her with wide eyes then nodded, "I''ll need to adjust the design in that case."


    Kordran walked forwards and clapped Krinitor''s shoulder, "We''ll help and follow your lead."


    Krinitor looked up at his father and smiled then over at his mother who nodded reluctantly.


    They spent almost 4 hours with Felix completely naked discussing the design of the outfit. At first, Krinitor''s mother pushed back on the design itself. Krinitor defended himself for the most part, acquiescing occasionally when she had a good suggestion.


    They manipulated and moved the drawing on the wall until the shape of each and every piece was completely locked down. The outfit looked largely the same at the end to Felix. It was evidently different with the points, angles, lengths and lines moved around but it had the same general shape and looked just as good as it had before to Felix.


    After that, they started talking through materials.


    "So infused arachnid silk, Eldrathil and a plant fiber for regeneration?" Rainoth paced back and forth in the large open space.


    Krinitor nodded, "With different ratios for each piece of course."


    She nodded, "What about a memory crystal thread instead of the plant fiber?"


    Krinitor frowned, "Isn''t that a little¡­ overkill?"


    She shrugged, "Maybe. It would help with defense more as well. Would allow him to affinize to it too."


    Krinitor frowned, "He''s in the D grade. This is meant to last him through the C grade."


    Kordran looked over at Felix, "We should use it anyways."


    Krinitor shrugged, "Ok. What about the infused arachnid silk then?"


    Rainoth nodded, "I like that. What were you thinking Krinitor?"


    "Keayaren Arachnids."


    Kordran shook his head, "Morix or Lukan."


    Rainoth shook her head, "No. Aetoren."


    Both Krinitor and Kordran looked at each-other with confused frowns. Kordran was the first to speak, "Seriously?"


    She nodded, "Do you disagree?"


    Kordran shook his head, "I had thought of it too just¡­ you''re right. It''s worth it."


    Krinitor just looked between them with a frown and scratched at his head, "Mom, what''s going on?"


    She looked over at Krinitor, "Can you go get the materials from the back? We''ll make a sample and go from there."


    Krinitor sighed and nodded then walked towards one of the blank walls where a door shaped hole suddenly appeared and he walked through.


    As soon as the door closed behind Krinitor, Rainoth turned to Felix, "You haven''t told him?"


    Felix frowned, "About what?"


    Kordran crossed his arms, "You''re an integrated, exile I suspect?"


    Rainoth explained before Felix could ask, "We''ve been around for a while."


    Kordran nodded, "Lots of identification skills. None of them failed specifically but what they say and what I see are too incongruous."


    Rainoth sighed, "Don''t tell him if you don''t want to but know that is the only reason this is happening. Remember that."


    Krinitor walked back in at that moment carrying a dozen spools of thread, which he please on one of the tables next to the platform. Rainoth walked over and tapped at something on the table causing the top to open up. She reached over and placed 8 spools of thread in one by one then tapped at something else on the table.


    She closed the panel that had opened then Felix heard a loud noise for a few seconds then she opened the panel back up and reached in. She pulled out a small square of off white, light grey fabric which she examined for a few seconds before handing it to Kordran who nodded approvingly and handed it to Krinitor.


    Krinitor stretched and poked it for a bit then, looked at it with confusion then shook his head and handed it to Felix.


    Felix felt a little bad because clearly they had used impressive materials. To him though, it felt like fabric. It was impressively soft and had a slight luster that came from a combination of the metal threads and memory crystal dulled by a layer of arachnid silk overtop of it all. The fabric was soft but not slick like silk, it was more like just a very high quality technical or synthetic fabric. It was relatively thick too, thicker than a normal shirt but nowhere near the leather he was wearing or even thicker fabrics from back on earth.


    Surprisingly, Felix found it felt extraordinarily light, much lighter than he expected, "I thought this would be heavier with metal threads and all that."


    Krinitor shook his head, "Eldrathil is very light. That''s not Aetoren arachnid silk, we''ll have to find a source for some but it''s close enough. Memory crystal threading is probably the heaviest aspect of that cloth and there isn''t much of it in there."


    Felix nodded then pulled and poked at the fabric. It seemed more durable than standard cloth but it was hard to tell without violence. There was no stretch in the threads themselves but the weave itself had a small amount of give to it. Felix also pulled out a Starmetal ingot and morphed it into a scalpel like shape then tried to cut through the fabric. He didn''t even scratch it, not that it meant much considering the force he was applying and the tool he was using.


    Felix handed it back to Krinitor, "It seems great to me."


    Krinitor nodded, "Perfect."


    "Do I need to worry about it being flammable, particularly weak to a specific element or physical attack?"


    Rainoth shook her head, "Nothing you''ll have to worry about for a while. If you get to the point where it''s failing you like that, you''re almost definitely already dead."


    Felix nodded, "Good to know."


    Kordran looked at Felix, "I take it you''ll just wear this everywhere?"


    Felix nodded, "That''s what I do with my kraken leather set currently."


    Krinitor looked towards his mother for confirmation as he spoke to Felix, "We''ll use variations of that material, maybe even a different material entirely for the robes and shirt but I think we can proceed with this?"


    Rainoth shrugged and nodded to him. Kordran walked over and clapped Felix on the shoulder, "We''ll get this done as soon as possible. If we need more measurements or if we need to test your body against a fabric, we''ll get Krinitor to bring you down."


    Felix nodded and slightly bowed to all of them, "Thank you."


    He quickly dressed and took his leave through the front door instead of the garage this time while Krinitor stayed behind and spoke to his parents who seemed eager for a conversation.


    That was a little¡­ odd?


    Grim mentally nodded, Yeah. I''m sure there''s a lot more going on that we didn''t catch.


    Yeah. If I''m right, I think they just upgraded everything. Not sure why they would be willing to do that though.


    There must be more to being integrated than we know. Kind of annoying that they figured it out like that. Might want to look into hiding it better if you can.


    Felix nodded, Yeah, maybe I can change what my class and race hide themselves as to something with a higher rarity. I''m glad we found out it was so obvious now with Krinitor''s parents instead of with someone dangerous.


    Considering it was currently the middle of the night, Felix headed back to Inscripticae and continued researching different nodes and enchantment patterns he could use for his cloak enchantment. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 Chapter 194 - Book 11

    Once the sun started rising again, Felix headed out to the Adventurer''s Guild where he signed himself up for a simple extermination job. It wouldn''t pay him much and were he not hunting as many souls as he could possibly find, he wouldn''t have bothered with this job. The job itself was recommended for low D grades but unfortunately, everything else that matched his requirements were too high level to be efficient.


    He brought the portal coordinates to the teleportation hub and walked through onto a barren and desolate planet. He cast his air bubble spell to keep the dust out of his mouth and fought with the wind as he approached the canyon ahead of him.


    The assignment was to clear out a the monster nest within the canyon because they kept climbing out and disturbing the research base nearby. The reason Felix chose this job in particular was that the monsters were actually large bugs. He was hoping that, like bugs, there would be a massive quantity of them.


    Felix walked over to the edge of the canyon and looked downwards. Now that he was looking into the canyon, he saw the walls of the canyon actually widened towards the bottom making it seem more like a cave with an open top.


    He dropped down into the gorge and caught himself with spells then flew along the edge looking for any sign of the bugs he was searching for. He flew for a few kilometers before he finally spotted a hole in the wall of the gorge that seemed to be big enough for large bugs to crawl through.


    Felix cast his Mage Armor spell along with a Mana Shield in front of him then floated over and into the cave. The cave twisted, winded and branched a thousand times before Felix encountered the first bug.


    [D - Common] Grelmite (Lvl 246)


    The bug looked almost like a giant spider with 8 legs and a single carapace covered, rotund central body. It was mostly red and had either two sets of pincers or 4 exposed teeth, Felix couldn''t really tell the difference.


    He struck it with an overpowered Lightning Bolt and it instantly died.


    Ding You have slain a [D - Common] Grelmite (Lvl 246)


    He continued venturing deeper into the caves and encountered a handful more Grelmites which he used to tune in the exact amount he needed to kill them with a single Lightning Bolt. He found if he overpowered his Lightning Bolts just thrice over, they all died instantly. A little less than thrice and the highest level Grelmites barely survived.


    After almost an hour of aimlessly wandering through the caves, Felix decided he needed a way to find the core of the nest. He flew back out of the cave system and into the gorge where he hunted down a whole variety of creatures. Some fish, some grazing and a few birds. He made sure to keep their bodies mostly in tact then stowed them in his Soul Space.


    He flew back over to the caves and dropped the corpses in a pile on the ground then pulled out his Starmetal staff and morphed the end into a blade. He lacerated the corpses then stowed the now sword staff and cast a wind spell to waft the scent further into the caves.


    Finally, he backed up and dug an alcove into the cave wall just a hundred meters or so away from the bait. He then wrapped himself in his cloak in it''s shadow form and did his best to stay still, quiet and hidden. He didn''t need to be invisible he just didn''t want to deter or distract his intended target from the bait.


    While he waited, he practiced his spell formation speed and mana control range. He made sure not to cast anything offensive so he didn''t deter his prey if they had a danger sense of any kind.


    He didn''t have to wait more than an hour or so before he started to feel the ground vibrating almost imperceptibly. A few moments later, he a small handful of Grelmites that scurried in from one of the caves.


    At first they started to tear into the bait but luckily they stopped themselves after just a bite or two each and, as Felix had hoped, they carried the rest off down a tunnel.


    Felix followed behind them from just a couple dozen meters away. He didn''t want to risk losing them and they didn''t seem to notice or care. At first he tried to be as stealthy as he could manage but he quickly realized it didn''t matter when one of the mites turned and smelled him before turning back around and ignoring him.


    He followed them down dozens of kilometers of tunnels and though he tried to map his way back out, if his actual map weren''t recording the path, he''d be completely lost.


    Even with his Memory Palace, he had a hard time tracking the tunnels that constantly split and wound in three dimensions. He had started to create a kind of code for the directions he turned at the forks with a unit vector to indicate the three dimensional direction but he completely lost track of things relatively quickly. He always knew which way was up but he just couldn''t keep track of the horizontal directions and the tunnels themselves were too warped to act as reference points.


    Luckily it didn''t matter because his map seemed to be tracking things for him.


    As he delved further into the network of tunnels, following the Grelmites, the caves were mostly the same size until suddenly, they started to grow so that multiple Grelmites could walk side by side.


    The Grelmites he was following handed off the stinking pile of corpses then turned around and headed back into the caves. Felix followed the ones carrying the bait he had set out as they passed the corpses from one Grelmite to another until the Grelmites started to care that he was following them.


    Instead of just ignoring him, Felix followed the Grelmites to a section of the cave where larger and darker Grelmites grouped up in front of him to block his way. He was surprised at first that they didn''t just attack him but while he appreciated their willingness to be peaceful, he was much less willing.


    He absorbed their souls and bodies into his rings then continued following his bait. He was fully expecting the rest of the Grelmites all around him to start attacking as soon as he had but they didn''t seem to care at all.


    He continued down and followed the food all the way until he finally reached his destination, the hive. He didn''t start killing everything in sight just yet and instead started walking around and exploring a little. He ended up very quickly casting a sphere of fresh air around his head because the hive itself smelled awful.


    He quickly found out why as he looked into a room filled with corpses and rotting flesh for the mites to eat. A little ways from the food storage he found a room filled with green liquid, eggs and larva.


    He figured at that point that he had found the center of the hive more or less so he turned to the Grelmites scurrying all around him and just started blasting them. He stuck exclusively to Lightning Bolts at first because it was the most mana efficient but quickly realized in tight spaces, a Flame Thrower was actually better off because he could cook a whole swarm with a single spell.


    He flew through the air darting around the hive, raining death on the thousands of Grelmites below him. Both of his rings were constantly activated causing countless ribbons of golden white and crimson to stream into his hands from every direction.


    He made sure to have his Soul Reap skill disabled so he could use all of the Grelmite''s souls for his new layer. He figured he wasn''t losing out on many stats and any that he was, his new suffused soul layer would easily make up for.


    He almost had to stop activating his Blood Ring just a few thousand Grelmites in because it actually got to the point where it was full. Instead of refusing to absorb more though, it conveyed the feeling of fullness directly to Felix. He had, for the first time since the very early days of the tutorial, felt physically full through the ring.


    He wasn''t actually full, his stomach was completely empty, so it took him a little while to figure out that his soul was conveying the experience of being full. His body was interpreting that and so he actually felt full.


    Instead of deactivating it though, Felix pushed the ring to just absorb everything for itself. Normally, a portion of the bodies it absorbed was stored, a portion was used to bolster his Persona and lastly a small portion went to feeding the ring itself.


    Now, Felix adjusted the ratios so all of it went to the ring because it wasn''t actually helping his Persona anymore. He had already gotten all the stats he could from them.


    He had no idea how much the ring could absorb and what feeding the ring would even do but he did so anyways because he had no other use for thousands of Grelmite corpses.


    Eventually, his soul ring too, filled to the brim though, it wasn''t until he had scorched the majority of the hive. This was much easier to deal with and he simply dumped all of the souls into his Soul Space, forcing them in and compressing them all down.


    He continued to hunt down every Grelmite in sight until he could no longer hear nor see a single one of them scurrying about.


    Ding You have slain 53,289 [D - Common] Grelmite (Lvl 173-294)


    Just so he could say he had completed the job, Felix scorched the food and egg rooms until there was nothing left but ash. He quickly memorized the portal coordinates of the most central location in the hive then he followed his map back out the winding corridors.


    Once he popped back out into the gorge, at the bottom this time, he dropped to the ground and pulled out a number of the spell tablets in his Soul Space. He tested and iterated a new enchantment based on the one he had used to distract the corrupted drakelings and then sent them flying into the Grelmite tunnels.


    He continued pouring the tablets into every opening he saw until he had gone through about a hundred of them and was satisfied. The tablets worked just as he had hoped they would, they flew off randomly down the caves then exploded which Felix was hoping would cause the caves to collapse and seal themselves.


    He knew it wasn''t going to completely seal off the hive but he figured it would at least make it harder for them to recover. Once that was done, he opened a portal to the center of the hive and started blasting spells through it until everything through the portal had collapsed.


    Finally he opened a portal back to Telviras and stepped through. He quickly shot off to the Adventurer''s Guild and informed them that the job was complete. They informed the contract holder who had to verify Felix''s work so he would only be paid a few days later, not that it mattered to him, the money was an after thought.


    The whole job had taken Felix just a handful of hours so instead of heading back to Inscripticae, Felix sat down in the guild hall and started meditating. He immediately moved himself to his Soul Space where he started the long and arduous work of compressing all the anima he had collected and purged.


    He had no intention of getting through all the anima he had collected but he did want to try and estimate if he needed any more or not. Luckily, he was pretty sure he had enough. If he did need more, it wasn''t much at all.


    He happily flew back to Inscripticae just an hour later and checked in with Aldahn who still didn''t have anything for him. He sat down to start working on his soul in his Pocket Home but before he got too absorbed in it, he quickly checked how much longer he had until he had to go to Eramith.


    Just 304 days left. Wow. Honestly, it''s going by a lot faster than I thought it would.


    Yeah. You''ve been pretty busy though. You had a ton of things you wanted to do and learn outside of the integration. You still haven''t enhanced your mind or found much on spell formations.


    Yeah, I still have so much I want to do. It almost feels like there''s more to do now than there was before.


    Isn''t that just how it works? There''s always more to do and all answers lead to more questions?


    I don''t know about all answers.


    You know what I mean.


    It definitely feels that way right now. On top of the things I want to find, learn and do, I have so many questions. Gods and afterlives, how the hell does all that work? Primordials, who or what are they? The System, why is it being weird? Is it actually degrading? Is it working as intended? Someone must have created it right, considering you didn''t have a System in your universe? Or is it actually a natural being that¡­ evolved into what it is now? What''s up with Dragons? What''s up with that thing the Ravens stole, even the echo of it, or whatever that was felt¡­ familiar and alien at the same time?


    I didn''t actually get to feel that one myself, your soul seemed to have shielded me. Hopefully you can at least answer that one on the next mission with Shade''s Wrath to see the Ravens.


    Yeah hopefully.


    Refocusing himself on the task at hand, Felix began compressing the anima in his Soul Space in earnest. At first, he planned on compressing everything to satisfaction then integrating it all at once into his soul but he quickly decided against that. He realized all the anima was gradually decompressing itself when he let it be so, he needed to use it as soon as possible after compressing it manually.


    Felix took streams of anima from his Soul Space, just small ribbons, and compressed them piece by piece. Each one he held onto with as much focus as he could muster as he dragged them into the second layer of his soul where he fused and merged them in.


    He had Grim notify him once a day through their soul bond to check in with Aldahn but over the course of just over a term, there was nothing. Krinitor was hard at work on a pair of projects for personal clients he got through his parents but, nothing Felix was allowed to shadow.


    He did update him on his outfit but, there wasn''t much to update him on. They were in the process of negotiating and acquiring materials which was apparently the most time consuming part of making all their commissions simply because of the rarity of the materials they used. They had contacts and apparently, one of the most impressive networks of suppliers but it still took a lot of time.


    Their suppliers have also been unusually busy for the last few epochs or so, similar to the Adventurer''s Guild, not that anyone seemed to have an explanation as to why. Either way, Krinitor assured Felix it would be done in just a few more terms which was well within his timeline of when he had to leave for Eramith.


    Over the course of the 50 days he spent compressing and fusing anima into his soul, he got much better at compressing anima. His control over souls and anima in general was noticeably but still not drastically better. He could tell the difference but he had only really been able to compress about 50% more anima at once.


    Nova had also spent the vast majority of the time slurping away at the deformed chunk of Demitium which they had finally completely consumed. In doing so, they had also leveled up by a significant amount considering they hadn''t fought or killed anything.


    [D - Cursed] Nova, Ravenous Matter Spirit (Lvl 500)


    She spent the rest of the time napping or rather, when Felix checked in with her through his soul bond, working on digesting something. He didn''t bother them though as he was entirely preoccupied.


    The entire process ended up being seamless though, he had proceeded with caution at every step. Most of all, he was extraordinarily careful when he was attaching the new layer of his soul to his brain. He attached his soul in very small increments and made absolutely sure everything was working as intended.


    Ironically, his caution was the biggest issue. As he connected small parts of his brain at first, those parts were different enough to interfere with the rest of his brain. From that point onwards, he didn''t allow his consciousness to re-enter his body for a few days while he ensured the entirety of his mind was connected and affinized.


    In the end, the process was the single most valuable thing he had ever done. He had felt his stats growing as his body became more connected and his control over every cell grew.


    In terms of numbers, his stats had grown massively. His Endurance had grown the most by about 4000 or over 60%. His Dexterity and Vitality grew by almost 5000 or 40% and almost 3500 or 50% respectively. He was most excited about his Intelligence because, while it had only grown by a mere 10%, the fact that it had grown at all and by 2300, was exciting. It indicated to him that he was on the right path looking into integrating more anima in his mind.


    His Strength, Agility and Perception had grown by 2000, 1200, and 1000 each or 35%, 20% and 10% respectively. Not as impressive or exciting as the other stats, but a more than welcome improvement nonetheless.


    On top of that, his energy buff seemed to have marginally increased to the point where he was now literally doubling all of his stats. Though he had no idea why that had increased.


    Besides the stats through, it was like everything in Felix''s body was known to him and now, truly felt like it was a part of him. His nerves never reached everywhere before but now it felt like they did, he could feel the experiences of each and every one of his cells, not that they were significant experiences, but they were present. Rather than just communicating with his cells, directing them to perform actions and influencing them, they were now a part of him.


    Before he had felt an attachment to his body, something that prevented him from changing its form too drastically. He was fond of his shape and form as a human. Now he was not only attached to it emotionally and instinctually, but literally. He was directly connected to it in the most intimate way.


    His body had never felt more connected and alive.


    Ironically, he realized this was exactly how Nova must have felt all the time. Her soul was literally connected to each and every atom in her body.


    She was still napping when he finished and decided to test out his bodily control by just vaulting around his Pocket Home.


    His body felt amazing, with no learning curve or anything. It rather felt like the opposite, like he had reverted to something he knew rather than pushing himself towards something new. Like he had been controlling a puppet before and now he was back to his own body.


    As he vaulted around, he quickly got distracted by the rainbow pools of liquid along with the ocean of liquid around him. It was bothering him a little that he had no idea what they were. He figured he would ask Nova at some point because they had a much better understanding over matter.


    He did check on the sapling though which had actually grown a noticeable amount. It was now noticeably a tree as its stem stiffened rather than just a small green plant like thing. It also had a few more leaves which were an odd array of colors. More impressively, it''s roots had grown and reached through his little island, stretching themselves to the limit of his pocket dimension as far as he could tell.


    He had no idea if it was because of the light here or something else but he figured it probably wasn''t a bad thing. He didn''t mind having a tree in his Pocket Home at all, especially if it was a cool mana tree with rainbow leaves.


    Hey Felix, I just realized. You should try bonding with the tree.


    Say what now? You mean like the same thing I did with you and Nova?


    Yeah more or less.


    It''s a tree though. How do I do that? Do I just affinize it the same way I did the Starmetal staff?


    No, don''t do that. If you did that on a living thing, you''d destroy it''s soul. It would also be¡­ difficult to move your soul into their body or vice versa.


    So give it a soul seed? It''s not conscious enough to accept it, is it?


    Nope. Plants are different. Like items. Just take a tiny soul seed, seriously make it really small, and plant it in one of the roots.


    Was this a forbidden technique then? Why do you know how to do this?


    No. One of the¡­ bad guys the people that created me killed, controlled plants. I used to just store a record of the people they took down and their techniques in case someone copied them or they came back. Eventually things got worse and the knowledge was deemed¡­ forbidden. There was an incident¡­ anyways, I have other knowledge that isn''t forbidden too.


    I see.


    Most people wouldn''t consider something like this because of the stress on their soul, you can''t just bond to everything. You though¡­ not really a concern.


    As Grim had instructed, Felix created a tiny soul seed, using the leftovers from the Grelmites in his Soul Space to fully replenish the piece he removed. He carefully fused the soul seed into one of the roots that was close to the surface, pushing aside the tiny piece of its soul that was in there to make room.


    He didn''t immediately feel anything but in theory the tree would grow over time and so would their bond. He was hoping he wouldn''t have to replenish the mana pools over time but he was sure he would. Felix figured he would deal with it later on, when it became an issue and hopefully with Nova''s help figured out what the hell the liquids actually were.


    Leaving his Pocket Home, Felix got to work on some enchanting. Nova was still napping so he left her alone and headed into the workshop. He continued testing, designing and iterating on the successor to his Mage Armor spell while he waited for a job he could shadow.


    Before he had a chance to check in with Aldahn though, Felix spotted Thezan walk into the workshop and over to Felix''s table. He saw Thezan wearing the same white armor as he had been before, so Felix assumed Aldahn had already fixed the enchantments.


    "You free for the day?"


    Felix quickly cleaned up the table from his experiments and nodded, "We going to see the Ravens?"


    Thezan nodded, "Yup. Rathos is just in the lobby."


    Felix followed Thezan out of the workshop and spotted Rathos laying on the counter at the front desk.


    "Hey kid. Ready to go?" She turned her head to the side and smirked.


    "I think so. This seems to be a bigger deal than I think it is though¡­"


    Thezan shrugged, "The Ravens are a big deal. You''ll see. You might not care much when you get there but, it''s hard to get in to see them at all. If we didn''t have personal connections we probably couldn''t have gotten in this quickly."


    Rathos smirked, "It''s also a bigger deal for us because of those¡­ personal connections."


    Felix shrugged, "Alright. I guess I''ll see when we get there."


    Thezan nodded, "About that. You can open a portal right?"


    Felix frowned, "Uh¡­ what do you mean?"


    Thezan frowned, "Aldahn told me you portaled out of here a few times."


    Felix sighed, "Damn. Didn''t think he knew about that. Yeah I can portal us to the teleportation hub. That''s where my mold goes."


    Thezan nodded, "Perfect. Means I can leave the vehicle parked here."


    Felix nodded and pulled out the portal mold for Telviras then pulled out all five of his batteries and feigned using them to hide how much mana he had at his disposal.


    The portal opened and Thezan, followed by Rathos stepped through. Felix did as well a moment later and pulled the portal mold with him, closing the portal. He didn''t dare raw cast the portal here just in case.


    Thezan tapped at something Felix couldn''t see and an attendant showed up a few moments later, "Where to?"


    Thezan smiled, "Ravens."


    The attendant cocked a brow, "You have an invite?"


    Thezan nodded and held up a coin that was larger than the one they had found on the last mission. The attendant nodded and tapped at the metal plate he carried.


    Felix patiently waited with his mana senses fully alert because he wanted to try and record the portal spell form they were using.


    A few moments later a portal appeared and Felix frowned. No mana had moved through the room, at all. At least none for a portal. There was mana moving constantly powering mostly scrying enchantments as far as Felix could tell. None of the mana flow changed when the portal was opened though.


    He didn''t have time to think about it much though as he followed Thezan and Rathos through the portal.


    They arrived in a large open room made of white marble with a single desk at the far end. Thezan led their group over to it where he presented the large coin, their invite. The individual behind the desk nodded and a door behind them slid open.


    Thezan led them through and the door immediately closed behind them.


    Looking around, Felix saw a number of doorways on either side of the massive hall that stretched out before him. Everything was made of white marble in this room and other than the countless doors on the walls, there was nothing other than a strip of carpet to indicate the direction they should walk in.


    Thezan turned to Felix, "Alright here''s the deal. Think of The Ravens as a collection of scavengers. Really high end scavengers. The Ravens are more a collection of individuals than they are a group. All the members pay a share of the profits to the collection for their resources, the name and a space here. Other than that, they are entirely their own people with their own teams."


    Felix gestured towards one of the doors, "So each door is a Raven?"


    Thezan nodded, "Yup. This building is the Raven''s nest. Each door is a Raven''s personal shop. They''re all scavengers. They go out and find anything they can get their hands on that has any value then bring them back here and try to sell them. Different Ravens will have their own specialties and so on."


    Felix nodded, "So who would have what we''re looking for?"


    Rathos smirked and leaned in over Felix''s shoulder, whispering in his ear, "That''s where you come in."


    Thezan waved her off, "Not really, but sort of. You''re here and Elric and Aros aren''t because you actually have a shot at spotting some of the remnants of the Usorium empire. Also the larger the group, the harder it is to get an invite."


    Felix frowned, "So we just walk around and hope to spot the Raven that scavenged the Usorium empire before we got there?"


    Thezan nodded, "Yeah, pretty much. Feel free to look around though you probably won''t be able to purchase anything. This place is even more expensive than it is exclusive."


    Rathos looked over at Thezan, "Should we split up?"


    Thezan nodded, "If any of us find anything, just come back into the main hall and wait for the rest of us to rejoin you."


    They all nodded in agreement then walked off towards a different door. Rathos walked over to the first doorway on the left, Thezan headed for the other end of the room and Felix headed for the first doorway on the right.


    All the doorways were completely open and absolutely massive. As Felix stepped through into what felt like a completely separate building, he couldn''t help but feel like he was in a museum or art gallery. Each shop, from what he could see of the first one and through the doorways of the others, was set up like an exhibit.


    The one he walked into had dark grey walls with low lighting. The shop itself was massive and everything he saw had it''s own display case. He walked over to one of them and looked inside, reading the plaque that held it''s identification for him because the glass somehow blocked him from identifying it himself.


    The object looked like a normal sword to Felix. It was about the size of a longsword and it was generally unadorned. Simple blade, cross guard and handle, not decorations or embedded jewels. It didn''t even appear to be made of any kind of exotic material.


    [A - Divine] Lost Champion''s Blade


    [Growth][Infused]


    This sword was crafted to be the ultimate weapon for the champion of a long dead god. The god provided Divine level materials to the greatest crafters they had access to. Once the blade had been forged, the god carefully infused the blade with their will, their power and its abilities. They then sealed these away and forcefully lowered the grade of the blade so their champion could properly wield it. As the champion grew, the blade grew alongside them, becoming more powerful and unlocking more of their gods power.


    This Champion quickly grew in power and notoriety until eventually, they vanished. The blade remains however, with much of its potential power still partially sealed even though the champion who wielded it and the god who created it have been lost to the throes of time.


    Well that''s¡­ gotta be worth a fucking buttload.


    Felix continued to wander through the exhibit but it seemed as though the blade was the most notable item in this particular shop''s collection. He didn''t spot anything of value, to him or the mission he was on so he walked over to the next room.


    This room seemed to be focused on artwork. There were paintings, sculptures, clothing and armor though, not intended for battle. They were all scavenged from long dead civilizations which no doubt increased their value. Felix didn''t spend long in that shop, only briefly checking everything before deciding none of it was obviously from the Usorium empire.


    The specialty of the Raven who''s shop he walked into next was obvious, everything in the room was a raw material of some kind. There were a few that were unique and he immediately thought of Nova but considering all the materials were in the B grade or above, they were well outside of his price range.


    He continued exploring the various shops and looking into the main hall to see if Thezan or Rathos had found anything. He walked into weapon specialty shops, weird relics which were mostly very old mundane objects and all kinds of other shops.


    A lot of the Ravens, actually all of the ones he met, seemed to think he was the kid of some super powerful person.


    "¡­ This armor is of the finest quality. Crafting techniques like this simply don''t exist anymore. It would be perfect to protect you from harm and you''ll no doubt grow into it as you evolve. Ask your patron, I''m certain they''ll agree."


    Felix nodded and smiled politely to the small man that Felix was pretty sure was either a goblin or a gnome, or something in between.


    He had no intention of purchasing plate armor and honestly, this wasn''t even the most impressive plate armor he had seen here. It was a set of full plate armor made of large and smooth black plates.


    [A - Legendary] Dragonfire Forged Plate Armor


    [Plate Armor]


    This set of plate armor was forged from a metal that is entirely impossible to melt except under the heat of a Dragon''s breath. It is nearly impenetrable creating a suit of armor that can withstand just about anything below the S grade.


    The most interesting part about it was that it had the word Dragon in it''s name.


    "Dragonfire? I thought the word Dragon was banned or something?"


    The man tilted his head a little, "Yes, well¡­ kind of. This plate armor is from before that era. Not many artifacts survived the Dracopurge or The Great Hunt that followed."


    The what?


    Felix just nodded, "I see. Thank you. I''m actually a little more magically inclined, if you have anything of that nature?"


    "Ah but you misunderstand you see. Protection is even more important for the magically inclined. There is no reason you shouldn''t equip plate armor such as this¡­"


    Felix ignored him but smiled and nodded politely as he tried to convince Felix to be interested in the plate armor. Once it became obvious he wasn''t going to be, the Raven walked him over to a couple more items before Felix realized he didn''t have anything of value to him.


    He managed to slip away from the man and made it into the next store where the most interesting item to him was a pile of coins.


    The coins seemed to be made of some kind of whitish metal and they were both small and very thin. The most interesting thing about them to Felix though, was their grade and name.


    [E - Common] 1000 Credits


    [Currency]


    A coin with a value of 1000 E grade credits.


    For the first time in a shop, Felix actually sought out the Raven just so he could ask about the coins.


    A dark grey, almost black skinned man with a mane of horns sprouting out the back of his jaw and wearing an almost suit like outfit followed Felix to the display, "Ah, these are what we used before The System took over all currency way back in the mid 50th integration."


    "Wait what. It used to be coins? The System didn''t always handle all transactions?"


    The man shook his head, "No. It was kind of a mess from what I''ve heard too. The gods who organized a common currency had to choose a material that held far less value than the currency they represented. Obviously there are issues with that because any material they choose instantly becomes orders of magnitude more valuable. They have to find a way to have valid currency and make it difficult to forge the currency."


    Felix''s face contorted in disgust as he thought through all the implications and more importantly, issues with that system of currency.


    "Alternatively, for some values, they chose materials that were equal in value to the currency so anyone could make the coins and they would hold their value for that reason. Anyways, there were many issues and eventually, The System just took over. In the process, it destroyed all the previous currency as it replaced its value with its new currency."


    Felix frowned, "How did this survive then?"


    He smiled devilishly, "Excellent question. There are some places in the multiverse that even The System cannot see not touch. This cache was likely held there in a vault of some sort or the Soul Space of a god. I found this cache buried in the ruins of a large estate planet that had long since been abandoned."


    "So they aren''t worth anything anymore?"


    A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.


    The man looked taken aback, "Well, they hold the same value as they had before The System took over and you could exchange them. They are more of a collector''s item, a rarity. Some people display them in their houses to make it seem like they are old and powerful because they managed to subvert The System."


    "I mean, if they bought this, that would be a lie?"


    "Correct. That doesn''t mean no one would fall for such a lie."


    Felix shrugged, "Fair enough."


    After walking through the rest of the shop, he decided to move on. As he walked out back into the main hall, he spotted Rathos sitting on the ground with a book rested against one of her knees.


    Felix walked over to her, "You found something?"


    "Think so. Have to see what you and Thezan think though. Not even sure I''d call it a likely candidate, just a possibility."


    Just a few minutes later, Thezan walked into the hall and joined them. They followed Rathos into an exhibit that seemed to specialize in the completely mundane. Felix saw brooms, furniture, spoons and other weird items he never expected to see in a place like this.


    The item in specific that caught Rathos'' attention was simply a plate that was enchanted to keep food warm. It was incredibly mundane and exactly the kind of thing the Usorium empire would have enchanted.


    [E - Common] Heated Dinner Plate


    [Enchanted]


    A dinner plate made of fine porcelain with durability enchantments, self cleaning enchantments and an enchantment to keep food placed upon it warm. This plate is a relic of a long dead empire.


    Luckily for Felix, the enchantment was active to show how it worked and it was heating up a small amount of water that was in a constant state of evaporating and being refilled.


    Felix walked right up to the glass and reached out with his mana senses to map out the enchantment. As he did so, his frown deepened. Not only was the plate itself mundane, but the enchantment was completely mundane. If anything, Felix was pretty sure this wasn''t actually a relic of any kind. The enchantment was more basic than even he could design and there were no signs of wear at all.


    The scraps of enchantments he had seen in the Usorium castle were all intricate and beautiful. Possibly over engineered but they were elegant. This was the opposite.


    It was completely possible that they didn''t bother with elegant and complex enchantments for the mundane objects like dinner plates. It wasn''t necessarilyy not a relic of the Usorium empire, but Felix''s gut had him doubting its authenticity, let alone its origin.


    Thezan looked at it and shrugged but Felix shook his head.


    Rathos and Thezan nodded and they all walked together to the next shop over where they talked about the plate without being overheard by the Raven selling it.


    "I don''t even think it''s a relic at all."


    Rathos giggled a little and Thezan looked at him very seriously, "Shhh! I don''t think you realize how serious of an accusation that is around here. You may or may not be right but either way, an accusation like that will likely get someone killed."


    Felix nodded seriously in understanding, "Sorry, didn''t realize. Still though, I doubt its Usorium."


    Thezan nodded, "Alright. Let''s keep searching. If we don''t find any better leads, we''ll go back and question that Raven."


    They all nodded then split up again.


    Felix only searched a few more shops before Thezan thought he had found something. It was more promising but the enchantment still didn''t awe and inspire Felix the same way the Usorium castle enchantments had. Those enchantments had used mana attunements as keys. Having mana attunements that were that precise and being capable of reading them with equal precision was, as far as Felix and the Telviran library were concerned, completely unheard of.


    Felix himself could do it, but he never would have been able to figure out an enchantment to pull the feat off had he not seen it in action himself.


    There were a few other close calls but still nothing that convinced Felix. Even though they exuded patience, Felix was getting an instinctual feeling that Thezan and Rathos were starting to have doubts. Although, whether they doubted him or any Usorium artifacts being here at all, he didn''t know.


    The next shop in Felix''s path he was actually incredibly excited about. In the next exhibit, every display case was filled with a book, tome, stack of parchment or tablet of some kind. All in all there were just under a dozen pieces of literature in there.


    The first book seemed to contain some kind of sword technique or skill set. He wasn''t entirely sure because the plaque clearly did not say what a normal identification would have. It was far too embellished and obviously fabricated.


    Looking into the next case, Felix read the plaque and was pretty sure he was looking at a cookbook with various recipes contained within. In trying to decipher the plaque, he was also pretty sure it contained recipes for cooking humans and other sentient creatures.


    Either way, this was the second case that seemed to be blocking his ability to scan the books. Despite the fact that he could see them, it seemed his skill also wanted him to be able to touch them somehow.


    He didn''t care much for the contents of those books anyways but it didn''t stop him from trying to think up a way to get through the glass anyways.


    There was a historical population record, a dictionary, a book on ancient agriculture and a couple books that described skills and how to get them. The eighth book he took a look at was by far the most interesting and the first lead that gave him hope, while simultaneously filling him with dread and putting his soul on edge.


    He ignored the feeling for now and walked right out of the exhibit into the hall and waited. Thezan and Rathos were noticeably excited when they saw that it was Felix who had found something this time and they all walked back into the book shop together.


    [A - Unique] Engineering Mana Nodes


    [Secret Knowledge]


    A book detailing a process to engineer and create nodes that output specific mana attunements, energy levels and densities. This knowledge is largely lost as it was a closely guarded secret from a long since dead empire.


    On top of its subject matter and description, just looking at the book Felix immediately felt pangs of the same feeling he had felt in the Usorium castle. It wasn''t nearly as strong and Felix could tell it was barely there but whatever it was had his soul completely on edge. Even the faintest whiff on this book, through the glass, was enough for his soul to feel like it was squeezing itself and blocking everything else out.


    The downside of having his soul connected and suffused throughout his body now, was that Felix felt this physically. His muscles tensed, his skin tightened, his heart accelerated and the hair on his body stood completely at attention.


    On top of that, while he had gained even more control over his body on a much deeper level, he couldn''t fight his own soul and had no hope of suppressing its reaction to whatever this was. The best he could do was try to calm himself down but honestly, he didn''t really feel like he was doing a great job.


    Felix looked up at Thezan then at Rathos and nodded to both of them then did his best to convey his thoughts with a look.


    They seemed confused at first but Felix was hopeful they would play along as he found the Raven that owned the particular shop.


    A man who appeared to be half man half ram, or rather just a man with a ram''s head followed Felix over to the display case, "Ah, you have a discerning eye. This book, and the knowledge it contains, is incredibly rare. It was an incredibly lucky find and an arduous journey to recover."


    Felix nodded, "Of course. If its contents are what you say they are well¡­ it''s an extraordinary find."


    The man placed a hand on the glass case, "It truly is. I''m almost inclined to distribute the information myself. The innovation that would unfold would surely be wondrous. This capability, to engineer nodes as desired would surely accelerate any corporation to the forefront of technology."


    "So why not license or sell the information yourself?"


    The man immediately got a little defensive, his body almost imperceptibly tensing, "Well, while the information is more valuable than the tome itself, I simply do not have the network or resources at my disposal to sell or license the information alone. I would surely be hunted down without some kind of significant backer."


    Felix nodded deeply, "Oh of course. Couldn''t you sell it directly to one of those backers though? Why sell it here?"


    The man frowned a little, "The Ravens are the best protection I have access to. If you represent or know of a powerful patron willing to purchase the information, by all means send them my way. As it stands, I am not willing to risk my life venturing directly into the arms of some God or its Demigods."


    Felix smiled, "I guess that''s where someone like me would come in then. Someone willing to risk their life to turn such a profit."


    The man relaxed a little, his shoulders dropping just a couple millimeters, "I guess so. I must say though, you seem a little¡­ low level?"


    Felix smirked, "Makes me seem unassuming, doesn''t it? Father sends the babysitters to accompany me but," Felix shrugged, "between you and me, I don''t really need the guards."


    The man cocked a brow and almost bowed, "My apologies then."


    Felix waved him off, "Don''t worry about it. I''m going to have to verify the contents of the book though before I pay such a sum."


    The ram headed man immediately frowned, Felix felt Thezan wince behind him and he heard a slight giggle from Rathos, "I see you haven''t dealt much with the Ravens then?"


    Felix shook his head, "First time. Hopefully a fruitful venture."


    The Raven shook his head, "That''s not how things work around here. The contents are verified and if you find me to be lying, I will be executed on the spot, my merchandise auctioned off to the other Ravens and this shop, sold to the next in line."


    Felix frowned, "So I''m just supposed to trust you and the Ravens? That seems foolish."


    The Raven chuckled, "Well if you are a serious buyer, you are welcome to transfer me the full purchase price of the tome and I will offer a full refund if you are unsatisfied with its contents."


    Felix nodded, "How much for the book then?"


    The Raven smiled warmly, "1 S4."


    Felix nodded seriously, "One moment please. My guard also happens to also be my wallet."


    The Raven bowed slightly as Thezan, Rathos and Felix walked out into the hallway where Thezan pulled out a small disc that he filled with mana. Felix immediately latched on and memorized the spell which seemed to be a bubble that blurred their image and ate any sounds to prevent anyone from listening in.


    Felix spoke as soon as he felt the spell go up, "Sorry. I thought that would work."


    Rathos giggled and Thezan patted Felix on the shoulder, "No worries. You know now. It doesn''t really change anything for us though. We still need to question that Raven to try and figured out where he got it."


    Rathos grew more serious, "That might be a problem. You both notice how defensive he got when Felix asked about why he wasn''t selling it himself to a god or large operation?"


    Thezan nodded, "Yeah, probably because he isn''t supposed to have it. I don''t see any other legitimate reason. He could have easily funded guards or taken a slight haircut on the profit and gone to Edras'' faction."


    Rathos nodded in understanding as Felix just tried his best to follow along.


    Thezan bit his lip a little as he thought.


    Though he didn''t want to interrupt, Felix wasn''t going to be much help without more context, "An S4, what''s that?"


    Rathos tilted her head a little, "You know there''s E, D, C, B, A and S grade right? Then there are the equivalent credits. Well, after that there''s SS then SSS. Some people, or rather gods, deal with currency values larger than that so they simply give a number for the number of Ss. S4 would be equivalent to SSSS or 1 million SSS."


    Felix frowned, "That''s¡­ ridiculous, no?"


    Thezan shrugged, "It''s probably because you both immediately latched onto licensing it. It would be worth that much if that''s what you did with it. If you talked about it more as a collector''s item or a curio, he probably only would have quoted you an SS or something."


    Felix winced, "Sorry."


    Thezan patted Felix on the shoulder, "Don''t worry about it. We couldn''t have afforded it anyways. The price he quoted you is actually a little low by my estimation. Not, unbelievably too-good-to-be-true low, but a good deal low. He wants to move it and fast."


    Felix nodded, "Right, like he probably isn''t supposed to have it for whatever reason."


    Thezan nodded, "Yeah. The question is whether or not we call him on it or not."


    Rathos shook her head, "It''s too risky. I don''t think we''re wrong but¡­ I also don''t want to be executed."


    Thezan chuckled, "You wouldn''t be."


    Rathos sighed, "I don''t want you to be executed. Or the kid."


    Felix snorted, "Thanks."


    She shrugged innocently, "So what do we do?"


    Thezan sighed, "We could threaten him. Let him know we know where he really got the book and try to leverage that for information?"


    Rathos grinned, "Back to threatening Ravens, are we?"


    Thezan punched her in the shoulder, "Stop that. This is different and you know it."


    Rathos nodded then grew serious again, "We could just report back to Dogran."


    Thezan shook his head, "Nah. We aren''t giving up just yet. We were tasked with getting more and we need to at least try a little harder than that."


    Rathos nodded, "Should we send the kid home?"


    Thezan looked at Felix who shook his head, "You sure?"


    Felix nodded, "You know I can scan books that are near me, right?"


    Thezan nodded, "Yeah I figured that''s what you were doing."


    Felix shrugged, "I have no intention of selling or licensing that information but¡­ I want it."


    Thezan chuckled, "I know you''re just ignorant about The Ravens and all that but¡­ alright fine. We might need you anyways."


    Thezan stopped pushing mana into the disc in his hand and the spell faded then they walked back into the shop and found The Raven, the man with the ram''s head.


    Thezan smiled and leaned against the glass display case then crossed his arms, "So look. Here''s how it is, we were hoping you could go a little lower than that."


    The Raven nodded, "I might be able to do a little lower, say 0.5 S4?"


    Thezan shook his head, "We were thinking a lot lower than that."


    The Ram headed man sighed, "If you were willing to provide me with royalties, I could part with it for a lot less. I''d be willing to take a meager amount now as a down payment with 0.1% of all profits going to me then my successors?"


    Thezan chuckled and bowed his head, "How about, you take the book out and show it to us for free."


    The Raven scoffed, "What, so your child can scan it? Fat chance of that."


    Thezan smiled, "Oh really? How about this, you show it to us for free right now or, if you say no, the next offer is going to be you let the kid scan all the books you have here."


    The Raven sighed, "Never thought I''d have to report a client before. I never really wanted to be the one responsible for getting someone violently tortured and executed."


    Thezan''s smile grew, "Damn, well the first offer just expired and all that''s left is the second. Unfortunately for you, you weren''t smart enough to ask what you get in exchange, or rather, what you don''t get."


    The man looked disgusted, "You can''t threaten The Ravens. Who the hell do you think you are?"


    Thezan chuckled, "Actually, you can. You just need to make sure whatever you''re threatening them with, is worse for them than it is for you. In this case¡­ it is."


    The Raven just looked confused, "Just spit it out already."


    Thezan leaned in and whispered, barely audible to Felix, "We know the book''s real origin. We know you got it fr-"


    The Raven smacked his hand over Thezan''s mouth and smiled to cover gritted teeth, a face that was rather creepy on a ram''s head, "Don''t fucking say it. If you''re telling the truth, I suspect you don''t actually know why it''s so¡­ sensitive."


    Thezan shrugged, "We have our suspicions. Lets just say, we know. Oh and, new deal. Everything I said before but also, you''re gonna tell us where you got the book and what the hell happened to the rest of the shit you plucked."


    The Raven grabbed Thezan by the arm and pulled him a few meters away then whispered to him, "Take out the fucking privacy screen."


    A moment later, the two of them were encased in an orb that completely blurred them out and blocked all sound. Felix and Rathos were left by the display case and she smiled and shrugged at Felix, "Looks like it''s working."


    He nodded then turned his attention back to the display case. Staring intently at the tome contained within, Felix pushed on his Scan Literature skill in an effort to force it. While it didn''t actually work and just push through the glass, he realized it was likely a System Fuckery skill, for now.


    While it did push on his ambient anima senses and somehow used them to read the book, it wasn''t him reading it. He was certain because he could actually turn off his anima senses and the skill still functioned, something he could not do with Reaper''s Senses and his Mana Senses for example. Event testing his identification skills, they simply failed when he suppressed the necessary senses.


    His best guess was that The System was either measuring him constantly or straining him as a byproduct of the skill. With his anima senses suppressed though, no part of him, his body, his soul or his senses were straining themselves when he pushed on the skill. Doing so with other activatable skills like the Spear Strike he had learned in the tutorial, had strained him in specific ways. It had helped him identify how the skill was being automated.


    In this case though, nothing happened.


    Regardless, he was intent on moving the skill in a direction he liked anyways so he figured now was as good a time as any to figure out a way of doing so.


    When he first walked into this Raven''s nest, and thought through ways of circumventing the display cases, Felix had come up with two alternatives.


    He already knew it was possible to store memories in anima, if only for a brief time and he also figured there was probably a way to replicate the skill with his mana control and senses. Given many more epochs, he figured he could probably also use his, still nascent as of now, matter senses.


    The anima method was likely easiest because it was more tailored to the task at hand but he had far more experience, tuned senses and control over mana. It was also telling that that seemed to have been the basis for the skill''s progression up to now. He was assuming it would have scaled based on his anima senses, despite not mentioning it would do so.


    He figured the ultimate solution was probably some combination of his mana and anima senses, possibly even his matter senses as well, but for now, he started with mana. Once his matter senses were better, he would transition the skill in that direction.


    Felix didn''t start with the tome, in fact he was uninclined to even try anything on the book at all because he figured there were likely alarms on it or something. He had seen Thezan use the privacy barrier disc standing right next to a display though so Felix wasn''t too worried about testing anything mana based near it.


    He ignored Rathos who was curiously and completely unashamedly, watching him as he pulled a random piece of parchment with some enchantment diagrams on it, out of his Soul Space. He immediately started experimenting on it, running mana through it of different attunements and energy levels, trying to see if there was any reaction at all.


    Unfortunately, though his test was rushed and hardly thorough, he felt no change or reaction whatsoever. Moving onto anima, Felix didn''t bother pushing any anima through the sheet at first and rather, he paid attention to the anima that was already in and around the sheet.


    It was incredibly sparse but there was enough for Felix to get something. He tuned into it as much as he could and listened. Though there was static, a lot of static, he did get a general vibe of the parchment. An experience that was a common denominator amongst the anima of the existence of a parchment.


    It was far from enough to identify anything written on the parchment, let alone the fact that it was a parchment at all. Had Felix been unable to see and hold the parchment for himself, he would have had no hope of reading from the anima that there was anything more than probably a thin object nearby, maybe.


    It did give him an idea though so Felix switched back over to his mana control and suffused the parchment with blank mana then simply waited. After almost a minute, in which he started to wonder how long Thezan and the Ram-man were going to take, Felix separated out the mana and tuned into it with his senses.


    Though he still couldn''t read anything on the parchment itself, Felix could now tell for certain that it was in fact a sheet with a vary similar shape to parchment. He could also feel a slight difference in the attunements of the sheet if he really focused but no precise shapes or anything of value yet.


    Following that experiment, Felix tested mana of all kinds of different attunements and energy levels. Instead of subsequent experiments, he created a sheet of mana and split it into a grid. Each section of the grid then contained mana of a different attunement and energy level. If one of the sections showed promise, he would repeat the test where the sections contained only slight variations of the successful square.


    He figured he didn''t have time to get much of anywhere but, he only had to conduct two tests. The first, he immediately noticed two things, one was that the biggest variation in the mana came from the highest energy mana. Second, the mana attunement with the highest frequency ended up with the most noise but had noticeably shifted to contain two fairly distinct attunements.


    Unfortunately, the shape wasn''t precise enough that he could make out text, but there was significant progress. He could, distinguish entire lines of text, just not their contents.


    Before he could get any further though, the privacy orb dropped and Thezan walked back over to them with The Raven in tow. Thezan looked pleased and The Raven a combination of nervous, annoyed and scared.


    The Raven sighed and walked over to the display case then tapped at something causing the glass to rise slightly. Felix''s ability immediately latched on and he pushed on the skill as much as he could. He knew it wasn''t going to be a fast scan because the higher the grade and rarity of the book, the longer the scan.


    At the same time, the feeling of his soul being on edge, magnified. It felt like his soul had grown spikes and his whole body was squeezing itself down. He could actually feel his arms, legs and most of all, chest, compressing. He pushed through, motivated entirely by the promise of the information in the tome.


    Within just a few seconds of scanning, a blaring alarm sounded in room and Felix quickly sprang backwards. Thezan and Rathos looked towards each-other and Thezan grabbed Felix by the shoulder but when they saw the ram-headed-raven cursing at the back of the case and tapping furiously at it, they stopped.


    The Raven looked up at them, "It''s not you, don''t worry. This stupid book is more trouble than it''s worth. It sets off every fucking alarm and now it¡­ well you¡­ Stupid thing."


    The alarm vanished a few seconds later and Felix looked to Thezan who seemed worried but wasn''t running or trying to run. Rathos shrugged and Thezan finally let go of Felix''s shoulder.


    Felix walked back up to the case to be certain he was close enough and continued pushing at his Scan Literature skill. Whether or not pushing on the skill caused it to work faster, he was done scanning it in just over 3 minutes.


    He nodded once towards The Raven who sighed and nodded then lowered the display case and presumably re-enabled the alarm. They walked over to the next book and The Raven made a show of describing, embellishing and trying to sell it''s contents to them while Felix scanned it.


    It seemed as though The Raven was worried about someone seeing or overhearing them for some reason. Felix realized why a few seconds later when a couple Ravens showed up, one he recognized from next door and another he didn''t. The ram-headed man gestured towards the book in the middle and they nodded in understanding. It seemed as though the alarm going off for that book in particular was not an uncommon occurrence.


    A few other Ravens showed up as they walked to each of the books in turn, many of them asking if it was ''that'' book again which made Felix less worried they were signaling something to each-other in secret.


    Once Felix had scanned all the books, they bid The Raven with the ram''s head farewell and Thezan led them over to another store. Once they were in the main hall, he whipped out the privacy orb and activated it while they walked.


    Thezan sighed, "Sorry that took so long."


    Rathos chuckled, "What the hell were you doing in there? Did you ask him to-"


    Thezan just looked at her, "Don''t"


    She giggled.


    Thezan sighed, "He was really intent on my not saying the name of the¡­ place he got the book from. I didn''t get it out of him why but we just spent a lot of time figuring out how to toe around the issue and make sure we were both talking about the same place without saying much."


    Rathos grew very serious, something that was so out of character, it caused Felix to worry, "That bad? So he''s watching then?"


    Thezan nodded, "Seems like it. At least, he was worried about that."


    Rathos nodded, "What are the odds he''s scrying through this orb now?"


    Thezan sighed, "Very high."


    Rathos nodded and gave Thezan a knowing look and he just sighed.


    Thezan dropped the orb and they continued walking towards the shop while Felix looked around with every sense he had to try and figure out how they were potentially being watched.


    He didn''t sense anything off about the mana around them at all. He stilled all the mana in his mana control range just to be sure and felt nothing fighting him. Tuning into the ambient anima, he didn''t feel anything that stood out to him, just a lot of static again. There wasn''t much he could do to test if, whoever he was, was using the ambient anima to scry. In the end, Felix was pretty sure he was using System Fuckery to scry if he was scrying on them at all.


    The shop they walked into was a few kilometers down the main hall and contained a huge array of magical artifacts and enchanted items. There were vehicles that looked ancient and didn''t seem to function any longer, armor, complicated mana computers and even an illusion or hologram generating device.


    Felix immediately walked over to the hologram device and reached out towards it with his mana senses. Not only was the device not using System Fuckery, it was one of the coolest enchantments he had ever encountered.


    It used a mana computer to calculate the output of a series of light nodes along with some very precise force and gas generating nodes. Felix did his best to map and memorize the enchantment but when there was a mana computer, and when it was this complicated, he knew it would take him a while.


    In the meantime, he listened in on the conversation between Thezan and The Raven who was a halfling man with a loose pony tail that only held half of his hair and some messy stubble.


    Thezan smiled in a warm and friendly way, "Nice to meet you. We were just in Sehmin''s shop and we were talking about this book on spell and enchantment nodes, you know the one right? Anyways, he referred us to you because apparently, he actually bought it from you. We were hoping to see anything else you might have from that particular expedition?"


    The halfling man smiled with no concern in his eyes whatsoever, "Ah, yes a wonderful find. Unfortunately I don''t dabble in enchanting myself and don''t specialize in books. It just made more sense to sell it off. Unfortunately, there isn''t much else from that particular expedition. I have many other wonderful artifacts though."


    Thezan scrunched up his face a little, "Nah, we''re particularly interested in that, specific emp-"


    "Shut the fuck up. Don''t say anything else. I don''t have anything else, the book is it." The halfling man took a breath and put one a more hospitable expression and tone, "Buy it if you''re interested and feel free to peruse my nest otherwise."


    Felix already knew he was telling the truth, or at least, there was nothing else on display because none of it was causing his soul to stand on edge.


    Thezan shook his head, "Look Finras, we need to know what happened and where everything else went."


    Finras grabbed Thezan''s sleeve and pulled him down a little, "Look, I wasn''t even on the expedition myself."


    "Ok great, who was?"


    Finras shook his head quickly and scoffed, "Go find Nozem, Thilda and Enbi."


    Thezan stood back up and nodded with a big smile, "Thank you."


    Finras then put on a fake smile, walked over to Felix and started explaining the item he was looking at as if nothing was wrong. Felix just assumed the show he was putting on was for whoever they all seemed to think was scrying on them.


    Felix didn''t mind because both Thezan and Rathos joined in on the charade and started looking around at all the items.


    Once he was finished memorizing the hologram device enchantment, he had Finras walk him through all the rest of his shop as Felix carefully mapped and memorized everything. It seemed like scanning enchantments was not as much of a concern as scanning books or, they thought the display cases would protect the wares.


    After a half hour of walking around, they bid Finras farewell then followed Thezan to the first shop on their list. Felix checked his map and realized how Thezan was finding the shops then continued his search for whatever was scrying on them. Unfortunately he still wasn''t finding anything.


    They arrived at Thilda''s nest first because it was the closest but when they got there, they arrived at a completely empty room. There was nothing and no one in there. Felix looked around in confusion but got worried when he saw Thezan and Rathos'' faces painted with concern.


    They almost ran to Enbi''s nest next and arrived at a nest with a closed door. The doorway was completely sealed over.


    Thezan immediately turned around and started running backwards, Rathos easily following him and Felix flying to keep up.


    Felix tried to find Nozem''s nest on the map but couldn''t spot it anywhere so he had no idea where they were going. He only realized when they arrived back at Finras'' shop, and the doorway was sealed, that something was wrong.


    Thezan gritted his teeth, "Fuck."


    He ran back to the ram-headed Raven''s book store next and they found the doorway was also sealed.


    Felix turned to Rathos, "What the hell is going on? Did they just close shop?"


    She sighed and forcefully relaxed her face, "Ravens can''t close their own shops."


    Felix didn''t fully understand what that meant but he was starting to think it had something to do with whoever they thought was scrying on them. Thezan shook his head and gestured back towards the end of the hall where they arrived and they walked instead of ran to that door.


    The door looked exactly the same but as Thezan approached it and it slid open, Felix saw a completely different room than he was expecting through it.


    Thezan''s shoulders just slumped, "Fuck."


    Though the door, instead of a large empty lobby, Felix saw a completely empty, white room save for two couches that faced each-other. On one of the couches sat a completely bald human man wearing simple black shirt with rolled up sleeves and brown pants.


    Thezan reluctantly walked over to the couch opposite the man and Felix followed him. Rathos walked over to the man, he stood and they hugged then she sat next to Thezan, stretching herself out over the side of the couch.


    [A] Malrok: The Raven King (Lvl 3941)


    The man briefly looked at Felix then focused his gaze on Thezan and smiled, "I appreciate you smoking out two rats so efficiently."


    Thezan gritted his teeth and looked at the man with a death stare.


    The man simply chuckled, "Oh come now, I thought you were over this."


    The man sighed and turned to Rathos, "Rathy, mind introducing me to the thief?"


    Rathos chuckled, "Malrok, this is Felix, Felix, Malrok."


    Felix just smiled and nodded. Thankfully, Malrok moved on completely from the thief comment and turned his gaze back to Thezan then grew very serious, "Look, those questions you were asking, just forget about them."


    Thezan frowned, "We just want to know what happened to the¡­ items, you recovered."


    Malrok closed his eyes and sighed, "The items or something in specific. Let me guess, you''ve got a really fucking rich client you know nothing about looking for it?"


    Thezan didn''t react at all but Malrok already knew he was right, "Look, the thing we found down there, it''s not¡­ not something that¡­ it shouldn''t exist¡­ here. You need to forget about it."


    Rathos cocked a brow and sat up, "Roky, it''s not like you to scared of something being dangerous."


    Malrok sighed, "It''s not just dangerous. What did your client tell you you were looking for."


    "A weapon." Thezan said blankly.


    Malrok winced, "Fucking hell. Look, I would have paid someone a disposal fee to get rid of that thing. The fact that I got paid at all is a fucking miracle. I ''sold'' it to the only person I trust to properly deal with it."


    Thezan frowned, "It can''t be that bad."


    Malrok shook his head, "Look Thezan¡­ Nozem, Thilda and Enbi, I didn''t kill them, it did. That book was the only thing that snuck out of that mission because we destroyed everything else. It''s not worth whatever they''re paying you. Forget about all this shit."


    Thezan scoffed, "Bullshit. If it''s that bad, why not just kill us now? And don''t act like you''re not a reprehensible monster, what happened to Finras and Sehmin?"


    Malrok sighed, "Finras and Sehmin? Nothing."


    Thezan gritted his teeth, "Sorry, what''s going to happen to them."


    Malrok shrugged, "They stole something and disobeyed a direct order Thezan, you know what''s going to happen to them."


    Rathos cut in to end the argument before it started, "Why not just kill us then?"


    Malrok sighed, "You Rath, never. As for your friends here¡­ let''s just say whoever hired you is not someone I want to deal with. I need you to go back and report to your broker or whoever it is that there''s nothing here, you were mistaken."


    Thezan shook his head, "Not gonna happen. Now that I know you aren''t gonna kill us, you don''t really have any leverage left."


    Malrok gritted his teeth, "I could just kill the kid, I''m sure your client doesn''t give a shit about him."


    Rath pouted, "Mal, he''s just a kid¡­"


    Malrok chuckled softly and shook his head, "Fine Rath, you win. But," Malrok looked straight at Felix, "Now that Sehmin''s books are mine to sell, you can''t share or sell the information in them with anyone got it?"


    Felix nodded, "Yes."


    Malrok nodded, "At least for a couple epochs, then I don''t care."


    Felix nodded again, he had no intention of selling the information anyways, or at least he hadn''t really thought about it much. He had just wanted it for himself.


    Malrok met Thezan''s glare for almost a minute before he sighed, "Fine, but let your client deal with it. I already said I sold it to the only person I trust to get rid of it. We sold it just a couple terms ago. Tell your client then back off, that should be enough for them to identify who it was so they don''t have to crawl up my ass."


    Thezan kept glaring at Malrok and Rathos leaned forwards to speak for them, "Perfect, we''ll tell them that then. They should be happy with that."


    Malrok nodded then stood up, "Seriously though Thezan, Rathos, you don''t want to get involved with this thing. Let your client deal with everything else."


    Rathos shrugged, "As long as they pay us for this, I''m happy."


    Malrok shook his head, "Fucking hell. Thezan, always a pleasure. Now get the fuck out, I have two rats to deal with."


    Thezan''s teeth clenched further and Rathos had to pull him off the couch and out of the room. Felix followed without hesitation and opened the door for them so Rathos could pull Thezan through. On the other side of the door was the same lobby they had entered from.


    As they walked in and the door closed behind them, Thezan visibly relaxed a little though he was still tense. The clerk at the counter smiled at them warmly, "I hope your visit was fruitful. Will you be heading back to Telviras? Would you like me to open a portal for you?"


    Rathos nodded, "Yes please, thank you."


    A moment later, a portal appeared on the far wall revealing the familiar portal rooms of Telviras'' teleportation hub and they all stepped through.


    Once the portal closed behind them Thezan relaxed a little more and sighed. He turned to Felix, "Sorry about that kid. I didn''t think we''d actually see Malrok."


    Felix frowned, "Seems like whatever it is we''re looking for has him¡­"


    Rathos grinned, "Shaking in his boots?"


    Thezan sighed, "As much as I hate the guy, he might be right about this whole job not being worth it."


    Felix nodded, "Was there actually a chance he was going to kill us?"


    Thezan winced a little, "A chance? Yes, and not just kill. The way Malrok does things is worse than that. In order to deal with their remnants and to prevent any secrets from getting out, Malrok tortures people to death. He inflicts enough pain that the experience destroys the soul and no remnant is left at all. Then someone tries to get the information with necromancy, a soul seer or scrying, there''s nothing left but pain. It also prevents the soul from snapping over to an afterlife."


    Felix winced, "Yikes."


    Thezan nodded, "Yeah, you can understand why I don''t like the guy. On top of that, he''s far too trigger happy." Thezan sighed, "Thing is, with Rathos tagging along the chance he would actually do anything is super low."


    Rathos nodded, "I coulda just asked him not to."


    Felix frowned, "I have to ask, did or do you have a relationship with Malrok?"


    Thezan chuckled and Rathos giggled before Rathos answered, "No, I dated his sister a while back. She died on an expedition and he''s¡­"


    Thezan nodded, "He thinks of Rathos as his sister now. Or at least he treats her like she is."


    Rathos nodded, "It comes in handy especially considering he''s King of the Ravens now."


    Thezan shook his head, "Yeah. We wouldn''t have risked this mission at all and I definitely wouldn''t have brought you along if Rathos wasn''t with us."


    Rathos bowed, "Glad to be of service."


    Thezan stretched out a little and seemed to finally, almost fully, relax himself then he turned to Felix and Rathos, "Dinner? We''ll expense the client."


    Rathos smiled, "That''s what I like to hear."


    Felix shrugged, "Sure."


    Though he wasn''t a huge fan of going out with people in general, Felix figured there was a lot he could get out of a dinner with the two of them, not the least of which was an expensive meal.


    Thezan nodded and tapped at something causing an attendant to walk in with their signature metal tablet. S§×ar?h the N??eFire.¦Çet website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    "Where to?"


    Thezan looked at Rathos and squinted a little, "Nanskift?"


    She shook her head, "Jozusto. Client''s creds, right?"


    Thezan snorted then turned back to the attendant, "Jozusto."


    The attendant nodded and the portal behind them reopened, this time revealing a room with all black walls and a single desk in the middle. Behind the desk there was a human man wearing a completely black set of formal looking robes.


    The man smiled as they approached, "Reservation?"


    Thezan shook his head, "The Enchantment please."


    The man nodded then led them to a door behind him, "Right this way please."


    Felix followed Thezan and Rathos into another, completely black room that was a cube a hundred meters to a side.


    Right in the middle of the room was the only thing in the room, a large circular table with three chairs around it.


    They all walked over and sat down. Just a second after they sat down, a masked individual appeared exactly a meter to all of their lefts and placed a glass in front of each of them then the three of them disappeared.


    Felix reached forwards and lifted the glass as Thezan and Rathos did the same. Rathos immediately threw the glass'' contents down her throat while Thezan just sipped at it.


    The glass itself was not made of glass but rather some kind of ceramic or porcelain he guessed. He wasn''t entirely sure though. He decided Thezan was probably the better example to follow so he too took just a small sip.


    As soon as the odorless liquid hit his tongue, his body was filled with an overwhelming sense of calm and peace. He felt memories flash through his mind, experiences fill him, anything in his past that represented peace and calm came to him.


    He saw Thezan pointedly not drinking more while Rathos downed another glass as soon as it was refilled. Shortly afterwards, a dish was served to all of them at once by similarly disappearing servers.


    The dish was a plate holding a single deep blue rectangular prism with a small looking cheese knife as the only utensil. Following Thezan''s lead again, instead of Rathos who scooped the whole thing into her mouth at once, Felix took a small corner and placed it onto his tongue.


    The dish was soft and cold but none of that mattered. As soon as it touched his tongue, he was filled with deep sense of sadness. Memories of learning about his parents death, pets dying, his friend David being sick, dying, flashed before his eyes. Looking up, he saw Rathos smiling wickedly while tears streamed out of her eyes and drenched her face.


    Thezan looked sad but he wasn''t crying. Felix took a sip of the drink and all the sadness was gone again, he was filled simply with peace and tranquility.


    He took a bigger bite this time, half of the entire dish and it was enough to cause him to shed a single tear. The next half though, was not. It seemed he was either too used to the effect or only had a single tear in him.


    He wiped away the tear and noticed that Thezan was pointedly not drinking from his glass yet so Felix copied him. Both Thezan and Rathos held their eyes shut, not that it made much of a difference in the almost entirely black room.


    As soon as they had each finished the first dish, it was replaced with a bright orange and yellow dish. This one was served as two cubes rather than a single rectangle. Felix reached for his glass but Thezan caught him and shook his head lightly. Felix shrugged and took half of the second dish into his mouth and immediately understood what Thezan had been trying to show him.


    The second dish filled Felix with a sense of warmth and happiness. It was joy and fun all bundled up into a small like rectangle. He saw memories from his childhood, ones he didn''t even know he still had. He also saw the highlights of some of his fights over the last couple years since integrating.


    On top of that, the new feelings didn''t override or wash out the sadness from the previous dish, rather they melded together and took him on a ride. It was like watching a carefully crafted movie where he was intended to feel sadness then have that sadness slowly give way to joy. In a way, it made everything more impactful and meaningful.


    He followed Thezan''s lead and finally washed away the emotions with a sip then ate the second cube on the plate. He was filled with the same feelings as before but with no undertone of overcoming sadness, just pure joy and fun.


    The plate was quickly replaced with another, once again served in two cubes and Felix was starting to get the idea. He ate one cube and felt his joy and fun meld together with feelings of worry and fear.


    This process continued for hours, with dishes designed to complement each-other and create a progression of emotions. Felix had no trouble with any of the dishes and was thoroughly enjoying himself, even through the negative emotions until got a dish that comprised of two black cubes with dark purple swirls in them. Putting the first half into his mouth, he immediately spit it out and downed three subsequent glasses of calm and tranquility.


    Neither Thezan nor Rathos were having issues with the dish but he just couldn''t do it.


    As soon as it had touched his tongue, his soul freaked out and the memories and experiences that flashed before him were entirely incomprehensible. He felt nothingness everywhere and at the same time, an immense pressure all around. It was pushing him, trying to dig into him, trying to eat him, consume him. He fought back and held strong but the, not really memory but experience, seemed to be endless.


    It was an endless fight where neither side made any progress, where the burden was no easier to bear over time. The fight wasn''t something he ever grew accustomed to, but it was everything. It filled every sense of his and he didn''t think or know anything but the fight.


    Luckily the glass of calm helped out immensely and seemed to completely wash away the experience entirely. He didn''t bother finishing that dish and simply let the masked servers replace it with the next one.


    That was the only dish he had to skip out of what had felt like hundreds. There were a few repeats but in the context of the other dishes around them, they felt completely new to him.


    He also briefly spent some time trying to figure out how the effect worked but it didn''t take him long to dissect. Each dish was filled with anima that was almost vibrating with the particular emotion. There were no actual experiences though so when it interacted with his soul, his soul filled in the blanks with his own experiences.


    Due simply to the nature of the meal, not a single word passed between the three of them. They did however laugh, some cried, they groaned and they wallowed together. Though they were each experiencing flashbacks to their own lives, they were together and the experience was shared.


    Ironically, it was the closest Felix had felt to anyone in a long time. The meal, or rather The Enchantment, had caused Felix to grow fond of Thezan and Rathos as if they were long time close friends. They weren''t on the same level as David had been to him, but David was the only point of reference he had.


    They finished their meals and by the end, Felix was actually surprised to find he felt invigorated physically. His soul felt at peace in a way, like it had been cleansed through hardship and emotion. His body though, it seemed as though the food itself wasn''t just a way to transport the anima, it was filled with nutritional value and it was by far the most efficient food Felix had eaten. All of it had almost immediately burst into energy within his body.


    Once his body was completely filled with energy, the rest sat in his stomach which resulted in actually feeling full and satisfied. Something he hadn''t felt in years, since shortly after he had gone through his first evolution.


    Thezan paid the eye watering 0.15 A bill and they all exited the building into a lobby area.


    Rathos stretched out her body and rubbed her face while Thezan looked like he was finally completely relaxed.


    "Ah, that really hit the spot." Rathos said as she contorted her body.


    Thezan nodded, "Yeah. Enjoy it, we probably won''t be eating anywhere like this for a long time now that this job is pretty much over."


    Felix nodded, "So that''s it then? There''s nothing else to do?"


    Thezan sighed, "As much as I hate Malrok, he''s not an idiot. I''ll report back to Dogran and we''ll see if there are any follow up jobs but at this point, it seems like the next step is to track down whoever Malrok sold to. That person is more than likely a god so, not much we can do about that."


    Felix frowned, "You think an actual god has it?"


    Thezan shrugged, "Probably a minor one holding and transporting it for a bigger player. Malrok said ''the only person he''d trust'' not sure who that is but if he isn''t exaggerating, I have to assume it''s one of the big three or another god around their level."


    "Rhonan, Holy Mother and Edras are the big three?"


    Rathos stood back up and nodded in Felix''s direction, "Yup."


    Felix looked to both of them then nodded, "Well, it''s been a pleasure working with you guys. I appreciate you taking on someone much lower level than you and being patient with my lack of knowledge."


    Thezan smiled and offered his hand, "I''m sure we''ll get you in on some missions in the future. If you keep leveling as fast as you are too, you could become a regular in a couple epochs."


    Felix took Thezan''s hand and shook it, "Well, just let me know."


    Thezan nodded, "We will."


    Rathos immediately pulled Felix out of the hand shake as soon as Thezan finished speaking and hugged him up off the ground. She squeezed him and shook side to side, "We''re gonna miss you sooooooooooooooo much kid."


    While Felix could feel her squeezing progressively harder, he didn''t actually feel the need to stop her. She held the hug clearly longer than she had expected to and continued to squeeze harder until eventually she just gave up and dropped him.


    She regarded him with an equally impressed and confused expression but he just ignored her.


    Thezan shook his head at Rathos'' actions, "Just make sure you say farewell to Elric and Aros. I''m sure Elric will stop by with more poisons. Aros might go with him then, I know he had been meaning to get some things enchanted so maybe he''ll finally do so."


    Felix nodded, "Sounds good. Oh and thank you for dinner."


    Thezan smiled, "Of course. I''ll stop by with the rest of the payment later or leave it with the guild if I suddenly get too busy."


    "Sure, thanks."


    Thezan and Rathos headed down to ground level while Felix flew out the open door in the room.


    He flew for almost an hour through the portal spires back to Inscripticae, practicing his mana control the entire way.


    It had been a long time since he had slept and for some reason, Felix was actually feeling tired so when he got there, he headed straight for the storage closet and slept in his Pocket Home. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 Chapter 195 - Book 12

    Felix woke up a number of hours later feeling completely refreshed and rejuvenated, something he was realizing he hadn''t felt in a long time. As great as he felt though, it was really annoying him that he still had to sleep at all. He liked sleeping, it was comfortable and calming and he always felt better afterwards.


    What annoyed him was that he was pretty sure he shouldn''t have to sleep so, the fact that he still seemed to at least be benefitting from it was frustrating. He decided to add ''figuring out sleep'' to his todo list then hopped out of his tower and fell to the ground.


    As he walked towards the exit, Nova hopped over and joined him, having finally finished with her nap. She hopped up towards him and Felix immediately noticed her base form had shifted. She still mostly looked like a cat but now instead of just being a black cat, she had both red and white scales all over her body. They were mostly concentrated around her sides, neck and head but they were very noticeable against her otherwise black fur.


    I mean¡­ I guess there''s no reason anyone should be able to recognize them as dragon scales, right?


    Grim shrugged mentally, Yeah, could just be Drakene or Drakeling scales.


    Also, I don''t want to be the one to tell her she can''t do it. Especially not after seeing all those memories of her hunting with Endycor and feeling how attached to them she was.


    Well, you should also figure out what to do with your scales too.


    Yeah. I think I want to replace my Persona''s pants. I keep fearing they''re gonna burn up and now that I integrated phoenix cells into it, that concern is getting way more real.


    Huh, I totally thought you would integrate them into your cloak.


    I thought about that too. Maybe I can do both. First I need to figure out how valuable or dangerous having them really is.


    He had thought about integrating them into his or his Persona''s body but all he had were scales, none of the tissue or cells that grew or supported them of any kind. He just didn''t see any way to grow them himself just from looking at the scales, at least not in any way that wasn''t messy. Even if he did grow the scales, they were only a small part of the entire system. They alone wouldn''t grant him fire protection, just light slashing and piercing protection like any other scales would.


    Nova crawled around and perched herself on Felix''s shoulder and he walked back out of his Pocket Home into the storage closet. Walking back into the workshop, Felix headed straight for Aldahn''s office.


    Felix knocked and Aldahn beckoned him in.


    "So how''d it go with the Ravens?"


    Felix shrugged, "Not great for the job but also pretty good for me."


    "Well, silver linings I guess. Is that your familiar?" Aldahn gestured towards Nova.


    "Yeah, this is Nova."


    "A cursed matter spirit. You definitely fit the stories I''ve heard of escapees at least."


    Felix smirked, "Strong with lots of potential but young and stupid to the ways of the world. Doing risky things to try and keep up the same pace they started with?"


    "Yup. Don''t forget, very high regard for their own abilities which constantly teeters the line between arrogance and confidence."


    Felix chuckled, "Fair enough. How often does it work out?"


    Aldahn snorted, "Let''s just say I''ve heard stories of escapees but I don''t know of any that are gods, demi-gods or any that are even still alive. I know none of their names, except of course, Felix."


    Felix shrugged, "I think I''m unique enough that I''ll be fine. That''s besides the point though, I''ve been meaning to ask you, my charm has gotten kind of redundant now and I figure I should probably get a new one."


    Aldahn shrugged, "Yeah, that''s pretty much how they work."


    Felix frowned, "What do you mean?"


    "They get redundant, if you''re lucky."


    Felix just looked at him with confusion before Aldahn elaborated, "The whole point of a charm or trinket is to give you an ability you wouldn''t normally have in order to influence your evolutions. They didn''t use to exist at all until¡­ well not sure but they didn''t exist at some point. People felt stuck in their path and found it hard to branch out so, charms and trinkets were born."


    "So I need to figure out where I want my class, race or profession to be and find a charm tailored to that?"


    Aldahn shrugged, "Sure. It''s not a huge deal to not to have one at all. It''ll make you weaker now but they don''t exist past D grade anyway. At that point your path is mostly set so they wouldn''t do much."


    Felix nodded, "So I need to decide if I want my class, race or profession to change directions first."


    Aldahn nodded, "They''ll change a little bit naturally depending on how you use them and what you focus on anyways. Charms and trinkets are more about larger more drastic changes."


    "So¡­ could I go find a System Fuckery charm and just have it until I hit C grade then?"


    Aldahn nodded, "Sure, just make sure to get a relatively cheap one if it isn''t important to your evolutions. Oh also make sure it''s at least somewhat related to your current path otherwise you might get forced into a path you don''t want."


    Felix nodded, "Ok next question, what are some of the most famous mana computers and could I use one to store information?"


    Aldahn nodded, "Sure. The big one they use for registration in the city stores things¡­ kind of, not really. Famous ones? You should check at the library but the one that comes to mind is more of a myth really. Supposedly Kryptos made one at some point that''s the size of a planet."


    Felix frowned, "What the hell does Kryptos use that one for?"


    Aldahn shrugged, "It''s a rumor, likely a myth. All I''ve ever heard about it is that it may exist. Just ask a librarian, they''ll find you whatever you want to know."


    "Alright fair enough¡­ Actually, I don''t pay taxes as far as I''ve seen, are they just hidden?"


    Aldahn shook his head, "Nope, no taxation."


    "So, how come there are officers and librarians then? Do they just work for free?"


    "Nope. They''re paid a livable amount but a lot of them do it specifically to level professions."


    Felix frowned, "Where is the money coming from to pay them?"


    "First, I pay rent for a space in this building with a price that fluctuates based on demand. All of that goes to the city, who owns every building and rents them out. That isn''t quite enough to cover everything though so the rest is covered by donations."


    Felix frowned, "Wouldn''t that be a lot of money to run a city like this?"


    Aldahn nodded, "Sure."


    "So the city makes that much in donations?"


    Aldahn shrugged, "A lot of the donors are gods. The biggest donor by¡­ I think maybe 50-70% of cost of running the city actually, last I checked, came from Rhonan. Then any god, demigod or just any company that does business here has a vested interest in keeping it running so they donate as well. That''s a lot of people and organizations."


    Felix''s eyes widened and he shook his head a little to try and clear it, "I''m sorry, what? Rhonan donates that much? I thought the city was neutral to all religions wars and so on?"


    Aldahn nodded, "Yeah. They''re just donations."


    Felix looked at Aldahn incredulously, "Sure but if he''s paying the majority of the bill, even if he doesn''t request anything, the city would still be biased towards him, no? And what, he just donates out of the goodness of his heart? You really don''t think he''s counting on that bias in case he needed it in the future?"


    Aldahn shrugged, "I don''t know. I''ve never had the chance to ask him, let me know if you do though." Aldahn smiled and winked at Felix.


    "Sorry, you''re right. Just surprising is all."


    Aldahn nodded, "When I first moved here I actually went down the same train of thought you did. The thing that convinced me is that this city has been around for a very long time. Rhonan has been keeping it afloat for almost just as long and as far as I could tell, it has never been an issue. There haven''t even been decisions that I could personally flag as sketchy or biased."


    Felix nodded, "Alright, guess I can''t really criticize it then. Who runs the city by the way?"


    "It''s a council of elected officials. Thing is people live so long that once you elect someone good¡­"


    "They basically hold the position almost forever?"


    "Yup. They work mostly behind the scenes. A lot of the important big laws got decided so long ago that eventually people realized they were fighting over such minor decisions, everyone just kind of lost interest."


    Felix frowned, "How long ago was that?"


    Aldahn shrugged, "I don''t know it was way before my time but it was one of the reasons I moved here. I haven''t heard anything about elections or had issues since I moved so, seems like I made the right choice."


    Felix chuckled, "Fair enough. Unrelated note, what''s up with item tags when I identify things?"


    Aldahn snapped his fingers, "Damn it, I should have thought of that. It''s a great example of the whole System deteriorating thing. It used to be that tags were only on the most complicated items, tags like soul bound, growth stuff like that. Gradually tags started to appear on more things until eventually, we are where we are now and we have tags on things that really don''t need them. The worst part too, is that they''re inconsistent."


    Felix cringed, "Yeah they didn''t seem¡­"


    "Most of us just ignore them most of the time. I don''t need to see a ''Weapon'' tag on a long sword. I guess the flip side is an ornamental sword not having the tag would be fine but¡­ it''s not like they couldn''t be used as a weapon. Also there are some weird cases where it''s useful like if you enchanted a defensive enchantment into a sword for some reason then didn''t sharpen it, it wouldn''t have the weapon tag. But again, you could still hit someone with it. Nothing is stopping you."


    Felix sighed, "This is just¡­"


    "Frustrating?"


    "Yeah. I just wanna know why. What the hell is happening that something like happens. I mean, it''s The System. How is it getting things like this so¡­ wrong?"


    "Great question. If you manage to figure it out, let me know"


    Felix nodded, "Alright thanks¡­ I''m gonna head to the library then."


    Aldahn waved him off, "Have fun."


    Felix quickly darted over to the library then had a librarian retrieve him a huge stack of books. Initially he wanted to have them lead him to the books so he could just scan them but they immediately pointed out it was far faster for them to retrieve the books. Felix just slowed them down within the library where they moved ridiculously quickly. Apparently there were also teleportation points throughout but they were only usable by librarians.


    Rather than portals that anyone could walk through, instead these transported just the individual who touched them. Felix asked how they worked but he immediately lost interest when the answer he got was that they worked through The System which governed much of the library.


    He managed to find a bit more on the mana computer planet rumor but not much and nothing that was verified in any way. He did however find more about the kind of mana computers he was interested in. Some people had made processors like there had been on earth, capable and diverse processors that could be programmed to compute complex things. The issue was that they were incredibly unstable or massive.


    The useful part to Felix though was the theory behind them. He scanned the books and read through them in his Soul Garden, paying special attention to how the transistors worked, how they were made, how they were connected, how the analog signals changed things and so on.


    He also managed to answer his question about sleep and it was rather simple. When any living creature slept, their body did some work to flush out their brain and recover and so on but also, their souls processed all the experiences they had had throughout the waking hours. Considering he was completely aware of his body at this point, Felix was pretty sure his soul was the only part left doing anything when he slept.


    Some soul cultivators had pushed their souls to process at all times resulting in them not needing to sleep at all, or if their bodies weren''t up for it, meditating within their souls while they slept. The process was actually simple enough that Felix implemented it right on the spot, completely removing his need to sleep which was in his opinion, a waste of time.


    He also found multiple legends and even a couple memories of some other integration escapees, though no exiles. His impression from all of them though was that they were like children with cannons. Not that he thought he was much different. Unfortunately, he couldn''t find any records that indicated any of them were prolific or even alive currently.


    Some had disappeared when they joined certain factions and others had died but all of them, had very shortly after escaping, become very famous. It seemed like the momentum from their integrations often resulted in them leveling so quickly that they reached the B grade in record time. He did not find any that had surpassed the A grade and become gods or even demigods though.


    This accelerated leveling pace resulted in many being sponsored by companies or individuals so they could claim some part in their meteoric rise. Considering the weird interaction he had had with Krinitor''s parents, he was started to put the pieces together. He definitely didn''t mind getting things for free but at the same time, he really didn''t want to go parading his title around.


    He decided he would keep his status hidden, like an ace in his sleeve and if he really needed something but couldn''t afford it, he now knew how valuable that card was.


    After that Felix flew off to buy himself a charm.


    He used his map to filter down the available stores until he found one that suited him and had someone show him their selection. There were so many in the store and yet so few that interested him. He did enjoy shopping without worrying about System Fuckery for once though.


    Though it still annoyed him, the fact that he would be tossing it anyways as soon as he evolved meant he cared a lot less.


    The biggest limiting factor for him though was that his race was locked in and he had no intention of evolving his class in any other direction. In fact, he was happy to just take Reaper as his class in the C grade and beyond. The legendary skills were only going to become more valuable over time.


    That left him with charms to influence his profession and any that were just generally useful. He found a number of charms that offered skills in combat, some that were defensive, others that were offensive.


    Some just made swords swing faster, others gave shields. Some healed the wearer others allowed them to launch elemental attacks. Ironically the one that Felix kept looking back at though was a very simple one. It simply allowed him to slot in mana batteries and they would naturally extend his mana pool. Dead simple and if he bought massive batteries, very useful.


    He hesitated mostly because it wasn''t like he was running out of mana just yet. He got low occasionally but had never actually hit 0. On top of that, his mana pool had recently grown a huge amount because he had suffused his body with a layer of his soul.


    Wait¡­ why is my mana pool still tied to my intelligence?


    Grim offered no answers so Felix decided to just add it to his todo list. He ended up buying the charm that extended his mana pool just because it was very cheap.


    [D - Epic] Mana Pool Extending Trinket


    [Charm][Trinket]


    A trinket with up to 5 slots to hold mana batteries. The sum of all mana batteries inserted into the charm will be added to the wearer''s mana pool. If faster access batteries are available, they will function as buffers for the other batteries.


    Once the wearer''s mana pool is full, the batteries will fill with any excess regeneration. The batteries will be drawn from to restore the wearer''s mana pool as quickly as they can be safely drawn from. S§×arch* The novel(F~)ire.net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    It cost him a laughable 50,000 D largely because he would also need to spend money on batteries to slot in. Luckily for him, he already had them on hand. He equipped it and slotted them in then hung the small disc from his neck with string because he still hadn''t found a usable amulet yet. He was starting to seriously consider making his own equipment though, for everything he was still missing.


    He decided to wait till he attended Eramith though because he wasn''t lacking in power or abilities yet and he was hoping to take classes on enchanting.


    Once he had paid Krinitor he also fully planned on going back to the battery shop and spending more money on those. He also wanted to try his hand at making batteries himself again but he didn''t have high hopes for beating the machine''s efficiency any time soon.


    Felix then spent some time with Mihto which mostly involved getting used to using more spells in the course. They had only added a couple spells but all the combinations and building the instinct took a lot of time. He spent the entirety of the day time there and pushed Mihto to show him as much as possible so he could build the instinct on his own time.


    Checking in with Aldahn again, there just weren''t any jobs for him to work on so he started working on some of his own projects. First and foremost, he wanted to experiment with mana computers. He first tasked himself with making a very simple mana computer based on the same principles as the complex computers he had read about.


    Most of what he had read were research papers and reports on research projects. They were often overly complicated and wordy but in turn, were very easy to reproduce with their, almost, step by step instructions.


    Once he had a small working prototype, Felix started to experiment first with storing any amount of information. Much like semiconductors and flash storage though, it was very complicated and took a lot of work for a very minor result. It did however function mostly as expected. Unfortunately things got a little distorted which hurt the precision and therefore capacity of the computer as storage system, but it worked. His goal though, was to improve that over time.


    He also made sure to take some time every day to try and make everything Mihto was teaching him more instinctual using his Soul Garden.


    Once he had finished with his initial experiments, Felix started to shrink the computer down as much as he could using his mana control. He experimented with swapping out the components of the computer with solid mana constructs and so on but things got too complicated too quickly for him to make sure it all stayed together.


    He switched gears and skipped to the next step of his experimentation at that point and started to use the extra anima he had lying in his Soul Space from the Grelmites to suffuse the computer. He had gotten the idea from Grim theorizing about The System and wanted to see if he could do something similar to either replace or just augment his own brain.


    Almost immediately, he saw the computer become very stable to the point where he could crank the precision up as high as everything else could handle. It was a huge step for him but he decided to move on to other projects at that point because he was distracting himself with too many ideas for them along the way.


    He quickly spent another day with Mihto to add some new spells and combinations to his repertoire then started work on another project.


    This time, he resolved himself to set aside time every day to train. He would spend 12 hours in his Soul Garden running the endless obstacle course he created. This only amounted to about 15 minutes of real time so after that, he would spend an hour and 45 minutes practicing his mana control and the number of spells he could craft.


    For spell formation speed, he was already juggling balls of mana in the air while he thought and worked on enchantments or other projects. He decided to switch tracks now and instead he would just create and destroy spell forms in the air around him. He would be limited to simple ones that were very familiar to him for now but they would still help.


    He also decided to start adding in some different kinds of exercises into his routines. Creating spell formations worked but they weren''t working fast enough for him so, he decided to switch it up.


    Using a small chunk of inlay material with minimal weight, Felix surrounded it in mana then simply lifted it up and down again. He was doing literal curls with his mana control. He found a weight that strained him and pushed it out as far as he could to stretch his range as well. He did that for a half hour then he tried to write things out with a quill that he held with mana alone at the edge of his range for another half hour. Lastly he simply created as many spells as he could at once, then destroyed them.


    After checking in with Aldahn and making sure he didn''t have anything for him, Felix then took 2 hours out of every day to train.


    Aldahn was apologetic at first but Felix didn''t mind because it gave him time to work on everything else he had been missing out on considering how involved and time consuming the jobs were.


    Felix didn''t dare practice his mana control out in the open so he would then headed into his Pocket Home to train for 2 hours.


    He ended up having to buy random materials and corpses to keep Nova occupied but she seemed happy enough every time he offered one to her so he didn''t worry about it too much.


    As for the project, Felix first experimented with and finished his next iteration of his Mage Armor. he realized he had been overcomplicating the whole thing and rather than interlocking plates and actual armor, he created a simple shell that blocked things from entering inside. The biggest upside to it though was the fact that it wasn''t just a sphere. He had enough shaping nodes to create a rough silhouette.


    The massive reduction in shaping nodes simplified the spell tremendously and left him room to have it move with his body. Previously, each plate of his Mage Armor had moved itself based on the nearest point to his body.


    Now, he had the entire shell actually morph around his body thanks to some nodes Aldahn had show him when he asked about it. They weren''t perfect though so it wasn''t quite skin tight. For something like that he either needed new nodes or a fairly large mana computer constantly computing the shell''s displacement.


    With the Mana Shell spell done for now, until he inevitably iterated on it once he actually used it, Felix spent another day with Mihto to refresh himself then started work on his cloak enchantment.


    He had already done some experimentation and had ultimately decided that it was best suited for a cloak, especially once he had seen the one Krinitor had designed for him with sleeves.


    The general idea was an enchantment that reacted to incoming attacks and defended against them in a few different ways based on their nature. Some attacks he would try to stop outright with solid barriers and force. Others he would try to redirect and for things like heat or lightning, he would try to shield them with cold or ground them respectively.


    He wasn''t sure if all of that was possible but he would figure it out. He also wanted the entire thing to be a modular enchantment. In theory, he wanted to create a grid of either hexagons or triangles that all fit together to form an impenetrable sheet of defense.


    Felix obviously knew it would never be impenetrable and he still wasn''t sure whether or not triangles or hexagons were better. Triangles would be smaller and more precise but he wasn''t sure he could fit the entirety of the enchantment into a small little triangle. The sharp corners were also pretty restrictive and he really hated the idea of wasted space.


    In terms of modularity, his ultimate goal was an enchantment where each of the grid tiles were completely independent of each-other. He could then add as many tiles as he wanted wherever he wanted. The two biggest challenges he had to overcome with that were fitting everything into tiny tiles and having channels flow through the tiles so everything was equally supplied with mana.


    He had already decided he would just power it with his own mana pool so it would have to accept mana from anywhere and be able to then distribute it throughout the array.


    Also, the way enchantments worked, he wasn''t worried about individual tiles being weaker than an array of them. That was just dependent on the efficiency curve which he could tune.


    He didn''t delve into making nodes himself yet because he wanted to have a problem they solved first and just more experience enchanting in general. He didn''t want to rely on them all the time but rather be a tool he had access to. He did however consider them and kept them in the back of his mind while he planned out the enchantment.


    He started out with making an enchantment that did what he wanted with a large scale. He drew it out on a simple sheet of metal and once he had something functional, he started to shrink it. Inevitably, he encountered issues as he shrunk it down and had to go back and change the design.


    He continued to iterate and change for a few dekads, while keeping up his training regimen, until Aldahn finally had a job he could shadow. It was something he had no experience with so Aldahn had him shadowing Ezaldor instead of being reverse shadowed.


    The job was to make a ring that would both let someone launch themselves when they jumped, and help them survive the landing from one. It was a simple enchantment, one Felix could have finished in a matter of minutes, if he were enchanting boots. A ring though, was small and hands move a lot and are often very far from where they need to be making it a lot harder than it sounded.


    This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.


    Felix quickly learned why Ezaldor was lead on this particular project though.


    Ezaldor stood hunched over a small scrap of metal they had cut to the exact size of the band but had left unwrapped, "The issue with small enchantments is, ironically, not power but precision. It is very easy to find or shrink a node then just pump ridiculous amounts of mana through it. Unfortunately, things at that scale fall apart very quickly. Even the smallest deviation in input mana, measurements and so on will multiply and amplify themselves until they result in¡­"


    Felix waited as Ezaldor focused on a particularly small node. He often trailed off but always finished his sentence, it just took a few minutes usually. Only once had it taken an entire hour.


    "¡­the enchantment falling apart or injuring the user. This is also why jewelry can become prohibitively expensive for even seemingly mundane and simple enchantments."


    Felix followed along with Ezaldor, mirroring his actions to the best of his ability on another flat strip of metal as he spoke.


    "Most find jewelry enchanting¡­"


    Felix carefully replicated Ezaldor''s work over the last minute or so. He was initially worried about falling behind but that proved not to be an issue as Ezaldor was meticulous and took ample time to ensure everything was perfect. Considering Felix was simply mirroring his work, it didn''t take Felix nearly as long as it had Ezaldor because the majority of the validation process had already been done.


    "¡­bothersome. They avoid doing it entirely. However, I am not one of those enchanters, rather I enjoy the precision it requires."


    In a rare turn of events, Ezaldor looked up from the ring, "Which is why I am impressed you are so patient with the process. When Aldahn told me he had seen you working on trying to miniaturize enchantments and that he thought you could learn a lot from this contract, I honestly didn''t think you would be up to the task."


    Felix shrugged, "I don''t mind it at all. It''s just another challenge. The monotony is¡­ I do a lot of very monotonous things, I have no qualms with this process."


    Ezaldor smiled his expression full of respect, "I can see that now. You will make a fine enchanter yet."


    Felix smiled, "Hope so."


    From that point on, Ezaldor started to allow Felix more access to the work itself. He involved him in the process, asking him questions about the next step and why certain decisions had been made. He took on more of a teaching role than he ever had.


    By the time they completed the ring, Ezaldor had allowed Felix to personally inscribe the final iteration of the design onto a practice sheet then he copied that onto the final ring itself.


    Felix followed along again mostly because enchanting the ring itself was more difficult due to it actually being a ring rather than a flat strip of metal they had been practicing on. The enchantments were so fine though, that they were essentially only ever working on a tiny portion of the ring at once such that the curvature was minimal.


    Once they completed the ring, Ezaldor placed the ring in one of the meeting rooms then walked back over to Felix, "I was wondering if you might show me the enchantment you had been working on that inspired Aldahn to have you shadow this job?"


    Felix quickly wiped the incredulity off his face and nodded, "Sure."


    He pulled out his latest sheet of metal that was covered in various iteration of his enchantment and placed it on the table.


    Ezaldor walked over and picked up the sheet then used the various tools at the table to examine the enchantment. Felix was too embarrassed to admit he hadn''t learned how to use those tools yet so he simply observed and picked up what he could. Rather, he wasn''t embarrassed but more fearful of the outcome were he to reveal that fact at this point.


    "Ah, this is an independent interlocking defensive enchantment?"


    Felix nodded, he had never heard that name before but it sounded like an apt description of what he was aiming for.


    "What inspired you to create such a thing?" Ezaldor addressed Felix as he continued to look over the sheet of metal, not bothering to look up at him.


    Felix shrugged instinctively even though he was pretty sure Ezaldor couldn''t actually see him, "I had made a Mage Armor spell but it had issues. It was far too complicated and the plates were prone to breaking."


    Ezaldor nodded, "Yes that is the inspiration for making a defensive enchantment, but why an independent interlocking enchantment?"


    "No particular reason, I''ve never even heard that name before. I just thought it would be a good idea."


    "I see. These enchantments very often teeter the line between spells and enchantments though not always. They are much more common in wards where the shape and dimensions of the object you are working with are not known. It is then very easy to simply paint the enchantment onto a wall at a later date."


    Felix nodded, "Makes sense."


    "They are also very simple to maintain as repairing or replacing individual tiles is much easier than an entire enchantment. Unfortunately they are complicated to design as you have no doubt learned and they have another issue, they are not particularly efficient."


    Felix frowned, "How much less efficient."


    Ezaldor shrugged, "Depends on the complexity of the enchantment but anywhere from 50% more mana to 200% more for very high level and complex enchantments."


    Well, luckily I have mana to spare.


    Ezaldor continued, "This is largely due to the fact that the enchantments cannot necessarily communicate with each-other. Taking this enchantment as an example, if it were blocking an arrow, a single node would react and output just enough mana to stop it, ideally."


    Felix groaned as he realized the problem, "Oh shit."


    Ezaldor nodded, "Exactly. If a boulder is thrown at you or a maul swung in your direction, each node would then calculate the force required to stop the maul and output that amount. This results in¡­"


    Felix sighed, "Hundreds of times more mana expended than necessary."


    Ezaldor nodded.


    "So when you said 50% to 200%¡­"


    Ezaldor shrugged, "An out of character approximation."


    Felix sighed, "How do you get around that?"


    Ezaldor chuckled, "Either a massive mana computer, which would be difficult to carry around with you assuming this ended up on your cloak or robes, I assume?"


    Felix nodded, "That was the intention."


    Ezaldor shrugged, "Beyond that I don''t know of an elegant solution. I can however, help you miniaturize this. What is the intended scale of each tile?"


    They worked together for almost a day with Ezaldor helping Felix along and guiding his hand so to speak. At the end of the day Ezaldor bid Felix farewell so he could go home and sleep while Felix continued to apply Ezaldor''s wisdom and iterate on his enchantment.


    Although his plan was to have a mana computer in his head, a massive one, exactly the kind Ezaldor had mentioned, Felix didn''t want to have his brain hooked up to his spells. He was hoping there was another solution and luckily, he had a vague idea of something that just might work. He wasn''t going to look into it until much later anyways because he still had plenty of work to do on the enchantment itself though.


    He spent a dekad or so working on the cloak, trying to finalize the tiles themselves, thinking through all the possible attacks he would need it to defend against and how best to counter them. Felix simplified it and combined defenses where it made the most sense but kept all his previous iterations around so he could test them against each-other.


    He set up the enchantments on metal sheets with parchment behind them then fired off spells and arrows so he could compare how effectively they defended.


    Every day, he kept up his routine of training and he even started to train while he worked on his cloak enchantment. He made sure his training was as subtle as possible so, he didn''t float quills or perform curls with his mana control but, he did practice with his matter senses constantly. He also shifted away from juggling mana passively as something to fiddle with and instead, he returned to forming and destroying spell formations to improve his casting speed.


    As he did so, he modified the spells slightly. His goal was to leverage his unique abilities as much as possible by being capable of modifying spells in combat to suit the situation. He was only modifying tiny things like the effective range or ratio between certain nodes but it strained him nonetheless, especially because he wasn''t focusing on them directly and he was rushing the formation.


    After having spent the past few dekads on personal projects, Felix had gotten very accustomed to the workshop that was largely empty most of the time. A few enchanters passed through every once in a while working on a contract but they slept most nights and often had to wait for a smith, jeweler or tailor. While they waited they usually spent time with their family, friends or other job leaving the workshop empty most of the time.


    Especially at night, the workshop was completely empty save for Felix, which was when he tended to run his experiments of launching spells at a wall so as not to disturb anyone.


    This particular night, Felix wasn''t launching spells but rather tinkering with engineering his own nodes. He had finally started looking into the book they had picked up and was sorely disappointed. The nodes the book described were designed to output minute amounts of mana meaning they weren''t useful in any real enchantment or spell. He was trying to change that but not having much luck.


    "Oi! Felix, you still here?" Aldahn called out from his office.


    "I am?"


    "Come here and bring your things."


    Felix looked up from the desk he was working at and shook his head in astonishment, he was never disturbed at night. Felix dropped what he was doing and walked over to Aldahn''s office, bringing nothing with him because he had no idea what Aldahn was referring to.


    He saw Aldahn carefully reaching into some long and thin drawers on the side of his office, drawers that would often be used to hold large drawings or maps.


    "What things?"


    Aldahn looked up as he carefully pulled out a massive sheet of metal, "Enchantment analyzing tools."


    Felix frowned because he knew Aldahn knew he didn''t need them but he complied anyways, hurrying back over to the desk and grabbing some.


    Aldahn carried the sheet of metal into the workshop and placed it down on the large table in the corner then Felix walked over next to him.


    Aldahn yawned then addressed Felix as he scrutinized the metal plate, "Remember when I said I''d show you the next time I inspect the spatial enchantments?"


    Felix nodded in understanding, finally realizing what was happening.


    "This is the copy I made of the enchantment shortly after it was inscribed into the walls of a new building. Now I go around the whole shop and inspect the enchantment to make sure it''s all functional. No flaws, breaks, excessive turbulence anything like that."


    "Have you ever found any of those?"


    Aldahn nodded, "A few times I''ve corrected breaks."


    Felix frowned, "I thought you said you didn''t need to inspect it?"


    Aldahn shrugged, "I don''t. As I said, I don''t know of anyone else who does it. This enchantment is so fault tolerant and robust. There are countless redundancies so even thousands of flaws wouldn''t significantly hinder it. Every building in the city has these enchantments and they will far outlast me."


    "So why bother inspecting them at all then? Just anxiety?"


    "Yeah, pretty much. Something about the thought of this entire workshop being compressed into a tiny block one day keeps me up at night. So sometimes, when I can''t sleep, I verify it."


    Felix nodded, "So do you have any idea how it works? You must understand some of it if you''ve fixed it before?"


    Aldahn chuckled, "Nope, not a clue. It''s one of the most fascinating enchantments I have ever seen and I have no idea if it''s The System''s doing or an actual enchantment. Though, that''s not entirely true. Remember I said it was gifted to the city?"


    Felix nodded.


    "Kryptos gifted it to the cit- or rather Rhonan gifted it to the city and he got it from Kryptos. So it''s definitely a real enchantment, it just¡­ I have a hard time wrapping my head around it being a real enchantment and not just¡­ how''d you put it, System Fuckery?"


    Felix snorted, "Yeah."


    Aldahn gestured towards the wall with his head, "Alright, we gonna do this?"


    Felix nodded.


    "Don''t touch the enchantment but if you notice anything off, point it out to me."


    Aldahn picked up the metal sheet and placed it vertically on a cart. He rolled the cart up to the wall and began comparing the enchantment as it was to the enchantment on the sheet.


    Felix took a minute to examine the sheet and then almost 15 minutes to fully memorize it. The enchantment on the sheet was so fine, he had to run his eyes across it in a grid to fully grasp everything. He then had it fit together in his mind and started comparing it to the enchantment on the walls using the enchantment analysis tools.


    He didn''t like using the tools because he could tell most of them were System Fuckery but he understood he probably shouldn''t be using his normal method in this case so he relented. The enchantment was impressive but Felix didn''t have any clue what any of it was doing. He had no frame of reference and couldn''t identify a single component, node or channel at all.


    All he was doing was comparing it to a memory he had but if he had seen this anywhere else, he would have assumed it was an intricate wallpaper. He had no way to know how impressive it was because it was simply too far outside his realm of understanding. Spotting the difference between two images though, that he could do fairly easily.


    He ramped up his passive training behind his back because the task was so tedious, he needed something to fiddle with. He found a few spots on the wall where there were breaks, tiny sections where the inlay had cracked and he pointed them out to Aldahn.


    Aldahn looked over at the spot Felix indicated. After a few moments, he shook his head and chuckled, "Your memory skill is something else. If I had room, I would seriously consider picking up a similar skill."


    Aldahn carefully touched up the section of the wall with a quill Felix had never seen before.


    "To be honest, I thought you were just pretending at first when you were looking at the wall. I kind of forgot about your memory."


    Felix chuckled and shrugged, "It comes in handy."


    Aldahn went back to his section of the wall and continued scrutinizing the enchantment.


    A couple minutes later, "So, how''s the personal project coming along?"


    Felix thought about it for a few moments, "It''s¡­ coming."


    Aldahn chuckled, "That rough?"


    Felix sighed, "It feels like there are just an endless stream of problems. I can''t say I''m not learning anything and honestly, I love problem solving. It''s just annoying to feel like I''m not making much progress."


    Aldahn squinted at one particular section of the wall, "What is the enchantment?"


    "Reactive Defense Cloak enchantment. Ezaldor said it was an independent interlocking enchantment?"


    "Force or just Mana Shields?"


    "Both and more."


    He chuckled, "Depending on the attack?"


    "Exactly."


    "That''s¡­ definitely ambitious. Wanna show me after we finish up with this?"


    Felix frowned, "Don''t you have to sleep after this?"


    Aldahn chuckled, "Don''t you?"


    "No." Felix stated.


    For the rest of the night they scrutinized the entirety of the exterior wall in the shop. They didn''t find anything major or anything that really mattered at all but it made Aldahn feel better. Felix also found it interesting because he tried to push every one of his senses to get any kind of understanding about what was happening with the enchantment. He got nowhere but it gave him something to do and kept him engaged.


    Once they finished, Aldahn carefully replaced the metal sheet in the drawer in his office and walked over to desk Felix had been working at. Felix walked him through his different iterations and the decisions he had made as well as demonstrated his testing methodology.


    Aldahn politely listened the entire time until Felix was done at which point he pulled out a new sheet of metal and inscribed a completely new enchantment onto it. After that, he inscribed another 5 next to it.


    "These are my initial designs after hearing what you''ve already tried. Wanna test them?"


    They went ahead and tested then iterated on those, Felix bouncing ideas off Aldahn a few of which seemed to be novel to him, though Felix wasn''t sure if that was an act or not. They worked together for a few days straight at which point Aldahn excused himself to finally sleep.


    Felix however, continued working at the enchantment and started creating small grids on the test material so he could examine at the enchantment as a whole.


    When Aldahn woke up a day later, he rejoined Felix and they continued testing the grids. Felix still hadn''t figured out how to properly supply them all with mana but Aldahn had a very simple solution that made Felix feel stupid.


    "This is going on a cloak, right?"


    Felix nodded.


    "Well, a cloak is three dimensional right? Just have the channels that supply mana underneath the tiles."


    Felix frowned, "So like a power-plane or ground-plane on a circuit board? Huh¡­ that''s so¡­ simple."


    Aldahn frowned, "A what?"


    Felix shook his head, "Never mind."


    Aldahn helped Felix out for a few hours at a time over the next dekad until finally, Felix had gotten to the point where he could finally miniaturize the entire enchantment.


    Aldahn pulled an old piece of cloth from the storage room along with a training dummy that he rolled into the center of the workshop and a crossbow. He then pushed all the desks aside to create a large open area they could use to attack the dummy.


    Felix inscribed the enchantment into the cloth then they draped it over the dummy and backed up.


    They started with Felix who fired off a barrage of spells covering every different element and type of attack he could think of. Once he was done he looked at Aldahn for him to start attacking but he was just staring at Felix incredulously.


    "You''re a fucking monster, kid."


    Felix shrugged and Aldahn sighed then he fired off a few shots with the crossbow. He also took a bolt and manually stabbed it at the dummy.


    They then evaluated the enchantment and tuned it a little before repeating the process. Once they had it blocking everything they threw at it perfectly, Felix sighed and finally hit it with a few times with a large chunk of metal until it ran out of mana and failed.


    Felix turned to Aldahn, "Ezaldor mentioned it would waste mana on blocking large blunt objects. I don''t want to strap a massive mana computer to my back but I was thinking, could I just suffuse it with some anima?"


    Aldahn frowned, "That would work. You would need a massive soul gem."


    Felix shrugged, "Well at least I know what the next step is."


    And hopefully I have enough anima left over from the Grelmites.


    He spent a few more days tuning the enchantment until he decided it was complete and finally inscribed it onto The Reaper''s Mantle. He simply activated the skill and set it to a simple cloak he had bought then pulled it off and started enchanting it.


    It didn''t take him long at all because the enchantment was a very repetitive pattern by design. Once he had drawn out the enchantment for about a hundred tiles, he became much faster and the next thousand, were very fast by comparison.


    All that was left at that point was a final test.


    Felix pulled the finished cloak over to the dummy that was still set up from when Aldahn had moved the worktable and draped it over the shoulders. He also turned the dummy around so he had a nice large testing surface. Finally, he manually recharged the battery embedded in the dummy so it could replicate a sapiosentient mana source.


    Looking around, there was no one in the workshop so Felix didn''t have to worry about disturbing anyone. He started with, arguably, his signature spell, a simple Lightning Bolt overpowered by a factor of 5. Easily strong enough to kill most creatures he had ever faced and he was pretty sure it was far more than enough to kill him, given a direct hit.


    In an instant the Lightning Bolt arced out of his hand and into the ground right in front of the cloak and he couldn''t help but smile. It was arguably unnecessary to specifically counter lightning attacks because they were so rare and the defense was completely specialized, but it made Felix happy to see it working nonetheless. The cloak detected the ionized path a Lightning Bolt spell made which was much less than instantaneous then simply grounded the spell, rerouting the path into the ground.


    He moved on to more legitimate tests at that point starting with Fire. Ironically, Fire by itself was very easy to deal with because it was so light it could simply be pushed away. Fire paired with a stream of force to hold it in place however, was much deadlier.


    Tiny beads of glowing orange and red raced towards the dummy and created tiny but concentrated explosions of Fire and Force but the cloak handled them perfectly. It both neutralized the incoming Force with it''s own output as well as erecting a grid of small hexagons in the area to handle any of the excess Fire and resultant Heat.


    Force and Cold spells it handled in similar ways, leaving just physical attacks.


    Felix morphed his Starmetal staff into a longsword and started swinging it into the dummy with all his strength. Not once did it penetrate the field of force slowing it down or the grid of hexagons behind. Felix added in a little force of his own to simulate the swing of someone a lot stronger than he was and although he had to recharge the Dummy''s battery, the cloak reacted perfectly.


    As Felix prepared to start stabbing the dummy, he suddenly realized there were two men standing behind him. Both Aldahn and Thezan were admiring the cloak but Aldahn had helped Felix work on it and had already seen it in action. Thezan on the other hand was much more impressed seeing it for the first time.


    Once Felix noticed them, Thezan walked over and gestured towards the dummy with his swords. Felix quickly darted over and filled the dummy''s batteries then backed up and nodded to Thezan.


    He smiled wildly then lashed out at the dummy with what Felix could only assume was his full strength. He didn''t seem to be using skills at the start but that quickly changed when every one of his sword swings simply bounced off the cloak''s protection.


    Shadow covered Thezan''s blade as his swords whipped around far faster than Felix could follow. Bursts of shadow exploded out of the Dummy as the strikes were repelled one after the other creating a mess of darkness around the pair.


    After a few moments though, the darkness subsided and Thezan wore a guilty look as his sword lay embedded into the dummy''s side. Aldahn chuckled and reassured Thezan while Felix approached to investigate what had gone wrong.


    He sighed in relief when he realized it was simply the battery that had been completely drained. It was worrying considering the battery had a few million mana and Thezan had blown through that in a matter of seconds but, those seconds were completely unimpeded. Were Felix wearing the cloak, he would be trying to run away and create distance, making himself harder to hit. He just hoped that would make enough of a difference.


    Felix recharged the battery and turned the Dummy around then shrugged, "Ran out of mana."


    Thezan sighed in relief then nodded in appreciation, "That cloak is super impressive." He turned to Aldahn, "Any way we could fit something like that into my ensemble?"


    Aldahn shook his head, "Not likely. You don''t have nearly enough mana to power that and you don''t really need it from what I''ve heard anyways."


    Thezan dropped his shoulders, "Yeah, I guess. I know for a fact Elric would like one of those though. I''ll make sure to send him over after our job''s done."


    Felix frowned, "I thought you were letting the gods deal with it themselves?"


    Thezan shrugged, "That was the plan. We aren''t doing anything more directly just a side thing. Unfortunately it''s too dangerous to bring you along."


    Felix nodded, "I understand. You come all the way here just to tell me I couldn''t go or you also needed some enchanting?"


    Thezan smiled, "I also came to drop off your cut from the last part of the job."


    Felix accepted the transfer of 200k B once again, "I thought you were gonna leave it with the guild?"


    Thezan nodded, "I was."


    Felix nodded and tried to hide his disappointment, "Well good luck with the job then."


    Thezan smirked, "You know how Elric and Aros were paid for the last bit of the contract even though they didn''t participate?"


    Felix shrugged, "Sure."


    "The client agreed you should be compensated for this part too. So expect some free money at the guild or, probably Elric will drop it off. He hasn''t quite finished his next batch of deadly concoctions yet though and tried to get me to delay the job for it."


    Felix chuckled, "Well thanks, I won''t say no to free money."


    Thezan shrugged, "Yeah, me neither. We''re all going to have to meet Dogran to debrief after this one though."


    Felix frowned, "Is that normal?"


    Thezan and Aldahn shook their heads.


    "Nope. It''s not like it never happens, but the client specifically requested it this time." Thezan looked towards Aldahn.


    "Yeah I think I only ever had to a few times in my career. Although it was never with the whole team." Aldahn shrugged.


    "Gods." Thezan shrugged, "Hey Felix, any chance you could open me a portal to the teleportation hub?"


    Felix chuckled, "Sure."


    He pulled out his mold and filled it with mana then Thezan chuckled as he stepped through, "Thanks, appreciate it."


    Felix closed the portal and picked up the mold then saw Aldahn looking at him with a confused expression.


    Felix looked at him, "What?"


    "That portal spell is¡­ I''ve never seen it before but I can tell you it''s way more complicated than any I''ve ever seen."


    Felix shrugged, "Yeah that makes sense. I copied it from a world event in a city from an early integration."


    Aldahn nodded, "That makes sense. You might want to go find yourself a newer and likely safer one."


    Felix sighed, "Yeah. I already copied one from someone else, just haven''t gotten around to testing it yet. Anyways, I''m heading out, I take it you don''t have any jobs for me right now anyways?"


    Aldahn shook his head, "Nope. Have fun. There won''t be anything for a little while anyways, everyone is busy right now."


    Felix was happy he had a little time to himself and headed over to Mihto''s where he ended up spending the entire day working through as many of the spells as he could. He then meditated in the parking garage below the building and made as much of it as he could instinctual. The next day he rejoined Mihto who evaluated his progress and adjusted accordingly.


    He had ended up spending a dekad there because he was finally close to having added all the spells in Mihto''s regimen. At the end of the dekad, all that was left was the next stage of training, combat. He didn''t delve into that just yet though.


    Felix knew he was going to have to go on a mission to level up his class soon. While working on the cloak, the ring with Ezaldor, examining the spatial enchants then the cloak again with Aldahn, Felix had gradually felt like he was becoming a more experienced enchanter. His levels mirrored that feeling and he had hit level 567 in his profession, surpassing his class by over a hundred levels.


    Felix didn''t want his class and profession to differ too much in level though and he knew he would be working on more enchantments soon so he figured he had some free time now to catch his class level up.


    Before heading to the Adventurer''s guild, Felix headed back to Inscripticae because it had been a dekad and as soon as he opened the door, he saw Aldahn standing in the lobby.


    "Oh, Hey Felix¡­ Any chance you would be willing to take on some solo clients?"


    Felix stopped in his tracks, "Uh¡­ sure."


    Aldahn nodded, "Perfect. These aren''t super high priority but on top of individual clients, we get requests all the time for low priority, mundane work. I sort through them and sometimes we complete them when things are slow or someone is bored. I figure you''re probably ready to take some of them on."


    Felix nodded, "Sure thing."


    Aldahn led Felix over to his office where he pointed to drawer. Felix walked over and opened it revealing an immaculately organized set of tickets. Felix picked up the one on the far left, the most mundane and read that some client was looking for gloves that were essentially oven mitts. They only had to handle up to a couple hundred degrees and the budget was just a couple hundred D.


    On the other end was enchanting work on an existing set of plate armor to make it more durable and protective with an enchantment powered by energy. The budget was a few thousand C.


    Felix looked back at Aldahn, "How long have these been here?"


    Aldahn shrugged, "They''re low priority which gets them a discount but it means it could take us an Epoch to complete them. I do a lot of them here in my office but I figure you have enough experience now that you could handle some yourself."


    Felix nodded, "For things like the plate armor here, where is the armor?"


    Aldahn walked out of his office and across the hall then opened one of the meeting room doors, one Felix had never been in before. The meeting room didn''t have a table or chairs and was actually two adjacent rooms connected together. It was also completely full of random pieces of equipment and gear.


    Felix looked over at Aldahn, "Is it always this full?"


    Aldahn guiltily scratched his head, "I may have fallen behind a little. I got distracted with some personal matters and while doing some housekeeping earlier today, I realized how behind I was."


    Felix shrugged, "I guess I''ll just start with the left side and work my way up then?"


    Aldahn nodded, "Sure. Just if you have free time, this is always here. Most of the other enchanters opt not to do any and it''s not a big deal if we don''t. It''s just¡­ nice."


    "I definitely don''t mind the experience."


    "Good. I''ll look over and approve the finished products. You can leave them in my office or the design room depending on how big it is."


    Felix nodded, "Sure thing."


    Aldahn walked out of the store, the first time Felix had ever seen him leave then Felix walked into his office and started sifting through the drawer. Instead of picking just one of them up, Felix picked up a handful from the far left side. He read through them and swapped a few out then dashed out of the building and flew off towards some general stores to stock up on materials.


    He made sure he had a set of jobs where he could buy everything he needed from just a few stores to minimize the time he had to waste acquiring materials. The time wasn''t entirely a waste though because he planned and design all the enchantments for the 5 tickets he had grabbed by the time he had reached Over Capacity.


    He walked in and Menan''s face instantly lit up, "Ah, if it ain''t the kid that saved me a whol''ot o'' time''n creds. What can I do fer''ya?"


    Felix winced a little, "I need a few low grade batteries. A couple D grade Commons and some E grade Epics."


    Menan snorted, "Instant?"


    Felix shrugged, "Might as well."


    Menan shrugged, "I still got some shards lyin round from''en the machine''as broke and the gems were poppin."


    Felix nodded, "Perfect."


    He waited a couple minutes for Menan to turn the gems into complete batteries then paid the man a pitiful 45k E. He felt bad getting such low grade gems but the projects he was working on didn''t need anything more. He even tripled his estimates then rounded up on the capacity table for the gems.


    With all the materials he needed in hand, he darted back over to Inscripticae and started planning the enchantments for some of the other tickets he remembered from the drawer.


    It took him half a day in the workshop to finish the 5 tickets at which point he stuck them in the design room and spent two hours training. Once he was done with that, he picked up another stack of tickets and spent every waking minute running through them. He had to optimize a little and plan out his shopping trips around daylight hours but other than that, he was breezing through the enchantments.


    He also made sure to see Mihto once a dekad where he started working on using the skills in combat. For a completely pacifist mindset that meant Mihto having the course launch arrows at him while he darted and dodged around.


    Over the next few Dekads the jobs on the tickets got exponentially more time consuming and almost equally more complicated, though it was hard to tell. They were all still very easy for Felix, most of them trivial. He was learning though and he made a few mistakes but considering the cost of the items, they weren''t costly mistakes and it was easy for him to simply restart.


    He was also continually impressed by Mihto''s course. Forming a course out of what looked like colored sand was impressive, even more impressive was how it could simulate combat. It wasn''t even a close representation of real combat but, it moved quickly enough that Felix had to work at dodging and avoiding projectiles and blades.


    Were he using his energy buffs, it would have been easier certainly but the challenge was the point. He did realize he was going to have to practice with his energy buff though because although his instincts were good, his reaction time wasn''t really being tested at all. On Mihto''s course, he was essentially watching it all in slow motion and deciding what he wanted his body to do, or at least that''s what it felt like without his energy buff. It also didn''t help that his mind and eyes moved far faster than his body did.


    As Felix completed jobs, the drawer continued to fill. It was never-ending how many jobs the shop got and made Felix start to wonder how many Aldahn usually turned down. Even if he was gaining experience and even if he finished hundreds of contracts, they had still made less than the profit from a single higher end client.


    Considering how unprofitable it was, Felix started to wonder why Aldahn took the jobs at all. He didn''t get a chance to ask though by the time he decided he was going to head to the Adventurer''s Guild. He couldn''t find Aldahn anywhere but he had shrunk the contents of the drawer down to just a few dozen and he was starting to get antsy.


    He had gained a single level in his profession from working on all the tickets but considering he had spent a term completing them nonstop, he was starting to feel like they weren''t worth it.


    Felix headed over to the Adventurer''s guild and started sorting through the jobs that were available. He wanted something challenging enough to give him levels but not flashy enough that he had to hide behind his Persona. He also wanted it to be relatively short, nothing that would take him more than a dekad.


    He ended up settling on a simple monster eradication. Or rather, more like a siege on the monsters of the area. The job was simple, there was a small mining outpost on a vibrant and life filled planet that was mostly covered in deep jungle and mountains. The outpost was being sieged by an army of the planet''s wildlife. Much like Orselle back on Trenus except here, apparently the army was coordinated so, they likely weren''t just running in fear.


    The outpost had been hiring adventurers to protect and guard them because they didn''t expect it to last this long or for the monsters to be quite so smart. Now, they had realized it was unfeasible to pay the guards forever especially since the level they needed for their guards just kept rising.


    The outpost had decided to just pay someone up front to deal with the issue permanently. The expected pay didn''t exactly match the job description which is why Felix assumed it was still open. The legions of creatures attacking the outpost apparently ranged from the mid D grade all the way up to peak D grade.


    Ideally, a team of peak D grades or even brand new C grades would handle the job but the pay was just 100k D which was arguably terrible. Felix didn''t give a shit about the pay though because the job had both a huge variety of creatures meaning his soul harvesting would grant him plenty of stats. The other reason he was particularly interested is that the creatures were unusually intelligent.


    Although they were mostly animals of the jungle and mountains, they attacked the outpost''s supply lines, tried to cut them off. They harassed the miners and stole their product. The outpost had resorted to portals but they were expensive and drained the outpost''s resources little by little. They were somehow attacking the outpost both strategically and tactically, not something that animals typically did.


    Felix was hoping for some kind of lead on enhancing his mind because his current idea was sketchy at best. As far as he could tell, this job was perfect for him. There had already been three teams who took the job then vanished and he could see their profiles in the description.


    Two of them were slightly lower level than he was on average, the other was much higher at just over 800. It didn''t worry him but the result of that was that the job was now more of an open bounty to deal with the issue than a contract. Unfortunately that meant others could show up or already be there.


    Felix recorded the anchor for the outpost then headed shopping quickly for supplies. He then headed back to Inscripticae to complete some simple preparations. Finally, he retrieved Nova from his Pocket Home then flew over to the teleportation hub where he had them open a portal for him. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 Chapter 196 - Book 13

    Looking through the portal, Felix saw a room made of large stone blocks with dried and treated logs supporting the doorway and corners of the room. He stepped through and the portal closed behind him. The room he arrived in appeared to be a portal room. The only doorway in the room was easily as big as a garage door and had a series of rails that all conjoined a few meters outside the room before they all led into it, stopping right under his feet.


    It seemed like the rails likely connected with rails on the other side of the portal when one was opened for that purpose.


    Looking around, it seemed no one was around to greet him so Felix started wandering into the facility.


    He followed the rails out of the portal room and into a large open room with rails winding through the space to various doorways, tunnels and lifts. He walked along one of the walls trying to see or hear anyone that may have been around but the whining, clanking and banging of the mine carts made it hard to hear anything else.


    Eventually he found a doorway that seemed to lead to a living area, judging from the kitchen he could see through the doorway on the left side of the room and bunks in the room to the right. Across from him there was another door through which he finally saw another creature.


    Standing at a table with just the left half of his body in view, Felix saw a large half giant man with a long messy hair and a bushy braided beard. He wore thick coveralls that were tied at the waist leaving his torso entirely exposed. Felix also spotted a small metal earrings and a set of rings from the side he could see.


    [D - Uncommon] Arvo (Lvl 499)


    The half giant was talking to someone out of view and only noticed Felix when he got within a few meters of the room. The man''s head turned to him and his already existing frown deepened.


    "And who in the fuck are you?" He tilted his chin in Felix''s direction making it obvious to the rest of the room who he was talking to.


    Felix continued to approach as he smiled and waved, "Felix. I''m here about a job to deal with creature''s sieging a mining outpost? This outpost, I take it?"


    The man''s frown deepened which Felix didn''t even think was possible, "Fucking Strib might be the cheapest fucker I ever worked for." The man sighed, "I''ve told him we don''t need more guards, fuck it. If he doesn''t cough up to deal with this shit soon, I quit."


    Felix heard another voice from inside the room, "Arvo, you''ve been saying that for the last 6 months. We all need this job, you more than anyone."


    The large man, Arvo, just grumbled.


    Felix tentatively corrected their assumption, "I''m not a guard. Job said to stop the monsters for good."


    Arvo rubbed his face with his hands, "Fucking Strib¡­ Kid, what level did the job posting recommend?"


    "A team of high D grades or low C grades." Felix hesitated to continue because he was confident it was going to further enrage Arvo, "Pay doesn''t really match that recommendation though."


    Arvo just sighed and fell into a chair behind him, "Go home kid. This one just ain''t worth it."


    Felix shrugged, "I mean, I can''t make it worse can I? I''m only really risking my own life, why not let me try and maybe I get lucky. I don''t get paid unless I accomplish something so¡­"


    Arvo chuckled and dropped his head back, "You''d have to be really fucking lucky."


    At that point another person leaned out around the door frame with a curious expression and as soon as they saw Felix, they winced. After a second they shrugged and beckoned him into the room.


    As Felix finally walked into the room they were in, he saw a lot more people than he was expecting. There was Arvo, the halfling man who had beckoned him in as well as two groups of five people who were adventurers, judging from their equipment.


    The adventurers were largely off to the sides of the room and seemed to be whispering to each-other. In the middle of the room, there was a large map of the area. The map wasn''t traditional because it didn''t cover much of the geography, but it looked to be an overlay of all the mining routes with the topology above. It was a confusing mess and Felix had no idea how any of them could read it without their own extensive experience of the area.


    Looking around, Felix saw a few of the adventurers giggling a couple whispering and a few sighing when they finally identified him. He didn''t really mind being underestimated as long as they didn''t make his job any harder than it needed to be or interfere in any way.


    Felix looked around but no one seemed particularly inclined to start talking so Felix turned to the halfling who had beckoned him in, "Mind catching me up to speed?"


    The halfling man shrugged, "Sure. I''m Sanbin by the way, just call me San." He offered his hand.


    Felix nodded and shook his hand, "Felix."


    San pointed to the two groups in turn then to Arvo, "These are the adventuring groups the mine''s owner hired as guards. This is Arvo, who you''ve already met. He''s the mine''s foreman."


    Looking over at the two adventuring groups, Felix saw their levels fell between 400 and 600. San''s level was just over 450.


    San walked over to the side of the table, "We were just planning another expedition into the mines with our guards here. We can''t have miners there constantly anymore so instead we choose a mine, go out as a team and the guards try to keep us safe."


    Arvo grumbled something unintelligible but everyone seemed to be ignoring him so Felix followed suit, "When''s the expedition?"


    San shrugged, "A couple hours likely. Need to let the miners know, get the carts ready¡­ you know."


    Felix nodded, "Sure. I take it you have no leads on where the army''s are coming from or why they''re doing this?"


    San shook his head and looked around the room. Everyone else either shrugged, shook their heads or just seemed uninclined to say anything.


    "Mind if I tag along then?" Felix smiled to try and hide his mild annoyance.


    Arvo grumbled again and San just shrugged, "More than welcome to. Try to listen to Arvo or the other guards when we get in there. When he isn''t grumbling nonsense he is actually a good foreman."


    Felix nodded having little intention of blindly following them. He wouldn''t specifically disobey but he also wasn''t as trusting of them as he was of Thezan. If he disagreed with their orders, he had no qualms with simply ignoring them.


    San ran off to direct the rest of the miners to prepare themselves and Arvo followed shortly afterwards. The other adventuring groups didn''t seem to have any desire to talk to him so he shrugged and sat down in one of the chairs.


    He had better things to do than trying to get information out of people who didn''t want to talk. He entered his Soul Garden and practiced on his rendition of Mihto''s course. It was hard to create a combat course himself because he couldn''t practice reacting to things when he knew where they were coming from at all times so instead, he had Grim create the course for him.


    Once he had practiced for his usual 15 minutes of real world time, he shifted back over to his body and started working on practicing his mana control. He didn''t want to head into his Pocket Home because he was worried they would leave without him and he didn''t want to use his mana control to lift things in front of people so he focused on casting focus and speed.


    Mostly out of annoyance, Felix threw in a couple hugely overpowered attack spell formations into his training just to throw the adventuring groups off. As soon as he formed one, he saw three people amongst the two groups flinch but by the time they turned to him, the spell was gone and he was already forming the next.


    They shrugged but watched him warily then the next time he formed an attack spell they started to get more worried. The groups started whispering amongst each-other and Felix got some primal enjoyment out of seeing those three flinching every few minutes but none of them dared speak to him.


    A few stared at him incredulously, a few with fear, a few looked like they had been challenged or almost dishonored and they all collectively backed up a few steps. Not one of them looked away from him for more than a few seconds though.


    Felix had a hard time hiding a smile at first but quickly got used to hiding how much fun he was having scaring the adventurers. Two hours passed in no time and San beckoned them all to follow with a tilt of his head. Felix was the first to leave the room and he saw a long procession of mine carts containing tools as well as miners now filling the main room.


    As Felix looked around, he noticed the vast majority of the miners were either half giants or halflings. He didn''t ask why but he was almost surprised not to see any dwarves amongst the miners. In fact, thinking back he hadn''t seen any dwarves at all which he found odd considering all the other races he had seen that mirrored fantasy from earth.


    As he pondered the races of the multiverse, in a practiced fashion, one adventuring group headed to the front of the procession and the other took the rear. They set themselves up in their preferred formations then San looked over the whole procession and nodded to himself. Almost as an afterthought, he finally noticed Felix standing off to the side.


    San shrugged and gestured towards the back so Felix nodded and walked over next to the adventuring group there. He noticed them bristle at him standing in and around their formation but he really didn''t care.


    The procession slowly proceeded down one of the rail tracks with the mine carts moving themselves courtesy of some simple force enchantments on their rear. Felix briefly examined them but found nothing worth stealing so he simply followed along.


    No danger presented itself as the procession slowly rolled out of the outpost and into the cave, never having to expose itself to the outside. They climbed upwards at a glacial pace for a few hours before leveling out and the cave morphed into an actual mine.


    Felix looked around and saw stones and various glints all around him but nothing he, nor Nova were interested in. She had looked around a few times but Felix felt her radiate disappointment every time. He chuckled to himself then pet her as he followed the procession.


    As they got further into the mines, Felix noticed everyone, especially the guards, getting increasingly nervous and skittish. They looked around faster, reacted to small sounds, rested their hands on their weapons and generally seemed to be on edge.


    While he didn''t feel worried himself, he decided he wasn''t an idiot so he filled his cloak with mana and prepared a few levels worth of defensive spells around him. He didn''t prepare any attacks just yet to be sure none of the guards accidentally attacked him.


    They arrived at their destination as the carts slowed to a halt and the miners collected their tools. Some had picks others had weird strips of thick plates attached by a string and some carried bags. Felix watched in fascination as they walked over to the walls and first used the picks to flatten. Then, they stuck the ribbons to the wall in a circle and filled them with mana. Felix immediately recognized the enchantment as softening the stone which proved correct as a few seconds later, the picks sunk much deeper into the stone.


    For particularly difficult sections, they pulled small balls out of the bag and tossed them into the holes they had made with the help of some hand drills. The miners backed up and the balls exploded loosening the stone and allowing them to remove large chunks of it at a time.


    The minerals they extracted got cleaned up a little then dropped into the now empty mine carts for a few hours until the miners decided to move forwards a few hundred meters.


    They continued this process as the carts filled up until the remaining space for minerals dwindled and everyone''s nerves mounted. Felix saw Arvo''s frown deepening by the second as he barked out orders, inspected the mine and looked around skittishly.


    Felix saw San standing off to the side waiting for more minerals he could inspect before they ended up in the carts and decided to approach him.


    "Hey San, are there always attacks or just some of the time?"


    San looked up and shook his head, "Always. Used to be sometimes, last few dekads it''s been every. damn. time. Sometimes they manage to seize the haul, sometimes we fend them off."


    Felix nodded and let him get back to work then wandered around and looked for any signs of enemies approaching. He looked forwards and backwards even wandering a kilometer from the miners in either direction, much to the chagrin of the adventurers.


    He didn''t see anything and started to doubt they would attack from the caves on either side. As he rejoined the miners, his theory was proven correct as he, and everyone else in the cave, noticed the temperature starting to rise very rapidly.


    Felix frowned and looked around trying to figure out what was happening because cooking them alive in a cave seemed like a very easily countered attack. The adventurers formed a line facing both of the walls on either side of the caves as the miners huddled up next to the carts.


    With an attack imminent, Felix started preparing some attack spells and set himself up behind the adventurers with the lower average level.


    As he waited, the mine grew so hot, it visibly became difficult on the miners so Felix created a simple wind spell to cycle the air as much as possible. He opted for wind instead of cold because cold nodes were inherently inefficient and on a large scale like the mine, he didn''t want to waste a ton of mana.


    Over the course of the next few minutes, as the miners enjoyed the cool breeze and the adventurers fiddled, Felix noticed the walls themselves were getting hotter. Instead of getting hotter with the room, the walls started to redden and glow causing Felix to realize they were actually the source of the heat.


    The walls continued to grow hotter and subsequently brighter until the stone became molten and dripped down the walls of the mine. Just a second later, molten rock sprayed out of the walls on either side in quick succession. Felix''s cloak caught a few droplets and simply caused them to drop to the ground while the miners dodged as much as they could.


    [D - Uncommon] Mountain Turtle (Lvl 604)


    Turtles that were similar but distinct from the world boss Felix had fought back in the tutorial began crawling out of the molten holes in the walls and dropping to the ground.


    Grim gasped mentally in realization, That''s why they''re turtles and not tortoises.


    They swim through mountains?


    Grim shrugged mentally, Seems like it.


    The adventuring group in front of Felix engaged the turtles with a couple melee fighters cowering behind shields to block their molten spittle while the other''s attacked wherever they found an opening.


    Felix waited and watched at first, no one really seeming to notice him. He protected the miners a few times from stray attacks but they seemed to be managing on their own.


    As he had expected, a few minutes after the turtles had tunneled into the room, a series of various jungle, mountain and cave creatures followed. There were large bugs, lizards, feline creatures, arachnids, scorpions and bat like creatures with various names and unique abilities.


    Their levels were all lower than the turtles that had come before them but only by a small amount.


    Now that Felix had a better idea of what was and what wasn''t believable from the last mission he had done and just talking to others, he only held back a little bit. Instead of overpowering his Lightning Bolts to the point where he instantly killed them, Felix overpowered them just twice and used his spells to support the other groups. He was still doing a lot of damage, just judging from the reaction of those he hit but he mainly focused on keeping people alive and uninjured.


    He mixed in some Force Beams to push enemies away and Shields to protect the innocents. He only occasionally squashed them against the walls but as much as the fight was easy for him, he could still see the intelligence in the creature''s eyes. They used the turtles for cover, took strategic positioning and tried to whittle down the weakest member of the guards to create openings. The scorpions darted in and around corners, appearing and attacking in just a brief moment before darting away again while the bats mostly harassed everyone making it hard to focus.


    None of what they did was random either, they coordinated everything.


    The bats harassed at the same time as the turtle''s sprayed magma. They worked together to create openings for the scorpions, felines and lizards to pounce in and do damage.


    While impressive, it didn''t result in more than a few broken bones, gashes and poisonings here and there. By the time Felix finished with his side, he glanced over his shoulder and chuckled as he watched Nova essentially playing with her food. The guards tried to attack her a few times but she just swatted them away and pounced on a new enemy.


    Felix was grateful she was getting wise enough to realize who she could and who she shouldn''t attack which made his job a lot easier.


    Nova jumped onto one creature, ripped their neck out then hopped onto a turtles back and tried to rip them out of their shell using their tail. She killed it far before succeeding then morphed her own tail into a long spiked appendage that she used to crush a bat. She looked over and toasted a lizard with fire breath then happily clawed at some other creature to the side.


    The guards on her side just backed off and gave her room once they realized she wasn''t actually attacking them. It took her a minutes or so to kill everything she deemed an enemy at which point she started ripping into the corpses and consuming them ravenously.


    Felix suspected she ate to satisfy the urges more than she desired their biological material considering how the creatures had been rather mundane, other than their intelligence.


    Activating his rings, Felix consumed the bodies on his side of the mine causing a few of the adventurers to look at him funny. He had already confirmed there were some rare but not exceedingly rare skills that had similar effects at the library so he wasn''t worried about someone torturing him for his secrets.


    Nova cleaned up her side of the mine a couple minutes later at which point she morphed back into a dragon-kitten and hopped onto Felix''s shoulder to nap.


    Through the use of both of their skills, the mine was completely cleaned of animal corpses and viscera leaving behind just small blood spatters here and there from the miners and guards. Overall, they collectively didn''t look much worse than they had before they had been attacked.


    Felix himself was out almost a million mana but that had gone towards killing the creatures, powering his cloak, which left him completely untouched and protecting the miners.


    He walked back over to the others and saw a few miners smile and nod in his direction as well as a few of the adventurer guards who offered him a slight nod of either respect or gratitude.


    Arvo walked over with his arms crossed and looked down at Felix, "Alright. You''re here to finally deal with this thing?"


    Felix nodded, "That''s the goal."


    Arvo sighed, "I''ll give you everything we know back at the outpost."


    "Thanks."


    Arvo nodded in respect then glanced over at the guards and sighed. He joined San and the rest of the miners then the carts started slowing moving backwards where they had come from.


    The group bandaged their wounds, drank potions and repaired their armor as they followed the cart''s slow progression back to the outpost.


    Felix had been expecting it to be slow because of how full the carts were but he had forgotten that they had actually traveled upwards to get to the mine. It was therefore, a pleasant surprise for him when they reached the start of the decline and the cart started to roll down the hill much faster.


    San steered the carts and rode the brakes so they didn''t roll down the rails and out of control but the trip back took only a quarter of the time it took to get into the mine in the first place.


    The miners took the carts off to individual rooms from which Felix heard the banging of metal and stone along with the roar of forges.


    He followed Arvo into the chamber with the map while the guards, along with most of the injured miners, headed towards the room with the bunks.


    Felix stood on the opposite side of the table to Arvo who leaned over using the table to support him with both hands. Considering he was a half-giant, he had to lean over pretty far and bend his knees, which did not look comfortable to Felix.


    "Sorry I doubted you earlier. Thanks to you and Nova, your familiar I take it? That was the smoothest attack we''ve fended off in a long time."


    Felix nodded, "Sure thing. You said you had more information?"


    Arvo nodded and sighed then pointed at a spot on the map, "While we don''t know the actual source of¡­ whatever the fuck is happening, we do know of one camp."


    Felix frowned, "A camp? They''re animals, monsters, what do you mean camp?"


    The half giant nodded, "Yeah, supposedly. I mean what I said. There are tents, wooden shelters, a palisade and everything. One of the guards a few terms ago followed the creatures for a while. They found this camp but then vanished a few days later when they tried to find another." S§×arch* The Novel?ire(.)ne*t website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    Felix nodded, "Alright, I''ll check it out then. It''s on the surface I take it? Is there a door out of here that doesn''t lead to caves?"


    Arvo led Felix to one of the rooms in the building and pointed to a ladder that climbed up to a trapdoor in the ceiling, "We had to seal the other exits a while ago so all we have left are chimneys with many thick grates, and that."


    Felix nodded, "Thanks."


    "Feel free to take a bunk to sleep for the night. Not sure what time it is on whatever planet you came from but here, it''s the middle of the night right now. It''s also really dark outside, no moon and not many stars in the sky."


    Felix shrugged, "I''d like to take a look anyways."


    Arvo shook his head and walked away, "Sure, whatever¡­"


    Flying up to the trap door, Felix slid the large metal bar to the side and pushed it open then flew out and into the completely pitch black of night. He looked around and saw absolutely nothing save for the small square of light below him.


    While it was completely possible for him to create light of his own, that would have attracted a lot of attention so instead, Felix closed the trap door below him and sat down next to it. With no one around to see anything, he used his mana control to lift tiny weights and write things with his quill.


    Nova didn''t seem to have any issue with the lack of light and she hopped off his shoulder and into the inky blackness of the night.


    Lifting objects with his mana control didn''t take much focus at all and even while he manipulated the quill to write things, he had attention to spare so he tried to create a night vision spell. His Persona would have been able to see something because of the enhancement to their eyes and Felix would eventually add them to his own body but he wasn''t ready to do so yet. It was also a good challenge to create such a spell.


    Theoretically, all he had to do was shift the light coming into his eyes into the visible spectrum. While he wasn''t sure if there would be any UV light around, he was certain there was plenty of infrared light as a byproduct of the jungle''s natural temperature. Unfortunately, he just didn''t have the nodes he needed. He wasn''t sure they even existed but either way, he didn''t have them.


    Even mentally perusing the node creation tome he had scanned from the Raven, he only found nodes that created mana not ones that altered the existing world around him.


    He quickly put the idea aside for when he found the nodes or if he found another way to do something similar and focused his attention on mana computers.


    Instead of pulling out the computer he had been working on most recently, Felix started to create a new computer from scratch, in his lap. What he was trying to do was confirm whether or not his latest idea had any potential. Using his incredibly fine mana control, Felix created the smallest transistors he could and connected them together to form a network of transistors.


    He was just replicating an earlier design for a computer, one that performed a very simple set of addition, subtraction and multiplication and nothing else. While he had already created much more complicated computers, the challenge with this one was how small it was. In theory, this scale created huge problems for stability and precision but Felix had an ace up his sleeve, his ridiculous mana control.


    For his first test, Felix manually held the entire design of the computer in his mind then held it steady as he powered it on. It took him almost an hour to get it to the point where he could hold the shape stable without affecting the calculations themselves by allowing the mana to freely flow through it.


    Once he had achieved that, he didn''t dare try to complicate the computer further but instead, he began suffusing it with the anima left over in his Soul Space. He quickly found that using the uncompressed anima did little to nothing but if he compressed it first as much as he could, the computer was almost stable.


    It made slight errors and he could feel connections breaking every once in a while but it was already so close. As far as he could tell that meant his idea could work so Felix pushed ahead and started training his fine mana control exclusively.


    He had already kick started the process when he had opened the mana control skill cube holding Grim but now, he wanted to go even further. He pulled out the skill cube and confirmed he could still complete it given a half hour then put it away and replaced it with the smallest droplet of mana he could control.


    He then compressed that into a solid and carefully started to shave away at the exterior. As it grew smaller, he took breaks to simply move the piece around and get used to handling such a small amount then continued to shrink it when he felt comfortable.


    At first he was making notable progress and he was becoming hopeful with how miniscule he was going to be able to make the computer. After a couple hours his progress notably slowed. By the time the sun started to rise over the horizon, finally breaking up the inky blackness that had surrounded him, he felt like he had gotten nowhere over the last hour or so.


    He didn''t have time to dwell on it or more likely, smash his head against the training until he got it. Daylight had arrived and so Felix could finally head out towards the camp.


    He left as soon as there was any amount of light and flew towards the point Arvo had indicated though, all he had to work with was a direction.


    As he flew up into the air, he saw the outpost below him from the outside for the first time and saw that it was a collection of a walls with a couple towers poking out all location in the valley between a few large mountains. Considering they had climbed to reach the mines, Felix assumed the mines had to be in the mountains.


    Felix darted out of the range of the outpost and immediately felt a tug on his soul from his bond with Nova. He headed towards it, more than a little shocked, and found her just a few kilometers ahead of him. As he approached, she jumped into the air and met him midflight then sent him a wave of memories from last night.


    She had sought out and found the camp Arvo had pointed out while Felix was training in the dark. She hadn''t engaged them but she had gotten a good view of the entire camp, having circled around and flown over it.


    It was a little confusing at first to see from Nova''s perspective but his own time practicing his matter senses had helped tremendously. On top of that, as Felix processed the memories and translated them in his own mind, he gained insights into his own matter senses progressing them even further.


    Once he had gone through everything Felix asked Nova to guide him to the camp and together they flew off almost directly away from the rising sun.


    Felix could finally see the planet around him and as he looked around, he saw an endless jungle filling the valley between mountains that rose up like islands from the green sea below.


    Though he could see the horizon in the distance, it was partially obscured by a low hanging fog making anything further than a dozen kilometers a blurry mess. Even flying higher into the air though, there was nothing but mountains and jungle below a seemingly infinite fog as far as he could see.


    The planet was a little warmer on average when compared to Telviras and the gravity was about twice as strong but it still didn''t affect Felix much.


    Unfortunately, with the cover of night gone, Felix was spotted far before he ever even got close to the camp.


    Flying over the jungle, a swarm of various bird creatures with different sizes, shapes and colors came racing towards him from every side. Despite all being so distinct from each-other, they worked together and synchronized themselves perfectly such that they executed coordinated maneuvers.


    They dove together to claw at Felix while another group pelted him with blasts of wind and others cut off his escape by dropping rocks and logs. He dodged the wind and deflected the rocks but his cloak had to handle the talons. As fast as Felix was, the sky was not his domain and the birds outpaced him in every way except in a long distance, straight line race.


    After recovering from the first attack, Nova hopped off Felix''s back and plummeted to the ground as she morphed her body. Felix didn''t get to watch though as a particularly large bird flew just a few meters over his head and bellowed out a screech that vibrated his body as it passed.


    His cloak wasn''t designed to do anything against sound so it hit him full force.


    Luckily its only real effect was to throw him off. Luckily, the subsequent blast of wind that followed, though he was stunned, was automatically and completely neutralized courtesy of his cloak at the cost of just a few tens of thousands of mana.


    It was at that point that he heard a screech of pain from a short distance away and Felix recovered from the sound attack long enough to look up and smile.


    He saw a beautiful blue phoenix completely ripping through the birds attacking him like it was nothing. Not that Felix needed the help, he was having fun analyzing how smart they really were and testing their coordination and adaptability. Still, he appreciated Nova''s desire to help and protect him.


    Wrapping himself in a Shield of Force, Felix turned himself around and took out the birds flying around him one by one as they flew closer to him. He didn''t bother chasing them down because his goal was actually to follow them, physically or even just visually as it would have been a huge help to him finding the camp.


    It only took him, along with Nova, a couple of seconds to reduce the flock down to half its original size at which point they all split off and dove into the jungle below at various points.


    Felix had Nova return to him and she perched herself on his shoulder, her long tail feathers trailing along his back.


    Damn, they were smart enough to obfuscate the camp''s location. Nova, you can still guide us towards the camp, right?


    She chirped in assent and flew off ahead of Felix so he could follow.


    No more birds flew out of the jungle to harass them and, much to Felix''s dismay, Grim assured him that the soul trick he had used to scout in the tutorial would have little to no effect on D grades. It was just something that worked on really low level creatures who''s instincts were completely untrained.


    Felix really wished he had a better idea of how to create an illusion spell but the only thing he knew about them was the spell form he copied from The Raven: Finras'' shop. That spell was far too complicated for him to raw cast though and he hadn''t even begun to start dissecting it.


    It was too late at this point either way, they already knew he was coming. As soon as Nova, with Felix in tow, started to descend towards the jungle, it was obvious that the camp was also prepared for them.


    Giant boulders, with good but not great aim, shot up through the jungle canopy in their direction. They easily dodged out of the way but as they got closer, the stones turned into wooden javelins and their aim was much better.


    Nova deftly dodged them all but Felix on the other hand was hit by a couple but his cloak protected him from taking any damage. As they got within a few dozen meters, a huge swarm of insects closed in on them from all sides. Felix wasn''t actually sure how his cloak would react to them so he slowed down and told Nova to start circling upwards.


    As soon as the swarm bunched itself up, Felix let loose with a wide cone of billowing flames. Nova thought it looked terribly fun and couldn''t help herself from joining in with a stream of fire from her own beak after a cheerful and sing song chirp.


    Together they destroyed most of the swarm and sent the rest back into the safety of the jungle.


    Felix swapped out the Shield of Force surrounding him with a Mana Shell then let himself drop towards the canopy. Nova dropped herself as well which was an odd sight, seeing a bird dropping straight down like a rock though Felix suspected she was increasing the weight of her body.


    The Mana Shell protected Felix''s body from the leaves that were sharp and the branches that were thick and hard. Nova just didn''t care at all and seemed to be loving it as she punched a hole right through the canopy and fell halfway to the jungle floor before she caught herself and circled back up to Felix amongst the branches.


    Hopping from branch to branch, his training with Mihto helping immensely, Felix headed towards the camp as per Nova''s direction.


    The javelins and bugs had ceased to bother them but now that they were in the jungle itself, they were well within the range of other creatures.


    First was a group of chimps that pelted them from the tree tops around. Felix completely ignored them as they were just an annoyance and hunting them down was a waste of time. Then he felt something sneak up on him followed shortly afterwards by a shooting pain in his calf. Looking down, he saw a dark green snake wrapped around his thigh with four fangs buried in his flesh.


    He didn''t bother killing it at first but once it started to interfere with his jumping from branch to branch, he reached down and squeezed its head until it popped. The venom was completely ineffective despite how cool Felix thought it was.


    It used a combination of two separate venoms in tandem. One tried to relax his muscles while the other attacked his cells as they were put to sleep.


    Neither were remotely close to doing anything to his body as his tolerance to and the defenses he''d built for toxins completely neutralized them. He was even converting most of it into energy which, was unnecessary but, nice. The bite itself did steal a small sliver of his health but it was nothing he was concerned about. With his energy topped up, his Vitality would seal and completely heal the wound within just a few minutes.


    Nothing else assaulted them before they spotted the camp between the trees and vines. There was a palisade enclosing a large area in an artificial clearing in the middle of the jungle. Some of the stripped jungle trees were being used as posts for the tents while others had obviously gone into the palisade.


    The tents themselves varied greatly. Some were enclosed on the sides and the top, others were just a canopy and some had large gaping slits parallel to the suns trajectory throughout the day. There were even some mostly wooden structures but they were simple in shape and design, barely log houses.


    All the creatures of the camp seemed to be ready for their approach as looking down, Felix saw a veritable army of animals all in formation. There were chimp creatures riding lizards at the front wielding spears and shields. Behind them were larger apes with four arms each holding a different crude spear or axe.


    Finally in the rear there were rows of javelins and another set of four armed apes. In the very back wearing a complete set of plate armor, though not necessarily a cohesive set, was a large Gorilla.


    [D - Rare] Gorilla King Gormoth: Camp AG Commander (Lvl 760)


    The rest of the animals were mostly rare with a few uncommons in the mix and their levels were all below Gormoth''s but still in the 6 to 7 hundreds. Nova circled around deftly tilting her wings back and forth to avoid the javelins blasting through the sky around her.


    Felix dodged the easier ones and had a Force spell to deflect a number of others. The rest bounced off his Mana Shell harmlessly.


    Unbothered by completely ineffective attack, Felix floated over the army a few hundred meters back and tried to decide which spell he wanted to use most. He was really starting to wish he had a Chain Lightning spell once again.


    That wasn''t an option currently though so he tried to decide between Fire and Force mostly. He was thinking Fire Balls would be a good bet but he didn''t want to spread the army out to much, not when they had already bunched themselves up so tightly for him. That left either thin beams of force or superheated balls of fire with little to no force pushing outwards.


    The range on his force beams was low so he settled on fire and slowly dropped down towards the army.


    The mounted spearmen in the front adjusted themselves and corrected their posture, the mounts eager to pounce forwards but held back by something. As soon as his feet touched the ground, Felix dropped his Mana Shell because it was annoying when he was grounded and Gormoth roared.


    That appeared to have been the signal they were waiting for so the army charged towards Felix. He quickly sent permission to Nova to do whatever she wanted and prepared three identical spells then simply waited for the mounted combatants to reach him.


    They wouldn''t be the most efficient spells he had ever created but the quick adjustments he had made to the Flame Thrower spell proved to be well worth the cost. As columns of fire blasted into the army, the superheated flames became inescapable as a simple Force spell lifted and pulled everything inside.


    Felix swept the flames back and forth slowly, making sure he had cleared out a line before sweeping over to the next enemy. He heard Gormoth bellow out another roar, an audibly distinct roar, not Felix had no idea what they meant, he just suspected they meant something.


    A few seconds later he figured out what it was as teams of panthers, jaguars and tigers worked together to flank him from the edge of the clearing. A few of them got right up close to him and tried to bite down but found their jaw stopped by small blue hexagons that held their fangs back.


    Felix quickly used the last bit of his focus to form and cast a spell he had designed for his Persona and created a burst of Force and Fire all around him.


    The panther trying to bite his arm was launched into the air, with no friction to hold them back, and the other feline predators near him were charred and sent tumbling.


    Now that the army was charging at him, Felix pushed himself up and into the air a few meters so he could get a better view of the battlefield and caught sight of Nova. She was still in the form of a phoenix and was busy dive bombing the four armed apes in the back. As she flew down and got close to them, she morphed her beak into a spear head and aimed for their shoulders or neck before darting off back into the air.


    Looking just in front of himself, the front line had been mostly obliterated. Only a quarter of them actually lay dead either charred husks or piles of ash but, the rest were all scrambling. Gormoth bellowed out roars no doubt intended to be orders but none of them seemed to be doing anything orderly. They all ran in different directions, the mounts kicking their riders off into the distance, the chimp like creatures dropping their weapons and trying to climb the palisade to escape certain demise.


    The middle layer of infantry, the four armed apes with crude looking melee weapons, just looked lost. Some of them, stupidly, ran up to meet their front line and assist while others simply looked around confused because both in front and behind them, they were being torn apart.


    The feline stealth squads kept trying to distract Felix by flanking him but once he was aware of them, he simply used his remaining focus to take them out with a couple overpowered Lightning Bolts each.


    Once the front line was almost entirely dealt with and nowhere to be seen, Felix dropped the three modified Flame Throwers and simply floated forwards. He used Lightning Bolts to deal with the scattered infantry that still seemed to be frozen, confused or just lost and helped Nova finish off the backline.


    With nothing left between him and Gormoth, the Gorilla King roared and leapt into the air in Felix''s direction. Nova quickly asked Felix if she could help and he didn''t really want to say no when he felt the excitement leaking through along with her query.


    The loss in experience wasn''t going to make or break him and there were plenty of other camps they could split up and take out individually. For now he wanted to fight with his familiar and was really just hoping to find a clue as to what the hell was going on.


    Felix darted to the side with a burst of Force right before the Gorilla King landed then retaliated with a quick Lightning Bolt while they were still unable to dodge effectively.


    The metal armor mostly nullified the attack, providing a safe route around its body so Felix relented and dropped the Lightning Bolts he had already prepared. He had kind of just forgotten about that and didn''t plan around it so he just switched over to Force Blasts and Flame Throwers.


    He didn''t bother with the modified version of the Flame Thrower because there was only one enemy in front of him and he didn''t think trying to pull Gormoth in would do anything.


    Now that he was closer, Felix got a good look at Gormoth and what he was wearing. He had already recognized the plate armor as cobbled together but what he hadn''t spotted was a couple of rings along with a pair of greaves that appeared magical simply due to their glimmer in his mana sight. Gormoth also had a massive and impressively crafted maul in his hands and wore a pendant of shining blue.


    Most interesting to Felix though was the circlet Gormoth wore that had an eyeball placed right over his forehead. Not even a jewel, the eye was a real squishy sphere that could have easily been ripped out of a humans face, were it not for the fact that it appeared to still be functional. As the animal army crumbled around Gormoth, the eye darted about looking, seeing and focusing on the battlefield.


    Felix made a snap decision and dropped the Flame Throwers, using all of his focus for Force Bombs and Beams.


    Gormoth looked around frustrated that he hadn''t killed Felix with his leap but the eye on his circlet immediately locked onto Felix''s position.


    Felix fired off a Force Bomb mostly to see what it would do and winced when he saw Gormoth stumble back a single step but otherwise recover after just a brief moment.


    The Gorilla King stepped forwards and whipped his maul over his head then slammed downwards. Felix dashed to the side with a mobility spell then released a Force Beam at Gormoth''s knees. As soon as it hit, his balance was off and Nova capitalized, vanishing from off in the distance with just a trail of fire marking her path.


    Gormoth toppled over, actually launched a couple meters from Nova''s hit but he rolled into it and got to his feet then instantly leapt at Felix as the eye on the circlet tried to keep track of Nova.


    Wanting to make it more interesting, this time when Gormoth slammed down, Felix stepped to the side just a meter or so and punched upwards towards Gormoth''s face. Instead of actually making contact with him, Felix had simply attached his Force Beam spell form to his fist and released it mid arc.


    Gormoth''s head snapped to the side and Nova dug her claws into the back of his head then vanished just a moment later in a trail of fire.


    Felix lightly leapt backwards a few meters, no need to augment his jump and let loose a Force Bomb at Gormoth''s feet right as he swung his axe horizontally, twisting his torso to build momentum.


    The Force Bomb sent his swing trailing upwards and over Felix''s head as he ducked then Nova dropped down and pecked at Gormoth''s real eyes.


    As soon as Gormoth recovered, Felix waited for Nova to dart away again and she looked upwards but then nothing happened. She got half a meter or so off his face but she was moving glacially slowly.


    Felix felt a pang of worry, his own mixed with the torrent of emotion coming from Nova''s soul bond as he saw the eye on the circlet lock onto Nova''s form. Gormoth reached upwards with his left hand, as if possessed and tried to grab Nova.


    In that moment, Felix just reacted as a beam of significantly overpowered Fire, Force and Lightning all collided with Gormoth''s neck, launching the body backwards.


    Felix thankfully saw Nova glide around in a circle and land on his shoulder, evidently exhausted. He quickly jumped over to Gormoth but saw that everything between his shoulders, including his chest, head and the circlet along with it, were gone. Felix had completely disintegrated them.


    He sighed in relief, annoyance and acceptance. It was worth it to make sure Nova didn''t get killed and considering how tired she was, that had been a real possibility. He had felt her fear and that had been what caused him to react for the most part. He was quite satisfied with his casting speed though. Fully constructing and casting the Fire and Lightning spells from scratch had happened in just a couple hundredth of a second, the fastest he had ever cast them before.


    With Gormoth dead, the rest of the animals scrambled off into the jungle and Felix didn''t bother chasing any of them down. He was here for levels though so he did kill any that were still in range of a Lightning Bolt.


    Ding You have slai-


    Felix dismissed the message before it could finish. He could check his levels afterwards and he was more than capable of basic math.


    As he searched the camp, he questioned Nova on what had happened.


    It was a confusing explanation to parse because her idea of mana was the balls Felix had given her and they were her base unit. As she explained that using the Phoenix ability that created a trail of fire used a lot of mana and she had run out, Felix saw in his mind, a pile of corpses. From that pile, one corpses floated into the air then turned into a ball. That ball then turned into a stream of fire.


    She then went on to explain that she could eat bodies to get more balls but that just caused Felix to frown. He quickly questioned her some more but only grew more confused.


    Does Nova not have a mana pool?


    Grim shrugged, How the hell am I supposed to know that?


    She seems to be pulling leftover mana from the corpses in her soul space to power everything¡­


    Is that a problem?


    Not on its own. She also doesn''t seem to have much mana. I think I need to go buy her a battery to use as a mana core. Speaking of which, I should buy you a new one too.


    Definitely won''t say no to that, not that I much mana right now. You gonna try to make them yourself?


    Not these ones. I''ll start working on that either in the next few terms or more likely at Eramith. Not enough time right now.


    To keep that from happening again, Felix fed Nova as many single use batteries as he had, much to her delight, and promised to fix her mana issues in the future. She didn''t really seem to understand what he was saying but her confusion was laced with excitement nonetheless.


    Having thoroughly searched the scorched remains of the camp, Felix didn''t find anything of value. Even Gormoth''s greaves and rings were basically trinkets. He pocketed them to sell later but there was nothing of note.


    He was starting to realize the circlet was probably his best bet. Considering how smart all the creatures were though, he was pretty sure there was something else at play because Gormoth was the only one with a circlet.


    He absorbed all the bodies and souls that had been left behind and examined a few of them but had a hard time figuring out what was different when he didn''t have a baseline to compare against.


    On a whim, Felix decided to start searching for the next camp by circling the outpost and spiraling outwards. Nova was exhausted even though Felix had restored her mana as it seemed the phoenix form took more out of her than just mana. He quickly got Grim''s permission for Felix to place her in his Soul Space as she was smart enough now to not try and eat Grim.


    Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.


    It was also Felix''s Soul Space so realistically it was impossible for her to do something he didn''t want her to. Just like Grim, she too didn''t seem to be bothered from being inside his soul at all, no doubt a product of their soul bond.


    Flying over the jungle, Felix arrived at another mountain, one separate from the ones adjacent the outpost and circled around the outside. As he passed a particularly large cliff side, he spotted a number of tents buried in the rocky nook.


    As soon as he spotted the tents, the residents of the camp spotted him.


    He was once again attacked by birds but this time he didn''t need to follow them home so he simply ignored them and shot himself into the middle of the camp.


    Felix slowed his fall so he didn''t injure himself but simulated an explosion of Force from his landing point anyways then jumped from outcropping to outcropping, killing everything in sight.


    It didn''t take long for the leader of the camp, a mountain troll to make his presence known. As soon as Felix saw him, his theory was confirmed as he spotted the very same circlet with a creepy eye inserted right over the forehead.


    This one Felix made sure he preserved which became an annoying endeavor as soon as the Troll realized the fight was futile and tried to commit suicide by jumping off the cliff face.


    Felix raced down towards the corpse and absorbed it into the ring then caught the circlet just before it hit the ground but as soon as he turned it over, the eye was already shriveled and dead.


    Damnit.


    He flew off towards the next camp, this time ready to keep the commander alive while he investigated the circlet but as soon as the commander was obviously defeated, the eye shriveled all on it''s own.


    Fucking¡­


    Nova had recovered a few camps in and Felix felt waves of excitement as she danced around his Soul Space sniffing at everything in sight. Surprisingly to Felix, she recognized Grim and nuzzled up against him in affection, causing him to noticeably tense up.


    She could try and eat me you know.


    Felix just chuckled in response. He did remove Nova from his Soul Space shortly thereafter though and told her to be safe as she flew off towards the mountains on her own. She agreed not to use the Phoenix form relatively quickly as it had apparently scared her more so than it had Felix.


    The sun began setting just a few camps later so Felix found a nice little cave in the mountain nearest him and settled in for the night. He spent a few hours trying to make more progress on shrinking his mana control until he finally had a break through.


    Suffusing my cells with my soul hugely increased my control over them. So the same should work here¡­ in theory?


    Felix tried it. He started by compressing some of the anima he had in his Soul Space, affinizing it this time, then he merged that with exactly one point of mana. Now, he split the mana into two, then split those in two again. He repeated the process of splitting them all into two until he had gotten noticeably further than he had before.


    He continued until he couldn''t accurately halve the little pieces of mana then tried to move to the next step, turning that miniscule bit of mana into a transistor in a mana computer. Doing so was very simple, doing so with the necessary degree of precision so it remained stable was very hard.


    At first he just connected two together then he tested them as much as he could. He then attached another one onto the end and thoroughly tested it. By the time he hit a hundred transistors, the first flaw finally revealed itself and he had to carefully dissect the entire thing until he found the one that was flawed, then he continued.


    The further he got, the faster the flaws appeared which was ironically a good thing. He was more likely to catch flawed transistors and ended up finding flaws in transistors that he had added way back at the start. This accelerated the process and also made testing much easier. Now he simply had to run very complicated operations that hit every transistor which were easier to come up with when the computer was more capable.


    He had gotten to a few thousand by the time the sun rose and Felix carefully placed the prototype into his soul space so he could continue at a later time.


    Hey Grim, remember when we talked about stealing memories?


    Yeah.


    You mentioned necromancy?


    Yeah¡­


    Felix sensed Grim''s hesitation, I just don''t see another way to track¡­ whatever this thing is behind the eyeballs, down.


    How about you start with what you can already do.


    What do you mean?


    Well¡­ I don''t know, there isn''t anything written or stored in me related to this so everything I say is theoretical. The soul contains experiences right?


    And I get rid of those when I soul harvest so I could just not?


    Yeah¡­ maybe?


    Huh, that''s easy. Could I do that to learn languages and stuff too then?


    Not this. This isn''t reading memories really. It''s reading experiences. You would need actual memories for that. The soul as I understand it is just for experiences. Significant experiences.


    Right but learning a language could be a significant experience for someone? Maybe they can finally talk to someone they love or something.


    Yes that is significant, but learning each and every word is not. Think about this, you have a martial artist that was pushed to learn by his parents. He enters the tournament of his life and wins. This is a big significant moment for him. If you were to read their experiences from their soul, my guess is you would glimpse the big moments of the fight, glimpse the parents being proud, standing over the opponent, begin awarded. The emotions of triumph, frustration, accomplishment, relief, pride and everything else. If you dug deeper into the martial art, you would probably find spars they lost, times they got hurt, times they finally mastered something they had been struggling with. You''d have to dig a lot deeper to find basic, fundamental knowledge, if it ever existed in the first place within their soul.


    Ah, shit. Well¡­ alright. I should be able to find this though right? At least, if my theory is right and something happened to them, someone gave them the circlets, then that should be significant. The point they became smart, right?


    Maybe?


    Any theories on whether I could do it on a live subject?


    It would be torture¡­


    Yeah but, I was thinking of trying it on the circlets.


    Oh, I see. Maybe?


    I mean I don''t see any other way they could work, other than being soul bound.


    Could be System Fuckery


    Damn. Yeah you''re right. Man, fuck The System. Stupid fucking System Fuckery.


    Flying past the large sheer side of a mountain Felix glanced over and movement in a cave caught his eye.


    Just over ten minutes later he stood over the body of a tusked lizard creature that had been the commander of the camp with streams of dark crimson and golden white pouring into his hands on either side. He had the passive Soul Reap skill disabled and shifted his consciousness inwards. This time there hadn''t been an escape so there weren''t any stragglers to attack him while he worked. He also had the cloak to protect him now so, he wasn''t particularly worried.


    Felix took the soul of a random creature from the camp and started dissecting it. Normally he found the experiences and instincts then dumped them, now he specifically sought them out. He found some significant experiences but most of it was garbage. Animals were mostly satisfying themselves in various ways and their emotions tended to not be very complex.


    As he had expected though, there was an experience of it becoming smart. He wasn''t quite reading or watching the experiences but he was able to get a general sense of the experience. This one was just filled with pain followed by clarity.


    Taking the tiny piece of its soul that contained the memory, Felix compressed it down then treated it like it was a soul gem in the library. He pushed himself into it and let the experience wash over him.


    He was an animal, a large bat and he was king of the cave. There were other bats in the cave but they were lesser creatures. He was the one that reproduced the most and he was the one that killed the most. He was strong, he was satisfied and he was happy.


    Hanging in his cave waiting for prey, something new steps in. Something he had never heard before. It''s big, it''s covered in hair and it walks with purpose. It approaches. It''s under him.


    He releases from the ceiling and darts for the exit, he feels it. He is weak, he is helpless.


    Even before his body is crushed in its hand he knows he''ll be caught. He''s pulled in and it stares into his eyes. It carefully drops a liquid into his mouth. It tastes awful.


    Suddenly pain. Pain everywhere. Body hurts. Head is squeezing. Head hurts. Head hurts a lot. Head hurts the most.


    Pain lasts for days. Can''t get used to pain. Pain is constant.


    Head feels¡­ good. Head feels bigger, more capable. He hears the others around him waking up as well. He sees the creature that created him. He sees the commander and he knows he must follow.


    The commander is smart and the commander will lead. He will lead us to be powerful, to be smart and to be clear.


    The memory ends and Felix returns to himself, taking a second to suppress the urge to screech in order to hear and therefore see things then bite something''s neck to initiate copulation.


    He half entered all the other memories, seeing much of the same thing until he finally decided it was enough and turned to the commander''s soul.


    It didn''t take long for him to find the memory he was looking for now that he had context and reference as to how the process worked. Felix only partially dove into the memory so he didn''t lose himself.


    So sleepy is The King of the Cave. His teeth still dripping with viscera from the creature he had hunted. The creature looked strong but it was weak. The hunt was easy. Itch in The King of the Cave''s side. He rolls over and drags his back along the big rock next to him. Satisfaction. Sleep.


    Awake. Danger nearby. Nothing The King of the Cave can''t handle. He rolls over to his feet and stretches himself out. The King of the Cave has nothing to fear, he is King.


    He stretches his mouth wide to expose his nose. He breathes in, he smells them. Danger.


    The King of the Cave approaches the danger. He prowls in its direction, ready to introduce it to The King.


    Suddenly pain. The King is slammed into the big rock next to him. He can''t move. His body hurts.


    Pain in his mouth. His jaw is being wrenched open. Liquid. Terrible taste. Nothing like delicious blood.


    Pain everywhere. Head hurts. Head exploding.


    The King is reborn. Now The King is smart, he can direct the other creatures of the cave and they will listen. He looks around and sees others writhing. Surely being awakened just as he had been.


    He looks around and sees the one who awakened him. A large bear creature with a crown holding an eyeball.


    The memory then continues with the bear commander who had turned The King directing him on what to do and how to act then eventually gifting him his own crown.


    Finally The King has his own crown. Now all would kno-


    Welcome to the fold.


    The King looks around. These wor-


    You are Commander GZ.


    GZ? That''s wrong, he is The King not a Commander. King of th-


    You will obey me. I made you smart.


    It was the bear, not this voice in his head, who aw-


    I gave him that elixir. I made it. You are mine now. OBEY.


    The King bowed to the voice. The King would follow.


    The rest of the events were less significant so Felix didn''t really find anything of value lurking around.


    That''s progress I guess.


    Flying out and finding another camp, Felix found much of the same in their souls. The creatures were turned by the commander who had in turn been turned by some other commander. Unfortunately he had no way of finding the previous commander and following the chain so he was left with his only real option of just hunting down camps and exterminating them in the hopes they knew something.


    As much as he wanted to perform the same interrogation on the circlets, they seemed to be destroying themselves far too quickly at the moment.


    He was trying to figure out how to do it, possibly by removing and crushing the circlet before it had time to destroy itself. Or by destroying it without being seen so it couldn''t retract it''s soul back to the host.


    Felix had been flying somewhat randomly for the last few days and had ended up farther west of the outpost than he would have liked to be. Judging from the birds that seemed to be watching him from afar as he flew though, he didn''t think he was necessarily in the wrong place.


    At some point over the jungle, those birds that had been flying along with him, tracking his movements all suddenly dove into the jungle in tandem. In an unexpected turn of events though, they all dove into the same general area instead of obfuscating their destination.


    That''s the most obvious trap I''ve ever seen.


    Felix immediately dove after them. He made sure to erect his Mana Shell on top of his cloak and prepared a very overpowered burst of Fire from his own body.


    He flew through the canopy of the jungle and broke through the high branches. He tore vines apart and blasted through the ferns as he followed the flock forwards.


    Flying through the jungle, weaving through the trees was great practice but it did result in him almost losing the birds a few times. Luckily they were obviously leading him somewhere so they would loop back around to make sure he followed them.


    They slowly started to fly closer to the ground so Felix prepared himself for the trap, ensuring his Mana Shell was active and the burst of Fire spell form was ready.


    Right as Felix darted around a particular tree, a loose net of chains was dropped onto his head and suddenly he was pulled into the ground. He let it happen and didn''t do anything yet, just waited and pretended to be surprised. He put on, what he thought to be, a great show of struggling against the chains.


    As he was pressed into the ground, he looked around and saw that he was right on the edge of a clearing. Felix quickly pulled something out of his Soul Space and started to fill it with mana but kept it under his cloak and out of sight, just in case, as he was dragged over towards the clearing.


    They passed through the tree line and Felix saw, standing before him, at least 5 camp''s worth of creatures though it could have been twice that because he couldn''t see how far the army stretched in any direction.


    He saw some interesting creatures he had never seen before, some flying fire serpents, large poisonous frogs and some massive bugs.


    Holding the chain net were a group of five gorilla looking creatures except their lower half had four legs and they were covered in scales. They were like lizard gorilla centaurs and Felix honestly, just found them confusing.


    He didn''t initially see any commanders but they quickly revealed themselves, a group of five walking through the front lines of the army and surrounding Felix.


    One in particular, a large bright green frog, looked to be the leader even amongst the group of commanders.


    [D - Special] Ra-i-a-i-a-i: Camp Q Commander (Lvl 962)


    That''s¡­ a name¡­ I guess.


    It''s level and rarity definitely helped with the feeling of it being the leader. The other commanders, some kind of jaguar, a tiger that stood on it''s hind legs, a parrot with four wings and finally a small and, frankly, adorable monkey stood behind them.


    The large frog looked over at the monkey commander who nodded and walked towards Felix with a circlet in his hands.


    Oh, perfect.


    The Lizard Gorilla things holding his net pulled it taught because they thought it meant he couldn''t move and the monkey walked right up to him. The monkey carefully lowered the crown towards his head and Felix just waited.


    Right as it was about to touch his head, Felix reached up with hand and grabbed it then stuck it into his Soul Space while simultaneously casting the spell he had been holding at the ready. A portal suddenly appeared right below Felix and he waved at the commanders as he fell through.


    He quickly stowed the portal mold he had used to create the spell as he fell a few meters before catching himself and dropping a stream of Fire Balls down on the army below. He circled around and made sure to hit a large number of them then switched over to Flame Throwers because they were more efficient.


    The commanders took a few minutes to figure out what had happened and during that time, their armies were sent scrambling. They held up much better than the first camp he had faced, no doubt forewarned of his arrival and techniques but they still fell prey to fear and indecision.


    They tried to rally and launch counter attacks but Felix just dropped to the ground as the birds surrounded him and finally let loose the burst of Fire he had been holding onto.


    A giant explosion centered on Felix completely wiped out a huge chunk of the enemy forces and cleared a massive radius around him.


    Whoops, that may have been a little excessive.


    The commanders finally saw their opening and leapt to engage. The standing tiger being the first to arrive tried to hold him down with its claws while the Parrot attempted to hit him with Lightning Bolts. None of them even got close to touching him with his cloak''s enchantment active but they were annoyingly bright.


    The jaguar quickly joined the tiger trying to hold him down and the frog leapt over in an attempt to swallow him. Though the tongue had no way to stick to him, Felix used a Force spell to make it seem like it had gotten him anyways, shooting himself into the frog''s mouth.


    He immediately felt its insides fill with a toxic gas that he promptly took a big deep breath of then recreated the same overpowered Fire burst spell except this time, with Force alone.


    A second later, the frog splattered all over the other commanders and temporarily blinded them allowing Felix to take out the tiger and the jaguar with a barrage of Lightning Bolts.


    He left the Parrot be for now but kept an eye on it so it didn''t get away from him as he proceeded to roast the rest of the army.


    Suddenly he was struck with a massive and very arrow like object, or rather this cloak stopped one using an absurd amount of mana and he looked around in shock. He finally spotted the monkey commander way off in the distance reloading a large crossbow.


    Felix shot over towards the monkey faster than they could move out of the way and purposefully collided with it, grabbing hold of it''s neck as it tried to scurry off.


    He squeezed his hand around its neck as he cast a Lightning spell in his palm, completely frying the small creature then he continued wiping out the rest of the combined camps.


    It didn''t take long before the parrot realized its lightning was useless and resorted to its talons at which point Felix simply killed it.


    The rest of the army scattered off in every direction and he briefly chased as many of them as he could but didn''t commit to flying off very far.


    Once again he found some items but nothing more than some Common and Uncommon trinkets lying around. He put out the remaining fire in the camp so the entire jungle didn''t burn down then turned his attention to the circlet in his Soul Space.


    He had luckily been fast enough to stow it before it was deactivated and now he had it trapped. He wasn''t entirely sure what to do with it though because if he let it out, it would deactivate. If he removed its soul, it would be obliterated. His only real option was to try and read its experiences without removing its soul so he attempted just that.


    Reaching into the circlet and specifically the eye, Felix forced his consciousness inwards. He thought of it like using a memory crystal except instead of letting him in, he had to force his way in against its will.


    The eye didn''t have much will in it but pushing his consciousness into a body that didn''t belong to him was still difficult. His soul was monstrous but it seemed all it wanted to do was protect and defend, piercing the barrier that was a body and exerting his will was difficult and actually felt awkward.


    It took him a couple dozen minutes to overcome his own soul''s aversion to it and finally caught glimpses of the experiences in the eyeball''s soul. It was nothing like watching a memory, all he got were flashes and images.


    He saw hands. Floating hands everywhere. Books. A stone building. Bones. A perfectly round room. A window through which he saw a jungle and mountains. Alchemy set. Rituals.


    There was nothing else Felix could ascertain and the eyeball on the circlet burst like a balloon. The soul that leaked out as a result, was instantly obliterated as it entered his Soul Space.


    Well. That''s¡­ progress.


    Felix had Grim make sure all of the images he had seen were preserved then flew off into the air in search of either a camp or anything he had seen from the flashes.


    By the time the sky darkened to unreasonable levels of visibility, Felix chose a tree and sat on one of its branched then pulled out the mana computer he had been working on.


    Instead of continuing to slowly grow it as he had been the previous night, Felix decided to try something new. In order to realize his goal of making this into a much larger and actually usable computer, he had to somehow automate its growth.


    Felix only really had one idea on how to do so. He started by completely removing a single transistor, leaving a gaping hole. Then, he provided raw unshaped mana to the computer.


    The mana was almost instantly sucked into the hole and morphed into the shape of a transistor causing Felix to smile.


    He then removed a large chunk of transistors and ripped their mana free then pulled some anima out of his Soul Space and compressed it down to the right density. He combined the mana that had been in the computer with the anima from his Soul Space and manually mixed it all together.


    His hope was that the experience or instinct to form and hold a transistor shape would be passed around to the rest of the anima. Unfortunately, when he provided it with mana, it formed a loose blob at best.


    Instead of scrapping that portion though, Felix took it and started to dissect it, ripping away anything within the anima that didn''t have to do with transistors. The experience of a transistor was what he was trying to isolate or rather, the experience of holding the mana steady and in the shape of a transistor.


    Holding a transistor still wasn''t a significant experience but it was there because he had willed it to be there, and it was all this anima really knew. He suspected there was something else at play, something about his soul but he had no idea how to figure out what so he set it aside for later experimentation.


    Once he had the concentrated essence of the experience in his hand, he took the rest of the anima and combined them, this time using his will to impose the experience on the blank anima.


    This test was much more fruitful and he saw multiple transistors form in the anima but they weren''t connected to each-other, they were simply free floating. He had somehow lost the sense of structure from the original.


    He extracted more anima from the computer he had grown the previous night, now just half of its size from the night before, and sifted through it until he found the experience of its structure. He isolated that experience then imposed it on the rest of the anima causing all the transistors it had formed to snap together in a very satisfying way.


    Felix reconnected the two computers, saving some of the anima to keep going then compressed more anima and imposed the experiences onto it. He fed it some mana and connected it to the existing computer then repeated that process.


    Now, instead of attaching single transistors one at a time, he was attaching thousands of them at once. He continued to do so until the veil of night was pierced by the morning light.


    In that one night, his mana computer had grown by almost 500 times in size and he was very happy with the progress.


    Heading out for the day, Felix''s only goal was to try and find the location he had seen from the circlet''s soul. He had initially thought of the outpost but the stone walls were different colors and the landscape around it didn''t match what he had seen through the windows.


    The mountain in the background wasn''t necessarily distinct, it wouldn''t stand out on its own but it was capped in snow, which was somewhat rare. He also remembered seeing small specs of color in the canopy of the jungle, flowers or moss or something that had somehow grown through. Lastly, there was a small creek right on the far right edge of the image that flowed down from a nearby mountain.


    None of it was much to go on but it was more direction than he had had the day before. He had also come out here specifically for levels anyway so he didn''t mind having to search a little to find it. On the way, he would wipe out all the camps he came across which were actually worth a lot more levels than he had expected and when he harvested them, a lot more raw stats as well.


    He was also getting closer to the custom class'' stats per level. Considering how his leveling was slowing down dramatically, he suspected he would quickly surpass it if he just kept killing huge swathes of creatures. It also seemed like his harvesting efficiency had gone up and by his estimates, he was now around 25% efficient as a product of suffusing his body with a layer of his soul. Or possibly, just having another layer on his soul.


    Felix spent the entire day hunting down anything he saw and managed to clear out almost 25 camps by the time he finally spotted something. As he flew around, he had been checking out every mountain capped with snow by flying up to the top and looking around for streams or color in the jungle canopy.


    Finally, he spotted both off in the distance, far north-east of the outpost. Right in between the two landmarks was a cylindrical stone structure with a shingled roof rising just a few dozen meters through the tree canopy below. He immediately flew towards it but stopped himself short when he realized how dark it was. He chose a spot just a short flight away to wait out the darkness of the night and pulled back out his mana computer prototype.


    He didn''t want to risk having to fight anything in the dark. He knew there was at least one window in the room but he didn''t know if the floating hands could see using something other than light. If so, there might not be any artificial light in the building at all so he wasn''t willing to risk it.


    Looking down at the mana computer, while he was happy with his progress the past day, he wasn''t moving fast enough. His goal was to hit a transistor count in the billions and have the entire computer be much bigger. As of now, he had only just surpassed a million transistors and he really didn''t want to spend another thousand nights working on it just to hit a billion.


    Before doing anything, Felix tested the computer as thoroughly as he could over the course of an hour and ended up having to replace almost a hundred transistors. It wasn''t a bad error rate by any means and it meant he was comfortable accelerating the growth further.


    Instead of just fusing small pieces of anima to the computer piece by piece expanding it, he compressed enough anima to double it''s size then carefully fused that all around the computer. He wanted it to grow in every direction simultaneously so that he maximized the surface area of the new part, the part that had to be grown from scratch. Giving it a template to grow from would hopefully mean less errors.


    He repeated this process, each repetition taking progressively longer than the last. He managed to get all the way to 8 million but didn''t manage to test it at all before the sky brightened and he saw the tower off in the distance once again.


    Without wasting any more time, Felix dumped all his extra points into Intelligence, having more then enough room between his highest and lowest stats.


    Name:Felix KadeFREE0Innate:Ascendant Prodigy: Mana (Wizard)STR23624Class:[D - Legendary] Reaper (Lvl 777)DEX60531Race:[D - Unique] Wanderer (Lvl 672)AGI23842Profession:[D - Arcane] Mana Engineer (Lvl 568)PER41514Health:338,490 / 338,490VIT33849Mana:14,281,910 / 14,281,910INT84381Energy:1,215,040 / 1,215,040END30376


    I really need to figure out this mana core thing. Why is my mana still tied to my intelligence? And my energy to my endurance for that matter? Also I really need to get new batteries for this charm.


    He flew down and into the jungle canopy to keep himself slightly hidden and kept track of the tower''s general direction since he couldn''t see it anymore. He briefly informed Nova that he was attacking the tower and they would probably be leaving the planet soon. He got an excited mess in response but he wasn''t exactly sure what any of it meant.


    As he weaved his way through the trees before him, Felix estimated when he would be close to the tower and soared back up above the canopy with the intention of blasting right through the window.


    Spotting the tower a couple hundred meters in front of him Felix veered to the right to aim for the window but before he could get within a couple dozen meters of the tower, he bounced off.


    Felix frowned and tried again slowly this time and realized there was a Force Shield erected all the way around the tower.


    Not close enough to disable it as his mana control range wasn''t big enough, Felix just tried to peer through the window. Unfortunately it was so bright outside compared to the inside the building, all he could see was his own frown.


    Quickly circling the tower, Felix felt the same Force all around so he spiraled downwards looking for an opening.


    Only once he reached the ground and saw the door before him did Felix find something he could do. He wasn''t inclined on just pushing against the force because realistically, a tower could have far more mana than he did.


    Outside the door though, there was a way to get in. There was some kind of trigger mechanism that no doubt had a key but, it was an enchantment which meant it was mana based and Felix didn''t need a key.


    Well within his mana control range, Felix grabbed hold of the trigger mechanism and bypassed it entirely. This created a small hole in the force field that allowed him to approach the tower.


    He stepped forwards, looked upwards and considered flying up to the window now that he was inside the barrier but decided against it. He walked up to the tower and manipulated some enchantments to open the door before him.


    Peering inside, Felix saw some kind of lobby level that was mostly empty with what had once been a fountain in the middle. The basin was broken though and water covered a large section of the floor before being drained out.


    Behind the basin lay two sets of stairs, one going up and one down.


    Walking into the room, Felix made sure to keep his mana senses alert for any traps he might find and headed downwards. He knew the creature he was hunting was likely above him but at the same time, he could feel the source of the mana in this tower from below him.


    The stairs were a tight spiral that led downwards and following them, Felix ended up in a room that was squared off and almost four times the size of the tower itself. There were cages on either side of the room that likely hadn''t seen use in a very long time. A couple of them were still closed and contained various skeletons but the others were broken down and dysfunctional.


    In the center of the room there was a large circular glass window set into the floor from which a bright white light filled the room. Walking right over towards it, Felix looked down, both seeing and feeling, a large mana core below him.


    He stepped back and started using various spells to lift the glass but it was held in place with some kind of enchantment. Closing his eyes and reaching into the stone and glass below him, he felt out the mana flowing through it but before he interrupted any of it, he hesitated.


    The mana was doing far more than just holding the glass in place. As far as he could ascertain in the brief few minutes he examined them, there seemed to be functions that generated a series of wards as well. What the wards protected against, he had no idea. They seemed to be pointing downwards though so Felix wasn''t entirely sure how to proceed.


    He decided to leave it in place for now and would come back once he knew more about it. Leaving the dungeon behind, Felix ascended to the second floor where he found a kitchen. There were rooms on the outside wall segmented out that contained some old food and wine. All of it was still recognizable despite how rotten it was for the most part. It was still better than most food he found. The grain and other dry ingredients seemed fine as far as he could tell but, he left it all behind anyways.


    The kitchen was nice if a little mundane for a magic tower. Felix had been expecting all kinds of floating utensils, pots, pans and other various kitchen utensils.


    The only thing that would have been out of place in any normal kitchen was a couple of skeletons scattered across the floor.


    Some kind of necromancer?


    The third floor contained a dining room with a large dining table along with a small ritual room. The ritual room had candles in a circle and a degraded spell form that Felix simply memorized before moving on.


    The fourth floor appeared to be a sleeping chamber with a bed off to one side along with a desk, a bath, a sitting area and a few armoires. Opening them up he found a number of robes along with various boots, scarves, cloaks, hats and a small jewelry box, all of which he promptly stole. None of the enchantments were anything impressive and overall the clothes seemed to be mostly for fashion over function. The materials felt nice enough but they were all Uncommon except one that was Rare at best.


    The last thing in the room was a broken portal frame which was once a metal circle with a portal spell inscribed around it. Examining the spell, Felix determined it was less complicated than his but more complicated than Orav''s. It was also incomplete but he memorized it anyways, just in case.


    Walking up to the next floor, Felix found what seemed to be a large ritual chamber. Just like the other one, there were candles and a large damaged ritual circle. Off to the side of the room there were altars and next to that was a number of sets of manacles and chains. On the other end, there was a table with a small alchemy set, at least by comparison to Elric and Zufaris''.


    Felix sighed, Why couldn''t you be a portal wizard or even a healing wizard or something. Did you have to be a necromancer?


    As he approached the stairs leading up to what had to be the last floor, just according to basic geometry, Felix finally sensed a trap.


    On the wall just over the railing for the stairs, Felix felt a circular spell form that was powered by the tower''s mana. He identified it as he approached, finding many nodes he recognized. It seemed to be some kind of Lightning burst.


    He simply cut off the mana supply as he walked up the stairs. There were a few other, similar wards on the walls but nothing that gave him any trouble.


    Lastly, there seemed to be a hastily constructed Force Wall blocking the top of the stairs. Unfortunately, whoever had erected it didn''t have the same foresight as whoever had erected the Force Barrier around the tower. Reaching out, Felix felt the spell form just behind the barrier and he simply wiped it out with his mana control.


    Walking into the top floor, completely unimpeded, Felix saw what appeared to be a massive library. All of the walls around the outside were covered in shelves forming almost a complete circle of shelves interrupted only by the window and the entrance.


    Within the room, there was a large circular table at the center upon which there were a number of books stacked high and a few that lay open. Floating over the top of the table in the middle of the room, Felix spotted a floating skull covered in glowing arcane symbols that appeared to be carved into it along with glowing purple eyes. It wore a long black cloak that fluttered about everywhere as it was completely empty below the neck.


    [D - Arcane] Undead Infant Lich (Lvl 987)


    Detached hands, mostly skeletal though not all, flew all around the room, placing and removing books from the shelves, writing and mixing potions.


    As soon as Felix stepped in, the skull jerked over in his direction, almost as if it was surprised he was there. The hands closest to him darted over, a large half-giant hand tried to punch him with an explosion of Force that was stopped dead by his Mana Shell.


    A skeletal hand shot 5 thin beams of Fire from it''s finger tips all smacking into his Mana Shell.


    A floating bear paw tried to crush him, but got stuck just a few inches above his head.


    A bird''s talon tried to claw him but it skittered off the shell as well.


    Felix frowned as he looked around. The library had between 5 and 10 thousand books in it. In the worst case scenario, it would take him just over an hour to scan them all, if they averaged Uncommon. That meant he either had to stall for an hour and hope the books weren''t damaged the entire time, or he had to try and end it quickly and cleanly.


    Alternatively, he could drag the fight outside so he didn''t have to fear damaging any of the tomes.


    He decided that was easily the best option even though it was slightly annoying to execute.


    Felix dashed over to the right, circling around the skull who very predictably moved backwards and in the opposite direction. As he ran, Felix focused on the books in the middle of the room and made sure they were scanned first and as fast as possible.


    Hands clawed and punched at him from the side as he ran but Felix mostly ignored them. A few he batted away but they weren''t relevant at the moment. As soon as the skull was lined up, Felix jumped towards it, causing it to instinctively recoil to just a meter from the window.


    A blast of force rocketed across the room completely obliterating the table in the middle of the room along with the books on top of it. The Skull smashed into the glass behind it which, completely shocking Felix, stretched like it was cling wrap, before finally shattering.


    The Undead Lich flew off through the window and a few dozen meters out over the jungle canopy. A stream of severed hands all poured into the window hole after the skull, not a single one ultimately remaining in the room, some getting stuck initially though.


    Felix flew out after it, stretching the hole in the window wider as his larger body and even larger Mana Shell passed through.


    The Lich''s skull had caught itself in the air and it was surrounded by a multi layered sphere of hands.


    Felix circled around to the right so he could get the tower off to their side instead of behind him.


    The Lich''s eye sockets glowed much brighter and two of it''s hands backed up towards it where the fingers quickly moved right next to its face.


    A sound suddenly echoed out of the creature and produced a loud and clearly artificial voice, "LEAVE ME ALONE!"


    Felix stopped as he flew and looked back at it, realizing it wasn''t actually currently attacking him. He yelled out, mostly because he had no idea how sensitive a skull''s ears were, "You attacked the mining outpost, they sent me to deal with the¡­ armies?"


    More hand gestures followed by the same artificial voice, "The mining outpost sent you!?"


    Felix frowned, "Uh, yes? There was a¡­ bounty? To deal with the problem. Pay isn''t great but the levels are nice?"


    "I don''t care how the levels are. You are ruining my mission. Where did you come from?"


    "Telviras? Big city?"


    "How? Where?"


    "I took a portal? It''s on another planet."


    "Planet? Portal? What are you?"


    "That''s a good question. A human¡­ ish? A caster¡­ derivative? An enchanter? All of the above."


    "Are there more like you? In this ''Telviras'' city? Will they come here?"


    "If I fail they likely will. More like me? ¡­yes." Felix didn''t feel like explaining he was somewhat unique and had a feeling the Lich meant more in terms of strength, of which there were plenty of C grades and above.


    "How many?"


    Felix shrugged, "Billions?"


    "What is ''billions''?"


    "One thousand millions."


    "I- That¡­ NO! LIAR! YOU ARE A DEMON! I WILL COMPLETE MY MISSION! YOU WILL NOT STOP ME!"


    The robotic, artificial voice made the last sentence a weird one to hear but Felix recognized that the conversation was over. He was already prepared to start fighting at a moment''s notice anyways so it didn''t matter to him.


    The outer layer of the hand sphere expanded outwards as the hands began to surround the skull from every side.


    A hand soared in from behind his head, wreathed in flames masquerading itself as a meteor and struck his Mana Shell. Felix reached out and cut its mana flow, crushing its will with his own, then hitting it with a quick Lightning Bolt. The hand fell into the canopy below, seemingly dead.


    Another flew by emitting a stream of Fire upon Felix''s Mana Shell while staying just a few meters outside his range.


    He responded with another Lightning Bolt but this one was blocked by a small shield that had suddenly appeared.


    Lightning, Force Blasts, Fire, Solid Mana and even Sound bombarded Felix''s Mana Shell as he struggled to hit back against their shields in turn. Neither of them seemingly making much progress.


    Felix shot himself upwards towards the hands but the hands just split up and circled away. Choosing one of them to chase, Felix shot himself towards it but was slowed to a stop by a wall of Force just a few moments later.


    As he pushed his way out of the slow field from the Force Wall, a tiny bead of Fire collided with his Mana Shell and exploded a short moment later into an inferno that consumed his body.


    Finally breaking free of the Force Wall, Felix fought back. He launched Lightning Bolts and Fire Balls at the hands around him and at the skull itself. The Lightning Bolts found their marks most of the time but the hand''s personal shields apparated themselves into existence to block any real damage. The Fire Balls remained as beads the entire time though as the skull and hands simply swerved out of the way rather easily. A moment later, the Fire Balls exploded, harmlessly to the Lich, in the Jungle Canopy below.


    Fucking spell slots. If I was using a spell on a spell list, the Fire Ball would explode next to it and wouldn''t need to collide with something. Fucking System Fuckery, making it too easy for spell list losers.


    Looking around, Felix caught sight of a dozen hands making similar hand gestures and gritted his teeth. He flew off in a random direction, trying to get out of the center of them but the hands as a whole readjusted to keep him centered, some switching out with others.


    Suddenly he flew smack into a much denser Force Wall and turning around, he saw the result of the spell they had been casting. Though it was well outside of his mana control range, Felix could feel a massive amount of mana surging into the spell at that moment, an amount easily in the hundreds of thousands and very quickly approaching a million.


    Felix turned around and shot himself in the opposite direction but he immediately noticed the hands didn''t react to him at all. As a result, he was fully expecting it when just a moment later, he found the same wall just a dozen meters away.


    Not wanting to deal with whatever the spell was, Felix whipped the portal spell form out of his Soul Space and started pumping mana into it. He was going to have to retrofit the coordinates to be a direction and distance instead but he had already done the same thing to get out of the 5 commander''s trap.


    Note to self, make another portal spell form mold just to get my ass out of shit like this.


    As Felix filled the mold with mana, the hands all collectively pumped mana into the spell of their own. Felix cursed himself for being too slow to realize what was happening as the winds in his enclosed area began to pick up.


    His Mana Shell was resisting the wind but he was wasting way too much mana doing so so he dropped it and let himself be blown away. Suddenly a gout of flame erupted from each of the hands in turn and poured themselves into the whirling winds.


    Felix''s cloak was easily handling them at first but the winds were still picking up and the flames weren''t stopping either.


    With about half of the mana in the mold, Felix yanked the spell form free and started modifying it. The heat started to pick up and so did the mana draw of his cloak but Felix ignored everything and focused his entire attention on the spell form in front of him. As he modified, he pushed mana into the spell, making sure to stop just before it was ready. The winds whipped him around, no focus to spare on keeping himself steady so he was freely tossed around.


    As soon as he finished his modifications, Felix pushed the last bit of mana into the spell then oriented it in the direction he was being pushed and cast it.


    He was sent tumbling through the portal along with a gust of flame carried by the winds behind him and ended up right next to the Lich, just a couple meters away.


    While he knew where he was going to end up, the Lich hadn''t, so he managed to catch it by surprise. Holding its mana still, Felix activated a Burst of Flame from his own body completely engulfing the skull along with most of the hands around it.


    Felix had made sure not to add any Force into the mix because he didn''t want to push the skull away so, as the flames subsided, the skull remained in largely the same spot.


    Preparing another spell, Felix pushed himself forwards to keep up with the skull as it tried to run but found himself held back by a veritable army of floating hands. It seemed they didn''t need mana to stop him because he was still holding all mana within his mana control radius still.


    Felix cast a Burst of Force from his body and got rid of the hands but the skull was already a dozen meters away. Quickly glancing to the side, Felix caught sight of a giant Fire Storm in the shape of a sphere slowly moving towards him as the hands around kept trying to catch and hold him still.


    While they were nearby, Felix took out as many hands as he could but as soon as he took out a couple, the rest scattered and outside of his mana control range and were protected by their shields.


    Felix dashed towards the skull but the hands around it shifted and he smacked into another Force Wall. He groaned and turned around but found the same sphere used to contain the Fire Storm, trapping him once again. This time, there didn''t seem to be any winds whipping up a contained tornado or gouts of flame though.


    Looking over at the Fire Storm rapidly approaching him, Felix knew the intention was to hold him still so it could engulf him once more.


    While he had no intention of letting that happen, Felix was also very quickly blowing through his mana pool. His pool allowed him to have over 14 million mana at his disposal wen full but casting a portal was almost two million because most of the spell form was still adapted to coordinates. His cloak was decently efficient and had only cost him a million or so but maintaining Mana Shell and blocking everything it had, had cost him almost 3 million mana.


    He could easily portal out of the Force Sphere holding him but, he needed a better solution to deal with something like this in the future. The issue was that with System Fuckery in the mix, he had no good way of knowing how the spell trapping him worked. If he had cast the same spell with many hands, he would have each maintain a small section of the sphere with some overlap.


    Since the hands couldn''t have perfect mana flow between them, he could try and overpower one of them to break a hole and escape. With System Fuckery, it was entirely possible each hand was simply a token to guide the spell''s shape and provide mana. He could try and overpower the entire thing but that would probably use more mana than simply portaling out.


    Running out of options fast as the Fire Storm was just a few meters away, Felix decided to try something dumb, inspired by a god. He pulled out the same portal spell form he had used before and started filling it up as the two spheres intersected. He flew as far from the storm as he could as he pulled the spell form out of the mold.


    He quickly made his modifications, which were slightly more complicated this time, then pumped almost three times the mana as he had before, into the spell. It was going to take longer, but Felix hoped it would be worth it.


    The heat of the storm started to activate his cloak''s defenses from just a few meters away and the winds started to pick up shortly thereafter. He was only 75% of the way through the spell but his time was up so Felix quickly shrank his modifications and cast the spell.


    Just in front of him, a massive portal appeared almost big enough to swallow the Fire Storm, but not quite. At least, he hoped there was a portal there. He was on the backside of it so he couldn''t actually tell.


    Felix pushed the spell forwards and swallowed the center of the storm until he had pushed a tunnel straight through. The spell had cost him 5 million mana but, looking over towards the skull who was now completely engulfed in the majority of a Fire Storm, Felix decided it was worth it.


    As a by product of the Fire Storm engulfing the skull, Felix saw dozens of hands that were shriveled and charred fall to the jungle canopy below as the Lich dismissed the storm. It took a few seconds for the winds and flames to subside but the skull flew out of the area as soon as it could.


    Quickly looking around, Felix have just under a quarter of his mana left and the Lich, just under a quarter of its hands. He had no idea if that meant it was a quarter of the way dead but Felix was really hoping it did.


    The skull looked at Felix with its ever-present blank stare and just as Felix prepared to defend himself and strike back, the skull turned and started flying away.


    Son of a bitch.


    Felix flew after it as fast as he could but the Lich was almost just as fast. Felix could waste more mana to catch up with it in a straight line but the Lich was more agile in the air and better at dodging out of the way.


    As Felix raced towards it, it quickly ducked to the side and started flying in a different direction, Felix overshooting his own flight by a couple hundred meters due to the speed. The entire time, the Lich peppered Felix and his cloak with various spells. Nothing strong because most of them missed but more than enough to be annoying.


    He was started to get concerned he would run out of mana before the Lich would, which was ridiculous considering his core and charm together accounted for 95% of his mana pool.


    Just a few seconds into the chase, a large bird shot out of the jungle canopy and smacked itself into Felix''s side, entirely blocked by the cloak but wasting even more mana. He turned to it, annoyed by the delay in the chase.


    [D - Rare] Yi-yi-yi: Camp F Commander (Lvl 845)


    Fucking¡­


    Felix physically smacked the bird then hit it with a Lightning Bolt overpowered by a factor of 10 out of frustration and dashed after the Lich to continue the chase.


    A number of other creatures from the jungle harassed Felix as he tried to catch the Lich in his Mana Control range, not all of them commanders but a large portion of them.


    Fuck, I am wasting so much mana dealing with these stupid things. I''ve already blow through half a million just flying and killing these stupid nuisances.


    Felix started trying to ignore them but it quickly became impossible as they formed a swarm behind him and coordinated their attacks with the Lich flying into them. Felix blasted a tunnel through the swarm and dashed through it then veered right in pursuit of the Lich when suddenly he was hit with a barrage of emotions.


    He was confused and incredibly annoyed at first but relief washed it all away when he saw a little black kitten running on the air just off to the right.


    Felix didn''t have time to communicate something complicated so he just pointed at the swarm and continued chasing the Lich.


    He caught glimpses of the swarm as the Lich darted around in every which direction and heard sounds from the battle but not a single creature other than the Lich bothered him anymore.


    The skull tried to fly back to the swarm a few times but seeing Nova tearing through over a hundred other creatures like it was nothing, quickly deterred it.


    With just over 2 million mana left, Felix wasn''t realistically going to be able to cast a portal and kill it because he''d have no mana left to attack with. He started manually regenerating as he chased because he didn''t really have many other options but he kept himself ready at any moment for it to make a mistake.


    Almost a minute later, Felix smacked into a Force Wall cast by four hands that had stuck behind. He flew upwards to get over it and managed to catch the two on the top in his mana control range. Instead of just stilling their mana, Felix reached into the hands and latched onto their mana, ripping it from them and storing it in his Soul Space. Both of them plummeted to the ground just a moment later.


    He took the mana out of his Soul Space and added it to his core once he had wiped out and replaced its affinization. It had only added under a half million points, but it was more than nothing and if he kept doing that, he would have more than enough mana to win.


    The Lich tried desperately to stop him again with a Flash of Light spell this time followed by a Force Wall but Felix managed to harvest 3 hands because of it.


    There were just 4 hands left from what Felix could see and the Lich''s options were dwindling. It seemed to realize this as well because it stopped retaliating entirely and instead, used all four hands to cradle its head.


    Suddenly it was flying much faster and Felix couldn''t really keep up anymore. In a straight line he could be faster but the Lich could turn and switch direction seemingly instantly. Felix started using Mihto''s techniques to redirect himself with Phantom Steps to kick off of even it was fracturing the bones in his legs.


    He finally managed to get the skull and the last four hands just a couple meters out of his range and all he needed was a final burst. He was already pushing almost a hundred thousand mana a second into his flight alone though.


    The skull suddenly shot to the side and Felix''s frustration mounted at having finally been so close.


    NO!


    Suddenly an instant burst of Force, far faster than he could ever have hoped to cast, shot Felix directly at the skull, actually causing him to collide with it. He was stunned at first but recovered quickly enough to wrench all of the remaining mana within the skull and the hands into his Soul Space.


    The four hands held tight to the skull but Felix wrenched them off one by one. All of their fingers writhed and clasped at the air as they fell until there was nothing but the skull left. Felix made sure to hold onto it tightly even as it tried to escape his grasp.


    Even without any mana, the skull was strong and fast. It pushed and writhed against Felix''s bear hug but there was no chance Felix was going to let it escape.


    Reaching his hands down and getting a solid grip on the skull, Felix stretched it out a few inches from his chest and wrestled with it until he had seen every inch of it. With every rune and marking on it memorized, Felix cast a Lightning spell that simply arced between his two hands.


    Ding You have slain a [D - Arcane] Undead Infant Lich (Lvl 987)


    Ding You have gained 90,243 B Grade Credits, 273 C Grade Credits, 78,941 D Grade Credits and 729,834 E Grade Credits.


    Ding You have gained a level in [D -Legendary] Reaper (777 => 778)


    Just one level? Really? Damn. Stupid D grade wall. No wonder the vast majority of people are stuck in the D grade. Also I got credits¡­ interesting. I guess that''s what happens when you die with credits on you? System, just show me the most significant amount next time with two decimal places.


    Ding You have gained 90,243.00 B Grade Credits.


    Perfect. Thank you.


    Activating both rings, Felix saw hundreds of both crimson and golden white streams pouring in from all over the forest along with the skull itself.


    Huh. Hands I guess?


    Wiping the dust off on his cloak, Felix flew back to the tower and started walking around to make sure he scanned everything in there. He had Grim making sure there was space in his Memory Palace by clearing out some of the old shit and while he waited for the skill to work, he continued tinkering with his Mana Computer.


    He had no desire to touch anything in the tower until he and Grim sorted through the books and found anything that might explain what the hell it all was.


    A half hour or so passed before Nova finally joined him, having gained less levels overall but still exceeding his level, even in just his class alone.


    [D - Cursed] Nova, Ravenous Matter Spirit (Lvl 822)


    Damn. Especially once I get you a mana core and teach you how to use it, you''re going to be a fucking monster.


    Nova meowed at him, seemingly in response to his thoughts then curled up and laid down against a wall to nap.


    Many hours later, by the time his Scan Literature skill was done scanning the entire library, Felix had only added another 2 million transistors or so to his prototype. He stowed the computer and started sifting through the shelves in the library just in case there was anything hidden, magically or otherwise.


    He sensed hundreds of enchantments but no traps or hidden compartments. One of the books in the library actually buzzed in his anima senses a little so he walked over and located it on a nearby shelf.


    The book was a dark book bound with a very soft and fine leather binding. Opening it up to the first page, Felix found he couldn''t actually read the book. He kept flipping through and every one of the later pages seemed to have the same language on them, or at least the same alphabet, cross referencing the letters, but they moved.


    The ink on the pages, much like within Grim, moved to form letters, words and sentences. Instead of the entire page rewriting itself though, it looked like someone was currently in the process of writing a new sentence at the bottom. The script continued written by some ghost hand or other force then it concluded its paragraph or sentence and there was a pause.


    A couple seconds later, the scrip continued except Felix was pretty sure this was written by a different hand because the letters were recognizable but stylistically distinct.


    There was nothing he could currently do with the book so he placed it on the table in the middle, worried that it might die in his Soul Space. He continued to sift through the books finding a few that were enchanted but nothing nearly as interesting as the book with the moving script.


    With nothing hidden in the tower, Felix stowed all the other books in his Soul Space then entered his Memory Palace and met Grim.


    Felix walked over to the shelves with all the books from the Lich, "Find anything interesting in here?"


    "Some but I haven''t got through much of it yet."


    Felix nodded, "I''m gonna go watch the Lich''s memories, maybe get some more context."


    Grim nodded and Felix shifted over to the soul ring then located the Lich''s soul. He didn''t touch it in any way and simply allowed the entirety of its experiences wash over him.


    Food. Trees. Jungle. Fingers. Pain. Death.


    Light filled his senses as he saw for the first time. He could see. He didn''t know what he was seeing but he could see. It was unfamiliar, unknown. He could also feel. The ground below him was uncomfortable.


    A face. Long white hair. Black irises.


    "Welcome to the world servant. Welcome to renewed life. I am your master."


    He heard things. He didn''t understand them. He just looked into those black irises.


    He was learning things. Being taught to read, to understand. He knew things. He knew the floor was made of stone. He knew it was uncomfortable because it was cold. He knew his master. He knew the voice that commanded him.


    Master is proud of him. Surprised he is able to read so quickly. Shocked he can learn with such aptitude.


    Spells, mana, souls. Its power. Master is giving me power of my own. Teaching me to be strong.


    Some person came to kill master. I must stop them.


    They are dead but I can''t move. My torso was shattered. Why won''t I die. So much pain.


    Master found me. Surely now, the pain will end.


    I am able to move once again. Master has fixed me. I didn''t need a body anyways. My head sits on the table and my hands simply go where I wish them to. Master is merciful. I am to be the librarian. Sorting and retrieving the books.


    I am not fast enough for Master. Master is merciful. Master gives me more hands.


    Master is proud of him. Astonished once again as he casts spells. The spells are complicated. Spells he had never been taught but he is the librarian now. He has the books.


    Evolution. Master says it means power. I ask him what to pick and Master looks scared. Master insists I become a Lich. I obey. I always obey.


    My Intelligence has grown exponentially. I have regained the ability to move once more. Master is proud of me. I see it his eyes.


    He works with master to perform rituals. Creating the undead.


    He collects souls for master, storing them in the tower for later use.


    They are a pair now, a duo.


    Master heads into the city again for supplies. Master never returns.


    He begins constructing an army to search for master. Using the creatures of the forest along with some necromancy and alchemy, he makes them smart enough to obey. He commands them.


    He creates eyes he can use to see. He must find master. He has to be here somewhere.


    There''s an outpost with miners. They look like master but they are all too big or small. They must have taken master or they know where he is. Master always said his people didn''t like him. That is why they took him.


    Master isn''t there. He isn''t in the outpost. He is somewhere. The outpost harvests metals from the earth. Metals are useful. He decides to put it to use.


    He isn''t finding master. He has no leads. These people keep trying to kill my armies. They are too strong. They must keep moving. Find master.


    An eye is blinded. More infighting surely.


    Another? Something is happening.


    I can see him. The one that looks like master. It must be master. Master is confused by my creations. Surely¡­ that''s not master. Those flames, the shield¡­


    I''m losing camps by the hour. This creature razes them to the ground. This stupid creature is stopping me from finding master.


    There are two of them. This bird, cat¡­ This thing¡­


    STOP KILLING MY CAMPS!


    I will trap them using the nearby commanders. Surely they will know where master is. They are strong like master. They must know.


    NO NO NO YOU IDIOTS! YOU LET HIM ESCAPE THE NET AND IT WAS TOO FAST FOR YOU TO SEE!? IMBECILES. 5 camps in one hour and they got an eye. Can they find me?


    It''s here. The demon. I will set up wards, traps. They won''t be able to get in. They can''t get in to master''s house. I CAN''T LET THEM.


    NO THIS IS MASTER''S HOUSE. LEAVE.


    He sees the fiery hair and blur of black robes enter the room and look around, curiously. He feels fear. He feels frustration. I must protect Master''s home.


    A portal? A city? Many like him? Many¡­ stronger than master? Liar. This isn''t- this can''t- it''s not- DEMON!


    I have won. They are trapped in the Fire Storm. It is unescapable. I will interrogate the corpse and find master.


    WHAT IS THIS. HOW DID HE GET HERE. STOP. NO!


    This is not strong like master. This is something else. I need to run. I need to find master. Together we can stop it.


    HELP ME!


    RELEASE ME!


    Master¡­ where did you go? Don''t let me¡­ die¡­ alone¡­


    Felix shook his head physically to clear it then moved back into his Memory Palace, finding Grim in the exact same spot as he had left him.


    "Well, that was a mess."


    Grim picked up another book from the shelves and flipped it open, "You think master died?"


    Felix shrugged, "Probably. Or the portal frame broke and they couldn''t get back."


    Grim chuckled, "That would be¡­ unfortunate."


    "Yeah. Seems like the animals were enhanced with elixirs."


    Grim tossed the book he had been reading into the air where it slowed and floated around his head, "I haven''t found the recipe yet."


    Felix nodded, "Right I meant more that they might not attack the outpost in coordinated waves, but they still might attack the outpost, and they''ll still be just as smart."


    Grim shrugged, "Not much you can do about that. I don''t see why they would. More likely they fight each-other. Not like they need or even can use the metal themselves."


    "Guess we''ll find out. I''ll turn in the job and see what they say. I did get plenty of levels out of this though so, I already got what I wanted."


    Felix took the other end of the shelf and helped Grim sift through the books. He was only skimming them so he could hopefully find more information on the battery in the dungeon. Unfortunately neither of them found much about it skimming through all the books so Felix returned to his body while Grim searched more thoroughly.


    He wasn''t going to leave the tower just yet so he started sorting through the furniture he wanted to steal. He put some of it in his Soul Space, some of it in his own tower but most of it he left to be destroyed. He briefly examined the portal frame but too much of it was missing for it to be useful. The rituals were indecipherable and the rest of the tower almost completely mundane.


    With nothing else to do, Felix turned to his mana computer pet project and continued to slowly grow it.


    Once Grim had gotten through everything and found nothing, Felix decided he would have to do something about the battery without touching it. The solution he settled on, was to just take the whole tower with him. He figured the raw materials were probably useful in and of themselves anyways.


    Heading down to the base of the tower and walking over to a tree, Felix opened his Pocket Home against a large tree. He quickly found a suitable empty spot off to the side and kept mana flowing to the marble to keep the entrance open. Then, he pulled out the portal spell mold and filled it halfway with mana. Once that was done, he pulled out the spell form and modified it as needed.


    Finally, he cast the portal with the direction pointing inside his Pocket Home. The portal opened but, not within the Pocket Home as he had hoped. Instead, the other end of the portal appeared on the other side of the tree he had used. Felix frowned and tried again except this time he made it very small. He cast the portal then moved it through the Pocket Home entrance.


    As soon as his portal touched the entrance portal to his Pocket Home, the portal spell form lurched and pulled on his mana. He had to pump in another couple million mana into the spell but it finally pushed through, morphing the spell form itself. He quickly memorized its new, slightly altered form. Finally, he modified it on the spot and wrestled the spell form into submission until it was the exact size he wanted.


    Felix flew the spell up into the air then positioned it over the tower and lowered himself along with the spell to the ground. Once there, he had Nova help him dig out as much as possible around the tower''s base then he had her lift the entire tower up a few meters so he could get the spell form under it. With the vast majority of the tower in his Pocket Home, where there wasn''t actually any gravity, it became relatively light. There was only a couple inches of the tower left outside so that was only a couple inches of stone she had to lift.


    Closing it off at the bottom, the tower seemed to have been successfully transplanted. Felix dashed over to his Pocket Home where he found the tower floating in the air, gravity not affecting it because the spell excluded anything over a certain mass. Luckily, the stone work construction wasn''t just friction fit together though, he doubted anything inside would be in the same place it had been before.


    Felix flew over and grabbed the tower then stuck it in the empty space where he wanted it. He had Nova help him secure it with some chain he had in his Soul Space then hopped back out and into the real world.


    He didn''t even bother flying back to the outpost and instead just opened a portal back to Telviras on the spot. He then quickly headed over to the Adventurer''s Guild to mark the job as complete, pending review, followed by the library. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 Chapter 197 - Book 14

    He wanted to try and translate the book with the moving ink and, somewhat selfishly, thought he might get caught up in something else if he headed back to Inscripticae right away. So, he didn''t.


    Taking out a piece of parchment, Felix wrote down a number of random words and letters from memory and handed it to the librarian. He was hoping that choosing disjointed words from various sentences would be enough to keep the contents secret while still finding the language.


    Pragmatically, he just didn''t want to be seen asking about necromancy in case it was evil, forbidden or even just frowned upon. He also didn''t have actually have any interest in necromancy beyond his natural curiosity to know everything.


    A few moments passed before the librarian returned with a grim and judgmental expression on their face, "Not sure where you found a necromancy book but you should probably just sell it."


    Felix frowned and feigned innocence, "It''s a necromancy book?"


    The librarian seemed to buy it, their judgmental expression quickly washing away and they just nodded, "Yeah. Necromancers are generally frowned upon so they use languages known only to them in order to communicate with each-other. I don''t have a dictionary for you so, you probably won''t be able to translate it easily. I was only able to recognize it because we know some words here and there. It''s a constant battle, trying to decipher the languages as they create them."


    Felix nodded, "Thanks. Do you happen to have more information on necromancers, their towers, tools and so on? I think I might have found an abandoned necromancer''s abode and I want to identify everything so I know what to do with it."


    The librarian nodded and seemed to accept his explanation then hurried off and retrieved a number of books for Felix, "We also have a few librarians with knowledge specializations covering necromancers if you''d like. You could also just ask the Guild of Answers if you want us to submit a specific question for you."


    Felix nodded, "Thanks. Could you return all these now? I already scanned them. Also, if there''s a necromancy specialist here now, could you send them over?"


    The librarian nodded, "Of course."


    A few moments later, the stack of books on his table was gone and a completely different librarian was sitting across from Felix.


    Felix waited for the librarian to sit down before pestering them, "So, I found an old necromancer''s house on my last job."


    "Ah, and you wish to identify things you have found within?"


    Felix nodded, "First, there was a big battery in the basement. I thought it was just a mana battery but there was a very complicated ward in place, facing the battery."


    "Ah, it sounds like you came across a necromancer''s battery. It is a good thing you recognized the wards. If you had gotten near it without the wards, it likely would have driven you insane, depending on how full it is."


    Felix frowned, "What is it?"


    "You seem to be familiar with mana batteries, are you familiar with soul gems?"


    Felix nodded, "I am."


    "Good. A necromancer''s battery combines the two except it holds more than a single soul."


    "So why would it have driven me insane?"


    "Instead of sanitizing and humanely binding a soul to a crystal, as soul gems are, necromancers often utilize complete souls in their rituals. It is not necessary but it simplifies the process greatly. This necessitates a store of some kind and so they will often sacrifice creatures in a ritual that binds their souls directly into the battery. Once there are multiple souls in the battery, they are locked in an eternal battle of wills. Produced from this battle are what are colloquially referred to as, The Wails of the Damned."


    Felix nodded to convey he understood, despite the fact that he quickly dismissed everything they had said, then moved on, "What about necromancer languages? I found a book written in some language I can''t read. I had the last librarian identify it based on," Felix placed the parchment he had written some of the words onto between them, "these words."


    The librarian looked down and nodded, "Yes. The languages change over time as they are deciphered but they are intended to allow necromancers to keep their secrets which is why The System will not translate it for you."


    "I guess that would defeat the purpose of creating a secret language."


    "Precisely. I would very much like to take a look at this book if you have it with you?"


    "I don''t have it on me."


    "I see. The language is most often used for when necromancer''s communicate with each-other. For educational purposes, academic texts, research notes, textbooks, they use normal language. This is so that it is possible for more people to convert to necromancy."


    "Then what secrets are hidden behind the language?"


    "Meeting locations, current endeavors mostly communications. Cutting edge research as well possibly. You would have to find a communication tome of theirs and learn the language. Usually knowledge of the language is distributed through some necromancy based classes or through apprenticeship."


    "Last question, Liches?"


    "What of them?"


    "What are they I guess? There was an Undead Infant Lich there but I''ve also heard of Infant Liches that weren''t undead?"


    They nodded, "One of the most impressive and widely known races above Legendary. I am not an expert in Liches specifically but¡­ Are you aware of how necromancy works?"


    Felix shook his head, "I have a vague notion at best."


    They sighed, "Necromancy is the art of binding a soul to a body. It''s that simple. They use corpses most often because pushing a live soul out of a body to make room for a new soul is complicated and most often messy. They most often use complete souls which requires that they are extracted from the body in a sacrificial ritual. These souls are much easier to bind to a corpse. This ritual is one of the worst kinds of torture one being can inflict on another. It is due to the torturous sacrificial ritual, for the most part, that causes necromancy to be widely frowned upon."


    "But you could theoretically be a necromancer and not do any of that?"


    They nodded, "It is much easier to use corpses because they are designed to have a soul control them. They are naturally very easy to bind. It is easier to use a complete soul because the necromancer forgoes the need to construct layers and teach the soul to control the body, those functions already exist. It is possible, however, to construct souls using the constituent components of those that have died, remnants for example."


    Felix nodded along in understanding, "But, significantly harder to the point where it is rarely done?"


    "Right. As for Liches vs Undead Liches, a Lich is a Soul that is strong enough to retain most of its Intelligence despite their moving between bodies. They bind their soul to a body but their soul strength pushes through and allows them to retain casting ability and more. The difference is subtle but because the Undead Lich''s soul was extracted in a ritual to create an Undead, they utilize different body binding runes and sigils. From my understanding of Liches, the difference is subtle and inconsequential most of the time, but significant enough that they function differently in possessing corpses and the stats they retain."


    "I see. You said it''s much easier to use corpses, what else would one use?"


    "While not technically necromancy, Soulbinders practice the much more impressive art of binding souls to inanimate objects. Most often they create elementals or constructs. It is far more complicated and requires complicated rituals, sigils and runes to bind the souls themselves as well as a solid aptitude for Animancy."


    "Animancy?"


    "Soul magic. Construction of souls, manipulation of souls, reparation of souls. Soulbinders and Soulhealers most commonly."


    Huh. I think¡­ that might be the most enticing profession I have ever heard of. That sounds awesome.


    "You''re also a librarian, correct?"


    "I am."


    "Could you find me books on Soulbinding?"


    They grimaced just slightly, "I can but there won''t be much. You would have better luck asking a university or taking classes to learn about them. Actually becoming one is much harder."


    "There aren''t classes to become one? Just classes to learn about them?"


    "There are. If you''re asking about them though, you likely can''t get into any of them. It''s an Arcane profession and if it were easy to acquire, everyone would have it."


    "Know of any universities that have those classes off the top of your head?"


    "Edras'' Academy, University of Uphiane, Namari Institute of Magical Crafts."


    Felix frowned, "Not Eramith?"


    He chuckled, "Sorry, yes of course. Almost certainly Eramith as well."


    Felix nodded, "Thanks. That''s all then. I appreciate your insight."


    The librarian stood and bowed to Felix, "If you happen to have that book on you at some point in the future, I would be honored to take a look at it."


    Felix smiled and nodded then took his leave from the library and flew over to Inscripticae. Walking in he headed straight for Aldahn''s office and knocked.


    "Come in."


    Felix opened the door and found Aldahn scrutinizing an amulet of some kind.


    He looked up, "Ah Felix, you''re back."


    "I am."


    "You got through a shit ton of those tickets."


    Felix shrugged, "I sleep less than you do and don''t have any commitments, responsibilities or friends."


    Aldahn frowned and Felix quickly added, "By choice."


    He nodded in understanding, "Just don''t- I would consider us friends."


    Felix nodded, "Sure and probably all the other enchanters here too. We don''t go out together though or do anything outside of this." Felix gestured around him.


    Aldahn shook his head, "You''re right, I get it. Still, I''m impressed you spent so long on this. Even I get sick of it after a dekad of enchanting."


    Felix shrugged, "Never had that issue."


    Aldahn sighed, "Anyways. I''ll get you the pay for all the tickets when it comes in, you aren''t pressed for creds right now are you?"


    Felix shook his head, "Take your time."


    "I also have a client I want to assign to you."


    "You mean a solo client?"


    Aldahn nodded, "No shadowing, reverse or otherwise."


    Felix frowned, "You think I''m ready?"


    Aldahn shrugged, "It''s a high C grade or low B grade enchantment but¡­ well, you''ll see when you meet the client. The enchantment should be very familiar to you. Also, I''m expecting you to ask me and the others for help if needed and you''ll have to get the enchantment approved before inscribing anything. Also don''t commission the item itself before asking someone but otherwise, yeah, you''re definitely ready."


    Felix nodded, "Ok. Do I have to meet the client?"


    "You don''t have to but yes. She''ll be by in three days at noon."


    "I''ll be here. Sidenote, any thoughts on Soulbinding and Soulbinders?"


    Aldahn''s eyes widened as a grin formed on his face, "You trying to decide what to do after enchanting?"


    "Considering it."


    "It''s¡­ probably the most ambitious evolution. It would require you already have a very high rarity profession?"


    Felix just shrugged in an attempt to give nothing away.


    "Also requires a lot of experience with Animancy or at least a proven aptitude for it."


    Felix nodded, "So a decent thing to strive for then?"


    Aldahn nodded, "If you can meet the requirements and think it''s interesting. I would be happy to commission a construct from you if you succeed."


    Felix chuckled, "We''ll see. Any reason I don''t see constructs around more often?"


    "Yes¡­ the art of Soulbinding alone is incredibly rare and prestigious. That makes true constructs even rarer than that and therefore, very expensive. Not even Krinitor''s parent''s expensive, like expensive even for a demi-god or a God."


    Felix frowned, "Really?"


    "Souls. It''s so difficult to do correctly, that they take forever to make. Also, you may have already seen one, I doubt it but they don''t have to be robotic, you can have biological contructs."


    Felix''s face contorted in disgust, "That''s¡­"


    Aldahn chuckled, "I suspect less gross than you''re thinking. Not corpses like necromancers, don''t think of flesh golems stitched together like the stories. Soulbinding is too precise, rare and impressive an art to do something so crude. Plant constructs, simulacra, partial clones, things like that."


    Felix''s eyes widened, "Simulacra? Clones? That''s possible?"


    "Not true clones as far as I know, souls are unique no matter what. Also most of them are servants of the master so to speak but yeah. I don''t know that much about them. I''ve just read and heard stories is all. Plus I''ve looked into soulbinding myself a little cause¡­" Aldahn trailed off.


    Felix nodded in understanding after realizing Aldahn didn''t intend on finishing his sentence, "I''ll be back in three days then. By the way, is Krinitor here?"


    Aldahn shook his head, "He hasn''t been in for a little while."


    Felix bid Aldahn farewell then flew off to Raidran''s to see if he could find either Krinitor or either of his parents.


    Flying up to the building, Felix found a door but it was closed. He shrugged and knocked on it but got no response. He knocked again but much harder, not overly concerned with damaging the door. He briefly considered creating a spell in the building that created a sound but he didn''t know how it would interact with the spatial enchantments so he refrained.


    Instead he flew around to the same entrance Krinitor had used but the door didn''t just slide open like it had for Krinitor. Felix knocked on this door as well as hard as he could and waited. He got nothing.


    Circling back to the entrance, he knocked one last time before he decided he would give up and surprisingly, it opened.


    "Who-" Rainoth looked ready to kill someone as she opened the door but her face quickly relaxed, It''s you."


    Felix smiled as Rainoth glared.


    Eventually, Rainoth relented and sighed, "Get in."


    Felix walked into the room, one he hadn''t seen the last time he was here and not one that looked like it got much use. It was empty and dark.


    "No one uses this damn door anymore. I thought you were a solicitor or someone begging for us to make them something."


    Felix shrugged, "Krinitor''s been busy and I have some questions."


    She sighed, "Normally you would make an appointment."


    "How?"


    She looked at him and frowned¡­ for almost 3 minutes. She sighed, "Gimme your registration, I''ll give you access to the employee entrance."


    Felix handed it to her, "Why would you do that?"


    "Because you''re an employee now. Come on, keep up."


    Felix shook his head, "I already have a job and I-"


    "I know. I mean more as a walking advertisement. I also expect you to come to us first with rare materials you find. At least, after whichever god you decide to hitch yourself to."


    Felix shrugged, "Oh, I can do that. Integrated''s really that promising?"


    She shrugged, "I mean, you''ve already leveled through the D grade faster than anything I''ve ever heard of outside of the top factions and big families."


    "Oh shit. Really? ¡­ Should I be worried?"


    "Yes really but no, don''t worry about. Most will gonna think you were hiding your level which, isn''t uncommon."


    He nodded, "Ok thanks."


    She chuckled, "What''s your question?"


    "How much do I owe you?"


    She sighed, "How much do you have?"


    "Almost have half an A?"


    She frowned, "How much did Krinitor quote you?"


    "A ''few hundred thousand B or so'' were his exact words."


    She grimaced, "Alright just¡­ How about 100,000 B and you officially agree to my terms."


    "I''m going to need you to be more specific on the terms."


    "If anyone asks where you got your outfit, you tell them. If anyone asks you how you like it, you¡­ be honest with them. If you find rare materials or kill rare creatures, you come to me first, or second if you decide to join a faction. Lastly, any other clothes you need made, you come here until I can no longer keep up with your progression."


    "Couldn''t you just charge me exorbitant amounts for any future clothes then?"


    She shrugged, "Sure but I''ll promise right now to give them to you free of charge, assuming you''re a good employee and provide me with plenty of materials."


    Felix nodded, "I can agree to all of that." He offered his had to shake and opened a transaction screen with her.


    "Oh also, I might get you to do some enchanting work for me in the future, assuming you stay an enchanter." She accepted the deal before Felix could respond.


    "Wait, I-"


    "I''ll pay you and I''m not gonna force you to do anything you don''t have time for. What the hell do you think I''m trying to do to you? I''m not cruel."


    Felix frowned, "I''m not willing to just trust you outright either way."


    She grumbled, "Kids¡­" Then sighed, "Look, it''s just a verbal agreement right now anyways."


    "Right, what would a non-verbal agreement be? Are there lawyers and contracts?"


    "Yes to lawyers and yes to contracts but I¡­ What the hell do those have to do with each-other?"


    What do you mean ''what do they have-''


    "Never mind. Contract?"


    "Soul or System, I''d much prefer System."


    "Why?"


    "Less wishy washy on the terms. For something like ''protect me'' a soul contract is better. For something with a list of specific terms and conditions, System."


    "Ok sure, that."


    She grumbled a little then a few minutes later, Felix was staring at a System contract screen.


    System Contract


    A contract between Rainoth and Felix Kade.


    Rainoth''s Terms:


    Felix Kade must be honest about the source of the outfits he obtained from Raidran''s.


    Felix Kade must be honest about how he likes the outfits he obtained from Raidran''s.


    Felix Kade must come to Raidran''s first with any materials he wishes to sell that are above Uncommon, assuming no overriding obligations.


    Felix Kade must go to Raidran''s for all future outfits he wishes to have made until such time as they can no longer fulfill his needs. These outfits will be provided free of charge assuming none of the other terms and conditions have been broken.


    Rainoth retains the right to commission enchanting work from Felix Kade at an agreed upon rate.


    The penalty for violating any of the above terms is a fine of 1 S grade credit to be paid out over 1000 epochs.


    Felix quickly read through the terms and while they seemed to be relatively fair, his face contorted in confusion at the penalty.


    "1 S grade credit paid out over 1000 epochs?"


    "It lets me recoup some of the costs and shouldn''t be too hard for you to pull off."


    He couldn''t really argue with that. His only issue with the contract was that it was missing his terms, so he added them.


    System Contract


    A contract between Rainoth and Felix Kade.


    Rainoth''s Terms:


    Felix Kade must be honest about the source of the outfits he obtained from Raidran''s.


    Felix Kade must be honest about how he likes the outfits he obtained from Raidran''s.


    Felix Kade must come to Raidran''s first with any materials he wishes to sell that are above Uncommon, assuming no overriding obligations.


    Felix Kade must go to Raidran''s for all future outfits he wishes to have made until such time as they can no longer fulfill his needs. These outfits will be provided free of charge assuming none of the other terms and conditions have been broken.


    Rainoth retains the right to commission enchanting work from Felix Kade at an agreed upon rate.


    The penalty for violating any of Rainoth''s terms is a fine of 1 S grade credit to be paid out over 1000 epochs.


    Felix Kade''s Terms:


    Rainoth may never reveal anything about Felix including but not limited to: his actions, his possessions or his abilities to anyone, ever.


    Rainoth may not refer to Felix in any way, at all when speaking with anyone who he does not know.


    Felix Kade''s terms will be enforced by The System. Any attempt to circumvent them will result in Rainoth''s terms being rendered null and void.


    She grimaced, "Is this really necessary?"


    "Yes."


    She grumbled for almost a minute before sighing, "Fine."


    She accepted the contract then shook her head lightly, "Anyways, wanna see your robes? They aren''t done and I don''t ever show clients unfinished work but you''re an employee now."


    Felix nodded, "Sure."


    She led him into the main chamber he had been measured in then into a back room where she walked up to a table on one side that held a multiple rolls of fabric.


    "We had to change the fabrics around a little bit and they''re a little more expensive than we agreed upon but¡­" Rainoth started mumbling, "you aren''t paying for them anyways."


    Felix reached out and touched the fabric on the largest roll. It was a light grey fabric and it was similar to how he remembered the sample they had made. It was darker and no longer off white but rather light grey now and a little thinner overall but it was similarly soft.


    Rainoth reached over to the side of the table where she picked up a simple quill and handed it to him, "Here, use this to put a basic enchantment in the cloth."


    Felix took a look at the quill and noted that it was barely even a quill. It was more like a pen with a mana conductive material in the middle. If he fed mana to the quill and wrote, it would simply use the mana as if it were ink.


    Now that he had a System enforced contract protecting him, he wasn''t nearly as concerned about revealing things. He didn''t bother taking the quill and instead just formed a simple enchantment out of mana, in the air in front of him, then lowered it into the fabric. Everywhere the mana touched the fabric, he could feel it morphing and becoming mana conductive.


    The enchantment simply glowed a slight red color, nothing more. With the enchantment still in the cloth, he could still feel the mana channels that had formed, or more accurately, the mana flowing through them, within the cloth. The enchantment he had made, the mana specifically, was still embedded inside and was somehow creating channels within the material. He reached out and morphed the mana embedded within the cloth using his mana control and simply had the enchantment shift from red, to orange, to yellow, to green, to blue.


    "Or¡­ you could just do that¡­ your mana control is¡­ impressive¡­ for your age."


    Felix looked at her and smiled, "This stuff is awesome."


    "Yeah and prohibitively expensive, you mind getting rid of that?"


    Felix complied, removing all the mana from the cloth, leaving it looking completely new again.


    Looking at the cloth, Felix frowned, "This seems dangerous. Couldn''t someone modify my enchantments or ruin them just by hitting me with a blast of mana?"


    "No. This isn''t affinized yet but once we finish forming the entire outfit, we''ll have you provide a small soul seed and we''ll affinize the entire thing to your soul."


    Felix nodded, "I can do that myself once it''s complete."


    She frowned, "We''ll talk about it when it''s done."


    Felix shrugged then examined the other materials on the desk as well, a black material that was much thicker and heavier as well as a darker blue cloth that felt extremely light and comfortable.


    Once he had gone through them all, she led him out of the room and back into the main chamber.


    "You need anything else?"


    Felix looked around, "Are we the only ones here?"


    She cocked a questioning brow, "Yes. Kordran''s out and Krinitor''s busy with other clients."


    He nodded, "I have a rare material that I want you to make me something from."


    She smiled, "Already? This is turning out to have been an excellent decision."


    Felix pulled out a couple of Endycor''s scales and held them out to her. She squinted and looked at them then stumbled backwards a step with wide eyes, "This was the fucking worst decision I have ever made. Who are you?"


    He just chuckled, "This is why my terms were necessary, among other things."


    She groaned and fell into the couch behind her, rubbing her face, "This isn''t enough to actually make anything from."


    Felix placed the scales on the table then-


    "Oh great dragon mother, please don''t tell me you have a Dragon''s corpse in your spatial storage?"


    Felix chuckled and dumped all the scales he had collected onto the table, "No corpse but I can get more."


    "What exactly do you want me to make out of Dragon scales?"


    "Pants. Or actually, shorts."


    "What the hell for?"


    Felix activated his rings, surrounding his body with streams of crimson and golden white that disappeared a few moments later revealing his Persona''s body. Looking down, he was still wearing the scraps of clothing he had bought in Atalus and they had been basically shredded down to scraps. The fact that they were still holding on at all was a miracle.


    She groaned again, "What the fuck is this?"


    "I got some cool rings back in the integration and they let me do this. I haven''t totally figured it all out yet but¡­ it''s been fun."


    "I''m gonna need a lot more scales to make anything for that."


    Felix nodded, "Want to take measurements now then I''ll reveal more secrets afterwards?"


    She grumbled and quickly measured him then tentatively picked up one of the Dragon scales examining it.


    Felix reverted to his normal form and opened his Pocket Home against one of the walls. He beckoned Nova out and asked her if she could make more scales for him.


    She meowed then walked over and started spitting out Dragon scales.


    "What the fuck is that and why is it cursed?"


    "This is Nova, my familiar. Was a matter sprite, now a matter spirit."


    "How is it doing that."


    "Can''t all matter sprites do that? She transforms matter so I just had her do exactly that. Transform matter and replicate existing objects."


    Rainoth looked at him like he disgusted her, "If all matter sprites could do that, don''t you think they would be used in every shop ever to duplicate every rare material in existence?"


    Felix shrugged, "Fair point. I don''t know how she does it then. Or rather, I don''t know why other matter sprites wouldn''t be able to do that."


    Rainoth sighed, "Some do. It''s just really slow. They also require a lot of matter that is closely related to the matter they''re creating, which kind of defeats the whole point."


    Felix frowned, "Huh. I had her duplicate some phoenix cells and she just ate rocks to do it. Took her a few hours."


    Rainoth''s face contorted even further, "Phoenix? You¡­ what?"


    Felix looked over and had Nova transform into a phoenix which she was ecstatic to do. She took off and flew around the room then landed on Felix''s shoulder and cooed.


    Rainoth looked dumbfounded for a few moments then coughed a little, "Alright I need more scales and some phoenix feathers as payment."


    "You said free of charge."


    "Contract says you have to come to me first."


    "If I wish to sell the material."


    She grumbled, "Are you saying no or just being a pain in my ass?"


    "The latter."


    She swore at him a few times before disappearing to retrieve something. Felix had Nova create more scales for her and she returned with food, for Nova. She fed Nova piles of scrap materials so she could continue producing scales then feathers afterwards.


    Rainoth promised him the shorts would be done soon and she would give them to him secretly when he came back to pick up the robes. He didn''t have anything else he needed from her so he headed out and flew over to Over Capacity with Nova nestled in his robes.


    Menan recognized Felix and a smile formed on his face, "Here to clean me out of more garbage tier batteries?"


    "Not this time. I need 2 Very Fast B grade Special batteries and 5 Instant B grade Rare batteries."


    Menan laughed out loud, "Complete other end. The''ell you need all that for?"


    "My familiar is running out of mana and I got a charm that I can fit 5 batteries into."


    Menan frowned as he found and placed two gems into the machines behind him, "Ye know ye might run inna problems''ith combining batteries. Yer charm ain''t fit to take batts this big."


    "What do you mean, problems?"


    "Ever wonder why people don''t just buy a''bunch o-smaller batteries ''stead of payin'' way more fer larger ones?"


    "I assumed they did."


    He chuckled, "Depends. Yer makin an item''at only has room fer 1 batt, you need the biggest ye can get. All batts ''ave flaws. The mana stored in em usually get''s a bit o''attunement ''om the flaws. Yer mix the mana from multiple batteries, ye might not have a''good time."


    "So the charm has functions to normalize mana then?"


    "Yup. Issue is, it ain''t designed to andle batts this big, this much mana."


    Felix nodded, "Gotcha. Well, I''d like them anyways and I''ll use them for something else if I encounter problems. Can''t have the charm for that long anyways."


    Menan snorted, "I think yer might be puttin the largest batts I ever seen in a charm."


    Felix shrugged, "I like to live on the edge."


    Menan chuckled.


    Felix examined the machines further, just remembering their technique as much as he could for later as they worked.


    [B - Special] Mana Battery (12,000,000/12,000,000)


    [Normal][Very Fast]


    A battery containing mana.


    [B - Rare] Mana Battery (8,000,000/8,000,000)


    [Normal][Instant]


    A battery containing mana.


    The B grade Special batteries for Grim and Nova cost him 100,000 B each. The B grade Rare batteries were incredibly cheap by comparison at just 10 B each. After his discount, the batch cost him 180,045 B which was well worth it in his opinion.


    He swapped out the batteries in his charm, storing the others in his Soul Space for the time being and fed one of the Special batteries to Grim. He kept the other for himself until he had time to explain how to use it to Nova.


    Checking his status screen, Felix gawked at his mana pool which had just gone up by 40 million.


    Holy shit I have so much mana. What the fuck.


    You need to find a way to keep it when you finally hit C grade.


    Yeah, maybe I can move the batteries into my body or something? I also still need to figure out why my mana pool is tied to my intelligence. It doesn''t make sense.


    Flying back to Inscripticae, Felix found an empty meeting room and placed Nova on the table. Then, he took her battery out of his Soul Space and presented it to her and told her not to eat it. First, he made sure it was full then he did his best to explain to her that this would replace her pile of corpses. He visualized the balls going into it and to demonstrate, he did just that. He took a ball of mana and visibly fed it into the battery.


    She seemed to understand but Felix couldn''t be sure. He was pretty sure she understood not to break it down so, he tentatively handed it to her and it promptly vanished.


    He handed her some innocuous and incredibly inefficient spells he inscribed on the spot then had her cast them for him from her new battery. A disco of lights poured out of her mouth for a few minutes then Felix had her return the battery to him.


    It had depleted by a few hundred thousand as expected. Next, he returned the battery to her and also handed her a disposable battery. Checking once again, she promptly used the disposable to fill the battery back up.


    Well, that was easier than I expected.


    Satisfied that she understood he placed her back in his robes and walked into the workshop storage room where he headed into his Pocket Home and resumed his work on the Mana Computer.


    He first spent time to verify the entire thing as thoroughly as he could and found a number of transistors he had to manually replace. Once that was done, he went back to slowly growing his computer except this time, instead of doubling its size, which was becoming problematic, he settled on increasing it by 10% at a time.


    He compressed the anima in his soul space until he had enough then coated the outside of the computer in the anima and finally filled that layer with mana. He was only adding 10% at a time which made the outside layer very thin and therefore less error prone. There was very little that was ever far from the computer itself so all the anima had a solid template to work off of close by.


    It took him about an hour each time to increase its size by 10% then verify everything. By the end of the three days, during which he also trained for two hours each day, the computer had grown to be a little bigger than a softball.


    Verification had very quickly become easier as it grew then, progressively harder once he had hit about the size of a golf ball. Complex functions that used every transistor were hard to come up with. The massive secondary benefit of having it suffused with anima though was that it was trivial for him to program the transistors, provide input to the system and even read output back from it. He could also read the output of individual transistors which made debugging much simpler.


    Just 5 minutes before the allotted meeting time, Felix stowed the computer for the time being and headed out to meet the client. Nova was still asleep and seemed to be doing some organizing so he left her in the Pocket Home and headed out into the lobby where he found Aldahn.


    "Perfect timing. She just arrived a couple minutes ago."


    Felix nodded, "Perfect."


    Aldahn led him to one of the meeting rooms and opened the door for him.


    Inside the room, Felix saw a female Elf with a tight bun of chestnut colored hair wearing a set of dark navy leather that made Felix think of a royal guard. Her posture was perfect and the inclination of her head had Felix worried he wasn''t going to like her very much.


    [C] Elendra (Lvl ?)


    Sitting down across from the woman, Felix smiled.


    She immediately got into it, her head still inclined such that she had to look down slightly to speak to him even though they were a similar height, "I seek a dueling coat. I require that it protects me from piercing and slashing attacks with a focus on piercing. It should keep itself out of my way and yet, at the same time, not hinder my movement in any way. It must not assist me in the duels as that is forbidden, simply protect me from being hit. Is that clear?"


    Felix nodded, "Yes."


    "Excellent. It should also be fashionable and comfortable with quality materials. Cost is no issue."


    Felix frowned, "I need a budget otherwis-"


    "I said it is no issue."


    Felix sighed and shrugged, "Alright I''ll just put it down at 1000 S then. I think I might be able to get my hands on some Arachnid Silk, I''ll talk to our contacts."


    She balked at him then coughed and blanked her expression, "I do not trust you to spend that much. I should only trust you with up to a 100B I think. However¡­ should your work impress I will surely come back with a much larger budget next time."


    This book''s true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.


    Felix nodded knowingly, "Oh, of course. Anything else?"


    "Yes. The coat cannot deflect or otherwise move a blade in any way. It must stop it and must do so within a hair of my actual body. Duels are fast and they are close. It is possible I could avoid a strike on my own even if the blade gets within an inch of my flesh."


    "That''s going to use a lot of mana to stop it instantly."


    She nodded, "Of course. Don''t bother with having it charge itself as the dueling chambers all have mana recharge stations for equipment."


    As they got into the specifics more, Felix realized the coat''s enchantment would be largely similar to Felix''s cloak, just less versatile. He hadn''t decided yet on whether or not to use the same tiling enchantment but the basic concepts were the same. He was also going to have to acquire mana batteries shaped like buttons because he had no idea how else he would be able to power it without having it look ridiculous.


    Felix quoted her just 2 dekads which he thought was reasonable considering he would have to wait for a tailor to make him a coat to enchant.


    He thought about convincing Rainoth to make him something simple but this job was so far below her capabilities that it would have been a waste of time for everyone involved. She also didn''t exactly work quickly.


    Instead, Felix sorted through the tailors in the city using his map to filter them down until he found one that he deemed appropriate. On his way there, he started designing the basic enchantment in his mind. He decided to go with the same tiling style as before because the large downside of bludgeoning attacks wasn''t really applicable to a coat dedicated to stopping rapiers.


    He got to the tailors and introduced himself then they talked briefly about materials, style and so on. Once Felix had a general idea of what he wanted, he consulted a few other tailors, none of which contradicted the first so he decided it was probably a solid idea.


    Heading back to Inscripticae, Felix inscribed his initial design, a direct modification of his own enchantment, and began testing it. First he determined how much less efficient it would be when compared to a standard enchantment. With only piercing attacks considered, it wasn''t more than 10% less efficient which was more than acceptable in Felix''s eyes.


    The other advantage to this style of enchantment, especially in this application, was that the distribution of mana was dead simple. It would also have no issues with instantly drawing a ton of mana at once to stop a blade quickly.


    He then worked on the instantaneous part and found it difficult to have the tiles react fast enough so, he decided to cheat. Instead of having the tiles react and stop the blade instantly, there was instead a layer to the enchantment that could detect incoming attacks early. It would then start drawing mana from the batteries to pre-saturate the enchantment for when the real enchantment activated.


    The hard part was having it refund the mana if the strike didn''t reach the threshold where it needed to be stopped. It took some very fine tuning and Felix had to design an entire second set of enchantments to distribute and recharge the batteries with the refunded mana that would end up on the inside of the coat but, he finally got it working the way he wanted. He also had to have the second set normalize everything because of the concerns of combining mana from multiple batteries.


    He inscribed a sample of the enchantments on either side of a large metal plate he used for testing and used a test battery from the storage room with Instant draw to power it. He placed the prototype in the design room then dragged Aldahn over to give it a once over.


    "This seems¡­ a little over complicated."


    Felix slumped his shoulders, "I mean, it works¡­ You have a better enchantment in mind?"


    Aldahn chuckled and shook his head, "Don''t get me wrong, it''s great. I just don''t think this is worth what she''s paying. This enchantment is way too good for¡­" Aldahn quickly read through the specifications for the coat Felix had written out on the board, "yeah that coat is C grade Rare at best? This enchantment would be suitable for B grade Rare, assuming the batteries were big enough."


    Felix''s expression brightened, "Oh, so it''s fine then?"


    Aldahn shrugged, "Sure, she''s just getting the best damn deal of her life. This is gonna end up being a C grade Legendary coat at least."


    Felix smiled, "I''m ok with that, are you?"


    "Hey, it''s your labor. As long as the bill of materials is appropriate, I don''t care what you charge for your own work. The profit for us is the same, right? Plus, this makes us look really good too."


    Felix nodded, "Perfect. Wanna give me your notes on the enchantment itself?"


    Aldahn nodded and ran Felix through some of the issues. He also simulated strikes from someone in the C and low B grade so Felix could see how it performed.


    While it did stop most of them, it didn''t quite fully stop some the fastest and strongest strikes. Aldahn didn''t directly tell him how to fix it but he gave him some leads. He also approved the coat specifications but gave some alternative options he likely would have chosen so Felix could look into them.


    Heading back into the workshop, Felix tried to figure out how to perfectly stop the strike and eventually decided he was going to have to create an actual physical barrier of some kind. He settled on tiny Mana Shields because that''s what he knew best and created an entirely new layer to the enchantment.


    In the end there were three and a half layers, one that detected incoming strikes early and pre-saturated the entire enchantment with mana. The second slowed the strike as much as possible, potentially stopping it, if it passed a threshold of a couple millimeters from the wearer''s flesh. The second layer also lightly pushed the coat into the wearer so it wasn''t hanging so far out that it prematurely stopped a strike that would otherwise have done no damage. Essentially it allowed the coat to dodge a strike if possible and stop it if necessary.


    The last layer constructed a Mana Shield right at the tip of the blade that was just half an inch in diameter. Any leftover force in the strike after the second layer had tried to stop it, was handled by the Mana Shield.


    He finalized the enchantment, cleaned it up and inscribed it onto a test sheet then placed it in the design room. While he waited for people to show up, he worked on his mana computer. Ezaldor showed up first and had some tips for keeping the threshold accurate that Felix noted down for the next revision.


    After that it was Edemari and Fralyna who mostly just approved the design. They had some questions but Felix was able to answer them all and otherwise, they didn''t offer anything Aldahn and Ezaldor hadn''t already told him.


    Lastly Inorim actually showed up at some point and had some excellent advice for the underside of the enchantment, the distribution layer that would make it much simpler around the batteries.


    With everyone''s approval in hand, Felix headed to the tailor he had liked best and commissioned the actual coat. He asked about Aldahn''s choices for materials and ended swapping to one of them simply because the tailor had it in house and he could finish the coat in a couple days rather than a dekad.


    Felix didn''t bother waiting in the shop for the tailor to finish and so he headed back to Inscripticae where he trained for two hours then continued his work with the mana computer. He actually skipped his daily training on the second day because he was so close to his target size for the computer, he just wanted to finish it.


    Before he did anything with it though, he still had to verify it. He quickly performed the two hours of training he had skipped then bathed in the weird liquid lake surrounding his Pocket Home. He had hesitated at first but decided he didn''t have time to find an actual bath house.


    Ultimately, he hadn''t experienced any adverse effects from touching it and it didn''t really smell so he decided it was probably fine and didn''t think much of it.


    Flying to the tailor''s, Felix starting thinking through everything else he wanted to accomplish. Top of his mind was still the computer which, once verified, he would consider actually using. He also still had to analyze the portal spell form he had memorized from Orav which wouldn''t take long he had just had higher priorities until now. He also wanted to figure out how his charm worked, just analyze it a little further in case there were nodes, channels or patterns he could steal. Lastly, he wanted to figure out his mana pool and why it was tied to intelligence.


    He arrived just as the tailor was finishing up the coat and had to wait a couple hours for it to be complete. The coat looked good, in Felix''s opinion. It was a similar dark navy as she had been wearing but the tailor had also added a collar, some straps around the wrist and waist and other small modifications that made it more form fitting.


    While Felix waited, he pulled something out of his Soul Space that he had been meaning to look at but hadn''t gotten around to until now.


    He pinched, stretched and examined the hat he had gotten from the Mana Planet job and identified it once again.


    [D - Mythic] Mysterious Hat


    [Hat]


    The appearance of the hat changes based on the person wearing it.


    A useless tag and a description that says a whole lot of nothing.


    He sighed, Fuck it.


    He carefully lifted the hat and dropped it onto his head. He immediately realized what a bad idea that had been not because there seemed to be any kind of curse, but because he didn''t have a mirror in front of him.


    Walking through the tailor''s shop, Felix found a mirror and looked up at the hat. Instead of a worn and rough grey looking hat he saw what looked like a very standard Wizard''s hat. It was a very dark blue color that looked almost purple in the right light and had a leather strap around the middle with a shiny brass buckle. On the hat, there were bright white spots that slightly glowed with white lines connecting them to form what looked like constellations.


    Lastly, and the most out of place in Felix''s mind, there were metal loops and gems hanging from the brim of the hat all the way around it. They didn''t interfere with his ability to see but they jingled and jangled and were mildly annoying.


    Felix sighed and tossed the hat back into his Soul Space then sat back down in the lobby to wait out the rest of the time until the coat was done. As soon as he sat down, he heard a slight jingling sound and reaching up, he felt the hat, on his head.


    What the¡­


    He pulled it off and stowed it in his Soul Space then actively watched it, but two hours passed and nothing happened. It remained in his Soul Space.


    Felix shook his head and decided he might have gone crazy then walked over to the tailor and retrieved the coat from him. He offered his hand to pay the tailor and they happily accepted the quoted 15 B.


    Just as he was leaving the shop, the tailor called out, "Nice hat by the way."


    Felix''s hands shot up to his head and sure enough, the hat had returned itself to his head.


    What is happening. Shouldn''t this be impossible? It was in my Soul Space, right? How the hell¡­ Grim, are you pranking me?


    What, no! No it should not be possible, I have no idea what''s happening. Let''s just keep an eye out to see if it''s actually eating your brain or something.


    Should we destroy it? Send it into a star or something?


    Only if it gets worse.


    Felix nodded and reached up to remove the hat but it was gone. There was nothing on his head. He frowned and looked around but couldn''t see anything out of place.


    Grim nudged him mentally, Check your Soul Space, I don''t think it liked the talk of destroying it.


    Are you saying it was reading my mind?


    Maybe? It looks like it''s cowering in your Soul Space.


    Looking inwards, sure enough the hat was basically trembling in the corner of his Soul Space.


    Good hat¡­


    It calmed down a little and Felix shook his head to clear it from the whole experience then flew back to Inscripticae to finish the coat.


    With the enchantment finalized and the coat in hand, Felix quickly adjusted the enchantment to the actual dimensions of the coat then got to work. All he had to do was inscribe the enchantment with the appropriate quill. It took an annoyingly long time but it had to be done and it was the last step left before the finishing touches.


    The quill he used actually sewed a glowing thread into the coat''s fabric, which was interesting enough on its own. Once the thread was in place though, he drenched the whole thing in a bath of the appropriate finisher and the glow vanished, leaving the enchantment completely invisible and embedded.


    Felix had been testing everything with the spare batteries he had but for the final product, he needed specially shaped batteries.


    Heading over to Over Capacity, Menan greeted him, "Back so soon?"


    "Enchanting job. I need 10 B grade Uncommon batteries, Instant draw. Any chance you could shape them like buttons?"


    Menan frowned, "Uh¡­ yeah. I''m gonna hav''to file down some bigger gems to do it so it''ll cost ye 10 times as much and¡­ they ain''t gonna match but I''ll get the colors as close I can."


    Felix nodded, "Perfect, thanks."


    Menan shrugged and retrieved a set of suitable gemstones then brought them over to a gem grinder where he flattened them out. Then, he drilled out four holes in the center and finally polished them.


    The power tools were fascinating to Felix and he made sure to analyze and memorize as much as he could. They acted very similarly to power tools on earth just, powered by mana and functioned using spells and enchantments.


    Placing the shaped and polished buttons into the machines one by one, Felix focused all his attention on them. Instead of functioning the way they normally did, Felix immediately noticed the machines adapting to the shape of the buttons. When they infused mana into the gems in waves, the amplitude of the waves were far bigger on the sides of the button then much finer on the tops and bottoms.


    Menan handed the first finished battery to Felix and he looked it over.


    [B - Uncommon] Mana Battery Button (6,000,000/6,000,000)


    [Button Shaped][Instant]


    A battery containing mana.


    The buttons were a fiery orange and yellow color but otherwise looked just like buttons.


    With all the batteries done, Felix paid Menan the cost of the ten batteries minus his lifetime discount which came out to 9 B.


    Felix flew back to Inscripticae and used some of the extra thread the tailor had given him to attach the buttons. He also looped in some mana conductive threads which then attached the batteries to the mana normalization and distribution array enchantment on the underside.


    Placing the coat on the dummy in the workshop, Felix tested it out and was very happy with the result. He had managed to finish it almost a dekad early so he put it in the design room for the time being.


    [C - Legendary] Dueling Coat


    [Coat][Enchanted]


    This dueling coat was enchanted to block piercing based attacks from any direction within a couple millimeters of the wearer''s body. It is unlikely any piercing strike will be able to overcome it''s defenses from within the C grade.


    Damn. Aldahn said ''at least C grade Legendary'' and I was kind of hoping for more.


    I assume it''s because of the base materials of the coat.


    Yeah, probably. Got a lot of levels out of that though so, definitely worthwhile.


    In total, Felix had gained 68 profession levels from working on the coat. Checking his stats screen, he allocated all his free points into Intelligence and watched it finally break 100,000, just barely.


    Well that was¡­ uneventful.


    You want to celebrate it?


    No. I don''t know why, I just feel like I was expecting more is all.


    Back in the workshop, Felix started running down his todo list, starting with the items he could cross off the fastest.


    Entering his Soul Garden, Felix brought up the teleport spell that Orav had used in front of him and he started analyzing it.


    There were some similarities to the portal spell form he had been using. The nodes were similar but still distinct and the general structure was reminiscent. Unfortunately, he didn''t know enough about spell forms to know if that was by necessity or because Orav''s was a refinement of the one he was already working with. His initial assessment put Orav''s spell form at just 25 spell levels instead of the 30 it took him to cast Erolan''s portal spell form. S~ea??h the N??elFir§×.net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    Once he was certain, he exited his Soul Space and quickly replaced the portal spell form mold he had created with the new, simpler spell form.


    With that done, he pulled his charm off his body and started examining it. He was approaching C grade fairly quickly and he really did not want to lose access to 40 million mana. He was planning on looking into separating his mana capacity from his Intelligence but until he did, he was hoping to at least learn something from the charm.


    It only took him a half hour to fully map out the charm and he did in fact learn something. The channels within the charm and the way it connected the batteries was completely novel to Felix. It formed a network that balanced the draw from the batteries naturally, normalized them a little then coalesced all the mana before normalizing it all one last time. All of this was done without nodes.


    The channels themselves simply formed almost a fractal or a vortex and somehow, this pattern was what did all the work.


    The geometric pattern the channels formed inspired Felix to start thinking of other patterns that would have similar functions without the need for nodes at all. It was a system without significant failure points. It was simply a network of channels, no nodes necessary and it seemed to accomplish its goal perfectly.


    With the patterns stored away in his head for later, Felix finally turned to the item he had been procrastinating on, the computer.


    He had reached his goal size in terms of physical size and number of transistors. He even spent an entire day verifying it again but found nothing. It was finished and theoretically, functional. He had been putting it off because it was daunting and dangerous, what he needed to do next.


    With the other two items on his todo list, he had really just been pushing off the computer. While he needed to do them eventually, the computer was always in the back of his mind, not literally just yet, but the task before him was ever present.


    Any insight on how I might go about this, from your memories or any of the books I''ve scanned?


    Sorry, I''ve got nothing. You''re just going to have to go for it. I''ve read your thoughts, your best idea, it seems like it could work.


    Felix sighed, Yeah. It would be nice to know a good healer that could undo what I''m about to do if something goes wrong.


    It would be nice to have a backup body as well, unfortunately, I don''t know if anyone but you could undo what you are about to do.


    Yeah. That is both reassuring that this is the right path and incredibly concerning that I might be ruining myself.


    Sorry.


    Alright, nothing left but to go for it.


    Felix headed into his Pocket Home because he knew no one would be able to fix him if he screwed up and if he died, he didn''t want anyone to be able to find him. He had Nova sit outside and wait for him then sat down near the sapling, that was a couple inches taller than it had been, and pulled out the computer he had been working on.


    It was now the exact size of his brain, which was the goal, but not because he intended on replacing his brain but rather, he wanted to attach the computer to it. Fusing them together into one singular entity.


    He started by vey carefully shifting the computer in the fourth dimension then moving it into his mana pool. His mana pool was just a pocket of mana that sat alongside his body, just shifted slightly. Placing the computer right where his brain would be, he carefully fused his soul to the anima used to create the computer.


    The last step of the process was the part where irreversible things could start to happen.


    Felix made sure the computer was pressed right up against his brain, perfectly overlapping it in the fourth dimension, then focused in on the anima that now connected them. He carefully honed in on the experiences within the anima.


    The experience of his brain, how it functioned, the experience of the computer, how to build it, how to program it, how to connect it, how to read from it and write to it. Lastly, he mixed in some of the experiences and feelings from his own core soul. The desire to grow stronger, to be smarter, to think things through, the feeling of having perfect memory and the satisfaction of using it, the will to live and finally, the desire to control.


    There was no big explosion or significant pain. In fact, as he finished, he wasn''t even sure anything was happening. Theoretically his brain and the computer would slowly connect themselves together and become more integrated over time but this was based on a lot of guessing and assumptions. There was no research or previous tests or even experiments he could run to verify anything.


    It was impossible to do what he was doing for anyone but him. He could have created another computer and attached it to a monkey but his soul was the only one that had the mana senses and control to correctly read and write from the computer. Trying to fuse that to a monkey would likely also wipe out its soul which was not ideal. Even bonded creatures like Nova ran the same risk because he would need to put so much of his soul at such a high density, both he and Grim were certain it would have obliterated her.


    So all that was left was for Felix to wait. Wait for something to happen, any sign to show that it had worked. He took a couple of deep breaths to calm himself then got up and walked out of his Pocket Home.


    He looked around the storage room then felt Nova outside in the workshop in an out of character act of defiance. Felix walked out and looked for her, finding her in the design room with Aldahn.


    Watching from the door, Felix saw Aldahn playing with Nova. Much like a real pet, he had a small chunk of some material in his hands and he was playing keep away with Nova in her scaled kitten form.


    He noticed and acknowledged Felix as he entered with a slight nod then turned back to Nova.


    Considering it was the middle of the night, Felix felt comfortable asking Aldahn something he had been wondering about for a while.


    "Hey Aldahn, could I ask you something in your office?"


    Aldahn looked at Felix then nodded and shrugged, "Sure."


    He tossed the chunk of material into the air and Nova immediately caught it then followed them over to his office.


    Once inside, Felix waited until the door was closed then he pulled out Grim from his soul space, for the first time in a very long time.


    "What do you see when I show you this?" Felix held Grim out in front of him.


    "Oh, it''s Dark Magic."


    Felix frowned, "Dark Magic?"


    Aldahn immediately shook his head, "No not Dark Magic, Dark Magic."


    Felix''s face contorted even further, "What? Wait¡­ What? You just said the same thing twice."


    Aldahn sighed in understanding, "Damn, stupid System translation. Ancient Magic, Forgotten Magic, Hidden Magic, Magic hidden in the shadows of time? Not Evil Magic or anything like that."


    Felix nodded, "Ancient Magic sounds the most accurate to me."


    Aldahn cocked his head back and forth indicating sort of, "Most people''s understanding of the magic is hidden, secret, forgotten, lost in the dark, hard to find. Which why we call it Dark Magic. I suspect your language doesn''t have quite the right words so The System translates to the closest word it can find that conveys a similar meaning."


    "I guess Dark Magic makes some sense with context."


    "See, you just used a different word for me right there, but I suspect you said the same thing with different intent just now, right?"


    Felix nodded, "That is¡­ frustrating."


    Aldahn chuckled, "One of the biggest flaws of The System we''ve come across. It wipes out the need for languages but the translation is imperfect. Any translation is just flawed by nature. No two languages will ever map one to one. So, something is always lost."


    "It could just convey the meaning directly into our heads though, right?"


    "It could. The System used to avoid that more though and it''s been translating everything¡­ since the start I think. Obviously it doesn''t translate codes or languages where the intention is to hide meaning but¡­"


    "What would Evil Magic be then?"


    Aldahn shrugged, "There is no inherently Evil Magic. Everyone understands that¡­ Other than a few particularly zealous gods¡­ Necromancy is naturally a little worrisome but it''s not inherently Evil. You can be a necromancer and do it humanely without causing pain or sacrificing anyone. It''s taboo, but not evil. No one is going to hunt you down and kill you just because you chose the class and practice it. Well¡­ except some gods, but living in Telviras and other neutral locations, you''d be perfectly safe."


    Felix nodded, "Yeah, just talked to a necromancy expert at the library in fact."


    Aldahn''s eyes rolled upwards, deep in thought, "I guess¡­ depending on your morals, you could consider blood rituals inherently evil but¡­ I don''t know that that''s a specific kind of magic more like¡­ a technique¡­"


    "I see. But this book, can you identify it? Am I at risk of being attacked for having it? Am I at risk of having it stolen?"


    Aldahn shrugged, "I just see Tome. Maybe if someone had more knowledge of what it was they''d want to steal it? I would be¡­ surprised if anyone was that dedicated to researching it that they would do that. More likely they would offer you increasingly exorbitant offers until you lent it to them."


    Felix let go of Grim and he floated in the air in between them. Grim opened himself up and faced Aldahn then clearly wrote something Felix couldn''t see on his pages.


    Aldahn''s eyes widened, "Oh, it''s sapio-sentient¡­ That''s¡­ You''re probably still fine¡­ I''d worry more about the cursed familiar honestly."


    Felix winced, "Oh¡­ that bad?"


    "Well¡­ no one''s gonna want to steal it but, people might avoid you or decide Nova was better off dead."


    "Gotcha, thanks. Last question, a few times now I''ve wanted to cast certain spells but before I even get them off, something happens and¡­ it''s like they go off instantly before I have the chance to actually cast them myself¡­ does makes sense?"


    Aldahn shrugged, "I think so? I''m not a caster but¡­ I''ve never heard of anything like that. I don''t know. Maybe The System just really likes you? It''s not unheard of for The System to favor certain individuals. It''s very rare though."


    Felix frowned, "Yeah maybe."


    "Oh by the way, I was looking for you. That''s how I found Nova chilling in the storage closet and¡­ never mind. We''ve got a new job."


    Felix nodded then let his confusion leak onto his face, "Ok, so¡­"


    "It''s the biggest job I''ve ever been contracted to do, as an adventurer or an enchanter. It''s gonna be an all hands on deck kind of situation. Well, not all hands. I already know Krinitor is too busy right now, because he just got a huge job from a long time client himself but, we''ll definitely need everyone else."


    Felix nodded appreciatively, "That big?"


    Aldahn nodded slowly, "Yeah. We''re gonna meet with the client together in just over 2 dekads. I''m going to be letting everyone know as I find them so no one makes other commitments."


    "Any idea how long it will take?"


    "No idea. All I know is how much they''re ready to pay for it and a general idea of the level of enchantment they need. They only gave me a basic idea and I already know¡­ it''s gonna be a lot of work."


    "Which is¡­"


    "Their budget is somewhere between 1S and 1SS depending on how much we need. Enchantment has to be at least A grade Legendary, ideally higher."


    Felix scoffed, "No offense but¡­ Is Inscripticae really the best shop to be handling this job?"


    Aldahn chuckled, "That''s what I said but they specifically wanted us. Something about a personal recommendation."


    This sounds¡­ something is up¡­


    "Alright. I''ll be here¡­ by the way, I should let you know, I have somewhere I have to be in 111 days. I''ll let you know my plans closer to the date." Felix offered a slightly guilty smile.


    "That shouldn''t be an issue with this job. Worst case you can leave early. Thanks for letting me know."


    Felix nodded and exited the office, Grim floating behind him and Nova riding on Grim''s cover.


    Alright so I''ve got just over 2 dekads to kill.


    That you do.


    I think first things first, I should clean out my Soul Space.


    Grim chuckled in Felix''s mind, Good call. It is getting kind of messy in there.


    Felix just scoffed because his soul space was barely 5% full.


    He touched and stowed Grim in his Soul Space then shoved Nova into his robes and flew off to Luther''s.


    He found the giant toad sitting behind the counter in his shop, seemingly discussing something with tiny fairy like creatures. As Felix entered, the fairies vanished leaving just the two of them in the shop, alone.


    "Ah, the new kid in Shade''s Wrath. What can I get for you today?"


    "Actually, I was hoping you would buy some things from me."


    Luther''s eyes waggled, "Oh, is that so?"


    First, Felix offered Luther the books he had gotten in the tutorial as well as his old E grade quills. Luther offered him a meager amount for all of them, but the toad was clearly not impressed. Felix had expected that and honestly, he was just hoping to get anything for any of it. It had no value to him anymore so he would just throw any of it away if Luther didn''t buy it from him.


    After that there was the random crap he had picked up in the world event that he didn''t need or have a use for.


    The bigger ticket items were his old charm, experiment 12, the plate armor from Erolan''s experiment storage room, and something he hadn''t expected to be worth much.


    "I can offer 10 B for the charm. This suit of armor is¡­ interesting."


    "I couldn''t actually identify it, can you?"


    Luther answered by sharing the identification with him.


    [D - Cursed] Bonded Plate


    [Armor][Cursed]


    This plate armor creates an unbreakable bond with its wearer. Once equipped, the armor will begin to gradually tighten until it eventually sinks beneath their flesh and merges with it. It will continue to offer the wearer the full protection of plate armor but will remain forever bonded to them.


    In order to be removed once fully bonded, the armor must be removed surgically with high grade cutting equipment.


    This armor does not grow in protection and will only ever offer A [D - Legendary] level Plate Armor protection. It does not however, count as equipped armor once fully bonded for the effects of skills and classes that have such a requirement.


    "Wait a second, that''s not necessarily a bad thing."


    Luther nodded, "Great stuff for some pugilist or barbarian classes that require no armor to function."


    Felix winced, "But it has to be surgically removed once they get to C grade¡­"


    "Not necessarily," Luther croaked, "It is possible, in some rare circumstances, that the armor will count as a part of the wearer''s body and evolve along with their race. Assuming they are eligible for a [C - Legendary] or above race."


    So considering I won''t ever have to upgrade my race again, not really usable for me.


    Grim shrugged, You could probably remove it without surgery though.


    Yeah¡­ I''m already too close to C grade to worry about this I think.


    Agreed.


    Felix nodded, "So, to the right buyer, it would be worth a lot is what you''re saying?"


    Luther laughed which was a deep and rumbling croak, "Yes. I believe I could find a buyer for this and I''d be willing to offer¡­ 0.25 A?"


    Holy shit.


    "Wow. You also said this was valuable?"


    Luther nodded as he looked at the book Felix was pointing to.


    [E - Rare] Eramith & Edelis: Enchanting Basics


    A book written by a collection of master enchanters detailing the basics of enchanting intended for their personal apprentices. This version was later edited for general consumption by The Edelis Enchanting Department of The Eramith Academy.


    Luther shrugged his massive front legs, "It''s decently rare to find Eramith anything outside of the school itself. I could probably offer you¡­"


    Before he even said a number, Felix''s instincts tickled at him. His soul was aware of something he wasn''t and it was telling him Luther was hiding something. It threw him off a little and he had to shut his eyes to process it.


    "100 B?"


    Felix finally managed to come back to his senses and he just nodded, "Actually, I''ll keep the book." With his finger still on the book''s cover, he stowed it in his Soul Space.


    Luther didn''t seem happy about that but he didn''t say anything on the matter.


    "So, how about 0.35 A for everything here?"


    Luther laughed raucously for a minute straight before collecting himself, "No. No chance in hell I''m paying that much for this junk. I''ll give you 0.25 A and I won''t charge you the cleaning fee for taking everything else."


    Felix frowned, "Oh come on, you get to sell both of these yourself, you''ll find the right buyer and you''ll make a handsome profit. 0.3 A?"


    Luther groaned which was a deep, rumbling sound, "Fine."


    A transfer screen appeared and Felix accepted, receiving 300k B.


    He bid Luther farewell and headed back to Inscripticae with a much cleaner Soul Space.


    He immediately flew into the storage closet and entered his Pocket Home. Inside, he briefly checked on the sapling that seemed to be doing fine then dropped off Nova and Grim and flew up to the top of his tower.


    There had been an option in the upgrade podium that he had seen a while back but hadn''t felt the need to bother with until now. He also had plenty of mana accumulated in the mana engine and battery below so he had more than enough to pay for it.


    [D - Epic] Wizard''s Tower


    Claim Land


    Claim the land surrounding the tower as a part of the tower itself. This will add all the land and liquid in the surrounding area, as it is enclosed, and that land will be considered a part of the tower itself. Upgrades and modifications to the land and liquid claimed will appear in this management console.


    Requirements:


    10B Mana [21.5B | 215%]


    1 B Credit (Consumed) [511,908 | 51,190,800%]


    Would you like to claim the surrounding land now?


    Yes.


    No.


    Yes.


    The process was completely uneventful but looking through the console, Felix saw exactly what he had been hoping for. Before he touched anything else though, he darted out of the tower, saw Grim and Nova play sparring, and flew into the Necromancer''s tower.


    He immediately headed straight into the dungeon where he looked down at the necromancer''s battery. Before touching it, he had Grim and Nova both hurry over so he could stick them in his soul space then, he broke the wards around the battery.


    As far as he could tell, nothing had happened. There were no wails of the damned souls or anything. He lifted the glass and hopped down then reached forwards and touched the battery, sticking it in his Soul Space.


    There was a slight risk that it affected Nova and Grim but, considering how quickly his Soul Space obliterated every other soul he had stowed, he was more worried about them being nearby when he undid the wards.


    With the transfer complete, he let the two of them out and searched the rest of the tower. He found a few interesting enchantment nodes that he memorized but otherwise, he was confident there was nothing else he wanted in there.


    Finally, he headed back into his own tower and up to the management console where he was ready to spend exorbitant amounts of mana.


    He started by completely scrapping the necromancer''s tower. All the materials went into a material cache in the console and would be used in future to lessen the cost of other upgrades. After that, he finally flattened the entire island so it wasn''t on a slant anymore from when he had ripped it out of the side of a dormant volcano.


    He then had the entirety of the island reinforced with some of the stone from the necromancer''s tower so there was no chance it would ever fall apart. He also added soil and D grade grass to the entire surface of the island as well as moved some of the mana liquid suffused ponds.


    It was also slightly entertaining to Felix, to look out the window and see everything move in real time, especially watching Nova freak out and try to figure out what was happening.


    Now that the layout of the island was more balanced and the island itself more stable, he looked inwards and started examining the battery in his Soul Space.


    The gem itself was massive, but only physically. In terms of mana capacity, Felix wasn''t sure if there was more than a few million points of mana. Considering its size, he had expected far more. There were however, thousands of souls.


    He did not have an exact number and they were a wide variety of different creatures of different levels but, it was a lot of anima.


    As he tried to decide what to actually do with all of it, his mind wandered towards his current Soul Reap skill, or rather what it was currently doing for him.


    Currently, it was automating the process of stripping souls down and pulling out anything that didn''t have any experiences or instincts. From there, he took out anything left of the second layer from the soul and fused that into his own.


    As he thought about it more though, he realized what he was currently doing probably wasn''t the most efficient. It was efficient in terms of netting him raw stats, but it wasn''t efficiently using all of the soul or using it where it was needed most.


    He decided he was going to simply harvest all of the souls. It was better than being sealed in the battery and eternally tortured, but he was going to have to change his harvesting method first.


    Felix carefully removed a single soul from the battery and moved it directly into The Soul Ring. From there, he started the process he wanted most souls to go through, he dragged them along the outside of his own soul where it was completely obliterated. Then, it was compressed as much as possible and simply fused into his soul anywhere.


    He currently had two layers he could add to, the second and third. The second controlled his body and acted as the link between his body and soul, it was responsible for his physical stats. The third was the layer suffusing his body.


    It didn''t matter which got more anima added to them because both of them resulted in his soul being stronger and his stats going up. It would also make it so that the stats of the soul he was harvesting no longer mattered, all that mattered was its relative size or strength.


    While this allowed him to use the entire soul, it also meant there was nothing left for his Persona''s soul. He wasn''t really concerned about that for the moment though and simply drew as many souls as he could into the ring and reactivated his Soul Reap skill.


    Once it was done processing those souls, he moved the rest in and moved his attention over to the battery that was left behind.


    The battery''s capacity was oddly small, considering it was a gemstone as wide as Felix''s shoulders. Identifying it, it had less than some of the batteries he had bought. His assumption was that it had something to do with having it used for souls as well as mana but he couldn''t be sure.


    Either way, he moved it into the basement of his own tower and connected it in parallel to the other battery he was already using as a buffer. If he ever spent more time figuring out how to make and diagnose batteries he decided he would look into remaking this gemstone but until then, it would act as a passable buffer.


    Heading out onto the now grassy fields of the island around his tower, Felix found Nova and Grim flying around. They both noticed him immediately and flew over when Felix requested Grim''s presence in his Memory Palace.


    Want to try bringing Nova in here as well?


    Felix frowned, Is that possible?


    Why wouldn''t it be? I can do it and we have basically the same bond, right?


    Ok, what do we do?


    We just have to explain to Nova how it works. I can communicate with her myself so let me give it a try.


    Felix nodded and waited while a number of expressions passed over Nova''s kitten visage. Eventually though, she closed her eyes, laid down and Felix felt a rush of emotions from her. He quickly moved himself into his Memory Palace and found Nova running around and jumping between shelves.


    She ran down the aisles and into the distance then reappeared behind them as the library looped and they were in the center area. She stopped, looked at them in confusion then ran down the aisle again, not quite understanding the non-Euclidean geometry.


    After a few minutes of her confusion growing, Felix caught her and dragged her over to his Soul Garden. All he had to do was hold on and will them both to go there and it happened.


    The Soul Garden was much easier for her to understand and she jumped around and tried to bite things, but didn''t so much as scratch anything because Felix didn''t wish her to. He did let her splash around in the river and pond though.


    He and Grim meanwhile, headed back to the library where together, they sorted through the Necromancer and Lich''s books.


    While none of the books had had information on the battery from their skimming them, they had plenty of information on spells and rituals they had bought, created and performed.


    Starting with the Fire Storm, while Felix thought the spell was cool, it was far too slow and clunky for his style of combat. It definitely would have been a devastating spell in a lot of circumstances but it took far too much concentration and time to actually cast. It did however, consist of many spell nodes Felix had never seen before.


    He spent some time dissecting the spell into it''s constituent parts and analyzing the channels, nodes and patterns. Why certain nodes were grouped with others and why the channels were organized the way they were. The biggest benefit were the Fire and Force nodes whose efficiency curves made them far more suitable for higher mana cost spells allowing Felix''s spells to scale much better.


    They also found a number of other spells but unfortunately, Felix was still lacking certain nodes he would have wanted. The other spells were interesting but a lot of them were either useless to him because they were redundant, worse than what he already had or far too clunky to be useful.


    Once Felix had gotten everything he wanted from the spells, they briefly sorted through the rest of the information, some of which was useful. There was solid information on rituals, how to cast them and how they worked which was new to Felix but also not something he ever really planned to use. At least, he didn''t have any use case for rituals yet. Most of what rituals did, he could do simply by casting the spell in the air. His portal mold for example seemed to technically be a ritual.


    With all the information sorted through, Felix turned his attention to his mind. Feeling out his own brain as well as the connected computer, he couldn''t actually tell if anything had happened. His stats hadn''t changed at all and he couldn''t find any effects so he assumed it would just take more time for his brain to rewire itself a little more.


    In order to accelerate the process, Felix looked towards his Persona body and started picking and choosing the best modifications to move over to his own body. He figured some of them were already very stable with little to no downside and moving them over, his brain would be forced to rewire itself a little. In doing so, he was hoping he could accelerate the process of it integrating itself with the computer and having the two wire themselves together.


    He started with the eyes which didn''t take nearly as long as it had on his Persona''s body because he had already experimented and designed them. They also had the largest effect compared to everything else. After that he transitioned the rest of his senses, ears, nose and tongue. They were all small increases overall but with his higher perception on his real body, he felt like he noticed them more. It was entirely possible though that was just because it was such a stark transition.


    After that he also transitioned the bones and nails. The nails were a very low impact adjustment that would just make him less likely to have them break or be ripped off in the future. They also had very low risk if something went wrong and they seemed perfectly stable on his Persona''s body.


    The bones were a little more experimental with more risk but they were also completely stable as far as he could tell. They carried higher risk but not enough that he was going to avoid them.


    The skin and muscle modifications he had made to his Persona did have issues. The skin had had problems with being too solid and restricting movements while the muscles were too inefficient to be useful. They also carried a high risk and so Felix dismissed them for the time being and didn''t apply them to his real body.


    He was happy his Persona was so useful as a testing ground in case he made a terrible mistake that was difficult to reverse. It gave his Persona value and lately, he''d started to feel an aversion to using his Persona. Ever since he suffused his real body with his own soul, it''s felt so much more comfortable and correct to him.


    Switching to a different body just felt wrong.


    It was instinctual too, not just a hormonal feeling in his body. His soul itself was more fond of his real body and it resulted in him feeling more comfortable overall. Now, in his Persona, his soul felt like it was being shoved into an uncomfortable suit.


    He suspected he could mitigate the feeling by modifying his Persona''s soul and simply restructuring it a little. If he could make the innermost layer the one that suffused the body and affinized the anima to his own soul as much as possible, the feeling would likely disappear. He just didn''t feel the motivation at the moment to do so.


    He had also considered making his Persona identical to his real body so it would be a more effective training ground but he decided against doing so. The differences between their bodies actually helped him find issues and allowed him to have 2.5 times the strength at will.


    The other huge benefit, which he was hoping would mean more in the future, was that he could enter competitions and generally do things that drew a lot of attention. All of that attention would then be on his Persona and he wouldn''t feel conflicted between trying to win the competition and avoiding standing out.


    For the time being, he left his Persona be and saw some nice improvements to his raw stats. His Perception, Vitality and Endurance had increased by about 5000, 2500 and 1500 respectively. As he looked over his sheet, he also admired just how many stats he had gained from killing the Lich and harvesting the Necromancer''s Battery.


    Though they had been low grade souls, there had been a lot of them. It seemed that harvesting souls in general was doing wonders for his Dexterity and Vitality specifically. He understood why, because they were based on control over his body and willpower, both of which were heavily based on the soul. It was still a shock though to see just how much those souls had done for him.


    Name:Felix KadeFREE0Innate:Ascendant Prodigy: Mana (Wizard)STR31440Class:[D - Legendary] Reaper (Lvl 778)DEX116852Race:[D - Unique] Wanderer (Lvl 735)AGI40143Profession:[D - Arcane] Mana Engineer (Lvl 693)PER72968Health:757,770 / 757,770VIT75777Mana:51,668,030 / 51,668,030INT106073Energy:2,148,880 / 2,148,880END53722


    Damn, my Intelligence actually got surpassed. Holy shit.


    On another note, you are finally ahead of the curve on your stats. At least compared to the other class and races you were offered.


    Felix did some quick math, By a lot too, right?


    Sort of? You gained a lot from harvesting and it''s helping make up for your race where the increases haven''t quite matched the Infant Lich race alone.


    Maybe it''s just because I suffused my body and now my soul is influencing my logical processes, but I couldn''t imagine being a body hopping Lich at this point. I like my body a lot. Hopefully I can find more modifications in the future to at least help bridge the gap.


    Grim shrugged, I may be wrong, but I think in theory, you''ll end up in the same place. The most powerful body a Lich can possess is limited by what they can find. I''m sure at some point, they would have to start engineering themselves a body as well.


    Maybe. That would mean they are stronger early on but then stall for a while until they spike once again much later.


    Yeah, front loaded vs exponential growth.


    Now that he had applied the modifications he wanted to his body, Felix took a quick look at adding mana channels to his body and fueling it with mana where he could. Unfortunately, he immediately ran into a huge setback he wasn''t expecting.


    His body and his Persona''s were largely the same in terms of cell internals and he had tested the attunements to buff his Persona before the modifications. Despite that, the attunements behaved very weirdly in Felix''s actual body.


    Instead of buffing his Agility in his Persona, the very same attunement caused his cells to freak out in a sense. He had no idea what was happening and even examining them with his new found control over them, he couldn''t figure it out. He tried a variety of other attunements too but they all had similar results. His cells just acted strangely like they were seizing and hitching in their normal functions.


    Until he had a better idea of what was happening and a better way to diagnose things, Felix decided to put off mana channels.


    Lastly, he wanted to try and figure out the weird casting that had happened with Damoth, the Lich and during his matter control practice.


    He couldn''t really simulate a battle that intense again but what he could do was get frustrated at pebbles while he tried to improve his matter control. His training then also had the side benefit of increasing his matter control, hopefully.


    Felix hadn''t actually gotten anywhere with matter control at all yet.


    As he focused on various pebbles, he decided to lay them out in a circle around him and enter the first level of his meditation. The same meditation he had first entered when first trying to open the Arcane rarity Mana Control skill cube.


    His senses blanked and Felix felt himself in an empty void with just the stones around him. To start, he mostly focused on feeling the pebbles themselves. Feeling their shape, their distance, the differences between them. He could also feel there was more to be felt but he wasn''t there yet, he couldn''t focus in enough to grasp whatever it was.


    He was still feeling blobs, amorphous objects and undefined shapes but those blobs were getting every slightly smaller and more refined.


    Unfortunately, it was nothing like when he learned to sense and control mana. Not only had that felt natural and comfortable but it was also familiar and fast. It was like he had done it for his entire life and he was just remembering how.


    Now, it was truly like he was learning something new. Like he was working out and pushing for progress at something. It wasn''t like when he started working out though, with significant progress being made early on. With this, it was like he was already at the wall. Like he had already passed the point of diminishing returns.


    Is this just the limit of what I can do now?


    It''s based on how much Nova''s soul seed has integrated with yours. How much stronger she''s gotten since you integrated it.


    Right. Considering how much I''ve already messed with my own soul, couldn''t I manually¡­ push that along a little?


    I don''t know. I don''t know if anyone is actually that impatient to have tried that. Actually, no I''m sure someone has tried.


    Might as well give it a shot, right?


    First, before Felix did anything, he juggled some mana in the air and felt out his soul. He was trying to pinpoint the feeling within his soul, or find the location in his soul that was giving him the level of mana control he had. It took him a few hours and he had to strain himself but he finally managed to isolate the sensation and found it came from almost everywhere within his soul.


    Switching over to his matter senses, he strained them as much as possible then focused in on his soul and immediately realized it was almost the same. He was satisfied with that answer though because he was mostly wondering about how souls functioned. They seemed to be wholly engaged in the action rather than segmented into functions.


    Focusing in on his soul bond with Nova, Felix followed and narrowed down the specific location of the bond. It was much harder than he thought it would be because when he felt Nova''s emotions, they poured into his soul. Finding where they where coming from was hard when that pour was perfectly uniform and instantaneous.


    What helped was isolating how and where the communication between them happened. When they conversed in intents and feelings, he seemed to naturally push the intent or feeling into the soul seed itself.


    Now that he had found it, Felix spent time analyzing it. He strained his matter senses once again and found that the seed didn''t actually do any of the controlling itself. In fact, the seed felt more like a piece of Nova''s soul that was slowly growing and blending itself into his own soul, almost like very slow dye.


    Grim''s was the same but he wasn''t really getting stronger so it hadn''t really changed in size or integrated itself much.


    Following from the source though, Felix realized that while Nova''s soul seed was still distinct, a miniscule portion of it had leaked into the rest of his soul. It had integrated itself somewhat, though the nature of Felix''s soul had cleansed the majority of that. He suspected that had it not, he would be mirroring her emotions. He had no idea how or why it was able to distinguish between the emotions, the connection and the matter control but he was very happy it was happening.


    The best he could do for the time being though, was to hone in on the experience he found in Nova''s soul seed and very lightly in his own soul and try to amplify it. He didn''t get far but returning to his body, he had made progress.


    He could now see the shapes of the pebbles as if they were drawings. Nothing precise, but slightly smoothed outlines appeared all around him. It wasn''t nearly enough to read a book through a wall or even determine any material properties, but it was noticeably better.


    Unfortunately, Felix was pretty certain he would just have to wait while Nova got stronger and their soul seed grew. He couldn''t think of anything else he could do right now in that department.


    Switching back over to trying to move the stones, he got nowhere. Just like last time. Despite his manual improvement of his matter senses and likely control if he had any, he couldn''t move the rocks at all.


    His alternate goal of figuring out the weird instant casts also wasn''t really getting anywhere either. In his meditation, he didn''t grow frustrated, he was entirely calm and focused. He was trying to reproduce the effect under different circumstances because he didn''t want to have to get frustrated to make it happen. It was also difficult to pay attention to what was happening when he was frustrated.


    Unfortunately, it seemed like that would be necessary and he didn''t see any good way of forcing himself to feel frustrated so he gave up for now. He did decide he would start paying as much attention as possible in the future so he had some direction to figure out what was happening. He was starting to think it may have been The System or something but he really hated that explanation so he avoided it for the time being.


    With just over a dekad left until the client meeting, Felix decided to sit down and train. He also briefly dove into the elixirs and potions Zufaris had gotten him but unfortunately, unlike the poisons, these were almost entirely System Fuckery. The ones that weren''t, he had already replicated and they had little to no effect on him at all.


    He was also waiting to look at his mana pool and figure out why it was tied to his Intelligence until after the mana computer he had created was fully functional. He was expecting it to increase his Intelligence dramatically and so he had memorized or effectively snapshotted the feeling of his current mana in a series of single use batteries as well as his memories and soul experiences.


    As soon as the computer increased his Intelligence and mana capacity, he could then compare those to reality and hopefully be able to find the difference. That didn''t help him now though so he started working on his mana control and overall focus.


    He lifted small weights with his mana control, cast spells as fast as he could, stretched his casting range and even practiced his aim.


    Just to switch things up a little, he also spent a couple days training until he could quickly use the ambient mana to cast a spell. It wasn''t really useful unless his mana pool was corrupted or something because he regenerated mana so quickly and it required at least twice the focus if not more. It wasn''t like he could cast massive spells either, he was still restricted by the amount of aether directly around him.


    He turned it into a game though, playing with Grim but more often Nova. Casting spells and sparring then taking time to heal. They cast spells at each-other, knocked rocks off a ledge, cast spells around corners, played spell tag and anything he could come up with to keep practicing and occupy Nova.


    By the time the client meeting rolled around, he hadn''t actually increased the number of spells he could cast at once, he was still stuck at 15 levels. He had increased his mana control range though all the way to about 10 meters. Right at the edge, though possible, he did need more focus to cast spells.


    His aim was still as good as it needed to be, no issues he could see and his casting speed possibly improved negligibly but he wasn''t entirely sure.


    Unfortunately, he hadn''t had any massive jumps in Intelligence, the stat or his noticeable processing speed. Either the computer needed more time or something was wrong. Felix was erring on the former though so he let it be for the time being.


    Either way, he was happy with the time he had spent and felt satisfied overall when he hopped out of his Pocket Home and back into the workshop of Inscripticae. Nova hopped out as well and Felix made sure to stow Grim in his Soul Space as they left the storage room. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 Chapter 198 - Book 15

    Felix once again found no one in the workshop but, that was expected. He was still a couple hours early and if anyone was there as early as he was, he was expecting them to be in the design room above him.


    Flying around to the stairs, Felix peeked through the window and saw almost everyone there and waiting, other than Krinitor.


    I don''t think I''ve ever seen everyone together all at once.


    Felix hopped up the stairs and walked into the room in the middle of their conversation.


    Nova immediately leapt over and jumped into Aldahn''s lap where she started trying to get into his pockets. That seems to have been his intention judging from his smile and the way he was playing with her, so Felix let them be.


    Taking the open seat next to Aldahn and slightly separated from the rest of the group, Felix tuned into their conversation to see what was happening.


    "So is he the one?" Inorim smirked in Fralyna''s direction.


    "We''ve been on one date- well, two¡­ kind of. It''s way too early, Inorim." Fralyna crossed her arms.


    Looking over at her, Felix finally noticed that she wasn''t wearing her normal looking clothes and leathers that could have been protective but rather, a far more revealing small sundress.


    Edemari grinned, "Well, at least you like him. Who knows in just a few epochs you could be like Ezaldor here, on your¡­ which kid is this one?"


    "17th." Ezaldor nodded politely.


    Inorim leaned in a little, "How do you choose?"


    Ezaldor shrugged, "Process of elimination. Usually I look for the healthiest eggs then from there it''s just about which I feel the most connection with."


    "Does she get a say?" Edemari crossed her arms.


    "She would, if she were conscious. Laying that many eggs, despite their size, is very taxing. She needs rest and I need to inseminate them as quickly as possible. So usually no, just for practicality reasons."


    Edemari seemed satisfied with the answer and just settled a little deeper into her chair.


    Fralyna sighed, "I''m not sure if I even want kids yet, you know?"


    "Nothing wrong with that. I will say, I was the same as you but now looking back¡­ It was definitely worth it." Inorim smiled.


    Fralyna shook her head, "I mean when they''re young they''re easy. You just deal with them when they cry, feed them and so on. How do you deal with them later, when they start leveling? How do you not explode with anxiety? They are constantly in danger."


    Inorim nodded, "Yup. You just have to do your best to teach them and hope that''s enough. Not much else you can do. I can''t speak for everyone, but I got used to the stress. It does help that they are much stronger than I ever was."


    "Really? I feel like that would be worse. The danger''s you don''t know and all that." Edemari frowned.


    Inorim just shrugged.


    Fralyna quickly glanced over and noticed Edemari sulking a little then deftly switched the topic of conversation, "So anyways. Who do you think the client is?"


    Inorim shrugged and Edemari started to slowly work her way out of her depression as the topic of conversation shifted.


    "I mean, we don''t even know what the job is yet. How are we supposed to guess the client?" Ezaldor looked over at Aldahn for confirmation.


    Aldahn just nodded then went back to playing with Nova who he was currently tossing into the air and catching repeatedly.


    "I mean, based on the budget alone, it has to be a god or something right? Also¡­ why us?" Fralyna looked around at the rest of the group looking for an answer.


    No one had any and most just shrugged.


    The conversation continued for the rest of the couple hours until the appointment time. A few minutes before, Aldahn went to the front door to greet and lead them over to the design room.


    None of the meeting rooms were big enough for everyone and Aldahn wanted everyone to hear the specifications of the job.


    Felix shifted himself over to the side of the table so the client had a place to stand that wasn''t directly behind him and waited. Nova curled up into his robes but he actually stowed Nova in his Soul Space just to be sure. Then, Felix joined the others in subtly peering through the door and window to try and catch the first glimpse of the client.


    Just a few short moments later, and a couple minutes early for the allotted meeting time, Aldahn led a very tall and lithe individual that wasn''t quite human, but very close, into the design room. They wore a very expensive looking set of short robes with a long coat overtop everything. The one feature that distinguished them from a normal human was their eyes.


    Their eyes were both completely black orbs and they didn''t seem to have eyelids of any kind. Around their eyes, they had either ritualistic or arcane looking tattoos though Felix had never seen anything even remotely similar before in terms of the lines and shapes. They weren''t spell forms as far as he could tell so he just assumed they were likely just decorative.


    Aldahn settled into a seat opposite Felix, on the other side of the table, leaving the head of the table empty for the client. They stood behind the chair rather than sitting in it and looked over the group of enchanter''s gathered in the room.


    [?] Zarus (Lvl ?)


    As soon as their eyes darted over Felix, his soul lurched a little, just for a moment. Their eyes left him a moment later and his soul calmed. It was still slightly on edge, similar to how it had been near the tome in The Raven''s nest and The Usorium castle ruins before that.


    Pushing past the feeling, even though he couldn''t see their level or grade, Zarus felt far stronger than anyone Felix had ever met before. It was something about the way they walked and moved, the way they were attentive and aware as well as some kind of presence they had. Standing next to him, he made Aldahn feel like he was as weak as the average integrated Felix had left behind.


    The client smiled warmly and offered a slight bow, "My name is Zarus. Thank you for taking the time."


    They all gave variations of acknowledgement, nodding, smiling and even waving.


    Zarus looked amongst them, at no one in particular as he spoke, "We, the group I work for, have come into possession of something rather dangerous that we would like to transport. Unfortunately, anything that comes into contact with this object is¡­ compromised. As such, we are in need of a container that will allow us to safely store and transport this object, minimizing the risk of a breach."


    The enchanters slowly nodded as they started to grasp the contract itself.


    Aldahn was the first to speak and break the silence, "You mentioned it would need to be at least an A grade enchantment, possibly more. This object is that volatile."


    Zarus nodded once slowly again, almost as if he were bowing his head, "It is. Unfortunately, we cannot control the stability of its transport so the enchantment will also have to keep the object and itself, stable. The container will need to protect us from the object first and foremost while also protecting the object from the environment."


    "I have to ask, why us? We aren''t exactly creating A grade or higher enchantments¡­ often." Inorim crossed his arms.


    Zarus smiled at that, "I come here on a personal recommendation actually. I am not aware of who recommended you but my employer personally requested this shop. After looking into you, we are confident you will be more than capable of handling this."


    Inorim nodded in acceptance then Ezaldor tapped a claw on the table, "You mentioned it corrupts everything it comes into contact with. How all encompassing is ''everything'' in this circumstance?"


    Zarus sighed, "Everything. All matter, aether and anima. Ambient included. The container will need to create a true vacuum within and use force tethers to keep the object centered and suspended at all times. Were the object to come into contact with the container itself¡­ a lot of lives would be terminated prematurely. The enchantment itself will need to be robust as well as the object tends to pull on mana and anima."


    Felix immediately frowned, Everything? Including the ambient anima and aether? Pulls on mana and anima? This ''object'' sounds rather familiar, doesn''t it?


    To be fair, we didn''t actually get a description of the object from the ravens or Thezan.


    Yeah but¡­ that feeling when he looked at me. It was the same. Plus the Usorium enchantments could have totally been destroyed by having the mana ''pulled'' out of them.


    Could just be an instinctive danger sense though. I suspect Zarus is at least in the high A grade if not S or higher.


    Right. Still¡­ Something about this is¡­


    Yeah, something is off.


    Tuning back into the conversation, Felix heard Zarus explaining something to Fralyna, "¡­return in one term with a sample of the object. At that point you will be able to test if your enchantment functions properly with a prototype."


    Fralyna nodded.


    "In terms of the materials for the container, how resilient must it be and how much is it protecting against?" Edemari frowned.


    "Ideally the container is impenetrable from both the inside and out to anything below the S grade. While this requirement is high, hopefully the budget will allow you to acquire the proper materials to accomplish such a feat. Should you need more credits, feel free to stretch the budget well into the SSS range. Ideally it is not necessary however."


    A lot of eyes widened at that, a few smirks leaked out but no one spoke for almost a minute as they all digested. Once again, Aldahn was the one to break the silence, "Size of the object and container?"


    Zarus nodded, "The object is about the size of this¡­" Reaching into his coat, Zarus produced a small metal orb and placed it on the table. It was slightly larger than a golf ball and looked to be a completely seamless orb of grey metal to Felix''s eye without the use of any skills.


    He continued, "This is enchanted to detect anything it comes into contact with and is what we have been using to test various containers, tools and transportation methods. We have many so please take it. It does not have the same¡­ gravity, as the real object but, it can be used to test the vacuum and suspension enchantments. It is very sensitive."


    Aldahn reached over and picked up the orb then nodded to Zarus.


    Zarus looked around for a few moments to see if anyone else had any questions then bowed once again, "Should you need anything further, feel free to leave a message at The Cavern."


    A few of the other enchanter''s eyes widened again and they looked amongst themselves with knowing looks that left Felix wondering.


    Zarus then smiled then turned and walked out, assuring Aldahn he knew the way out.


    Felix turned to Ezaldor next to him, "The Cavern?"


    Ezaldor nodded in his direction, "Very high end tavern, inn and so on. Often used for handling business for Gods and Demigods."


    Aldahn nodded and rose to his feet, taking Zarus'' previous position, standing at the end of the table, "Alright. Given the material requirements, we likely want to order them as soon as possible otherwise, they may not be ready in the two terms we have. In terms of the design, this is what we''re going to start with."


    Drawing a massive system out on the board, all the other enchanters in the room, including Felix, just tried desperately to follow along. Aldahn had come up with the design so quickly and yet, Felix was completely blown away by the complexity.


    Having finished the diagram utilizing all the boards in the room, Aldahn turned to everyone, "Any comments?"


    They all skimmed through the rest of the design but no one had anything to say so Aldahn nodded and looked at Inorim, "You''re handling the mana computer. Ezaldor you''re on the measurement and normalization structure for the computer. Edemari, you''ll be working on the defensive enchantments for the the container itself. Fralyna, the suspension and vacuum enchantments. Felix, you''re on mana batteries, the mana distribution and normalization."


    Everyone nodded as Aldahn assigned them their jobs.


    "Every enchantment needs to be reviewed by me and if you need any help, come to me first. I''m going to be floating around to make sure everything is on track and all the enchantments will function properly together. Ideally we have a prototype in a term to test. Any questions?"


    No one had any so Aldahn pointed at one section of the board in specific, "I doubt anyone has any concerns and you likely haven''t even heard of these materials, but any thoughts on the materials I''ve initially selected?"


    Once again, no one said anything so Aldahn nodded, "Good. Felix should be the only other one who needs to acquire materials right now so Felix, you''re with me."


    Felix nodded and hopped to his feet then walked over to the door.


    Aldahn led him towards the lobby then turned to Felix, "To keep things fast, mind opening a portal to the teleportation hub?"


    Felix nodded and did so with the new portal spell form he had just recently finished the mold for. The 5 levels of spell focus he had saved from this spell form made a huge difference not only in the spell''s complexity but also in how much mana was required to cast it. Felix pulled the spell form free of the mold then inserted the anchor he had been provided and cast the spell.


    Aldahn immediately stepped through followed by Felix right after he stowed the mold.


    Arriving in a familiar looking room in the hub, an attendant appeared almost immediately and Aldahn spoke with them briefly before another portal opened and they stepped through.


    The shop they walked into, Felix had never seen anything like it before. There was a large circular stage in the middle of the room that may have just been a large table. All along the walls were glass encased shelves that held raw ores, ingots, balls, gasses, liquids and every other form, shape and state of matter.


    Just like Raidran''s, the shop was otherwise empty. Just a massive open space that held no customers.


    A few moments passed and an elven woman drifted into the room on a small circular platform. Her dress billowed unnaturally as she moved and the platform held her just a couple inches off the ground.


    [?] Nela (Lvl ?)


    "Aldahn, it is a pleasure. You must be Felix." She bowed to both of them then smiled in a very welcoming way, "Shall we begin?"


    Aldahn nodded and Felix followed the two of them over to the center of the room where they all stood around a large stage in the middle.


    Nela waved her hand over the stage and the top layer disappeared, either too fast for Felix to see or it simply teleported out somehow. Rather than a table or a stage, the top disappeared to reveal a large sandbox. Felix was certain it wasn''t actually sand as it was filled with tiny granules each of a slightly different color.


    "Now that you''ve met with the client, you have more information to provide me on what you are looking for?" Nela smiled warmly at Aldahn as her fingers gently came together in front of her.


    "Needs to be impenetrable to anything in the A grade. Obviously I''d like to surpass that so lets get it as far into the S grade as possible." Aldahn crossed his arms.


    Nela closed her eyes and slightly bowed her head then reopened them and waved her hand gracefully over the sand. The powder then rose up and formed a box, just as Felix had expected based on Mihto''s course which seemed to function on a similar concept. The granules here though were much finer and so the box it formed, was difficult to distinguish from an actual object. Mihto''s platforms on the other hand were very obviously made of granules.


    "Size?" She smiled once again.


    Aldahn bit his lip in thought for a moment then nodded, "Let''s say it''s a 1 meter cube."


    She waved once again, and the box grew to the exact size Aldahn had specified. They went back and forth on more of the basic requirements and gradually, the projection of a cube disappeared and the form of a very intricate box began to form.


    They used different materials for the box itself and the bumpers around the edges. There were multiple layers of various materials, each one serving a slightly different purpose and complementing each-other in their functions.


    "For the enchantment layer, we''re gonna need some very mana repellant and very strong material. Then we''ll inlay something very conductive into it." Aldahn nodded in the direction of the box, his two hands resting on the edge of the sandbox.


    She simply nodded and gestured for them to follow as she hovered over to one of the walls and pointed.


    "It is an excellent thing your budget is so large this time."


    Aldahn nodded, "Yeah, for what they need though, it''s fitting."


    Looking into the glass box she had pointed towards, Felix saw a solid red chunk of some ore. He was curious how effectively it was and so he reached out with his mana senses and tried to feel at the aether around the ore.


    Surprisingly, he found the case full of aether everywhere except, right up against the ore. Almost like it formed a barrier around it, the aether simply refused to approach the ore in any way forming a void around it.


    He resolved himself to put it to the test when they bought some and if it was effective, to buy some himself for training purposes. Though it was very expensive, he only needed a small piece to train his mana control so he was hoping after his commission on this job, he would have more than enough.


    They continued to discuss various materials, adding and removing from alloys, thickening and thinning the layers until they were both satisfied.


    Aldahn paid Nela and she informed them that the box would be complete in 2 dekads. Aldahn bid her farewell and they portaled back to the teleportation hub.


    "Over Capacity, right? That''s where you have the discount?"


    Felix nodded and Aldahn gave the name of the shop to the attendant. Rather than the portal opening directly inside the shop, this one opened right outside the door. Hovering through the portal, Felix opened the door and Aldahn, unable to fly himself, hopped through into the shop.


    Menan was at the back serving another customer so they waited while Aldahn looked around and examined the shop with a blank stare.


    After waiting a few minutes for the machine to finish, the other customer left and they approached his desk at the back. Menan stretched his arms out in a welcoming gesture as they approached, "Felix, welcome back. Who''s this ye brought ''ith ya?"


    Felix grinned, "My boss, Aldahn. He happens to also be my wallet for right now."


    Aldahn grinned and cocked a brow, "He''s not wrong. Since you''re the enchanter working on mana supply and distribution, what batteries are we buying?"


    Felix nodded and thought about it for a second, "Definitely Instant so it can sustain sudden impacts. As for capacity, I think we can get away with 8 A grade common batteries. One for each corner, right?"


    Aldahn nodded, "I agree. It''s pushing the original budget a little but we were given permission to do so."


    Menan looked at each of them incredulously as a smirk grew on his face. As soon as he realized they were being serious, his smile disappeared and he frowned, "I don''t even know if I ''ave the stones ter fill ''at."


    "How long will it take you to get them?" Aldahn crossed his arms.


    Menan sighed, "I can ''et em fer ya¡­ two to three dekads?"


    Aldahn nodded, "That works for us."


    Menan sighed and opened his mouth but Aldahn already anticipated what he was gonna say and opened a transaction screen to pay for the batteries.


    Menan shook his head and grumbled as he accepted the transaction, "Give a D grade kid a 10% discount and he comes ''ack ''n'' buys A grade batteries in less ''an an epoch. Fuckin'' ¡­"


    Aldahn chuckled a little under his breath as they walked over to the front of the shop.


    "Can I just portal directly to Inscripticae?" Felix looked up at Aldahn.


    He smirked, "You never tried that?"


    Felix shook his head.


    "The city redirects all portals back to the hub. There are some exceptions for intra building functions but those are managed by The System."


    Felix nodded in understanding then opened a portal to a set of completely random coordinates. As he filled the spell form with mana, he felt it lurch and the destination shift. He had no hope of pulling it to wherever he had pointed it to but pulled on it anyways just to test himself.


    To his complete surprise, he wasn''t able to shift the destination at all. It wasn''t immovable, he did managed to tug on it but he wasn''t able to move it more than a few inches from where it was being pulled to.


    After a few moments of fighting the city itself, the portal opened to the teleportation hub, despite his best efforts. He sighed and walked through followed by Aldahn who didn''t seem to realize what he had been trying to do.


    Talking to an attendant, they portaled back to Inscripticae and Aldahn quickly met with each of the other enchanters.


    Finding an empty table of his own, Felix sat down on the stool and got to work.


    The first step was to design the enchantment and luckily, he had his Soul Garden''s time dilation to give him as much time as he needed.


    Felix had also done something very similar just a couple dekads ago with the mana battery buttons on the dueling jacket so he already had some experience with the task at hand. What made this one tricky was just that it would have to be able to handle thousands of times more mana, delivered far faster with many times more precision.


    He would have to do an initial pass of normalizing the mana, just in case, and some load balancing so that one section of the enchantment didn''t starve the rest of it.


    As useful as his Soul Garden was, he had no way to test his designs inside so once he had come up with a number of designs, Felix returned to his body and tested them. He didn''t have as much mana as even one of the 8 batteries they were going to use but he figured his mana pool was enough for testing purposes.


    Instead of inscribing his designs onto a scrap sheet of metal, which would take a long time for each iteration, Felix simply constructed his designs out of mana. He held the enchantment, simulated as a spell form, before him and pushed his entire mana pool through it, reabsorbing the mana back into his pool after it came out.


    His task was no doubt the easiest amongst the enchanters of Inscripticae but still, he was surprised when Aldahn simply approved the first design he showed him, "We''ll test it in the prototype but I don''t think there''ll be any problems. Just be ready to redo it if there are. In the meantime, can you help Fralyna?"


    Felix nodded and walked over to Fralyna''s worktable where she was very carefully inscribing an enchantment into a sheet of metal. Felix waited until she was done so as not to interrupt her.


    "Oh, hey Felix. What''s up?"


    "I finished the mana distribution design. Aldahn told me to come help you?"


    "Oh sweet. Yeah I could use it, thanks." Fralyna pointed to a stack of papers, "Can you inscribe those designs onto scrap sheets for me? I need to test all these to see which works the best."


    Felix nodded then walked over and looked down at the stack of paper almost an inch tall, which his Scan Literature skill had already scanned and memorized.


    Inscribing all the enchantments would have been a waste of time, for Felix, so instead he did exactly what he had done with his own designs and simulated the designs as spell forms.


    As he ran through the designs, he noted any flaws or issues then circled them on their respective pages. There were a few that didn''t seem to have any issues so those, he inscribed onto sheets so Fralyna could compare them herself.


    Once she had finished with her test sheet, Fralyna looked through the stack and nodded along as she read through the issues Felix had pointed out.


    "Enchantment simulation skill?" She didn''t even look up from the papers.


    "Something like that."


    "Makes a lot of sense how you were done so fast. Sweet, I haven''t actually ever worked with anima or aether warding nodes before so that skill is gonna be super useful."


    "Happy to help." Felix smiled.


    Working with Fralyna on the suspension and vacuum enchantments was far more interesting than his own task had been. By far the most interesting part to Felix were the nodes. He had never seen nodes that acted specifically on the aether or ambient anima. He had adapted nodes himself to affect the aether but never heard of nodes like these.


    Together, Felix and Fralyna fine tuned the enchantments until they were both satisfied with the effect. They had to make arrays of the nodes, minimize wasted mana in the overlap while ensuring the space between nodes weren''t weak points. They tuned the arrangement, size and shaping of the nodes until they couldn''t come up with any further iterations.


    To test it, Felix himself pushed against the nodes with his mana control and found he couldn''t push mana through which meant he was satisfied. For Fralyna''s testing, they physically tried to push mana into the wards. It wasn''t impossible if they pushed with all their strength and used some Force spells but they didn''t have any leads on how to make it stronger anyways.


    It also came as a complete shock to Felix that he actually had almost twice Fralyna''s strength, despite the fact that she was a much higher level and almost two grades up.


    "When you neglect a stat, it ends up being very far behind. I probably have higher main stats though. Also, rarity is¡­ well everything. Being an exile, I suspect you have a much higher rarity race, class and profession." Fralyna shrugged.


    Considering we have the same main stats and how stupidly high my Intelligence and Dexterity are¡­


    "I guess. Still, I thought the grades made more of a difference." Felix shrugged.


    Fralyna nodded, "That depends on rarity too. You get a huge surplus of stats when you evolve but the amount is highly dependent on the rarity of the race you choose."


    "Gotcha. Just¡­ didn''t expect it is all."


    "If you ever end up hanging out with higher rarity people, you''ll notice the difference." Fralyna sighed out of her nose but smiled, like she wasn''t necessarily happy with the fact but she''d come to accept it.


    Felix frowned, "Can''t you make up for the stats later?"


    "Sure, it becomes harder and harder as you level though. Let''s say you''ve got a Legendary E grade everything and keep the same rarity in D grade. Your E grade stats would be contributing maybe 5% of your total stats. A common race, class or profession in E grade then, doesn''t make that much of a difference. Let''s say you were common everything for E and D grade then you lucked out and got Legendary everything for C grade. At the end of C grade, you''d be about 80% of the way there on stats compared to having Legendary everything throughout."


    Felix scoffed, "That''s not bad at all."


    Fralyna smiled knowingly, "No, it''s not. Issue is, it becomes harder and harder to upgrade rarity. You need to accomplish things, kill high level creatures and be amongst the best. You need to qualify for the race. While you''re in the E or D grade and stuck with Common everything, it''s nearly impossible to accomplish things worthy of upgrading. You''re stats alone are much lower then, there are the skills."


    Felix winced, "You''re stuck with buying high rarity skills which are super expensive or inventing them?"


    "Which is very difficult unless you''re a genius, yup." She shrugged, "It''s not like it matters that much though. You can live a great life off of a Common profession for example, if you work hard enough. It only really matters if you want to be a god or something. The vast majority of us don''t care. Take Inorim or Ezaldor for example, both have partners and kids and I bet you they''re completely satisfied with their lives. I want something similar, if I can find the right partner, and so it doesn''t matter to me much."


    "There are a lot more people just¡­ being normal? Than I would have expected considering, this is all new to me."


    "Sure. I''m sure a lot of people from your planet were super motivated to change their lives, seeing the integration as the perfect opportunity to finally start over and to get strong. That''ll die out pretty fast. The initial burst of motivation is often attributed as one of the reasons a higher percentage of integrateds hit high levels and rarities compared to the rest of the multiverse. That difference is maybe 5-10% more people in Uncommon or Rare rarities though, not hugely significant."


    "So you just have to be lucky out here then?"


    "Sort of, yes and no. It''s worse for integrateds because on the other end, there are significantly less Epic or higher rarities, almost half as much. It''s harder to accomplish feats and qualify for the classes, races and professions. Out here, you get to that rarity most often by being born into it or pledging your loyalty to a god early on."


    "Oh¡­ not the luck I meant."


    "I know. You can get super lucky and do it yourself, find the right feats to accomplish and get ahead of the curve, it happens. Just¡­ not often. It''s a lot easier to just start out with a Legendary class, profession, race and full roster of skills along with weapons, armor, spells and protective items."


    "Wouldn''t the feats mean less then?"


    "Yeah but, you can take on bigger feats and riskier fights with the armor and protective equipment. With an infinite pile of escape items alone, you could retry a fight an infinite number of times until you got it. You can also train in perfect safety against the best of the best. Ignoring all of that, just being taught great skills can make seemingly impossible feats, easy."


    Felix winced, "That seems¡­ rough."


    Fralyna shrugged and giggled a little, "Again, only if you care about being super strong. It matters little to us. Edemari''s husband, my brother, probably would''ve lived if he was stronger but¡­ that situation is so rare and honestly¡­ he was kind of an idiot putting himself in way too much danger. Was that way his whole life, ever since he was a kid."


    Felix nodded, "I see."


    "In the meantime, people like you and Aldahn can help us out with your simulation skills and high strength scores. Why would I need high strength myself when I can just get you to lift things for me?" She looked at him with a mischievous smile.


    Showing their design to Aldahn, he immediately had a huge list of notes for them. Most of them were minor but he also showed them a much tighter array that alternated the shapes and sizes of the nodes resulting in a much stronger enchantment overall.


    They quickly went back to the drawing board and tested Aldahn''s grid then iterated from there. Aldahn''s wasn''t actually better, it was much less efficient but it did point them in a new direction. They ended up pointing each node in the grid at a slightly different, and precisely calculated, angle which made the field it produced much thicker.


    They went back to him for approval and Aldahn gave them a small list of minor changes. He conditionally approved the enchantment as soon as those were done and got them to start working on the components for the prototype.


    They used materials for the prototype that Aldahn had gone out and bought. The materials he provided were much nicer than the testing materials they used but still no where near the level of the final materials they had bought.


    Felix worked on and finished the 8 mana distribution components for the prototype before helping Fralyna again. He only ended up inscribing 1 of the 6 sides of her enchantment but that had still taken almost a day.


    The other enchanters were also done with their components of the prototype so they started to piece things together and correct the kinks they found. Making enchantments work by themselves was one thing, making sure they worked perfectly together was another.


    Aldan had given them precise numbers for their inputs and outputs so the process was relatively smooth but there were still some hiccups they encountered. Most of them had to do with slight alignment issues and once corrected, the pieces fit together fairly easily.


    The end result of their prototype looked nothing like a finished product. Inorim''s computer was not in the box at all but rather inscribed out onto a stack of metal plates that sat next to the box. There were long strips of inscribed metal ribbons and mana conductive wiring attaching the two.


    Felix''s mana distribution sections looked like they were glued onto the corners but overall, it was functional.


    Aldahn had already picked up both the final box and the batteries for the final product. For the prototype though, they used much smaller batteries that they had in storage. Aldahn also used a small amount of the final materials, extra he had paid for, to create a small inert enchantment just to test if the material choice would function while in contact with the object.


    With just a couple days left until the prototype was put to the test, they rigorously tested it and corrected any mistakes they found. They used the testing orb Zarus had given them initially but the vacuum and suspension runes easily passed that test after some minor tweaks. More challenging, was trying to make everything as strong as possible.


    Just because the orb was suspended, didn''t mean the enchantments would function when the object inside was actively fighting against them. They simulated that as best they could with enchanted balls, discs and even just spells right up until the day came to test the prototype.


    Even before he had knocked on the door, Felix knew Zarus was there.


    His soul immediately tensed more than it ever had in the Usorium castle ruins. Felix immediately collapsed in the middle of the workshop floor, his entire body screaming in pain.


    With his soul suffusing his body, he felt everything tensing and compressing.


    Forcing his eyes open, through the tears, he saw his every vein bulging with each heart beat as he was squeezed like a balloon. A very similar experience to the one he had with the only dish he didn''t finish at Jozusto. An simultaneous feeling of nothingness and infinite pressure all around him, trying to consume him from every direction washed over him. He knew it wasn''t real, he knew it was a memory or flashback but even then, it was nearly impossible to push back against.


    He could feel the others in the shop around him, trying to help, see what was wrong but all he could do was push back and try to forcefully calm himself. He heard someone enter the lobby in the back of his mind and felt one of the presences around him disappear but nothing more than that.


    Pushing back against his instincts, Felix finally managed to wrestle some control from it after a minute that had felt like an eternity. He climbed his way to his feet using the tables around him and used the table closest to him to hold himself up.


    His body was still tight and being attacked by his own soul but the pain gradually lessened to a bearable degree as he learned to fight back. He was still hovering at under half of his maximum health as his soul twitched and tightened counteracting his natural regeneration.


    Looking around him, Fralyna was standing closest and looked like she wanted to help him physically but was worried to touch him. Edemari was a little further back and just seemed stunned while Ezaldor and Inorim were either confused or angry, he couldn''t quite tell.


    He assured them he was fine as he continued to push back and slowly regain control.


    Across the workshop floor, Felix saw Zarus walking in with Aldahn. They both walked over to him and it was actually Zarus who approached him first.


    "I apologize. I know even a sample of the object can have serious effects on some and it seems you are particularly sensitive." Zarus reached forwards and produced a vial in their hand which Felix was immediately wary of.


    He carefully took it though and Zarus shared with him the identification which made him much more comfortable.


    Felix drank the liquid and felt it immediately calm him down until he was no longer losing health. His soul was still tight and on edge but it was manageable and no longer painful. The liquid was the same thing they had drank at Jozusto but instead of a casual drink, it was more of an elixir with a much stronger effect.


    "I always keep some of this on me just in case. You eventually get used to it but¡­ I apologize, I should have warned you all further. You have just had the most serious reaction I have ever seen." Zarus stood back up and inspected everyone else to see if they needed supplements to calm them down as well.


    He quickly decided the rest of them were fine and Felix reassured them all by standing on his own and generally returning to his normal stance.


    "As you can see, our containers are completely insufficient for holding even a sample of the object within them. We are hoping a specially designed container will produce different results but unfortunately, it may not be possible to completely contain it."


    "How are you going to transfer it into the prototype and keep things safe?" Aldahn looked concerned after Felix''s dramatic reaction. On top of that, he and every other enchanter in the room looked to be reacting to it in different ways.


    Felix''s reaction was the most dramatic by far but the others each reacted in their own ways as well. Some shifted uncomfortably, others scowled, some twitched and Inorim was fighting a constant wince that was gradually beginning to win more often than not.


    "I have tools we''ve devised to move it safely. Especially a sample this small, shouldn''t be a problem. If you''d like to stand back, I can perform the tests myself." Looking directly at Felix, "Taking it out of its current temporary container is going to be much worse, would you like to leave for now and come back afterwards?"


    Felix shook his head, "No thank you. I want to get used to it as much as possible, can''t have something like this happen in the future."


    Aldahn didn''t seem to agree but didn''t have a chance to argue as Zarus nodded and with a flourish of his hand, produced a small box just a few inches across, almost like a jewelry box.


    They prepared the prototype along with the sample of final materials on the table then Zarus set himself up and stood behind the box.


    As they prepared, Felix managed to wrestle almost complete control of his soul back. He could still feel that it was on edge but it was no longer controlling him. Now, it was more like a feeling or instinct that he was aware of along with goose bumps across his entire soul. He knew this was going to be worse but was hoping his calming his soul down now would help lessen the impact.


    Zarus briefly looked around the room to ensure everyone was prepared then produced a long stick that was somewhere between a high tech screwdriver and a wand. He carefully brought the tip of it over to the small box and with his other hand, pressed the latch on the box.


    Opening his eyes Felix looked around and found himself in small and dark room on a soft bed that was much too large for him. He briefly checked over his entire body and his status screen and found nothing wrong, in fact, he seemed entirely healthy.


    Before he had a chance to check on his soul bonded companions, he heard Grim''s voice in his head, You''re awake.


    Felix instinctively nodded as he rubbed at his eyes, What happened. Where am I?


    Nap room in Inscripticae I think. I only see through your senses though so you''re going to have to confirm.


    I take it¡­ Zarus opened the box and I just¡­


    Again, I can only see what you see from in here. I couldn''t even feel it myself.


    Right.


    Felix hopped to his feet and opened the door next to him and found that he was in fact, in Inscripticae''s nap room. He looked over into the lobby and saw no one so he headed back into the workshop where he saw everyone toiling away at their enchantments. Zarus was nowhere to be seen but the prototype had been completely disassembled so Felix assumed some time had to have passed.


    Aldahn was the first to notice Felix enter the workshop and rushed over to him, the others occupied with their enchanting.


    "Are you ok?" Aldahn placed a hand on Felix''s shoulder and looked him over with concern.


    "I feel fine. How long was I out for?"


    "A couple days now. We gave you another tranquility elixir immediately and Zarus left another three with us in case you need them." Aldahn reached his hand forwards and offered Felix three vials.


    Felix looked down at them then reached forwards and stowed them all, "Thanks."


    "If you still aren''t feeling well, I can inscribe your enchantments."


    Felix shook his head quickly, "No, I feel great actually. How''d the test go?"


    "Well, all things considered. The box managed to hold the object, which I couldn''t identify by the way, for a few seconds before it pulled the enchantments free and one of the enchantments exploded. Zarus was ready though and quickly removed it. When we tested it on the final materials though, no such effect. The final product should work just fine. He seemed pleased with¡­ well something so¡­ that''s good."


    "What did it look like?"


    Aldahn frowned, "The object?"


    "Yeah."


    "It''s less of an object¡­ it just looked like a tiny droplet of completely black liquid."


    "I see. Annoying I didn''t get to see it for myself."


    Aldahn shook his head, "Yours was the most severe reaction but we all felt it too. Inorim and Edemari collapsed and curled up into balls on the floor, Fralyna barely caught herself on the desk and Ezaldor very quickly left the room."


    "But you managed to get the necessary testing done? See how everything reacts and whatnot?"


    "Yeah, took a few hours for us all to get over our own reactions after moving you."


    Felix nodded, "Alright well, I better get started on inscribing then, make up for lost time."


    Aldahn smirked a little, "Sure. You need to make a template first and have at least three of us approve it, one of which has to be me. These materials are too expensive to just wing it. If you haven''t done one before, see if you can help Fralyna for a day or two to get an idea."


    "Sure, sounds good."


    Felix walked over to Fralyna''s desk and waited for her to look up from her work.


    "Oh Felix, how are you feeling?"


    "Much better, thanks. I''ve never done templates before and Aldahn told me to help you for a bit to get an idea?"


    "Sure. I''m working on mine right now."


    Felix ended up spending two days with Fralyna less because he needed the experience with templates and more because he wanted to help. Her enchantment was the largest in size and required the most actual labor.


    Templates were rather simple, just the enchantment cutout of a thin sheet of some material that reminded Felix of ceramic. They needed it to have a very high melting point and insulating properties. Due to the final process they were using to enchant the box, the template would first be used to melt the same pattern into the final piece.


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    They would then stack the sheet of the final material onto another, with no holes melted through it, and fill the channel they had created with mana conductive material. Finally they add the last layer of another unmarred sheet, creating an enchantment sandwich, then fuse them all together at a high temperature. Effectively, they were perfectly embedding the inlay and enchantment within the sheet and in the end, the sheet would seem like one solid sheet instead of a stack of sheets.


    Felix''s enchantment wasn''t actually a sheet though and wasn''t anywhere close to the object itself so his was less stringent. For his, he would have to use much thicker and stronger channels with more mana conductive material because his enchantment actually handled the most mana at all times.


    Moving onto his own template, he only had to make one small one that he could simply use 8 times so it only took him a fraction of the time it was taking Fralyna. His enchantment was also much less complex. Aldahn had him widen the channels in the template a few times but apparently, his enchantment didn''t have any issues when they tested the prototype so he didn''t need to change anything.


    HIs enchantment was also the least complex, smallest and furthest from the object, but he was still happy it had worked flawlessly.


    Before using the templates, Aldahn had him float around to help the other enchanters finish their templates, first Fralyna then Edemari. Once he helped them both finish theirs, Aldahn had already helped the other two finish as well and they collectively reviewed each-others templates.


    No one actually had any issues but they were all being as cautious as possible so they pointed out every miniscule thing they saw. They did end up fixing a few of them but for almost everything someone pointed out, they all agreed it wouldn''t matter or was fixable in the final enchantment.


    They marked every flaw that was pointed out with a special quill that essentially highlighted the area in red then Aldahn handed out the materials they would be enchanting for the final product.


    Felix immediately got to work on his own section after Aldahn demonstrated specific quirks of the material and templates to all of them. He wasn''t actually enchanting any of the mana repelling material but he was going to have to coat his enchantment in it.


    Though he tried to focus on the enchantment itself, once it became clear he was going to finish with plenty of time to spare, he let himself get a little distracted. The first corner, he focused on but every one after that was just cloning the first and so he toyed around with the materials a little.


    He didn''t compromise anything but he used the materials, while he still had access to them, to push his mana control to the limit. At no point was he able to beat the material but he was able to push mana closer to it.


    With one corner done, he also tested pulling on the mana in the channels, the same way the object would, but that was like trying to lift a building. He didn''t feel like it was actually moving at all.


    With his section done, Aldahn retrieved the batteries they had ordered.


    [A - Common] Mana Battery (100,000,000/100,000,000)


    [Normal][Instant]


    A battery containing mana.


    The capacity was completely insane and Felix had to hold himself back from gawking at the batteries as they were slotted into the enchanted section he had made.


    They briefly tested everything as much as they could just to catch any issues ahead of time then they both split off to help other enchanters with their larger sections.


    Over the course of another two dekads, the box was slowly assembled, each piece forming a more complete picture of the final product. They fused each one together once everything was aligned properly and conducted progressively more extensive testing before they committed to fusing the materials together permanently.


    Luckily, they didn''t find anything to cause them alarm and none of it had to be disassembled so, all together, they performed the final fusing process followed by many chemical baths and a few layered coatings on the outside.


    [A - Arcane] Containment Cell


    [Enchanted]


    A box designed to contain a very specific object and prevent it from coming in contact with anything else.


    Felix was initially disappointed but Aldahn and everyone else''s excitement caused him to be confused, "I thought we wanted to hit S grade if possible?"


    Aldahn chuckled, "We did, in a sense. It will never read S grade on the identification unless the majority of the materials are S grade. On the other hand, Arcane is one of the rarities that sits outside the standard rarity progression. I doesn''t necessarily mean it''s better than A grade, but considering the enchantment we put on it and some of the materials we used, we can be fairly sure that is what it means in this case."


    Felix shrugged as he thought through the implications of this knowledge on everything else he knew of using the Arcane rarity, "Oh, sweet."


    Aldahn walked over to stand in front of and address all the enchanters, "I will go personally deliver the box but two days from now, we can do a dinner. I figure you want to spend some time with your families and whatnot, this was a long one with a lot of late nights. We''ll figure out where later but¡­ great work everyone."


    I think I''m actually looking forward to this one. I don''t love dinners or hanging out with people but¡­ that enchantment was fun and¡­ I don''t mind celebrating it I think.


    It helps that they are all still better and more experienced enchanters than you, so you can talk to them and have an interesting conversation.


    Yeah but still, I also appreciate them all being so helpful and patient with teaching me.


    Are you starting to actually care for them?


    Maybe. I''m not sure.


    The enchanters left one by one followed by Aldahn, who brought the box with him, and Felix just behind him. For the first time Felix had ever seen, Aldahn actually locked the door to Inscripticae as it was empty.


    Felix waved goodbye to the others as they parted ways and he headed straight for the Adventurers guild. First he wanted to see if there were any credits waiting for him or messages because they were supposed to debrief with Dogran. After that he had to go pick up his new outfit. He still had just over 5 days until he had to be at Eramith, according to the library, so he figured he would kill time training or in the library.


    He also wanted to do some research on what that object may have been because he didn''t think his reaction to it was natural. It invoked too many ingrained experiences that seemed to be a large part of him and his soul, so he intended on at least trying to figure out what it was.


    Now that the box was finally done Felix allowed all the leveling notifications to pour in, though he quickly had them combined.


    Ding You have gained 299 levels in [D - Arcane] Mana Engineer (693 => 992)


    Damn. That feels good.


    Though the tools at his disposal, namely his mana control and identification skills, made the process easy, the box was still the most advanced enchantment he had ever worked on. It caused him to test everything he knew at every step, to iterate and learn from every tiny flaw over the course of the two terms it had taken them. Still, he had been expecting around a hundred levels so, almost 300 was a very pleasant surprise.


    He was also now massively overshooting the recommended level for Eramith but he was hoping that wouldn''t be a problem.


    Flying into the adventurers guild, Felix walked right up to the counter but was immediately redirected to one of the desks off to the side.


    He found the correctly numbered desk and met a Drakene with a large belly, the first larger person he remembered seeing.


    "Let''s see¡­ You have a message and¡­ 402 job requests, no credits."


    "402?"


    "You were requested on specific jobs, those are just the ones that haven''t expired."


    Felix sighed, "Alright well, they''ll have to wait. Can you delist me from the available Adventurers? I''m going away for a bit."


    "Of course. Done."


    "And the message?"


    The Drakene nodded then handed Felix a small sheet of parchment.


    Felix took the parchment and unfolded it then read the message inside, "Felix, Dogran wants to debrief us as soon as possible. We have a room in the Adventurer''s guild and we''ll leave a second note if we''ve already left. Shouldn''t take more than a few hours and Dogran also has the pay from the last part of the job."


    Looking back at the Drakene who seemed to be waiting in case he needed anything else, "Who left me the message?"


    The Drakene looked down at something, "Thezan of the Shade''s Wrath."


    Felix nodded, "Can you show me to their room?"


    The Drakene quickly looked over and read something else then nodded, "Yes, you have been approved to visit them. Follow me."


    Felix followed the Drakene into what he now knew was an elevator then over to a specific room on the floor.


    The Drakene nodded to Felix then disappeared and Felix knocked on the door.


    Just a few moments later, he heard Thezan''s voice call out, "Enter."


    Opening the door, Felix stepped into a familiar looking suite.


    In an instant, his surrounding changed. Felix immediately realized where he was but it took him a few moments to mentally adjust.


    He saw Grim standing before him, "Why am I in my Soul Garden?"


    Grim looked at him seriously, which meant the arcane symbols on his book cover face were sharp and angular, "You were knocked unconscious by a System Fuckery skill or item."


    "How do you know that?"


    Grim sighed, "Felt the same as it did when you evolved except I doubt your soul was separated from your body. At this point, you would feel that."


    "With my soul suffusing my body?"


    Grim nodded, "Yeah."


    "Well shit. Any idea how long I was out?"


    "A few seconds at most, time dilation and all that."


    Felix nodded, "Right. Can I wake myself up, since my soul is still connected to my body?"


    "Probably. Are you ready?"


    "I guess. Not much I can do to prepare myself here and the sooner I get out, the more likely I am to surprise them."


    Grim nodded and Felix steeled his resolve then forced his consciousness back into his body. While he definitely caught the two individuals in the room by surprise, it didn''t matter much. He was already bound with something he had no hope of breaking judging from a quick pull. Realizing he had no way out, Felix quickly stowed everything on him that was irreplaceable, namely his rings and bracelet, in his Soul Space.


    A halfling man with a rough beard and a buzz cut scowled in Felix''s direction, "How the fuck is he already awake?"


    "Probably some resistance skill." A woman with a short bob of light teal hair shrugged, completely unconcerned.


    Felix couldn''t seem to get anything out of his Identify skill on either of them.


    The halfling man reached down and grabbed Felix by his neck then lifted him to his knees, "You sure this is gonna work?" He clearly wasn''t addressing Felix.


    Judging solely from his presence, dexterity and the ease with which he lifted Felix into the air, Felix was pretty sure this halfling was either high rarity A grade or even S grade. He dwarfed everyone else he had ever met in presence alone except maybe Zarus though, both of them were likely hiding a lot of their strength.


    "Boss had Zarus test him and he''s convinced. Doesn''t really hurt to try, right? We were going to have to kill him anyways." The woman shrugged.


    "Yeah but it''s easier to just kill him."


    The woman shook her head, "We can''t anymore. Boss wants to study him, dissect him and find out why."


    The man groaned, "Another one? Don''t they have enough toys?"


    The woman just shrugged.


    "What if he tries to hide it?" The man looked over his shoulder at her.


    "Sounds like it''s involuntary. We can test him for ourselves when we get there." The woman brushed him off as she walked over to a bench and sat down.


    Looking around and taking stock of his surroundings, Felix realized they almost definitely were not in an Adventurer''s guild room anymore, if they ever had been. The room was a completely empty box with the two individuals guarding him, a bench and 4 corpses piled up in the far corner.


    Felix immediately recognized Thezan''s armor and signature hair. After recognizing Thezan, the rest of the corpses were easy enough to identify.


    That''s¡­ ominous¡­ damn, I liked them.


    He briefly considered casting a bunch of different spells but quickly decided against the idea altogether. Considering just how strong the two in front of him felt and how easily Erolan had detected his casting, he didn''t even think he would be able to cast a single spell. On top of that, he wasn''t sure they would do accomplish unless he was trying to kill himself.


    Instead, he bided his time in the hopes that an opportunity would present itself. If it did, he would be ready. Until then, he remained as still, docile and agreeable as possible, in the hopes that they didn''t decide to take more drastic measures, Felix waited.


    The room they were in was clearly moving, judging from the inertia he felt, even though it was damped significantly by enchantments. The other two in the cabin didn''t do, say, or even move much.


    Their lack of movement was odd enough to Felix that he started to wonder whether they had something like his Soul Garden and they weren''t actually, entirely present.


    Either way he sat and he waited.


    His map didn''t function whatsoever and though he could tell they had teleported somewhere, likely passing through a portal, judging from the lurch in the aether he was so accustomed to. Unfortunately, there was simply nothing he could do with that information.


    They remained in that crate for a few hours, Felix bound by ropes he had no hope of ever breaking and his two captors standing around, creepily motionless the entire time.


    When they did finally come to a stop, Felix was forced back into his Soul Garden for just a second in which time his two captors had vanished. Just a few moments later, the door behind him opened up and the man who had held him by the throat earlier dragged him out of the crate they had been transported in.


    The halfling man dragged Felix through a couple of halls and doorways into an empty room where he tossed him in. The door closed a few moments later and Felix was once again left alone.


    He had seen enough to know this was likely a temporary location, the rooms were empty but still made of some high grade material he had no hope of breaking. Now that he was finally alone though, Felix started to cast spells.


    At first he just cast small spells to see if anyone would react. When nothing happened, he started to test the durability of the walls and doors. Once he realized there was no hope of breaking them down, he knew his only hope was a portal.


    Before taking out the mold he had though, Felix cast a completely inert spell he devised on the spot that would use a similar amount of mana as the portal. Before he managed to even get half of the required mana into the spell form though, the door opened and he was smacked. His body bounced off the wall to his left, the spell form dissipated and the halfling man looked down at him, "Don''t."


    After that, Felix briefly tried casting spells within his Soul Space but the results were odd. Some of them worked, others just didn''t but, he was also sometimes unintentionally simulating the result of the spell simply because it was his Soul Space. Instead of being moved by the cast spell, he found objects being moved by his subconscious. He quickly decided it wasn''t going to work and gave up on that.


    The ropes were tied far too tightly for him to do anything about them and even if he switched to his Persona''s body, he was pretty sure the ropes would count as clothes. He would quickly get killed by the halfling man then he would immediately revert to plain old Felix, bound in rope.


    On top of all that, he was pretty sure they were watching him somehow so whatever he did would either had to outsmart A to S grades or be truly instantaneous.


    After realizing he had no hope of escaping the room, Felix approached the doors and simply listened. He reached out with every one of his senses and though nothing interesting was happening in the anima or aether, he did manage to hear some shifting around. Nothing interesting but he continued to listen as he waited.


    Felix waited for hours, casting a huge array of spells sporadically in the hopes that he would start to confuse their danger senses. If they started to think he was constantly casting, it might buy him a few moments later when he actually cast something worthwhile.


    He also slowly increased the amount of mana he used until he reached just under the amount they had stopped him at last time.


    Listening through the wall though, he heard nothing but slight movements, steps and shuffling every once in a while for a few hours.


    When he finally heard a door open, his own door was opened just a few moments later without so much as a word, that he could hear, being passed between anyone preceding it. Felix was dragged out of the room he had been in and through the building. This time he noticed another humanoid in one of the rooms he passed but didn''t see anything more than their knees.


    He was tossed into a much smaller crate or vehicle as before except this time, it was truly empty other than Felix and a very familiar looking box.


    Next to him, in the sealed crate, was the box him and all the other enchanters at Inscripticae had worked on for the last two terms.


    [A - Arcane] Containment Cell


    [Enchanted]


    A box designed to contain a very specific object and prevent it from coming in contact with anything else.


    Before he had a chance to do anything other than adjust himself, they were moving again. This time for just a few minutes in total.


    Felix felt the inertia when they started moving, the slight lurch in the aether as they passed through a portal then the overwhelming pain of his soul attacking his body.


    Just like before, his body was compressed, his veins pushing through his skin with every beat of his heart. His soul was on edge and fighting against him.


    Now that he had fought it before, he knew how to manage it and was able to calm himself down much faster. He didn''t use any of the tranquility elixirs he had just yet, as he suspected he would need them more later.


    This time, the feeling was both stronger and more clear to Felix, though he suspected that was a product of him not being as surprised by it.


    This time he could tell, his soul wasn''t trying to attack anything, it was trying to compress itself down into a more defensive state. His outer layers were too thin and his soul was trying to protect itself by compressing them into a shell. There wasn''t anything he could do about that at the moment, with not nearly enough anima in his Soul Space to fix it at the moment, so instead he just fought back and calmed himself down.


    Right as he finally felt himself regaining control over his senses, the door to the crate he was stored inside of was opened.


    The same two individuals as before walked in. With the halfling man dragging Felix and the woman holding the box, they all exited the vehicle and Felix found himself in what he could only describe as a massive warehouse.


    As far as he could see into the sky, there were crates on shelves. They were in a section with crates that were about 10 meter cubes but he caught a glimpse of another section, with much larger crates in the distance.


    Quickly looking behind them as the halfling man effortlessly swung Felix around, he saw that they had traveled in what looked like a flying truck from the future. Oddly, Felix noted that there were no spatial enchantments making the back any bigger than it looked from the outside. The space Felix had just been in was exactly the right size for the back of that vehicle.


    He didn''t have any more time to examine his surroundings though as he had to focus on resisting his soul''s instinct to tighten and defend itself.


    The feeling only got worse as he was dragged around and used as a detector for the object affecting him.


    He was fighting desperately to keep himself conscious and avoid imploding so, he had no hope of hiding the effect it was having on him. They were completely right, it was involuntary and he could do nothing about it, if he even wanted to. Right then, all he could think about was keeping his soul from killing him.


    Though they were getting ever closer to the container they were looking for, the feeling and effect it was having on Felix growing every stronger, he actually felt like he was making progress.


    Felix fell in and out of consciousness, not actually entering his Soul Garden at all but truly losing all cognition. From the brief glimpses he caught while conscious, based on what he felt and saw, they had found what they were looking for.


    When he next returned to consciousness, he was back in a similar vehicle as before, once again accompanied by the box and this time the box wasn''t empty. Though he couldn''t really open his eyes, Felix could immediately feel the active enchantments on the box. Along with his soul reacting the way it was, he knew what was inside.


    It was nearly impossible to fight his own soul when the object was just a few meters from him, even in the Containment Cell they had created, it felt like he was completely exposed to him. Like he was physically in contact with it. It felt like it was actively touching, grabbing, tearing and eating his flesh and his soul from all sides.


    Despite the pain, he kept fighting through it, he refused to just sit unconscious forever. He refused to be this weak to anything.


    The layer of his soul that used to suffuse his body had long since snapped out of it and formed the protective shell his soul had so desired. The issue was that his soul didn''t want to communicate at all with anything. It was trying to fight back against the connection to his own body which he knew, would be what he still considered, death.


    In the brief flashes where he had access to his bodily senses, Felix saw the object in the crate. Just as Aldahn had described, it was like a perfectly black liquid. Suspended within the crate it remained completely motionless save for the occasional ripple passing over its surface. It was much bigger than the sample Zufaris had had though, the sphere inside the containment cell was 6 to 7 inches in diameter.


    First, Felix wrested control over his consciousness, he couldn''t keep falling in and out of awareness if he wanted to get anywhere. All that gave him though was access to his base senses, to pair with the senses he got from his soul: his mana sense and whatever matter sense he had available to him.


    Reaching out with every sense he had access to, in an attempt to find any amount of control over his current situation, Felix reached out towards the box. He could feel the batteries pumping mana into the enchantment, the computer whirring away and a ball of nothingness being suspended in a void.


    His matter senses, though still new, were even more interesting. Instead of feeling like there was nothing in the vacuum, Felix actually felt like there was less than nothing. Like the nothingness was asserting itself against the vacuum surrounding it. That ball of black liquid didn''t feel like mana or matter or even just anima, it was something else but not quite at the same time.


    It was distinct but not entirely separate and he had no idea how to think about it. All he knew was that his soul had dealt with it somewhere before and didn''t like it.


    From there, he wrestled back his ability to use his Soul Garden and along with it, his connections to Grim and Nova.


    Finally having reestablished the connection, Felix sighed in relief, Grim.


    I''m here.


    Is it hurting you? Am I?


    Nope, Nova and I have been fine in here.


    Good. I''m gonna keep trying to get back to normal.


    Felix had no idea how long it took him to force his soul back into his body from there but it felt like a painful eternity. His body was completely battered and barely alive as he had managed to keep it attached to his soul by a thread.


    He forced the third layer of his soul back into his body but left the fourth, the mass of ambient mana that followed him around like a cloud that had grown fond of him, compressed. For now, it formed a sort of shell around him that he was more than happy with.


    He figured it would revert once this was all over but he was very fond of the idea of a soul shell for the future.


    As his body slowly healed, his bones mending and muscles reattaching themselves, joints realigning and brain reinflating, Felix started to work at something else.


    His only hope of getting out of here was to open a portal. Luckily, with this box right next to him, he was pretty sure there was no way for them to detect him casting anything. Unfortunately, he could barely move mana let alone shape it into a spell right now.


    Every time he tried to do anything with mana, it was torn from his control. The object made it impossible for him to hold anything steady. While the situation was dire, it was also the perfect opportunity for him to practice his mana control. Although, it did feel like he was trying to work up to lifting a train as a normal human and he had an unknown deadline he had to beat.


    He started, just as he had back when he first learned about mana, just moving it back and forth like the tide. With the object nearby though, even that felt impossible.


    All the mana wanted to do was fill the empty void at the center of the box. Just feeling at the aether around him, Felix felt all of it rushing towards the box. Some of it recharged the batteries through their basic recharge function but most of it just formed a shell, much like his soul was doing with its outermost layer.


    Before he could even try to shape the mana into anything, he had to at least be able to hold the mana still and keep it from being yanked out of his grasp towards the box.


    Ironically, it didn''t feel like physical force was required, as Felix fought back against the object in the containment cell. It felt significantly different than when he lifted weights with his mana control. It was much more like he was actually exerting his will, fighting someone else''s control. Similar to when he had to cast the portal under the Usorium castle and when he was ripping the mana out of the Lich''s flying hands.


    With the image of dominating an opponent''s will in mind, Felix actually found it easier to control the mana and force it to do what he wanted. He wasn''t just influencing the mana or telling it what to do, he was demanding it and his commands took precedence over any others.


    It took him a few hours to comfortably move the mana back and force, entirely resisting the object''s influence but once he had, he quickly moved onto to doing something with it.


    Skipping a few steps, he started trying to cast a simple Fire Bolt. The first step was the outer ring, the simplest shape that initially felt nearly impossible to shape. While similar to moving mana back and forth, this required precision which was much harder to achieve whilst actively wrestling with by far the strongest mana control he had ever fought against.


    Rather than a clean ring, Felix started with loose fragments then slowly worked his way to a wavy mess. From there it took him far longer than he would have liked to finally end up with something that was solid enough to cast a very basic spell. Anything more complicated would undoubtedly fail.


    Instead of taking it slow and making sure the ring itself was solid, Felix started to skip steps and worked towards forming multiple rings in the air around him. Once one ring was close enough to being solid, he immediately worked on adding another ring.


    Just to make sure it was doing something, Felix dropped back down to a single ring and smiled when the ring was almost as solid as it would have been without the object being there at all. His practice was working and he hoped his skipping steps was helping more than it was hindering him.


    Once he had gotten to 10 rings, Felix dropped down to a single Fire Bolt and actually managed to cast it. He let loose a long held breath that came out as a sigh of relief. He could finally cast spells again.


    He may have been limited to what he considered to be level 0 spells, but it was magic and, he had feared he would be held next to this stuff forever, unable to ever touch the arcane again.


    A Fire Bolt would never be enough to escape though so he repeated the same cast and started adding in a second at the same time. Once he could cast both with minimal failures, he added in another.


    He once again worked his way up to 10 simultaneous spells then dropped back down to a single spell who''s level of complexity, he increased.


    After the Fire Bolts there were Flame Throwers, Jump, Feather Fall, and a few new spells just to fill the complexity gap before he finally moved up to being able to cast a Fire Ball once again.


    As he fought the object, his casting was slowed dramatically and therefore, the differences in his casting speed were exaggerated dramatically. Before, he had just measured all his spells as a fraction of a second or so, now he could tell his Force Spells were dramatically faster than everything else. Lightning was marginally faster due to his familiarity with it over Fire but Force, he used for everything.


    He used Force spells to jump, run, swing the axe, fly, dodge and even punch back when he practiced the Dragon Dance. Specifically, he very often used a short burst which made it so that he was still able to cast a short Force Burst spell in less than a second, even under the influence of the object.


    This is the spell that was just¡­ going off by itself with Damoth and¡­ Is it just because I''m so familiar with it?


    He didn''t have time to explore the possibility at the moment because it had already been almost a day of just practicing and he was starting to grow anxious. Any day now the back of the vehicle would open and he would either be executed or moved to a cell to later be used in the exact same way again.


    He was hoping to be able to do something about his situation by then. Ideally he simply portaled out but if that wasn''t possible, he really was not looking forward to having to get creative in any way.


    Before that though, he had to actually get to the point where he could cast a portal and so, he continued training.


    It took him another day to get the point where he was ready to try casting a portal and so, he carefully assembled the spell form using the mold. After pulling the spell form free of the mold, he quickly stowed the mold and channeled mana into the spell form. Just like when he was filling the portal to escape the Corrupted Drakeling swarm, he had to fight every step of the way.


    The mana flowing out of his absurdly large mana pool. The mana flowing into the spell. The mana flowing through the spell. The mana in the channels. The mana flowing at the appropriate pace. He had to keep all of it steady, hold it stable and assert his will over it.


    From what he could tell though, he wasn''t actually training himself from scratch but rather relearning something he had known. At least, that''s what it felt like to him and it logically made sense since he had the Mana Control Innate skill and his soul had evidently fought whatever the object was before.


    He slowly rose past the halfway mark and grew determined when no one immediately came to stop him. As he approached 80% he started to prepare himself to fall through it.


    Looking down at the floor, he felt the back of his head smash into the wall behind him, his skull completely shattered at the back causing a ridiculous amount of pain. No one on earth ever would have survived and remembered having large fragments of their skulls in their brain, but Felix did.


    The spell had immediately fallen apart but that wasn''t an immediate concern as the halfling man''s hand closed around Felix''s throat, his frustration painted all over his face.


    "Kid, fucking stop it already."


    Felix just gritted his teeth, not that he could say anything with his throat completely cinched.


    The man''s top lip twitched a little as he leaned in, "The only reason you''re still alive is that Plague thinks he can turn you into a compass. So just sit tight for a few days while we arrange transport."


    The man was clearly waiting for Felix to acknowledge what he had said with a nod or something but Felix was stubborn and instead, he just stared right into the man''s eyes.


    "Look, there''s no one out there waiting for you. No one is trying to find you. We already got rid of the Adventuring party and all the little enchanters at that shop of yours. Their families too so no one would be motivated to ask any questions. We made sure to dispose of them properly so, no afterlives either. No one knows you''re missing. There is no one left to go see. We even had to get rid of some of the Librarians you blabbed to. We would much prefer it if you just kept quiet and stopped trying. Cut. It. Out."


    Once again, Felix said nothing so the man sighed and threw Felix to the ground. Felix felt a knee on his back followed shortly by his finger being squeezed. Suddenly, he felt immense pain as his fingers were ripped off of his hands one by one.


    The man tossed the fingers to a corner and stood to leave.


    "Stop. Trying. To. Cast. I don''t care if you can resist this thing. If you don''t stop trying, next time I''m going to peel you."


    He didn''t wait for an answer this time and simply left, closing the door behind him.


    As much as Felix could numb the physical pain, there was also pain coursing through his soul as the fingers were ripped free from it as well. Felix cried and screamed as his fingers slowly regrew themselves, only gaining any semblance of thought after a few minutes later, which had felt like days.


    He scrambled over to the corner where his fingers were and held the Blood Ring in his mouth, around his tongue. He activated the ring and absorbed the fingers then let the ring heal him through its secondary function.


    Felix expected regrowing fingers to be painful, and it was but not in the way he had expected. Instead of feeling them growing and the pain of bones aligning themselves, he felt the pain of his wounds closing and his nerves reattaching themselves. The pain of new senses overwhelming him as they adjusted to their fresh flesh.


    Okay so it doesn''t mask the spell. New plan¡­


    He was almost hoping for Grim to have something creative cooked up for him but he offered nothing.


    Finally, Felix gritted his teeth, already aware of how awful the idea was, Fuck it. I have no other way out of here, I need to release it.


    Felix felt Grim''s shock in his mind, That''s¡­ not a goo-


    Yeah obviously it isn''t a fucking good idea but I don''t really have much else I can do. Nova would take too long to get through a box of this grade. No spell I can cast does anything to the box, even the Pocket Star did nothing other than cook me alive. This thing corrupts everything right?


    Felix felt Grim getting more and more concerned but he didn''t interrupt the thought.


    I have¡­ memori- no, experiences, of fighting it. Maybe I can stop it from¡­ killing me. I fought it before, I can fight it again.


    Grim winced, Maybe¡­?


    I can''t just wait here. This thing scares them, I don''t. I need to use it. I don''t see any way to force them into a soul battle and it''s not like exposing my soul to their bodies will do anything.


    Felix¡­ If you do this¡­ If it even starts to look like¡­ I''m cutting our bond and you need to cut Nova''s. This thing¡­


    I will. I''ll get you out if I can. Both of you. I promise. I wouldn''t do this if I had any choice.


    Before releasing the object, Felix continued his training. He knew now that he had a few more days and if he did manage to survive against it, he wanted to make sure he could get out.


    While he had managed to cast a single portal spell, or at least hold its shape steady, he had only done so on the far side of the room he was in, as far from the box as he could be.


    Holding a series of spell forms that roughly added up to the complexity of the portal, Felix slowly approached the object, holding the spells steady. As soon as their form faltered, a spell dropped or it even became noticeably harder, he stopped and reasserted his control over the spell form. He trained and practiced until he could sit atop the containment cell and cast spell right next to it.


    That wasn''t enough though, not enough to ensure his escape so, he started to fight both the enchantments of the containment cell and the object at the same time.


    Pushing on the aether that was being held back by the warding nodes in the containment cell, the very ones he had helped Fralyna design, Felix exerted his will. He pushed the mana closer to the object but held continued to hold it back himself.


    The closer he got, the stronger its pull became and it was evidently exponential, almost like gravity.


    Carefully, he swirled the mana around the object, teasing it as he drew ever closer. Each millimeter a new challenge for him as the difficulty and danger mounted exponentially.


    Once he was holding mana just a few millimeters away from it, It grew so difficult that Felix failed and the mana was sucked into the object. It was not a dramatic affair like Felix had expected. There was no explosive reaction though, he couldn''t say it wasn''t a violent reaction.


    As soon as the mana touched the object, they became one. The droplet of mana turned completely back as it was sucked into the whole. Felix could no longer tell it apart from the rest, it had been transformed completely, in an instant.


    While technically accurate¡­ I''m not sure I would call that simply ''corrupting anything it touches.'' More like instant and violent consumption and integration.


    Felix was careful after that mistake and though he moved onto casting spells within the bounds of the containment cell, he didn''t push his limits nearly as aggressively as before. What he was doing was inherently risky and very likely suicidal. Pushing anymore than necessary was just asking to fail.


    Now that he had an idea of what would happen once he opened the box though, he could prepare himself better. Once he was confident in his spell casting and mana control, he started testing out growing the object.


    Mana was consumed instantly, faster than Felix could perceive at least. Anima was much slower, at least it took a few seconds if it was dense enough. Mana infused with Anima took even longer, which hopefully translated to his own body and how long he had before he had to start aggressively amputating.


    He had been hoping for longer but a few seconds would have to do.


    Preparations completed, Felix stalled no longer and pushed the containment cell up against one of the walls. Pulling on the mana in the enchantment, he bridged the connection from the object to the cell with a thread of mana.


    He watched as the thread instantly turned black then slowed slightly as it spread through the mana and matter of the containment cell. It wasn''t uniform like a liquid but rather the inky blackness stretched outwards like tentacles as it consumed everything and grew.


    The tentacles had no problem reaching out from the containment cell to the walls around Felix where it was slowed again. It still consumed at a ridiculous pace that was impossible to manage but it was noticeably slower. It also wasn''t quite as slow to consume as dense anima or mana infused with anima had been.


    Felix then walked near it and dumped 5 million mana out of his mana pool and into a rough spell form. He was just hoping he wouldn''t have to waste time crafting an actual spell and thankfully, he didn''t.


    A moment after he released the mana, the man burst through the doors and pinned Felix to the wall.


    "I fucking told you to stop-"


    Felix shoved his gloved hand into the man''s stomach and smeared as much of the blackness as he could onto him.


    He watched with immense satisfaction as terror filled the halfling''s face for just a brief few seconds of flailing about before he was completely consumed.


    Felix discarded his outer robes as fast as he could but he wasn''t fast enough. He saw a few droplets of pure black seeping into the palm of his hand.


    It was growing far slower than it had with anything else but it was still growing. Felix clenched his jaw and tried to push against it but he already knew it was too late and he just had to amputate it.


    His tests had had no way of revealing how it infected whatever it was consuming and so he didn''t know that its tendrils would reach through him immediately. They had already reached his torso and were spreading from there. They were thin and slow but he was still too late unless he wanted to try and regrow his torso, which he did not.


    He pushed back against it as much as he could while he searched the walls and looked for a way out. There were no holes though, just all consuming ink that crawled its way around the room.


    Remembering that the suspension enchantment of the containment cell had used force to hold it, Felix walked up to the first section of the wall that had been corrupted and cast a massive blast of Force.


    Immediately a huge hole appeared as black liquid was spewed outwards in every direction.


    Felix had expected to have to fight his way out of some warehouse, he had not expected to be in Telviras though.


    The black liquid had long since reached out of the crate holding him and Felix saw the building he had been in dripping away as it was consumed in seconds. Looking down at the streets below, he saw the liquid droplets he had just sent flying taking root and rapidly consuming everything around them.


    He briefly looked to the right, into the disintegrating remains of the building that had held him but decided instead to ignore it.


    He jumped out of the hole and caught himself in the air, barely. The black liquid in his body, slowly seeping into the outer layers of his soul, was fighting his every move. A simple Force Burst was all he could manage and so he hopped through the air and away from the inky blackness.


    Suddenly, a loud, constant hum filled the air as Felix and everything around him was bathed in a deep red light.


    Looking around, it was the entire city as far as he could see.


    In the distance, he saw massive blue iridescent walls appear between the portal spires forming a square cage around the area that rose far into the sky.


    Beneath him, the inky blackness was no longer a spattering of droplets, it was now a blanket that reached a kilometer in every direction.


    Felix heard screams and saw people flying around, he saw buildings collapse and implode as spatial enchantments failed. Some exploded, others contorted and all he knew for certain was that the death count from his escape was easily in the millions if not higher.


    All he could think about though was getting out. First, he had to cure himself though so he flew as far and as fast as he could away from the epicenter of the calamity and landed on top of some random building.


    He watched black tendrils wrap themselves around massive buildings in seconds but he wasn''t focused on them. All his attention was on his soul and his body.


    Felix could feel the tendrils growing, branching and consuming more of him. It was becoming stronger as it spread and it was spreading faster as it grew stronger.


    Felix quickly jettisoned both Nova and Grim out of his Soul Space and far into the air, I''ll break the bonds if I''m not gonna make it but¡­ just in case, stay away.


    Falling to his knees, Felix clawed at the ground as he wrestled for control of his own body, his own soul.


    He didn''t even know if it was possible to revert the blackness back so instead he focused on stopping and removing it. Whatever it had already taken he would just replace. He convinced himself that would be easier as much as it might hurt to cut away parts of himself.


    As the tendrils started to thicken in his arm where it had first entered him, Felix could feel it slowing but it wasn''t enough.


    He pushed against it. He needed it out, not just slowed. Reaching his hand forwards, Felix pushed and watched the small specs of black in his palm slowly grow. The droplets turned to drops, which grew to a puddle as he pushed the tendrils out of his body.


    Suddenly he felt Grim pulling on their bond, getting ready to break it but he squeezed back.


    Not yet.


    Pushing harder, Felix felt the tendrils receding within his body even as they were growing and spreading.


    He couldn''t stop them just yet but he could push them out.


    Risking a glance towards the rest of the city section that had been sealed off, Felix saw at least a quarter of it had been completely consumed.


    He was trying to hold the liquid still, suspended by Force but the spells he used were not designed with that in mind and he wasn''t paying much attention to it. He inevitably dropped some on the building beneath him and it immediately started spreading.


    Launching himself recklessly into the air, Felix focused on one thing only, the tendrils still in his arm.


    He had removed them from his torso completely now but they were still in his arm, physically and in the soul suffusing it, meaning amputation wasn''t an option.


    The tendrils had grown so thick though that it was suddenly out growing his removal of it.


    Shifting focus, he concentrated on just stopping it. He pulled out every trick he had, trying to contest it''s will, asserting his soul and his body, his ownership of them, their affinity for him and finally his will to dominate.


    Though it was the most effective, contesting its will directly was also the scariest.


    As he focused on dominating it, exerting his will and crushing its will, he could feel it fighting back. He could feel its intent, to fill itself, grown and consume. The never ending hunger and emptiness that had to be filled.


    He could feel what felt like a creature''s will but even stronger. He felt a will that easily rivaled his own in intensity and focus. A soul almost, that was equal to his own in every way except size, for now.


    That thought alone scared him. If it was allowed to grow big enough, surely it would consume him. Surely it was unstoppable and Telviras was doomed. There was no way he could fight it if it was allowed to gr-


    His fears were obliterated by a pulse from deep within his core soul and he felt himself refocus.


    He had fought this before. His soul had fought this before. He had made it out alive. He could do it again. He would never give up, he couldn''t. He would fight no matter what happened. No matter how dire the situation or hopeless the enemy. He was unrelenting.


    His soul reminding him of his conviction refocused Felix and allowed him to immediately stop the tendrils. To hold them completely still even with the matter and soul directly around them. Carefully, he pulled them free of his body without them consuming anymore of him and dropped the writhing mass out into the air around him.


    He shot himself recklessly in another direction and checked himself over though he already knew he was free. His spells were easy to cast and he could breathe again. He had lost a chunk of his soul but he could reconstruct it, he had the anima to do so.


    He sighed in relief as his trajectory carried him through the air at random but didn''t allow himself more than a second to revel in his victory. He was still locked down in a sealed area and he had to get out.


    Before he did though, Felix debated with himself for a few moments before deciding he had no choice.


    He flew down to the nearest stretch of inky blackness and reached his hand down into it, grabbing a small handful. It felt like a cold acid that immediately tried to eat him but he made certain it didn''t spread anywhere into his hand or soul. Instead, it felt like tiny needles all across his skin. Infinite bites as it tried to consume him, to gain any ground against him.


    Preparing himself as much as he could, Felix stowed the liquid in his Soul Space.


    It ended up exactly where he had intended it, in a small vacuum of space he had created where he suspended it with a conjured Force sphere.


    He briefly ejected everything left on his hand and made sure he was otherwise uninfected, then flew off towards his bonds.


    Both Nova and Grim were floating as high up against the Force walls holding them as they could. They had found the ceiling and were pressed right up against it as they backed as far away from the inky blackness below as they could.


    Looking down, Felix saw an ocean of black roiling its way through the last fifth of the city from every direction. In just a few seconds, there would be nothing left of this section of Telviras. Thousands of square kilometers completely gone in a matter of minutes.


    Looking around, Felix saw others flying against the ceiling in the hopes that the danger below couldn''t reach them. Some tried to use items and others vehicles but everything they pulled out was immediately broken and malfunctioned in some way.


    Grim, noticing Felix, tentatively communicated through their bond, You¡­ What happened? Did you¡­


    I got rid of it. Time for us to get out of here.


    Felix felt only disbelief from Grim and he didn''t have time to elaborate so he ignored him.


    Pulling out the mold for a portal from his inventory, Felix pumped mana into it as fast as he could while the black sea below fought his every step. The blackness in his Soul Space ironically didn''t seem to have any effect on what he was doing which made it much easier, and much faster.


    Just over halfway into filling the spell form, Felix caught sight of one of the Telviras citizens that had flown up to the ceiling next to them try and use some item. A few moments later, a black tendril shot up from the sea below and grabbed hold of them. The two merged and grew then fell back to the sea below.


    After that, the tendrils came every few seconds, reaching for everyone that had thought they were safe. A few reached up towards Felix but he refused to let them touch his companions. Felix batted each one away with a slap of his hand, never once letting them corrupt any of his body or soul.


    He targeted the portal somewhere other than Telviras and immediately felt, not the anchor trying to redirect him to the hub like he had expected, but the anchor trying to interfere. Something in the city was trying to completely shut down his portal and stop it from ever going through.


    Felix resisted the will and shoved it aside as he pumped mana into the spell form until finally, a circle appeared revealing a barren white landscape.


    Nova and Grim flew through first followed by Felix who batted away another tendril then closed the portal right behind himself.


    Felix sensed Grim''s immense trepidation as he spoke into his mind, How do I know you don''t have any of it left inside you?


    Grim floated off almost a kilometer away from him, guarding Nova from him at the same time.


    I do. I kept some of it.


    Felix felt his soul bond with Grim severing but he asserted his will and prevented that from happening.


    It''s in my Soul Space, not infecting me. I''m holding it just like the container did.


    FELIX! Get rid of it.


    No.


    It''s way too dangerous. This is¡­ I''ve never¡­ Felix, whatever that is¡­


    I know. I can feel it too.


    You can''t keep it. Get rid of it and let us go. We can''t be sure you''re not infected.


    Grim, I''m not. This is the only thing I can actually fight against and train my mana control. My anima control. My will power. Like I said before, I or, my soul, has clearly fought this before. I got rid of it. It''s over now.


    How can you know that? How can I be certain?


    I don''t know. You didn''t ever feel it when you were in my Soul Space so I figure you wouldn''t feel it if it were infecting my soul. Grim, do you trust me?


    I¡­


    Felix sat down in the snow and looked inwards, just to be sure. The sample he had stowed was still suspended, exactly the same size, within his Soul Space. It hadn''t come into contact with anything else, thankfully and his Soul Space seemed more than capable of holding it, at least in that quantity.


    Once he was certain, Felix looked around to try and see if he could spot any corrupted Drakelings, though he figured he was still too far from the castle. He didn''t actually spot any so he pulled out the portal spell form and started filling it with mana once again as he checked the date.


    I''m fucking LATE.


    As the portal spell form filled with mana once again, Felix pulled the raw form free and swapped in a different set of coordinates.


    Grim slowly flew over and Nova bounded to him once Grim let her free.


    Approaching, Grim physically touched Felix''s hand with his cover, I do trust you. S§×ar?h the ¦Çov§×lFire .net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    Felix smiled and nodded to Grim then finished casting the portal. They all stepped through into a completely pitch black cavern filled with coral pillars.


    Once through, Felix immediately started funneling mana into the portal once again and this time, finally input his actual destination, Telviras.


    He had almost expected his portal to be resisted but all he got was the standard slight alignment of the anchor multiplexor as he opened the portal back to Telviras and stepped through.


    He was immediately greeted by an attendant who, when presented with his registration, frowned deeply at their pad for a few moments.


    "It says you were¡­ I guess it''s a mistake."


    Felix shrugged, preferring not to offer an explanation.


    "Clothes are mandatory in Telviras though."


    Felix nodded, "I''m on my way to pick up a new outfit right now. My other one was just destroyed¡­ completely."


    The attendant nodded and handed Felix a very basic E grade robe which he donned just before being released.


    Bummer, I was kind of hoping to use the Kraken leather for something else. Even selling it would have probably netted me a decent amount.


    Felix could tell Grim was still hesitant as he spoke, It was¡­ infected?


    Yeah, couldn''t save it. Wasn''t suffused with my soul. Maybe if it was I could have tried. Without that, it was eaten almost instantly. Weren''t you there for that?


    That was about when I started to feel¡­ it for the first time and I¡­ wasn''t paying attention.


    Felix''s first stop was Raidran''s and he didn''t bother teleporting there, preferring to exert his freedom by flying himself. He was late but he needed clothes and a few more hours wasn''t going to change the fact that he was already a couple days late.


    He held Grim under one arm and Nova held herself to his back with her claws as neither of them wanted in his Soul Space at the moment.


    While Felix didn''t blame them, he also knew their fears were unfounded. In his Soul Space, he could easily ensure they would be kept separate.


    Flying in through the employee entrance, Felix let himself into the shop and immediately realized he was interrupting when he saw Rainoth and Kordran talking with someone. He waited off to the side but when he realized who they were meeting with, he shot over.


    "Aldahn, you''re alive?"


    "Felix?" Aldahn looked at Felix incredulously, clearly doubting his actually being there for a few moments.


    Felix pushed through and ignored his disbelief, offering no proof that he was real, "I take it the others¡­"


    Aldahn sighed and bowed his head, "Everyone else¡­ Well, except Krinitor who was busy. Everyone who worked on the box."


    Felix winced, "I think that was my fault. I''m¡­ sorry."


    Aldahn looked at Felix with a cocked brow.


    "They also killed everyone in Shade''s Wrath an-"


    Aldahn shook his head along with both Rainoth and Kordran, "It isn''t your fault Felix, even if you connected the two groups. That was a God, one of the stronger ones and¡­ It''s no one''s fault."


    Both Rainoth and Kordran nodded in agreement.


    "I heard them mention Plague as if they were an individual, is that a god."


    They all looked at each-other, Kordran pursing his lips and Rainoth sighing. Aldahn nodded solemnly, "Yeah, they''re a neutral god."


    Rainoth frowned and crossed her arms, "How''d you get out anyways?"


    "They used me like a compass to find what they were looking for then transported me with it. It was so¡­ loud? That I managed to cast a portal and slip out once I came to."


    Aldahn chuckled, "Bet they didn''t think some random D grade kid could cast a fucking portal. Smart thinking."


    "Think they''re gonna hunt you down?" Rainoth looked between both of them but her eyes ultimately settled on Felix.


    "They could¡­" Aldahn scratched at his chin.


    "I doubt it¡­ There was¡­ an incident right as I got out. The object¡­ broke free." Felix winced.


    The others didn''t seem to have context so they looked at each-other with growing confusion before Felix elaborated, "They''re dead."


    They all looked very confused with that statement but Felix shrugged, "I was lucky to get out when I did. I saw it through the portal right as I closed it. It consumed them completely."


    Though they still evidently doubted Felix''s story, they were less confused and somewhat accepting.


    "Anyways, any chance I could get some clothes?" Felix looked at Rainoth with a smile.


    She nodded and chuckled as she finally realized what he was wearing, "Come on, follow me."


    Walking into the backroom with her, Felix immediately caught sight of his finished set of robes. They didn''t perfectly match the drawings Krinitor had shown him, the outer cloak or coat was more grey than white and there was no arcane blue pattern adorning it. The style and cut were slightly different too but Felix didn''t know or care why.


    [C - Legendary] Robes of the Exiled Prodigy


    [Regenerative]


    A set of robes custom designed and tailored for use by The Exile of the 256th Integration. Designed to be enchanted and disenchanted with ease and crafted with the highest quality materials, this set of robes is of peak quality in the C grade without enchantments.


    Supply the robes with mana to regenerate portions of it and destroying any severed pieces. Enchantments inscribed into the fabric will also be remembered, as a function of the Memory Crystal threads.


    I don''t love the name but¡­ I don''t know that I can really complain.


    As if Rainoth had read his thoughts, "The name will change when you affinize to it. This is just based on what we know about you."


    Felix smiled in relief and nodded to Rainoth then walked up to the mannequin wearing the robes and lightly touched them, "You haven''t affinized them yet, right?"


    "Correct. There are also boots there but they aren''t fabric, just high quality leather."


    Looking down, Felix saw the boots and nodded appreciatively, "Thanks."


    [C - Epic] Wyvern Leather Boots


    [Regenerative]


    A simple set of high quality boots crafted from C-Grade Wyvern Leather.


    Felix turned to Rainoth, "To affinize the robes, am I replacing the soul in the memory crystal threading or just affinizing that anima to myself?"


    Rainoth shrugged, "Can do either. Replacing it is better but harder because you need to make sure the anima you replace it with is imbued with the right intent. You want it to memorize and attune, so to speak, itself to the shape. You don''t want it to try and hold the robes solid but you do want it to be able to recreate the shape when it''s regenerating."


    To make it easier on himself, Felix pulled some of the anima from the robes right to the surface and reached into it. Feeling out the intentions already in the robes, Felix summoned some of the anima from his Soul Space and matched it as closely as he could then forcefully replaced all the anima in the robes. He made sure to compress the anima he pushed in to at least the density of his outer soul layers first and surprisingly, found he could have compressed it much further.


    Before, his limit was the density of the layer suffusing his body, his body layer as he was dubbing it. Now, it felt like he could go much further and make everything much denser.


    His assumption was that it was because of his time fighting the object but he wasn''t entirely sure. He made a mental note to revisit his soul layers and compress them later on now that he could.


    With the robes affinized and suffused with his own soul, he could actually feel them like an extension of his body. Not that he was completely aware of them, he couldn''t feel through them like he could his own skin, they were more like hair or nails but still, they felt like they were his.


    Donning the robes and boots, Felix was completely unsurprised to find that they were definitely the most comfortable clothing he had ever worn. They were a little looser than he would have liked, more wizard like and less tight but he couldn''t really complain. Realistically they shouldn''t ever get in the way, Rainoth knew what she was doing and had specifically tailored them not to. Still, it was instinctual to him that loose and baggy could potentially interfere or get caught on something.


    The boots were comfortable, just as comfortable as his last boots but otherwise, didn''t really stand out in comparison to the robes. To complete the wizarding look, Felix pulled out the hat that had been cowering his in Soul Space and placed it on his head.


    Once he had the robes all equipped and adjusted, Rainoth looked at him and nodded, her face painted with indecision more than pride.


    She looked him up and down then stepped closer, "As for the other thing¡­" She reached forwards and a pair of shorts appeared in her hands that Felix quickly stowed.


    He didn''t have much time to look them over but from the brief bit he saw, he was more than satisfied. All he cared about was that they wouldn''t be destroyed like his last ones had been.


    Heading back into the main shop, Aldahn looked Felix over and nodded in approval, "Very nice. I assume you''ll move the enchantment over to these?"


    Felix had no idea if he would. Theoretically he could feed the coat to his Reaper''s Mantle skill and it would be fine, in reality, he was hesitant to do so. He figured he would play around with the skill a bit first and see if he could better understand it before he made any final decisions.


    Just to keep things simple, Felix nodded, "Yeah I will, just gotta find the time."


    Aldahn''s eyes widened, "Oh right, you had somewhere to be, right?"


    Felix sighed, "Yeah, I''m almost 2 days late now."


    "How urgent is it? I''m sure whatever it is¡­ I mean you were kidnapped¡­" Aldahn frowned.


    Felix shrugged, "No idea. I''ll see you guys later though. I may not be back for a while, we''ll see."


    Aldahn was completely understanding but Rainoth didn''t look happy. She didn''t comment either way though.


    Aldahn bore a wide and proud smile, "Well then Felix, it''s been a pleasure. I hope to see you back at the shop at some point. You are the most senior enchanter other than me now."


    Felix winced at the dark humor, "Yeah¡­ damn."


    Aldahn sighed, "I told you before, you just need to accept these things happen and you¡­ you learn to deal with them."


    Felix nodded, "I guess."


    Shaking Aldahn''s hand then bidding Rainoth farewell, Felix headed into the employee garage then opened a portal back to Telviras.


    Stepping into the teleportation hub room, Felix waited for an attendant to appear.


    "Where to?"


    "Eramith." Felix said with more confidence than he felt.


    The attendant immediately frowned, "Do you¡­ have an invitation?"


    Felix nodded and pulled out the coin he had received so long ago then held it up in front of the attendant.


    Their eyes immediately went wide as they scrambled back through the door they had come from, "One moment please."


    Felix was worried something was wrong but his fears were abated a few moments later when another attendant appeared along with the first, this one without a metal plate.


    "May I see your invitation please?"


    Felix nodded and held it up but they didn''t reach for it. Instead they briefly examined it in his hand then nodded and smiled, "Please, follow me."


    The, clearly more senior, attendant led Felix and his original attendant down a series of hallways and through multiple seamless portals that Felix could only detect because of the changes in the aether. They finally arrived a few minutes later in a much larger room than Felix was expecting that was otherwise similar to the ones he was used to.


    The room was made of the same whitish materials with green inscriptions except larger and sitting in the middle of the room was a large portal frame.


    Tapping briefly at a particular spot on the wall, the senior attendant entered something that was unclear to Felix then turned and nodded to him as the portal frame blinked to life.


    The portal spell that filled the frame was surprisingly, an actual spell, unlike all the other portals Felix had stepped through in the teleportation hub. Unfortunately, he had no hope of mapping it. It was easily the most complicated spell he had ever examined.


    Not only were the channels intricate and nodes diverse, but the enchantment seemed to actually be actively moving. Felix had no idea what was happening and just tried to map as much of it as he could. Unfortunately, nothing he memorized made any sense as the enchantment was in a constant state of flux, shifting in form and function, patterns and nodes moving around constantly. Some parts of it appeared then disappeared and he had no frame of reference to try and understand it from.


    The enchantment only did this for a second or two at most then the frame filled with a portal as the enchantment or inscribed spell, as Felix was starting to believe, completely solidified.


    Felix briefly looked through the portal and saw a large empty room with stone or concrete walls and a tiled floor. It wasn''t particularly unique or interesting, nothing stood out as extraordinary.


    This time, Felix knew he would be coming back to Telviras eventually, he wasn''t actually leaving anything behind and so, he had no reservations.


    With Grim under one arm and Nova happily searching through his new robes, Felix stepped through the portal to The Eramith Academy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 Chapter 199 - Book 1

    Stepping through the portal from Telviras, Felix arrived in what appeared to be a completely normal room. The walls were smooth grey stone or concrete and the floors were tiled. S~ea??h the n??el Fire.n§×t website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    Felix had been expecting something completely mind blowing from what he had been told was the most prestigious school in the multiverse. This seemed, like a normal building or school. It was nice and clean, the walls and tiles of the floor completely unmarred. No signs of aging whatsoever but still, it was completely mundane where Felix had been expecting something awe inspiring.


    However, he almost immediately noticed the aether here was different. It wasn''t much denser than Telviras or even the planet holding the Usorium ruins but it was even more fluid than either. The aether was like water where everywhere else had been like honey or molasses in comparison. It was pliant and fast while being even slightly denser.


    On top of that, the anima around him was similar and Felix could swear it almost hummed with experience. It was like everything it had experienced was significant, it was pliable and fluid just like the aether and at the same time, it was filled to the brim with experiences. Unfortunately, it still wasn''t nearly dense enough to harvest and use efficiently, creatures still were, by many orders of magnitude, the fastest way to collect anima even here.


    The portal quickly closed behind him leaving him completely alone, along with Grim under his arm and Nova in his robes, in the room. There was a single set of double doors that actually looked to be made of wood on the far wall but before Felix could even consider heading towards them, they opened.


    Stepping through the doors, a young looking woman with short brown hair and large glasses approached Felix.


    "Welcome to The Eramith Academy."


    "Thanks. I''m here to¡­ register and hopefully attend?"


    She smiled, "Unfortunately¡­ the application period has passed and all students are already accounted for. The tournament registration closed two days ago and the winner has already been decided. You''re going to have to wait until the next registration period."


    "Yeah, I meant to be here sooner I just¡­ couldn''t quite make it."


    She nodded in understanding then frowned, "How did you get here by the way? At this point you would need¡­"


    Felix held up the token he had gotten at the end of his tutorial as she trailed off. As soon as she saw the token, her eyes widened and she nodded, "Oh¡­ You''re¡­ Hmmm. Would you follow me please?"


    The woman led him out of the room and through the double doors. Together, they walked through a hallway that matched the room he had just been in except that the walls were covered in intricate carvings separated by pillars that reached all the way up to the arced ceilings above. The ceilings themselves looked to be painted or something similar except that as soon as Felix paid attention to them, he could haves sworn they were moving ever slightly. Looking back down, he noticed the very same thing of the carvings on the walls.


    She led him over to an open doorway that led directly outside onto a large open park area that stretched out in every direction.


    Felix followed her along stone pathways, not flagstone, tiles or cobblestones but a single sheet of solid stone formed the pathway beneath them.


    Looking around, Felix saw colorful grass, trees that grew to form benches in their trunks, massive flower beds that formed perfect canopies and other unnatural looking feats of landscaping. As he inspected them though, Felix wasn''t sure if they were formed that way intentionally or not because they looked so natural.


    The seating in the trunk was covered seamlessly in the bark of the tree and the seat along with the back were formed of roots and knots. Were it not for the branches that formed arm wrests along the side, Felix wouldn''t have even realized it was supposed to be a bench at all.


    The woman leading him walked much faster than Felix was used to people walking but nothing he couldn''t keep up with. They crossed the park and headed towards another building, this one with a more gothic exterior made of dark stone with pillars and many windows.


    Heading inside through an empty doorway, she turned down a hall and led him just a few meters towards a door and stopped. Turning to him, she raised a hand, "Wait here a moment please."


    Felix nodded and she disappeared through the door. While he waited he looked around and noticed the interior of this building was completely different from the other one they had been in. The walls on the inside were wooden but not paneled rather, they looked like they were made of a single solid sheet which Felix was almost certain was impossible.


    Considering how long the hallway was in either direction and the direction of the grain, he was convinced this was some kind of trick and that they hadn''t found a tree this absurdly wide.


    As he examined the wood to try and find the seams, Felix realized the grain was moving ever slightly. Just a millimeter ever minute or so but enough that he could see it. As he stepped back to see if it was all moving the same way, he realized the grain of the wall itself formed a large depiction of a forest. Almost like a painting but so subtle, he only saw it when he focused on it.


    He only had to wait a few minutes before the same woman that had been leading him, opened the door and stepped aside so Felix could enter.


    Felix had been expecting an office of a dean or something so he was a little worried when he saw the room looked to be set up for a council to pass down judgement. Felix was led up to a podium in the middle of the room surrounded by a raised half circle desk behind which there were 4 individuals sitting and looking down upon him.


    In reality they weren''t really paying much attention. One of them seemed to be tapping away at some screen Felix couldn''t see.


    [?] Raphiasus: Professor of Alchemy (Lvl ?)


    Another was adjusting his robes.


    [?] Jeplin: Professor of Botany & Herbology (Lvl ?)


    One was eating.


    [?] Thakorm: Grand Baker Supreme (Lvl ?)


    The last individual briefly glanced over at Felix then went back to the book they were reading.


    [?] Elkon: Professor of Beastial Biology (Lvl ?)


    Initially, Felix wasn''t sure if their disinterest should worry or calm him but before he could make a decision, another individual walked into the room from one of the side doors. As they walked in, Thakorm tossed the newcomer something which they caught and promptly started devouring even before they found their seat.


    [?] Haris: Professor of Tactics & Strategy (Lvl ?)


    As Felix identified the professors in the room, each and every one of them were evidently aware of what he was doing yet none commented on it. As expected, he couldn''t see their grades or levels at all. To him, it felt like they varied hugely in strength but he had no idea if some were intentionally masking their strength somehow.


    The one who was reading, Elkon, closed their book louder than was necessary then fully registered Felix being in the room, "We have the requisite number of professors here now, shall we begin?"


    Walking over from the side of the room where she had been standing, the woman who had led Felix here walked forwards then gestured at Felix while looking up at the professors, "This prospective student just arrived via portal less than an hour ago."


    She turned to him and nodded which he immediately understood and complied with. As soon as he presented the token, two of the professors stared at him incredulously, two of them started whispering amongst themselves and Haris, the latest arrival, just giggled as they continued to eat whatever it was they were munching on.


    One of the ones who was staring at him spoke up, "You''re from the 256th?"


    Felix nodded, "Yes."


    The one in the middle, Thakorm, who had been initially eating and was later whispering, leaned forwards over their high desk, "Rather early for an integrated. Would you mind presenting your title for us to confirm?"


    Felix quickly equipped the title for a few moments until the professor nodded and he removed it.


    "Status confirmed by all present. Student accepted?" Thakkorm turned to the others.


    A chorus of ''ayes'' followed then the woman who had led Felix in nodded and walked back over to him.


    The professors all slowly rose from their seats and leisurely walked out as Felix was led back out of the room by the same woman.


    "I''ll get you registered and show you to your dorm. If you have any questions, please feel free." The woman looked over her shoulder as they walked not quite side by side but slightly staggered down the hall.


    Felix sighed in relief, "That was much easier than I was expecting when you said I was late¡­"


    "Oh, you aren''t late. That token means you were already accepted. Most of the students are accepted ahead of time and aren''t actually here yet. You missed registration but you were an integrated, we don''t expect you to send that in ahead of time."


    "So there was no chance I wasn''t accepted there?"


    She shrugged as they walked through the courtyard towards a completely different building, "Pretty much. It''s mostly a formality so they can confirm your story with the title. 5 professors witnessing the title makes it nearly impossible to trick them all."


    "Oh, well that''s a relief. You said registration is closed, how many students are there?"


    "We have 528 students registered to start in your cycle, 529 with you." She answered immediately as though she was already very familiar with the number.


    "How many students total at the school?" Felix followed her into a building made of stacked, thin stones that was almost like brickwork


    "529. There is only one cycle at the school at once. There are students from old cycles here too but they aren''t really students, we call them Adepts. They don''t attend classes, they''re here pursuing research or helping professors."


    They walked into a room that appeared to be an office and she sat at the desk, Felix taking the seat across from her as she gestured towards it, "When do classes start?"


    "In 8 days. You''ll have to choose your classes by then and I''ll get you registered. Just make sure you hand them in the day before they start and I should be able to get you into everything you want. Assuming no scheduling conflicts."


    "How common are those?"


    "Scheduling conflicts? They don''t happen for a normal students because we schedule classes based on what everyone registered for. In your case, I finished the schedule last night so there''s a chance you get unlucky. If you can get me your class schedule in the next day or two I can redo the scheduling and guarantee no conflicts."


    "Where do I find a list of classes?"


    "I''ll hand it to you after we register you. You can see descriptions and get more information either by tracking down the professor, who may or may not be on the planet, or heading to the library."


    "Perfect. What do you need from me for the registration?"


    "Nothing. Just give me a few moments to write everything down. Are these your only companions, bonds, familiars?" She asked gesturing towards Nova and Grim.


    Felix nodded, "As of right now these are the only ones."


    "Does the book have a name or is it not sentient?"


    "The book is Grim."


    "Excellent. Just to confirm, you are Felix Kade, the spirit is Nova and the book is Grim. Would you like to have your level, class, race, profession, skills, items, extraordinary abilities, faction allegiances, I assume blood relations are not applicable, or anything else registered? All of those are optional."


    "Is¡­ there any reason to do so?"


    "Recruitment at the end of the first cycle mostly."


    "Then no."


    She nodded and handed him three tokens that mostly looked like large coins along with a ring, "These coins are bound to you and your bonded companions. It is most common to wear the ring but that isn''t necessarily possible with spirits or tomes. So long as either the coin or ring are present, you will be recognized as a student of the school or bonded to one. They also identify your position as an Initiate for those outside the school."


    Felix nodded and took the items, handing a coin to both Grim and Nova who stowed them. Inspecting his own, Felix saw the coin looked to be made of some silvery almost white metal. Imprinted on one side was a triangle made of a hammer, a sword and a wand with some kind of letter in the center. On the other, Felix''s own face was imprinted surrounded by the name of the school along with his status as a student.


    Stowing the coin, he inspected the ring and saw it was a simple flat band with a break in it along the back made of a darker silvery metal. Opposite the break on the outside, the same triangle made of a hammer, sword and wand with a letter in the middle was imprinted. The band was otherwise blank and unadorned.


    Slipping the ring onto his left index finger, Felix couldn''t find any kind of magical property to it whatsoever making him feel strongly like it was a waste of a gear slot. He always had the coin to fall back to if he found a better ring in the future though.


    Clearly sensing his disappointment, the woman smirked, "If you need a new ring just come by and I can replace it."


    "In case I lose it?"


    "Or break it. It''s a bit of a tradition to show off a little by modifying the ring depending on what classes you''re taking. Obviously if you have a better ring you can always use the coin though. You''ll see what I mean later on."


    Felix nodded, "So are you the¡­ head of registration or something?"


    "Librarian actually. I also handle registration but it''s not a complicated job so, no need to have anyone dedicated to doing it."


    Felix was a little embarrassed he still hadn''t bothered checking her name, being a little flustered when he arrived then distracted for almost every moment after that so, he identified her now.


    [?] El-Essenor (Lvl ?)


    She seemed to be just as aware of others identifying her as the professors had been, "You can just call me El, Librarian El, or Ellie if you''d like."


    Felix nodded, "Thank you. Would you mind showing me to the library as well once we finish up with all this?"


    She smiled and nodded in respect as she recognized the hunger in his eyes for books and the knowledge they contained, "Of course."


    Standing from behind her desk, Librarian Ellie grabbed a number of papers from a drawer then neatly stacked them and handed them to Felix as she walked towards the door, "Here is a list of classes along with some basic information as well as a registry of teaching and research professors at the Academy right now."


    Felix took the papers and stowed them in his Soul Space, already having scanned and memorized them passively before she had even picked them up.


    He followed her back through the courtyard at the center of the campus to another building, this one a tall structure of stone work between tall trees being used as pillars. Once again, the trees were placed a little too geometrically to be natural but there was otherwise no sign that they weren''t perfectly normal trees.


    Through a set of large metal banded double doors, they walked through a simple lobby and over to a set of spiral stairs that ascended up to the top of the building. As far as Felix could tell, just like all the other buildings he had seen here, none of them were spatially altered at all. The inside perfectly matched the geometry of the outside which Felix found a little odd.


    He mused at the irony that he now expected buildings to be spatially expanded as they climbed up to the 9th floor.


    She led him down a hall then turned to him, "Any idea what kinds of classes you''ll be taking? Your profession or general interests?"


    "Enchanting, spells, magic objects. I''ve heard of Soul Binding so if I can get into that?"


    She nodded, "Perfect. This room should suit you nicely then."


    Looking around, Felix was surprised to see all of the doors along the walls being so distant from each-other. He realized the rooms probably each contained many bunks but was proven completely incorrect when she opened a door on the right revealing a massive apartment.


    Almost as if it were a house of it''s own, the room contained a sitting area, an enchanting workshop with all the tools he had seen and used in Inscripticae and more. There was a small forge along with many desks, shelves, tools, suspended clamps and a section with a ritual circle inscribed into a perfectly flat section of the floor.


    Off to the right there were two doors. She opened one and revealed a bedroom far larger than would ever be necessary and the other, a bathing room.


    "This is your dorm room and will only open to your ring or coin. If you''d like different tools, furniture or layout, that can be arranged."


    Felix quickly shook his head, "This is¡­ great, no complaints here."


    "That''s the end of the standard tour, would you like me to lead you to the library now?"


    "If you wouldn''t mind, thanks."


    She nodded and led Felix out of the room, the door closing itself behind them, then back out of the building they were in and over to another.


    Following Ellie into another gothic stone looking building, this one less castle like and more like a clean church in appearance.


    Through another large empty doorway, Felix followed Ellie down a hall and through a large set of wooden double doors into a large but not massive library. In fact, the library looked to Felix like a very standard, normal library.


    The floors were carpeted and the shelves were wooden. There was a seating area along with a front desk which Ellie sat behind.


    None of the books were flying, none of them glowed or were chained shut. It was so mundane, Felix was genuinely starting to feel disappointed with the school in general.


    Turning to Ellie, "Could you point me in the direction of the books describing the classes please?"


    She smiled at just pointed at the shelves behind him, "Start walking and make your intentions known. If you don''t know how, just start talking about what you''re looking for."


    He frowned but turned and started walking towards the shelves anyways. Unsure what to look for, he started talking to himself, describing what he was looking for and as soon as he started, the floor of the library itself started to move.


    Shifting beneath his feet, the threads of the carpet twisted and shifted until there was a clear path for him to follow directly over to one of the shelves. Following it, Felix arrived at a book shelf that was lit by a series of glowing bugs skittering around.


    Reaching towards the lit shelf, one of the books slid outwards, protruding from the rest and Felix plucked it off. As soon as he had the book in hand, the bugs all dimmed back to darkness and turning around, the carpet was back to normal.


    Maybe not quite as mundane as I had thought.


    Walking back over to the center of the library, Felix sat down and opened the book. Though the class list and the book were already memorized, Felix felt like manually setting them out in front of him for some reason. He still used his scan to flip to the right pages instantly but something about the more mundane and rustic vibe of the library compared to Telviras'' made him feel like it was more appropriate.


    Considering how many students there were at the school, Felix was astonished by how many classes were offered. There was everything from Baking, Sword Play, Metallurgy, Magical Healing, Non Magical Healing, History, Political Science, Alchemy, Micro & Macro Economics to Armor Crafting and Weapon Crafting.


    Some of the courses were recommended to be taken together like Magical and Non Magical Healing while others were completely independent. On top of that, some of the courses listed out the courses that would be offered the next Epoch that naturally progressed from their predecessors for planning purposes.


    While there were plenty of courses that looked fascinating and Felix would have been inclined to take, he knew not all of them were applicable. There was also the issue of time and grades. If his grades mattered, then he wouldn''t bother taking any martial combat classes, as much as he thought it was a good idea to train against martial fighters.


    Unfortunately, what he really needed was direction and advice. How many classes were recommended to take? How strong were the pairing recommendations? Were there specific classes he should be taking? The only person he had available to ask with any answers was Ellie so Felix looked up from the book but immediately stopped himself.


    Sitting directly across from him, at the same table in the sitting area of the library, despite the 20 or so empty tables around them, was a young looking red haired woman with excited eyes and a very warm smile.


    "Hello." She waved as soon as he noticed her.


    While Amani and other elves Felix had encountered in the past had melodious voices that were pleasant to listen to, her voice was completely different. It sounded perfectly normal, if a little soft, but nothing out of the ordinary.


    Though she had only offered him a single word however, Felix immediately felt a trickle of happiness, joy, wonder and warmth spread through him. It immediately reminded him of his experience at the restaurant Jozusto with Thezan and Rathos after dealing with the Ravens. The effect was muted, but it was pleasant. There no doubt in his mind, or rather his soul though, that she was the source of the effect.


    Felix furrowed his brow, "How long have you been sitting there?"


    "A few minutes? I sat down a few seconds after you opened the book." She smiled widely and as far as Felix could tell, completely genuinely. She was either very nice, very happy or on drugs.


    Before Felix could ask why she was here, the woman sighed, "I haven''t decided yet if I should be offended or not that you didn''t notice me."


    Felix completely ignored her as he could tell she was just teasing him, "Do you need something from me?"


    "Nope, but you needed me so¡­ here I am." She winked.


    Felix frowned, "How exactly do I need you?"


    With completely confidence and unwavering surety, she tilted her head towards the librarian, "You were just about to go ask the librarian a bunch of questions about which courses you should take."


    Can you read my mind?


    She smiled, "No, but I don''t need to read your mind to know your intentions."


    "Who are you?"


    She giggled a little, "A student, just like you."


    [C] Melody (Lvl 1003)


    Felix sighed, "Alright so how many classes should I be taking at once?"


    "Up to you. Most people take about 4 leaving them with plenty of free time. I''m registered for 6."


    "Are there any required classes, classes I''m automatically registered for or classes that I just plain should be taking?"


    "No, no and that depends?" She shrugged, "Pacifist?"


    Felix shook his head.


    "You probably want to take Group Combat then. It might seem like a bad fit at first but I promise it will become much more valuable as it progresses. Solo Combat is also very common."


    Felix nodded in acknowledgement, "What about grades, do they matter?"


    "Sort of. Depends who you are. For you, probably."


    Felix shook his head to clear it, "Wait¡­ why?"


    "Recruitment at the end of the epoch mostly."


    "Oh I don''t care about that."


    "What about sponsorships? Are you rolling in credits or would it be nice to have someone paying for everything you do?"


    "Wait¡­ how common is that?"


    "Here? You''re almost guaranteed to have at least one sponsor. The question is how rich are they?"


    "Ok, grades matter then. What about the recommended pairings, how important are they?"


    "Depends on the class. Some are so intertwined, you''d be a fool not to take both. Often that means it''s more like one and a half classes worth of work instead of two though. For all the classes you''re looking at, you should take both."


    Felix realized she had been reading the book in front of him as he flipped through it an-. Suddenly remembering the effect she had on his soul as she spoke, "Did you make me sit here and read the book so you could follow along?"


    She shrugged innocently, "I didn''t make you¡­ I may have suggested it though¡­"


    "How did you do that?"


    She reached forwards and pointed at one of the classes on the list, "Take this and find out. If you need any more convincing, I''ll be there." She looked at him suggestively.


    "Am I going to regret taking 8 classes?"


    She waved away his concerns, "Nah, you''ll be fine so long as they aren''t completely new to you."


    "Alright so ''Spell Formation'' paired with ''Mana Structures'', ''Mana Control'', ''Solo Combat'', ''Group Combat'', ''Constructs and Elementals'' paired with ''Animancy'' then ''Soul Manipulation, Reading & Cultivation''."


    "You aren''t gonna take Casting? You looked at that one for a while."


    "No. I just¡­ It''s not as applicable as I first thought." Felix stood and closed the book in front of him, replaced it in on the shelf then walked back towards Ellie''s desk and handed her his final list of classes.


    Turning around to thank Melody for her help, Felix found her standing right behind him. Much closer than was normal in his mind.


    "Uh¡­ thanks for the help¡­"


    She smiled gleefully, "Sure thing. I know you desperately want to go do something now and I''m not gonna stop you but meet me back here in 6 days 4 hours."


    "Wh-"


    "It''ll be worth it, I promise." She skipped to the side towards the exit and waved at him as she vanished around the corner.


    Shaking his head to clear it from the odd interaction, Felix turned back into the library and started talking to the shelves.


    In Telviras'' library, he hadn''t found any useful information on spell nodes, spell formation, mana, mana channels, mana theory, enchantment or anything like that. No information that had any real value.


    When he spoke to the shelves and followed the carpet and bugs to a section on spell formation here, Felix was overwhelmed with information.


    The first book he picked up was so complicated, he had no hope of understanding what was in it. It spoke of spell formation and its complexities, which nodes could be paired with others and how to modify nodes. It spoke of the orientation of the nodes along with their resonance with certain channel configurations and brushed over all of it as if the reader simply knew.


    The next was equally as complicated so Felix, after having scanned all of them, asked for more introductory books.


    Bioluminescence guided him to a number of books he could actually understand so Felix marked those in his Memory Palace and moved onto the next topic.


    He didn''t expect to spend even close to an hour in the library so when he finally scanned all the books he could think of as relevant, he was astonished to see how long it had been.


    Almost 18 hours in the library¡­ I know it took a while to scan the higher grade and rarity books but still¡­ 18 hours.


    He would have time to go over all the information in class, along with a professor and other students so Felix put off reading the books for the time being.


    Flying back to his dorm room, Felix sat himself down in the empty area dedicated to ritual circles and shifted his consciousness internally. He had a number of things he wanted to look at before classes started and whatever Melody was trying to drag him to.


    First on his list was to figure out if his brain computer thing had been damaged by his soul collapsing when he was first put next to the object.


    Tuning himself into his soul and feeling it out, Felix was astonished to find the computer exactly as he had left it, perfectly stable as far as he could tell. He had no idea if it had done what he had wanted it to, if it was connected into his brain at all, but it hadn''t been crushed.


    Checking his status screen, his intelligence hadn''t actually changed from when he had last seen it.


    Name:Felix KadeFREE0Innate:Ascendant Prodigy: Mana (Wizard)STR34965Class:[D - Legendary] Reaper (Lvl 778)DEX134804Race:[D - Unique] Wanderer (Lvl 885)AGI43443Profession:[D - Arcane] Mana Engineer (Lvl 992)PER88676Health:795,270 / 795,270VIT79527Mana:55,814,480 / 55,814,480INT143768Energy:2,304,880 / 2,304,880END57622


    He had no idea if the computer would actually increase it but he was hoping it would. Seeing as how he had given it plenty of time to naturally merge with his brain, Felix was ready to push things along himself.


    Before he actually physically modified or even touched anything, Felix decided he was best off trying to naturally merge them. The best way he could think of doing so, was to head into his Memory Palace.


    Previously, he had modified the library to be bigger and adapted the skill in doing so. While it hadn''t actually modified his brain structure significantly, as far as he could tell, it did push on the bounds of his mind. He was now hoping, that if he did something similar, his mind would adapt and utilize the computer he had strapped to it.


    As soon as he arrived in the center of the library though, Felix noticed something was wrong, he couldn''t immediately tell what though.


    Looking up through the skylight above, the sky was wrong. It took him a few minutes to realize it was the sky because it was so natural. Instead of the sunny, clear blue skies he had intended to be up there, Felix saw a dark starry sky. He hadn''t added a day night cycle in here because it would change the lighting and make it harder to read and yet, there it was.


    Hey Grim, when did it become night in here?


    When you suffused your body with a layer of your soul. The day night cycle just kind of¡­ started.


    Looking around at the rest of the library, he realized something also felt off to him. It wasn''t anything specific just a feeling he had while in there. It wasn''t how it had always felt before. Instead, it reminded him of his Soul Garden more than anything.


    Felix hadn''t constructed any windows other than the skylight originally but now that he looked up at the stars, he almost felt like there was something outside of the library. The sky had changed and seemed to even be moving along. The stars twinkled and to Felix, felt completely real. They were distant like real stars, completely unreachable and yet, in his Memory Palace and his Soul Garden, he was aware of everything or he should have been.


    Though he had modified the Memory Palace to be infinite, such that he would never be able to reach the walls, the library was contained entirely in his mind and so, Felix simply willed himself to one of the walls and appeared there.


    He reached out and modified the wall to now have a door, his hand landing on its handle as it appeared. Felix took a figurative breath then opened the door.


    Theoretically, there shouldn''t have been anything there. His Memory Palace was a mental construct and it was a library. He hadn''t constructed anything outside of it, space started and ended within the library.


    Despite the theoretical, Felix took a step out of his Memory Palace and into a field. It was barren and empty, the ground made of some blank grey material that was perfectly flat. Way off in the distance he saw trees, very familiar trees forming a perfectly peaceful but dense forest.


    Willing himself over to the trees, Felix found his Soul Garden. It was exactly what he was expecting to find and yet it was still a surprise to him.


    How is this¡­ here? How am I outside of my library? I guess this explains the sky changing? My Soul Garden did have a day night cycle. They must have melded together when I suffused my brain with part of my soul.


    Felix moved himself back over the outside of the Library and looked around.


    What the hell am I supposed to do with all this space? My Library is already infinite on the inside. I don''t need, or even want for that matter, more libraries. I guess I probably shouldn''t leave it like this though.


    The outside of a library needed a path to get there so Felix added one, a walking road of sorts leading up to the library.


    He also added some brushes and small trees along with grass and flowers around the library. There was no need for it to be a solitary monolith. He also briefly toyed with the outside of the building, making it looked like a building instead of a blank cube.


    Ok¡­ how about a park with a small fountain?


    He spent what had felt like a few hours messing around with the landscaping, creating a small fountain and park area, replacing the blank grey with fields of grass.


    When he was done he looked around and while he was happy with what he had done, he couldn''t help but feel like it was empty. He had a library with a path that led to a fountain all surrounded by an empty field on every side, save for the Soul Garden way off in the distance.


    Not sure what else to do with this place. I don''t even know if this is because of the computer or not.


    With no way to tell one way or the other and nothing left to construct in his mind, Felix returned his consciousness to reality and was happy to find his Soul Garden''s time dilation had applied.


    That''s convenient for the future.


    Unfortunately, his Intelligence still hadn''t changed at all. Briefly taking a peak at the computer, Felix saw things happening, some transistors flickering but nothing significant. It was so sparse that it could have just been feedback or resonance so he still had no idea if it was working or not.


    He decided to give it more time and turned his attention over to spell casting.


    Now that he knew the weird sudden casts were the spell he was fastest at and most comfortable with, he had more direction as to why they happened and how to potentially control them. As far as Felix knew, just about everyone else in the multiverse used their spell lists to cast spells. He had seen some mentions of raw casting in the books he had just scanned in the library but they described it as an unachievable dream for any spell that was remotely complicated and even then, required centuries of dedicated practice.


    That wasn''t the case for Felix, for whatever reason that seemed to be tied to his unique soul. Felix had been raw casting spells right from the beginning, on accident.


    Considering it was the spell he was most familiar with, Felix was starting to think he was accidentally casting it but the question was how. The effect had saved his life once and allowed him to catch an enemy once. It was useful but it was also dangerous if he couldn''t predict it.


    His goal was to figure out what was happening so he could either train to make it predictable or completely disable it so he wasn''t catching himself by surprise in combat. Given it had something to do with familiarity, or so he suspected, Felix focused in on his soul.


    Souls contained experiences and instincts, what he was doing seemed almost like an instinct to him. In a highly emotional situation, when he was frustrated, scared or desperate, his fight or flight reactions kicked in and he cast the spell he wanted to.


    To confirm his theory, Felix focused in on his soul as he willed a burst of force to cast. He didn''t force himself into a stressful situation because he was hoping that if his theory was correct, he could trigger the cast anyways.


    Though it took him a few hours but Felix finally started to trigger the cast himself. It wasn''t consistent yet but it was far better than it had been. He also figured, now that he could feel where it was coming from and had some control over it, that he could entirely disable it until he had fully figured it out.


    Damn, I wish it was the stronger version of a Force Blast. I know I''ve cast the lesser version more so it makes sense but¡­ it just isn''t as useful. Hopefully I can figure out a way to do this with other spells in the future. Even if I do, it''s going to take a hell of a lot of casting to become that comfortable with them. Also¡­ doesn''t seem like I can modify it much. It''s the same spell with the same cost every time¡­ damn. Gonna have to choose them carefully then.


    Satisfied with that casting, Felix turned his attention to his soul. He had found that he could compress anima even further than he was capable of before after having trained against the inky blackness and so, he did exactly that with his second layer.


    The actual size of the second layer didn''t matter at all so compressing it just gave him more room. He was hoping for other benefits but couldn''t find any initially. In order to do the same thing with the third layer, the one suffusing his body, he would have to add in more anima because for that layer, size did matter.


    He also transferred the enchantment he had designed to his new coat and fed it to his Reaper''s Mantle after some quick tests. It worked perfectly and the quality seemed identical which was a huge relief.


    In order to improve the enchantment though, he had some spare anima lying around so he started experimenting with suffusing anima throughout his Reaper''s Mantle. He had no idea what the skill was actually doing and his mind kept telling him that it had to be System Fuckery, generating material. On the other hand, something about the class itself gave him pause.


    The other skills he had from his class seemed to be designed to circumvent The System so it would be wrong for the Mantle to fully utilize it.


    Felix summoned the cloak and cut pieces off of it, forcefully regenerating them, dismissing it then resummoning it, all while honing in on the skill and the produced material with his every sense. His matter senses told him it the material itself was identical and his mana senses showed him a slight burst of mana every time he summoned it.


    Regenerating it used a ton of mana but that was expected as it seemed to be actually creating material from mana, something that was extraordinarily expensive.


    If I dismiss it with damage then resummon it, the damage remains. The exact same damage. It has to be the same cloak right? That means it''s not disappearing and regenerating, it''s being moved to another space or something?


    Ding You have become more proficient with the Innate Class skill: [Legendary] Reaper''s Mantle (Novice I => Novice III)


    Appreciating the confirmation, Felix started focusing on following the cloak itself. He attached a small seed of highly affinized anima to the cloak then dismissed it. Trying to then sense that piece of soul matter, he managed to track the cloak into a small pocket space, a Soul Space.


    Wait¡­ I can have multiple soul spaces? Grim? Did you know this?


    Grim was in the process of flying around the room playing with Nova but had more than enough focus remaining to have a mental conversation, Nope. Never heard of that. I guess¡­ I don''t see why not?


    I wonder if they conflict? Like if there is a shared size or something. Like if you have 10 liters of total capacity then you can one space at 10 liters or two at 5 or one at 1 and another at 9? I guess there''s only one way to find out¡­ or two because there''s probably a book on it here¡­ three if I find the right professor¡­ whatever.


    Just as he had created his first Soul Space, Felix forced open a new space, this time placing it elsewhere within his soul.


    That was¡­ really easy.


    You are way better at soul stuff now.


    Fair enough.


    Felix quickly expanded the new space to the appropriate size then completely cleaned it out creating as perfect a vacuum as he could muster. As soon as it was done, he moved the ball of liquid black into the new space, completely separating it from his makeshift inventory and everything else he stored in there.


    That is¡­ comforting. Back to this Mantle though.


    Now that he knew the Mantle was simply located in its own Soul Space, Felix was much more comfortable with completely suffusing it with anima. The only question remaining was what would happen when it regenerated but he didn''t mind testing that out later. For now he just wanted to see how much better the enchantment on the coat could be.


    It didn''t take him long to completely suffuse the coat once he had found the right intentions to imbue into it. He wanted it to protect the coat somewhat, allow the enchantment to coordinate and give him some control over its baggy and indulgent and amount of fabric.


    Once he had though, he could immediately feel it, even when it was stowed away. He didn''t really ever plan on stowing it because it regulated temperature perfectly but it was interesting to him nonetheless.


    The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.


    I guess it must use anima to remember the coat, materials, enchantments then the anima directs the mana to generate the material when it regenerates? Can I do that myself?


    Ding You have become more proficient with the Innate Class skill: [Legendary] Reaper''s Mantle (Novice III => Novice IX)


    Woah¡­ that was a leap. I didn''t even realize this had a proficiency before. Was it just hidden? Weird.


    Without a great way of testing his cloak enchantment improvements, Felix simply moved on. He only had a few days left so he took some time to start reading through the books he had scanned while practicing his casting. Instead of casting a huge variety of spells though, Felix specifically chose a small number he wanted to be able to instinct cast and focused on those. Among them was the improved Force Burst as well as Phantom Step.


    When the time arrived, Felix seriously debated ditching Melody and just continuing his training and reading. Ultimately, the fact that she had helped him and seemed to be able to read him so easily, made him think she might be right about it being worth it so he decided to go.


    Grim and Nova required some convincing to enter his main Soul Space again but now that the all consuming liquid was gone, they were willing, if a little reluctant.


    Felix let Nova nestle into his robes after making sure she was ok with going in and out of his Soul Space but it was far more convenient for Grim to be in his Soul Space. Felix also got the sense from their bond that he preferred it.


    Flying back out to the library, Felix was actually surprised to see no one else on campus. It was just as empty as the day he had arrived even though there was only just over a day left until classes started.


    Melody was lying in the grass outside the library, not actually inside the building at all, and staring up at the sky.


    As Felix approached, he noticed she was wearing a different set of clothes, something that stood out only because he and almost everyone else he knew past the integration, rarely did. This time, she was wearing a sundress, perfectly suited to the clear skies and warm weather.


    Stepping over next to her and looking down at Melody, Felix saw her look over at him, her warm smile ever present. He waited a few minutes for her to tell him why he was there but she seemed perfectly content to just lay there.


    Felix sighed, "So, why are we here?"


    "Cause this was the easiest place to meet." Melody hopped right up to her feet in a movement that should have been physically impossible then clasped her hands behind her back.


    "You said it would be worth it?"


    "You''re an integrated, right? Exile?" She seemed so sure of what she was saying, Felix didn''t really see a point in denying it.


    "Yeah."


    "Then yes, this will definitely be worth it." She tilted her head straight back to speak to him as she led him wherever it was they were going.


    "Mind telling me where we''re going?"


    Melody pointed ahead of them, "That way."


    "How far?"


    "A couple hours at this pace, we shouldn''t miss them though."


    Felix cringed, "I have no interest in walking for hours, can you fly?"


    She giggled, "Course I can. You should learn to enjoy life a little more. How much of the campus have you seen? The planet?" She took a deep breath, "Take it in and enjo-"


    Felix darted past her in the air, no interest in having her lecture him.


    Just a few moments later, she caught up to him, her hands still clasped behind her back making it look like it was trivial for her to outpace him, like a casual stroll.


    While Felix could have faked the same demeanor, everything about her screamed the same lackadaisical and yet joyous nature as always. This was no different to her at all. Felix on the other hand was focusing on the spell casts as well as resisting the wind that buffeted his face all while keeping himself balanced. He was good at it, he had plenty of experience, but he wasn''t that good at it.


    Felix fell back behind her a little so he knew where they were going and followed her through a tight grouping of trees that was too small to be a forest. The trees themselves were beautiful with deep purple leaves and bright orange and yellow fruit hanging from the branches, each and every one plump and ripe as far as Felix could see.


    Soaring over the trees, they flew over a field with numerous grazing animals that were astonishingly low level. They seemed like standard animals he might have found on earth with levels between 5 and 20 at most. Considering where he was, he was fully expecting super high level animals abound.


    Finally, Melody dropped down and sat on the edge of a large cliff face, just under a tree and Felix lowered himself down a few meters away.


    The cliff was completely vertical, dropping at least a few kilometers down to an ocean below.


    Felix sat down following Melody''s lead, legs dangling off the edge, "Why are we here?"


    Melody smiled then hopped up and grabbed a fruit from the tree above them, falling right back to the same spot she had been sitting just a moment before, "Well you kind of rushed us so it might be a couple hours. Just sit tight, I promise you''ll at least find it interesting."


    Felix shrugged and grabbed a fruit for himself then sat back down. Taking a bite, the fruit was incredibly sweet and perfectly ripe. It reminded him of a peach with just a hint of citrus.


    Watching his first bite with knowing smile, Melody leaned back onto her elbows as her feet swung back and forth, "So how was the integration?"


    Felix shrugged, "Fine I guess. Kind of boring."


    She snorted, "You would say that, Exile."


    "To be fair, I wasn''t there long. Tutorial then a world event then I left."


    "Woah. You did leave early." Melody turned to him with a mischievous smile, "So does that mean you were the one who refused a Dragon evolution?"


    Felix contained his shock and didn''t let it show at all, "A what? I don''t¡­ Race I take it? I didn''t get that as an option."


    She giggled, "Uh huh. You know how many scholarship tokens are distributed per integration?"


    "I don''t know, 5?"


    "At most one but on average, less than one. Similar rate to Dragon evolutions."


    "Ok I need more information on those then. What are they and why am I being interrogated about them?"


    She looked at him for a moment then turned back to looking at the sky, "Only once per integration, never more sometimes less, an offer is made to someone who surpasses everyone else in a specific field. The option to evolve their race to a Dragon, skipping multiple grades in the process."


    "Yeah definitely not me. Must have been someone else."


    Melody actually seemed to accept that, which Felix was very grateful for, "Alright fine. It''s totally possible, likely even, that the defier was holed up somewhere studying their focus while you smashed through events. Let''s just say it''s not a huge leap to assume it was you, might want to be careful out there."


    "Thanks. Do you know what they were better than everyone else at? What their¡­ focus was?"


    She shook her head, "Nope. Just heard rumors that the Dragons are not happy because it was a really good one."


    Shit.


    Melody casually tossed the core of her fruit into the ocean in front of her, flying much farther than Felix had expected, "So what have you been up to then if you got out that early? You must have gotten out what, half an epoch ago?"


    Felix nodded, "Just over an epoch actually. I got a job at an enchanting shop in Telviras. Learned some stuff, made some stuff, did some Adventuring."


    "That''s fun. Meet any cute girls? guys?"


    Felix winced just slightly, "Really?"


    "Hey I''m just saying. You''re like a child leaving the integration, I wouldn''t blame you for going on a tear through the capital."


    Sighing, Felix didn''t bother answering, throwing his own core off the cliff then hopping up and grabbing another fruit. Once again, it was perfectly ripe despite the fact that he had picked it at random.


    Melody turned to Felix and pouted, "Do you have to be so boring?"


    Felix shrugged, "No."


    She couldn''t help but hold back a smile then dropped to the ground, her hands folded on her stomach as she stared into the sky.


    A few moments of near silence later, Felix heard her begin to hum. He looked over and noticed her fingers lightly tapping along her belly too and could have sworn he heard an instrument not dissimilar from a piano playing.


    The simple tune she created was the most beautiful music Felix had ever heard. It was incredibly simple but he didn''t feel for even a moment like it was missing anything. The effect she had on his soul, the calming and joyous feeling she seemed to transmit was amplified.


    Listening to her, Felix felt completely relaxed and content. He even let the spells he had been forming behind their backs dissipate so he could simply enjoy the experience.


    Suddenly the music stopped and Melody snapped up into a sitting position. Felix realized he had simply been staring off into the distance for far longer than he had intended. He hadn''t fallen asleep but it was like she had put him in a different form of meditation.


    It was nothing like a trance, he was perfectly aware of his surroundings the whole time, but he just didn''t want to move or do anything. He had simply felt content to feel himself completely relax and let go.


    Taking a few seconds to readjust to his surroundings, Felix finally looked over and saw Melody pointing off to their right, "It''s starting."


    Felix followed her finger and almost fell off the cliff as he tried to fully grasp what he was seeing.


    Far above them, likely outside or just edging the planet''s atmosphere, Felix saw a massive object. He was pretty sure it was a ship of some kind but he couldn''t be certain it wasn''t an oddly shaped moon crashing into them.


    The ship was massive and oblong, like a pointed egg in shape and it was slowly descending towards them.


    Over the course of ten minutes or so the ship descended down towards the ocean, many kilometers to the side of where they sat. The ship docked itself at the end of a large pillar connected to the mainland by a land bridge. The land formation so perfect, it was hard for Felix to believe it wasn''t fabricated, a common theme on this planet it seemed.


    As it lowered, Felix saw the ship wasn''t quite as massive as he had thought but it was still gigantic. It was as thick as a sky scraper was tall on the outer edge and only grew thicker towards a dome in the center. Though its shape was slightly odd to Felix, he had trouble estimating just how many standard sized people the ship would have been able to hold.


    The ship had docked, still floating in the air but partially touching the waves below them, on the far side of the land bridge which allowed Felix and Melody to watch as the passengers disembarked.


    Even from their distance, Felix could see a ridiculous procession of what looked like soldiers exit the ship and line themselves up. Once they were all in position, a small group of four stepped out and walked between the soldiers, completing what resembled a complete royal procession.


    Though he couldn''t identify them from this distance, it quickly became clear to Felix that this was a student arriving at the school. Three of the four spoke to the last of them in turn, some offering gestures of affection others offering only stern expressions. After a few short minutes, the student walked off towards the campus as everyone else boarded the ship and it rose into the air.


    Felix turned to Melody, "Any idea who that was? They must be pretty important right? Also¡­ why not just portal in?"


    Melody smiled, "No idea who that is, I don''t care nearly as much as my mother wished I did. Why not portal? Cause then they wouldn''t be able to show off their big bad ship and how clearly superior they are."


    Felix scowled, "Seriously?"


    She fell back giggling, "Man you''re reaction was better than I had hoped. If you thought that was ridiculous, just wait. The later the time slot¡­ well, it means more people will see them so¡­"


    "They get even more ridiculous?"


    "Oh yeah."


    "Does everyone arrive on a ship like that? Were you and I the only one''s on campus before?"


    She shook her head, "Nah. The winner of the application tournament is around here somewhere. Haven''t seen her though. Everyone other than you and her were accepted ahead of time though so they don''t need to arrive until later."


    "Then why are you here when no one else is?"


    Melody pointed off towards the land bridge in the distance, "I ran away because I did not want to show up in one of those."


    "Wait, you would have arrived in a ship?"


    "If my parents had gotten what they wanted. In total, there''s me and two of my half-brothers that were accepted this cycle so its a big deal for them. They want to show off all three of us walking off the ship at once, make it seem like they''re better than everyone else for having 3 from the clan accepted and all that."


    "I take it three is a lot?"


    She shrugged, "It''s abnormal but¡­ he was just lucky."


    Felix made a mental note that she had said ''he'' instead of ''we'' or ''they'' but didn''t question her about it, "So how long until the next one arrives?"


    "Should be here in a few minutes. They have time slots so they don''t hit each-other and I think they''re every 20 minutes at first. Later time slots get a bit longer though."


    Sure enough, just a few minutes after the first ship disappeared above them, another massive starship descended into the ocean next to the land bridge. This one was bigger in every dimension and Felix was honestly astonished it managed to land at all. It looked like it didn''t belong anywhere outside of space itself.


    The procession was equally as ridiculous for something as simple as seeing a child off to school to the point where Melody laughed at them.


    The third ship was even bigger but this one, thankfully, didn''t descend to the planet instead opting to have a smaller ship dock at the land bridge. The main ship did however lower itself until it was completely visible above them, ensuring everyone on the planet could see its gargantuan size.


    The processions continued and as they did, the grandiosity mounted. The processions started to include vehicles and large magical displays to announce the arrival of their students.


    The ships also got more interesting, rather than just bigger which quickly became impossible.


    The later ships were a mix of small sleek vessels and larger ships. Some of them opened a portal to dock, others teleported in without a portal at all, something Felix didn''t even know was possible. A number of the ships were also evidently spatially expanded which was impressive in its own right.


    Many hours into their spectating, a sleek ship with two parallel hulls connected by a cockpit soared down towards the dock at a ridiculous speed before slowing to a stop rather gracefully.


    "There they are. Sprung for a later slot this time¡­" Melody shook her head.


    Felix turned to look at her, "That''s your parents ship?"


    "Dad''s, yeah."


    Felix watched with anticipation as an impressive, but less flamboyant than some of the other, processions disembarked from the ship. They presented two students to the planet, a man wearing a long bear pelt cloak and a proud looking Drakene.


    "Those are your¡­ half-brothers?"


    Melody nodded, "Yup."


    How¡­ a Drakene¡­ not sure I want to know actually.


    "How close are we to the end?"


    Melody reached her hand out to the side and a fruit fell right into it, completely distracting Felix, "Another few hours or so. Mostly just factions left. The processions will be less interesting because they''ll be sending off more people, which is impressive by itself. No need to embellish."


    "By factions¡­"


    "Edras, Holy Mother, Rhonan, The Giants, Akaroth, Archons."


    "I thought Rhonan was an Archon?"


    "He is. His people sponsor some students themselves while the Archons sponsor some students collectively. They arrive separately."


    "How many factions are there?"


    "That''s kind of a silly question because technically the followers of every god and demi-god is a faction. I was just naming the factions that most commonly have students here."


    "What about your parents then, are they part of a faction?"


    "Well, technically they are a faction but only kind of? He prefers to keep it in the family, they don''t sponsor non-blood."


    "Ever?"


    "Nope. Never has he ever and never do I see him ever doing so. Family is big enough as is."


    Felix nodded and watched the next procession with her. Trying to make the most of her knowledge, Felix started running through his most important questions, "Is there anything I should know or be worried about here? Do I have to worry about someone outright trying to kill me?"


    "Not¡­ probably not? It''s easier because you aren''t associated with any big faction yet so there wouldn''t be any retaliation. On the other hand, it''s difficult to actually kill people here and you''d get banished from the school if you managed to do it. On the planet, you''re as safe as can be. It could happen off planet but¡­ it''s not likely."


    "What do you mean it''s difficult to actually kill people here?"


    Melody shrugged, "The planet would protect you."


    Felix quickly shook his head, "What?"


    Melody smirked, "You haven''t realized it yet? The planet itself is sentient, sapient, a being."


    Felix looked down at the ground beneath him and frowned.


    "That''s how the library works, the fruit is always ripe, all the animals on the planet are nice and gentle. The plants can be grown in specific shapes, in specific places. Buildings can be trivially constructed and repaired. The planet also protects everyone on it by shielding them with rock and healing them if necessary."


    After taking a few seconds to process, Felix frowned, "How fast can a planet create a shield of rock to do that?"


    "Not very so, it will act prematurely in a lot of cases. For classes they use The System instead which will intervene instantly and can restore you from almost nothing."


    "That makes sense. Back to the whole planet thing though, can you talk to it?"


    Melody shrugged, "Sure." Looking at the ground, she patted the grass with her hand, "That''s a good planet."


    Felix snorted, "You know what I mean."


    She giggled and reached her hand out to the side again, another fruit falling right into it a second later, "Sort of. You can''t really talk to it but you can ask it for things and it understands us. Same way the library works. At least, it won''t talk back to you, no conversation or anything like that."


    "Does it control the animals or are they just trained to be gentle?"


    She shrugged, "I don''t know. I think it controls them because¡­ watch."


    Holding her hand out once again, Melody waited a few moments then a small blue bird flew down and landed in her hand.


    "You can give the birds messages to deliver for example but you can also just hand the planet parchment and it''ll move it."


    "Was the planet just like this? Was it created?"


    Melody chuckled, "Nobody really knows. Lots of theories like, it''s the founder of the school, it''s an old god, it''s a primordial¡­" She shrugged.


    Felix was lost in thought thinking about planets that were actually creatures as one of the larger factions arrived, delivering over a dozen students to the school.


    He was interrupted by Melody lightly tapping his shoulder, "You still there?"


    Felix shook his head and returned his focus to the present, "Sorry."


    "Can you do me a favor?"


    Felix shrugged, "Sure. What is it?"


    "Say my name."


    "Melody?"


    She nodded, "Is that a word in your language?"


    "It is."


    "Can you use it as a word in a sentence?"


    Felix hesitated for a moment, "You hummed a beautiful melody just a few hours ago."


    "It was much more than a few hours ago. Thanks though."


    Felix quickly checked the time.


    How have we been here that long. I thought it had just been a couple hours, not a whole day.


    "How long are days here?"


    "30 hours on this planet. One of the rare planets that''s different from the standard 24."


    "Wait¡­ why''s that a thing, standard 24?"


    "The System likes to keep time consistent for convenience sake."


    "So it manipulates the speed at which planets spin?"


    "Yup. For a lot of them. Some it isn''t possible like really massive planets so, it prioritizes. Am''Dorez, the planet housing Telviras is massive but high priority so it''s synced anyways. The giant''s home planet is super massive but low priority so the days are only a few hours long."


    That is¡­ ridiculous just for convenience sake. I wonder if there''s another reason?


    Felix nodded in acknowledgement, "What was that whole name thing about?"


    Melody smiled, "I was named after a word in my mother''s native tongue. Sometimes The System translates names if they have meanings or are hard to pronounce. I was just curious what it sounded like in your language."


    "Wait, what does it sound like in your native tongue?"


    "Do you know how to disable The System translation?" Felix''s face answered her before he could open his mouth, "Just will it disabled."


    Disable translation.


    Felix nodded to Melody and she said her name. What he heard was not something he thought he could pronounce at all.


    Enable translation.


    "I don''t think I could pronounce that."


    She chuckled, "Yeah you''re language is very¡­ different."


    Looking at the time, Felix started rattling off other questions he had that were high priority, "How do I find my classes and know my schedule?"


    "In your dorm room there will be a schedule and map waiting for you. It won''t be complete though until we go and get sorted into combat classes."


    "Like based on combat ability?"


    "Yup."


    "When is that?"


    "In¡­ 14 hours¡­ ish? I haven''t checked the exact schedule yet."


    He asked a handful of other mundane questions including where to find food before deciding he didn''t care to watch the rest of the processions. They had all become very similar after the first 10 to 20 or so.


    "Ok, I''m going to head back to campus. Thanks for¡­ answering all my questions."


    Melody rolled onto her side towards him, "Was it worth it?"


    Felix shrugged, "The first few maybe, after that¡­"


    She nodded and smirked, "But you got to spend time with me, that should be well worth it on its own, right?"


    Felix didn''t bother answering and jut started flying off back towards campus. Right as he left, he heard her giggling over his shoulder.


    As he flew back, Felix saw many more people all over campus. Students and professors all darting around, some in small vehicles others flying and some even running faster than he could follow.


    Landing in front of the dorm building, he had to navigate through a small crowd around the doorway that mostly consisted of people socializing. He was pretty sure a few tried to stop him to introduce themselves but he pretended not to notice them and continued to push through, flying over their heads where possible.


    He flew up through the center of the staircase up to his floor, a very common method of getting up and down in the building it seemed, and headed into his own dorm room. Inside he let loose a long exhale of pure relief that he didn''t have to share his dorm room with roommates then sat down in the sitting area on one of the couches.


    On the table in front of him, lay the schedule and a paper map of campus with recommended routes to get between the classes. He was surprised to see his schedule was laid out in such a way that he had exactly one class per day with two days off per dekad. In fact, each of the classes were at the exact same time too, which was highly suspect to him.


    How is this so¡­ perfect?


    As Melody had mentioned, the combat classes were tentative times subject to change based on placement but even still, it seemed too perfect overall.


    He didn''t think about it much though.


    Felix thought about diving back into some of the books he had scanned but decided instead to try something else. First, he identified his robes to see if the name had changed and he was pleasantly surprised.


    [C - Legendary] Robes of the Wandering Wizard


    [Regenerative]


    A set of robes custom designed and tailored for use by the Wanderer and Ascendant Prodigy of Mana, Wizard proficiency. Designed to be enchanted and disenchanted with ease and crafted with the highest quality materials, this set of robes is of peak quality in the C grade without enchantments.


    Supply the robes with mana to regenerate it, simultaneously destroying any severed pieces. Enchantments inscribed into the fabric will also be remembered, as a function of the Memory Crystal threads.


    Guess that confirms Wizard is a proficiency then. Doesn''t have numbers though. Anyways, back to that other thing, why should Reaper''s Mantle be limited to just cloaks? Doesn''t seem to be any reason I couldn''t stick all of this in there, right?


    Instead of just feeding the robes to the skill directly, Felix started experimenting with scrap cloth he had purchased to make portable wards among his enchanting supplies. He simply tied it around his waist as if it were a belt then fed the chunk to his Reaper''s Mantle.


    At first, nothing happened. The skill was tailored to cloaks alone and didn''t seem to want to work for anything else. He knew exactly how the skill worked though so he manually grasped the ribbon and stowed it in the skill''s Soul Space. Then, he resummoned it onto his body, which he had already done a few times with his main soul space, so he managed it on the first try.


    Ding You have altered the Innate Class skill: [Legendary] Reaper''s Mantle (Novice IX => Apprentice IV)


    Woah¡­ that''s a jump. Show skill description.


    [Reaper''s Mantle (Legendary - Apprentice IV) This skill is innate to your class. The reaper''s mantle is the sum of all equipment the reaper wears. It is both a set of items and a part of the user. The equipment can be equipped and stowed at will and their enchantments and durability are dependent on the material summoned. The cloak may be manually modified to use a different material or enchantment by modifying the base equipment. All modifications become a part of the mantle. Upon destruction, the mantle may be resummoned so long as the user remains alive. Its durability will scale slightly with the user''s endurance. This skill will not prevent enchantment interference.]


    Wait a second¡­ the scaling is¡­ worse? Is that because I fed it a material so it uses the material instead of scaling on my stats? What is the base cloak made of then? I''ll look into it some other time I guess.


    He briefly hesitated then fed the rest of his robes to the skill, relatively happy with his large increase in understanding and proficiency with the skill. With that done, he moved onto the next item on his todo list, reading.


    The first class on Felix''s schedule was Mana Structures so he shifted his consciousness into his Memory Palace Library to start reading those books to get ahead. As soon as he appeared in the library though, Grim appeared in front of him.


    "You''ve got all this space outside the library now."


    Felix shrugged, "Yeah, what about it?"


    "I was in here reading while you and Melody watched the ships go by and I noticed the weather changing along with your mood, thoughts, sensations."


    "Just like my Soul Garden, so what?"


    Grim smirked, "Well in your Soul, you don''t really do anything with experiences other than store and relive them. In your mind though¡­"


    Felix almost smacked himself in the forehead as he realized what Grim was implying, "You process your senses and form thoughts. If this really is a Mental Construct, I should be able to create other buildings with different purposes."


    "Exactly."


    "Any ideas on what to start with?"


    "A few actually. Two that I''m more confident in and one that''s a long shot but worth trying nonetheless. First, what about an observatory."


    "To see the outside world, see what I''m seeing? That alone is fine and all, but what do I do with that? What about a command or surveillance center? An observatory with attached facilities to process the information."


    Grim didn''t respond but followed along as Felix darted outside and started trying to lay everything out.


    "It should probably be separated from the rest of the buildings in the area because if they become too tall¡­ wait, I can just make the observatory itself really tall." Felix was talking mostly to himself.


    Grim chimed in anyways, "Also it''s a mental construct, I don''t think physically blocking the telescope will actually matter."


    Felix snapped his fingers, mentally generating the appropriate sound, "Right, forgot."


    Choosing an area near the library, so they had easy access to the memories, Felix started projecting out his vision for what the building would look like. He made sure not to actually construct it, just visualize it, like an illusion.


    Once he was satisfied with the large block of a building that had a massive dome peeking out from the middle, Felix willed the building into existence.


    Excitement and curiosity overcame him so Felix rushed into the building to see if it had worked. The inside was exactly as he had intended it, a large lobby area with infinite, non-Euclidean offices around the outside. Right in the middle of the building, where the dome and telescope was located, there was a series of screens on the surrounding walls along with various models of Felix''s body and their systems.


    Currently, the skinned mannequin that was creepily accurate, had large glowing sections on its butt, thighs and back with a dimmer glow randomly throughout.


    "That''s cause I''m sitting right? The rest is from the clothes?" Felix already knew the answer and was asking the question more so he could voice his enthusiasm than anything.


    "The screens will likely show what you''re seeing too once you open your eyes." Grim called out from the entry.


    Felix nodded excitedly then willed himself back into the, now slightly less empty, field.


    "What''s the next building you had thought of?"


    "No idea what it would do but you should probably have a town hall or something, right?"


    "Yeah, I guess." Felix shrugged and quickly imagined a governing building, placing it far away from the other buildings. It very closely resembled Atalus'' City Hall because that was the governing building he was most familiar with. It had no need to access his memories or senses for its current function so he he kept it separated to make room for other buildings.


    "Alright lastly, not so sure on this one but if you want to increase your Intelligence¡­ something to process information, like an office building or something?"


    Felix shook his head and smiled, "Even better, a server farm- no, a supercomputer."


    Picking a spot right near the library and the observatory, Felix imagined a large boring block of a building and quickly constructed it then darted inside.


    The building was empty on the inside but that was exactly what Felix had intended. He made the building infinite, just like the library, then started constructing a series of sleek servers that extended outwards in rows and columns in every direction.


    Mostly as an aid, he then wired them up to the ceiling and ran cabling all the way back to a central switchboard, which were daisy chained to support the infinite number of servers.


    Felix then ran cabling from that switchboard through the ground and into the library and observatory.


    Realistically, all the cabling was completely unnecessary, at least he was pretty sure it was unnecessary. It did help him visualize, organize and figure out how things should be connected though and he was hoping that at least somewhat translated over to the structure of the brain-computer thing in his head.


    Satisfied with everything he had put together, Felix returned his consciousness to his body with Grim in the observatory to test and see if everything had worked correctly. As soon as he opened his eyes though, a screen appeared.


    Ding You have upgraded the General skill: [Special] Memory Palace (Initiate IV) => [Incomplete] Mental Ghost Settlement (Novice II)


    Skill description.


    [Mental Ghost Settlement (Incomplete - Novice II) Using a combination of mental and soul projections, you have crafted a city within your mind. By adding buildings to the city, you can create connections, automations and functions you may not have had before. This skill can be upgraded. The functions and capacity of the settlement are determined by the buildings within it. Some functions can be lost should the building dedicated to it become damaged. INCOMPLETE: As this skill is currently modeled on a settlement with populace but has no population, it is considered incomplete. Some aspects of this skill may not function as intended.]


    Wait¡­ what? No population¡­ in my brain? How the hell am I supposed to fix that?


    You could always not model the buildings after human buildings. The computer seems to function just fine but the observatory is modeled after a manned observatory rather than a¡­ satellite for example.


    Right, I don''t mind doing that¡­ does this imply it''s possible to have a non 0 population¡­ in my mind? Do you count? Do I count?


    Maybe?


    Do I actually want that? A network of unmanned buildings seems more appropriate with a super computer running everything. Humans running between buildings aren''t exactly fast¡­


    Grim sensed his hesitation, But?


    Well¡­ they wouldn''t be humans. It also makes things less¡­ rigid? I don''t want to be a robot, I want to be a living creature. I guess my mind is already made up then. So, how do I¡­ create¡­ people?


    Maybe ask one of your professors?


    Yeah, I''ll wait a bit till I have more classes. You said the computer was working though?


    Check your status screen.


    Name:Felix KadeFREE0Innate:Ascendant Prodigy: Mana (Wizard)STR34965Class:[D - Legendary] Reaper (Lvl 778)DEX134804Race:[D - Unique] Wanderer (Lvl 885)AGI43443Profession:[D - Arcane] Mana Engineer (Lvl 992)PER88676Health:795,270 / 795,270VIT79527Mana:79,451,830 / 79,451,830INT358653Energy:2,304,880 / 2,304,880END57622


    Felix stared at the screen in complete disbelief, That''s¡­ that can''t be right¡­


    I guess the whole mental representation thing finally let you tap into the computer thing.


    Huh. Well, there goes my whole rule of 5 thing.


    As Felix dismissed the screen, his consciousness focused on on his vision instead of the mental System screen and he immediately felt wrong. He could feel the lag of his eyes as they refocused and moved around. His first instinct was to close his eye lids and lean forwards, his hands covering his eyes.


    That proved to be a huge mistake as he could see and feel his eye lids moving in slow motion not to mention his body.


    He had experienced a much lesser version of the same effect before, mostly noticing it in the middle of battle. His body would move as he commanded it to but it still felt like he was watching things in slow motion.


    Now, it seemed he had surpassed a breaking point, likely having completely smashed through it considering just how bad the effect was now. While he had had stats at lower ratios than his perception was currently, those stats didn''t seem to matter as much or the effect wasn''t as harsh. His Perception and Intelligence were just too intertwined to be this far apart though.


    Unfortunately for him, the classes that he thought had the best chance of having answers for him, were on the third, fourth and eighth day of the dekad. In the meantime, he was either going to have to learn to cope or slow down his mind temporarily.


    He opted for trying to adjust himself to it first so he could try to avoid nerfing himself.


    As he patiently waited for his body to react, Felix started to take in as much of his surroundings as he could. He was essentially stuck staring at the same thing for far longer than he wanted and so he focused in on all the aspects of his periphery.


    Once he got bored of that, relatively quickly, he tried to stand up and while he could do so, his dexterity was still pretty high after all, it was confusing at first.


    He could feel and process his muscles contracting before they really had a chance to do anything. From Mihto''s training, he felt the urge to adjust on the fly but his body lagged behind and its response time to his brain was too low. He ended up overcompensating with his adjustments and watched in slow motion as he fell to the floor, not bothering to catch himself for fear of causing even more harm.


    From there, Felix very carefully pushed himself off the ground, ensuring not to micromanage his body as he carefully rose to his feet.


    Considering my strength is even lower, I should probably limit how much I push too so I don''t risk tearing a muscle.


    Felix took a cautious and glacially slow step forwards followed by another.


    I''m pretty sure I can get used to this enough to attend classes except¡­ I have combat class on the second day of the dekad. Schedule?


    DayClassTime1Mana Structures8:00AM2Group Combat8:00AM3Constructs & Elementals I8:00AM4Soul Manipulation, Reading & Cultivation8:00AM56Spell Formation8:00AM7Solo Combat8:00AM8Animancy8:00AM9Mana Control8:00AM10


    That''s convenient. Anyways, there is no way I can fight like this. Maybe I should try and track down my professors ahead of time. First, learn to walk again.


    It took him just over an hour to finally get to a point where he was actually able to walk around somewhat normally. Luckily, as he got bored and started practicing his casting, he realized that was completely unhindered. His Mana Senses seemed to be tied to something other than his Perception and so he could cast and feel the spell formations perfectly.


    In fact, as he cast spells, he could now process just as fast as they formed and watching them form in slow motion was hugely beneficial. It allowed him to tune the spell as it was forming, determine where he was slowest and where he was sloppiest.


    He decided to risk trying to fly and found that much easier to deal with. His body didn''t have to move at all so all he had to deal with was his low perception and now that he was mostly accustomed to it, it wasn''t debilitating.


    Best bet is¡­ Constructs? That class is about creating¡­ not people but close enough. Alternatively Soul Manipulation or Animancy since this has a lot to do with my soul¡­ Constructs prof first though.


    Now that there was less than a standard day until classes started, Felix could actually find most of his professors on his map. Luckily his Constructs professor was not one of the rare ones that were still missing so Felix headed out of the dorm building, completely avoiding the other students for fear of seizing.


    Referencing his map again, Felix frowned. His Constructs professor was luckily on the planet but he was nowhere near the main campus. His map didn''t show a globe but he was the equivalent of a few continents away.


    Felix really didn''t want to fly there so he flew over to the portal room to see if he could hitch a ride.


    The portal building was the only one he had encountered with an exterior door and knocking on it, he got no response. He tried again and, a few seconds later Ellie appeared next to him.


    "Felix, right?"


    Felix carefully nodded once, not risking anymore than that.


    "What can I do for you?"


    "Ieedoeeyonstressor."


    Shit. I didn''t try talking before.


    Felix held up a finger, gesturing for her to wait a second and pulled out Grim and faced the pages towards her then had Grim display the message for him.


    She read it and nodded in understanding though her confused expression remained as she opened the door and started activating the portal.


    Grim, ask her if I can portal back here from anywhere on the planet.


    Ellie quickly read the message then nodded, "As long as you have the ring equipped, you can step through a portal directed here. Here''s the anchor for this portal." She handed him a sheet of paper that he gently grabbed and stowed.


    After a few moments of tapping away at some screen, a portal filled the frame in the room, the spell still far above Felix''s understanding, and he carefully floated through it.


    Felix wasn''t sure what he was expecting but it certainly was not a massive industrial workshop on the side of a mountain.


    Knocking on the door with a spell, just to be safe, Felix waited for a few seconds before the door creaked open revealing a tall and lanky alien.


    [?] Kedrolir: Professor of Constructs & Elementals (Lvl ?)


    The professor was around 8 feet tall with completely blue skin, an extra joint in both their arms and legs and a head that was both wider and further elongated when compared to a human''s. Their face also sported three eyes but overall, seemed rather friendly, if a little confused.


    "Good morning. What can I help you with?"


    Felix lifted Grim up in front of the professor and had him explain his predicament without giving too much away, I made some modifications to my body which were a huge success, greatly increasing my Intelligence. Unfortunately, my other stats can''t keep up because the skill is Incomplete. I was wondering if you could give me a crash course on creating a person.


    "Creating a person? What does that have to do with your Incomplete skill?"


    I''d rather not give any more details but this seems like the most promising avenue for me right now.


    Kedrolir nodded, "Are you registered for my class?"


    Yes.


    "Excellent. Call me professor Ked or just Ked, it''s much easier for everyone." Ked reached forwards and grasped Felix''s shoulder then guided him in and to a chair, fully recognizing how difficult it was for him to move on his own.


    With Felix sitting, Ked stood in front of him and lectured to a class of one, "Without going into depth, a person is defined by a combination of a few things. First there is the core soul which holds their personality and core experiences. There is the mind, typically a brain which contains their unique arrangement of connections, pathways and neurons. Finally there is the body."


    Felix nodded once just to show he understood and was following.


    "With constructs, we are not creating a person. We do not even get close. Instead, we bind a soul that is not dense or complex enough to be a core soul to a body we have created. Lastly, a mind is implanted which can either be an inscribed mana computer for robotic thought or a biological implant for emotionally aware creations."


    Felix held Grim aloft, facing Professor Ked, Theoretically, could we create a core soul?


    "Theoretically, yes. Realistically, it is nearly impossible. The complexity that goes into a core soul is completely beyond us. Gods and primordials have both attempted and failed to create core souls. The density problem can be overcome with some persistence and powerful machines but the complexity problem is more than we can overcome at the moment."


    How close can we get then?


    "Not at all. We couldn''t even recreate an E grade animal''s core soul."


    There has to be some way around this then? Is it just not possible to have unique and interesting constructs?


    "You can get around this by borrowing a core soul. Yes you could use necromantic techniques to steal one but you can also create a soul but instead of having a core, you replace it with a specially engineered soul seed."


    Wouldn''t it just be identical in personality to whatever soul the seed is bound to?


    "This is where a lot of the artistry of soul bound constructs comes into play. From there, the binding is surrounded by a soul layer that effectively filters experiences in order to create personalities."


    So they''re all just based on the base core soul then?


    "Correct. The more complex the filter, the closer the personality will be to being truly unique. Though, it never actually will be."


    What about the brains. You mentioned Mana Computers?


    "Yes. They tend towards robotic thought but it is possible to make them more organic. In theory, a mana computer could perfectly match a brain. If created correctly, it can be an analog computer with weights, much like an organic brain that can form malleable connections on its own."


    How important is a body, what if you just didn''t have one?


    "The issue would be how does it exist in that case? Where is the brain stored and what is the soul attached to? Even attaching the soul to a computer would necessitate a housing. In that case the box would be the body."


    But theoretically it''s not necessary?


    "No? If you had a spectral computer you could theoretically attach it to a remnant I suppose¡­"


    Thanks professor. I think I have everything I need.


    The Professor gestured for Felix to wait a moment, "How in tune with your soul senses are you?"


    Very.


    Ked nodded then walked off into another room and returned a few moments later with a small gem, carefully handing it to Felix, "This is an artificial core soul bound to mine that I will be using in my next construct."


    Felix took the object and didn''t dare try to move it, instead reaching out with his soul senses and feeling out the inside of the gem.


    There, he found exactly what Professor Ked had described, a soul seed wrapped in a layer of anima that would corrupt and distort everything coming from the seed within. Felix silently thanked his luck that the Professor had the foresight to show this to him because without having seen this, he was certain he would have made trivially simple filters.


    While not an issue necessarily, it would have resulted in a lot of Felixs in Felix''s head. Ideally, he wanted some variety in there. All of them should generally agree on the big picture items but he didn''t want them all being identical in almost every other way, that would likely create more problems than it solved.


    Handing the gem back to the Professor, Felix rose to his feet, his speed reminiscent of a geriatric nursing home patient, and he walked over to the door. The Professor looked at him with worry but when Felix pulled out a portal spell mold, Ked''s face relaxed a little.


    Felix quickly cast the spell then replaced the anchor with the one he had been given for the school and stepped through the resultant portal. Felix heard Ked''s workshop door close just after he stepped through then he nodded to Ellie who was still there and started his flight back to his dorm room.


    Lowering himself onto the couch, Felix immediately got to work. His first order of business was to create a new layer in his soul. The new layer directly surrounded his core soul and was essentially a blank ocean. He tried his hardest to completely clean it of anything and everything as he compressed it down as far as he could manage.


    Ultimately, the layer still wasn''t nearly as dense as his own core soul but it was the densest anima he had seen outside of that.


    With the layer complete, he got to work creating soul seeds, healing the wound with anima, then wrapping the seeds in filters and placing them in the new layer. For the filters, he just randomized everything as much as he could but didn''t let anything stray too far.


    The process was relatively fast because he didn''t complicate the filters and so after just a few hours of work, the new layer of his soul looked like a pond with a few hundred tadpoles swimming around.


    Before he dedicated the rest of his free time to it, Felix entered his Mental Ghost Settlement to test if it had worked or not.


    He was just hoping they could use his computer or brain without him having to manually attach them all but realistically, he had no idea if that was possible. He also had no idea if his filters would work correctly considering how lazy he was with them. His assumption was that it would be fine, he didn''t see any obvious flaws with them but he couldn''t be sure just yet.


    Looking around, Felix''s Settlement was still a ghost town but he hadn''t given up hope just yet.


    For people, or personalities, to actually live here, they need to have houses to live in.


    After choosing an appropriate section of land out in the fields, Felix imagined a beautiful mansion exactly as he would want it then constructed it. Initially he was worried about having all the personalities live in the same non-Euclidean house for logistical reasons.


    They would all have their own house when they opened the door, almost as though it was a portal into a parallel dimension. The issue was that they would all end up walking into each-other as they tried to enter and exit.


    To remedy this, Felix simply didn''t include a door at all. He didn''t see why his new personalities wouldn''t be able to move around at will like he could. If they shared that ability, they wouldn''t need a door.


    As soon as the mansion was in place, Felix became aware of a number of presences behind him. Turning around, he found himself face to face with a bipedal lion.


    Damn. I may have gone a liiiiiittle too far on the random filter thing.


    Behind the lion, Felix saw penguins, elves, dwarves, monkeys, snakes and even a Dragon.


    Yeah definitely too random.


    Felix tentatively looked up at the bipedal lion closest to him, "Hello?"


    Scratching his own chest, the lion looked at Felix almost apathetically, "Felix. I Leo."


    Felix sighed, "Of course you are."


    As they were a part of him, Felix knew all of their names and sifting through them, he found they were all some form of completely uncreative.


    There was Gwen the penguin, Drako the dragon, Hugh the human, El the elf and Doge the dog.


    Is this a reflection of my lack of creativity?


    Grim chimed in after lightly chuckling, More likely a reflection of the fact that¡­ you didn''t complicate the filters much so they don''t have the most unique personalities and, do you really care?


    Felix thought about it for less than a second, Nope, not even in the slightest.


    Felix nodded, "Are you intelligent enough to direct yourselves?"


    Leo nodded, "I work in observatory."


    "Works for me." Felix shrugged.


    Leo slightly bowed then vanished, reappearing in the observatory.


    A small number of the crowd followed but most of them remained.


    Gwen the penguin approached Felix and he winced as he realized they were wearing sunglasses and a suit that blended in with their body, "I build new building?"


    Felix shrugged, "Sure. How about you have to get Grim or I to approve them first. If everything works out, we''ll see about changing that later."


    Gwen nodded then disappeared along with a the rest of the crowd as they all went to plan out new buildings to fit into the settlement.


    Satisfied with how everything was turning out, Felix returned to his body and was happy to find a notification waiting for him.


    Ding You have upgraded the General skill: [Incomplete] Mental Ghost Town (Novice II) => [Incomplete] Mind City (Novice V)


    Skill description.


    [Mind City (Incomplete) Using a combination of mental and soul projections, you have crafted a city within your mind. The buildings in the city dictate the connections, automations and functions the city provides. The personalities in the city allow functions to be automated and run in parallel to your mind''s main functions. This skill can be upgraded. The functions and capacity of the settlement are determined by the buildings within it. Some functions can be lost should the building dedicated to it become damaged. INCOMPLETE: As the city''s population is still miniscule, it is considered incomplete. Some aspects of this skill may not function as intended.]


    Well, that is better than before.


    Felix refocused in on his soul and continued producing personalities in his second layer, feeling them appear within his head almost immediately as they were created.


    As he streamlined the process, Felix managed to create personalities very quickly and around fifteen hours in, Felix was greeted by the notification he had been waiting for.


    Ding You have upgraded the General skill: [Incomplete] Mind City (Novice V) => [Epic] Mind City (Novice V)


    Skill description.


    [Mind City (Epic) Using a combination of mental and soul projections, you have crafted a city within your mind. The buildings in the city dictate the connections, automations and functions the city provides. The personalities in the city allow functions to be automated and run in parallel to your mind''s main functions. This skill can be upgraded. The functions and capacity of the settlement are determined by the buildings within it. Some functions can be lost should the building dedicated to it become damaged.]


    Alright perfect. Not that it helps with letting me move normally though.


    As Felix dismissed the screen though, he immediately noticed an improvement. His eyes at least felt far smoother. Checking his status screen, his perception had only marginally increased from having the observatory up and running so he wasn''t exactly sure why it felt so much better.


    Grim, sensing his confusion, chimed in with an explanation, It isn''t a permanent fix but we''ve adjusted things so it''s at least manageable.


    Wow, this is awesome. Thank you.


    We couldn''t really figure out how to fix the body issue though so that one you''re probably just going to have to deal with.


    Standing up, Felix found that moving his body was just as slow as before. With his eyes moving more fluidly than before though, it was much easier for him to focus on his body alone.


    With that all figured out, Felix finally took a look at his mana pool. With his massive jump in Intelligence came a massive jump in his available mana pool. The question was why.


    Theoretically, he had replaced his mana pool with a mana core and yet, every time his Intelligence increased, so did his mana pool.


    Having his mental snapshot of his mana pool from earlier, Felix focused in on his mana core holding the snapshot in his memory. Comparing the two, he immediately noticed a drastic difference.


    Why is it denser? It''s solid mana but¡­ even the gaseous and liquid mana are denser now than the solid mana used to be¡­ I''m an idiot aren''t I? The phase of mana is independent of its density. I''m almost certain mana isn''t made up of tiny particles, so why would it be bound by the same rules as matter?


    To test the theory, Felix pulled out a few points of mana in a gaseous state then solidified it without changing its density at all. With a solid cube of mana that was less dense than most gaseous mana, he then expanded it slowly until it simply fell apart.


    So there''s a limit on how light it can be, what about how dense?


    Taking the very same cube he had just created, Felix compressed it down as far as he could, the cube going from a small box in size to a fraction of a millimeter per side.


    Mana isn''t matter. Mana isn''t matter. Mana isn''t matter. I wonder if there are other assumptions I''ve made about mana that just¡­ don''t apply. Maybe class will help, in the meantime, time to fix my mana core.


    Looking inwards, Felix could see his mana core currently pushing the bounds of the space his mana pool could hold. Realistically, there was still plenty of room above and below it but it was pushing on the edges laterally.


    Felix took hold of it and slowly started to compress it as evenly as he could. He ended up having to focus on it in layers because he couldn''t hold all of it at once. Compressing the core most section, he quickly found there was a limit to how far he could compress it. On top of that, he reverted it from a solid to a liquid with the exact same density.


    I wonder if that''s an actual mana limit or a limit on my current abilities.


    Once he was finished, Felix scoffed at his past self when he looked at his status screen.


    Name:Felix KadeFREE0Innate:Ascendant Prodigy: Mana (Wizard)STR34965Class:[D - Legendary] Reaper (Lvl 778)DEX134804Race:[D - Unique] Wanderer (Lvl 885)AGI43443Profession:[D - Arcane] Mana Engineer (Lvl 992)PER88676Health:795,270 / 795,270VIT79527Mana:120,000,000 / 120,000,000INT358653Energy:2,304,880 / 2,304,880END57622


    I''ll have to look into compressing it further as I get stronger. Maybe I can also get an actual extradimensional space so my mana pool can be effectively infinite. In the meantime, I also have an energy core¡­


    Going through the exact same process with the energy suffusing his mana core, Felix increased his energy pool by a moderate amount to 2.5 million.


    Ok now I really need to upgrade all my spells. I don''t have Spell Formations until the 6th day of the dekad though. I should probably focus on mana structures as it''s my first class¡­ Meh, it''s the first day. I''ll have combat class placements on day 2 so I should probably prepare for that.


    The best preparation Felix could think of at the moment was to just practice using his body. He didn''t have Mihto''s course and simulating it in his Soul Garden did nothing to help him adjust to his stat difference.


    Felix walked out of his dorm, instead of flying, and headed through the mostly empty lobby down to the open grassy area outside.


    Rather than being completely empty now, the campus almost felt like a normal school campus on earth. There were groups of people loitering about, socializing and many of them showing off.


    It seemed as though people were trying to attract attention to themselves as casually as possible and completely failing. It was obvious they were trying to make friends or allies of some kind or just establish themselves in the social hierarchy. Felix scoffed at them and completely ignored everyone as he paced back and forth through the greenery.


    Once he had relearned to walk, Felix started running back and forth, carefully integrating in spells and jumps until he got used to using them.


    While it required him to relearn how to properly control his body, the fact that his Intelligence was so much higher than his agility came with other benefits.


    He could actively feel the mistakes he made instantly. His own mind analyzing his movements along with his Studious skill, echoing relevant instruction from Mihto. As he readjusted to his body, Felix genuinely felt like he had made massive improvements to his movement.


    After around 5 hours of learning to move, the greenery started to clear out as people headed towards their first classes. Felix had just started practicing with Phantom Step again, jumping and catching himself in the air, changing directions instantly. Once he got used to using that spell again, he figured he would be mostly ready for the combat evaluation.


    There was still half an hour until the class was scheduled to start but seeing everyone else disappear convinced him to start heading towards the class himself.


    He had already confirmed the class'' location and that he could get there relatively quickly so as he walked towards it, he began stomping on the ground and flexing his muscles.


    Can you do the right leg again? Grim directed Felix as they calibrated how far he could push his muscles.


    His Strength was his lowest stat but they already knew the side effect of it being so far below his Intelligence, he risked tearing his muscles by overexerting them. His brain was capable of pushing them harder than they could handle and if he did so, he risked completely tearing them or avulsing them.


    Luckily, the solution was simple.


    Together with Grim and the residents of the city in his brain, Felix carefully calibrated how hard he could push his muscles and they put in place artificial limits. He wouldn''t even be capable of pushing his muscles beyond what they were capable of without tearing them down.


    As simple and elegant as it was, it was a temporary solution at best. He really needed to improve all his stats to bring them within the same realm as his Intelligence. Until then though, this was the best he could do.


    As for his Endurance, they hadn''t determined what the effect would be of it being too low. His Vitality risked having his brain misdirect the resources to heal his body, over allocating or pushing his systems harder than they could handle. That was also easily remedied and with his ridiculous awareness over the individual cells in his body, easily mitigated. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 Chapter 200 - Book 2

    The classroom for Mana Structures was located in a building adjacent to the library building and as Felix approached, not yet open.


    He spotted a group of just over 20 loitering about, sitting against the walls, leaning on pillars and socializing with each-other.


    A few stood off to the side, avoiding the conversations and keeping themselves separate from the rest. Felix joined them, standing a dozen or so meters from anyone else around him.


    Surveying the waiting students, Felix first noticed that almost everyone was on the edge of or just within the C grade. It seemed as though being around level 500 was more of a minimum and less of a standard. He was totally fine with that because it meant they would all likely be as strong or stronger than he was. It gave him room to grow, people to learn from and possibly even, a challenge.


    As he briefly glanced at each of the students in turn, Felix''s eyes settled on one student in particular. She was a young looking woman, not that that actually implied anything about her age, with raven black hair, barely pointed ears and a very stern expression. She was as pretty as everyone else who had gone through two evolutions of ironing out wrinkles and adjusting flaws but Felix barely noticed any of that anymore.


    She wore tight leather armor that looked very functional with scarred metal plates on her shoulders, forearms and legs. It was nothing special, especially compared to some of the ridiculous outfits and gleaming armors that screamed for attention he had ignored elsewhere on campus.


    On each hip, she had two holstered handguns that radiated magical energy and even reached out into the anima around them, essentially having auras of their own. They were possibly the most interesting items Felix had seen on anyone to date and possibly the most impressive but they didn''t scream for attention and he didn''t really focus on it much.


    What really drew his eye to her in specific was something else entirely.


    Everyone had some kind of influence on the anima around them. Everyone''s soul influenced it in some way, Felix''s much more than others. Though he wasn''t great at reading it, Felix was sensitive to the changes in the anima. It was like he was aware of but constantly ignoring them.


    Her soul, though it didn''t affect nearly as much of the anima as Felix''s did, the way she affected it caused Felix to stare. Everyone else here, now that he was paying attention to it, gave off desire for power, popularity, safety, knowledge. They had insecurities that some were trained better than others to hide. They were human in every respect, or sentient, in the multiverse.


    The raven haired woman didn''t feel human at all to Felix. Her soul radiated an inhuman need for power. A hunger and determination unlike any he had felt before. An insatiable need to be stronger. It was like she was screaming to everyone around her which was completely dichotomous with her reserved posture.


    Underpinning it all though, like a whisper that Felix could just barely hear through the screaming and insistence of her soul, was a deep rooted desire to protect others.


    He couldn''t be certain what specifically drew his eye to her, why he found her particular soul so fascinating but even beyond the customary curiosity of a novel sight, he couldn''t help but stare. It definitely didn''t hurt either that, despite her levels not necessarily being the highest in the group, Felix''s instincts were screaming she was powerful even amongst everyone else around her.


    [C] Adaline (Lvl 1336)


    Adaline had long since noticed Felix staring but she dismissed him after a quick glance. Felix never stopped looking though, he didn''t overly care what people thought of him and her soul was just too interesting to him.


    Eventually he drifted over to examining the revolvers at her hips and something about them was even more interesting the longer he examined them.


    He was cut short though by the classroom door opening and the students slowly filing in.


    Felix waited for there to be space, having no desire to bump shoulders with the other students as they entered the room.


    As one of the last students to enter, Felix was just hoping to find a seat far from the others but he immediately realized that wouldn''t be a problem. The classroom was set up like an auditorium with a stage and boards for writing at the bottom and cascading rows of seats all surrounding it.


    In total, Felix saw a few hundred seats which was completely excessive for the class of what appeared to be about 25 students.


    Felix chose a seat closest to the aisle and door near the back and simply waited with a dour expression that he hoped would repel any looking to socialize. Whether or not his expression had the intended effect, no one sat next to Felix during the few minutes it took for the professor to walk out of a separate door and onto the stage.


    [?] Amelia: Director of the Eramith Enchanting Department (Lvl ?)


    The Mana Structures professor appeared to be a halfling woman or some derivative of one. Her pointed ears that curled upwards towards the sky and her nose was flat and boxy like an animals with a single horizontal slit for a nostril.


    She briefly glanced at the class as she walked up to the stage then behind the podium. With a slight flourish, she began writing on the podium and behind her, text began to appear on the board, as if written by an invisible hand.


    When she was finished, there was simply a list of 4 items written on the board.


    "This class will be split into 4 sections. For those of you taking the recommended paired course, Spell Formations, this arrangement with align with the structure of that course. For the rest of you, this will simply seem like the natural progression."


    "While Wards, Enchantments and Rituals are likely the topics you are most interested in, we will instead begin with Fundamentals followed by Mana Computers. For all Mana Structures exceeding a certain level of complexity, a Computer is often required and therefore, teaching you how to construct and use them upfront will aid our later lessons."


    "Following this section, the Spell Formation class will have gotten through their fundamental knowledge and the curriculums will begin to overlap between these two courses. While the fundamentals here and there will overlap somewhat, the focus between them will greatly differ."


    "We will begin with the basics of all Mana Structures. The only guaranteed commonality being mana but most commonly, channels and nodes as well. The most basic of¡­"


    Tuning out the lecture a little bit, Felix started to focus on other topics. The lecture would essentially be recorded and stored in his mind if he needed to watch it later but for the time being, he was familiar with at least this level of content.


    Hey Grim, how''s it going up there?


    Grim took a few moments before he responded, Felix sensing he wasn''t entirely sure how to respond, It''s¡­ fine?


    Is something wrong?


    Not exactly. Let''s just say these constructions you created are¡­ odd.


    Felix mentally shrugged, he wasn''t expecting them to be normal, I mean their personalities were essentially randomly generated.


    I know. Let''s just say that was a really bad idea but by a stroke of immense luck, it doesn''t overly matter right now.


    Felix''s brow furrowed slightly, Why not?


    They are not nearly smart enough to do any real damage.


    Felix winced, How dumb?


    It''s hard to compare to the average human because your memories and perception and all that but¡­ maybe half that? Maybe less?


    Well¡­ it''s working for now¡­ right?


    Yeah, the work that needs doing in your observatory and whatnot is not complicated so, that isn''t an issue but¡­ The majority of them have been trying to make things and they all resemble the masterpieces of children. Very young children.


    I guess I''ll figure it out later. For now let''s lock down any modifications of the things I''ve built then I can just raze everything they''ve made later.


    Already done. I''ve locked the library as well so they don''t touch your memories.


    Good call.


    Refocusing on the lecture, Felix found they had wasted no time and in a matter of minutes, they were already talking through common fundamental patterns that reoccurred across wards, rituals, enchantments and spells.


    While Felix had seen some of them, there were many he actually hadn''t and so he paid attention and took mental notes on the patterns shown so he could reference them later.


    "Before you leave, as this is our first class it is my duty to introduce you to a tradition amongst students over the past few cycles. Many of you are already aware of this but, for those of you who are not, start thinking about how you wish to modify your registration rings. As this class is Mana Structures, you may wish to enchant it or grant it a specific effect. This will not in way change your grade in this or any other class and is merely a way to compete with each-other and compare abilities. With that out of the way, I will see you on the first of the next dekad."


    Walking back out of the class, Felix''s mind was bouncing around with all the information he had just gained. They had moved from common patterns to node theory and channels. They even talked about intricate interactions between nodes, channels and mana, something that had seemed like one of the most advanced topics in Inscripticae.


    They hadn''t yet moved onto Mana Computers but Director Amelia, as she preferred to be referred to by, had assured them that that is where they would begin with next lesson. The fundamentals would be a recurring topic as they learned but she claimed that they much more sense with the context of the other topics in mind.


    The lecture had lasted for an entire 10 hours and based on the interest level of the other students, it seemed to Felix like they all knew most if not everything they had learned already. Adaline, who had chosen a seat on the other end of the class seemed to be the least interested and was busy writing something completely unrelated into a notebook. She didn''t look up at the board once during the entire class.


    Not that he was specifically looking for her, but Felix noticed she was already gone as he exited the class.


    His planning ahead and sitting at the back of the class nearest the door proved to be the correct decision when he saw a few students trying to socialize and discuss with the others on their way out. By the time they had left their seats, Felix was already through the door and walking back towards the dorms.


    Felix only really had one thing he had to do before tomorrow and that was to finish adjusting to his body for combat. He figured he only had another hour or two until he was ready though so instead, he headed right back to his dorm room, opening the door and stopping right in the doorway.


    "Uh¡­ Melody, how did you get in my room?"


    Melody hopped up from the couch in the sitting area and turned to him in one movement, like a spring being released, "I brought desserts."


    Felix stepped into the room and the door closed behind him, "That doesn''t answer my question. I thought it would only open to my registration?"


    "I asked Nova to open the door. Now, do you want to try them before they get stale?"


    Felix''s eyes darted to the opposite couch where Nova was completely upside down napping and his brow furrowed, "When did you meet my familiar?"


    "A half hour ago, I don''t know." Melody fell back onto the couch and reached out towards the table in front of her, bringing a pastry of some kind with a yellow jelly to her mouth.


    It took him a few moments to process then Felix sighed and walked over, taking the arm chair adjacent to the couch. As soon as he sat down, Melody tossed a dark bready looking desert towards him which he easily caught. Taking a bite, it reminded him of a donut but only really in texture. It was savory and not the flavor he had expected from a dessert.


    Swallowing, Felix looked at Melody, "So why did you break into my room?"


    She snorted, "I didn''t break in. I basically just asked. How was your first day of class?"


    Felix shrugged, "Fine. Lot of fundamentals, still learned a lot though."


    "Glad to hear it. I had botany today which was pretty boring. Lots of stuff about soils, seeds and plant care, not enough flowers. Anyways, I headed by the baking classes on the way back which is where I got these."


    Remembering the relevant course on the list he had memorized, "Did you take Botany & Herbology just to see flowers?"


    Melody shrugged, "All the other classes were boring."


    Felix sighed, "Why are you here?"


    "You ready for tomorrow?" Melody asked as she took another pastry from the table.


    "For Group Combat?"


    She just nodded as she bit into the small tart.


    "I guess. Is there something specific I should be preparing myself for?"


    Melody spun around and laid back on the couch, placing her feet on the arm rest closest Felix, "Probably just think about how you want to play it."


    Felix''s face immediately contorted with confusion but Melody continued without even looking, "Basically, they''ll stick you on a team with some other students in a mostly scripted match against another team of Adepts. Based on how you do, they''ll stick you in a specific class."


    "Then what do you mean, ''How I want to play it''?"


    "If you want to try and take control by directing them or just listen and adjust to what they do or try and do your own thing."


    Felix nodded along in understanding, "How many classes are there?"


    "Ten classes of about 32."


    "I take it placement is based on performance?"


    She nodded.


    "Well, there isn''t much I can do about it right now. Does it matter where you''re placed?"


    "Sort of. It will matter for your grades mostly. They''re trying to pair you up with others at a similar level to you. You can move up and down the classes as the epoch progresses though."


    "I see. How do you know all this stuff anyways?"


    Melody shrugged, "Family."


    She clearly didn''t want to elaborate so Felix left it at that.


    Melody turned her head towards him, "Did you see the application tournament champion by the way?"


    Felix shrugged, "I don''t even know who it is."


    "Adaline."


    "Oh. Yes actually. She seemed¡­ different. Her¡­ soul? vibe? was just¡­ almost inhuman."


    Melody nodded knowingly, "I''m surprised you picked up on that. I mean it''s interesting but it isn''t¡­ unheard of. She is causing quite the commotion though."


    "How so?"


    "She''s the first applicant champ in¡­ at least a few thousand cycles? To not have already been accepted."


    "Wait¡­" Felix shook his head as he caught on to the implications of her statement, "So you''re saying all the kids of the rich and powerful were beat out by¡­ is she from some powerful faction?"


    Melody shook her head and smiled as Felix caught on, "Nope. Some random."


    "So she beat all these other kids in¡­ one on one combat?"


    Melody nodded confirming his guess.


    "I take it the ones who were already accepted only apply to the tournament so they have bragging rights when they win and can actually say they''re the best?"


    "Yuperoo." Melody nodded.


    "I guess they aren''t really happy about that then?"


    "Noooooo. Just today I heard multiple conspiracies and a few accusations of cheating."


    "Is that even possible?"


    "Cheating? Nah. He''s just making shit up cause he was the favorite to win."


    "Who?"


    "Zeraxes."


    "Anyone else I should look out for?"


    "Everyone here is someone. It depends what you''re looking for."


    Felix sighed and shook his head, "Never mind, I don''t care."


    Melody laughed her way off the couch and to her feet. Snatching one more pastry, she stepped over the table to pat Nova on the belly then walked out of the room, "See you tomorrow."


    As the door closed behind her, Felix quickly turned to Nova, Don''t let people in here without my permission.


    Nova looked up at him with her giant kitten eyes, and meowed.


    No, I''m not mad. Jus- No don''t be sad, it''s ok. In the future, just ask me first, ok?


    She meowed in agreement and he sighed then started going through more of the books he had in his library.


    He wasn''t ready to look at what the half-born projections in his mind were doing until he had a path to fix them so he decided he would wait until after some of his other classes. In the meantime, he had just had his first Mana Structures class and so it felt appropriate to do some work on that outside of class.


    Sitting in his time dilated Soul Garden, Felix read through one of the enchanting books he had scanned, doing his best to decipher as much as he could to actually understand the content. In order for him to understand it though, he needed practical examples and so Felix switched back and forth between his Soul Garden and his dorm room as he tested new enchantments.


    With no need to sleep and longer days, Felix felt like he was making solid progress and had found minor improvements to plenty of his previous enchantments.


    After spending a couple hours before class getting used to his body and massive stat differences, Felix was feeling a lot better about Group Combat class.


    The class itself was located in one of the buildings in the main complex which was surprising to Felix because it was combat class. However, as he arrived and filed into the room with the other 319 students that were registered for the class, he realized why.


    In the middle of the room they were directed to, there was a large portal that everyone was filing into. As Felix followed the crowd and stepped through himself, he looked around and admired the massive arena he stepped into as everyone picked out random seats for themselves.


    There were easily enough seats to hold millions of people and the center area in the middle, where the combat would take place, was big enough to hold multiple football games at the same time.


    Massively increased Perception made it so the seats didn''t need to be as close and the balconies, that would normally hold important figures, were easily the furthest seats from the action.


    Felix filed into the middle of the emptiest section he could find and looked around, taking in the arena and watching the students as they filed in.


    "Hey."


    Felix jumped and turned to his left, both surprised but unsurprised to see Melody sitting next to him.


    Melody looked around in confusion, "Where''s Nova?"


    "Left her in the dorm room. She can get out and wander if she wants."


    "You don''t fight with her?"


    Felix shrugged, "Sometimes?"


    Melody shrugged then adjusted herself in the seat and joined Felix in watching the people stream in. She was wearing the tight leathers Felix had first encountered her wearing, likely her combat garment, considering the situation.


    As the students streamed in, Felix saw people wearing everything from full plate to leather armor and many that he suspected would summon their armor from spatial storage later on. There were many weapons brandished as well but that was evidently for show and the majority of people seemed to have their weapons stowed.


    The students filing in this time were far more magical than anything Felix had seen before. Back in Telviras, he saw the slight glow of enchantments from people as they flew by and various tools and weapons. Here, everyone was bright and the glow was multicolored and shifting indicating much more complex enchantments utilizing various attunements.


    He even spotted Adaline who, like he had, found the most empty section and sat far apart from everyone else. No one tried to sit near her and luckily, she didn''t have anyone who was following her around, like Felix did.


    Felix was pretty sure that, had Melody not sat next to him, no one would have bothered him. Instead, over the course of the 15 minutes or so it took for all the students to file in, both Felix and Melody were approached no less than 17 times by 28 people.


    The majority of them greeted Melody and asked if they could sit next to her, all of which she politely rejected and expertly manipulated into not sitting near them. There were some groups that were more annoying by trying to talk to Felix, as a way to get to Melody he suspected. Felix was much shorter with them though and often too blunt for Melody''s liking, causing her to jump in and soften his less than polite refusals.


    The last group were the most annoying, despite the fact that they weren''t talking to Felix directly.


    A rather tall elf equipped in very expensive looking scale mail bowed in Melody''s direction, "Melody. It is a pleasure to finally meet you."


    She cocked a brow and smirked, "Finally? You''ve been waiting for a particularly long time to meet me? I should feel tickled pink, I suspect." Melody shrugged, indicating she definitely did not.


    "I would hope so, although we wouldn''t want to make your partner too jealous now."


    Felix sighed through his nose at their obvious attempt to coax out information. Melody smiled wide, "I wouldn''t worry about that. I think I''d actually have to care for that to be a concern."


    The man mockingly brought his hand to his chest, "You wound me oh fair lady."


    This individual seemed particularly insistent and was either oblivious to her playfully repudiating or was just purposefully annoying. Everyone else had gotten the message around this point and Felix was ready to get up and find a new seat but before he could, Melody stood, her nose just a few inches from his.


    She very slowly leaned forwards, her head tilting just a little as she whispered something into his ear that Felix was surprised he couldn''t hear. Melody fell back into her seat and crossed her legs, looking away from the individual.


    A few seconds passed as they stared off into the distance then just walked away.


    "The hell did you do to that guy?" Felix looked over at Melody.


    "Kindly told him to fuck off."


    "Can you teach me how to do that?"


    Melody pouted, "You''re thinking about using it on me, aren''t you?"


    In all honesty, he hadn''t thought about that yet because he was too focused on learning what she''d done, not that he wouldn''t use it on her, "No, I hadn''t thought about that yet."


    She sighed, "Why would I keep hanging out with you if all you want to do is get rid of me?"


    Felix shook his head, "I don''t know why you''re here at all."


    She looked at him and smiled, completely unfazed, "Wouldn''t you rather have me here to answer all the questions you will inevitably have?"


    Felix thought about it for a second then just shrugged and turned back to the arena floor where the Adepts were setting up lines in the sand.


    "Or maybe you''d rather have me around for some other re-" Melody whispered in his ear in a seductive tone.


    Felix grimaced then hopped over the arm wrest into the next seat over, one further from Melody and she just started laughing. He didn''t bother responding but wasn''t bothered enough to actually leave. He knew she was just teasing him and having her answer questions for him was actually useful.


    As his mind started thinking about questions, Felix turned back to Melody and almost jumped when he saw her in the seat next to him again. He hadn''t even noticed her move. He figured he should be used to that by now but it still surprised him.


    "I need to know the range of normalcy for a caster."


    Melody rested her face in her arm on the arm rest between them and looked up at him, "You''ll be one of the last anyways so just watch what other people do for now then I can fill in the blanks later, when you actually know what questions to ask."


    Felix nodded, "Ok, that''s logical. How do you know I''ll be one of the last ones?"


    She shrugged, "It''s in order of registration."


    Seeing Felix''s confused expression, she explained, "Alphabetical doesn''t make sense because which language, translation and alphabet would we use? Could do age but that''s just as random as the order we registered with the school."


    "Alright, makes sense."


    "Peace, Berakeel, Kevrum, Zeraxes," and 7 other names were called out before they finished with, "Melody!" A booming voice echoed out from the stage below, surprising Felix as he hadn''t realized they were ready yet.


    "Well, that''s me. See you in a bit. Maybe try to start a chant or something. Mel-o-dy! Mel-o-dy! She''s so cute! She''s so hot! I love her! Or you know, whatever you come up with."


    Felix just shook his head as she giggled and flew down into the field, meeting with the Adepts down there. He saw three others from around the room hop down as well, joining the group in the middle of the arena.


    They spoke with each-other for just a few moments then a number of the Adepts walked off and into the stands. Melody split off towards one of the quadrants the arena had been split into along with two of the other students and one of the Adepts. They were easy to pick out because they all wore bright red hats to distinguish them from everyone else.


    There was already a group of four Adepts in her quadrant waiting along with all the other four quadrants. Three other groups just like Melody''s split up and organized themselves into the other quadrants then the groups spent a minute discussing with each-other.


    After the minute was up, a mostly translucent barrier shot up into the sky between the sections, fully splitting them off from each-other and around them, separating them from the stands. The matches in each quadrant consisting of 4 Adepts against 1 Adept and 3 students.


    Once the minute of initial discussion was up, the groups faced each-other and the matches began.


    Felix mostly paid attention to Melody''s group who rushed at the opposite team in a fairly tight formation. They weren''t side to side but only a few meters separated each of them with Melody taking up the rear most position.


    The team of Adepts had an arrangement of two fighters, a mage and an archer. They were happy to slowly fall into formation and allow the other group to rush into them.


    The Adepts seemed to be limiting themselves for the purposes of the test. The students on the other hand, were far more impressive.


    Before Melody''s team reached the Adepts, Felix''s attention was drawn to another field where a man was leaping into the air and throwing a javelin at the Adepts. The javelin itself was too fast for him to follow and every time it struck, a Lightning Bolt descended from above, striking the same spot.


    The rest of his team seemed to be just as wary of the Javelin as the Adepts.


    In another field, a warrior with a massive sword engulfed himself in flames before jumping around like a meteor. They crashed into the walls and bounced around the room making it kind of hard to actually follow what was happening.


    Melody''s was much calmer and as the frontline clashed, the ranged attackers started trying to harass each-other which proved more difficult than Felix had thought it would be. There were far more misses and dodges than hits. The same was true for the brawlers in the front who seemed to be matching each-other fairly equally.


    Suddenly, one of the fighters on the Adept team faltered and made a mistake. They got caught by their opponent''s blade and were almost immediately taken out. They tried to back off and recover but Melody''s team all seemed to speed up at once, pressuring and keeping them from doing anything.


    Only then did the students on Melody''s team really stand out by flying forwards in a whirl of blades and leaping into the air with a barrage of arrows. Melody herself was still in the back but Felix suspected she was having a much larger effect than was obvious. The Adept''s formation fell apart and they were quickly dismantled, taken out one by one in a matter of seconds. As soon as a fatal blow landed, the bodies disappeared, saved by The System and an agreement it had with the school.


    Looking back over to the other arenas, Felix saw that none of the other student teams were winning. The javelin thrower''s team was gone, leaving them alone against the full team of Adepts. The giant sword wielding comet on the other hand seemed to have gotten themselves eliminated and the full team of Adepts was slowly whittling the rest of them down.


    The matches ended less than a minute after that and the barriers dropped. Melody''s team was the only student team remaining and they all hopped out and headed back towards their seats as 12 new names were called.


    As the next students arrived in the arena, all the Adepts had returned and the process began anew.


    Before the barriers rose again starting the second set of matches, Melody fell back into the seat next to Felix and lifted her feet onto the seat in front of her.


    "Well done. You guys beat the Adepts." Felix couldn''t help but congratulate her. Logically, the feat seemed very impressive to him.


    Melody shrugged, "We won''t be the only ones. Just got lucky with our team."


    Felix nodded and looked back down at the arena as the matches started. This time, with no investment in anyone particular, Felix looked around for any mages he could spot amongst the students or even the Adepts.


    This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.


    There were mages in the last fights but he was a little distracted seeing his fellow classmates fighting for the first time. It was his first indication of how he would stack up against them right now. So far, they all seemed to be much faster than he was, stronger and more durable too on top of some that stood out as particularly flashy. The mages though, were much harder to judge.


    The mages in the battles tended to be careful and strategic with their spells but he didn''t know if that was forced on them or a choice they had made. For Felix, he could easily harass the enemy team with a near constant barrage of spells. Just because he didn''t see anyone doing so, didn''t mean they couldn''t do it though.


    As long as it was technically possible, he wouldn''t look too out of place when he stepped into the arena. He was also surprised to not see anyone flying in the fights. That changed in the third round when a mage flew around to try and get the right angle but before they could cast anything, they were shot out of the sky by a pair of Adept archers.


    Every other mage he saw played the careful game until an opening presented itself and they launched a massive spell to capitalize. A number of them had familiars but far less towering behemoths than he had expected given the advantages they offered. It seemed to him like the melee brawlers were the ones who made the openings most often while the archers tried to pick people off, often succeeding, and the mages capitalized on the openings presented.


    Not all mages were straightforward attackers either, Felix saw multiple mages summoning walls, blocking projectiles, casting haste spells and generally providing aid and area control for their teams.


    Felix though, fell mostly into the straight forward blast mage. He could create barriers to support his team but that was just about it. He hadn''t worked with teams much and the spells he had focused on, reflected that.


    The fights were otherwise exactly as he expected, fast, brutal and high level. Everyone, even the students, were clearly formidable opponents and Felix was starting to think he was near the bottom in one on one combat ability at the moment. He would find out in half a dekad anyways but he couldn''t help but estimate.


    As they reached around 80% of the way through the groups, Felix turned to Melody, "Ok, casting multiple spells at once?" Sear?h the NovelFire.net* website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    Melody responded without looking, immediately picking up on what he was talking about, "Normal."


    "Spell list size?"


    "25 to 30 I believe, for most people here."


    Felix nodded in relief, "Anything else I should know?"


    Melody shrugged, "Just have fun, don''t worry about beating the Adepts, that mostly comes down to luck."


    After watching a few more matches, Felix''s name was finally called as the very last one, right after Adaline''s.


    Melody blew him a kiss, "Good luck."


    Felix shook his head as he hopped down the stairs and into the arena.


    The floor of the arena was surprisingly somewhat elastic rather than hard and rigid like the concrete it resembled. Felix joined up with the congregation of Adepts and other students.


    "¡­ Alright then you two will go with those two Adepts to field 1. You three field two." Felix saw Adaline on the team of just two students and leaving just as he arrived.


    The Adept turned to Felix, "You must be Felix Kade. You''re with this group," He gestured at two other students, "You can choose what archetype you''d like for the Adept that joins you. Otherwise, no equipment that is more than 1 grade above you unless it''s enchanted, then it has to be your grade or enchanted by you. No batteries either and no spatial storages that aren''t a part of your weapon or armor." They added as they spotted the charm attached to his waist.


    Felix quickly tapped and stowed it, not worried at all about his mana reserves, then walked over to join the other two students on his team.


    [C] Wylen (Lvl 1103)


    [C] Marphos (Lvl 1092)


    Felix nodded to acknowledge them as he looked them over. Both were clearly in their full combat gear, Wylen wearing full plate mail with a sword in hand and a simple buckler on his arm. Marphos wore leather and had many daggers strapped all over her waist, ankles, forearms, chest and thighs.


    "Alright, Felix I take it you''re a mage or a healer? What kind?" Wylen looked at him, his eyes showing just how seriously he was taking this.


    "Fully attack focused mage. I can do barriers on myself but not buffs or control spells."


    Wylen nodded, "I take it you mostly fight alone then, so you can protect yourself?"


    Felix nodded, "Yes."


    "Alright, any problems with taking another front liner then? Marphos plans on disrupting the Adepts as much as possible, flanking and interrupting them. We already know we''re up against a great axe wielder, a duelist, an archer and a support mage. I want someone else to stop the other melee fighter so they can''t just run through us."


    Felix shrugged, the logic was sound to him, "Sure."


    Marphos nodded and Wylen walked over to the group of Adepts organizing the matches. He walked back just a moment later with an Adept wearing scale mail, wielding a longsword in one hand and wearing a metal gauntlet on the other.


    [B] Trellem (Lvl 2832)


    "Hi." Trellem smiled and waved to Felix and Marphos.


    Felix returned the nod.


    "I can''t offer anything tactical but I''ll follow whatever you tell me to and take some initiative, just limited." Trellem looked to each of them in turn making sure they understood the parameters of the fight.


    "Oh and don''t worry about the difference in grade, we lower our speed and strength to match you guys as best we can." Trellem looked mostly at Marphos who Felix didn''t even realize looked worried a moment ago but her sigh of relief in response gave her away.


    Wylen looked to Felix and Marphos, "Any issues if I take point?"


    They both shook their heads in response so Wylen dove into the plan he had clearly already been working on for the last few minutes, "Alright Marphos, your job is to disrupt that support mage as much as you can. Trellem and I will try to hold the two melee fighters back. Trellem, can you take the duelist? It''ll be easier for them to get through my armor."


    Trellem nodded, "No problem."


    "Felix you help Marphos, if she isn''t on the support mage you can attack them. If she is, focus on the archer. Block their arrows if you can, distract them if you can''t, it makes it much easier for us if we don''t have to dodge those too."


    The logic was sound and Felix had no arguments. He figured everything would fall apart pretty quickly once they were in there but having an initial plan was better than nothing.


    Following the rest of his team onto their field, they set themselves up in a basic position though they weren''t allowed to move more than a meter away from each-other at the start.


    A countdown started as Felix surveyed the Adepts on the other side and after a few short seconds, everyone raced towards each-other and into their formations.


    The Adepts, lowering their speed to match the students, ended up moving very slowly in Felix''s mind and he saw their steps in slow motion as they arranged themselves in an expected formation. The support mage stayed far back while the archer leapt into the air to get an angle on Felix and Marphos.


    Felix also jumped into the air using a burst of Force with the exact same plan as the Archer. Right as his line of sight passed over Wylen''s head, Felix unleashed a barrage of concentrated Fire Balls, his best scaling spell at the moment, overpowered by 10.


    He didn''t bother aiming directly at any of them because they were more than fast enough to dodge but he did use all 5 of his available spells to launch them all around one of the melee fighters before they reached Trellem and Wylen. With 5 infernos each 5 meters wide, he was pretty sure he would hit and when the ground was covered in a thick cloud of fire a moment later, he was certain he had.


    As he was casting those spells, the Adept archer had taken the opportunity to launch a barrage of her own at Felix, who was stuck in the trajectory of his jump. With no focus left to cast a barrier of any kind, the arrows all hit him, smashing into his cloak and falling harmlessly to the ground.


    Between blocking the arrows and the concentrated Fire Balls, Felix had already used 5 million mana. He still wasn''t worried about running out right now, but he was realizing in the ample time he had to think while their bodies slowly careened through the air, that his pool wasn''t nearly as big as it seemed.


    Catching himself as his focus returned, Felix flew off to the left and briefly caught sight of Marphos slinking along the right side of their field before vanishing a moment later.


    As Felix prepared to cast more Fire Balls, he caught sight of the great-axe wielder he had just attacked and saw them looking hurt but still completely functional. Their skin was clearly burnt and charred and they had bruises already forming, rapidly turning their flesh a purple color as they met Wylen.


    Suddenly, Felix saw a green glow erupt around Trellem and Wylen with a trail running back towards the support mage. The spell was still mana so he had time to interrupt it but he still didn''t know where Marphos was. It was possible she was on the support mage already but he couldn''t risk losing the match over this so he switched one of his Fire Balls over to a 10 times overpowered Lightning Bolt.


    Arcing through the air the Lightning almost instantly struck a barrier around the support mage, damaging the barrier but not interrupting them.


    Completely ignoring the barrage of arrows as they thumped into his cloak''s enchantment, Felix continued to launch a barrage of Lightning Bolts at the support mage in the hopes of destroying the barrier.


    The spell surrounding both of the melee fighters cast just as Marphos appeared and destroyed the barrier around the support mage.


    Both Trellem and Wylen started to slowly rise into the air, like gravity just didn''t affect them anymore. Without their feet on the ground, they had nothing to brace themselves and the fights quickly became unmanageable for them.


    Instead of killing them outright though, the melee adepts swung and kicked at Wylen and Trellem respectively, knocking them further into the air and sending them flying outwards. Neither of them seemed to have the ability to fly so they were completely out of the fight.


    With the melee fighters temporarily disabled, the Adept with the great axe and the duelist split up. The duelist ran over to help the support mage and deal with Marphos while the barbarian looking great axe wielder leapt into the air straight at Felix.


    As soon as he left the ground, Felix started to prepare a Force Spell and once he was just a few meters away, about to swing his axe, Felix knocked him back and sent him flying into the barrier on the opposite side.


    Another spell reached out from the support mage as the archer switched from futilely shooting arrows at Felix to harassing Marphos instead. The spell created a sphere of glowing purple mana around Felix which he almost absorbed but didn''t.


    Instead, he simply cast Phantom Step, kicking off the invisible platform just before the spell finished casting and launching himself out of its area of effect.


    Shooting his eyes back, he couldn''t actually tell what the spell would have done because it was invisible but he was glad to have dodged it nonetheless.


    As he scanned the battlefield though, he saw Marphos was gone, likely eliminated considering she had had three harassing her just a moment ago. The archer was focusing down Trellem and Wylen who were still floating through the air with no way to dodge. They were parrying and blocking the arrows as best they could but the barbarian and duelist were also running over to whittle them down so they wouldn''t last long.


    With them all focusing on Wylen and Trellem though, that left the support mage all alone and from a glance, they seemed to be repairing the barrier around them.


    Felix launched himself in their direction, firing a constant stream of shrunk down but 10 times overpowered Fire Balls around them. The explosions were only a meter wide but Felix had increased the ratio of Fire so high, that they were devastating if they hit.


    Though Fire and Force were currently his best spells because of the nodes he had gotten from the Lich, he still much preferred Lightning because it didn''t obscure his vision the way fire did. Force had the unfortunate issue of launching his target around making it hard to hit them multiple times consecutively.


    Stopping the stream after 10 Fire Balls, right as he flew over their position, Felix had to wait just over a second for the flames to subside so he could confirm they were out of the match.


    Once he had, he cast Phantom Step, kicking himself into the air and away from the mage, turning himself towards the rest of the battle.


    Trellem was gone and Wylen was a fraction of a second from being beheaded so Felix was the only one left on their side.


    Singling out the Archer because they were the biggest threat to him, Felix kicked off in their direction and launched a barrage of Lightning Bolts and concentrated Fire Balls. The Lightning Bolts ideally slowed or even stopped them to make it easier for the Fire Balls to hit.


    Unfortunately, they were ready for that and suddenly jumped in midair, off to the side.


    Before he could retarget them, Wylen was already gone and the two Adept brawlers were circling around to flank Felix and attack him from both sides. He had no idea how they would attack him while he was in the air but he had no intention of finding out so he launched himself directly to the right and over the duelist, who he hadn''t seen jump yet.


    Shooting Lightning down at them as he flew, Felix was just hoping to halt their movements long enough to fly past them. Looking down though, Felix was completely shocked when he saw the duelist seemingly parry his Lightning Bolts with their rapier.


    That''s just not fair.


    Immediately switching over to Fire Balls, seemed to be a better call but they were just too fast to hit as they easily dodged the orange beads flying in their direction.


    Suddenly, Felix felt a huge weight on his back and plummeted a dozen meters before catching himself. Thick arms wrapped around his torso and squeezed, his cloak doing its best to resist but his mana was dropping by thousands per second.


    Casting bursts of both Fire and Force around him didn''t seem to do anything as the barbarian just held tight and tanked the damage. He didn''t just tank it and hold on though, adjusting one arm to hold Felix as tightly as possible, they used their other to beat on his cloak a few times before stopping and chuckling.


    Felix wasn''t sure what that was about but he found out a second later when the barbarian''s hand slowly pushed through his cloak enchantment and wrapped itself around his head.


    They only squeezed for a few seconds before Felix panicked. He knew he wouldn''t die because of The System managing the arena but the idea of his head being crushed was so visceral he couldn''t not panic.


    Massively overpowering a burst of Fire from his body, Felix repeatedly surrounded himself in flames, taking damage from his own spell as it originated from beneath the cloak. While the spell was directed outwards, it still generated enough heat and fire to sear his own skin.


    His new robes didn''t seem to take much damage from the spell which was nice but he still burned through over a quarter of his own health just to get the barbarian to let go.


    Finally free again, Felix realized he was flying directly at the barrier on the opposite side of the field without enough time to stop himself. Mihto''s training kicked in though and Felix swung his legs out, bracing himself against the barrier and kicking off in a different direction. He still took a few thousand damage and fractured his leg bones but it was better than pancaking himself against the wall.


    The archer resumed her harassment as a stream of arrows ticked away at his mana pool, each direct hit consuming over 10k.


    Seems like the duelist isn''t much of a threat because they have a hard time getting to me. The archer is annoying but what matters more right now is the barbarian, they can actually reach me and get through my defensive enchantments.


    Tracking the barbarian as he flew, Felix quickly modified some Fire Balls and prepared them, making sure he knew where the other two were just in case.


    Confident they wouldn''t be able to reach him, Felix released his barrage of 4 beads and watched the barbarian smile then simply leap straight up, the spells exploding into the ground harmlessly.


    They were too fast for Fire Balls and Lightning just didn''t do enough damage with the terrible nodes he had unless he pumped them up to 2 or 3 million mana, not something he could sustain. That left Force Bombs which were just as easy to dodge as Fire Balls.


    Since he had to take out the barbarian first, Felix decided to do something stupid to break the stalemate. He prepared a few spells that he would need as he flew backwards and circled around, baiting the barbarian and duelist who were chasing him into position.


    They were smart enough to stay a few dozen meters apart but as Felix dropped himself the ground between them, they reconsidered. Both of them clearly knew it was a trap and so the barbarian leapt at him while the duelist waited to see what would happen.


    Felix took a move from the support mage''s play book and cast his Force Shield at a 10 meter radius right before the barbarian hit it, slowing them to a stop in mid air.


    Releasing a stream of Fire into them, Felix turned and stared directly at the duelist, daring them to try as arrows slowed and fell to the ground to his left. He felt the mana expenditure from holding the barbarian still, vanish and quickly confirmed they had fallen before dismissing the overpowered Flame Thrower and running at the duelist.


    Instead of fighting him like Felix expected, the duelist simply backed up, keeping themselves just outside the range of the spell as the archer continued to harass him from the side.


    Felix dropped the Force Shield to let his much more efficient cloak enchantment block the arrows and as soon as an arrow struck his enchantment, the duelist kicked the ground and leapt in his direction.


    This close to the duelist, Felix had little hope of matching them in speed but what he did have, was a prepared burst of Fire that was impossible to dodge at this range. The duelist cut through majority of the spell but still seemed to take some damage as their flesh charred before they leapt forwards again.


    With all his prepared spells used, Felix jumped backwards to try and keep his distance but the duelist was easily faster. Having seen the barbarian get through his cloak enchantment the duelist moved back and forth, perfectly matching Felix''s movements and carefully maintaining the exact distance between them as the rapier slowly approached his cloak.


    Felix quickly switched directions with a burst of Force, causing his cloak to stop the rapier then cast another prepared spell, this one another Force Shield at 10 meters in radius. The duelist was trapped as their every movement was resisted but they still wasted the time to smile right before Felix felt a sharp pain in his side as a short sword was slowly inserted into his body from behind.


    With their other hand on his shoulder and the weapon already through his cloak enchantment, it only took a few seconds for them to inflict enough damage for Felix to vanish.


    Calming his breathing down as his nerves reset, Felix just laid there for a second, recovering from having died just a second ago.


    He had forgotten about the archer because they had spent so long firing arrows at him to no avail. They were just waiting for him to be distracted though so they could sneak up on and actually kill him.


    Quickly repairing his robes with a few million mana, Felix sat up and turned to get off the bed but stopped as soon as he spotted Melody standing there.


    Her eyes were wide with excitement and she wore the same warm smile she always did which was a stark contrast to Felix''s dour mood from having lost.


    "That was awesome."


    "I lost." Felix stood and walked over, heading out of the recovery room as Melody walked alongside him.


    "You aren''t expected to win, especially not 1 against 4."


    Felix shrugged, "Doesn''t mean I didn''t want to. It also wasn''t nearly as impressive as some of the other students I saw. Throwing javelins of lightning, turning themselves into comets¡­"


    "I mean¡­ they look cool I guess. I''m a little jaded because I''ve seen¡­ things." Melody shrugged.


    "I guess. Just wish I could have¡­ found a way to win."


    "I don''t think it would have made any difference, you''ll start in the bottom class no matter what along with Zeraxes, the javelin thrower and that comet dude."


    That shook Felix out of his self chastising train of thought, "Wait, bottom?"


    "Yeah, you and especially those two suck at working with a team."


    Felix opened his mouth to argue but realized he didn''t actually have any argument against that. He hadn''t fought in a team much at all and when he did, he simply dominated all by himself, completely ignoring the others around him.


    He also immediately realized there was a lot he could have done differently to help the team rather than take on the fight like he was alone. He also knew exactly why. He just didn''t trust his teammates and he didn''t see that changing any time soon.


    Instead of trying to entirely deal with interrupting the support caster''s spell and piercing their shield, he could have called out the spell so his melee fighters could move themselves. It would have been much simpler and wouldn''t have caused the fight to end then and there. He also completely ditched their plan basically the instant the fight started.


    He didn''t coordinate or even really pay attention to his teammates at all.


    Shrugging, Felix sighed, "Does it matter if I''m in the lowest class?"


    "If you make lots of progress and make it to the first class, your progress grade will be great, so there is that."


    Felix shook his head, "I''m starting to regret having taken this course at all. Why did I listen to you on this one?"


    Melody giggled, "This isn''t going to just be about fighting in a team. It''s also going to help you fight against a team. So even if you stick to being Mr. Macho-fight-everything-by-himself, you''ll be much better at countering groups."


    Felix sighed knowing she at least somewhat had a point, "Fine, whatever. When will we know the rankings?"


    "You''ll get a new schedule after Solo Combat placements on the seventh."


    "Any idea where you''ll be placed?"


    Melody shrugged, "Placements don''t matter. I''m only in this course cause my parents were adamant about it."


    "I see."


    Mood flipping, Melody excitedly jumped a little, "That was so cool though. You cast spells so fast and you don''t even need verbal, somatic or a focus to do it. Oh, and you knew what the support mage was gonna cast before they did anything, even though they were a stealth caster like you."


    Felix''s brow furrowed as he feared he had given away too much, "Wait, is that not normal?"


    "Not normal no but, it isn''t too crazy. It is super cool though. Makes you look so much more impressive than those casters who are all" Melody proceeded to wiggle her hands in the air and make a series of incomprehensible noises from her mouth as she mocked casters everywhere. While Felix didn''t disagree, the fact that she looked like she might be seizing made the performance more mocking than she likely intended it to be.


    "I''d have switched to being a fighter a long time ago if I was stuck with verbal and somatic components."


    Maybe.


    "No kidding. Oh and that jumping through the air thing is pretty sweet too, what''s that called?"


    Felix shrugged, "I''ve been calling it Phantom Step, learned it back in Telviras."


    "That''s a good name. Your other spells kind of¡­ suck though?"


    Felix winced, "Yeah, for now. I''m hoping Spell Formations on the sixth can alleviate that for me."


    They continued to talk about the fights with Melody doing most of the talking while Felix asked about specific people that had stood out to him.


    As they approached the dorms, she waved and walked off towards some other building, "Save me a seat on the fourth, yeah?"


    Felix sighed and continued up to his dorm where he laid down on the bed and entered his Soul Garden. He still didn''t want to look at the city just yet because he knew as soon as he did, he would feel forced to fix it. Instead, he summoned the memory of the fight in his Soul Garden and watched it back, finding his own mistakes and trying to figure out how he could have won.


    Somewhere around his hundredth watch through the memory, he spotted Grim walking over to him, "So I lost."


    "You did."


    "I know I wasn''t expected to win that¡­"


    "But you desperately wanted to, I know."


    Felix sighed as he restarted the memory from the beginning, "I''ll learn to fight better, learn what to expect and all that from class but I also really need better spells."


    "Yeah. Fire Balls are slow and the Lightning nodes you have are shit."


    "I should have updated them from the books we scanned."


    Grim shook his head, "I already checked, they don''t have better nodes. At least not drop in replacements."


    "Really?"


    "Yeah, I suspect you''ll learn why in class but it''s just about patterns, channels and node theory. The ones I found were way too complex for you to maintain the same casting speed."


    "Damn."


    "What are you gonna do before class tomorrow?"


    Felix sighed, "I don''t want to look at the city until after Constructs & Elementals, I''ll try to talk to Professor Ked about it after class. Probably read more I guess. There seems to be a pretty major flaw in my cloak enchantment at the moment."


    Grim shrugged, "It''s not that major, it only applies if they get really close to you, which you want to avoid anyways."


    "Still a flaw."


    "Of course." Grim nodded and vanished, moving back to the city while Felix watched the memory a few more times before reluctantly dismissing it and moving back over to the books he had on hand.


    Once again, he spent the night enchanting, experimenting with everything he read in his Soul Garden and figuring out how to implement them.


    The Constructs and Elementals classroom was much like the auditorium Felix had Mana Structures in except there were even less students so it was even emptier. Professor Ked actually seemed to be excited by the 11 people in his class though as he walked in.


    "Welcome to Constructs and Elementals. Unfortunately all official classrooms here are this big but, we won''t be in here too often. First things first, what is a construct? In simple terms, it''s a constructed creature and creatures, consist of three things, a body, a brain and a soul."


    "We can manipulate these three aspects to create all kinds of constructs, something we will be doing a lot of in this class. We will briefly be spending some time on Elementals but just a few classes as they are more volatile and almost everything we talk about applies to both."


    "First things first, let''s make a construct, shall we?"


    Felix noticed everyone in the class was similarly confused and surprised by that statement. Professor Ked smiled as he got exactly the reaction he had expected then turned to the right as someone, or rather something, walked into the classroom through the door.


    Squinting and leaning forwards instinctively, Felix, along with the rest of the students in the class, peered down at what appeared to be animated armor. He knew logically it was a construct but the armor walked and moved similarly to a human with slightly less grace than a high grade individual, more like pre-integration human. They carried a large bin and walked over to the center of the stage and placed it next to the podium then stood off to the side.


    "This is H-1 one of the constructs I made a few epochs ago." Looking down at the bin, Ked nodded, "Thank you H-1."


    Turning to the class, "This bin is split into three. In one section there is a soul gem, in another there is a very simple mana computer and in the last there is a ball. In a moment, you will all take one and assemble these components together to form a construct. If you''re already familiar with Animancy, you are encouraged to modify them and show off a little."


    "I will be walking around and helping those who need it but, the goal of this is simply to increase your understanding of how constructs work, how you can create them, modify them and so on. Don''t stress about how elegant they are."


    Professor Ked stepped back, clearly indicating to the students they could walk up and collect their components. Felix waited until everyone had already grabbed theirs so he could avoid interactions then sat down in his seat once again.


    Looking down at the three components he was given, Felix realized what they were doing was essentially child''s play. The three pieces were made to fit together like building blocks for children.


    He simply twisted the ball, that would act as the body, open then slid the computer, which was a small box, inside followed by the soul gem. Both of the computer and soul gem fit perfectly into the sphere as it was clearly designed specifically to house them.


    Closing the sphere back up, the construct was complete. Looking around, he saw almost everyone else was done assembling their constructs as well but none of them were doing anything.


    "You''re going to have to wait a bit while the computer powers up and the soul affinizes the construct. It shouldn''t take more than a few minutes so while we wait, we will continue the lecture."


    As Ked proceeded to explain various combinations of brains, souls and bodies for constructs, Felix got distracted by one of the other students. While everyone else had simply assembled the construct and waited, this student in particular was fiddling with every piece.


    Felix couldn''t actually tell what they were doing but they seemed to be modifying the pieces to some unknown end. After just a few minutes of modifications though, they assembled the construct and placed it in front of them, finally joining the rest of the class in their waiting.


    After a long awaited hour of lecturing, the constructs finally began to awaken. The first to move was a student''s near the front of the class and her construct rolled itself around, bumping into her feet and startling her.


    Within the minute or so that followed, most of the other constructs awakened, including Felix''s. The ball constructs rolled around and bumped into things, evidently completely unaware of their surroundings. They were little more than children''s toys, as their construction indicated, with no real use and yet at the same time, everyone in the class including Felix was fascinated and jubilant as they played with them.


    After the initial novelty wore off a little, Felix briefly looked up and saw the student who had been modifying their construct still waiting. Felix continued to experiment with his ball and occasionally glance at the, now only inactive construct, waiting for it to do something.


    Finally, the last construct awakened and rather than roll off the edge, it immediately smacked itself into the ceiling, bounced off then flew around the room.


    Ked saw the construct and smiled, nodding in respect at the student who had modified it while everyone else in the class simply marveled at it.


    "As Phelirin has demonstrated with their construct, even minor modifications require extensive planning ahead of time. Many of you may think this simple modification was simply a modification of the enchantments on the body to allow it to fly rather than roll, you would be wrong. Phelirin, would you mind giving a vague overview of the modifications you made to your construct?"


    "Oh uh¡­" The student, Phelirin, who had made the modifications looked to be in a state of complete shock at being called out, "Well¡­ the body enchantments were the start¡­ redirecting the force but¡­ I had to also rearrange the computer and modify some of the layers¡­ flying requires different¡­ Then just affinizing the soul¡­"


    Ked nodded, "Yes. The enchantment of the body is just the beginning. The computer acting as the brain along with the soul gem need to be modified as well to work with the enchantments and to handle the various senses."


    "The constructs most of you constructed, the ones I prepared, are programmed to react when they hit something and to roll in a different direction. Phelirin here had to expand that entire process from beginning to end to be three dimensional rather than simply two. For example, try dropping or hitting your constructs from above."


    The entire class except for Pheliring proceeded to follow his instructions as he waited to explain.


    "They will change direction but they are confused as to where they were hit so they appear to almost seize before one direction wins out at random. Feel free to continue experimenting with the limits of the constructs and you are all welcome to take your constructs with you. In the meantime, we will continue discussing various combinations of mind, soul and body for constructs and the subtleties of how they interact with each-other."


    The rest of the lecture was interesting enough that Felix paid attention but not interesting enough for him to dedicate all of his focus on it. Instead, Felix spent a few minutes poking his construct before finally stowing it and reaching into his main Soul Space.


    Given he was in a construct class and he was definitely going to be making constructs in the future, Felix started creating another mana computer. He targeted the same density and structure as the one attached to his brain and simply worked at improving the process so it, hopefully, didn''t take nearly as long to create.


    By the end of the lecture, he had a tiny computer but it was more than he had before and would hopefully be enough for a construct sooner rather than later. A huge side benefit as well was that he was improving his mana control at the same time.


    As the lecture came to a close, Felix flew up, out of seat and over to Professor Ked before he could leave.


    "Professor."


    "Ah, Felix. It seems as though you managed to fix your problem then?"


    "Sort of. While the solution was- is functional¡­ there are issues."


    "I see. I''m not sure how I might be of assistance without further information¡­"


    "As you said, I created filters around soul seeds from my own soul but the¡­ constructs I ended up creating as a result are¡­ like children?"


    Ked''s brow furrowed which was an odd expression that took Felix a few seconds to decipher on his alien face, "How did you create the filters and like children how?"


    Felix winced, "I just randomized everything a little bit. They can speak very simple sentences but¡­ they''re¡­ I''m not sure how to explain it. They can''t seem to process anything complex? They''re imagining things but their imaginations are like a very basic child''s drawing?"


    The Professor''s face contorted even further, "I believe I know the solution but I must ask, what medium or body is housing these constructs?"


    Felix instinctively scratched his head as he thought of a lie or diversion but Ked immediately picked up on the gesture, "Ah. Not terribly uncommon. I''m impressed you made multiple, it also validates my concerns as to your issue. Your constructs have no brain."


    Felix tilted his head to the side in confusion, "They''re attached to¡­ my head though?"


    "Did you bind them to or give them access to your brain in any way?"


    "No¡­ I see. Thank you."


    "Some advice, if I may. Do not bind them to your brain. Using the same brain for two constructs always results in catastrophe. I''ve tried countless experiments with two constructs in one body and they always need their own brains. What you can do however, is have three brains. Two bound to constructs and one that facilitates the communication between the two. You can even have the central brain perform all the complex thought and transmit it to the other two, but they must have their own for basic functions."


    Felix nodded, "Understood, thank you I appreciate it."


    Ked nodded, "Of course. I am always happy to answer any questions my students have to the best of my ability."


    Hesitating as he turned to leave, Felix asked one last question now that Ked had already figured things out for himself, "How common is it to have constructs in your mind?"


    "Not¡­ unique? It is not common, I''ve heard of it before but I''ve never met anyone doing so for myself. I''d be happy to give more advice if you would be willing to share more with me in the future, think about it."


    Felix nodded noncommittally, "Thank you, I appreciate it."


    Though they had learned essentially nothing so far about mana computers, Felix spent the rest of the night constructing the computer in his Soul Space while he iterated through construct designs he would one day create. He knew he should be looking at his Mind City and its inhabitants but he still didn''t have the necessary computers to fix it yet so he welcomed his excitement as a distraction for now. He was constructing a computer he could test with soon at the same time anyways, so he didn''t feel too guilty about his procrastination.


    Nova was missing from his dorm but Felix briefly checked on their soul bond then moved on. She wasn''t trapped in the dorm and she was smarter and stronger than a pet so he had no issue with her roaming around.


    Walking into Soul Manipulation, Felix took the same seat he always aimed for, closest the door and next to an aisle so it was easy to get out. As the rest of the students filed into the class, someone actually sat beside him, though he was expecting her at some point.


    "Nice, thanks for saving my seat for me." Melody smiled as she wiggled herself into the seat and placed her feet on the seat in front of her.


    "I didn''t do anything, no one tried to sit there."


    "Ok but what would you have done if someone had?" Her brow cocked as she smirked.


    "Probably moved to a different seat."


    "See? You do care." Melody smiled and Felix knew, she knew, that he wouldn''t have moved for her sake.


    As the last few students filed in, Melody held her hand out in front of Felix and produced a bowl of what looked like ice cream. He looked over and saw she already had her tongue buried in a bowl of her own.


    He hesitated before taking it and just looked at her tonguing it before shaking his head and producing some starmetal he morphed into a spoon. She looked at him like he was weird for using the spoon and refused when he offered her one of her own.


    As weird as Melody was, the dessert was phenomenal. It wasn''t like ice cream at all and was actually warm but the texture was nothing like he expected. It was flavored with something adjacent to chocolate and caramel with crunchy bits on top.


    Walking into the class from the Professors door and onto the stage, Felix saw what appeared to be a cat. As soon as they got to the stage, the cat rose to their hind legs and Felix watched in fascination as he expected the cat to morph into a person. They did not though.


    [?] Fen: Director of the Eramith Soul Department (Lvl ?)


    The feline professor wore a pair of silk pants, a loose shirt and a cloak along with a pair of glasses and a hat all atop their striped black and brown fur.


    They hopped up to the top of the podium then turned towards the class, "Good afternoon class. My name is Professor Fen, Ms. Fen or just Fen and this¡­ is Soul Manipulation."


    All of the students in the room except for Felix and Melody immediately winced and hunched over. Felix felt something pushing at his soul as well, it just wasn''t nearly enough to affect him.


    He caught Melody watching him and smiling with crazy eyes before winking and turning back to face the professor and tongue her dessert.


    "This is the power of Soul Manipulation. In this class we will discuss cultivating, strengthening, manipulating and reading souls. Specifically we will be dealing almost entirely with your own soul in this class though, Soul Manipulation II will dive into other souls and how we can affect them in depth."


    "We will begin with methods of cultivating and strengthening one''s soul as they go hand in hand. Can anyone tell me one of the ways in which we can do so?"


    Melody looked at Felix but he had no intention of answering and it appeared, neither did she. Luckily they didn''t have to as some of the other 40 to 50 or so students were willing.


    "Adding anima to your soul to increase its size?" One student called out.


    "Correct." The professor wrote ''collecting anima'' on the board without moving at all.


    Emboldened by the first correct answer, other students started just blurting out responses, "Making it denser?"


    "Layers?"


    "Structure?"


    "Reaping." The student that had blurted that out was sitting over in the front row and Felix could almost swear they were looking at him. They were faced away but there it was a faint feeling he had. He dismissed it as his imagination though due to his familiarity with the response they had given.


    The professor jumped in upon hearing that response, "While yes, that will increase your soul strength, it will also drive you insane and likely lead to soul death. I advise you all to avoid reaping as much as possible."


    "Afterlife." Felix realized for the first time that Adaline was in the class.


    "Not exactly relevant to anyone outside of the peak of S grade trying to ascend to godhood and therefore, not something we will talk about much in this course but yes. That is correct." Fen nodded to Adaline.


    "Convictions." Melody added to the responses.


    "Correct Ms. Melody. Convictions are a very important part of one''s own soul strength. In fact, let us begin there as you will need time to decide which convictions you will pursue because it takes a very long time to develop them."


    "The generally accepted guidelines for convictions are that you want them to be broad and far reaching. Being specific does not give them strength and just makes them harder to actualize. However, they must be specific enough to follow and enact. Your own convictions must be clear to you. You will want to develop three of them that are synergistic. Making sure they do not interfere with each-other, ever, is important but on top of that you want some overlap. Too much overlap and they will merge together though, so be aware."


    "Some examples include Peace, Love, Protection. Alternatively, Lethal, Efficient, Powerful. They do not need to have anything to do with fighting either if you are a pacifist. You do however, need to be careful with what you are targeting. While the word you use is not overly important, the intention matters. Are you aiming for peace or pacifism? What are the implications of both? Is it possible to fight in the name of Peace? Is it possible to kill in the name of protection? Your ideals are what define the conviction here."


    "We will talk more about the subtleties of creating them later on but now I want to talk about how they can be used to try and influence you so you can start thinking about them as soon as possible."


    "The largest benefit is that when you actualize your convictions, your soul becomes much more aligned and therefore stronger. This helps in just about everything you do. Your will power is stronger, you are more in control of your body, your mind and you may even gain stats though, often the power gained is not represented on your status screens."


    "What does this mean? All you need to do is embody them. If you have the convictions to be Lethal, when you are fighting you will be stronger if you embody that. You can still be merciful in certain situations but your soul will be unaligned in doing so and you may even find yourself weaker than normal."


    "There is risk however. If you were to completely divert from your conviction, defy it in many significant and important moments or, if you were to fill yourself with experiences that were antithetical to the conviction, you would risk shattering your soul. While this is extraordinary and rarely ever happens, you should be aware of it. Were you to change as a person, you should spend time to remove the conviction carefully before living out too much of your life with your revised stance."


    Felix actually raised his hand for the first time in any class, completely against his nature but he couldn''t resist in this moment.


    The professor immediately noticed him, "Felix?"


    "I had heard your soul shatters immediately if you deviate at all?"


    "No. That is only the case for imposed convictions which are¡­ Not something you have to fear unless you dive very far into Soulbinding and wished to restrict the actions of your creations."


    Felix nodded and sat down.


    Grim addressed Felix before he had the chance, Sorry-


    Felix mentally shrugged, Not like that misconception changed anything for me. It is good to know for the future though. Relieving too.


    Felix could tell Grim was grappling with having been fed misinformation and was processing so he left him be and returned his attention to the lecture.


    She spoke on convictions for another half hour or so before diving into basic cultivation techniques. The majority of the lecture was not applicable to Felix given reaping was more efficient but he vaguely listened anyways as he continued to grow the computer in his main Soul Space.


    As they walked out of the class, the first through the door due to their seat''s proximity to it, Felix turned to Melody, "I know it was just the first day but how did you do that suggestion thing?"


    "That''s Soul Manipulation, we''ll get to it. I was just kind of¡­ born with a talent for that¡­ and Soul Reading."


    "I take it that''s more about knowing if people are lying?"


    "That and knowing their intentions. It used to be impossible for my dad to lie to me. Just white lie stuff at first like stories. It became harder when he had to go away and couldn''t lie to me as to why. He''d be upset and I''d know it, then when I asked him about it he had to just avoid answering."


    "Does this have anything to do with¡­ You''re a bard right? Does it help?"


    Melody nodded, "Yeah. It helps but it''s¡­ a specific kind of bard."


    "Is that why you became a bard?"


    Melody sighed, "Kind of. My mom is a bard too and she wanted me to be one, hence my name, just got lucky I was born like this I guess¡­"


    "I think this was a good recommendation of class to take either way, so thank you for that."


    Melody shrugged, "No problem. You have tomorrow off, right?"


    Before Felix could answer, she cut him off as she had already seen his schedule and the question was rhetorical, "I''ll meet you at your dorm and we''ll go walk through the Shadow Market."


    Felix was wise enough to know she''d insist and curious enough not to bother refusing so he just nodded, "Ok. See you then."


    Melody smiled and waved then flew off into the distance as Felix headed back to his dorm where he spent the night reading through Soul-Binder textbooks he had memorized and fantasizing about the future. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 Chapter 201 - Book 3

    Felix was interrupted from the initial designs of something, he had been thinking about creating ever since his conversation with Ked, by a knock on his dorm room door. He was expecting her though so the knock shouldn''t have surprised him but he didn''t actually realize what time it was so, it did.


    Melody smiled and waved as he opened the door, wearing a completely new outfit, pants and a loose shirt which was still new to Felix. Even paying a modicum of attention to his fellow students Felix didn''t really notice anyone else changing their outfits other than Melody.


    "You ready to go?" She turned to make room for Felix to leave the room.


    Felix walked out, making sure to close the door behind him then walked alongside Melody as they left.


    "Where''s your familiar?"


    Felix shrugged, "I don''t know, wandering?"


    "Oh." Melody shrugged as she jumped down the middle of the spiral staircase to follow Felix.


    "So what''s the Shadow Market?"


    "It''s¡­ Ok I lied a little bit, nobody calls it that anymore." Melody looked at him guiltily, "Basically it''s a student run market on the planet. It used to be hidden from the professors and the school because there was a ban on selling anything here but the ban was lifted a while ago and even the professors shop there now."


    "Why was that banned in the first place?"


    Melody sighed, "Used to be a problem. People were selling their creations at the forge, constructs, enchantments all of which was fine. They were also selling contraband, using the planet and its¡­ peculiarities to smuggle things, fence products and so on."


    "That isn''t an issue anymore?"


    "Nope. The planet takes care of most of it now plus the professors all visit the market often. It isn''t a perfect system but it''s better than most places."


    Felix nodded, "Alright, where is it?"


    Melody pointed off into the distance, "A cave system in the mountains way over there. We''ll take a portal though."


    Heading over to the portal room, Felix was surprised to see the portal already open and even more surprised when Melody simply walked through it.


    She noticed his confusion as he followed her, "Most people have today off, the schedules are designed around having at least one of the 5th or 10th off, ideally both. The market is a common destination on people''s day off so the portal is left open at certain times." S§×arch* The ¦Çov§×lFire .net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    Felix nodded in thanks as she explained and he took in his surroundings.


    While it was a cave system, the market wasn''t as cramped as it sounded. The shops themselves were carved into the sides of the cave they arrived in so they weren''t stands that took up any of the precious walking space. Some of the carved out shops were empty, just stone shaped like a shop but, most of them were occupied.


    The shops weren''t perfectly laid out and most of them didn''t have enough products to fill all the shelves. The signs were makeshift at best and there weren''t any posters, mirrors or signs within the shops either. They were all completely uniform in material too making it painfully obvious how temporary they were but, despite all of that, they were fascinating to Felix.


    Some of the shops had been completely transformed into fully functional restaurants, bakeries and massage parlors all of which broke up the various temporary and mundane shops. There were shops selling what were obviously student creations but others that seemed to be selling common items and materials simply for convenience sake.


    Many of the businesses seemed to just have items for display purposes and instead of selling them, used them to advertise their work so people would commission them.


    Following Melody through the cave lit by various enchanted lights and the colors of the makeshift storefront signs, they ended up in a few clothes stores and many bakeries and dessert parlors.


    Even more often than during Group Combat classes, Melody and, to a lesser extent, Felix were approached by various individuals looking to ingratiate themselves with her. Felix largely ignored them when possible, brushing them off when they were more insistent. Melody on the other hand, now that she wasn''t locked into a seat, seemed to be a master of vanishing from people she didn''t want to interact with.


    People would approach her, mostly men, and she would simply twist and turn through a specific shop, ask them for something or distract them before completely vanishing. Felix, as an outside observer and not the target of the deception, was able to see everything and actually found it rather amusing when she hid herself in plain sight or tricked them.


    Continuing down the lineup of shops, a lot of which were more full than he expected, Felix actually asked Melody about them, "Why do some of these shops have so many products? Is everyone just carrying products with them when they come to school?"


    Melody shook her head as she bought more pastries, likely the hundredth she had bought in the last hour, "No. A lot of them are Adept run shops who already attended the school. Some bring products to sell with them but the shop wont migrate over to our cycle for another epoch or so. Then the current students will start to push the Adepts out over time."


    Felix nodded, "How many are there?"


    "I don''t know, 500 of these normal shops maybe?"


    Before he could ask what a non normal shop was, Felix spotted something at the end of the cave they had been following. He didn''t need to point it out as there weren''t any other interesting shops along the way so that was the next logical stop anyways.


    Stepping out of the long and narrows cave market, they descended a series of stone stairs into a massive open cavern that was segmented into shops with much larger goods. Some contained massive machines and others contained various pieces of furniture.


    The most interesting shop, the one that stood out and the one that they headed towards first though, was a vehicle store.


    Felix had ridden in the Shade''s Wrath larger vehicle, Edemari''s boat like vehicle and Krinitors sleeker more bike like vehicle. He had also seen various vehicles flying through Telviras.


    Despite all of that, these were the nicest vehicles he had ever seen.


    He felt like he had walked into a supercar show room with each vehicle spaced out liberally from the next and lit from all around with strategic lighting. Each one of them looked sleek and elegant but above all else, fast. It was in large part due to their more aerodynamic shape when compared to all the others Felix had seen.


    An aerodynamic shape wasn''t even necessary because it was relatively cheap to fake aerodynamics with enchantments, even Felix could do it with his rudimentary enchanting ability. The shape still gave it an impressive look though and had the effect of making him feel like they were fast.


    Looking over an impressive looking red car with two seats that was shaped like an arrow, Felix circled around the vehicle both admiring it with his eyes and examining it with his mana senses.


    Melody was less interested in the vehicles but she was interested in the fact that Felix was finally interested in something. She watched and followed along with a smile as he wandered around inspecting the vehicles.


    "Good morning to the both of you." A smarmy looking human Adept wearing fitted robes approached the two of them.


    [B] Tanryel (Lvl ?)


    His posture gave Felix pause as he looked like he was trying to advertise his superiority.


    Bowing slightly in Melody''s direction, "Melody, pleasure to see you again."


    Her brow furrowed, "You run a slicer dealership, Tan?"


    Tanryel shrugged, "Just a little money on the side sis."


    "Half. Half-sister." Melody glared at him.


    He just nodded in dismissal, "Well Felix, it is a pleasure to finally meet you. I''ve already heard of you, though that isn''t necessarily the way I would have liked to get to know you."


    Felix fought back the frown and just nodded, his smile evidently fake.


    "Are you interested in purchasing one of these fine sky-slicers?"


    Felix shook his head, "Just looking. Not sure I could afford one anyways."


    Tan nodded, "Would you like to see the price just in case?"


    Felix shrugged, "Sure, why not."


    Tan smiled and handed him a piece of parchment.


    Felix almost guffawed but just barely managed to contain it as he read the number. He collected himself then nodded, "Definitely not."


    Tan nodded in a dismissing way then turned to Melody, clearly not interested in Felix anymore, "Melody, why haven''t you been training with your brother?"


    Melody sighed, "Leave me alone."


    "You''ve heard the rumors Melody. Even if just one of them proves true¡­ things are changing."


    "My oh my Tan, you haven''t lost even a touch of your eloquence. ''Things are changing'', how well put, succinct."


    Tan didn''t seem impressed but hid it well, "War is coming Melody and with the integration happening, we will likely be at the forefront of it. We need to prioritize who we spend our time with. Come home, join us for training tomorrow."


    Melody chuckled, "No. You know how baseless those rumors are, Rhonan is fine as he always is. He''s just out on a hunt or something."


    "What about Sage Khidell being demoted to Grand Master? What about the movement of the Dragons? You know first hand that Edras is more active than usual. Then there are the rumors about what happened in Telviras."


    Melody sighed, "Look, if it''s all true then it''s not a war at all. It''s the end." She stared wide eyed at Tanryel, clearly overdramatizing the situation.


    "All the more reason to come home."


    Melody faced Tan directly and, for the first time since Felix had met her, actually looked serious, "All those battles we may be able to sway, won''t matter. All that''s gonna matter is how many gods each side has and which ones you''re hiding behind."


    Tan seemed more sad than anything, "Melody, how can you of all people say that? Doubt your impact? You more than anyone should realize how much of an impact you can have, even on the gods."


    "Tan, no. Leave me alone. Oh and fuck off with trying to dictate who I spend my time with. Whether or not I spend time with Felix, I sure as shit ain''t going home any time soon."


    "Melody, father ins-"


    "I don''t care what father thinks. Tell him whatever you want. Tell him I said he can fuck himself. Tell him I joined Edras. I don''t care." Melody looked like she might spit in Tan''s face for a moment but instead she just turned and left.


    Felix had already examined most of the vehicles in the shop so he turned to follow her but a hand on his shoulder stopped him.


    "Look kid, I don''t know who you are which means, you can''t keep spending time around Melody. She''s too important to be wasting her time on pets."


    Felix snorted, unsure if Tan was being entirely serious, "I''m sorry? Did you just call me a pet?"


    Tan sneered a little, "Melody always did have a penchant for picking up strays and taking care of them. It''s a remarkable quality, especially for a bard, wanting to protect others and care for things. Now isn''t the time though and she can''t see that so I need to help her see it."


    "She made it abundantly clear you don''t have any say in her life. Now let go of me."


    Tan''s grip tightened a little, "Maybe not but defying our father is not a smart move. She may not be punished for it but you might be. Do you really want to be on his bad side?"


    Felix sighed, "I don''t know who your father is and right now, I don''t really care."


    Tan actually bent over laughing at that, his grip unwavering as he recovered, "That makes a good deal more sense then. All is forgiven, our father is Kjarne."


    Felix just looked at him with a blank expression, Tanryel clearly expecting more of a reaction from him.


    Tan''s brow furrowed, "The Shifter god? Archon and sire to the most gods and demi-gods in the multiverse?"


    Felix shrugged and looked at Tanryel completely blanky, "Ok. cool."


    Melody''s story about knowing when her father was lying as a kid is a lot more impressive with context. Also, now it makes sense how her brothers are all very different races, he''s a shifter god.


    Tan sighed, "Look, just leave her alone. Stop hanging out with her and I''ll keep our father out of it."


    While Felix didn''t want to anger a god, he couldn''t help but push back against Tan, not even because he was an arrogant, self righteous ass, but because he refused to be told what to do, "Nah."


    Tan gritted his teeth but was careful not to tighten his grip, lest the planet retaliate and protect Felix which he was kind of hoping to see, "Alright, I challenge you to a duel."


    Felix squinted a little, trying to wrap his head around what Tanryel had just said, "You what? You challenge me to a duel?"


    "You heard me."


    "No?" Felix almost laughed but he was still recovering from the shock.


    "What, are you afraid?"


    "I have no reason to duel you. I get nothing out of this. No." Felix pulled his shoulder free and started walking away.


    "Make a demand if you win then."


    Felix just kept walking, lightly shaking his head.


    "I''ll give you any slicer in my shop, how about that?"


    Felix stopped and spun around, "Really?"


    Tan smiled as he knew he had him, "Yes. Pick one."


    "Is this a one on one duel? Solo combat?"


    Tan scoffed, "No that wouldn''t be remotely fair. It''s a Caster''s Duel."


    Felix''s eyes went wide at that, "A Caster''s Duel?"


    "Yes. If I win, you are banned from spending any more than 1 hour a week outside of your classes with Melody. Furthermore, you are banned from sitting within 10 seats of her in any classes you share. For¡­ 5 epochs."


    "And if I win I get any of these?" Felix gestured to the flying vehicles around him.


    "Of course. You can pick it right now and I''ll hold it for you if you''d like."


    Felix knew he should be asking what the hell a Caster''s Duel was but just from the name alone he was interested. Instead, he baited Tanryel a little into giving him more information by asking a question he already knew the answer to.


    "We do this here and now?"


    Tan scoffed, "No, of course not. In the Caster''s Dueling court outside of the A-SAM building on campus. Say, one term from now? Or rather, four and a half dekads from now, on the tenth day. You have the tenth off?"


    Felix nodded, "I do."


    "Are we agreed then?"


    "One more thing. If I win, you aren''t allowed talking to or about Melody to anyone. For the same time period. Including your father."


    Tan frowned, "She''s my sister."


    "So?"


    Tan shook his head, dismissing the possibility, "Fine. It''s a deal."


    Official Caster''s Duel


    A contract between Tanryel and Felix Kade.


    You have accepted an official Caster''s Duel from Tanryel. As the terms were agreed upon by both parties, they will be enforced by The System.


    Felix Kade Wins:


    Felix Kade receives a vehicle of his choice from Tanryel.


    Tanryel is banned from communicating with or about Melody to anyone for 5 epochs.


    Tanryel Wins:


    Felix Kade is banned from spending more than an hour per day, outside of class time, with Melody for 5 epochs.


    Felix Kade is banned from sitting within a 10 seat radius of Melody in any classes they share for 5 epochs.


    Tanryel grinned and Felix couldn''t help but smile as he looked around at the vehicles around him. Ultimately, he settled on a vehicle that was almost entirely matte black with two seats. Its body was thicker than most of the other vehicles and despite it''s rounded shape was almost boxy in silhouette. He chose it though, partly because it looked awesome and he liked the color, but mostly because he could feel it had by far the most mana in its batteries.


    "This one."


    Tan''s eye twitched then he shrugged like it didn''t matter, "Sure. I''ll hold it for you until I win the duel."


    Felix shrugged, mirroring Tanryel as he walked out of the shop''s area, finding Melody standing around a pillar just outside, clearly in auditory range.


    Melody placed her hand over her heart as Felix walked over, "Two men dueling over my honor, oh how romantic."


    "I''m dueling because he just offered me a vehicle that costs somewhere in the neighborhood of S5s and a Caster''s Duel sounds interesting. Plus if I lose, the consequences are meaningless anyways. And he''s your brother. And I don''t think he''s dueling for your h-"


    Melody mocked him, "Excuse me. How could you? You would jeopardize our blossoming friendship? Who knows where it could lead down the road?"


    Felix shrugged, "Oh well."


    Melody spun around and giggled as they walked towards the next shop, "You really do need to at least learn what a Caster''s Duel actually is."


    "Well yeah duh. I need to find out what the hell A-SAM is too. Got any other sage advice?"


    Melody smiled, "No but, I can introduce you to someone who will teach you, if you''d like."


    Felix nodded, "Actually, yes. That would save me a lot of time."


    Melody winked at him then skipped once into the air and flew towards the narrow market tunnel they had come from. Felix wasn''t sure if she wanted him to follow her but a few moments later, he decided to anyways.


    He almost lost track of her a few times as she danced through the air just to tease him and make it more difficult but ultimately, he found her leaning up against the door of a shop.


    As soon as he spotted her, she slipped inside and Felix dropped to the ground to follow her into some kind of enchantment commission shop.


    "Ayred." Melody nodded to the student proprietor of the shop.


    [C] Ayred (Lvl 1104)


    "Melody, good to see you again. What can I do for you?"


    "A favor."


    He cocked a brow, "You need a favor? From me?"


    "I do." Turning around, "This is Felix. Felix, Ayred."


    Felix nodded politely and Ayred returned the gesture.


    "Felix just agreed to a Caster''s Duel against Tanny."


    Ayred looked at Felix then at Melody, then back to Felix once more before he looked at Melody, "For¡­ what stakes? Why?"


    "My heart." Melody dramatically tilted her head into the sky and placed her hand over her forehead and heart.


    Felix sighed, "I win one of his¡­ slicers? If I win."


    Ayred''s eyes went wide, "Really? What if you lose?"


    "I am banned from all things Melody for 5 epochs."


    Ayred winced, "You agreed to that?"


    Felix shrugged, "Sure, why not?"


    "Cause you have no chance of winning, that''s why. Also, it''s kind of rude to bet your friendship isn''t it?" Ayred crossed his arms confidently.


    "What do you mean I have no chance?"


    "If she''s asking for a favor it''s cause you need training and from the way you''re talking, you''ve never even heard of a Caster''s Duel before this."


    Felix shrugged, "Yeah, so?"


    Ayred bent over the counter and put his head in his palms, "Alright. You should probably try and find out how good people are before you do something like this in the future, yeah?"


    Felix didn''t bother acknowledging the statement as it was obvious, he just didn''t care, "How good is he?"


    "He''s the reigning champion at the school and did it professionally outside of school. He''s undefeated by anyone below the A grade." Ayred smiled in a very defeatist way.


    And he said one on one combat wouldn''t be ''remotely fair.'' How the hell does he think this is fair?


    Felix shrugged nonchalantly, "That all sounds impressive but¡­ I still don''t know what a Caster''s Duel is. I have no frame of reference."


    "How about we get lunch and discuss?" Melody clapped her hands and looked between them.


    They both shrugged and followed her out of the shop and over to one of the Adept run restaurants. She slid onto one of the benches, Ayred on the other so Felix joined Melody on her side as it would be easier to talk to Ayred. As soon as he sat next to her and Melody lifted her feet into his lap, Felix realized she had either Soul Manipulated or just planned the seating that way.


    The restaurant itself was the most decorated interior of any of the shops in the Cave Market that Felix could remember. The food itself, looking at the menu, was odd to say the least but Melody just slapped the menu out of his hand after a few seconds and ordered for the whole table, Ayred didn''t seem to mind at all.


    Looking up at Felix, Ayred sighed and rubbed his eyes.


    Melody gestured at their surroundings with a sour face, "Hey, it''s a little loud in here, Felix could you cast that Force Bubble thing you did in the Group Combat trial around us?"


    Felix complied casting a thin Force Bubble just around their table that he would take down once the food arrived. He made sure to make it as dense as possible and to have it target the air alone so it would silence the sound waves. He took a few seconds to make the modifications then cast the spell.


    Instantly, the ruckus of the shops outside and the restaurant inside vanished, leaving them in almost perfect silence.


    She smiled knowingly though Felix wasn''t sure why until Ayred leaned forwards, "How did you just do that?"


    Felix wasn''t sure what to say, "I just cast a Force Half-Sphere around us? It''s not really a complicated spell at all¡­"


    Ayred shook his head, "Your mouth was closed the entire time, your hands were still and you don''t have a wand, staff, orb or other focus on you at all. There was no indication of that spell being cast¡­ at all."


    Felix just looked at him, "Oh uh¡­"


    Fucking Melody¡­


    Ayred inspected Felix anew, "Can you do that with all spells?"


    Felix sighed, "Yes."


    "Hey Felix, can you also cool it down in here a little? It''s a little too warm, don''t you think?"


    Felix turned his head towards her, completely unimpressed, "Shut up you. If you want to reveal something just say it."


    She smiled wide, happy Felix had caught on and, based on Ayred''s expression, he hadn''t yet.


    "He can also cast lots of spells at once and very quickly." Melody turned to Ayred, "He also seems to have a cast range."


    "A what now? Also, how many at once?" Ayred looked at each of them in turn.


    Since it seemed like Melody was done answering, Felix sighed, "At once, it depends on the complexity of the spell. Cast range? I can cast spells from up to¡­ actually, I''m not entirely sure because I haven''t measured it in a while but something like¡­ 12 meters away from myself?"


    Ayred''s brow furrowed slightly then he pulled out a wand from his inventory and very carefully handed it to Felix.


    [C - Epic] Ayred''s Caster''s Dueling Wand


    [Wand]


    A wand with all the necessary spells for Caster''s Dueling embedded within it. This wand has been optimized for Ayred''s personal Caster''s Dueling spells and stat preferences.


    "This is my personal Caster''s Dueling wand, made this one myself." Ayred shared his identification with Felix which had even more information.


    [C - Epic] Ayred''s Caster''s Dueling Wand


    [Wand]


    A wand with all the necessary spells for Caster''s Dueling embedded within it. This wand has been optimized for Caster''s Dueling and Ayred''s stat preferences.


    Cast Speed +50%


    Mana Discharge Rate +200%


    Spell Power +100%


    Concurrent Casts: 3


    I need a new ring or something for better identifications.


    Felix was mostly just thinking to himself but Grim actually responded, Does Identify Arcane Component work on something like this?


    That''s¡­ a good question. It says component but¡­ I should be able to modify it, eventually at least.


    Using the skill, he got the same information Ayred had offered him plus some more information that was a little more specific to Felix''s capabilities.


    [C - Epic] Ayred''s Caster''s Dueling Wand


    [Wand]


    A wand with all the necessary spells for Caster''s Dueling embedded within it. This wand has been optimized for Caster''s Dueling and Ayred''s stat preferences.


    Cast Speed +50%


    Mana Discharge Rate +200%


    Spell Power +100%


    Concurrent Casts: 3


    Spell Stability: 73%


    Mana Turbulence: 11%


    Attunement Efficiency: 64%


    Mana Power Scaling Factor: -2


    Mana Instability Sensitivity: 4%


    Added Mana Instability: 12%


    Energy Level Conversion Rate: 71%


    Ding You have become more proficient with the Profession skill: [Arcane] Identify Arcane Component (Initiate V => Initiate XVI)


    That was some of the easiest proficiency I have ever gained.


    He quickly verified that the skill description had modified to include items then mentally rejoined the conversation.


    [Identify Arcane Component (Arcane - Initiate V) This skill allows the user to identify any spell, enchantment, ritual or ward component as well as arcane item properties. The provided information includes efficiency curves, power, attunements, input and output requirements along with feedback and interference generated.]


    Noticing Felix was aware of his surroundings again, Ayred nodded to him, "We can either get you a wand like this one though¡­ it may take a while to get the right materials and actually finish it or, if you have any spare spell slots¡­?"


    Felix nodded, "I have many spare spell slots. You have the diagrams on you?"


    "Not on me. I''ll get them for you when we go back. If you have time after this, I''ll lead you to the Caster''s Dueling court and show you around A-SAM. Then I''ll take you to the less official room which you will not tell anyone about, got it?"


    "Of course. Thank you. So¡­ what is a Caster''s Duel?"


    Ayred smiled a little as he realized he hadn''t actually explained it yet, "It''s a simple battle of spell casting. The spells we use are specially designed such that they cannot actually do any damage to you, not really. They do however, counter themselves. Think of them as fancy light shows."


    Felix nodded slowly in partial understanding, he understood the words but wasn''t sure he was following.


    Ayred sighed, "You get defenses and attacks. The spells are designed to have a base mana cost so your mana pool is a concern here. On top of that, speed is everything, reflexes and casting speed mostly. You fight in a large ring so you can jump around, fly whatever you want but your casting speed matters most. Any spell that affects your opponent other than the preapproved ones are banned and an automatic disqualification. Otherwise, you can do whatever you want, buff yourself, throw yourself around, whatever. Oh and no shields other than the ones provided."


    "I still don''t get what the spells are. You said light shows?"


    Ayred flicked his chin in Felix''s direction, gesturing towards the wand, "Cast any of the spells in the wand. None of them are harmful in any way."


    The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.


    Felix looked down and shrugged then pointed the wand at the table and carefully pushed mana into it. He had never actually used a wand like this before so he had no idea how to choose which spell he was casting. Ideally he would have cast a shield but instead, after pushing around 10,000 mana into the wand, a streak of dark blue shot out of the tip and smacked the table, wisping away a second later.


    Where he had expected light or a laser of some kind, the bolt instead looked like he was firing some kind of colored smoke or particles. It was solid and flew through the air far too quickly to not have significant mass of its own but the way it floated through the air was odd. It also made a noise as it hit the table, as if he had actually hit it with something, but it was gone a second later, like a gas that had dissipated so he couldn''t be sure. He also picked up a strong concentration of mana in the bolt itself so he wasn''t exactly sure what it was.


    On the table, there was no mark or sign of the impact at all.


    "Basically you have different colored bolts and shields¡­ mostly. A red shield blocks red bolts, blue blocks blue and so on. Simple enough but, it gets really complicated when you start to combine colors. You can fire a bolt that is both red and blue at the same time, however, it costs you three times as much mana."


    "I see. So you need to correctly identify the bolt and block it with the appropriate shield?"


    "Yes or, in your duel, Tanryel will likely end up just reacting to what you do and when in doubt, relying on his mana. He will bank on your mana pool being much lower than his and his reaction speed being much better than yours. He may or may not just use an omni-shield to remove all your options."


    He''s in for a big surprise if he thinks he has more mana than I do. I''m almost certain my mana pool is much larger than even his.


    "What''s the counter to that? Just wait it out?" Felix was mostly just curious.


    "Exactly. It''s expensive to maintain. Thing is, he''s at the end of the B grade so, outlasting you isn''t the issue. It''s you outlasting him that''s the issue. He is so much faster than you that he can probably just run at you."


    "Can''t I just maintain an omni-shield of my own?"


    "You could. Assuming you had even 10 times his mana pool by some miracle, he could just wait it out easily by dodging everything you throw at him with his ridiculous speed. Omni-shields drain your mana super fast and agility is probably his second highest stat."


    "This is where you tell me that there are attacks other than just single target bolts?"


    "Exactly. Your best bet is large area of effect spells to beat out his speed. Thing is, it costs a lot of mana. So you won''t get more than one or two of them off, maybe a few more if you had stupid amounts of mana on hand. No batteries either."


    Felix dropped the shield so the food could be placed on the table. The food definitely wasn''t what he was expecting but, it was so much better. The student server placed an entire animal on their table. It was suspended by a spit over a large platter and already cooked. Each of them were given a fork that looked more like a tiny one handed trident and the intention was clearly to eat right off the animal.


    Though Felix didn''t recognize the animal, it looked a lot like a four legged duck with a hippo like body. Its off-putting appearance was completely washed away by the decadent smell, for Felix at least.


    The only issue with the animal was that it made it a little hard to talk through it, completely blocking his vision of Ayred on the other side. Melody had already planned for that though and tapped at the table, raising the spit up above their heads.


    It was high enough that it wasn''t blocking their vision but it was accessible if he just reached up to access it. Melody didn''t bother though and she floated herself up into the air, sitting on nothing as she devoured the back end of the animal, like a ravenous magical fairy.


    Felix handed the wand back before he forgot and Ayred nodded as he took it then dug into the animal. Felix joined him and moaned as soon as he tasted the first bite. Melody made some dirty comment, judging from her lips, but Felix predicted she would do that and silenced her with a Force Bubble.


    He replaced the bubble around them as well, though it was trapping the smoke and some of the heat for now. He figured he would vent it later if need be.


    "Alright so how do I beat him?" Felix asked through bites.


    Ayred shook his head and shrugged, "I don''t know. I''ll show you the basics and even spar with you but, that''s up to you."


    "I appreciate your help."


    He shrugged and chuckled a little, "Let''s just say I owe Melody. I''m happy to help. Also, fuck Tan."


    Felix almost spat his food out but when he saw Melody nodding along in agreement, shook his head, "Is this normal by the way? Challenging people to a duel- or rather a Caster''s Duel to settle things?"


    Ayred quickly swallowed then scowled, "Oh, fuck no. Tan is just a Grakka''s arsehole of a person." He looked up towards the animal''s butt, "No offense Melody."


    She just giggled, "You aren''t wrong."


    "Yes, it is weird. Yes it is very cringey. Don''t do what he did. Challenge people to duels because you want to duel them. Better yet, don''t challenge anyone, ask like a normal person. Bet lunch or something. Don''t do it to get someone to do something you want, especially not someone who doesn''t actually know what they''re doing." He winced then looked at Felix, "No offense."


    He waved him off and Ayred sighed, "Tan is just completely socially inept so this is how he deals with things. Melody probably ate the social side of his soul in their dad''s sack or something. That''s why she''s so lovely in comparison." He grinned at Felix knowing Melody couldn''t see him.


    She tried to look mad, Felix could tell out of the corner of his eye but she failed to hold back a laugh and snorted instead.


    "Not sure about lovely¡­ I''ll give you¡­ ept? Not socially inept but not quite adept." Felix smiled knowing it would bug Melody.


    Melody kicked Felix as she guffawed with a mouth full of food, "Wha are oo on abou''. I''m the ''wueen o'' bein erfetly ''ordial. Eryone ''ants to be ''round me."


    "All I gotta do is lose this bet and The System will keep her far away." Felix nodded seriously to Ayred as he thumbed over in Melody''s direction.


    "I must commend your planning and foresight in that case then." Ayred smiled and winked, "By the way, which slicer did you choose?"


    Felix shrugged, "A black one. I just picked the one with the biggest batteries."


    Melody called out from behind the anima, "He picked Erevos."


    Ayred spit his food out before quickly apologizing and cleaning up, "You picked Erevos? Really?"


    Felix looked at Melody then Ayred, "I¡­ It has a name? Do they all have names?"


    "Yup." Ayred nodded, "Erevos is¡­ special? Unique is the right word."


    "He doesn''t actually own any of those vehicles." Melody chimed in from her perch in midair, "He works for a dealership and sells them here while he''s still an Adept."


    "So I won''t get the vehicle when I win? It isn''t his to sell? That''s what you''re saying?"


    "No. You''ll get it, The System will enforce that." Melody waved her trident utensil in the air, "He''s just gonna have to pay for it and he does not have that kind of creds."


    "What will happen to him then?"


    Ayred flicked his trident in Felix''s direction, "If you win, he''ll probably go running to Kjarne to bail him out."


    "Considering he won''t be able to mention me in any way he''ll probably have to admit he lost it in a duel he started for no particular reason. Our father is also second only to me at reading souls so he can''t lie either." Melody smirked.


    Wait a second¡­


    Felix sighed, "Melody¡­"


    "Yes Felix?"


    "How much of this did you engineer or influence or manipulate to happen?"


    Melody shrugged, "Not as much as you''d think. I didn''t think he''d challenge you to a duel, I just like making him mad. Once he did¡­ I may have influenced him to be more angry so he''d agree to your terms and I may have also influenced you to look at Erevos¡­ Also¡­ well it probably didn''t actually do anything."


    Felix frowned at her.


    "Look, remember when I said I influenced you in the library, when we first met, to decide your classes in the open? Turns out that may have been a lie, sort of."


    Felix''s scowl deepened.


    "I tried to manipulate your soul but I also employed some old fashion manipulation. Altering the vibe of the library, pointing you in certain directions.. with the help of the library. Considering how easily you resisted Professor Fen''s aura this morning, in hind sight, that level of soul manipulation probably didn''t work on you at all."


    "Oh¡­ so my decisions are my own?"


    "Yes. By ''manipulate you to look at Erevos'', I just mean I made it look more interesting¡­ think of it like I made a little sound in the ambient anima to draw your attention."


    That''s¡­ comforting actually.


    "You know¡­ I wasn''t sure if I should be angry with you for manipulating my soul. It felt like such a violation but you did it for such mundane reasons and mostly to help me¡­ I didn''t really know if I actually was angry. I didn''t feel anything but logically¡­ Guess I don''t need to worry about that now." Felix shrugged.


    "Well, that''s good to hear. I didn''t think¡­ didn''t think you''d see it as such a violation." Melody dropped back into her seat, "I''m sorry." She was being the most genuine Felix had ever seen her, he actually felt a little bad.


    "Oh don''t worry about it. Sounds like others don''t care right?" Felix looked at Ayred who shrugged indicating he at least didn''t care. "It''s probably not as big a deal as I think it is. I''ll have to wait for the lecture from Fen to understand it fully. Also¡­ if you''re powerless against me anyways¡­ it''s not like you were actually manipulating me, just¡­ guiding my attention? Influencing my decisions?"


    "Hold on. I just said that level of soul manipulation. I didn''t say I was powerless against you." Melody teased.


    "Let''s test it sometime, yeah?" Felix looked up at her.


    Melody shrugged, "Sure."


    Looking back at Ayred who was lightly smiling as he ate, evidently entertained by their bickering, Felix swallowed his food to clear his mouth, "So first steps. What do I need to do to have the best shot of winning."


    "Well you should get to C grade. How long will that take you."


    Felix shrugged, "A day or two maybe?"


    Ayred looked at him with a confused expression for a second then shrugged, "Ok yeah, definitely do that. That''s the best and realistically the only way for you to increase your agility quickly so after that it''ll mostly be training."


    Actually¡­ not the only way¡­ In fact, it might not help at all with my race.


    "Anything else?"


    He shrugged, "Just get as strong as possible. Armor doesn''t matter. Traditional rules, which are the default, are 5 points, win by two. Any hit is a point. Batteries are banned as always and most items are just a waste of mana in a duel so figure out what you want to wear. Don''t waste your time on items though, what matters most in the end is your casting speed and reflexes."


    "Alright, thank you."


    They sat and ate in silence for a few minutes then Felix turned to Melody, "So what are these rumors Tanryel was talking about?"


    She waved him off, "There are always rumors. We just hear about all of them because of our family''s¡­" She sneered, "Investment in the politics of the multiverse."


    "Still, these sounded like they might have serious implications."


    "Felix, they always do. Sometimes the rumors are started by some god to influence events other times people are just bored or misinterpret something. I wouldn''t worry about it too much." Melody turned back to the animal that had been mostly eviscerated at this point then thought better of it and fell back against the backrest.


    Felix wanted to push her on it more but she didn''t seem happy so he held himself back.


    After a few minutes, Melody sighed, "Ugh¡­ fine. Firstly, there''s a rumor than Rhonan is ill. Some say fatally ill others say he''s just injured."


    "Isn''t he a god? The god? How can he get sick and why can''t he just heal himself?"


    Melody nodded, "An excellent point¡­ Technically it''s not impossible. He''s had serious injuries before that have taken a while to heal and he in particular explores the unknown more than anyone. It''s completely possible he caught something we''ve never heard about."


    Felix nodded and Ayred followed along, seemingly just as interested in Felix in these rumors.


    "But, that one is almost definitely not true. On the other hand, the rumor that Edras is more active than usual lends the Rhonan rumor some weight. He''s been waiting for something like that to happen ever since he ascended. He probably is more active but the question is why. It could be that he''s just found some artifact or his research discovered something important. Doesn''t imply multiversal war is coming though."


    Felix nodded, "A Sage was demoted? How does that happen?"


    Ayred cocked a brow in interest and Melody nodded, "Sage Khidell- or I guess Grand Master Khidell now. He quickly rose to fame a few integrations ago when he became a Sage. Since then he''s been contracted by various gods for huge projects across the multiverse. That one isn''t really a rumor though. Tanryel doesn''t know it but I''ve¡­ talked to some people who know more than he does. This one is true."


    Felix looked to Melody then Ayred, "How does that happen, getting demoted?"


    Ayred jumped in, "The title of Sage just means they have one skill at Sage level proficiency. That level of proficiency just means ''one who is more proficient than everyone else'' at that skill. There''s also a baseline of knowledge, you have to be at least Grand Master and know a lot about the skill. You can''t just invent a skill and be the Sage of it because no one else has it."


    Melody spun her trident in her fingers, "There''s also Arch Sage but that''s a little more specialized. It means you''ve held the title of Sage for some period of time and you''re getting close to maximizing the proficiency. We don''t really know but the best estimations we have are that what The System knows and can do is 100%. If you get to 90% of that and you''re above everyone else, you reach Sage. If you reach 95% and hold the title for a few integrations without anyone else even approaching Sage, you reach Arch Sage."


    "It also lets you to basically gift the same skill to other people. You become the god of that skill and can choose who gets it." Ayred nodded along.


    Felix nodded, "Simple enough. What were they the Sage of?"


    Melody shrugged, "Mana Control."


    Oh shit. That would have been¡­ insane, if Khidell could have chosen who gets to keep the skill. Makes sense why everyone knew about him and wanted favors from him.


    "So uh¡­ what does that¡­ mean?" Felix looked to both of them while he tried his best not to give anything away, mostly to Melody through his soul.


    "Someone reached a higher proficiency than him." Ayred shrugged.


    "He''ll still be contracted for stuff, he''s still really good at what he does and no one knows who actually beat him so." Melody shrugged.


    "What about the Dragons?"


    Ayred chuckled a little, "They''ve been planning something ever since The Great Hunt. Not that we''ll ever know what it is until¡­ well, it happens."


    Melody nodded, "Yeah. That rumor is basically a bedtime story at this point. To be fair it''s gotten a little louder lately but¡­ who knows."


    "Rhonan probably." Ayred pointed his trident at Melody.


    "Probably." Melody shrugged.


    "The Great Hunt?" Felix looked at both of them.


    Melody immediately noticed Ayred''s confused expression and pointed her thumb at Felix, "Integrated."


    "Ahhhh, that¡­ makes a lot of sense."


    Melody nodded, "Basically-"


    "Wait, we should probably just go through all the big events, he''s not going to have any context otherwise." Ayred looked to Melody for confirmation.


    Melody nodded, "Sure. Alright, first integration lasts for almost a hundred thousand epochs. In it, the very first god, Rhonan, ascends."


    "Eramith was founded sometime between the second and 5th integrations." Ayred gestured to their surroundings.


    "The first Dragon evolved around the 6th integration?" Melody waved her hand indicating it was approximate.


    "I thought it was the 9th?" Ayred squinted.


    Melody shrugged, "Somewhere there. That''s when the Draco- and ''of the Dragon'' items and skills started to gain popularity."


    "The Archons established their alliance sometime between then and the 25th but it''s¡­ weird to pinpoint. They started as just a few gods with some ideals, Rhonan wasn''t a part of it. They slowly expanded but it wasn''t until they morphed themselves to accommodate and recruit Rhonan that they became more¡­ important." Ayred looked to Melody for confirmation and she nodded.


    "Then there was the Dracopurge which happened at the end of the 50th integration." Melody said a little more solemnly than Felix was used to from her, "Which led to The Great Hunt which spanned across the 50th and 51st integrations."


    "Dracopurge?" Felix''s brow furrowed, "Killing dragons?"


    Ayred shook his head, "No. That was The Great Hunt. The Dracopurge was a multiversal ban started by the Dragons, many of whom were gods, and other gods on using Dragon or Draco in an item or skill''s name. They even managed to convince The System to mass rename them by having the Dragons all support the cause."


    "They own the Dragon name¡­ kind of, so it abided." Melody nodded.


    "For whatever reason, historians debate how exactly it all happened but this started widespread discontent that led to two factions rising up. The ones that decided the Dragons weren''t as powerful as they tried to look and the others that revered them, worshipping their ever word and following their every whim." Ayred sighed.


    "So people hunted down people or Dragons?"


    Melody sighed as well, "Both. The two sides fought and at the same time, gods started to hunt down dragons for glory, to gain followers, to prove how strong they were and so on. This is where a lot of natural born dragons died as they were kidnapped to be pets, killed to make items and some trained to be subservient slaves."


    "This finally ended when Rhonan came to an agreement with Tekragoraxius, one of the Dragon gods. They joined the Archons and all Dragons were then under Rhonan''s protection." Ayred took another bite of the animal in front of him, clearly approaching his limit considering how much slower he was.


    "I watched a memory crystal of Rhonan fighting a Dragon though, was he part of the hunt before that?" Felix looked to both of them.


    Melody shook her head, "Ironically, no. He''s always looking for a challenge and the next thing to fight but he has a rule against hunting sentient-sapient creatures unless they aggress on him or he has to basically. That Dragon was so enraged by The Great Hunt, they insisted on killing off all the other sentient-sapient races or enslaving them under the Dragons. Rhonan killed them right after brokering the deal with Tekragoraxius and the whole thing just stopped right there. No one was willing to stand against Rhonan at that time."


    "After that, all the currency in the multiverse was normalized and converted to credits as The System took over in the 55th integration. A lot of banks just vanished or were converted, it was one of the most impactful changes The System has made. The fact that it had such negative consequences on top of all the positives made it a little weird too." Ayred scratched his head a little.


    "Because The System doesn''t usually make changes that are so impactful or negative on so many?" Felix looked to both of them for confirmation.


    They both nodded but Melody shook her head a little, "Unless it has to. Anyways¡­ Telviras was founded around the 50th integration and morphed into what it is now by the 75th ish. Edras ascended around the 120th or so and started his faction."


    "Then there was the skipped integration around the 150th, I think?" Ayred looked to Melody.


    "Yeah, something like that." Melody spun around again, placing her feet on Felix''s lap again.


    Felix nodded once to both of them in turn, "Wow, thanks. Last one, Tanryel mentioned a rumor about something happening in Telviras?"


    Ayred looked at Melody as he apparently hadn''t heard about this. She sighed, "Yeah, a sector was completely destroyed. Thing is, no one actually knows how, well, except Rhonan. He was called in, or rather his people, to deal with whatever it was. All the details are being closely guarded but¡­ rumors of magical experiments, attacks, spatial enchantments and so on have spread. The sector''s already been completely repaired and restored to what it was before. All that''s missing are the people that died, none of which have appeared in their respective afterlives."


    Wait¡­ it''s completely restored now? Also how did Rhonan''s people get rid of it? The sector was completely full of that stuff.


    "Woah, an entire sector? What size of sector are we talking?" Ayred''s eyes were wide.


    "100 kilometer square." Melody nodded solemnly.


    "Holy shit." Ayred dropped his trident and fell back against the back rest of the bench he was on, "Yeah not sure I think multiversal war is coming but, some of those are pretty significant."


    Melody sighed, "The rumors are always significant and it''s always the gods going to war and all that. What happened in Telviras was a tragedy but everything else is just day to day stuff."


    "Well, I appreciate the history lesson and your insights." Felix nodded to them both.


    "Those are just the big events. There were plenty of other wars, gods and all kinds of shit in between." Melody tapped her trident on the table.


    Felix looked to Ayred since Melody seemed to be a little down or annoyed for whatever reason, "How long are each of the integrations?"


    "First one was almost 100k epochs after that they get progressively shorter until they hit 10k epochs around the 20th or so. They sat at 10k epochs for 200 integrations then around the 220th to 225th they''ve started shortening again. The 255th only lasted for just over a thousand epochs." Ayred shrugged, "Don''t ask me why though. I doubt even Melody knows."


    She just shook her head to confirm she was equally unaware.


    "You both done eating?" Felix nodded to the animal carcass that wasn''t quite picked clean.


    They both nodded and so Felix finished it as quickly as possible then sat back on the seat. Checking his stomach, he knew he wasn''t full, in fact his stomach was completely empty as everything had been digested almost immediately. He had thought that was how everyone worked so he found it odd the two of them appeared to be full but he''d already asked them plenty so he left them be for now. It was also a question easily answered by a book.


    Seeing they were all done, a student walked over and took away the spit and carcass then another arrived with the bill.


    Felix offered to pay but Melody just laughed at him, "I make more in my per dekad allowance from my father than you''ve likely made in your entire life. Don''t worry about paying for anything with me, kay?"


    "Alright." Felix nodded and sat back, allowing her to pay.


    As they walked out of the restaurant and back into the street, Ayred had them stop by his shop for a minute so he could make sure it was closed with a quick command to the planet. Then, they headed back to the portal that was still open and walked back onto campus.


    "Alright you boys have fun Dueling. I''ll see you guys later." Melody waved to them then flew off into the air.


    Ayred watched her leave for a few seconds then turned back to Felix, "You can fly?"


    Felix nodded, "I can."


    "Great, follow me."


    Together they flew off, winding through the campus buildings over to a building that was separated from the campus by a few hundred kilometers on a field at the top of a cliff. The building itself was a large boxy and futuristic marble building with vertical slits that ran all the way up the building to reveal windows.


    All around the building, there were courts that reminded Felix of tennis courts along with large rings of marble set out on the grass. There were training dummies and piles of bricks along with outdoor seating areas that surrounded fire pits. Between everything, there were also multiple statues, all of which appeared to be mages, judging from the objects in their hands and their robes.


    Ayred gestured to everything, "Welcome to the official Association of Student and Adept Mages or A-SAM."


    Most of the exterior was empty, not a student or adept in sight using the courts or dummies.


    Walking inside, Felix found the inside was just as futuristic and cold as the outside. Off to the right, there was a room filled with display cases, all containing books. There were a few rooms containing sitting areas, eating areas and lounges then, at the end of the hall, there were stairs leading upwards.


    "Upstairs are the bedrooms but the only people who use those are Tanryel and the other Adepts who were kicked out of their dorms when they graduated."


    Felix nodded and walked over to the entrance of the display room, "What are the books?"


    "Spell books and journals from famous mages. Some copies but I think there are a few originals too. They''re considered property of the school but they let us keep them¡­ here now."


    Noticing his hesitation, "Here, now? Where were they before?"


    "We''ll talk about it later."


    Felix shrugged, "Can I read the books?"


    "Nope. A lot of the books are either encrypted or in code and many of them are locked by specific spells. Some are trapped to destroy their contents too so they''re kept locked away in cases. Tanryel is the current head of A-Sam and he keeps just keeps them all locked away."


    "Wait, he''s the head of A-Sam?"


    Ayred nodded, "Yup. Only reason he''s still on campus now. No one has taken his spot yet."


    "Are all Adepts that are still here the heads of¡­ groups?"


    "No no no, just some of them. Either you''re helping with the school and classes or you have responsibilities. Some are performing research and others are assisting or apprenticing to professors. You can''t just stick around because you want to though. Tanryel''s reason is this. He''s been here for 6 or 7 cycles now? So, he''s too old to help with classes."


    "How does someone take his spot?"


    Ayred chuckled, "I''ll give you a hint, he changed the rules when he became the head. Take a guess."


    "He chooses a successor or someone beats him in a Caster''s Duel?"


    "Spot on."


    Felix nodded, "I''ll have to see if I can add that to our duel parameters."


    Official Caster''s Duel


    Would you like to offer an adjustment to the duel contract such that if Felix Kade wins, Tanryel is ousted as head of The Association of Student and Adept Mages?


    Yes.


    No.


    Oh. Yes.


    Ayred looked at him with confusion but before he could explain, he got a response.


    Official Caster''s Duel


    Stipulations accepted.


    You have accepted an official Caster''s Duel from Tanryel. As the terms were agreed upon by both parties, they will be enforced by The System.


    Felix Kade Wins:


    Felix Kade receives a vehicle of his choice from Tanryel.


    Tanryel is banned from communicating with or about Melody to anyone for 5 epochs.


    Tanryel is ousted as the head of The Association of Student and Adept Mages.


    Tanryel Wins:


    Felix Kade is banned from spending more than an hour per day, outside of your classes, with Melody for 5 epochs.


    Felix Kade is banned from sitting within a 10 seat radius of Melody in any classes they share for 5 epochs.


    Felix Kade is banned from communicating in any way with all members of The Association of Student and Adept Mages, outside of classes, for 5 epochs.


    Do you accept the adjusted terms?


    Yes.


    No.


    Yes.


    "Alright, the contract has been adjusted." Felix shared it with Ayred to help explain.


    "Wait, did he just add this last line as the counter to ousting him?" Ayred''s brow furrowed as he read through the contract.


    Felix nodded, "The ''no communicating with A-Sam thing'', yeah."


    "Man he is so so full of himself. He thinks this is such a big deal because he thinks so highly of A-Sam."


    Felix shrugged, "Yeah, not sure I really mind that one. It might get a little annoying but I can just wait till class anyways."


    "Well, now that you''ve seen this, let me show you something else."


    Felix held up his hand, "Wait. Hold on. Can I get back in here without you?"


    "Not unless you join A-Sam, why?"


    Felix glanced over at the books, "Those. I want to read them."


    Ayred shrugged, "As do most of us. If you win you could try but like I said, most of them are locked or encrypted or in code."


    Walking right up to the first book display case, Felix looked down at the book and reached out with every sense he had, "Think the information in these might help with the duel?"


    "I don''t know but even if you did read and decrypt them, it likely wouldn''t be worth the time."


    Figuring out how to upgrade my Scan Literature skill just jumped up my todo list.


    "Fine. Let''s go."


    Ayred nodded then led him back out of the building. They flew off back over campus and deep into a massive forest where Ayred, seemingly at random, dove down and through the canopy.


    Felix followed, smashing through the leaves and branches and dropping to the forest floor in front of a large log house that looked like a massive cottage.


    "This, is the Unofficial Association of Student Mages or as we''d prefer, The Association of Rebel Mages, ARM."


    Ayred walked over to the front door but before he opened it, he turned to Felix, "Melody thinks you''re cool so I trust you, otherwise I wouldn''t bring you here. Seriously though, this place is a secret, yeah?"


    Felix nodded, "Of course."


    Ayred, satisfied, nodded then opened the door and led Felix into a much larger and cozier building. The entire layout was mostly open with each room on the ground floor missing at least one wall that would fully enclose them.


    Off to either side were sitting areas with couches and bookshelves along each wall, "Sitting rooms, the couches are super comfortable but the books are all fiction. There''s a shelf of smut in there filled entirely by Melody. I''ve never actually seen her read any of it though, I think it''s just there to mess with people so it''s particularly¡­ kinky? out there? Anyways, might want to avoid that."


    "This is the dining room though people kind of just eat everywhere. We just use it for the big tables if someone needs to study or something." The room in the back had multiple massive feast tables with dozens of chairs.


    Opposite the dining room, was a large empty room with a circle drawn into the floor, "This is the room we use for dueling mostly. Then upstairs there are bedrooms but they aren''t assigned to anyone, they''re just open for anyone who needs them. Just don''t forget to lock the door if you want privacy."


    Felix nodded, then addressed a question that had arisen in his mind during the tour, "I thought this was Arm, is Melody a member?"


    Ayred lifted his hands up and down like they were scales, "Bards are mages ish¡­ kind of, also we aren''t that stringent and I''m not sure we could keep her out if we wanted to. Pretty sure the planet would just let her back in."


    Felix shook his head in confusion, "What?"


    "Building access among almost everything else is managed by the planet right? Melody is¡­ friends? with it? I don''t really get it fully but she asks it for things and gets them. More than anyone else I''ve seen."


    "Huh."


    "Anyways. STRIG!" Ayred shouted into the building.


    A few seconds later, a small green individual jumped down from the top floor.


    [C] Strig (Lvl 1219)


    Felix couldn''t hold himself back, "You''re a goblin."


    "I''m a¡­ was a goblin."


    "I didn''t realize goblins could-"


    "Not be savage, evil little shits?" Strig shrugged, "Neither did I until I wasn''t one."


    "Strig here is pretty handy with Spell Formations. I''m more focused on magical items. He designed the spells that I put in my wand." Ayred gestured towards the goblin.


    Strig shrugged, "I don''t know about handy. Maybe, fucking fantastic or awe inspiring."


    Ayred chuckled, "Can you get your best versions of all the Caster''s Dueling spells for Felix?"


    Strig nodded, "You picking up dueling?"


    "He challenged Tan for head of the A-Sam." Ayred smirked.


    Strig guffawed then shook his head and scurried up the stairs.


    Felix turned to Ayred and followed him into the dining room, "Didn''t you guys just get here too? Why does it seem like this is so¡­ established?"


    "You know how I said Tan has been the head for 6 or 7 cycles? This place has existed for just about as long. Well, Arm has. This building isn''t a secret, it''s the old A-Sam building before Tan, as a student, decided it needed a revamp. It was supposed to be torn down and reabsorbed by the planet but some of the Adepts were still sleeping here. Before they all left, Arm was founded and the planet kept it around."


    "So the existence of Arm is a secret but the building isn''t?"


    "Yeah. Tan knows people hang out here still, he just doesn''t know we run a direct competitor Association out of it. If he knew Melody was a member too, he''d flip. Anyways, this place has existed for just as long and it along with Arm have been passed down from Adept to student each cycle, as it''s supposed to be."


    Felix nodded, "Who''s the head right now?"


    "Preleothus, everyone just calls him Leo though. He''s an adept from last cycle, you''ll see him around. He''ll choose his successor, a current student, at the end of the epoch and the cycle will continue."


    "What do the associations do?"


    "Nothing. We''re just friendly with and help each-other." Ayred shrugged.


    Strig jumped down over the railing again, his tiny robes fluttering around him as he landed next to their table then hopped up onto it. He dropped a book in front of Felix then sat down on the table and started picking his nose.


    The book was goblin sized but otherwise just looked like a normal book. Felix didn''t even bother touching it, mentally reviewing his scan in his Soul Garden at around 360 times speed. A few seconds passed where Ayred and Strig just looked at each-other in confusion then Felix nodded, "Do you have the base versions of the spells?"


    Strig just squinted at Felix, "You didn''t even open the book."


    "I read through it, scanned it. I don''t want to spend the time deciphering your spell work so, do you have the base versions of the spells?"


    Ayred shrugged then rose to this feet and walked over to one of the bookshelves in the sitting rooms at the front. He retrieved a book and walked it back to the table, placing it in front of Felix.


    Much better.


    While Felix was sure Strig''s modifications made for great spells, they also added a ton of complexity. For someone with a spell list, that didn''t matter. For Felix, that severely limited the number of concurrent spells he could cast as well as his cast speed. The book Ayred had placed contained spell forms that were as barebones and simple as it got.


    "I take it you scanned the book now. Ready to try out a practice duel?" Ayred smirked.


    "No, not really."


    Ayred laughed, "Come on I''ll just cast shields and bolts for you to test against."


    Following him into the ring, Felix walked over to the side opposite Ayred and was immediately struck by a red bolt right in the chest.


    His instincts kicked in for just a moment before he realized he had taken a grand total of a few points of damage and his robes were completely undamaged. It stung a little but only from the Force carrying the spell. He had also aimed directly at Felix''s chest and his coat wasn''t closed so the enchantment didn''t protect him. His natural endurance along with the natural armor of the robes though were more than enough to mitigate almost all of the damage. What did get through was so negligible he calmed down completely.


    "Sorry. Just wanted to make sure you wouldn''t be afraid to get hit. Need you to know the worst of what the spell will do." Ayred looked rather apologetic so Felix wasn''t angry at all.


    Felix nodded in understanding, assuring Ayred he understood and wasn''t mad.


    It''s a little weird to think that probably would have killed me when I was first integrated. Either blown a hole through me or completely crushed my chest. Now, it feels like I got hit by a weakly thrown tennis ball or something.


    "Alright, now that you aren''t afraid of getting hit, let''s experiment with the spells. I''ll cast a red shield, you hit me with a red bolt."


    A moment later, Ayred flicked his wand and surrounded himself with an semi opaque orb of red.


    Felix picked out the base spell form for a red bolt based on their labels in the book and constructed the spell form in front of him. Unfortunately, the spell form was complex enough to be about a level 4, almost 5 in complexity. He probably couldn''t cast more than 3 of them at once if he had to guess.


    After a few seconds of constructing the spell form, only taking so long because he had never cast it before, a streak of red smacked into Ayred''s shield, disappearing within a moment.


    "Ok now let''s duel but go really slow for a bit. No moving around to keep things simple and we''ll do it turn based. You''ll see why in a second. My turn first I''m casting a Blue Bolt."


    Felix nodded and cast a Blue Shield, completely surrounding himself in a blue orb that slightly obscured but mostly just tinted his vision. As the shield swirled, whatever was producing the blue pigment grew denser then lighter in turn, like zebra stripes. The denser sections were impossible to see through but they were sparse enough that it wasn''t a big deal.


    Ayred cast the bolt and it smacked against the shield, ineffectively turning to smoke and disappearing a second later. Felix noticed though, it didn''t entirely disappear and do nothing. The spell contained some amount of mana and that amount was integrated into his shield. The shield also used negligible amounts of his mana just to block the raw force.


    "Ok now I''m going to cast a Green Shield and a Red Bolt. Red Bolt passes through Green Shield so I won''t be blocking my own spell."


    Felix nodded and switched from a Blue Shield to a Red Shield then cast a Blue Bolt.


    Ayred''s bolt smacked into Felix''s Red Shield and did nothing but Felix''s Blue Bolt passed right through Ayred''s Green shield and smacked him in the chest.


    "That''s one point for you. I know it seems childish that we''re doing this but I''ll show you why right now. I''m going to cast a Red Shield."


    "Blue Bolt." Felix said.


    "Combine Blue Shield." Now Ayred''s shield immediately turned into a combination of a Blue and Red Shield. It wasn''t purple though, instead it swirled with patterns and stripes of each color never combining and always staying distinct from each-other.


    "Yellow Bolt."


    "Combine Yellow Shield." Yellow streaks swirled into the shield and mixed itself among the swirls of Blue and Red.


    Ayred stopped Felix before he could give another, "Now, this shield costs more than triple the mana of a single shield and at the same time, it limits my options. I can''t cast a Blue, Red or Yellow Bolt because my own shield will block them. My options are limited to Orange, Green, Cyan, or Purple. You know that so you could theoretically cast a combined shield of all of those."


    Felix nodded, "But then you could drop any of your shields and cast one of those bolts, right?"


    "Sort of. I have to drop it all at once now. No way to split out and get rid of only a single color."


    "I see. So there are mind games to some extent."


    "Yeah. You can also try to force your opponent into doing something you want them to do. Adding a color to a shield exponentially increases the mana cost so, you want to drop it and erect a singular color shield as fast as possible. I want you to try doing that now though, drop your shield and just summon a new one as fast as you can."


    Felix complied, dismissing the spell form for the shield as he cast the new shield at the same time. The shield didn''t immediately disappear though and as the new one formed almost instantly, they combined and the draw on his mana from having one shield up, instantly jumped. The shield that appeared around him too, was a combination of the shield he had tried to dismiss and the new one.


    Frowning, Felix dismissed the shield and waited for a fraction of a second then cast another shield which, combined again. He tried a few more times before he found it took just over a half second wait for a shield to be fully dismissed.


    "Ok so my goal then is to force you into a position where you have to combine multiple shield casts into one then keep you there by hitting you with a barrage of bolts." Felix nodded in understanding.


    "Yup. Those are the basics. From there, I want to completely dodge your bolts so I don''t need a shield but you can fall back on area of effect spells instead. There are also many quick swap techniques for shields which you can explore and Tan uses."


    "Quick Swap?"


    "Duelists have realized over time that if they use a burst of Force to blow away the remains of the first shield, the second can be cast slightly faster. There are other techniques as well like keeping the shield in a constant location then jumping through it to a new location."


    "Could I just increase the size of the shield? Layer them?"


    Ayred smiled as Felix was catching on quickly, "Yes and no. The layers have to be far enough apart not to interfere and combine with each-other; The bigger the layer, the more mana it costs, also exponential."


    "How much to cast the standard omni-shield?"


    Ayred shrugged, "No idea. I don''t have the mana capacity to cast it for even a fraction of a second."


    Felix nodded then cast each one of the 7 shield colors used in standard dueling two by two. As soon as the rainbow shield was formed, he first noticed that it was far more opaque than the single color shield. The patterns swirling through it were much denser and closer together making it very difficult to see.


    Checking his mana pool and using his stat screen to quantify it, he saw it was drawing just over 1.6 million mana per second. He dropped the shield to see Ayred looking at Strig with a smile and a very impressed expression.


    "1.6 million per second." Felix interrupted their silent communication.


    Ayred nodded, "Yeah so the pattern holds then. Doing the math, that''s about what I figured. Never bothered to pick up a battery and test it though."


    "Ok so these are the basic, standard spells. Where have we gotten from there?"


    Ayred sighed, "I was planning on surprising you in a series of duels but fine."


    First, he cast a shield that wasn''t an orb but instead a slightly curved wall in front of him. Hopping off to the side, he then cast another partial shield off to the side as the first disappeared. He was only visible between the two for a tiny fraction of a second, much less than if he had switched colors with full orb shields.


    Before Felix could even ask, Ayred cast a Red Bolt at Felix that curved around the Partial Red Shield in front of him. They never touched each-other so they didn''t interfere and the bolt curved around a wide arc before smacking into a Red Shield Felix had cast from behind.


    "Are those Seeking Bolts or just Curved Bolts?"


    Ayred popped out from behind the shield as it disappeared so they could speak unobstructed, "These are just curved. I have other seeking bolts though. There are also Splitting Bolts, Delayed Bolts, Movable Shields and so on."


    Felix nodded, "I assume Tanryel utilizes all of these?"


    "And more. You''ll probably want to watch memory crystals of some of his previous matches."


    Felix''s eyes went wide, "That is a great idea. Where can I find those?"


    "Telviras library for all the official matches."


    "Perfect. Anything else I should know or should we spar?"


    Ayred grinned, "You sure you know how to use all the modified spells from Strig''s books too? Would you rather us limit our speed or just go for it?"


    Felix shrugged, "The bolts don''t hurt. Let''s just go to 100 points then we can take a break and discuss."


    Ayred scoffed, "I might not have have the mana capacity to get to 100 points."


    "Just let me know when you run out of mana and we''ll take a break then."


    Ayred shook his head, "How much mana do you have?"


    Felix shrugged, "A lot. Ready?"


    Ayred nodded and the sparring began.


    Strig acted as the impartial referee, counting the points and deciding whether the glancing blows counted as a hit. To be safe and prepare Felix for the actual duel, they counted just about everything, not that it overly mattered.


    Ayred got to 20 points before Felix even scored one but then it got a little more even. Ayred stopped them when he hit 68 points, Felix at 54 so he could recover his mana.


    "You learn fast." Ayred nodded, "Your cast speed is pretty good too, especially considering you don''t use verbal, somatic or a focus."


    "Thanks."


    "Not nearly enough to win though." Ayred chuckled, "Hope you have a whole lot up your sleeves or some way to get much faster, real quick."


    Felix shrugged, "We''ll see. I''ve got some ideas."


    "Well, if you need someone to spar and test them on, just let me know."


    "Thanks." Felix looked to them both to make sure they knew he was speaking to both of them.


    With many things in mind to increase his chances for the duel, Felix bid farewell to the ARM building and flew back to his dorm. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 Chapter 202 - Book 4

    Ensuring Grim was free in his mind, Felix mentally prodded to get his attention, Is hitting C grade actually worth spending time on? I''m not evolving my race so I won''t get a burst of stats from that. My class probably won''t change either. Actrually, I''m not even sure my class and its skills are doing anything for me though, I haven''t noticed them, so maybe I do change it. Anyways, odds are my profession is the only thing I upgrade but I don''t think I want to do that just yet. I want to get more experience with constructs so I get a chance at Soulbinder for my profession.


    Grim chimed in just as a sounding board, Sounds like no then.


    Felix nodded, I agree. I think I want to fix this brain thing first. I want to experiment with the dueling spells after that. Getting that instinct cast Force Burst to be consistent would also be huge but may be too time consuming to matter, I''ll save that for last. I''ll also work on total focus, cast speed and cast range but for the same reason, last.


    Grim communicated his agreement wordlessly, You should also see if you can push your mana pool a little further especially if you practice against that thing in your other Soul Space.


    Right, I can do that right before the duel itself and it''s just free mana, no reason not to. All that leaves is increasing my stats as much as I can. Guess it''s time I finally go corpse shopping.


    Mana Channels or traditional?


    Ideally Mana Channels. I just don''t feel like massive hulking muscles suit me as much. They seem to guzzle way too much energy inefficiently, from what we''ve seen so far. Anything I can get to use mana instead is just more elegant. Brain first though.


    For the rest of the day, Felix grew the Mana Computer he had been working on until it was the size of a marble then carefully constructed a filter for it around a soul seed. For this personality, he damped emotion as much as he could and had it really hone in on his own desire to control things. He also made a few other modifications to fit the personality he envisioned then very carefully, slipped the mana computer marble into his soul. S§×arch* The N?vel(F)ire.n§×t website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    He bound the computer to the soul seed and filter he had just created and ended up with what looked like a marble with an aura, a comet, that flew through its respective layer in his soul.


    Popping into his mind city, Felix was immediately appalled. While it had looked odd before with so much perfectly flat, empty land, now it looked like an abstract painting of a city. All of the empty space within a few kilometers in every direction had been filled with impossible structures that legitimately looked like renditions of crayon drawings from toddlers.


    He was comforted by the thought of how easy it would be to reset everything then walked over to an empty space far away from the mess that was his mind city at the moment. He spent a few minutes thinking through what house best suited someone with the personality he had tried to create and once he was happy with it, actualized his vision.


    Walking out of the large concrete block of a building was an older looking male elf that was completely bald with a set of round glasses a top their nose.


    They walked right up to Felix and bowed, "Felix. I am Othorion, though it will be easier to refer to me as Orion."


    Felix nodded and smiled, "Well, you are definitely more intelligent than the rest of them. Grim!"


    Grim appeared next to Felix a moment later, "Hello Orion."


    "Master Grim." Orion bowed his head.


    Felix turned to Grim, "How many do we need to manage everything right now?"


    Grim winced, "More than just Orion and I unfortunately, maybe another three and we could pull it off?"


    "Alright. I''ll target 10 then before I get rid of the rest of them. In the meantime, could you two try and keep things organized for now? I do realize this is essentially a daycare and I am sorry about that."


    Grim nodded, "Yeah, should be fine."


    Orion bowed, "Of course."


    Did I accidentally imbue servitude into their filter because unconsciously I wanted a butler? Or, is it just that I am quite literally god to this thing? Oh well, it''s definitely not unwelcome.


    Rather pleased with how Orion had turned out, even from just their brief conversation, Felix got to work on more constructs in his mind with actual brains. The biggest bottleneck for him was the computers so he started by trying to figure out a way to grow them faster.


    After fiddling with different ideas for a few hours, he ended up with something he was rather pleased with. Considering he couldn''t grow the computer himself because that would literally take days, he settled on creating a greenhouse of sorts. He spent his time replicating the same anima that had grown the computer before and spreading it out into cells.


    He now had a three dimensional grid of cells and as long as those cells were supplied with mana each would grow a computer over time. It was somewhere between a factory and a greenhouse and ideally, it would create computers at least a hundred times faster than he was managing to pull off manually.


    He would still need to verify and check the computers but he was hoping he could assign that task to one of the mental projections he was creating. Then it would be truly automated and he could start working on his actual plan for how to speed everything up.


    At first he watched the cells growing and ended up scrapping everything and starting over, this time with a tiny portion of a computer he manually grew in each cell, a seed. At that point they grew properly and actually produced something usable so he watched and corrected mistakes as they happened.


    Once they were big enough, he harvested 90% of the contents of 10 cells, combined it all together, manually smoothed the edges, corrected the flaws and verified everything. Repeating this process, he ended up with 10 computers that were similar to Orion''s then he formed creations around them with soul seeds and filters and returned to his Mind City.


    Appearing in the core of the city, Felix reached out with the back of his consciousness and wiped out all of the flawed creations he had made in his soul. He moved the actual anima into his soul space where he could recycle it but as soon as he moved them, the flawed creatures vanished right before his eyes.


    Looking around, he wiped out all of their creations then set up a building, reminiscent of the registration building in Telviras and opened the door. He didn''t want to create houses for everything so his alternative was to have an immigration center of sorts and let the creations create houses for themselves.


    They were mostly humans, elves and halflings because they were the most adjacent to what Felix still considered himself, human, in his mind.


    Felix summoned Grim again, "We should have more than we need for now but pay attention and see if there are any major flaws with these. While you watch these projections, I''m going to start on the other type of projection that will fill out most of the city. Hopefully we get some kind of self replication and automation going because there is no way I can keep creating these manually."


    Grim nodded, "Sounds good. I''ll see what we can come up with for automation."


    "Actually¡­" Felix furrowed his brows as he thought through the options. Ultimately, he decided to fence in an empty chunk of land, separated from the city. Within that fence, he created a building that looked like a factory from the outside but a greenhouse from the inside.


    There were rows and rows of shelves that each contained a cell within them. A representation of the computer farm he had just created in his main Soul Space.


    He briefly considered creating a new Soul Space he could give the city access to but decided he would do that later when security was more of a concern. For now, all of these constructs were literally warped projections of his own soul that lived inside his head. He had full control of them and could easily restrict them to not touching the rest of the Soul Space just by willing it.


    In the future it might be a problem but he would reorganize things at that point before it became a concern.


    Felix turned to Grim, who he could sense right behind him, "Alright now we can automate the growth of the computers. Probably just need one person to correct any flaws that appear."


    Grim nodded, "I''ll see if anyone is inclined to this kind of work."


    "Alright. Good luck." Felix nodded then vanished, returning to his own body and checking the time.


    He still had a couple hours until his Spell Formation class so he started working on a new computer growth farm. This one was based on a brand new design he had been thinking about and so it was going to take some time to figure out. Most of the time he spent working on tiny prototypes so he could test the idea.


    Felix ended up working on it with a portion of his focus for the entirety of Spell Formation class. The class was largely the basics and though Felix learned some new patterns, channels and considerations, the majority of it was review. Adaline was also in the class which confused him because he had figured she was some kind of gun slinger but he figured it may have to do with her profession.


    Solo Combat the next day was far more interesting. Walking into the class and through the portal to the very same arena they had used for Group Combat, Felix was immediately placed into a tournament bracket, based on registration order. This class had less than half the students registered when compared to Group Combat but they were being split into classes of about 20, meaning there would only be 6 classes.


    Sorted by registration time, Felix was the last to register and right before him was Adaline, who had gotten in through winning the tournament. His first match was against her.


    The first 20 students to register were split up into 10 isolated sections of an arena right away, as there were a lot of matches to get through. Each section was overseen by a single Adept to ensure everything went smoothly. Felix managed to overhear the rules, not that they were trying to keep them hidden.


    The same gear restrictions as in Group Combat applied so Felix stowed his charm even as he sat in the stands and watched everyone situate and prepare themselves. Felix''s first match would be in the 6th round of matches so he had some time to wait.


    It didn''t appear as though Melody was in this class so he, thankfully, sat alone off in the stands.


    A minute passed as the first round of combatants prepared themselves before the matches began.


    Immediately, it felt to Felix like the whole arena exploded. Even more so than the Group Combat fights had been, these fights were flashy. Whether or not it was because they didn''t have to worry about their own teammates or because of selection bias, these fights were dangerous.


    Felix noticed the same Lightning-javelin-fighter and massive-great-sword-fire-engulfed students from the Group Combat arena along with a number of other dangerous looking people. There were some more traditional looking fighters who were just extremely fast and skilled. There were also complete oddities such as a martial artist who seemed to be refusing to fight their opponent at all. They either avoided or knocked aside every strike but never struck back, even when it was abundantly clear they could have.


    It took a few minutes for the fights to conclude, the Lightning-javelin and flame-great-sword wielders winning their matches. The martial artist''s fight was actually the last to finish when they, in an astonishing turn of events, surrendered as soon as all of the other fights were finished.


    The next set of students filed into the arena and were quickly sorted into their respective fights. The barriers separating them were raised and the second set of matches began.


    There were a few more flashy students, some of which embarrassingly lost but otherwise the matches were generally more mundane with no surrendering monks in sight.


    Felix watched the matches mostly to get a sense of the other students in the class as he rapidly alternated through creating his best attack and defense spell forms against his opponent.


    Considering the pair of revolvers on her hips accompanied by her mostly leather armor, Felix was running under the assumption that she was mobile and long ranged. Long ranged was great for him with his defense and attack options but mobility was annoying. His best spells at the moment were still Fire based because he hadn''t found better nodes, even searching the library. Fire wasn''t very fast though and every Fire spell he could come up with was relatively easy to dodge.


    That meant he could either attempt to slow them down with a Slow Field spell that he could create relatively easily or stick with Lightning at over 2.5 million mana per spell. Realistically that left him with 30 casts if he didn''t use his mana for anything else at all. Ideally it would be enough but he didn''t doubt she had defensive options at her disposal.


    She was after all, currently considered the best combatant in the cycle.


    He decided he would start with Fire, since it was relatively cheap at just half a million mana for a 10 times overpowered Fire Ball then switch to Lightning if he needed it.


    "¡­ Adaline, Felix!"


    Hearing his name called, Felix hopped into the air and glided down into the arena amongst the rest of the students.


    "Adaline, Felix you two are in arena 10. No equipment more than one grade above yours. If you didn''t enchant it by yourself, then it has to be your grade. No batteries, no spatial storage unless it''s integrated into your weapon or armor. Any questions?"


    They both shook their heads then headed over to their subsection of the arena. Felix flew over to the far side as Adaline took the closest.


    "You have 1 minute to prepare yourselves before the matches begin."


    Neither Felix nor Adaline seemed to have anything to prepare. Felix filled his cloak with mana, which actually garnered a slight reaction from her but otherwise, they stood still and looked at each-other. At least, Felix studied Adaline.


    Adaline, during the preparation minute before the match spent the time actually enchanting something in her palm, something smaller than Felix could see. She stowed it right before the match began so whatever it was, had nothing to do with the upcoming fight.


    "Begin!"


    Felix immediately erected a tight Force Shield around himself, hoping to slow and potentially even stop any bullets fired at him before they ever reached his cloak. Adaline on the other hand immediately sprang forwards, far faster than Felix''s body would have ever allowed him to move.


    He was not however, limited by his own body''s limited speed and he rocketed himself up and to the side with a Force Spell allowing him to match her obviously much higher Agility. As he flew away, he dropped a Fire Ball right where she was about to land.


    Pulling out one of her revolvers, she took aim and fired three shots in Felix''s direction and one at the bead of fire racing towards her right before she landed. She then kicked off the ground and into the air, firing two more shots below her which actually seemed to propel her into the air giving her a facsimile of flight.


    Felix was ready to let his Force Shield and cloak enchantment handle the bullets racing towards him so he largely ignored them until he realized, he had made a huge mistake. He had assumed she was a gunslinger, someone who used revolvers to fire bullets. He very quickly realized though, she was much closer to a caster.


    The three bullets racing towards Felix were not simple bullets. The first vanished in mid air as a piercing beam of Force shattered Felix''s Force Shield and his cloak enchantment, boring a bullet sized, perfectly circular hole, right through his shoulder. The second flew right up to within a dozen meters of him before releasing an inferno right into his face.


    The last he didn''t actually see because of the flames surrounding him but he did feel it. The bullet had either created or split itself into a thousand shards that all smacked themselves against his cloak enchantment, ripping a few million mana free from his pool.


    As Felix fell through the fire, his concentration on his flight spells broken, he caught a glimpse of Adaline in the air off to the side with a look of pure disgust on her face. Looking at the ground and her body, he didn''t see any sign that his Fire Ball had done anything, meaning, the bullet she had fired at it must have somehow neutralized it.


    Felix caught himself just before landing but was immediately slammed back down to the ground from another bullet that vanished into a spell form right above him. As his back smacked the ground causing his body to bounce slightly, Adaline landed right next to him and looked down.


    With his health at a measly 5% Felix logically didn''t think there was anything he could do, it was however, his nature to fight. He started to assemble the spell form for a Burst of Fire around his body to gain space but never got the chance to finish it.


    Adaline looked down at him with a mixed expression of disappointment and disgust right before she pulled the trigger and ended the fight.


    Felix reappeared in the rest and recovery room below the stands of the arena and quickly hopped off the bed, this death being much less traumatic than the last.


    Well that did not¡­ go well.


    Grim chuckled, I am literally in your mind and soul. I know how much you enjoyed that.


    Well¡­ Dying isn''t fun and the fight itself¡­ wasn''t even close.


    But¡­


    She won the tournament to get in. She is amongst the best combatants in my cycle. I¡­ The fight wasn''t even close¡­ and she isn''t even that much higher in level than I am¡­


    Oh. It''s the challenge that excites you.


    Oh yeah. Maybe that''s why I agreed to the duel which¡­ I realistically shouldn''t have taken without at least getting more information.


    Well you are kind of at a low point right now in progression.


    Right and even if I get everything on my todo list done, she should still beat my ass.


    Which means there''s more to fight for, further to go.


    I''m pretty sure I can win the duel. This though, means there is more I can do and learn. More challenges to face and more to overcome beyond that. It also means I won''t be easily surpassing the others here, like I did in the tutorial and integration. At least not any time soon.


    I mean, there are always people outside this cycle. Gods, Demigods and so on.


    Yeah but it feels¡­ boring I guess, the idea of being the best in the cycle. Even if there are stronger people all the way up to godhood.


    Grim chuckled, Well, I''m happy for you I guess.


    Felix shrugged as he merrily flew up into the stands, waiting for his next matches.


    Losing the first match just meant he was placed into a different bracket amongst the rest of the losers while Adaline went onto a winners bracket. She was obviously the favorite to win at odds of nearly 10 to 1 as Felix found out when a student approached him offering a to take bets.


    Felix didn''t bother taking the bet but he was pretty sure Adaline would win. She had already fought all of the strongest people in her bracket and won during the entry tournament. Though the result of the matches were predictable, Felix was excited to see how she won.


    Now that he knew she was more of a mage than a gunslinger, now that he had seen her enchanting something, he was far more interested. Luckily for him, the upper bracket matches were all scheduled before the lower bracket matches so he was able to sit back and watch.


    The Lightning javelin wielder, Zeraxes, had been the favorite to win the entry tournament and from all appearances, the final match would be a rematch between him and Adaline. Adaline was completely obliterating everyone in her way as the matches became progressively less embarrassing for her opponents.


    Felix was expecting her to be derisive in expression because that was how she had treated him and that was how he had judged her personality but instead, she seemed almost apathetic. It seemed her disappointment and even more so disgust were reserved specifically for him, for whatever reason.


    Zeraxes was far more flamboyant and often stood proud and smiling with every opponent he beat. He was completely cordial though, offering them the opportunity to stand and surrender if they didn''t want to actually experience death. He was always happy and proud, his eyes filled with joy and pride with every opponent he faced.


    In almost every way, he seemed like either a father, a hero or more likely both. Adaline on the other hand was like a tyrant, dominating everyone in her path with no mercy or remorse on offer.


    While Felix respected Zeraxes'' approach, he couldn''t help but find Adaline''s matches far more enjoyable to watch. The rest of the student crowd watching didn''t seem to agree with him though as their expressions took on a sour undertone whenever Adaline won her match far before the others finished.


    As the rounds passed, Adaline receiving a bye in the third round to even the numbers, the expected result came to fruition, Adaline against Zeraxes.


    The student taking bets came around again and Felix almost placed a bet on Adaline winning when he saw the odds had reached just 3 to 1 in her favor but decided against it. It seemed the rest of the crowd were inclined to bet against her out of spite, even if she was more likely to win.


    Now that there was just a single match taking place, they were optionally given access to the entire arena, which both of them agreed to, followed by the customary minute of preparation.


    Zeraxes stared Adaline down, twirling his Javelin and stretching his body, a show that seemed intended to rile up the crowd more than anything else. Adaline on the other hand, was back to enchanting something in her palm. She had completely dismissed her opponent and her quill simply flicked back and forth as she continued working on whatever it was she was working on.


    As the minute came to a close, she stowed the item and quill then looked up, her expression completely blank and actually drew both revolvers this time. It was the first time she had done so in the matches Felix had been watching so he was rather excited to see what would happen.


    Now that he saw both revolvers, he noticed that they were both similar in size and shape, they both had long barrels and a simple cylinder. They were rather large in design but mostly because of the raw mass of material in them that seemed entirely functional rather than ornamental. They both however, despite their mass, seemed to fit in her hands perfectly, like they were made for her.


    The biggest difference between the two, as far as Felix could tell at the moment, was that one was almost entirely black and the other white. He suspected there were other functional differences but he hadn''t actually seen her use the white one yet.


    "Begin!"


    Zeraxes expression immediately grew serious as he leapt forward and towards Adaline, aiming to reduce her range advantage. Adaline was expecting this and fired the white revolver at the ground beneath her feet, launching herself into the air and backwards.


    Twisting himself in the air, Zeraxes spun all the way around and launched his javelin almost like it was a cannon in her direction. It shattered the sound barrier immediately and trailed Lightning between it and his hand.


    Felix''s eyes weren''t fast enough to follow its entire flight but he caught glimpses of its location as it approached Adaline then was deflected off to the side by an angled barrier. It didn''t travel more than a few meters behind her though before it vanished and reappeared in Zeraxes hand.


    Adaline used her white revolver to launch herself to the side as she raised the black one and fired off a pair of shots in Zeraxes direction.


    Ironically, bullets were unassuming and relatively non threatening to their bodies at this point, these bullets though, Felix and apparently Zeraxes, had no idea what they would do.


    He had fought her before so Zeraxes knew to get out of the way but against these bullets, that apparently wasn''t enough. The first exploded into a burst of Force that knocked him off course but the second actually redirected itself in his direction.


    Zeraxes tossed his javelin to the side almost as an afterthought right as the bullet turned into a solid column of bright light.


    As his eyes readjusted, Felix caught sight of Zeraxes suddenly running across the ground around where his javelin had been.


    He used the increased leverage of having solid footing to throw his javelin at her again but this time, she didn''t dodge it. Instead, she fired off a shot from the white revolver towards the javelin, sending herself flying in the opposite direction.


    An arc of Lightning connected Zeraxes previous position with the javelin as he vanished, reappearing next to it. Both he and Felix though, immediately noticed something was wrong.


    Zeraxes was stuck and couldn''t move, frozen in the air as Adaline fired off a series of bullets from her black revolver towards him.


    Even from all the way in the stands, Felix could see Zeraxes struggling against whatever it was that held him, seemingly unable to doing anything. Lighting arced across his entire body, originating from the javelin in his hand as his body was pierced, much like Felix''s had been, by multiple beams of Force.


    Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.


    He still struggled, despite being riddled with dozens of holes all across his body but it had become clear he didn''t have a way out of the trap that held him. Adaline took careful aim with her black revolver as she floated over him, evidently having some other way to fly other than just using her revolvers.


    With a single beam of Force through the head, Zeraxes was finished and the fight was over.


    The crowd of students watching from the stands murmured as Adaline simply walked away, her face completely blank once again.


    The rest of the fights were much less interesting. The lower bracket seemed to largely consist of fighters who took the class to learn rather than flex and improve their already impressive abilities. The vast majority of them evidently didn''t focus on fighting.


    A number of the losers from the upper bracket were added to the lower bracket at various stages just to even out the numbers and Felix''s matches were completely boring.


    The first was against a sword fighter who didn''t actually have any ranged options whatsoever making the fight trivial as Felix simply lazily floated through the air. He marveled the entire time that this individual had made it to the level they had without having any ranged options but dismissed the thought after finishing them, deciding it wasn''t worth thinking about.


    His next fight was more interesting as he fought an archer but his cloak entirely negated their arrows. They tried a few more powerful shots, powered by a combination of skills and mana but Felix was easily able to differentiate those and deflect them as they left the bow. The archer on the other hand was not used to combat in the air and took a beating trying to stay airborne.


    Felix also fought one of the students from the upper bracket, just to fill the bracket, in the quarter-final round of the lower bracket. The fight was rather disappointing as well though as student leapt around with a massive maul. Unfortunately, they didn''t seem to have a ton of control over their flight. They were powerful but with some careful timing, Felix struck them with a Lightning Bolt to disrupt their jump, slowing them and caught them mid air with an overpowered Force Shield.


    At that point they were completely stuck and they sighed right before surrendering and disappearing.


    The semi-finals were even more mundane against another melee fighter that actually did have ranged options, just not very strong ones.


    While Felix was logically happy to have made it to the finals match of the lower bracket, he was rather disappointed in the quality of the fights. It seemed almost unfair to him that he was up against so many people with no real options to fight him and the fights hadn''t been remotely challenging.


    He began to realize that it seemed as though only about half of the class had real quality combat experience, the other half just wanting to learn. That meant that in total, there was probably only about 20% of his cycle that focused on combat, the rest having gotten in through their profession or other means.


    Felix would probably have put himself then in the top 20% of the cycle in terms of combat ability but knew how misleading that was. In terms of the people that focused on combat, he was at or near the bottom. The gap between him and Adaline too was massive and if he didn''t catch up soon, would only grow.


    That thought, thrilled him.


    The last fight, though he wasn''t necessarily excited about it, he was curious.


    His opponent was the martial artist who had surrendered their first match. From the glimpses he had seen of their other fights, Peace hadn''t actually hit anybody. They also were never hit themselves which led to a lot of questions.


    He had noticed Peace discussing with their opponents before every match and so was fully expecting them to approach him but as they walked into their section of the arena, they didn''t. Both of them walked over to one side of the arena, both having-surprisingly considering Peace was a melee fighter-agreed to use the entire area instead of the more constricted subsection.


    During the preparation minute, Felix studied Peace.


    [C] Peace (Lvl 1473)


    He was the highest level he had seen from any student. He had lightly tanned skin with black hair that was cut very short and wore entirely black. His robes and pants, the wraps around his ankles and wrists along with the shirt underneath it were all entirely, inky black. Overall though, he looked completely average.


    The customary minute for preparation passed and Peace immediately surrendered.


    Uh¡­ That was¡­ disappointing.


    Peace hopped out of the arena in a series of incredibly impressive jumps as the first Solo Combat class was over.


    Felix continued to work on the new computer he had been working on for the rest of the night, actually rather surprised that Melody hadn''t randomly popped up over the past few days. Nova had also been missing but brushing over his soul bond, she seemed to be incredibly happy wherever she was so he didn''t bother looking for her.


    "Welcome to Animancy. The class that really shouldn''t be offered in his cycle because realistically, you are all much too young to be capable of anything in the field. Here we are anyways though, so lets get to it."


    [?] Salkisara: Professor of Animancy (Lvl ?)


    "Animancy is simple. It is the art of constructing, manipulating, repairing and otherwise dealing with souls other than your own. As many of you know, manipulation is covered by the sister class Soul Manipulation so we will not be covering that here. This course can be thought of as largely theoretical whereas that course will be more practical."


    "Here we will discuss what is possible with souls, why we would want to do them and the best ways of doing so. This is especially helpful for things like creating constructs from scratch although you will be largely working with soul gems during your time here."


    "When you eventually strengthen and practice with souls enough to actually be capable of doing anything, you will find what you have learned in this course to be invaluable."


    The rest of the lecture was similarly dismissive of the students capabilities while being incredibly informative at the same time. They mostly discussed the process of binding a soul to a construct or otherwise prepared body, even touching briefly on necromancy and why it is so much easier.


    "I will continue to lecture you on imposed convictions next dekad."


    The students of the class rose to leave, Felix much faster than most but not quite fast enough.


    "Oh and would Felix Kade please wait a moment."


    Uh¡­ Shit..


    The rest of the class filed out of the room, a number of them glancing over at him, especially Adaline who was unapologetic in her glaring.


    Is she in every single one of my classes?


    She wasn''t in Constructs and Elementals.


    Okay so 6 out of 7 so far?


    She just picked a similar schedule, she''s a mage and possibly an enchanter. Wouldn''t be surprised if she was in your next class too.


    Yeah, Mana Control does kind of naturally fit with everything else¡­


    Once everyone had left the room, Felix approached the front stage and walked right up to Professor Salkisara.


    She looked up at him with an incredulous expression then sighed, "Ked mentioned your conversation about binding souls to constructs in your mind."


    Felix shrugged, "They don''t actually have bodies so¡­ not sure they count as constructs."


    "The projection within your mind is the body." She shook her head and sighed, "The fact that you apparently did what you did without even knowing what you are doing is¡­ absurd."


    Feeling a little more uncomfortable than he had before, Felix took a deep breath, "Was that all?"


    "Follow me." The Animancy Professor sounded almost reluctant before she led him through the door she had entered from and down a series of hallways into an incredibly generic office.


    She closed the door behind him then walked over to the desk and pulled out a glowing gem along with a construct body that resembled a suit of armor fit for a fairy.


    Felix followed her gesture and stood next to the desk where she handed him the gem and the body, "Bind the soul in the gem to the construct body."


    "I¡­ don''t know how? In Ked''s class we just¡­ waited."


    She sighed again, "Remove the soul from the gem then orient it within the construct body. Push a portion of the soul through the bindings, making sure they follow the channels all the way through. Repeat for all the bindings."


    Felix looked down at the construct body in his hands then sighed and took a seat. Reaching into the soul gem, he grabbed hold of the soul and pulled on it, the gem immediately shattering in his hands. He was surprised but not enough to let go of the soul so he, as instructed, pulled it over to the body and placed it inside.


    Once there, he sought out the bindings and much to his surprise, found them almost instantly. He had expected he would have to search for them but they were so obvious, they immediately became apparent.


    The bindings almost reminded him of nodes as he mapped them out to the best of his ability while tracing a portion of the soul through the bindings. Once he had traced all 7 of them, he placed the construct body onto the desk and looked up at the Professor who was staring intently at the construct with an unreadable expression.


    After just a few minutes, far less than he had had to wait for the constructs in Ked''s class to awaken, the construct pushed itself to its feet.


    Professor Salkisara sighed deeply as she dropped into the chair on the opposite side of the desk from Felix and began writing something on invisible parchment with an invisible quill.


    "You''re the integrated kid, right?"


    Felix nodded.


    "I''m kicking you from my class."


    "Wait, what?" Felix almost smacked the table in front of him as he stood before he caught himself.


    "You already have 7 other courses and I''m not grading you on the purely theoretical aspects of this class, it would be a waste of time. Instead, you''re gonna help Ked and I with our research. I''ll grade you based on that work and change this class in your schedule to something else like Advanced Animancy or Adept Animancy or Animancy Research Assistant."


    Felix shook his head, "How is that going to work, you have to teach the class right? I don''t exactly have a ton of free time on my hands. Plus, I do want to hear the lectures, I took this class because I want to learn this stuff."


    She just waved him off, "Then watch the lectures back from memory crystals or pay another student to transcribe them for you. I usually have Adept''s give my lectures for me anyways and work during class time."


    Felix frowned and she stood, "It''s not as weird as it sounds. Lots of professors have higher tier classes for Adepts and will take days off to do research. Especially full lecture days. You''ll see it happen more as the classes continue."


    "Wait, how do I get memory crystals of my classes?"


    "With permission from your professors, you can get memory crystals made from a student or auditing Adept for anything lecture heavy. Ked already agreed and I can get you permission for Mana Structures and Spell Formation too. Soul Manipulation is too practical and you''ll want to keep attending yourself and Mana Control is almost entirely practical. There will be some classes you need to attend but the professors will inform you when that happens."


    Felix nodded, "What is your research?"


    She scoffed, "Constructs, what the hell do you think?"


    "Is it¡­ that weird to be able to¡­ bind a soul to a construct at my level? Enough to help with your research?"


    She crossed her arms, "Yes but that''s not why. Do you know how many soul gems I''ve shattered?"


    "I don''t know, a few?"


    "Thousands. Never just from removing the soul though."


    Felix''s brow furrowed, "How the hell was I supposed to do that then? Would this have all happened if I didn''t shatter it?"


    "Yup. You also bound that soul faster than you had any right to and apparently, it didn''t strain you at all. Just head to Ked''s lab whenever you have time. There are always people there, day and night."


    "Do I get a say in this?"


    She looked up from whatever she was writing, "Do you want to say no?"


    Felix hesitated for a second, "No."


    "Good. Call me Professor Sal. Now, clean up that mess you made and get out of here, I have somewhere to be."


    Felix nodded and popped to this feet then quickly brushed his hand over the remains of the soul gem, using spells to collect them and stowing them in his Soul Space. Once done, he exited the room, Professor Sal closing the door behind him with a slight wave of her hand.


    Felix headed back to his dorm.


    Well¡­ that was¡­ sweet. That''s what, 4 days of classes I can now safely skip?


    Yeah and considering you can fast forward the memory crystals it''ll take you minutes to get through them.


    Whether or not this research is interesting, I definitely can''t complain about being given permission to skip a whole lot of classes. How are things going up there by the way?


    Grim chuckled, Way better. You should check the original computer growth farm you had made. Not sure how the rest of self replication will work but at least the computer part seems handled.


    Felix nodded, Sounds good. I should be done the initial prototype of my computer soon. I''ll probably finish it tomorrow then head to Telviras to go corpse shopping on my day off.


    Popping into his dorm room, Felix sat down on the couches and looked down at the computer he had been experimenting with over the last few days.


    Instead of limiting himself to the scale of transistors he had used for his own brain, Felix had gone all out with this one. After his time spent wrestling with the inky blackness that swallowed a sector in Telviras, he was dubbing the Hungering Hollow, his control was massively improved.


    With this computer he was leveraging everything he could. He even pushed it to expand in all 4 spatial dimensions at once and using a new growth farm, once he had ironed out all the kinks, made it exponentially faster. Now, instead of growing it from the outside slowly, he could harvest chunks from the farm and fuse them onto the main mass.


    He spent most of the night expanding his farm so he could continue to grow the computer and figured he would work on the soul he was going to bind to it after Mana Control class.


    Walking into the classroom for Mana Control, Felix had expected another lecture hall but instead, it was different from the other classes he was taking. Instead of an auditorium style room with a stage at the front, this was more like a classroom. There were a enough chairs for the 20 or so people in the class to sit but they were all in the middle of the room.


    All around the outside of the room, there were what appeared to be entirely black chalkboards on every wall.


    [B] Dharel (Lvl ?)


    Dharel walked over to the front of the class as everyone found a seat then nodded to the class with a smirk, "This is Mana Control and I¡­ am not your professor. Professor Fin teaches the an Adept class during this very time slot so, for the rest of the epoch, I will be filling in. Fin will usually stop by every once in a while but having him here is just a waste of his time for the most part. I''m sure he''ll make time to meet you all soon though, he does love new students."


    Twirling around, Dharel walked over to one of the chalkboards, "Let me introduce you to your new best friend, the mana board."


    A small stickman in entirely blue appeared on the board and walked along it then turned towards the class and waved.


    "This is Sticky. Everyone say hi to Sticky."


    Dharel waited but no one said anything or even waved. A few students looked at each-other but it seemed people were largely too thrown off to participate in the Adept''s games.


    Shrugging, Dharel slapped the board, "This here is a wonderful invention by our very own Professor Fin who keeps the design completely secret. You may find similar objects elsewhere in the multiverse but these and their precision are, entirely unique."


    Dharel looked around clearly hoping to impress the students but once again, no one really reacted much.


    "In essence, this board shows mana. That''s it. What it allows us to do though, is fight."


    Behind him, another stick man appeared and the two started to fight each-other in a very basic fighting style.


    He turned to the class, hoping for more excited reactions, "Wooooooould anyone like to volunteer?"


    When no one raised their hands or spoke up, Dharel pointed at someone at random. A student sitting in the front row, a blonde female halfling walked up to the other end of the board. Dharel pulled over a stool so she could stand right next to the board.


    "Alright all you have to do is place your hand on the board and push a bit of mana into it. Don''t push too much, you only need a few points."


    The student placed their hand on the board and after a short moment, a slightly blue glow grew out of her hand across the board.


    Dharel looked far more excited than the rest of the class, "Great stuff. Ok now just try and move it around."


    She tried and the blob did move around a little but with very little precision. At best she could move it around a few inches up and down the board.


    "Don''t be embarrassed. I haven''t seen many in the last 20 cycles that have done any better than you on their first try." Dharel gestured and the student sat back down, clearly feeling embarrassed despite what Dharel had said.


    "Mana Control is often neglected because it is hard. There is no easy way to get better at it. You can''t just increase a stat to improve it. Intelligence is tied to quantity, your control is completely separate and has no relation. You simply need to work at it, practice and you will get better. This course is designed to motivate you to practice as well as give you techniques to make it easier and faster. Well, and more fun." Dharel smiled as he looked around.


    "Alright, I want you all to spend time on an exercise for me. Your mana is inside you and all of you should be able to push mana into objects. What I want you to do now is reach inside yourself and try to move it around a little. Think about the sensation of pushing mana into an object and replicate that internally. Once you feel like you can move any amount of mana from your feet, to your hands and to your head, all throughout your body, come find me and I can give you the next exercise. In the meantime I''ll walk around in case anyone has questions."


    With a nod, the majority of the class closed their eyes and began. Some immediately showed strain on their faces and others opened their eyes constantly, looking around to make sure no one was watching them.


    Felix was one of those, he looked around and waited a few moments until everyone was mostly occupied then rose up into the air and floated over to Dharel.


    Dharel nodded to Felix, "You have a question?"


    Felix hesitated for a few seconds, unsure of how best to put it and how much to reveal then he sighed and touched the board to his right with a finger. Pushing just a point of mana into the board, Felix produced a stick man just as Dharel had and had it walk back and forth. He was very tempted to do anything more complex as the stickman was possibly the most trivial thing he had done with mana since learning to move it at all.


    In the first puzzle dungeon, when he had learned to use mana, he had gone from moving it to shaping it into spells. This was somewhere between those.


    Dharel''s eyes went wide as he nodded, "Not bad. How far have you gotten in Mana Control?"


    Felix shrugged.


    "I mean skill proficiency."


    Felix shook his head, "I don''t have a Mana Control skill in my class, race or profession."


    "Ok, that makes this a little more complicated. How about this, draw me the most complicated thing you can make on the board."


    Felix looked at him for almost a minute while he thought before responding, "No?"


    Dharel took it rather well, his face unsure more than anything, "I''m sorry?"


    Felix sighed, "What''s the most complicated thing you can draw on the board?"


    Furrowing his brow a little, Dharel touched the board with his full hand and pushed mana into it. It took him a few minutes to write out some simple text that seemed to be a poem of some kind though the translation didn''t really do it any favors.


    Felix perfectly copied Dharel''s poem right next to it in a fraction of a second.


    Looking between the two poems, Dharel''s face was completely blank for almost a minute, "Huh."


    "Should¡­ I just drop the class?"


    Dharel looked at the poem once more then turned to Felix, "Not yet. Go to this room and tell him I exempted you." Dharel wrote out a room number on the board for Felix.


    Felix nodded and left.


    The room Dharel had written for him on the board was another classroom in the adjacent building and it took Felix less than a minute to get there. Felix carefully opened the door in case there was an active class but no matter how careful he was, it was impossible not to be noticed.


    [?] Fin: Professor of Mana Control (Lvl ?)


    Professor Fin was the same bipedal cat race as Professor Fen but he was was a white cat with blue stripes. He didn''t wear glasses but sported similar silken robes to Fen.


    He immediately noticed Felix, "I do not recognize you which means you either haven''t taken any of my prerequisites or you drastically changed your face during an evolution. Considering you''re only D grade, I''m gonna go ahead and guess that¡­ you have the wrong class."


    Looking around, the classroom was more auditorium like but it was much smaller with just a few dozen seats. At the front of the room there was no stage but there was a massive blackboard, similar to the ones in the Mana Control classroom. This board though was much bigger, with a pure, reflective black surface rather than a matte and off black one.


    The only other people in the room were 8 Adepts all seated randomly amongst the chairs. They all turned as soon as Fin addressed him.


    Felix shrugged, "Dharel told me to come to this room and that I was exempted. Unless my map is lying to me¡­ pretty sure this is the place?"


    Fin nodded, "Take a seat, we''ll talk in a bit."


    Felix sat down in the closest seat then Fin dove back into his lecture.


    The class was odd for a number of reasons. First, Felix was not expecting a lecture in what seemed to be a Mana Control class. The lecture itself touched on uses of Mana Control, mana theory and a number of other odd and obscure mana related topics.


    Second, the lecture was in part a lecture but in part it was an opportunity for the Adepts in the room to share things they had learned. Professor Fin would broach a topic, discuss some basics then ask a question of a random person in the class. They would then talk about their personal experiences, what worked and what didn''t or they would pass the question to someone else. Felix was never chosen, likely on purpose.


    When the professor asked an actual question, the random student he picked always either answered in three words or less, passed the question to someone else by pointing at them, or demonstrated.


    Lastly, the whole thing lasted for an hour at which point the Adepts mostly just eyed Felix. Considering every other class he had had involving a lecture had lasted for 8 hours, he was surprised. The Adepts in the room didn''t actually leave either, they simply dispersed around the room as Felix was beckoned over to speak to Professor Fin.


    When he first walked into this class, Felix wasn''t sure what he wanted to reveal. He heavily debated masking his abilities for almost the entire duration of the lecture. Ultimately though, he decided he wanted to reveal his abilities because as much as wanted to keep them secret and remain under the radar, he wanted to progress even more.


    He could have continued going at it alone but having a professor and potentially peers in the form of the Adepts around the room, he was certain he could progress much faster. Direction and knowledge, even just in the form of how best to train was incredibly valuable to him because of how highly he valued his own time.


    The other convincing factor for him, was how well everything went for him with Professor Sal and Ked when he revealed some of his soul abilities to them. He managed to save 40% of his week on top of being asked to assist with their research, experience that he was certain would help him down the road with his own ventures.


    So, he decided that he would reveal almost everything to Professor Fin at least. Something about The Feline Professor, a vibe at best, gave Felix confidence that it would be worth it.


    Fin hopped up onto a desk to be closer to eye level with Felix, "You are a student in the latest cycle right? Not some Adept masking their level?"


    "Student." Felix nodded.


    "Who trained you in Mana Control?"


    "Uh¡­ Me? I''m an Integrated."


    "What? This early? We weren''t expecting to have any Integrateds from the 256th until next cycle."


    Felix shrugged.


    Fin continued while scratching at their head with their left paw, "Dharel exempted you and¡­ you''re an Integrated¡­ Follow me."


    Following Professor Fin, Felix entered a door on the left of the room and headed into what appeared to be a large office. There was a desk and bookshelves on one side, both of which were filled with trinkets and on the other, another blackboard. This board was sleek and reflective, matching the one in the classroom they had just left except this one covered the entire wall, end to end and floor to ceiling.


    "Alright, first things first." Fin pointed at the board, "Can you draw me a circle? Any size will do."


    Felix tapped a finger against the board and almost instantly produced a circle. On this board, the mana appeared completely white.


    "That was¡­ fast. Is that some kind of skill I don''t know about?"


    Felix shook his head, "I don''t have Mana Control as a skill on my Class, Profession or Race. Or anything¡­ adjacent to it."


    "Alright¡­ The best way to test your Mana Control is probably to have you produce increasingly complex shapes, drawings and diagrams on the board but that''s boring. How about we duel instead?"


    Felix sighed, "How does a duel work?"


    "It''s simple. Using this board, we designate two zones as goals on opposite ends of the board. The goal of the duel is simply to get a certain amount of mana into the opponents goal without allowing any into your own."


    Fin pressed their paw against the board on one end of the room then tapped at something on the board until their mana glowed red.


    Felix sighed, "We can do it if you want but¡­ I will win."


    Fin smirked, "Oh really? You do know I''m a professor right?"


    "Where are the goals?"


    Fin tapped at something else and two sections of the board lightly glowed, just enough to be obvious but not enough to obstruct the view of the glowing, colored mana.


    Felix nodded then crossed his arms, not even bothering to touch the board. He pushed mana into the board from a few meters away then looked at Fin, "Can I start?"


    Fin nodded and the board immediately flashed white, indicating Felix had won.


    Fin just looked at Felix then the board with a confused expression on his face, "What¡­"


    "You never said I couldn''t just push mana directly into the goal, right?"


    The Professor was at a complete loss for words. To emphasize his point, Felix filled the entire board with his mana, an all consuming field of white filling the board from one side until it completely surrounded the small amount of red glowing mana Fin had started with. Then, Felix squeezed Fin''s mana until it was ejected out of the board.


    Tentatively reaching forwards, Fin tapped the board with a claw in a random spot and tried to push mana into it. Felix could feel him trying but he barely needed to exert any effort to refuse him access.


    "See what I mean? Up to 16 meters or so, it all feels the same."


    Fin looked at him then walked a dozen meters away to the other end of the office and Felix felt him constructing a spell form. Felix almost let him do it simply because he was impressed, he had never seen anyone other than himself raw cast a spell before. It was the simplest spell form possible, a node with a containing ring and, as he constructed it, Felix perfectly replicated the form on the board.


    Right before Fin could finalize it though, Felix took control. With the spell form right in front of The Feline Professor, Felix morphed it into a perfect representation of his cat face then pulled it into their native spatial dimensions, making it instantly appear.


    "So what now?"


    Fin looked at, essentially a three dimensional picture of himself for a few seconds before nodding, "I have to be honest, had you not demonstrated, I would have said what you''re doing was impossible¡­ You should seriously consider picking up Mana Control as a skill, even if just to get the Sage title."


    Felix shook his head, "I''d rather keep this as quiet as possible though¡­ I already know and have accepted that it''ll get out eventually."


    Professor Fin pulled at his whiskers, "Well, maybe not. What you''re doing is so far outside the realm of possibility that as long as you don''t do what you just did in front of people, they are more than likely to make up their own explanations."


    Felix shrugged, unconvinced, "Hopefully. Is there any point in my taking this class?"


    Fin smiled and nodded enthusiastically, "It will be my mission to make it worth your time. You said your limit was 16 meters, how much can you control at once? How accurately can you control it? Let''s take some measurements then we can spend the rest of the epoch pushing each and every one of your limits."


    Felix smiled, Professor Fin promising him exactly what he had hoped for, "Alright, let''s do it."


    They spent almost an hour taking various measurements in Fin''s office and The Professor even insisted on making a System contract with Felix to show his commitment towards keeping everything a secret. Felix couldn''t help but be immensely grateful, a feeling that largely grew from his relief that revealing his secrets didn''t immediately result in him being kidnapped, a worry he had been suppressing for some time now.


    He still felt like he wanted to keep his abilities as secret as possible for the time being but he found he didn''t regret revealing them to any of his professor''s yet. Time would tell if it was the right decision but for the time being, he was happy with the outcome.


    Walking back out into the classroom where the Adepts were still loitering about, Fin cast a quick sound spell that produced a slight jingle to get everyone''s attention, "Alright, this is Felix. He''s a new student this cycle that has been advanced to this class and you''ll see why in a moment. Felix has a unique, dark magic based skill he got from the 256th integration that lets him do some wild things with mana. To demonstrate, let''s have Alkor, Withrel and Kilenor at the board please."


    Three of the Adepts rose to their feet and walked over to the board at the front of the class.


    "Felix, you go stand over there." Fin pointed about a dozen meters from the board towards the center of the class.


    "Alright, we''ve never done this before so we''ll iron out the rules as we go. Let''s try a three on one." Fin tapped at the edge of the board and set it so there was a goal in the middle of the board.


    "All you have to do is get any amount of mana into the goal. Felix, don''t let them. You may begin whenever."


    The three Adepts looked at each-other then at the other Adepts in the class, trying to determine what the trick was. Eventually one of them, Alkor, shrugged and pushed mana into the board.


    Felix let them because otherwise it would have been an incredibly boring show having a permanently blank board. Alkor pushed the mana as fast as he could towards the goal and Felix let him.


    As soon as the mana got within an inch of the goal, he ripped it free of Alkor''s control and wrote out: ''Nice Try'' in an instant, at the top of the board.


    A few of the Adepts in the audience chuckled but Alkor looked almost fearful. The other two tried pushing their mana towards the goal but this time, Felix didn''t even let them get anywhere close to it. Instead, he took control of and used their mana to form a very detailed image of Fin curled up, licking their paws.


    The Adepts in the audience chuckled again and the three Adepts at the board combined their efforts. Felix simply pulled the mana from their grasp and added a background to his diorama before having his drawing of Fin stand up and berate his students with a speech bubble.


    Fin joined the audience in laughing then had the three Adepts sit back down.


    "Anyone else who would like to experience this is welcome to. We don''t actually need the board though, simply try to do anything with mana outside of your bodies and Felix will stop you."


    A few curious students attempted to form mana into shapes but Felix immediately pulled it all away from them and funneled all of it into the board. After almost a half hour of Adepts futilely trying, Fin put an end to it.


    "We''ve taken some measurements and Felix would like to increase his proficiency with the skill so, we''re going to push his his limits."


    Withrel, one of the three that he had originally fought with the board, raised their hand, "What''s the skill called?"


    A number of the audience nodded along, all very curious to know. Fin nodded and lied for Felix, "The System translated it to Mana Visualization. It''s a Unique skill that lets him essentially do anything with mana so long as he can visualize it. He''s spent plenty of time practicing on his own to get it to this point."


    "How do I pick up this skill? I have an Arcane rarity Class?" Kilenor looked at Fin then Felix in turn.


    "Go join the 257th integration. It was a reward from a world event and Dark Magic. It may not be possible for anyone else to ever acquire it again." Fin smiled, "Our best chance though, we could all help him reach Arch Sage, which shouldn''t take too long considering his¡­ uniqueness, and he''ll be able to pass it on to all of us."


    The Adepts had a few more questions before finally deciding it was impossible for them to obtain the same skill for the time being. After that, everyone was actually excited to help and they started by having Felix stand right at the edge of his range and duel two Adepts.


    It took them just under a minute to win, which they celebrated, before they tried again. After an hour of dueling from the limit of his range, Felix actually found his range extend and it became impossible for them to win from his current position.


    After that, they split the board into sections and had him duel as many people as he could, at once. Instead of a traditional duel though, they came up with something new. The Adepts, along with Fin who participated sometimes, created a circle then Felix controlled a small dot of mana within that.


    The Adepts were tasked with moving the circles around as quickly as they could with the goal of having the dot touch the outside. Felix, just had to avoid the circles.


    It was a simple game that would have been trivial for Felix to win, were he not trying to do it in 18 simultaneous arenas. Each Adept, along with Fin, managed two circles, Felix maintaining 18 dots in a 6 by 3 grid on the board.


    It only took him half an hour to master the game so they moved onto finding a new game that would challenge him.


    Over the course of the next few hours, Felix was challenged and forced to his limits in every different way, speed, range, power and concurrent focus and he had already made notable progress. His effective cast range had reached 17 meters, increasing by just over a meter from their initial measurements.


    His speed was slightly faster though, it was only a marginal increase barely outside their margin of error. Their initial measurement of his overall concurrent focus had improved drastically from what he last remembered though, had stagnated during the class. Fin used a different, more easily quantifiable and verifiable measurement but when converted to his made up measurement of spell levels, Felix realized he could cast 20 simultaneous levels.


    At some point over the last few days, likely when he had finally gotten his mental computer functioning properly, he had drastically increased his overall focus. He likely could have even pushed it harder but he didn''t have the right spells to do so at the moment. He was already running into the problem of having multiple spells with overlapping forms which resulted in pseudo levels.


    He could effectively cast 30 simultaneous Fire Bolts because the spell forms were all identical. Any amount of overlap resulted in more spell levels than he could actually maintain due to the similarities making it easier on his mind so, he was happy with their measurements of about 20 for now. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 Chapter 203 - Book 5

    Heading back to his dorm, Felix finally sat down and started working on the soul he was going to attach to the computer he had been working on. Using the principles of what he had learned in Soul Manipulation but more so Animancy, Felix began compressing anima as much as he could to form something a little different from a traditional soul.


    This was both an experiment to further his own understanding but also hopefully a useful creation, Felix wanted to try and create a complex structure in the hopes that it became more functional. He started with a soul seed and already knew the size didn''t matter then formed a filter.


    For this soul, he focused on accuracy, a desire to babysit and monitor everything, derived from his need to control things, and a desire to help Felix. Around that, Felix wrapped the soul in a layer that contained just one desire, the desire to grow. He also made sure it had the experiences from his growth chamber by harvesting the souls out of half of the growth cells so it would know how.


    From there, he created his first experimental addition, a layer that wasn''t actually just a layer. Instead of simply covering the soul with it, he created a layer that would stand on its own and be physically separate from the soul seed and filter within it. The layer would then attach to the soul beneath it through threads, almost like the soul on the inside was suspended.


    The intention behind the layer was to have it act as an access control layer. In the worst case, the threads could be severed but otherwise, the layer would determine if someone accessing the computer had permission or not.


    Around that, he added a communication layer which he structured physically as a spiky ball, each spike acting as an antenna or attachment point for communication.


    The structured and shaped layers were somewhat of an experiment to see if structure made any difference. He had heard structure mention in Soul Manipulation & Cultivation class and wasn''t sure this was exactly what they had meant, but he figured he might as well give it a try.


    The soul itself was denser than anything Felix had manually created himself and seemed to be solid. None of the physical shape he had created was deteriorating so he considered it a temporary success.


    The last step was to combine everything together and bind it to a body, or in this case more of a housing. Instead of wasting time making it himself, Felix intended on summoning Nova with the intention of having her create the exact shape he was looking for. He didn''t know what material to use yet though and figured he would look around in Telviras for something.


    By the time he was finished with everything and was ready to go shopping, it was early the next morning so he hoped the stores in Telviras would be open. He realized he didn''t actually know what time it was in Telviras though because the days on Eramith were longer and he had never bothered to figure it out.


    Opening the door to his dorm to leave, he found Melody standing there.


    "Oh Felix, it''s been so long. You must have missed me sooooooo much."


    Felix sighed and flew over her head to get out, closing the door behind him with a very light Force spell.


    "So anyways, now that your heart ache has recovered from the lack of my presence¡­ where you going?" Melody walked along under Felix, easily keeping up with his speed as she tilted her head back to look up at him.


    "Heading to Telviras. I''ve got some shopping to do in preparation for the duel¡­ amongst other things."


    Somehow perfectly avoiding every obstacle in her way without looking, Melody hopped onto and slid down the stair railing as Felix dropped down the middle, "Sounds like fun. Can I come?"


    Felix shrugged as he reached the ground, "Sure I guess. I''m not going to be buying anything interesting."


    "Mundane or low rarity?" Melody skipped along beneath him.


    "High rarity just not¡­ interesting."


    She nodded, "We should go get Ayred then. He''ll be happy to come along."


    Felix shook his head, "What, why? I just need to pick some things up, this isn''t an adventure I need everyone involved in."


    She giggled, "Felix, trust me. Let''s get Ayred."


    Felix''s aversion to people in general fought with the fact that Melody knew far more than he did and seemed to only be helping him. Eventually the prospect of Ayred actually being useful won out and Felix sighed, "Fine. I assume he''s where I left him?"


    She shrugged, "Probably. Race you there?"


    Before he could respond, Melody was gone.


    Felix bolted after her but he never quite saw her. As he walked into the ARM building though, he found her just off to the left of the door, lying on the couch with her feet in the air reading a book with her head hanging off the edge.


    "Man you''re so slow. Maybe you''ll be able to keep up once you win the duel and get Erevos."


    Felix looked at the bookshelf then at Melody, then shrugged.


    She sighed, "I don''t know what Ayred told you but if you''re thinking what I think you''re thinking, I put those there for everyone else''s sake."


    "Oh, so you haven''t read them? They aren''t just to satisfy your insatiable, dark urges?"


    "Of course I have. They''re there for educational purposes because the people around here don''t get out enough."


    Felix rolled his eyes and started walking away, "Uh huh."


    "Oh, what am I reading and how am I enjoying it? What a thoughtful question Felix. I''m reading a science fiction novel actually. You heard of science fiction?"


    Felix nodded.


    "It''s interesting to think about, how fast technology progressed. Maybe we took the wrong path with mana and souls." She sighed, "Sure our bodies are more durable and stronger. Magic is cool too but technology evolved way faster. I feel like we''ve stagnated for so long. So many low mana worlds got so far with just technology then¡­ mana comes along and ruins everything. Maybe this universe just wasn''t built for mana. Kryptos gets close but¡­ I can''t help but wonder where we would be if we had been evolving technology the whole time instead."


    Felix just stared at her for a few seconds, unsure what to say. He logically followed everything she said but magic and mana were just too cool for him to agree in any way, on any level.


    "Anyways, just something to think about." Melody rose to her feet on the backrest of the couch, dropped the book then hopped off, landing next to Felix.


    With a soft and barely audible voice, Melody sang, "Ayred!"


    A moment later, he almost fell down the stairs but caught himself just before joining them.


    "Melody, Felix." Ayred nodded to the two of them. Looking at Melody specifically, "You need something?"


    "Felix here has some things to buy in Telviras."


    Ayred nodded knowingly, "Okay, let''s go."


    Melody smiled then skipped along ahead of them out of the building. She continued skipping outside of the building and into the air as Felix and Ayred followed.


    They landed just outside the portal building and Melody approached the podium where the attendant usually stood.


    Ayred turned to Felix "So what do you need to buy in Telviras?"


    Felix hesitated for a fraction of a second, "Corpses and materials."


    "Rarities for both? What grade?"


    Silently thankful his question wasn''t as weird as he thought it sounded, Felix internally sighed in relief, "For the corpses the higher the rarity the better. C grade or higher ideally. The materials, high rarities are ideal. I need to feed my familiar, a, once Matter Sprite now Matter Spirit so, really anything is good. I''m also looking for a specific material but I don''t know what yet."


    Ayred nodded, "High rarity corpses are going to be¡­ challenging. The demand for them has been unusually high for a while now. It''s essentially impossible to get your hands on any. Demand for materials has been similar but not quite as bad. I''ll see what I can do."


    Felix was thoroughly confused but the portal opened in front of them at that moment and he didn''t get a chance to ask before they stepped through.


    They arrived in the familiar teleportation hub where Ayred immediately walked out and vanished. Felix turned to Melody, his confusion made obvious from his expression.


    She giggled, "You dueled Ayred, right?"


    Felix nodded.


    "Was he particularly good? So good that he deserves a spot amongst the top 500 or so people born in the last 100 epochs?"


    "Uh¡­ no. Not really. Wait, everyone in the school has to have been born in the last 100 epochs?"


    She shrugged, "Loosely, yes. Anyways, Ayred''s at the school because of his profession. His profession is a derivative of Merchant, something like Shadow Relic Dealer or Enlightened Artifact Fence. I don''t fully remember."


    "Oh. Wait, Strig? His spell modifications weren''t nearly good enough."


    "Artist. He''s a famous painter actually."


    They walked out of the teleportation hub together, towards one of the balconies, "Is that how you know Ayred?"


    She shrugged, "Sort of. Anyways, where are we heading first?"


    "Good question. I guess with Ayred handling everything I needed to buy¡­ is there any point in my looking around for that stuff?"


    "Nope."


    "Library it is then."


    She nodded and flew side by side with him to the library. Heading into the general section first, Felix had the librarian retrieve a number of books on materials, animancy and constructs. He scanned them all then headed with Melody into the memory section.


    "I''m looking for Tanryel''s Caster''s Dueling matches?"


    The librarian nodded then vanished into a backroom. He reappeared a moment later, "Which ones?"


    "I guess the 20 most recent along with all the most prominent matches? Tournament finals, famous opponents, high level opponents."


    The librarian nodded then returned a few minutes later with a box of neatly organized memory crystals. Placing the box on the table in front of Felix, the librarian sat down and pointed at the crystals.


    "These are the 20 most recent, these are all the tournament final and semi final matches he''s fought in and these are the highest level opponents he''s fought."


    Felix looked into the box at over a hundred memory crystals, "Any chance I could get copies of these?"


    "Yes¡­ It will take a few hours and the material cost will be¡­ high."


    "How much is high?" Felix frowned thinking back to the soul gem he had bought for Inscripticae and how it had cost them 25 B.


    "A few thousand A to an S."


    Melody stood, "That''s fine. We''ll be back in a few hours then, say 4 hours."


    "I''ll have them ready by then." The librarian nodded then took the box and left.


    Walking out of the room, Felix turned to Melody, "Uh, that''s not fine? I don''t have nearly that many creds."


    "I do. Don''t worry about it. You''re fighting over me anyways."


    "I¡­ Thanks."


    Melody just nodded and smiled, "Where to now?"


    Felix just looked around the lobby for a bit, "I guess¡­ I guess I should visit Inscripticae and Raidran''s then."


    Melody gestured for him to lead the way and they flew over to Inscripticae together. Felix had almost expected the shop to be permanently closed considering what had happened. Opening the door though, it was like nothing had changed.


    The lobby was just as he remembered it and hopping over the counter with Melody in tow, the workshop looked mostly the same as well. There were people he didn''t recognize working at the tables which made it feel different, even if the room was functionally identical.


    "You can''t just jump back in here." One of the enchanters drew a sword at their hip and approached Felix and Melody.


    Felix completely ignored them and headed straight to Aldahn''s office, knocking on the door.


    "Hey, wha-" The sword wielder was completely unsure of what to do but didn''t get a chance to make a decision as a moment later, Felix heard a very familiar, "Come in!"


    Felix opened the door and let Melody through first then closed the door behind himself.


    "Felix! Are you back or¡­ you''re just visiting?"


    "Just visiting for now. This is Melody."


    Melody waved with her signature ever cheery, overly gleeful and warm smile painted across her face.


    "Pleasure to meet you." Aldahn nodded towards her.


    "I see you hired some new enchanters?" Felix gestured towards the workshop with his head.


    "Yeah. They''re¡­ okay. Not the same but like I said, you get used to tragedy and learn to just move on. The shop''ll be different but different is okay. Just¡­ different."


    Felix nodded, "I don''t exactly have time right now but I''ll come by when I do to pick up a commission."


    Aldahn smirked, "Your personal client, the dueling coat? Her friends have been asking after you."


    "Have they been bragging about the infinite size of their wallets too?" Felix groaned.


    "Not quite." Aldahn laughed, "You gonna tell me where you disappeared to anyways?"


    Felix hesitated and Melody leaned over and whispered in his ear, loud enough that Aldahn certainly heard them with his grade and stats, "He already knows, he''s just giving you the chance to tell him."


    Felix looked at her then him, "What, really?"


    Aldahn shrugged, "I¡­ had a suspicion? You''re an Integrated, it''s not that much of a stretch to guess that you got that scholarship."


    "Well yes, that''s where I''ve been and also where I picked up this parasite." Felix gestured towards Melody.


    She shrugged as her smile turned into a smirk.


    "Well, you''re almost definitely going to be a better enchanter than I am then."


    Felix shrugged, "Maybe. Anyways, I just figured I should check in with you I guess."


    Aldahn waved him off, "You''re busy with school, don''t worry about it. We''re doing fine. I had to handle a few more clients than I normally do to pick up the slack but it''s probably good for me anyways."


    Felix nodded, "I take it Krinitor is still busy?"


    Aldahn nodded, "Yup. That project he got was apparently huge."


    After a bit more teasing and chit chat, Felix bid Aldahn farewell then ignored the sword wielding and now confused enchanter as he and Melody left and flew off to Raidran''s.


    Entering through the employee entrance, Felix and Melody walked into the main chamber where he found Rainoth and Kordran assisting some client.


    Seeing Felix enter, Rainoth politely excused herself and approached them, "Felix, what the hell are you doing bringing someone else in here."


    Felix shrugged, "Didn''t really think it would be an issue. This is Melody."


    Rainoth''s eyes went wide as she stared at Melody, "You¡­"


    Melody waved once again with the same warm and friendly smile she greeted everyone with, "Hello."


    After finally collecting herself, Rainoth actually bowed, "Melody, it is an absolute pleasure to meet you. Welcome to Raidran''s."


    "Thanks." Melody smiled at her brightly.


    "Was there something you needed in specific, Felix or did you come to bring me more¡­ materials. Hopefully not quite as¡­ dangerous? as the last?"


    "I just came to check in actually because I found myself with more time here than I anticipated."


    "Ah I see, well, you are always welcome here."


    Rainoth was being far more cordial than Felix had ever seen her and he was pretty sure he knew why.


    "You''re looking for rare materials? Felix here might not have any on hand but I happen to know someone you might be interested in talking to." Melody smiled.


    Rainoth stumbled to find words, "O- Of course. It would be an hono- my pleasure."


    Melody smiled and turned to Felix, "I''ll go get a message to Ayred to meet us here then. Meet you here in 30 minutes or so? How about you pick me out a new outfit in the meantime, design it yourself if you want."


    Felix sighed, knowing she was teasing him but the look on Rainoth''s face gave him the impression he couldn''t really say no without an actual fight, "Sure."


    Melody smiled wide to both of them then skipped out of the shop the way she had come in.


    Rainoth''s face immediately reverted to the Drakene equivalent of a sour and crochety old woman''s, "Felix! You need to be kinder around people like her."


    "No I don''t. You want to get started on her outfit or what? I know you wouldn''t let me design it even if I had wanted to anyways."


    "Damn straight I wouldn''t. You would stick her in some kind of skimpy lit-"


    Felix scowled, "Where the hell did you get that impression of me? I would have picked the nearest curtain and wrapped a belt around it. I could care less about what she wears."


    "You''re a young uncultured boy, of course you''d choose something revea-"


    "Never mind. How did I even get roped into this. Make her whatever you want. She seems to like sundresses, she wears those a lot. I''m going to go read in a corner."


    Rainoth grumbled incomprehensibly as she rushed through the shop trying to come up with something.


    Hey Grim, you get through that material registry?


    We should have asked Ked or Professor Sal. These materials are largely mundane and boring.


    Alright. Thanks anyways. How are things going up there?


    Really well actually. We''ve come up with a few other building ideas we can put in place and some more ideas for reproduction.


    I''m coming up, one second.


    Popping his consciousness into his Mind City, Felix saw Grim and Orion appear right next to him.


    "Master Felix." Orion bowed.


    Felix was a little off-put by the honorific but just nodded to him, "You had some ideas for reproduction?"


    "With your permission, we''d like to begin experimenting. We just need a little more access to¡­ your soul and Soul Space."


    Felix nodded, "I''ll see what I can do. Anything else you guys need up here?"


    "Access to more anima and mana would also greatly accelerate our work. Ideally we''d like to expand the computer growth farm." Orion bowed again.


    "I''ll see what I can do. I''m also almost done working on an improved version so I might replace that one soon."


    Orion bowed one last time then vanished, back into the city itself.


    Felix turned to Grim, "Any concerns with giving more permissions to these versions?"


    Grim nodded, "Yes and no. They are much smarter by themselves but I''m pretty sure they''re borrowing resources from your brain as well. Their own brains just aren''t big enough to be as smart as they are."


    Felix sighed, immediately catching on to the issue, "So if I let them reproduce without limits, my own Intelligence is going to plummet."


    "Yeah. Your new computer should fix that but you''re going to want to disable, or severely limit their access to using your brain at all."


    "Alright, thanks. Do you want your connection to be an actual computer or just a translation end point?"


    Grim shrugged, "An actual computer would be great I''m just not sure how to¡­ attach it?"


    "I''ll make it anyways and we''ll figure it out later. I guess an endpoint is all Nova needs."


    "Agreed." Grim nodded.


    "After this, any other ideas on what I should be doing to prepare for the duel?"


    Grim hesitated, "Actually¡­ yes. You made the biggest jump in progress recently from fighting the Hungering Hollow, that inky stuff¡­" The fact that he suggested that despite the fear Felix knew he harbored, spoke volumes.


    Felix nodded, "I''ll be careful."


    Shifting his consciousness back to his body, Felix was still sitting in a corner and Rainoth was still rushing around the shop like a headless chicken. He looked down into his main Soul Space and looked at the computer growth farm there.


    It really did look ancient in comparison to the new one he had been working with. Before he destroyed it though, he opened a new Soul Space and moved the new computer growth farm there. Then, he dumped in half of his mana pool as a solid block and moved over a large chunk of Anima from his main Soul Space.


    Finally, he entered his Mind City and rebuilt the fenced in section where the growth farm building had been located. Now, he had the fenced in section perfectly represent the new Soul Space he had just opened. The new growth farm building represented his improved farm, the blocks of mana appeared within a warehouse where he also added a spout that would output liquid mana from the block. Lastly, he added a massive, low hanging, white cloud above the area that represented all the Anima floating around in there.


    Taking a step back and looking around, little had changed about the city. There were a few new houses that the new projections had built but nothing that looked awful. Realizing he was going to have a number of new residents arriving soon if reproduction ever started working correctly, he found an empty plot of land and erected an infinite skyscraper. Each floor would be one individual apartment and was completely customizable inside.


    He wouldn''t force anyone to live in there but hoped that its existence would keep things marginally tidier.


    Happy with his work, Felix returned to the real world and turned his attention to the Hungering Hollow that had been sitting in its very own Soul Space. It didn''t seem to have grown at all but his soul around it had gotten harder and denser.


    He quickly expanded the Soul Space so he had more room to work with which, was a little tricky given he couldn''t just fill it and let the pressure expand it. Instead, he had to use his own willpower to push it open.


    Once he had enough room around it, Felix began constructing spell forms nearby as practice. He pushed himself as close as he dared to the inky black orb then slowly added a second spell. He knew he could do more, he had done so before but he built himself back up just to be entirely certain he wouldn''t make a mistake.


    The number of spells grew along with the complexity until Melody showed up again some time later with Ayred in tow. She made herself known by effectively knocking on Felix''s soul until he opened the employee entrance for them and led them back into the main chamber.


    Rainoth was completely missing but the client Kordran had been dealing with was gone so he approached them instead, "Welcome, friends of Felix. Please follow me to the sitting area and I will bring you tea while we wait for my wife to reappear."


    The tea was good but in Felix''s mind, disappointing. It wasn''t quite as fantastical as some things he had experienced in the multiverse. Just to confirm he hadn''t gotten complacent, Felix rolled his Flask of Adventurous Refreshment until he found something that tasted like soap but was actually drinkable.


    Melody''s eyes went wide when she saw the flask and she reached over wiggling her hand in a gimme gesture, like a child, until he handed it to her.


    She proceeded to take a sip, make a ridiculous face then roll it and take another sip. Every once in a while she would pour some into Ayred''s glass, insisting he try it. This continued until Rainoth finally showed back up.


    "Ah, my lovely partner finally returns." Kordran gestured towards Rainoth in a rather dramatic way.


    Rainoth walked up to them and awkwardly bowed, evidently unsure of what to do, "Welcome to Raidran''s."


    Melody smiled and gestured towards Ayred, "Rainoth, meet Ayred, The Deraav''n Shadow Dealer."


    Completely slack jawed, Rainoth was at a loss. Her husband Kordran though was much more collected, "It is both of our pleasure to meet you, Ayred."


    "He''s The Deraav''n Shadow Dealer? He''s a kid?" Rainoth seemed to be having a difficult time processing this new information.


    Melody shrugged, "Yes and¡­ mostly yes. Anyways you mentioned Felix bringing you materials and Ayred''s always looking for more clients."


    Ayred nodded, "It would be my pleasure." Rising from his seat, Ayred handed a card to Kordran who was closest, "This is my most trusted intermediary who knows how to contact me. Send any requests his way and I''ll see what I can do."


    Rainoth snatched the card from Kordran and stared at it for a few seconds with wide eyes before making it vanish, likely stowing it in some kind of Soul Space or spatial storage.


    Collecting herself, Rainoth bowed to Ayred then Melody, "You have my gratitude for putting us in contact Melody. Felix and I have picked out some outfits for you to try on, would you like to take a look?"


    Melody hopped up to her feet giddily and hurried over to follow Rainoth. Kordran bowed to them both then headed to help his partner when they called for him.


    Ayred was left holding the flask so he handed it back to Felix with a nod, "Looks like I''ll be able to get my hands on some materials. Any corpses above Rare though are difficult. Epic might be possible but it would take a while. Anything higher than that might take an Epoch or more."


    Felix took the flask and stowed it as his brow furrowed, "Couldn''t I just hunt them myself? How is the supply so low?"


    Ayred nodded, "That''s what most people have resorted to. All the hunters and adventurers that are remotely capable of hunting beasts have been swamped with contracts already from the high grade crafters."


    "Guess I''ll have to go hunt some myself then. How much for the materials by the way?"


    "I just assumed Melody would be paying." Ayred shrugged.


    Felix leaned in and spoke quietly though, he figured Melody could hear them if she was paying attention, "She hadn''t mentioned paying for materials but she''s already agreed to pay for something else. Should I be worried? Am I gonna owe her now?"


    Ayred smiled, "You don''t officially owe her anything. Let me guess, she found you somewhere on campus and started inserting herself into your life at random. Appearing unannounced, inviting you to random events and things and now she''ll insist on paying for everything."


    "Is that how you two met?"


    "Sort of. I get it can seem a little worrying, like she might be trying to get something out of you. From everything I''ve seen from her over the last 50 epochs or so, you have nothing to be worried about. Just enjoy the ride and make sure to get whatever you can out of it."


    "That sounds¡­ exploitative."


    Ayred quickly shook his head, "No, think of her as a sponsor. Also you should ask her why she''s doing it, it will help you trust her. Helped me at least."


    Felix nodded and looked over his shoulder at Melody who was trying on a white sundress with an animated field of flowers shifting through the material.


    Once Melody was satisfied, buying more than one outfit for herself, they headed to the shop Aldahn had brought Felix to when they were buying materials for the box.


    Nela bowed as Felix, Melody and Ayred entered, "Felix, welcome back."


    Felix nodded, surprised she remembered his name, "Thanks."


    "What kind of material would you be looking for today?"


    "I need a material that insulates all mana and is easily affinized and soul bound."


    "What shape are you looking for?"


    "A sphere or rather, I need flat surfaces so an icosahedron or something like that. Also I would like it to ideally be¡­ relatively indestructible."


    "Of course. Must it be homogenous?"


    "Not necessarily."


    "I take it the inside will need to be protected. Can you give me any more information on what it will be protecting?"


    "It will be used in a construct."


    "Excellent." Nela bowed then led them over to the center of room with the large multicolored sandbox where she quickly constructed a multicolored icosahedron out of sand.


    Felix spent about an hour tuning the materials with Nela. They settled on a combination of a few alloys. One on the inside that insulated the contents from almost all mana interference. Outside of that was a thick layer that connected the inside to the outside and provided structural support. On the outside, they chose something much harder that was essentially a suit of armor.


    Once Melody assured Nela that their budget was effectively unlimited, the materials she brought out were far more interesting to Felix.


    As they looked over the final product, Felix with satisfaction and Nela with a blank face that didn''t give anything away, Nela smiled to him, "Unfortunately, it will take me at least 6 hours to finish the product. This material isn''t the easiest to work with as there are few materials in the entire multiverse stronger than this."


    Melody nodded, "Probably just true Ry Mallus."


    Ayred chuckled and shrugged and Nela nodded knowingly. Felix turned to Melody, "What''s that?"


    "The only truly indestructible material in the multiverse. No one can actually create it, some people question whether or not it''s even a material and none of it is still known to exist. It is one in the same with Adamantium and Mythril from stories. No one really knows what it is, any of its properties. All we really know is that it exists or¡­ existed."


    Felix looked at all of them with confusion, "How?"


    "Records, legends, stories from the oldest gods, primordials. There''s enough overlap, even if a different name is used, that we¡­ know." Melody shrugged.


    "So it''s probably just a myth then?"


    Ayred turned back towards them from the far wall where he was inspecting the material displays, "Not exactly. No one really knows anything specific but a lot of theories exist saying a few of the primordials have some, Rhonan keeps some in his vault and some other sillier theories."


    Felix nodded, "Ok then, what do you mean true?"


    Melody sighed, "There have been countless attempts to create Ry Mallus but no one has matched the legendary indestructibility of true Ry Mallus."


    "What do we know about it?"


    Melody shrugged, "Nothing really. Some think it''s a metal, others think that''s ridiculous and that it can''t just be matter. A popular theory is it also involves some state of mana but others say it is formed from some other unknown fundamental building block of matter¡­ again, no one really knows. Maybe Rhonan but he hasn''t shared, so."


    "I see. So this is nearly indestructible then?"


    Nela nodded, "Nearly."


    I guess it''s kind of unnecessary for it to be this strong but¡­ I''m not paying for it.


    She looked to Felix, "Would you prefer to wait here or come back to retrieve it?"


    Ayred cut in, "I''ll wait for it and bring it to you. I''ve got a commission of my own I want to discuss with Nela. You go on ahead."


    "I don''t have anything else to do in the city then. Melody?" Felix turned to her.


    She shrugged, "Alright, we''ll head back then and see you later."


    Ayred nodded and the two of them left for the teleportation hub.


    As they headed back through the portal in Telviras'' teleportation hub, Felix turned to Melody, "So why are you helping me? Why did you pay for all these materials Ayred found and memory crystals for the duel?"


    She looked at him and tilted her head like he was crazy, "So I take it gifts are not your love language?"


    Felix shook his head, "Seriously. Why?"


    Melody sighed, "Why can''t you just take advantage of the situation and not question it?"


    "Not a trusting person I guess."


    "Look, I already told you I was born with the ability to tell if my dad was lying. I was also born with the other side of that coin too, the ability to manipulate souls. I would make my parents happy when they were sad and angry when I didn''t get what I wanted. I learned to control it and my mother was ecstatic because I was naturally gifted as a bard from birth."


    Felix nodded, "So she named you aptly then."


    "Yeah. She had wanted me to become a bard like her but once she learned of my natural talents, her ambitions exploded. She ultimately wanted me to be the right hand to a God until I could eventually ascend and became one myself. Given my talent and who my father was, the former was realistically possible."


    "From the way you say that, I take it you didn''t want that?"


    Melody snorted, "Not anymore. At first I just went along with it but¡­ once I realized it wasn''t what I wanted, I fought her and rebelled constantly. My dad was on her side but didn''t involve himself directly, he¡­ never did. Anyways, eventually they relented, a little. I went off and mostly did my own thing until I met someone who I thought was genuine and¡­ anyways, I gave them some of my credits, sponsored their work. It was really just because I liked them though."


    "Who were they?"


    "Some blacksmith you''ve never heard of. Anyways, they exploded in popularity and my dad recruited them directly. My parents expanded my allowance and pushed me to sponsor more people. Sponsoring people is what gods do so they were more than happy to support me in at least doing part of what they always wanted. Turns out, my ability to read people helps a lot and everyone I''ve¡­ liked has¡­ turned out well. Now they give me more money than I can ever use and insist I sponsor people. So, think of me as a sponsor."


    Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.


    "So it''s like an instinct you feel when you read people?"


    "Kind of?"


    "And you see that in me?"


    "Nope."


    "So¡­"


    "I said think of me as a sponsor. Not that I was your sponsor. The most important part of having a sponsor isn''t actually the money by the way. The most important part are the connections. I could have dumped god fortune levels of credits onto Ayred and it wouldn''t have made him who he is. Connecting him with merchants I knew, people that owed me favors, using my name to build his network, that''s what matters."


    "I see. I''m too insular though to have a network. Even if you introduced me to people¡­"


    "Yeah, you''d toss them aside. I know. You aren''t Ayred or anyone else I''ve helped out. You''re very different, unique even. Which is why I said, I don''t see in you what I look for in¡­ sponsees."


    "So, why are you paying for everything?"


    "Maybe I just feel sorry because of how poor you are. Maybe, I just like giving gifts. Or maybe¡­ I''m hoping to win your heart."


    "Alright, whatever. That''s what Ayred is then? A sponsee?"


    "Yes and no. I am not a sponsor and have no sponsees. Those words have¡­ implied connotations like contracts and servitude. I don''t do that. Ayred is someone I found a few epochs ago that I liked. Now he''s exploded so I don''t need to do much anymore. It''s not just a business relationship though, I do consider him a friend. Plus¡­ we kind of had a thing a little while back¡­"


    "What am I?"


    "Some crazy Integrated kid who''s been chasing me around, desperately hoping to get into my p-"


    Felix groaned, "Okay never mind. Fine. Thanks for-"


    Out of nowhere, a tall lanky looking man wearing entirely black, simple clothes appeared in front of the two of them.


    [?] Kairune: Chancellor of Eramith Academy (Lvl ?)


    "Melody." The man nodded in her direction.


    "Chancellor." She nodded in return.


    He turned to Felix, "Felix, I need you to come with me."


    Felix turned to Melody but she just shrugged, "Uh¡­ Why?"


    "I have a message for you." The chancellor stared at him blankly.


    Melody looked just as confused as Felix but just shrugged, "I''ll see you later then."


    Felix didn''t really have any reason to refuse other than his rampant paranoia and distrust of others so, he followed. The chancellor led Felix over to his office which was basically just an empty room with a desk and two chairs on either side.


    Taking the seat across the empty desk, Felix simply waited for the chancellor to start talking.


    Leaning against the wall behind the desk, the chancellor sighed, "Not sure how you got the attention of an Archon but here we are."


    Wait¡­ what?


    Felix shook his head as he tried to form words out of the flurry of questions in his mind, "Wha- Who- What''s the message?"


    "Tekragoraxius has requested a meeting."


    "The dragon god? Why?"


    Kairune shrugged, "She didn''t say."


    "I¡­ guess¡­ I have to?"


    The Chancellor shrugged, "You don''t have to. You should though."


    "What if she just kills me?"


    The Chancellor nodded knowingly, clearly having expected this question, "She already would have killed you if she wanted to."


    "I¡­ Okay. When?"


    "Next 10th day. One dekad."


    "Where?"


    "Just go to the portal room in the morning. I''ll have El there ready to open the portal."


    "I guess¡­ is there anything else I should know?"


    The Chancellor just shrugged, "Nope. Good lu- Oh wait, bring your familiar, the Matter Sprite."


    Oh shit. This is about the scales¡­ isn''t it?


    Felix sighed, "Thanks."


    With his Mana Structures class being recorded, Felix headed straight to Ked''s lab through the portal frame on campus. An Adept let him in and showed him around then guided him through the lab itself. After that, they worked together to assemble a simple construct that was still far more complex than any they would have touched in class.


    They started with assembling a humanoid construct that resembled a robot. The complex part was having all the pieces work together. They all had to be individually affinized to their soul gems and the mana structures all connected.


    The adept assembled the pieces, connecting the mana structures with each-other after Felix soul bound and affinized each piece of the final product. Observing the adept as they worked, Felix was astonished at how complex it all was.


    This work was in a whole different league to anything he had seen at Inscripticae and he had no basis for even trying to understand any of it. Ideally, he could get there through his Mana Structures class given enough time.


    He spent a few hours there until the construct was done then headed back to his dorm where he finally assembled the entire computer. Ayred had dropped off the finished container a while ago and Felix was extremely happy with the result.


    [S - Legendary] Container


    [Nearly Indestructible]


    An icosahedric container designed to contain and insulate its contents from ambient mana fluctuations and protect them from nearly anything.


    All that was left was binding the container to the computer and placing it inside. That only took him a few minutes then he started connecting the computer to his own brain and the other constructs floating around in his soul and living in his mind.


    Unfortunately, even though it was using his core soul to function, Felix couldn''t find a way to communicate with it through that so, he worked on a different method of communicating.


    He stored the computer in a new Soul Space for the time being and attached everything to it using mana cables wrapped in anima. The anima kept the mana stable and protected while it transferred all the necessary information. His soul on either end could read the attunements and energy levels of the mana trivially so communication was rather simple.


    Now to see if it worked. Grim? Orion?


    Grim immediately responded, Give them a minute to sync up. Can you hear it yet?


    Nope.


    Maybe try reaching out?


    Felix nodded and focused in on the connection he had made between the computer and himself. He tried sending a ping down the cable, just a spike of energy level and attunement. A few moments later he got a shifted attunement in response.


    Oh, that''s what you meant by sync up.


    Grim answered knowingly, Yup.


    It took them a few hours of Soul Garden time to establish a method of communicating with each-other but Felix settled on transmitting sound waves directly through the cable. He had a representation of the cable appear in his mind city and attached it to a building that he erected, representing his ears.


    As soon as he did, he was expecting the communication to work but instead, he had to teach the computer how to talk. Luckily he knew how to talk and knew a language so he simply mirrored his experience and knowledge from his own head and manually implanted it into the computer.


    Finally, Felix heard a robotic voice echo out around him from nowhere in particular, "I am Central Computer Mark I."


    "Can I call you Mark?"


    "Yes."


    "Have you figured out how to communicate with the projections in my head yet?"


    "Yes."


    "Perfect. Let me know if there are any issues."


    "Understood."


    Grim, how''s it looking?


    Initial observations? Good. It''ll become more valuable as soon as you get to the next step.


    I''ll start that as soon as I can. I do have a duel to prepare for though. I should probably start training for that now that this is done.


    You''re still severely lacking on stats though.


    Yeah but I don''t have any idea how to fix that right now. Hopefully I can come up with some kind of trick to win.


    Felix spent the rest of the night diving into the texts he had scanned on mana structures and spell formations along with experimenting with and dissecting the Caster''s Dueling spells.


    Walking into Group Combat, the bottom placed class now that they had all done their placements, Felix took the seat he always did, at the back of the class nearest the door.


    Notably he saw Peace, the monk that had surrendered their duel before it even began, Zeraxes, the Lightning Javelin wielder and the student that lit himself on fire and bounced around like a comet.


    An Adept eventually walked into the room of 32 total students, "Alright, we''ll be splitting the class into two today and you''ll be facing off against each-other in a labyrinth. The game is capture the points. There will be 4 capture points all around the labyrinth. To capture one all you have to do is have only your team members standing on the point for 5 minutes. You can recapture points and the game ends when one team holds all the points or all the students on the other side are eliminated. Any questions?"


    Before anyone had a chance to speak up, the Adept nodded, "Great. We already sorted the class based on rankings."


    Two portals appeared to either side of the Adept and they began calling names in front of each portal.


    Felix headed through his designated portal into a large open chamber with multiple paths leading out of it in all directions.


    Peace, Zeraxes and the comet kid, Romar, were all on Felix''s team along with 12 other students. As soon as they all stepped through, the portal closed behind them.


    Zeraxes walked up to one of the exits and tried to walk through but found a barrier stopping him.


    A few moments later, a voice echoed out through the labyrinth, "You have one minute to discuss strategy with each-other then the match will begin. The System protects the labyrinth so you can''t die but if you are reduced to 0 health, you will be eliminated and then return to the class room."


    One of the students turned to everyone else, "So what''s the plan?"


    Zeraxes scoffed from the other end of their room, "All we have to do is eliminate all of them, right? Easy."


    Romar nodded, "Yup. Should be pretty easy."


    One of the other students spoke up, "So that''s it? You don''t want to try and split up into groups of four for each of the points?"


    Zeraxes laughed, "No way. I don''t fight with others."


    "Can we just follow you then and stand on the points when you eliminate people?"


    Zeraxes scoffed, "No, you''ll just get in the way. I''ll go eliminate them all and we''ll win like that."


    "What if they stay as a group? Won''t they just eliminate you?"


    "Of course not. What''s wrong with you? This is the lowest tier class, who is going to realistically be able to beat me?" Zeraxes looked disgusted.


    "Didn''t you lose to Adaline?"


    Zeraxes sighed, "I- Yes, wel-"


    "Twice?"


    Zeraxes, obviously frustrated, snapped back, "Well, she isn''t in this class, is she?"


    Why are you in a group combat class at all then? Wait¡­ why am I in this class then? Stupid Melody.


    Another minute passed while Zeraxes shot down everyone who tried to come up with any kind of plan that differed from his. Felix mostly just listened but he wasn''t hearing anything he liked and after a minute, all of the proposed plans had been shot down. After talking for a little while, ironically most people sided with Zeraxes and the consensus was to simply run in one by one.


    I don''t like fighting with others either but these idiots are going to run into a group one by one and all get eliminated. This is idiotic.


    As soon as the barriers disappeared, Zeraxes and Romar bolted into the course followed by a surge of everyone in the starting room except for Felix.


    Felix didn''t really have much hope for winning, as much as he wanted to, he still intended to try though. Looking around, he was the only one left in the room so he started walking towards one of the exits but was stopped by a voice from behind him.


    "Not as eager to prove your prowess against the rest of the class?"


    Spinning around, Felix saw someone he recognized though had never met.


    [C] Peace (Lvl 1428)


    Wait¡­ his level it''s¡­ lower than before?


    "Have you¡­ been here the whole time?"


    "Yes."


    "Why didn''t I see you just a second ago?"


    Peace shrugged.


    "Your level, it''s lower than it was last time I identified you."


    Peace cocked his head, "Is it?"


    "Why? How?"


    Peace waved him off, "This isn''t really the time to be explaining all of our secrets to each-other."


    Just a moment later, before Felix could respond, a very clear and neutral voice echoed out into his head, A member of your team has been eliminated.


    The message was followed a few seconds later by an identical message.


    Felix shrugged, "Well, I don''t really plan on running in there at this point so."


    Peace shook his head, "Meeee neither. It might not be permanent but dying still isn''t fun."


    "Why did you forfeit our match by the way?"


    Peace just waggled his eye brows.


    Felix heard another announcement for one of his team members dying and sighed as he dropped into a sitting position. He pulled out the flask and rolled it to something akin to fruit juice then took a sip and offered it to Peace.


    Peace happily took a sip then handed the flask back to Felix, "So, you got any fun stories from the integration?"


    Felix furrowed his brow for a few seconds then sighed, "Not really."


    "Wanna recount the tale anyways?"


    "No. Not really."


    "Come on, I''ll trade you. You tell me about the integration and I''ll tell you a secret that only a handful actually know."


    "Will I think the trade was worth it in the end?"


    "The secret starts with Rhonan is actually injured."


    "Lots of people suspect that from what I hear."


    "Sure but none of them know how."


    Felix was skeptical but the risk was low, "Alright, fine."


    Felix recounted the entirety of his integration from the day The System failed to awaken him to the day he left. He left out quite a bit about Grim and his abilities with mana but despite the gaping holes in his story, Peace never questioned him about any of it.


    Once he was done skimming through his life, Felix nodded to Peace, "So how is Rhonan injured?"


    Peace smiled and reached out a hand. Felix looked at it, confused, for just a few seconds before he grasped it.


    Suddenly, Felix''s consciousness was drawn into a memory exactly the same way a memory crystal worked. The memory was not a real memory though, instead it had obviously been constructed.


    Felix wasn''t even a corporeal being as he experienced the memory, just an observer. Standing before him was Peace. There was also nothing around them, it was just blank, like the memory creator simply hadn''t bothered to fill it in.


    Peace began talking though he moved more like a puppet than a man, "Rhonan was infected with The Endless Hunger. A substance that exists outside of our universe that consumes anything and everything, growing endlessly. He only has a few more epochs to live."


    "Wait, this Endless Hunger, is-"


    Peace''s projection nodded robotically, "The same stuff you encountered in Trelas, yes."


    "How did you-"


    "Pleeeaase, I know lots of things. Got any more specific questions or can we go back? It isn''t exactly comfortable creating and maintaining this."


    "How was he infected?"


    "On a hunt, he''s been fighting the Hunger Beasts for thousands of epochs now."


    "I-"


    "Sorry, that''s all I got for now. Don''t mention anything about any of this outside of here or you''ll likely be killed."


    Suddenly they returned to the real world and Felix let go of Peace''s hand.


    What the fuck just happened¡­


    Felix looked at Peace incredulously, "Why did you tell me that? Who are you?"


    "Name''s Peace. It was a trade, don''t you remember? Or do you not think my secret was worth your story?"


    "No- It was. Just, not sure my story was worth the secret."


    Peace shrugged, "Not like you can do much with it."


    "How do I know you''re telling the truth and how do you know¡­ this secret?"


    "Like I said, I know lots of things and¡­ I guess you don''t."


    He knew about my encounter with The Hungering Hollow- or rather, Endless Hunger in Trelas though¡­ I didn''t think anyone knew I was there¡­


    Peace smiled as he stretched his arms behind his back, "So anyways, now that everyone else on our team has been eliminated, should we just surrender?"


    Felix sighed, "Not like we have much of a chance anymore anyways."


    "Really? I thought you would try anyways, despite the odds?"


    "I''m just not sure what I could do by myself. They''re probably just capturing the last points now."


    "You aren''t by yourself though and don''t underestimate hubris. I bet you they''re hunting us down right now so they can win through elimination."


    "I¡­ thanks, I guess? I don''t really know what you can do though."


    Peace shook his head, "That isn''t completely true. You''ve already seen I can be stealthy."


    "That''s¡­ true." An idea began to form in Felix''s mind, "How stealthy?"


    Peace shrugged, "You looked right at me and didn''t notice me."


    Felix nodded, "Considering it''s just the two of us for now, there''s no way we can win just by holding the points, we don''t have the numbers."


    Peace dropped to the ground, sat against the wall and shrugged, "So we win by eliminating the other half of the class instead."


    Felix looked at him blankly for a few seconds as a plan began to sprout from his idea.


    "Oh, I also don''t really fight people, just so you know." Peace added with a smile.


    "Actually, that''s fine. I don''t think I need you to. Wait, how did you win any of your combat class placement duels? Actually, never mind, later."


    Guess this is as good a time as any to test this out.


    Sitting on the ground, Felix pulled out all the materials he needed and got to work. Over the course of the next 15 minutes, he counted out the rest of his team members being eliminated meaning it was just him and Peace left. They were offered the chance to surrender, by the professor or Adept observing them through The System but, they both declined.


    "Religar, why can''t we just stand on the points and be done with this?"


    "You counted the notifications, didn''t you? There are only two left. Don''t you want to be able to say we wiped out Zeraxes team in Group Combat class?"


    "I mean¡­ I guess? We already eliminated him, what does it matter anymore?"


    "We''ve already won anyways, it''s not like the random two who are left have any chance of capturing the points. Why not have a little fun?"


    Leren sighed, "Ugh, fine. They''ll probably surrender themselves anyways."


    Religar snorted, "I hope not. I''m kind of itching for a fight after we beat Zeraxes. I mean, I get the logic behind teaming up on him with as many as we can but still, didn''t you want to at least try fighting him youself?"


    "No." Leren shook her head.


    Religar looked back at Leren then shrugged and continued down the hallway of the labyrinth around them. It was impossible to discern a difference between these halls and any of the others but luckily, they had Leren who had almost the entire labyrinth mapped out.


    They headed towards the only section of the labyrinth they hadn''t mapped yet which was where they were assuming the other team''s starting room was.


    Fortunately for Religar, most of her team agreed with her and wanted to win by elimination, especially once they had eliminated Zeraxes and Romar. There wasn''t really anyone else notable in the bottom class anyways so they weren''t too worried about the outcome. Worst case scenario though, they had 2 people posted at each of the capture points that would start capturing as soon as a few of their own team were eliminated.


    Religar sauntered ahead of the others and turned a corner that looked exactly like all the other corners in the labyrinth.


    As soon as she stepped into the hall though, she was engulfed in flame and paralyzed by an electric shock, holding her in place. It wasn''t enough to kill her though so, she turned around to signal they should retreat, finding only corpses behind her.


    "What¡­ the fuck¡­"


    A moment later, she was eliminated.


    Walking back through the portal to the classroom with Peace in tow, Felix was rather happy with how everything had turned out, all things considered.


    He had won the group event by eliminating everyone else on the enemy team without anything more than his hand leaving the starting room.


    That has to be an achievement or something, right?


    Taking his usual seat at the back of the class, closest the door, Felix waited for everyone else to be seated before the Adept debriefed them.


    Peace took the seat next to him but Felix didn''t mind, Peace had been completely integral to his win. Really, it was their win.


    "That was far more interesting than I had hoped. Anyone from the losing team want to talk about what they did wrong?" The Adept smiled knowingly as he looked over the students in the class.


    "We got greedy. We could have just won, ended the match." Some student Felix had never seen before named Leren seemed more disappointed than anyone else. Everyone else on her team seemed to mostly be angry, either at Peace and Felix, themselves or something else.


    "How were we supposed to expect that? How could we have possibly known?" One of the other students sneered angrily at Leren.


    Leren just sighed as infighting and arguing broke out amongst the losing team.


    "OKAY! How about the winning team, what did you do right? What led to your victory."


    No one on Felix''s team seemed willing to speak up, the majority of them because they had nothing to do with their win. Felix didn''t want to speak up because he didn''t like to draw attention to himself and Peace seemed to be distracted by a bug flying through the room.


    Finally, after a few minutes of silence, Romar spoke up, "They worked together, built off of each-other''s strengths."


    The Adept shrugged, "Fair enough. How about what you guys did wrong?"


    Romar sighed, "We shouldn''t have gone in one by one. It was too predictable and none of us stand a chance against any four of their team by ourselves."


    Zeraxes grumbled something but it was unintelligible and contained no actual words or sense.


    "What do you think the losing team did right?" The Adept placed their hands on their hips.


    At this point, more of Felix''s team began speaking up, "They grouped up in teams of eight, predicted us."


    "Placed sentries at each capture point."


    "They spent time to map the area and used that to their advantage."


    The Adept nodded along with each point, "With all that said, how did they lose? Losers, what did the winning team do right?"


    "Had the better teammates."


    The Adept chuckled a little but otherwise ignored that comment.


    "They started by capturing one point so we couldn''t just end the game."


    "No, they set up the traps well before that."


    "How could they have possibly coordinated the two? There were only two of them."


    Leren sighed, "They set up portals first."


    "Portals? As in multiple? I thought we weren''t allowed batteries in there?"


    "That doesn''t seem very likely but¡­ I don''t really see how else¡­"


    "They could just be really fast. Have a skill or something."


    "So they made sure one point was locked down, removed your easy win condition. Then what?" The Adept tried to wrangle them back on topic.


    "Then there were the traps¡­"


    "Wards everywhere."


    "Kind of stupid in a labyrinth. Anywhere else and they wouldn''t have really done much."


    "Yeah, they just got lucky."


    "We''ll beat them next time, just give us an open field or something instead of a stuffy labyrinth."


    The Adept sighed, "You often don''t get to choose where you fight. You need to learn to adapt. Anyways, if you want a chance to fight them again, you''ll have to do better cause they''re moving up a class."


    Felix looked around and found comfort in the fact that he wasn''t the only one hearing this for the first time.


    "At the end of every class, 4 people are swapped out. Two move up a class and two move down a class. This class is at the bottom so we only have two moving up. Considering how poorly the rest of you worked together, Peace and Felix will be the ones moving up a class. Until then though, how about we go through the match together?"


    The Adept then turned to the board and drew out the labyrinth. They used different colored chalk for each person in the class and began dissecting their every movement and decision.


    Considering how the match had gone, Felix only barely paid attention to the first half then watched with fascination as Peace''s movements were revealed to the class.


    Felix had just been the mage behind the portal, placing traps on walls wherever Peace directed him to. He hadn''t actually seen were Peace was, directed him or even known where he was putting anything, other than the capture point.


    After that, it was all Peace who tracked down and got ahead of every single one of the enemy team, never once being seen or even detected in the slightest.


    It was even more impressive as the Adept drew out Peace''s path showing him walking through groups of people, stopping right in front of them then turning a corner and having Felix place a ward.


    Had Felix not experienced being in the same room as Peace but not being able to detect him just a few hours ago, he wouldn''t have believed it.


    The class seemed to generally be more impressed with the temporary portals he had made on the fly but those were trivial to him. Essentially perfect stealth was far more interesting.


    After everyone left the class, Felix and Peace were held back so they could get the location of their next class now that they had been moved up.


    Turning to Felix, Peace nodded, "Well, it was nice to finally meet you Felix. I''ll see you day after tomorrow on the fourth then?"


    Felix nodded, "Thanks for¡­ working with me and winning the match."


    Peace smiled and waved as he ran off, "Course."


    Just a few meters from Felix, he vanished.


    Felix shook his head and headed back to his room where he continued researching various spell formation techniques along with the mana structures for rituals, wards and enchantments. His goal was to become much more proficient with spell formation, as much as he could, so he could create efficient Caster''s Dueling spells of his own. He still planned on modifying his body before the duel and still considered that his highest priority but he didn''t have any corpses to work with at the moment.


    The rest of the dekad leading up to Felix''s meeting with an Archon was rather mundane.


    Constructs and elementals was a lecture and he had recorded and delivered to him in a soul crystal so instead, he spent the day examining the Caster''s Dueling spells. Soul Manipulation was another lecture which Felix attended although Peace was oddly absent even after mentioning he would see Felix in that class.


    The next four days, the break on the fifth followed by Spell Formation, Solo Combat and Animancy which were actually all just lectures that he managed to get recordings for. He spent the time alternating between advanced spell formation and working in Ked and Professor Sal''s lab. He helped with the constructs but did nothing more than assisting an Adept for the moment as he was still learning the ins and outs of the lab and constructs themselves.


    In Mana Control, they collectively worked on testing each Adept''s limits and finding the best ways to have Felix and them grow as fast as possible. It was actually rather boring and mostly involved measuring out the exact distances Felix had to stand from the boards to not instantly win.


    For all the classes he had recorded, he simply watched them back in his Soul Garden which saved him a lot of time.


    A day before the meeting, Felix called Nova through their soul bond. He was hesitant about calling her so early at first but when she strolled in just two hours before the meeting, Felix was grateful he had.


    Placing Nova in one of the outer pockets of his robe, Felix headed down to the portal room where he found El, just as Kairune had said. El smiled and nodded as Felix approached then tapped away at a pedestal causing the portal frame to blink to life.


    Felix nodded in gratitude to El then stepped through the portal into a large white marble room that resembled a cross between a massive church and a castle. There was a carpet down the middle, benches that looked like pews and pillars holding the ceiling aloft. Ironically, Felix was pretty sure it still wasn''t big enough to contain an adult dragon, just judging from Endycor''s size.


    The portal closed behind him as he looked around, unsure of what to do. Luckily, he only had to stare blankly at the room for a few minutes before a Drakene in white and red robes approached him.


    "You must be Felix Kade. We''ve been expecting you. Please, follow me."


    [?] Reverent of The Dragon Mother: Silgar (Lvl ?)


    The soft voiced Drakene bowed to Felix then led him down the carpet to the other end of the room. Although The Reverent walked slower than a normal human on earth ever would, Felix didn''t dare practice anything lest they assume he was trying something nefarious.


    Considering where he was, not that he actually knew, but more importantly who he was supposed to be meeting, Felix wasn''t willing to risk anything. Luckily, Nova was rather calm, possibly as a byproduct of feeling Felix''s own nerves through their soul bond. He knew under normal circumstances, she would be running around and at least inspecting everything because the materials used here were clearly not anything in the same grade as the materials he was used to.


    It wasn''t anything visual, but now that Felix''s matter senses were somewhat usable, he could feel the matter around him and he could tell most of all, just how dense it was.


    Though he didn''t actually lift anything, he knew everything in here would have been extraordinarily heavy. He couldn''t tell anything about composition, durability, strength or hardness though so he had no idea if the use of high grade materials was a functional decision or more to be an ostentatious display.


    At the back of the room, Silgar led Felix off to the side where there was a large door made of the same high grade, white marble. It was so massive, and judging by the sound it made as Silgar pulled, Felix didn''t think he could have opened it himself.


    The hall behind the door was long and led to many different rooms, none of which Felix could peer into on account of them being closed, despite his curiosity.


    After what had felt like a day but was actually around 2 hours of following Silgar, Felix was finally led to a massive dark metal door that even Silgar struggled to open.


    "Simply follow these stairs downwards." Silgar bowed and waved Felix through the doorway.


    Felix stepped forwards onto rougher stone ground as his worries mounted.


    It''s a little too late to turn back anyways¡­ shit, please don''t just kill me¡­


    In any other situation, Felix would have flown down the stairs. Here, he didn''t feel safe casting anything so he simply stepped forwards. As soon as he stepped past the doorway, Silgar closed the doors behind him, adding to his growing wariness.


    The stairs were a little large for Felix necessitating he jump just a little down each step but they weren''t unusable. It just seemed like they had been made for a larger race on average.


    While Felix wanted to be as respectful as possible, the stairs were really long and by the time he had reached the thousandth step, he decided it just wasn''t worth it and so he flew. That proved to be a smart decision as even flying over the stairs, it took him a couple hours to even start approaching the end.


    He first noticed a warm glow filling the hall ahead of him followed by an itching heat. The odd part was that his body was largely resistant to temperature changes from his D grade evolution alone. He was pretty sure he could put his hand in a normal fire and sustain little to no damage. Considering he couldn''t even see the heat source, he started to doubt the normalcy of the heat.


    To confirm, Felix quickly constructed a spell to measure the temperature, connecting a measurement node to a light node that would simply change color. Oddly enough, the room was barely warmer than room temperature, confirming his theory that something else was at play.


    Ding You have become more proficient with the Profession skill: [Rare] Identify Material Properties (Novice I => Novice IV)


    Huh¡­ I didn''t even use¡­ I guess? Whatever.


    After just a few seconds of searching, Felix realized what was happening.


    The heat was not physical but rather soul magic of some kind. It was his soul radiating the experience of being hot to him directly. It was also very simple for him to block out so he quickly did so before heading any further in.


    As the staircase widened and the glow from ahead brightened, Felix''s nerves mounted which were a stark contrast to Nova''s excitement that leaked through their bond. Her inability to tell how serious the current situation was actually made Felix chuckle and his nerves wash away, at least somewhat.


    Whatever happens, happens. Not much I can do about it at this point.


    With acceptance washing over Felix, he finally dropped to the ground and dropped off the last step into a massive stone room.


    He was fairly certain it was a cavern, judging solely by the distance he traveled downwards but peering around and seeing the room, he began to have doubts.


    The walls and ceilings were straight and connected at right angles making it look more like a room. On the other hand, the walls were made of a dark igneous stone with reflective and multicolored minerals glittering through. He suspected it was both a cave and a room or, he had walked through a portal without realizing it.


    None of it was random though. The minerals that glittered throughout the igneous rock walls were either strategically placed or carefully measured as the carving that adorned every surface of the room were perfectly accentuated.


    The glittering minerals formed the illusion of colorful eyes and crimson blood. Most impressively though, they reflected the sconces throughout the room causing the depictions of flame to flicker in a mesmerizing way.


    All of that was secondary though, as Felix stared down towards the opposite end of the room and saw a massive crimson dragon the size of a shopping mall. They were surrounded by towering flames on all sides except for a small opening facing Felix.


    Despite the less than optimal lighting though, Felix immediately recognized the color of their scales. They weren''t just red, they were specifically crimson, a dark shade of crimson.


    As Felix approached, his blank acceptance shifted back to a combination of fear he was going to be killed and a glimmer of hope that this might have been something else and he fairly certain he knew what it was.


    Walking through the small opening in the surrounding flames, Felix approached the Dragon and identified them as their head lowered towards him.


    [SSS - Divine] The Dragon Mother: Tekragoraxius (Lvl ?)


    It didn''t feel right for Felix to speak first so he simply looked up at the colossal head above him and met the gaze of her massive eyes. After a few moments of awe, he began to wonder if her pupils alone were larger than his entire body but quickly decided, they definitely were.


    Before either Felix or the Dragon God said anything, Felix felt his hood grow a touch lighter and suddenly his nerves spiked. Before he could properly react though, he saw Nova out of the corner of his left eye, morphing into the form she had used to hunt with Endycor.


    A small crimson dragon, no doubt using some of Endycor''s actual scales this time.


    Felix''s instinct was to stop her but it was too late for that. Nova was able to morph her form very quickly and it was painfully obvious what her intention was the instant she started changing. He still screamed out at her through their soul bond but she just reassured him in response that she knew what she was doing.


    Watching in masked horror, Felix just stood there, stunned as Nova bristled her scales then roared a stream of flame up at The Dragon God.


    Nova''s breath didn''t have the power required to even reach Tekragoraxius'' head where it was but in an instant, The Dragon God''s head moved. Her head appeared just a meter away from Nova and the flames washed over the front of her lips.


    Felix was completely paralyzed from shock but just a moment later, The Archon''s mouth opened just a touch in the middle, which was easily a couple meters. A massive spout of flame poured out of her mouth and washed over Nova, completely drowning her in a dark orange and red inferno.


    The soul bond connecting him to Nova was the only reason Felix knew she was alright and astonishingly, not in any pain whatsoever. She seemed to actually feel warm but in a nice emotional way rather than with a physical sensation.


    As the God''s breath subsided, Felix looked up at her and winced as he spoke, "Should I also¡­ greet you¡­"


    A surprisingly soft motherly voice responded, "Are you a Dragon?"


    Felix answered with confidence and understanding, "No."


    "Is Nova a Dragon?"


    Felix answered with much less confidence as he questioned his understanding, "No."


    "How do you typically greet strangers you are meeting for the first time?"


    "A hand shake¡­ I guess? That might¡­ not be possible though."


    "Do you know the significance of a Dragon''s greeting?"


    "No."


    "Do you know why you''re here?"


    "I think so."


    She nodded slightly, which looked like a much larger movement considering the size of her head, "Which one?"


    "Wait¡­ there are¡­ multiple?"


    She didn''t bother responding to his question.


    Felix responded with an exhale as he voiced the most worrying possible reason that came to mind, "Endycor."


    With no expression coloring her words whatsoever, "Did you slay them?"


    With a combination of shock and desire to stay alive, Felix stumbled slightly over his words, "I- No."


    "Tell me what happened."


    Felix rushed to explain things, speaking faster than he ever had, "Their hunts were inadvertently causing waves of monsters to attack a human settlement. The leader of that settlement asked me to go investigate and we found Endycor. I relocated them to a continent on the other side of the planet that didn''t have any humans on it after digging out a new cave. Nova hunted with them for a little while before we left."


    "How did you relocate them to the other end of the planet?"


    "Portal."


    Her eyes instantly lit up, "Do you still have the anchor?"


    "Yes, I remember it." Felix whipped out a blank metal disc and quickly started to inscribe the anchor with his quill, "I don''t think¡­ The System will let either of us open a portal¡­ to it."


    She reached forwards as soon as Felix was done and carefully pinched the slate between two massive claws.


    "Rathelius, deactivate the protective portal anchoring in here." She said out loud but clearly not directed at Felix.


    Looking back down towards Felix, "You can open portals yourself. Will you try?"


    The first part was said as a statement of fact so there was no point in denying it. Felix nodded as he pulled out his portal mold and quickly filled it with mana. He carefully pulled the raw spell form free from the mold but only shifted it upwards by a fraction of an inch to try and hide what he was doing.


    Swapping out the anchor and filling the spell the rest of the way, Felix was astonished when the portal actually opened but his surprise quickly washed away when all the air in the room was suddenly sucked towards it.


    Looking through, he confirmed the portal pointed to somewhere in the middle of space.


    "Oh I- Sorry, the anchor must have degraded. That wasn''t in-"


    She sighed causing a cloud of billowing smoke to pour into the room, "I understand."


    "I can try opening a portal to the coordinates? If you¡­ still want me to try."


    Her shock leaked into her voice, "You have the coordinates?"


    "Yeah¡­"


    She nodded and Felix repeated the process, this time replacing the anchor with portal coordinates and adjusting the rest of the spell accordingly.


    Once again, Felix was astonished the portal opened but he was even more surprised when he looked through and saw the starry night sky of Trenus above an expansive jungle.


    In complete shock, Felix reached forwards towards the portal but was stopped before his hand could pass through. There seemed to be a completely invisible barrier preventing anything from passing through the portal, except light and apparently, sound.


    Just a moment after the portal opened, Felix realized he could hear the wind along with the sounds of the jungle at night.


    Tekragoraxius must have noticed it as well because she whistled a small tune a moment later. Nothing happened for a few moments at which point Nova half squawked half roared into the portal. Sear?h the ¦ÇovelFire.¦Çet website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    They all looked on with bated breath for a few minutes when finally, a proud looking baby dragon sauntered into view.


    At first, Felix had no idea if Endycor could see them as well but when they leapt at the portal full speed and smacked their head into it a moment later, he was pretty confident they could. Endycor rolled back onto the ground then tried a few more times before roaring angrily at the portal and trying to set it aflame.


    Tekragoraxius just stared at the portal which Felix assumed was a good thing. Nova on the other hand, roared and squawked, seemingly in conversation with Endycor who responded in kind.


    After a couple minutes she turned to Felix and very quietly said, "Close it."


    He didn''t question her and abided, much to Nova''s dismay.


    "May I have the coordinates?"


    Felix nodded then quickly wrote them out and handed them to her.


    She, even more gingerly this time, took the metal plate and stowed it somewhere.


    "Thank you. For not¡­ slaying Endycor."


    Felix nodded, "Of course."


    "I had reports of Dragon scales appearing and I¡­ feared the worst."


    Felix simply waited for her to continue.


    Her voice was tinged with overwhelming emotions, a fact that spoke volumes considering Felix knew for certain, as a god, she should have been able to mask it, "Have you told anyone about Endycor?"


    "No one outside of the Integration."


    She nodded, "Keep it that way. You must also never open a portal to those coordinates ever, do you understand?"


    He nodded, "I do."


    "Are you willing to commit to a System or Soul contract?"


    "I am."


    She nodded, "Good. In exchange, you can keep the scales you already took. You and Nova."


    He bowed, "Thank you."


    "I''ll inform the cult that you alone have permission. What did you do with them by the way?"


    "I made¡­ pants. Shorts really¡­"


    She frowned a little then nodded, "Make sure Nova doesn''t morph into a Dragon again. That is more than anyone would believe I gave permission for."


    "Of course."


    "As for one of the other reasons you are here, you are the Dragon Defier."


    Felix desperately reached for any possible explanation, "What- No, I- I''m not the only integrated escapee. There''s also Arthur."


    "Yes, that is an interesting skill of yours."


    "I-" Felix was too worried about what was about to happen to do anything else. He thought he had concealed things well but apparently not well enough.


    "That was a rather¡­ interesting¡­ evolution. I''m surprised you didn''t take it."


    Felix released the breath he had been holding, "I¡­ It just wasn''t me."


    "I see."


    Felix took a couple deep breaths, "How did you know?"


    "About you being The Defier or being one in the same as Arthur?"


    "¡­ both."


    "You, just now, raw cast a portal right in front of me, with some assistance. Wasn''t hard to connect the dots to a Mana Dragon evolution. You are also the only integrated anyone knows about and it seemed reasonable the Defier would have escaped by now. As for your skill, I have¡­ eyes everywhere Dragon Scales might surface."


    Felix gasped in understanding, "Raidran''s."


    "Correct. They are also worshippers of mine."


    Felix thought through the implications for a few moments before answering, "Isn''t that a violation of my System contract with Rainoth?"


    "No. They are not aware of my observation."


    "I see¡­ I''m sorry¡­ about the evolution."


    She nodded, "I understand. You have however, inadvertently set things into motion. And made¡­ what''s coming significantly more challenging for me."


    "I''m¡­ sorry?"


    She sighed, "I might be able to salvage the situation though-" This time without producing any smoke, "May I see your skill? Can you¡­ switch? at will?"


    Felix nodded and activated his Persona skill, replacing his body and wrapping his soul.


    After inspecting him for a few seconds, The Dragon God''s head just a few meters from him, she pulled back to a more neutral stance, "This body is significantly stronger and faster than your¡­ real one. And your soul is perfectly masked. How?"


    "It grows based on enemies I consume. I also¡­ manually modify it. Soul thing is just¡­ layers I guess."


    Her massive eyes squinted slightly as Felix spoke, "Is this a core skill for you?"


    "Uh¡­ sort of¡­" Felix sighed, he didn''t really see any point in trying to keep secrets at this point and The Dragon Mother didn''t seem to have any desire to obliterate him, "It''s actually an item, a set of items. I''m not sure what to do with them at this point though."


    "Even better. How quickly can you absorb and grow from enemies you consume?"


    "As fast as I can manually modify the body so¡­ depends on the complexity of what I''m integrating. It took a few hours for a D grade Mana Infused Leviathan."


    With a tinge of surprise, "Hours?"


    Felix fell back a step, the emotion leaking into her voice worrying him as he too understood the implication behind his statement, "Uh¡­ yes?"


    "Do you need to slay the enemies yourself?"


    Felix shook his head as he sighed, "No. I''ve already tried buying corpses though. There seems to be a shortage."


    "How quickly can Nova integrate corpses?"


    Felix looked over at his familiar and shrugged, "It''s taken up to a few dekads for complicated materials like Demitium. I''m not entirely sure though."


    "Dekads? That''s it?"


    Felix was taken aback again but this time, kept his footing, "Yes?"


    "Can I ask a favor of you, Felix Kade?"


    "Yes?"


    "I require use of your skill, Arthur. In exchange, I will supply you with high rarity corpses among¡­ other things."


    "For¡­ what? How?"


    "In due time. Had your skill not offered such a convincing disguise, I might have asked you do this yourself. Instead, this will be much safer for all involved."


    "Uh¡­"


    "We will craft a reputation for Arthur as an enemy to the Dragons. It will paint a target on their back. You will be hunted down because of it."


    "Wait- Why? Why me?"


    "You would be surprised how difficult it is to find someone with no history, no ties and no background. I can create rumors and there will be no one to contest them. If anyone looks, there is simply nothing there except a single contract you took in Telviras. It will be difficult to survive being constantly hunted by the Dragon Cult but luckily, you can simply remove the mask."


    "Why would I ever switch over to Arthur then?"


    "You shouldn''t. Except when I tell you to, at very specific instances."


    "I''m not sure this is worth it for me. What if someone else finds out about the skill? Figures it out?"


    "You will exercise extraordinary caution when switching. As for ''figuring it out,'' unlikely. It is a completely unique skill. Dark Magic from another universe with complex Soul Magic on top of it all. We will aid in quashing rumors that arise and keeping up the charade for as long as possible. I will also make you, Felix Kade, seem like a friend of the Dragons."


    "So I''ll be enemies¡­ with myself? Felix vs Arthur?"


    "Exactly. We will also make it so you two fight each-other, publicly."


    Felix''s mind was reeling, "What if I don''t want to do this?"


    "I will not force you."


    Felix got the sense she wasn''t giving him the full story, which also seemed odd considering she was a god. It should have been trivial, at least Felix assumed, for her to hide the fact that she was hiding something. The only logical conclusion he could come up with was that she wanted him to know there was more to the story.


    Felix hesitated for a second then sighed, "Okay. Do you want me to sign a contract or something?"


    "No. Contracts don''t mean much to gods. You know you can''t survive revealing any of this to anyone. That is enough."


    Felix nodded as he found his resolve, "What do you need me to do?"


    "For now, use the corpses I provide you well. This plan will not come to fruition for many Epochs yet, but we will need it to be believable."


    "So how strong do I need to become?"


    "As strong as is possible, in the time given."


    "Okay then. I uh¡­"


    "Any specific requests in terms of corpses?"


    Felix''s mind immediately snapped to clarity as this was something he had thought about extensively and he didn''t want to waste the opportunity, "Mana cores and channels if possible. High grade and rarity. Efficient organs. Smart creatures? I''ve been struggling with finding ways to enhance my mind¡­ safely."


    The Dragon Mother simply nodded then called out to the side, "Rathelius."


    They waited for a few moments before an entirely black Drakene stepped through a portal next to Tekragoraxius'' head. He stood in mid air and spoke with her for a few moments then bowed and disappeared through another portal.


    "I will provide you with one corpse now. The rest will be delivered to you at Eramith."


    Felix half nodded, half bowed, "Thank you¡­-" His brow furrowed as his head rose, "-Why one now¡­ at all?"


    "You''ll see."


    Felix nodded, "By the way, is Endycor your¡­ child?"


    A hint of amusement crept into Tekragoraxius'' voice, "You couldn''t tell just from the color of our scales?"


    Felix shrugged slightly, "I don''t¡­ really know Dragon physiology that well."


    "Yes."


    Felix nodded and a moment later, Rathelius opened a portal and dragged a massive Dragon corpse into the room.


    The corpse wasn''t nearly as big as Tekragoraxius but it was still massive. Instead of dark crimson scales, it was covered in a dark, slate grey scales.


    Felix looked down in awe at the corpse, "This¡­"


    "I must insist you be careful with the materials. Use the scales only for Arthur if you''re making anything publicly visible."


    "I will. What were they¡­ the dragon of?"


    Tekragoraxius''s head dipped slightly, "Nothing. They were a natural born Dragon. One of the victims of The Great Hunt."


    "Wait, that was¡­"


    "Yes. I have many corpses preserved from that time."


    Looking over at the corpse, Felix spent a few minutes trying to figure out the best way to divide and store it.


    "Any chance you could¡­ cut it in half for me? Tip to tail symmetrically if possible."


    She nodded and Rathelius walked forwards, casting a spell that looked like a long string. He ran it down the corpse and it easily cut through the flesh, like there wasn''t any resistance at all.


    Unfortunately, Felix was pretty sure the spell form was obscured by them or The System because he hadn''t felt a spell form being shaped at all. It was also possible it was simply a skill and not a spell considering how quickly he cast it. Or, the truth Felix was hoping for, that it was a spell so advanced and so fast, he was unable to sense it.


    It meant he could learn it himself and the existence of spells that complex and powerful excited him.


    Walking up to the body, Felix touched one of the bloody halves and tried to stow it in his Soul Space. He knew his main Soul Space wasn''t nearly big enough, but he was hoping it would stretch to accommodate. He also wasn''t overly worried about pushing too hard because he figured it would likely be forced out of him before it burst his soul.


    With that in mind, Felix pushed, or rather pulled, on the corpse half before finally giving up.


    "Could you¡­ dice this half?"


    Rathelius nodded then quickly cut one half into more manageable pieces. As each piece was freed, Felix quickly stowed them until one half of the corpse was completely gone. His Soul Space was not big enough, before. Now, it had stretched to contain everything although, that had gotten blood everywhere. It wouldn''t be hard for him to clean everything, considering they were in his Soul Space, but it was still gross.


    Though Grim didn''t complain, he could tell he wasn''t pleased with the blood soaking into his pages.


    With one half dealt with, Felix activated the blood ring and absorbed the other half. He knew based on how many Grelmite corpses he had stored that the other half would fit so there was no concern this time.


    As a byproduct of the ring, all the blood from the floor vanished so there was no trace of what they had just done at all.


    Nova was a little whiny at first, just through their soul bond but Felix assured her he would give her some later. For the time being, he really wanted to start dissecting the Dragon corpse as soon as possible.


    Felix looked up at the colossal Dragon God, "Is there¡­ anything else?"


    "Just one more thing."


    Leaning her head down until it was just in front of Felix''s face, The Dragon Mother released a billowing cloud of orange and red flame that completely engulfed him.


    He braced himself initially but quickly realized the flames weren''t actually hot at all. They were warm and¡­ welcoming. The flames were a greeting, he knew that but he didn''t understand it. Now, he knew just how little he understood.


    A true Dragon''s greeting didn''t just bathe the other person in flame, it conveyed feelings through anima woven into the breath. It was a conversation about their state of being, how their day was going, how they felt in general and about the other specifically. It was small talk with depth and intimacy in a way humans didn''t tend to convey, at least not in any form of greeting.


    Felix had no good way of responding with anima, he had no practice doing so and he had no intention of trying it for the first time here so he just responded a simple Flame Thrower that he modified slightly to be more billowing and less hot.


    She nodded and drew her head back to neutral stance, "I will let you know when we need of you further."


    Felix nodded and slightly bowed to the God then nodded to Rathelius. He turned to Nova but she squawked at him that she was staying.


    Nova you can''t ju-


    Tekragoraxius cut in, clearly aware of their internal conversation, likely through simple deduction, "She''s staying."


    Felix''s worries mounted once again, "I''m not sure I''m¡­ why? For what?"


    "She too has a part to play in my plan. We will train her."


    "She''s my familiar¡­"


    "You would rather have her wandering around Eramith, frolicking on a planet with nothing to keep her occupied? Isn''t that a little cruel?"


    Looking over at Nova, Felix could feel how much she wanted this so, as much as he was against the idea of abandoning her with someone he didn''t really trust, he relented. He wasn''t her parent, he didn''t see himself that way, and she could make her own decisions.


    Felix nodded then turned and headed back out the way he had come in.


    At the top of the staircase, Silgar met him just outside the doors and led him to an already open portal leading back to Eramith.


    Entering a meditation in his dorm, Felix quickly checked in with Grim, Did that all¡­ really just happen?


    Grim seemed to share in Felix''s shock, Yeah¡­


    Should I have just said no?


    I don''t know. I¡­ guess we''ll find out. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 Chapter 204 - Book 6

    Although it took Felix the rest of the day along with the next in his Soul Garden, Soul Space and Blood Ring, he finally managed to get as much as he thought currently possible from the Dragon corpse.


    While alive the dragon hadn''t had any specialty-it was a natural born-so it was rather well rounded overall. Unfortunately, some aspects were more applicable than others.


    The muscles were the biggest benefit in Felix''s opinion. They weren''t exactly what he had been looking for but they were incredibly impressive in their own right. He didn''t really feel like he could accurately call them efficient solely because of how much energy they used but the actual ratio of power to input energy was higher than anything he had ever seen. So technically, they were the most efficient muscles he had tested, they just didn''t quite feel like it.


    Damoth''s and the Leviathan''s muscles he had used in his Persona paled in comparison. The only downside was that the Dragon muscles weren''t particularly efficient on the low end of the scale. With tiny movements, he still had to supply a large amount of energy making the efficiency curve, pretty bad on the low end hence, why he didn''t feel like he could call them generally efficient.


    On top of the muscles, he also managed to adapt and integrate some of the cells from the bones, nerves and many of the internal systems to massively upgrade his own.


    The hardest part was the skin which didn''t seem applicable at first but became essential after upgrading everything else. His old skin was just too frail and didn''t fit fit well so he spent some time dissecting the cellular structure of the scales and the flesh beneath it.


    He was hindered somewhat by his unwillingness to alter his skin too drastically but that restriction also caused him to gain a deeper understanding of the cells rather than simply replacing his own. What he ended up changing the most, was the density of his cells and the structure that interconnected them.


    Overall, it was a massive upgrade and completely cured him of his current bodily hinderances. No longer did he watch as the world passed by in slow motion and for the first time in a long time, Felix felt like his body reacted just as quickly as he commanded it.


    Looking at the stats, he had also brought them all much more in line with each-other.


    Name:Felix KadeFREE0Innate:Ascendant Prodigy: Mana (Wizard)STR220,034Class:[D - Legendary] Reaper (Lvl 778)DEX161,809Race:[D - Unique] Wanderer (Lvl 885)AGI229,074Profession:[D - Arcane] Mana Engineer (Lvl 992)PER129,715Health:2,435,970 / 2,435,970VIT243,597Mana:120,000,000 / 120,000,000INT358,658Energy:2,500,000 / 2,500,000END228,255


    In the end, Felix felt immense satisfaction with having his high Intelligence not hinder him any longer. He also copied over many of the modifications to his Persona body making it almost a mirror of his own body. The only real differences were that his Persona was stronger and faster at the expense of not having access to his full Intelligence. It also didn''t convert mana into energy nearly as quickly but it did have mana channels, which he still hadn''t quite figured out for his real body.


    He didn''t have any more time to delve into the internals of his body though as he had an upcoming deadline.


    Though he didn''t feel nervous about the duel necessarily-the consequences just weren''t dire enough for him to-he also hated the idea of losing for so many reasons. Now that his body was much closer to being fast enough to keep up with his mind, all Felix had to do was find a way to win without cheating.


    It wouldn''t be trivial for Felix to disable all mana coming out of Tanryel, he still had to catch up to him, but it also wouldn''t have been very difficult.


    Although it made it much harder, Felix''s goal was to win without revealing any of his truly unique abilities, at least none that he hadn''t already revealed to the public. That meant fighting Tanryel without dominating his mana control or manipulating his spells as they were being cast.


    He wasn''t entirely lacking in hope though, he still had the ability to cast multiple spells simultaneously and without verbal or somatic materials. He could also cast spells anywhere within his mana control range so they didn''t have to originate from his body or hands.


    Those abilities had already been revealed in the placement tournaments and Tanryel would no doubt know about them, simply by asking anyone. They also weren''t necessarily unique to him, according to Melody at least, so it wouldn''t seem too ridiculous when he used them in the duel.


    He was hoping that by dissecting, examining and constructing his own versions of the spells, he would have another trick to play with. Even if he didn''t come up with anything, examining and becoming familiar with the nodes and patterns alone would be hugely beneficial if he ended up having to create new spells in the middle of combat.


    Felix worked on understanding the spells and trying to create new spells right up until Group Combat class on the second.


    Walking into the new class, the one he and Peace had been switched into, Felix took his usual seat at the back. A few minutes passed as the rest of the class filed in, Peace being the very last one and sitting next to Felix.


    He nodded in acknowledgement to Felix as he sat but neither of them said anything to each-other.


    "Welcome back class 9 and welcome anew to our four new faces. Today, you will be splitting up into teams of 4 and competing in a game of point defense. We''ll flip a coin to determine who is defending and who is attacking. The attackers goal is to get into the fort and claim an object being defended in the center. All you have to do as the defenders, is protect the item for 15 minutes."


    Just 15 minutes? That seems so¡­ short?


    "Figure out the teams yourselves, you have 5 minutes then we''ll open a portal to the grounds and we''ll go over the rest of the rules."


    There was only one person Felix actually knew in the class so he turned to Peace who was already looking at him and smiled. Not only was Peace the only one he knew in the class but having seen his abilities, he was the only one Felix actually trusted to be useful. He logically knew everyone else in the school were experienced and smart but he just couldn''t get past his own mental block that most people weren''t very strong, smart or useful.


    They both wordlessly nodded then looked around the room. Neither of them seemed to be willing to approach anyone and almost everyone else in the room already seemed to know each-other. Seeing how everyone else was forming teams, Felix was willing to wait for whoever was left over because either way, he didn''t know anything about anyone other than Peace. He had no idea who he should or shouldn''t be asking.


    Luckily, he didn''t have to.


    Just a few moments after silently grouping up with Peace, a happy looking individual with very oddly normal features approached. They were just too average to be a coincidence, or at least that''s how they stood out to Felix.


    [C] Elias (Lvl 1073)


    "Any chance you guys have room for one more?" Elias'' smile was extremely friendly and warm and Felix didn''t feel anything to indicate they were anything but completely genuine.


    Looking over, Peace just shrugged, communicating his indifference and indicating it was Felix''s decision.


    Felix looked back at Elias, "Sure. It''s just us two."


    Elias nodded and smiled even wider, "Great. Want me to go see if I can find someone else?"


    "Sure."


    Elias nodded then wandered into the crowd of people, returning just a few minutes later with what looked like a gnome in tow.


    [C] Thomaex (Lvl 1108)


    "Thomaex and I actually met a few decapochs back when I was studying material properties and magical alloys. They''re a smith of exceptional talent along with a very impressive depth of knowledge."


    Thomaex grumbled under his breath, audibly but only barely comprehensible "Not that any o'' that helps much in group combat."


    Peace smiled politely in Thomaex'' direction then turned back to Elias, "If you already knew someone in the class, why not partner with them from the start?"


    He shrugged and smiled as he looked over his shoulder at the rest of the class, "I know just about everyone in our cycle at Eramith. Not necessarily well but, I''ve met just about everyone."


    "That''s why you approached us so quickly." Felix nodded in realization.


    "Exactly." Elias smiled as he sat on the backrest of the chair in front of Peace. Looking at each of them in turn, Elias smiled and casually examined them, "So in terms of specialties, abilities and style, how do you guys fight?"


    Peace tilted his head in Felix''s direction, "I''m stealthy and don''t fight, he''s a mage. What about you two?"


    Elias nodded in respect, "I can work with that. I''m actually a¡­ rogue. I don''t fight much either but I''m stealthy and I have a few tricks I can make use of."


    Peace nodded, knowingly but without a hint of judgement whatsoever, "You''re a thief?"


    Elias shrugged as his seemingly ever present wide smile morphed into a slight smirk, "More or less."


    "I uh¡­ fight with a sword." Thomaex nodded then looked to all of them, clearly uncomfortable with his own answer.


    "It''ll be great." Elias cheerfully hopped off the back of the chair he was sitting on as the Adept started to open the portal at the front of the room.


    Felix sighed, "Let''s just hope to whatever god you worship that we''re on attack as much as possible."


    Elias stopped, turned to Felix then nodded with a very uncharacteristically serious expression then closed his eyes and mumbled, "In Edras''s great name, keeper of knowledge and disseminator of secrets, please give us attack side as much as possible?"


    Felix almost snorted at the odd transition from serious to ridiculous but managed to hold himself back. Elias'' wide smile returned to his face with a playful mirth leaving Felix unsure whether or not the prayer was serious or intended to mess with him.


    Thomaex-seemingly unsure of what to do with himself-followed after Elias and into the portal. Peace was next, hopping out of his chair and gently patting Felix on the shoulder once before leaping down and through in one almost a single, light hop.


    Felix was amongst the last ones in the class only because he was seated at the back of the room and he was unwilling to approach and push through the rest of the class as they filtered in. Once he finally stepped through the portal, the last one of the class to do so, Felix walked over and joined Peace, Elias and Thomaex over on the far side of the sparsely gathered students.


    The Adept who had stepped through first stood at the front of the group and snapped their fingers, closing the portal, once they saw Felix finally step through.


    Gesturing over their shoulder with their thumb at the simple structure behind them, "This is the structure you''ll be defending. It''s pretty sturdy and the planet will regenerate it between rounds so don''t worry about damaging it. Your only task is to retrieve the object without harming it." With a flick of their wrist, the Adept produced what appeared to be a palm sized metal ball.


    He quickly pointed out two teams, "You and you." One of which was, unluckily, Felix''s team.


    Approaching the Adept, Felix''s team along with the other team each stood on one of their sides. The Adept nodded to the other team then nodded at Felix''s team as he handed the ball to Elias, the one standing the closest to them. "There''s a pedestal in the middle of the building. Put the ball on it and it isn''t allowed to move. You lose if the ball is removed from the pedestal for more than 5 seconds but-" He turned to the other team, the now obviously attacking team, "-you don''t win unless you actually have the ball. You can''t just knock it off. If you both lose, we''ll switch sides and restart."


    Both teams nodded in understanding then the Adept jerked their head towards the structure indicating Felix''s team should start setting themselves up.


    The other team stood there and waited as Felix, Peace, Elias and Thomaex rushed towards the circular stone wall that stood in the middle of an otherwise empty field. Peeking out over the top of the wall was a comparatively small block of a building.


    They all easily hopped over the wall, giving them little hope for its value as a protective structure.


    Felix however-as he hopped over the wall-immediately felt the ward finely engraved within it, rebolstering his hopes that it might be of value. Turning around right as he landed, he spotted the faint glisten of the inlay material that formed the ward on the inside of the wall.


    The rest of the group headed right for the structure in the middle which was really just a small block of a building, about a 10 meter cube. It was big enough for a fight but not for Felix to keep his distance as a mage by any means.


    There were four doorways on the building, none of which held a door and peering in, they saw an empty pedestal in the middle of the room.


    Elias immediately started walking over but Felix stopped him, "Hold it. They might start as soon as we put the ball in place. Let''s look around a little first."


    Stopping mid step, Elias spun around and nodded, pocketing the ball for the time being.


    Felix''s first instinct was to examine the ward inscribed into the inside of the surrounding wall. The others all diverged to examine other areas of the structure they were defending.


    The ward itself was actually well thought out and efficient, which surprised Felix considering how poorly the rest of the defensive structure was organized.


    Physically, the wall was useless and four doorless doorways were annoying to work around. Having the pedestal in the middle of the open structure also made things more difficult than they needed to be.


    The ward on the other hand was structured in such a way that there were no shaping nodes mucking up the channels and lowering the efficiency. The ward utilized the natural shape of the wall, which Felix now realized was actually slightly curved inwards, to project out a barrier that naturally formed a dome.


    On top of that, the barrier that was projected was only barely capable of preventing something from passing through it unless it detected force, mass, energy or mana approaching it. The detection pattern was a little over Felix''s head at the moment but he memorized it so he could examine it later.


    In the meantime, he was fairly confident that, even without his charm buffing his mana capacity, which was banned in all combat classes, the ward would be their most effective form of defense.


    Before he sat himself down and acted like a battery for the ward though, he decided to find the others and plan out their defense as well as set some things up ahead of time.


    Turning back towards the building, Felix immediately noticed Thomaex setting up a metallic shell around the pedestal from materials he had in a spatial storage. Elias was nowhere to be found and Peace was leaning against the main structure, watching and waiting for Felix to finish his examination of the ward.


    Peace followed Felix into the building as he approached Thomaex, "Nice work. Where''s Elias?"


    Thomaex gestured behind himself with a nod as he fused various metal plates into one uniform structure, "Setting up traps just outside the wall."


    Felix nodded and flew out the building and up into the air, spotting Elias just a dozen meters outside the wall, tinkering with some object in the ground. Finishing up just a few minutes later, Elias spotted Felix, nodded to him then hopped over the wall and headed in to join them.


    Before Felix dropped back down to the ground, he marveled at the fact that he couldn''t tell Elias'' traps existed at all. The ground outside the wall looked exactly as he remembered it. Considering he had perfect memory, he was thoroughly impressed. No blade of grass was moved more than could be attributed to the wind and the field looked to be completely undisturbed.


    "I set up some traps outside the walls. They won''t hold anyone back for long but they''re annoying and should slow them down." Elias nodded to the others.


    "This shell should hold most back for a few minutes at least." Thomaex smiled as he slapped the shell he had been working on, producing a low and dull sound.


    Felix gestured outwards with a slight tilt of his head, "There''s a ward inscribed on the inside of the wall that I can keep powered up for a bit. I think I should also set up some wards and arcane traps between the wall and the building."


    Thomaex grimaced, "Won''t they just¡­ fuck us too?"


    "I picked up a trick from a job I was on a little bit ago. I can give you each keys so they won''t go off as long as you have one."


    Elias nodded excitedly with a wide smile, "Perfect. They''ll have to be pretty localized but if we know where they are, we can try to lead people into them too."


    Felix nodded, "I''ll start designing them. Any idea how long they''re gonna let us stall?"


    Elias shrugged, "I think this is an intended part of the task. I saw the Adept summon a barrier to hide our actions from the class when I was setting up the traps."


    Peace snorted, "Would have been nice if they had told us that."


    "When it actually comes time to defend, what''s the plan?" Elias looked at each of them in turn.


    Felix shrugged, "I figure I power the ward while we fight them off as long as we can. Once they get through it, we fall back and hope the spell traps and metal shell buy us enough time to win."


    They all nodded in agreement even though Felix knew Peace had no intention of fighting. He also knew Peace would be plenty annoying with his, so far, undetectable stealth. Felix had no doubts in his ability to stall them, even if all he did was annoy and distract them.


    With the plan in place, Felix sat down so he could design the spell traps in his Soul Garden. Once he had traps he was happy with, he got to work on setting them up and making keys. Finally, he meditated to manually regenerate his mana back to full then told the others he was ready.


    Peace darted off to notify the Adept as the others set themselves and readied for combat just outside the wall.


    Felix set himself up next to the wall, just outside of it. From some initial testing, he was pretty sure he could keep mana flowing into the ward from up to 10 meters outside of it so long as any part of the inscription was within his mana control range.


    He planned on staying within a couple meters or so anyways, just to be safe, but it was good to know his limit. Unfortunately, he wouldn''t be able to fly into the air much as the wall itself was only a few meters high. Being restricted to the ground meant he was more susceptible to getting hit which meant he would have to waste mana defending himself.


    Felix had thought about being inside the wall instead but decided he wanted to fight and cast spells. Sitting around being a battery was too boring and left too much up to everyone else on his team who, admittedly, he didn''t entire trust.


    Thomaex pulled out a simple looking longsword and had a full set of matching plate armor appear on his body from a spatial storage item. Elias'' simple clothes were swapped out for a set of light grey leather that consisted of many strips sewn together. Peace changed nothing as he was already wearing his signature, entirely inky black outfit that he seemed to wear for everything.


    A few moments of silence passed as Felix''s team stood, readied, waiting for something to happen.


    They spent a minute and a half waiting at which point Felix began to wonder if the match had actually started or not. If it had started when Peace notified the Adept as they had expected, the other team had just wasted 10% of their time seemingly doing nothing.


    Luckily, the maintenance cost of the ward was slightly below Felix''s mana regeneration rate so, after filling the buffer, he was actually able to completely refill his mana pool, passively, while they waited.


    Suddenly, Peace appeared next to Felix and tapped him on the shoulder. Felix jumped a little in surprise as he hadn''t noticed Peace at all before now but quickly collected himself and looked over at Peace.


    Peace was pointing over at a seemingly empty spot on the field next to the wall, about a hundred meters to Felix''s left.


    "You got a Fire Ball or something big like that?"


    Felix just nodded and fired, figuring it was a fairly low risk ask.


    Constructing Fire Balls was very fast for Felix at this point and it only took him tens of milliseconds for the spell form to construct and fully cast. He even adjusted the spell to have a larger explosion and overpowered it by a factor of 3.


    Looking over in the direction Peace pointed, right as Felix was ready to release the spell, he saw a red circle on the ground that was evidently an illusion of some kind.


    He didn''t waste time questioning things and simply released the Fire Ball directly at the circle.


    Felix wasn''t sure what he was expecting but when the Fire Ball struck the ground and the explosion of flames outlined the shapes of their opponents, he was ready. The rest of his team were all aware of what was happening and responded almost instantly.


    Thomaex leapt forwards, crossing a huge distance in almost an instant, creating a crater where he landed. Elias simply ran and didn''t arrive nearly as quickly but he threw a dagger at one of the outlines which vanished, leaving Felix to believe it had to have hit and turned invisible.


    Peace simply waited and watched, standing next to Felix.


    Though they remained invisible for a few moments, once the attacking team realized they had been spotted, the invisibility was quickly dropped. The one that had been hit with a dagger instantly vanished and reappeared a hundred meters away making Felix very jealous. They proceeded to release a barrage of Force Bombs, Force Beams and other simple spells to slow Thomaex down.


    The one wearing a tightly fit set of plate armor and wielding two swords rushed to meet Thomaex but stalled their approach so their caster could soften him up.


    The last two, one remained invisible while the other, with no apparent weapon equipped, rushed Elias.


    Okay nicknames: Two-Swords, Empty-Hand, Blinky and Unseen.


    Felix started preparing a series of his own spells and released them towards Blinky to try and distract them from hitting Thomaex. They easily saw them coming and got out of the way but it was enough for Thomaex to close the distance and engage Two-Swords.


    Blinky quickly switched things up and started pelting Felix and the barrier he was powering but they were more of a nuisance than anything actually threatening.


    Elias'' fight with Empty-Hand quickly moved them far outside of Felix''s field of vision so he couldn''t track them. He was almost completely focused on avoiding Blinky''s spells and keeping them occupied so they couldn''t mess with Thomaex''s fight.


    Blinky had tried to cast some sort of large field spell directly on top of the fight but Felix had sensed it and interrupted them with a series of Lightning Bolts.


    Their spells mostly seemed to be trying to move Felix around, throw him into the wall, away from the wall and so on. Luckily, he could sense the mana flowing into the spells making them predictable and when he couldn''t dodge, his cloak completely neutralized the effect.


    That all changed when Unseen finally reappeared just a meter from Felix right as he tossed a dagger at Felix''s neck.


    The dagger was aimed high enough that it would hit just over his cloak and for a brief moment, Felix panicked. The dagger was moving far too fast for him to dodge or block it in any way.


    Almost as quickly as Felix froze, the dagger vanished in a flash of black. Peace''s arm moved so quickly, Felix just saw a smear of black across his vision almost as if the light wasn''t fast enough to catch up to his arm.


    Unseen tried to follow that up with a lunging stab aimed at the exposed part of Felix''s neck but once again, his strike was knocked aside by a blur of black.


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    It quickly became obvious to Felix that Unseen was never going to be able to hit him so he did his best to ignore them as he retaliated against Blinky and kept the ward behind him powered up.


    Peace was easily able to deflect everything out of Unseen, even when he went invisible again and started using skills. Felix didn''t really see much himself as he was thoroughly focused elsewhere but from what he did see, Unseen tried to use some kind of smoke cloud ability followed by spectral chains.


    None of his ability got anywhere though. Even the ones that shouldn''t really have been possible to block, Peace deflected. The chains didn''t even look physical and yet he slapped them aside just as he had a smoke cloud. All of this while seemingly not having moved his feet at all. His position was exactly the same as it had been at the start of the fight and after every ability he stopped, his posture returned to casual and bored.


    Unfortunately, as well as Peace was doing, Elias had evidently lost his duel because Empty-Hand ran around the corner just half a minute after disappearing, with Elias nowhere to be found.


    After quickly taking stock of the battle-field, Empty-Hand quickly rushed towards Unseen and Felix to help him finally get through Peace. Unseen quickly backed off a bit to provide support to Empty-Hand as he leapt towards Peace, keeping himself just a few inches off the ground the entire time.


    Peace didn''t move himself at all, remaining about a meter to Felix''s side and standing perfectly still.


    Empty-Hand closed the distance and slammed his legs into the ground, using the momentum to drive his fist into Peace''s chin. The entirety of the next movement was too fast for Felix to see and so, a moment later when Empty-Hand was lying prone on the ground, Felix had no idea how or why. He assumed it had been Peace but his completely uncaring, casual demeanor remained so, he was left wondering.


    Empty-Hand quickly flipped up back onto his feet and lunged forwards with Unseen reappearing to Peace''s side with his hand blurring towards Felix''s stomach. Once again Felix panicked but, as before, he didn''t actually have anything to worry about as a moment later, faster than Felix could see, both of them were left prone on the ground, actually piled up on top of each-other.


    Felix couldn''t help but chuckle which he was pretty sure made them angrier and more insistent on taking him out. Luckily, it didn''t actually seem possible for them to do so with Peace standing there next to him.


    They tried both attacking Felix, using a whole slew of skills, both attacking Peace and even trying to feint their attacks and switch targets at the last second. Out of the corner of his eye, Felix watched and was thoroughly entertained for a minute or so as they were repelled.


    Unfortunately, even with Felix holding off Blinky and keeping them entirely focused elsewhere, Thomaex was eliminated by Two-Swords, his body vanishing right before succumbing to his wounds.


    That left just Felix and Peace against all four of the enemies.


    Two-Swords quickly joined the rest of his team, using some kind of movement ability with his swords that let him quickly dash across the field and strike at Felix.


    Despite the fact that Unseen and Empty-Hand coordinated their attacks-Empty-Hand''s too fast for Felix to follow-none of them even got close.


    Rather than prone on the ground though, Peace had somehow spun Two-Swords around so they were facing the opposite direction where they looked around, like they were lost. The other two in similar situations, facing away from everyone else a few meters away on either side.


    They tried, repeatedly, to coordinate their strikes, get through Peace and stop Felix.


    It only took them just over a minute to realize they were simply wasting their own time. They had already wasted just over 4 minutes of their allotted 15 minutes and though they had eliminated half of Felix''s team already, they clearly weren''t getting anywhere doing what they were doing.


    Once they realized that, they quickly spread out and stopped aiming for Felix. Instead, they started trying to get through the ward Felix was powering. Peace remained where he was, standing next to Felix, as Unseen, Empty-Hand and Two-Sword each took a different cardinal direction around the wall.


    Blinky on the other hand, switched over from assisting his teammates with cover fire spells, pestering Felix and hitting the ward to just pestering Felix.


    Instead of trying to eliminate Felix though, Blinky seemed to be trying to move him around. Specifically, once Blinky realized Peace had no intention of doing anything against spells targeting Felix, Blinky cast a series of spells to try and pull Felix away from the wall.


    At first it was simple Force Bombs to try and knock him around. After that Blinky moved on to much more complicated spells.


    Using a quarter of a million mana, by Felix''s estimate, Blinky summoned a massive Force Storm.


    All around Felix, the ground began to rumble then suddenly, explode. As if hundreds of land mines had been triggered all over the field, grass and soil filled the air around him. The storm wasn''t limited just to the ground though as massive explosions sounded out from every direction. Made of pure Force, the sound and slight ripple in the air was the only indication that they even existed at all.


    Felix''s cloak handled the majority of the explosions, resisting their effect but it was draining his mana far faster than necessary as they were diffused across its surface. On top of that, his cloak didn''t cover his entire body so the explosions hit him in the legs, hands and head, knocking him aside. It wasn''t enough to break any of his bones but it was annoying having his head knocked repeatedly from side to side.


    With his cloak pulling as much mana as it could from his body along with the ward behind him requiring mana to hold the enemy team back, Felix realized he was quickly reaching his limit.


    While he still had just over 80% of his mana left, he wouldn''t be able to maintain the rate of mana expenditure if it increased by another 10% or so, by his estimation. Luckily, he had managed to stall them by another 3 minutes meaning they were quickly approaching half of their time.


    Leaping out of the Force Storm, tangential to the wall behind him, Felix called out to Peace as he followed, "I can''t maintain this much longer. We''re going to have to fall back to the main building."


    Peace nodded and followed as Felix quickly dropped the ward and flew towards the main building in the middle of the wall. With a mana key on both him and Peace, neither of them triggered any of the traps they had set up ahead of time. sea??h th§× novel(F~)ire.net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    Landing in the closest doorway, Felix rushed inside so he could position himself in the center. Peace landed next to him, simply jumping across faster than Felix could see rather than flying.


    Hopping up onto the metal shell in the middle surrounding the pedestal, Felix had perfect sightlines to each of the doorways around him so he would be able to hit them as they walked through.


    Peace joined him, sitting down against the shell.


    Before they saw anyone, they heard crackling electricity, metal snapping and chains rattling as various traps Felix and Elias had set up were triggered.


    None of them were enough to kill anyone as that would have taken a much larger chunk of Felix''s mana but it was more than enough to slow them down.


    After a few seconds of navigating their way through the traps, Felix caught sight of all four of them walking into the the doorway in front of him.


    He didn''t question why and simply fired off various spells to stop them because even if they were illusions, he was better off finding out now so they didn''t keep distracting him.


    Luckily they seemed to be the real thing as they were tossed backwards one by one by a series of Lightning Bolts to briefly paralyze them followed by Force Blasts to push them back a little. He managed to knock a few of them into some of the remaining traps which helped immensely and once he managed to push all of them out of the doorway once, he sealed it with a Force Barrier.


    With that entrance blocked, Felix figured they would proceed to use the other entrances and he was ready to block them as well but instead, they kept trying to push through the one entrance.


    Felix was worried they had some kind of plan but Felix was somewhat comforted by how desperate they seemed, both in expression and demeanor.


    Empty-Hand took the lead in trying to pierce Felix''s barrier by rushing it with incredible speed but, other than costing Felix a large chunk of mana, they didn''t get any further than they had before.


    Felix quickly dropped the barrier to let his own Force Blast through to push them back then resummoned it in the same instant, not giving them any time to wheedle their way inside.


    They wasted a total of 5 minutes trying to push into the choke point doorway in front of Felix as he repelled them with spells which was, vastly more efficient than maintaining the ward on the walls.


    With only 2 minutes left on the clock, Blinky finally decided to blink inside the main structure, apparently unable to before now either due to mana cost or some other restriction. As soon as they did so, they looked at the other three doors and looked completely shocked. They quickly called out to the others the locations of the doors as they rushed around towards them.


    At that point, as much as Felix was willing to maintain barriers on each of the doorways, with Blinky pestering him with spells, it wasn''t realistic. Peace finally rose at that point and tried to help Felix fend them off but it quickly became apparent that they weren''t going to be able to stop everything.


    Peace diverted almost every attack they threw at the metal shell but Blinky summoned massive Force Spells, hitting everyone in the room and Felix didn''t have a great way of countering them.


    He could chase Blinky around to try and keep them in his Mana Control radius but Blinky was just as fast as he was on top of being far more agile, even without blinking anywhere. His specialty was evidently force spells and his expertise showed.


    As time wore on, the attacking team grew increasingly desperate and began throwing themselves at the shell to try and get through it. Luckily, though he had quickly lost his initial duel, Thomaex''s shell over the pedestal in the middle proved incredibly resilient.


    It sustained dents and burns but as the time ran out, everyone began to realize they weren''t getting through it with Peace and Felix distracting them.


    As the Adept called out the end of the match and Felix''s team as the victors, the attacking team mostly collapsed, having poured everything they had into winning.


    They all left the now marred section of the field and rejoined the class as the next two teams were selected. By the time the defending team reached the site, the entire structure and field around it had been completely restored, removing any signs of the battle they had just fought a few moments ago.


    Turning to Peace, Felix frowned, "Why did they spend so long going through just one doorway?"


    Peace shrugged, "Illusions."


    "You can create illusions?"


    "Sometimes."


    Felix opened his mouth but realized he had no idea what to say next and he didn''t get a chance to continue the interrogation as Elias and Thomaex rejoined them.


    Elias was evidently the most giddy out of all of them, "We won!?"


    Thomaex laughed, "Didn''t think it was possible once I went down so quick. Sorry ''bout that."


    Felix shrugged, "It worked out."


    A loud sound echoed behind Felix as the attacking team of the second bout exploded off the ground and raced towards the main structure.


    The barrier that the Adept had summoned to hide the defending team''s preparations, for just a few moments this time, lit up as it displayed the battle from a few different angles. The largest was the above angle where Felix saw the defending team scrambling to hold back the others from the top of the wall.


    For whatever reason, they decided not to use the wards on the walls and instead, they fought and tried to push back the attacking team entirely themselves. Unfortunately, they lasted less than a minute as the attacking team maintained all their momentum from rushing towards the building and simply smashed right through the wall. Like a battering ram or a bull, their charge looked unstoppable.


    Their momentum remained as they then shattered the building in the center, snatching the ball off the pedestal in just under a minute total.


    "Well¡­ Okay then. Next teams!" The Adept, seemingly disappointed more than anything, called out.


    He pointed out another two teams as the site reset and repaired itself then turned back to the class as the barrier hiding the preparations became opaque once more.


    The next two matches were uneventful with the attackers winning both times.


    The first of them tried to use the ward as Felix had but evidently did not have nearly as much mana as he did and they were quickly overpowered. The next team didn''t even bother with the wall and instead, set themselves up, one on each doorway to protect the pedestal. Unfortunately, a stray arrow soared past one of their heads and knocked the ball off the pedestal, sticking to it before being recalled into the archer''s waiting hands.


    "Alright, first two winning teams, approach."


    Felix''s team, along with the team that had bulldozed the wall, approached on either side of the Adept. They nodded then turned to Felix''s team and handed them the ball, "Good luck."


    Defending again. Shit.


    Elias, Thomaex, Peace and Felix rushed over to the completely restored site to begin preparations.


    "Okay, same thing this time?" Elias looked at each of them, lingering on Felix who had largely directed them the first time.


    "No. Won''t work. You saw what they did last time. I can''t supply enough mana to the wall fast enough to stop them." Felix shook his head, "They probably know about Peace''s illusions now and it doesn''t seem like traps will slow them down much."


    "So what do we do?" Thomaex frowned, "We aren''t just giving up, are we?"


    Felix chuckled, "Course not. You notice which direction they came from?"


    "Right from the rest of the class, ran the whole way here." Elias nodded.


    Felix nodded, "To build up enough momentum to rip through two walls unimpeded, they probably need a runway. I doubt they can redirect themselves."


    "Right. So we can reinforce the walls and dedicate everything in that direction then?" Thomaex nodded.


    "Sort of. I wouldn''t do anything permanent because if they don''t punch through or they see us reinforcing it, they may just run out into the field to try from a different angle." Felix looked at Thomaex mostly to gauge his response and know if it was possible for him to create mobile reinforcements.


    Thomaex scratched the scruff on his chin for a bit then nodded, "Okay, we can do that. I''m gonna need help moving it but I think we can stop them."


    Felix nodded and they all got to work.


    Just 15 minutes of prep time later, the match began as Peace placed the ball onto the pedestal and the opposing team rushed towards the building.


    From memory, Felix knew that it took them about 10 seconds to cover the distance so that was all they had to move the massive metal plate Thomaex had created, in front of them. Luckily, they knew ahead of time which direction they were coming from so the plate was fitted in place an entire 2 seconds early.


    Felix quickly put in place all the spells he needed to and they all watched with anticipation as a group of four students, huddled together in a ball of death, rushed at the wall next to them.


    As they collided at full speed, the metal plate clanged out loudly, almost breaking Felix''s eardrums, only the Dragon tissue keeping them in tact. The ground exploded outwards as the wake behind the attacking group suddenly smacked into the wall and the four of them were launched and scattered across the field.


    Looking backwards, the front half of the wall that had braced the metal plate had been pulverized and it fell away like sand as the reinforcement rocked forwards. The wall was half as thick as it had been but the ward inside remained undamaged, which was their hope all along anyways.


    The bulldozing team recovered quickly and, as expected, rushed off into the field so they could run at the wall again from a different side.


    While they did, Elias and Thomaex moved the metal plate while Felix recast and moved the spell he had supporting it. Once they saw the plate being moved, they quickly ran off to target a different side.


    It took them far longer to run around the site from a few kilometers out than it did for Felix''s team to move the plate so eventually, they just lined themselves up with the original spot, where the wall was now half as thick and rushed towards them.


    This time, they relied more on Felix''s spells and the metal plate only using the wall as a fallback to keep the plate standing.


    On top of holding the plate in place, Felix also cast spells to try and slow, divert and worst case, stop the team as they rushed towards them. Though he wasn''t expecting much, it was the best option they had at the moment so Felix ended up pouring over half of his massive mana pool into the spells.


    Even with over 40 million mana powering the spells, Felix wasn''t sure they would work and so he watched with gritted teeth as he held the spell forms as tightly as he could with his mana control.


    The attacking team rushed through the field, tearing up the ground as they went and smashed right through Felix''s first spell, a slow field. Whether or not it actually had slowed them at all, Felix had no idea but the mana had been expended and the spell triggered so he let go of it and honed his focus.


    He had dedicated increasingly more mana to each subsequent spell meaning the most mana was in the final spell designed to try and stop them if they made it all the way to the wall. As he watched them blow through the first spell though, Felix made a split second decision and redirected the mana in the final spell to the second spell, the one designed to redirect them.


    Felix also quickly switched its direction which was a gamble but, one he decided was worth the risk.


    Barreling through the field at ridiculous speed, leaving a wake of soil behind them, the attacking team activated the second spell Felix was powering, causing a loud boom to echo out over the field.


    Felix, and the rest of his team, watched with glee and mounting nerves as the attacking team were launched into the air, towards the one section of wall they had reinforced. They flew far higher than Felix had intended, but because of the speed they were traveling, they only just barely cleared the wall. As they passed over the main building, followed by the wall on the other side, they all released a breath they had been holding.


    Guess they can''t actually stop themselves, at least not in the air. That was too close though, if they had clipped the top edge of the wall there, things would have been really bad. I need to hit them with the spell from further out so I don''t need to use as much mana and they gain more height to clear the wall.


    A response sounded out from within Felix''s own mind, Using 1,072,836 mana from a distance of 183 meters from the wall would be optimal.


    It took him a few moments to recognize the voice as he had only ever talked to them once before.


    Mark! Are you certain?


    Yes.


    If I use 1.25 million at an approximate distance of 200 meters, how much will they clear it by?


    Approximately 62.7 meters at the closest point, assuming they maintain a similar velocity.


    How close and far can they get where 1.25 will still clear the wall?


    From 250 to 175 with a speed variability of +-10%.


    Felix nodded to himself as he made slight adjustments to the spell form on the spot, Thanks.


    Once again, team wrecking ball ran out into the field at a different location and this time, Felix knew exactly where to place his spell and so, he watched them soar past with much more confidence.


    They tried twice more, even trying a feint once before giving up and switching over to a more traditional attack.


    Given how long they had spent trying to rush the walls, Felix didn''t think they had much else planned for getting in but their fighting ability alone proved incredibly formidable.


    Thomaex managed to hold out for almost two minutes before being eliminated followed by Elias a minute later. Felix and Peace spent the time maintaining the ward and protecting Felix respectively. By the time they were alone though, there was only just over a minute left and so they didn''t bother falling back into the building.


    Felix managed to maintain the ward for the rest of the match while deflecting or dodging their caster''s spells and their archer''s arrows while Peace easily handled their two melee fighters.


    Rejoining the rest of the class, Elias and Thomaex excitedly joined them to watch the other semifinal match together. They were hoping to catch some hints as to how they played so they would know what they needed to prepare in the next match.


    After a brief preparation period, the barrier behind the Adept lit up with various views of the battlefield and the attacking team rushed in.


    The defending team had set themselves up in the field, facing the attacking team and the rest of the class. Just from initial impressions, they all seemed to be melee fighters of some kind with large swords, a maul, a shield and sword and finally a dagger wielder.


    The attacking team on the other hand, seemed to be a more balanced party with two robed individuals and two wearing plate armor.


    The two in plate armor rushed into the defending team, not bothering with kiting around them or trying to attack from a different angle. They also seemed completely unconcerned with the fact that they were essentially 2 on 4 in melee range.


    They engaged by fighting all four of them together rather than splitting them up into separate fights. After a few seconds, it became obvious why. Not only could both plate armored students have lasted for quite a while by themselves, seemingly immutable entities on the battlefield, but the robed students behind them made their configuration even more threatening.


    One of the robed students seemed to be buffing and healing the two tanks with spells. They provided shields, made them faster and distracted the enemy combatants with ease. Never once did they use something offensive-or lethal-though, Felix noted.


    This lasted for almost a minute at which point the spell the other robed student had been preparing and casting from the start, finally completed.


    Covering a multiple hundred meter radius centered on the six melee fighters, a sudden Lightning Storm appeared. There was no ominous cloud in the sky to forewarn anyone but rather, the sudden appearance of a massive spell form above their heads. It appeared just as instantly as the spell''s effect did.


    The Lightning Bolts raining down multiple times a second were obviously targeted, never missing a student in its area but they were also indiscriminate and they hit everyone. Apparently that was the intention though as the two plate armored students were both immensely hard to take down and with the constant heals they received kept them alive while the other team was worn down.


    It only took the defending team 30 seconds to realize they stood no chance of outlasting the two tanks they were fighting and scramble. They all ran back towards the wall but with the support caster speeding the two super tanks, they never really stood a chance of outrunning them.


    With the tanks constantly right behind them, the defending team never had the chance to regroup and properly defend. Whenever they tried, the two tanks just kept their momentum and barreled through them, pushing ever closer to the center of the point.


    The pair of tanks like two unstoppable forces, the defending team crumpled and lost just a minute after starting their retreat.


    Elias turned to the rest of them, "So we stay spread out?"


    Felix shrugged, "Yeah probably. Let''s see which side we get before we finalize anything though."


    If they do that again, I can easily protect everyone on my team from Lightning. Odds are they have many other spells. Kind of sucks they haven''t been forced to use any other big spells yet.


    Approaching the Adept and flanking them along with the winning team from the last fight, they both waited for a few seconds before the Adept handed the ball to the other team. Neither side looked happy about that decision but no one complained, the other team grabbing the ball and rushing off towards the, now hidden, site.


    For the first time, Felix''s team was on the attacking side. Theoretically, he wanted to be on the attacking side from the start but at this point, they had already been on the defense twice so they were more comfortable with it.


    Felix had no idea which was better for them at this point, attack or defense but there was no use in wondering now so he pushed the thought from his mind.


    Turning to his team, Felix had ever intention of using every second possible to plan their attack while the other team prepared their defense, "Spreading out is probably necessary. I think we need to ignore their tanks as much as possible. It''ll be hard with the support caster speeding them up. I don''t have any spells to match that. Best I can do is launch you all around."


    "Ignoring the tanks shouldn''t be an issue for me. Thomaex''ll have more trouble though." Elias turned to the others.


    Thomaex nodded, "I can try and distract them but I don''t know that I''ll be very useful this round. Sorry."


    Peace smiled, "Not sure it will matter. Elias and I can get in so long as we don''t have to deal with the ward, Felix?"


    "I can get you through it." Felix nodded with confidence.


    "You sure?" Elias frowned, "Their mana pool is going to be massive considering how many artillery spells they''re casting, they''re almost definitely some kind of artillery casting class. They get a lot of mana."


    Felix smiled, "I almost definitely have more. Either way though, even if they have more mana than I do, I can take the ward down."


    Elias seemed wary but willing to trust his teammate and so he nodded seriously.


    The Adept looked over at them, "Your time starts now."


    They all sprinted, flew in Felix''s case, towards the site as soon as they heard that.


    Elias, Peace, Thomaex and Felix all positioned themselves around the wall, ninety degrees from each-other to try and split the defender''s focus as much as possible.


    As expected, they had the Artillery-Caster on the wall along with the Support-Caster, either one or both of them contributing to the ward which was visible and obviously active. The two tanks were set up in front of Felix and showed no intention of spreading out.


    Instead of dealing with them, Felix tried to fly away from them, move side to side and keep his distance but unfortunately, that proved problematic almost immediately. With the speed granted to them by their support caster, they were not only able to keep up with Felix''s flight but they managed to catch up to him completely.


    That forced him to fly high up into the air which meant he couldn''t get in range of the ward on the wall with his mana control.


    Whatever, I should be able to hit the ward until they run out of mana. Most effective is probably just plain Force. I don''t think the ward even tries to block out heat, just the physical flames, no point. Lightning might work but it could also just redirect the Lightning with the parts of the ward I couldn''t identify. Force it is I guess.


    Felix decided his best position on the battlefield was directly in the center of the point, raining spells directly downwards. That should have made it pretty hard for the casters to deal with him properly, being so high up and so far away.


    It also, let him see the entire battlefield at once.


    As soon as he had flown out of range, the two tanks ran, at a ridiculous speed, towards Thomaex. They caught up to him relatively quickly and immediately started harassing him. With all of them focused on being as unkillable as possible, the fight between them would have lasted forever, had the casters not stepped in.


    Once the tanks were in range to keep Thomaex relatively still, the Artillery-Caster released a spell that they had clearly prepared ahead of time and been holding. Much like the Lightning Storm they had previously cast, this spell seemed to be some kind of blizzard with shards formed of mana flying through it. Even from his distance, Felix could tell they weren''t as interesting as solid mana, more like icicle shaped Mana Bolts, just mana constructs.


    The difference between the two was visually subtle but in every other way, obvious. A mana construct like a Mana Bolt wasn''t actually a solid at all and more like mana held in a shape. They were relatively fragile but could be bolstered with a bit of added Force.


    Having analyzed his Mana Bolt spell form, the very first spell form he had ever cast, Felix realized that was exactly what the core node had done, imbued a bit of Force into a Mana Construct. They were also much less expensive in terms of mana cost.


    These icicles though were fairly advanced and created using a combination of real ice, from the moisture in the air, Force and Mana Constructs. On top of that, they seemed to both spin for added penetration and explode in a burst of shrapnel after digging themselves deep enough into a target.


    With what appeared to be a defense buff, shields and healing, the two tanks on the defending team were largely unaffected, especially in comparison to Thomaex. He was left completely alone and was thoroughly distracted by the tanks who were battering him from every side.


    Despite his dire situation, his plate armor alone allowed Thomaex to last just over a minute before he was eliminated.


    That minute had allowed Felix to run through almost 10 million mana worth of Force spells. He didn''t bother with Bombs that exploded outwards in every direction and focused his casting on beams and targeted bursts in the hopes of being as efficient and as fast as possible against the ward.


    Unfortunately, the casters seemed to be both powering the ward because Felix was pretty sure neither one of them alone should have had the, at least, 15 million mana it would have taken to block his spells.


    The other two, Peace and Elias, were either hidden or invisible and not just to Felix''s eye.


    After Thomaex was eliminated, the tank pair ran off around the wall but seemed lost as they couldn''t find either of them. That left them with essentially nothing to do.


    On the other hand, Felix smiled as he saw the strain on the two caster''s faces. He had completely run out of mana before and he knew it wasn''t a pleasant experience. The two tanks were obviously unsure what to do so they tried to throw whatever they could at Felix. It was evidently not their specialty and he was able to trivially avoid the rocks, earth and eventually swords and shields.


    It took the casters longer than Felix expected to realize they were going to run out mana before Felix did. Maybe they just didn''t think it was possible but either way, they eventually gave up on the ward.


    The two tanks, with their speed buffed, hopped over the wall to join the casters as they made their last stand in the middle building. Felix dropped down, not bothering to push himself as he already saw Peace waving up to him from below, ball in hand.


    As fun as it was pushing his mana against both of their pools, proving them wrong and showing them he was better, dominating them, he already knew they had won. Neither of the casters had seen it but Felix had.


    Even before the ward fell, Felix saw Peace sitting against the building at the center. They had already won minutes ago, potentially even in the first few seconds. He didn''t knock the ball off the pedestal though and as soon as Felix saw him, he brought his finger to his lips indicating Felix stay silent.


    Felix had no problems with that because he was having tons of fun watching the casters slowly break down.


    Landing on the ground, Felix walked with Peace and an ecstatic Elias who was running around and skipping through the field.


    Turning to Peace Felix whispered, "Why not just end it?"


    Peace tossed the metal ball straight into the air, "I''d rather not give everything away if I can get away with it. On the other hand, if you hadn''t taken down the ward, I''d have stolen the ball at the last second."


    "How''d you get through it?"


    Peace chuckled as he caught the ball, "There are other, much more efficient, ways through a ward like that. I know you have more efficient methods yourself and were were forced into the air, where you can''t use your mana control against the inscription, so you were stuck brute forcing it. They didn''t have any way to detect me though."


    Felix frowned, "You don''t have my mana control though."


    "Like I said, other ways." Peace smiled and left it at that, obviously not willing to explain any further at the moment.


    Rejoining the rest of the class, the Adept turned to Felix and Peace just as Thomaex and Elias joined them, "So which of you two are being pushed up to the next class?"


    Faster than anyone else could respond, Elias gestured to Felix and Peace, "These two."


    Thomaex nodded with a smile, "They deserve it the most."


    "I¡­ thanks." Felix nodded.


    The Adept nodded, "I agree." He handed them both a card with the next class'' location then nodded, "You guys work around and with each-other very effectively. Even with these two, in the mix, you made plans, protected and trusted one another to do their jobs. Good work."


    Peace shrugged and they all headed back into the classroom where they debriefed and analyzed all the matches. Other than the artillery caster whining about Felix cheating, which was immediately shot down by the Adept who had scanned and confirmed he wasn''t using a battery, nothing interesting was said.


    Constructs and Elementals was a course Felix had recorded and delivered to him so he spent his time in the lab, working on various constructs. He was still tasked with menial work like inscribing enchantment designs, organizing soul gems and validating enchantment designs. As they were still only a few dekads into the first epoch, none of the big projects had started yet.


    Walking into Soul Manipulation, earlier than Felix intended, he took his favorite seat at the back, next to the door. A few seconds later, Melody hopped over his head, landing in the seat next to him.


    "So Felix. I''ve heard you''ve made a new friend."


    Felix looked at her with genuine confusion, "Who?"


    "Peace?"


    "Oh. Yeah I guess? He''s just in Group Combat."


    Melody waved him off, "Also this class and also Solo Combat, I know."


    Felix shrugged, "Ok¡­ What about him?"


    "Are you actually friends or?"


    "What does it matter?"


    Melody sighed, "Look, just be careful around him."


    "Why? You know him?"


    "No. Just¡­ Speak of the devil." Melody looked up, over Felix''s head and nodded.


    Looking in the same direction, Felix saw Peace smile and nod to both of them then casually step, on the air, over their seats and into the one next to Melody.


    She nodded at him politely but obviously wary for some reason. Peace seemed to either not notice or not care and knowing what he knew about Peace, Felix knew he must have just been ignoring her wariness. He was far too perceptive to have missed her obviously pained smile.


    As soon as he sat down though, he reached out and offered her what appeared to be a small layered cake topped with colored syrups. Her eyes immediately lit up but just a moment later, turned into a frown. It was obvious she wanted to accept it but something was preventing her from doing so.


    Peace shrugged and offered it to Felix. Melody jerked to try and stop him but didn''t move far enough or actually say anything so Felix took it, mostly to be polite and to spite Melody. Taking a bite, he was pleasantly surprised with how good it was. Felix didn''t love pastries in general but he couldn''t deny it tasted fantastic.


    Peace made another appear and offered it to Melody who, turned to and looked at Felix warily for almost a minute before sighing and taking it. As she bit into it, she immediately moaned and sank into her seat.


    Peace chuckled, "Thanks."


    "You made this?" Felix nodded appreciatively.


    "Yup. Taking a baking class."


    After Melody finished the first cake in record time, Peace produced another, different pastry and offered it to her. She gladly accepted it this time, her earlier wariness slowly melting away with each and every pastry he produced out of nowhere.


    The class itself was mildly interesting, Professor Fen insisted on showing everyone what various forms of manipulation felt like. None of them had any effect on Felix though so he got to sit and watch as everyone else in the class were tortured one by one. Except Peace and Melody who were also, both unaffected.


    Once it became obvious their resistance to the effects were too high, Professor Fen ignored them for the rest of the class while she slowly built up their tolerances to various forms of manipulation.


    The three of them spent the class talking about their courses, how Group Combat was going for the both of them and a number of other random things Melody came up with between eating Peace''s pastries.


    Felix didn''t manage to figure out why Melody was so wary of Peace as every time she tried to bring it up, Peace would change the subject with a new pastry, completely distracting her. Felix gave up after a few tries and figured he would just have to ask one of them alone, later. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 Chapter 205 - Book 7

    Felix spent his break trying to create his own versions of the Caster''s Dueling spells that required as little focus as possible while still being useful. Most people didn''t care at all how complex a spell was because they ended up in their spell list and only affected their cast time negligibly. In Felix''s case, it drastically affected his cast time as well as how many spells he could cast at once, so it mattered much more to him.


    Unfortunately, that meant there wasn''t much literature in the library or content in his Spell Formation class that had to do with simplifying spells. Mana Structures had some content because it helped with enchantment and ritual efficiency but it was the bare minimum and relied on talent and creativity more than anything.


    Going through all the textbooks he had found in the library, Felix''s spell formation ability and intuition were significantly better to the point where he was far ahead of the current lectures in his Mana Structures class. Almost entirely because of fascinating it all was, he read through papers and textbooks on 2d dimensional spells that culminated with fractals, living spells and spell machines.


    He even ended up briefly skimming through the sections on 3d and 4d spells but didn''t spend too much time on it because he didn''t really have any hope of using any of it any time soon. There was no way he was going to waste any time designing a spell using any of what he learned but his intuition started to veer towards them. As he worked on his own spells, he kept having ideas pop up in his head on how to more efficiently create the spells if they were 3d or he could use fractals and pattern channels.


    The problem was that what he needed from spells seemed to differ greatly from what everyone else wanted out of spells.


    There were many ways of making spells more efficient but almost never did the literature he found detail making spell forms themselves simpler. He was stuck trying to adapt everything he found but in large part, he was starting to wonder if there wasn''t a better way using his own unique talents.


    Until he found one though, Felix continued to pour over all the textbooks and research he could find in the hopes that he found anything. At some point he would go find a Professor, Adept or other expert on the subject of spell formation but he preferred reading so he left that as his last resort.


    He worked through two whole days at which point he had to attend Solo Combat where they finally started dueling each-other. Now that Felix was drastically faster than he had been, as well as being more durable and generally having higher stats, he quickly realized he wasn''t in the right class anymore.


    Felix''s dueling ability wasn''t great overall though, he just had higher stats than most people. He was still severely lacking in spells across the board. His damage spells were too simple and his defensive spells were too general. On top of that, he had no utility spells whatsoever and his mobility was good but not good enough to make up for everything else.


    He was often outpaced or had to deal with other students that were more agile than he was which was particularly annoying because his spells required him to be able to hit them.


    Felix had been overall happy with his aim up to this point. He hadn''t really had much of an issue hitting his targets at all. Now that he was fighting both smarter enemies that could use mobility skills to dodge and faster opponents overall, he was beginning to miss, a lot.


    Even in his fight with the Undead Lich, Felix had wished he could prematurely detonate many of his spells as they didn''t directly hit the hands so, they simply didn''t detonate at all. The issue was he would have to know when to detonate them. That either meant an overly complex proximity detection mechanism built into the spell that would make it both less efficient and a much higher level spell or adjusting each spell individually, on the spot.


    Those calculations though, while he could do them almost instantly, along with the necessary adjustments to the spell, took too long to cast. By the time he had the spell form ready, his target had already moved too far away. His focus and cast speed relied on him knowing the spell form well enough. Adjusting them on the spot slowed that down by just enough that it became impossible for him to hit anything.


    Luckily, his stats were easily high enough that he could win simply by avoiding all of their damage and using very wide area of effect spells. That would only work for the lower classes and only for a few more dekads so he planned on fixing that issue as soon as possible.


    After class, he spent a bit of time trying to come up with a solution himself but quickly realized he was better off asking for help with this specific problem. What he wanted to know was if anyone else had to deal with something similar for turrets, enchantments or rituals and whether or not they already had a good solution.


    Felix quickly checked on Nova through their soul bond, finding her happy but completely spent which was a relief for Felix then, he decided to do some training.


    While he knew he had to change something, he also figured some practice wouldn''t hurt and so he spent the rest of the day along with the entirety of the next day training his aim. The training ended up proving incredibly valuable and he improved drastically almost entirely because he was still getting used to his improved stats and mental capabilities.


    In terms of actual improvements to his aiming ability, he felt like he had simply hit a wall with his spells where they weren''t fast enough or he didn''t have enough control over them. The people he fought now were fast enough to see his spells fire and react to them. There was always Lightning Bolts to fall back on which were hard but not impossible to dodge.


    Eventually though he would encounter people who were fast enough to avoid or perceptive enough to detect the ionized trail he created to direct the bolt. They were at least marginally more useful than his other spells for the time being though


    The day after his training, heading into Mana Control class with the Adepts, Felix described the issue to them. Given his unique abilities and the fact that he was the only Initiate in the class, not only was all the attention on him but he was treated somewhat like a younger sibling, all of them willing to provide advice.


    One of the Adepts nodded their heads appreciatively, "Huh¡­ Interesting¡­ You know The System not only causes our spells to explode near the target in the case of Fire Balls and such, but it also does a little bit of aim correction for us."


    Alkor nodded along, "You can also get skills to have your spells hone in and seek your target, even if the original spell form doesn''t include anything like that."


    Withrel stood and walked over to the board at the front of the class, "What if you add a component to all your spell forms?" Picking up a piece of chalk, they started drawing.


    They started with a simple Fire Ball, as that was the spell Felix had used in his examples, but their version of the spell form was far more refined than Felix''s. The majority of the difference was in the layout and structure of the channels where he used fractal channels. They used different nodes as well and after analyzing them with his skill, he realized they had smoother efficiency curves and were combination nodes.


    The node he used combined both Force and Fire but had no shaping components embedded within it. It took Felix a bit to figure out how the output was being shaped at all as he didn''t see any shaping nodes whatsoever. In fact, the node producing Force and Fire was the only node in the spell form at all.


    Everything else about the spell and how it functioned was actually controlled by the channels and how they interacted with the node itself.


    Mana would initially fill an outer ring, as usual but then, it would filter into a series of channels that formed an intricate fractal of intersecting spirals all converging on the node at the center. There were also channels throughout that diverged from the spirals but Felix had no idea as to why.


    "All you would have to do is lengthen or shorten these lines," Withrel pointed at the diverging lines Felix couldn''t identify himself, "and the spell will detonate based on their length. You just have to be able to estimate the distance, which you can do, right?"


    Felix nodded, still entranced by the spell form itself.


    "While I do think this solution is rather elegant-" Professor Fin walked over to the board, "-you''re overthinking this a bit."


    Professor Fin turned to Felix, "You''ve mentioned before that you are limited on the number of spells you can cast at once by your own focus. More complicated spells lower that number, correct?"


    Felix nodded.


    Fin turned to Withrel but was still obviously talking to Felix, "How many of these do you think you could cast at once, while estimating how long the lines need to be?"


    "Estimating the line length is trivial, I have ways of dealing with that. The spell itself¡­ while the channels are complicated, they''re a repetitive pattern so I don''t expect them to be that taxing, I''d have to run some tests though. The node on the other hand, I''ve never seen a node like this and it''s¡­ more complicated than I''m used to. Considering how detailed it is¡­ I can test it but I think 3, maybe 4 instead of about 7 I can do with my current version of Fire Ball." Felix shrugged as he threw out a guess.


    Professor Fin smirked, "I don''t think you''re thinking enough about how unique Felix is. What about maintaining a thread of mana connecting you to each and every one of your spells? Then you can detonate them at will?"


    "That¡­ might be possible actually." Felix started constructing a spell form in the air to test the idea.


    One of the Adepts in the class contorted their face in confusion, "I thought your mana control range was almost 18 meters right now? Wouldn''t any spell you cast end up far outside of that range?"


    "That''s the range for having perfect control over mana. Outside of that, he''s more normal." Professor Fin smirked.


    Felix tilted his head indicating sort of, "If I construct something within my range then push it outside, it doesn''t fall apart but any of you would be able to destroy it pretty easily if you got close enough."


    Fin nodded, "Think about when we cast spells, the spell form falls out of our effective range very quickly. They do not however, simply disintegrate."


    "So that''s the downside to this, firing the spell at someone, if they were paying enough attention they could cut the thread?" Kilenor nodded along, "That shouldn''t be too much of an issue right now but¡­ in the future."


    Felix shrugged, "We can deal with that when it arises. In the meantime, unless we have any better ideas, I''m on a bit of a deadline right now."


    Alkor snorted, "I heard. You''ve got a Caster''s Duel with Tanryel in a couple dekads."


    A few of the other Adepts in the room chuckled or guffawed, the rest of their reactions being more tame but everyone seemed to know more or less what that meant.


    One of the Adepts in the class shrugged in their seat, "I mean, considering Felix''s unique¡­ abilities. This should be¡­ easy, right?"


    Felix winced, "Ideally I''d like to win without¡­ cheating."


    Withrel frowned, "It''s not che-"


    Felix shook his head, "I know. I want to win entirely within the normal rules of a Caster''s Duel though, no stretching them with my mana control or anything like that."


    Alkor chuckled, "That''s not possible."


    Should I avoid revealing¡­ my plan?


    Grim mentally shrugged, Your plan is designed such that you win whether or not he knows about it. He''ll probably figure it out within the first few seconds anyways.


    Yeah, you''re right.


    Felix shrugged, "I know he''s faster than me and far more experienced but I don''t think it''s impossible. I almost definitely have more mana than he does."


    Alkor laughed audibly, "Yeah, right. Tanryel has nearly 20 million mana. You know you can''t use batteries, right?"


    Felix stared intently at him, "How do you know exactly how much mana he has?"


    Alkor shrugged, "It''s not hard to estimate based on some fights where he''s run all the way out. Some people are obsessive about figuring that stuff out."


    "Well, if you''re right, this is going to be a lot easier than I thought."


    Multiple of the Adepts stared at Felix, asking the obvious question.


    Felix sighed, "80 million right now without the batteries and I think I can increase that a bit once more before the duel."


    Most of the Adpets in the room just stared at him incredulously, Withrel shook his head and broke the silence, "In what¡­ how?"


    Felix shrugged, "Uniqueness. I use the visualization skill to do some tricks inside my mana pool."


    Professor Fin laughed, "That''s like, Demigod Artillery Caster levels of mana. If you want to play a battle of attrition then¡­ it might be possible."


    Kilenor nodded, "It''ll still be hard. You basically have to force him to maintain an omni-shield for the whole fight because he will definitely be able to force you to maintain one."


    Alkor shook his head, "If he starts to sense that that''s your plan, he will focus on avoiding your spells which will make it even harder."


    Withrel smiled, "I guess you''re going to need to come up with some undodgeable spells then."


    Felix nodded, "That''s been my plan so far. I''ve gotten as far as dissecting and analyzing the Caster''s Dueling spells then trying to assemble my own from those components."


    "What have you got so far?" Withrel looked rather excited, spell formation clearly being his passion.


    Professor Fin pointed at the board and Felix walked over, drawing out all his designs so far, with mana.


    Withrel noticeably winced as he looked over Felix''s spell forms along with a couple others that hid it better.


    Professor Fin stepped in to defend him, "Keep in mind-once again-that Felix is restricted by the complexity of the spell. These might seem overly simple but were he to use more complicated spells, his concurrent casts and cast time in general would suffer greatly."


    Withrel sighed, "Still. We can do better than this, if you''re¡­ sorry I know you don''t have a lot of experience with Spell Formation yet and-"


    Felix shook his head, "I''d very much appreciate your help formulating better spells for me to use. I''ve poured over everything I could find in the library but haven''t applied much of it to these spells yet."


    Withrel smiled, "Everything you could find? You said channel patterns, so long as they''re repetitive shouldn''t increase the complexity much, right? Fractals are allowed?"


    Felix shrugged, "I can test them on the spot but I don''t suspect they''ll increase the complexity much."


    Professor Fin stretched his back in a very cat like manner, "What''s your casting limit right now?"


    "Almost 21 spell levels." Turning to the board, Felix quickly drew out some examples for a level 1 spell all the way up to a level 4 spell and labeled them accordingly.


    Withrel nodded, "How about you draw out all your core spells and we can come up with something better together?"


    Felix nodded, "Sounds good to me." Looking at Professor Fin and the rest of the class, it seemed something like this wasn''t uncommon in this class. All the other students were Adepts and the class seemed more like a club to Felix than an actual class. They had lectures sometimes but most of what they did was train their mana control against each-other in duels and share any related insights they discovered.


    As Felix started to draw out the various spells he used on the board, he noticed a couple spells being cast throughout the class. He didn''t pay them too much attention until, he realized they were targeting him.


    At that point, Felix analyzed them and realized what was happening so he responded accordingly. Felix cast a small, circular red Caster''s shield behind him to block the red bolt, no wider than an inch in diameter.


    Professor Fin immediately contorted his face in thought, "Huh."


    Felix looked at him but Fin waved him off, indicating they would talk about it later.


    The first he blocked with ease but as a couple of others in the class joined in, it became more difficult for him to process the slight variances in the colors they were using with his mana senses alone. Inevitably, he was hit more than once as he wrote out his spells.


    He could have realistically stopped all spells from being cast by tearing them apart but that would have defeated the purpose of the practice.


    Withrel joined him at the board and began working through designing more efficient versions of the same spells along with a couple other Adepts in the class that chimed in every once in a while.


    They worked on the designs and spent most of their time finding a foundation for simple spells and testing Felix''s limits. Afterwards, they abstracted out those concepts into Caster''s Dueling spells.


    Over the course of the class time, Felix got a lot better at blocking the bolts.


    It got to the point where they realized-as Professor Fin had earlier-that his best bet in the duel was to use point defense shields that were as small as possible. This allowed him to conserve as much mana as possible up until the point where Tanryel was forced to use massive area spells.


    Those spells cost a lot of mana so the more Tanryel had to rely on them, the better. The reason caster''s didn''t use point defence shields much was that they couldn''t cast spells wherever they wanted, typically relying on the tip of a wand. They were also easily overcome by curving two separate attacks so they hit from either side which was impossible to block with a single point defence shield. Using a wand, one would have to swing their arm in front of both bolts before they hit which was, nearly impossible considering the required cast time alone.


    On top of everything, most people didn''t have a cast time as fast as Felix''s. A lot of people could start and complete a cast faster than he could, especially with good skills or a wand. Felix could however, prepare a spell by constructing it entirely then holding off on casting it until he needed to. Effectively, so long as he could predict the spells coming at him with his mana senses, he had a virtually instant cast time.


    In a Caster''s Duel, the time it took a bolt to reach him was enough time for him to detect the color and cast the appropriate point defence shields wherever he needed to within his mana control range. When the enemy started casting a spell, he could easily detect which color he needed and prepare the appropriate shield in time in large part because the Caster''s Dueling spells used mana to dictate their color.


    The issue was trying to identify what kind of shield he needed and how wide the spell would be. If he prepared a point defense shield against an area attack, it would be useless. Felix had to learn to recognize the spell''s function fast enough to be able to prepare the appropriate spell in time. The memory crystals of Tanryel''s previous duels would help and Withrel promised to help him practice identifying them in the next class but, it was still going to be difficult.


    They also quickly found that any improvements Withrel could come up with, didn''t help Felix much. While his spells were incredibly advanced and elegant, they relied on incredibly advanced and complex nodes. Those nodes specifically made it nearly impossible for the spells to be anything less than 5th level spells and that was ignoring the fractal channel patterns that ate up another few levels on their own.


    What Felix really needed, was a way to cast spells without nodes at all, which he was starting to consider more and more. In theory, it was a great idea, in practice he had no idea if it would be harder or easier for him.


    He didn''t really have time to explore the idea at the moment though because it wouldn''t help him in the duel at all so instead, he committed himself fully to training for the next two dekads.


    A number of the Adepts in his mana control class were happy to spar with him, they being far more experienced with the sport than Ayred was. They also helped him train his Mana Control range, focus and casting speed but those were secondary to his learning to identify and react as quickly as possible to Caster''s Dueling spells.


    He spent time with Withrel, who was incredibly happy-excited even-to analyze Tanryel''s spells in his previous duels. He dueled and sparred during the days when he could get out of classes and analyzed spells at night, when everyone else was asleep or busy.


    When he was alone, he began training himself against the small piece of Endless Hunger he kept in his Soul Space. While everything helped somewhat, training against The Endless Hunger was by far the most beneficial for Felix. It was the most straining thing he could do in the shortest period of time and he noticed comparatively massive improvements because of it.


    Lastly, Felix spent some of his time working on something he was considering to be his last resort. He wasn''t sure if it would even be ready in time for the duel but it was something he thought, could make the difference.


    His corpses from Tekragoraxius hadn''t arrived yet either, not that he could have done anything with them just yet. He was simply slightly worried she had forgotten or changed her mind. The worry was quickly suppressed each and every time he felt at his bond with Nova though.


    The 5th of the dekad, Felix''s last break day before the duel, he finished up his training against The Endless Hunger, replaced it in his dedicated Soul Space, then headed out for the day.


    Flying out of his room and out of the dorm, Felix was stopped just outside the building by a very joyful, redhead in a short skirt and a loose blouse covered in a geometric print of bright colors.


    Felix nodded in her direction, acknowledging her presence, "Melody."


    She smiled wide and waved rapidly, "Felix! I heard you''ve been hard at work training to win your duel with my brother."


    Felix shrugged, "I guess."


    "Well, we can''t have you getting all burnt out so today, you''re coming with me."


    Felix grimaced a little as he didn''t think getting burnt out was possible for him and also at the idea of not training, "Where are we going?"


    She smirked and waggled her brow playfully, "You''ll see."


    Felix sighed but followed nonetheless as Melody flew off towards the portal room.


    Flying inside, Melody just nodded to Ellie who smiled and nodded in response then opened the portal for them. Melody didn''t even slow down as she zipped through the portal into what appeared to be a snow covered, mountainous taiga biome. Whether or not they remained on the same planet, Felix had no idea.


    In her very summery outfit, she soared over the massive snow caked evergreen trees and up towards one of the mountains with Felix in tow. The entire area reminded Felix of the tutorial, around Icewatch but with trees unlike anything Felix had ever seen before. It was also lightly snowing but not nearly enough to obstruct the view in any way.


    Together they soared over the forest, landing on a snow covered outcropping on the side of a mountain. Given how wide and flat the area was and how directly she had flown to it, Felix got the sense that she had been here before.


    Landing on the outcropping, Felix saw a number of carvings and ice sculptures against the cliff face behind them either left by her or someone else but confirming in Felix''s mind, that this location wasn''t random at all.


    "Did you make these?" Felix asked as he walked towards the sculptures.


    Melody nodded lightly, "When I was a kid, yeah."


    Based on her melancholic tone of voice, Felix decided not to interrogate her.


    Melody walked over to the edge of the outcropping and sat down, sinking almost a foot into the powdery snow then leaning back, allowing the snow to create a natural cushion for her back.


    Felix sat down next to her, his robes much more suited to the frigid weather than her skirt and blouse. The cold didn''t actually affect either of them though, it just looked odd to Felix who was still used to mostly normal humans.


    "What a beautiful day." Melody took a long drawn out breath.


    "What are we doing here?" Felix asked after a few moments of silence.


    Melody scoffed, "Enjoying it, what does it look like?"


    Felix turned to her, "Why today? You said you don''t want me to get burnt out but you are incredibly good at reading people so you know I wouldn''t have. What''s so special about today? Assuming neither of us die prematurely, there will be literally millions of days that are just as beautiful for us to enjoy."


    Melody looked at him and raised a brow, "It''s today. Now, the present. That''s what''s special. Just enjoy it, okay?"


    Felix sighed and looked out over the view while constructing and maintaining spells behind his back, rotating them out as soon as one fell apart because he''d reached his focus limit. While he would have preferred to have been sparring or even practicing against the Endless Hunger, being here with Melody didn''t actually hinder him much.


    Cast Time and Focus limit were important and he felt like he was right on the verge of increasing his focus limit to 24 spell levels anyways.


    They sat there in silence for a few minutes, staring out over the forest after which Melody sighed and laid her head back into the snow, "Do you ever stop? Do you ever just¡­ rest?"


    Felix shrugged, "Don''t feel the need to."


    "You don''t even sleep, do you?"


    Felix shook his head.


    Melody sighed, "You know that isn''t good for you, right? Even if your bod-"


    "I handled the soul side of sleeping as well."


    She sighed, "Still, you should at least try to be present sometimes. Relax and enjoy yourself."


    "I am enjoying myself. I find training to be very enjoyable."


    "I know you do."


    They returned to silence for a while, Felix constructing spells behind his back and tentatively training against The Endless Hunger in the Soul Space he constructed specially for it. It was a bit risky because it completely consumed his focus but he was starting to get antsy just sitting there.


    Meanwhile, Melody began to create snow angels and stared up a the sky.


    Seeing Melody so nonchalant, thinking about her dragging him out and trying to get him to enjoy the day, Felix couldn''t help but chuckle.


    Melody swung her head in his direction, "What?"


    "Oh, nothing. You just kind of remind me of an old friend."


    Melody scoffed playfully, "Excuse me? I''m not old. I''m only 73 epochs. I haven''t even reached the prime of my youth yet."


    Felix shrugged, "Could have fooled me."


    "What''s her name? Is she cute?"


    Felix looked off into the distance, enjoying the view, "David."


    Melody shrugged, "Didn''t realize you swung that way. If I remind you of them, you must have been hopelessly attracted to them too."


    Felix didn''t bother dignifying her comment with a response.


    Another while passed before Felix broke the silence once again, "Why me?"


    Melody took a deep breath before answering, pausing for almost a minute before responding, "Your smart, driven and ambitious, as many are but¡­ you aren''t so caught up in it¡­ kind of. You aren''t completely absorbed in the training the same way most people are. I know this might not be your scene but you do enjoy the moment, you enjoy the practice, the training and making progress itself. Almost everyone else I''ve met enjoys the results and suffers through the training but then doesn''t even stop to enjoy the destination once they arrive."


    She sighed, "I don''t know how most people live like that."


    Felix frowned, "You don''t think I''m completely absorbed in training?"


    She smiled, "Not in the same way. You know the first time I saw you in the library, the real reason I approached you? Other than the fact that you were the only one around?"


    Felix shook his head.


    "I watched you walk into the library. Even as you were looking for a book, you were fascinated by everything. Your eyes were like a child''s, darting around to take in everything. I know you''re an integrated but on top of that, every time you learn something or are training, you light up the same way. Do you know how rare it is that I see others enjoy themselves so much in everything they do? Your soul lights up every time. Most people, that happens once a term at most."


    Felix shrugged, "I''m still young though, early 20s in Epochs. I''m sure it''ll change. I''ll grow jaded."


    Melody shrugged, "Maybe. I don''t think so though. You aren''t completely focused on the destination, the goal. Even as you''re training to duel Tan, you''re enjoying the entire journey. It''s something I wish more people could do. Most people make themselves suffer to achieve something, to get to a certain level and then they get there and immediately set a new goal for themselves. Immediately setting themselves up to suffer through the next chunk of training, always chasing. They''re never happy, never stopping to enjoy the accomplishment but you, you''re just content, always."


    She smiled and continued, "As someone who naturally feels everyone''s souls around her, it''s nice to be around someone who is genuinely content and constantly feels joy in almost everything they do."


    Felix frowned, "Really? I''m content?"


    She laughed, "I guess it''s hard to judge considering you''ve probably been like this for a while. How many things do you do that you don''t want to do? How often do you make a decision for someone other than yourself? How often do you feel anxious without also feeling exhilarated? How often do you force yourself to suffer through something? How often are you consumed by negative emotions?"


    "So I''m selfish?"


    "Yeah, in a way. It''s not even that you make decisions in your favor, it seems more like you don''t care about anyone else at all. You value yourself and your own happiness above everything. I''m sure you''ve hurt people because of it at some point but¡­ I can handle myself. I don''t want people considering my feelings and situation in every decision they make only to make a decision that ultimately hurts them. I''ve¡­ had more than enough of that in my life already."


    Felix shrugged, "Alright¡­ Speaking of enjoying the moment and all that, can we go back now? I want to spar against the Adepts in my Mana Control class."


    If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    Melody smiled calmly, "Not yet."


    Felix shook his head and pulled out the portal mold from his inventory.


    Melody hopped out of the snow as soon as he pulled the mold out and slapped it out of his hand, "No seriously, not yet."


    He furrowed his brow, "Why?"


    Melody shrugged guiltily, "Okay, I may have fibbed a little. We aren''t just here to enjoy the moment."


    Finally.


    Felix sighed, "Why are we here then?"


    "I used to come here to hide from my parents. This was the only place I could go where they couldn''t find and force me into training or some political meeting."


    Felix stopped himself from responding when he saw her wistful expression. She continued a moment later, "The planet I grew up on is entirely developed. There''s nature but it''s curated and contained. Before I found this place, I hadn''t even seen snow before. Now, watching snowflakes lazily fall from the sky and create an unmarred, perfect blanket of white¡­ I don''t know I just¡­ find it kind of relaxing."


    Felix nodded in acknowledgement then waited what he felt was an appropriate amount of time before switching topics, "So¡­ just to be clear, we''re hiding from your parents? Isn''t your dad a god?"


    She shrugged, "Yeah, sort of. He''s not looking for us directly. One of his advisors is visiting the academy right now."


    "How long do we have to stay here?"


    Melody shrugged, "She should be gone in a couple hours."


    Felix nodded, sat back down and stowed the mold in his main Soul Space, "Why am I hiding?"


    "I''ve been hanging around you long enough now¡­ You also have an imminent duel with Tan so¡­ Plus, maybe I just wanted some company."


    Felix nodded in understanding, "Last minute scouting?"


    "Something like that. Well, among other things."


    Felix turned to her, "Do you always try to dodge your father''s advisors?"


    A female voice Felix didn''t recognize suddenly responded from behind them, "Yes."


    They both swung their heads around, towards the source of the voice and Melody sighed.


    [S] Fephiane: Advisor to Kjarne (Lvl ?)


    Melody looked and sounded like she knew this day would come eventually as she sighed, "You finally found me."


    Fephiane shook her head, "You assuming your father didn''t know about this place is¡­ na?ve. He said it was good for you to have a place you felt safe and so he banned us from coming here."


    Melody gritted her teeth, "So why are you here now? Just to prove you can find me if you need to? To prove that there''s nowhere I can go to be alone?"


    "Your father decided it was time."


    "Of course he did. What do you want? Or are you just here to spy for Tanryel because he''s too lazy to do anything himself?"


    Fephiane-the advisor-shook her head, "Tanryel has refused to accept any information about his opponent prior to the duel. He has decided it will make the fight more fair and that it is ''more fun to go in blind'' despite our¡­ objections. It is not an official match however and it is unlikely he will lose so your father has agreed to allow him some freedom in this matter."


    That''s¡­ unexpectedly honorable.


    Melody humphed her approval, "So what was so important now that you had to ruin any hope I had that I could ever escape his grasp and be my own person?"


    Fephiane shook her head at Melody''s over-dramatization, "Your father has requested your presence."


    Melody scoffed, "No thanks."


    "This time, you don''t have the option of saying no."


    Melody hopped to her feet and brushed off her summery outfit, "So he didn''t request my presence, he demanded it."


    Fephiane sighed, "His business with you was deemed urgent enough."


    "If it''s so urgent then why are we wasting time here, you''re going to kidnap me anyways, aren''t you?"


    Fephiane shook her head, "Only if you resist."


    They stared at each-other for over a minute until Fephiane opened a portal and followed Melody through it.


    As soon as the portal was closed behind them and Felix was left alone, he opened a portal back to Eramith to continue his training.


    The day before the duel, Felix took one more pass over his mana pool, compressing it down as much as he could. Given how much time he had spent practicing against The Endless Hunger he had stashed away inside of his soul, he had been expecting a moderate increase.


    He found he was able to push his capacity by 25% which was about what he expected so he was satisfied. He wouldn''t have access to his charm for the duel so he was stuck to his own 100 million mana alone which seemed like a lot but, given the spells he was forced to use, he wasn''t sure it would be enough.


    Flying over towards the A-SAM building, Felix was fully expecting to see Melody and Ayred either already there or arrive shortly after he did. Both of them had stakes in the fight, Melody because of the consequences of the fight and Ayred because he helped train Felix. He even suspected he might see a few of the Adepts from his Mana Control class.


    What Felix didn''t expect was for there to be a crowd that numbered in the hundreds filled with students, adepts and even professors, only some of which he recognized. He briefly looked for someone he knew well enough to land next to but unfortunately, he didn''t find anyone that fit that description.


    Felix landed on the outside of the crowd, which seemed to mostly surround a large circular court in the field outside of the main building. Unsure of the proper procedure, when the actual duel would start or where he was supposed to be, he looked around for someone he knew.


    A tap on his shoulder caused him to spin around, finding Melody standing just behind him somehow, "You ready?"


    Felix shrugged and nodded, "Sure. Ready as I can be."


    She nodded then gestured with her head for him to follow, seemingly aware of his state of disorientation.


    Walking over to the edge of the circle, Felix looked across and saw Tanryel jovially talking with a small group of people he couldn''t really see. Given his position right at the edge of the circle, Felix suspected Tanryel was simply waiting for his arrival.


    Felix had had no idea when the duel would start so, he just showed up in the morning meaning they couldn''t have been waiting too long. He still wondered though, how long had Tanryel and some of the crowd been waiting for the duel and were they simply content to wait the entire day until he arrived.


    He couldn''t imagine sitting around and waiting that long but he also couldn''t have imagined being completely content with trudging through snow for hours like Shade''s Wrath had been. He shook his head to clear it because the way long lives seemed to be affecting the way everyone else perceived time was a little disgusting to him. There was just too much time wasted that could have been used for anything else.


    Before stepping into the large circle laid out in the grassy field before him, Felix stowed his coat, robes and any other superfluous fabric he had on him. The Caster''s Dueling spells weren''t actually attacks and having his robes on were just a hindrance. If the spells hit his robes-even if they would have missed his actual body-the point counted.


    He had thought about getting Rainoth to make him a tighter shirt but decided against it. No one else seemed to mind being shirtless and in many of Tanryel''s duels that Felix had watched, he didn''t bother with a shirt.


    Luckily his pants were relatively trim so loose fabric wouldn''t likely accidentally lose him a point but he kept the boots just because they were too comfortable to give up.


    As he stepped into the ring, Felix quickly ran through all the spells he was going to have to use, making sure the formations were at the top of his mind. One of the people standing around Tanryel pointed and he turned, his smile instantly disappearing in favor of a dour and serious expression as he noticed Felix.


    Tanryel nodded to the those he was talking to, dismissing himself then stepped into the ring, matching Felix in attire as he did so.


    As soon as they were both at least a meter into the ring, Tanryel tapped away at something Felix couldn''t see but stopped himself and looked over, "Can you fly?"


    Felix nodded.


    Tanryel nodded once in acknowledgement then went back to manipulating the screens Felix couldn''t see. A few moments passed before a wall of light and mostly translucent blue was erected around the two of them.


    Looking up, the roof of the enclosure was about 500 meters above the two of them and around 300 meters wide. It was a ton of space but at the same time, rather small in Felix''s mind. Given their stats and skills, the fact that both of them could fly, Felix knew that they would actually both feel cramped and constrained by the space.


    That was likely the point though, to make running away impossible as it was boring in a duel.


    Tanryel closed the screens then looked straight at Felix, "Standard rules, to 5 points win by 2. We will use The System to judge assuming you don''t have any objections?"


    Felix shook his head, unsure of why he would ever object to having The System judge.


    "No batteries, no magical items other than your weapon."


    Felix nodded along, stowing his rings and bracelet now that he remembered, just to make it abundantly clear he wasn''t using them.


    "Anything you need to add?"


    Felix shrugged and shook his head.


    Tanryel nodded and a countdown appeared in the middle of the arena, counting down from 10 which seemed ridiculously gratuitous to Felix.


    Either way, it gave him far more than enough time to form and preserve multiple spell forms around himself. As he did so, Tanryel summoned two small crystals into his palms. They were rough cut and no bigger than two inches in any dimension, both of them a light red, almost pink color.


    Felix had seen them before when he had watched Tanryel''s duels but seeing them in person was something he had been looking forward to because he couldn''t properly examine them in a memory.


    He already knew he couldn''t identify them as they were technically equipped by Tanryel but he was hoping his Identify Arcane Component skill would work the same way it had on Ayred''s wand. Unfortunately, not matter how hard he tried, he couldn''t get anything out of the skill either because it suffered from the same restrictions as identify or because they were simply too far.


    Either way, he would have to see if he could after the fight because there was no chance he was going to be able to split his focus in the middle of the fight.


    As the countdown reached 0, the crowd around the ring drew closer, some of them rising into the air to get a better view. The crystals in each of Tanryels hands rose just a few inches from his palms and remained fixed there as they began to lightly glow.


    At 0, Tanryel was the first to react, instantly releasing a barrage of spells from the crystals in either of his hands. To anyone other than Felix, firing two spells at once was extraordinary. For Felix though, it was something he could do just days into first learning about magic.


    As mundane as the trick was, Tanryel''s speed far surpassed Felix''s making them incredibly hard to avoid.


    Felix thought about jumping to the side but realized he wasn''t nearly fast enough so he quickly blocked the two of them with point shields. He summoned a red shield 20 meters in front of him, at the edge of his range which blocked the red projectile then a blue shield just 5 meters in front of him, to block the other and prevent them from combining.


    Even before the blue bolt hit the second shield though, Felix felt the residual mana of a green bolt coming from behind him and a pink one to his left.


    Tanryel had already started weaving in both curved spells and combined colors, something Felix had been fully expecting.


    Felix blocked the green bolt behind him without looking then dove backwards through the shield to dodge the pink bolt.


    Looking up right as he landed, Tanryel was already in the air, zipping over Felix''s head so he could hit him from every angle. The entire time he flew, Tanryel kept up the barrage of bolts, this time isolating them to a small area of impact but staggering them a little in angle and direction.


    Felix already knew what he was trying to do, he wanted Felix to be forced into stacking shields to run through his mana faster. Though he had figured out enough about the spells to know he could avoid doing so at all using his mana control, he had decided ahead of time he wouldn''t and so instead, he simply did as Tanryel had wanted, summoning various point shields on top of each-other.


    They inevitably combined into one and yanked on his mana pool-its source-to sustain itself as the various bolts smacked into it one by one.


    Once Tanryel had acknowledged that Felix could summon an omni-shield and simple tricks of direction didn''t seem to work, he resorted to firing only omni-bolts from every direction.


    Combining every color into one bolt forced Felix to summon omni-shields to block them, draining both of their mana equally. Usually the onus was on the defender to find a way out of the situation as a full spherical shield cost vastly more mana than the bolts did.


    In Felix''s case though, his mana senses, cast radius and concurrent casting allowed him to cast only point shields all around him and the mana draw was nearly equal for the both of them.


    Normally, Felix would be able to retaliate and force Tanryel to summon a shield of his own which would block his own spells and alleviate some of the pressure. Unfortunately, Tanryel was somewhat unique in the world of Caster''s Dueling in that he had a very rare skill that allowed him to use two casting focuses at once.


    He used those, in the memories Felix had watched, to often summon a half shield using one of them and curving bolts around it with the other.


    None of that mattered though because even though Tanryel could only fire two spells at once, Felix was completely consumed with blocking them as Tanryel staggered his spells. He fired two that traveled slowly on a wide arc then another two that traveled slowly but straight then two more that traveled fast but on a wide arc and finally two that were fast and straight. All of the bolts would then collide with Felix''s body at about the same time forcing him to block 8 projectiles at once.


    By the time Felix had dealt with those, Tanryel had already started unleashing the next barrage and Felix was stuck preparing the correct shield formations before they struck.


    This left them at somewhat of a stalemate which Tanryel seemed happy with, for a while. Felix slowly grew more accustomed to Tanryel''s speed and instead of completely scrambling to avoid and block everything, he was able to find somewhat of a groove.


    As he finished blocking one barrage, he would start preparing the shields for the next barrage, leaving out the color component until he knew exactly what he needed.


    If the duel had continued like this, Felix would surely of won, he knew that. His mana pool was vastly superior to Tanryel''s. After Felix had consumed about 5 million mana though, meaning Tanryel had likely consumed a similar amount, Tanryel realized something was wrong and switched tactics.


    Instantly, he went from slowly circling overhead to flying faster than Felix could properly follow as the bolts sped up drastically. Instead of many bolts at once, Tanryel fired simple base color bolts as fast as he could. He didn''t need the colors of the bolts to be complicated as he had given up on running Felix out of mana. Instead, he was trying to win through speed.


    Felix had managed to find a groove against the constant barrages Tanryel had started with, managing to keep up with their speed and avoiding getting hit, albeit barely. Now that Tanryel was trying to abuse the massive gap in their Agility though, Felix immediately realized he didn''t stand a chance.


    He summoned shields as fast as he could and managed to block most of the bolts but the issue was, he couldn''t dodge any of them. He was stuck blocking each and every one of them because he wasn''t nearly fast enough to dodge or avoid them.


    Tanryel had also massively increased the amount of Force behind the bolts so they shot incredibly fast forcing Felix to use all of his concentration just to keep up. While he could cast multiple spells at once, using all his focus on just one or two spells, drastically sped up his casting speed and in this case, it was just barely enough.


    Unfortunately, that meant that he was forced into basically standing still.


    On top of all that, Tanryel started ricocheting bolts around the arena, some of them bouncing dozens of times before threatening to collide with Felix. Struggling just to block the bolts fired directly at him, Felix knew that the number of bolts bouncing around the arena would soon reach critical mass and overwhelm him.


    He blocked a green bolt from the left then a blue bolt from in front of him then a red one behind him then-


    1 point for Tanryel. A voice, the one he associated with The System, echoed out inside Felix''s mind.


    Damnit. They''re too fast. I can''t move-


    2 points for Tanryel.


    Fuck! I just-


    Felix switched over to casting omni-point-shields in every direction to save himself time as he wouldn''t have to sense and change the colors. S§×arch* The N?vel(F)ire.n§×t website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    If I could just-


    Felix started to expand the shields as they were getting too fast for him to accurately block with just a coin sized shield.


    -move a little faster-


    3 points for Tanryel.


    Damnit. -If I could just dodge-


    Felix crouched down to make himself as small a target as much as possible so it was easier to block everything around him.


    -some of them.


    4 points for Tanryel.


    FUCK! ANY OF THEM.


    Frustrated with his inability to deal with Tanryel''s speed, even though he had expected to be outclassed in Agility, Felix cast a fully spherical omni-shield, completely surrounding himself. As soon as he did so, Tanryel slowed down just enough for Felix to catch the growing smile on his face.


    With the omni-shield surrounding him, and consuming 1.6 million mana a second, Felix was finally able to actually move. His focus problems were also alleviated and so he rose into the air, flying for the first time in the duel.


    Tanryel didn''t just stand idly by though, he kept up just enough pressure to ensure Felix had to maintain the shield and continue to supply it with a ridiculous amount of mana.


    Felix could finally fire back though, with his remaining focus and so, he launched a bead of red in Tanryel''s direction with as much Force as he thought necessary. As expected, Tanryel easily darted to the side but just as the bead reached its closest point to him, Felix unraveled the spell using the mana thread he had maintained.


    The spell burst but Tanryel was easily fast enough to avoid it. Felix had hoped that by forcing him to dodge, the constant barrage he had been maintaining would slow but Tanryel was far too accustomed to duels.


    After seeing how trivially Tanryel had dodged the first spell, Felix didn''t bother with that spell anymore. Instead, he jumped right to his last resort spell.


    Dropping to the ground, to regain some of his focus, Felix stood still-with the omni-shield protecting him-as he constructed a massive spell form in front of him. In terms of spell level, Felix estimated this one to be almost level 20. It was a spell he had worked on with Withrel who had dubbed it one of the messiest spells he had ever worked on.


    Felix slowly grew a multicolored rainbow orb in front of him. After pouring over a million mana into the spell, the orb flew forwards towards the center of the arena then burst. Tiny orbs flew in every direction. Each orb a different one of the primary colors used in Caster''s Duels.


    Once the orbs were spread out mostly evenly, they each burst, releasing tiny bolts in every direction.


    Looking around, it was a rainbow blizzard of icicles and, completely undodgeable. Tanryel, noticing the spell approaching him, pressed himself up against the edge of the arena and erected his own omni-shield. He only had to maintain it for a few seconds until the spell was finished and by pressing himself up against the barrier, he only had to summon half a shield.


    Unfortunately, Felix couldn''t make the spell maintain itself or have the bolts ricochet because the spell form became too complicated and it would consume far more mana than was worth it.


    Still, that one spell had expended at least 2 million of Tanryel''s mana, by Felix''s estimation. It had also taken almost 9 seconds for him to construct the spell form and another couple seconds for it to release. That meant Felix had expended not just the 1.5 million mana the spell had cost, but also 16 million just maintaining the omni-shield.


    Felix''s worst case estimation of Tanryel''s mana was about 25 million which meant Felix would run out of mana far before Tanryel ever would, if they continued like this. Given that fact, Felix either had to find a way to hit Tanryel in less time or he had to find a way to drop the omni-shield.


    I have no choice. I have to drop it and find a way to dodge the bolts.


    Grim winced in his mind, One more point and he wins. Felix, that isn''t a good idea.


    I don''t really have a choice. I''m not nearly fast enough to catch up to him where I can guarantee hits.


    We could come up with better spells-


    And if we don''t find them fast enough? Every second I maintain this stupid thing, even if I press myself up against the edge, I''m losing vastly more mana than he is. Even if we manage to come up with something, it will probably be too late because I won''t have enough mana left to fight back.


    Mind resolved, Felix gritted his teeth as he dropped the omni-shield surrounding him.


    Listening wholly to his mana senses, he knew there was a bolt to his left, it was red. He knew it was moving towards him fast but he had no hope of winning if he didn''t find a way to avoid it.


    He tried to move backwards, stepping and contorting his body all at once to build as much speed as he could. He thought about trying to cast a Force spell to dodge, maybe even trying to use an instinct cast but if he relied on those, he would very quickly lose control of his body. The speed he had to move with, and the Force he would need, was more than he had practice with.


    Just as the bolt was a couple inches from his body, right as Tanryel smiled, thinking the fight was over, Felix cast the shield and blocked it. Wiping the smile off Tanryel''s face helped somewhat to offset the mounting frustration he felt over his lack of agency.


    Another bolt came, from behind this time, a blue one. Felix already had a shield ready and simply added in the color component, just in case. This time he kicked off the ground and tried to dive to the right to avoid another bolt from behind him.


    He ended up using the shield though. He just wasn''t fast enough.


    Two more bolts approached him at different speeds although they were timed to hit at about the same time. Tanryel had centuries of practice and knew exactly how to curve, vary the speed and time bolts to be as difficult to deal with as possible.


    Felix only had one more shield ready but because of the way they were angled, he would either have to dodge both or neither. To buy himself time though, he shot forwards and used the shield to block the bolt in front of him. That just left the bolt behind him but also bought him a fraction of a second longer before it would hit.


    Unfortunately, he wasn''t sure it was enough. He managed to move the core of his body out of the way but just couldn''t pull his arm towards himself fast enough.


    Craning his neck, he watched in growing horror as the bolt slowly approached. His senses slowed drastically-though he had no idea why-which would have been nice and given him breathing room but in this instant, Felix was pretty sure it was just to taunt him. At least, that''s how it felt.


    It was his arm of all things. Realistically, he could have moved it at the same time as his body but he was so focused on just getting out of the way that he had just¡­ forgotten. He had almost succeeded in dodging too, if he had just thought of his arm.


    Felix, being who he was with the conviction he had, refused to accept defeat. As impossible as it was for him to escape the situation, he pulled on his arm as hard as his muscles would allow. He pushed them to their limits with everything he had, his mind, his willpower and his soul completely ignoring the risk of tearing his muscles in the process.


    Rather than tear his muscles as he had expected though, his arm moved far faster than his body ever had. Leaving behind a trail of shadow, his arm simply moved through the air exactly as he had wanted it to. Having as much control and awareness over his body as he did, Felix knew his muscles weren''t over exerted in the movement at all.


    If it wasn''t my muscles and I didn''t feel any mana near my arm¡­


    Ding You have become more proficient with the Class skill: [Legendary] Reaper''s Sense (Novice I => Novice II)


    Ding You have become more proficient with the Class skill: [Legendary] Reaper''s Movement (Novice I => Novice II)


    Huh. I am. An idiot.


    Looking around, once again, everything was in slow motion, at least relatively. Before he had had trouble even following Tanryel''s flight now, he saw the slight shifts his hands were making as he cast spells. He could tell when he was curving bolts and when he was slowing them down to coordinate their strikes.


    He was even able to watch as Tanryel''s expression hardened, realizing Felix had dodged that bolt.


    This whole time¡­ I recognized that it felt like the skills weren''t doing anything. I just thought that was an exponential thing. That I wasn''t fast enough for the effect to be noticeable. Turns out, I just had no fucking idea how to use them. They weren''t doing¡­ well, basically anything. Fucking hell.


    A red bolt zipped towards Felix from the front while a blue one drilled down from above, a green on either side of him and a yellow one sneakily traveling right along the ground behind him. Felix not only sensed them with his mana senses, traced their approach with his new found skill but he also avoided them, easily.


    It wasn''t trivial but, compared to how impossible it had been to avoid the bolts earlier, it felt easy as Felix simply jumped backwards and to the side a little. He didn''t even use a spell to move, he just knew he was fast enough.


    Why now? Just had to try and force my soul to move my arm? That was all it took? Willful movement? That''s dumb. Also¡­ Why did The System just show me my proficiency going up in the middle of combat. I could have sworn I had it set to wait till the end of combat always¡­


    At this point, Felix saw Tanryel''s face go from serious to a frustrated frown and honestly, he felt similarly.


    This is the same thing Peace was doing. AGH this is so annoying in so many ways. How did I not figure this out sooner, how did I not connect Peace''s skills sooner. Why didn''t I prepare better for this stupid fight. I feel like I just cheated. If I wasn''t so overconf- arrogant, I could have won this without¡­ I could have prepared better.


    Briefly looking out into the crowd, now that his senses had sped up dramatically and he had so much time on his hands, Felix caught sight of a few people he knew. He saw Peace smiling and nodding as they locked eyes. He saw Melody frowning, seemingly recognizing what had just happened.


    He also saw Ayred and Strig completely enraptured by the fight and also completely unaware of what was happening. They seemed relieved but neither of them seemed to recognize the significance. They likely thought Felix had been holding back until now.


    Felix also noticed a couple of his professors, a few students and a couple Adepts he recognized in the crowd. The professors and adepts seemed mostly confused while the students were either enraptured or busy analyzing to try and steal the technique for themselves. None of them had the same reaction Melody or Peace did though.


    Scanning the crowd, now able to process each and every face, he was pretty sure only Peace and Melody actually knew-or rather had any idea-what had happened.


    Felix was rather frustrated with how things had played out, with him not being nearly prepared enough, nearly falling prey to his own arrogance then getting bailed out by a miracle. However, he had no intention of losing and he could only get answers to the questions now plaguing him after the duel.


    Now that he could actually avoid bolts, the fight wasn''t easy by any means, it was now however, within the realm of possibility. He still had a lot of trouble actually hitting Tanryel, he had no hope of actually hitting Tanryel with his impressive flight agility and the constant barrage along with his vast experience constantly kept Felix on his toes.


    On top of all that, he was one point from losing the match which meant he wasn''t allowed to make any mistakes yet, not until they were at least tied since they had to win by 2 points.


    Spinning his body to the side to slip between a pair of bolts, Felix looked up and started tracking Tanryel with his eyes. His mana senses were focused on, and more than capable of, tracking all the incoming bolts at their current speed.


    Tanryel, having noticed something had changed, began to shift his strategy. At first, he tried using even faster bolts since that''s what had overwhelmed Felix the first time. Seeing the shift, both in the way Tanryel was casting the spells and in the bolts themselves, Felix was initially worried.


    As the first blue bolt ricocheted off the outer wall Felix was already ready to cast a shield but quickly realized, he didn''t have to. Even though it would have been impossible for him to dodge the bolt at that speed, it seemed as though Tanryel couldn''t properly aim bolts at that speed either.


    Having those bolts exist at all though meant Felix had to have some shield spell forms handy just in case one of the faster bolts actually managed to be on target.


    Leaping forward with a shadowy afterimage trailing behind, Felix slipped through a series of bolts Tanryel had fired as he prepared some spells of his own.


    Tanryel dove low to minimize the travel distance on his spells making them harder to dodge. He got too close though and now Felix could see his hands twitch and feel his crystals fill with mana.


    They danced around each-other, Tanryel firing a constant barrage of bolts while Felix ducked and dodged as many as he could, blocking about 50% of them at first. Over time, that number dropped to just 5% as he slowly incorporated spells back into his movements. Mihto''s training once again proving to be one of the best things he had chosen to do in a long time.


    With some left over focus, Felix was also able to start testing various forms of attack spells.


    The one he had used earlier took far too long to cast but then, he had thought it was his only option. Now that he had miraculously matched Tanryel''s speed though, he had other options. Tanryel moving in so close, no doubt out of frustration, was also to Felix''s advantage.


    It made it harder for Felix to sense and dodge the bolts after they were fired, but he had an alternative way of foreseeing bolts, Tanryel didn''t, as far as Felix knew. With Felix''s unique method of casting, Felix could be almost certain he didn''t.


    Quickly blocking a bolt with a point shield, Felix stepped to the right mostly just to feint Tanryel as he fired a bolt from his maximum casting range to his left.


    Tanryel saw the bolt too late to do anything about it.


    1 point for Felix.


    Finally.


    Immediately realizing the close range was detrimental, Tanryel shot back up into the air to try and regain some distance but Felix followed as best he could. With Felix''s senses being as heightened and sped up as they were, he was able to just barely keep up with Tanryel''s flight especially considering he seemed to be using a cloak to fly. The cloak actually gave away his direction of flight by fluttering in the opposite direction just a fraction of a second before he moved.


    That''s probably never been an issue for him, ever. I wonder if he knows it''s giving him away right now.


    Maintaining the distance between them took all of Felix''s focus at first but slowly, he grew accustomed to watching the cloak and slowly, his focus was freed up. Going for his next attack, Felix didn''t bother with trying to feint instead pushing the bolt spell form as close to Tanryel''s body as he could, minimizing the time he had to react to it.


    2 point for Felix.


    Jaw clenched, Tanryel immediately summoned a half omni-shield in between them making it impossible for Felix to do the same thing again. The shield was well within his mana control range but he had already made an agreement with himself that he wouldn''t use it like this so he left it be as he thought of other ways around it.


    Tanryel still had the ability to curve bolts around the shield so it didn''t hinder him too much but Felix, didn''t have that luxury. He couldn''t even ricochet the bolts without using all of his focus which would mean he would have to drop to the ground.


    All that left was area of effect spells and luckily, Felix had a few of those prepared.


    As they danced through the air together, Tanryel desperately trying to regain control of the fight, Felix carefully constructed a spell form off to his side, unbeknownst to his opponent.


    Once it was ready, a red bead shot out next to Tanryel''s shield, just barely skirting by without being immediately blocked. Tanryel saw the bead and immediately switched directions but it was too late. Felix pulled on the mana thread and dismantled the spell, creating an explosion of red bolts in every direction.


    3 point for Felix.


    Felix was safely hidden behind Tanryel''s own shield, not that hitting himself would actually matter.


    He tried to repeat the same trick but this time, as the bead flew out, the omni-shield between them suddenly completely surrounded Tanryel making him impossible to hit.


    Guess I just have to run him out of mana then if he''s going to try and keep this up. He obviously knows he can''t though so, what''s the plan?


    Felix knew something was going to happen as Tanryel stopped firing bolts at all and started filling both of the crystals in his hands with mana.


    After a few seconds, which felt like forever to Felix with his new found speed, Tanryel''s crystals glowed for just a moment before Tanryel vanished.


    At first Felix had thought he went invisible but his mana senses sensed nothing, so he swung his head around. He immediately caught sight of Tanryel all the way across the arena on the opposite side.


    Another Blink¡­ Damn¡­ I. Need. That. Spell.


    Felix hadn''t felt any spell forms involved in his casting though so he wasn''t too hopeful he would be able to learn it.


    He quickly blocked a couple bolts that Tanryel had immediately fired then tried to chase him down. Unfortunately, it was unlikely Felix would ever be able to close the distance at this point he could however, sandwich Tanryel between himself and his spells forcing him to make a choice. Either Tanryel dodged the spell saving mana but inching him closer to Felix, or he blocked it and wasted mana.


    So long as Felix used omni-bolts, he would be forced to waste the maximum amount of mana blocking the spells. Felix didn''t have the best aim with bolts though so he resorted to area spells. He was likely using mana faster than Tanryel was, firing omni-bombs like spells but, he also had vastly more mana so Tanryel would still run out first.


    Tanryel knew that and so he tried his best to dodge the spells without letting Felix get close to him, but failed, twice.


    Matchpoint for Felix.


    At that point Tanryel was only allowed one more mistake before the fight was lost for him and so, he ran through every trick he had learned throughout his epochs of dueling. He combined curved and ricocheting bolts, bolts that ricocheted in the wrong direction, homing bolts, splitting bolts, delayed bolts. He also threw in area spells and everything in between.


    As he did so, Felix ran through everything he could think of to hit Tanryel one last time.


    They had a brief exchange that was more normal of a Caster''s Duel, each of them casting various colors in turn to try and force the others hand but, that quickly devolved. Tanryel was too frustrated at this point and Felix couldn''t waste time or mana on bolts which were unlikely to hit anyways. He had to make every spell count and so, he generally stuck to omni-bolts, bombs and shields.


    Both of them knew they had to find some kind of trick to win, Felix''s options far more limited than Tanryel''s. On the other hand, Tanryel was pressed for time as he had finally realized he had no chance of winning a war of attrition.


    Tanryel decided his best hope was to completely overwhelm Felix, hopefully making it impossible for him to retaliate and so, he began to craft and coordinate massive barrages. It took him a few seconds to set up the first one but once he did, the bolts were ceaseless.


    From every direction, a thousand bolts at once of every color fired down on Felix''s shield. Tanryel used mostly splitting, delayed and curved bolts to create the storm and it forced Felix to use an omni-shield. Tanryel knew he could switch to a point shield so he had to maintain the barrage to force Felix to maintain the shield.


    Tanryel hadn''t realized yet though, that a shield didn''t stop Felix from fighting back. Summoning a single, simple red bolt spell form just outside of the shield, Felix aimed at Tanryel''s stationary body.


    As he released it, the storm of bolts stopped for just a moment while Tanryel blocked the bolt, his face now a deep scowl.


    Overwhelming Felix and forcing him to maintain the omni-shield forced him to sit still so that didn''t work at all. Felix''s cast range meant he could fight back but Tanryel couldn''t so long as Felix used omni-bolts. Felix didn''t need to demonstrate that for Tanryel to realize it so he switched tactics.


    Felix flew up, towards Tanryel as he darted off to the side to gain distance. He fired a series of bolts and area spells as he flew, trying to use one to force Felix into the others. None of that worked though as Felix felt all the spells, a byproduct of the Caster''s Dueling spell form using mana in the bolts and shields themselves.


    At first he thought he was just lucky that they used mana but once he dissected them, he realized why. They used mana because the way they blocked themselves was entirely based on mana attunements. Replicating the same effect with anything else would have been complicated though not impossible with sound, light or some other wave.


    Using light made the spells unreactable so the fight would immediately devolve into both combatants maintaining permanent omni-shields until they ran out of mana. Sound was problematic because it became way too loud and Caster''s Duel seemed to be designed as a spectator sport. Also, using mana was more apt for something called a ''Caster''s Duel.''


    Tanryel dropped a large shield behind him right as Felix was getting close then flew off, gaining a modicum of distance in the time Felix couldn''t see him. They continued firing spells at each-other, Tanryel out of desperation and Felix in the hopes that he could slow him down.


    They both knew the inevitable was coming though as Felix got ever closer.


    Once again, Tanryel pulled the same trick, dropping a shield and changing direction but this time, something was different. He dropped the shield as close to Felix as he could, even letting him approach a little bit before he cast it. Once he was obscured, his other crystal began rapidly filling with mana allowing Felix to follow him as he reversed direction and shot right towards Felix, through the shield.


    Felix recognized the amount of mana he was channeling into his crystal and was confident he knew what Tanryel was casting. Preparing his own bolt, Felix accepted the gamble.


    Tanryel timed his movement so that he flew through the shield at the same instant as Felix, allowing him to get within a meter of Felix. At that range, it wasn''t possible to dodge or block a bolt. He also didn''t have time to sense what the bolt was and if he summoned an omnishield, Tanryel''s hand would actually already be through it.


    Felix suspected Tanryel was likely firing a split bolt so that he hit Felix 3 or more times simultaneously and won. Otherwise, this kind of gamble didn''t make any sense. He also knew he was shielded on the other side so Felix couldn''t just cast a bolt from the other side of the shield between them.


    As Felix has estimated, the instant he got within an inch of the shield, Tanryel popped through from the other side, leading with his hand and the crystal floating from it. They released their spells simultaneously, Felix''s as close to Tanryel''s body as he could.


    Unfortunately, he was expecting that and as soon as Tanryel released his spell, he vanished and reappeared, 10 meters behind his previous position.


    Without using the computer in his head to perform any trajectory calculations, Felix already knew two things. Neither of them were fast enough, casting a spell or just moving to avoid getting hit and, Tanryel''s 4 bolts would hit him first.


    Luckily, he had a secret weapon he had been practicing whenever he found the time. His instinct cast Force spell was a weak Force spell and it didn''t move him very quickly. It wasn''t nearly fast enough for him to move to either side without getting hit. He may have been able to dodge one or two of the bolts but it would be way too close for him to ever be certain.


    Instead, he pushed himself backwards, away from the bolts in a straight line, dodging none of them but slightly delaying all four hits.


    Felix watched his bolt inching its way towards Tanryel.


    He switched focus and watched Tanryel''s four bolts spin and rotate through the air, seemingly moving much faster than his own.


    Come on.


    With 4 bolts in front of his face, Felix couldn''t actually see anything behind them so he just closed his eyes and prayed, to no-one in particular. All he could do was hope he had pushed himself far enough backwards.


    Winner: Felix Kade.


    Felix felt relief wash over him followed immediately by horror as the crowd aroun dhim completely erupted. He dreaded dealing with an onslaught of people so he immediately started casting a portal spell to his dorm even before his eyes fully opened.


    Once they were open, he felt relief once more as he saw the barrier around the duel remained. He had no idea how much longer it would stick around but luckily, by the time the portal was open, he was able to slip out without anyone stopping him.


    In hi dorm, Felix immediately dropped and sat against the floor, not in some meditative lotus position but half curled around a single bent knee.


    Entering his Soul Garden, he appeared in the open grassy field and immediately pulled up his memories of the fight. Grim could tell he wasn''t in the mood at the moment to talk to anyone about anything so he waited respectfully. Felix could tell he was waiting in the back of his mind and appreciated his awareness but didn''t acknowledge him.


    Felix stood watching the fight through countless times, his initial sense of dissatisfaction only growing as he thought of all the ways he should have prepared but didn''t. That dissatisfaction eventually melded with some amount of acceptance at which point Grim felt he was ready to talk.


    He walked over but waited silently, letting Felix start things.


    Felix sighed, "That didn''t feel good."


    "Would it have felt better if you had lost?"


    Felix shook his head, "Honestly¡­ I don''t know. I don''t feel like I should have won. I don''t feel like I fought particularly well, prepared better, came up with a unique solution. We both just bashed our heads against each-other and because my mana pool is bigger, I win."


    "Were it an actual fight, you would have been trampled."


    "Yeah, that''s a part of what makes it feel¡­ wrong. Almost every aspect of a Caster''s Duel is¡­ it''s like I was tailor made for them, or them for me."


    "Almost every aspect. You also managed to match him in speed, it would not have been possible without that."


    "Yeah, I know. That was¡­ lucky as all hell."


    Grim tilted his head slightly indicating he partially disagreed, "Maybe. I''m don''t actually know but if I had to guess, those skills seemed like they were kind of just¡­ lying in wait."


    "You''re saying I unlocked them, so to speak, because I needed them?"


    "Something like that."


    "I''ll have to bring it up with Peace."


    Grim nodded, "Unfortunate you couldn''t talk to him after the fight."


    "I mean¡­ I could have. That crowd was just¡­ Yeah no, fuck that."


    "All you did was delay them, you know."


    "Yeah and spaced out all the interactions. Now they''re more manageable. Maybe I can get Melody to teach me some tricks for avoiding people."


    "You''ll have to find her first and considering her expression after you¡­ upgraded?" Grim shrugged and sighed, "I don''t know, maybe she doesn''t want to talk to you yet."


    Felix sighed, "Yeah, maybe. Guess we''ll see."


    Grim raised a single brow, his cover distorting in a weird, asymmetrical way, "You sound almost disappointed. Are you actually attached to her? I can read your thoughts¡­ mostly, your emotions though¡­"


    "Maybe. Not in the way you''re thinking though, not yet. Maybe at some point in the future. She just¡­ It''s very useful having someone who knows things, can get in almost anywhere and is willing to pay for everything."


    Grim nodded, "You said before that she reminded you of David. You think you ever could grow attached to her?"


    "Of course. Just¡­ don''t feel that way right now."


    Grim nodded in acknowledgement before changing the subject, "So what now? No more imminent deadlines."


    "Yeah. Now I can go back and deal with everything I had pushed on down in priority on my todo list. Then, I''ll have evaluations or initial exams or whatever to deal with soon enough."


    "So what first? What now?"


    Felix nodded, "Now, I collect my prizes. Starting of course, with the most important one, books." . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 Chapter 206 - Book 8

    Now that Felix was the head of A-SAM, he was able to see the list of members and whether or not anyone was occupying the headquarters at the moment. For a short while after the duel, there were a number of members inside, likely waiting to speak with him.


    He didn''t go anywhere near the building though and so, over the next few hours those people slowly trickled out, returning it to its standard state of being completely empty.


    The first time Felix had visited the building he had had the foresight to memorize the portal coordinates of the A-SAM headquarters. That meant he could now minimize his face time with anyone else.


    Felix knew there was a chance someone was waiting outside the building but luckily, found that not to be the case. Heading inside, he immediately veered right, into the show room. Ayred had already mentioned that many of the books inside were trapped, encrypted or in some kind of unknown code. He wasn''t expecting to be able to read all of them, he wasn''t even prepared to touch any of them, yet.


    He was however, willing and now capable of opening the display cases. Walking around the room stopping at each display one by one, Felix opened the display case, scanned what he could, then closed it back up.


    It actually took him a couple hours to scan everything, not that he got much from them. None of them were completely readable, some had forwards that weren''t in code usually containing a warning. Others were written with creeping ink or had their own soul. None of them seemed to be sentient though.


    Grim was pretty confident he could decipher most, if not all, of the books were he allowed to consume them as that was what he was designed to do. Felix just wasn''t comfortable with that though, not unless it was a guarantee. He also didn''t actually own the books and he wasn''t sure who would come after him if he stole and destroyed them.


    In the future, if they managed to decipher one or two of them and found them to be particularly unique and useful, Felix thought he might reconsider.


    With that done, Felix opened a portal right back into his dorm room-to avoid everyone-where he spent the rest of the day in his Soul Garden trying to decipher the code in one of the books. It was written such that the entire book appeared to be a complete novel. Felix could read it, as could Grim, and they both concurred it was a decent story.


    Their collective worry though, was that the code would be indecipherable unless they turned off The System''s translations. If that were the case, they might have a lot of languages to learn first, a worry that multiplied with the number of books in the display room.


    Learning a language wasn''t difficult, Grim could do it trivially and he was confident he could somehow teach Felix a language through some soul and library fuckery. The issue, was that a lot of these languages seemed to be dead languages, secret languages, made up languages or something just as difficult to find references to.


    Mana Structures wasn''t a class Felix had to attend as he was provided memory crystals. He was missing out on around half of the class-as he was in all of his classes-as they often had demonstrations or simple projects like Ked had had in his first class. Otherwise everyone would have just been allowed to use memory crystals.


    He was more than happy to have some time though where most people were in a class. It meant he was far less likely to be approached by other students looking to make friends, or get something out of the guy that defeated Tanryel.


    His plan with his free time was to head to the library where he was hoping to scan some books on various codes and previous attempts at decoding the books in the A-SAM building. He also had a much better idea of what books and knowledge he was looking for in terms of mana, enchantments, rituals, spell forms and more now that he had baseline knowledge from class and other books.


    Flying out of the dorm and across campus, Felix was happy to see just a handful of students and Adepts wandering around instead of the usual crowds he had been trying to avoid. By flying fairly high up he was able to avoid interacting with anyone all the way to the library where there was one other individual on their way out who didn''t seem interested in him in the slightest.


    Felix sighed in relief as he walked over to one of shelves and began speaking to the library itself. He started with past attempts and research into deciphering the books in the A-SAM building.


    As expected, the carpet re-weaved itself and led Felix over to the back of the library. Instead of a specific shelf just lighting up though, he was led to a black wall where, after a moment, a shelf rose out of the floor in front of him.


    Maybe this library isn''t as small as it looks.


    Felix quickly scanned everything on the shelf then moved onto his next query. He found that almost everything he asked this time resulted in the library, or more accurately the planet, summoning a new shelf from some unknown location. A couple queries of his led him to standard shelves but it seemed this time, what he was looking for was generally too advanced or rare to be constantly displayed.


    Once he had scanned all the books he was planning on scanning, he started diving into other random topics, whatever came to mind. Mostly he was just interested in what the limit was and what the library would do if he came up with a question it had no answers for. He wasn''t willing to ask it anything dangerous though so he avoided everything to do with The Endless Hunger for example.


    He never found out what would happen though as he was interrupted by a familiar melodic female voice, "Told you he''d be here."


    Turning around, Felix caught sight of Melody and Ayred approaching from the entrance of the library.


    Walking right up to him, Ayred pulled Felix into a very excited hand shake, "Congratulations. I still can''t believe you won that. That fight was one of the most surprising, exciting and also boring fights I''ve ever watched."


    Felix frowned a little.


    "Don''t get me wrong it was super impressive. Just, most duels you can break down and examine the intricate back and forth. Your duel was just¡­ two people banging their heads against each-other a lot. Fun to watch, not much to examine."


    Felix shrugged, "Can''t argue with that."


    Looking over at her, Felix tried to figure out Melody''s emotional state after seeming so perturbed during the fight. She seemed to have completely returned to her normal self though.


    "Fighting in your hat with no top was a little odd but¡­ Does it have any particular significance or¡­ ?" Ayred looked into Felix''s eyes expectantly as he released his hand from his grip.


    Felix was confused for a few seconds before he sighed and reached up. He found the hat on his head, having completely forgotten it was there. Sighing, he replaced it on his head, "No. I just¡­ forgot. I would have taken it off just to make sure it didn''t lose me a point, guess I''m just lucky it didn''t."


    Ayred frowned and looked at Melody. She shrugged then Ayred turned back to Felix, "It almost did. Or looked like it was going to but then it¡­ dodged the bolt? The tip just swerved out of the way. Happened a few times actually and it even disappeared once for just a moment. I thought that was just you showing off."


    Finding a whole new appreciation for the hat he had no particular reason for wearing, Felix just shrugged, "Didn''t know it could do that."


    Ayred shrugged as well, "So¡­ now that you won¡­"


    "I guess I have a Sky-Slicer to pick up at some point."


    Melody nodded, "I have it."


    Ayred cut in excitedly, "Right but¡­ you''re also now the head of A-SAM."


    Felix nodded, "Yeah I guess."


    Ayred looked at him expectantly, "So?"


    Felix looked at him then Melody for any indication at to what he wanted, "So what?"


    Melody helpfully chimed in, leaning forwards and clearly talking to Ayred, "He probably hasn''t even looked at the rules. Felix is pretty¡­ focused."


    Ayred made a face of realization then nodded quickly as he explained, "Tanryel instituted some¡­ annoying rules over the epochs that kind of forced us to create ARM."


    Felix shrugged, "Oh sure I can change all those too. Or I can just make you the head if you want or if you have someone better in mind?"


    Ayred looked at him in shock, "What!? No, not me I¡­"


    Felix snapped his fingers, "Oh, one condition. I''m keeping the books locked up for now."


    Ayred''s shoulders dropped prompting Felix to explain a bit more, "I don''t want any of the traps triggering and destroying the contents or anything."


    Ayred nodded in excited relief then quickly shook his head and waved him off, "Oh. The traps aren''t those kinds of traps. If they were, the books would be long gone by now and we would never have been allowed access to them. It used to be a fun side project for students to try and decipher them, not that anyone has ever succeeded as far as I know."


    "Wait¡­ so what do the traps do then?" Felix furrowed his brow.


    "Some could injure you but mostly they''re annoying stuff. Some soul manipulation stuff but the rumours of them making you go mad are just¡­ rumours. Likely a myth. Probably. These books were all gifts from Alumni not their personal journals or anything. They''re designed to be stupid tests, fun with a potentially great reward."


    "So there''s no danger of them¡­ being damaged or anything?"


    Ayred shook his head, "Nah."


    "Well in that case, I have to go back and actually open them up. Also I guess I''ll change the rule with those to just be ''you can''t take them out of the room'' or something."


    Ayred nodded quickly, "That seems reasonable. Is that what you were doing here, trying to find information on them?"


    "Sort of. I have a skill that can scan books and stuff so I scanned them all then I came here to try and find any previous work on deciphering the books."


    Ayred''s eyes lit up, "Oh cool. What have you found? What was in them? Were any of them even readable?"


    Felix nodded, "One was written as a novel, likely a code or something."


    Ayred nodded excitedly, "I wonder if you could borrow some time on a computer during the recruitment. Assuming you get into Edras or Rhonan''s."


    "Mana computer?"


    "Both of them have some decent mana computers, not sure those would be powerful enough. There are also traditional computers but, those are kept in tightly controlled environmental chambers and you need to get permission to run anything. It''s also involved, you need to learn a language basically to communicate with the computer and write out what you want it to do."


    Multiversal programming language. Wonder what that looks like. Is it a quantum computer or an actual regular computer? Maybe it''s even more advanced than that with an even larger range of bit values. I don''t even need those computers, I have my own I''m just curious at this point¡­ Speaking of, I should get Mark to try and decipher this code. I wonder if he''s big enough.


    "Hasn''t anyone tried that before?"


    Ayred shrugged, "Not on Edras'' computer at least."


    "How do you know that?"


    "Edras is big on freedom of information. Everything everyone does or learns with his tools and stuff is published and provided free of charge.-"


    Looking over Ayred''s shoulder, Felix saw Melody''s eye twitch, which meant she wanted him to see her eye twitch. She seemed to slightly disagree with that statement, but not fully. Either way, he didn''t bother pointing it out because she would have spoken up if she had wanted to. He just kept it in mind that maybe it was possible to get through Edras'' freedom of information policy somehow.


    Ayred scratched his chin and continued, "-It is possible someone hid the work within other work¡­ Anyways, I''m pretty sure someone has deciphered them, they just don''t talk about it with anyone."


    "Of course, you have to get selected for their recruitments or somehow have contacts which¡­ you''re an integrated." Ayred shrugged, "I''m sure you''ll get selected though so long as your grades aren''t abysmal. You''re a part of The Cycle of Prodigies after all and with the massively increased recruitment slots¡­"


    Felix, with his confusion displayed openly on his face, looked to both of them, "The what?"


    "The Cycle of Prodigies? That''s what they''re calling our cycle." Ayred smiled, "Lot''s of people who are exceeding the expected all wrapped up into one age."


    "It''s a little more complicated than that." Melody chimed in for the first time in a while, "It''s not just the Prodigious Cycle, the inner circles of the gods have been calling it The Ascendant Cycle."


    Huh. Ascendant¡­ Prodigy¡­


    Ayred frowned this time, "You mean¡­"


    "You know about Romar and Zeraxes." Melody nodded.


    Ayred gasped as he caught on, "Then there''s you and Adaline who are dominating Group Combat, there''s also Elias and now Felix."


    Melody sighed, "Felix is still an unknown but now much higher on everyone''s radars. There''s more though. They aren''t really expecting Felix, you or Elias to ascend any time soon necessarily but, having The Deraav''n Shadow Dealer and one of the greatest thieves of the last 100 epochs in the same cycle¡­"


    Ayred gasped in realization, "They''re expecting us to join up with one of you guys."


    Melody nodded and crossed her arms, "Exactly. We''ve got a bunch of the most promising ascendants in a long time alongside some students that even current gods would love to have as part of their support network all at the same time in the same place, during an integration cycle. This cycle is expected to produce some of the most powerful, well backed gods in a long time. And fast."


    Felix furrowed his brow, "Zeraxes and Romar didn''t seem that¡­ impressive?"


    Melody nodded, "That''s because they''re both heavily restricted here. During the first epoch at least, Romar hasn''t hit his evolution yet and can''t use half of his skills while Zeraxes is missing his Divine Bolt. Once item restrictions are lifted a bit, Zeraxes will be unbeatable and once he hits B grade, Romar will be¡­ well, a star."


    Felix shook his head, "Like¡­ a burning ball of gas? A literal star?"


    "Yup, though not as big. That''s his parents race and he''s shown the most promise of any Starling so far. Also his suitability score is through the roof and his foundations are¡­ kind of unbelievable. They''re expecting him to become one of the strongest right out of the gate and it''s just a short path to the throne from there. Rumour is he might take over for his Mother once he does."


    Felix shook his head, "Going back a minute, Divine Bolt? Like a Divine level item?"


    Melody nodded, "It was crafted specifically for him and he''s also shown to be one of the most proficient so far. He''s already trained with it his whole life, this is likely the first time he''s ever been without it. His dad Zerathus has also publicly stated he wants Zeraxes to take over his throne."


    Ze-rath-us, even pronounced Zerathoos¡­ like Zeus. Hmm.


    "So when Tanryel was talking about war coming¡­"


    Melody sighed, "It might. Probably won''t, this is a big coincidence. There will be death and upheaval but not war. Not with Rhonan still kicking at least."


    Ayred nodded, "Even without him, Edras would probably take over pretty quickly. Not sure who can contest him."


    Melody tilted her head slightly, "The question isn''t who would contest him, the question is who would support him. If he can''t get enough of the other gods standing behind him, then there actually will be a war." Melody shook her head, "That''s not happening though, as I said, Rhonan is fine."


    Uh¡­ Knowing something Melody doesn''t is fun and all but¡­


    "Anyways, I have to get to class now. Let me know if you make any progress deciphering any of the books. Oh but don''t spend too much time on them, you also need to prepare for evaluations." Ayred nodded to both of them then waved and left.


    Felix turned to Melody, his confusion apparent on his face, "Evaluations?"


    "8th dekad, one fifth of the way through the first epoch, professors will have everyone evaluated. At the end of the epoch, exams, measure your progress from the evaluation."


    "So your grade is based on progress?"


    "Oh, right." Melody nodded remembering Felix knew basically nothing, "Every class gives you three letters that make up a grade. You have Current Skill, Growth, Potential. Growth is measured from the evaluation to the exam. Current Skill is based on the exam and Potential is more esoteric and different for every professor."


    Felix nodded in understanding, "I should prepare for Evaluations then?"


    Melody scoffed, "Nah. You can but¡­ don''t worry about it too much."


    "So about what happened in the duel¡­"


    Melody shook her head then grew uncharacteristically very serious, "Now''s not the time."


    "Just one question. Your expression¡­ same reason you were¡­. wary of Peace?"


    She nodded, "Talk about it later."


    "You have my Sky-Slicer?"


    Her usual smile returned to her face as she nodded, "Not here. Want me to bring you to it right now? It''s not¡­ close."


    "Nah, it''s fine. Some other time. Was there another reason you found me? How did you find me by the way?"


    She chuckled, "Asked the planet."


    "I see."


    "I just came to congratulate you plus Ayred has been incessantly asking me if I knew where you were."


    "Gotcha."


    "You seem to already be aware but¡­ I should warn you, now that you beat Tanryel, there''s a lot more attention on you."


    Felix sighed, "That''s what I was worried about. Anything I can do to¡­ get rid of it?"


    "Fly under the radar for a while and it''ll die down naturally. Also¡­ I had never really thought of it but¡­ ask Peace maybe?"


    "Speaking of, any idea where I can find him?"


    She grinned, "You''ll see him in Group Combat soon enough. If you need to see him before that¡­ I''m sure you''ll see him around."


    Felix was a little lost as to why she was grinning but just a moment after she finished speaking, Peace just appeared next to them, "You were looking for me?"


    Melody''s grin grew.


    Felix frowned, "Were you here the whole time?"


    Peace shook his head, "Nope. Just heard my name and headed over."


    "I take it now isn''t the time to talk about¡­ what happened in the duel?"


    Peace shrugged, "If you want to."


    Looking at Melody, she seemed a lot warier of the subject than Peace did. Looking at both of them for confirmation, Peace nodded then placed one hand on each of their shoulders.


    As soon as he made contact, Felix''s consciousness was drawn into another constructed memory where he saw Peace and Melody.


    Melody''s eyes immediately went wide as she looked around and explored. Peace looked to be straining himself though as he turned to Felix, "Could you¡­ be¡­ less?"


    Felix looked at him both confused and a little worried for him, "What? Are you okay?"


    "No. Having you in here¡­ is like¡­ trying to host¡­ The Reaper."


    Suddenly, Felix''s consciousness was ejected back into his body along with an exhausted looking Peace and a confused looking Melody.


    Melody looked at Peace with wide eyes, "Was that a constructed memory?"


    "Yeah¡­ I can hold¡­ normal people for a while¡­ Felix¡­ is not."


    Melody looked at Felix apologetically then turned back to Peace, "Can you teach me how to do that?"


    He nodded, "Yeah¡­ It might take some doing¡­ you need a constructed space in your soul first."


    Like¡­ a garden?


    Felix leaned forwards a little, "Then what?"


    "Same way a memory crystal works but in reverse. You lead the souls into the space but you need to be gentle."


    Felix nodded, "Any danger of just trying it?"


    "Some. Don''t pull too hard on the other souls and you''ll be fine."


    You think I could potentially kill their soul by doing this?


    Grim shook his head, an action Felix could sense because his consciousness was inside of Felix at the moment, No chance. If that were the case, you''d have exploded a lot more memory crystals in the library, right? Also, being able to kill people by removing their soul with a touch¡­ What a horrifying thought. Though, you might be able to knock them out if you pulled really hard¡­


    Right. Thanks.


    Felix reached out and placed a hand on Peace''s shoulder then, as carefully as he possibly could, followed his instructions.


    After a moment, Peace laughed, "You''ll need a much more solid construct. You can''t just imagine something and have it be a soul construct. It''ll take a while. You also need to pull a little harder than that."


    Felix ignored the first part of what Peace had said then gradually pulled harder until suddenly, he felt something give way.


    Quickly checking to make sure he hadn''t torn Peace''s soul from his body and killed him, Felix placed his hand on Melody''s shoulder, ignoring her suggestive look, and pulling her in as well.


    Following their consciousness with his own, Felix arrived in his Soul Garden finding both of them standing there, stunned.


    Compared to Peace''s constructed memory, Felix''s was actually clear. It felt real, at least to him. He could also see them clearly rather than as fuzzy specter puppets.


    Felix turned to the two of them, "I take it what happened in the duel is too sensitive to talk about out in the open?"


    "What¡­ is this?" Peace''s eyes and head darted around taking in everything around him.


    Felix gestured around him with both arms, "Soul Garden. It''s technically an evolution of the meditation skill I got way back. Since then, things have gotten a little more¡­ complicated."


    "Wait¡­ this is a constructed memory too?" Melody looked at both of them for confirmation.


    "Ye-" Felix was cut off by Peace, "No. This is a true construct. Yours feels just as¡­ real and solid as¡­"


    Peace didn''t finish his sentence and once Felix realized he didn''t intend to, he changed the subject, "So. What happened in the duel? Or maybe we should start with why Melody was so scared of you."


    "This place is¡­ huge. Also, what''s over there?" Peace pointed towards the city way off in the distance.


    Felix, without looking, knew exactly where he was pointing because it was his Soul Garden, so he shook his head, "Another time." With a thought, he obscured their vision by adding a fog between the two locations.


    Melody tried to run off into the Garden a few times but Felix moved her back in front of them in an instant. After trying a few dozen times, the later tries because she found it fun, she finally turned to Felix, "Okay, I wasn''t scared¡­ okay, maybe a little but not that scared I just¡­ I didn''t know much- I still don''t¡­ I thought I knew more than the rumours but¡­ apparently not-" Melody took a deep breath and cleared her thoughts, "-I had a suspicion that Peace might be a Reaper cultist."


    Felix looked at her with confusion, "And¡­ now?"


    "Now, I know he is. I''m just not¡­ deluded about what that means? I had a lot of misconceptions about the cult that Peace helped clear up."


    Felix looked at Peace, "Did you know about¡­ my class, before the duel?"


    Peace nodded, "Of course."


    "Wait, you''ve been¡­ following or watching me, haven''t you?"


    "Yup."


    Felix''s brow furrowed slightly, "For the cult?"


    Peace shrugged, "Sort of? Not¡­ exactly? Because of it definitely but I wasn''t ordered to do so or anything like that. Kind of though¡­ It was more like a curiosity¡­ I guess¡­"


    Felix nodded seriously for all of a second before he shrugged as he realized he didn''t care so long as Peace didn''t hinder his progress, "Can you teach me how to use this class and its skills?"


    Peace smiled, "If you''d like."


    "I didn''t even realize I wasn''t using the skills until the duel. I¡­ suspected they weren''t doing anything but I wasn''t sure. I don''t want to keep wasting time like that."


    "Fair enough. How about this, which day of the dekad do you have recorded classes?"


    "First, third, sixth, eighth."


    "Well, we can train once or twice a dekad on one of those days."


    Felix nodded with a smile, "Perfect." Turning to Melody, "What did you recognize? What are the rumors? Do I need to be worried?"


    Peace chuckled a little and Melody looked slightly embarrassed, "I wouldn''t worry. I just got a little too fixated on some books I read when I was¡­ much younger."


    "Most people don''t even think we exist actually." Peace smirked.


    Melody looked at the floor, "Yeah¡­"


    Felix looked to both of them in turn, "What''s the myth?"


    Melody sighed, "The Cult of The Reaper is a deadly cult of assassins that work outside of The System making them effectively unstoppable. They can get to you anywhere and there''s nothing you can do to protect yourself."


    Peace smirked and teased her, "She read a book about two lovers trying to escape their rich parents. The families eventually contracted the cult and the book ends in tragedy."


    She stomped one foot and pouted, "That traumatized me for a long time. I just¡­ never really forgot."


    Felix nodded slowly, "So none of that is true?"


    Peace shook his head, "No, most of it is. Except for maybe the most important part, we aren''t assassins. I don''t think we''ve ever carried out an assassination¡­ ever."


    "Then what do you do?"


    Peace winced, "That''s¡­ a conversation for another time."


    Felix looked at Melody but it was clear she didn''t have an answer either.


    "Ok fine. The Reaper?"


    Peace nodded, "Primordial."


    "They''re the progenitor of my class?"


    "Yes."


    "What does it mean? My having this class? How many others have it as well?"


    "That''s¡­ also a conversation for another time."


    Felix sighed, "Anything else you can tell me?"


    Peace smirked, "Probably lots. Less than you''d like though."


    Felix nodded, "Is there anything else that''s sensitive or can we go back to the real world?"


    Melody leapt forwards, "Wait, hold on¡­ What''s the rush?"


    Frowning, Felix looked at her, "We are literally standing in the middle of the library, unconscious."


    Melody threw her hands into the air, "So? Who cares? I want to explore."


    Felix shook his head in confusion, "There''s nothing else here. You can literally see everything."


    Melody stuck her tongue out at him, "Yeah but you haven''t let me leave this one spot yet."


    Felix shook his head, "Too bad."


    Ejecting both of their consciousnesses from his Soul Garden, Felix returned to his body to find Melody pouting and Peace shaking his head.


    "I''m going to go try and decipher these books now. Peace, let''s train on the 6th then we''ll go from there."


    Peace nodded, "Sure thing. See you tomorrow."


    Felix nodded to him and ignored Melody''s pouting as he flew off back to his dorm.


    He spent the rest of the day pouring through the-incredibly repetitive-documented attempts at deciphering the books in the A-SAM building. It seemed that there were a total of a dozen or so methods everyone came up with and they were all convinced they could do it better than their predecessors.


    As Felix walked into the designated classroom for Group Combat, Peace appeared next to him, something that was starting to become a regular occurrence.


    Peace addressed Felix without looking over at him, "Ready to finally move up a class again?"


    "Should be pretty easy at this point, right? Now that I''ve got those skills."


    "If you can actually use them then, yeah probably. To be honest though, your spells kind of suck. You''re also still very fragile."


    Felix nodded, "Yeah, I know. I''m working on the spells thing. Hopefully what I''ve got is enough for now. What do you mean if I can use them?"


    "You''ll see and lets hope so."


    Felix sighed, "I''ve got a couple other things I need to handle before I get to use better spells. Like I said though, I''m working on it."


    Peace nodded and they walked through the portal in the middle of the class.


    Group Combat was, as Peace had predicted, a bit of a joke. They were still in the phase of fighting each-other on teams which would apparently only last another couple dekads so they could sort the classes. After that, they would start fighting monsters on expeditions and other less simulated combat scenarios.


    Felix had quickly realized what Peace meant though as he couldn''t just turn Reaper''s Movement or Sense on. He managed to get sputterings out of it occasionally and once, in a dire fight, he managed to activate it but otherwise, they remained dormant and largely useless.


    That left him with his normal speed which wasn''t awful but, all his training for the duel, specifically his instinct casts, casting speed and focus limit had paid off.


    Given how trivial it was for Felix to win, and now knowing that Peace had been holding back so he would remain in the same class as Felix, they both dedicated themselves to working with the team. Their abilities made the win almost a guarantee, the trick was to showcase the best teamwork in the class so they could move up another class.


    Their efforts luckily paid off and both of them were instructed to attend next class up, 7th out of 10, on the second of the next dekad.


    The hardest part of the whole class though was avoiding all the other students trying to either challenge him to a duel or befriend him. Also, having everyone focus entirely on him during the fights was annoying but made the wins even easier.


    The next day, Felix headed over to Ked''s lab where a couple of the Adepts were a little annoying but much less so than the other students in his cycle. While they were curious, they also dropped the subject after just a couple minutes.


    They had all started thinking about what projects they wanted to work on for the cycle and Felix had become known for his ability to quickly prototype things. He was dragged over to each Adept in turn so he could help them prototype their ideas as quickly as possible.


    He didn''t mind it though because the work itself was excellent practice and he got to see for himself what they were all thinking about. All of their ideas began fuelling his own ambitions though he figured he would be helping the others with their projects this epoch then maybe work on his own the next epoch.


    As the slew of requests for Felix''s attention died down though, Professor Ked found him, "Have you thought about what you want to work on this epoch? Or maybe something more ambitious spanning multiple epochs?"


    Felix''s jaw hung a little, "I didn''t think¡­ I''m allowed to work on my own project here too?"


    If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    "Of course. You don''t have to if you would rather assist us. Though, if you do take on your own project I suspect you will need assistance or advice anyways and I expect you to offer the same to others, to a reasonable degree. Sal and I have already had multiple discussions about what we want to create while you''re still here and can offer your unique talents."


    Felix nodded, "Of course. I hadn''t really thought about it."


    "If you need ideas, a good challenge is to turn your ring into a construct. Alternatively, think about something that will help you in the long run. Depending on how complex it is, Sal and I will grade you based on it. Try not to pick something you want to keep secret."


    "I don''t entirely get the ring thing. Why bother?"


    Ked shrugged, "It''s just to show off really. Think about what would benefit you the most in your life right now."


    "Yeah. I''ll think about it."


    Ked smiled, "While you do, would you mind helping me with a construct I''m working on?"


    Felix smirked, "Of course."


    Ked had Felix help him with soul binding a particularly complex construct in a small mechanical spider. The body was cool but not particularly impressive. The brain was more impressive but still, just an organically grown brain that was carefully fit into the body. The brain then necessitated other biological organs and systems within the shell. The impressive part was the soul Ked had carefully engineered for the body.


    The soul was meticulously crafted not only to hold firm in its convictions and with a complex web of purpose woven throughout it but also physically shaped to fit the body. It was almost like a network of souls or a hive mind in a way. Each fragment and component had its own structure and purpose, all of them interconnected to form a whole. It would, once bound, suffuse the mechanical body just as Felix''s soul did his own.


    While Ked could have bound the soul to the body himself, it was much faster to have Felix do it. Nevertheless, Ked observed and guided Felix through the whole process once he had removed it from the gem.


    Felix had to shape the soul a little bit and he was careful with every step to make sure he didn''t damage the soul Ked had spent epochs creating.


    While he could bind the soul to the body, Felix had no experience with creating souls like this and simply working with it, he was fascinated. It was complex and intricate in ways he never realized a soul could be. It reminded him of long ago during the tutorial when Grim had briefly shown Felix his soul.


    The spider''s soul wasn''t nearly as complex but he had somewhat forgotten about Grim''s soul since then.


    While all the Adept''s project ideas had sparked his ambitions for constructs, Ked''s spider''s soul and the memory of Grim''s soul it surfaced had Felix thinking about his own soul.


    He spent some time that night testing and tinkering with new constructs in his mind though Felix didn''t end up finalizing any of them, finding what he was trying to do much more complicated than he had expected.


    Luckily, he had Soul Manipulation the next day and considering his intention was for this to apply to his own soul eventually, he figured it was the perfect time to ask.


    During the lecture, Professor Fen mostly discussed more methods of soul cultivation and the intricacies that went along with them. She was continuing on the topic of defensive layers from her previous lectures, something which Felix had little to no interest in. He just didn''t see the applicability when his soul was seemingly invincible.


    What mattered more to him was to find ways of using that and building up his methods of retaliating. For now, he was like an invincible rock. Unbreakable and completely stationary, unable to act whatsoever.


    As the class was wrapping up, Felix asked a question, "We''ve been talking about defensive layers on our souls but what about other layers? Other forms of structure?"


    Professor Fen looked up with a curious gaze, "How do you mean?"


    "Everything we''ve talked about involves stacking spherical layers. What if they weren''t just spherical? What if each layer had it''s own convictions and purpose?"


    "You mean like an advanced construct soul?"


    "That''s actually where I got the idea from. Could we do that with our own souls?"


    Professor Fen shook her head quickly, "It doesn''t seem impossible but messing with your own soul to that degree is not only likely impossible but also incredibly dangerous. That''s not to say it hasn''t been done though."


    "You''re saying I might be able to find research or books on the subject in the library?"


    "Possible, unlikely. Cultivation techniques and the subject of the Soul are unfortunately often left out of academic records and tomes. There are some but most seem to prefer to keep their secrets, when it comes to the soul especially."


    Felix nodded, "I see. I''ll see what I can find."


    "It is likely the gods have done something along the lines of what you are talking about with their own souls as they host afterlives within their inner worlds. Revealing such things though would be tantamount to inviting a soul attack though so there are no records I am aware of of such modifications."


    Felix nodded along, "Speaking from the standpoint of a construct then, how much does and can the structure of its soul benefit the construct in terms of strength and function?"


    "While a little off topic for this course, it is not completely unrelated. One common structure modification made is using many bind points which allow the soul to effectively stretch itself throughout the construct''s body. This often lightens the burden placed on the brain to control the body."


    Turning to her podium and drawing descriptive diagrams on the board behind her, Fen continued, "Having a soul concentrated in the same location as a constructs brain can also often improve the stability of the brain and improve communication between it, the soul and the body."


    "Furthermore, having layers dedicated to specific functions suffusing specific parts of the body, such as a piece of the construct suffusing its eyes that has its own convictions, can vastly improve a constructs capabilities. At this point though, it is common to split the soul into chunks, each with their own section to control then have the section with the brain coordinate the entire body. The trick, is interconnecting the chunks seamlessly, ensuring adjacent chunks synergize with each-other."


    "As for how you could implement something similar within your own body, many have tried taking soul gems and suffusing individual parts of their body after imposing convictions and purpose within them. The issue that has always arisen however, is interoperability. Either, the host soul and the implanted soul end up fighting each-other for control or, more devastatingly, the imposed convictions leak out into the host soul. Instead of the eyes having the convictions to see above all else, the entire host soul becomes consumed with a pointless conviction that simply hinders it. As an outside force, the conviction often transforms into an insatiable desire instead of a point of strength."


    While that wouldn''t ever be an issue for me, I''m not sure I want to do that anyways.


    "I am certain some of you in the class will attempt this at some point, as it is your nature to seek every advantage you can find. I will warn you though, in order to fix you after performing something like this, we will need to sever a large chunk of your soul. Worst case, it is inoperable. This is also something that The System may not even touch as it often refuses to do with souls."


    After that, Felix left the lecture slightly early to avoid being harassed by students challenging him to duels, which was becoming increasingly annoying and insistent. He didn''t manage to avoid everyone though as both Melody and Peace appeared next to him just as he made it outside.


    Turning to Felix, Melody actually looked rather concerned, "About what you asked¡­ in class, be careful."


    Felix brushed off her concern, "I''ll be fine."


    "Your soul is the core of who you are. Screw with it too much and¡­ there are many things far worse than death."


    Peace chimed in as well, "I say go for it. You''ve gotten this far so, you must have a good idea of your own limits already. I know of some who have done similar things."


    Felix stopped and turned to Peace, "Wait, you know people who have done something like this to their own souls? Can you introduce me?"


    Peace winced, "Not¡­ anytime soon."


    "I see. Fine. Was that all, or are you two just following me for the view?"


    Melody''s face lit up as Felix teased her back for the first time since they had met, "Of course. Well, also I was wondering if wanted to go on a date. I was thinking a picnic to¡­ a garden maybe?"


    Felix sighed as he caught onto what she was asking, "Why?"


    Melody shrugged as mouth slowly formed into a grin, "It''s interesting."


    "Is that why you''re here too?" Felix turned to Peace.


    Peace shrugged, "No but¡­ I''d love to join, since you''re offering."


    Felix sighed, "Alright but I''ve got shit to do so I''m not giving you a tour or anything."


    Neither of them objected as they followed him back to his dorm.


    As soon as she arrived in his Soul Garden, Melody began running around examining everything. Peace was much calmer but Felix could sense he was equally as fascinated but from a different perspective.


    For Melody, everything was novel and blowing her mind. She hadn''t ever considered what was happening here and so everything was a sight to behold for her.


    For Peace, he knew this was possible, had visited similar constructions before but he was impressed by the quality. He was fascinated by the detail, the solidity, the realness and the scale. He understood what it took to construct something like this and so he appreciated it from a different perspective.


    Wait till he sees the city. Not that I actually plan on showing it to them anytime soon, just that it would probably blow his mind.


    Grim chuckled lightly, Think it would be too much for them if I introduced myself?


    I don''t know but, go for it. It''s not that far of a stretch for me to be hosting my own familiar in here.


    It took them both a few moments to realize someone, or something, had joined them, Melody realizing a few moments before Peace.


    They both turned and cautiously approached, Melody seemingly confused, scared and curious while Peace was holding back his amusement.


    Grim bowed slightly to the two of them in turn, "Peace. Melody. It is nice to finally speak with you both."


    Peace looked at Grim, examining his face, "Is that¡­ a book?"


    "This is Grim. My¡­ One of my familiars? in the real world who does¡­ work, inside my head"


    Melody looked at him with confusion, "Your head? Aren''t we in your soul?"


    Felix shrugged, "Sure, he comes and goes between the two."


    Grim turned to Peace, "You''ve mentioned The Reaper before and I take it you''ve seen them. I was wondering how Felix''s planet''s depiction of them compares to the real thing?"


    Peace gasped in realization, "So this is based on The Reaper. Is that why you called them ''Grim''?"


    "Yeah, among other¡­ reasons." Felix nodded, unwilling to admit to their shared childlike enjoyment of wordplay.


    Peace nodded in realization, "It''s definitely recognizable to one of his forms. That one isn''t his favorite or most common form though."


    Melody shook her head as she caught on, "Wait, this is¡­ you have two familiars?"


    Felix nodded, "Sort of. He''s more like a¡­ soul bound companion?"


    Grim shrugged, "Either way."


    "I have other things to take care of now. If you need anything, call out and I or Grim will see what we can do." Vanishing from sight, the two of them reappeared in the library.


    They began by organizing all the previous research as well as Felix''s own knowledge to try and work backwards with deciphering the tomes. They suspected there were either spell forms or knowledge about mana in the books so they tried to find any part of the texts that would map to anything in those domains.


    If they didn''t find anything, they would hand everything off to Mark and possibly some of the constructs in his own mind. Felix was hoping that he''d be able to crack it himself solely because he loved the challenge and the puzzle but that was seeming increasingly unlikely.


    While they did this, Grim projected himself both in the garden and in the city at the same time. In the city, they worked together on the tomes. In the Garden, Grim hosted Felix''s guests.


    Melody spent the time wandering around until Grim offered her a book, a romantic fiction novel and she gleefully began reading. Peace on the other hand, began practicing some kind of martial art in very slow motion that looked more like a dance or tai-chi. Grim watched the first rotation then asked a few questions about it once he was no longer interrupting.


    After a short back and forth, they ended up sparring which was interesting in its own right. Grim used The Dragon''s Dance of Death forms and Peace deftly avoided every attack.


    As they fought-their speed made equal in the Soul Garden-Peace twisted Grim''s strike harmlessly aside, "These forms are incredibly lethal."


    "They were considered unstoppable where I come from and yet, you are not strained whatsoever. Mentally I mean."


    Peace shrugged, "I''ve dealt with a lot of lethal, unstoppable skills. To be honest, these are some of the most impressive ones I''ve seen outside of the cult. Could you show me the whole set of forms?"


    Grim nodded then ran Peace through the steps. Even just passively watching through his Garden, Felix was jealous.


    Peace picked up on the steps immediately and executed them near flawlessly. By the time they ran through them a second time, Peace was already altering the steps slightly, improving upon and perfecting them.


    After that, they fought once again, Peace using The Dragon''s Dance this time and Felix was momentarily distracted from his work.


    The Dragon''s Dance looked completely different when Peace performed it. It looked like an actual dance and the way he moved made him actually look like a deadly serpent. The movements and steps were slithering and connected with no harsh movements. The strikes used the entire body like a spring and were fast and lethal.


    He used them in a way where the fight had ebb and flow. He moved slowly and gracefully with the occasional strike then saw an opening and suddenly released a burst of rapid strikes. He then fell back after his combo and returned to graceful movements.


    It reminded Felix of a song that was mostly calm then suddenly dropped into edm for a few moments before returning to calm.


    It was obvious that Peace actually understood the forms, the Dance as a whole, what it meant and how it all fit together. Grim and Felix simply knew the forms. It was the difference between truly grasping something versus having the requisite knowledge.


    Peace bowed with both hands pressed together, "I''ll have to show this to some of the other martials in the cult. I think they''d enjoy this."


    Felix felt Grim''s reluctance towards letting the information he was tasked with protecting loose. Almost immediately that thought was overridden by the fact that Peace had completely neutralized the Dance, nullifying the entire reason they were forbidden.


    They continued sparring, Peace showing Grim other steps, forms and dances. It quickly became obvious Peace had long since achieved mastery over a countless array of martial arts as he continued to pull out new forms each and every minute.


    After a few hours of Soul Garden time passed, Melody gradually became too exhausted to remain awake and so, she fell asleep. Felix immediately appeared next to her and was about to release her, worried something was wrong but Peace stopped him with a word.


    Speaking out loud at a perfectly normal volume from hundreds of meters away, completely aware that Felix could hear everything he said no matter what, "Don''t."


    Felix appeared next to Peace as he and Grim backed up a step, "Is she okay?"


    Peace nodded, "What''s the time dilation in here?"


    "Around 0.28% right now."


    Peace frowned and cocked his head, "Seriously?"


    "Yes. It''s based on my Intelligence."


    Peace shook his head, "You''re a monster, you know that? It will take time to acclimatize her mind and soul to functioning at this speed. I have some experience of my own in time dilated soul constructs so I won''t need to sleep for a while longer but it will hit me too."


    "I see. So I''m not¡­ harming her?"


    Peace chuckled, "Nope, not at all. Actually, this is like a workout for her Intelligence, Perception, Dexterity, Agility and Vitality."


    Felix looked at Peace wide eyed and astonished, "Really?"


    "Yup. First her mind and soul will become faster. After which point, her other stats will start to adjust themselves and catch up."


    Eyes wide, Felix leaned forwards, "Where can I find a constructed memory with more dilation than this?"


    Peace chuckled, "You won''t. I''ve visited a few but¡­ Maybe some day."


    Felix sighed, "Alright. I think it''s time I handed off the deciphering of the tomes."


    Peace didn''t bother responding as he knew Felix wasn''t talking to him.


    Reappearing next to Grim''s other projection, in the library, they quickly assembled all the materials they had on the tome and made copies.


    "Problem I hadn''t thought of until now¡­ how do I send this information to Mark?"


    Grim nodded, "Good question. You should probably find a better way of communicating with him in general. Just talking isn''t going to cut it."


    "Yeah. We need to create a better communication protocol. Theoretically, I could send it a memory directly but I don''t think it''s¡­ complex enough to understand and decipher one."


    Grim nodded and scratched his chin-the bottom of his book face, "Might need to beef up the cable connecting you two as well."


    "Yeah. I think I want to improve Mark too though. My hope, or dream, is that he can become the super powerful central server that I and all my constructs communicate with."


    Grim smiled, "I know. How do we get there though?"


    "Great question. First things first, I want Mark to be more creature and less computer. Ideally, I want them to grow and evolve over time. Most importantly though, I need them to understand and have perspective on the world as a whole."


    "How are you going to do that without literally giving them a body?"


    "While I could¡­ I could also give them access to all my memories and experiences. Then¡­ give them a whole lot of bodies."


    "Sure, question is how to transfer memories?"


    Felix sighed, "You know what probably would have helped with this? The crown."


    Grim chuckled, "Yeah."


    "Okay, starting from what we know¡­ the ideal is memory crystals. Worst case, we fall back on some earth cable standard we could probably replicate and adapt without too much difficulty, just a lot more wires."


    "Right so that''s plan B. Memory Crystals then, it''s the stability of the crystalline structure that makes them stable."


    Felix nodded once with more confidence than he felt, "Exactly. So, I make mana crystals, bind a memory to them then send those down the wire. I don''t want to physically move them though so¡­ I make the whole wire a crystal? Like a fiber optic cable¡­"


    Neither Felix nor Grim were entirely sure what he was saying was possible, both of them however agreed with the theory.


    It took them almost the entire night to figure it out, Grim''s expertise with memories and storing them, or at least how he stored them, proving essential. The hard part was figuring out how to move the anima along the cable. Grim did something similar with his pages and binding so Felix applied the concept and-with some tinkering-managed to create a system he was happy with.


    It came down to solidity. Memory crystals and soul gems, batteries too for that matter, worked on the principle that crystalline structures were extraordinarily solid and stable. He essentially had to replicate that with his own mana but, his mana control was more than up to the task. He couldn''t focus on everything at all times though so he imbued the necessary will into the anima suffusing the cables so they maintained a crystalline structure at all times.


    After all, why can''t mana have a crystalline structure, or at least exhibit similar properties of stability. It doesn''t seem to have fundamental particles or atomic structure but it can perfectly simulate the physical states of matter¡­ I''m starting to think mana is whatever you will it to be, need to test that further though later on.


    There was still however, the problem of Mark not having the prerequisite context for understanding memories though.


    The best idea either of them had to fix that was for Felix to manually modify Mark''s soul. Neither of them had any idea how that would work or whether or not it would be painful. Morally, it helped that Felix had actually created the soul, not that they were overly hung up on the morals.


    He spent the next day carefully dissecting and experimenting with Mark and their soul until he had a much better understanding of why it worked the way it did and how it could work. From there, he carefully began comparing his own soul to Mark''s, adding components where they were missing and carefully making it increasingly complex.


    He also tuned the filter and ended up removing the majority of it because he wanted Mark to essentially be him just with slightly emphasized personality traits. All of that was easy.


    Modifying Mark''s soul as he compared it to Grim''s soul however, that was much more complex.


    He started by mapping out as much of Grim''s soul as he could which was much closer to a complex construct than any living creature''s soul he had seen. The layers were rarely spherical and shell like. Many of the components had individual convictions binding them like parts of an engine with different purposes. Some of them resembled ropes or chains and others various shapes, nets and shells.


    Due to its sheer complexity, Felix didn''t completely map Grim''s soul, he was pretty sure he wasn''t even close but, he did improve his understanding of what he wanted to do. With that knowledge, he only did one thing with Mark''s soul, improve the access control layer.


    If he was going to give Mark access to many of his experiences, he wanted access to them to be tightly controlled. Only with Felix''s permission, would Mark share anything about him with anyone or anything.


    Okay, with all that done¡­ Grim, do you think it''s possible for me to make Mark¡­ a creature?


    You mean give it its own core soul?


    Yeah.


    Of course. What creature are you going to harvest one from?


    Actually¡­ I was thinking of separating out a small chunk of my own core soul, same way I would take a soul seed.


    That¡­ sounds incredibly dangerous. What if you accidentally take something necessary? What if you damage it? How can yo-


    Okay, I get it. I don''t want to just have it based on a wolf or a computer sprite or something¡­ Maybe in the future then. I was just thinking about what would happen if Mark was able to level¡­


    Grim gasped in understanding, Oh¡­ more importantly, skills.


    Exactly. Something to think about later on then.


    With everything in place, Felix took the final step and gave Mark access to his memories and experiences. Felix could still specifically restrict things if he had to, it was his soul after all, and even completely sever the connection if necessary. For the time being though, he let the information flow freely as Mark processed everything for themselves.


    Felix had also manually grown Mark''s soul using excess anima he was carrying around so that he could copy over some of the experiences he deemed necessary. Once he was done with all that, Felix would task Mark with deciphering the tomes from the A-SAM building.


    Both Melody and Peace had spent the entirety of their break day in his Soul Garden. Melody because it was actively improving her stats and Peace for some reason unbeknownst to Felix.


    Mentally reviewing the prioritized todo list, Felix was reminded of something he had almost forgotten about.


    I still haven''t gotten that shipment of corpses from Tekrag, have I? Damn, I really thought they''d be here by now.


    Maybe it takes longer than we thought to¡­ collect them?


    Yeah or the shipment itself. I wonder how that will arrive¡­


    With his mind still somewhat focused on souls, Felix took a peek at his own and started experimenting to try and increase his focus limit.


    He had expected a larger increase when he had finally connected the computer to his brain but when that didn''t happen, he was left wondering if he was taking the right approach. The only other aspect that he figured would have an impact on his focus level, was his soul.


    His soul was what dictated his mana control while his brain was what allowed him to hold specific shapes, namely spell forms, solid. They worked in tandem and he was fairly certain he could hold the shape of many spell forms solid with just his mind which only left his soul.


    The problem, was that he had no idea how.


    As he had done previously when trying to manually force his matter senses to improve, Felix began controlling mana in the most strenuous way he could, holding it near The Endless Hunger. Once he could feel the strain within his soul, Felix lightened up just enough so that he didn''t lose control and shifted his consciousness to observe.


    Staring inwards, Felix could see his entire soul being effectively engaged towards controlling the mana. He couldn''t do anything with that though so he tried something else entirely.


    This time, instead of just controlling some mana near The Endless Hunger, Felix created two spell forms. One of them was a simple Fire Bolt, one of the simplest spell forms he knew while the other, was the most complicated one he could cast with his remaining focus. It wasn''t actually anything useful, just an amalgamation that perfectly used up the remaining focus.


    Now when he looked inwards, with quite a bit of effort, he tried to isolate which parts of his soul were contributing to which spell form.


    It took him much longer than he would have liked to admit for him to realize, there was no separation.


    His soul, the part of him actually controlling the mana, saw it all as one controlled entity. Even at his limit though, his soul could cast other spells. He instinct cast multiple Force Bursts just to prove the point to himself.


    If it''s not my soul and it''s not my brain¡­ I''m pretty sure it''s not my body¡­ All that leaves is the connection between my soul and my brain¡­ right?


    Grim shrugged, I have no idea. Sounds logical¡­ I guess? There could also be something else entirely at play here that neither of us know anything about.


    You''re saying I should ask Fin?


    I wasn''t but¡­ not a bad idea. I''m just not sure he''ll know anymore than we do. In fact, he will probably know less¡­


    It''s worth a try. S§×arch* The N?velFire.n§×t website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    Making himself busy for the rest of the day until Peace and Melody had to leave, Felix mostly read and experimented with various spell forms in the hopes that he would soon be able to use them.


    Walking into Professor Fin''s office, which was actually the room attached to his classroom where Felix had first revealed his abilities, Felix found Fin practicing his mana control on the board.


    "Ah, the impossible prodigy. What can I do for you?"


    "I''m trying to increase my¡­ well I''ve been calling it a focus limit but basically the number and complexity of the spells I can cast simultaneously."


    Fin chuckled a little, "No one else would ever bother raw casting multiple spells at once. Here you are hoping you can cast more than 30."


    Felix shrugged lightly, "Well, I can only cast 30 at once if they''re identical and as simple as possible."


    "Right, of course. From my experience-which may or may not be applicable to you at all-increasing the maximum complexity of my raw casts usually involves a lot of practice. I take it that''s not the answer you were hoping for though?"


    Felix shook his head, "I''ve gotten large increases before. I¡­ attached a mana computer to my brain, that resulted in a decent jump. I also encountered some¡­ challenging situations where controlling mana felt impossible. Training there resulted in another jump."


    Fin frowned, "I''m going to ignore the computer thing for the moment. What if we just simulate that challenging place?"


    "I''ve been doing that as much as I can, unfortunately it hasn''t been as effective recently."


    "I see. Well, let''s see if we can''t figure out where the actual limit is."


    Felix nodded and walked over to the board, already having tried this himself. He immediately drew out and held the most complicated spell form image he could within the board, the portal spell form.


    On Fin''s signal, he then tried to draw out another spell form. Looking back at the portal spell form, the intricate details had grown fuzzy and unclear. The ring around the outside and the larger lines though, remained solid.


    Felix turned his head towards Fin, "Any ideas?"


    Fin smirked, "You''re a smart kid. Look at the portal spell form."


    Felix looked at it.


    Fin''s voice carried his building enthusiasm, "It didn''t just¡­ fall apart entirely."


    "No, it just became unusable."


    Fin, with even more enthusiasm, "Right but, how? How specifically did it fail?"


    "The details¡­ got fuzzy?"


    "Right. Why those intricate details though? The first part you drew was the outer ring. Why didn''t it fall apart first? The nodes are the most intricate, why are some of those still solid?"


    Felix frowned as he examined the spell form, hearing what Fin was saying and isolating the individual components that were failing.


    Felix gasped, "It''s my brain¡­"


    Fin chuckled, "I find it ironic, given your Mana Visualization Skill."


    Felix nodded understanding. The irony was that his problem was visualization and Fin had invented the skill name visualization, "I was wrong then. It has nothing to do with the connection between my brain and soul."


    Fin shrugged, "Could be a factor too but if that were the case, it shouldn''t be hard to figure out."


    Felix nodded, "Thanks."


    "Before you go¡­ you mentioned you ''attached a mana computer to your brain?'' How exactly does that work?"


    "Long story but my mana control lets me¡­ make more intricate mana computers. I made one then carefully connected it directly to my neurons. It hasn''t been as useful as I had hoped but¡­ I''m hoping to fix that in the future."


    Fin nodded slowly, "I see. Well, if you need help in the future, don''t¡­ hesitate to ask."


    Felix nodded, "Thanks."


    Okay so¡­ I assumed I could actively hold the mental image for almost infinite spell forms but¡­ I''m starting to doubt that now.


    Back in his dorm, Felix began imagining spell forms surrounding him without actually creating them out of mana. He found his limit, was exactly the same as his actual focus limit.


    My long term memory is effectively infinite, for my purposes at the moment, but my¡­ active memory? seems to be holding me back. Unfortunately¡­ how the fuck do I improve that?


    You''ve already got a computer attached to your brain.


    Felix scoffed, Yeah not looking to add another.


    No but, maybe you can repurpose some of it.


    Oh¡­ that''s an interesting thought.


    At first, Felix thought about rewiring one of the servers in the server room building within his mind but then changed his mind. Instead, he walked out into the city and created a new building, this one a dome made of small triangles.


    Walking inside, he imagined the inside of the dome being a mesh of screens with projectors at the points. Within the chamber itself, the projectors would then work together to form holograms. They didn''t display anything at the moment though because he had purposefully left everything disconnected and he wasn''t currently picturing anything.


    Once it was complete, he ran cables to connect the new building to the server room.


    From there, Felix created a construct to manage the server room where he rewired and changed some things so that they were all connected to a central terminal. From there, the new construct, dubbed Ned, would control which servers were allocated to which portion of his brain.


    Instead of rewiring servers directly to buildings, this had the advantage of being dynamic. He could change the allocation on the fly, in theory.


    With all of his preparations complete, Felix returned to his body and had Ned allocate 50% of the computers to his focus.


    Immediately, Felix noticed the difference. His perception suffered and his brain felt slower but, every spell form he imagined felt incredibly clear. The visualizations themselves more solid than he had ever experienced. Almost like they were actually inscribed into his mind.


    Testing with as many spells as he could come up with, Felix couldn''t help but laugh out loud as he surpassed 40 spell levels worth of focus. He ended up finding his limit just over 50, which was more than double his previous amount.


    Well¡­ that was¡­ awesome.


    Yeah small problem though¡­ some of your library was¡­ lost.


    Felix coughed as he choked on his own spit, Wait¡­ What?


    Nothing important. We structured it so you lost only filler information and nothing you couldn''t get back but¡­ you''re going to need to head to the library again to rescan some of those books.


    Shit. Okay, that''s a problem. I can''t go losing half my memories every time I need to cast a complex spell.


    Right. Now that you have Mark though¡­


    He''s not big enough to hold all my memories though.


    No, but he could be.


    Felix sighed, Alright. Adding it to the todo list, highest priority, memory backups. Once I figure that out, we can designate different modes. Everything dedicated to speed, perception and focus can be battle mode. Wait, I won''t have problems with having my memories outside of my head right? Like falling into the same trap twice?


    I don''t think so¡­ most of that should be experience that falls into your soul''s domain but¡­ let''s make a new building for that stuff anyways then just move the library to Mark. Just in case. Also, maybe make number two increasing your brain''s capacity.


    Felix immediately harvested everything he could from the computer growth farms he had created and began expanding them as the cells regrew. If he was going to have Mark hold a backup of his entire mind, Mark was going to have to be a lot bigger.


    Luckily, even though he had restricted Mark''s size by fitting him into a shell, there were more than 3 spatial dimensions Felix had access to. Making Mark incredibly long in the 4th spatial dimension wasn''t a good idea because it would be like making a really tall and skinny tower, it wouldn''t be stable.


    Once he got to that point though, Felix would either make a second Mark and connect them in a network or compress his transistors to be even smaller. That wasn''t a problem for any time in the near future though so, Felix didn''t bother trying to solve it.


    He still didn''t have enough for Mark to exceed the size of his own brain in terms of physical size or storage size but he used what he could so Grim could start backing up the most important memories. As his mana computer growing green-house produced more computer, he would harvest and within about a dozen dekads, he estimated Mark would be big enough.


    That accounted both for maintaining its current function of offloading processing from constructs and backing up all his current memories. He wouldn''t stop there but that was his current goal for the time being.


    He also wanted to increase the size of the computer connected to his brain but that was problematic. Briefly, he experimented with changing things but stopped before changing anything permanently because the computer itself had changed and adapted. It wasn''t as simple as increasing its size anymore.


    Once he was done with that, it was time for his first training session with Peace so Felix flew out to the open field they had chosen.


    The field was similar to the one they had used for Group Combat a few dekads back, large, flat, open and grassy. They wanted to be far enough away that they weren''t interrupted but what they were doing wasn''t a secret so they didn''t portal to another planet or anything.


    Surprising Felix though, as he landed in the field, he saw Peace and Melody waiting for him.


    Melody waved and smiled her with her usual gleeful demeanor as he approached, "Hey Felix!"


    Felix nodded in acknowledgement.


    Peace answered the unasked question, "She asked if I could teach her too. I told her it would take hundreds of epochs to build the soul strength, awareness and control but she insisted."


    Felix shrugged, "She seems fairly talented with soul shit, maybe it doesn''t take her that long."


    Melody smiled wildly at Felix.


    "Maybe. We''ll see-" Peace turned to Melody, "-as we already discussed, your first task is to be able to morph and shape your soul within your body."


    Melody nodded then skipped over to the edge of the field and fell into a meditation.


    Peace turned to Felix and nodded, "Okay. I''ll be honest, I don''t know that much about you. Can you share with me the skills you''re using and the class?"


    Felix suddenly grew incredibly wary about trusting Peace.


    Peace closed his eyes and released a long drawn out sigh as he shook his head, "I don''t actually have a class or anything. I''m not a leveler technically. You may have noticed my level change randomly? The System is guessing as to my strength. Due to¡­ other abilities I have, it''s difficult to estimate. I know you have a Legendary class called Reaper. I also know you have a movement skill and a Perception skill. I just need to know the specifics so I can figure out how to teach you."


    His worries abated, Felix shared the descriptions of his class and all his class skills with Peace who quickly read them through.


    Peace nodded, "Okay, first things first. You probably want to drop Dragon''s Dance unless you want to become a martial artist. Even if you do though, I can teach you an equivalent Mythical skill to replace it fairly quickly."


    Felix shook his head, "Wait¡­ Yes?"


    Peace cocked his head in confusion, "You want to become a martial artist?"


    Felix scoffed, "No. I want a Mythical skill."


    Peace shook his head, "Not worth it for you. Drop that skill and I''ll teach you something more fitting right now."


    Felix nodded and dropped the skill, mostly because he had already been planning on dropping it anyways. It wasn''t doing much for him and he lost very little from dropping it.


    Peace nodded, "Alright first things first, what do you know about the Reaper skills? The class? What have you figured out so far?"


    Felix shrugged, "Not much. I''m pretty sure the skills all have to do with my soul¡­"


    "Yes, sort of. I told you I don''t level. Long ago there was time when The System didn''t exist. During this time, people trained to grow stronger and did amazing things through the use of mana, enchantments and their souls. This is how all of my abilities work."


    "So the class avoids The System?"


    "No. It wasn''t designed to avoid The System at all. It was designed to house a number of skills that were deemed¡­ useful. Those skills also happen to be skills that are nearly impossible for The System to replicate, at least in the same way. It could just move you faster but it cannot do it the same way we are. This is just because the most powerful skills are the most useful and the hardest to use. Instead, it guides your own capabilities¡­ sort of, it''s complicated."


    "Okay, so it''s not intentional. Why are they skills at all? Why should I keep them on my status sheet?"


    "Because having The System automate things for us is incredibly valuable. You can totally drop all the skills though and just do them yourself. Just make sure you don''t get distracted."


    Felix sighed in understanding, "Or fall unconscious or into an illusion or get soul manipulated into dropping them."


    "Yeah, basically."


    Felix nodded, "Alright. Maybe one day. For now, how do I use them properly?"


    "First things first, Movement is the most visible and easiest for me to show you so, watch carefully."


    Felix nodded to Peace, indicating he was watching then Peace performed a series of martial arts steps in slow motion, just as he had in Felix''s Soul Garden. This time though, every movement, even though they were slow, was trailed by a long trail of black.


    With Peace moving in slow motion and Felix specifically looking for it, Felix realized the trails weren''t just trails of empty blackness. Trailing behind Peace''s body as he moved was a twisting cloud of shadow outlined with hints of color on the edges. The colors were muted and close to black so Felix only really noticed them because he was paying close attention but he was certain they were there.


    Felix frowned, "How are you doing that while moving slowly?"


    Peace stopped and nodded to Felix, "Good question. You have Reaper''s Movement which affects mostly your Agility and Dexterity. My stats are estimated-again, not really part of The System-but that''s what my similar skill affects. The premise though, carries over into Reaper''s Sense, and Reaper''s Body."


    The pieces started to come together in Felix''s mind, "I first activated the skill when I actively willed my arm to move. Are you saying it''s about willful actions? Does Body apply to Strength, Vitality and Endurance? Is there one for Intelligence?"


    "Yes. Yes, and Yes."


    "Wait¡­ that''s it? It''s that easy?"


    Peace chuckled, "It''s that simple, easy it is not."


    Felix looked down at his arm then, using all of the intent he could muster, moved it across his body with as much power and strength as he could muster. He kept the movement slow though.


    It took him a few swipes to finally get it and once he did, the movement only created a small, barely visible and sputtering trail instead of a large wake like Peace''s movements. Now that he was looking though, the trail he created visually matched Peace''s, just on a smaller scale. The whole thing was much harder than he remembered though so, Felix tried to move quickly as he had during his duel with Tanryel, just to confirm that was the same.


    As he had realized in Group Combat, he found that activating Reaper''s Movement was just as hard as moving his arm slowly with power. Significantly more difficult than it had been during the duel.


    "Why is it so¡­ hard¡­ now?"


    "During the duel, you were pushed to the edge and likely invoked your conviction, right?"


    Felix nodded in confirmation.


    "Adrenaline, a similar effect your soul can undergo and many other things compound to bring you into a state where it''s easier. It won''t always be like that in combat though."


    "I see. To do it outside of combat, I need to practice then."


    Peace nodded, "To make it consistent even in combat."


    Felix nodded, "Okay, is there a better way to go about this other than just¡­ moving?"


    Peace smiled, "There''s the right question. Yes. The problem is that willfully moving or doing anything with intent requires focus."


    Felix cut in as he understood, "So either I make it instinctual or I''ll accidentally get distracted and trip."


    "Exactly."


    Peace taught Felix a new set of steps just so he had something to distract him while he tried to use his intent to move his body. Ironically, Peace had planned everything ahead of time and Felix didn''t have trouble remembering the steps because he already had memories of Peace performing them in his Soul Garden.


    Actually performing them was another story and thoroughly distracting. Felix was never going to be a martial arts grandmaster or even be competitive for his age but it was effective and Felix found it fun.


    Felix spent the rest of the day, with Peace''s guidance, practicing the use of his Reaper''s skills. Peace was obviously new at instructing anyone but he was also very knowledgeable about the skills themselves. Felix got the sense he was either very talented or had been working on them his entire life, possibly both.


    Though he didn''t increase any of his skill proficiencies, he did acquire a new skill, as Peace had promised.


    Ding You have demonstrated sufficient proficiency to unlock the Class Skill: [Reaper''s Body (Legendary - Novice I) This skill amplifies the user''s body in every way. It does not directly affect the body but amplifies its core functions. If the user is injured they will heal faster and with more direction. It will increase the body''s resiliency and assist the user''s muscles when strained. This skill is heavily dependent on and scales with your Strength, Vitality and Endurance.]


    Unfortunately, the Reaper''s skill that increased his Intelligence was an evolution of Reaper''s Sense so he was going to have to increase its proficiency until he could evolve it.


    Melody didn''t seem to get anywhere with one session, despite her best efforts to move around and create trails like they were. She didn''t overly need the instruction though as all she needed was to dedicate time but still, she promised to attend whenever she could.


    They decided on the same meeting day for the next dekad, though Felix would practice more often than that, because he didn''t need instruction more often. He occasionally had questions but they weren''t pressing.


    Instead of working on spells at night like he had expected, Felix was excited to start his own project on the 8th and he had already been told Solo Combat the next day was another lecture so, he headed to the lab.


    Inside, despite the late hour, Felix found Ked tinkering with an enchantment on a humanoid construct.


    Noticing him enter, Ked spoke at a normal volume knowing Felix could hear him from across the lab, "Have you figured out what project you''re going to work on this epoch?"


    "I think so. I want to make eyes."


    Ked stopped what he was doing and looked over from across the lab, "Eyes? Like the ones in our heads?"


    "Yeah, sort of."


    "I take it they''re more complicated than just that. I also take it you have some sort of plan?"


    Felix nodded.


    "Well, let me know if you need any help or a design review."


    "I will definitely be taking you up on that."


    Felix only had the barest of outlines for what he wanted to attempt in his mind. What he didn''t have, was enough experience to know what he was looking for. Luckily, the lab was filled with half finished constructs and designs scattered about that he could pull from.


    For the most complex part, Felix''s inclination was to use an actual biological eyeball that he could create himself using the Blood Ring or his own body. The issue with that was that he definitely wanted the body to be mechanical and trying to fit together just enough biological components to support the eye would likely be a waste of space.


    The only constructs that combined the two though were much larger and were creatures.


    Photosensitive mechanical cells though, were incredibly complex to make and couldn''t grow or evolve easily. He would likely have to recreate his constructs from scratch instead of simply swapping in a new eye. They were also prohibitively large, much larger than he was aiming for with these constructs.


    On earth, the sensor in a camera would work perfectly. In the multiverse though, mana made electrical components unstable and precision on a scale that small was difficult.


    An earth human''s eye was less powerful than a camera but here, based on his stats alone, Felix''s eyes were thousands of times better than a standard human''s. He didn''t have the time to iterate and improve upon camera sensors and there was very little work others had done on the subject at all.


    There were enchantments and spells but they were almost always inferior to an eye so long as there was a sufficient brain to support the eye. Felix would easily be able to create a sufficient brain and he was too stubborn to use an enchantment when the eye was better so he was left with trying to create the smallest possible heart he could.


    Alternatively, he had to find a creature that didn''t use blood or oxygen for their cells. If he could solve that problem, everything else was treaded ground and all he had to do was adapt existing knowledge.


    He didn''t go to Ked for a solution yet though and instead, he spent his time perusing the various designs in the workshop, memorizing and dissecting them for anything useful.


    Walking into the Mana Control class room for the Adept class, Felix was approached by Fin, "I take it you found a solution to your problem?"


    "Yes. Sort of. I can''t¡­ use it now without problems but I''m working on it. I managed to hit 51 spell levels."


    Fin looked at him with confusion so Felix quickly converted to a rough estimate in their more accurate measuring system.


    Fin''s eyes grew wide, "That''s a massive improvement."


    Felix shrugged, "It''s much less restrictive."


    "It''s still not¡­ ideal. Withrel has created spells hundreds of times your new limit."


    Felix sighed, "Yeah. At least now I''ve got a clear path to improve it in the future. Other than hard work and practice of course."


    Fin chuckled, "If you can keep increasing without practice, by all means. Some things you just need to put in the work for. Some things though, there are better ways."


    The class as a whole continued to find ways to stress everyone at once, most often against Felix, for the rest of their time slot.


    The next dekad was interesting in the sense that the vibe was obviously different, people were tense awaiting the next dekad''s preliminary evaluations. Some of the students were even more annoying about getting Felix to duel them and some gave up on asking him completely.


    Other than the vibe of the students though, the classes themselves were boring. He and Peace dominated their group combat class once again despite Reaper''s Movement failing him as soon as he saw an interesting spell form.


    Otherwise, Felix spent his time designing enchantments for his construct, researching methods of having constructs see and creating more complex spell forms. He made sure though, as he had been for a while now, to keep the actual work contained in his Soul Garden so he didn''t gain any levels.


    So long as he remained below the threshold, he could hold off on his evolution until he was certain he would be offered Soulbinder. Having done some research, despite everything having said it was possible but only barely, he was pretty sure it wouldn''t be too difficult for him.


    His uniqueness made the hardest part, being proficient with binding souls to constructs, fairly easy. He wanted to build up some experience and accomplish some feats related to the profession just to be certain it was offered.


    There was always the chance he was offered something better but he was targeting Soulbinder as his default.


    His training with Peace was largely uneventful and rather calm considering Melody was too busy to show up.


    Solo Combat was back to a lecture but, they were promised the course would completely shift over to sparring after the evaluation the next dekad. Felix was looking forward to that though he still had a lot of work until he was at the point where he wanted to be training himself in duels.


    He was still at least 8 dekads from having Mark be large enough to back up his memories and so he was still wary about dedicating some of the computer to his active memory.


    Seeing how far out that still was, Felix dedicated just over a day to increasing the size of his computer growing cells. They were quickly reaching the point where it was pushing against the edges of their Soul Space though so he would have to relocate it soon.


    He also spent some time trying to find a way to have his mental constructs self replicate but he wasn''t comfortable with any of what they came up with. All of them involved him giving them access to his soul even just to bind the constructs to their brains.


    Maybe one day he would allow them but for now, he trusted no one. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 Chapter 207 - Book 9

    Ultimately, Felix''s preparations for the evaluations were lacking, or at least he felt that way as he saw all the other students in his cycle sparring, studying and doing whatever they could. The entire campus was more active even than when everyone had first showed up.


    The library was often packed, the grounds full of people comparing notes, the professors constantly harassed everywhere they walked.


    The large shift made Felix rather excited for the evaluations, or rather for them to be over.


    The first evaluation on Felix''s schedule was Mana Structures. Walking into the designated classroom, the students were ordered by registration date then sent through a portal at the center of the room one by one.


    The next person then had to wait anywhere from 5 to 15 minutes depending on the student. No one came back out of the portal though, clearly having gone through some other exit, a system intended to minimize the interaction between those that have and have not yet done the evaluation.


    Unfortunately, Felix was at the very end of the registration list so he had to wait for everyone to go through ahead of him.


    As he waited, the room slowly emptied until he was left completely alone. He didn''t have nerves to calm but Felix did find the solitude much more pleasant than the room filled with students. He only had a few minutes to enjoy it though before he was called in.


    Stepping through the portal at the center of the room, Felix arrived into a room occupied solely by Director Amelia standing on a stool, a large table and the portal.


    Felix approached the desk and Amelia pointed downwards at a sheet of parchment that stretched out over most of the desk, "Walk me through this. If you see flaws or improvements, describe them. If you can figure out what it does, state it."


    Looking down at the drawing, "How long do I have? Can I take a moment to examine it?"


    She nodded, "You may. No longer than a minute though."


    Quickly memorizing the drawing, Felix kept his eyes open as he moved his consciousness into his Soul Garden and began analyzing.


    The design was the most intricate and convoluted enchantment he had every tried to analyze though definitely not the most complex he had ever seen. Some he had seen in Ked''s lab, the Raven''s nests and especially the spatial enchantment in Inscripticae were vastly more complex.


    This design though was convoluted in a way none of those ones had been. He suspected it had purposefully been obscured and made a complete mess but it didn''t change his distaste for it. All the other more complicated enchantments he knew split themselves into subsections and were more like multiple interconnected enchantments. This one felt impossible to break down into sections because of how intertwined everything appeared to be.


    One minute in reality was just under 6 hours for him in his Soul Garden which was a lot of time normally but for this, he used every second.


    At the end of the 6 hours he had taken, Felix still had no idea what the overall purpose of the enchantment was but, he did find an appreciation for the tenacity that went into creating it. Whatever it did, it essentially consisted of an amalgamation of thousands of different techniques and patterns just to make it function.


    He could name the purpose of some of the components such as, an entire section that imbued a complicated attunement into the mana just so it would flow faster through some channels only to be reverted and wiped clean just afterwards.


    There were thousands of these patterns though and the more he was able to identify, the more he realized they all worked together towards some goal he couldn''t identify.


    Felix walked Amelia through the enchantment, describing the various functions he had identified but more importantly, the purpose of the various functions. He ventured guesses as to how they worked together and why but the more components he tried to combine into one system, the more confusing the whole thing was.


    Amelia said nothing more than a single word at a time, her face giving away nothing. Felix also wasn''t proficient enough to read her soul''s reactions either so he was largely blind as to her reactions.


    It took him just under 15 minutes to go over everything without endlessly guessing and once he had, he stopped and nodded to her, indicating he had finished.


    She nodded as well and Felix walked behind her towards another portal at the end of the room but stopped and turned before he got there, "It''s over now right? What the hell is that?"


    Amelia smirked and beckoned him back over, "This is an attempt at analyzing an intraform node." Hopping up onto the table, Amelia walked onto the parchment and squatted down over one section, "This is the node it''s trying to examine. Everything else is designed to break down the node''s output into the basest components. Detect absolutely every shred of attunement, energy level, state and so on that is imbued into the mana."


    Felix wrinkled his nose in disgust, "There has to be easier ways to do this, right?"


    "Yes and no. This was an attempt to do it all in a single ritual. Most of us would just go through a series of individual tests instead which are more time consuming but infinitely more modular. In theory, this was intended to replace those tools by being mass produced. It had far too many issues however-some of which you correctly pointed out-and was quickly abandoned."


    Felix nodded, "Thanks."


    She nodded in acknowledgement then Felix left the room, finding himself in the corridor just outside the room the classroom he had been waiting in for most of the day.


    Ding You have gained 4 levels in [D - Arcane] Mana Engineer (992 => 996)


    SHIT! I am reminded once again why I try to contain all my profession related work in my Soul Garden, so The System can''t see it yet. Damn it, need to be more careful.


    His next assessment was Group Combat and Felix didn''t really have anything he could prepare for it so he instead headed to his dorm where he continued working on his construct designs.


    Walking into the designated class for Group Combat, the students were ordered once again in order of registration date but instead of just one portal, they were sent through a series of 4 of them. Like cash registers, an Adept would pop out of a portal and beckon the next person through once they were ready.


    Felix once again had to wait until the room was empty. Even though there were four portals this time, the wait was about the same with each evaluation taking about an hour each but, the duration varied fairly wildly.


    Stepping through into the final evaluation for the class, Felix appeared in a large empty room with a professor he had seen before on the council that had approved his entrance.


    [?] Haris: Professor of Tactics & Strategy (Lvl ?)


    Haris immediately recognized him, "Oh hey, you''re the 256th, the exile."


    Felix nodded as he remembered how Haris had been the last one to appear for the meeting and he had been thrown a pastry from Thakorm, "I''m sorry I didn''t bring you any baked goods."


    "Damn. Too bad. I definitely do accept bribes too. Oh well." Haris smirked, "Evaluation is simple. There''s a team going into a dungeon. You can either command the team by communicating with them or control the dungeon to try and defea-"


    "Dungeon."


    "Uh¡­ Okay then." Haris nodded and suddenly, all the walls in the room switched to a different view of a group in a dungeon.


    "Can you tell me anything about the group?" Felix looked around the room, examining every angle provided to him.


    "They''re all pulled from another cycle''s evaluation."


    Felix nodded, "So this is a simulation?"


    "Correct. You will not be killing people here."


    I was more curious about how predictable they might be but¡­ I guess that''s good too.


    "What am I allowed to ask about them or rather, what information or answers are you allowed to give me?"


    Haris smirked again, "Huh. Well, you''re allowed to pause the scene at any time. You can create anything within the dungeon that could reasonably appear within a dungeon of around their level. Obviously you have a limited quantity. Dungeon layout can also be changed. You can also see what items each of them have on them and in any spatial storages they brought."


    Felix nodded then immediately paused the scene as the group walked towards the entry door.


    It took Felix an hour and a half but he finally managed to kill the group. His tactics mostly involved traps that wasted time and creatures that were annoying to slowly whittle the party down. When he finally did win, he realized he had been overestimating the group and expecting them to have good solutions to problems he could have solved. In reality, they died simply due to eventually making a mistake.


    At first he thought it was a fluke he had won then he realized he probably could have just overwhelmed them to force a mistake much faster. They were bound to do so eventually and constantly throwing them at new objects without any time to rest in between would have been much faster and more likely to win.


    Sighing as he realized his mistake, Felix left, somewhat disappointed in himself, and headed to Ked''s lab to find Ked.


    He found Ked at a desk in the back looking over a construct the size of a large vehicle and he approached, "I have evaluations scheduled for tomorrow but I''m not really in Constructs and Elementals anymore¡­ right?"


    Ked nodded, "Yeah, don''t worry about it. I''ve already got a pretty good idea of where you''re at. I won''t have trouble measuring your growth."


    Felix nodded, "Alright then. I guess that''s all."


    Right up until the evaluation on the 4th in Soul Manipulation, Felix read through various texts he had scanned, harvested his computer growth farms and worked on various projects.


    The Soul Manipulation exam was the oddest yet as Felix was once again led into an empty room with just Professor Fen, "Alright this exam is pretty simple. I''m gonna attack your soul, lightly at first then slowly ramp up the strength until you pass out. Don''t resist, I don''t want to kill you."


    That''s why this one was so fast for everyone else and I didn''t have to wait long.


    Professor Fen started and Felix felt nothing. Over the course of a few minutes, her feline face looked increasingly strained but Felix still felt nothing. It took a grand total of 15 minutes for her to finally give up, faltering to one knee and catching her breath.


    Felix looked down at her, "So what now?"


    She chuckled, "You''re that kid my husband likes so much, right?"


    Felix frowned, "Fin?" He had suspected but wasn''t entirely sure they weren''t siblings.


    She nodded then continued to heave for a minute, "Normally I''d just measure your soul but¡­ you''re an integrated, right? System masks it so¡­ You don''t have a skill or item protecting your soul, do you?"


    Felix shook his head.


    "So you just have¡­ Have you gotten to the point where you can affect others?"


    "No. Or at least, I''ve never tried."


    She nodded, finally standing fully upright again, "Alright. I guess you can leave then."


    Felix''s brow furrowed, "What about the evaluation?"


    "Yeah, good question. I have no clue what to do with you. There are some students like Melody that grew up around multiple God''s auras and can fully resist my attacks. I can always then estimate their soul strength with other methods though. In her case, I can also have her affect my soul and quantify that. You, I have nothing so¡­ I don''t know. I''ll figure something out."


    Felix shrugged and walked through the portal on the other side of the room, unsure whether or not he should be worried about his grades or not.


    Heading back to his dorm, Felix found Melody leaning against the wall just outside of his room, "How''d your evaluations go?"


    Felix shrugged, "Fine I guess. Wasn''t expecting or even hoping for anything so¡­ good?"


    She shrugged, "Well, I''m glad then."


    Felix opened the door and Melody stepped in front of him-as he had expected her to-but she immediately looked back at him, "What is that?"


    Before Felix could ask what she was talking about, she jumped with ridiculous speed into his dorm and at the large open space intended for rituals.


    Felix closed the door behind himself then walked over to see what she was talking about.


    On the floor, in front of Melody was a metal box. The box was intricately carved chrome with slight red accents that didn''t have any indication of what it was whatsoever.


    Melody leaned down to touch it but as soon as her finger touched the box, the entire thing burst into flames and her hand was completely charred. She yelped and jumped back as the flesh on her hand slowly blew away revealing nothing beneath it. Her severed hand would grow back in a day or so but still, the event had Felix seriously doubting whether or not he should be touching it himself.


    Ultimately though, he figured he could regenerate a hand in a few hours through meditation and manually directed healing and so, he reached forwards and touched the box.


    As soon as his finger touched the box, it burst into flame once again and Felix recoiled. He stopped himself though as he realized the flames hadn''t hurt him whatsoever.


    Reaching forwards again, he lifted the box that was now permanently aflame and pried it open.


    Inside, there was a metal plate and what appeared to be a coin. Felix picked up the metal plate which was covered in beautiful script and began reading, immediately feeling Melody''s breath on his ear as she read along as well.


    Felix Kade,


    We have taken notice of your unique talents at the academy and have decided to invite you to this epoch''s Ascension day on the 200th. The coin within this box will act as the invite and holds the anchor to the lobby on the reverse. Share this at your peril as it is entirely unique to yourself. You are permitted to bring along a single guest with you though be aware that you are responsible for their actions during the course of the event.


    In the hopes that you will consider this invite and to encourage you to accept it, we have also provided a gift alongside the invite. On the backside of this plate, you will find the anchor to a warehouse containing gifts specifically tailored to your needs. Please keep us in mind as you use these gifts to further your goals and consider us favorably in the future. The warehouse will remain accessible for one epoch upon receipt of this invite.


    The Dragon''s Mother''s Brood.


    Felix didn''t care much about the invite but was just happy to have finally gotten the corpses he had been promised. All of his thoughts were interrupted however, by Melody jumping up and down behind him and squealing like a little girl.


    "How in the multiverse did you get noticed let alone invited to Ascension day? No one outside of the cults- I don''t even think a non-Drakene has attended one of- I''ve been wanting to go to one of these- I can''t believe I get to- You''re bringing me, right? Holy fucking- You don''t get how big of a deal this is, do you?"


    Felix shrugged, "I guess not?"


    Melody guffawed then took a breath, "Ascension day celebrates Tekragoraxius'' ascension to godhood. It''s a Drakene exclusive holiday-or was-that, even amongst them, was nearly impossible to get into. Only a few thousand are invited every epoch. Not only were you invited but they got you a gift to curry favor. Felix, this a huge deal."


    I get she wants to mask our meetings and the gifts she''s offering and all that but¡­ did she have to make this such a public thing?


    "If I agree you can be my plus one, will you promise me to keep this a secret?"


    Melody nodded as quickly as possible, "Yup. Yup. Yup. Yup. Can do¡­ What part do I have to keep a secret?"


    Felix shook his head, "All of it."


    "Right¡­ We''re going to need to buy outfits though and¡­ well it''ll be pretty obvious what''s happening when we buy traditional Drakene Ascension day outfits¡­"


    Felix sighed, "Just keep it a secret from everyone here as long as you can. If anyone figures it out and asks, you were invited and you decided to bring me as your plus one."


    Melody shook her head, "Can''t do that. If they thought I was invited and had a plus one, my dad would force his way into being the plus one."


    "Your dad¡­ the Archon¡­ a God?"


    She nodded, "Yes, or one of his Demi Gods. I don''t think you appreciate how big of a deal this is."


    "Okay fine. Let''s just keep this as¡­ lowkey as we can, alright?"


    "Sure. It will get out though. We''re going to have to commission our outfits in the next couple dekads for them to be ready in time. That alone¡­"


    Felix sighed, "Is it even possible to stay completely under the radar¡­"


    Melody shrugged, "You''d have to make some sacrifices. Dueling my brother, your grades, those classes you had upgraded, hanging out with me, being integrated¡­"


    Shaking his head, Felix stowed the coin, note then box, "Right, so¡­ impossible even if I wanted to be¡­"


    "Pretty much. Why would you want to though?"


    "There are Gods in the multiverse, Demi-Gods, a System. Countless beings that can essentially do whatever they want with and to me. The further I can keep myself from all that, the better."


    Melody winced, "Yeah¡­ Not really possible. Your best bet is befriending someone strong enough to make it not worth messing with you."


    "The only person that strong is Rhonan. I''m not befriending Rhonan."


    She shook her head, "You don''t need to be protected from everyone just anyone that would care enough to bother with you."


    Right so with my mana control, soul, the computers I can make and all the other shit¡­ I need to somehow befriend Rhonan. Or The System I guess¡­


    Melody squinted a little as she slowly walked over to the sitting area in Felix''s dorm room, "Interesting timing too¡­"


    Felix sat across from her, "What do you mean?"


    "Well¡­ I guess it''s not interesting just¡­ the first public integration event should be opening itself up at the end of the dekad¡­"


    Felix''s jaw dropped a little, "Wait¡­ what?"


    Melody nodded, clearly thinking Felix knew what she was thinking, "Yeah. They seem to know more about it than I do. I wonder if my father is holding out on me¡­"


    Felix shook his head, "What are you talking about?"


    She looked at him then sighed, "If the message and gift were from anyone else, I would think you were being targeted for recruitment. If the event turns out to be restricted to specific levels and maybe the school gets enough slots for all the students¡­"


    Felix exhaled in realization, "They would need to get ahead of recruitment at the end of the epoch. Get students thinking about who they want to ingratiate themselves with."


    "Exactly. Then if you have a faction in mind, you may focus-even unconsciously-on specific resources or choose different rewards¡­"


    "Which would later seem like a sunken cost and mentally attach them to that faction."


    "Yup. I bet you lots of people don''t even realize they''re being manipulated. If the gift is good enough-and they''re dumb enough-the faction will just be at the top of their mind¡­"


    Felix tilted his head, "You said if it was anyone else though?"


    "Well yeah¡­ The Brood doesn''t recruit non-Drakene or well¡­ Dragons."


    "Right. I was invited to the party though."


    "Yeah. That''s true. Maybe they are trying to recruit you."


    "You know anything else about this event?"


    Melody shook her head, "Nah. Family just keeps trying to rope me into training with them. Aren''t exactly getting the message that I don''t want to fight."


    Felix frowned, "You fight in Group Combat, don''t you?"


    She snorted, "Nope, not really. I just play music and use my skills to calm everyone''s souls. Sometimes I don''t know if I''m helping my team or the enemy team more."


    "Why¡­ not fight? And if not, why not become a pacifist?"


    Melody sighed, "My parents wanted me to become the right hand to a god then become one myself. I don''t want anything to do with the gods though. I can''t become a pacifist because I''d probably reach the S grade even faster and The System won''t protect you in the S grade."


    "So you''re avoiding leveling?"


    "Sort of. That and¡­ if I fight¡­" Melody sighed, "I''m not rebelling, I''m not fighting against them, I''m not fighting for someone else, I''m not fighting for myself or¡­ anything like that. I''m not even specifically not fighting. I''m just¡­ not." Even Melody seemed somewhat unsure of what she was saying, or possibly how to say what she was trying to convey.


    "So instead of fighting for anything or avoiding fighting you''re just¡­ not?"


    Melody chuckled, "Yeah, it sounds dumb. I just want to enjoy¡­ life I guess. The moment. I''m not getting involved, I''m not wasting my time thinking about not fighting or growing or doing what they want. I''m just-"


    "Not." Felix finished.


    "Yeah¡­"


    Felix shook his head, "That might be the dumbest thing I''ve ever heard¡­ not you''re reasoning, what you are doing. So," Felix sighed, "this event. Will you participate if given the chance?"


    Melody shrugged, "Yeah. Won''t get far if it''s all combat but from what I''ve heard, they''re usually really cool and interesting so¡­"


    Felix half shrugged, "Lots of fun stuff to do and enjoy?"


    Melody smiled, "I hope so."


    "So why learn the¡­ thing, Peace is teaching me? Why spend so much time acclimating to my Soul Garden?"


    Melody''s smile grew wild, "Cause it''s fun. Like you, I do find the process of growing and improving fun, maybe not as much though. Also¡­ the stuff Peace is teaching us and making my reactions faster through a constructed memory¡­ I don''t think my dad''s ever even dreamed of stuff like this."


    Felix shook his head, "Can you even fight?"


    Melody winced, "Against most people, yes¡­ sort of. Against you, my trickery is futile so¡­ I''m kind of helpless. Not really but¡­ Anyways, against normal people, I can hold my own."


    "I see. Well, I''ve got plans for the rest of the night and the break day tomorrow, I take it you''re here because you want to acclimatize to my Soul Garden?"


    She nodded and reached her hands forwards, a veritable stack of books appearing on them, "Can you bring these in with me?"


    "Already done."


    She swapped out the stack a few more times, Felix''s skill passively scanning them as she did, until she was satisfied and sat on one of the couches.


    Felix sat next to her and gripped her wrist, pulling her consciousness into his Soul Garden.


    He let Grim bring her her books and mostly just ignored her at that point, moving on to other tasks he had set for himself.


    Hey Grim, I didn''t realize I was using so much of the computer for memories. How much was lost?


    Well¡­ Yes and no. We still had a lot of garbage from when you were testing the skill and I set it up so that was lost first. Most importantly though, the books you''ve scanned in the library here, are worth anywhere from thousands to hundreds of thousands of normal books.


    Woah. The capacity before the computer was in the low hundreds of thousands too¡­


    Yeah, that''s why you had to forget some of them. It just wasn''t possible to keep them all.


    I think it''s time I start inscribing spells onto tiles.


    For the integration event, that''s great. You aren''t allowed spatial storage items in class though and you don''t have a ton of free room in your Soul Space so¡­


    Right¡­ Maybe I don''t have to have a bunch of tiles. What if I just¡­ used my robes? Created spell forms then inserted them into my robes.


    Then pulled them out when you need them? That sounds kind of dangerous, what if they accidentally activate while your outer cloak enchantment is drawing mana?


    Oh shit. Didn''t think about that.


    Grim offered Felix a mental shrug as he conveyed his indifference, You could probably just use¡­ me.


    Like a spell book? Your pages can hold mana just like my robes can?


    Similarly, yeah. You''d have to pull the spell form out of my pages before filling it with mana but¡­


    Felix nodded excitedly, There''s a lot more room.


    Yeah and I''m pretty good at reading your thoughts at this point so I can always have the spell you want right at the front.


    You sure you''re okay with this? This puts you in danger, right?


    Grim mentally shrugged, More but¡­ My body is pretty durable. I''m not too worried unless you fight a god or something.


    Wait¡­ how many of the books from my head could you store?


    All of them. The issue is that I store things¡­ differently than you do and so it would take forever to get even a single one of those books from me into your head. Converting everything back would take¡­ a long time.


    I see. In a worst ca-


    Yeah, I''m already backing everything up. I just lag behind a bit so if you had to completely restore everything, you might lose the most recent day or so. Especially if you scanned a bunch of big books.


    Okay, thanks.


    Pulling Grim out of his Soul Space and holding him, for the first time in a long time, Felix remembered how comically large Grim was. At almost half a meter tall and with a binding that was almost too thick to actually grip, Grim was unwieldy to say the least.


    Unfortunately, they both knew that if this was going to work, Felix would have to hold Grim because Grim couldn''t keep up with Felix''s speed by himself. For the time being, Felix shoved his hand into the leather strap that wrapped around the center of Grim''s girth but it definitely wasn''t a permanent solution.


    Starting with the simplest of spells, a Fire Bolt that was now too weak to damage even the couches he sat on, Felix almost instantly created the spell form in the air in front of him. He used as little mana as possible though to create the spell form making it look rather thin and sickly.


    From there, he carefully took the spell form and lowered it towards one of Grim''s empty pages. The spell form sank in and appeared on the page in a light blue ink. They waited a few minutes then Felix, still feeling the mana within the page, carefully removed the spell and cast it.


    Though it was extraordinarily slow, it was a huge success that they hoped was indicative of future successes.


    As they were in Felix''s dorm and he was stuck maintaining physical contact with Melody, they couldn''t really test anything too flashy. Felix had plenty of spell forms though and the ability to almost endlessly create them so, he began creating everything he could think of that was safe to cast and embedding them within Grim''s pages.


    Felix lifted Melody from the wrist he had gripped earlier and dragged her body over so he could stand in the open ritual area. Her body remained limp and being in the C grade as she was, it was hard to actually hurt her so he barely thought about it as he flicked his wrist and flung her body limply behind him, to get it out of the way.


    They didn''t cast anything that was remotely harmful to anyone in their grade, restricting themselves to spells that were unnecessarily complicated and expensive for training purposes and spells that Felix used often.


    Their goal for Felix''s break day was to get the synergy between them to be as seamless as possible. First there was the hand off where Felix took the spell from out of Grim''s pages. If he pulled too hard or pulled before Grim released it, the spell form itself would tear before Grim''s pages ever did. There was also the spell readying which involved Grim flipping his pages to the spell Felix was looking for.


    Neither of them thought it was realistic for Felix to be able to create and embed a new spell into Grim during combat so they ignored that step for now. They would just have to prepare things ahead of time.


    The Spell Formation exam on the 6th was rather simple as Felix was simply tasked with creating the most efficient spell form that would create a snake made of flames.


    What he ended up with wasn''t really up to his own standards but it was functional. The snake was created using a number of shaping nodes in series but he managed to organize them in a way that made them somewhat more elegant. It also didn''t really act like a snake but he wasn''t sure if that was expected or not and he didn''t really have the experience to execute that at the moment.


    That night, Felix and Grim took every minute they had constructing various spell forms and embedding them within Grim for the next day. It wasn''t wise for Felix to be completely changing the way he fought and testing it for the first time in an evaluation but, he didn''t really have any other choice. He also much preferred fighting with the new spells they had come up with rather than trying to deal damage with spells that felt essentially useless.


    Most of what he had been doing up to this point was distracting people, erecting barriers and interrupting casts. All of those were relatively easy and didn''t require anything special. To actually deal damage though-damage significant enough to be able to fight anything in his grade or above-Felix really needed better spells and better nodes.


    Withrel had offered some and Felix had found a number of others in the books he had scanned in the library. The issue he had faced though was that the nodes were complicated and alone, accounted for anywhere from 4 to 50 spell levels even for the simplest spells.


    He still wasn''t casting anything on the top end of the complexity scale yet as he couldn''t even create them once to embed in Grim''s pages but those nodes were outliers for the most part. He had briefly tried creating part of a spell then building the rest within Grim''s page but once he pulled it back out, they simply deteriorated too quickly.


    He found his limit was around 40 spells levels within Grim at which point he couldn''t hold off the deterioration himself. He just wasn''t able to hold a spell form of that complexity or greater stable in his own mind.


    The Solo Combat evaluation was just as Felix had expected, a duel.


    Walking through the portal when it was his designated time, Felix stepped into a much larger room than his evaluations. Otherwise though, it was almost identical with dark, uniform walls, floor and ceiling, almost like he had been transported into a box. The only other individual in the room was a Professor Felix had never seen before.


    [?] Auren: Eramith''s Grand Huntsman (Lvl ?)


    The professor had a serious expression and seemed to constantly wear a slight frown, judging from the ease with which it sat upon his visage. He was some kind of humanoid but at this point, Felix was pretty certain that anyone with a Rare race or above had some kind of distinguishing feature.


    For Auren, it was his eyes and long ears. His eyes were a dark orange which was somewhat odd but not overly distinctive, especially not in comparison to his pupils which shifted shape at least 7 times since Felix walked into the room. As for his ears, instead of being slightly pointed upwards like an elf''s, Auren''s ears were much longer and stretched straight backwards, past the back of his head. He also seemed to have multiple sets of ear drums, or just holes, all along his ears.


    The professor nodded as Felix approached, "You the last one?"


    Felix nodded in confirmation as there was no one else left in the class when he had left, something he was used to by now.


    "You more used to fighting creatures or people?"


    Felix answered immediately, completely shocked by the question, "Creatures"


    Auren nodded once, "Choose whatever you want from the menu. It''s better to kill something than to die."


    Felix was confused for all of a brief moment until a menu appeared and he understood.


    The menu had a long list of creatures Felix could choose from of various levels and rarities ranging from the middle of the D grade to the bottom of the B grade. Based on what Auren had said, his getting stomped by a creature at the top of the list was worse than killing something at the bottom.


    Whether or not that was true though, Felix had a burning desire to pick the strongest thing on the list because the consequences of losing here were minor. The System would keep him from dying and this combat was the starting point, not a deciding factor for his grades.


    Looking right at the top of the list, Felix almost started salivating.


    [B - Ancient] Hellfire Ashound (Lvl 2091)


    I wonder what kind of title I''d get for killing this. Also, Hellfire and Ancient¡­ does that mean Hell is or rather, was a real place? So many questions.


    Every logical part of his brain knew that it was a terrible idea to pick the creature at the top of the list but at the same time, he had so many questions and didn''t ultimately care about the consequences of losing.


    Without consciously reading, though his mind passively memorized, the rest of the list, Felix picked the top dog creature as his opponent.


    Auren, knowing what Felix had picked, sighed as he vanished from the room.


    In the couple of seconds that followed while Felix waited, he made sure to retrieve Grim and wedge his hand into his cover. He knew nothing about the creature but he made some assumptions that he thought were fair.


    The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.


    He assumed it had some kind of affinity for fire and heat so he mentally restricted himself from using those spells. From there, his assumptions were based on much weaker evidence and so he only used them to inform his opening moves.


    As he had Grim flip to a page filled with a mini blizzard spell form, the temperature in the room suddenly started climbing.


    In an instant, the creature appeared before him, across the room. A massive wolf like creature made of a soft and dark grey like material. Its body was wide though and less lithe than a wolf''s and as its head turned-ash precipitating down from its neck-the bright orange eyes locked onto Felix, the only other thing in the room.


    The creature pounced at the same instant as Felix dropped the blizzard spell in front of him.


    Diving through the spell without any regard for the spell whatsoever, the creature was slowed just slightly as frost began to creep up its side. The slow didn''t last long though as the heat being generated from its body mounted as it ran.


    When it first moved, Felix found himself rather disappointed with how slow the creature was. He could immediately tell it was slower than Tanryel was. As it ran though, and the heat in the room rapidly grew, the creature''s speed did as well.


    In a fraction of a second, Felix''s confidence faltered as the creature closed the distance between them faster than he could cast two spells in succession.


    Oh shit.


    Using his own focus to create spells, Felix cast Force spells to launch himself backwards and into the air while pulling another spell out of Grim at the same time.


    As Felix''s body shot backwards, a concussive blast reverberated through the room, sending a plume of ash outwards in every direction and knocking the Ashound back a few meters.


    The ash slowly settled to the ground but the hound didn''t let up, leaping through the cloud and revealing its now mostly exposed, magma like, body.


    A grand total of a half second had passed since the creature had appeared and already, it had exceeded Felix''s base speed multiple times over. His spells made it possible for him to maintain distance but he was fully expecting the creature to have at least a single ranged attack which meant, it wasn''t nearly enough.


    Felix pushed himself to be faster and consciously engaged his conviction. He knew taking this fight was idiotic and his chances of winning were essentially nonexistent but none of that mattered, he wouldn''t give up. He needed every tool he had to win and so activating Reaper''s Movement and Sense was necessary.


    Knowing this, the billowing shadow trails-that hinted at something more meaningful with the glints of color they provided-appeared behind every one of Felix''s movements, shrouded his body and blackened his eyes.


    In an instant, his speed nearly caught up to the hound''s as the world around him slowed to a much more bearable pace and his body tightened.


    With all of his Reaper''s skills engaged, Felix experienced an odd sensation for the first time ever where his Intelligence felt like it was suddenly his lowest stat. That feeling distracted him enough that the hound was able to release a solid beam of fire and ash at Felix.


    He quickly flicked his left arm out of the way but even having dodged it by a few inches, he felt the heat sear his flesh as his interlocking cloak enchantment faltered and sparked.


    What the hell¡­


    Grim mentally shrugged, Hellfire? It¡­ fucks mana maybe?


    Well shit.


    Felix''s control over mana was, as far as he knew, absolute. Casting a Phantom Step next within a foot of the beam had no adverse effects but, he couldn''t pay attention to and manually control everything. His enchantment was supposed to alleviate that but brushing his attention against it, he felt the channels themselves burning away.


    Kicking off the invisible platform of Force he had cast below his own foot, Felix launched himself to the left as he released a Glacial Blast into the creature''s face. It was just a cone of Force and Cold wrapped up into a blast but it was extremely effective. Over half of the ash that formed the creature''s face was frozen solid and fell to the ground as it was knocked back a step.


    Missing half a head didn''t seem to affect the creature much though as it practically bounced off the ground, swiping at Felix as he desperately tried to keep himself away.


    The creature missed his body but managed to shred the bottom of Felix''s robes that hung loose both searing his flesh from the proximity, destroying the enchantment and setting his robes alight.


    This is why I don''t like flowing garments.


    Releasing a burst of Force, the hound that was midair was thrown backwards and skidded along the floor as Felix danced across the wall and started circling the outside of the room.


    Ash was strewn everywhere and a billowing wake followed the hound allowing it to vanish into it as soon as it recovered.


    The heat from its body, the mana it was burning, and the sheer light it was giving off made it visible even through the cloud as an demonic silhouette. S§×ar?h the N?vel?ire.net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    Dropping a large scale storm spell on the ground, the first Felix had ever used in actual combat, Felix prepared a couple Force bursts and Phantom Steps for when the hound reappeared. His speed had already been exceeded in the last half second so he knew to be ready.


    Leaping out of the cloud and scattering more ash in every direction, the hound was even faster this time as it leapt through the Storm Felix had left behind.


    Its body was frozen and buffeted as chunks of ash solidified and were knocked off in quick succession. It''s momentum though, never faltered.


    The hound, ignoring the spell entirely and completely exposing its molten interior landed on the other side of the storm and bounded off the ground toward Felix.


    Casting his two Phantom Steps in quick succession, Felix barely dodged a swipe and a bite before the hound soared past him.


    Not willing to waste any opportunity, Felix released a spinning Lance of Force and Ice into the creature''s back before it landed, striking it and freezing a chunk of its igneous center solid.


    The magma cooled and froze into a black rock that slurped off the side of the creature and fell to the ground, taking with it the back half of its right rear leg.


    At the same moment as Felix began to feel hope leaking through his pure determination, he felt his left leg get removed and cauterized in the same instant.


    The hound had been within his sight the entire time so he had no idea what had struck him until he swung his head around and caught sight of a completely separate hound, beneath him now.


    Completely baffled by the appearance of a second hound and feeling slightly cheated, Felix was struck again, this time losing his left hand by a third hound that had appeared from nowhere.


    The pain was muted instinctively but the ridiculousness of the situation caused Felix''s attention to waver and his Reaper skills to flicker. In the instant he slowed, a beam of molten ash struck his chest as a fourth hound appeared to join the other three in devouring his body.


    Ding You have become more proficient with the Class skill: [Legendary] Reaper''s Movement (Novice II => Novice V)


    Ding You have become more proficient with the Class skill: [Legendary] Reaper''s Sense (Novice II => Novice IV)


    Ding You have become more proficient with the Class skill: [Legendary] Reaper''s Body (Novice I => Novice II)


    Waking up in a similar recovery room to the one under the arena, Felix sat up and spun around so he could get to his feet. There weren''t any other students recovering in the room, the rest no doubt long gone as he was the last student.


    He wasn''t alone in the room though, standing at the foot of his bed was a disappointed and slightly disgusted looking Auren.


    As Felix hopped off the bed and walked towards the end of the bed to leave, Auren shook his head, "I told you, killing anything is better than dying."


    Felix shrugged, "Sure but when am I ever going to get that opportunity again?"


    Auren''s face contorted with disgust, "In class? Any time you want? Just come by my office or find an Adept managing one of the combat trial rooms."


    Felix winced, "Okay well¡­ I didn''t know that¡­"


    "Did you actually think you could win?"


    Felix chuckled, "For¡­ two moments in total I think. Right at the start when I saw how slow it was and when I finally actually did damage to it, right before I got hit by the second hound."


    Auren nodded once, still not looking overly impressed by Felix''s performance.


    Felix didn''t really care what they thought though, he was still riding the high of the fight, "Just to be sure, what was that thing and why were there four of them?"


    "A creature from before System times that was reintroduced in an event or something. Break off enough ash and with enough heat, a new hound is born. Makes them ideal for that list."


    Felix smirked and nodded, "Cause they''re essentially a renewable resource. Cool."


    "Are you proud of that fight?"


    Felix locked eyes with Auren and noticed how serious his face was, "I don''t know about proud."


    Auren lifted his chin towards Felix, "You''re smiling."


    "I was definitely fun."


    Auren shook his head at that answer as he walked towards the door, mumbling, "You''re worse than Rhonan''s freaks."


    Before Felix could ask anything or respond, Auren was gone.


    Grim chuckled in Felix''s mind, Well, ignoring the outcome of the fight, I''d say our new method of spell casting was a resounding success.


    I agree. Definitely not a permanent solution but for now¡­ very functional.


    Heading to the lab, Felix found Professor Sal who immediately grabbed and had Felix help her bind a large crab like construct. Once they were done, Felix waited around and the Professor sighed with immense exasperation before turning to him, "What?"


    "My evaluation scheduled for today¡­"


    She cringed then shook her head, "I already told you I''m not evaluating you purely on theory. I''ll just pay attention to you in the lab and make up grades from that. Just make sure to be in the lab at least once a dekad."


    Felix nodded then left and headed straight for Fin''s office, despite being a day early.


    He found him exactly where he had expected, in his office attached to the class he seemed to own.


    Looking up from some parchment he had been walking on on his desk, Professor Fin nodded as Felix walked in, "Felix. What can I do for you?"


    "Figured I was a¡­ special case for tomorrow''s evaluation. Your¡­ wife, had trouble with our evaluation so I figured I''d make sure you were ready."


    Fin cocked his head, "My wife had trouble evaluating you? Why?"


    "Integrated. Can''t measure soul strength and.. stronger than normal soul I guess."


    Fin nodded, "I see. Well, I figure we can probably skip tomorrow''s evaluation. I already measured you in every way I could see fit to at the start of the term. I can simply use those measurements."


    Felix nodded, "In that case, I''ll let you get back to whatever you''re doing and I''ll see you next dekad."


    "Of course. Ah, before you leave¡­ I hear you used to work as an enchanter in Telviras and that you never used the standard enchanting tools to examine enchantments."


    Felix frowned, "You looked into me?"


    Fin smirked, "Yes and no. I didn''t send anyone or go myself. Many people looked into you after-and some before-your duel, I simply requested a copy of the information they had already gotten."


    "I see."


    Damn. Flying under the radar really is impossible, isn''t it.


    "Would you be¡­ willing to help me diagnose the issues with his spell form?" Fin pointed downwards at the parchment he had been walking on.


    Shrugging, Felix constructed the spell form, he had already passively scanned, in the air in front of him, "Sure."


    Surprisingly to Felix, the spell form was at most a 20th level spell. It wasn''t overly complex or convoluted though Felix wasn''t exactly sure what it did. Similar to the spell forms Withrel had shown Felix, there were minimal nodes and the channels seemed to provide shape and function to the spell.


    "Is it dangerous if I push mana into this?" Felix looked over at Fin who had stepped across the air and walked right up to the edge of the spell form Felix was holding.


    Fin shrugged, "Possibly. It might explode."


    Felix began, very slowly, filling the spell with mana and examined the flow, state, attunement and energy level of the mana as it traveled.


    Pointing at one section in particular with a claw, Fin nodded mostly to himself, "It''s here but¡­" Looking up at Felix, "Any ideas?"


    Felix nodded immediately, "Energy level is too high, the mana is traveling way too quickly and because of that turbulence, is gaining a subtle attunement."


    "Ah, I see." Fin nodded and Felix reabsorbed all the mana.


    "Was that my evaluation you were trying to sneak in?"


    Fin shook his head, "No no. I''m just trying to get better with my mana senses and using you is much faster than going through a battery of tests to check my answers."


    Felix nodded, "I see. Well, good luck with that."


    Heading back to his dorm room so he had some privacy, Felix constructed the spell form for a portal in front of him and swapped in the anchor The Dragon''s Brood had provided him.


    The portal opened and the light from his dorm trickled through offering the only light on the other side. Casting his own light with an afterthought, Felix stepped through but held the portal behind him open with his focus.


    His light stretched out hundreds of meters in every direction and yet, he couldn''t find a wall or ceiling for the room he stepped into. All around him were clear tubs of liquid containing preserved corpses floating about.


    Walking further through the room and allowing the portal to close behind him, Felix wandered around to try and create a rough mental catalogue of everything there.


    There were everything from tiny furry creatures to massive scaled monstrosities shoved into tubs almost a hundred meters in diameter. Each of the tubs was thankfully labeled but, the bestiaries Felix had already memorized proved insufficient as many of the names were completely new to him. He put bestiaries on his to-scan list for the next time he was in the Eramith library.


    There must be¡­ thousands of corpses here¡­


    Sensing Felix''s excitement, Grim teased him, Remember you asked if "you should have just said No?"


    Yeah well¡­ The consequences haven''t quite come to bear just yet on that one. Enough of that, where do I start?


    The question was entirely rhetorical as the both of them knew that trying to organize the room into any meaningful order or structure was futile. Starting from the creature closest to the door, Felix began cutting, absorbing and dissecting.


    After a couple trips to the library and almost a hundred creatures cut into, Felix hadn''t altered a single thing on his or his Persona''s body when his gruesome work was interrupted.


    Integration Event


    The integration of a universe is a big event both for those living within the multiverse and those being introduced to it. Factions get access to individuals they can recruit. New souls are added into the fold. Resources are distributed and harvested for everyone in the multiverse.


    This event is considered a resource, soul and artifact integration event. A planet, containing vast resources grown within the 256th universe was combined with integrateds from another planet and the ancient remains of a long lost planet to create something entirely new. To be considerate towards the new souls, there will be a level restriction of 1499 on this event and no one exceeding this level will be permitted to enter.


    Any resources found within the event can be freely removed from the event up to a limit per participant. Everything within the event has been assigned a point value. Completing quests within the event can increase an individual''s allotted points and allow them to remove further resources from the event. Defeating an opposing participant and causing them to surrender will add their point value to yours and ban them from reentering the event. The event will remain open for one epoch from the day it is opened, two dekads from now.


    All participants will obtain temporary access to an event inventory whilst within the event space. Everything that originated from within the event can only be placed within this specialized inventory. Defeating another participant and forcing their surrender within the event space will empty their inventory into yours. Items within the specialized inventories can only be retrieved on the outside once the event is complete and will be delivered to each participant individually.


    As a student at Eramith, you have been given a slot to attend this integration event. When it is opened, you will be provided an event transport marble that will allow you to enter and exit the event. When used, the marble will return you to the location you last used it both within and outside of the event. If using the marble of another participant, your return location will be synced. Any portals cast within the event must only target another location within the event. No portals crossing the event boundary are permitted.


    Oh shit. I wonder what kind of resources and ancient artifacts they are. Also, there''s an integrated race in there? Do they count as participants? Are we supposed to fight them for the resources? Are we allowed to kill them? Wait¡­ integrateds from a planet¡­ what are the odds those are¡­


    Grim winced mentally, I hope not.


    Me too. There''s no way they''re ready.


    The message appearing, breaking Felix out of his trance, caused him to manually check the time and prioritize. He knew an event was coming but knowing what it was and that it would be open for an entire epoch, with participants coming and going freely, changed things.


    Now he knew what to prepare.


    Leaving the warehouse and opening a portal back to Eramith, Felix hurried off back to his dorm so he could start working on everything he thought he would need.


    Somewhat expected though still surprising him, he found Melody just outside his dorm room, waiting for him.


    Melody nodded to him as he opened the door for them, "You got the message I take it?"


    "Of course."


    "It says integrateds¡­"


    Felix shook his head, "Yeah I know. I''m hoping it isn''t but we''ll see."


    "What races did your integration consist of?"


    "Just humans."


    She looked at him with a dour expression, "If it is them, you won''t be able to protect them."


    "I know. They can handle themselves. If this is them, The System decided they can handle themselves or wants to kill them. I left, they are their own responsibility, not mine."


    Melody nodded, "Okay, good. As for the actual event, it''s a long term event and we can freely enter and exit."


    Felix nodded, the conversation moving exactly in the direction he had hoped, "Alliances, trades and temporary vaults."


    "Yes, exactly. Have you thought about who you''re going to ally yourself with? Who''s vault you''re going to use?"


    Felix shook his head, "No one? I''m planning on creating my own vault."


    Melody smirked but closed her eyes and shook her head as well, indicating mixed feelings, "While I commend your¡­ It''s not a good idea. There are going to be huge alliances working together in there. It will be nearly impossible to get anything done without-"


    Felix shrugged, "Then so be it. Maybe I change my mind later but I''m going to start out at least, alone."


    Melody sighed, "Alright fine. There are some other things you should know. Quests will split their rewards based on contribution, calculated by The System as evenly as possible. If it''s just one, unsplittable reward-"


    Felix waved her along having no intention whatsoever of ever doing a quest in a group, "It goes to the highest contribution, got it. What else?"


    "Standard multiverse rules apply, of course."


    Felix sighed, "The what?"


    Melody donned an expression of deep confusion, "The¡­ Even though you''re integrated The System should have shown them to you¡­ at some point¡­ whatever, basically no war crimes."


    Felix locked eyes with her, "You''re going to need to be more specific."


    "You don''t have any disease, plague, biological weapons, highly contagious, airborne self replicating toxins or anything like that, right?"


    Felix shook his head rapidly, "Nope."


    Although¡­ Endless Hunger might count, not that I plan on ever bringing that out.


    "No excessive use or spreading of curses, while not technically a rule you should avoid killing people and definitely don''t true-kill people. Which obviously shouldn''t be a problem."


    "Curses, got it. Nova should be fine, right?"


    Melody nodded, "Yeah as long as she isn''t trying to impart the curse onto others or spread it excessively."


    "No problems there. True-killing?"


    "Soul stuff." Melody shrugged, "You shouldn''t have to worry about it but it just means nothing that prevents people from being delivered to their afterlife."


    Like consuming their soul? Well shit.


    "That applies to¡­ everyone?"


    Melody sighed, "Technically, it''s good manners to give people a chance to surrender especially since you don''t gain anything extra from killing them. You even get their gear if they surrender, at least¡­ you did in the past."


    "Not a multiverse rule though?"


    "Not System enforced. The other rules like true-killing are System enforced. That one¡­ you may get some angry gods who hunt you down which is¡­ just as bad."


    Yikes¡­


    Felix tried to seem curious more than worried, "What do you mean by System enforced? What happens?"


    "System calculates and delivers an appropriate punishment. Exiled from the event, imprisonment, pain, loss of equipment, exiled to a remote planet for some time, loss of skills or levels is the worst one."


    Felix winced, "Okay, definitely not doing any of that."


    Melody smirked and took on a teasing tone, "You were planning on it?"


    Felix shrugged nonchalantly, "Of course I was. Guess I''ll have to change my plans on how to conquer the event."


    Melody giggled, "Uh huh. As for vaults, most of the alliances will use crafters to build the vaults out of impressive materials because, you can bring them in just can''t take them out. There also isn''t any restriction on grade of material you can bring in. The System won''t let them bring some specific things but that list is much shorter than you''d hope so, the limit is just materials that they can fit through the portal and that someone can work with inside."


    "Ah, I see. So either many interlocking, warded plates that are no taller than the portal and are made of S grade materials or you have someone with forging skills that can handle S grade materials."


    "Yup, pretty much. Don''t worry too much about the enchantments because those require lots of mana and The System won''t even let B grade batteries in."


    Felix sighed, "Is there a list of what is and isn''t allowed in there?"


    "Nope. Just gotta try and find out."


    "Okay, thanks."


    "Sure sure. By the way, what was the gift that The Dragon''s Brood sent you?"


    Felix didn''t see any reason to hide the gift and Melody already knew he was looking for them anyways, "Corpses."


    "Huh. That''s¡­ really thoughtful and¡­ apt."


    Felix shrugged, "Not exactly a secret I was looking to buy them in Telviras."


    "Yeah, guess not. You ready to go by the way?"


    Felix almost tripped from a standstill, "Did we have an appointment I wasn''t aware of?"


    "A date silly. You organized it? Did you accidentally break your brain with all that fiddling you do?"


    Felix considered for exactly a tenth of a second that she was telling the truth and he had lost the memory when he reallocated the computer.


    Finally nodding in understanding, "You mean new outfits."


    She shrugged, "Okay¡­ maybe I organized it but¡­ it''s basically a date."


    Felix sighed through an unimpressed smile, "Uh huh. Alright, let''s go."


    Stepping through the portal to Telviras, Felix was astonished to find it raining, something he had never witnessed during the epoch he had spent living in the city. He, on instinct, erected a simple Mana Barrier above his head to keep himself dry.


    Melody pulled out an item that did something similar though it was much flashier.


    Felix turned his head to her but didn''t need to speak any louder thanks to their high perception, "I didn''t even know it could rain here."


    She nodded, "If we weren''t so pressed for time, I''d have waited a bit. Rain on Telviras is scheduled."


    "Wait, really?"


    She looked at him like it was the most normal thing in the multiverse and like he was the weird one, "Yeah."


    "Come to think of it, what about Eramith, the planet. Is rain scheduled there too?"


    "No need for rain. The planet supplies the water directly to the plants and through the ground. There are places on the planet that rain if you want to experience it but around the core campus, we don''t want parchment or sensitive experiments getting ruined."


    "I see. You made an appointment?"


    "Yeah, we''ve got a bit of time though."


    Felix sighed, "Okay perfect cause we need to go convince Rainoth that she can''t satisfy my clothing needs. Contract thing."


    Melody smirked, "That''s not going to be very difficult."


    Turning around back into the teleportation hub, the two of them took a portal to the outside of Raidran''s and Felix let them in through the employee entrance.


    Cautiously walking into the main section of the store so as not to interrupt any clients that may have been there, Felix found the place empty.


    Huh. Not sure why I didn''t expect that.


    Standing in the middle of the room, Felix called out with his voice alone because anyone in the building should be able to hear him, "Hello! Anyone in here!?"


    He quickly heard some shuffling off to his right and, appearing out of one of the hidden doors, was Kordran.


    "Ah, Felix and Melody. Welcome."


    Felix nodded politely, "You know about my employment contract?"


    Kordran nodded, "Of course. We are soul-partners and the contract affects me as well."


    "Right. I got invited to¡­ Tekragoraxius'' Ascension day and I need an outfit."


    Kordran looked at Felix trying to determine if he was being serious. He looked at Melody who nodded and offered an expression of yeah-I-know-it-doesn''t-sound-possible-but-he''s-telling-the-truth along with a shrug.


    Kordran slowly nodded, evidently not entirely convinced, "Okay then. Any chance I could¡­ see the invite?"


    Felix nodded, "Yes but don''t touch it. It removed her hand when she tried." He gestured towards Melody with his head as he pulled the invitation from his Soul Space and held it out.


    As soon as Kordran tried to read it, the invitation burst into blinding white flame that, once again, didn''t harm Felix in the slightest.


    Felix stowed the invite and Kordran''s eyes went wide, "Holy Mother of Dragons. This¡­ What does this mean¡­"


    "I was hoping to get permission so I coul-"


    Kordran nodded fervently, "Yes, of course. I, Kordran of Raidran''s, hereby declare that we cannot possibly satisfy your clothing requirements for such an event."


    Felix nodded, "Thanks."


    Kordran actually kneeled in prayer, "Of course." Mumbling loud enough that they could all hear, "Despite what my soul-partner might try to claim."


    Felix chuckled then he and Melody left Kordran to pray.


    As they walked into the employee entrance, Felix turned his head towards Melody, "Was a declaration that formal necessary?"


    She shook her head, "Nope. Just makes it really obvious for everyone involved."


    "Soul-partner just a different name for husband and wife?"


    She cocked her head, "Kind of but not really. It''s mostly a Drakene thing though not exclusively, they just do it the most. Marriage is just a contract you both sign. Soul-partnership is literally binding your souls together. It''s like a familiar bond but way more. You can feel and affect each-other''s emotions at all times, you can''t block them out and communicate. Also, you have authority over all contracts as they bind both of you no matter what."


    "Gotcha. Where to now?"


    Melody smiled, "Caesuriax''s Willow"


    Felix frowned then searched his map, finding the shop fairly close by.


    "You found it?"


    Felix nodded.


    "Race you there." Melody leapt and flew off before Felix could respond. He was much more inclined to just portal back to the hub then to the store but, he also had no intention of giving up on the race, despite her unsportsmanlike start.


    Zipping through the portal spires, Felix desperately tried to activate his Reaper''s Perception but the situation wasn''t dire enough and he didn''t have enough practice. Even engaging his conviction through his aversion to losing, the skill simply wouldn''t consistently activate. Without it, his flying speed was limited by how fast he could perceive and react to his surroundings and at his top speed, Melody was quickly outpacing him.


    Though it was dangerous and Felix had no hope of reacting to anything, he sped himself up until he beat her speed and erected a Mana Shield around himself.


    He was able to dodge some things, mostly people moving in the same direction as him but his barrier still proved to be the right call as he knocked aside almost a dozen people and even a sky-slicer.


    Thankfully, there aren''t problems with my going this fast.


    He briefly thought about ascending to the blue layer above him but he still wasn''t nearly fast enough to match their speed and he didn''t have a license so he didn''t bother.


    She effortlessly weaved through portals, dancing around people and deftly avoiding vehicles as she flew with more grace than Felix had ever seen, especially at her speed. Though he did finally manage to catch up with Melody, as he flew up just a dozen meters from her, he saw her wink then double her speed and quickly outpace him.


    He sped up as much as he could but by that point, they were just one spire away from their destination so launching himself through, he was forced to slow down and loop back to land next to Melody at the entrance.


    As with all buildings in Telviras, this was a large block made of sleek reflective panels arranged in a grid with the same dimensions as almost every other building in the city. The aspect of the building that immediately stood out to Felix though, was that there was only a single door as far as he could tell. It was located in the middle of the building on the ground level, right in front of them.


    Walking up to it, Melody opened the door to reveal what appeared to be a park.


    The floor, or ground, was made up of uneven hills covered in grass with a river that led into a pond over on the far right side. A flagstone path stretched out before them and trailed through the garden, winding around a number of trees that sheltered perfect lounging areas beneath them.


    Right in the middle of the park, towering above all the other trees was, what appeared to be, a single willow tree.


    Melody led Felix, along the path, towards the tree in the center of the park and finally, through the willow vines that perfectly obscured the area below.


    Hidden within vines, Felix was half expecting to find a tailor''s shop and half expecting to find a grassy area, no different than the rest of the park. The latter turned out to be correct though it wasn''t entirely empty with a small bark man sitting upon one of the larger trunks.


    Made entirely of wood, leaves and bark and standing no taller than Felix''s thigh was some kind of creature Felix had never seen before.


    [SS] Caesuriax: Guardian of the Willow (Lvl ?)


    Looking over at Melody for guidance on whether or not he should be bowing, he caught the tail end of her twirling around and falling to a sitting position, with her legs crossed, on the grass.


    Felix sat next to her as Caesuriax turned to face them. Getting an up close look at their face, they looked old but, that could have been a side effect of their face being formed from bark. Their features were mostly human, formed from knots in their trunk with seemingly empty eye sockets.


    "Thank you for making this appointment, your elegance. We will be attending Tekragoraxius'' Ascension day in a few dekads and are in need of traditional Drakene garb, to properly honor our hosts." Melody spoke with more reverence and respect than Felix had ever heard from her before.


    Caesuriax, looked towards her, then met Felix''s gaze and finally nodded once.


    "Thank you. Blessings to the willow." Melody bowed her head slightly then stood, Felix following close behind, as they left the area under the tree.


    As soon as the vines drifted closed behind them, Melody sighed, "That went well."


    Felix shook his head, "Who was that¡­ You were so¡­ Polite?"


    "Caesuriax. Keeper of The Time Garden and Guardian of the Willow."


    "I¡­ What?"


    Melody chuckled at Felix''s loss for words, "This is The Time Garden, sounds cooler than it is though. Everything here other than the Willow is normal, so don''t go picking the grass-" She smirked, "That''s what Ayred did the first time I brought him here."


    Felix furrowed his brow, "What''s special about the Willow?"


    "The Willow is something like an Ancient creature. Think of it like a time capsule, sort of. It doesn''t store anything but it can¡­ reach back in time and retrieve things¡­ sort of, not really. It''s hard to explain but needless to say, it''s special."


    Felix nodded, "It would have to be to get a whole building in the middle of Telviras."


    "Yes and no. This isn''t in the building, the space is overlayed by the building. Think of it like stepping through a portal."


    "Oh, actually that somehow makes more sense¡­ That meeting was faster than I expected."


    Melody shrugged, "Honestly, it was a toss up whether or not Caesuriax accepted."


    "Why wouldn''t they? Also¡­ how much do they charge?"


    "Nothing in credits and it depends if they deem the task worthy of the Willow."


    "I see. Is that everything we need to do here then?"


    Melody nodded, "Believe so."


    As they walked out of the building, back onto the streets, Felix grabbed Melody''s arm and stopped her, "By the way, what ever happened to that sky-slicer I won?"


    Melody''s eyes shot wide open, "Oh shit, I completely forgot about that, sorry." With a twirl of the wrist, Melody produced a sleek black band that formed the majority of a loop.


    Felix took the band from Melody and looked at it curiously, finally inspecting it to quell his confusion.


    [S - Unique] Erevos


    [Sky-Slicer]


    A Sky-Slicer on the bleeding edge of enchantment advancements combined with unique artifacts and unreleased research.


    Originally a slicer using professional slicer circuit technology that was later augmented with cutting edge research into replicating Kryptos'' enchantments. The augments allow the slicer to fold down into a conveniently wearable size.


    This slicer is one of a kind, despite multiple attempts to replicate it. It has become apparent that, although those involved in its creation thought they understood Kryptos'' work, they were wrong. The use of previous creations, broken down and integrated into the slicer created something that seems to be impossible to replicate by anyone other than possibly Kryptos themselves.


    "Huh." Felix couldn''t help but smirk, "This is definitely more¡­ special than I had anticipated. I see what you meant now."


    Melody shrugged, "So you aren''t mad about me pointing you in its direction?"


    "I already told you I''m not mad. That level of manipulation is¡­ I don''t care."


    Melody nodded, "Good. Well, I hope it serves you well."


    "So¡­ why did Tanryel have it then? Is he really that important?"


    Melody shook her head, "He had it for the first few dekads of the cycle so he could show it off to the new students."


    Felix frowned, "One of them might have bought it?"


    Melody shrugged, "More like convince their parent to buy it for them. Anyways, wanna¡­ take it for a test drive back to the hub?"


    Felix grinned, "Oh yeah."


    Turning the band sideways Felix pushed his wrist through the gap then twisted it around where it immediately shrunk down to fit him perfectly, "Now I have Kryptos¡­ things, on both wrists."


    "Kind of. This is one of the first successful attempts at replicating some of Kryptos'' enchantments. The research that made this possible is actually being led by a professor at Eramith, the first person to successfully break down and understand Kryptos'' enchantments enough to do anything useful. Not many people are aware of that though, he''s kind of a recluse."


    Felix''s eyes went wide, "Wait, really? They don''t teach any classes, do they?"


    She shook her head, "Nah, just conduct their research somewhere on the planet. They used to take apprentices but¡­ it''s been a long time since. I think that was before diving into Kryptos enchantments."


    Felix nodded then turned back to the unmarred black band now adorning his other wrist.


    He wasn''t entirely sure how to activate it at first but a quick probe with mana gave him a much better idea. His initial probe was sucked into the band immediately and so Felix fed it more mana. He wasn''t sure exactly how much mana it would need but considering it was a vehicle, he was prepared to offer it a lot.


    He started with pumping in a few million but if anything, the band pulled on his mana even faster so, he ramped it all the way up to exactly as much as he decided he was willing to part with, 100 million.


    He cut the band off there so he had some mana left over just in case and made sure he had expended the mana in his charm first. Once he was done, he waited, hoping and praying to no one in particular that he wouldn''t need to give it more.


    After a few moments of him watching the band-and Melody watching him-later, a series of white lines that gave off a slightly blue glow spread themselves out over the band. They formed some kind of pattern though not an arcane one as far as Felix knew. They seemed more decorative than anything.


    Once the band was still again, he tapped it with his finger and was suddenly thrown up a couple meters into the air as a familiar, sleek black slicer sprung into existence around him. Without having to do anything on his part, Felix was already sitting in the driver''s seat of the vehicle.


    "Okay¡­ that was pretty cool."


    Melody hopped up from the ground into the seat next to Felix as he examined the inside of the slicer.


    While the inside was somewhat familiar to Felix, like a car, that was mostly in the shape of the seats. Everything else was a series of white and blue lines and numbers on a sleek black panel. There was no steering wheel, pedals, stick shift or dials as far as he could see.


    With-admittedly a lot of-help from Melody, Felix was able to identify most the controls and displays in the vehicle. While there were measurements he had never seen before and controls he had never imagined, the thing that took him the most by surprise was the meter indicating how full the batteries on the slicer were. He gawked at the meter that sat at just over a percent of a percent, even after he had poured a hundred million mana into it.


    I better not have to hand over that much mana every time I want to summon it.


    Rough math therefore put the total capacity of the batteries at somewhere around 600 Billion mana. Given it was a vehicle and much larger than a human, it wasn''t completely unfathomable but it was absurd in Felix''s mind.


    Knowing the total capacity of the batteries, Felix''s biggest question became, how much mana would it consume per second?


    After a few minutes of Melody poking and prodding Felix to get a move on, he finally placed his hands on the controls, which were located on either side of him where his hands naturally rested.


    With about as much caution as Felix had ever used for anything in his life, he very carefully had Erevos lift itself a few meters higher off the ground and move very slowly forwards.


    Finding the controls to be completely intuitive, he quickly ramped up the speed, though still not as quickly as Melody would have liked, and joined the red band on their level of flight.


    Taking a quick peak at the mana capacity of the vehicle, he was actually slightly gaining mana at his current speed just due to the natural regeneration of the batteries. Before now, he had been too distracted by, well everything, to really pay attention but having seen that the batteries were gaining charge, he tuned into his mana senses and smirked.


    His mana engines were cool and he was somewhat partial to them, even if he hadn''t used one in forever. They were also significantly out of date now but, he liked them.


    These batteries though guzzled the ambient mana.


    I can''t wait to dissect this thing and get everything I can out of it.


    Paying careful attention to the mana reserves of the slicer, Felix sped up until he could match the average green flyway speed and merged up into them. He didn''t dare go any faster though as he was slowly losing mana at that point.


    His basic mental math told him that they would make it so long as they used the portal spires efficiently so he wasn''t too worried. Melody though, was a little annoying the entire way teasing him about how slow he was going and refusing to listen to facts, logic or reality itself for that matter.


    Flying up to the teleportation hub, Felix dismissed the slicer with a tap to the band on his wrist causing the both of them to soar into the building with their remaining momentum.


    After stepping back through a portal to Eramith, Felix headed back to his dorm where he summoned and left the slicer in his dorm in a dormant state so it could charge itself. He had no idea if it would end up fully charged by the end of the dekad but if not, he was more than willing to siphon mana from his tower to fill the batteries.


    The first dekad after evaluations, Felix wasn''t expecting much to change in the classes but he couldn''t have been more wrong. Firstly, the lectures themselves noticeably shifted from covering the basics with sprinkled mentions of the more advanced topics to an almost incomprehensible flow of information that touched on everything.


    In his first lecture, Mana Structures, Professor Amelia had gone from talking about nodes, channels, basic patterns and their interactions to patterns that could replace nodes, node interactions and mana fluidity. Felix watched the lectures back in his Soul Garden from a crystal but no longer could he speed up the lectures and passively pay attention. His perceptual time dilation proved vital as he was forced to pause, rewind and take detailed notes as he tried to truly understand the content being presented.


    Group Combat the day after that was also completely different as now, instead of being placed within the class, the goal had become learning over everything. Groups were made and mentors for the day assigned. Each Adept or Professor in rare cases, instructing, criticizing and directing their every action as they fought and worked together, as a group.


    They were still able to move up and down in the classes but it no longer happened every class, instead happening only when the Adepts or Professor came to a consensus. At least in the case of Felix''s class, the 6th out of 10, no consensus was reached in the first dekad.


    In Ked''s lab, things had also shifted from meandering and working on side projects to full dedication to projects that would span up to an epoch or sometimes longer. Felix still helped out where his abilities were requested but, that was rare in the first dekad as most of the Adepts were diving in the design phase.


    Felix ended up therefore, spending most of his time working on his own project. While he still wasn''t certain what he wanted to do for the eye itself, there were other aspects that weren''t hindered by his indecision. He spent time jumping between research papers, reference manuals and old project designs as he worked through the materials, enchantments and abilities he was going to use.


    Soul Manipulation also got a little odd as the practical nature of the class began to kick in and the majority of the class time was dedicated to allowing students to cultivate. Everyone was allowed to do as they pleased and they were occasionally interrupted when a student asked a particularly pertinent question that Professor Fen thought warranted a mini lecture.


    Felix spent his time mostly ignoring Melody, who much to the annoyance of Fen and the students in the class, was constantly trying to chit chat. Finally he decided it was best for everyone, and drew less attention to himself, if he stuck her in his Soul Garden. He later realized that was likely her goal the entire time but either way, he preferred it this way.


    He spent the time experimenting with pseudo constructs within his own mind. While he could theoretically grow his soul or harden it or work towards another conviction, he was convinced his most promising course of action was to give his soul structure. Instead of experimenting with his very essence though, Felix played it safe and began creating mental constructs that had structured souls.


    The souls he created though were nothing like Grim''s, in fact he pointedly tried to avoid creating those as he knew how much of a pain point Grim''s soul was for him. Instead, he created souls with functions.


    His soul had a layer suffusing his body. That layer served a function. Mark had a layer that protected him and controlled access to the memories and experiences he stored.


    Felix started with layers that had unique intentions then moved on to defensive and offensive layers. Eventually he even delved into non spherical layers, rings and moons that orbited the main soul. Nothing was promising enough for him to get too excited but he was learning plenty which, was kind of the point of class and the school itself, in his mind at least.


    It was clear to Felix that many of the other students, and even professors, didn''t seem to agree though. In the first half of the dekad, the second big shift he noticed was attendance and focus.


    The first integration event had been announced and many students deemed preparing for it a more appropriate use of their time than classes. Felix couldn''t judge them too much though as he was skipping four of his eight classes every dekad already.


    The issue was that on top of that, their focuses were blatantly on recruitment and alliances. Normally Felix ignored the other students and what they did but they became even more annoying than they had after winning his miracle duel against Tanryel.


    Now, instead of being approached, pestered with questions and challenged to duels, Felix was approached by sycophants and offered gifts and alliances constantly. It was a toss up every time a student approached whether or not they were trying to weasel their way into Kjarne and the Archon''s alliance through Felix and indirectly, Melody or if they wanted to recruit him.


    Despite his fears, it seemed Felix was still considered an unknown quantity. From what he gathered while ducking, dodging, avoiding and running from students, Felix hung out more than anyone with Melody, who was very well known. He had also won a duel against Tanryel, ruining his undefeated-by-anyone-in-the-same-grade-or-below status in Caster''s Dueling. On top of that, he was exempt from four classes and being personally trained by Fin and working in Ked''s lab.


    There were rumors about his mana pool but nothing concrete, despite having shown it off in the duel there was still a lot of disbelief and ridiculous explanations floating about.


    On the other hand, Felix was impressively bad in combat classes despite focusing on it. There were rumors he was somewhat stuck in his leveling and some suspected he had hit the evolution in either his class or profession but simply didn''t like the options presented. He also used simple spells that were so far outclassed, some thought it was joke and others, a restriction of the skills that granted his other abilities.


    It also seemed as though either no one was aware of his involvement with the Reaper or they simply didn''t mention it, despite the fact that he wasn''t really trying to hide it at all.


    He was still an Integrated though and that was a well known fact so many thought they could train him to iron out the kinks and teach him the ways of the world. He was so inundated with offers promising basic trainers though that his normal distaste for other people had ripened and become almost sickening.


    At one point during his time in Ked''s lab after the break though, as Felix was approached by an Adept attempting to recruit him to some unknown neutral god''s alliance, Felix realized something. The Adept didn''t annoy or disgust him much at all.


    His distaste for others wasn''t because he was a misanthrope, it was because the vast majority of them were dumb. The Adept that approached him in Ked''s lab approached Felix respectfully, had a thoughtful gift and was extremely well researched into what Felix wanted, needed and liked.


    Felix turned them down and they respectfully backed off but the gift was incredibly useful for Felix. It was a manual containing a collection of research into creating enchantments that could effectively see. Felix hadn''t told many what he was doing or looking for but their research was impressive enough that Felix made a point of remembering the god they were working for, Amatara.


    The book ended up giving Felix direction, at least temporarily, for the missing part of his design. He planned on using the contents of the manual as a temporary solution until he figured out something better. It was both the best he had at the moment and the first thing he had that was at minimum satisfactory to his standards.


    Peace''s training was entirely uneventful though, Felix did appreciate being around someone who didn''t mention recruitment or the event at all. They focused entirely on training, not that that helped his currently abilities much. He didn''t make any noticeable progress and his skills didn''t increase in proficiency at all which was rather disappointing.


    In Solo Combat, Felix was placed to spar against a series of Adepts who dissected every decision he made and action he took before moving on to another student. It was a torrent of information that he couldn''t possibly all apply at once even though much of it was repeat information. Even still, there were a number of improvements he could be making.


    Lastly, and somewhat thankfully for Felix, Mana Control didn''t change in the slightest. Some of the Adepts questioned Felix about his plans for the Integration Event but he found their comments more insightful than annoying. They didn''t have ulterior motives as far as he could tell and simply wanted to offer information and their own experiences because they wouldn''t be attending. From what he could tell, they enjoyed their experience and knowledge being useful, participating in some indirect way or proving their unique knowledge and passing on secrets.


    None of what he learned was mind blowing or anything but his strategy and the logic behind his priorities was tested and solidified which was more than he was expecting.


    Obviously, while all of this was happening, Felix was simultaneously destroying each and every one of them across the entire class as they tried desperately to fight his mana control.


    The next dekad passed similarly to the first though Felix and Peace did manage to move up to the fifth class almost solely because of how badly they were destroying their fellow classmates. Felix also managed to increase his proficiency with all his Reaper skills by a single tier each. Most students seem to have finished with recruitments at that point and had shifted their attention elsewhere.


    Peace and Melody had pointed out at least 4 students each that had been spying on them and trying to listen to their plans for the event. Felix himself, once he was aware of them, had caught two by himself, though their abilities in stealth were obviously lacking. He was certain he had missed a number of them but it didn''t matter either way because he wasn''t discussing his plans with anyone but Grim.


    All his preparation either occurred within his Soul Garden, in the Rings, in his Soul Space or occasionally in his Pocket Home.


    As the night before the event opened passed, Felix spent some time topping up the batteries on Erevos in his Pocket Home though, even that left him with an absurd amount of excess. He ended up retrofitting an overflow mechanism onto his mana engine, after massively increasing its power with his increased mana control. He didn''t redesign the engine with any new knowledge or insights, he just increased its strength and density.


    As for the overflow, the excess mana was dumped into the multicolored sea around the island that had previously grown slightly dull over time.


    The tree, once sapling, he had planted had just barely grown past its infancy. Instead of a stem it now clearly consisted of some variety of wood and the few leaves and branches it had sprouted sported a dizzying rainbow of colors.


    Looking at it, Felix still wasn''t sure what he was going to do with the tree, exacerbated by the fact that he had no idea what the tree was or did. He figured he would figure it out in time but so far all it had done was produce a snowfall of tiny crystals forming a fine white sand base under what could barely be considered a canopy.


    There was nothing else for Felix to do in his Pocket Home, now that he had already confirmed how he was going to create his vault in the event so Felix headed back to his dorm. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 Chapter 208 - Book 10

    The remainder of Felix''s time until the event opened was spent in the warehouse, as much of his free time had been lately, dissecting creatures and their biological makeup. He still hadn''t make any alterations but he had finally mentally noted some creatures that were of interest. Once he had more context, he would go back to them.


    Integration Event


    The Integration Event, Bastorus One, will begin in one hour.


    You have a valid invite and are within the restricted level range. Deny?


    Inventory system familiarity found, explanation skipped. View?


    Event Transport Marble will be placed in hand. Relocate?


    Quest system familiarity found, explanation skipped. View?


    Felix simply nodded and dismissed the message, having no interest in reading through unnecessary information. All of his preparations were done so he simply went back to dissecting the bodies in the warehouse. He did however, have Grim mentally notify him a few minutes before the event was scheduled to open. He didn''t want to miss it if his consciousness was stuck in a Ring or elsewhere.


    The marble that appeared in Felix''s hand an hour later seemed to depict an entire planet with clouds in its atmosphere instead of-what his Pocket Home marble held-a roiling black and grey smoke.


    Felix wasted no time and instantly pressed it into the side of a vat next to him, stepping through the portal a moment later.


    Immediately Felix caught himself from falling to the ground and looked around. He was hovering in the sky, a half kilometer or so upwards above unnaturally blue, raging rapids that carved their way through a rocky canyon below.


    On one side of the river, there was a rocky and grassy biome that Felix didn''t really have a name for. It looked most like a mountain had exploded into a million pieces that were evenly spread out then covered in a thin layer of dirt and left for a few hundred epochs at most resulting in a layer of moss and grass.


    On the other side was the complete opposite. Instead of a wet, verdant landscape that had barely been eroded over time, there was a desert. An arid, sand scape covered in dunes with nothing but sand as far as he could see.


    Either would work fine for his intentions so he dropped down to the edge of the cliff, after confirming he could safely breathe on the planet, and began his preparations.


    Pulling Grim out of his Soul Space, Felix let his spellbook companion float in front of him as he pulled the first spell he needed free and began filling it with mana.


    While it was difficult to move an open portal into a solid material, it wasn''t impossible. Felix had done it before and so, that was what his plan relied on. After some tests on Eramith and in his Pocket Home, Felix was pretty confident his plan would work, he just wasn''t sure how long and arduous the process would be.


    Once the portal spell form was close to filled, Felix took the relative targeting component of the spell and began pushing on it. As soon as the portal sprung into existence, he exercised as much of his will as he could, allocating as much of his brain to his focus as he could spare to make sure the rest of it was stable.


    The portal resisted but Felix''s mana control was stronger and so he pushed the destination portal downwards and into the ground. It floated through earth and rock as the ground slowly grew harder and denser. Felix accelerated the portal''s speed and continued to push downwards, his only concern being how high the temperature got.


    His goal was to remain within the crust as, though he could handle much higher temperatures he was pretty sure-using earth as a reference point-going too far could still easily cook him. On the other hand, the higher temperatures would also make the rock softer and easier to dig through though, that ran the risk of damaging anything he stored there as well.


    Around 50 kilometers down, by his rough estimation of where the relative portal coordinates settled, Felix stopped the portal and pulled out a number of spell tablets he had created.


    He had done similar things in the past but on lower grade materials and on a smaller scale. However, his time at Eramith wasn''t completely wasted and Felix understood much better how the internals of the spells, enchantments and materials actually worked.


    Half of the tablets Felix shoved through the portal and activated were inscribed with the reverse of the hardening enchantment. He had theories before but now he knew that effectively what the enchantment did was loosen the bonds between the atoms or rather, excited and strained the bonds directly.


    This didn''t actually make it any easier or less expensive than simply melting the stone, though it was much safer. Entropy naturally dispersed the strain over time and it would distribute to the nearby environment similarly to how temperature spread outwards.


    Entropy therefore, made it almost twice as efficient for him to simply split his mana.


    The other half of the tablets he activated simply heated up the stone and excited the molecules. The energy was then split between straining the bonds and heating the molecules which ultimately worked together to create a, not quite red hot or glowing, magma stream. Either one alone would disperse quickly because of the relatively large energy delta with the surrounding molecules so by splitting the work between them, he was able to save massive amounts of mana and dig much faster.


    Using Force spells, Felix scooped the putty like rock out and let it cool and settle on the ground next to him.


    It took Felix a couple of hours to fully dig out a completely sealed cave for himself out of the stone, longer than he had hoped but faster than he had expected. He stopped once it was just a few meters in each direction.


    Once he was in need of more space, he would keep expanding but for now, he didn''t want to lose any time so, he measured the coordinates inside and outside of his vault. After that, he stored the cooling putty rocks in his inventory to try and mask his location and flew off along the river.


    Looking up into the sky as he flew to try and get an idea of what time it was, Felix saw a large whitish blue star just falling past the horizon. The sky wasn''t significantly darkening though and as Felix looked upwards, he saw a massive red object that looked more like a very close and reflective moon than a star. It managed to keep the ground lit though and as night came, instead of darkness, the environment just shifted in hue.


    Instead of a bluish grey that was harsh and a little annoying, the moon cast everything in a much warmer color that was far more pleasing, at least to Felix''s current eyes.


    There weren''t necessarily cardinal directions on the planet but, judging solely from where the star was setting and designating it as west, Felix was traveling north-north-west. He flew for about a half hour before he chastised himself for forgetting and tapped at his recently adorned wrist.


    Felix flipped himself into an upright sitting position and Erevos appeared around his body, as if he had already been sitting in it the whole time. His hands found the controls a moment later and he shot off into the distance, accelerating to a speed multiple orders of magnitude faster than he had been flying by himself.


    As he flew, Felix was presented with a number of notifications for available quests that he promptly ignored. He was actually in search of quests but, every notification he got had something to do with collecting a certain mass of lumber from a specific tree or a mass of leaves. The rewards being more inventory points on top of the collected materials themselves.


    It was logical for gatherers and profession focused participants to complete those but Felix deemed it a massive waste of time for himself.


    His first priority was to map out as much of the area as he could for the future. As he traveled and his mental and System map updated in real time, he marked the mental one with portal coordinates as he intermittently measured them.


    The first aspect of the landscape that changed, much further than he had been hoping, was that a mountain range sprung up from the ground to the north. A stream poured down from the mountain and fed the rapids he had been following and they stretched across both biomes on either side of the river.


    Heading over the mountains, Felix caught sight of other participants for the first time since arriving. They seemed to be setting up a mining operation from what he could tell and their guards definitely noticed him. They didn''t seem bothered though and simply kept an eye on him as he passed.


    Felix also, just a few moments later, got a notification for another quest. It was another gathering quest but it caught his eye because the reward was by far, the highest at 10,000 points. Opening his inventory-something that felt a little odd after living without one for so long-he saw he had used 0 out of 1000 points meaning the quest would massively increase his capacity.


    Quickly skimming the description, he found out why. It required participants collect 100kg each of all five notable metals and minerals that could be found in the mountain range. Though impressive and challenging, another massive waste of time for Felix.


    Gathering was not his specialty and he had no interest in competing with the gatherers.


    After seeing nothing he was interested in for what had felt like hours, Felix decided to check his map to see if there was a new direction he wanted to explore. Passively, Felix knew his map was being filled in but he had been referencing the one in his mind that his skills had created because it was more convenient.


    As soon as he opened his System provided map though, Felix groaned at his own incompetence.


    Seriously? I wonder if everyone''s looks like this or if instead of quest markers, they get beacons or something. Actual question marks on my map seems a little too video-gamey to be a coincidence. Also, if there are quest markers, is there a quest list? Quest List.


    Felix groaned once again as a list of available quests appeared before him. There was an empty section for active and completed quests but also a section of available quests. Picking one out at random, the list even gave him the direction and location of the quest. The screen also indicated there were some quests that were hidden and would only be revealed under specific conditions but there wasn''t anything he could do about those at the moment.


    Sorting through the list, Felix filtered out the gathering quests for minerals, metals, plants and a number of other boring options then quickly read through the list. He found that curiously, a few of his map markers were not accounted for and when he focused on them in his map view, he realized why.


    I got dropped onto his planet just a short fly away from the main city of the integrateds? Lucky me I guess¡­


    Felix had every intention of visiting the city but it was a lower priority item compared to some of the quests he had seen. One in particular seemed to tickle his instincts for some reason, the description similar to all the other ancient ruin based quests though. After a minute or so of wondering, Felix couldn''t figure out anything about it that stood out other than that it was the closest ancient ruin quest to his starting location.


    Figuring it was a decent starting point for him, Felix flew back towards it though a portal, flying into the weird green and rock biome as he diverged from the river.


    Flying over open ground with no visual or physical obstructions, Felix pushed his slicer as fast as it would go, just for a moment, to see what it could do. The enchantments did everything they could to reduce the effect of the rapid acceleration and block out the noise, wind and sonic boom but there was no getting around the fact that, Felix couldn''t see or react fast enough.


    If something appeared in front of him, he had no way to dodge it in time because he just didn''t have the stats at the moment. Not feeling safe with the speed and also because he was approaching the quest starting location, Felix slowed the slicer down then unsummoned it and let the momentum throw him to the ground.


    Slowing his fall just enough to avoid injury, Felix landed on a large rock and actually shattered it. The rock crumbling surprised him so much, he actually stowed up a small piece in his inventory. It cost him a fraction of a point so he figured he would hold onto it to try and figure out what it was later on.


    Other than the stone he broke though, looking around, there was nothing to indicate there was a quest that started where he was. Checking his System provided map, he sighed as he tilted the axis and saw the marker located far below him.


    It wasn''t difficult for him to move a portal towards and finally inside of what appeared to be a natural cavern. Stepping through though, Felix became very certain there was nothing natural about it.


    The walls and floor exhibited signs of erosion from water falling downwards and the shape seemed off too. The biggest indicator though, was the massive series of beams, supports and braces that held the ceiling aloft.


    At first Felix thought it was a mine but upon closer inspection, he realized why the shape seemed so off to him initially. The walls looked like the walls of a canyon which would mean the roof had been added later.


    Considering he had just been directly above this canyon a moment ago and had noticed nothing, he couldn''t help but commend the work of whoever had added the ceiling. It was level, solid and whatever they had done on top of it looked completely natural and perfectly fit in with the rest of the landscape.


    Looking around, Felix immediately spotted where the quest had pointed him, a large metal door at one end of the canyon. Walking over, Felix couldn''t stop the slight smile from forming on his face, his expectations confirmed when he touched the door.


    Ancient Ruins: Dungeon


    You have found a dungeon. Would you like to enter?


    Yes


    No


    Note: Entering this dungeon will seal it behind you prohibiting access to anyone else until you and your party leave or complete it. Your current party will be moved inside along with you. Leaving the event for more than 5 days will reset the dungeon and move your transport location to just outside the dungeon entrance.


    Note: Being the first to complete the dungeon will result in additional, exclusive rewards.


    Ahhhh. Feels good to be back to this again. Almost nostalgic. Yes.


    Despite the similarities to both dungeons and vaults in the tutorial and world event respectively, Felix immediately realized this was evidently different. It was closer to a vault from the Trenus world event in that it was not designed to be a dungeon but rather, an existing structure that was later turned into one.


    Looking around, Felix felt like he had just walked into the corporate office building of some modern company on earth.


    The lobby area he walked into was massive, open concept with solid materials and minimal adornment. There was also plenty of natural light though Felix was certain those were simulated and not actual windows, considering he was deep underground.


    In the lobby-as any self respecting or rather, self aggrandizing company would-there were models of their products hung around the area alongside specimens in display cases. Like a personal museum advertising their grandeur as soon as anyone walked in.


    The displays should have indicated to Felix what the company did but looking around, he couldn''t be certain. There were clearly constructs of some kind, looking almost robotic in appearance alongside display cases with animals within them, for whatever reason.


    He figured the animals were just vanity like dinosaur or dodo bird clones would have been on earth because if they weren''t, he had no idea what the company did. Though, he was just assuming this had been a company building, it could have been a museum of some kind instead or a hospital that specialized in prosthetics for all he knew.


    Walking towards the far end of the lobby, Felix moved cautiously, wary of the displays coming to life and attacking him. His worry, while justified, seemed to be unnecessary because he was given ample warning before it happened.


    Ancient Ruins: Dungeon, Lobby


    This room''s enemies must be cleared before the entrances to the next are opened. Would you like to spawn the first wave now?


    Note: Once spawned, your transport marble will no longer function until the room is cleared of enemies. The room will be reset once cleared so no rewards can be damaged during the fighting.


    Difficulty for current party: Deadly.


    Yes.


    No.


    That''s not very useful. System, can you display the difficulty in terms of average level and rarity?


    ¡­


    Difficulty: Special, Lvl 1250, 1 wave


    ¡­


    Much better. Assuming there aren''t too many of them in the wave, that doesn''t sound so bad. Also, I need to make sure I don''t get too close to C grade. I still haven''t spent enough time working towards my Soulbinder profession. Although¡­ hitting it in my class wouldn''t be too bad I guess. It''s just-not that I would pick them-I do want to see the combined class and profession options. Alright fine, Yes.


    Wave 1/1: 10 enemies


    As expected, the displays in the room began moving. All the wires suspending the robotic constructs from the ceiling snapped at once and they fell to the ground. At the same time, the glass of the display cases vanished and the creatures leapt free of their podiums.


    With as much warning as he had had, Felix already had Grim in hand and a spell readied. As soon as the enemies starting rushing towards him, inadvertently grouping themselves up, Felix released a Fire and Lightning storm right into the middle of the room.


    Stretching just a handful of meters in every direction, a circle of roaring flames and arching lightning caught half of the approaching enemies in its appearance.


    Felix darted back and Phantom Stepped to the side to dodge a javelin like projectile then shot a cluster of Force Bombs onto the heads of the creatures that were getting just a little too close.


    The constructs were the harder ones to deal with in the sense that they didn''t take much damage but, as one rushed Felix from the left, he realized he didn''t need to damage them with his spells.


    Reaching out with his mana control, Felix roughly tore all the mana he could grab at once in its body free. The construct collapsed to the ground as he flew over its head back towards the far end of the room.


    It took a few moments for the mana in the batteries to resaturate all the enchantments so the construct could stand so in the meantime, it was completely out of the fight.


    Once he knew it was possible, Felix danced through the constructs, Mihto''s training proving once again to be one of the best decisions he had ever made. Every time a construct''s limb or body passed within his mana control radius, some of their mana was stolen from them and they were left helpless. Unfortunately, that ate up nearly all of his focus but it was well worth when the constructs were the only threatening enemies in the room. The creatures were not so easily disabled but were conversely, much easier to damage.


    Almost passively, Felix dropped basic spells as he flew, a few storms here and there but only because he could. Each and every Fire Ball either seared or threw at least one creature. Most of them got back up to rejoin the fight but not more than a few times.


    Felix''s stats, even though he was still in the D grade, were significantly higher than any normal leveler. Even against the creatures that focused on Agility, in the C grade, with 30% more levels, Felix was faster. He didn''t even have to activate his Reaper''s Movement either. His stats were simply absurd.


    Kiting and dropping spells behind him, Felix tore through the wave. The constructs were unable to get near him and they didn''t seem to have any intelligence whatsoever so they just kept trying. The creatures were a little smarter and faster overall but way easier for Felix to just drown in superheated flames.


    Once all the creatures were dealt with, Felix slowed down and landed on the nearest construct, using his mana senses to pay attention to the others and his enchantment to protect him. As a javelin, or more accurately ballistae bolt now that he had seen the source, bounced off his cloak, Felix reached into the construct beneath him and fished out the battery powering it.


    He repeated the process until all four of the constructs were effectively dead and he was notified that the room was cleared.


    Ancient Ruins: Dungeon, Lobby [Cleared]


    This room has already been cleared and reset. So long as no participants leave this room, it will be considered a safe zone. Afterwards, it will return to being a normal room and enemies may enter once again.


    Ding You have gained 4 levels in [D -Legendary] Reaper (778 => 782)


    Felix was happy to see the room was safe but still rather annoyed that the batteries he had freed disappeared along with the construct bodies once the room reset. The only other thing in the room was a large sheet on the reception desk. It was probably once a directory for the building but had now been adapted into a dungeon map.


    Unfortunately, there was nothing else Felix was interested in in the room as the drawers under the reception desk were empty and there wasn''t really anything else there.


    At the far end of the room, there were two hallways on either side, one short and one fairly long. Checking the map, he knew the short hallway contained two lifts and the other contained a number of rooms.


    Felix headed towards the rooms because he wanted to clear the floor before heading to a new one.


    The rooms on the ground floor seemed to be for storage, one of them a freezer and the other simply a warehouse. The freezer held only waves of frozen creatures while the warehouse only constructs. Felix dealt with all 5 waves of each with relative ease though there was no boss at the end like he had expected. In hindsight though the waves hadn''t gotten progressively stronger though.


    Ding You have gained 42 levels in [D -Legendary] Reaper (782 => 824)


    Dammit. I''m still in catch-up mode, gaining levels way faster than I should be. Maybe I''ll just finish this, check out the Integrated''s city which is also conveniently close to where I spawned, then try to finish at least one construct. Hopefully that''ll be enough for me to get my profession.


    With the rooms were cleared, he ran through looking for loot but for the most part, the warehouse contained a lot of raw material and the freezer a lot of random creatures. None of the creatures were particularly interesting or rare and the raw metals in the warehouse were equally as mundane.


    He collected and stowed everything in the event inventory nonetheless because he figured he might be able to trade or sell them with someone who cared for raw metals.


    With the ground floor cleared, Felix headed to the lifts and chose the lifts headed upwards first. Based on the dungeon map, the lower floors were entire rooms themselves making them easily the biggest rooms in the entire dungeon. The floors above though were split up many times so he assumed they would be easier and a more natural progression. Either way he planned on clearing the whole thing so it didn''t matter much where he headed first.


    Walking over to the lifts, Felix saw one of them was evidently meant for personnel as it was only slightly larger than he would have expected. The other though, was massive. He assumed that one was meant for cargo of some kind.


    Felix took the personnel shaft up to the next floor, pressing the button that cleared the shaft and let him fly instead of using the lift itself.


    The next floor up held a number of rooms holding a half dozen rooms in total. Each one was nearly identical, a massive open space that-based on the contents-used to house a lab space. They all seemed to be dedicated specifically to constructs but to Felix''s eye, they looked more like robotics.


    In Ked''s lab, the constructs were advanced and used interesting techniques, in Felix''s mind, because a lot of it was new. The humanoid constructs used many interlocking plates to form flexible skin and complex enchantments to target and move things. They looked almost like armor or sometimes like androids with slotted enchantment plates and computers within them.


    The constructs in the labs around Felix now, were like the ones in the lobby, older and less refined. They had obvious pistons and joints giving them a robotic aesthetic that-had he not ever been integrated-might have seemed incredibly futuristic.


    As it was though, Felix recognized them for what they were, dated designs.


    Each lab was designated as a clearable room with nothing distinguishing them from each-other so, Felix walked into the closest one.


    Ancient Ruins: Dungeon, First Floor: Lab 1


    ¡­


    Difficulty: Rare, Lvl 1400


    ¡­


    Not too bad. Yes, start the waves.


    The first wave spawned just 3 constructs, each of them rather small compared to the hulking brutes on display in the lobby. They were all similar with complicated upper limbs and simple lower limbs leading Felix to believe they were designed to carry or handle fine and delicate equipment. They would have been incapable of moving over even slight obstacles but the floor was entirely flat and clear.


    The constructs leapt at Felix, despite their single wheel lower halves, some of them wielding weapons or tools, none of which he could identify.


    He easily dealt with these constructs as he had the others, ripping their mana free from their bodies then manually dismantling them. He slowed down though and took a beat so he could examine the constructs in the first wave because they were odd.


    The constructs he''d dealt with in Ked''s lab and class, the humanoid ones, were useful but limited. For them to exhibit behavior as complicated as these did, they either needed a direct connection to a master or puppeteer or a really complicated brain. Felix was fairly confident there was no master as the rooms were self contained so all it left was a complicated brain.


    Before he had seen it though, he would have said it was impossible for anyone but him to get a complicated brain in constructs that were as small as half an average human. Anyone other than him, had to rely on biological brains which necessitated an entire set of support systems. At the very least a heart, lungs, stomach and some amount of nerves. The other organs could somewhat be replaced but that was more dependent on the original creature more than anything.


    There were also constructs that housed their brains separately from their body, using massive mana computers to function but those required portals in the construct''s head. The issue with those was that any form of anchoring portal, the ones used in cities to redirect teleportation, completely destroyed the construct.


    As far as Felix could tell though, these had to be using biological brains which meant this lab had very advanced research in the field, something he had directly been looking for just recently.


    Felix quickly summoned Grim to his Soul Garden, "This is¡­ way too convenient to be a coincidence."


    Grim nodded, "I agree. That was good foresight of you to have the conversation here."


    "Yeah. Just not sure if calling The System out would be a good idea. Worst case, it can only do this because nobody noticed and I don''t want to be penalized just for noticing."


    "Agreed. We''ll just have to keep an eye out. If it''s just helping, great. If there is some end goal to all of this though¡­"


    Felix nodded grimly as they both absorbed the implications.


    Popping back into his body, Felix destroyed the rest of the wave and blasted through the next four, each of them having one more construct than the last. While there was no boss once again, there was a stronger, larger construct in the last wave that was likely a cargo bot at some point.


    Ding You have gained 22 levels in [D -Legendary] Reaper (824 => 846)


    With the wave dealt with, Felix searched around for anything of value in the lab. He ended up stowing most of the lab''s contents just because they were construct building tools. There was no actual research of any kind though unfortunately.


    The next 5 labs were just as easy as the first and Felix took his time with the last construct of each wave, tearing its head open before it despawned. The trick was to keep it alive while he opened their heads but that was tricky in and of itself.


    He didn''t manage to examine the mechanisms themselves, but he did manage to confirm his theory that they were in fact using biological brains in the constructs. He also didn''t come across spewing blood or other organs so, they had some kind of trick he was looking forward to figuring out.


    Ding You have gained 48 levels in [D -Legendary] Reaper (846 => 894)


    Flying up to the second floor Felix checked his inventory and almost laughed that he was already above the capacity he could leave with just from the random tools he had picked up.


    The second floor of the building above the lobby seemed to be an office space because he saw multiple conference rooms and offices containing desks. There weren''t any cubicles or other office mainstays of Earth as they didn''t use the same stationary or computers Earth humans so relied on.


    Instead there was parchment-which was at least D grade and nearly impossible to tear-along with quills and skills.


    Perusing the offices after clearing the floor, Felix scanned and manually read through every piece of parchment, book, folder and binder he could find. He opened every drawer and tore through every office but found nothing but boring business ledgers.


    They weren''t entirely useless as a Bill of Materials still included the materials being used. Employee directories contained a list of job titles so he knew more or less what was worked on. Project budgets were somewhat useful, when he could find a project debrief or something similar but otherwise, the code names made it difficult to figure anything out.


    Felix was no accountant but there did seem to be a discrepancy in the books, one he only really found because he literally had a computer glued to his head. He had no idea what it meant but some amount of materials and credits simply went unaccounted for. The credits were being routed through multiple projects, across multiple sets of balance sheets until finally vanishing. He figured he would find out why when he traveled into the basement because one of the floors on the dungeon map was excluded in all the documents he found.


    After all of that, the most interesting aspect of the entire floor to Felix, was fighting the coffee and drink serving constructs in the conference rooms. That was only interesting because they fought like an angry barista, throwing drinks at him.


    Ding You have gained 5 levels in [D -Legendary] Reaper (894 => 899)


    The last floor before he headed to the basement, appeared to be a research lab floor. It was similar to the floor directly above the lobby but with bigger individual labs. There were also, most excitingly, bookshelves.


    Ripping through the librarian and lab assistant constructs, Felix scanned all the books he could find and grabbed anything that wasn''t tied down then dropped down towards the basement.


    Ding You have gained 21 levels in [D -Legendary] Reaper (899 => 925)


    On the way down, Grim began sorting through the books and parchment he had found within his head.


    The first floor below the ground level was infinitely more interesting to Felix than any of the previous floors he had cleared. Surrounded by light brick walls and on ceramic tile floors sat a series of massive forges connected to other, even larger machines by long stretches of enchanted bridges. The bridges connecting everything together-clearly magical conveyor belts-twisted their way all over the room, even winding their way up to being suspended from the ceiling.


    The entire room was effectively a dense jungle of enchanted machinery and molten metal. Normally Felix wouldn''t have expected it to be active but it was a dungeon so he had no idea what the norm was. In this case, it was active but not really. The conveyors moved and the forges were lit but nothing was moving through the machines and being forged.


    Ancient Ruins: Dungeon, Basement Level 1: The Forge


    ¡­


    Difficulty: Special, Lvl 1600, 3 waves


    ¡­


    Yes spawn the wave. Higher level and rarity than the upper floors¡­ hopefully I don''t gain too many levels.


    [C - Special] Molten Alloy Elemental (Lvl 1500)


    The first wave spawned just three identical enemies, each one of them easy to spot as they glowed a dull orange in the otherwise monotone grey room.


    This was the first time Felix had actually encountered an elemental though he had been offered the race as a potential evolution in the D grade so he wasn''t clueless. He knew they relied on a single stat and that attacking and expending large amounts of energy drained their single resource that represented health, mana and energy.


    Three sludgy puddles shot towards Felix, two of them morphing into humanoid blobs and the other remaining a solitary mass without limbs to try and engulf him.


    Judging from the glow and heat they were giving off, Felix had already prepared an Ice Storm spell and as soon as they got within a short distance of him, he dropped it before him and bolted back.


    The storm managed to claim a small chunk of each Elemental, freezing then sloughing off, but they weren''t dumb and they quickly leapt free of the spell''s radius. They were however, slow.


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    One of the Elementals shot a stream of molten metal as soon as it landed and the other two tried to surround Felix from both sides. Seeing this, he quickly split the stream in front of him with a wedge shaped Force Shield then released two Frost Blasts to either side.


    The front of the attacking Elementals were immediately frozen solid but not for long.


    Looking towards each of them, their metal fronts that had been frozen solid had quickly melted and rejoined the rest of the body. Even peering beyond them, the Elemental that had stayed back and attacked from range had apparently eaten up the chunks he had previously frozen off.


    Theoretically they''re expending energy to remelt the metal. Can''t rule out a skill that restored them when they regained material though. Okay so what the hell do I do to efficiently hurt them then?


    Felix tried a whole host of spells against the Elementals from Cold to Sound to even Light until he remembered something from the job he had taken in Telviras. Orav had said to him, "Try to avoid fire or lightning. Fire tends to destroy corpses, lightning tends to destroy mana channels."


    By that logic, it made sense to him that Lightning might work well against Elementals. Lightning had once been his favorite spell due to its speed and incredible scaling factors. It had even earned him the Stormbringer nickname back in the tutorial and on Trenus. Now though, he didn''t overpower spells at all so scaling mattered little to him and a Lightning spell''s speed was only pseudo instant. He still had to ionize a path towards the target before sending the Lightning itself and that, was not instant at all.


    Felix had created a number of spells himself-to cover the full range of everything he felt he would need-which included some Lightning spells despite them having fallen out of favor. Starting with a simple Lightning bolt, the electricity wasn''t nearly as visually magnificent as he would have hoped against a Metal Elemental. Logically he knew molten metal had significantly lower conductivity but that didn''t squash his hopes that they would be consumed by arcs of Lightning coursing through the entirety of their bodies.


    The Lightning didn''t even seem to paralyze them for an instant like it did with normal creatures either. He kept it up though, starting with simple Bolts and moving up to persistent orbs, bombs and persistent area storms.


    He made sure however, to only target one of the elementals with the Lightning spells. Once it died in a small burst of molten metal that quickly cooled, Felix switched over to Cold alone. Lightning hadn''t been as effective as he had hoped and it wasn''t the clear winner so, he had to test the others.


    The next elemental fell after a higher amount of mana but a similar number of spells. In large part he knew, that was because cold spells were just plain mana inefficient.


    He didn''t even bother with Fire because it felt too silly but on the last one, he was pretty sure he had figured out the best way of dealing with them. Instead of hitting the creature with a whole slew of Force Bombs and Beams, Felix carefully directed his Force spells to continually pull the creature apart. After tearing the Elemental into small chunks maybe a liter each, he found the one that moved and froze it solid, killing it instantly.


    Unfortunately, his learning was much less applicable to the next wave as instead of Molten Elementals, four of the machines making up the factory itself came to life. They were marginally higher at 1550 in level but nothing significant. Using the conveyors attached to them as-very tentacle like-limbs, the machines immediately tried to constrict and drag Felix into them.


    They managed to catch him a few times but it was trivial for him to release a burst of Force from his body and free himself shortly afterwards. The issue was that he had no idea how to hurt them efficiently. He also wasn''t inclined to test a bunch of things because he didn''t think he would ever encounter factory machines come to life anywhere else, ever. So, he fell back on the tried and true method of beating the ever living shit out of them with Force Spells.


    The last wave of 5 creatures, all at level 1700 were a number of partially finished constructs from the factory combined with chunks of molten elementals to complete their forms. On one, its entire torso was molten metal but the limbs were those of a construct. On another, its legs alone were replaced by molten tentacles.


    Felix smiled as he had a very efficient method of dealing with these now that he had experimented on the first wave. It wasn''t trivial dealing with the wave as getting close enough to the constructs to disable them also burned Felix but, Felix''s stats were still significantly higher so the partial-constructs didn''t really stand a chance.


    Ding You have gained a level in [D -Legendary] Reaper (925 => 926)


    Felix shook his head at how odd it was that as soon as he finished dealing with the waves-despite how broken, beaten and destroyed it may have been-the room completely reset itself to how it was. The rest made it like nothing had happened at all, in an instant, right before his eyes.


    Walking through the forge, Felix felt like he was the richest man in the world as he stowed parts and pieces of various constructs. None of them were what he would have made himself, preferring the enchantment heavy design over the mechanical himself, but nonetheless they would be useful.


    He stowed ingots of various metals ranging from Common all the way up to Special along with completed arms, legs, wheels, bodies, pistons, levers, plates and a whole host of specialty components.


    Despite the lack of traditional reward on the floor, Felix found he was rather happy with the haul as he reviewed his inventory on his way down to the next floor.


    The next floor was similar to the last though, severely lacking in forges and molten metal. Instead, the factory like setup of the next floor down seemed to be for manufacturing delicate components and the final assembly of constructs.


    Instead of presses there were construct arms that carefully fit pieces together. Instead of forges, there were clean rooms where the pieces could be cleaned then fit together without risking dust and grime getting into the mechanism before it was sealed. There were molds, but the ones on this floor were tiny in comparison. Instead of leg components and large pistons, these molds seemed to produce miniscule components that Felix couldn''t identify the purpose of at first glance. The issue was they just weren''t obviously anything whereas legs and pistons were visually obvious and easy to identify.


    Allowing the waves to start, Felix was almost overwhelmed by tiny constructs. The first wave consisted of 40 Special, Incomplete Constructs, each at level 1700. Even though Felix identified them as Incomplete Constructs, he never would have called them that himself.


    They weren''t complete enough to be considered a construct of any kind. Instead, he would have named them Living Pile of Parts or Animated Components. They didn''t have clearly constructed arms or legs or a form of any kind. Instead they were like elementals, a whole bunch of tiny intricate parts smashed together to form a creature.


    Recognizing their similarity to elementals, Felix hit them with Force spells designed to split up their components and blast them around the room.


    They weren''t difficult at all to deal with and once he had, 9 larger, half finished constructs appeared.


    Felix was fairly easily able to deal with those too, largely on account of the fact that they weren''t complete constructs so their movement was awkward. They would show hints of a scary attack but ultimately, entirely lose their balance.


    Finally, the last wave held just one enemy, a completed construct.


    [C - Special] Guardian Construct (Lvl 1700)


    Considering how easily the other constructs had been to deal with, Felix wasn''t too worried about this one, despite its completed state. Humanoid but more rotund with a thick torso and 8 limbs, the Guardian Construct was easily twice as tall as Felix was, if not more.


    The legs were like a crab''s but symmetrical in every direction and strong enough to brace it against an absurd amount of force. Rising out of the legs was a circular tower with four evenly spaced limbs around it. Lastly, the head was a shallow dome that had a slit around it, possibly to see but Felix didn''t really know.


    The construct rushed towards Felix faster than any had before as mana surged through its body and its torso began to spin up, its arms poised to throw him to the side.


    Felix launched himself out of the way and the construct blew right by him but even the wake in the air around its limbs was enough to knock Felix aside and off course. Mihto''s training once again proved instrumental in his flipping over and kicking off a Phantom Step.


    Even though the construct had rushed through Felix''s mana control range, he didn''t have the focus to completely halt its mana flow because he was using it to get away. He definitely didn''t have enough speed by himself to dodge it without assistance. If he didn''t use a spell, he would have been knocked aside and his cloak enchantment possibly overpowered even just from the momentum. Wide spread blunt force countered his enchantment-although the soul suffusing it helped-and the force behind the constructs swings was ridiculous.


    Though Felix didn''t have the focus or speed to stop its mana completely, he did have the focus to pay attention to the mana flows within it.


    Not only did it use mana for basic movement but there were essentially spells inscribed into plates within its arms, legs and body. Felix used Force spells to move and in the past, to swing Eretheas, but the construct had them embedded and so its timing was perfect. While Felix''s timing was never off by much-never more than a second by his guess-actual perfect timing made a massive difference.


    The construct was able to effectively swing with vastly more Strength and Agility than it normally had. Felix had no idea how big its mana pool was either because, after seeing how big the batteries were in Erevos, he knew a construct this big could have an essentially endless supply. At least in a fight against Felix, it would win any battle of attrition where he couldn''t steal its mana.


    Force spells felt useless to Felix, considering the thick layer of armored plates on every side of its body. Lightning was a decent possibility but if he was right about the battery size, it wouldn''t be enough.


    His best hope was to jostle the inside of the construct which meant getting it within his mana control range, then casting a spell inside of it.


    In all the previous fights up to this point, Felix hadn''t been able to activate his Reaper''s skills because they were just too easy. He wasn''t really being pushed at all. In fact, he had lost less than a couple percent of his health in total from burns.


    Unfortunately, he still instinctively didn''t see this fight as enough of a challenge either so, he was stuck with his base stats.


    Preparing two Force spells, one for himself and one for the construct, Felix let it wind up its attack, spinning up its torso and leaping towards him.


    As soon as it was within his mana control range, he released both Force spells. The one targeting his own body wasn''t fast enough though as the construct released a claw from one of its arms, grabbing Felix in mid air.


    Unfortunately the one released into his body didn''t seem to do anything either, at least nothing Felix could see.


    The claw grabbed and pulled Felix into the constructs spinning, and waiting arms before he had a chance to cast anything. The massive metal limb came spinning around and slammed into Felix''s cloak, ripping right through the enchantment and knocking him aside.


    He lost an absurd 10% of his health pool from the hit and subsequent slam into the wall, even after being slowed by his cloak enchantment. The only upside being, the claw had released him.


    Felix chastised himself for not foreseeing the ranged attack before getting hit by it as he got back to his feet and dodged the next charge from the construct.


    After that, Felix tried Lightning but quickly decided it wasn''t doing anything useful followed by a number of other spells before he finally decided to risk disabling it with his mana control.


    All he had to do was get its whole body within 20 meters of him without getting hit.


    His plan was rather simple, stand near a wall and let it charge him. Once it was within 20 meters, dive through the spinning arms and land behind it, disabling its mana before he landed.


    Executing his plan, was a different story. It took Felix nearly 10 minutes of trying, 5 glancing hits taking over 20% more of his total health pool, and a whole lot of frustration later before he finally managed to disable it. At no point during Felix''s attempts did he manage to consistently activate the Reaper''s buff either because no matter how hard he tried or frustrated he got, he didn''t see this enemy as a challenge.


    Once it was disabled, Felix carefully began dismantling it-examining everything-before it finally despawned, its massive battery disappearing along with it.


    Ding You have gained 2 levels in [D -Legendary] Reaper (926 => 928)


    Felix sighed in disappointment as he looted as much as he could from the room but unfortunately, mostly just ended up with fragile components he had no idea what to do with.


    Heading down to the next floor, Felix was swarmed by low level, albeit large, rats. The next wave was similar but with slightly larger creatures followed finally by some kind of ape like creature. None of them posed much of a challenge though because all of Felix''s spells were effective once again. He used Fire, Force, Cold and Lightning to obliterate them and the room, knowing everything would be reset to pristine condition.


    Ding You have gained a level in [D -Legendary] Reaper (928 => 929)


    The floor seemed to contain advanced surgical equipment, which Felix took as much as he could of, but nothing particularly interesting. The implications though, of tools designed to remove the brains from creatures, were exciting.


    He just hoped the next floors would contain something useful in terms of methodology so he knew what to do with half the stuff he had picked up.


    The next floor appeared to be a storage room and he was swarmed by both finished and half finished constructs. Most of them weren''t designed for combat so they weren''t too difficult to deal with though, some of the later waves contained multiple completed Guardian Constructs. They were lower level though and Felix knew their internals better now so they weren''t nearly as difficult to deal with.


    Ding You have gained a level in [D -Legendary] Reaper (929 => 930)


    After the waves were cleared though-despite still not knowing what much of it was-Felix gleefully flew around the room, weaving up and down the shelves and stowing everything in the room.


    He got components, assembled limbs, preserved and extracted brains, eye balls and other organs along with a small number of nearly complete, inactive constructs.


    With just one floor left, Felix happily hopped into the cargo lift and let it carry him downwards. Where all the other floors had taken at most a few seconds for the lift to reach, this floor seemed to be much further down. It took him a few minutes in the lift, despite how fast he knew it was moving.


    When it finally opened, Felix was in awe.


    The room was darker than most of the other rooms with blinking lights and slight glows casting odd shadows all over.


    In the center of the room there was some kind of object held a few meters off the ground. On top of the object, thousands of tubes and cables fed into a series of needles probing it. Those cables and tubes led all over the room, some of them disappearing through walls and others attached to contraptions around the outside.


    Other than the complicated machine before him, the only other thing in the room, was a feeling permeating the ambient anima. Pride or rather, arrogance. The only other time Felix had experienced something even remotely similar was in the presence of The Endless Hunger in Telviras where it permeated a feeling of insatiable hunger.


    Felix blocked out the feeling as much as he could and replaced all the spells he needed to in Grim''s pages. Forcing himself to take an extra second, just incase the arrogance was affecting him, he made certain using the logical faculties of his brain, that he was ready before he started the waves.


    He stood at a decent vantage point, on the walkway that was a few meters off the ground, all the way around the room. He made sure to have defensive and mobility spells, in Grim''s pages, ready in front of him in case he needed them immediately. He made sure his cloak and robes were completely repaired and his resource pools filled.


    Taking a couple of deep breaths to push out the feeling of arrogance permeating the air as much as he could, he started the waves.


    Almost immediately, despite being as prepared as he could have been, Felix regretted starting the encounter.


    [C - Special] Security Construct (Lvl 1950)


    In each corner of the room humanoid constructs each standing 4 meters tall appeared. They had a single solid piece forming their torsos and large plates that almost looked like armor forming the arms and legs. Lastly, they each held small heads with a glass circle that appeared to mimic eyes for them.


    The thing that immediately threw Felix off though, was how they moved. They didn''t move in jilted, robotic movements like the Guardian construct and most other constructs did. Neither did they move naturally like humans. They moved with an unnatural flow in a way humans never could, naturally but with consistent speed and force as they stood.


    Felix figured his best bet was to wait and see what they did before he did anything so he waited and let them come to him. Instead of approach him though, once they were all standing, each one of them released a red beam from their faceplates without any forewarning whatsoever.


    Felix immediately dove backwards and kept himself low to the ground but it didn''t matter. Before he even landed, their beams had sheared through the platform beneath him.


    Taking a direct hit to his shoulder as he dove right, Felix lost nearly a million mana just having his cloak defend him. Even then, he lost a few percent of his health as the entire area was cooked from the residual heat on the air.


    Trying to get one of the constructs to hit another with their beam, Felix shot himself laterally but the constructs were smarter than that. Instead of hitting the other construct, the one the furthest from Felix leapt up to the platform behind him to match his height.


    With his high ground advantage completely gone, Felix flew up into the air and tried to use the room itself to protect him.


    Unfortunately, likely as a product of being reworked into dungeon creatures, the constructs had little regard for the room itself. As Felix flew into the massive tangle of tubes and wires above them, the constructs simply took aim and melted through them.


    Felix dodged as much as he could but molten metal from the tubes splattered all over him, eating more mana and health as they rested and cooled on his shoulders.


    Dropping down, Felix decided to get in as close as he could to at least one of the constructs to remove its access to mana. As he fell-and dodged all the remaining beams-Felix urged his body to get his Reaper''s buff going but he found that deep down, he didn''t feel like he needed it. He was better than these constructs, he had likely the best mana control in the universe and stats that towered above everyone else''s. He was essentially a go-


    Fucking arrogance in the anima. What the hell is that anyways.


    Cutting out the feeling, Felix still wasn''t able to activate his Reaper''s buffs but he was able to shift his attention back to the constructs before him.


    The one he was dropping onto never stopped trying to fry him with the beam but it did brace itself, its knees bending slightly, back tightening and arms widening to accept his fall.


    Felix was more than happy to jump into its arms but he made sure not to make it obvious, despite the arrogance telling him there was no way they could foresee his plan. Felix weaved his way through the air, avoiding the beams as best he could and trying his best to avoid the construct below him and hit the ground instead.


    He knew that was impossible though as the construct had its feet on the ground and Agility that seemed to be at least equal to his even without using the spells inscribed into its limbs.


    Landing in the constructs arms just as it lost all its mana and collapsed gave Felix a brief second of respite as the others dropped their beams to avoid killing their ally. Once they saw them collapsed on the ground though, they resumed their fire, just as Felix had hoped.


    Using Force spells to throw the limp metallic body up, Felix let the other constructs do his work for him. An instant later, mana surged back into its body as Felix had given up on disabling it so he could move it. It was far too late though as the construct was melted through from three different angles.


    Smiling to himself-but making damn sure to avoid letting the arrogance get to him-Felix shot himself towards another construct to repeat the exact same thing with them. It didn''t take too long-though he did waste 30% of his health and had already used nearly half his mana-before Felix managed to fell two more constructs using their own beams which just left one of them.


    Once it was just the two of them, Felix rushed forwards and dove into its grip, allowing its arms to limply envelop him as he disabled its mana and began tearing it apart from the inside.


    Shortly afterwards, the next wave started and Felix was left facing just a single enemy.


    [C - Epic] Elite Security Construct (Lvl 1975)


    This construct was similar to all the others he had faced in a way but also completely different. It was obvious they had had the same origin with some identical features and components but the assembly was much sleeker.


    The Security Construct was just under 3 meters tall and very closely resembled a human in plate armor but with slightly off proportions. The legs-each a thick plated trunk-were located directly laterally from the pelvic joint which was just below a waist that was inhumanly thin with little to no plating. Instead, the waist consisted of a series of complex interlocking rings that formed a naturally armored spine of sorts.


    The chest looked normal, though above the waist its size was accentuated, and the head looked very much like a helmet. The shoulders were attached a little too in line with the chest making them look slightly more robotic than human and the thin upper arms attached to them were too thin to contain any human''s arms.


    Lastly the forearms were normal and plated, if a little big in comparison to the rest of the arm but they supported what looked to be hands for a creature twice the construct''s size. The hands otherwise though, looked just like human hands which made sense to Felix once he considered the straight blade, single edged sword it removed from its back.


    Taking a single step forwards, the construct distorted the metal in the ground kicking off and rushing towards Felix.


    The blade swung horizontally and Felix was ready, ducking and using a Force spell to push himself downwards faster than gravity alone could carry him. He felt his hair get yanked by the wind wake of the sword right as the construct''s metal foot smashed into his chest.


    Instead of kicking him backwards though, the construct kicked Felix straight into the ground so all the Security Construct had to do was step forwards once to keep him in range. Sear?h the Novel?ire(.)ne*t website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    Damn, my mistake. Those other ones were smart and moved naturally but this one is way smarter and moves with force and intent with experience. If I didn''t know with certainty it wasn''t, I would swear it was a leveler in enchanted armor.


    As he had wasted some of his focus on dodging and he wasn''t nearly fast enough, he hadn''t managed to cut the mana flow in the construct before it was on top of him again. Instead, he was forced to use his instinct cast just to push himself out of the way of a quick downwards stab. He wasn''t quite fast enough though as two and a half million mana was ripped out of him in an instant when his cloak failed to stop the blade just a few millimeters above the ground.


    Felix created an angled Phantom Step below his feet then kicked off it and flipped himself back upwards as the construct chased him down, never ceasing to try and swing its sword into him.


    No matter how hard he tried to set it up, Felix couldn''t find a way to get the construct into range of his mana control without its sword ripping him open at the same time. He already knew his cloak enchantment was insufficient but he decided he was willing to take a strike anyways, so long as he didn''t die from it.


    Unfortunately, the construct didn''t ever go for non lethal strikes. If Felix pushed himself aside to make it one, he didn''t have enough remaining focus. Dodging alone, he wasn''t nearly fast enough and either the arrogance in the room or even just his own was enough that he couldn''t consistently get the Reaper''s Movement skill to activate.


    Damn. I really need to practice that more.


    The construct dashed and swiped for Felix''s neck so he jumped up and over it. The construct pivoted then swung over its head, Felix pushing himself to the side. The construct whirled and reached out for Felix''s ankle managing to grab hold of it right as the sword came back around.


    Pulling Felix down and shoving the tip of the sword upwards, the construct tried to spear Felix but he instinct cast and writhed just enough to move his own body out of the way. His foot though, locked into place as it was, got skewered right before the blade was pulled outwards as hard as possible splitting his foot in two.


    Doing so forced the construct to release Felix''s foot which was the point he realized how he was going to win this fight.


    Ow, my fucking foot! The only reason it would do something so cruel, releasing me just to cause pain¡­ is if it had an ego of its own which means, it is being affected by the arrogance as well. I didn''t think it would affect a construct much but¡­ if they use biological brains like I suspect¡­ actually, all they''d need is a soul of some kind, rig- Later. Right now, it is arrogant.


    Rolling on the ground to avoid another strike along with an instinct cast just to be fast enough, Felix pushed off the ground into an upright position pressing his back against the construct.


    Its free arm immediately wrapped itself around Felix''s chest and squeezed, not letting his mistake go unpunished. As he was inside the sword''s radius, the construct had to lift it back up to spear him but Felix miscalculated. He wasn''t a swordsman and didn''t know how to properly handle one.


    He had expected the construct to have to pull the sword back to spear him but instead, it simply spun its wrist around in a way no human ever could and flicked the blade right up into his neck.


    It squeezed against his cloak, breaking the enchantment then pulled back on its sword arm in a motion that would both slit Felix''s throat and cut at least halfway through his neck right as it fell limp behind him.


    Felix pushed himself with his full strength, an instinct cast and the Strength and Agility granted to him by Reaper''s Body and Reaper''s Movement, as he finally managed to activate them, right as it seemed too late.


    The momentum of a blade carried by half a million Strength along with enchantments and spells in the arms of the construct was a scary strike in and of itself. In pulling himself back, Felix had saved his spine but the blade did cut through the majority of his throat.


    Falling to the ground, Felix simultaneously made damn sure he kept the construct''s mana still as he scrambled to put pressure on his neck and keep the wound closed. Looking at his health, he almost sighed in relief but two things stopped him. He physically couldn''t as blood poured into his lungs choking him and he saw, a moment later, how fast his remaining health was declining.


    From 40% health, he dropped by 2-3% every few milliseconds forcing him to take drastic actions. He touched the sword on the ground with his foot and stowed it in his inventory then cast an identical spell in both of his hands, both of which were pressed against his neck. In doing so, he only had a fraction of a second before the construct would reawaken behind him so he didn''t risk doing anything carefully.


    He grimaced at the smell of his flesh searing and fusing itself together, the pain almost entirely absent as he had long since disabled it. As he watched his health plummet to 10%, still buffed to a ridiculous degree from Reaper''s body, he felt relief wash through him as he realized the health loss had slowed to nearly nothing.


    The construct behind him, capitalizing on the mana flowing back into its body, grasped and lifted Felix. Holding him upside down from the ankle, the construct squeezed enough to break his bone but not enough to separate the limb. To inflict more pain though, it reached its finger out and dug into the wound it had opened in his foot earlier.


    Felix didn''t feel the pain with his body and soul suppressing it he felt nothing more than echoes acknowledging its existence but he let just a touch of it through anyways. Enough to make him feel pain and show it but not enough to distract him.


    That seemed to be just enough as the construct reveled in its victory as it tried to torture Felix.


    A moment later, it fell limp once again, Felix crumpling under its body as it fell. He didn''t dare move though as the skin on his hands was still fused to his neck and he was pretty sure pulling his hands away now was death.


    He didn''t have enough focus remaining to manually guide the healing so he just hoped it wouldn''t be too bad when he pulled his hands away. In the meantime, he had enough focus left-especially with his pain being completely blocked out-to have a mental conversation with Grim.


    I know we already talked about this but¡­ this construct and this fight¡­ despite level, rarity and therefore stats being vastly lower¡­ was so much harder. The Caster''s Duel was so¡­ easy.


    Grim nodded somewhat non-commitally in Felix''s head, I think maybe the lethality has something to do with it. Also in the duels, you''re limited to specific spells and shields, you don''t have to worry about nearly as much.


    Felix had somewhat of a realization in that moment and mentally gasped, It''s experience again. In the duels, the options are so limited, it''s not hard to mentally simulate all the options. He uses a red bolt here I use a red shield so he''ll either force me to combine shield colors or expand the shield and then try to hide himself behind my shield and so on.


    Yeah. In a real fight with no restrictions, you just rely on your experience and training to know what to do.


    Something which I severely lack.


    Yeah. Again, you''re getting by on your absurd advantages and more importantly, your unique level of mana control. It''s completely countering these enemies. It would be interesting to see how someone else, a caster especially, handles dueling a construct like that.


    Yeah. Only other one is Adaline though¡­ seems she doesn''t like me much¡­ for some reason.


    Not sure, you''d have to ask her or Melody who seems to be spending time with her in Group Combat.


    Felix mentally shrugged, Maybe I can find memory crystals of her fights. Or just branch out to other casters like Edras when they were younger.


    Once his health was back above 70 or so, Felix carefully pulled his hands free, unable to use spells to direct the splitting of the skin, lest he release the construct currently covering him.


    He ended up removing most of the skin from his own neck but the bigger arteries remained closed so his regeneration would handle the skin alone in time. Even if it didn''t, he wasn''t losing health fast enough that it worried him. He had more than enough time to dismantle the construct, kill it and enter a meditation.


    He already knew this was last wave too.


    After peeling back most of the skin on his palms, Felix began pulling apart the construct physically and with instinct casts as he continued to hold its mana completely still. The process somewhat pained him as the construct was the most impressive construct he had ever seen before but that was only a small part of him as, he knew the body would despawn soon enough.


    As expected, once Felix dismantled about half of the torso, the corpse completely disappeared and the room completely reset.


    Ding You have gained 29 levels in [D -Legendary] Reaper (930 => 959)


    Ignoring all the System messages for the time being, Felix dropped into a meditation for just 30 minutes, spending the time in his Soul Garden and library documenting, organizing and making notes on the construct he had dismantled.


    Once his health was completely restored, Felix was happy to find none of his arteries, veins, skin or throat had fused themselves together incorrectly so there was nothing he had to do. Back in pristine condition, he let the messages pour in.


    Ancient Ruins: Dungeon, Research Lab [Cleared]


    This room has already been cleared and reset. As this is the last room of the dungeon, the dungeon is considered cleared. You are the first to clear this specific dungeon and so you will obtain unique rewards for doing so. This dungeon will remain sealed until you leave, with or without your rewards.


    Claim rewards now?


    Yes.


    No.


    Yes.


    Ancient Ruins: Dungeon, Research Lab


    Rewards


    [? - ???] Unknown


    [C - Epic] Elite Security Construct: Inactive


    [C - Special] Security Construct: Inactive


    [C - Special] Guardian Construct: Inactive


    [B - Legendary] Research Compendium: Combining Biological Matter and Arcanomechanical Constructs


    [C - Legendary] Construct Blueprint Compendium: Ancient Ruins, Research Lab


    1000 Inventory points.


    What in the¡­ Unknown?


    Suddenly a quest screen was basically forced on him, replacing the last screen he had been focused on.


    Quest: The Grand Design


    Collect all ??? of the [? - ???] Unknown [1/???] (1/???)


    Uh¡­ Well, that''s a¡­ Okay then.


    Pulling the Unknown out of his inventory, Felix''s hand was suddenly filled with what looked almost like an organ. It was covered in a thin film that did nothing to hide the dark veins within but covered and contained whatever was inside it in a squishy layer that Felix couldn''t think of a comparison for. In total it was no bigger than a softball in radius and was slightly capsule or egg shaped.


    Felix looked on in disgust as he reached inwards with his mana senses to try and figure out anything he could. He already knew this was source of the arrogance permeating the ambient anima, he could easily feel it. He wasn''t interested in destroying it with his novice soul probing just yet though.


    As soon as he reached inwards, Felix had a pretty good idea of what he was holding. He spent his time carefully examining and mapping it out though until he had a perfect mental mapping of it in his mind.


    Ding You have become more proficient with the Profession skill: [Arcane] Identify Arcane Component (Initiate V => Adept XXIV)


    Ding You have altered the Profession skill: [Arcane] Identify Arcane Component (Adept XXIV => Adept XXIV)


    What in the System¡­ I¡­ How many tiers of proficiency did I just skip?


    Initiate, Apprentice, Journeyman, Proficient, Adept.


    Yeah okay, a lot. Also, why did I just go from Adept 24 to Adept 24 with the alteration? That''s not a mistake right?


    25 is the maximum, remember?


    Oh right, I need to evolve or grow the skill or something, right?


    You probably hit the limit for proficiency for this skill or¡­ something like that. Now you need to upgrade it somehow.


    Okay, fair enough. What the hell am I supposed to do about that right now? How do I even upgrade a skill?


    You already have a direction you want to take this skill. Why not just¡­ try it?


    Yeah I guess there really is no harm in just trying it here. Okay System, let''s have this skill eat all my other identify skills.


    Warning Your proficiency in the resultant skill will decrease. The other skills that are consumed will become unavailable until the resultant skill is dismissed. This will consume an item you are wearing. Would you like to continue?


    Wait¡­ an item? Screw it, I can replace the ring. Sure.


    Ding You have upgraded the Profession skill: [Arcane] Identify Arcane Component (Adept XXIV) => Innate: [Arcane] Arcane Identify (Apprentice XIV)


    [Arcane] Arcane Identify has consumed: [Special] Identify Material Flaws, [Uncommon] Identify Arcane Material Properties, [Rare] Identify Material Properties, [Common] Identify.


    Huh. So¡­ I suddenly have four free Profession skill slots. Fun¡­ Also, didn''t even realize it was possible to replace the standard Identify skill.


    Looking down, sure enough, the ring he had gotten back in a vault during the first Trenus world event had vanished. He really couldn''t complain about the results especially when it was such an efficient transaction for him.


    Well, let''s see what this new skill can do.


    Looking down at the ''Unknown'' in his hand, Felix identified it once more.


    [? - ???] Unknown


    ???


    Oh come on. I already know it''s a mana computer and I know it''s denser than anything except my own. Ugh.. fine.


    Reaching outwards with his soul, Felix began to probe the object. He knew he wasn''t allowed to put it in his Soul Space because it was an object from the event but, there was a lot he could learn outside of his Soul Space.


    With as light a touch as he could muster, Felix examined the soul bound to the object and was able to determine a few things. Firstly, it used a curse to make it stronger, namely arrogance or something of a similar name. Secondly, there were a few constructed and bound convictions but all of them synergized to try and keep the mana within the computer itself stable. Lastly, the soul was its own and self contained, it wasn''t borrowing a core soul, it had its own.


    Ding You have demonstrated sufficient proficiency to unlock the Class Skill: [Reaper''s Identification (Legendary - Novice I) This skill allows the user to examine the structure of a soul within an item or a creature. The identification dr-]


    Warning No available class skill slots found. Compatibility with Innate Skill: [Arcane] Arcane Identify found. Would you like to merge the Class Skill [Reaper''s Identification] into your Innate Identify skill?


    Warning Merging a Class skill into an Innate skill can cause complications during evolutions. Drastically divergent class upgrades may result in Incomplete skills later until a replacement skill can be found. Would you like to continue?


    Warning As skills gained in the Reaper''s class are based solely on demonstrated proficiency, not merging the skill may result in permanent loss of the skill. Demonstrating proficiency in the future will be significantly more difficult. Would you like to continue?


    Uh¡­ What? Did The System just have a stroke? Are you sure there aren''t any more warnings? Why did the description get cut off for that skill¡­


    Felix tried opening the description of the class skill but he didn''t actually have the skill in his class so he couldn''t.


    Yes. Combine it.


    Ding You have become more proficient with the Innate skill: [Arcane] Arcane Identify (Apprentice XIV => Skilled III)


    Uhm¡­ This can''t be a normal experience right? That was¡­ ridiculous. Okay, trying again.


    [? - ???] Unknown


    ???


    Son of a bitch. Okay, all that''s left is the actual physical makeup of the stupid thing. How the hell do I break it down without destroying it though? If I could¡­ wait a minute.


    Taking a scalpel he had looted from one of the previous rooms, Felix carefully tried to remove just a sliver of tissue from the object. As soon as the blade touched the object though, a warning he wasn''t allowed to ignore appeared before him.


    Warning


    Quest: The Grand Design


    Causing irreparable damage to [? - ???] Unknown may result in drastic changes to this quest line. As this is an event wide quest currently held by 7 people, these people will be notified as soon as such changes occur. Your name and location may become a part of the altered quest line in the future.


    Wait¡­ this is an event wide quest? 7 others have Unknowns in their inventories? My name and location¡­ It''s implying the quest will become ''hunt me down''¡­ lovely. Well, I don''t want to damage either but I''m also pretty sure this damage is reparable. That''s the only reason I''m doing this.


    Deciding to risk it, Felix brought the scalpel back down and carefully removed a sliver from the outer edge of the flesh sack. He was able to remove a small amount without it seeming like there had been too much damage so he was more than happy with that.


    Once he had though, he had to heal the Unknown and luckily, he had memorized a couple of healing spells from the library, solely because they were ridiculously complicated. He didn''t have any hope of raw casting them as his best guess put them around level 500 in terms of complexity. Unfortunately, he didn''t think he could just go with the simplest one either as he didn''t need to stimulate the regeneration or increase the energy flow within the object, he needed to heal it directly.


    Finding the only spell he had memorized that could do that, Felix began carefully inscribing it into a plate he had in his inventory. Seeing as his plate was not designed for this, he had to miniaturize the spell a bit but he didn''t alter anything, just shrinking the entire thing directly with some modifications he had learned as an enchanter for the modified channels. After that he used a wonderful material he had bought that was an inlay material ground up into a putty. All he had to do was lay out the putty and melt it with heat.


    Once all that was done, Felix placed the plate and a bit of inlay into his Soul Space and finished the spell, to be 100% certain he didn''t gain Profession levels. Pulling it back out, Felix cast the heal on himself just to see how effective it was and laughed when he healed a meager 100 points.


    Sighing, he pointed it at the object and repeatedly cast the spell until the object looked whole to him, then cast it another 20 times just to be safe.


    Finally, Felix took the small piece he had removed and tried stowing it in his Soul Space. Once again, he found he wasn''t allowed, as he had expected, so he tried his original plan. Directing The Blood Ring, Felix watched the sliver morph into a stream of crimson that poured into his ring.


    Not technically storing it directly so¡­ hooray for loopholes.


    With the sliver broken down into its cellular components, Felix used The Blood Ring to examine each and every cell he found. By the end, he had learned exactly nothing new. The biological matter did exactly what he had expected it to, it added stability and protection the computer as well as a solid bind point for the soul.


    Alright, one last time.


    [A - Cursed] Imitation System Core


    A Core created to try and build an Imitation System. The core contains a large chunk of a mana computer bound with a cursed soul that uses biological matter for added stability.


    Ding You have become more proficient with the Innate skill: [Arcane] Arcane Identify (Skilled III => Skilled VI)


    I¡­ What the fuck¡­ So I take it the ques- Wait, open quest: The Grand Design.


    Quest: The Grand Design


    Collect all 256 of the Imitation System Cores. [1/256] (1/???)


    Doesn''t say. Maybe we aren''t trying to power the thing up. Or maybe we are¡­ I guess either way The Real System isn''t really threatened by this Imitation System. Anyways, all that skill nonsense was weird, right?


    Grim shrugged in Felix''s mind, I have no fucking clue what''s normal here, don''t ask me.


    Fair enough. Oh shit, I can''t believe I almost forgot, the other rewards I got¡­


    Felix quickly pulled each one of his rewards out individually and couldn''t help but smile as he looked over the giant construct corpses that were identical to the ones he had slain. On top of that, reading through the blueprints he had, he was confident he had all the necessary components to make a couple more of at least the basic Guardian Constructs.


    Back at Eramith too, if he stretched Melody''s generous coffers, he could use even stronger materials and replicate some the Elite Security Construct, given a few epochs of course.


    He stowed everything for now though and sighed as they far exceeded his now 2000 allotted points so, he was going to have do some organizing. The two compendiums he had already memorized so he didn''t mind leaving them behind. The constructs, tools, components and materials were the items of real value to him right now.


    The Imitation System Core was cool but more useful with respect to the quest than anything. He could have recreated the thing if he wanted to. In fact, he could do better with his own soul seeds and denser mana computers. The biological component and how it was all interconnected still eluded him but, he didn''t need curses or biological matter to create computers this dense.


    The quest though, and the prospect of an Imitation System were interesting enough that he was happy to keep the core. At least, keep it safe in his inventory for now.


    Felix briefly examined the room and ended up cutting out and stowing a large portion of it before finally deciding it was time to leave and heading out of the dungeon. Using a portal to return to his spawn location, Felix looked around briefly before he was presented with a warning that he only had 4 minutes left before his inventory was forcibly reduced to capacity.


    Quickly checking around to make sure nobody was around, Felix cast a Force bubble around himself that obscured vision then opened a portal into his cache. He then walked in and closed the portal behind him. Instead of emptying right away though, Felix began carving out shelves along the walls so things stayed somewhat organized. Luckily the rock here was solid enough that he didn''t have issues with making the shelves relatively thin.


    As he began removing things, he realized that oddly, the Imitation System Core didn''t have a point allotment. Once his inventory was back to within capacity, containing the Elite Construct and the Imitation System Core alone, Felix carved out a room around ten meters to a side and placed the Elite Security Construct: Inactive on the ground. He decided he would use the room as his workshop for the time being.


    Happy with that, Felix exited his personal underground cache-vault-cave and also workshop now, then returned to the surface. He made sure to be as careful as possible to ensure no one found his vault before he hopped back into Erevos and headed straight into the desert. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 Chapter 209 - Book 11

    The next thing he planned on checking out was the main city of the Integrateds on this planet. It was relatively close to his vault and he figured they might either have useful information or would possibly be willing to buy things from him. He also held out a hint of worry that they may have been humans from earth, Possibly Orselle judging from the surroundings.


    Though it was a fair distance away, using Erevos made the journey much more bearable. It only took him a grand total of 5 minutes which wasn''t nearly enough time for the desert heat to bother him in any way.


    Seeing it on his map, Felix knew the city was just a short distance away so he dismissed Erevos and flew the rest of the way. He didn''t want to fly in so quickly on Erevos just because if it was his city on Trenus, he would have been wary of someone flying as fast as he was in the vehicle he had.


    After a minute of flying himself, Felix spotted an expansive city made mostly of sandstone that seemed to have been built on top of an oasis. The majority of the buildings were small blocks only a few stories high but those just made up the area between the real monuments that defined the city. There were also wide and flat roads throughout but those as well just seemed to lead from one monument to another and provide passage across the lush pools of flowing water.


    As Felix approached, he was able to identify massive statues of humanoid creatures with fox like faces and tall ears. There were also massive pyramids with their tips severed and floating a few meters above them. Pillars hovered off the ground and lined the streets coming to a point at the top but Felix had no idea what they did.


    The biggest structure of all though, was a massive white structure that had weird trapezoidal angles forming its walls. From the sky though, its footprint was an entirely mundane square. Right in the middle of each wall there was a circular hole that was entirely dark within.


    As Felix approached the city, the hole began to brighten. A blue glow spread out and grey into a blinding light as Felix couldn''t help himself but chuckle.


    I never realized how far I could sense mana but apparently, a few kilometers is the answer. At least, when somewhere in the realm of hundreds of billions of points are being gathered I can sense it from this distance.


    It wasn''t just the core building at the center of the city either, each of the pilons along with the pillars floating through the city all thrummed to life taking on their own, unique function.


    The pilons seemed to work together to form a ward that Felix saw shimmer every time it blocked particles of sand blowing by. The pyramids on the other hand, hid massive spell cannons within their floating tips that made themselves known as he approached. Lastly the statues, laid visually dormant but Felix could tell mana was pooling into them nonetheless.


    To make himself as non threatening as possible, Felix raised both hands and dropped to the ground, walking for the last kilometer. Initially he wasn''t sure if there was any reason for him to visit the city at all. After seeing their massive spell cannons and the amount of mana they wielded though, his mind was quickly changed.


    Peeking out of the pyramid tips, the spell cannons remained ever trained on Felix''s form as he trudged over the dunes. He stopped a half kilometer away when he caught sight of a boat like vehicle surfing the sand in his direction.


    Just to be safe, Felix quickly prepared some defensive and mobility spells but left Grim in his Soul Space for the time being.


    The short and wide boat-almost resembled like a large surfboard with rails around the outside-skidded to a stop just a few meters from Felix as no more than a dozen levelers hopped off and surrounded him.


    Similar to the statues Felix had seen, these levelers were humanoid with two fingers and a thumb on each hand. Their faces had pointed fox or cat like snouts with tall pointed ears and they were all covered in short white fur. Their clothes also left their chest, arms and head exposed and considering the uniformity, Felix assumed they were either uniforms or culturally significant.


    The one that approached Felix, the one with two heavily curved-almost hooked-blades on their hips, seemed to be the highest level of the bunch.


    [C] Rakyt (Lvl 1392)


    In a serious tone carried by an odd accent and a deep voice, the Rakyt examined Felix with their fingers tracing the pommels of their blades, "Who are you? Why have you come here?"


    Felix waved, "Hello. I''m Felix, I''m from the multiverse. Participant in this Integration Event. I came to¡­ check out your city I guess?" Felix shrugged.


    "Why?"


    "Cause it was close by and I figured why not."


    Also cause I was worried it was a city from Trenus.


    The Rakyt looked to the others, their slit eyes squinting slightly before they looked back at Felix, "You will come with us."


    Felix nodded to indicate his willingness then followed them into their sand surfing contraption. Every step he took was matched by no fewer than 8 Rakyt surrounding him from every side. He didn''t mind and completely understood the reasoning. Either way, his instincts didn''t scream at him that these levelers were particularly strong. At least, his sense of their threat was nothing compared to the feeling he got from some of the other monsters he had met, like Adaline.


    Approaching the edge of the city, large stone gates slid upwards just high enough for their boat to enter and Felix was escorted off and into a nearby building.


    He was told to wait and the entourage of 8 guards remained with him. While he waited, Felix examined all the mana structures he had mapped out on the sand ship. He found that while they weren''t astounding or awe inspiring like Erevos was, they were impressive nonetheless, especially for an Integrated city. They also employed plenty of techniques that he didn''t know himself meaning there was a lot he could get out of examining them.


    After just a few minutes of waiting, Felix was escorted down the wide road just behind the gates of the city towards the large white structure at the center of everything. To either side of him, Felix saw pools of lush water with hints of greenery right on the banks. Other than that, everything else seemed rather normal to him, like a desert from earth.


    There was a market down one street, buildings with clothes hung out the windows, people milling about in various outfits, carrying various tools and moving at various speeds.


    He wasn''t allowed to look for long anything though as he was rushed down the road, seemingly for the sake of others seeing him more than him seeing the city. They mostly avoided crowds and the guards occasionally moved to block the sight of particularly nosy onlookers but the entire time the guards mostly ignored Felix so long as he stayed in the center of them.


    Heading into the central building of the city, Felix was led into an unexpectedly tight hallway that seemed almost labyrinthian as he followed it. Eventually though, they came to a stop in a large open room in the center of the building.


    Felix knew it was the center because in the middle of the room, way up near the ceiling, was the large glowing object that was constructed from massive amounts of mana when he had flown towards the city. Ignoring the massive glowing ball that looked like a fusion reaction ready to burst, the room otherwise looked almost like a holy place.


    On the opposite wall from Felix there was a waterfall that calmly ran down the stone wall and benches around the pool it fed. Sitting, standing and kneeling all over the place were Rakyt that appeared to be either praying or worshipping some unseeable entity.


    A Rakyt wearing the only sleeves he had seen in the entire city approached and walked right up to Felix, the closest anyone had gotten so far. Despite their sleeves, the robe they wore was left open at the front to expose their chest much like the rest of their population.


    [C] Rakyt (Lvl 1683)


    "You are from the outside."


    Felix didn''t bother answering as her tone was completely factual and he was the only human anywhere.


    "You have come to see our city. What is your judgement?"


    Felix looked at her with confusion, "It''s¡­ nice?"


    They squinted and stared at him then nodded slightly, "What do you seek in this event?"


    "Quests, rewards, levels¡­ knowledge."


    They nodded much faster this time, "What do you do?"


    Felix understood this to mean his class, though he wasn''t entirely sure of his interpretation, "I cast spells. Do magic."


    "Your level."


    The hell am I supposed to say to that.


    They stared at each-other for a few minutes before they finally spoke again, "It is normal?"


    Felix nodded in understanding, "Low. The average from what I''ve seen for the other participants should be about 1300 or so. Limit for the event was 1499."


    They nodded, "Where are you from Felix?"


    "I got into this event because I''m a student at Eramith Academy. Before that I was an Integrated like you."


    They frowned at this, clearly in disbelief so Felix activated his title as proof. This seemed to be a bad idea as Felix''s escorts immediately drew their weapons and stared at him warily.


    The Rakyt that had approached him took a couple steps back, "You were exiled from your planet. Why?"


    Felix sighed, "I was too strong. There was nothing left on the planet to really challenge me, not really. System agreed and gave me a quest to complete, reward was kicking me off the planet."


    The guards seemed to slightly relax at that but their weapons remained drawn. The Rakyt in front of him nodded slowly, "I am Arysha. Are you worthy of faith, Felix?"


    Felix''s understanding was that she was asking if they could trust him but, he didn''t have a great answer for her, "Depends what about. I have no immediate intention of slaughtering or stealing from you. I don''t get much out of doing so."


    Except a lot of souls and bodies for my rings but¡­ I''m not quite there yet.


    She nodded seemingly accepting of this answer, "You will be the herald of information from the outside, Felix."


    Felix shrugged, "Sure I guess. I''m not going to waste too much time here though so, try to assemble as many questions as you can at once and I''ll get to them when I pass through. I can probably also bring you things¡­ I think. If there''s anything you need from the outside."


    "What things do you speak of?"


    Choosing wisely from his Soul Space, Felix withdrew a book he had been holding onto for a different purpose but had kind of forgotten about. Holding Eramith & Edelis: Enchanting Basics out, Felix saw Arysha''s eyes go wide as she reached forwards and snatched the book.


    Opening and skimming through it right in front of him, Arysha nodded, "I borrow this. You will have guards with you at all times. We will assemble our questions now and present them in one hour."


    Quest: Friendly Neighbor


    The Integrated race in the event, Rakyt, have been allotted a number of Inventory Points they can give out to participants as currency. As a reward for all information and items brought to the Rakyt, you will receive Inventory Points. This is an ongoing quest and will only terminate when the event does or if you fall out of favor with the Rakyt.


    Felix nodded and took a seat on one of the benches in the room. Normally, he would have hated waiting around but in this room, there was something he couldn''t explain right above his head and it was either filled or created from mana.


    Though it was outside of his normal mana control radius, Felix was still able to examine it somewhat. He was missing a lot of the detail but from what he felt, it seemed like it was more or less just a massive ball of mana. What made it interesting though was how it was created and contained.


    All around the orb, Felix could feel hints of massive arrays inscribed within the walls that collected and held the mana stable or at least, as stable as a massive orb of mana could be. The orb visually wasn''t just a sphere, it looked more like a star with loops, flares and what looked like electric arcs pulsing across the surface. It was more than that too though as small spots of color emerged and odd sounds were produced randomly alongside the ever present hum and glow it produced.


    After getting everything he could from this range, Felix began paying more attention to the ambient mana and noticed it all being sucked up into the orb. It seemed almost like it wasn''t intentional though, like the orb had a slight gravitational or magnetic pull on the ambient mana. He would have noticed it earlier had the orb not been so attention demanding all by itself.


    Finally, he looked into the ambient anima and was almost shocked with how much was happening. The orb was leaking something he couldn''t quite decipher, the people praying each produced a whisper that dissipated into the ambient and finally the room itself was calming the ambient anima. Some kind of enchantment in the walls was cleansing the anima and Felix had never seen nor heard of anything quite like it.


    The only nodes he knew of that affected the ambient anima were wards that pushed it away.


    He didn''t manage to map anything out though as the enchantments were too deep in the wall and he was interrupted before he got too far by the reappearance of Arysha.


    Felix had fully been expecting most of the questions he was asked. They mostly consisted of the questions he himself had had when he left his Integration. Gods, Religions, the current state of affairs, the value of currency, transportation, and information on classes, professions and races.


    From what he had seen, everyone in the city was a Rakyt despite some of them being in the C grade. He assumed it was a religious or cultural thing which would mean the information they requested on races was intended more for recognizing participants than anything.


    It took him a few hours to get through everything and once he was done, he had received 1380 Inventory Points from them. They valued questions differently and Felix didn''t bother haggling much because it wasn''t worth the time for him. Even the points themselves weren''t that valuable but the favor he was gaining with a city that seemed to be built around an enchantment, mana and spell based knowledge event, was more than worth the time he spent.


    With that all done, he bid them farewell for the time being as he had a few things he wanted to get done before Group Combat class.


    The Rakyt escorted him right to the gates where he jumped into the air and flew off, a cloud of sand exploding at his feet making him feel like a superhero taking flight.


    Before getting to any questing though, Felix flew off a short distance before dropping back to the sand and opening a portal to his personal vault. He immediately headed over to the workshop room where he got to work on the dormant construct lying on the floor. Having dissected the one that almost killed him so he could in turn kill it, Felix already knew where some of the soul binding points were.


    Referencing the research notes and the blueprint for the construct, he realized there were many more than he had originally thought. There were the standard soul binding points throughout the mechanical body that were outlined in the blueprints, the ones he had seen for himself. There was also a certain amount of biological matter that formed a miniature system to support the biological brain along with a variation of a nervous system. The nervous system and biological matter had natural soul binding points that had been present in whatever creature they were harvested from.


    Luckily, with the research notes and blueprint in his hands, the most complicated and time consuming part was creating the soul itself. He didn''t bother with having everything connected to Mark just yet as that required modifications to the inside of the construct but otherwise, he started by replicated the souls living in his mind.


    He started with a soul seed that would serve as the core soul for the construct, this one a lot bigger than the souls in his mind right now. From there, he meticulously pieced together a filter he was happy with. He didn''t want to change his own soul too much because that could have unintended consequences but there were some things that he felt he needed to change.


    Firstly, Felix dialed down his addiction, fascination and obsession with magic and the inner workings of the universe. He wanted the construct to have some of that so it knew instinctively what was interesting to him in terms of loot but he didn''t want a mage construct, at least not this one.


    He dialed up his desire to win and dominate by a fair bit but complemented that with a desire to protect friends and care for people. That one he had to increase by many orders of magnitude and mix in some aspects from other souls because while those instincts were present in Felix, they weren''t exactly his strong suits.


    Mirroring what he had added to Mark''s soul, he also added a burning desire to grow, evolve and become better. This one he made sure was wrapped up in the desire to dominate because they were interrelated and complimented each-other well.


    Finally, he added something he had never tried before, a conviction. To make things simple though, he just used his own conviction, Unrelenting.


    He heavily debated adding something to make the construct obey but ultimately, decided against it for a couple reasons. Firstly, it couldn''t exist without him at the moment. Its core soul would literally be an echo of his own and only existed so long as his did and was awake and aware. Second, the construct was based on a modified version of himself and though he couldn''t be sure, he was fairly confident that if he were a clone, he would be happy to help the original. So long as the requests weren''t too troublesome.


    There was nothing he could think of that he would ask the construct that was unreasonable so, he figured it shouldn''t be an issue.


    Also, now that he thought about putting himself in its shoes, Felix was the constructs best path to getting stronger. As Felix grew, he could improve it, grow its soul and make it stronger as well.


    Satisfied with the core, Felix created two more layers. The first was a massive layer that would suffuse the entire construct body mostly because of the benefits he had obtained from doing the same thing himself. The last layer was a dense shell that served solely as a defensive layer against soul attacks because though the construct''s core soul was an echo of his own, it didn''t have the same immutable quality.


    With just a few hours until Group Combat, Felix carefully inserted the soul into the body and bound each and every binding point to the soul. On top of that, he lightly affinized the body''s material to the soul itself and forced a shape upon the second layer so that it would naturally suffuse everything.


    The body seemed like it needed time to acclimate and adjust so Felix left it where it was and raced the clock so he didn''t miss class.


    Felix ended up arriving in an empty class just a few minutes late.


    Damn, they must have all already stepped through the portal.


    Feeling a tap on his shoulder, Felix jumped in shock before turning his head and seeing Peace next to him with a small scrap of parchment in hand.


    Felix looked over and took the parchment, his eyes wide and he didn''t delay any longer, casting the portal and inserting the coordinates. They both stepped through a few moments later and joined the rest of the class in listening to the latter half of the Adept''s explanation.


    "¡­ Anyways, considering the ongoing event-that seems to have eaten half of your compatriots-I debated having this instead be an expedition in there but¡­ the logistics were too complicated. Instead, we''ve combined the 4th and 5th classes and here we are on Thiriothiss Alpha 4. Find yourselves a group of 4 and get going. I''ll be watching everything from here but remember, The System won''t save you here so, don''t die."


    Looking around as the Adept finished up their explanation, Felix chuckled inwardly as he saw even combining two classes together, they were missing students. Considering that fact, he probably shouldn''t have worried so much about being late or even missing the class but he did actually care about his grades so he didn''t just leave.


    Felix already knew Peace would group with him and neither of them even bothered confirming, instead they both started looking for stragglers they could add to their group.


    He didn''t really know what was going on with The Cult of the Reaper and specifically Peace, why he was hanging around and helping Felix so much and how his class fit into everything. Normally he''d have found it annoying but given how capable, smart and unintrusive Peace was, Felix found he actually liked having him around. Neither of them really ever relied on the other but it gave Felix someone he could trust not to be useless or a complete idiot.


    Considering how they fought, Felix looked specifically for trackers, hunters, archers, rogues, and anyone that could act like a tank. Though, it didn''t overly matter because even if they got two other casters or two healers, they could have simply adjusted and worked around their composition, as was the purpose of the class.


    They ended up both locking eyes with another pair of students that had grouped up and were equally lacking in numbers. From what he could see, they seemed like an archer and a caster of some kind though, he couldn''t really discern any specifics.


    Both pairs nodded at each-other and walked to meet the others in the middle.


    The archer was humanoid but their features were off. Their face was shaped too sharply and they had patterns covering their skin that looked almost like either bark or roots. Along with their greenish skin tone and hair that was either was a collection of leaves or just resembled them, Felix figured they were a good pick considering the forest they stood on the edge of.


    [C] Lemi (Lvl 1439)


    The caster in the robes on the other hand was not humanoid at all. Their face resembled a humans in that they had eyes and it was somewhat taller than it was wide but that was about it. They seemed to be made of some kind of red crystal or stone and floated around instead of walked. Other than that though, Felix didn''t see a mouth, nose, ears, arms, or anything else he would have expected.


    [C] Aedur (Lvl 1280)


    Lemi nodded at Felix, "I''ve heard of you. You beat an Adept in a duel, right?"


    "Caster''s duel, definitely would not have won an actual fight."


    Lemi just shrugged.


    A moment later, a mental pulse echoed into Felix''s mind and his interpretation was something along the lines of, "Pleasure. Meeting. Group?"


    He somehow instinctually knew the source was the crystal being, Aedur.


    Felix nodded in response and looked at Lemi who shrugged and nodded in an apathetic manner.


    "I''m a traditional spell caster, Fire Balls, Storms, Beams, Bolts that kind of thing. Peace is a melee fighter who-" Felix turned to Peace, "Will you hurt animals? Beasts?"


    Peace shrugged, "If I have to. I''m not a vegetarian but I also don''t¡­ enjoy fighting and killing."


    Felix turned back to the other two and shrugged figuring that was a passable way of conveying Peace''s quirks to them.


    Lemi looked a little perturbed but she didn''t say anything or walk away so Felix figured it wasn''t an issue.


    Aedur nodded to them, "Heal. Buff. Help."


    Lemi grunted, "Archer, Tracker, Hunter. The usual."


    Felix smiled and tried not to give away the fact that he had missed the entire first bit of the Adept''s explanation, "Great, any chance you can start us off then?"


    Lemi sighed deeply as they turned and walked towards the forest. Before following, Felix quickly grabbed the coordinates of their location, something that had become somewhat of a habit for him at this point.


    Leaning his head towards Peace and whispering as quietly as he could, "Any idea what it is we''re supposed to be doing?"


    Peace pointed towards another group that was standing a few dozen meters away. Felix couldn''t actually hear them but Peace pointed at his ears and briefly encased them in trails of shadow. Felix understood immediately and tried his best to activate Reaper''s Sense. It helped a lot that he could see the actual sound waves due to the skill and focusing on them visually helped him focus on the auditory as well.


    Unfortunately, he was still very early on in his training and so he only managed to activate it for brief moments before it slipped from his grasp once again. He did manage to catch some things though, "atural treas¡­ ant to fin¡­ e need t¡­ ongest beas¡­"


    So we''re hunting for natural treasures, got it.


    Having a vague idea of what they were doing, Felix had a much better notion of what to look out for. He still didn''t have any of the constructs he was designing finished yet otherwise those would have helped tremendously. Without them, he was stuck with his standard method of flying through the forest or in this case, relying on Lemi.


    Peace had other ideas though and as they followed Lemi-from a safe distance away-and entered the forest, Peace nudged Felix and pointed at his eyes as they began to burn with a black shadow flame outline.


    He nodded and continued to try and trigger his Reaper''s Sense skill but unfortunately, he still only got flashes. He kept it up though figuring there was probably a reason Peace had told him to do so. He wasn''t able to figure out what that was until over an hour of travel later though.


    Initially they had been stealthy, Felix lagging far behind the others because his stealth was severely lacking. It became quickly apparent however that there wasn''t really anything worth hunting in the near vicinity to their starting point and so, they sped up.


    They encountered a couple of other teams as they ran through the forest, the first completely ignoring them them and veering away the second, hitting them all with a large spell. While it wouldn''t have hurt them at all-it was simply a slow field-Felix still leapt towards and knocked the spell aside anyways.


    They continued running through the trees in hopes of finding something when finally, they started to spot creatures. They didn''t stop running though as the creatures they spotted were too weak for them to bother with. Felix finally realized why Peace had wanted him to maintain the Reaper''s Sense skill though.


    In the vicinity of creatures, Felix was able to see something akin to an aura. It was like a color emanating from the creatures getting progressively more diffuse the further from the creature it was. He took a quick detour so he could more closely examine the creatures and figure out what the hell it was and realized, it was the ambient anima.


    Looking back at his compatriots, he tuned in as much as he could and was able to just barely see an aura around them too. The difference seemed to be that they were trying to be stealthy, at least that''s what he thought.


    He confirmed by asking Peace but he smirked in response, "Not exactly. In my case, yes. In the case of Lemi and Aedur, your effect on the ambient anima is completely drowning any effect their souls have."


    Felix looked at him both surprised and slightly aghast, "Are you saying I''m like a beacon? I''m that easy to find?"


    Peace nodded, "Yes, very much so. I can find you nearly anywhere on campus."


    "How do I not be so¡­ loud then?"


    "Well, there are two ways. First-the much easier way-you simply consciously tone down the effect you have on the ambient anima."


    Felix nodded, "Okay¡­ let me try."


    Reaching inwards, Felix began to try and minimize how much he affected the ambient anima. He had some notion of how to do so but no matter how hard he tried, he didn''t seem to be doing anything.


    He asked Peace each time to confirm since he was more aware of Felix''s effect than Felix himself was but he offered no other guidance.


    "Alright maybe not then. It''s not really something I can explain and for some, it''s just impossible. Seems like you''re one of those. The other option, is that you blend in with the ambient anima, make your influence match the anima that already exists around you."


    Felix nodded as they ran, "Okay so like camouflage instead of¡­ well, literally shrinking."


    Peace shrugged, "Sure, I guess."


    Once again, Felix reached inwards but this time, instead of trying to fight his soul, he simply tried to change what it was doing. He immediately felt better about this method, like he was actually getting anywhere instead of accomplishing nothing.


    Unfortunately, Peace said the difference was negligible if there was any at all. He continued to work at it for the next few hours but at no point was Peace confident there was an actual difference to be felt.


    They passed by a few beasts as they walked, even some that evidently congregated around natural treasures but none of them were deemed strong enough by the group.


    As they traveled deeper into the forest though, the monsters around them rapidly increased in strength until they were outleveled by about 20%. Lemi-who had been leading them-stopped and let everyone catch up, "Should we keep going or start spreading out to see if we can find something?"


    Aedur simply looked towards the rest of them, either waiting to provide their opinion or not really having one themselves.


    Peace looked towards Felix who then turned to Lemi and shrugged, "I say we keep going until we only have an hour or two left. I can simply open a portal back so we don''t need to worry about travel time."


    Lemi scowled, "We can''t go that far. The beasts will become way too strong for us to fight."


    Felix shrugged, "Then we don''t fight. I get this is Group Combat but all that matters is we get the best natural treasure¡­ right?"


    The others looked at him with slight confusion except for Peace who was wide eyed and smiling.


    Felix clarified for the other two, "Let''s just steal one."


    At first, running through the forest proved a non issue for them, for a few hours. Afterwards, the beasts around them grew strong enough that they were able to keep up with and harass Felix''s team. Lemi and Peace seemed completely capable of avoiding detection but Aedur and Felix definitely were not.


    Felix had never really worried about his stealth, except in the undercity of the Trenus World Event, but even what he had learned there didn''t amount to much. On top of him being physically terrible at stealth, it turned out the issues he was facing with his soul were making things even worse.


    Beasts ended up harassing and chasing them from all over the forest as they, according to Peace, sensed Felix''s soul. Once they realized that, Felix flew high up into the sky where all he had to dodge were birds and various other flying creatures. The squirrels definitely stood out as the most annoying but none of them were particularly difficult for him to deal with.


    Once they decided they had traveled far enough, when the occasional beast began to spot Peace and Lemi despite their impressive stealth, they began searching. It didn''t take very long for them to find a natural treasure. Aedur was actually the one that spotted it, flying alongside Felix.


    In a small clearing that was completely covered by reaching canopies from every direction, lay a small white flower. Felix couldn''t tell what it did but once Aedur pointed it out and he focused on it and the area around it, he was shocked he had almost missed it.


    The flower itself was surrounded by an aura that his soul senses picked up but even more than that, mana leaked out of the clearing from every direction. The flower itself didn''t produce mana or anything but it seemed to imbue an attunement upon it.


    All the mana leaking out of the clearing was a combination of light green and bright golden light to Felix''s mana sight. It was vastly more complicated than any single attunement so Felix couldn''t identify it but he didn''t need to, it was obviously powerful.


    Once they had found it, Peace and Lemi immediately split up and ran off into the forest. With them in position, Felix dropped himself near the clearing while Aedur buffed his speed with a channeled haste spell. From a kilometer or so away from the clearing, Felix began loudly smashing through the trees and branches around him.


    A few creatures peeked out to see what was happening but none of them got too close. In a forest this dense with creature''s in the high C and low B grades, natural treasures were no longer surrounded.


    Instead, creatures were bolder and smarter. They didn''t just loiter around in layers around the treasure, they went about their days and kept tabs on the treasure area, just in case. The creature density was higher around the treasures but it was less obvious where the treasure was.


    Seeing how all of the creature''s in the forest were ignoring him, Felix figured he was probably the right distance away. It meant he was inside of their target''s domain but apparently, he just wasn''t threatening or attractive enough.


    To fix that problem, Felix began releasing bursts of mana that rippled outwards in all directions all while essentially screaming into the anima. Beasts, unlike sapient levelers, relied on their instincts more than anything. That meant that they were more in tune with their souls and why they were able to pierce Peace''s stealth where no sapient Felix had seen could.


    All Felix had to do, was be a little louder.


    He had found being quieter nearly impossible as they ran but being louder, that was much easier. It was almost like screaming and releasing pent up emotions, satisfying in a way.


    The mana was to make it seem like there was a treasure of some kind. He had debated adding an attunement of some kind but found that was impossible as he wasn''t nearly fast enough at attuning mana given the amount he was releasing.


    It took a few minutes but eventually, a hulking four legged beast with no apparent eyes sauntered over from the direction of the clearing.


    [B - Special] Dire Steirok (Lvl 2859)


    When it saw him, the creature stopped and roared. The roar actually knocked Felix over and shook the trees around him, a few loose branches falling nearby. The Steirok didn''t seem to be interested much in hunting Felix down though, now that it had seen and sensed his level.


    It stood and waited for a few moments but when Felix made it clear he had no intention of running, it leapt towards him with ridiculous speed. Despite Felix being buffed by Aedur and being over a hundred meters away from the creature, he was only able to just barely dodge its pounce.


    Landing on the ground, heart pounding, Felix looked over and saw the creature simply walking away. It seemed he was too low level for it to care and instead, it was going back to defend the treasure it had found. Whether it planned to eat the flower or simply sleep next to it, Felix couldn''t let it go back so, he began to poke the bear.


    Before it slipped through the trees and out of sight, Felix launched an arrow of flame into its backside. The Seirok flinched a little but didn''t even bother turning back around.


    Seriously?


    Casting the same spell over and over again-because it was the fastest and highest damage Felix had at the moment-the Seirok finally turned back around.


    Once again it roared at him so he hit it in the mouth with a flaming arrow. The force of the roar threw the arrow slightly off target and so it was hit in the eye instead but that worked just as well for Felix''s purposes.


    Everyone except for Felix apparently, knew that the best way to harvest a natural treasure like a flower was to preserve everything, including the roots. Unfortunately that meant harvesting it would take time. Their best guess was half a minute to a minute at most which meant Felix still had at least 20 seconds of distraction left. Seeing the Dire Seirok leap towards him though, he wasn''t sure he would last 5 seconds, let alone 50 in their estimated worst case.


    Felix immediately slammed himself in the chest with an instinct cast so he could avoid-albeit just barely-a swipe of its claw. He dropped a Phantom Step he had prepared then kicked off to the side but the creature managed to sink its teeth into his leg as he did so. There was more than enough momentum carrying Felix for a flick of the creature''s neck to completely remove his leg from the knee down.


    That momentum carried him a short distance away where he was prepared to land on one foot but astonishingly, found his other foot had miraculously returned. Looking down, he saw that his leg hadn''t quite grown back but instead, in place of his foot and shin, he had a-familiar looking-red crystalline prosthetic.


    Having landed, he had already put weight on it and knew it felt much like his actual leg, at least in terms of basic functionality but more importantly, he wasn''t bleeding out. Typically, he would have expected to lose at least 5% of his health per second from the blood loss alone but now, he had nothing to worry about, his health was perfectly stable. He had still lost over 20% of it but, it wasn''t going down any further.


    Cool. Thanks Aedur.


    Felix''s speed still suffered and unfortunately, he couldn''t get his Reaper''s Movement to activate in earnest. All he got were the sputterings he always got outside of a fight. He knew that he had no intention of beating this thing and little hope of doing so and so, he wasn''t able to engage the skill at all.


    Unfortunately that meant the Serok was significantly faster than Felix was, even with Aedur buffing his speed by about 100%.


    Learning from his mistakes, Felix did his best to avoid the swipes and bites of the beast but when he couldn''t, he made sure his cloak was in the way. When it had taken his leg, his cloak had been pulled behind him due to the inertia and his legs became exposed.


    This is exactly why I hate loose clothing. Although, I''m definitely not meant to be in melee range with this thing as a caster.


    Instead of losing chunks of his health bar, Felix began losing chunks of his mana pool. Given how stupidly high his mana pool was, it wasn''t nearly as problematic. Each swipe took about 700k mana and each bite a little more than that. All he had to do was make sure he had enough mana to get away from it when the job was done. Luckily, he figured he could probably just fly away, assuming he could get far enough, given what he had seen. At least, he didn''t think the Seirok could fly.


    Taking an average of three hits per second, Felix continued to distract the Seirok until he got the signal or was forced to leave. Luckily, he didn''t have to wait quite the entire minute as around 50 seconds into the fight, the Seirok was struck in the side by an arrow.


    The arrow didn''t even faze the creature but Felix on the other hand, immediately took notice. Releasing a burst of Force in every direction just to gain just distance, Felix simultaneously launched himself upwards.


    Glancing down, his burst hadn''t had nearly had the effect he had been hoping for as the Seirok was only pushed back a few meters. As soon as it had hit the ground too, it immediately leapt into the trees, bounding off of them and trying to pull him back down.


    The beast repeatedly leaping off the trees was faster than Felix and so he continued to block and repel it as he tried desperately to escape.


    Flying out past the top of the trees, the Seirok leapt high up into the air, easily a hundred meters from the nearest tree. Felix hit himself once again with an instinct cast and made sure to spin his body so its bite hit his cloak.


    As soon as it did, the creature latched on, Felix''s mana plummeting as it resisted the creature''s immense jaw strength. Luckily, hitting it with a Lightning Bolt to the jaw muscle weakened it just enough for him to slip out of reach.


    Felix exhaled in relief then quickly spotted Aedur. He flew over then dropped down into the forest alongside him to meet Peace and Lemi. Before even hitting the ground, Felix had the portal to get back ready.


    They could hear the Seirok chasing them down through the forest but the portal closed before they ever saw it again.


    Rejoining the Adept, they found most of the students in attendance were already there waiting though, not all of them. Lemi approached the Adept and handed them the flower, well preserved in a translucent container with some soil.


    The Adept took the treasure and examined it with a knowing smirk then nodded, "We have to wait for the others still but they aren''t gonna beat this. Well done, deciding to steal the treasure rather than fight at all was a great tactic. Given it was you who came up with it Felix, you''ll be moved into the 3rd class. Pick anyone else from your team that you want to go with you."


    Felix nodded and they walked away from the Adept. Felix looked to Lemi and Aedur and started to explain but Lemi cut him off, "I don''t want to be split from Aedur."


    Felix nodded, "That makes this easier then. Thanks."


    They nodded and Aedur helped him regenerate his real leg as the rest of the students rejoined them. Felix saw a couple of teams go from proud expressions or confidence to complete disappointment when the Adept informed them their treasure wasn''t good enough.


    Before the class was over, Felix turned to his own team, "So what is the flower anyways?"


    "It''s a healing treasure. Either you eat it and it gives you some minor regeneration buff for a while or you prepare it alchemically into a resin or a potion or something. Applied to say, a staff or wand, you could get a buff to all healing spells."


    Felix''s brow furrowed, "Wait, really? How the hell does that work?"


    Lemi shrugged, "I don''t know, go ask an alchemist or specialty item crafter."


    Peace tilted his head slightly, "More likely you would need to find someone who researches treasures. Most alchemists and item crafters just follow recipes. They lose out on some of the potential but not enough to matter in the B grade."


    Felix frowned, "We get to keep it, right?"


    Lemi nodded slowly, "Speaking of, I was hoping since you got moved up two classes¡­ Aedur might be able to keep this one¡­"


    Felix immediately nodded, already thinking the same thing, "It''s most suitable to Aedur anyways. Mind if I examine it in the meantime though?"


    Aedur nodded, "Of course."


    During the couple of hours left at the end of class where the Adept went through their notes on how everyone performed, Felix examined the flower.


    The jar containing it massively muted the energies it was exuding but not entirely. He could feel the mana within the jar itself and that was what he examined but the jar also seemed to preserve the flower by almost slowing time. It was Lemi''s jar and he found that fascinating as well but he didn''t have time to analyze it and the flower. He figured even if he focused solely on the jar, he wouldn''t get anywhere during the remaining class time so he ignored it for now.


    Mana all around the flower was slowly converted to its specific attunement. Felix reached into it and tried to replicate the attunement but no matter what he tried, he couldn''t even get close.


    He got aspects of the attunement and managed to produce golden mana and light green mana, to his vision, but never the same deep earthy green or full golden hue. The mana he created was almost hollow in comparison and the color never quite matched. If he was being honest, the colors weren''t even that close either. They were shades of the same color but the variance between shades of green were massive.


    Ding You have gained a level in [D -Arcane] Mana Engineer (996 => 997)


    Damnit.


    At the end of the class-after the Adept praised their plan and criticized their idiotic execution forcing Felix to tank the creature-Felix handed the flower back to Lemi. She held onto it for Aedur, who were friends outside of class, and he informed the Adept that he and Peace would be moving up a class.


    It was too complicated to find four people that fit right into the middle of a class so, luckily for Felix and Peace, they were moved right up to the 3rd class from the 5th. Skipping the 4th was well worth Felix''s time and he was rather glad he hadn''t skipped class.


    As they headed back through the portal to class then onto the courtyard, a wild Melody appeared from round a tree. She waved happily, her outfit completely dichotomous with the gloomy, overcast weather.


    Felix and Peace walked over and they all walked back to Felix''s dorm together.


    "So, you guys both visited the event already, right? Find anything cool?" Melody smiled as she skipped along next to them.


    Peace just shrugged and Felix nodded, "Found the Integrated main city, not the one I came from fortunately."


    Melody nodded, "That would have been¡­ awkward. What''s it like?"


    Felix shrugged, "Big desert city, though they have flowing water throughout. Big pyramids and monolithic structures. Lots of magical siege weapons built into the more iconic structures. People are nice, Rakyt. White fur, humanoid, tall pointy ears, long snouts."


    Melody looked at him with some surprise, "You met them?"


    Felix nodded, "Yeah, they want me to trade them information and basic goods in return for inventory points."


    "Huh. All of the other cities and towns we found didn''t let anyone in. They sent out messengers but they didn''t talk much."


    Felix sighed, "I think it''s probably because I''m still in the D grade right now. Also, I''m an Integrated too so¡­"


    Melody nodded, "Right, sometimes I forget how low your level is."


    "Speaking of, I''ll probably try and hit C grade in the next few days. I''ll have to see if my experiment worked and if I can find my familiar first but, we''ll see."


    Melody''s brows waggled, "What experiment?"


    "I got a construct body as a reward from one of the ancient dungeons." Felix explained, "I bound a soul to it and now it''s time to go and see if it''s awake yet."


    "Oooh, fun. Speaking of Ancient Ruin Dungeons, rumor has it there''s some big secret quest tied to them and people are focused pretty heavily on them at the moment."


    Felix nodded, "I see."


    Melody rolled her eyes and sighed, "Just be careful. From what I''ve heard, this is the most brutal integration event that anyone can remember. Latest counts put the current death toll just over 10."


    Felix frowned, "That''s the most brutal?"


    Melody shook her head, "Deaths not surrenders. The highest death count there are records of is 10% by the end. That number also tends to accelerate near the end so hitting 10 in a few days¡­ It seems a lot of factions got permission to be more lethal here. Normally killing people is heavily discouraged because it angers the other factions and could lead to war in some cases. Right now though¡­ it seems like the gods don''t care if they start a war."


    Felix hummed thoughtfully, "Why wouldn''t they care?"


    The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.


    She shrugged, "No idea, but¡­ on top of all that, the alliances are much more expansive than usual. The Archons are a Divine Alliance but they usually compete against each-other in the events just¡­ give each-other some consideration. This time, they''re all working together. Seriously, be careful."


    Felix nodded, "I''ll be fine. Thanks for the info though."


    She nodded, "I also just learned Adaline was hunted down by a large group on her first day in there and was forced to surrender. Her guns are soul bound so she didn''t lose them but she lost some other items. From what I hear, no one at Eramith has died yet though, so¡­ that''s good."


    Felix winced, "Rough." and walked into his dorm room. He immediately opened his portal to the event and Peace and Melody followed him in. Neither of them seemed to mind switching their portal location within the event and he didn''t mind revealing his vault to them. The real valuables were the cores which he kept in his inventory anyways and the knowledge which was ingrained in his head. The construct body was valuable but he trusted the two of them not to care about it much.


    As soon as she stepped inside, Melody gasped then started giggling, as she saw the construct.


    Felix had expected it to be awake by now and for some reason, standing. Instead, it was on the ground moving all of its joints at random which resulted in it essentially flopping around like a fish.


    Felix scratched at his chin, "Huh. I guess it didn''t come with any memories or anything¡­"


    Melody shrugged, "I am astonished you got something so advanced and valuable out of a Dungeon reward¡­ even if it has¡­ issues."


    Peace walked over and put a hand on the construct then closed his eyes, a moment later, he looked over at Felix, "It seems this construct is unable to access the experiences within its own core soul."


    Felix frowned and walked over himself, placing a hand on the construct and reached into its soul. Given it was essentially an extension of his own soul, Felix''s ability to see inside of it was fantastic.


    Looking towards the core of the soul, Felix understood what was happening and frowned. Not only could this construct not access the experiences from his core soul, but it couldn''t create any either. It was stuck because it had no way to actually learn. The experiences the construct had were too insignificant to be imprinted onto the soul seed formed form his soul and reaching towards it, his soul refused access. The construct was too different from him and so it was considered an entirely separate, foreign entity, an alien.


    Once he realized the problem, he quickly verified and realized all of the soul constructs running around in his mind had the same issue. They were borrowing from his memories and his imagination helped shape them but, they were stuck. They would never learn or grow in any significant way. Their minds would evolve but in a robotic, computer like way. If they didn''t exist in his head too, they wouldn''t have any access to his experiences at all.


    So I guess I become a necromancer then. I''m not sure how else to give these constructs, this one and the ones in my mind, core souls¡­ Actually, I should at least try. Seems like bullshit that necromancers are the only ones that can create leveling constructs or creatures.


    With a plan in mind, Felix nodded to his two guests, "Alright, I think I''m going to spend some time working on fixing this."


    Peace nodded and Melody pouted but they both got the message. Felix opened a portal for each of them, letting them pick from the coordinates he had measured on his map. Melody happily disappeared to somewhere she hadn''t been yet and Peace seemed to choose at random. Just before she left, Melody turned to Felix, "Be careful."


    Felix frowned, "It''d be pretty embarrassing to get killed by something I created¡­ somewhat¡­ had a hand in creating."


    Melody shook her head, "I meant in the event as a whole. It''s just¡­ Anyways, just be careful."


    Felix nodded and closed the door behind her then popped into his Soul Garden where he began screwing with some of the souls still trapped in his Soul Ring. He specifically kept various random souls around for this exact reason.


    Picking one at random, he began tearing away layers until he was left with just a core soul. From there, he grabbed as much anima as he could find and squeezed it all into a similar size and shape. Finally, placing them next to each-other, Felix began to compare and contrast the core soul with his ball of anima.


    With each difference he found, he carefully modified and shaped his ball. He spent hours doing this, even completely dissecting the core soul to find the internal differences a few times, retrieving a new one and continuing from there. Luckily, he was able to extend his Soul Garden''s time dilation whenever he was using his consciousness alone so he wasn''t wasting too much time.


    After a few days of Soul Garden time, Felix felt completely stuck. He had replicated the structure, the small details and all the intent he could find but still, some seemingly intangible difference remained. Looking at one, it was obvious which was the core soul, he could tell but he couldn''t identify why. Structurally they were identical and, if it were possible to look at them, Felix was confident they would appear identical.


    He continued to carefully rip apart various core souls until he had completely run out but felt no closer to the answer than he had before.


    Ugh. Sprites like Nova just¡­ appear. So, why is it so difficult to create a core soul?


    With no other souls left for him to compare against, Felix resorted to something he didn''t think would help much at all, comparing against his own soul. The issue was that his soul was so significantly different in so many ways from other souls. There was also Grim''s but that was harder for him to analyze and equally as unique given its constructed nature.


    Also, Grim had no idea if he was created through necromancy or some other arcane method so they had no idea how useful his would be.


    Ignoring the obvious differences between the two souls, Felix began trying to find the intangible within his own soul. The aspect that made it feel alive whereas the one he had created, didn''t.


    He ended up spending almost two weeks diving into the intricacies of his soul. Structure was important and what he had mostly paid attention to up until now but this time, he was focused on what was in the anima. He wanted to know what intents, experiences, and knowledge it might contain.


    In his Soul Garden, two weeks was just under an hour of real time so he didn''t feel too bad about wasting time. On the contrary, he was pretty sure he had finally found the difference.


    Finally opening the portal back to his Pocket Home, Felix walked over to the construct and placed his hand against it. After a few minutes of straining his will, he decided to take a risk and reached into the construct''s soul with a tendril of his own. Extending his soul out of his body the way he was was incredibly difficult at first. He was only able to reach a few inches into the construct but each second that passed, it seemed to get significantly easier. S§×arch* The N?vel(F)ire.¦Çet website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    The rapid progress confused Felix until he realized he was fighting his own soul. It wanted to stay within his body and didn''t want to become a tendril, it was used to being inside his body. Once it was exposed and through the will of the rest of his soul, he convinced it and so, it became easier. Realistically, he should have used something other than the layer that suffused his body but, it was the outermost layer and he didn''t have enough direction to create a new layer.


    With the tendril, Felix reached into the core of its soul, careful not to damage anything lest he have to recreate it. Around the soul seed, Felix inflated the area like a balloon with anima, the soul seed bouncing around inside of it. Once he was satisfied with the amount, he exerted the entirety of his will upon the anima until he felt it finally give way.


    Instead of the essentially dormant anima that largely surrounded him in the ambient, surrounding souls and in creatures, the anima was now lively. The intangible difference he had identified was that the anima within a core soul was almost in an excited state. It seemed to be ripe and ready to absorb experiences and grow. It was soft and malleable but also excited and almost bouncing around like a child.


    It was a property he was dubbing the spark of life because he hadn''t found it anywhere else but within live souls. Once he had identified it, he was able to find some within his core soul and in Grim''s. No matter where else he looked, he simply didn''t find it anywhere. The spark, once he had implanted it into the construct and the test soul in his ring had immediately spread and connected itself to the surrounding soul.


    Not only were they essentially brought to life but the entire thing became a whole. The spark remained contained to the core soul but it was like the whole thing had woken up. On top of that, he realized how Nova had likely formed. A spark was all that was needed because once even a tiny morsel was excited in this way, all the anima around it was drawn as if by a magnet. The curiosity and potential, the life itself, was enough to attract a surrounding soul.


    Stepping back, Felix noticed a small, warped circle on the construct''s chest where his hand had been. It was like a stain and he had no idea how it had gotten there, it definitely wasn''t there just a moment ago.


    He largely ignored that for the time being as he was presented with a familiar, and very annoying, screen.


    Congratulations!


    You have received a new title.


    Lifegiver: Imbue a soul with the spark of life.


    Would you like to equi-


    No. Well that was easier than I thought. I mean¡­ it took nearly all my will power to excite the anima like that and there is no way I could do it again for a while but still, I¡­ created life.


    With his soul seed still floating around within the core soul of the construct, it would-if Felix''s guesses were right-be imbued with many of his experiences as a starting point. Also, his soul seed would make it so that it was impossible for the ideals of the construct to stray far from his own for any extended period of time. They would always gradually drift towards his own. At least, until the construct had enough experiences of their own to overwhelm the seed.


    That would be difficult though because every core experience it had would be tainted and colored by Felix''s point of view. The construct wouldn''t ever really have the chance to deviate from what he had made them. Felix didn''t care if it didn''t have free will or freedom of interpretation to become its own person, he''d much rather have a construct that was bound to him.


    The filter he had created would also slowly sink into the core soul and eventually be completely consumed by it. In turn, everything Felix had carefully imbued to shape the construct, would transfer to the core soul.


    However, that also meant the construct was no longer reliant on him anymore to live and actually gained some amount of independence by killing him. He didn''t think it would be an issue though and didn''t really worry about it for the time being. Assuming his theories were right, the construct wouldn''t know how to fight with a sword because Felix didn''t know how to so, it wasn''t really a threat to him at the moment.


    This time, as the rest of the soul had already acclimated to the body, the construct woke up after just a few seconds. Rolling over onto its back, the construct pushed itself to its feet then nodded in Felix''s direction.


    Felix nodded back, "Hello. Would you rather name yourself or do you want me to provide a name?"


    The construct merely pointed at him and Felix nodded, "Alright well, you remind me a bit of a samurai so how about Sam 1."


    The construct shook its head and held up a finger, then no fingers.


    "Sam 0? Although I would just shorten that to Zero?"


    The construct nodded at the second name and Felix shrugged, "Alright Zero. I know you have no idea how to use a sword right now but I guess you are free to do whatever. Just try not to do anything I wouldn''t although¡­ you shouldn''t really have any inclination to anyways¡­"


    Zero nodded and began practicing sword forms Felix had memories of and experimenting.


    Felix watched for almost a minute, slightly jealous that Zero was able to sit there and learn something from scratch like that. He would have liked to learn everything, given time but he just didn''t feel like he had that at the moment.


    There was no specific deadline but there was an event ongoing, Tekragoraxius'' plans for him and plenty of rumors of upcoming turmoil. Maybe one day he would spend the time to learn all kinds of weapons, martial arts, professions and everything between but no time soon.


    Alright with that done, I don''t know how much else I can do to guarantee the Soulbinder profession. I think it''s finally time I finally evolve. Or, almost time. I need to find Nova to make sure we sync things up.


    Without any better way of communicating with Tekragoraxius, Felix reached for his soul bond with Nova and conveyed to her that he wanted to evolve. In return, she excitedly showed him impressions of all the things she had been doing and also, that she was ready too.


    He wasn''t sure if it was possible for them to simply teleport him from anywhere and he didn''t have any coordinates himself so he headed out of the event and opened a portal to the warehouse he had been provided.


    As soon as he stepped inside, he caught sight of Rathelius, Tekragoraxius'' disciple.


    [?] Rathelius (Lvl ?)


    Rathelius nodded in a kind of half bow of respect as Felix approached, "The Dragon Mother awaits." With a sweep of his claw, a portal opened next to them and Felix stepped through. Rathelius followed behind but quickly disappeared as Felix looked around.


    He definitely wasn''t in the same room as last time. Instead, he found himself in the middle of a flowered field with a mountain range in the distance. In the sky above, there lay a constant and all encompassing cloud cover. It was somewhat interesting to Felix that there was not a single hint of sky anywhere, something that was no doubt intentional. It was hard for him to focus on that though because the clouds also glowed with a whitish light.


    While technically the weather was overcast, it wasn''t dark or gloomy at all. In fact, had he not looked up or seen the sky, Felix would have confidently stated that it was a bright, clear summer day.


    Before he got much further with examining his surroundings though, Felix was assaulted by a small dragon, just a few meters long. Shorter and smaller than Endycor but with much finer scales that varied from completely dark and all absorbing black to a blue that was so close to black they blended in almost completely.


    Felix barely managed to stay standing, his cloak enchantment helped but it was set to ignore his own soul. Once Nova''s body was close enough, the enchantment deactivated and he was left holding her entire body up.


    Considering she wasn''t actually a dragon, she didn''t have internal organs and she was lighter than she should have been. However, she was still a small, likely metal though probably hollow, dragon.


    "Hello, hello. Yes, I missed you too. Yes I realize you were waiting, I''m sorry about that. That all sounds super fun- Holy shit you''re heavy."


    [D - Cursed] Nova, Ravenous Matter Spirit (Lvl 999)


    Felix''s brow furrowed, "Oh huh, you really have been waiting. How long have you been stuck at level 999?"


    Felix hmphed appreciatively, "Really? Almost the entire time you were here? I guess that makes some sense, yeah sorry about that. Guess you were just waiting on me."


    With Nova finally off of him, though she was still running and flying around him, jumping up onto him occasionally, they slowly made their way over to Tekragoraxius who was waiting a few hundred meters away.


    Seeing her out in the field, Felix was once again completely taken by her gargantuan size.


    Once he was within conversational distance, Felix looked over and saw a large 20 meter wide, square portal through which he spotted Endycor.


    [D - Legendary] Endycor (Lvl 999)


    Tekragoraxius greeted Felix with a billowing breath of flames that conveyed fairly warm and welcome feelings though not without a heavy undertone of serious parent vibes.


    "Felix Kade. You are ready to evolve?"


    Felix nodded, "Yeah, I''ve been stalling too long. I either get the profession I wanted or I don''t at this point. I can get my profession there whenever I want and I only need a kill or two for my class."


    She nodded then turned her head slightly towards Nova, "Before you do, there is something we need of you."


    Felix looked at Nova expecting to have an evolution screen brought up before him but instead, The Dragon Mother continued, "There are a number of trials and rituals that dragons traditionally undergo before an evolution. Endycor has already passed all of them though he refuses to evolve until Nova does. Nova has completed all but one."


    "The final trial for a dragon evolving into the C grade is overcoming their greatest fear. We have already undergone the ritual to identify it but Nova''s greatest fear is something she refuses to talk about with me. From what I gather however, you protected her from it in the past." Tekragoraxius looked at him but he got the sense she was okay with him keeping whatever it was a secret.


    Felix wasn''t entirely sure what it was she was so afraid of because lots of things came to mind, though he wasn''t completely clueless.


    "I would ask that you, out of respect for Nova''s wishes, do not inform me of what it is but I was hoping you would be able to help her face this fear of hers. We will be waiting here and you may retrieve coordinates if you wish. Rathelius will allow your portals to this planet while we are waiting."


    Felix nodded in respect then quickly looked at Nova before responding, What are you afraid of?


    He was immediately filled with a wave of emotions that he carefully had to pry free so he could objectively sense the rest of the message. He saw a terrible fear and the sense of something hunting her. He felt her soul quivering and her running for her life. Finally, he got the sense of complete emptiness surrounding her, like there was not just an absence of matter, not just nothing but less than nothing.


    Felix recognized the feeling, having felt the same thing himself through his nascent matter senses and felt a wave of relief wash over him along with new worries. He was initially worried that he would have to go hunt down some creature or find something in their past. Now he was worried because the Endless Hunger could very easily kill her.


    Turning back to The Dragon Mother, Felix nodded, "I can do it¡­ right here sort of. I have a Pocket Home marble, mind if we just do this in there?" Felix held up the marble for her to see.


    She nodded, "Of course, you are in need of a flat vertical surface, yes?"


    Felix nodded and a moment later, Rathelius appeared. With a flick of his wrist, a rectangular portal appeared and moved backwards a meter, extruding a stone block. Once closed, the block dropped to the ground with a thump and provided the perfect surface.


    Walking over, Felix and Nova headed into his Pocket Home where he closed the door behind him. He wasn''t certain they couldn''t see into his Pocket Home but it was the best he had. He could have done everything in his Soul Space but that completely defeated the purpose of Nova facing her fears.


    Being in his Soul Space alone was enough for the feeling The Endless Hunger gave off to be completely suppressed. To Nova, it would feel nearly normal with all the sensations it delivered simply not there.


    There wasn''t anything he could really do about it though for the time being so, he chose a fairly flat section of ground and quickly modified the gravity spell to exclude the two of them. That limited the rate The Endless Hunger would be able to grow in the worst case. It would grow using the air and ambient anima but he could hold the ambient mana back.


    Everything else was very diffused and so it wouldn''t grow very quickly because of it.


    Using slight Force spells, Felix kept the two of them floating in the air and completely stationary. Confirming Nova was ready, Felix reached inwards and prepared himself then pulled out a small orb of The Endless Hunger and held it out in his hand.


    Nova immediately started to pull back and cower in fear but Felix was only barely paying attention. He was almost completely consumed with just holding it still and keeping it from eating his hand. He had planned for this though and a moment later, the marble was lifted off his hand just an inch or so.


    With his focus freed up, he took over and used his own Force spells to suspend it then he looked over at Nova.


    She seemed to be carefully building up her courage and Felix let her. She carefully unrolled her body and returned to a more normal posture, though still with some fear evident. From there she carefully reached forwards, Felix having suspended them far enough apart that she had to stretch but could reach the orb.


    He had no intention of letting her touch it but she was free to approach and ''face the fear'', whatever that meant for a dragon.


    Her neck craned forwards just a few inches away at which point she stopped and grew used to the sensation. Felix patiently waited a few minutes, almost getting distracted as he debated then dismissed the idea of training himself. His distraction almost resulted in catastrophe as Nova suddenly swiped forwards with her claws, no doubt in a naive attempt to kill The Endless Hunger.


    Luckily, Felix had actually sensed her intentions from their soul bond in advance and was able to pull his arm back and out of the way.


    "You can''t touch it. Yes I know I touch it but¡­ I''m strong enough. I don''t know if she could touch it, probably not. No, I am definitely not saying that."


    Felix shook his head then presented the orb, that was only slightly darker than Nova''s darkest scales, to her again. As soon as he did, he watched with horror as he realized he wasn''t fast enough.


    Nova had released a solid looking beam of fire from her mouth right at The Endless Hunger in his hand. His last thought before he sprang into action was that technically, he had said she couldn''t touch it and that he was an idiot for doing so.


    The beam of fire was far too fast for Felix to do anything, it was going to hit the orb. Despite that, he reached upwards with his hand, using an instinct cast to move as fast as he could to stow the orb again.


    As he knew would happen, the beam of fire hit the orb before his hand reached it and was almost instantly transformed.


    Pure blackness raced along the stream of fire back into Nova''s mouth, transforming the fire and growing uncontrollably. Felix managed to stow the orb and some of the stream but the blackness reached her mouth before he could stop it.


    He immediately smashed himself into Nova with an instinct cast, tracing his arm through the stream of blackness, stowing every bit of it he came in contact with. His focus was nearly singular in saving Nova but he had just enough presence left to swing his other hand over and stow the splashed droplets before they landed anywhere.


    Though Nova''s scales were only a few shades lighter than The Endless Hunger consuming her, having them right next to each-other, there was a stark delineation between the blacks.


    Before he could worry about stowing any of it, Felix''s hand finally hit Nova''s body and he slammed as many soul tendrils as he could control into her. Dozens of soul tendrils, empowered by his conviction in the dire circumstances, tore into Nova''s soul with abandon. They surrounded, stopped, contained or stowed the blackness, whatever he could do to minimize the damage.


    He knew he was hurting Nova with his tendrils tearing through her, he could feel her pain directly through their soul bond and he used that. He allowed it to completely wash over him so he could pinpoint where the various pains were coming from.


    As it was coming from his soul and he needed to feel it, all of it, Felix couldn''t turn off or dull the pain. It didn''t matter though, he was more than capable of enduring it, his soul almost welcoming the minor challenge. On the other hand, he knew Nova was feeling the worst pain of her entire existence.


    Ripping creeping tendrils of inky blackness out of her body and soul, Felix refused to let the horror of the situation before him affect his work. At least a quarter of Nova''s body was just gone and even more of her soul. She could live without that though, what really instilled fear in his heart was the fact that the blackness was getting closer and closer to her core soul.


    Felix could now create the spark of life, what he couldn''t do was recreate all the experiences, ideals and emotions that made Nova who she was. He couldn''t just back them up and recreate her identically later on. If she died to wounds, there was a slight chance he could revive her if he was nearby and fast enough and had some way to repair her body. If she died to something that consumed her core soul, there was no hope.


    Even backing up his own memories, he knew that was just the surface. He was backing up as much as he could and still, he was completely incapable of transferring the entirety of the experiences. He couldn''t transfer all of them and the ones he could transfer, he couldn''t wholly transfer. Still, it was the best he could do for the time being. So long as his soul existed, all he needed to preserve were his surface memories.


    With Nova though, he would need everything and he had, nothing.


    A dozen more tendrils joined the first, branching and forking off the existing ones as Felix desperately tried to rid her off all the corruption.


    Once almost half of Nova''s soul and over a third of her body had been consumed, Felix was finally removing the last tiny remnants he had trapped. Just as he confirmed there wasn''t any of it left, the two of them bounced off the wall of his tower meaning no more than a few seconds had passed. To Felix though, it had felt like he had been fighting for hours.


    He wasn''t exhausted physically or spiritually but his will power was strained and sore.


    His job wasn''t done yet though. Nova was evidently unconscious as Felix felt nothing but the static of existence pouring through their soul bond. There wasn''t really anything Felix could do about Nova''s body shy of feeding her but her soul, was a different story.


    As Felix had-barely-managed to keep her core soul in tact, all that was missing was massive chunks of Nova''s second layer. Her third layer was as his used to be, a non factor in her actual soul and just some ambient anima that had stuck around her so, he didn''t bother with it. In fact, he quickly ripped it all free so he had more room to work.


    Using anima from The Soul Devouring Ring, his Soul Space and even his own soul, Felix carefully filled in all the blanks. He made absolutely certain to ensure everything melded together seamlessly. He wasn''t trying to infuse himself into Nova''s soul so he simply wiped the new anima clean and imbued whatever he could from the rest of Nova''s soul. Everything else would, given time, spread into the mostly blank anima.


    Almost a minute passed as Felix argued with himself before he finally came to a decision. Given he was already in Nova''s soul and that she was unconscious, he began to slightly modify things.


    Firstly, he added in a lot more anima to bolster her soul overall. Adding more anima by itself wasn''t very useful though so he began to compress it. As he had found from his own experimentation, compressing the outer layers to be denser than the core soul was a really bad idea that often ended in implosion. So, he started with her core soul.


    This time, he was very careful to ensure all of the anima he added was completely blank and before actually merging it in, he made sure her experiences and ideals transferred in to some extent. Holding the anima next to her core soul, he assisted the process and carefully imbued the anima with everything that Nova was.


    Once satisfied, Felix poured the anima directly into her core soul, once again with extreme caution. Finally, he reinvigorated the spark of life within her core soul with every remaining shred of will he had, ensuring it wouldn''t be drowned out by the new anima he had added. He repeated this numerous times over the course of a few hours-as his will slowly healed-until he deemed there was enough there then, he compressed her core soul.


    Felix didn''t get even close to as dense as his core soul but by the time he was done, Nova''s new core was close to the density of his second layer and denser than any creature he had ever harvested. After that, he compressed her second layer and enhanced the intent in the layer so it wasn''t just denser with the same amount of will. Instead it was denser both in quantity of anima, quality and imbued intent.


    Finally, once her second layer was big enough, Felix began assisting her in the process of suffusing her body with anima. It had helped him tremendously and had no side effects that he knew of for him or Zero, albeit they were nascent. Either way, he was confident it would help so he gave it a loose shape. He didn''t completely commit to the process though and instead left it unattached so Nova could make the decision herself.


    If she went through with it, it would would be easy for her to finish the process. If she didn''t want to, it would morph back into its normal shape in time.


    All that was left was to wake her and so, Felix nudged Nova through their soul bond. He might have felt bad about forcing her awake was he not certain now that she was more than healed back up. He nudged her again much more forcefully this time.


    With a yawn that-creepily came out of her missing front side-made Felix scoff, Nova began looking around with confusion. She quickly repaired her front half, returning her form to what it was before with a slight difference.


    Instead of almost completely black with really-dark-blue-that-was-basically-just-off-black scales, Nova had streaks of rich blue trailing across her body that grew from a blue hand print on her chest. The streaks grew sparser as they traveled along her body and her back third was almost completely void of them.


    Upon seeing them along with the hand print, Felix sighed as he knew exactly what they were. In his mind, his soul tendrils hadn''t looked like lightning but seeing them on Nova''s body, especially in deep and rich blue, they definitely resembled an orb of lightning.


    "What do you remember?"


    In response, Felix got a memory of Nova blasting the orb of Endless Hunger he had held in his hand with a stream of fire. Instead of consuming the fire and ripping her apart though, Nova seemed convinced she had obliterated it completely. The thought just made Felix chuckle, he saw no reason to correct her. It wasn''t like she would ever come across it on her own in the future anyways.


    Before she got too excited from her tremendous victory, Felix made sure to walk her through suffusing her body with her soul. She was happy to do so and followed along, not really making the decision herself so much as listening to Felix''s opinion, someone she trusted.


    A few dozen minutes later, she was happily prancing around and morphing parts of her body rapidly.


    Felix sighed as he opened the exit and stepped through, Nova bolting back through a moment later.


    They found Tekragoraxius exactly where they had left her along with Endycor through the portal and Nova happily walked over and greeted them. The flames of her greeting breath, and Endycor''s in turn, simply rolled off the surface of the portal but they seemed happy nonetheless.


    When she turned to The Dragon Mother and released a stream that looked like liquid fire, Felix was surprised to see it had enough force and momentum to reach her. Tekragoraxius was surprised for an entirely different reason.


    She immediately upon being hit, bent her head all the way down and examined Nova from all angles by craning and twisting her serpentine like neck. Nova, completely oblivious to what had happened, proudly shuffled on the spot as if she were showing off.


    "Traditionally, a dragon''s fear is personal and may be kept private¡­ What the hell happened in there?"


    Before Nova could answer, Felix shoved a message down their bond warning Nova not to tell Tekragoraxius about The Endless Hunger at all costs. She responded back like it was obvious causing Felix to shake his head at her.


    Turning to The Dragon Mother, Felix acted oblivious, "Why? What''s the matter?"


    She nodded slowly in understanding, "It is not my place to ask. I apologize."


    Felix shrugged in an attempt to feign indifference.


    The Dragon God nodded, "Nova is now ready. What do you require to finally hit your evolution?"


    Felix had been holding off on any evolution because he had a completely unfounded fear. A part of him was convinced that if he hit level 1000, the list of evolutions would be generated and locked in. If he then didn''t do enough to get Soulbinder, he wouldn''t get it at all. He was also worried there might be a hidden requirement that you had to get it on the first try.


    All of it was unfounded and logically, he knew it was ridiculous. Ultimately though, he didn''t really lose much by waiting and so, he had. He had covered up his work and accomplishments by hiding them in his Soul Space and Soul Garden to make sure The System couldn''t award him any levels. Now, all he had to do was prove himself.


    Pulling out a small metal disc and a quill, Felix inscribed an enchantment he considered fairly simple but incorporated some more advanced concepts.


    Ding You have gained 11 levels in [D -Arcane] Mana Engineer (997 => 1000)


    C Grade


    You have reached the prerequisite level to upgrade to C grade in your profession.


    You-


    Felix closed the screen and turned to The Dragon God, "I just need a few class levels now."


    She nodded and a moment later, Rathelius reappeared along with a portal next to Felix and Nova. They each stepped through their respective portals and into their own respective hunting grounds.


    The portals remained open and just a few minutes later, Felix stepped back onto the field and saw everyone was already there, waiting for him.


    Nova and Endycor had both hit level 1000 in the few minutes that had passed which meant they were all ready.


    Venturing one last look at his Status Screen in the D grade, Felix nodded with satisfaction. He had already integrated a few things he had found in the warehouse solely so he could raise his stats a little. Grim had collected all the information he had on classes, races and professions in his library along with many questions to the Guild of Answers in order to create a scale.


    The scale answered one simple question, ''What is the highest known limit for stats per level in the D grade?''


    It got a little complicated when they took into account instantaneous stats, combined races, classes and professions but ultimately, they decided to go with the biggest possible number. Felix had-mostly through Soul Harvesting and manually modifying his body-just barely exceeded that number for the D grade.


    Name:Felix KadeFREE0Innate:Ascendant Prodigy: Mana (Wizard)STR283,780Class:[D - Legendary] Reaper (Lvl 1000)DEX167,865Race:[D - Unique] Wanderer (Lvl 1000)AGI276,719Profession:[D - Arcane] Mana Engineer (Lvl 1000)PER140,643Health:2,920,420 / 2,920,420VIT292,042Mana:140,000,000 / 140,000,000INT365,403Energy:2,500,000 / 2,500,000END278,638


    With everything ready, he finally opened back up the screen he had ignored earlier in his specific hunting ground Tekragoraxius had provided.


    C Grade


    You have reached the prerequisite level to upgrade to the C grade in your class, profession and race.


    You may open the evolution selection screen to select your upgrade now.


    Note: It is possible for these options to change if you decide not to evolve now.


    Note: You will continue to gain experience, but you will not gain any stats from the levels beyond the threshold until you evolve. Those levels will be active as soon as you evolve however.


    Let''s start with class then, just in case. Class Evolution Selection Screen


    Felix scrolled through the options, mostly because he enjoyed reading them.


    [C - Special] Beast Tamer


    The Beast Tamer fights along with their most trusted companions, beasts. Tame, raise and train beasts of various strengths as trusted companions and deadly combatants. As the trained beasts grow, so will the tamer based on the strength of the bonds with their creatures. Skills focus on buffing the beasts, fighting as a unit, training, raising and communicating with them along with the option for beasts to learn skills themselves, at higher bond strengths. Stats gained from tamed beasts, number of bonds and strength of bonds dependent on soul strength.


    +5 STR per level


    +5 PER per level


    +5 AGI per level


    +5 END per level


    +60 FREE per level


    I mean¡­ It''s cool but¡­ I feel like getting a Special option is kind of a slap in the face.


    [C - Arcane] Battlefield Enchanter (Combination Class & Profession)


    Dedicating themselves solely to enchanting, The Battlefield Enchanter relies on enchanted equipment and items to control and decimate any fight. Skills aid in the mass production of items and have a very strong synergy with enchanting based profession skills. Other skills include enchantment healing and regeneration, temporary enchantment power increases, remote enchantment communication and control.


    +600 INT per level


    +50 FREE per level


    You know¡­ that isn''t a terrible option. I''m not taking it but, it is definitely better than most of the classes I saw in the D grade in terms of suitability.


    [C - Ancient] Construct Master (Combination Class & Profession)


    The Construct Master utilizes various constructs to create their own personal army. As the general and healer of said army, skills focus both on construction and maintenance as well as battlefield control and communication. This class strongly synergizes with all arcane profession skills but especially construct and enchantment based profession skills.


    +600 INT per level


    +100 FREE per level


    Okay that¡­ is tempting for the name alone. Fucking awesome. Way better choices this time around. Not enough for me to switch yet cause these Reaper skills-NOW THAT I CAN ACTUALLY USE THEM-are super awesome. Still though, tempting.


    [C - Mythic] Wizard


    The Wizard is a Mythic class that is rarely given out and reserved for the very few who are worthy of it. It focuses on understanding the workings of spells, mana and magic as deeply as possible to uncover the mysteries of the universe. This class is heavily focused on research to obtain and guard knowledge. There is no penalty to swap spells from the Wizard''s spell list so long as they have previously researched the new spell. Spells that have been researched are typically held in a spell book in case they need to be swapped onto the Wizard''s spell list. Swapping spells in the spell list takes a period of an hour reduced by intelligence to a minimum of 1 minute.


    As the direct upgrade from the D grade Wizard, in the C grade, the Wizard class is designed to overcome and make up for the weaknesses of the D grade class. Not only has the wielder proven their worth but their foundation of knowledge-the most important asset for a wizard-has increased dramatically.


    Spell List size: 50


    +50 PER per level


    +50 DEX per level


    +300 INT per level


    +50 FREE per level


    Holy shit¡­ What are those stats? Those are literally higher than the maximum on our scale. The spell list thing is really annoying because otherwise, this class sounds great. Mysteries of the universe, spell formation, mana and understanding, basically everything I like. You know, maybe I should switch over to this.


    [C - Ancient] Reaper


    Following in the footsteps of the progenitor, this class hones in on their path and further deviates from System standards and control. Soul harvesting is still a focus of the class but more emphasis is placed on the structure of harvested souls, the user''s soul and how to leverage the most from each. Skills are still based on the concept of augmenting the user rather than expanding their abilities and continues down this path with newly available skills and upgrades to existing skills.


    +0 per level


    [? - Ancient] The Reaper''s Personal Research Notes


    [? - Ancient] The Reaper''s Favourite Cloak


    [SS - Ancient] Soul Structure Schematic & Research Compendium


    [S - Ancient] Soul Harvesting Manual


    Are those¡­ items? Those are items right? Holy shit I¡­ I have to take thi- Hold on, there''s one more?


    [C - Mythic] Reaper


    Deviating from the path of the progenitor, this class leverages System standards and control and abuses them as much much as possible. Soul harvesting mechanically is less of a focus of the class but more emphasis is placed on bending System rules to gain stats from kills regardless. Soul strength from kills is instead increased directly by The System. Previous Reaper skills are replaced with System based variants that accomplish the same task through the use of The System instead of through the use of the user''s soul. The skill requirements for the class have also been opened up and compatibility with all skills assured.


    +550 per level


    [SSS - Mythic] Skill Compendium


    I¡­ Damn, these are both¡­ insane. Having a skill compendium¡­ and those stats¡­ Soul structuring schematics though from a primordial and¡­ damn. As painful as it is, I don''t think I can go with the Mythic variant. That line ''Soul strength ¡­ increased directly by The System'' just¡­ I don''t want anyone-anything-to be affecting my soul that directly except¡­ me. I guess it already kind of does when I level¡­ or¡­ does it? The first option-hopefully-and the class I had in the D grade let me dictate what happened with the souls. It let me dictate harvesting and when The System automated the skill, it just directed my soul so I didn''t have to waste conscious effort. It was still me doing everything. Side note, what is up with these evolutions? This can''t be normal.


    Felix took a deep breath then nodded, Select [C - Ancient] Reaper.


    C Grade Class Evolution.


    Your class selection has been finalized. This option is locked in and cannot be changed. To facilitate the process, you may also select your race and profession upgrades now so that all evolutions happen at once. You may also choose to evolve your class now.


    Would you like to evolve your class now?


    Yes.


    No.


    No. Race Evolution Selection Screen.


    [Unique] Wanderer


    After some deliberation we, The System, have decided to offer a pseudo race evolution. This evolution pales in comparison to a normal evolution at a similar rarity but still offers some of the benefits obtained from a normal race evolution. This evolution is a choice of whether or not you want The System to refine your current body. This refinement will upgrade all cells and components of your current body to a minimum of C grade Special as well as synergize and integrate the various systems and components with each-other.


    Estimated stats gained upon refinement:


    +21,530 Estimated increase to STR upon evolution.


    +20,688 Estimated increase to DEX upon evolution.


    +4,961 Estimated increase to AGI upon evolution.


    +24,751 Estimated increase to PER upon evolution.


    +482 Estimated increase to INT upon evolution.


    +11,230 Estimated increase to VIT upon evolution.


    +12,238 Estimated increase to END upon evolution.


    Stats gained regardless of decision:


    +25 to all stats (including FREE) per level.


    Do you accept this pseudo evolution?


    Yes.


    No.


    Oh¡­ shit! Agh¡­ Alright leave this open and also open Profession Evolution Selection Screen on the side.


    Scrolling through the options, Felix ignored the two combination options that were now locked leaving him with just three choices.


    [C - Epic] Construct Architect


    The Construct Architect creates and maintains constructs for various purposes. Skills include facilitating the reproduction of existing constructs and designs, repairing existing constructs and upgrading existing constructs. This profession focuses on constructs as a whole and has no specialization such as combat constructs but rather, offers a high compatibility with all construct based skills.


    +25 DEX per level


    +25 PER per level


    +50 INT per level


    +25 FREE per level


    No thank you.


    [C - Arcane] Mana Engineer


    The Mana Engineer focuses entirely on mana in all of it''s uses. Most evolutions of Arcane Engineer focus on a specific field, you have shown interest and proficiency in them all. This profession continues in it''s predecessor''s footsteps and focuses on spell form construction, enchanting and the creation of magical contraptions. New to this profession is the area of mana research. Skills dedicated to all areas of focus will be available though few exist that will include all areas. Be careful not to focus on any specific area at the detriment of the others otherwise this profession''s progress will suffer.


    +50 DEX per level


    +50 PER per level


    +200 INT per level


    +50 FREE per level


    If the next one isn''t what I''m hoping for, I''ve been pretty happy with his this class so far. This definitely isn''t a bad choice.


    [C - Ancient] Lifebinder


    The Lifebinder not only creates constructs by binding souls to them, but brings them to life. Capable of imbuing the spark of life into a construct''s soul, this class focuses on creating and bringing constructs to life. High skill compatibility with all arcane based skills though no profession specific skills exist. This profession relies heavily on innate abilities that cannot be automated by The System.


    +50 DEX per level


    +50 PER per level


    +250 INT per level


    +100 FREE per level


    Oh¡­ Oh shit. Yeah alright, give me that one. Lifebinder.


    C Grade Profession Evolution.


    Your class and profession selec-


    Nope.


    With the race selection screen still sitting in his field of vision-albeit pushed to the very edge-Felix quickly looked up at Tekragoraxius, "I''ll be back in a few hours. Something I need to do before I finalize my selections."


    She nodded and sighed causing a huge plume of smoke bouncing off the ground, "Of course. I''ll probably need that long to convince Endycor that evolving into a spirit is a terrible idea and won''t allow them to pass through the portal."


    Felix snickered then opened a portal-making sure he memorized the coordinates of the planet-and stepped through to the warehouse.


    Not wanting to make anyone wait longer than they had to, Felix rushed through the warehouse starting with the highest grade and rarity corpses. Each corpse he touched he split into two, one symmetrical half for the blood ring and one for his Soul Space.


    Given the sheer quantity of corpses, Felix ran out of room in his Soul Space before getting through even a tenth of the warehouse. He had fully expected to run out though and immediately dropped into a meditative pose, dragging his consciousness into his Soul Garden where he began dissecting and analyzing.


    He didn''t have to completely and properly analyze anything, all he had to do was take the cells and systems, replace his own then look at the race selection screen. Each time he modified them, the numbers went up and down.


    The pseudo evolution was supposed to have The System completely integrate and synergize all his systems and cells. When he introduced foreign cells the screen-as he had hoped it would-showed him the stats from fully utilizing and spreading the highest tier cells in his body for that system. With even a single high grade cell in his skin for example, he was shown the endurance that would result from spreading that throughout his body with perfect integration.


    There were some intricacies in terms of combinations of cells and systems but there was no way for him to go through every possible combination so there was a chance he missed something. However, adding in cells and just taking whatever was highest was good enough for him at the moment. To be really sure though, he also added a small sample of everything to every organ in his own body. The cells were dormant for now but he hoped would still count for the evolution.


    Lastly, he shaped and shifted his muscles and bones into all kinds of different structures and effectively temporarily crippled himself.


    What he was doing was definitely stretching the rules and he knew there was a chance it resulted in him not being offered the pseudo evolutions in the future. He didn''t bother worrying about it though because there really was no way for him to be certain it would be offered again anyways. All he could do was maximize the opportunity right now and deal with things as they came.


    Luckily, it didn''t take him long as he was being fairly sloppy. There was no deep analysis or configuration. He didn''t make the cells his own or really modify them much at all other than making them barely function and connect to everything else.


    Once he was done, he almost felt sick and actually had to manually hold his body back from attacking the foreign cells he had implanted all over. He didn''t worry about it though as he stepped back through a portal into the field around Tekragoraxius.


    As soon as he did, Nova leapt onto him once again except this time he was actively fighting his body and felt awful so he was far less stable. Once she knocked him down, Nova didn''t let him get up and instead insisted he take a look at her evolutions.


    [Reaper''s Bond (Legendary - Novice I)]


    Familiar Evolution


    Your familiar has granted you permission to see its evolution options. You may not choose the evolution yourself, but you may advise the familiar of which choice you would prefer.


    Would you like to see the options now?


    Yes.


    No.


    He wasn''t in the best condition to fight her off so he took a look.


    Yes.


    [C - Epic] Stable Remnant


    A stable remnant is a soul unbound to material objets or energy but remains stable instead through their own power. A remnant is less affected by material objects but retains some influence over the material world making them difficult for many to deal with. Through the lack of a physical form, the remnant''s mana manipulation is strengthened. This evolution relies heavily upon the strength of the wielder''s soul to remain stable.


    Transcendent: Having been tainted by the curse of hunger, Nova has used its power as fuel for her own strength. Instead of being consumed herself or embracing the curse as a part of herself, she has transcended the curse and made its power her own. Despite no longer being cursed directly by hunger, Nova has not only retained the abilities it granted her but has empowered them.


    +600,000 stats upon evolution


    +350 stats per level


    Oh¡­ sweet.


    [C - Legendary] Beast Shifter Spirit


    Through some impressive manipulation of matter, Nova has shown a particular fondness towards replicating the forms of beasts. Normally, for a sprite, this would be impossible but Nova''s intelligence and soul strength is exceptional.


    A Beast Shifter Spirit is a spirit that shifts between various beasts with the ability to amplify the unique abilities of the beasts they shift into. New beasts can be added by consuming them. The stronger the wielder gets, the higher the percentage of their stats get carried over and the stronger the beasts they can shift into.


    Transcendent: Having been tainted by the curse of hunger¡­


    +300,000 to all stats upon evolution


    +600 stats per level


    These are all kind of awesome actually.


    [C - Ancient] Primal Matter Daemon


    A Daemon is a broad term used to classify spirits of a certain strength level with a wide array of abilities. While a Daemon may specialize in one area such as Fire, Storm, Crystal, or Matter elementals or spirits, or may even have originated as beasts, they have since branched out. Daemons range from minuscule to colossal in size and in the primeval times, were often worshipped as Guardian Spirits and Minor Nature deities.


    This evolution will greatly increase Nova''s control over her size along with her minimum and maximum sizes. Maximum size depends largely on soul strength and matter control. This evolution will also greatly increase Nova''s control over everything other than matter.


    Transcendent: Having been tainted by the curse of hunger¡­


    +2,100,000 stats upon evolution


    +750 stats per level


    Well, I know which one I would pick. Also, 2 million seems so high but it''s because her stats work differently. I would get 300,000 per stat because mine are split into 7, hers aren''t. I know this and yet, seeing all those zeros seems¡­ crazy.


    Felix looked up at Nova who was still on top of him, "So, which one are you leaning towards?"


    "You want my opinion? Okay well, do you want to be a ghost?" Felix conveyed his idea of what a ghost was directly to Nova.


    She shook her head and squawked in disgust at the idea of not being corporeal.


    Felix chuckled, "Do you want to be limited to beasts alone, cells and biological matter?" Once again Felix added in the best explanation he could give for the difference.


    Once again, Nova expressed her disgust, this time jumping up and down around Felix shaking her head and actually sneezing a cloud of flame at the end.


    "Ok so there''s only one option left then. Super big minor nature deity."


    Nova squawked in delight this time then leapt over to tell Tekragoraxius and Endycor all about it.


    Felix was happy to be able to get to his feet finally but decided against it halfway up. His everything was in pain and felt wrong so lying down seemed like his best option at the moment.


    Looking over towards The Dragon Mother, Felix confirmed they were all ready for the evolution. Glancing back at the screen Felix had left open in his vision, he couldn''t help but laugh maniacally upon seeing how the numbers had gone up.


    [Unique] Wanderer


    After some deliberation we, The System, have decided to offer a pseudo race evolution. This evolution pales in comparison to a normal evolution at a similar rarity but still offers some of the benefits obtained from a normal race evolution. This evolution is a choice of whether or not you want The System to refine your current body. This refinement will upgrade all cells and components of your current body to a minimum of C grade Special as well as synergize and integrate the various systems and components with each-other.


    Estimated stats gained upon refinement:


    +230,742 Estimated increase to STR upon evolution.


    +221,726 Estimated increase to DEX upon evolution.


    +182,740 Estimated increase to AGI upon evolution.


    +265,184 Estimated increase to PER upon evolution.


    +5,170 Estimated increase to INT upon evolution.


    +120,357 Estimated increase to VIT upon evolution.


    +131,164 Estimated increase to END upon evolution.


    Stats gained regardless of decision:


    +50 to all stats (including FREE) per level.


    Do you accept this pseudo evolution?


    Yes.


    No.


    Man, even the per level stats went up. I guess those are based on strength of my body at evolution. It must be making me denser or the energy within my cells denser or something like that so the increase is proportional to their strength. It wasn''t increased proportionally to the other numbers though and it must have been rounded. Anyways, Yes.


    C Grade Class Evolution.


    Your race selection has been finalized. This option is locked in and cannot be changed. All evolution aspects are now locked in. Please place yourself in a safe location as the evolution may take some time. When you are ready, simply pull this screen back up and initiate the process.


    Note: Your familiar will evolve alongside you.


    Would you like to evolve now?


    Yes.


    No.


    Venturing one last look back at The Dragon Mother, Yes.


    This time, Felix wasn''t knocked out at all. In fact, he ended up in his Soul Garden directly and he could still vaguely feel the connection to his body. It was like it was being muted or there was a ton of static interference but his connection to it wasn''t actually weakened, just interfered with.


    Considering his recent accomplishments, the next item on Felix''s docket involved the city in his mind so he willed himself over there. Walking into the city for the first time in a while, Felix looked around appreciatively. Not a ton had changed but there were some minor differences.


    Mostly, there was more shrubbery and flowers along the path. The constructs hadn''t figured out reproduction on their own yet so there were no new beings residing in the city. Not that he could really call its current inhabitants beings either, not yet at least.


    Felix was still fully connected to his own soul and so he was fully capable of accessing everything within it. Starting with the souls he had created to live here and specifically, starting with Orion Felix began manually modifying their souls.


    First, he created a dense core that contained the original soul seed and filter. Around that, he wrapped them in a defensive layer to keep everything contained though it wasn''t strictly necessary. Finally, he ignited the spark of life within the core soul.


    It was still incredibly strenuous to do so and Felix could feel-and visibly see in his mind-the strain. He had to wait for what had felt like days within his own mind before he felt ready to do the next one. In the meantime, he found Orion and had them walk him through the entire city. He didn''t really notice any major difference though Orion could tell what he had done.


    He figured it would take time for Orion to deviate from what he was made to be but that only meant the transition time would be easier for Felix. There were only 11 entities in Felix''s mind including Orion so it didn''t take him an extraordinary amount of time. Either way he was stuck in his own mind for the time being so it wasn''t like there was much else he could do.


    In between working on all of the residents of his mind city Felix did some manual work on his computer growth farms along with Mark. He wasn''t ready to give Mark the spark of life just yet, at least not until he had the space to backup all of Felix''s memories and some. Even then, Felix was worried that with a will of his own, Mark might decide to destroy or worse, distort those memories.


    He wasn''t going to figure out a solution to that at the moment so he didn''t waste focus on it. Instead, he continued to harvest and tune the computer farms slightly, work on his spell and construct designs and read.


    Considering the ridiculous level his time dilation had gotten to, Felix was happy it had only taken just over a month of mental time for his evolution to finish. That meant that in real time, it had only taken just under two hours.


    He was more than happy for the time in hindsight as he had ended up doing a lot more reading and experimenting than he had thought. The items he was going to get from his class evolution unfortunately weren''t in his Soul Space or nearby so, they weren''t scanned yet. He did however, have plenty of books on spells and enchantments. Focusing on them and the farm almost exclusively had really shored up his knowledge.


    Not that he could do much with that knowledge yet anyways as he didn''t have the focus for it. He did have a plan to alleviate that problem though.


    As for the computer, through regular harvesting and gradual improvements, he had managed to create a small repository of ready computers in his mind. He didn''t attach them to souls just yet though because he and Grim had a theory they wanted to test out first.


    Finally awakening from his slumber, it took Felix a few moments to adjust to the changes his body had undergone. Even before he opened his eyes, the feeling of being sick and having all his muscles, tissue and organs invaded by foreign cells was gone.


    Even his own modifications which he had been happy with, paled in comparison. It was hard to think al the way back to his D grade evolution and compare things not only because his body had changed so much but because those cells were so much weaker.


    Now, like when he had evolved into the D grade, his cells and muscles felt so much more in tune with the rest of his body. They felt like a whole and like all of them were his. He had been doing his best to make sure he adapted cells to himself before spreading them out but he knew now, he was going to have to start doing a way better job.


    Felix still didn''t dare open his eyes yet, knowing that would present a whole other set of challenges so before he did, he did something else he had been waiting for, opened his status screen.


    Name:Felix KadeFREE1000Innate:Ascendant Prodigy: Mana (Wizard)STR826,493Class:[C - Ancient] Reaper (Lvl 1001)DEX701,447Race:[C - Unique] Wanderer (Lvl 1004)AGI679,187Profession:[C - Ancient] Lifebinder (Lvl 1008)PER765,235Health:5,934,340 / 5,934,340VIT593,434Mana:140,000,000 / 140,000,000INT383,828Energy:2,500,000 / 2,500,000END620,184


    Holy shit. Wait, Intelligence is my lowest stat¡­ Strength is my highest¡­ I really was destined to be a hulking brute, wasn''t I? I mean, I only need around 400 levels in my profession to put Intelligence at the top again. Still, it looks silly. Okay also, let''s add fixing my energy to my todo list.


    Finally, Felix opened his eyes. He had started the evolution lying down so he was currently staring up at the sky. Immediately he was overwhelmed with information. He couldn''t process all of it so after the initial burst, his field of vision narrowed until he was only seeing things in a narrow cone.


    Within that cone though, he saw more colors, more detail, he could focus significantly faster on what he was seeing and for the first time, he saw the air itself. Not the atoms or the gas or anything like that but the small particles of dust and sand that drifted along. Before, his eyes would largely ignore them completely, they were too small to bother with. Now, they were clear and present. In fact, he found them kind of annoying after all of a few moments.


    Grim and Orion quickly handled the field of vision issue though by ignoring a lot of the information his eyes were seeing which also got rid of the dust, thankfully. Moving incredibly slowly, Felix reached back to push himself up and im-


    A massive dragon over 15 meters from tip to tail leapt into the air and completely smothered Felix. He knew it was Nova and her increase of almost 7 times in length was astounding but not nearly as shocking to him was how it was possible for him to stand and lift her.


    In general, people and creatures got heavier as they evolved. They did not however, get heavier proportional to strength or really any stat and because of this, stats tended to scale past weight pretty quickly. Felix had been able to lift Nova''s biggest forms even when she used metal in them for a while. They had not however been very easy to lift.


    Not that Nova was easy to lift now, he just was just expecting it to be impossible. Instead, he was able to lift up her front half and free himself from her mass without too much trouble.


    "Yes, very cool. Very impressed."


    Looking around her, Felix caught sight of Endycor through the portal and saw he had also grown. Instead of Nova being half the size of Endycor, they had essentially swapped places. Endycor had at least doubled in mass but Nova had gone from a few meters long to over 15 meters long. There was really no comparison anymore.


    From what Felix could tell too, it seemed as though Tekragoraxius was consoling Endycor as they pouted, likely over the fact that they were the smaller one now.


    After a few minutes of Felix praising Nova''s new form, she ran over to the portal and teased Endycor while The Dragon Mother turned to him, "You look much stronger."


    Felix sighed, "I just hope The System isn''t too mad. I kind of abused something it did specially for me."


    She smirked knowingly, "I wouldn''t worry about it too much. It will not retaliate or punish you. However, that same loophole will not present itself in the future."


    "I know."


    "Nova''s training is complete for now. Though she may argue to stay longer, I think it would be most beneficial for her to join you in the integration event. Additionally, you should make it known that Arthur is present in the event, if you build up his merciless reputation as well, all the better. His presence alone should suffice though."


    Felix nodded, "Sure, I can do that. I guess I''ll see you in 10 dekads then."


    She sighed, "Yes, likely."


    Corralling Nova took a few minutes but, while she was evidently distraught leaving Endycor behind, that feeling disappeared after all of a few seconds. As soon as Felix conveyed to her where they were going, she bounded along around him which was a little frightening considering her new found size. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 Chapter 210 - Book 12

    Before opening a portal back to his dorm, Felix made sure to have Nova switch forms back to something less problematic. It took her a fraction of a second to return to a small black kitten, a noticeable improvement from the few seconds it used to take her. Her form wasn''t exactly as it used to be though as even as a kitten, Nova still had a blue hand print with streaks of what looked like lightning trailing out of it.


    The hand print wouldn''t be recognizable to anyone but Felix because in her smaller form with fur that wasn''t stationary, it was distorted and looked more like a morphed circle. She happily hopped back up into Felix''s robes and they finally stepped back into his dorm.


    Okay, two things I want to do before heading back into the event. First, my items.


    Felix focused on the screen that he had pointedly ignored in the presence of Tekragoraxius and accepted the items. Instead of appearing in his Soul Space, the items instead appeared before him. There was no fancy box or anything rather, a bundle of books wrapped in dark cloth dropped to the floor in front of him.


    Felix reached down and unraveled the package. The cloth was, as expected, the cloak but, it wasn''t what Felix had expected. It wasn''t sheer black or torn and frayed at the bottom. It was actually more of a steely blue with gold filigree forming a floral pattern on the inside and seemed like a normal, ankle length hooded cloak with a high collar.


    [? - Ancient] The Reaper''s Favourite Cloak


    Personal Note: With a couple of simple but incredibly useful abilities all wrapped up in a cloak with timeless style, this remains my personal favourite cloak to this day; despite the fact that I haven''t worn it in a long time.


    Passive Abilities:


    Weather Phasing: No matter the conditions outside the cloak, the inside will always keep you at a comfortable temperature.


    Forgotten: Blend in with the crowd and be forgotten. All who notice you will pay you no mind and soon forget you entirely so long as you do nothing too memorable.


    Guarding: Though nothing particularly strong or powerful, slow, weak, uninfused attacks may be completely ineffective.


    Huh.


    The closer Felix looked, examining the cloak for himself, the more he realized it was rather odd. The cloak itself gave off some kind of feeling of deeper meaning that he pinpointed as being based in anima but otherwise couldn''t get anything out of. It also used mana but, not in any way he was familiar with. Even with his absurd mana control and senses, he couldn''t really tell what was going on other than the fact that he detected some mana at all.


    This cloak¡­ is not from System era times, is it? Maybe even a different universe. That identification definitely wasn''t written by The System I''m used to. It also doesn''t have a grade but is that because The System can''t grade it or won''t? I think¡­ I''m not going to feed this to Reaper''s Mantle right now at least. It''s too unique and not only can I not replicate it, I don''t even understand it.


    Considering just how little he understood about it, Felix decided he would put it in the Kryptos Repository instead of his Soul Space. Reaching down towards the band, he chose an open rune at random and as soon as he did, even before touching the band, it spun into place.


    Oh shit, soul bound means it grows. Oh man, even more upgrades.


    Spinning the rest of the bands into place-now mentally which was significantly faster-the opening was actually projected in front of his hand instead of within the band. All he had to do was reach forwards and push the cloak inside.


    Felix knew, even before touching any of them, none of the books in front of him were encoded or written in creeping ink or anything. He had already scanned them all into his library without issue. Reaching for the one on the top, the Personal Research Notes, he flipped through just to confirm.


    He couldn''t help but skim through the contents but found himself increasingly disappointed as he did so. The research contained within was focused on cultures, religions, planets, climates, geography and solar systems surrounding various civilizations. This was followed by theories on how this affected the growth and creations of those civilizations.


    I feel like I was misled¡­


    He stored the book in the Kryptos Repository just to be safe then picked up the next one. The Soul Structure Schematic & Research Compendium was exactly what he was hoping for, a compendium of research notes and soul schematics from various individuals. None of them were signed by The Reaper but even still, there were things in the notes that Felix had never even imagined.


    Finally, the Soul Harvesting Manual was interesting but not as insightful as he had hoped. If he had only gotten the Research Compendium, Felix himself could have written a decent chunk of the manual. It was formatted in a more readable, direct and understandable way but that didn''t really help Felix much.


    The rest of the book was more interesting though and contained sections on preserving convictions and intent from harvested souls, reading experiences and various details about souls in general. All of it was designed so the reader could get the most from harvested souls which was more than welcome in Felix''s mind.


    He stored everything in the Kryptos Repository for now, the scans in his mind more than sufficient for the time being and walked into his Pocket Home. He left Nova to wonder around and closed the portal behind him.


    Somewhat sure no one was watching, Felix pulled out Eretheas and examined how it had been upgraded. After that, he completely overhauled his Persona Body and moved over most of the changes from his real body''s evolution. He kept some differences like the mana channels in his Persona Body but otherwise, they were biologically, very similar.


    Switching back over, he ran through everything that had changed for the rings and laughed to himself. For the time being, the massive increases to the capacity of the two rings was more than welcome. Everything else though, he wouldn''t really be able to make use of for a while.


    After a few minutes of testing things out, Felix decided he was wasting too much time and so he hid them and hopped back out of his Pocket Home.


    Finally opening the portal back to the event, Felix stepped through with his kitten bounding ahead of him into the desert. Before diving into anything, he quickly opened a portal back to the vault to check on his newest creation.


    A brief conversation with Zero miming to Felix later and he realized it was a terrible idea for him to bring Zero out into the world yet. Zero hadn''t magically become a System leveler so he had no class, race or profession. On top of that, he still wasn''t used to using all the random abilities his body gave him. The blueprints Felix had gave him were helping a lot though.


    He was currently training the forms from a book Felix had scanned at some point with sword forms but still wasn''t very good with them. Once he was more accustomed to everything, Felix would bring him to a hunting ground or something but it wasn''t time for that yet.


    First things first, Felix flew back towards the Rakyt city that he suddenly realized he didn''t know the name of. Nova ran across the sand below him, diving through dunes and kicking up a huge cloud of sand behind her. It was an odd sight seeing a kitten running at ridiculous speeds and hitting massive sand dunes hard enough for them to essentially explode.


    As they approached, Felix saw a pair of participants standing a kilometer or so outside the city. They seemed to be doing something in the sand itself or below it. No Rakyt convoy approached to greet them though and Felix didn''t really pay them much mind other than identifying them.


    [C - Epic] Flesh Fiend: Ozrach (Lvl 1426)


    [C - Epic] Rakshasa: Muzestad (Lvl 1398)


    Huh.


    Zipping past, and swerving a wide berth around so Nova didn''t bulldoze them, Felix flew right up to the gates of the city. The magical weapons throughout all whirred to life as he approached but stopped targeting him after a brief moment.


    The gates opened a few minutes later and dozens of Rakyt guards all walked up to surround and escort Felix inside. Felix had been expecting looks, it came with the territory of being the only non Rakyt in the city but, these were different. He quickly realized they weren''t actually looking at him but rather, at Nova.


    Once the gates closed behind them, two thirds of the guards resumed their duties while the rest, served as Felix''s escort. They led him over to Arysha whom he spoken to before.


    [C - Legendary] Rakyt Savant: Arysha (Lvl 1698)


    Why can I see race and rarity now? Is that from the evolution or me upgrading my identify skill and¡­ it was delayed? No, that doesn''t make sense. Weird.


    Felix nodded and offered a shallow bow which only seemed to confuse the Rakyt around him, "Arysha."


    She nodded and her initial confusion quickly washed away, "Halwaro Felix."


    I take it The System decided not to translate that¡­ for some reason?


    Felix didn''t even try to return the same greeting, "You have any questions for me before I head out?"


    "Ah, yes. Follow me." She led him towards the same large building in the distance he had been to before. On the way, she turned to him, "Halwaro is Rakyt word. You are stronger now. You have changed. You look notable. This is to be celebrated."


    Felix nodded, "I see. Well, thanks."


    I look different? I guess I should get a mirror or something and check.


    She nodded, "You have creature with you. What are they?"


    Why is the translation here so weird. Is there language really that different?


    "This is Nova, my familiar."


    She nodded, "Yes. Familiar, I know this. I have familiar also. What are they?"


    "She''s a sprite. Changes forms but she seems to like this one."


    Arysha shook her head, "Yes. What is name of creature. This¡­ form?"


    "Oh, a cat?"


    "Cat. I see."


    Felix shrugged, "Technically this is based on a panther. I don''t think she''s ever actually eaten a cat before. They''re all felines though so, basically the same thing."


    "What is panther? and feline?"


    Felix turned to Nova, "Panther form."


    Nova meowed at him then hopped off his shoulder and morphed into a panther. Instead of her old panther that was huge, she was smart enough to transform into one only a meter or so long. Big enough to convey the idea without being too threatening or ridiculous.


    "That''s a panther."


    Arysha stared at Nova with wide eyes and looking around, Felix saw the guards all had similar reactions to her. They didn''t draw their weapons though which he was grateful for.


    Turning back to Nova Felix conveyed to her the image of a lion. It took a bit of back and forth mentally for her to get a clear enough picture but once she did, Felix had to say she was exactly what he remembered them being, "This is a Lion, also a feline."


    Felix had Nova show off a few more forms before they finally made it to the chamber with the waterfall and giant ball of mana. The guards ended up having Nova run through all kinds of different enemies she knew the forms for while they all waited for Arysha to return with their questions.


    The questions were mostly pretty innocuous once more and this time, there were even some item requests in the mix. Felix was happy to answer the questions especially since it netted him a couple hundred inventory points.


    Once he was done there, he and Nova made their leave and flew back out into the desert a short distance. Felix opened a portal to a random spot near the mountains as Nova was dying to go and eat everything. She wasn''t cursed anymore but it seemed the desire to consume remained.


    He let her loose then headed for the nearest Ancient Ruin quest himself.


    The quest was another dungeon except this one, Felix wasn''t the first to reach. The first person bonus message was missing but the quest was still in his quest list so he knew he would at least get the inventory points.


    Within the dungeon, Felix had expected something similar to the last dungeon he had completed but it was completely different. The inside of the dungeon looked just like the outside with vast fields of green in every direction except there was also a small structure behind him. It was about the size of a pylon and seemed to just be a placeholder.


    The entire dungeon was a simple scenario, protect the pylon from waves of beasts. The waves started at 10 level 1200 beasts then grew progressively until they reached 40 beasts at which point they dropped back to just 10 beasts but went up in level by 100. Once the waves reached level 1900, they finally hit Epic rarity instead of Special and the waves were much smaller.


    Felix didn''t have much trouble at all clearing out the waves as they were normal creatures. His stats alone made it so he could probably have sat there and punched them all to death, though it would have taken forever.


    Once the waves were dealt with-their bodies vanishing much like the last dungeon-Felix was disappointed to obtain only 1000 inventory points and a bunch of low grade creature hides. On top of that, the creatures were too weak to really push him so he only gained 6 class levels.


    Damn. Might not even be worth it to complete dungeons if I''m not first.


    Sighing, Felix accepted the screen before him to leave the dungeon. His surroundings didn''t change at all, the entrance to the dungeon being a small 1 meter tall pillar in the middle of a field. The one thing that did change though, was that someone suddenly appeared in front of him.


    [C - Divine] Zeraxes (Lvl 1326)


    A Divine race? Cool.


    Upon appearing in the field, Zeraxes immediately noticed Felix though he didn''t approach, "Felix."


    Felix responded in a similarly blank tone, "Zeraxes."


    Suddenly, a meter long beam of lightning appeared in Zeraxes hand and Felix''s heart started racing. It wasn''t like captured lightning, it was like the lightning was actively bridging two invisible points in the air with a fairly direct path. There was one core bolt that was thicker and brighter along with secondary bolts that forked off and only sometimes rejoined the main bolt.


    Zeraxes looked very seriously at Felix, "Have you sided with a faction yet? Edras¡­ by chance?"


    Felix quickly shook his head, "Nope, still¡­ neutral? I guess."


    Zeraxes nodded slowly then a moment later, at a normal speed as his divine bolt vanished, "Good to hear."


    He offered a wide smile as he walked over to a more conversational distance, "You find anything particularly interesting so far?"


    Felix shook his head, "Not really. This is the second dungeon I''ve completed. I''ve been a bit busy with my evolution."


    "Oh right, I forgot you were one of the only D grades. Congratulations."


    "Thanks."


    Zeraxes seemed both genuine and friendly which wasn''t really what Felix was expecting considering the first impression he had gotten back in Group Combat, "You planning on joining an alliance?"


    Felix shook his head, "Nope. I''m more of a solo kind of guy."


    "Alright fair enough. I mean, me too but¡­ having a properly fortified cache and sharing information is useful. Don''t get me wrong, it''s not like I''m going to team up for dungeon runs or anything. What would even be the point? But¡­ not having to worry about my own vault is pretty sweet."


    Felix nodded, "Yeah, fair enough."


    "If you change your mind, you might want to do so soon and join us, the Archon alliance. You still have a dozen dekads or so but¡­ once the actual fun starts, I can''t guarantee we''ll take anyone in, you know possible spies and all that."


    "I appreciate it."


    "In the meantime, want to check out what we''ve got so far? We''re setting up shops and stuff so you can trade the shit you don''t want. You can also buy things if you''re interested. I''ll also update you on all the dungeons we''ve found and we can sync up our maps."


    Felix nodded, "Actually yeah, that''d be great. I''d like to avoid already completed dungeons if possible."


    "I hear you on that, me too. Let me just clear this one real quick since I''m already here then you can join me through the portal back. Shouldn''t take long."


    Felix nodded in affirmation and Zeraxes slapped the pillar, instantly vanishing. After less than 10 seconds had passed, he reappeared and smiled to Felix, "Alright, ready to go?"


    Felix frowned, "Wait¡­ are the dungeons time dilated?"


    Zeraxes laughed, "No, nothing like that. There''s actually a trick to these kinds of dungeons." Zeraxes leaned in just a little, "The System never shows you the option, but you can ask to just send all the waves at once."


    Felix''s eyes went wide, "Really?"


    "Yeah, makes it way more bearable." Zeraxes pulled out some kind of hand sized cylinder and pressed the button on top of it causing a portal to appear before him.


    He stepped through and Felix followed just a few moments later, after checking to be mostly sure it wasn''t some kind of trap. The fact that he saw hundreds of people running around on the other side helped his comfort level a lot.


    Stepping through the portal, Felix was pretty sure they had stepped directly into the middle of a mountain or something. All the walls were carved stone but he saw some natural light from a room behind him which had windows. None of that surprised him. It was logical to carve out a cave in a mountain, it was a fast way to make a structure.


    What was surprising, was how massive the area was. He had seen hundreds of people wandering around and there were countless rooms and halls he couldn''t see the end of as he walked through. Zeraxes wasn''t too hard to follow as he walked directly where he was going, letting everyone else move to avoid him. All Felix had to do was walk in his wake. As they walked, Felix was continuously looking around and marveling at how quickly they had built up such a massive complex.


    First they headed into a map room where Zeraxes gave Felix permission to sync his map. They had already found everything he had, including the Rakyt main city so there was no point in Felix holding anything back. The most useful part for Felix, was that the dungeons they knew about were marked and the ones that had already been completed were coloured differently.


    After that, he led Felix into a huge open area with hundreds more people bustling about.


    "This is the market. Currency is Inventory Points or most people are willing to trade."


    There were stands and small shops all over, some of which were literally an individual with a sign. Felix was pretty surprised there was anyone who had anything to sell already and decided he would take a brief look.


    Zeraxes turned to Felix and slapped him on the shoulder, "Alright, this is where I leave you. I''m headed out again to see if I can''t find more uncompleted dungeons. Feel free to wander about. Oh, and head down that hall or out a window if you don''t have your own way out already."


    "Sure, thanks."


    Zeraxes smiled and nodded once then ran off down a hallway.


    Felix only wandered through the market for a few minutes. A lot of what was being sold were enchanted items, scrolls and tablets. Some of them opened portals, others created shields and some were even bombs. The only items for sale that were actually from the event were a few raw materials here and there and a few fairly lame dungeon rewards. Nothing Felix was particularly interested in.


    He didn''t really have anything else he wanted to do so he recorded the coordinates in the compound then flew out of the nearest window.


    As soon as he left though, he was surprised again as passing through the outermost rooms, he saw reinforcements being added on all the outer walls. Metal plates and beams behind them not to hold the ceiling up or keep the cave stable but evidently to protect from attacks.


    Felix wasn''t exactly sure what they were defending against but on the outside too, he saw multiple holes along the mountain that weren''t just windows. His mana senses once again lit up near many of the holes solely because of how much mana was being stored near them.


    It''s like a bunker. Makes me wonder what the hell they''re protecting against but I guess I''ll find out eventually.


    Felix flew out a short distance then opened a portal to the border of the land the Archon alliance had explored. He really wanted to find more dungeons that no one else had completed.


    Once through, he summoned Erevos so he could focus on other things instead of flying.


    He had been interrupted when he left the last dungeon so he didn''t get a chance then to check his inventory. He was pretty sure the low grade creature hides wouldn''t take up too much space but if they did, he was willing to dump them now.


    Checking his inventory though, he frowned. His points seemed way higher than they should have. He had 4000 extra points that he couldn''t account for. There was no log he could find and he was pretty sure no one had paid him so the only other explanation was that he had accidentally completed a quest.


    Opening his quest screen, he switched it to only show completed quests and saw two gathering quests that he definitely didn''t accidentally complete. He just didn''t have time to waste gathering resources. It was only a few seconds later when another gathering quest completed right before his eyes that he realized what was happening.


    How did I not realize sooner. I am an idiot. Anyways, thanks Nova.


    Felix sent a quick sense of gratitude down their bond then focused back on the flight and gunned it.


    His focus was quickly tested though as Grim spoke up in his mind, _I wonder if this is how inventories in the tutorial worked. A hidden points system based on quests completed. That''s why yours seemed infinite.


    Felix slowed down a little as he answered, You thought it was soul spaces, didn''t you?


    I did. This seems more likely now though.


    The next dungeon he found was a section of the forest that formed a maze. He tried burning the trees down but they quickly regrew making it impossible for him to cheat that way. The canopy was also, unfortunately dense and similarly impenetrable. Luckily he was pretty quick and so he ran down the various corridors and mapped things out in his mind.


    That quickly proved to be largely useless however as he realized-as soon as he doubled back from a dead end-that the maze was moving.


    In another situation, Felix might have found the whole puzzle of the dungeon fascinating but in this event, he was pressed for time. Eventually he decided to just follow the strongest beasts until he found the exit. He still wasn''t the first though so all he ended up with were some rare plants and more inventory points.


    Popping out of the dungeon he continued heading outwards into undiscovered territory and during the flight, he finally took a look at his energy reserves.


    His energy core was now hindering him rather than helping him now that his endurance had reached ridiculous levels. He figured he could continue to suffuse energy into his mana core and try to compress it further but he was happy with the current ratio. It seemed to suit his body well and he didn''t want to mess with it.


    Instead, he decided to revert some of the changes he had made. The core would still exist, energy still suffusing his mana core, but his body was more effective for storing energy at this point. In addition to his energy core, Felix refilled his body with its own energy.


    As soon as he did though, he almost felt sick. It was like he was extraordinarily bloated or his cells were rejecting the energy. It was odd because he still always had his Core Energy Infusion buff active, passively increasing his stats, so there was no reason for them to suddenly be rejecting energy. Despite all his logical reasoning, Felix couldn''t debate his cells so he sighed and set thing back to the way they were.


    The hell is going on. Guess I just need to experiment with it more.


    Instead of staying low to the ground and watching his available quest list though, Felix decided to gain more distance from everyone else. Once he was satisfied with how far he was, he dismissed Erevos and flew just over the tree line.


    The trees below him were spread out far enough that he could see the forest floor just about everywhere he looked which he hoped was enough for him to pick up nearby quests.


    He flew by some interesting looking flowers, herbs, trees with fruits and various other resources but largely ignored them.


    One flower in particular stood out to him though, not because it was interesting to him but because it was in the process of being harvested. Felix managed to spot 5 participants in total, two that were working together to harvest the flower and three that were standing guard.


    He had no intention of bothering them, simply annoyed he still had some distance to go if he wanted to find undiscovered lands. As soon as they spotted him though, shortly after he spotted them, the three guards moved into action.


    One of them disappeared by literally walking into a tree and the other two leapt up into the canopy. Felix started to veer away from them but a mass of vines shot up from a nearby tree and nearly ensnared him.


    What the shit. Leave me alone.


    Felix tried to swerve and dodge them and made it as painfully obvious as he could that didn''t want to fight. He managed to gain a bit of distance but was quickly stopped short by one of the guards leaping up at him.


    It was a ridiculous leap that should have been impossible, especially considering the plate armor made of bark and wood they had equipped.


    Alright fine, fuck you guys.


    Pulling out Grim in one hand, Felix dropped a persistent Fire Ball on the leaping guard''s head. It was a direct hit because they had no air maneuverability and once it exploded, it simply remained, stuck to their head. That sphere of fire would follow them around for a few seconds.


    While they dealt with that, Felix phantom stepped in the opposite direction and flew straight at the flower. He didn''t even want the damn thing but they did and he was hoping that meant they would bunch themselves a little closer together.


    As soon as he landed-dropping a Lightning Storm directly onto the harvester-Felix snatched the flower from their grasp. They were too busy cradling it and not paying attention to their surroundings to actually stop him. He was more than willing to ruin the treasure by yanking and stowing it while they were still trying to harvest it. As he stowed the flower in his inventory, his hand followed through on the movement to shoot forwards and he actually punched the harvester in the face.


    It did more than he was expecting-which still wasn''t much-but did seem to somewhat stun them, if only from the surprise of the action. The best part though, was that it was incredibly satisfying and made Felix feel much better.


    The Lightning Storm hit him too a few times but, his cloak enchantment simply redirected those hits.


    Knowing he was dropping into melee range of an unknown combatant, Felix had already prepared a Force Explosion spell that he immediately released. It exploded outwards, ripping up the forest floor and throwing the harvester back a dozen meters. He dropped the Lightning Storm spell, siphoning back the left over mana because the spell wasn''t needed anymore.


    One of the guards that had chased him, the vine summoner, dropped from the canopy and drove both of her arms into the ground below her which sank down to her elbows. A moment later, Felix felt something within the ground. He felt mana being channeled into the ability but, they were too far and it was being converted into something else very quickly so he had no hope of simply destroying the skill.


    She was too late though as Felix''s other spell just finished casting and he stepped through the portal before her skill had any effect whatsoever.


    Felix stepped through one more portal-to obscure his location and make him harder to follow-back into his cache then switched over to his Persona. If he was going to be attacked, he might as well start building a reputation. His stats were also currently quite a bit higher in his Persona as his bodily stats all got a decent buff in the larger, stronger body. His mental stats suffered but at the moment, his Intelligence at least, was his lowest stat even in his main body.


    Walking around as Arthur was no real detriment to him as he could switch back within the dungeons whenever he wanted.


    Felix opened a portal to a different border this time and headed in a completely different direction towards more unmapped land.


    As Arthur, he was stopped a couple times by other participants but none of them outright attacked him. In fact, they both actually tried to recruit him. Felix just grunted then ignored them and moved on. He didn''t want to build a reputation as a savage that would attack people at random, that would have been too problematic.


    He managed to hit 8 more Ancient Ruin Dungeons before he decided to head back for Solo Combat. He had decided to skip Soul Manipulation because they were still being lectured on defensive formations and occasionally offered demonstrations. None of that was particularly valuable to Felix though so he had no reservations skipping it entirely.


    After smashing through a few duels in Solo Combat solely because of his massive jump in stats, Felix headed back into the event. He continued to wear his disguise as Arthur while he flew around which proved prudent just a few days in when he was actually forced to kill two participants.


    He honestly didn''t intend to kill anyone at first, he was planning on building a reputation of being ruthless and greedy simply by fighting people for treasures.


    Flying over a barren field of stones and keeping himself low to the ground so he would get as many quests as possible, Felix was barely paying attention to his surroundings with his mind elsewhere. Suddenly, a net of massive chains ripped out of the ground and surrounded him, his body slamming against them to arrest his momentum.


    As he was pulled backwards, he summoned Eretheas and began swinging against the chains. He didn''t have much leverage, certainly not enough to break the chains though he wasn''t entirely confident he could have broken them even with leverage. He simply resisted to put on a good show and bait his enemies.


    From within two larger stones, a pair of participants burst out completely covered in metallic armor. Their armor was nothing like plate though and actually looked like a suit of metal that was liquid around the joints and solid between them.


    [C - Epic] Morak: First Daughter of the Forge (Lvl 1412)


    [C - Epic] Kroessam: First Cousin of the Forge (Lvl 1458)


    The chains wrapped around Felix twisted unnaturally and contorted indicating they had some kind of control over them but they weren''t focused on it. The two of them were busy readying what looked like a large Iron Maiden. Felix wasn''t actually sure Arthur''s body would even fit inside of it but they were obviously keen on trying.


    Felix continued to struggle against the chains and desperately tried to smash through the links but it quickly became obvious he wasn''t going to break out of them. As Felix was dragged into the torture device, just a meter away from being skewered, neither of the Forge kin hesitated.


    He had no intention of surrendering but he got the notion that even if he did, they wouldn''t have accepted that.


    The chains grew taught as they constricted Felix''s body and suspended him between the two halves of the iron coffin as it was slammed shut. The two halves thumped together with a metallic clang and released a plume of black smoke, almost shadow even, into the air above them. It was subtle enough that the two Forge levelers didn''t even notice it which was lucky for Felix who swung Eretheas into one of their necks as hard as he could.


    Just before Eretheas hit however, despite neither of them having noticed him, the metal around their body swelled outwards. Liquid metal slowed the swing enough for the solid plate beneath to stop the attack. He still managed to slam the man''s head into the coffin in front of him just from the momentum but it was a far cry from the effect he had hoped for. At the same time, the liquid metal began wrapping itself around Eretheas and Felix grunted as he yanked on the axe to no avail.


    He sighed and switched places with a new shade behind the woman giving himself a few moments where they were left looking for him. At first he wasn''t sure how to get through their armor but then he had a thought and decided to activate a couple of the new abilities his rings had gotten when he evolved.


    First, he released Devouring Aura which was the third of the three skills his Soul Devouring Ring had gained. It effectively radiated all the blood lust he had infused into his Persona''s soul along with the wails of the souls he''d previously harvested. The stronger his Persona''s soul and the more souls he harvested, the stronger the aura.


    Immediately the two of them flinched and their armor hardened. Though it took the slot of an attack skill on his ring, it wasn''t going to ever really do any damage. It did however put pressure on those around him at very little cost to him. It seemed to use the same energy, or rather strain him in the same way, creating the spark of life did. It was not nearly as bad though and he figured he could realistically maintain the aura indefinitely.


    After the aura, he summoned two shades and began swinging into the two metal encased participants. While neither of his shades got anywhere with normal swings, Felix had engulfed his own axe in an aura of extreme cold.


    The man having recovered from smacking his head spun on the real Felix while whipping a dozen chains around him, completely obliterating the two shades before they had a chance to regenerate. Felix grabbed two of the chains as they flew towards him and immediately pulled on them before the man could react.


    Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.


    He drove his foot into Kroessam''s chest which turned into an array of spikes at the last moment. Blood gushed out of Felix''s foot for all of a few moments before stopping completely. Felix grunted and yanked his foot free, as the gushing blood encased the injured foot in a crimson greave. Once it was covered, he kicked again, this time crushing the spikes with a loud screeching sound as the greave blocked the spikes entirely.


    Two metal spikes ripped through Felix''s torso a moment later and he summoned and switched places with a shade as soon as he felt the pain. By the time he reappeared, his torso had been covered in a skin tight crimson plate that covered both the wounds and most of his chest.


    Checking his health, Felix had already lost 20% of his health but he smiled wickedly. Armor of Blood effectively made him immune to bleeding as it instantly inflicted a portion of the bleeding damage he would have taken anyways then used the blood to form armor around him. The armor''s durability scaled with his vitality which, in his Persona, was ridiculously high.


    Armor of Blood paired synergized with one of the other skills he had, Crimson Rage because as he lost health, his strength increased by the same percentage. Currently, he had 20% increased strength.


    Swinging Eretheas into the the man''s back, Felix empowered the cold field on the axe head and increased the axe''s weight as far as he could while still being able to swing it. The first time he had gotten near these two, he had felt the heat radiating off of them even though there was no distinctive red glow of molten metal.


    That had discouraged him from trying to cook them alive with fire. Even though molten metal didn''t have the greatest conductivity, it would still inevitably redirect the Lightning around them. That left cooling the armor down to trap them.


    Driving the axe into the armor, the same liquid metal swelled upwards to slow his strike but this time, only a small layer was created as the rest froze solid in a small crater. Eretheas slammed into their back and sheared at least a few inches into their armor.


    Felix wrenched the axe backwards and upon seeing blood splatter out of their wound, activated the third of his Blood Ring''s abilities, Crimson Slaughter.


    Technically it was an execute ability, doing more damage to a target the more severe their wounds were but Felix was curious and wanted to test it. Activating it, he didn''t see anything happen but a satisfying squelch sound released from within the armor and Felix''s smile grew.


    It hadn''t killed the man but the spikes of blood had definitely done damage.


    Lifting the axe, Felix blocked metal spikes that twisted like tendrils and swapped places with a new shade behind the woman. She had her hands on the metal coffin and chains and was in the process of melting them down to form whatever she wanted which, was almost exclusively spikes.


    As Felix swung down from a slight jump, she twisted all the metal under her control to block the axe but Felix''s cold aura froze it all solid. As the swing descended inevitably upon her, a wall of frozen steel was created on either side of the swing, completely unable to approach it.


    She screamed and activated an armor skill that completely hardened her armor in an instant. Along with the aura of cold around the head of the axe, the armor completely shattered as Eretheas hit it. The shards were like glass and completely tore up her body as Eretheas continued through and sheared off her arm.


    The man screamed this time, "How did you even get into this stupid event!" and pulled out a scroll but there was no way Felix was letting that happen so he switched places with another shade and ripped all the mana out of the scroll. He was hoping any of the stories they told would claim his aura suppressed abilities or something but didn''t worry about it too much.


    Once he figured things out a little more, he would provide Tekragoraxius with a run down of his abilities and she would craft the rumors for him.


    Bringing the axe close to the man to freeze his armor, Felix punched him in the face then slit his throat finally activating Crimson Slaughter one last time. He activated both rings, but made sure Soul Reap was disabled, to regenerate his health and start stacking Empowered Spirit. Much like Crimson Rage, Empowered Spirit buffed Felix''s agility for a short time after harvesting a soul.


    The buff didn''t last long but it stacked and refreshed every time he harvested. As the woman now pulled out some kind of enchanted item, Felix threw Eretheas at her head then teleported to it as soon as it reached her, following through with the rest of the swing and removing her head.


    He harvested her too, ensuring their possessions ended up in his Soul Space then sat down and meditated to restore his missing health. An ominous System screen stopped him short though.


    Multiversal Law


    True killing is against the established laws of the multiverse and results in harsh punishment. As this is your first infraction and you have yet to be informed by The System of the laws, your punishment will be reduced.


    Punishment:


    Loss of levels: 10 x People Killed = 20.


    As this loss would put you below the threshold for an evolution, you will gain negative levels and a lock on your abilities. You will have to regain the levels to remove the lock. You will also be removed and banned from the current even-


    What¡­ I know I kind of forgot about the whole true killing thing in the heat of battle and being hurt and¡­ Why isn''t it finishing?


    Multiversal Law: Overriden.


    Punishment:


    Your name will appear in red when identified and for every participant you kill you will gain 1 stack. Every one you true kill, you will gain 10. As long as your name is red, you cannot surrender. Killing you will result in massive rewards scaling with the number of stacks you have obtained.


    Wait¡­ huh. I wonder if that carries over to my actual body¡­


    Global Quest: Massacre


    Some participants have started killing and some even true killing others. These participants have been marked in red upon identification, are unable to surrender and have gained stacks based on their kills which will appear next to their name. These stacks represent their bounty and upon killing them, you will receive rewards:


    1+ Stack: 10,000 Inventory Points per stack.


    20+ Stacks: 25,000 Inventory Points per stack and access to the Event Trove.


    100+ Stacks: A permanent buff within the event and all previous rewards.


    Current Stack Leaderboard:


    Arthur: 20


    Oh man thank goodness it doesn''t say Felix.


    Event Trove


    The Event Trove is a shop from which resources, natural treasures, items, research, and other goods can be purchased from within the event. The accepted currency is Inventory Points only and to gain access, you must either be marked by the Global Quest: Massacre with a red name or kill someone with 20 or more stacks. Sear?h the n??el Fire.n§×t website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    Wait, all you need to do to get access is to kill someone? Isn''t this kind of bloodthirsty? Event Trove.


    Scrolling through the items in the Trove, Felix''s eyes went wide. Not only were there all kinds of natural treasures, metals, materials and other goods Felix expected but there was also research, constructs, schematics, skill manuals, class manuals and more. There were even a few of the System Cores for sale.


    Some of the items cost millions of points but considering he had almost tripled his Inventory Points already, he definitely had hope.


    This is kind of ideal for building Arthur''s reputation. As long as I don''t kill people in my real body, no one will know.


    Felix quickly confirmed that was the case by checking his own identification in his Persona and in his real body. Seeing his level, he frowned. He hadn''t gained any levels from killing the two Forge participants and his real level was what he expected. His Persona though, seemed to display 1849 as his level.


    I guess it''s based on stats or something? That''s why the guy was asking how I was in the event.


    He considered for a few moments then decided to equip a title on his Persona too. He thought about equipping Warlord but he didn''t want to show off a title that had to do with commanding an army. Instead, he equipped Titan Killer: Legendary.


    Unfortunately, Felix didn''t see many other participants for a while. He managed to hit 8 other dungeons before heading back for Group Combat, one of the few classes he wasn''t currently willing to skip.


    Group Combat was much harder now that they were in the third class. He and Peace were still amongst the strongest through their stats alone but suddenly, it was like they had broken through some invisible threshold. It had been fairly easy to stand out as team players in the lower classes, the third class though was completely different.


    Everyone in the class from what Felix could tell were very good at working with a team. They formulated plans, listened, worked together and found synergies between members.


    While they hadn''t stood out as exceptional and didn''t get moved into the 2nd class yet, Felix and Peace also hadn''t been at the bottom thankfully.


    Hopping back into the event Felix continued his search for undiscovered dungeons. He flew from dungeon to dungeon ignoring other participants unless they attacked him. He didn''t want to just kill everyone and paint a target on his back so he made sure he was ruthless but reasonable, only fighting back and killing when he was attacked first.


    It wasn''t until a few dekads later when he finally found another core though.


    The rest of the dungeon had been relatively basic and he hadn''t expected anything particularly interesting inside. It was actually a puzzle dungeon with no real monsters in sight but it wasn''t a research lab or anything, instead it was a house in the side of a cliff.


    At first, the puzzles were fairly easy and mostly involved basic enchantment theory. Even non enchanters would have been able to solve it. A few puzzles in though, things shifted in a weird direction.


    The puzzles started veering into things Felix had never thought of before. It started to split enchantments and pit them against each-other, like a cage fighting match. It wasn''t the effects that were fighting either, it asked him which enchantment would prevail when the enchantments fought for the same mana source.


    After that, the enchantments were split in half and connected together creating a complete mess. Then he was asked which would win again. It was complete nonsense but Felix simulated the spell anyways and provided an answer.


    The puzzles only got weirder from there and Felix actually found himself arguing out loud with the puzzles themselves. They were getting completely ridiculous and there was no way anyone other than him in this event could have solved them.


    He got so sick of it that he ended up smashing his fist into the table and dispelling all the mana from the tests.


    What is wrong with this stupid dungeon and why do I feel the burning desire to fight it?


    As soon as he realized what was happening, Felix took a breath and manually calmed his soul. Once he had his soul blocking everything out, he was able to see clearly again and he looked at the table he had been completing the puzzles on.


    It was more like a pillar rising out of the ground a meter or so into the air and looking at it, Felix realized it could probably be opened. He looked around the house and eventually found a small disc that acted as the key. Opening the pillar, he found another core.


    [C - Cursed] Imitation System Core


    A Core created to try and build an Imitation System. The core contains a large chunk of a mana computer bound with a cursed soul that uses biological matter for added stability.


    I really need to be more on guard around these things. Maybe I shouldn''t revert from Arthur anymore and just use the Soul Cloak to defend myself.


    Soul Cloak was the defensive ability on the Soul Devouring ring and protected against soul attacks. Until now, Felix hadn''t seen it as particularly useful for him at all but considering how subtle and annoying the cores were, he was starting to reconsider.


    The issue was that while they didn''t necessarily hurt him, they influenced his actions and were so subtle he often didn''t notice them at all.


    Felix also got a few packets of research from the dungeon as a reward for being the first which he scanned then stowed in his inventory. He popped back out of the dungeon and continued on to the next dungeon.


    As much as he wanted to build up a reputation, there just weren''t enough people around for him to do so. He prioritized the dungeons over everything for the time being which meant he wasn''t hanging around the more heavily populated areas.


    He already knew about the Archon''s fortress in the mountains and was fairly certain Edras had something similar in the direction of the druids he had stolen from. There were other alliances and compounds but none were as big or prominent as those two.


    The Rakyt city had also managed to stay relatively untouched with-as far as he knew-Felix being the only one allowed inside. He really wanted to go back and build more trust with them so he could get his hands on all the information that had gone into their massive mana weapons. They were still early in the event though and it was more efficient to target dungeons.


    Having spoken with Melody, it seemed as though no one else had been able to identify the cores yet but they knew the quest was a big one. Surprising Felix somewhat, the event hadn''t gotten much more brutal since the Global Quest announcement. He wasn''t at the top of the leaderboard anymore but he was still in 4th place.


    The tension though, was palpable. Even outside of the event, Felix caught some students fighting with each-other before the planet ended up holding them back. It really was only a matter of time before something gave.


    After just a few dekads of dungeon hunting and classes, he had finally harvested enough computer from his growth farms to completely back up his memories. He had quite a bit more than he needed too as he had manually worked on them during his evolution and improved the efficiency quite a bit. He still needed to relocate the farms to a controlled environment though with more room but, that was relatively low on the priority list for him.


    Not only was he able to surpass his goal for Mark by over 50% but he also increased the size of his own computer in his mind. He didn''t touch it too much because he didn''t want to just make it massive but he did expand it into the fourth dimension by another 40%. Even with that increase, his Intelligence remained his lowest stat as most of the increase was directly siphoned into increasing his focus limit.


    Using Grim as a pseudo Spell Book was still useful as even with 65 spell levels worth of focus, Felix found himself running out fairly often. Spells in general just got too complex and he was still limited to simple 2d spells that had either fractal channels or advanced combination nodes. He couldn''t really manage more than a single spell with both so he was still looking for other ways of casting more advanced spells.


    Doing anything else to increase his spells at the moment was a waste in Felix''s mind so he headed back out into the event instead.


    Flying out just past the most recent dungeon he had completed, not one with a core, Felix flew into a massive mountain range. The range was massive not only in that it stretched far in either direction but also in the mountains themselves. Judging by the angle of the mountains at the base, Felix was pretty sure he could see just a small fraction of them below the clouds.


    He had to fly over them to continue so he pierced the cloud cover and gawked at the kilometers worth of mountain that rose up above them. Based on the height alone, it would have taken forever for him to fly over the mountains without Erevos so Felix decided to switch back from his Persona.


    After some portal trickery to obscure the connection between him and his Persona, Felix summoned Erevos and cleared the first mountain 10 times faster than he could have alone. Once he passed the peak, Felix followed the curvature of the mountain down the other side into a valley so he could pick up any quests underground.


    Smashing through the clouds and dragging a satisfying trail behind him, Felix immediately caught sight of something that he couldn''t resist stopping for.


    Dismissing Erevos, Felix softened his landing from a few dozen meters away to make sure he wasn''t disturbing the scene before him then walked forwards to get a better look. A few of the others watching acknowledged his presence with a nod, a welcoming smile or a hand sign. They formed a loose circle though there weren''t enough people to actually complete a ring.


    In the center of the crowd, confined to a ring painted on the ground a hundred meters in diameter, was Peace facing off against three robed participants. They weren''t fighting though, not at the moment. Peace was standing perfectly still and looking at each of the other three one by one all of which were also standing still.


    Something was definitely happening though, Felix could feel it. Ripples or more accurately dense waves of intent were being released from the three of them. Felix caught glimpses of fights intermingled with a number of other random experiences such as one of feeding a small blue bird.


    He had no idea what was happening but it was fun to watch nonetheless. After almost 10 minutes of just staring at each-other, the three robed figured stepped up and engaged Peace.


    They all fought as martial artists, Peace holding off perfectly coordinates strikes and grabs almost with ease. It was clear to Felix that the three were incredibly skilled, possibly even masters of martial arts. Peace though, was still on a completely different level. Where they looked like they had mastered martial arts, Peace made it looked like martial arts were originally invented by observing him.


    At first he was dancing and flowing through the fight, twisting and contorting his body like a snake. The next moment he was solid and stationary, an unbreakable and immovable wall. Then he was a strike of lightning, fast, flashy and overwhelming.


    He switched from form to form effortlessly depending on what was necessary, sometimes his legs and torso following completely different philosophies.


    Overall, Felix could barely catch a tenth of the fight as it was far too fast for him to follow and he wasn''t consistent with Reaper''s Perception yet. Even when he did manage to awaken the skill, for the brief few moments it activated, he had trouble following.


    Ding You have become more proficient with the Class skill: [Legendary] Reaper''s Sense (Novice V => Novice VI)


    The entire fight was over in less than a minute, the three opponents each bowing out one by one. As they walked out of the circle though, they looked tired but none of them were particularly hurt. It was evident to Felix that they were essentially sparring.


    Peace spotted Felix as soon as the fight was over and waved at him. He hopped over in a flash of ridiculous movement, his hands clasped behind his back like a child, "Hey Felix! Whatcha doing here?"


    "I was just flying over looking for dungeons. Are you guys sparring?"


    One of the robed individuals smiled and tilted their head, "In a way."


    Felix snickered, "Why here though? Isn''t it kind of dangerous?"


    Another one of the robed individuals, one of the ones who had just fought smirked, "Where else?"


    Felix shrugged, "I don''t know, meet up in some city or something?"


    Peace shook his head, "These are the disciples of Amatara. All of them are located in her star system. While I could visit¡­ this is easier."


    "So what, you guys are like monks?"


    One of them shrugged, "Sure."


    "Only kind of." Peace shook his head and smiled, "More aptly, they''re soul cultivators. They all master their own martial art because it helps with soul cultivation and scales very well with a capable soul."


    Felix frowned, "What does that mean exactly?"


    "They cultivate their souls." Peace smirked knowingly.


    "Right but they still have classes and races and all that, right?"


    A bald man nodded excitedly, "I only have a profession. I''m a baker."


    Peace nodded, "You can give up your class in exchange for stats alone if you want. That''s sort of how beasts work. They don''t have skills or classes but they get way more stats."


    Felix nodded knowingly, "I guess stats scale very well with martial arts too since you aren''t really relying on skills much."


    Peace shrugged, "You could find skills that are useful and great, this was Amatara''s path though and most of them follow it."


    Felix nodded in understanding, "Well I guess I''ll leave you all to it then."


    One of the other robed individuals-a ponytailed woman-stood and stretched, "Would you like to try sparring?"


    Felix resisted the urge to scoff and instead nodded politely, "Oh, I''m pretty bad at martial arts."


    They shrugged, "That''s only half of the duel."


    Felix looked to Peace who just smirked and tilted his head towards the ring.


    Felix sighed and walked into it, the woman standing across from him.


    He looked over to Peace for guidance and he stepped forwards next to Felix, "The first part of what we''re doing is trading experiences. For us martial artists, we send a wave of intent of our opening move. They respond with a fight they''ve won that they deem was similar to my move. They''re showing they can counter it."


    Felix frowned, "I felt other things too though when you sparred."


    Peace smirked, "We sometimes try to throw each-other off by switching things up. I send out feeding a bird, they respond with a pet they''ve had in the past."


    "I don''t understand. What the hell are the rules to this? How do you win?"


    Peace chuckled, "For us, the goal is to figure out how to play the fight. If it were a real fight and we were evenly matched, this would be how we would try to gain an advantage over each-other. The goal would be to figure out how to play the fight, or if you should instead just run."


    Felix dipped his head slightly, "Kind of like beasts sizing each-other up and listening to their instincts?"


    "Yes, precisely. Being soul cultivators though, we can manipulate each-other''s instincts. We can show off fake strength to either scare off an opponent-"


    Felix nodded quickly, "Or bait them into fighting, got it. So this is based on that?"


    "Yes. This evolved into a different kind of sparring. Instead of that mind game, we duel with our experiences. I show a fight where I fought someone strong. They respond with an experience that has something related in any way at all, maybe it''s baking a hard recipe. Whatever they choose, you must continue in the same vein and respond with a superior experience."


    Felix shook his head as he was even more confused than before, "So what the hell was the bird?"


    Peace cocked his head slightly with a smile, "It was a duel of compassion."


    "Oh. Okay, I think I get it¡­ in theory. How do you know when someone''s won?"


    "For us, it''s whenever the person responding switches to a different, unrelated experience. For you, for now, you''ll both just say you surrender out loud."


    Felix nodded, "Okay let''s just¡­ try and see I guess."


    The woman across from him nodded and started with a simple sparring match. The experience was loaded with all kinds of things. There was a sense of accomplishment from training her martial arts and a sense of comfort in practicing them. There was hardship and frustration from fighting the opponent who seemed to be an even match to her. There was pride, pain, fear, desire to win and conflict.


    Felix chose the one that he thought he had the most experience with, conflict. He might have been able to win with his conviction through the desire to win or even the desire not to lose which was present but he didn''t know that for sure. It was possible their desire was greater even if he had the conviction because that didn''t necessarily make his desire any stronger. He also wasn''t sure how best to respond down that avenue.


    Choosing the experience of fighting the griffin world boss, Felix tried to push out the experience in a wave like she did. It took him a few minutes of trying along with guidance from Peace and the others but eventually he managed a weak ripple. It was nothing like the shock wave Peace and the others were capable of but it conveyed the message.


    She smiled and responded with a fight between her and her daughter. While the fight itself was less impressive, the sense of conflict was greater. Her daughter, while young, was completely determined to finally win and so she threw everything she had into it. The sense of conflict from the fight itself along with within her daughter and even within her as she wanted her daughter to win and succeed but she couldn''t let her win. It all compounded and Felix knew hers was greater yet.


    The only thing that came to mind after that was the war between his city in the integration and the invaders. The experience technically wasn''t his but he had access to it through Grim and so, he projected it.


    She nodded then responded with a fight she had observed. It was a weird sensation as it spanned hundreds of epochs but he still got the picture. It was the final fight, the culmination, between two territorial beasts that had fought each-other for hundreds of epochs. Finally, they had decided to fight against each-other to the end.


    They continued to essentially volley experiences, going from the Lich to the Kraken until Felix had basically run out of everything he was ready to offer. He stood there wracking his soul for an experience when Peace tapped on his shoulder and whispered in his ear, "Give her something fighting The Endless Hunger. Not Telviras though."


    Felix looked at him like he was insane but Peace just nodded.


    On the one hand, Felix trusted Peace to an extent but he really didn''t want to reveal that capability of his. Picking very carefully, he found an experience of him fighting it for control of mana from a large distance, early on in his training against it, not daring to dive into him actually touching it. He was more willing to lose the sparring match than reveal that. Also Peace had said fight, not touch so Felix wasn''t even sure he knew about that at all.


    Sending out the experience as a ripple, her eyes went wide, "You win. You''ve mastered a minor peak already? So young¡­"


    Felix turned to Peace, "What''s a peak?"


    Peace just winked at him, "Curses."


    Turning to the rest of the crowd, many of them were wide eyed, some smirked and others were smiling and nodding. None of them seemed threatened, they were all impressed in a way. Some were disappointed in themselves that they hadn''t, others were simply happy for him.


    Felix turned to the woman he had sparred against, "What does it mean to master a minor peak?"


    She walked along with him out of the ring, "One of the planets under Amatara''s purview holds a mountain range. Each mountain in the range is kilometers apart to keep them isolated and each one has a path. Along the path there are curses embedded into pillars. As you climb, the curses grow in strength. Reaching the top is to master the curse and be unaffected by it. To be able to stand a meter from it and reject its influence entirely."


    Felix nodded, "You said minor?"


    She nodded, "Hunger is technically a subset of another curse. I have yet to even climb an inferior peak, the tertiary ones."


    "Hunger is a subset of what?"


    She looked at him with almost a reverent expression, "The curse of the future, Desire."


    So there are more?


    One of the others in the crowd stepped forwards, "Would you be interested in further pursuing other peaks and soul cultivation in general?"


    Felix turned to them and bowed his head slightly, "Yes. Very much so."


    They nodded with a smile, "Excellent. I will speak with my master."


    After that, Felix continued to spar a few times, losing every single time to various people. It turned out, being young was a severely limiting factor in a duel of experiences. Experiences from novels he''d read, movies and shows he''d watched helped a lot but they were no more than stop gaps for the early salvo.


    An hour or so passed at which point Felix had decided he''d wasted enough time and left the ring. Before he could leave though, he was stopped by a robed man with perfectly spherical haircut, "You seek dungeons, yes?"


    Felix nodded, "Ancient Ruin dungeons ideally."


    They nodded, "We will share our quest lists with you. We all came from different directions and met here so we passed by quite a few."


    Felix''s eyes went wide, "That would be awesome, thank you."


    The man nodded, "In return, Peace has mentioned you befriended the integrateds of this event, could you bring us to their city?"


    "I can bring you to the city but they don''t let many people inside."


    He shook his head, "That is more than enough. We will speak with them ourselves."


    Felix looked to Peace for confirmation but he just nodded indicating his instincts were right and he could trust them. Felix nodded to the man, "Alright, I can do that."


    The man smiled then shared his map and quest list. Everyone else there proceeded to do the same and suddenly, Felix had a massive area revealed with hundreds of dungeon quests all around him.


    He was almost salivating as he opened a portal just a few kilometers outside of the Rakyt city. They all stepped through one by one including Peace and left the mountain valley. Felix stepped through behind them because he decided the least he could do was make an introduction.


    Bringing Peace alone with him, because Felix could only really vouch for him, Felix approached the city. Guards stopped them and made them wait while Arysha was retrieved and they met just outside the walls.


    "Felix. You return with guest."


    Felix nodded, "This is Peace. He''s a¡­ friend of mine. I won''t try and convince you to let him in or anything but I figured the least I could do was make an introduction as he and the group behind me just did me a huge favor."


    She nodded, "I see. You trust this Peace?"


    Felix shrugged, "As much as I trust anyone right now."


    "We will speak with the Peace."


    "Perfect¡­ Actually, quick question before I go, why can''t The System translate your language perfectly?"


    Arysha shook her head, "Words are sacred. We shared one to show trust."


    Peace nodded, "You have System translation off and are learning System common yourselves?"


    "Yes. It is as The Peace says."


    Felix nodded, "I see. Thank you for sharing a word with me then."


    "Our trust in Felix will be with Peace and this group as well. We are in need of opening up to others more now. We start with Peace."


    "Alright well, I''m off to hit the dungeons. Have fun."


    Peace nodded and turned back to Arysha as Felix flew away from the city. He once again spotted the fiend a short way outside of the city but they were alone this time, sitting in the sand and watching. He ignored them once again and portalled back to the valley.


    With Amatara''s disciple''s maps and quest lists, Felix was able to clear more dungeons in a few days than he had in dekads of being in the event. The best part was that most of the map around the valley seemed to be pretty distant from the most populated area so he was the first to clear many of them.


    Zeraxes trick with the waves was incredibly helpful as Felix started to abstract it outwards. In puzzle dungeons, he skipped puzzles so he could get right to the last three, just enough to give him context. If he skipped right to the last one, he found it difficult to figure out what was going on. The puzzle itself was doable he was just often missing the necessary information from the previous puzzles.


    He found the best approach was to do the first couple then skip to the last three.


    The combat dungeons were easy with his new found increase in focus limit. Using Grim let him get to level 100 spells which meant he occasionally weaved in some much more capable spells but even with his personal limit of 65, he could clear everything efficiently. He still couldn''t quite cast anything like Chain Lightning which required a complex form to retarget and split. His storms though, were more targeted and organized, his spells could bend in the air and his fire was hotter with much more advanced nodes.


    Since he was pretty far from civilization, Felix didn''t bother with his Persona and only encountered a single other participant, a friendly who was mining.


    Though it wasn''t nearly as much as he had gained in the previous grades he was still happy with the 77 levels he had gained in his class putting him at level 1,084 in [C - Ancient] Reaper. The puzzle dungeons though were doing wonders for his profession as they focused largely on enchantments and constructs so he managed to gain 118 putting him at level 1126 and bringing his Intelligence out of the gutter. It still wasn''t his highest stat, but it also wasn''t his lowest anymore.


    He and Peace had also managed to move up to the second group combat class though just barely. They had both been able to feel a beast coming ahead of time and sprung into action. Their team had already captured the objective so Peace engaged the beast and held it off while Felix used spells to slow it down and push them along faster.


    Felix and Peace then worked together to disengage the beast and they were moved into the 2nd class as a result.


    In Solo Combat, Felix had started climbing upwards very quickly. They were still just dueling each-other but multiple times a class he was switched out with another student and put up against a harder opponent. It would take him a few duels to really get the hang of things with each one but after that, he won easily every time.


    His stats helped a lot but more than that, he was crafting new spells all the time. Rarely did he design anything completely new in a fight but he came up with new solutions for everything he faced. Often that just meant he was piecing together components from a couple spells to accomplish something but it still made a huge difference. He was already confident that even without his evolution, he actually had a chance against the Ashound if he fought it again.


    After that fight specifically, he had designed spells to counter everything it had done. He now knew spells that applied a lingering cold effect to a creature, a spell that specifically reduced friction very efficiently. He had also designed wind spells to specifically keep something scattered and away from him such as ash or spores.


    Soul Manipulation got a lot better as they switched topics somewhat to strengthening their own and manipulating other''s souls. The defensive aspect of the course wasn''t useless, he was using it to create construct souls after all but for him, it wasn''t what he was looking for.


    The event seemed to have somewhat calmed down along with the fights outside of the event having ceased completely which, was actually more ominous than reassuring.


    None of that mattered for the moment as Felix memorized his location and hunted down his own familiar. It was the 20th dekad and Felix and Nova had an event to attend.


    He had been initially somewhat excited to attend because of the exclusivity alone but now, Felix was dreading it. Felix had finally figured out how to make the constructs he wanted and had almost finished them. All he had to do, was put the finishing touches on and they would be complete. He couldn''t do that though, not until after the party.


    Nova had been off on her own ever since they both evolved but through his soul bond and the steady stream of completed material collection quests, he knew she was thriving.


    He found her stuck in the middle of a mountain she had made a good attempt at hollowing out. Felix had never seen her defecate but there was no way she could hold infinite matter within herself and as he walked inside, he realized the thick layer of dust was likely her excretion. It made it nearly impossible to see anything and Felix both encased his own head and started venting the area as soon as he arrived.


    His head air sphere spell had been drastically upgraded with the use of just a few more spell levels that he was now willing to dedicate to it. It had a solid barrier, was harder to penetrate and was far sleeker around his neck and in the way it followed his head around.


    Walking through, he eventually found Nova with her head seemingly stuck in the wall, hanging there completely asleep. Felix poked her and she popped out, meowing at him.


    "We have a party to get to. Come on."


    She meowed again, disappointed she couldn''t stay then hopped into Felix''s robes.


    Felix opened the portal back to his dorm right there and stepped through, heading straight for the portal room where he met Melody. Once there, they both headed through and used the teleportation hub to get right to Caesuriax''s willow. They didn''t have time to waste having Felix fly them there in Erevos, as fun as it would have been to do so.


    Slightly worried about Nova, Felix stowed her in his Soul Space then followed Melody inside. Approaching the willow, she bowed to Caesuriax and offered him a simple, plain looking scarf.


    [E - Common] Blue Scarf


    Clothing designed to protect the neck from harsh weather conditions.


    Felix looked at the item curiously but just a few seconds later, a group of vines gently shifted as a gentle breeze blew through the area. The vines fluttered over the scarf and wrapped themselves around, causing it to vanish. A few moments passed and the wind blew through once more causing the vines to pass in front of their faces revealing two boxes, one in front of each of them.


    The boxes were about a meter by half a meter but only a few inches thick. Felix followed Melody in stepping forwards and kneeling in front of his box then carefully opening it up. The box itself seemed to be nothing special, just plain looking wood that wasn''t even finished. Inside the box however, the clothing before him was anything but plain.


    Inside Felix''s box was a steely blue scaled hide with strategically located stripes of charcoal colored scales. Picking it up out of the box, he found that was just the outer coat which was collared and would hang down to his calves. There was also a pair of pants and a shirt that would go underneath it and a pair of shoes though made from a different leather, without scales.


    [SS - Common] Arkinikamed''s Hide


    A cloak made from the scales of Arkinikamed, the great prophet of the Ralken Drakene tribes during the 5th Integration.


    Felix carefully folded it back up once he had seen everything and placed it back in the box to transport it. He had many questions like why he would be wearing Drakene hide to a Drakene event but he didn''t pose any of them now. Instead, he tried his best to mimic Melody''s reverence in carrying the box and bowing to Caesuriax before taking their leave.


    Only once they were outside did he turn to her, "Traditional Drakene garb is literally their hides?"


    Melody nodded, "Of course. Using the hides of great Drakene heroes to protect others is the greatest honor one can bestow, at least according to most Drakene''s culture. Anyways, who are you going to be wearing?"


    Felix shrugged, "Arkinikamed, a prophet from the 5th integration. You?"


    Melody smirked, "Nelarathiax. Yeah¡­ Don''t ask me who either of them are, I have no idea. I''m sure they''ll be impressed though."


    "I hope so. Is it safe to stow this thing somewhere?"


    Melody winced, "Let''s maybe just¡­ not¡­ just in case."


    "Okay¡­ it''s kind of inconvenient, can I stick it in my Pocket Home for now at least?"


    "Oh." Melody''s eyes lit up, "Yeah, that would be fine. Stick mine in there too, will you?"


    Felix nodded and opened the Pocket Home against the wall and walked inside. Melody followed him and Felix released Nova, no longer worried about her trying to eat the ancient time Willow.


    He carefully placed the box on the ground, Melody dropping hers next to his then she walked over to the tree in the middle of the space.


    "What''s this?"


    Felix shrugged, "I don''t really know."


    Walking over and inspecting the tree himself, it was now actually a tree. The trunk wasn''t huge but it had surpassed Felix''s forearm in width and was almost the same thickness as his thigh.


    I guess it needed more mana to grow.


    Melody looked at him and cocked her head, "Where''d you get it and why are you soul bound to it?"


    "Found it in an event actually. As for the soul bound thing, I don''t know, thought it might be a good idea."


    She frowned then crouched down and picked up a small crystal shard that was only a few hairs thick but was a few inches long now. It quickly snapped from the weight of itself being cantilevered over her finger but she held what was left with a frown, "Is the tree¡­ creating these?"


    Felix shrugged, "Seems like it. They were smaller before too, mostly just sand like."


    "Huh. You know, if these were cleaner, you could sell them for a lot of creds."


    Felix dropped to one knee to look more closely at the pile of crystals, "Wait, what? Why?"


    She chuckled and carefully handed one to him. Felix, surprising himself even that he hadn''t even tried to identify them with his new skill yet, finally did so.


    [E - Rare] Attunement Crystal


    A crystal that imbues a specific attunement into mana that passes through it.


    Felix looked at the crystal with wide eyes then immediately pushed some mana through it. The crystal lightly glowed and Felix pulled the mana back out the other side, finding it did in fact have an attunement now.


    As far as he knew the attunement was complete nonsense, it was like static or white noise in the form of an attunement but at the same time, Felix thought it was the most wonderful thing he had ever seen.


    Up to this point, Felix was pretty happy with having the tree simply be a weird decoration because he just wasn''t convinced it was useful yet. At some point in the future, he figured he would find a use for it. He thought a few times about asking someone what it did but just never really got around to it.


    Now that he knew though, it actually solved a problem he had been thinking about for the last 15 dekads or so. It was going to require a lot of work, multiple machines and many spells to make anything usable from it, but it was incredibly promising. He would still have to wait for the tree to grow but considering its current growth rate, upgrading the mana engine suddenly jumped pretty high up on his todo list.


    Just to be certain, he turned to Melody, "I didn''t even know these existed. Can I buy these for specific attunements?"


    "Sort of. The reason attunement crystals aren''t used in many applications is that they always have some amount of noise in them. That means you need to clean the mana output from the crystals, the advantage is that they scale almost perfectly and have no issue with the amount of mana pushed through them. Unlike nodes which fall apart outside of specific ranges and have flow rate limitations."


    "So really clean crystals are super expensive then?"


    Melody nodded fervently, "More expensive than even I can pay for. If you found one that was Epic or higher with a base attunement and say¡­ less than 5% noise, my dad would have trouble paying for it."


    Felix nodded seriously as his mind began to race with possibilities, "I se-"


    Spinning around and running towards the tower, Melody yelled out over her shoulder, "So this is your house?"


    Felix sighed and yelled back, though it was completely unnecessary and both of them knew it, "Yeah"


    He gave Melody the grand tour from the basement to the roof, Nova excitedly flying along, catching onto Melody''s jubilant mood.


    Having seen everything, Melody sat on the parapet of the roof and looked outwards over the small island. After a few minutes of her simply looking out, Melody shook her head, "You created this thing, Mana Engine? In the Integration?"


    Felix nodded, "Yeah. I haven''t touched it in a while but I figure now I could do a much better job. Imbue it with a soul and all that."


    She shrugged, "I mean, I''d hope so. The rate it gathers mana isn''t very impressive at all, Erevos is way faster for example. The fact that you made it from solid mana is kind of¡­ silly though."


    He shrugged, "It was the easiest to work with and I didn''t have access to a forge or anything. Plus, I have no idea how to push metal freely into the fourth dimension."


    "You mean into the aether? I don''t know why that would be any harder but also, I don''t know that much about mana theory so¡­"


    He nodded, "We have a few hours left until the party and I can portal us back to the teleportation hub so, you got anything else you need to do in Telviras?"


    She shook her head and chewed on her lip thoughtfully. Felix shrugged and began designing things in his head. They sat like that for a few minutes-hours of designing in Felix''s Soul Garden-before Melody swung her leg over the parapet to turn to him, "If I sign a Soul Contract or a System Contract- or both, will you tell me everything?"


    Felix just looked at her with a frown. He was only mildly annoyed his design work was interrupted because half of his focus was still working on it.


    She sighed, "I can tell you''re holding things back. I can feel it every time you avoid something or lie."


    He shrugged, "I got a lot of secrets that I don''t know¡­ how others would react."


    "I get that¡­ I do, that''s why I''ll agree to whatever terms you want."


    Felix shook his head, "Why?"


    "I just¡­ I don''t know, I think you''d get it if you felt everything the way I do it''s just¡­ I feel it. It sucks. I already told you why I approached you but since then¡­ you aren''t just some fresh integrated who knows nothing. I mean, that''s exactly what you are but¡­ A Child of the Reaper is personally training you. You were invited to Ascension Day, the first of any race other than Drakene based races ever¡­ I think. Your Soul Garden is¡­ beautiful and completely unbelievable at the same time. Your mana pool¡­ There are just too many things happening. Despite all of that, you''re still¡­ enjoying everything and aren''t caught up in yourself or politics or¡­ ya¡­"


    Felix sighed, "Not now. One day, maybe in a few terms. I''ll¡­ think about it. Does that go two ways though, you''ll tell me anything I want to know?"


    She rolled her eyes, "I''m not a loner and a recluse like you. I''d tell you pretty much anything now anyways."


    He cocked his head, "There aren''t any secrets you have to keep? Family secrets or anything like that?"


    She shrugged, "There are secrets my dad would like me to keep, doesn''t mean I will." She winked at him.


    Felix sighed, "Alright, I''ll think about it."


    She nodded, "Thanks. In the meantime-" Her usual playful smile returned, "I think it''s time I taught you some things."


    Felix looked at her with a confused expression and she smirked, "No not that, as much as you might want that. Not Soul Manipulation either, it''s time you moved up a rank in Group Combat."


    "Uh, okay. How?"


    "It''s actually really simple. All you have to do, is learn some support spells."


    Felix frowned, "I know some. I use them."


    She shook her head, "I''ll give you a list of the ones you need. Being a true support is very rare. You can also fight so if you just show you can fill that role too, you''ll get moved up instantly."


    Felix nodded slowly, "I''d rather not leave Peace behind though."


    She snickered, "You haven''t noticed? He''s holding himself back in every class you share to make sure he''s at the same level as you."


    "Oh. Actually¡­ that¡­ makes a lot of sense."


    She shook her head, "You are so oblivious some times."


    He shrugged, "It''s just people. Most of them are really¡­."


    Melody nodded, "Dumb. Yeah. You trained yourself not to pay attention to them, I know."


    They spent a few hours with Melody giving Felix a very clear cut set of rules to follow in Group Combat. The spells she was having him make were fairly simple too and he was able to create them with his spare focus while he listened.


    After that, they both relaxed in his Soul Garden, Melody reading and Felix doing the most relaxing thing he knew how to do, working. Mainly he worked on some of the new designs he had recently thought of.


    Once the time had come, they both quickly got dressed in their new outfits. Felix''s was perfectly sized and incredibly comfortable, something he had come to expect from everything remotely magical in the multiverse at this point.


    Looking over, Melody wore a long, sleek dress with no arms and a tight neckline. It furled out just a little around her calves and had a long slit up one leg. It was definitely more human than anything he had ever seen a Drakene wear but he figured that was likely the point. Her dress was also clearly made from a Drakene''s hide with black scales at the top that slowly graduated to a vibrant red at the bottom.


    She took out some item and waved it over her head and face which made her hair into a fancy style. Felix just shook his head and sighed walking towards the exit but Melody grabbed his arm and stopped him, "Hold on. Take this." In her other hand there was a pair of earrings.


    The earrings were simple studs that would have barely been visible in his ears.


    [D - Rare] Earrings of Style


    A set of earrings that will apply a specific set of simple cosmetic modifications to the wearer. These earrings are incapable of altering face shape or drastically altering skin tone. They can however apply a specific hair style and other simple effects.


    Felix sighed and equipped them, "Can we go now?"


    She nodded, "Yeah, let''s."


    Nova pranced along between them and stayed as a kitten as per Felix''s insistence.


    They stepped from one portal to another in a row finally ending up exactly where they had to be. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 Chapter 211 - Book 13

    Together, the three of them stepped into a massive hall with rough obsidian walls on either side and no ceiling. Instead, a tight grouping of stars painted a beautiful view of the night sky that reminded Felix of earth''s but slightly brighter with many more stars. Without a ceiling, the obsidian walls and floor visually melted away making it seem like the three of them were actually amongst the stars and had stepped into the void of space.


    Breaking that illusion however were two lines of short flames, just an inch tall, forming a path that led forwards. Looking around, Felix didn''t see anyone other than the three of them but it was clear where they were heading so he started walking forwards.


    Melody walked alongside him and Nova walked between them, posturing like she was the most important kitten in the multiverse.


    They walked for over a kilometer before they finally saw a pair of Drakene guards standing next to a doorway. The two of them wore entirely black robes so they didn''t ruin the effect of the hallway and were only barely visible from a few hundred meters away, even with Felix''s Perception. Their eyes reflecting the dim light and glowing through the darkness was actually what had first hinted Felix to their presence.


    Approaching them, Felix offered his invitation to the one closest to him. They immediately leapt backwards and looked at him like he was insane while the other guard tried to hide a snicker in their arm.


    The one nearest Felix-that had jumped back-righted himself and shook his head, "Don''t hand that thing to me. I don''t want to have to regrow my arm. There is no need to present your invitation, I am well aware of you, Felix Kade. You as well, great Nova."


    The guard bowed slightly to Felix then much deeper to Nova and Felix wasn''t entirely sure if he was doing so seriously or not. The other bowed as well then turned and sank their claws into the obsidian behind them. Pulling downwards, a trail of fire followed their claws and burned away a chunk of the obsidian to form a doorway.


    Felix stepped through along with his party but before paying attention to anything through it, looked back at the door. The fire burned in reverse as the door way regenerated and vanished, along with the flame that had opened it.


    Melody whispered with an incriminatory tone, "Distracted by the door."


    He didn''t bother acknowledging her and instead turned towards the inside of the room and looked around. The effect from the hallway carried over to the main room except the fires were brighter and made it possible to actually see.


    Looking around, Felix couldn''t say how big the room was as he couldn''t make out the edges but through the marginally brighter lighting from the various fire fixtures, he saw thousands of Drakene in attendance. Around the edges of the room there was food with long dining tables and benches that reminded Felix of cafeteria picnic tables. The food on the tables though, and the beautiful tapestry tablecloth however, did not.


    All he could say about the food from what he could see, was that it looked like a king''s feast with servers constantly milling about keeping everything fresh.


    In the middle of the room there was a large space for dancing though, it only housed a few dozen Drakene, a far cry from what it could have held.


    Lastly the rest of the area seemed to be a collection of open spaces that were sectioned off by lines of fire. None of them were closed off but it provided some amount of structure as there were people sparring in one section next to a section housing much more formal conversation.


    Felix also caught a glimpse of some dense flora off on one edge and a door on another but he couldn''t quite see anything else from where he was and through the crowd.


    There wasn''t any more time to examine things however as Felix had-and no doubt Melody must have-noticed half the attendants staring right at them. None of them dared approach however except for one, a familiar Drakene no longer wearing their religious robes of red and white. Instead, Silgar wore a beautifully embroidered black robe with scales carefully placed to create beautiful artwork all over it.


    He bowed slightly to Felix then Nova then smiled and blew a plume of smoke over all of them. Felix was pretty sure he knew what the intention was but the lack of fire confused him. Nova on the other hand, wasn''t confused at all and released a massive torrent of billowing flames that completely swallowed the Reverent.


    The flames lasted for half a minute, luckily targeted upwards as Nova was still a kitten, so it didn''t affect anything other than the lighting and the Drakene. Once the flames abated, Silgar got to one knee and bowed his head to Nova, "You bless me with your flames."


    Nova offered a quick meow in response and Silgar stood, turning to address Felix then Melody, "And you, bless us with your presence and your attire. Who is it you wear, if I might ask?"


    "Arkinikamed." Felix responded.


    "Nelarathiax." Melody offered with a slight dipping of her chin and a silent pause to signal her respect for the dead.


    Silgar looked at them both in turn a few times before dropping to a knee once again, "You honor Drakene kind as a whole by gracing us with the presence of our ancient ancestors. How may I ask, did you acquire their scales?"


    "We talked to a willow." Felix responded rather plainly considering the situation.


    Silgar actually dropped to both knees at that point, bowing even deeper, "Gratitude." Finally rising to his feet, Silgar''s face was actually wet as his eyes actively streamed with tears, "We expected nothing extending the invitation and yet you have completely exceeded everything we could have hoped for. Maybe we should consider letting others in to celebrate as well. Your eyes and hair already convey your respect and would have been more than enough. The scales are more than we ever could have dreamed. Again, thank you."


    My eyes and hair?


    Felix nodded and Melody bowed a little, "Of course."


    Silgar bowed again then walked away giving Felix the opportunity to lean over and whisper to Melody, "What''d you do my eyes and hair?"


    She shrugged, "See for yourself." Whipping a mirror out of her inventory with a flick of her wrist, she showed Felix his own face.


    He was immediately taken aback by what he saw. It was his own face, nothing had notably changed from before the integration other than his pores now being tiny and invisible from his evolutions. What was significantly changed however, were his eyes.


    His eyes had gotten a little deeper. The blue had been bluer and the grey, greyer. They hadn''t changed in that they looked the same as before but they were even more vibrant and pronounced now. The separation between the colors was clear and even disabling Melody''s effects, they almost seemed to glow with how vibrant they now were.


    Melody''s earrings however, did more than just style his hair. His eyes, though they looked the same and hadn''t been altered directly, were on fire. His irises specifically were surrounded by a slight blue and grey flame that matched the color of his eyes perfectly. The flame wasn''t even tall enough to surpass his eyelashes but it was clearly visible and just slightly glowed, swaying back and forth like an aggressive candle.


    His hair was far more drastic. Once again the color was the same but the earrings actually moved his hair as if his head were on fire. The fact that his hair was an orange red color, only added to the effect. It actually reminded him of Thezan''s hair, just fiery and made of hair instead of dark and made of shadows.


    "Your eyes are nice and I figured you should stand out a little more next to me, you are the guest of honor more or less." Melody whispered as she stowed the mirror.


    Felix just nodded, "Thanks."


    That was all the time they had to themselves however as they were immediately approached by a yellow Drakene in a deep purple, scaled robe that was cut strategically to show her yellow scales throughout. All Felix could think of while looking at them and the colors they had cosen was an old earth holiday though.


    They weren''t the only Drakene to approach them but they were the first in a sizeable queue. Surprisingly to Felix, none of them were rude or made it seem like they thought they didn''t belong. He had fully expected some to disagree or question Tekragoraxius'' decision and to show that, whether or not they did anything about it. It was the complete opposite however.


    Most of the Drakene that approached them simply introduced themselves and seemed curious. All of them were completely welcoming and wonderfully nice, recommending specific dishes or drinks. Many of them greeted Nova which, Felix could tell, was starting to pique Melody''s curiosity but she directly didn''t address it. A few of the Drakene tried to drag them into various traditions and introduce them to party rituals, eager to share their holiday with the newcomers.


    Talking to everyone that introduced themselves, Felix was nearly as charming as Melody. He offered up very little information about himself but he either deftly dodged the questions or offered only vague and mysterious answers. He carefully spun things back around so the topic was most often on them, who they were wearing, who they were and so on.


    It seemed to be working too as almost everyone he talked to was jovial and happy after walking away, even more so than when they approached. In a rare bout of solitude where it was just him and Melody-Nova perched proudly on his shoulder-Melody leaned her head in and whispered to him, "I did not know you had that in you."


    Felix slightly shrugged the shoulder between them, "I haven''t had to for a while. Now feels like the right time."


    She nodded and smirked.


    Not to mention I have to appear as a friend of the dragons and all that so I can fight¡­ myself. What a weird situation.


    They didn''t even really walk around, instead it was like they were the attraction at a theme park and everyone came to them. Not everyone who wanted to talk to them approached however. Felix spotted quite a few Drakene that subtly made their interest known through eye contact but they clearly wanted to be approached themselves. Some thought they were important enough, others simply didn''t want to add to the cacophony of voices trying to snatch their attention.


    As the crowd slowly waned from chaos to a steady stream, their trio managed to find empty spots at one of the tables. They sampled all kinds of foods and beverages ranging from meats to plants to rocks. There was a large spread but nothing nearly as all encompassing as the buffet in the auction back on Trenus.


    Instead, the feast was focused largely on Drakene foods. Most things were spiced heavily and there were very few grains other than a few specialty breads. Most of the meat was smoked or spiced and barely qualified as cooked not that Felix was worried about bacteria. Everything else at the table seemed to revolve around the meat itself but ranged from appetizers that were easy to walk around with to entire birds, including a Parroukan.


    Drakene rotated in and out of the seats around them, telling them legendary tales of the scales they wore, tales of their own and pestering them with questions. The vast majority of the attention was split between Felix and Nova, a far cry from how he and Melody were treated on campus. The questions mirrored the attention though only a few were directed at Nova directly.


    Everyone seemed to want to know who Felix was, who Nova was, hear their tales, hear about the integration and ultimately figure out why they were invited. Felix continued giving vague answers where necessary, laughing along when others did, mirroring their body language and generally reading the conversations.


    He was capable, as he had always been, he just largely didn''t bother with it. Still though, his social capabilities paled in comparison to Melody who followed his lead in giving little away but was far more adept at reading others. While he was just as charming, she demonstrated expertise. He switched the conversation to obvious topics, things they had brought up, questions about the tales they told or the garments they wore.


    She picked up on the minute details, asking about recent loss when she felt sorrow in their souls. Pointing out other guests they had been interested in sexually or romantically and building their confidence. It wasn''t just about reading their souls either, or not entirely at least.


    Melody was picking up on minute details and was able to tell which guests had kids, which had been married multiple times, their unspoken dreams and desires. All of this from things she saw or noticed on their garb, in their wounds, in the slight shifts of their demeanor as they walked, sat, ate.


    Felix was both constantly astonished as she brought up and correctly guessed things she had no right knowing and just followed along where he could.


    After finishing up with the food, they wandered through some of the partially cordoned off sections and talked with those that had expressed interest. Some of them were politically relevant, others were Demi-Gods or important religious figures. None of them were overtly arrogant or condescending though which rather impressed Felix.


    They spent a few hours doing that until the general atmosphere spiked and the average composure started plummeting. The two of them were dragged over to the drinks table where they were handed all kinds of drinks to try. Everything from something that looked like crude oil but was as thick as molten rock to actual molten rock and literal liquid fire.


    Felix''s body destroyed everything he drank but he faked the effects where he could so they didn''t feel inclined to force anything stronger on him. No one handed them anything more than a B grade drink so Felix didn''t face any issues. Melody on the other hand was clearly affected and Felix was slightly worried for her. She stumbled slightly and seemed less inhibited but she also seemed happy so, he didn''t stop her. She was capable of regulating and handling herself.


    From there they danced, Felix and Melody then Melody and a number of Drakene. She danced with 7 males and 5 females over 8 dances before she was too tipsy to remain on the dance floor and rejoined Felix.


    As they walked back over to a somewhat empty area, Melody took a breath and sobered herself in an instant, her drunken gait vanishing. Felix smirked and they took a break at one of the standing tables for a few minutes before they were approached by Silgar.


    "Are you both ready to make your contributions?"


    Melody nodded knowingly so Felix just followed along.


    Silgar led them to one of the few doorways leading off of the main chamber guarded by two armor clad Drakene priests. They nodded and turned aside in perfect sync as the obsidian door vanished with a burst of flame and they were led into a massive hall.


    Hundreds of meters wide and seemingly endless, the hall held various artifacts and displays. Each one seemed to represent some great Drakene of legend through a painting or gold inlaid scroll detailing their legend along with a weapon, armor, ring, vase, clothing or scales. Not all held scales, the ones near the front were the most commonly lacking while the rest of the display down the hall were increasingly likely to contain them. All of the scales on display were crafted into something from armor, clothing, boots and coats to shields and Drakene headed helms.


    Silgar first led them down the hall at a slow pace allowing them ample time to examine, observe and appreciate, only offering insights when probed by Melody. Each and every display showed off some famous Drakene and described their accomplishments. Not all involved battle, some were of famous smiths, bakers, enchanters as well though the majority were warriors.


    Melody had a grand time pointing things out to Felix and generally acting like a child, though she never tried to overtly touch or grab anything. Felix followed along more out of interest for the items on display than anything else. There were various enchantments, living weapons, soul imbued armors and more all throughout the room. Each one, a legendary artifact of their time and no doubt priceless today.


    Finally, Silgar led them in a circle, back to just a few meters from the entrance to one of the displays closest the door. Examining the display they stopped at, Felix saw a painting of a steely blue Drakene leading a village out of a burning valley. Examining the painting, Felix saw that the valley was burning with black flames that flickered ominously with the shifting paint on the canvas. Just below the painting there was a caption that read, "The Great Prophet Arkinikamed leading the evacuation of the Ralken Drakene tribes and saving them from The Flames of Oblivion."


    There was no artifact or scales accompanying the painting but there was an empty altar. Felix caught on quickly and understood what to do so, he stepped forwards then reverently placed the coat he was wearing on the altar, matching the folds of all the other scales as best he could.


    A tear streamed down Silgar''s cheek as he walked forwards and lit a massive sconce near the display.


    He offered a quick prayer then led them over to another display, this one with a painting of a female Drakene with a gradient of red to black scales that single handedly fought an army of undead monstrosities. In the painting, they weren''t just zombies and skeletons like Felix had encountered but also liches and massive undead war beasts, all of which had green flames for eyes. Nelarathiax held them back and even though she was completely surrounded, the slowly shifting paint made it seem like she was somehow winning.


    The caption read, "Nelarathiax, single handedly felling the army of The Creeping Undeath and halting their advance into the Neh''Melahmun valley."


    Melody stepped forwards and carefully peeled the scales off her body. Felix began to turn away but even before the scene had a chance to become indecent in any way, a second dress of sorts was revealed. Peeling away the scales, a smaller, pure black fabric was revealed beneath it.


    The second dress was shorter and more revealing but not inappropriately so, it remained completely classy. Out of necessity to fit beneath or within the other dress, the black dress was made of a thinner fabric and was tighter in most places.


    Carefully draping the scales over the altar, Melody bowed then backed up a step next to Felix. Silgar once again lit a massive sconce and offered a prayer before escorting them back out of the hall and thanking them profusely once more.


    Silgar bowed once more, "Our gratitude burns brightly with you for having returned a portion of our heritage to these hallowed halls. The legacy of our people guides and protects us from within The Halls of the Dragon''s Hoard and now, may they guide and protect you as well."


    Melody return the bow and Felix followed suit then they walked over to a door on the opposite side surrounded by various plants. The party had largely calmed with the atmosphere more tired than anything at this point. Though they may have all had massive energy pools, the guests fully used them when dancing, sparring and everything else in the room resulting in the party lasting longer than Felix was used to on earth but not by more than 2 or 3 times.


    Heading into a garden that was easily the largest space yet, Felix and Melody walked in to one of the more private areas in the garden with a fountain. Melody quickly stowed her shoes and sat on the edge of the fountain, placing both of her feet into the water and tilting her head back to look up at the stars.


    Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.


    Felix sat next to her but faced in the opposite direction, not placing his own feet in the pool and looked up as well. The sky was nice and rather calming, even though the majority of his focus was dedicated to construct simulations in his mind, Felix spared just a smidgen to admire the sky. It reminded him of earth which he wasn''t entirely sure he missed necessarily, but it was calming in a way.


    After a few minutes of silence, Melody spoke with her eyes still thoroughly trained on the starry sky above, "You know, I think Ascension day might have actually surpassed all my hopes."


    Felix responded flatly, "That''s good."


    "I had always heard Ascension day was a party in every way you''d expect except for one, it was a party and nothing more. No one tries to gain political advantage or execute ploys of any kind, it was simply¡­ fun. All anyone wanted to do was get to know us, no one had any kind of secret agenda."


    Felix twitched, unsure if she was aware of his own but just nodded once, "I''m glad you enjoyed it."


    She sighed in satisfaction then nodded a few times, "How''s the integration event going by the way?"


    Felix shrugged, "It''s fine. After meeting Zeraxes and visiting their fort, I flew out as far as I had to and managed to discover quite a few dungeons first. Haven''t done much else but Nova''s been happily hollowing out mountains."


    Nova meowed in response and Melody smirked, "I''m sure she has." She reached down to pet Nova who meowed again then nuzzled into her hand a little.


    Looking over, Melody tilted her head slightly, "You said you met Zeraxes, how was he?"


    Felix shrugged, "Nicer than he was in Group Combat."


    "Yeah¡­ have you met Romar yet?"


    "In passing. I didn''t talk to him just kind of saw each-other in the distance and moved on a few dekads ago."


    "Well, if you do meet him, I suspect you''ll find him similar. They''re both¡­ nice. They are also both arrogant and self absorbed, definitely narcissistic but¡­ nice. They won''t try to kill you outright or be dismissive or mean without reason. With all the tension in there though¡­ be careful."


    Felix sighed and rolled his eyes, "I believe this is the fourth time you''ve told me to be careful in those exact words, 7th with other words."


    She lightly backhanded him on the shoulder, "I mean with them in particular. Although I guess this applies to most people in there, they might seem nice but if things really do get too crazy in there, they won''t hesitate to kill you for a quest. Just surrender early and know you can get back anything you lose and everything soul bound will remain on you. They have enough honor that they will accept your surrender."


    So I can''t steal Zeraxes Divine Bolt? Damn.


    "Yeah, I feel like I''m kind of expecting that from everyone."


    "I just¡­ You should. You know how Zeraxes got into the school through his parents but then was the favorite for the tournament anyways, right?"


    Felix frowned, "Wait, got in through his parents? I knew he was already accepted. How does that work? I thought it was completely neutral and based on the best of the best determined by The System or something."


    She nodded, "Yes and no. You can''t buy your way in directly but¡­ the competitions and events that are taken into account for admissions are always gamed. Parents can ensure the other participants are favorable matchups for their children, bribe some to hand off their invitation, directly buy slots for their children. Sometimes all they need to do is delay a few participants from participating in an event for a single epoch and make sure others take their place. You could assassinate them, get them stuck on a contract, buy them an invite to an overlapping event. It''s a whole thing."


    Felix cocked a brow, "The System doesn''t do anything about it?"


    Melody sighed, "No. Everyone knows exactly what The System will and will not do at this point so, they work around that. After all this finagling, their children inevitably excel and the school has no choice really. No one can prove that they aren''t great and they are. After all, they had the best training, access to high rarity classes, skills not to mention gear and artifacts and so on. They just never went up against some other specific people so, they stand out. They have access to more events and their accomplishments completely shadow anyone who doesn''t have a similarly powerful backing. It''s impossible to prove they wouldn''t have won if their parents didn''t interfere and no one is going to punish the kids for their parents actions so¡­"


    Felix shook his head and squinted in disbelief, "It should be more complicated than that right? How many people participate in these competitions?"


    Melody dropped her head back and laughed, "Oh tens to hundreds of thousands, rarely millions but it happens. You underestimate the machinations and lengths a god or even demigod will go to for their children as well as the vast structure of followers they employ."


    Once Felix had recovered from the ridiculous scale of the political maneuvering happening in the multiverse, he slightly teased though, was also seriously curious, "Is that how you got in?"


    Melody smirked, "Unfortunately, despite my best efforts it seems I''m just special enough to get in without having stood out in any competitions or¡­ anything really. I mean, I guess it just comes with the territory being this-"


    Felix shook his head and rolled his eyes, "What were you saying about Zeraxes and the entrance tournament?"


    "Oh right," Melody snapped her fingers, "Just that he was willing to run people over that actually needed the tournament to get in, just to prove himself. He may be nice or rather cordial, bu-"


    Felix didn''t hear the rest of what she was saying as multiple of his senses began screaming at him at once. His head spun and looked over but he didn''t actually see anything other than plants.


    His mana sense sensed huge amounts of mana in a state he had never felt before. It was like a gas but more excited and at the same time, it was in constant flux like it was being dumped into a room and simultaneously destroyed. At the same time, Felix was acutely aware of another sense, his matter senses.


    Much like when he had felt The Endless Hunger, Felix felt hints of something akin to missing matter, not antimatter or the absence of matter but rather something that was just off. It was like a puzzle with missing pieces, obvious but not quite as physics defying.


    He wasn''t nearly close enough for his senses to provide him with any specifics but he was able to pinpoint a general direction.


    Looking over, he saw a glint of something that was intimately familiar to him, a great axe that almost looked to be made of crystal or some alien material with an ethereal blue hue. Though he lacked certainty, Felix had some idea of what was happening so he shot himself towards the axe which coincidentally, happened to be in the same direction his senses had warned him of.


    Felix immediately tried to fly over the garden but actually found some kind of completely invisible pane serving as the roof. He wasn''t sure if it was glass or something else but he didn''t even try to smash through it, deciding it wasn''t worth his time.


    Flying through the hedge maze garden, Felix initially weaved through a few of them but they quickly proved too annoying to avoid. Luckily, they weren''t high grade enough to offer much hindrance as he punched through one after another, racing across the garden. Quickly glancing over his shoulder, he didn''t spot Melody but did find Nova clinging to his shoulder. She was easily light enough in her kitten form that he hadn''t even noticed the extra weight but had no reservations with her tagging along.


    Walking through the garden initially, Felix and Melody hadn''t really explored much but Felix did know that there were walls covered in vines on one side of the garden. He was ready to slow himself so he didn''t collide with that wall but blasting through the last hedge in the way, he found that wasn''t necessary at all.


    Instead of an obsidian wall that was almost entirely obscured by vegetation, barely lit by the various constellations twinkling above, Felix saw something he couldn''t quite reconcile. While it was dark and difficult to see, even with his improved eyesight, this was completely different. To him, it seemed like something had completely absorbed large chunks of light making it so that even the sparse lighting that was available had holes in it.


    His other senses weren''t nearly as hindered as his sight though as he heard a constant and cacophonous roar and smelt a thousand things at once. His Soul Senses were screaming at him in fear he didn''t know he was capable of while his Mana Senses described something impossible happening, mana simply vanishing.


    Lastly, the senses he had the least experience with, his Matter Senses were telling him that the matter itself was being destroyed right before him. It was simply being ripped to pieces and consumed, not transforming into anything else. It was something he would have said was impossible, even after being integrated.


    Having evolved alongside Nova though, Felix''s matter senses were much clearer now and he was able to see objects with a similar clarity to a normal human within a dozen meters or so.


    Using his Matter Senses to float over and carefully approach-closing his eyes to hone his focus-Felix moved right towards where the wall once was. As he approached, he started filling in a lot of the blanks and was able to tell that the wall, and everything around it, was actually burning. By everything, he really meant everything too. Matter, mana and even light were being completely destroyed by the flames creating a weird effect that looked like shadow flames offering a window into the void itself.


    In the dim light of the night sky they were almost impossible to see but Felix could feel them.


    Moreover, the flames seemed to be using mana as a source and reaching outwards, Felix took hold of all the mana he could and moved it aside. As he did though-opening his eyes once again-he saw light pour in from the room beyond. His mind was more than capable of spatially tracking him so he knew what was on the other side of the wall but it still shocked him as he looked beyond the flames and the hole in the obsidian wall.


    The Halls of the Dragon''s Hoard were drenched in shadow. From as far as he was standing, Felix couldn''t see very far in either direction but everything he could see, was being rapidly burned to nothing. Not even ash remained as the shadow flames spread and consumed the heritage of the Drakene.


    The flames themselves reminded Felix, in more ways than one, of The Endless Hunger but that was more frightening than comforting. The flames were the same blackness and they grew and consumed in a similar way, they even instilled a similar sense of dread within Felix''s soul. The flames though, the dread they filled him with, wasn''t tinged with any familiarity whatsoever. His soul had dealt with Hunger before but this, was something completely different. It looked weaker as it grew slower and with less intelligence but felt far scarier to Felix.


    These flames instilled within him a feeling of complete and total annihilation. Ceaseless destruction leaving no remnant behind whatsoever. It was death incarnate and complete oblivion.


    The hunger wanted to consume him, he could feel that. This didn''t want anything it simply destroyed everything. The dread filling him upon seeing it was a fundamental fear that everything with a soul shared, being lost. Were the flames to consume him, Felix''s soul wouldn''t return to the ambient anima, where his experiences would join in the endless unconscious. He would simply cease to exist, everything he had ever experienced truly gone.


    It was a fear he didn''t even know he had until it suddenly appeared and threatened to consume him.


    Felix looked on, nearly paralyzed by the overwhelming urge to force open a portal and run.


    Even moving the mana that the flames apparently used as fuel didn''t really give him any strength against the flames. They also consumed matter and he couldn''t shake the flames off simply by pulling on the mana. He was essentially holding a log that was still alight except it was the entire thing that burned, all the way throughout.


    As the dread gradually mounted until it became too much to bear, Felix took two steps back and fell to one knee as he desperately punched his own chest to try and force himself to breathe. His eyes grew wide but at the same time, his vision narrowed. With his bodily control and senses as in tune as they were, he felt his blood pressure spike as his heart beat as hard and as fast as it could. Normally he suppressed those autonomic functions manually but he couldn''t bring himself to do anything.


    He gasped for breath and clawed at the ground, completely helpless in a way he hadn''t ever felt before.


    Then, through the deafening silence of his fear consuming him, Felix heard a single note. Then another followed by a few more creating a soft tune. Somehow, the melody was enough for him to regain some semblance of control and he immediately pulled a Tranquility Elixir from his Soul Space directly into his mouth. He crushed it with his teeth then swallowed the contents along with the glass shards in his mouth.


    Even before reaching his stomach, the elixir pouring over his tongue and down his throat began to seep into his soul directly, as it suffused his body now, and the effect was immediate. Felix''s soul calmed down and grew much closer to what he normally felt in battle, tense but manageable. He began stowing the glass shards as he felt them and manually retaking control of his own soul.


    Though it was manageable, large chunks of his soul felt like they had almost been driven mad. They were still a part of him but it almost felt like they weren''t, or didn''t want to be. Once by one, piece by piece, Felix forced each piece back into alignment until his soul was whole again. Certain pieces remained slightly discordant with the rest, like a ball of liquid where some of it was slightly colored with dye. Overall though, it was enough that he wasn''t worried in the short term and it would likely fix itself in the long term.


    Tilting his gaze back ahead of him, Felix reached out with his mana control and began moving as much of the mana fueled fire as he could. For the time being, he simply tossed it aside but even that wasn''t enough. The flames themselves were burning the matter itself, they were just significantly slower. Based on all the weird signals he was receiving from his matter and mana senses, he was pretty sure the fire was breaking the matter down into mana then burning that.


    Since his mana control alone wasn''t enough, Felix reached out with his matter control. Up until his evolution alongside Nova, he had almost entirely tuned out his matter control and matter senses. After the evolution, he was able to move objects around a bit but not with any strength. He could however write with a quill as the precision was far more impressive. Using that control to fly though, he wasn''t able to fly with any speed but he was able to move his body with more precision, it just wasn''t useful in a fight at all.


    His matter senses on the other hand, now felt as good as his sight within a dozen meters or so in terms of detail and differentiating objects.


    He took a few steps forwards because his effective range was far smaller with his matter control and as he did, he carefully grabbed chunks of the wall and ripped them free. Moving matter was one thing, separating matter was another entirely and his initial pull resulted in a massive tear in the wall. The obsidian clearly wasn''t very high grade material or the fire had weakened it significantly to the point where it felt like he was tearing paper.


    The awesome feeling that filled him as he used his matter control on something useful for the first time definitely helped in dealing with the lingering dread throughout his body. Pieces of the wall were peeled back piece by piece, suspended in the air as they burned away or tossed into a pile with the rest while Felix carefully opened the way.


    Stepping through the hole in the wall-that was far bigger than it realistically needed to be to satisfy Felix''s fears-he floated in and tried to spot anything through the shadowy flames that consumed the hall. It wasn''t as bad as Felix was expecting as the flames were much slower inside the hall as they had only just started to burn through the relics inside.


    Down towards the entrance to the hall Felix knew and had come through earlier, he immediately spotted what he was looking for. Himself.


    Rather, he saw Arthur, his persona. Clearly not his actual persona but the body, dragon-scale shorts, ethereal axe were all identical. Felix was so transfixed, he almost missed the shade appearing next to him and swinging for his head. He instinctively hit it with a force blast which would have been enough to kill one of his shades-were he not pumping them constantly with his unique mana control-but these shades, were clearly different.


    They looked identical but they were much more solid and didn''t immediately explode. Instead, Felix was forced to duck below the swinging axe then leap backwards. As he floated backwards through the air, Felix released a Lightning Bolt which was enough to dissipate the shade.


    Before he landed, another appeared above him but he dealt with that one with relative ease as well.


    Turning back towards the imposter, Felix watched them use their imitation of Eretheas to cut a rift in space and step through.


    That was wei-


    "What the hell is going on? Who was that?"


    Spinning around, Felix found Melody standing next to Nova in her panther form staring down the corridor trying to catch sight of whoever Felix had been fighting.


    "Identification said Arthur¡­" Felix lied.


    Melody frowned, "Like¡­ the guy who soul-killed some of the participants in the event?"


    Felix just shrugged, "Maybe. Not sure how they could have gotten here though."


    "Worry about that later. You did notice The Flames of Oblivion surrounding you, right?" S§×ar?h the ¦Çov§×lFire .net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    Focusing again on his surroundings, Felix began doing his best to relocate the flames as best he could. First he just moved the flames away to save as many relics as he could but he quickly realized he needed somewhere to put them. Just piling the flames together in a corner wasn''t good enough and would just become a bigger problem later.


    Instead, he opened a portal next to him into the middle of space and began dumping all the tainted, burning matter and shadow flames through it. It was more than a little annoying dealing with the air being sucked through the portal at first but so long as he accounted for it, it actually made his task easier. The flames covering the torn walls and floor were sucked through until all that was left were the scars all across the center of the hall.


    Once he was done, Felix was pretty sure the only things that were damaged were a few dozen relics and from those, only half of them were completely lost.


    He didn''t have much time to assess things though as the Drakene from the party had begun filtering in through the entrance. They formed a crowd near the door that cried out in outrage and confusion as they tried to figure out what had happened. Splitting off from the pack and rushing towards Felix was Silgar, tears of sorrow rather than joy this time, streaming across the scales on his face.


    Silgar ran up to them and Felix winced as he began apologizing, "Sorry I kind of threw out¡­ a lo-"


    Silgar interrupted him by actually hugging Felix, "Thank you¡­"


    Felix looked over at Melody who was smirking and-after a few seconds of uncertainty-began patting Silgar on the back.


    After half a minute, far too long in Felix''s mind, Silgar released him and took a step back. At that point, much of the crowd had approached but they all stood in wait for someone else to say something.


    Silgar was about to address them but before he could, a portal appeared just a few meters away from them and Rathelius stepped through. He nodded towards Silgar in recognition then shook his head, "He''s gone. I had little luck in tracing his jumps. I don''t even know yet how he got in."


    Turning to Felix, Rathelius bowed slightly, "The Dragon Mother would like to extend her gratitude for your help in protecting the relics of our past. If you and your guest would please come with me."


    Felix nodded, "Of course."


    "You have made our ancestor''s proud this night. Protecting our history from The Flames of Oblivion, much like Arkinikamed-whose scales you bore this night-once did." Silgar bowed his head deeply for a few seconds then looked straight upwards and released a billowing stream of fire into the air. A number of the Drakene behind him followed suit creating a soft and pillowy looking cloud of flame above them.


    Felix felt a little awkward taking the credit for something that he knew was completely set up but he wasn''t going to correct them so instead, he simply followed Rathelius through another portal, Melody stepping through a moment later along with Nova.


    Together, they walked down a series of halls through a large stone building for almost an hour before finally stepping into a massive room that looked like a vault, bare, metal and imposing. Across the room, Felix saw exactly who he was expecting to see and walked right over to Tekragoraxius, somewhat forgetting he was supposed to be in complete awe. He quickly realized Melody had fallen back and actually chuckled upon seeing her slack jaw.


    He slowed a few steps and leaned over, whispering to her, "Why are you so impressed, isn''t your dad a god? Should you be used to this by now?"


    Melody smacked him and looked completely mortified, "Felix you need to be respectful!"


    He just shrugged and walked up to her, Nova hoping from hers to his shoulder as Melody''s was far too slow a pace for the shifting kitten. Felix was also happy to see that Nova seemed to be aware of what was happening ahead of time as she had apparently already encountered the flames of oblivion before and knew not to transform into a dragon now, in front of Melody. It seemed as though this whole charade had been planned a while ago.


    Approaching Tekragoraxius, Felix didn''t give away his familiarity by greeting her with his imitation fire breath and instead, he simply bowed. Nova performed a similar gesture next to him and Melody quickly caught up and followed.


    Without lowering her head to their level as Felix was used to, The Dragon Mother stood tall and proud, as a god should, "We took a chance and invited you to our Ascension day, the first outsider in hundreds of integrations. And yet, it seems as though it is us who should be thanking you. We are in your debt."


    Felix stood up straight and tilted his head back to look at her then nodded, "I was just¡­ right place right time I guess."


    "Yes, it seems you were. Not only did you cut the attacker short but you were able to save much of our history from an attack many are incapable of stopping."


    Felix shrugged with false humility, playing along for Melody and anyone else that may have been watching, "I just have some unique abilities, it really isn''t anything special."


    "We will have to come up with a suitable reward for your heroic actions. As for the perpetrator, you recognized them?"


    Felix nodded, "I believe it is the same Arthur from the world event that soul killed a number of people."


    "I see. Be wary should you encounter this individual again. They seem to be capable of traveling with traceless portals and infiltrating even some of the most heavily fortified venues."


    Felix nodded, "Of course."


    "As for you, Melody, cub of Kjarne, you have done us an equally great service this night."


    Felix looked over at her, slightly confused as to what The Dragon Mother was referring to.


    She just shrugged as her cheeks reddened slightly, "All I did was calm the sudden outburst of emotions I felt. It was kind of instinctive to be honest."


    "And yet, you singlehandedly prevented an even greater catastrophe from occurring, were the intoxicated guests to act on their roiling emotions. Certainly they would have injured themselves amongst The Flames of Oblivion. Not everyone is quite as unique, as your partner Felix here."


    Felix suppressed all outward reactions as he put two and two together and realized that Melody''s tune that had broken him out of the crippling fear hadn''t actually been directed at him at all. Her intentions were to calm the outburst of emotion from the guests as they realized what was happening.


    She smirked, "Right place, right time I guess."


    "Yes, a common occurrence it seems. As for your reward, I have already decided upon a suitable gift."


    As Tekragoraxius finished speaking, Rathelius walked over from somewhere off to the side and gently placed a beautiful wooden box made of some kind of light red, almost pinkish, wood.


    Melody waited for Rathelius to step back then kneeled down and gently opened the crate just a sliver before promptly recoiling and dropping the lid as she jumped back, "I can''t possibly take this."


    Felix could hear the slight hint of mirth in Tekragoraxius'' voice, "You would refuse our gift?"


    "I¡­ This is so much more than¡­ I really didn''t do that much."


    The Dragon Mother finally lowered her head towards them, "And yet, I insist."


    Melody nodded then carefully reached down and stowed the box in some kind of spatial storage simply by touching it. She bowed once again, this time taking one knee, "Thank you. I will¡­ cherish this."


    "Felix, we will need some time to find something suitable for your reward."


    Felix knew exactly what he wanted and he knew he could ask for it, once they were alone in the future, not that he really deserved a reward considering what had happened. Still, he was pretty sure what he wanted wasn''t too big an ask but for now, he continued to play his part, "No reward is necessary. My invite to this sacred event and the corpses you provided me already were extraordinarily generous."


    She nodded slightly, "Speaking of. I believe it is time for you to return to the celebration and for me to begin my hunt for this attacker and¡­ inevitably, their backing."


    Felix heard Melody swallow beside him and simply suppressed his desire to laugh before nodding and following Rathelius back out of the room.


    Heading back to the Ascension Day event, the majority of the guests had already left but a sizable chunk had stuck around to personally thank both Felix and Melody.


    They politely spoke with everyone that had waited then finally, managed to make their exit and portal back to Eramith Academy. Walking across the grounds, they walked mostly in silence which was fine by Felix, as Melody clearly had a lot on her mind. Reaching the dorms, they bid each-other farewell and Felix practically jumped right back into the world event. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 Chapter 212 - Book 14

    Walking through the cave he had carved out for himself, Felix walked into the small room he considered his current workshop and began finally putting the finishing touches on the constructs he had been creating. All he had left to do was bind the souls he had already created and power them up with his own mana. The souls themselves were as simple as possible because they didn''t need to do anything complicated. The construct''s mana computers handled their own control so all the soul had to do, was bind them together.


    Pushing mana into a small palm sized metal orb, the opening on its surface suddenly shot open, revealing an eye ball that darted back and forth. Had Felix not been the one to create it, he would have found it a little creepy and disgusting, as it was though, these eyeballs had literally been grown in his body.


    The last step left, was to have mark open a portal to the construct''s internal anchor, connecting it to the overall system.


    Felix had already given Mark''s soul the spark of life and bolstered it so it had some measure of mana control but not nearly enough to actually cast spells the way Felix did, at least nothing as complicated as a portal. The connections to these constructs were actually engraved into a series of small discs that were arranged within a simple enchantment that acted as a switchboard. All Mark had to do was channel mana into the respective slots with his new found, very basic, mana control and the connection was made. It also allowed Mark to close the portals if necessary from his end.


    The way this was all set up, if the constructs were destroyed or captured, Felix really didn''t lose much. The constructs were powered from Mark''s mana through the portals so there were no batteries. All the materials used in the constructs were simple and cheap, the entire thing relatively easy to recreate now that he had the designs finalized. He couldn''t really mass produce them just yet but, he had managed to create 36 of them for his first batch. That allowed each one to handle a slice just 10 degrees wide from their starting point.


    As each one was powered on and connected into Mark, Felix opened a portal to the coordinates they had chosen for that construct then tossed it through. Each one of them zipped off and began flying across the land before Felix closed the portal and turned to the next one.


    In the meantime, Grim and Mark were monitoring the feedback to ensure everything was running smoothly in terms of them using Felix''s mana and then updating his map in return. Luckily, everything seemed to be working even better than Felix had expected. Not only was his mental map updated, but his System map and most importantly, his quest list seemed to be updating as well.


    Tossing the last one through its respective portal, Felix dumped Nova unceremoniously on a mountain top then hurried to the first dungeon his constructs had found. Smacking his hand against the door, he smirked as he saw that he was the first one to have found this specific dungeon.


    It''s like the universe, or System rewarding me for a job well done.


    It only took him a few minutes to clear as it was a heavily combat focused dungeon and Zeraxes trick of requesting all the waves at once made it fast. All Felix had to do was blow absurd amounts of mana into ridiculous spells.


    As soon as he stepped out of the completed dungeon, he opened a portal directly to the next dungeon his constructs had found.


    Not only were the constructs mapping and finding quests for him, but the constructs were also measuring the coordinates at the dungeons themselves and periodically all over the map. He could open portals to the dungeons directly and also had a quickly filling grid of portal coordinates in his mental map so he could get just about anywhere in seconds. Were the coordinates to portal not some undecipherable, arcane gibberish, this wouldn''t have even been necessary but alas, even Mark couldn''t find any kind of pattern to them.


    I feel like if there isn''t a pattern¡­ that must mean these coordinates aren''t actually some universal law but rather a System invention¡­ Or maybe I just don''t have the prerequisite knowledge to understand them yet.


    With his new constructs, he had completely removed the time it took for him to search for quests and dungeons. He became a machine, portalling to and crushing dungeons at a ridiculous pace.


    Over the course of just two days, only two of Felix''s constructs were destroyed. Both of them had been destroyed by some wandering participant and each one, Felix hunted down as Arthur and killed. He didn''t recover anything as the constructs were destroyed but it helped him build up Arthur''s reputation and made him feel a little better.


    The speed with which Felix was crushing dungeons actually made him not want to head back for Group Combat, especially considering how hard it was for him to move up the final rung to the first class. With Melody''s advice though, he had hope.


    Though, he wasn''t used to being a support caster and was admittedly terrible at it, even just using spells in the way Melody had instructed him, he saw the Adepts take notice. They weren''t ready to move him into the first class just yet but he was confident he was close.


    Once the class was over with, Felix left as fast as he could not only because he was excited to get back, but also because there were rumors about his exploits on Ascension day and the other students were even more annoying than usual.


    Despite that, Felix returned just two days later for Soul Manipulation. After what had happened with the flames, Felix found a renewed appreciation for increasing his soul''s defenses. He was more capable than most with manipulating and compressing his soul but he had grown complacent because of his arrogance. He had assumed nothing could hurt him and had been injured because of it. Had Melody not been there and accidentally freed him, were it an actual combat situation, he would have been royally screwed.


    Despite his new found appreciation, he didn''t pay much attention to the class itself but he would make sure to rewatch it later. In the meantime, he had other, related, matters to attend to.


    Walking through his Mind City and Soul Garden, even though Felix''s soul had mostly realigned itself after encountering the flames, his soul constructs had not recovered so quickly. A few of them had been driven completely insane and Felix was forced to essentially recreate them completely. Many of the others were hurt, their soul damage represented as various physical wounds within his mind.


    Some appeared to have lost limbs, others had nasty burn scars across large chunks of their body. Despite that, Felix saw the ones that had survived diligently working as if nothing had really happened.


    Though much of it had been repaired now, many of the buildings and much of the environment looked like it had been burned and charred as well. Like the city had undergone a siege it had been sorely unequipped to handle.


    It just seems¡­ wrong.


    He and Grim, despite not being even close to each-other in his mind, spoke telepathically, How so?


    Something as traumatic as this, with at least two complete deaths¡­ they should be affected. Mourning and sad.


    Why?


    At first¡­ I was just going to say that''s what I''m used to but now¡­ I think if they were, it would help them grow. Maybe these kinds of events are necessary for the growth of a people.


    Maybe not necessary but I know what you mean.


    Felix nodded once, I think it''s time I finally brought them all to life.


    Repairing the buildings took a fraction of a second. Carefully reassembling all the souls and imbuing them with the spark of life, took the rest of the class. Once he had though, he happily observed as the constructs began to gradually experience increasing sorrow and misery as they began to mourn. He felt a little weird about his own sense of satisfaction around them feeling awful but he didn''t think too much about it.


    Once the class was over, he headed back into the world event and began rushing through the various quests his constructs had found. Things quickly slowed as there weren''t an infinite number of quests for him to complete and his constructs were forced to scan wider and wider areas the more they spread apart.


    In the meantime, Felix created more constructs and worked on his own soul. Rather, he didn''t touch anything to do with his own soul just yet but he began reading through the compendium he had received himself. Immediately he was nearly overwhelmed by the very first soul diagram.


    The structure was completely ridiculous and used four dimensions to create a series of interleaved three dimensional fractals that moved between themselves, constantly rotating and repositioning themselves. Everything from the individual layers, their structure, the movements and the math behind their speed and morphing was written out and explained.


    Felix had no intention of copying just about any of it but it filled him with new ideas. The concepts also overlapped enough with very advanced spell formation that Felix had some starting point for understanding the content.


    Over the course of just a few days, the creation of his eye constructs became easy enough that he read mentally while his hands simultaneously enchanted metal spheres. He even ended up minorly downgrading his designs to make them drastically easier to create because what really mattered to him was map coverage and therefore, quantity, not individual functionality and quality.


    He also briefly took a break to catch up on some course material which proved far more interesting than he had anticipated. In the lectures for Mana Structures, Spell Formations as well as the ones for Constructs and Elementals and Animancy, which he still watched for the content despite not being in the classes anymore, the respective exams were explained.


    For Mana Structures, as he had been somewhat expecting, the exam was simply presenting a ritual to the professor that sent an audible message to the opposite end of the planet. In essence it was simple and were he not being graded on efficiency, he would simple open a portal and talk through it. That was used as an example though and would certainly result in a terrible grade. Opening an entire portal to move a bit of energy was incredibly wasteful, even if that amount of waste wouldn''t entirely matter to Felix at the moment.


    In Spell Formations, he was similarly tasked with simply creating a spell that would efficiently move a small block in a predefined, complex pattern. The pattern itself wasn''t very long at all but that just made the spell deceptively complicated. A sequence of events in a spell generally became rather complicated because certain events would have to be delayed or scheduled in some way. On top of that, the previous function, channels and nodes had to either cleansed or accounted for otherwise the pattern would overshoot itself, not to mention plain old inertia.


    There were various techniques for doing so but spell formations very quickly became very bloated if there were more than just a few steps. Due to that fact-and a few others-rituals, wards and enchantments were generally preferred for complicated sequences. With the way spells worked by comparison, and considering they were being graded on efficiency, the more elegant and less bloated the spell, the better their grade would be.


    He was actually particularly excited for that exam because it gave him a great excuse to work on a new idea he had been playing around with for a little while now. Not that he needed an excuse to test things, it just gave him some more direction and something to compare against and work towards.


    The exams for Constructs and Elementals as well as Animancy weren''t entirely relevant to Felix but he found them somewhat interesting nonetheless. For Construct and Elementals, the other students would have to create a construct that could organize a series of colored blocks, like a child. Most of the work seemed to be in the computer but that was only a small part of things. The constructs would also have to be able to handle blocks dexterously and identify them by color. Felix would have been able to ace the exam now but even just creating a construct that could see, he had needed a dungeon reward to accomplish the way he wanted.


    As for Animancy, it was all about constructing and binding a soul to a construct. That one would have been trivial for Felix and was much less interesting.


    He didn''t dedicate any more than passing thoughts to any of his exams though for the next few dekads where he only really left the event for combat classes. In Group Combat, it took him another three classes until he was moved up into the top class in large part because so many people were missing from the classes. The Adepts told him outright that they were taking more time with things when the classes were smaller but that they wanted to move him up. They wanted to be certain and with so few students, there were less students to compare against.


    Admittedly, it took Felix at least three classes anyways to become even somewhat decent as a support caster as it was so unnatural for him to even consider other people.


    As for Solo Combat, Felix skipped the class-as most people were doing at this point-but instead of running around in the event, he headed to the combat simulation room. The same room he had fought the Ashound in for his exam.


    He started with Ashounds and it took him a full 30 hour day for four dekads in the room to finally beat it. He had already come up with spells that countered it but he didn''t understand enough for them to be completely effective.


    As he fought, he learned that the Ashounds Agility and overall speed increased as its temperature increased, not just as time went on. Its temperature increased as it was hurt and as it expended energy. On top of this, the more ash that was created, either from splitting off of its body or from burning anything else, could become a whole new Ashound, though with noticeably lower stats initially. As more Ashounds appeared though, the heat in the surrounding area compounded making them all stronger.


    Felix had looked up some research in the various libraries he had access to and found that Ashounds were notoriously underestimated because of their unique abilities. Apparently it was a common trait with other pre-System era creatures that were still walking around. They often had unique and unexpected abilities that made them stronger than System born creatures and therefore, they were generally considered even stronger than their level suggested.


    The biggest issue for Felix in the fights, was that he couldn''t really cast cold spells efficiently. He was stuck with low complexity spells and cold was inherently inefficient. Most casters got around this by using ridiculously complex spells that drained the heat from the environment and turned it back into mana. Felix had tried desperately to find a way to do so himself but just couldn''t cast multi-hundred level spells and wasn''t willing to waste much time on it.


    Instead, he settled on beating the Ashound before it could heat up or split at all. The first time he managed to kill it, he had ended the fight in a few milliseconds. He knew that was largely luck though as it took him the entirety of his third day just to repeat the feat once. By the middle of the fourth day though, he managed to become semi consistent and by the end, he won 80% of the time.


    Having finally beat it and being able to do so somewhat consistently was rewarding but not nearly as rewarding for Felix as the experience he had gained. Battle experience was Felix''s biggest weakness, he knew that.


    With each day he spent relentlessly fighting the Ashound though, he found himself getting more lethal and most importantly, faster in real combat.


    Having any experience at all meant he made better decisions, faster. He knew what mistakes to avoid and in some situations, the correct choice to make. As his decisions were faster, he was able to quickly out maneuver his opponents more efficiently.


    It very quickly became obvious to him that the constructs he fought throughout the dungeons were equally as lacking as he had been. It just wasn''t really possible to imbue battle experience into constructs. Battle experience was too unique in that it required the soul and mind to be in perfect sync on past experiences. Otherwise, you were subject to making bad decisions through faulty logic or poor instincts and kill yourself.


    As for Nova, given her consistency, Felix knew she was somehow aware of the quest system but considering how her points were funneled, didn''t have an inventory of her own. He assumed it was because she broke everything she consumed down to or possibly beyond the atomic level but for whatever reason, he got her points and she didn''t seem to need any. It was a ridiculously favorable exchange and Felix was convinced it was intentional but didn''t dare voice that opinion.


    At the start of the fourth dekad since Ascension Day, Felix headed out to complete one last dungeon his constructs had found before heading back for supplies and Group Combat.


    Felix rushed through the dungeon that was split into rooms, just like the very first one he had completed in the event. Each room he entered, he immediately summoned all the waves at once.


    Starting with a spell he had created specifically for fighting the Ashound many, many times, Felix released a whirlwind of nearly invisible blades into the mass of constructs before him.


    They sliced cleanly through any weak sections and left thin but deep gashes on the more armored areas. Felix knew that the damage was worse than it appeared though because a construct''s insides were often just as vulnerable as a biological creature''s.


    Once their armor had openings within them, Felix was free to drench the room in what was effectively liquid flame. Seeping through the holes he had slashed in the construct''s armor, they were dead before they even had a chance to fight back.


    Most of the rooms were similar. Some posed more of a challenge and Felix was forced to activate Reaper''s Movement to dodge. Luckily he didn''t need it for more than an instant as he still couldn''t really activate it on command. He could however, consistently activate the skills for a moment a few times a minute. It wasn''t much but it made a huge difference in combat where a single burst of ridiculous speed or strength could completely win the fight for him.


    He was most happy with the blade spell though as that had been the most complex spell he had ever created. Technically he had stolen from dozens of existing spells and consulted Withrel to piece everything together but it was well worth it.


    Not only did the Force Blades have to remain perfectly stable so that they remained sharp as the blades inevitably degraded but they also needed to have sufficient Force behind them to actually cut through anything. On top of that, he had an entire second section within the spell that pulled outwards around the blades and moved through the air.


    He had finally managed to create a version that required less than 40 focus by employing liberal use of overlapping fractal based channels to remove the requirement for anything more than a single node. All the node had to do was attune the mana to Force, after that the channels did all the actual work. The spell itself looked incredibly complex but simply knowing the fractals that went into its creation and having created the spell himself made him intimately familiar with it. In turn, it was much easier to visualize and actually only cost him about 32 spell levels of focus.


    Alongside Mark''s ever increasing capacity, his focus was also slowly increasing as his soul naturally compressed his mind. At first the effect was worrying but eventually he realized it was completely natural and actually a by product of him ignoring his mental computer for too long. His body and soul had actually surpassed the computer and so they were pushing it along to keep up.


    He didn''t worry about it too much and was just happy it wasn''t actively harming him as his stats had when they fell behind. In fact, he was actually pretty excited by what was happening because it meant that the mana computer had become an actual part of his body. He had no doubt that that was in large part a product of The System''s hand in his most recent evolution. Still, it was a big step.


    Felix completely obliterated the sorry excuse for a final boss in the dungeon and walked over to collect the System Core in the room, an odd one at that. The core itself seemed to have been created with a curse that Felix could only describe as Lust. It didn''t affect the fight itself much, the fact that his enemy was a construct making sure of that. It did throw him off though and his biological brain was constantly filled with hormones he was forced to manually suppress lest they completely distract him.


    It was only a minor hindrance though.


    As soon as Felix stowed the core, doing so quickly to get rid of the annoying effects, he was presented with a screen he hadn''t opened himself. Normally The System notified him of a screen and let him open it when he wanted. Rarely had it ever forced a screen upon him but that thought was quickly pushed aside as he read through the message.


    Quest: The Grand Design


    Collect all 256 of the Imitation System Cores. [Complete] (83/256)


    Assemble all 256 Imitation System Cores at the specified location. [0/256]


    Note: All Imitation System Cores must remain within the event at all times going forwards.


    Huh. 83 out of 256 is not bad. Especially considering how many participants there are. Guess I know what I''m doing next.


    He had intended on buying the cores from the Event Trove as well but unfortunately, they were bought out within a few hours of The Event Trove being announced. There was no doubt in his mind that the factions had pooled their points to buy them out and he had no hope of beating an entire faction in collecting points but it was still disappointing. That left him with just the cores he found in dungeons which, he was rather satisfied with even if he did have survey constructs now constantly mapping the event.


    The other rewards from the dungeon were much less exciting and nothing he really cared about. The facility seemed to have been a plant research facility and the rewards he got were botanist''s notes. Nice to have for identifying plants but nothing he was particularly excited about.


    Popping out of the dungeon, Felix was ready to head back to the real world for supplies but first, he wanted to see if the Rakyt needed anything. He hadn''t done anything for them in a while and they offered easy points. The points didn''t make a ton of difference at the moment though, honestly he knew he was really doing it to gain favor. Nova had been destroying him at collecting points and because of her, he had far more points than he knew what to do with.


    He was really just hoping to get more access to their knowledge, the spells and whatever enchantments went into the massive buildings they had built around them.


    Felix didn''t get to head there immediately though as there was a rather dapper looking gentleman standing just outside the dungeon, waiting for him.


    [C - Legendary] Talrain (Lvl 1487)


    The gentleman wore something akin to a suit although admittedly, it wasn''t really that close to one at all. The straight lines and sharp angles along with the overall fit however, made it so that Felix couldn''t quite get the correlation out of his mind. Talrain''s face looked human in every way except for the long curled ram''s horns sprouting from atop his head and his purplish skin.


    With a warm and welcoming smile that starkly contrasted the sheer contempt and derision Felix felt through his soul, Talrain walked right up to Felix and offered him a hand, "Felix. I''ve been looking for you."


    Felix ignored the hand but stood his ground in an attempt to not give too much away, "Why?"


    "Ah well, you''ve been spending a lot of time with my sister. I just thought it prudent for us to¡­ acquaint ourselves."


    Felix half nodded in recognition, "You''re one of Melody''s brothers."


    "That I am. I will say, I can''t help but be impressed with how you handled Tanryel. I wasn''t fortuitous enough to see the spectacle myself but I did catch sight of his whimpering to our father and well my new friend, that was a memory I will cherish for a long time."


    Felix just nodded, "Was that all?"


    "Was that all? Of course not. We have so much to discuss. You haven''t joined an alliance yet have you?"


    Felix resisted the urge to sigh and fought the urge to outright ignore Talrain on account of the fact that there was a slight chance he offered useful information, "Nope."


    "Have you taken the grand tour of both the big ones? Seen what they have to offer you?"


    Felix shrugged, "Zeraxes showed me around the Archon alliance¡­ fort? Compound."


    "What about Edras? You aren''t even the least bit curious?"


    Felix sighed, "Not really."


    "What if they have unique materials, equipment, spells on offer? Wouldn''t an alliance be the best choice to protect that which you''ve found in here?"


    Frowning, Felix took a step back and to the side to try and take his leave, "Not¡­ interested."


    Talrain pivoted forwards ending up even closer to Felix than he had been before, "Alright well, while I don''t necessarily agree, I can''t make the right decisions for you. I must ask, why do you spend so much time with my sister?"


    Felix shrugged, "It''s not really by choice."


    "Surely you could avoid her if you truly desired to do so."


    "Maybe. She is useful¡­ from time to time." Felix scratched at his chin.


    Talrain scoffed, "That''s all it is then?"


    "Yup."


    Talrain nodded slowly then smiled, "Are you certain you do not wish for me to introduce you to the other alliance?"


    "I''m not interested right now and have many other things I''d like to get done. So no."


    "Fine fine."


    Peering over Talrain''s shoulder, Felix caught sight of something completely unnatural. Just shy of the horizon, there was a volcano in the process of erupting. It had been on the brink for some time now and was quite a spectacle with billowing clouds of ash being spewed into the air above. It was easily far enough that Felix wasn''t worried in the slightest and only really registered it as a passing curiosity.


    Glancing at it again though, something changed. The actual eruption itself had started with magma spewing out of the peak but that was all it did. It didn''t get anywhere. It was simply, stopped.


    Above it, the cloud of ash was growing dramatically while simultaneously, a series of clouds were rolling in from every direction forming one of the biggest storms Felix had ever seen. The clouds though were also moving towards the peak from every direction at a completely unnatural speed for whatever reason.


    Seeing Felix staring, Talrain glanced over his shoulder and nodded knowingly, "Some of us just don''t have quite their good fortune, now do we?"


    Felix''s brow furrowed, "What do you mean?"


    "Romar and Zeraxes over there. Each of them have been feeding off the oddly high amount of magma making its way to the surface and the unnatural storms respectively."


    Felix shook his head, "Wait¡­ Romar is eating the magma?"


    Talrain nodded, "Keep watching."


    The volcano itself was already unnatural as a by product of the stronger materials it was made of. Instead of the eruption being slow and taking forever, it was fast. The build up had lasted for almost a dekad, Felix having seen it in the distance quite a few times. Like a corked bottle though, it never quite gave way until now and because of Romar''s intervention, it was completely anticlimactic.


    The storm brewing above the volcano and-now that Felix was thinking back and paying attention to them-many of the storms in this event were quite sudden. They didn''t brew and build up like he expected a storm to but instead, it was like the clouds all found each-other and agreed to get things over with as quickly as possible.


    That''s exactly what was happening above the volcano, a sudden storm just appeared except this time, it was bigger than any storm Felix remembered. The dark grey clouds all floated in and merged with the billowing ash and, after a few minutes of watching, seemed to reach their crescendo.


    Even from the ridiculous distance Felix was standing, he was pretty sure he could smell the static building within the storm. He could definitely feel the mana, not that lightning was fueled from mana but any massive energy expenditure affected the mana in some way.


    This time, it was anything but anticlimactic.


    The brewing storm built up and where Felix expected a series of lightning strikes over the course of a few hours to drain them along with heavy rain, instead the entire mass of water vapor and ash exploded in blinding white light. Arcs of electricity webbed and arced their way through the mass all converging on a single point right in the middle of the storm.


    It lasted for all of a second and then it was gone. The clouds returning to their dark grey, darkened further by the suffused ash spread throughout them.


    Talrain shivered visibly, clearly a purposeful action rather than a reaction, "Frightening, are they not? If I were you I would definitely wish to at least find out what both alliances would do for me. After all, how are any of us supposed to fight them?"


    Felix sighed, "No thanks. You got anything else or can I go?"


    Talrain bowed slightly, "But of course, my apologies for keeping you."


    Felix resisted the urge to sigh and roll his eyes then flew off into the distance. Halfway through his flight, his eardrums literally exploded from the thunder that followed from the distant Lightning. He had almost forgotten about it given it had been a few minutes since seeing the Lightning.


    Once he was a safe distance from the dungeon, he opened a portal to his vault and quickly popped through.


    Over the past few dekads, his vault had grown dramatically to the point where it was less of a vault and more of a small compound in its own right. He had various sections dedicated to storage with shelves lining the walls along with others that he simply dumped things into when he cared less about the items.


    Walking through the storage hall, Felix walked past a large open training room that Zero had been using for the last little while. Felix had brought in stone pillars for him to practice against and Zero seemed to be getting better but they were convinced there was more they needed to learn before heading out into the event. Though it had been a while, Felix wasn''t sure if he wanted Zero participating in the event at all considering his lack of a true class, race, level, profession and skills.


    Beyond that were Felix''s various workshops. He had started with one room but eventually, when he wanted to work on a different project, instead of cleaning things he simply dug out a new room. Heading out for supply runs or having Nova produce supplies for him, he was too lazy-or rather busy-to organize things. For convenience sake, interleaved between the various workshops were storage rooms filled with rough materials that he planned on using in the future.


    Heading into his most recent workshop, Felix picked up a few things as reference points for the smiths he liked in Telviras. His plans for the moment were to head back to the real world for a little while after heading to the Rakyt city to see if they needed anything.


    Opening a portal a kilometer outside of the city, Felix stepped through and immediately, his jaw dropped. The city was still there before him but it was engaged in a full blown war. Completely surrounding the city was a massive hoard of what looked like flesh golems and stitched together chimeras, necromantic minions with little thought or effort put into them. Behind the hoard of garbage were various demon participants currently just standing and watching. The army wasn''t all located in one specific group though, instead they completely surrounded the city evenly.


    The hoard itself was almost like a solid mass of hideous creatures piling on top of each-other with no regard for one another. The only thing on their mind was to ravage the Rakyt city before them.


    Behind them, the demons formed almost a perfect ring around the city. They seemed to generally be occupied with something but Felix just assumed their shape was the result of the city itself being circular and he figured they were likely preparing spells or something.


    None of that was what had surprised Felix, in fact he was kind of expecting this to happen at some point.


    What made his jaw drop, was the sheer amount of mana being harnessed and channeled, mostly by the city. The demon hoard seemed to prefer fighting with bodies and flesh constructs more than spells. The city though, waged war in a way Felix would have expected from a city of Wizards.


    He had seen much of their defenses as he had approached the city, or at least how it was all set up. Seeing everything in action though was awesome, at least, for Felix. With his impressive Mana Senses and Reaper''s Sense encoding all of that into colors, the display was like nothing he had ever seen before.


    The pyramids had transformed into spell cannons and the spires into solid pylons that formed a mesh of overlapping shields. The statues around the city raised their staves which all cast beams of fiery death from their tips. The Rakyt themselves were entirely within the city as far as Felix could tell. He didn''t see a single one out on the battlefield actually fighting anyone.


    Everything he saw from the city defied his comprehension of how spells worked. The beams of fiery death the statues were releasing weren''t just the plain streams he was used to. The streams were complex spells in and of themselves with lines and channels weaved throughout them in three dimensions and constantly shifting.


    They weren''t just aesthetic either.


    The attacks that were let through the mesh ward protecting the city to hit the opposing army had ridiculous effects. Some of them chained between enemies, others caused them to explode violently.


    Sweet. If I help defend the city, as a reward, I bet I could get access to all that knowledge they have from world events.


    With that plan in mind, Felix made sure his cloak''s meager mana buffer was full then erected a Force Barrier around himself and flew off towards the demon hoard.


    The fodder in the front was already starting to break through the city''s shields but Felix had a different target in mind. Ignoring the hoard, Felix flew over towards the outskirts of the army, towards the demons.


    They quickly noticed him and about a third of the demons forming the ring around the outside near him split off to defend their brethren. Dropping low to the ground, Felix knocked a demon jumping towards him aside then released a explosion of blades into the biggest grouping of them he could see.


    He didn''t kill anyone outright but he definitely drew blood.


    Two of the demons in large sets of blackened plate armor that had braced themselves better than the rest charged forwards. One of them reached forwards to grapple Felix while the other swung forwards, releasing a torrent of dark purple tendrils from their savage looking cleaver.


    With an instinct cast Force Push, Felix knocked himself aside and right into another demon who wasn''t ready for his sudden move. The torrent of dark purple tendrils didn''t seem to affect the other demons at all when they passed through his previous position and struck them but Felix wasn''t really expecting them to. As soon as he collided with the demon behind him, he released a massive explosion of flame around himself that completely incinerated all the demons within a few dozen meters of him. It had cost him a fifth of his mana pool but it was well worth it.


    The demon he had collided with was lucky as being so close to Felix, it was in the safe area of the spell. A moment later though, Felix blew his head off with a Force spell that cost him another million mana.


    This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.


    Felix had been intercepted and didn''t actually reach the ring but now that he had eliminated a dozen demons, the rest of the guards nearby grouped up and took him much more seriously. Curiously, Felix had expected all of the demons to break off of the ring to deal with him. After all, if they were just launching siege spells at the city, they were better off dealing with him and protecting themselves.


    Instead, a small number of demons stayed behind forming a perfect ring around the city, evenly spaced down to the centimeter from each-other.


    Ah shit.


    Quickly glancing around, he realized he was pretty sure he knew what was happening. The rest of the ring had been obscured by the guards that weren''t in a perfect circle. Looking around now though, and knowing what to look for, Felix spotted demons crouched down with their arms buried in the sand down to their elbows. Dozens of these demons formed a perfect ring around the city, evenly spaced and all in identical poses.


    So they aren''t just siege casters.


    Having an idea of what was happening and being able to stop it were two very different things. Curiously, Felix found he didn''t really feel any mana coming from whatever they were doing though, he wasn''t very close to them. He just expected massive amounts of mana for a ritual of that size but that just wasn''t the case it seemed.


    Returning his focus to the demons racing towards him, Felix saw a mass of the disgusting creatures in the frontline break off and join the demon guards that had surrounded him. With hundreds of demons surrounding him and all of them on guard and aware of his abilities, Felix had no intention of even trying to fight them. Instead, he summoned the slicer on his wrist and floored it right through them.


    The sleek black slicer knocked the demons aside and Felix shot far past them and started circling the city. He didn''t actually spot anyone he knew which was unfortunate as he was hoping Peace and the followers of Amatara were still in and around the city.


    As strong as Felix was, he knew he didn''t really stand much of a chance fighting the army by himself. If he had hundreds of times more mana and some way to isolate the participants, he thought he might have stood a chance but, not at the moment.


    Knowing this, he took a look at the city to see how they were faring so he could strategize his own position and saw the demons pouring into the city through the barrier the Rakyt had erected. It wasn''t just one hole either, despite the shields forming the mesh being completely independent of each-other, they all seemed to have a similar durability because there were no less than 3 holes Felix could see. On top of that, there were streams of demons pouring in from other directions he didn''t have sight of.


    Given he was trying to ingratiate himself with the Rakyt, he shot himself towards the barrier and prepared a portal spell from memory. His ability to both visualize 20th level spells along with channeling over a million mana had improved massively and instead of taking minutes, he cast a portal into the city in just over 5 seconds.


    Normally, he was even faster but his mana control had to fight the portal anchors within the city so he almost smacked the barrier as he flew. Just before colliding with it, he desummoned Erevos and his remaining momentum tossed him through the portal and into the city.


    The portal moved him just a hundred meters forwards and so he caught himself in the air and flew off towards the largest group of Rakyt he could see. To prove he was on their side so they didn''t attack him, he began launching spells into the demons hoard pressing themselves through the street. A few Rakyt turned to him but they quickly got the message and turned back to the hoard before them.


    Felix didn''t land but hovered above them and launched spells as fast as he could, even pulling Grim out of his Soul Space just to speed up his casting.


    The hoard wasn''t particularly tough but they did have demons amongst them that cast shields. No, the problem was how many of them there were. Down the street Felix was focused on, the creatures created from rotting and reused flesh no doubt animated through necromancy clawed and climbed over each-other forming a complete wall easily 20 meters high.


    For Felix who could fly-at will with his matter senses now too, albeit slowly-the wall wasn''t nearly as oppressive as it was for the landlocked Rakyt.


    Being in the air, Felix was the first to spot demons pouring in from another street on the other side and immediately started knocking them off the street into the water to either side. The street was almost a hundred meters wide though so he could only really knock off the ones on the very edge.


    Running down the middle, Felix spotted a pair of demons riding massive headless lizard creatures wearing matching armor that Felix was hesitant to call plate armor. It wasn''t fully enclosed like he expected plate armor to be and instead, it seemed to be made up of multiple separate pieces. They each wore a rough looking breast-plate along with large curved plates strapped to their upper arms. Each was held on with leather straps and didn''t seem to be a part of the same set at all.


    The rest of their bodies were similarly covered in disparate metal plates that all together, made them look like they had salvaged their armor from a battlefield of corpses.


    [C - ?] Mecada (Lvl 1428)


    [C - ?] Berrdoth (Lvl 1401)


    They were at least a kilometer away from the mass of Rakyt he had been helping but they were moving quickly and Felix''s instincts screamed to him that they were strong.


    He quickly launched himself forwards to cut them off and buy the Rakyt a bit more time.


    Seeing him approach, the two demons spread themselves out across the road to flank him from both sides. As they approached the sides of the road, Felix released two curved Force blasts to try and knock them off. He didn''t manage to push either of them more than a meter though as both Lizard mounts dug their claws into the street and tore up the road beneath them.


    Felix didn''t bother with long ranged attacks that gave them plenty of time to dodge and instead forced his way into their range. It was a tradeoff he was more than prepared to make.


    Berrdoth was the first to attack, a massive rusty looking chain with each link bigger than Felix''s head appeared coiled behind him. All along the chain-almost like charms on a bracelet-were rusted and damaged blades that matched their armor in looking like it had been salvaged.


    The mounted demon slammed his arm forwards, with so much force, the mount beneath him smacked into the ground. The chain followed like a whip as Felix dove to the side but it was faster than he had expected. Halfway through the air, the chain bent towards him and sped up, almost like it wanted to shred him.


    He managed to avoid the chain itself but the dangling blades all stretched out to the side towards him and a few of them tore right through his cloak. The enchantment he had wasn''t useless but it clearly wasn''t enough. It definitely slowed the blades down but, that didn''t amount to much if they still managed to rip through and cut a few centimeters into his arm and side.


    Felix immediately felt the wounds fester with various venoms, bacteria, rust and diseases but he wasn''t worried. Fighting them off would tax his system but only by a negligible amount. Unfortunately, he still wasn''t quite at the point where he could offset the cost of fighting them by feeding on them himself just yet.


    Berrdoth slammed his arm backwards, ripping the chain off the ground and trying to lick Felix once more.


    Felix had been expecting something like this though and pushed the blades out of range with a blast of Force. Just as he did, Mecada raced towards him and swung low with his long, curved blade.


    Felix had seen the blade in Mecada''s hand when he approached. It was an odd combination between a scimitar and a longsword. Too thick to be a katana with a different curve profile that hadn''t really make sense to Felix before now.


    Using an instinct cast to dodge, aiming to overshoot the blade this time, Felix realized why the blade''s curve was so odd to him.


    As Mecada swung the blade low, the blade split down the middle to reveal a sharp mess of teeth that were too big to have been hiding within the blade. Disgusting rusty brown colored drool was flung outwards from the maw before it shut itself again at the end of the swing. The blade had obviously been carved out of the jaw of some creature and had retained some of its savagery.


    Two weapons with bound souls, races I can''t identify and my instincts tell me they''re strong¡­ I''d been looking for a good fight in here.


    Leaping off the ground, Felix followed Mecada and swung his arm to the side, almost like he wielded an invisible sword. A moment later, a deep cut emerged on the back of the lizard mount''s legs causing it to buckle.


    Using a Phantom Step to redirect himself, Felix shot himself to the side, avoiding Berrdoth''s chains. Costing him a quarter million mana, Felix released a stream of liquid flame towards Berrdoth. The flame was fast enough, and Felix was close enough, that Berrdoth had to kick off his mount and dive to the side to avoid it. His actions saved himself but doomed his mount which physically melted as it was kicked directly into the flames and drenched.


    Berrdoth rolled back to his feet and swung around again, his chain sweeping across the ground. Felix didn''t even try to jump over it as he knew it would redirect itself into him so instead he released a burst of Force into the middle of the blade so it would fold around and swing back into Berrdoth.


    As soon as he did, he was forced to shove himself backwards with an instinct cast as Mecada had also dismounted and swung down into Felix. Activating Reaper''s Movement, Felix managed to save his arm but it also meant he couldn''t use the skill for at least another 10 seconds and no more than twice in the next few minutes. Considering how fast these fights were, 10 seconds was far too long and a few minutes was effectively an eternity. If this fight really went on that long, Felix was at risk of running out of mana.


    Missing Felix''s arm, Mecada''s sword slammed down into the ground and opened it''s maw, tearing into the sandstone streets and ripping a chunk free. Pivoting forwards, Mecada rushed towards Felix and swung the sword around, causing it to spit the massive chunk of road towards him.


    Felix slightly redirected the stone into Berrdoth''s chain behind him with an instinct cast then released a sphere of blades into Mecada.


    The sphere was a cross between a storm spell and a Force orb except instead of trying to contain Mecada, it just tried to follow him around. It was one of the most complicated combat spells Felix could cast without Grim and preparation but it was definitely a worthy distraction.


    With Mecada temporarily occupied, Felix kicked off a Phantom Step to get as far into Berrdoth''s range as he could.


    As his chain inevitably swung back around, Felix let it approach then released two spells simultaneously. The first was a Force Wall to try and stop the chain from hitting him, or at least slow it. The second was a massive burst of Lightning that was largely undirected.


    The chain itself was slowed to a stop half a meter from Felix''s body but the blades ripped right through the Force Wall and hungrily drove themselves into Felix''s side. They were completely unaffected by the Lightning but Berrdoth holding the end of the chain was the real target anyways.


    Pushing the chain back with an instinct cast, Felix glanced over at Berrdoth and saw a vicious black line running all the way down his right arm, forking around his torso and running into the ground. Smoke trailed off the wound and he collapsed to one knee but Felix didn''t have time to follow up and finish the job.


    Without even looking, Felix could feel the bloodlust pouring outwards from Mecada''s blade behind him and he quickly cast a solid and thick Mana Barrier between them. Spinning around to bring him into vision, Felix saw the maw of the blade bite down and tear through the solid wall of mana, crunching down on it audibly, like it was a cracker.


    It had bought him just enough time to leap backwards though.


    In the air, he swung his arms from side to side wildly releasing invisible blades of Force but Mecada didn''t even bother trying to stop them. Instead his sword greedily swallowed each and every blade of Force Felix released, the blade itself bending and contorting itself to reach each and every one of them.


    Felix tried switching over to explosive Fireballs but the sword seemed even more excited to eat those so he switched tactics.


    Isolating himself with a simple Force Shell, Felix released one persistent area spell after another all while running away from Mecada. The demon chased after him relentlessly, dashing and leaping with skills, briefly disappearing and even teleporting once which forced Felix to activate his Reaper''s skills again.


    Mecada didn''t manage to actually injure Felix but his sword did eat half of Felix''s robes as they danced around.


    The threat of the sword wielding Demon lessened with every spell Felix released, starting with Slow Fields, Frictionless Fields, Sound based attacks and other spells the sword couldn''t simply devour.


    He still swung through the fields with the sword, using the maw to swallow the effects but he was forced to carve a path through them and Felix saw his ears beginning to bleed from the sound he couldn''t do anything about.


    Mecada seemed to largely ignore the sound attack as he didn''t need his ears but Felix was hoping for exactly that. While in most cases fighting a single opponent, sound would never be a huge threat, against Felix things were a little different. His impossible mana pool made some things much more dangerous than they should have been.


    The last spell he released was an echoing sound loud enough to obliterate his own eardrums through his Force Shell and was more than enough for Mecada''s body to simply burst. Looking back, Berrdoth hadn''t fared any better though he had almost saved himself by diving into the water.


    Checking his mana pool, Felix sighed as the sound spell had cost him about 70 million mana with the Force Shell to protect himself costing him another 10. It was a ridiculous expenditure and not one he had wanted to make except that time mattered a lot in a war and the flesh creatures had started to pour in in earnest from behind them.


    The spell was enough to wipe them out and completely destroy a few nearby buildings along with reducing much of the road to sand but he didn''t think the Rakyt would mind.


    Rushing forwards, Felix stowed the chains, careful to avoid cutting himself as the blades reached up towards him then ran over towards Mecada''s body which was completely gone. Even the gory stain he had made on the ground had vanished as his sword slurped up all of his remains.


    Approaching it, Felix could feel the ravenous hunger coursing through the blade and knew exactly how to handle that particular curse. Reaching forwards with tendrils of his soul, Felix imposed his will causing the blade to cower as he dropped it into his inventory.


    Turning back towards the Rakyt, Felix saw only massive amount of blood everywhere. The Rakyt had either run away or been killed off as the buildings around them were covered in blood. Felix was certain he was far enough away that they would have survived his spell so they had long since lost their battle.


    Rushing forwards, Felix maintained the Force Shell around him as his ears healed and half of his focus was dedicated to inhaling all the nearby mana. Zipping through the various flesh amalgamations, Felix simply ignored them instead of trying to kill them but the third one he flew past nearly stopped him.


    It wasn''t fast enough to reach him, not even close, but it didn''t need to. As Felix flew by, the creature simply exploded in a burst of putrid smelling blood. It had been a large and fat looking creature and judging from all the blood it produced, Felix was pretty sure it was basically a balloon with little to no organs inside.


    After that, he made sure to avoid, kill or knock aside demons where he could. Flying upwards wasn''t the best option because looking around, the sky was peppered with flying flesh golems. They used various limbs with skin stretched across them to form wings and exploded if Felix got close to them. Felix couldn''t even see anywhere above him that was clear enough for him to fly through unimpeded.


    The flying creatures mostly congregated around the tops of the buildings where they exploded, releasing corrosive blood in every direction to melt down the spell structures the Rakyt had created. Around those, they were pressed against each-other but even above and around Felix, without any nearby targets, there was at most a couple of meters between them.


    Coming into the event Felix didn''t think mounting an army of this size was even possible considering how expensive constructs were but there were easily millions of these disgusting flesh creatures. Flying around, Felix just saw blood everywhere.


    The once blue oasis was entirely crimson and thick while the water level had risen and completely submerged most of the roads by an inch or more in some places. The sandstone buildings-or at least the ones still standing-all sported multiple even coats of blood painted across them. The sheer heat of so many creatures and so much blood, isolated within the remainder of the shell surrounding the city had become noticeable to Felix. With many of the barriers around the city still standing, it made for a disgusting balloon that was filling faster than it could drain.


    Felix had a pretty good idea of where the Rakyt would make their last stand so he flew over towards the center of the city.


    By the time he pressed himself up against the wall of the building in the center of the city, he was just shy of being completely healed and his mana was approaching three quarters full. He was lucky that mana was so abundant not just in the event, but in and around the city. He had already theorized that mana grew less viscous and more responsive as it was used and this city only reinforced that theory. The Aether''s reactivity here made it so he could suck in mana much faster than normal as it replaced the mana he consumed as fast as he could consume it.


    Resisting the anchors within the city, Felix finally opened the portal he had been preparing and immediately pushed himself through it. He popped into the middle of the building and caught himself a few meters above the table in the center of the room.


    He was ready for it so he managed to easily block and dodge the reactive attacks before Arysha commanded what was left of the Rakyt army to cease.


    Felix dropped down amongst the understandably wary guards and approached Arysha, "How can I help."


    The wave of relief he felt from the guards was palpable as Arysha nodded her thanks, "Halwarume, Felix. This day lost. We choiceless. Must flee."


    "Okay. What do you need from me? I can open a portal deep into the desert to get you out of here."


    She shook her head, "Today, I die. The knowledge, our people, live on. We sent all knowledge and young in a ship. They rebuild. We fight."


    "You sent all of your collective knowledge and some people out, have they already made it out?"


    Felix felt a sense of despair and hopelessness despite how she portrayed herself in front of her people, "We hope. We no know. We fight to distract and create opening. Will fight with us?"


    Felix nodded, "If that''s what you want, I''ll fight with you. I''m not dying today though so I will portal out if I have to."


    Arysha nodded, "Agree. Today, not your day of death. You see salvation, you escort? Portal them?"


    Felix nodded, "Sure. If I spot them, I''ll do what I can. In the meantime, what do you need me to do?"


    "You are magic man, yes?"


    Felix nodded.


    "I seen you break anchors. You are special."


    Felix fought the urge to deny her and just nodded once.


    She nodded once very seriously, "You help me final choice."


    "Sure."


    Arysha nodded in thanks then yelled out some commands in the Rakyt language to the army around them. Their faces grew solemn but their resolve also hardened. Felix didn''t know what she said but he was pretty sure it wasn''t good.


    As soon as she finished talking, they all said "Alaro''wun" in unison then everyone but Arysha and Felix ran off down the various halls.


    Turning to Felix, Arysha pointed upwards at the massive ball of mana Felix had been curious about the first time he was in here, "This cannon. We overfill. May explode, all dead. You help, but run before."


    "What does it shoot? Beams of Fire, Force?"


    Arysha shook her head, "Mana, spells."


    Felix contained his excitement and nodded seriously, "Okay. How much more are you pumping into it?"


    "All. At double now. Filling fast possible."


    Huh.


    Slightly cocking his head, Felix squinted just slightly, "How much do you think you''ll be able to pump in until it explodes?"


    Arysha clapped the backs of her hands together, "Not much more. You special, help keep stable. We pump more mana?"


    Felix nodded, "I think I can do that. I''ll worry about surviving, you just figure out how to pump everything into it. I''ll handle the stability."


    Arysha bowed her head deeply, "Halwarume Felix and Alaro''wun."


    "Uhm¡­ Alaro''wun you too?"


    She nodded so he was pretty sure he had said the right thing.


    As she ran off down one of the halls, Felix flew upwards towards the massive ball of mana above him. Last time he had seen it, it was massive and he could sense parts of it but now it was at least five times the size and double the density. As he approached, his mind and senses were expanded as he realized so many things.


    The ball itself was not a ball of mana. It was a massive spell form. Physically it was huge. While Felix had cast a few spells of similar radius in two dimensions instead of three, those weren''t nearly as dense. In terms of complexity, Felix was actually scared he would never have the focus required to cast something at this level. He couldn''t even begin to measure it.


    The anima around it could feel how significant it was too. The experiences he felt leaking out before, he know knew as hints of the arcane truths the spell form held.


    The closer he got, the more complex the spell form was as his senses continued to feel at the enchantments and inscriptions within the walls. Each meter, his mind filled with inscriptions as he desperately tried to map them faster than he flew. He didn''t dare slow down though and risk not being able to reach the core.


    As soon as his nearly 30 meter mana control range pierced the outside of the spell form though, his mind was completely overwhelmed. There was no chance he could have mapped the spell form. Even given an epoch just to observe it, he wasn''t sure how much he could have discerned.


    The spell form was both fine and complex, made up of both three dimensional and two dimensional channels that formed fractals and shells and solids all interleaved and constantly shifting. Some of them grew and shrank, others spun and some phased seemingly in and out of existence right before Felix''s eyes. On top of all that, Felix''s anima senses screamed at him loud enough to overcome his sheer awe.


    Focusing in on those, he was struck with the sheer complexity once again as the spell form itself was fused and bound together with the most complex soul construct he had ever seen. The construct completely surpassed any of the diagrams within the compendium he had gotten from The Reaper, though those admittedly served a different purpose.


    The orb only got more complex towards the center too as the complexity and density of the spells forms, constructs and channels intertwined themselves in ways Felix couldn''t fully comprehend.


    Despite all of that, it wasn''t too difficult for him to spot various flaws and instabilities. As complex as the spell form was, it flowed and morphed itself slowly and with purpose. In various areas he felt the channels jerk and flicker in ways that distinctly stood out from the rest of the spell form.


    Flying up and around the orb, Felix was forced to exert some of his will to keep the mana of the orb from reaching out towards him and just a touch more to keep his own mana within his pool. Once he was on top of the orb, Felix reached into it with his mana control and began to carefully pick and prod at the flaws.


    As he did so, he felt the mana throughout the building that was pouring into the spell form very slowly accelerate. As it accelerated, the spell form only grew increasingly more complex and dense and he began actively holding the more problematic sections stable, once he had mapped their normal movements.


    Gradually he found himself able to hold more and more of the spell form stable with his abilities and as he did, he began to pull on the mana fueling it to speed up the process. With the utmost caution he could muster, Felix began to pull mana just 10 percent faster, then 25 then 100 all the way up to nearly 10 times as fast. At that point he had to slow down a little as he was only just barely able to keep up with the growth of the spell form. He wanted to keep going, see how much more he could do, how the spell would change, how devastating it would be with even more mana and just how far they could push it but any more was just too dangerous.


    After just a couple minutes of Felix holding the orb stable, he almost missed his queue to leave as he was so focused on the orb itself. The mana pouring in from throughout the building began to slow just a little at first then quite dramatically as they simply ran out of available mana. The sources around him began to sputter and only the large flaws they created were able to awaken Felix from his trance.


    Knowing that as soon as he released the orb it would begin collapsing in on itself, Felix very slowly released just enough focus to grab the coordinates next to him and open a portal out. As soon as it opened, Felix stepped through and closed it.


    He had opened the portal to a point beyond the horizon and near his vault as he hoped to be close enough to see something but far enough that he wasn''t directly affected by whatever happened. He had strongly debated keeping the city within his visual range but ultimately, staying alive was a worth while tradeoff, though only barely.


    10 seconds passed where Felix was unsure if anything was going to happen at all. He wondered if something had gone wrong or if the orb had simply degraded and collapsed instead of having any effect at all. Another 10 seconds passed and Felix debated opening a portal back into the city, just to check on things. Ultimately he decided to wait a bit longer and after another 10 seconds passed, Felix just couldn''t stop himself any longer.


    He didn''t portal directly back into the city but instead, opened a portal a few hundred kilometers closer. When he still didn''t see, hear or otherwise detect anything, he opened another portal. Finally, four portals later, Felix saw the city on the edge of the horizon and was completely awestruck.


    The massive spell form had gone off and was still in the process of going off but the entirety of the effect was contained by a sphere surrounding the city itself.


    Felix''s mana senses didn''t detect anything but even without them and the additional colors they added to his sight, he couldn''t stop looking. The sphere itself was a slightly translucent crimson and so he could see the spell beneath pushing against it like a balloon desperately trying to inflate. Felix was convinced for a few seconds that the pressure alone would force the crimson barrier to expand but it never did.


    The spell form beneath the shell pushed, spun and smashed against the barrier and desperately tried to break free. The spell forms, fractals, channels and volumes that formed the orb originally spun, shifted and morphed in arcane patterns Felix was vaguely familiar with. It almost looked alive in a weird and inexplicable way. Sear?h the n?vel_Fire.¦Çet website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    It didn''t behave like anything organic but it also didn''t seem to move robotically either, instead it felt to Felix like a being beyond his comprehension. Despite its elusive nature, the way it smashed and pushed against the crimson barrier was oddly childlike.


    Once he managed to get over his awe, apprehension and general confusion, Felix opened a portal even closer and found the source of the crimson barrier. He could have guessed what had created it but even then, he was astonished the barrier had managed to hold back what was likely trillions of points of mana.


    Finally opening a portal just a few hundred meters away, Felix realized the spell form wasn''t entirely without effect. The ring of demons from before that had formed a perfect ring with their arms buried in the sand were still present but not entirely intact.


    Many of them were actively collapsing before Felix as the strain of trying to maintain whatever ritual was holding the orb back became too much to bear.


    One by one, almost like dominos considering how they accelerated, the ritual demons collapsed.


    As they did, Felix expected the crimson barrier to crack or give way but it didn''t. Instead, it seemed to almost reinforce itself as streaks of gold began to swirl their way into the barrier. At first Felix just watched as the gold slowly spread and the barrier grew increasingly more opaque. Once the gold made up half of the barrier though, something else changed.


    In the same dirty, black and brown tainted crimson color that formed the barrier originally, a ritual circle even bigger than the barrier itself began to rise and with it, so did the city itself.


    Once he realized whatever was happening wasn''t just about containment and that killing off the demons performing the ritual didn''t stop it, Felix sprang into action.


    Flying forwards as fast he dared, Felix grabbed the closest collapsed and unconscious demon and removed their head with a flick of his wrist. He didn''t bother activating his rings and instead, manually grabbed hold of the demon''s soul before it managed to escape. He manually tore the outer layers free then sifted through the remaining experiences as quickly as he could.


    He quickly dismissed all the experiences that had nothing to do with the ritual, which was the vast majority of them, and focused in on the ones he was looking for. There was a weird and painful experience that involved the fusing of souls which Felix mostly dismissed followed by a confusing mess of experiences that were weirdly fused into each-other.


    The mess was difficult to process but Felix didn''t have time to waste trying. Instead, he flew to the next demon in the ring, one who was still awake, but quickly ended them without much trouble. He found a similar set of experiences starting from a soul fusing followed by a confusing mess.


    One by one, Felix killed each demon around the circle and processed their experiences, ignoring the messages from The System about his ever increasing bounty. At the moment, he didn''t really have a choice. He needed to figure out what was happening. He was better off trying to explain what happened and dealing with the consequences later than getting caught switching to Arthur now.


    At about three quarters of the way around the circle, Felix fought with one demon who put up a more admirable resistance but nonetheless, was significantly weaker than any participant should have been. Before they died though, they sputtered out a chuckling prayer, "An offering this size, only salvation awaits for me."


    Killing a few more, Felix realized what the common soul fusing experience was all about. Whatever this ritual was, they didn''t have enough experienced ritualists in the event to cast it. Instead, they fused ritualists into participants to get them in. The souls fought each-other in what was inevitably a painful existence but they all seemed completely willing for the sake of whatever ''salvation'' was for them.


    He still though, wasn''t really sure what the hell the ritual was. He cursed himself silently for destroying The Mind Devouring Crown so he could kill Erolan and not having come up with a sufficient alternative by now.


    There was nothing he could do about it except kill the rest of the ritualist demons though.


    Global Quest: Massacre


    For surpassing 100 stacks, you have been rewarded with a permanent buff so long as you are within the event:


    All creatures will be visible to you on your map at all times along with their stacks.


    Current Stack Leaderboard:


    Felix: 304


    Iravyne: 239


    Zeraxes: 117


    Once they were all dead, Felix had held out hope that the ritual would stop or fail but it showed no signs of doing so. Instead, the ritual continued to whir into existence, various rings and nodes began spinning and shifting as the ritual began to activate in earnest.


    Standing perfectly still, Felix forced his consciousness into his Soul Garden for the time dilation then began recklessly tearing through the mess of experiences he had retrieved. Now that he understood the mess was caused by fusing multiple souls together, it was slightly easier for him to separate them out. In doing so, he managed to get nearly nothing out of the experiences with respect to the mechanics of the ritual and how to stop it.


    What he did manage to learn was that these demons were worshippers of Akaroth. Salvation had something to do with saving themselves and the city was an offering to Akaroth which somehow contributed to this salvation. Given he didn''t have time to rope Melody into this and get and explanation from her, he instead popped back out into the real world and walked over to the edge of the ritual.


    The ritual itself had continued to, and was still, accelerating. As it spun, the sand and viscera that tainted the crimson blood forming the ritual was flung free which slowly purified it. Seeing this, Felix got and idea and began trying to shove sand into the blood forming the ritual to add impurities.


    As soon as he did though, the sand was flung back out at him, tearing through his flesh and chunking his health by not an inconsiderable margin.


    After that he tried to slow down the ritual with a Force spell but no amount of Force he could create with a spell was enough. Each and every spell he cast on the ritual itself was shredded on the spot. Given that, he didn''t dare try and touch the ritual as it began separating but he did fly over and place his hand against the barrier surrounding the city.


    Luckily, it didn''t immediately sever his hand or anything and just felt mostly solid. It shifted slightly under his hand which was a weird feeling but Felix wasn''t overly focused on his sense of touch. Instead, he pushed on his Soul and Matter senses and began feeling out the orb. As far as he could tell, it was exactly what it looked like. The crimson was mostly blood and the gold was formed from the trapped souls trying to escape the ritual.


    Curiously, the souls in the barrier weren''t just anima but they were actual souls. As he examined them, Felix felt thousands of souls pass through his senses. Many of them were creatures that had been used to necromantically raise and create flesh golems and demons but a decent proportion of them were noticeably Rakyt.


    Blood ritual and the souls are trapped¡­ Most of the blood I saw was from the front line demon hoard so they carted all that in for the ritual but a lot of these souls are Rakyt, at least the undamaged ones¡­ They''re the offering then. The city itself-even if the last resort was contained-was definitely obliterated so all that''s left in there is sand, blood and souls. They''re offering the souls to Akaroth for their own salvation¡­ Grim, what do we know about Akaroth?


    We didn''t bother with information on any of the gods other than the big three.


    Okay, let''s fix that after this. In the meantime, it feels like a safe assumption that any god who makes their worshippers do this is bad.


    Grim nervously sighed in Felix''s mind, Good and bad are relative and there isn''t really anything we can do to stop it at this point anyways.


    You might be right but¡­ I don''t need to stop it.


    Flying a short distance away while he prepared the spell he wanted, Felix slammed his body into the sand to stop himself then opened a portal only slightly bigger than his hand. Reaching through, he activated The Soul Devouring Ring and made absolutely certain his harvesting skill was disabled.


    Rivaled only by the time he harvested the Grelmite hive, souls gushed into the ring. Everything contained within the orb was rushing towards him and he intended on stealing all of it. His ring could handle the speed but its capacity wasn''t nearly enough as the souls themselves were denser and more significant by orders of magnitude than the Grelmites had been.


    As his ring filled, Felix began manually shredding and removing the demon souls, not daring to touch the Rakyt souls until he absolutely had to. The demon souls all ended up in his Soul Space where they were completely obliterated into raw anima with no regard for the souls themselves. There were far more demons than Rakyt which helped but he quickly realized it wasn''t enough.


    Sifting through the demon souls, he wasn''t entirely paying attention to them as he didn''t really care about anything other than the raw anima. The Rakyt though, as soon as he was forced to handle them, he was as careful as he could be while sorting through nearly a hundred thousand souls a second. The only thing making it remotely possible was having his consciousness entirely in his Soul Garden with its time dilation. Even then, he was pushed beyond his limits for Soul control. In practice what that meant was that all he could do was remove every layer from the core souls and dumped that into his Soul Space.


    The core souls themselves, he kept in the ring in the hopes that he could preserve any knowledge they may have once contained. He knew that the souls held significant and personality altering experiences, not knowledge. Especially not logical, mathematical, arcane and emotionally detached knowledge. He held out hope that he could get something out of this though, like the location of the arc they had sent out with the entirety of their knowledge and some survivors.


    Harvesting in this way, Felix was giving up a lot of stats but realistically, he didn''t think he really had any other choice. Placing the souls in The Kryptos Repository would result in them degrading before he ever got a chance to use them. The necromancer''s battery didn''t preserve experiences and often drove the contained souls insane. His own Soul Space completely obliterated souls and effectively wiped them clean. All he had was the space in The Soul Ring to work with.


    After a minute, it became very clear that Felix wasn''t going to be able to hold nearly enough souls in the ring and he had to come up with an alternative. The only thing he could come up with though, was to move them into his own soul. His Soul Space wasn''t an option but he did have some souls living within his own soul. The issue was that they all held pieces of his soul within them. He didn''t have enough to inject all of them so he decided to try something new.


    Up until now, Felix had been reading through and lightly experimenting with the designs in the Soul Structure Compendium from a theoretical standpoint. He hadn''t found anything he thought fit perfectly and none of his experiments were so beneficial that he felt he had to implement them. He had however, read through and memorized the entire thing.


    He hadn''t conducted experiments on everything as some of the structures he didn''t see a point in implementing within constructs. He didn''t have a choice now though so, he mentally flipped to the corresponding pages.


    With the Soul Ring halfway full after just a minute with him manually filtering and processing out the demons and stripping the Rakyt as fast as he could, Felix didn''t have much time at all. There was no way he could implement anything fine or precise so his only goal was function. If it worked, he could fix things later.


    The first thing he did was off load as much of the filtering as he could on his mental constructs. With the smidgen of his will that he had freed, Felix began constructing a wall that was as dense as he could fashion. It wasn''t just a solid sheet though, it had structure both physically and experientially. Physically, he crafted a lattice of sorts only because he absolutely had to.


    He had already tried creating a simple layer within his Soul Space to avoid the obliteration issue but it wasn''t enough. He didn''t have enough time for a complex lattice though so all he managed was an isometric grid of triangles that protruded in the third dimension to give it some added structure. The repetitive and easily digestible pattern made it much easier to create quickly which was just an added bonus.


    All references within the compendium described complex weaves of intent and convictions but Felix didn''t have time for that, all he had time for was one thing, his own conviction. What he could do, was remove the affinization it had towards him so instead of giving in to his soul, it would actively fight back against it. In reality it had no way to attack so he wasn''t worried about it fighting back. What it would do-he hoped-was keep the contents from being obliterated by his soul, protect them in a sense.


    Having the two fight each-other wasn''t ideal but it was all he had time for.


    It luckily didn''t take long for the lattice to be complete as he didn''t really need much of it. His own soul wasn''t very big after all.


    Wrapping the lattice around, Felix fused the edges together to form a tube then pulled one end through his outer soul layers towards the core. Within his soul, he began pulling and shaping the tube into a circle, connecting the two ends together making his core soul look almost like a planet with a ring around it.


    Returning his consciousness to the ring, Felix desperately tossed demon souls and began funneling every soul within the ring, and entering the ring, into his soul. He had to be careful about how he transported the souls themselves but he had thought of a rather crude solution. Using some extra lattice tubing, he ran it through his soul, down his arm and into the ring itself. Once again, there was no time for caution so Felix simply ignored the pain as he recklessly ripped an open wound into his own soul.


    As soon as it was connected, the souls slammed their way into the pipe causing such a massive build up of pressure, the tube itself began stretching to accommodate. Felix pushed against the tube with whatever focus he could spare while simultaneously filtering out the demon souls and crudely removing the outer layers of the Rakyt souls.


    A few minutes passed like this until Felix began to feel ill. The feeling was nothing physical though as he wasn''t sure if it was possible for him to be physically sick. Instead, he felt a deep seated sense of wrongness emanating from his soul. He ignored the feeling though and pushed onwards. There would be time to fix things later.


    Another few minutes passed and Felix wasn''t sure he would be done by the time the ritual completed. He had no way to know how many souls were left, just that they definitely hadn''t slowed at all. The new ring around his core soul luckily showed no signs of filling up.


    As the souls poured into the ring, they were naturally compressed just from the sheer pressure his own soul put on its surroundings. He wasn''t confident yet that that didn''t damage the souls but there was nothing he could do about it at the moment so he didn''t worry about it. Worst case, he might be able to read some of the experiences that remained if they were too significantly damaged to otherwise use.


    The influx of souls finally began slowing after 8 minutes but only slightly. Felix was confident at that point though that he could contain all the souls but still wasn''t sure if the ritual would complete before he stole them all.


    The ritual itself had raised the city over 50 meters into the air and kept it contained within a crimson blood orb the entire time. The orb had begun filtering out corruption in the form of anything that wasn''t blood, mana or anima which mostly meant sand. As it did so, the crimson grew more vibrant and less murky while the gold within the orb began to gradually disappear as Felix removed it from within.


    After a grand total of just over 11 minutes, the souls finally ceased and Felix deactivated his ring as he collapsed to the ground. He just couldn''t stand any longer, not with how hard he was fighting with his own soul to not remove what it saw as corruption. That resulted in his feeling ill which had mounted to Felix feeling more sick than he ever remembered being. It was so bad that it affected everything, his mind ached, his joints tensed, his vessels constricted, his skin tightened and his muscles burned.


    He did manage to turn himself over though to watch as the-now entirely crimson-orb that contained essentially just blood at this point, rose up the final few meters into the air before shrinking down to the size of a basketball and vanishing in a pillar of crimson light.


    There was no response to the offering of the ritual which was slightly disappointing for Felix. He had been hoping for a frustrated scream or something equivalent though, realistically knew it wouldn''t happen.


    With the orb gone and the ritual complete, Felix was left in the middle of the desert, next to a massive crater with his name firmly at the top of the bounty list. He didn''t worry about it for the time being and was happy to try and beat his own record with his persona in the future. For the time being though, his soul was as close to in tatters as it had ever been.


    He could barely move which made it all the more important that he got himself somewhere safe, like his dorm. Rolling over, Felix pulled the event marble out of his Soul Space and was about to press it into the ground when he saw movement over a dune to his right. It was further from the crater than he was so he was pretty sure it was another participant. Given his current state, he moved as fast as he could.


    In his current state though, he wasn''t fast enough as the source of the movement vanished and reappeared standing above him. Felix turned towards the shadowy silhouette with a handful of spells prepared but let them dissipate as soon as he recognized the face.


    "Felix. You live."


    Felix coughed out a chuckle, "Isn''t that my line? I was supposed to live and you were supposed to die."


    "Yet, I in better shape. I no points pay you but, what happened?"


    "Demons sacrificed the city to their god."


    Arysha''s face contorted in a combination of sadness and disgust, "We¡­" She sighed then tapped at something before continuing with much less stinted speech, "We were so confident in our preparations, so sure we could handle the rest of the multiverse. Now my people are dead."


    Felix resisted the urge to gag and vomit bile, "You had that cache, didn''t you? With your knowledge and some people?"


    She shook her head lightly, "They didn''t make it out. I just¡­ didn''t want to tell anyone I¡­"


    Felix didn''t question her decision and instead changed the subject, "How did you survive?"


    "I didn''t intend to I¡­ My survival instincts kicked in and I used a spell¡­ relocate¡­ I made it out. It shouldn''t have been possible but¡­ you held the Arcane Torrent''s Eye stable long enough that even our anchors were drained¡­"


    He nodded as much as he could which amounted to his chin shifting by just over a centimeter, "Why''d you turn on the translation?"


    She scoffed, "What''s the point¡­ Words are sacred because they represent our history, our legacy and they¡­" She sighed, "My people are dead. There is no legacy. Upholding customs now is¡­ foolish."


    Felix coughed and felt his throat tear itself apart, "Well¡­ About that¡­ Your people aren''t completely gone. Yet¡­"


    Arysha looked towards him and leaned in, "What- Explain."


    "The demons and the Eye we released killed and disintegrated their bodies respectively. The whole god thing was about offering souls¡­ I think. I kind of¡­ stole them though."


    "The souls?"


    Felix gasped for air, "Yeah."


    "I¡­ How?"


    He waved her off with a slight wiggling of his fingers, "Long story."


    "How many?"


    Felix laughed, "I can''t count that high. Not even now. All of the ones in the city¡­ trapped in the ritual."


    "All of them? Where are they? What will happen to them?"


    "Inside of me for now. I was planning on putting them in my head. Long story but there''s a city up there."


    Arysha had far less questions than Felix was expecting, "And they can live¡­ in this city? In your head?"


    "Pretty sure. I have to¡­ heal myself first but¡­ Should be possible."


    Looking at him very seriously, she leaned in until her snout was just a few inches from his and he could feel her cool breath through the desert heat, "Take me too."


    "Hold on. They won''t remember¡­ everything. I''ve never done this before but I have no way to¡­ encode your memories, with their brains gone, there''s no hope."


    She shook her head, "But their souls remain."


    "Yeah, they''ll retain significant events and experiences. Life changing, personality defining things."


    She nodded, "That is more than enough. Take my soul as well, let me be with my people."


    "You would die."


    "I was already ready to die this day¡­ Felix, you know very little about our language and our people¡­ do you know I had two daughters?"


    "I¡­ didn''t."


    "I already told you, today I die. When I told you that it was because I didn''t want to live without them. They died in the city. Now you tell me there''s a way I can."


    "Right bu-"


    "If they live, in any way. I will be with them." Standing faster than Felix could realistically react in his current state, Arysha made a quick gesture with her hands to cast a spell that caused her head to literally explode.


    Holy fuck WHAT! DAMNIT, We could have saved your memories.


    Despite the shock of what had happened, Felix activated his Soul Ring and made certain there was room for her soul. Given how she had gone about killing herself, Felix held out no hope he could somehow reanimate and steal her memories. He grumbled about how idiotic and emotionally blinded that was for the few seconds it took him to open a portal and roll through into his vault. He quickly dropped off the Imitation Cores with Zero then dropped through one more portal back to his dorm. Once there, he let his consciousness fall inwards towards the mess that was his soul. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 Chapter 213 - Book 15

    The first order of business was sealing the lattice ring around his soul. That didn''t take very long but was more annoying than he had expected. The souls within the ring kept trying to escape and he had to essentially herd them back in. From what he could tell, their escape attempts were motivated more from trying to play than any actual desire to leave.


    Eventually, he decided to implement the next part of the process to help him and so, he carefully detached the lattice tube he had run down his arm while simultaneously pushing the ring to spin. A few hundred souls were lost as they eagerly escaped the ring and were completely obliterated but there wasn''t anything Felix could do about it. He just hoped they weren''t anyone important.


    With the ring spinning, none of the souls were fast enough to escape anymore and Felix easily sealed the ring. He wasn''t entirely sure if he wanted it to be sealed forever, but it was necessary for the time being while he worked on other things.


    Shifting his attention to his own soul, Felix finally fished the in-flow tube he had cobbled together free then carefully reassembled his soul, replacing the lost anima, fusing the gap and smoothing over the intent.


    He had expected to feel normal again after having repaired his soul but that wasn''t the case at all. The feeling of being sick and ill remained but Felix wasn''t entirely sure why. With nowhere else to turn, Felix began diving into the Soul Structure Compendium in earnest. Instead of reading through and performing minor experiments on constructs, Felix began dissecting everything and performing in depth experiments on himself.


    On the constructs, Felix had implemented the base form of a basic concept, just to see what it would do. On his own soul, he combined concepts, performed the required math based on estimations and ran mental simulations where possible. Initially, his estimates were proven wrong and his simulations faulty but as he worked, the estimations were refined in precision until they were as accurate as actual measurements through experimentation and in turn, the simulations grew increasingly accurate. Through this process, his mental model and understanding of souls improved dramatically.


    The first-and most time consuming-model Felix implemented was to surround his soul within a shell, much like the Rakyt city had been surrounded by their own shield and the blood ritual. The shell was, much like the ring he had created, formed from a lattice. Instead of triangles though, Felix actually had time to carefully craft this lattice.


    The finished product looked almost organic with its rounded edges and non uniform faces but in reality, it was a perfectly repeating pattern that allowed for the shell to bend and morph as needed. It consisted of layers with the core structure forming a connected lattice that held convictions based on stability and strength. On top of that, there was a film like layer that held convictions based on flexibility and elasticity. Within the structure, contained by the film, was almost a gaseous substance that would repair either of the other structures if they were damaged and held convictions Felix couldn''t really explain well.


    What they did was act the opposite of how he expected a gas to work in that it resisted pressure actively instead of spreading outwards, in a sense it was based on a conviction of contrarianism and the insatiable urge to fight. If the film was poked, the gas rushed towards it and pushed back instead of simply giving way.


    This shell formed a sphere when it wasn''t being compressed or pushed on and completely surrounded his core soul but never touched it. Between the two, there was now a large section of effectively open space. Felix had made the new shell as big as he could while still being contained to his own body.


    In that empty space, the ring lived. It still surrounded and spun around his core soul, which still reminded him of a planet in a way.


    The next step involved completely rebuilding everything he relied on to function, from the ground up.


    His Soul Garden and-now that they were connected-Mind City, existed in a weird in between state of his Mind and Soul. In reality-after searching and experimenting to find it for almost 3 days-it was located largely on the inside of his second layer. It wasn''t entirely contained or localized though. Rather, all the structure that went into it was effectively spread out across multiple areas.


    Every reference within the compendium to similar structures-constructed memories which acted as the basis of soul projected worlds-happened in localized structures.


    Given how much else he was doing on his soul, he decided now was likely the best time to correct that mistake.


    Sticking with the planet theme, Felix created a sphere of anima from a lattice shell that he filled with fluid anima. While it may have looked like a planet, in reality it was more of a water balloon that orbited his core soul. Carefully, Felix began relocating each soul living in his old mental and soul based construction into their new home.


    The anima within the sphere, the fluid anima, would hold the structure as an experience while the residents themselves floated about within it. There were more complicated structures for both the shell and the fluid including many that interested him greatly but, for the time being he decided this was more than sufficient. As his needs expanded, he would revisit things and adjust from there. The current structure maximized flexibility forming essentially the perfect starting point.


    From there, he reconstructed the environment, followed by the library and all the other buildings that used to exist.


    With the new planet orbiting his core soul in empty space, it was effectively detached from everything. That might have been useful in the future but for now, Felix needed at the minimum, a connection to his mind. He briefly debated trying to move his brain and computer into his soul but decided against that option for the time being. He just wasn''t experienced enough with bodies or souls to figure out the intricacies of that.


    Instead, there was an alternative option in the compendium that Felix liked very much.


    Similarly to how his drone like constructs were connected to Mark through tiny portals, Felix could do something similar here. He had already tried using portals within his soul previously but found it was impossible to cast them from inside out or outside in. They just didn''t work for whatever reason.


    The compendium detailed something completely separate from the magic Felix was used to though and it involved using anima to cast a spell. It was something that wasn''t done often both because of how sparse anima was in general and how complicated the process itself was. It also, according to the compendium, was impossible to use anima for traditional spells that converted mana into energy or mass, for obvious reasons.


    Instead, anima spells excelled with certain very specific tasks and were used to create long term constructions, not spells that were cast once then disappeared. An anima spell was more like an enchantment or ritual that would last effectively forever.


    The actual forms though looked a lot like mana based spells at first glance. There were a number of similarities but the actual core of the spells were completely different. It took Felix longer than he would have liked but much less than the compendium predicted to essentially tattoo the inside of his own soul with connection points. Essentially they bound two points together by forcing them to harmonize with one another. This made it so they acted as though they were one in the same.


    He didn''t just stop with one connecting his mind to the library though. The concept was far too promising for him not to try them everywhere.


    Starting with Mark, Felix found he actually had to modify and combine the connection points with traditional mana portals to finally create something that worked. He ended up essentially intertwining the spells and they required a constant source of mana to work but, they were far more efficient than portals would have been, if it were possible to open a portal into a soul.


    He decided he had already wasted enough time at the moment so he didn''t switch over every construct but he definitely planned on it in the future.


    Using connection points, Felix also connected the ring that contained the Rakyt souls and orbited his core soul to his newly created Soul Garden planet. Nothing happened yet as they were just souls but it was the first step to extracting their knowledge. Finally, he-with permission-added one to Grim''s soul directly.


    Turning his attention to his computer growth farms, Felix retrieved everything he had on hand and began binding them to various Rakyt souls. He made certain one of those was Arysha but otherwise, he simply selected them at random.


    Once he had run out of computers, Felix finally let his consciousness fall into his new Mind City where he met Orion and Grim.


    Looking around Felix nodded in relief, "Everything looks the same. Any issues?"


    "The Rakyt are panicking but, we expected that." Grim shrugged, "Building functions seem to have been restored."


    Orion nodded, "Everything appears functional and preliminary diagnostics have not reported any major issues."


    Felix frowned, "What about minor issues? Also, how are we classifying these?"


    Orion nodded once, which appeared almost like a small bow, "One minor issue. Classified using a small fraction of your own mind when you aren''t otherwise using it so the classification perfectly matches how you would have classified them yourself."


    "That''s¡­ great actually. What''s the issue?"


    Orion explained in a completely emotionless, matter of fact tone, "Currently we offload anything more than the most basic of mental processing functions to Mark for all residents."


    Felix gasped in realization, "Oh shit. There isn''t enough."


    Orion nodded once, "In most situations, it is not noticeable. Currently as all the Rakyt panic and their minds race, it is more than the current Mark can handle at once while also storing all of your memories."


    "So what''s happening then?"


    "They are currently being scheduled and rotated between. Similar to organic minds, they are drawing blanks and taking extended time to mentally process their thoughts."


    Felix shrugged, "Oh. That''s not too bad then."


    "There are literally millions of them in reserve right now, waiting to be born." Grim added grimly.


    Felix sighed, "Right. I guess, we''ll figure it out as soon as possible then but there isn''t much I can do about it right now."


    Orion and Grim nodded in agreement with his assessment.


    Felix nodded, "Alright then. I guess I''ll go talk with the Rakyt unless there''s anything else?"


    "Actually¡­ Some of the original residents were wondering if they could discuss something with you."


    "Of course. The Rakyt can wait and maybe it will give them time to calm down."


    Orion led Felix towards a group of residents that all sported various injuries from the Flames of Oblivion. Some of them sported physical injuries, others had noticeable ticks or tremors and deep flaws Felix could see within their actual souls.


    A few of them bowed to him but most just nodded in acknowledgement.


    Already some divergence. Interesting.


    A woman with a slight tremor stepped forwards and pulled another individual with a charred face forwards by the hand, "W- With your permission, F- Felix¡­ We would like to¡­ have a ch- child."


    Felix''s brow immediately furrowed and he looked to Grim for an explanation. Grim just shrugged in response so he looked to Orion who gestured back towards the woman.


    She bowed her head once he was looking at her again and continued, "Your n- new knowledge of souls and¡­ the sp- ark of life¡­" She turned to her partner, "We think it m- may be possible to¡­ create a new soul¡­ ou-ourselves."


    Felix wasn''t sure he followed and was pretty sure that explicitly wasn''t possible without his intervention, "Why would you need my permission then? Or are you just asking out of¡­" Felix''s face contorted in confusion, "respect?"


    She looked to her partner then back at Felix, "S- Sort of. If it works¡­ we will likely die."


    They''re asking me permission to die.


    Felix wasn''t expecting that answer at all but looking to both of them, they seemed completely resolute, "I''m gonna need an explanation of what you want to do. Before that though, why would you be willing to die for this?"


    Looking back at the other remaining originals who sported their various battle scars, she sighed, "Death ha- happens. Even we c- can''t live forever. We want to make a mark, leave som- mething meaningful behind. Some of the oth- thers have taken to art or research¡­" She looked back at her partner, "We wanted to cr- create something new¡­"


    So the prospect of death gave them purpose¡­ or possibly just motivation¡­


    The process they had come up with was incredibly simple and left Felix feeling a little guilty he had taken all of the computers they had harvested. Mostly so he could watch and partly to make it up to them, Felix manually created them a brand new computer and personally verified it for them. They were honored and in the future, if this worked and others wanted to follow in their footsteps, they would simply select a computer from the warehouse.


    All they had to do in theory, was to willingly fuse a portion of their soul into the computer. As long as they included enough of their own spark of life, the new being would form and exist. Removing their spark though meant they would die. This first birth created a soul twice as strong as everyone else but Felix wasn''t too worried. Strength didn''t really matter in here and they would iron out the process in the future.


    The remaining pieces of their soul that didn''t end up in the new creature simply dissipated into Felix''s soul, specifically into the fluid anima that filled the new planet.


    As for the new soul they had created-completely without Felix''s aid-it looked like a baby. A few of the other originals had agreed to raise the child though, Felix had no idea if that was necessary. It looked like a baby so that influenced his thoughts quite a bit. It also noticeably looked like the combination of its parents.


    Maybe I need to make death a fact of life here. If everyone just lives forever, the only thing motivating and giving them purpose is religion¡­ and that''s a little too narcissistic even for me. Well, I guess there are other ways but on a general scale, the only other thing I can think of is conflict¡­ Unless I could somehow imbue what essentially amounts to a minor enlightenment but, I don''t think that''s possible by nature of what it is.


    Unfortunately there was no time for Felix to entertain the idea much as he instantly transported himself over to Arysha who, along with the rest of the Rakyt, were standing in the middle of the open field.


    She appeared physically identical and even wore the same clothes as she had when she died.


    "What¡­ Where am I? I don''t¡­ recognize this place I don''t¡­ remember¡­ much¡­"


    Felix nodded, "What do you remember?"


    "I¡­ pain¡­ desperation¡­ hope and¡­ determination? Conviction?"


    Mark, can you filter then share all my memories involving her, her people and her city with her?


    Mark responded instantly in Felix''s mind, Filters applied for all aspects she was previously unaware of prior to her death?


    Yes. For now¡­ I guess now that she''s in my head¡­ Never-mind, for now that''s fine.


    Understood. Transmitting now.


    Arysha seemed to have almost fallen into a trance as she processed the influx of memories. Felix fully intended on sharing the memories of her people with all the Rakyt souls but he was using Arysha as a litmus test so he could determine how they would react. He didn''t want them to be hostile towards him mostly because it was inconvenient. While he would have liked to use someone else in case it radicalized her or something, no one else had agreed to this willingly so she was likely the best bet for convincing and keeping the others calm.


    "We are¡­ Rakyt. Were Rakyt."


    Felix nodded, "Yeah."


    "My daughters. Where are they?"


    Felix shrugged weakly, "Considering I didn''t even know you had daughters until recently, I have no way of identifying them. As you may have noticed, only a few hundred of your people are here right now."


    She looked at him grimly, "Where are the rest?"


    Considering mostly what he felt from Arysha''s soul-worry and hesitation but not an ounce of ill intent or anger-Felix decided to share a little more with her. He explained how the constructs in his Mind City worked with souls bound to small computers that communicated with Mark. He also talked about how the cities somewhat affected him and the outside world where he allowed it.


    She looked relieved, "So you just need more computers and you can bring them all back?"


    Felix winced, "A few hundred slipped through the cracks as I¡­ fixed my soul¡­ They didn''t make it."


    She nodded solemnly, "Those are better odds than I could have hoped for. I will speak with my people but I believe we would like to help with these computers. We would like to bring our people back, in a sense."


    Felix nodded with a smile of relief at her understanding, "That would be great. I''ll set up a new farm and connect it in here. You are welcome to integrate with the existing city or keep yourselves separate if you''d like."


    She turned and looked around then nodded, "Is it this¡­ green, everywhere?"


    Felix smirked a little then with a wave of his hand added in a vast desert appeared right before Arysha''s eyes. For the time being there was a stark line between the greenery and the sand but he didn''t bother fixing it for the time being.


    Arysha thanked him then walked over to her people and prepared them ahead of time before Mark implanted memories into their heads.


    Felix was happy and confident that Mark, Grim and Orion could manage them so he left his Soul Garden and got to work on his promise, creating a new computer growth farm.


    The whole process was rather simple as Felix had been thinking through the designs passively for quite some time. He used temporary materials for the time being and would find more permanent ones once he had ironed out the kinks in the design.


    What he ended up creating was nearly a construct except for the fact that it didn''t have a brain at the moment. At some point he wanted to automate it with timed harvests and automated verification but for now, the entities in his mind would handle that along with a little help from Mark. Otherwise, it was a large metal box bound with a soul that was split up on the inside with separators. Felix also bound the entire thing with a soul that he connected with soul marks to himself and Mark.


    Having harvested so many demons had replenished his anima stores by quite a bit but, considering how the quality their souls after having already been bound to at least two bodies, they didn''t count for as much as he had hoped. With the minimum density Felix was comfortable with for a construct, he would have to use thousands of demon souls. For the computer farm, he needed a higher density for increased stability and so, he had to use hundreds of thousands of demon souls worth of anima.


    I should find a way to farm anima faster the issue is, I have no idea how to go about that. I can''t just make an anima engine¡­ well, I think it may be possible but it would be the equivalent of collecting one D grade soul''s worth every few days at most. Not nearly enough and definitely not worth it. Considering Akaroth being offered the souls and the whole¡­ afterlife thing¡­ I guess wonder if that''s how gods collect anima, at least one of the ways.


    Turning his attention back to the farm he had just created, while soul marks let his soul and the souls bound to the box communicate, they couldn''t physically transfer the computers through their souls. Considering he couldn''t just open portals into souls, he would either have to manually collect every once in a while or find an alternative. For the time being he didn''t mind manually collecting but to lessen the pressure on himself, he created a storage container and attached it to the construct.


    That way, he would only be forced to harvest when the storage container was full which theoretically, would take a couple dekads.


    Finally, Felix created a building within his Mind City that was a representation of the farm so that the citizens of his mind could work there.


    Overall, Felix had ended up missing two dekads worth of classes which was a disappointment, especially considering he had finally moved up to the first class in Group Combat. There was simply nothing he could have done about it though and so, he headed out for his first day in the top Group Combat class.


    Walking into the room for his first day of the top class in Group Combat, Felix was surprised to find the class room both did not contain a portal and was completely full, even with the ongoing event. As far as he could tell, there wasn''t a single person missing from the class, judging from the numbers alone. Standing at the front of the class were Melody, Adaline, Haris the professor of Strategy and Auren the professor that had directed his Solo Combat class.


    Once Felix arrived, the last one to do so despite being nearly 5 minutes early, the door closed behind him and Haris stepped forwards, "As most of you know by now, two of the members of the Elite group were killed in the world event four dekads ago now. The remaining members of the Elite group were absent from our last two classes after refusing to make a selection in the two class prior to that." Haris sighed then looked over and nodded at Auren, "Given that we have decided it would be best if the remaining members selected the replacements themselves and that they are both once again present, they will be selecting the replacements today. I hope."


    Haris finally turned to Melody and Adaline then nodded once. Melody hopped forwards a short distance but Adaline remained where she stood, her attention completely dedicated to enchanting a small metal object Felix couldn''t see.


    It seemed as though Adaline either didn''t care at all or trusted Melody completely.


    Felix was fully expecting Melody to tease everyone but instead, she walked right up the aisle to the back of the class, making her intentions very clear right from the beginning. Pointing at them in turn, Felix and Peace each stood and followed her towards the front of the class. Felix saw and felt a wave of disappointment from most of the students in the class and suddenly had a pretty good idea why Melody didn''t drag out the selection.


    Feeling all their disappointment sucked. Felix didn''t care that they were disappointed but the feeling itself wasn''t pleasant. With his new lattice layer shielding his soul-and the relative strength of his soul-it didn''t directly affect him the way the cores did but he still felt it almost like a bad smell.


    As they walked towards the front of the class, Felix sensed the reaction of the three remaining on stage. The professors easily had enough control over themselves not to give anything away physically but Felix still felt a sense of curiosity from Haris and a sense of almost satisfaction from Auren. He assumed his feeling anything from either of them was intentional on their part. Adaline was either not nearly as in control or just didn''t bother to hide her derisive snort and the wave of contempt Felix felt.


    He had expected that from her as that seemed to be her standard reaction towards him for whatever reason. She didn''t argue with Melody though and didn''t even look up from whatever she was enchanting.


    Haris looked at them then nodded and opened a portal to his right using a small magic item that looked to Felix like a remote. The students in the class who weren''t chosen slowly rose and began walking towards it. Melody didn''t move towards that portal, instead she walked around Auren who opened a portal made of branches with a wave of his hand and she skipped through that one as it opened.


    Felix followed behind her and stepped out onto the side of a mountain. Looking out, they were above the cloud cover and so all Felix could see, were mountains peeking through a sea of clouds in every direction. The mountains themselves looked deceptively small because of how far apart they were. Looking back behind him though, the mountain peak they were on was tall enough that it would have been inconvenient to fly around which meant it was hundreds of kilometers tall at least.


    The others followed behind Felix through the portal, including Auren who closed the portal behind himself. He walked forwards a little then turned to them, "It would be wise to use this time to coordinate while I herd this thing towards you."


    Melody shrugged, "Meh."


    He shook his head then leapt into the clouds and vanished.


    Felix turned to Melody, "What are we hunting?"


    She shrugged, "No idea, it''ll take him 10 minutes or so to bait it towards us though."


    Peace nodded and stepped forwards, "We just have to kill it?"


    Melody smiled at him, "Yup."


    Felix looked back and saw Adaline was standing apart from them and was still in the process of enchanting something. Being just a few meters from her though, he could finally tell she was inscribing a bullet. In hindsight he probably could have guessed what it was but he hadn''t overly thought about it.


    Spinning on her heel, Melody leaned forwards towards Felix with her hands clasped behind her back, "So how''s the event been?"


    Felix sighed, "Fine. I had a run in with Akaroth''s-" Felix immediately noticed a sense of disgust and fear shoot out of Adaline and it took him completely by surprise. Catching himself, he shook his head and continued, "worshipers who¡­ sacrificed the main Rakyt city."


    Melody winced, "I had heard it vanished and¡­ well, I thought that might have been what happened. When I saw your name at the top of the bounty list-after briefly considering you may have gone evil without my guiding presence-I noticed a number of demon''s names had vanished and I assumed."


    Felix nodded, "I thought it would stop the blood ritual."


    She sighed, "Too late though?"


    He shrugged, "Pretty much."


    Peace shook his head and Felix saw a hint of anger on his face.


    Melody sighed as well, "I guess they wanted to get ahead of the final battle."


    "You mean a war I assume?" Felix looked at her then Peace for an answer.


    Melody''s shoulders drooped, "Well yeah¡­ you know how we all knew a battle was inevitable between the Archons and Edras'' faction in the event? Turns out things are¡­ worse than we thought."


    "How so?"


    "With the whole bounty thing- even before that I guess¡­ Anyways, so far, over 20% of the participants in the event are dead. Just last dekad I was¡­ home and my dad summoned me for advice¡­"


    Felix nodded for her to continue.


    "My brother was there and he asked for my dad''s permission to use his unique racial skill. Since I had been in the event, he wanted to know if I thought that was necessary."


    Felix''s brow furrowed, "Talrain?"


    She looked at him with a knowing smirk, "No, the other one, Fyrden."


    Felix sighed, "Okay, I''m gonna need more than that."


    Melody nodded, "Sorry, just a lot happening. Ok so first things first, you met Talrain?"


    Felix nodded.


    "Did he seem normal to you? Did he seem off at all?"


    Felix shrugged, "He kept trying to get me to see Edras'' faction and think about joining but¡­ he seemed as normal as any of you freaks seem to me."


    She nodded with a delighted smirk, "I guess you said you had no interest then?"


    Felix nodded.


    She smiled mischievously, "That''s good because if you had said yes, he has permission to kill you. He was trying to get you to say you are even slightly interested."


    Felix frowned, "If he wanted to kill me so bad, why not just lie?"


    "I told you, my dad is second only to me at reading souls. He would ask directly and we would know."


    Felix sighed, "Okay, so¡­ why does he want to kill me?"


    "He''s¡­ jealous isn''t the right word¡­ He knows you and I hang out together and he thinks killing you is the best way to¡­ well, hurt me."


    Felix cocked a brow but didn''t say anything.


    "Back to the point, Tailrain is a shifter of personalities. Fyrden is a¡­ shifter of builds¡­ so to speak."


    Felix frowned, "Are you saying he can shift his entire race, class and profession? or just his¡­ dimensions?"


    "The former but, not to anything, only to real builds he has directly scanned and knows intimately."


    Felix nodded slowly, "Okay¡­"


    Melody sighed as she spelled it out for him, "Felix, he only needs permission from my father to shift to my father''s build."


    Felix literally took a step back as he shook his head and his eyes widened, "Wait¡­ you''re saying he can become a god?"


    Melody nodded fervently as Felix was finally understanding, "Yes. He''s not as strong obviously but that''s not all¡­ he specifically asked permission to use my father''s Domain skill."


    Felix looked at her with confusion but Peace''s dour expression was enough for him to at least somewhat grasp the severity of the situation.


    Melody sighed, "A grand master tier, domain skill¡­ that''s two standard rules broken in one single skill activation."


    "Wait, master tier skills are banned? What''s a domain skill?"


    Peace nodded, "Master tier proficient skills or higher are generally banned. There are specific exceptions for specific people like¡­ notably Khidell."


    Melody nodded, "Even utility or defensive master proficiency skills are just¡­ too unmanageable. Mythic skills too¡­"


    "What are domain skills?"


    "You know how there are skill series like strike, avatar, manipulation, infusion, body and so on?" Melody counted on on her fingers as she listed.


    Felix shook his head, "No, I didn''t."


    Peace smirked, "Fire Strike, Ice Strike same series, similar but distinct skills. Share a bunch of properties with each-other and are related in a way."


    "Got it." Felix nodded once.


    "Right so," Melody continued, "Domain skills are a series of Mythic rarity skills. They''re often considered the ultimate skill because they combine other skills."


    Peace nodded along, "Imagine if you could have a skill that gave you access to thousands of other skills that you could freely cast anywhere within a certain range and simultaneously."


    Not very difficult to imagine considering my method of spell casting, although this sounds like me without any limits.


    Felix frowned, "That would be completely ridiculous."


    Melody nodded, "Yup. Pretty much. It''s the ultimate skill because it can keep getting stronger forever. All you have to do is take on a new skill and increase your proficiency to master tier then the domain skill can consume it. Once consumed, the skills are usable anywhere within the domain while it''s active."


    "Okay but you have to master a ton of skills, that''s super time consuming, right?"


    "Yeah¡­" Melody winced, "Remember when we were talking about how great Romar is? He''s not only mastered the same Domain skill his father has, but has managed to feed it over a thousand skills by now. Having a Domain skill at all in the C grade is nearly unheard of but on top of that, he mastered it."


    "Holy shit. Isn''t he supposed to be just a 100 epochs old or less?"


    "He is." Peace nodded knowingly as Felix finally caught on to just how impressive the feat was.


    Felix shook his head a bit once again, "Okay but the cost for these skills has to be enormous, right?"


    Peace shrugged, "Sure but Zeraxes also has his Domain skill in the C grade and his family has numerous skills to boost his mana pool alongside his Divine Bolt acting as a pretty big battery itself. There are a number of other domains too which is one of the reasons we''re in The Cycle of Prodigies."


    The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.


    Melody nodded along, "To summarize, Master tier skills are generally banned because they tend to be too devastating. Mythic rarity skills are banned for the same reason. My dad has his Domain at Grand Master proficiency. Fyrden can''t use it at full power but still¡­ He got permission to use a Mythic Tier, Grand Master proficiency skill."


    Felix threw his hands in the air, "So basically, this war is essentially being fought by god level skills. Great. Why is everyone breaking the rules now all of a sudden?"


    Melody snickered, "They''ve deemed the cost worth it. They''ve accepted the punishment."


    How is that¡­ remotely fair? Also, this is just a bunch of kids fighting each-other, why does anyone need to use these cheat skills.


    "Look, all I''m saying is maybe you consider finishing up with the event as soon as possible." Melody sighed dramatically, "I know you won''t with the global quest still on the table but maybe just wait until the war is over or just-"


    Felix shook his head with exasperation, "Be careful? Yeah. Thanks for the info."


    He understood her concerns and logically, she was right, he shouldn''t go back into the event when there was little he could do about surviving. He was better off cutting his losses, cashing out his inventory points in the trove and focusing on his exams. He still had a ways to go until his favorite solution for the exams was even viable.


    However, Felix had every intention of seeing the Imitation System quest through at the very least and it was so far outside of his nature to cut his losses. As much as he logically knew Melody was right, he felt patronized given how many times she had told him to be careful and all it did, was make him want to see the entire event through, even more.


    That motivation sparked a new idea that he was surprised he hadn''t thought of before.


    Completely distracted by his train of thought, Felix completely missed Melody nodding solemnly after which, they stood in silence for a few minutes. The only audible sounds were the howling of the wind and the occasional squeaking of Adaline''s quill as Peace meditated and Felix was lost within his own mind until a loud roar brought them all to attention.


    Peace was on his feet before Felix''s eyes focused on his surroundings and they all stepped over and onto a large stone in the mountain face that jutted out roughly in the direction of the roar they had heard.


    As they scanned the sea of clouds, Adaline loaded the bullet she had been inscribing into her black revolver then spun the cylinder on her white one. As it spun, arcane symbols glowed and separated themselves from the metal forming multicolored arcane rings that fit together to create the most complex enchantment Felix had ever seen. Standing as close to it as he was, he could immediately tell it surpassed the spatial enchantments in Inscripticae and came awfully close to the complexity of the Mana Bomb that had decimated the Rakyt city.


    The enchantment on her guns was far more structured though. Where the mana bomb in the city felt more like shoving as many spells as possible into a ball and letting it go boom, hers was designed and pieced together with purpose making it vastly more impressive.


    Unfortunately, Felix couldn''t examine them enough to draw any conclusions as a creature Felix could only describe as ugly, shot through the clouds, a dissonant screech of rage piercing the serenity of the cloud sea below.


    [B - Epic] ??? (Lvl 2733)


    Astonished his Arcane Identify had no name for the creature, he inadvertently blurted out, "What is that?"


    As the cloud trail the creature pulled with it dissipated, a large body that was too lean to be a bear''s but too wide to be anything else was revealed. Its neck was long and winding and supported a head that looked like a crow''s with the beak and black feathering but stockier and with long goat horns on top of it. The head at least matched the black wings which looked like a cross between a bat''s and a crows in terms of shape and feathering respectively.


    Although Felix''s mind compared the creature to a bear and other animals, as it flew towards them, he realized how silly that was. This creature was bigger than Nova at the biggest he had seen her though, not nearly as large as Tekragoraxius. Nonetheless, it was massive and flying towards them faster than Felix had seen any other beast move.


    Smirking, Melody waved him off, "Auren''s probably just going easy on us because it''s the first time we''ve fought together."


    Felix made sure his cloak was prefilled with as much mana as it would take and his own mana pool was topped up using his charm which, didn''t actually work automatically anymore but he had been manually filling and drawing from ever since his evolution.


    Looking towards the others so he had some idea of how they would fight, Felix saw Adaline simply waiting, her preparations already complete. Peace was deep in a meditation but Felix had learned to trust him by this point so he didn''t question his apparent apathy to their surroundings. Melody had pulled out what was clearly an instrument, a ring of some material with a dozen strings running down the middle. Though Felix had no name for it, the instrument eclipsed all other weapons he had ever seen in terms of how it felt.


    Through his soul, he could feel other people and it was what made him so interested in Adaline at first. Even her weapons essentially each had an aura of their own that he could feel. Melody''s instrument was completely ridiculous. Up to this point, Felix didn''t even realize his soul senses were being encoded into his vision to the point where he figured it was all being cut off because of how insignificant it all was. The instrument though, Felix couldn''t tell if the strings actually existed in the material world or if they were literally weaved out of solid souls.


    Adding to the mystic appearance, she didn''t even need to hold the instrument which let her use two hands at once on the strings.


    Seeing the creature just a fraction of a second from landing on top of them, Felix, Melody and Adaline all jumped back and spread out in their respective directions. Peace however, remained on the large stone and Felix almost pulled him back himself with a spell but ultimately, Felix trusted Peace to handle himself at the very least.


    Just before the creature hit the mountain, it was physically caught in midair by massive golden hands that wrestled it into the ground. Now no longer in an inattentive mediation, Peace stood on the stone with a massive projection of a golden man covered in pure black markings that dripped with gaseous shadow forming what looked like a tattered black garment.


    The avatar Peace was projecting was over 30 meters tall, which was even more ridiculous considering it was missing its bottom half, and was thick like a body builder.


    Any smaller though and it wouldn''t have been able to wrestle with the bear-vulture-crow-goat creature Auren had sent their way.


    Transfixed on the absurd wrestling match, Felix almost missed Adaline shooting herself through a portal and behind the creature. From behind where she was unlikely to hit Peace or his avatar, she began releasing a torrent of spells that put everything Felix had ever cast himself, to shame.


    The bullets from her black revolver turned into spells that Felix would have expected from massive spell cannons. Some released Lasers of Force that deleted small holes in the mountain where she missed and others created Beams of Flame that were easily a meter wide.


    Multiplying her effectiveness, the bullets from her white revolver made portals that moved, split or grew the spells from her black revolver. With both guns working in tandem, she was able to completely surround the creature in spells and completely destroy one of its wings in a matter of seconds.


    Most impressively, because she used revolvers, she wasn''t limited by simultaneous cast limits like most casters and neither was she limited by spell complexity in the same way Felix was. Whatever she could inscribe onto a bullet, she could cast.


    As the wing was lost, the creature screeched and squirmed out of Peace''s grasp where it instantly leapt towards Felix and Melody, not daring to leap off the mountain without its wing. Felix cast a phantom step to start his movement then an instinct cast to accelerate himself further because he knew how fast the creature was but it turned out that was completely unnecessary.


    Looking back, the creature had completely missed by a hundred meters or so and it seemed just as confused as Felix was when it landed and saw them so far away. As it readjusted to its actual position, Felix heard a series of three perfectly melodious tones and realized what had happened.


    She altered its perception of reality? Or just¡­ confused it? Either way¡­ Grim, are we sure she can''t do this to me?


    Pretty sure. I''ve verified most of your interactions where possible and nothing has led me to believe she''s done anything like this to you.


    Alright, lets just¡­ be aware in the future I guess.


    Now that it was relatively close, Felix released a spell of his own as he simultaneously moved backwards to gain distance. Given its missing wing, Felix figured he could completely disable it with a single spell and so he surrounded the creature with a hundred meter diameter circle of his latest and greatest Zero Friction Zone.


    It was a lame spell that was stupidly effective against a lot of enemies whenever they didn''t really have the ability to fly.


    Kicking off a phantom step nearby, Felix watched in horror as the creature beat its one remaining wing and through some clever contortion of its body and the use of what seemed to be a skill, launched itself at Felix. He was nearly frozen in shock because of the impossibility of the situation but he wasn''t. Not that it would have mattered if he was, it simply moved too fast for him to really do anything and this time, it was definitely flying in his direction. Even if had been able to move, Felix had felt certain it couldn''t have moved this quickly disabled as it was.


    Before it could reach him, Felix saw a set of golden hands grip the remaining wing and yank the creature off the surface of the mountain just before he fell into a portal that had appeared next to him. He reappeared a few hundred meters away and caught sight of a small portal that was evidently Adaline''s closing itself behind him.


    Peace''s avatar fought with the creature, punching and grappling it where it could but it was evidently outmatched in strength. He tried to make up for it in Agility as every time the creature wrenched itself free, the avatar moved and followed, constantly harassing it. The entire time, Peace danced around acting as the feet of the massive projection and moving with a huge amount of assistance from Reaper''s Movement. Not only did he have to move the projection and control the projection to fight the beast but he also had to protect his real body and avoid getting hit himself.


    From the unexpected distance he had gained, Felix realized how precise the cacophony of spells Adaline released were. Peace had to avoid the beak trying to swallow him and its claws trying to gash him but never did he have to even think about avoiding Adaline''s spells. Each and every one was fired with not only precision, but forethought as to where the battle was going and how things might shift.


    It seemed nearly impossible to Felix considering how many spells she cast-or rather fired-from her revolvers without a literal computer simulating everything nearly perfectly in her head. He was reasonably certain she didn''t have that though which only made him feel worse that he wasn''t able to anything similar in any capacity.


    Flying back towards the battle, Felix almost stumbled as Peace''s avatar flickered for a moment. Before he could even worry, let alone spring into action, a single tone that washed out all other sounds and seemed to resonate with the universe itself echoed out of Melody''s instrument. Not only could Felix feel the note but he could actually see the golden ripple it released.


    As soon as the ripple struck Peace''s avatar, it actually seemed to grow or rather fill out even more and it was able to bend forwards and wrestle the vulture''s neck into the ground.


    From just behind the creature, Adaline fired her white revolver upwards then her black revolver into it. The white revolver''s bullet spun itself into a portal unlike any Felix had ever seen before, circular and woven with not just mana but incredibly complex arcane symbols and anima.


    The next instant, the bullet from the black revolver-which wasn''t really a bullet at all but a bead of condensed white flame, bright enough to cause Felix to look away-passed through the portal. The other end of the portal was a few dozen meters above the creature and easily a hundred times the size of its source. As the ball of white flame began to exit, Felix slowed to a stop and just watched.


    The ball had grown to over a hundred meters in diameter and looked like an actual star but made of pure white fire. Felix''s eyes were strong enough not to be damaged looking directly at any star but he still had to squint. Being as close as he was, he was forced to nearly close his eyes as the flames completely engulfed the creature below.


    Looking around, he initially wasn''t sure if Peace had gotten out but he caught sight of him stepping out of a portal right at the last second that wasn''t nearly big enough for his avatar or the creature to step through.


    Ding You have slain a [B - Epic] Vrolgromex (Lvl 2733)


    Ding You have gained 25 levels in [C - Ancient] Reaper


    Damn, 25 levels even when we were grouped as 4. Wild.


    Flying over, Felix joined back up with the others.


    Before even having to ask, Melody gestured towards the body and Peace nodded, indicating he could harvest it. He assumed Peace had prepared her and Adaline didn''t seem interested in it so he activated both rings.


    Looking at both Melody and Peace, Felix winced a little, "Sorry about¡­"


    Melody shrugged and Peace slapped him on the back, "Don''t worry about it. We''re still figuring out how best to work as a team."


    Melody winked at him, "Not like we really needed you anyways."


    Adaline snorted from where she was standing a few meters away but it didn''t bother Felix in the slightest.


    "That avatar skill was awesome by the way. Why haven''t I seen you use that before?"


    Peace shrugged, "Haven''t needed to. Also¡­ normally I can''t really maintain it for more than a few seconds then it just¡­ flickers out."


    Felix frowned, "Normally?"


    "Well," Peace tilted his head towards Melody, "without her I wouldn''t have been able to maintain it for more than a fraction of a second. Then when I started to really lose control, well, you saw."


    Well, this is something I haven''t felt in a while, being the weakest.


    Auren appeared next to them a few moments later and just nodded to them. He didn''t run through the battle, criticize or praise them like the Adepts in the lower classes did. He just assumed they knew what went wrong, what they did well and what they needed to improve on.


    Turning from them, he stepped through a portal right as it appeared back into the class room they left from. Adaline was next as she was the closest and by the time Felix followed Peace and Melody through, she was gone.


    Melody and Peace walked alongside Felix through the courtyard which Felix was actually grateful for because there were some things he needed to know if his plans were going anywhere.


    Felix looked over at Melody, "So, the big war in the event is happening soon?"


    "Any day now. If I had to guess, within the next dekad or two. Realistically, it will start as soon as someone makes a move or gets too antsy. Tensions are¡­ well, they''re pretty much at the breaking point."


    Felix nodded and quickly checked his quest screen for the event, which was still accessible outside of it, "Then I take it that big quest isn''t happening until afterwards?"


    She shrugged, "Probably. I don''t know much about it, no one really does but, you have to collect objects and bring them to a location. Now that they can''t be removed from the event¡­"


    Felix nodded, "Both factions are hoping to get their hands on more of them through the war. They''re assuming more objects will put them at an advantage?"


    "Pretty much." She nodded.


    "So until then, most of them will be stored in the vaults because they don''t want to give them up if they''re forced to surrender."


    She nodded again, "Probably."


    Peace''s smirk grew as he caught on but he waited until they stepped into Felix''s dorm and closed the door behind them to speak aloud, "You''re going to try and steal them."


    Melody''s head swung over and she looked more taken aback than Felix would have expected, "You''re going to steal them?"


    There was no point in hiding his intentions, he needed as much information as he could anyways, "Yeah. You convinced me it''s probably best I don''t participate in any way in the war but I want to see this quest through."


    She tilted her head to the side, "You know more about this quest than I do, don''t you? There''s no way you''d be this insistent if you were as in the dark as everyone else."


    Felix shrugged, "I upgraded my Identify skill and managed to identify the objects."


    Peace smirked and Melody''s eyes grew wide, "You identified them? Wait- You upgraded your Identify skill to what? I know quite a few other participants with upgraded Identify skills that couldn''t identify it at all."


    Felix chuckled, "Great question. I upgraded it many times in a row actually. It just kept swallowing skills and items until it is where it is now and I managed to identify them."


    She shook her head and even Peace seemed confused by that statement, "Define ''in a row'' please." S§×arch* The ¦Çov§×lFire .net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    "I went up a bunch of proficiency levels in one of my profession based identify skills then I just asked The System to merge my other profession identify skills into it. The resultant skill swallowed my identify ring and replaced my normal Identify. I used the new skill repeatedly on the item and taught some new tricks until it finally worked."


    Melody squinted a little, "In the span of¡­?"


    "A few seconds I guess? Minutes if you count the time it took me to manually analyze the object."


    Her face contorted in contemplation, "That''s¡­ wrong in so many ways."


    Felix nodded, "I thought so too, just felt too unnatural."


    "It is¡­ You had the standard identify skill before this?"


    Felix nodded.


    She sighed, "The System has rules in place where there''s a cooldown on upgrading the same skill too much because you''re supposed to get used to the old one. It''s also notoriously annoying to upgrade your Identify skill¡­ Anyways, what are they? The objects for the quest."


    "Uh¡­ I''m not sure¡­ I should tell you."


    She sighed, "Fine. You don''t have to tell me now but after I help you steal them, I get to ask you one question that you have to answer to the best of your ability."


    Felix frowned for multiple reasons but she cut him off before he could respond.


    "Yes, you''re going to need our help. Peace is going to help you for free because¡­ I don''t know he just likes you I guess. As for my question, I''ll sign whatever soul binding or System contract you need but you have to answer, got it?"


    He wanted desperately to refuse them. He knew he didn''t need their help, it was technically possible for him to steal from the vaults himself. Without them though, his odds were extraordinarily low and with Peace nodding along and Melody''s relatively low price, he had a hard time saying no.


    "Alright, fine."


    Melody''s smile grew wide, "Perfect. First we''re going to need some supplies. I think tomorrow is the best bet."


    Peace nodded and Felix looked at both of them for an explanation, "For what? Tomorrow is the best bet to steal them? Why?"


    Melody scoffed, "Starting the war, duh."


    She didn''t get nearly as dramatic of a reaction as she was hoping for as Felix nodded along, "Okay, makes sense. We want to catch people as off guard as possible so we want to start it sooner rather than later but we need supplies. It only makes sense to try and rob them once the war is started because otherwise, the Im- objects won''t be in the vaults. What supplies were you thinking?"


    Melody smirked, "That depends on what you can afford to pay for them."


    Felix nodded matter of factly, "I have about half an A. I''m willing to spend all of it."


    She shook her head and snorted, "No, not credits. I handle the credits, remember? I meant other forms of payment. I''m open to suggestions but I think our best bet is getting our hands on a Spatially Aware Phase Change Amulet so you can walk right into the vault."


    Felix shrugged, "Uh¡­ That sounds good to me. I was just planning on kind of¡­ literally breaking in."


    Melody guffawed at him then shook her head, "Both of the big factions use spatial expansion enchantments within their vaults. If you just punched a hole in the wall, it would explode and destroy everything inside. Not to mention spatial enchantments by their nature make it really hard to just punch a hole through them."


    Wincing, Felix sighed, "I take it a portal is no better?"


    She shook her head, "Possibly worse. Best case scenario is you step into the vault as a giant then slowly your body starts to fall apart because the atoms were stretched too far from each-other. At that point you just hope you can regenerate faster than you fall apart."


    Felix snorted, "Okay. Never mind then. What''s this amulet you mentioned?"


    Melody leaned in and whispered, solely for dramatic effect, "Something that didn''t exist until very recently that only a select few in the entire multiverse have the ability to make."


    Felix cocked his head, "How the hell are we going to get our hands on one then?"


    "Well¡­ it just so happens that we all know one of the two people with both the knowledge and skills required."


    Felix thought through the options but the only person that came to mind was Rathelius but, he was pretty sure she wasn''t talking about them.


    After waiting half a minute for Felix to guess, which he didn''t, she sighed, "Adaline."


    "Wait¡­ really?" Felix shook his head.


    "Yeah. Remember when we were discussing Erevos and how it used Kryptos enchantments and the only person who had made any headway into deciphering them was a professor on campus? They''re her mentor because she got her hands on their research a number of epochs ago and was able to teach herself."


    "That''s¡­" Felix''s eyes went wide, "awesome. You said it''s not going to take credits, what will she accept?"


    "Something that makes her stronger. Something that helps with her enchanting or spell-craft¡­. Those are just guesses based on my miraculous ability to read people, you''d have to ask her."


    Felix nodded, "Okay, fair enough. Assuming we can convince her to help us, what else do we need? We need to make sure no one is around when I walk through the walls into the vault. I assume I can''t just walk through from the other end of the mountain?"


    Melody shook her head in confirmation and Felix continued, "Okay that means we need to get as many people involved in the war as possible or just have Peace walk in and do the robbing since no one can detect you."


    Peace shook his head, "I don''t have any inventory points and no one but the Rakyt and those with merchant professions can just hand them out."


    Melody nodded, "And Ayred''s already surrendered and left."


    Felix sighed, "Okay, so I need to be the one to walk into the vault then and I''m¡­ well terrible at being stealthy."


    "Yeah¡­ you aren''t getting past anyone unnoticed, sorry." Peace shrugged and Felix just nodded.


    "We need two things to make sure the area around the vault is clear." Melody hopped forwards and began pacing, "First, we need to necessitate all the fighters being on the front lines. Demons would have been perfect here but that''s not happening anymore. Luckily, both factions are about even in numbers so, if we can get either of them to fully engage, the other will basically be forced to respond with everything they''ve got."


    Peace and Felix nodded along and followed her with their gaze as she circled the room.


    "Second, there are the non combatants. The participants who are profession specialists. The ones who built the vault and maintain it. Those we can distract them by damaging the foundation of their fortresses. They''ll be forced to act and repair them but you''ll still have to deal with them. I guess there''s a third problem, the profession specialists who have nothing to do with the construction of the vaults. Logically, they would be near the battle to help however they can or outside of the event entirely but there are no guarantees."


    Melody stopped walking and Felix took that as a sign that she was done with her speech. He summarized based on his understanding, "Right so, in terms of supplies we need something to damage the foundation of the mountains, some way to escalate the conflict-"


    "That''s my job. All I need are some basic enchantments from you." Melody hopped her bottom onto the back of the couch and swung her crossed legs up.


    Felix nodded, "Okay then we just need something big to start the war-"


    "I can do that." Peace crossed his arms and nodded.


    "Okay then, let''s give the plan a once over just to be sure." Felix offered one hand to each of them which they quickly took and he brought them both into his Soul Garden where Felix brought up simulations of the heist and they ran through everything they could think of.


    In all honesty, Felix knew he probably could have committed the heist by himself but the odds were so low that it would have been arrogant to even try. With Melody and Peace though, he felt a lot more confident in their capabilities.


    With everything to do with the plan ironed out, Felix and Peace followed Melody to a small log cabin on the planet Eramith. Once there, Melody played a single note instead of knocking. A few moments later, the door opened to reveal Adaline.


    She sighed as she saw them, her face contorted in the signature scowl of derision she reserved just for Felix. The one he had come to expect from her, "What."


    Melody smiled and clasped her hands behind her back as she leaned forwards, "Hey Adaline, remember that amulet you were telling me about?"


    "No."


    "Right well, the one that I was questioning you about and reading the answers from your mind? We need it."


    Adaline''s face contorted further with significant disgust causing Melody to thumb in Felix''s direction, "He''ll pay you for it."


    She sighed and began closing the door, "I don''t want your credits."


    Wrenching his attention back from desperately trying to scan the inside of the room to no avail, Felix nodded and reached forwards, offering her a cube a few inches wide.


    She squinted at it for a few seconds and her brow progressively furrowed until she sighed, "Fine."


    Melody smiled and nodded then cut back in, "One more thing, we need to destabilize at least two mountains."


    Talking things through with Adaline, while she was rather serious, she was also agreeable and reasonable. Felix wasn''t sure if she liked Melody, really wanted the computer he offered her or just really liked enchanting. Either way they got a lot more out of her than Felix had thought they would, especially considering he didn''t think she''d even open the door for them. She kept her dislike of Felix out of things though and was completely professional and to the point.


    She didn''t even ask what they were doing or why a single time. It would have been rather hard considering Melody''s every sentence had more words than she had spoken the entire time but still, Felix knew he would have asked in her position.


    By some miracle or possibly because Melody knew what she was doing, Adaline offered them the amulet right off her own neck and had all the other items they needed-sans batteries-on hand.


    That meant the only thing left for them to do was set everything up.


    Opening his event marble against the wall of his dorm, Felix, Melody and Peace stepped out into his underground compound. As soon as they were there, Felix transferred all the necessary items over to Peace, attaching consumable batteries where necessary as they went. All the items were from the outside so Peace was able to use his spatial storage instead of his event inventory which would have been impossible considering he had literally 0 inventory points.


    Melody cocked her head at Peace, "What did you use your inventory points for?" She proceeded to wander around before he started responding.


    "When I was spending time with the Amatarans, we used our points to purchase refreshments from the factions and various wandering merchants."


    Felix sighed and Melody giggled.


    Once all the items were transferred, Felix nodded to Peace, "Alright, you have everything you need?"


    Peace shrugged, "Think so."


    "Alright, see you in a bit then." Felix waved a hand and opened a portal which Peace stepped through.


    Closing the portal, Felix turned and sighed as he realized Melody had disappeared. Walking down the only hall and following her, he found her standing just outside Zero''s training space where he was practicing the same sword strike repeatedly and very robotically.


    While it looked like he performed the exact same strike on repeat, in actuality Felix knew he was minutely adjusting each swing and calibrating the Force, mana, range and other parameters.


    Without looking at him, Melody spoke, "This is one of the most impressive constructs I''ve ever seen."


    "Thanks. It honestly feels like kind of a waste that he spends all his time here but¡­ I don''t want him to die against a random participant."


    She nodded, "Have you fought him yet? Sparred?"


    He shook his head, "Not a close range fighter and I''m a little too destructive to spar without System protections in place against something that doesn''t regenerate."


    "You have a spare sword?"


    Felix nodded and pulled out Mecada''s long saber, "I''ve been meaning to figure out exactly what this is. My identify gives me nothing of value. Any ideas?"


    Melody hmphed then took the sword from Felix''s hands. As soon as she freed it from his grasp, Felix felt-and could have sworn he''d audibly heard-a gasp of relief from the sword as it visibly vibrated, shaking itself.


    Gripping it by the handle, Melody twirled, spun and swung the blade then nodded. She walked into the room and took the spot opposite Zero, lifting Mecada''s blade in the construct''s direction.


    They both nodded to indicate they were ready then Zero took a step forwards and struck. Melody shifted her stance so her feet were beneath her shoulders and braced herself to stop Zero''s strike. The swords clashed and Felix saw the demon blade shiver slightly but it didn''t open its maw. In fact, it remained well behaved the entire time their swords clashed as Melody zipped around with the same childlike exuberance she seemed to exhibit in everything she did.


    She didn''t look like a sword master or an excited child but rather like someone who was familiar enough with a sword and who just couldn''t help but dance their way through a battle. Mirroring her wouldn''t really be possible for Zero but each and every time she held a strike from injuring Zero, he learned. Not once did he have to hold back from striking her as Zero never got close but he did learn to play into his strengths, specifically his Strength.


    Melody was relatively weak to the point where her compensating for her lack of strength became obvious even to Felix, despite the outward appearance that she was a figure skater dancing her way through the battle. Zero gradually learned how to take advantage of her literal weakness and began pushing harder, striking with more force and generally being more deliberate.


    They didn''t really get anywhere though by the designated time when Felix had to open a portal to retrieve Peace.


    As soon as the portal opened, Peace stepped through, nodded to Felix then stepped through the next portal he had opened. Not a word passed between them and as soon as the second portal closed, Felix went back to watching the sparring for a few minutes.


    Walking back towards the door and leaving Zero to continue calibrating, Melody handed Felix the sword, holding it by just two fingers and letting it dangle between them like it was a dirty sock, "I take it you got this off a demon?"


    Felix nodded, "This and a huge chain."


    "I''d have to look at the chain but this sword is definitely cursed."


    Felix''s eyes went wide, his excitement obvious, "Explain."


    Melody rolled her eyes at him, "It''s cursed with some derivative of Wrath. It will slowly corrupt the wielder to become more bloodthirsty as they use it and in turn, increasingly reckless until they become completely mindless. On the flip side, it can eat bodies and souls."


    "I see, so I should probably just destroy it?"


    She scoffed, "What, no! Why would you destroy it? Just sell it for a handsome profit."


    "How long would it take to corrupt someone?"


    "Not sure. Probably just a few minutes to have an effect, a lot longer until they became a mindless husk though. I can wield it for maybe an hour and keep the effects at bay but¡­ You might be fine, considering how impervious you seem to my machinations but yeah¡­ I wouldn''t risk it."


    "Okay, fair enough."


    So add a layer to Zero''s soul then give him the sword, got it.


    A few moments later, Felix opened the return portal for Peace and he stepped back through, his spatial storage successfully emptied.


    Peace nodded and said nothing so Felix knew his part had gone without issue.


    Felix looked at both of them, "Now, we wait."


    They spent some of the few dozen hours they had decided to wait in Felix''s Soul Space, because it was time efficient but not much overall. Rather, they spent quite a bit of time walking around the vault, talking about the dungeons Felix had encountered, rumors Melody had heard and random stories Peace had on hand.


    What they were waiting for wasn''t the cover of darkness that nighttime provided but rather the bustling crowds in the middle of the 5th day. Most people had the 5th and 10th off because the classes were scheduled that way. In fact not a single one of them knew of a class on the 5th. That meant most people would be in the event if they hadn''t already surrendered and could access it which meant when the war started, they would be ready to jump right in.


    They specifically wanted everyone around for two reasons, first was that if people stepped into the event one by one as they heard about the war, they would most likely appear in the compounds and directly around the vault. The other reason was that it ensured maximum effect on both sides when they actually started the war. The shock and fear they were hoping to create would be lost on all the participants outside the event so the more people that bore witness, the better.


    Ultimately, a few dozen hours was a ton of time and so they went off and each did their own thing for at least half of the time.


    Felix worked on spell designs and constructs while Melody read and Peace meditated for the most part. Melody also spent some of the time endlessly talking to Felix while he worked. He almost completely drowned her out and he knew that she knew he wasn''t listening so he didn''t really know why she was talking so much.


    Once the time came, they all grouped up in the main area of the compound and Felix made sure everyone had the supplies they needed. Everyone confirmed they were ready and Felix opened a portal onto the top of a massive cliff range.


    The cliffs were a chain of entirely vertical rocks that formed a large curve around a forested valley below. On top of the cliffs the biome was a rocky desert making this planet look much like Felix''s tutorial planet, like it had been pieced together from the pieces of other worlds without much attention to detail.


    Walking up to the edge of the cliff, Peace looked back and both of them nodded to him. He closed his eyes and sank to one knee then inhaled a single lung filling breath, closing his eyes as soon as his chest laid still. As his arms slowly lifted up in front of him, ropes of gold and black twisted and weaved their way out of his right palm forming a massive long bow of pure light. The gold formed the core of the bow and black trails, much like those present when using Reaper''s skills wrapped themselves around the outside like paint. Other than the black paint though, the bow was completely plain without extraneous bends or carvings at all.


    When it was done, Peace held a bow in his hand that was twice as tall as he was and almost entirely black save for the bright golden cracks that reached their way up the limbs and glowed with visible golden rays. Were he not literally on the edge of the cliff, it would have been impossible for him to hold the bow out in front of him on account of its height surpassing his. On one knee as he was, almost a foot outwards from his body in every direction, shadow trailed upwards like fire or liquid smoke pouring off of him more prominently than Felix had ever seen from a Reaper''s skill before.


    His eyes remained shut as he began to exhale and his other hand very slowly drew back a perfectly white string, moving with the precision of a machine. Every millimeter his hand moved in a perfectly straight line, an arrow grew between his fingers and the bow. It didn''t just grow longer though, it was constantly weaved from gold and white threads that appeared from nowhere, the arrow growing progressively brighter as each one merged into its shaft.


    Once his hand reached the side of his face, his exhale had completed and black fletching had appeared. The arrow solidified itself and tripled in brightness in the next moment as a single golden tear welled up on Peace''s cheek.


    Then, Peace opened his eyes. Much like the arrow itself, Peace''s eyes were completely covered in bright white light, like miniature suns embedded in his face. They remained that way for all of an instant as released the arrow in the same moment his eyes had opened and simultaneously, the tear fell from his face.


    Neither the arrow nor the tear seemed to respect the bounds of the universe itself as they both struck their targets in the same instant they were released. The tear hit the ground and formed a visible ripple that distorted the ground beneath their feet but once passed, seemed to have no effect whatsoever.


    The arrow struck exactly where they had planned, right in the middle of the Edras Faction compound on the side of the cliff. The arrow didn''t create a hole in the stone at all but rather a small circle about a meter in diameter where it struck looked perfectly untouched. Around that circle and rapidly spreading throughout the rock of the cliff face, a web of cracks reached outwards in every direction like tendrils of destruction. As the cracks spread, the stone crumbled and a massive chunk of the cliff face was reduced to gravel and tumbled free.


    Though only Peace had seen the inside of the compound, none of them stuck around to witness the aftermath. The instant the arrow had been released, Felix activated Adaline''s enchantments which were much less impressive than Peace''s arrow then stepped through their portal. Melody dragged Peace back through and they were gone. No one would know who had fired the first shot, which is exactly what they were hoping for.


    Carefully lowering Peace to the ground, Melody pulled out her instrument and began strumming a tune and lightly humming easily the most beautiful thing Felix had ever heard.


    Peace''s face was covered in sweat and his body was literally vibrating though so Felix actually blocked out most of Melody''s playing.


    "You gonna be okay?"


    Peace gasped for air and nodded.


    "Can I get you anything? Is there anything that would help right now?"


    Peace nodded and pointed at Melody then coughed up almost a liter of blood.


    Despite the¡­ cost, that was awesome.


    Felix nodded and just waited in case there was anything he needed to do as his mind wandered back to the plan, his spells and his enchantments.


    A few minutes passed of Peace coughing up more blood, Felix helping him keep it out of his throat and Melody playing when Peace finally gestured Felix''s ear closer and hoarsely whispered, "Do you have any spare anima?"


    Felix nodded, "Yes. How much do you need?"


    Peace just nodded so Felix reached into his Soul Ring and compressed down about half of what he had in there into what looked like a small pill. He made sure the pill was as blank as he could make it then he placed his palm on Peace''s chest and made the pill appear directly inside of him.


    Felix heard a pained groaning followed by Peace vibrating to the point where he was almost seizing for a couple minutes. Then suddenly, he stopped and sprang to his feet looking even better than he had before firing the arrow.


    "WoooooaaaAAAAHHH! I¡­ feel awesome."


    Melody looked at Felix with a bit of confusion for just an instant before turning back to Peace, "That''s because that was awesome. Was that¡­ The Arrow of the Weeping Soul? The Soul Shattering Shot?"


    Peace nodded, "Yup."


    She frowned, "I thought¡­ No, I know Joledrin is finally dead. How do you¡­ know it, let alone being able to use it at all."


    "The perks of being a multiversal assassin I guess." Peace smirked but Melody was not impressed.


    Her instrument vanished and she sighed before turning to Felix and ignoring Peace''s chuckling, "Alright, I think it''s time to rile things up."


    Felix nodded and opened another portal, this time near the Archon Faction compound.


    Stepping out onto a platform of Force Felix was channeling in midair, they all looked down in complete shock for a couple of reasons.


    Firstly, Peace had placed Adaline''s enchanted bombs all throughout both compounds and though the destruction wouldn''t have been as impressive as Peace''s arrow, they had been expecting some kind of effect. The mountain though, seemed completely untouched however.


    Secondly, they had expected some kind of a counter attack and were hoping to use Melody''s unique manipulation to increase the existing fear but something was wrong.


    It should have taken Edras'' Faction at least half an hour to mount any kind of resistance simply due to the distance between the two locations. They could use portals to move but they had to commit to going through the portal or not otherwise they might get separated and stranded. They would want to counter with something just as strong which meant some amount of preparation.


    All that distance between the two compounds though, was completely gone. Looking down to the left, Felix saw the remains of the compound they had just attacked all of a kilometer away. To his right, the mountain compound of the Archon followers. In the middle, a perfectly straight line where the two areas had been joined together.


    Unlike the cliff face separating two biomes though, looking down, Felix spotted multiple trees, rocks and even a river that had been cut cleanly in two.


    They had wanted the fights to draw everyone away from their vaults, for the core of the fighting to happen in the middle of the two areas and they even had a plan to deal with any portal warfare. Now though, there was nowhere else for the fighting to happen than right here, just a few hundred meters from both of the vaults.


    "Well, that changes things."


    Peace did a flip and slapped aside a skill someone had targeted at them and Melody''s face just contorted in confusion, "This is all so¡­ weird. The System doesn''t do things like this or¡­ didn''t. It never gets- got this involved."


    Felix shook his head, "We don''t have time to dissect things right now. If anything this makes your job a lot easier, right Melody?"


    She sighed, "Yeah kind of. Everything will be in one place now which is great for affecting them all at once but there are some people I would have liked to avoid because they would recognize my¡­ effect."


    Felix rubbed his temple, "Your brothers."


    "Yeah. Well, just Fyrden. Talrain is an oblivious idiot who''s soul senses are some of the worst I have ever seen."


    "Okay, what about this then. Instead of riling everyone up, you play something happy and playful."


    Melody looked over her shoulder with a smile and a cocked brow of confusion, "You want me to just confuse people?"


    "Mostly. You probably know all of the objects have a different curses associated with them, right?"


    Melody nodded.


    "A lot of them didn''t really change anything other than being really confusing like making me want to fight a table or feel lust in a fight with a construct."


    Melody''s eyes went wide with excitement, "Now that, is a fantastic idea."


    Felix actually pinched his nose and Melody''s smile grew even wider, "The best part is, no one will question what I''m doing cause it''s so me to just make things confusing and be a nuisance."


    Peace nodded appreciatively, "It definitely fits with your whole ''just not'' thing. You aren''t helping either side and aren''t really fighting but also not refusing to participate. It is aptly confusing."


    "Exactly." She nodded quickly to Peace in excited agreement then turned to Felix, "I''m on it. Oh by the way, I''m going to need to borrow Erevos."


    Felix just nodded and summoned the Sky Slicer then hopped out and let Melody take the driver''s seat. She saluted in a joking manner then zipped down into the battle, giggling to herself the entire way.


    Looks like she took the bait.


    Grim sighed in his mind, You know that wasn''t necessary. She would have done it anyways.


    Yeah. Honestly, I just wanted to see if she would notice. I wonder if she knows this was my goal by mentioning the Lust cursed object.


    Not sure. It''s possible your new lattice layer is making you harder to read.


    Felix cut the conversation there and turned to Peace to try and make it less obvious he was having a mental conversation. It didn''t seem necessary though as Peace excitedly leapt around their platform slapping skills and spells around from both sides as neither of them knew which side they were on.


    "We didn''t really expect to have you so mobile right now. In terms of our plan, your job is done."


    Peace nodded, "Sure but the plan has gone to shit now that the planet literally shrunk or something. What''s the plan now?"


    "I think we just embrace the chaos. Any chance you can disguise yourself?"


    Peace snapped his fingers and in an instant, his everything changed to look completely different. Suddenly he was a young girl that looked about 10 years old. His face, body and clothes changing was impressive but what blew Felix away was the complete 180 his soul had taken. Felix hadn''t felt much from Peace in general given how adept he was with his soul but now, he legitimately felt like a child to Felix.


    "As impressive as that is, I don''t think that''s the disguise you should go with."


    Peace shrugged and started skipping around the platform, "I''m open to suggestions."


    "Have you heard of that participant that started the whole killing thing? The guy that crashed Ascension Day?"


    Peace nodded, "Yes and yes I know who they actually are."


    Felix sighed in relief, "Oh thank god."


    Peace looked at him with confusion which was frankly adorable as a little girl, "Which one?"


    "Figure of speech from my planet." Felix waved him off, "How well can you imitate them?"


    He shrugged, "I can do some of the skills, not all of them. Soul skills are easy. Blood is impossible for me and only a few of the magic based ones."


    Felix nodded, "I don''t have an extra axe but I do have something else. It might be cursed and try to corrupt your soul though."


    Peace shrugged as he snapped his fingers and morphed into the form of Felix''s persona. Felix reached forwards and offered him Berrdoth''s chain which Peace took and started wrapping around his shoulders and arms, "This is nothing. I was expecting something much worse considering your soul and all that."


    Felix shrugged, "Yeah well, that''s what I was told. You can handle this?"


    Peace nodded, "Oh yeah. This is nothing."


    "Alright. I know you don''t kill people but¡­ That''s kind of Arthur''s thing."


    Peace shook his head solemnly, "Yeah, no. I''ll attack and fight people and create as much chaos as possible but any killing is entirely up to you."


    Felix nodded, "That''s fine. I can work with that. Edras'' first in case they try and move things somewhere more stable?"


    Peace nodded then jumped off the platform towards Edras'' compound.


    Felix turned around and stepped back through his portal, activated his Persona and drew his axe then, opened a different portal. This one was a different color and shape that used a completely different spell just to throw people off.


    Stepping through the portal, Felix stepped directly into the crumbling halls of Edras'' compound.

 Chapter 214 - Book 16

    To his right, the wall was barely holding on with massive gaping holes filled only with clouds of dust. Across the ground everywhere was gravel and to his left, the wall seemed largely undamaged. Despite the state of the compound, Felix immediately noticed at least one major difference between Edras'' compound and The Archon''s.


    Architecturally, the Archon''s compound was wide and open with squared off walls and deliberate rooms. This compound looked more like it was probably dug out by a burrowing animal with tighter, rounded corridors that curved and wound their way through the cliffs.


    Running forwards, Felix felt like he was having deja-vu as the cave system heavily reminded of the mole-ant''s hive from the tutorial. Coming up to the first branch in the tunnel that seemed natural rather than created by Peace''s Arrow and the subsequent destruction, Felix found the tunnel forked at a shallow angle almost like water erosion or roots had carved them.


    He didn''t have long to think about it though as running down one branching tunnel, Felix spotted the first people he had seen in the compound since arriving.


    [C - Legendary] Gelrimor (Lvl 1312)


    [C - Epic] Korjenur (Lvl 1246)


    The two were in the process of digging their way through the rubble and into some area that had been cut off deeper in the compound. As soon as they saw each-other, both of the participants tearing through the rubble stopped what they were doing and ran.


    Felix was caught off guard for all of a few moments as he had been completely expecting them to fight him. Instead, they immediately split up down two different halls and ran as fast as they could.


    Felix knew, even as Arthur, he wasn''t that scary and he didn''t feel or recognize overwhelming fear or any fear at all really from either of them. No, they ran because it was logical. They were trying to find someone to report to, to group up with or just to live.


    Felix followed behind the higher level and rarity Gelrimor but simultaneously spawned a shade down the other tunnel as he tossed out a couple of Seeing Eye constructs. The constructs flew along and followed the shade as he ran in as straight of a line as he could manage.


    The paths the tunnels took weren''t even close to synchronized so Felix had to adjust. As he ran to keep the shade moving, he simply moved his own body with his matter control to adjust to his own tunnel. The shade couldn''t replicate that and only matched his body''s movements.


    Leaping forwards, Felix simultaneously jumped on Gelrimor while his shade jumped on Korjenur in the other hall, separated by a few hundred meters of stone between them.


    Felix swung down with Eretheas as he fell, using a spell to pull Gelrimor towards him. Gelrimor was prepared for that though as a metal rod that ran along his forearm intercepted the strike.


    As Arthur, Felix was still absurdly strong for his level, in large part because of his ability to use mana to buff his body in addition to everything else. Felix still hadn''t had time to figure out the mana channels in his own body simply because there was something weird happening there. His cells, for whatever reason, were unlike any other cells he had found and whatever was happening was too complex for him to solve quickly.


    In the meantime, he had Arthur''s absurd strength if he ever really needed it.


    Kicking Gelrimor in the chest, Felix threw two constructs behind him as he swapped with his shade then spun and grabbed hold of Korjenur''s breastplate at the back of his neck as he tried to run. Pulling back and swinging at the same time, Felix tried to decapitate him but only managed to cut an inch or so into his arm through the plate bracers as he raised his arm to block the strike.


    Felix yanked back solely to control his shade and was punished for it as Korjenur drove a blade into his side. The blood spilling from the wound created a small plate protecting him as his opponent jumped back and yanked the blade free. Felix summoned two shades nearby and began closing in on Korjenur but immediately had to switch back to Gelrimor''s fight as he had jumped through a hole in the wall and was trying to get away.


    Felix threw Eretheas at Gelrimor''s back and managed to surprise him as the axe tore a shallow gash in his shoulder. Gelrimor ignored the wound and kept running but Felix instantly teleported to the axe once there was room and reached for his opponent''s neck.


    He grasped and began squeezing but was forced to swap back to the other fight before finishing the job.


    Ultimately, he was forced to switch every few moments making it nearly impossible to finish either of them off until finally, Gelrimor sacrificed himself to activate a small enchanted orb.


    As Gelrimor''s head fell to the ground and joined the red and gold streams pouring into Felix''s rings, Felix could do nothing but watch as a burst of colored gas and sound exploded in every direction. Gelrimor had timed his activation perfectly for when Felix switched so he couldn''t stop the mana and by the time he switched back, all the mana had already been converted. Felix was confident Gelrimor hadn''t known about his mana control but rather, simply wanted the best chance of it activating.


    Using his matter control and a quick shield, Felix managed to effectively stop the colored gas but the sound too fast and already long gone. He heard the shrill chirping echo throughout the caves in every direction and just sighed.


    Felix took a whiff of the gas then switched back with one of his shades to finish off Korjenur. Processing it within his body, Felix realized the colored gas wasn''t intended to do harm at all. It was what he had expected, and feared, an alarm mechanism designed to notify people of his presence.


    Felix quickly disposed of Korjenur once he was able to fully focus on the battle and activated both rings, happy to see his bounty increasing.


    Racing down the hall farther away from the cliff face, Felix began taking every turn that led further away from the cliff and further underground. He was hoping the vault simply lay in the deepest and most isolated part of the compound and all he really had was his sense of direction to guide him.


    He didn''t bother with the constructs and had stowed them after the fight because he was simply faster by himself. If he wanted to actually map it they would be useful but instead, he simply smashed through the wall whenever he felt open space on the other side with his matter senses.


    Much like Gelrimor and Korjenur, Felix ran into numerous profession focused participants which were annoying to kill but not particularly hard. They mostly wasted a lot of time and ran a lot.


    After killing around a dozen of them, he began to notice the patterns and realize which gods and themes were the most prominent. It was a safe assumption that the themes were associated with specific gods as he could draw clear lines from the specific themes to various gods he had read about.


    There were the family of the Forge, two of which he had killed to start off the whole bounty thing. There were also a few robed holy men that Felix was fairly certain fell under the domain of Ramoriel, the god of Justice. Though they were likely accountants or something equally useless, they also held combat skills that were annoying to deal with associated with Justice.


    All of them had System based skills that hurt Felix as he hurt them. Thankfully it wasn''t too difficult to localize his attacks which made it so his Armor of Blood blunted every subsequent strike after the first. It still forced him to hurt himself and carefully control his attacks which ended up significantly slowing him down. Sometimes the damage was reflected in kind, as sharp physical damage, which was Felix''s favorite. When he fought the ones with Retaliation Skills that seared him or struck him with holy light, those seeped through and the armor and inflicted direct pain.


    It was pain he had trouble dulling entirely and seemed almost like direct damage where The System itself was inflicting damage by simply removing some of his health. Those were rare though and Felix only came across two as he barreled down the various tunnels.


    Every second that passed since he had failed to prevent the alarm, more participants appeared from around every corner. None of them were combat specialists but all of them were annoying and slowed him down. The participants in the event were some of the best of their generation which meant even those who focused on their professions, would crush most everyone else their age in combat.


    Unfortunately his significant lack of experience, even shored up recently against the Ashound, paled in comparison to those that had grown up within the multiverse.


    Felix''s stat''s, especially as Arthur, helped tremendously in bridging the gap but they didn''t stop him from being hurt in every fight and using an increasingly large chunk of his mana just to make it out.


    Leaping off the side of the cave, Felix slammed Eretheas downwards and cleaved a druid in two as their vines failed to slow the strike in any meaningful way. Blood exploded in every direction and before Felix could keep running down the tunnel, tendrils rose from the blood of the druid''s corpse and bound his feet. Spinning his head around, a blood shaman had appeared behind him.


    Felix consumed a hundred and fifty thousand mana to close the gap and get out of the root at once by summoning a shade and instantly switching with it.


    A shield of blood, similar to his armor but gooier appeared and slowed Eretheas enough for the shaman to start casting some kind of large area of effect spell. The globule that had slowed Eretheas held on tight and began seeping up around Felix''s arms as well, completely preventing Felix from attacking physically. As the blood arranged itself for the spell though, Felix activated his Devouring Aura for just an instant causing the shaman to flinch and the spell to be interrupted.


    Swapping once again to get out of the sticky globule holding him, Felix appeared directly behind the blood shaman where he grabbed hold of his neck and squeezed as hard and as fast as he could. The shaman''s magic made the blood in their neck literally fight his grip, which was disgusting in it''s own right, but mostly just annoying.


    Fucking hell this is so annoying. Where is this stupid vault?


    Giving up, Felix threw the man into his own globule of blood and cast Crimson Slaughter which completely eviscerated his body. They weren''t dead by some miracle as activating his rings did nothing but Felix didn''t stick around to finish the job. It was a waste of time and the longer he spent here, the more likely the faction would fall back and deal with him.


    Smashing through a thin cave wall next to him, Felix found himself inside of what looked like a restaurant or tavern that inexplicably held at least two dozen participants.


    You guys are literally at war. Why are you HERE!?


    Summoning all four Shades in an instant, Felix swapped with one of them as soon as the inevitable barrage of attacks following his arrival began then he flashed his Devouring Aura to buy himself a few moments.


    Now on the other end of the room after swapping with his Shade, Felix smacked himself with a Force Push and leapt at a windowed wall, smashing directly through it and running off to the left. He was choosing directions entirely at random at this point and he knew he had dozens of participants following him.


    Kicking off the left wall and down another tunnel, Felix glanced back and immediately ducked below what looked like a saw blade.


    Stupid Forge Fuckers.


    Running down the hall, Felix tossed a Seeing Eye Construct and summoned a shade in the same direction then kept running. He adjusted himself based on the shade and used spells to accommodate for the tunnel before him as his pursuers began to catch up with him.


    A barrage of vines, chains, blood tendrils and divine light exploded on his location right as he swapped places with his shade and continued down its tunnel. His maneuver had gained him at least a kilometer of distance and even more time as he was pretty sure no one had seen him originally summon the shade.


    Before he could relish in the freedom though, two daggers pierced his flesh, one in his neck and the other in his side. The one piercing his liver was coated with a blood toxin while the other was covered in a neurotoxin.


    Blood flowing from the wounds sealed them over with The Armor of Blood but couldn''t fully form with the knives still stuck in him.


    Felix summoned a shade in front of him then spun around and swiped at a small humanoid covered in black clothes but she vanished into the shadow beneath her before he even touched her. He instantly swapped with his shade and put her in sight, Eretheas already swinging towards her body before he even appeared.


    Another dagger of hers, a much more impressive looking and less disposable one, appeared in her hand and she used both hands to try and block the axe swing.


    As the dainty blade and massive axe met, an explosion of shadow tendrils appeared from the dagger that braced it against the floors and walls. A flash of relief appeared through the slit that revealed her eyes and the shadow worshiper began activating some kind of skill.


    Felix flashed his aura and simultaneously ripped all the mana from her body for himself. Her eyes widened in shock just before Felix released a Burst of Force into Eretheas'' blade, overcoming her and her dagger''s combined strength and splitting her in two.


    Punching her head and collapsing her skull, Felix activated both rings and stowed all the weapons that had clattered free then continued running down the hall as The Armor of Blood sealed his wounds.


    The poisons were slowly being whittled away but they had spread annoyingly far as blood pumped through his body in the heat of combat. While the effect of poisons in general were minimal, if he let them spread, their minimal effect multiplied into something bothersome so he was forced to avoid fights as much as possible for the next minute or so.


    That was fine by him though as he only had one goal in mind, find the vault.


    Running down every different cave he came across and even mapping the entire compound in his mind, Felix was stuck running essentially in circles. He was forced to loop back and around far more than he would have liked and even smashing through walls where he could, the cave system was the most convoluted winding mess he had ever encountered.


    He was smart enough to realize that it was a part of their defenses, making the layout as ridiculous as it was and he had long since realized it had been created by a druid''s roots. Neither of those realizations helped him in the slightest though.


    He had also identified the more prominent gods of Edras'' faction, or at least the prominent ones amongst the non combatants. There were The Druids who called themselves younglings, The Forge worshipers who identified themselves through figurative familial connections. There was the Shadow god''s thieves, The Blood god''s ritualists and the Justice god''s administrators. Then there were the randoms that didn''t fall into any particular pattern.


    Swapping with a shade and running past a random with two knives, Felix barreled into another wall and finally found a tunnel he hadn''t mapped just yet. As soon as he landed though he was knocked over as the ground beneath him shook so violently, he was actually thrown into the ceiling.


    Looking around, everything was shaking and even further in than Peace''s Arrow had reached, the caves collapsed as the walls all began to crumble and shatter.


    Felix surrounded himself in layers of Force Shells so he wasn''t buried and looked around but found no source. All he saw as the wall crumbled was that the shaking wasn''t localized at all, it was everywhere.


    The tunnels to either side of his merged into a cave as the walls collapsed but the shaking continued and soon his tight tunnel carved by a burrowing root had opened up into a wide cavern. Along with it, the participants searching for him suddenly had a direct path to him.


    His only saving grace was that they were as immobile as he was while the ground continued to rattle.


    A few seconds passed then the ground beneath him and the ceiling above him simultaneously shattered in an explosion of shrapnel as nearly the entire compound became a single chamber.


    Using his Matter Control to fly and spells to protect himself from the tons of rock collapsing onto his head, Felix flew off towards the deepest wall in the cave before the participants now in the same chamber as him, recovered.


    Smacking up against it, Felix scanned outwards with his mana senses as he flew along in a grid pattern desperately hoping to find any signs of a spatial enchantment anywhere.


    Damnit. Where the FUCK is the vault!?


    After scanning just a quarter of the wall, Felix was forced to push himself downwards to avoid a shotgun blast of molten metal then swap with a shade immediately afterwards to get out of a blood cage.


    Looking back, there were hundreds of participants in the room with him, half of them were trained on him and the other half were in the process of getting up.


    Before any of them could say or do anything though, a massive Way Cry poured in from the battlefield and echoed throughout the cave. As it reverberated through, Felix could feel his chest vibrating but it didn''t have any effect on him. Everyone else in the chamber though, part of the same faction, all began to glow with red smoke creating a protective aura around each of them.


    Well¡­ shit.


    A particularly cocky looking halfling Justice worshiper smirked, "Die, dickwad."


    Felix already started casting a portal so he could bait them away from here and come back to continue his search later when suddenly a massive chain appeared out of nowhere. It swept across the room from behind the faction and managed to grab dozens of participants as it twisted and contorted itself to reach as many of them as possible.


    The halfling who had spoken, one of the lucky ones who didn''t get hit by the initial sweep, spun around in shock as he saw a second Arthur behind him.


    Ecstatic for the relief, Felix ignored them all and let Peace deal with distracting them as he continued his sweep of the wall.


    He wasn''t entirely subtle about it as he didn''t care much if they realized what he was doing but he was forced to fight back and avoid some attacks before he managed to scan the entire side wall.


    Please don''t tell me the vault is vaults, split up all over the place?


    World Event: Bastorus One


    Announcement


    As the world event is nearing its completion, some participants have begun stashing quest objectives within their personal caches ruining the experience for others. In response to this, large collections of treasures within the event will now be revealed to all remaining participants.


    Good luck on your hunts and may you all draw much blood!


    Did¡­ What? Did The System just wish us all¡­ ''to draw much blood''? What the fuck is going on here?


    Checking his map, sure enough, Felix immediately spotted the vault he had been desperately searching for. It wasn''t anywhere logical like in the center or the deepest section, rather-sticking with the theme of confusion-it was at the end of some random off shoot tunnel that hadn''t collapsed yet. Luckily, it was just a few hundred meters off of the newly created main chamber he was in now.


    Having seen the screen themselves, everyone in the room was immediately aware of what was happening and so as soon as Felix turned towards it, the faction redoubled their focus on stopping him in his tracks.


    With just a few participants still focused on Peace, Felix wasn''t left with any room to breathe and was instead forced to constantly summon and switch with shades, defend himself with barriers and take hits. His health plummeted just as fast as his mana pool and he was making no progress towards the vault because it would have been far too predictable for him to move in that direction.


    He dodged an explosion of blood spikes by swapping with a shade only to be forced to immediately push himself out of a beam of light with an instinct cast. His left arm was shriveled and burnt from the light, even through the Armor of Blood that had accumulated there.


    The arm immediately started healing itself but it wasn''t nearly fast enough to match the pace of incoming attacks as Felix used the wall to pull himself away from a stream of molten chains. He jumped through a cloud of razor leaves but his ankle was grabbed by a vine that had been hidden within so Felix summoned and swapped with a shade directly above him.


    Each and every time he was forced to swap, he watched helplessly as his mana plummeted and for the first time in a long while, Felix feared he might actually run out of mana.


    Before that ever became a real possibility though, Felix prepared his escape as it became painfully obvious it was impossible for him to make any more progress towards his goal at the moment.


    Suddenly, a burst of bestial bloodlust filled the room like an oppressive aura. Felix''s soul, especially with his newest protective layer, was barely affected but every other participant in the room was stunned. The bloodlust was thick and palpable, moving as a physical wave through the room and even knocking some of the participants down. It wasn''t anything human either, Felix was certain when it hit him that the aura originated from a savage beast.


    There was no doubt in Felix''s mind as to the origin of the aura and no time for him to thank Peace lest he waste the opportunity. The sudden burst only stunned the people in the room for a moment and so Felix redirected the portal he had been preparing and reappeared a few meters into the tunnel leading towards the vault.


    Using his shades and swapping with them to move as quickly as possible, Felix made it to the edge of the vault in under a second. Seeing the vault before him, Felix wasn''t sure that without his map suddenly revealing it to him, he would have found it at all.


    The tunnel leading towards it was completely nondescript and looked like every other winding tunnel in the compound, at least before it had completely collapsed. Now that he stood in front of it, he could feel the deeply structured mana within the wall but he would have had to be very close to it and looking for it in order to find it himself.


    He knew his train of thought was just him stalling so he took a breath, pushed mana into the pendant Adaline had given them, then stepped forwards.


    Some part of him had expected his foot to hit the wall but it simply passed through. Another part of him expected to never make it out of the wall but his foot leading the way broke through exactly as fast as he had expected it to. Another part of him expected to be horribly maimed or disfigured which made him eternally grateful he was doing this in his Persona body instead of his real one but as his head passed through, nothing happened.


    He was completely intact and exactly the size he had expected to be with all his parts exactly where they belonged. All he had to do was make sure he didn''t fall through the wall by making sure he stepped all the way through to the other side, as Adaline had directed and even with that, it was as easy as stepping over a puddle.


    Looking around, Felix released the breath he had been holding and immediately started looting.


    The vault was exactly as he had hoped, a spatially expanded room with carded out shelves and various containers holding everything from naturally occurring ores, gems and plants to constructs, scrolls, and most importantly, quest items.


    Somewhat indiscriminately but not quite, Felix ran through the vault and looted everything starting with the quest items. Those were the most important to him and the entire reason he was here. He looted everything he saw that remotely interested him but the Imitation Cores, he specifically kept an eye out for. Ultimately he prioritized what he was looting because his inventory space was limited and he was pretty sure he couldn''t grab everything.


    He already knew opening a portal was out of the question for moving things because moving across spatial boundaries was dangerous but those weren''t all the portals he had access to. Once his inventory reached the halfway point and he moved on to metals and ores, Felix slapped his Pocket Home marble against a wall and began throwing everything in sight through.


    He wasn''t even certain if his Pocket Home was big enough to contain everything safely but he didn''t care about preserving the plants. He had no use for plants or the other various fragile items and no time to worry about them so instead, everything was thrown onto a pile to sort through later on.


    About three quarters of the way through the room, Felix felt a surge of mana from the direction he had entered the vault and so, he quickly hopped through the wall on the opposite side-through a few meters of stone-into a different cave. He already had a portal prepared so he instantly cast it, entered and vanished.


    By the time they made it inside, he was already gone.


    "A little jig here, a little ditty there and¡­ HA! Bet you never expected to look at him like that. I saw that look!"


    Giggling to herself as she floored it, Melody was gone a moment later, not that they would have heard her anyways with the cacophony of the battle being waged below. She had other fights to disrupt and she had been playing around with the warrior and druid pair long enough.


    Flying by, Melody observed the battlefield below her to carefully pick her next target. There was no line drawn in the sand with sides controlled by each faction, other than the line The System had created by shearing the land so oddly. With the elites of the multiverse, even the children, they were far too mobile and fast, their skills too devastating for that. Instead the battle immediately degraded into a series of individual fights where people helped each-other where possible to beat common enemies and free resources.


    A druid follower from Edras'' faction fought with a dual sword wielder from the Archon''s faction. The swords moved in a whirlwind to carve a path through the vines, both of them pushing themselves to their limits to overcome the other. Then suddenly, a bolt of fire streaked out from the mountains and incinerated the forest around the two of them.


    They were both hit and partially burnt but with no vegetation remaining, the outcome was obvious.


    Melody ignored that battle and moved on once the druid drew on the entirety of her life force to try and take dual swords out with her.


    "Idiots. This battle isn''t worth it¡­ Just because you''ll live on in an afterlife¡­" Sighing Melody crossed off another square on her bingo card then darted off to watch a new fight.


    The nature of the various disparate fights, and the inclusion of the druids on the battlefield, had quickly turned the landscape into a patchwork mess of fiery destruction, verdant overgrowth, metal jungles, blood splatter and dirt. Definitely not anything worth looking at, nothing like the beautiful sunset that had just turned purple over the desert dunes in the distance.


    Focus.


    Looking around, Melody shifted some focuses and tuned some emotions but didn''t really involve herself in anything just yet. She was well aware that as much as the battle ranging below them seemed impressive, it was merely the appetizer. These were the best of the elite children of the multiverse and yet, amongst them there were true monsters and they hadn''t even begun fighting yet.


    They were all present though, biding their time and generally hiding their presence from the other side so they couldn''t be targeted early. The true elites from both sides were more than happy to sit back and wait for the perfect opportunity to make a dramatic entrance.


    As the pressure of an intruder behind them, in their compound, devastating the support line mounted, Edras'' elites were forced to act and even Melody had to admit the first of the monster''s opening move, was fittingly dramatic.


    In a move intended to help on all sides, Garett from Edras'' faction, dropped to one knee in the middle of the battle field and slowly inserted his hand into the stone beneath his feet. His arm reached downwards until half of his forearm was buried and Melody excitedly circled right above him and watched.


    She had heard about this skill and once again, much like many of the kids in their generation, it was a skill he never should have been able to learn let alone master at his age and level.


    Using just one hand was a reasonable decisions but still, Melody couldn''t help but want to see him use both. The silver lining was that she had known he wouldn''t and so, she got to shade in another square on her bingo card.


    A moment later, the ground began to rattle. It rattled just slightly at first, imperceptibly if you were engaged in a war and only barely noticeable when perched in a Sky Slicer above. Then, the rattling grew, quickly and exponentially reaching far beyond each mountain compound.


    The ground visibly shook, moving what looked like a meter in an instant up and down. Each time it smacked those without the ability to fly or even just suspend themselves in the air hard enough to cause minor damage. The remaining trees of the forest were swallowed as the ground split and the earth shifted, the landscape being put through what essentially amounted to a washing machine.


    Given what Peace had done to start the war, Edras'' faction was left without a defensible compound to attack from so, despite having stronger siege casters-the worshipers of Edras, they were left on the defensive. The Archon''s faction still had their mountain and within it, their casters were defended and able to freely rain death upon the battlefield and support wherever they could.


    Garrett was no doubt trying to even the playing field, making it impossible for the casters to maintain their relatively safe perch within the mountain but he failed. Just as all the others who had tried to sneak in had found Zeraxes waiting for them, Garrett found they were ready for his particular flavor of destruction.


    The mountain itself stood tall after the quake, even amongst all the others in the range that had shown damage through various splits and landslides. The reinforcement to the entire mountain the Archon''s Faction had spent so much time and resources on, had clearly paid off.


    Garret looked furious as the lack of effect from one of their best cards only multiplied the pressure they were under and Melody shaded in another square.


    Forced to play their next card, Melody''s eyes brightened as she felt the anima coalescing around a barbaric and wild looking woman.


    Azkurvin-or as Melody liked to tease-Azky, began performing something that looked completely out of place in the middle of a battlefield. Dancing around in a circle performing some kind of ritual or prayer, a few participants tried to interrupt her but were stopped by a sizeable fraction of Edras''s faction that had moved to protect her.


    As ridiculous as the dance was, the anima all around Azky began to swirl and coalesce, much of it coming from an item she had somehow managed to smuggle in and all of it creating a green and blue cloud above her head.


    After almost a minute of dancing, the ritual was complete and an explosion of greenish anima rippled across the battlefield having seemingly no effect whatsoever as it passed.


    A moment later, humanoid creatures made of semi translucent greenish anima began appearing all over with distorted features and blank faces. An army of remnants suddenly filled the battlefield, outnumbering the participants 10 to 1 then 20 to 1 only slowing down when there were at least 50 specters per participant.


    Cool. I''ve always wanted to see that. It''s also exactly as gross I thought it would be feeling thousands of dead souls wailing and¡­ She shivered as she shaded in another square on her card, Maybe let''s try and wrap up my end of this heist.


    Edras'' faction wasn''t done there though and it seemed to Melody like they were aiming for a quick victory by completely overwhelming the other faction. Honestly, Melody was pretty sure they had already lost but this was probably their best strategy at this point, not that she was a strategist she just didn''t see any other way given the cards still in both of their hands.


    Similar to Azky, a barbaric looking man, another worshipper of Sal-Khi the war god, stepped forwards and collected an absurd amount of anima within his throat. Once again the vast majority of it was supplied by an item he had managed to smuggle in. His skill didn''t take nearly as long as Azky''s to activate and just a few moments later, an echoing war cry rattled the battlefield and surrounded the participants on Edras'' side along with all the remnant specters in red auras.


    Even though their were no well defined sides in this battle, Edras'' faction made noticeable headway as they began pressuring the Archons and pushing them back across the entire battlefield.


    Looping around and pushing the black slicer beneath her to its limit, Melody dropped her bingo card with the most recent square only halfway shaded and finally pulled out the Exotic tier instrument she never even wanted. Newly upgraded with the strings from the Ancient Drakene relic Tekragoraxius had gifted her, Melody hadn''t even wanted to use the damn thing before, let alone now.


    [Exotic] Whispersong Dreamweaver: Stardust


    An instrument crafted in another universe for purpose unknown. Restrung from the remnants of something Ancient and forgotten, two ancient souls are now bound to one item and locked in an eternal struggle. Only one wielder in the multiverse is known to be capable of wielding the instrument at all, let alone form a symphony from the conflict of the opposing souls.


    Even before replacing the strings, the capabilities of the instrument perturbed Melody to her core. She had been the only person to have successfully read, interpreted and played the tune required to unseal it. It had been a miracle when she did so, especially as a child, and no one really knew what it was capable of so, they had given it to her. All they could tell was that it had a stupid name even then, before she had restrung it. Items often did though when they originated from outside The Systemverse, translations just weren''t nearly as accurate.


    She often wondered if they had just known, would they have given it to her so freely? Just because it was an instrument, they thought it unassuming. Even Felix hadn''t been able to read and recognize how ridiculous it was during their Group Combat class. She had only pulled it out then to see his reaction after all, just in case, but it was too well crafted.


    Melody only knew what it was and what it did because, it didn''t quite speak to her but, it did communicate to her in harmonies and tunes directly into her soul. She never responded though. sea??h th§× n?vel_Fire.¦Çet website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    Partly because it wouldn''t shut up and partly because of what it wanted her to do, use it, she strongly disliked pulling it out, ever. She was confident she could keep it from influencing her but she didn''t even like risking it.


    Even though the composer''s soul locked within now eternally fought with it''s new strings, creating a discordant symphony as a result, it recognized the new power it had. Ever since restringing it, Melody had been even less inclined to ever pull it out of the pocket dimension she kept it in and the composer''s soul had been ever more insistent that she use it, fully.


    She had no intention of using any of its abilities now either but using it to augment her reach alone, the risk was well worth it in her mind for what she had planned.


    Placing just the tips of her fingers very carefully against the strings, closing her eyes and fully embracing her ability to read the anima, she listened to both the instrument and the ambient anima. Lifting her middle finger slightly, she tapped the string beneath it ever slightly and produced a single silent tone that echoed across the entirety of the subspace containing the event. She felt the note smack right up against the boundary way up above the atmosphere all around the planet and winced.


    Oops, little too strong.


    Adjusting things just slightly, she began lightly tapping at the strings, not daring to pluck them lest she accidentally activate the instrument itself.


    8 taps in quick succession then she tossed the instrument back into its pocket dimension and moved her attention back to the battlefield below.


    As its name suggested, the harmony she had played was not heard but rather, it was a whispersong. A melody played with no intention of being heard, a tune consisting of no sound. Not a single person in the entire event below her would know what had happened or why. No one looked around for her just yet. Fyrden might realize later but at the moment, they were all too busy.


    The fierce battles against remnant specters all across the battlefield suddenly grew very odd as both the specters and the participants they tormented began to see each other in a new light. No one did anything explicit but the look in their eyes, the sudden hitch in their steps was more than enough for Melody.


    She noticed and felt the sudden shift in tone of the ambient anima created by all those beneath her but she focused specifically on Azky as she began to look at her own summons with both deep confusion and unbridled lust.


    The rumors that will start from this. I mean, I''ll be the one starting them but still. You''re never living this one down.


    Melody''s giggling was cut short by a dour expression though as an armored giant with a body of molten metal rose up from beneath the mountain where Felix had been. She already knew Felix had escaped based on the outpouring of rage and disbelief from within the mountain and she had full faith in Peace''s abilities, suspecting he had already made it out even after expending so much of his anima to release the wave of bloodlust.


    Her dour expression was because this was the last straw and would force the Archon faction''s hand. It was finally time for the true monsters of their generation to join the battle.


    Maybe it''s time I leave this event. There''s already too much¡­ hatred it''s¡­ disgusting. I hope Felix is okay. Oooh! I wonder if Thakorm''s finally finished that pastry he''s been working on for the last few epochs.


    Turning around with a flip and a spin, Melody was just about to push Erevos as fast as it could go when she heard a terrible screeching noise and looked over.


    Is that¡­ an actual Dragon? No, it can''t be¡­ right? Dammit, that definitely was not on my bingo card.


    As soon as he stepped through the portal into his vault, Felix grabbed the batteries he had left for himself and began unceremoniously dumping everything he had just looted into the nearest empty room. That one filled up nearly instantly so he moved on to whatever free space remained. He also emptied out his Pocket Home, just in case he needed the room, then he opened a new portal and stepped through.


    The remainder of the batteries he stuffed in his mouth like a chipmunk and continued to drain as he looked around down the hall he found himself inside of.


    He already knew where the vault was because it was revealed on his map but he had no idea how to get there. The buff he had gained for reaching over a hundred bounty stacks revealed a lot more people than he had been hoping for, still in the compound between him and vault.


    Where Edras'' faction''s compound had been carved by roots and designed to be confusing, this one was structured and very straight forward. The downside for Felix though was that there weren''t really alternate ways of getting from A to B, there was one main hallway and that was it.


    To get to the vault he had to walk right into a room filled with participants and there was no way to portal around them, the vault was directly behind them.


    Adaline''s mines had taken obvious chunks out of the walls, floor and ceiling even opening up some rooms that would have otherwise been sealed. The metal framework the faction had embedded within the mountain though made it so there was no significant structural damage at all. Felix had been hoping the structural damage would move people out of and away from the compound but it seemed it just wasn''t meant to be.


    Fuck it.


    Running forwards, Felix ignored the various doors around him that he knew were empty of either loot or participants as both were displayed on his map. Even though the message had said large collections, apparently a single Imitation System Core counted as a large collection because he had tested it and it appeared on his map back in his vault. He was already going to but knowing that, he made extra certain to keep all 111 cores he now had, in his inventory.


    Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings.


    There had definitely been less than he had hoped there would be in Edras'' Faction''s vault but really he was happy he had even found 28 cores at all. If they were really paranoid, they would have split them up amongst all their inventories. He assumed they were just greedy and putting as many as they did in the vaults was to build mutual trust or favor or some bull shit like that. Either way it was good for him.


    Running into the first room that was both completely open to the main hall and filled with participants, Felix saw why and smirked. Dozens of participants stood lined up, all in robes and all in the process of firing various siege spells through slits in the mountain.


    A few of them barely registered him as he barreled into the room ready to swap with a shade to avoid an onslaught. If they didn''t want to fight him, as much as he wanted to build Arthur''s reputation, Felix was happy with simply running past them for the time being.


    Taking a single leaping step to the other end of the room, Felix suddenly swapped with a shade as possibly the scariest thing to have ever attacked him suddenly blasted a crater in the side of cave next to him. The attack was instant and had he not sensed the mana crackling ahead of time, he would have been forced into his real body.


    Swapping with shades as fast as he could as far as he could, Felix''s newly refreshed mana pool plummeted from three quarters to one in a matter of moments. Eretheas was more than capable of handling the mana flow but Felix wasn''t as he felt his soul strain and his core start to collapse within him. There was no time to hold them stable let alone fix anything as Felix was forced to dedicate every spare thought to running from the torrent of lightning chasing behind him.


    Why the fuck are you in here and not fighting!?


    Lightning instantly spread through the walls, floor and ceiling. As Felix ran, arcs of electricity reached out from every angle at once and burned holes into this arms and side. They stuck around unnaturally long and acted like living snakes, striking in an instant as Zeraxes rode the lightning towards him.


    Felix had seen Zeraxes teleport to the lightning so he knew he could. The fact that he was only slowly approaching and lightly zapping Felix rather than obliterating him meant that Zeraxes was playing with him. Savoring the chase and all that.


    FUCK OFF!


    Once again, Felix readied a portal and once again, he was saved. This time, it was a little more dramatic but he was ready, realizing what was happening just a moment before anyone else did. Even knowing what was going to happen didn''t allow Felix to prepare for it though as suddenly, everything exploded.


    The ground beneath Felix''s feet, the metal plate reinforced walls of the tunnel and the entire mountain he found himself inside of crumbled and collapsed around him as the head of what appeared to be a black dragon shoved its way into the compound.


    It was hard to tell with the entire mountain collapsing around him but Felix was pretty sure Nova had gotten a lot bigger than the last time he had seen her as a dragon. All he could make out was a fraction of her head as stones and metal reinforcements were shattered and bent beyond recognition before they showered back down around them.


    Looking around all Felix could see was crumbling mountain and Nova''s neck. Kicking off of the rocks, he had his map directly piped into his head as he made his way towards the vault. Using spatial enchantments alone was enough for the entirety of the vault to remain intact in the form of a massive tumbling bolder amongst the rest of the collapsing mountain.


    Flying through the debris, punching and kicking off of rocks where necessary, Felix barely made any headway as it bounced around against Nova''s body moving further away from him as he chased it.


    Summoning shades was impossible as Felix couldn''t see more than a few meters through the thick cloud of dust.


    Smashing through as much as he could and using Nova''s body as a platform to run against, Felix tore his way towards the massive boulder that contained the vault and dove directly at it, pushing mana into the amulet right before he collided with it.


    A moment later, he recklessly ripped all the mana back out of the amulet, completely shattering it in the process but successfully catching himself in the air in the middle of the vault before promptly smacking into the side. Being inside the vault as it moved was one of the weirdest sensations Felix had ever experienced.


    Visually, the entire space lagged behind reality so all of the objects contained within along with the room itself had visual trails and afterimages. The effect wasn''t just visual either, the feeling on Felix''s body was like nothing he had ever felt before, like his own body was being stretched out but without putting any extra stress on his cells. Like suddenly, there was just more space within his own body, his organs bigger than they usually were.


    He had no idea if it was happening because the spatial enchantment wasn''t designed to move or because it was damaged or because it was just a lesser enchantment that was set up quickly. Whatever it was, he feared for his life and was once again extraordinarily thankful he was using his Persona''s body here, just in case he was shredded as the spatial enchantment degraded.


    With that in mind, Felix moved as quickly as possible to loot everything. He really wanted to avoid opening his Pocket Home portal if possible so he focused on the high priority items with his inventory alone.


    Luckily, his senses helped him sort through the mess much more easily than if he relied on his sight alone. His mana and matter senses together made it almost trivial for him to find 23 more cores putting his total at 134. No matter how much more he searched though, he didn''t find any others.


    Fuck. The rest are in inventories, aren''t they?


    Finishing up with the vault as quickly as he could, stowing everything that seemed remotely like something he wanted, Felix ran over to the door where he spent a few seconds deciphering the mechanism to open it. Using his mana control, he activated the enchantment and the rock in front of him simply vanished allowing him to quickly shoot through and grab hold of Nova''s tail.


    Just a few moments later, the vault itself exploded scattering its contents amongst the falling debris.


    Climbing his way up Nova''s back as quickly as he could, Felix was rather surprised to find more than a few changes from Nova''s normal dragon form. Using the spikes along her back along with her scales to climb, Felix climbed past her butt where the first set of spiked black chains dug into her body.


    Using the chain links as a handhold, Felix found a mostly dried up crimson goop that he would have sworn was blood, had he not known his familiar didn''t have or need blood at all, even in a biological form. The chains wrapped all the way around her body and tail, wrapping around her legs and chest and finally forming a harness around her head. The entire thing was covered in the same spikes and appeared to dig into her body everywhere, causing blood to actively drip down in some locations where the chains had been jostled by the falling debris.


    Climbing his way up to her head, Felix quickly checked in with Nova through his Soul Bond and got back pride, joy and a distinct lack of pain.


    You guys planned all this, didn''t you? You and Tekragoraxius with the harness and everything? What did you prepare all this for? There''s no way she predicted my breaking into the vaults.


    Nova roared out in response, the sound echoing throughout the valley as the pressure of the roar bent some trees and knocked over a few participants. There was no actual communication along with the roar so Felix just assumed they would talk later.


    Looking out from the side of her head, Felix spotted a burst of Lightning in the debris as Zeraxes freed himself from the rubble. He readied himself for Zeraxes to chase but he didn''t, despite looking his face and glare making it seem like that was all he wanted to do at the moment.


    Instead, his attention was pulled towards the other end of the battlefield where a massive armored giant with a body of molten metal stood. Standing around 200 meters tall, even Nova looked small by comparison and with the mountain behind them now gone, the giant was easily the tallest and most imposing thing on the entire battlefield at the moment.


    Zeraxes, Romar and a few more of their faction seemed to agree because one of them stepped forwards to meet it. Felix watched with great interest as Nova circled around above.


    The man walked all the way up to just a few dozen meters from the giant before using their skill and as soon as they did, Felix knew who they were.


    In a fraction of a second, their body morphed and shifted into that of a massive white bear with some slightly humanoid characteristics in their body''s definition. The bear was less than a tenth the height of the giant but even Felix knew that was just the first part.


    A moment later, Fyrden roared and a burst of frost exploded around him instantly freezing the ground into a glassy sheet of ice a few hundred meters in every direction. Trees were encased and a whirlwind of snow and sparkling hail suddenly appeared forming an opaque, swirling blizzard.


    Despite the blizzard making it hard to see, the giant was massive and so Felix saw the whole thing when a moment later, Fyrden roared and encased the entire giant in a burst of ice. Its front was completely encased and its rear had sharp, shooting icicles growing outwards where the blast had hit it.


    Holy shit. What¡­ That¡­ Even with my entire mana pool, I couldn''t do that.


    The giant was imposing but seeing how trivially Fyrden had stopped it, he seemed unbeatable with his domain. A moment later though, Felix saw a burst of greenery next to the giant''s left foot and intersecting with Fyrden''s domain. Looking down, he spotted a druid in the center of it entirely encased in armor made of bark and vines.


    Leaping towards Fyrden, they slammed into the ground and a literal tidal wave made entirely of vines and leaves a hundred meters wide rose from the ground and imposingly smashed through the blizzard.


    Fyrden turned towards it and slashed outwards with his front paws freezing the vines solid and shattering a few of them but it wasn''t enough. More vines pushed through the frozen wall like an infinite swarm and replaced those that had been shattered.


    The Shifted Bear God slammed his foot down and summoned thousands of icicles that were immediately carried by the blizzard to shear through the vines and for a moment, it seemed like he was going to win. This fight wasn''t the druid''s focus though and the entire time, they had woven vines into and around the armored giant''s body to break through the ice.


    A series of loud cracking noises echoed outwards as chunks of ice big enough to crush buildings tumbled free and plummeted to the ground, freeing the armored giant.


    Fyrden, in his Domain of True Frost, easily shredded the falling glaciers and the ice threatening to crush him was turned it into massive blades that he launched forwards towards the druid. A wall of chains suddenly shot out of the leg of the armored giant to block the knives as it stepped forwards and made to crush Fyrden beneath its foot.


    He created pillars of ice but the foot morphed and Felix heard sounds reminiscent of a hundred chainsaws coming from beneath the foot.


    It seemed like Fyrden was done for, trapped by frozen vines on all side beneath a massive unstoppable foot and a moment later, the blizzard was blown away. Felix was confident Fyrden had died or surrendered until a moment later, he saw Fyrden-once again humanoid-running from the fight. In his place next to the foot, stood Romar.


    Unlike class, where Romar wore mostly loose clothes and flames, here he was entirely encased in a pale green set of armor that was big enough to house an entire exoskeleton within. It looked more like a cauldron than plate armor and Felix had no idea how he moved in it. Not only could he move though, but it seemed he was capable of ridiculous feats of strength.


    Standing beneath the massive foot of the armored giant, Romar held the foot aloft with both hands and actually looked like he was gaining strength from whatever was happening, not struggling.


    A moment later, that seemed to be exactly what was happening as the armored giant released its own foot and regrew it, its body shrinking ever slightly to make up the material. Romar happily sucked the foot dry of what seemed to be heat as his body grew slightly redder with each passing moment until he finally burst into flames.


    Leaping forwards, he jumped onto the giant''s body and began to single handedly tear through the massive creature with his bare hands. Chains were formed, spikes, cages, coffins and massive hammers but none of it seemed to be able to do anything to his odd looking armor as he lazily raised his arms to block the attacks and continued to drain the giant like a leech.


    The druid tried to help using her domain to reach vines up the giant''s body but they didn''t get very far before a horizontal lightning strike joined the fight and apparently, frightened the druid. Their vines stopped dead in their tracks and instead, everything they could spare went into a massive multilayered cage around them.


    Landing on the side of a tree before casually hopping off, Zeraxes body rippled with arcs of lightning that perfectly matched the Divine Bolt he twirled in his hand. He casually walked forwards and threw his bolt right at the druid creating a blinding lightning strike that rivaled actual lightning strikes. They were completely different than and evidently outclassed anything Felix had ever powered himself.


    The strike collided with the vine cage and arced along it into the ground, completely obliterating the vines in the cage but effectively being grounded nonetheless. That didn''t bother Zeraxes though as the Divine Bolt reappeared in his hand a moment later. He took another casual step forwards as he threw his Bolt again. Another bolt of lightning, just as bright and ridiculous as the first struck the second layer of vines and completely disintegrated them before dissipating into the ground beneath their feet.


    Zeraxes took another step then threw it again, the cage getting smaller with each strike and by no insignificant margin. In just a couple more throws of his bolt, Zeraxes would kill the druid.


    She seemed to realize this too as even Felix, with his untrained soul senses, could feel her fear from where he was way up on Nova''s back circling overhead.


    Looking around, the battle still raged all over with remnant specters harassing and occasionally groping a participant as they fought back, often helplessly. No physical attack seemed to have much of an effect on them so the participants were stuck often running or just dealing with the specters until someone with a more effective weapon could come to their aid.


    Noticeably the fighting had slowed though as everyone kept an eye on the real fight happening in the middle of the battlefield.


    The giant had split itself into two distinct, half sized giants, one of which occupied Romar while the other ran past him towards the core of the Archon army. Felix could tell it didn''t overly matter what the outcome of the little fights were. If one side won with an overwhelming victory, it was possible they could have overpowered Zeraxes or Romar but even with their entire army, he just didn''t see how they could deal with both of them.


    Fyrden was noticeably out of the fight though and Felix spotted him dumping his possessions into the real world then literally surrender to one of the other Archon faction participants. All his treasures and things were instantly moved to that person and they left.


    Felix frowned and tried to figure out what was happening until he realized he had missed a System screen in the chaos of raiding the moving vault and mounting Nova. Pulling it up, he frowned.


    World Event: Bastorus One


    Announcement


    As the world event only has a short time left and the majority of the original participants have already perished or surrendered, all future departures will now be permanent. Participants are no longer capable of leaving through traditional means and from now on, must surrender or perish to leave the event. All items brought into the event from the outside can still be thrown through event marbles for the next dekad to ease the transition and all surrenders will automatically be accepted from now on. The location of all participants will be revealed on the map and the area of the world event itself is now shrinking rapidly to prevent hiding.


    Any participants not currently in the event will be permitted to enter one final time in the next hour or have their possessions jettisoned through without them.


    Good luck and shed much blood!


    This is ridiculous. The rules just¡­ change every few minutes now? What the fuck is happening. Also what is with these good luck messages? They''re so obviously just wrong¡­ Unless¡­ They aren''t The System at all¡­


    Looking around to the rest of the battlefield, Felix noticed a number of other fights where one of the participants handed off their fight to another then surrendered to their ally to ensure their escape. Considering how easy it was to die with the complete monsters and their domains running rampant across the battlefield, Felix couldn''t really blame those who wanted to ensure their own safety.


    Glancing back over at the real battle, Felix watched carefully so he could track who ended up with the biggest inventory. His assumption was that Zeraxes at least, among some of the others, held some of the Imitation Cores in their inventories so he followed along to see who he would have to hunt down afterwards.


    Right as Zeraxes stepped forwards and threw his final bolt, a flash of light engulfed a relatively small, hundred meter wide circle in bright white light. A new domain had appeared with the slight ting of a bell as the druid and Zeraxes were both electrically shocked and visibly burnt.


    [C - Legendary] Ovedithas: Arbiter of Justice''s Will (Lvl 1462)


    The druid turned their head to Ovedithas-the man in the white robes who had summoned the new domain-and a moment later, vanished. Felix assumed they had surrendered. Their domain vanished but its effects remained with a deeply verdant circle of uncontrollable vines, trees and various plants left behind.


    Scoffing, Zeraxes shook his head then spoke with an audible smirk, "Domain of the Lightning God."


    He spoke just barely loud enough for Felix to make out and a moment later, arcs of electricity drenched the land around him. They obliterated a circle slightly bigger than the Justice domain, reducing everything it touched to fine ash. As the ash floated away, arcs of electricity sparked between them all throughout the air above Zeraxes.


    He reached his Bolt up into the sky, looked at Ovedithas once with brightly glowing eyes then vanished.


    Zeraxes didn''t reappear at all though as instead, bolts of Lightning struck randomly from nowhere in particular and everywhere within the domain. The Justice domain tried to fight back and Felix saw flashes of light where the damage was returned to Zeraxes'' incorporeal body but it wasn''t nearly enough. The bolts tore through every shield the Justice worshiper helplessly summoned until they finally surrendered.


    There was no doubt in Felix''s mind that the Justice wielder had other attacks that they just couldn''t use against Zeraxes'' incorporeal lightning form. Being limited to just some shields and a passive effect made no sense for a participant in this event or a domain. On top of that, Ovedithas was obviously significantly overpowered by Zeraxes ridiculous power.


    Reappearing in the center of his domain, Zeraxes lazily turned around and briefly made eye contact with Felix before jumping into the air and throwing his bolt directly upwards. Felix and Nova were across the battlefield so he wasn''t throwing the bolt directly at him but Felix was confident that was only the start.


    He quickly prepared what he could to redirect the strike as much as possible and protect himself from the rest of it but it wouldn''t have mattered anyways. The instant the bolt disappeared, it reappeared all across the battlefield striking down and indiscriminately hitting a quarter of the minor fights all over the battlefield and simultaneously blinding everyone that wasn''t ready for it. None of them were directed at Felix though which he was grateful for but simultaneously astonished by.


    A number of the minor fights that the Archon Faction''s participants were obviously losing were simply done. Both sides were either dead or forced to surrender to anyone they could find so they could recover. In an instant, the battlefield visibly shrank down as hundreds of participants died or left.


    Their spots were somewhat filled by some of the participants that had been hanging back but only 10% of those that had been forced out were replaced. Looking back over, Zeraxes nodded once then threw one last bolt directly at the second giant''s back. The bolt was even bigger than any of the others he had thrown to date and closing the distance instantly, the giant visibly cracked then shattered in a way Felix didn''t know was possible when Lightning struck metal.


    The giant that had stood easily over a hundred meters tall was dealt with in an instant with a single strike. It exploded in giant chunks of metal and participants in every direction as Felix realized they had been inside of it, controlling it like a massive robot.


    Many of them surrendered to each-other before they even hit the ground, too weak to continue and too afraid of what would happen to them if they didn''t. Just three of the dozen or so people remained and they were quickly engaged by both specters who had completely lost control and were just attacking everyone or nearby participants.


    Zeraxes was evidently done though as his domain vanished a moment later, along with his glowing eyes, and he used his Divine Bolt to teleport far away from the rest of the battlefield. Guessing he was drained, Felix mentally commanded Nova to follow as they raced after him.


    Looking back, Romar was still slowly draining the half giant that remained while various remaining participants from Edras'' side tried to stop him.


    Racing through the jungle, Nova chased after Zeraxes with Felix on her back as he regenerated as much mana as possible from the ambient and batteries he had prepared for this specifically. Zeraxes noticed them quickly but was forced to fight as the outer barrier of the event had closed dramatically during the war. He had only managed to teleport twice a few kilometers out before finding it in it front of him.


    Knowing what Felix''s intentions were, Nova opened her maw just as Zeraxes seemed to be cornered and released a beam of dark red Fire and purple Lightning that moved in an instant. The scales along her body all rose up slightly and glowed a deep red from beneath except for the blue hand print on her chest which glowed violet and arced with lightning instead. Felix could feel the mana being consumed to fuel the beam but it wasn''t any spell he knew how to cast so it took him just as much by surprise as it did Zeraxes.


    The beam moved so quickly, it seemed to move just as fast as Zeraxes'' bolt. He didn''t even have time to throw it before being hit as he teleported to it to get out and reappeared missing two of his limbs entirely.


    He sneered and threw his bolt at Nova who took the hit to her wing and roared in pain. A web of electricity disintegrated a huge part of her wing and traced an arc down the side of her body and into the ground. Watching the massive wing fall to the ground next to him, Felix summoned a shade and switched places with it directly next to Zeraxes.


    Felix appeared mid swing and Zeraxes was forced to block it with his Divine Bolt that was now noticeably dimmer than before. That along with the rough shell of ionized conduction and metal dust he had surrounded himself with were the only reason Felix was willing to directly engage Zeraxes.


    Zeraxes sneered as his Divine Bolt met Eretheas'' edge to block the strike, "I''m not that drained asshole."


    He smirked as his Divine Bolt brightened once again causing blinding arcs of Lightning to race down the axe handle then harmlessly divert themselves into the ground. Zeraxes clenched his jaw and Felix just smirked in return as he punched forwards and went for another swing.


    Teleporting out in an arc of Lightning, Felix switched instantly with a shade to follow and activated his Devouring Aura to throw Zeraxes off. It worked for an instant causing him to flinch but Zeraxes still managed to block the swing in time with his forearm coated in arcs of Lightning that had somehow solidified.


    Felix didn''t bother deactivating the Devouring Aura as that trick wouldn''t work again against the same enemy, especially not Zeraxes who had barely even flinched the first time. The aura helped with his reputation though and cost Felix nothing so it stayed.


    They traded blows a few more times in one of the slowest yet fastest fights Felix had ever seen. Simultaneously they traded slow and deliberate strikes with his massive axe while they both teleported around constantly. Zeraxes, after the first attack, didn''t even really try to fight back much which Felix assumed was because he was too drained to do so.


    Felix was happy to slowly whittle him down and find out who''s remaining reserves were bigger but he never got the chance to find out.


    Teleporting after Zeraxes and slamming Eretheas down into his Divine Bolt, Felix noticed Zeraxes smirking just a moment before dozens of Drakene jumped out of the forest around him screeching in bloody rage.


    Fucking forgot about you guys and that you-completely understandably-despise me¡­


    The Drakene in their rage simply ran at Felix, only about half of them with the presence of mind to think through their actions. Some jumped and clawed at him, ignoring the completely deadly swinging axe he held while others stood back and prepared massive skills channeling hundreds of thousands of mana and energy.


    Zeraxes smirked one last time then teleported away while Felix was occupied dealing with the Drakene.


    A rabid swarm of religious fanatics willing to die for their cause were simultaneously incredibly difficult and trivial to deal with. On the one hand, they were willing to do anything for their cause and so Felix had to switch with 4 different shades to avoid various last stand suicide attacks.


    Not everyone was quite so fanatic and willing to die for the mere chance of honoring their god though and so the various Drakene who stood back, attacked from afar or simply planned their attacks were incredibly annoying. They may not have been eager to die but they were still fanatics willing to blow every resource at their disposal, including credits. The number of scrolls, items with massive batteries, bound souls and other costly weapons Felix had to deal with far surpassed what he even thought possible for them to wield.


    His mana control helped but with a range of just over 30 meters, it wasn''t nearly enough to stop every item from working.


    Luckily that was where their fanaticism made them rather trivial to deal with. As much as they wanted to kill Felix, none of them were willing to hurt Nova at all, even if it meant they could save her from her apparent captivity.


    Switching positions with a shade on Nova''s neck, Felix reached forwards and grabbed hold of the chains wrapped around her neck as if he were actually controlling her. She made a great show of being in pain and fighting back so Felix used a spell that was nothing more than flashy lights to make it seem like the chain was enchanted or special in some way.


    Pretending to control her head, Felix was really just trying his best to hold on as Nova''s head rapidly swung from Drakene to Drakene completely disintegrating them with her breath of red Fire and violet Lightning. The beams she released were impossibly powerful and Felix was astounded by her destructive capabilities.


    In less than a tenth of a second, half of the Drakene were completely wiped from existence, Felix''s Soul Ring managing to retrieve their souls but his Blood Ring finding nothing to latch onto. After that, Felix felt a nagging in his soul and traced it back to Nova.


    What''s wrong?


    She poked him a few more times before he realized what was wrong and began channeling whatever mana he had left into her body.


    Completely draining his pool and directly feeding her somewhere in the neighborhood of 40 million mana was enough for her to obliterate the rest of the Drakene fanatics.


    Pulling out some more batteries from his Soul Space, Felix and Nova spent a few minutes regenerating as much as they could before deciding to head out. Felix only managed to fill half of his pool and Nova, now with an actual mana pool since her evolution, managed to completely fill it. The battery was gone though from what Felix could tell so his assumption was that she had somehow consumed it and fully integrated the battery into her being during the evolution. His theory was backed up by the fact that the size of her mana pool perfectly matched that of the battery she had been using before.


    Flying over the landscape as fast as Nova could manage along with Felix''s spells to push them even faster, they managed to catch up to Zeraxes in just over a minute of flying. He hadn''t actually gone very far and was trying to hide and recover.


    Swooping down from the sky, Nova''s breath tore a chasm into the landscape itself but just barely missed Zeraxes as he teleported away.


    Felix hopped down and switched with a shade, reappearing within arm''s length of him as he reached out to grab hold of Zeraxes. With Felix''s ionized shell and metal dust maintained, Zeraxes Lightning was harmlessly redirected around him, like he was in a plane or car being struck by Lightning.


    Though he didn''t have the resources, mostly Lightning and mana to properly fight back and blast through Felix''s defenses, Zeraxes was incredibly stubborn. He teleported to his Lightning, created bursts of light to blind Felix and jumped rapidly between two positions before choosing one to try and slip away.


    Felix wasn''t sure if Zeraxes had realized he was displayed on the map for anyone to see meaning it was impossible for Felix to actually lose him.


    Either he eventually did realize that or decided to get help because Zeraxes finally started zipping through his Lightning towards the heart of the battlefield once more.


    Chasing behind him, with Nova trailing just a bit behind, Felix arrived in a landscape that had changed so drastically, he initially though The System had replaced it.


    The outline of the mountains he had helped destroy were visible on either side but they were warped and different. Everything around the center of the battlefield for multiple kilometers in every direction had transformed into a volcanic mess. The ground was blackened and reduced to the rocky base beneath, even that already slowly melting. All the trees, plants, soil, blood and ice that had once defined the landscape were gone, no doubt contributing to the superheated ash floating around on the air currents.


    The mountains themselves, while recognizable, had noticeably melted down from their previous sharp points to rounded hills hosting streams of magma that made them look like they wept.


    Teleporting over to the edge of the blackened rock, Zeraxes looked onwards for a few moments before sneering and turning to the side.


    Oh thank System he doesn''t want to go in there either.


    Chasing Zeraxes along the edge of the volcanic landscape, Felix could feel the ridiculous heat and had to actively fight against it with three different spells to shield himself, move the air and cool himself down. Looking at his map, he confirmed what he saw, that those who remained had been pushed out of the battlefield. The only points on his map that were still within being Romar, Lumeris, Shadalle, Novren and Hyd, whoever they were.


    Around the outside of what Felix was assuming was Romar''s domain, Felix also spotted a few small collections of participants hiding out and recovering with only a small few still fighting each-other. He was making assumptions on what they were doing based on how much they moved but he felt pretty safe with those assumptions for the time being.


    Looking ahead, Zeraxes seemed to generally be moving towards one of the closest clusters of participants who had been still, and therefore likely recovering, on the edge of the domain.


    The only reason Felix was even capable of fighting and chasing Zeraxes was that he was drained in so many ways and Felix was constantly draining batteries he had prepared. Even though these participants wouldn''t be as strong as Zeraxes, they very well could have completely recovered and even just a few strong combat focused participants were more than Felix could handle alone.


    He desperately tried to push Zeraxes in a different direction, cut him off or stop him before they reached the cluster but he was just too slippery with his ability to teleport to his own Lightning.


    Seeing the inevitable approaching, Felix prepared a portal spell to make his own escape if necessary then continued the chase with more caution than before.


    Teleporting through the rocky pillars of stone that had been revealed around the ridiculous domain, Zeraxes vanished in a bolt of Lightning over a cliff and Felix circled around the side to avoid an ambush. Peering over the cliff face as he jumped to the other side of the chasm, Felix quickly changed his mind and pursued Zeraxes directly as he saw the state of the participants at the bottom.


    Not only had they not recovered, but he was pretty sure they were likely worse than whenever they had first settled here.


    The participants were all actively deteriorating from some kind of plague, poison or disease. They all showed various combinations of symptoms from blood seeping out of their pores, their eyes inflating themselves, muscles melting and deformed growths covering their bodies. Landing amongst them, apparently not worried he would catch whatever they had, Zeraxes looked back towards Felix grimaced then threw his Divine Bolt into the ground.


    Lightning raced through the volcanic stone in every direction, each tendril killing its respective participant almost instantly in their decrepit state.


    The time he had wasted putting the participants out of their misery was definitely not something Felix would have worried about and in his mind, a grave mistake.


    Slamming his arm forwards, Felix grabbed Zeraxes other arm and held on as tightly as he could. With a chain wrapped around his hand and dangling down into the ground, Felix knew all of Zeraxes Lightning would be redirected. More or less safe from Zeraxes in his weakened state, Felix swung towards him with Eretheas and simultaneously used his mana control to prevent Zeraxes from teleporting out again.


    Eretheas swung forwards but never made contact with anything, simply swishing through the empty air. It took Felix a moment to figure out what had happened but looking down, he still held Zeraxes arm. The arm was detached though and so he had somehow still gotten out.


    Absorbing the arm with the blood ring, Felix looked around and spotted a quick flash of light around one of the infected participants. Looking over, he saw Zeraxes for just an instant as he threw his Divine Bolt with an impressive whip of his neck and teleported out of the chasm, now missing both of his arms.


    Felix activated both rings and absorbed the infected participants bodies and souls then chased after Zeraxes.


    This pattern repeated itself thrice more as astonishingly, every group of participants they found nearby were in the process of dying, unwilling or incapable of surrendering. Zeraxes didn''t bother killing them after the first though and simply ran to the next as fast as he could. Felix on the other hand wasn''t slowed at all by killing them as he spared a small fraction of his focus that he didn''t even need and a meager amount of mana to obliterate them all with a single spell.


    With no other groups nearby, Zeraxes desperately ran towards the only other participant in the vicinity on his side, an individual. Lightning arcing across the ash in the sky, Zeraxes appeared next to a rather surprised looking man in a set of average looking scale mail that was sitting against a rock, eating a leg of some kind of meat.


    As soon as he appeared, Felix felt the relief flowing out of Zeraxes as he grabbed the man''s arm and blurted out, "I surrender."


    The man looked at him in complete shock but a moment later, Zeraxes vanished.


    Looking over at Felix who was now standing just a few meters away, the man looked up and their eyes met. The man was evidently confused for many reasons, most of which had to do with the fact that Zeraxes in his desperate attempt to surrender to anyone other than Felix, had missed on crucial detail. The man''s leg was completely destroyed and he had no hope of fleeing himself, let alone fighting Felix.


    Even with less than 10% of his mana left, Felix knew he could not only catch the man if he tried to flee but he could easily kill him.


    The two of them looked at each-other for a few seconds of silence which was enough for Nova to catch up. As her head peered over the large rock behind Felix and looked at the man, he just nodded then snorted a laugh, "I surrender."


    Felix snorted a chuckle as well, feeling a little bad for the guy who was thrown into this for no reason other than Zeraxes being stubborn. Zeraxes hadn''t even tried to surrender to Felix once, hoping for every moment that he would find help or at least make it to someone other than Felix that he could surrender to. In the end he found someone and got out but, whatever he was hoping the man would do, he clearly wasn''t capable of.


    The man disappeared in an instant and his inventory, along with all the inventories Zeraxes had collected up to this point, were suddenly added to Felix''s. As he had expected, Zeraxes had 59 cores in his inventory bringing Felix''s total up to 193, among a number of other mostly useless items from the event.


    He didn''t bother sorting through them at the moment though and instead, rushed off with Nova to clear out as many of the remaining pockets of participants as he could.


    Of the 25 small clusters he hunted down, 18 of them were simply waiting to die, infected by the same disease as all the others. Obliterating them, Felix was pretty sure it wasn''t contagious as he never managed to catch whatever it was. He didn''t try very hard as he was still recovering his mana pool and wasn''t willing to potentially hinder himself at the moment but he still touched the bodies, stood around them, breathed the air.


    The various participants he killed netted him another 5 cores which Felix was happy to take. Somewhat surprisingly, as he whittled down the recovering participants, Felix found the ones that were infected, weren''t restricted to either side. There were both Edras faction participants and Archon faction participants lying around on their death beds which meant whatever had infected them was likely from an outside source.


    Other than those waiting to die, Felix fought and killed-with a lot of help from Nova-just over a hundred other participants as they recovered. Being those who had fled from the battlefield, the majority of them were combat focused participants but luckily, they were even easier to kill than the non-combat focused ones from Edras'' compound.


    All of them were in various states of being simultaneously drained and injured. As soon as he appeared, the majority of them surrendered immediately to whoever was closest to them and only a small few even tried to fight. When they did, either he or Nova were able to kill them relatively quickly, or force them to surrender. He tried to kill them all fast enough to prevent them from surrendering but it was nearly impossible in most situations.


    Once they had all been cleared out, Felix quickly checked and confirmed that the only ones left in the event nearby were himself, five fighting it out in the middle of the fire domain and one other that was hiding out far away from the battlefield.


    The last participant on the map other than those in the battle was too far for Felix and Nova to fly to but luckily, Felix still had a mental mapping of portal coordinates covering the event map. Choosing the closest portal, Felix readied himself by crushing some more batteries then stepped through and instantly teleported as close as he could using Eretheas'' new abilities.


    [C - Unique] Aberration: Scourge of the Plague (Lvl 1497)


    Appearing in the middle of the desert made it ridiculously easy to spot an individual with hair long enough to reach their feet, lying back and seemingly suntanning. Swinging down just a few inches to make the strike as hard as possible to dodge or block, Felix was certain he''d be able to kill them quickly.


    Instead of hitting a soft flesh sack though, Eretheas clanged against something that sounded metallic. Glancing down, Felix saw a mass of greenish brown and black hair wrapped around the blade of his axe. He pulled back on it but gave up as soon as he felt resistance and swapped with a shade to avoid it skewering him a moment later.


    Jumping to their feet, Aberration looked just as surprised as Felix was that his strike had been blocked and seeing him tens of meters away, turned and ran as fast as they could.


    What¡­


    Summoning a shade next to them, Felix tried to swap with it but before he ever had a chance to, the shade was gone. Aberration''s hair had shredded it in an instant. Felix frowned and tried again with two separate shades attacking simultaneously but he just couldn''t overcome the hair, it was too fast.


    Falling back on his normal combat style, Felix kept his distance and began using Eretheas to mask his throwing spells at Aberration. He swung the axe head around and launched an axe head shaped disc of fire into their side.


    Once again, Aberration looked like they had no idea what was happening as they flinched and ducked. They never stopped moving and they definitely didn''t avoid the spell as their hair reached outwards like spider legs that kept them moving while simultaneously forming a shield and blocking Felix''s spell.


    Felix tried a few Blade, Cold, Fire and Lightning Spells before finally settling on Force Spells for the time being. The hair still blocked the spells but it had to dig into the sand to stop their host from being thrown around which slowed down how fast they could run.


    I feel like I''m fighting someone''s equipment, not an actual leveler.


    While his Force Spells slowed them-Felix purposefully using as little mana as possible while still slowing them down-Felix regenerated his mana as quickly as he could. The best way he could think of to deal with them was to attack the body directly and he didn''t have many spells to do so effectively.


    Using the last of his batteries, Felix managed to fill his mana to nearly halfway which was just enough for him to cast the spell he wanted with a bit left over afterwards.


    Leaping into the air above them, Felix summoned a shade in front of and facing himself then swung his axe at it, the head turned to strike with the flat side. Mirroring his movement, the shade did the same and their axes smacked into each-other creating a fairly weak and anticlimactic clang.


    Only Felix knew that though as he had cast a sound attack downwards at the very same instant, making it seem like a skill of some kind rather than a spell that cost him 40 million mana. Being directed, the spell was cheaper than when he had used it to kill the demons and he further reduced the effect because finishing this fight wasn''t as urgent as that one had been.


    Still, it was more than enough for Aberration to completely halt in their desperate flee as their hair formed a small sphere around them to shield their host from the spell.


    Dropping down, Felix began smashing the axe into the barrier as hard as he could, with a few hundred thousand mana worth of Force and Eretheas as heavy as he could muster. He also ramped up his Devouring Aura which was actually the most effective weapon he had found. As soon as he had activated the aura, the hair seemed to shut down and almost shake with fear.


    Seeing that, Felix reached forwards with his hands and surrounded them with as many of his soul tendrils as he could. Similar to how he had removed The Endless Hunger from Nova, Felix began ripping open the hair shield and pulling the hair free from Aberration''s head. Instead of using his soul exclusively though, he was just using his soul to push back against the possessed hair and distract it. His soul wasn''t and couldn''t have done anything by itself but it did enough for his physical strength to pull on the hair and literally rip it from their scalp clump by clump.


    As he tore away the hair and tossed it aside into the sand, Felix gradually revealed more and more of the leveler''s body within the shield and though he couldn''t physically reach them, he could see their face between the strands fairly early.


    As more and more of the hair died off, Felix was able to feel more and more of Aberration''s actual soul and he realized it was completely separate from the hair. He fully expected them to surrender too but they just sat there and looked up at him, fear painted all over their face.


    Finally having ripped out over 90% of their hair, there wasn''t nearly enough to fight back so Felix grabbed Eretheas'' handle and turned back to remove their head.


    The leveler simply looked up at him, "I''m not surrendering. Either you kill me now or I somehow make it out of here and Plague experiments on my body and soul."


    Felix hesitated mid strike and cocked his head, "You''re a Plague worshiper?"


    They nodded, "Yeah but¡­ it''s not like I chose this. He implanted this stupid hair and told m-" The remaining strands connected to their head pierced their throat from all sides then twisted, causing their head to literally pop off a few meters away.


    Damn.


    Activating both rings, Felix absorbed the body and soul of the leveler then reached down and found the hair was already dead, its soul having long since left its body. He had gotten 6 cores though which was great. Oddly, even sifting through Aberration''s experiences, it was like their soul had been shredded to obscure evidence somewhow.


    Weird¡­


    Using the sound spell, Felix was left with just a few million mana which was basically nothing. He had to use almost all of it just to open a portal back to Nova and the battlefield.


    Arriving back next to Nova, she didn''t even look up or acknowledge his presence as she was too busy eating a veritable chasm into the ground them. Felix followed suit and began manually drawing mana from the environment as fast as he could as he squinted towards the battle to try and see what was happening.


    Judging from his map, everyone was still there meaning Romar had maintained his domain nearly a hundred times longer than Fyrden had and around twenty times longer than Zeraxes. Considering it was also massive in comparison, Felix couldn''t help but be impressed. With his entire mana pool at his disposal, he couldn''t have done as much damage as Romar had in as wide an area for an instant, let alone maintain it for this long.


    Finally spotting the glowing form of a cauldron shaped man, Felix squinted his eyes against the heat ripples and tried to spot the rest of the fight. Leaping through the air, Felix barely managed to spot Novren who fired devastating shots from a rather small looking bow in her hand.


    [C - Divine] Novren: Progeny of The Huntress (Lvl 1405)


    Each shot was loud enough to create audible explosions even from Felix''s distance and visible shockwaves from the wake of the arrow.


    Despite the certain death the shots spelled for anyone in their grade, Felix watched as Romar released a ridiculous burst of flame from his body that disintegrated the arrow in mid air. The next shot he exploded with a snap of his fingers and another he simply let hit his glowing armor to no apparent effect.


    He wasn''t on the defensive either as beams of fire, explosions, invisible waves of heat and every fire and heat based attack Felix could think of suddenly appeared around Novren. Romar summoned them without looking, anywhere within his domain but Novren somehow saw every single one of them coming.


    Hyd wasn''t nearly as lucky as they kept leaping towards Romar and trying to fight him directly with their spear and shield both surrounded in a glowing white aura that stretched out across their entire form.


    [C - Legendary] Hyd: Arbiter of War, Chosen of Khi (Lvl 1440)


    Romar clapped his hands and suddenly a crater appeared beneath his feet as an invisible shockwave melted everything in a dozen meter sphere around his hands. Hyd took the attack straight on and was knocked back to the ground but got right back up and dashed in again.


    This time, Romar was distracted by a bubbling pool of shadow that crept towards him along the ground. Seemingly unaffected by the heat, creatures of shadow-mostly ravens, cats and wolves-leapt out of the liquid shadow, surrounding Romar.


    He fought back with his domain, summoning claws of fire, explosions, walls, spheres, shields, and tornadoes.


    With Hyd jumping in from one side and creatures of shadow from another along with a devastating arrow from above, Romar was forced to ignite his own body turning himself into literal flame. Where before he had been surrounded in flame, now he was flame. The cauldron like armor he wore that had previously glowed white from the heat finally melted and all that remained was a body made entirely of bright flame.


    Throwing a hooked chain behind him, Hyd pulled himself back mid jump as Romar slapped the shadow creatures aside and ignored Novren''s shot. The arrow flew right through his form leaving behind a gaping hole and creating a small crater in the ground on the other side but, the flame forming Romar''s body simply closed back up.


    Grabbing the edge of the shadow on the ground like it was an actual carpet, Romar brightened a bit as flame quickly spread and raced along the shadow. The fact that it wasn''t a physical thing didn''t seem to bother him or his flames at all as it chased down the caster standing far away at the center of their shadow domain.


    [C - Ancient] Shadalle: Night''s Executioner (Lvl 1429)


    Shadalle tried desperately to summon shadow shields, claws and creatures to push back against the encroaching flames but nothing she tried worked and finally, she gave up. Her domain vanished along with the pool of shadow it had summoned and she used a new set of shadow claws to start running away.


    Romar, despite dealing with three domains at once, refused to let them escape and punched outwards in her direction summoning a massive conical tornado of flame from his arm that moved incredibly quickly. Given her distance, by the time the cone reached her it was hundreds of meters wide and Shadalle had no hope of avoiding it so she turned to Novren and surrendered to them.


    Felix was certain there was no way Novren could see, let alone hear Shadalle but it seemed to work as she vanished a moment before the twister of flame could consume her.


    Just two of them left, Hyd tried to stay in melee with Romar but with his new fire form, Hyd was forced back as his white aura began to fade. Romar punched outwards and his arm grew into a massive fist that Hyd was forced to block with his shield. The flame burst out around the shield and singed the outside of Hyd''s skin but they survived. After being pushed back dozens of meters they were forced to run back into the fight but their domain proved incredibly useful in that aspect.


    Closing the distance in a confusing burst of movement that made it look like they simply stretched across the space, Hyd braced themselves then thrust their spear forwards in an attack that looked capable of opening mountains.


    Romar seemed to agree as he finally side stepped and dodged an attack, the spear strike clearing out the ever present flame in a tight cone a hundred meters long behind him. The absence of flame didn''t last long though as Romar slapped the ground with both hands and summoned hundreds of thick tendrils all around him.


    Instantly, the pace of the fight shifted as Hyd was pushed back by tentacles from every side slamming down, trying to ensnare him and burn him constantly. Somehow the tentacles were even hotter than the rest of Romar''s arsenal as even missing Hyd by a meter, his arm was visibly blackened and shriveled. He dodged and used his shield against all of three of them, even noticeably regenerating his arm a bit before giving up and also surrendering to Novren. Even with his regeneration and defenses, he was clearly overwhelmed.


    Felix realized that Novren''s domain must have let her see and hear everything in a large radius because she managed to weave her way through tendrils attacking from every side and everyone surrendered to her, ensuring their escape. She put up a good effort, dodging around for a few seconds and avoiding hundreds of tendrils but when her body began to shrivel and dehydrate from the heat itself, even visible from Felix''s distance, she finally surrendered.


    Sighing with relief, Romar dropped his domain and fell to the ground, completely naked now that his armor had melted but otherwise unconcerned with his state of undress.


    [C - Divine] Romar: Pre-Stellar Starling (Lvl 1294)


    Running ahead with Nova close behind him, Felix ran over to where Romar was lying down, shielding himself from the residual heat as much as he could. He still hadn''t regenerated nearly enough mana to properly fight anyone but Romar was his last hope for Imitation System cores before he would have to raid every single random cache of treasure around the planet.


    There were still 46 left and Romar was one of three people Felix could see on his map at the moment.


    Romar spotted Felix as he ran over and pushed himself up into a sitting position, noticeably struggling to do so. Sitting up, he met Felix''s eyes then nodded and waved.


    A moment later, his head turned off to the side and Felix followed his gaze, spotting someone he recognized, the druid with the domain, Lumeris.


    [C - Legendary] Lumeris: Splendor of the Moonlight, Branch of the Mother Tree (Lvl 1386)


    Man titles are obnoxious.


    "You. You killed Dawn Blossom Grove and stole her soul." Felix cocked his head slightly as she seemed to be looking at him, not Romar.


    Felix looked over at Romar who just weakly shrugged.


    "HER SOUL BELONGS IN THE EVER GARDEN. I will rip her soul free from your corpse. I will return it to Mistress MoonBranch myself." Then with more rage than even the Drakene showed towards Felix and his persona, Lumeris slapped the ground and summoned a verdant forest from seemingly nowhere.


    Felix jumped back, unwilling to fight a domain but regretted his decision a moment later when he saw her drunkenly stumble forwards and her vines limply noodling around. Using a shade to instantly close the gap, Felix finished his swing and removed her head before she was even aware of his presence. It seemed as though summoning the domain a second time, especially so soon after she had first summoned it, was too much for her and she was unable to even see straight.


    I don''t even remember killing a Dawn Blossom Grove.


    Shrugging, Felix activated his rings and smiled as he saw his Imitation Core count jump by another 31. There were still missing some but for now, he was just happy the verdant domain had been summoned as it had pushed back the heat. Having dealt with Lumeris, Felix walked back over to the edge of the domain, towards Romar who was still just sitting there.


    He nodded towards Romar who just nodded back. Felix was fully expecting them to surrender but Romar seemed content just sitting there so Felix took another step forwards and Romar held up his hand.


    Wincing in pain just from lifting his hand, Romar coughed, "I take it you cleared out the rest of the map?"


    Felix nodded.


    "Even the Plague fucker?"


    Felix nodded again.


    "Thanks. That guy did not deserve to live or make it to any afterlife."


    Felix squinted, "He said he was forced, his hair implanted against his will."


    Romar shook his head, "I don''t care. Fuck Plague worshipers. Not like they were forced to choose that god."


    Shrugging Felix stepped forwards towards Romar again and he lifted both hands, "Alright, alright, I get it. I surrender."


    Watching the Imitation System Core count in his inventory jump from 235 to 256 was possibly the most satisfying thing Felix had felt in a long time. Checking his map and seeing no one else around, he found Nova and had her revert to a kitten before putting her in his Soul Space to nap.

 Chapter 215 - Book 17

    Heading back through a portal, Felix flew into his personal, once vault now compound, and found everything had been trashed.


    Running down the halls, Felix saw room after room completely emptied out, walls destroyed and much of the structure he had carefully carved out completely collapsed.


    Most of it he could easily get back as the most important items were in his Soul Space, Inventory or in his head. Mostly the frustration of being robbed was what got to him. The one thing he couldn''t easily replicate though, was Zero.


    Running over to the room where Zero had been training, Felix found an empty room.


    Shit. I already killed everyone on the map so where the hell did all of it go? They couldn''t have gotten out¡­ could they?


    Opening his map back up, Felix''s face contorted in confusion as he still saw a marker in his vault indicating a large collection of treasure was there to be found. Zooming in, he narrowed down its location to a large pile of rubble that he began sifting through.


    Removing a dozen meters worth of gravel and rock by sticking it all in his inventory temporarily-now that he had more points than he knew what to do with-Felix finally spotted a bunch of crushed plants and various metals. Curious as to how they ended up here when they should have been across the compound, he continued to clear out the rubble even though most of what he found was useless to him now that they had been crushed.


    He found a number of corpses and plants, construct parts and bodies in various states of disassembly that had once been spread throughout his compound. Finally, he spotted a recognizable arm and immediately grabbed hold of it. Trying to stow it in his inventory though, Felix found it impossible.


    What in The System?


    Clearing out the rest of the rubble, Felix dug Zero''s body free and pulled him out manually.


    "What the hell happened in here?"


    Zero looked up at him then pointed at the rubble.


    Felix walked back over and continued stowing the rubble until he found Mecada''s Sword and a whole lot more ruined treasure. Looking down at the blade, Felix tried to figure out what could have happened but didn''t have any good explanation so he turned back to Zero.


    Without being connected to Mark and with no way of communicating other than through charades, it wasn''t exactly easy to get an explanation from Zero. Now that Felix had his Soul Marks though-the combined anima and mana spell-he could trivially connect Zero to Mark without modifying Zero''s construct body to implant a full portal spell form.


    Reaching down and placing his hand on Zero''s chest, Felix used the Soul Tendrils-that he was finding vastly more useful than he had originally foreseen-and carefully inscribed his modified spell form within Zero''s soul.


    Unfortunately, his Soul Marks weren''t perfect by any means. Even though they were based on portals targeting anchors instead of coordinates, they didn''t behave like portals that targeted anchors did. The mana cost scaled proportionally with the distance between the two marks and the anima cost, scaled exponentially. On a single planet, within the world event of Bastorus One, the cost wasn''t huge and was easily manageable even for the hundreds of Seeing Eye constructs he had deployed.


    Based on some fairly simple calculations though, unless the scaling curve changed for some reason, neither Felix nor Mark would be able to sustain even a single connection across planets. Connecting Mark to Zero now was a temporary solution to facilitate communication but Felix''s dream of having Mark coordinate Zero''s memories at all times while they completed missions from the adventurer''s guild was still a ways off.


    Zero could go out and complete missions on his own or complete tasks off world, he just wouldn''t be connected to Felix or Mark at all so they would have no idea what was happening until he came back in range and synced, assuming he wasn''t stolen or died.


    Alright Mark, can you communicate with Zero and tell me what happened?


    Yes. Developing custom communication protocol¡­ Syncing memories¡­ Would you prefer I convert this specific memory into an understandable format and show it to you directly?


    Actually, yes. Assuming it won''t take days¡­


    Affirmative. Converting now¡­ Estimated time remaining is approximately 11 hours.


    Alright, that works. I need at least 7 hours or so to regenerate my mana pool anyways.


    Dropping to the ground and falling into a meditative pose-for no reason other than being accustomed to the specific sitting position-Felix entered his Soul Garden and began manually drawing in mana as fast as possible from the Aether. Using the same vortex visualization he had used way back in the tutorial his mana regeneration, even while meditating, was orders of magnitude faster.


    That rate only lasted for a few minutes though as he drained the Aether immediately surrounding him and it sluggishly moved to replace what he was draining.


    He already knew this would be an issue and he had a plan. Opening up portals with a very specific, calculated size, Felix connected his surroundings to 6 different locations across the world event. The locations the portals connected to were all calculated to both maximize the distance between them, minimize interference while also targeting low mana viscosity environments. Notably one of the portals connected him to where the Rakyt city had once stood because the mana around it was incredibly fluid.


    Drawing mana from within the portals as well as his surroundings, Felix drastically increased his regeneration and managed to fill his own mana pool in just under 3 hours instead of his predicted 7. It would have been faster had he not drained the locations so quickly and unfortunately changing the portal locations wasn''t worth it based on his calculations. Changing the locations netted him a small burst of mana that barely made up for the initial mana cost of the portal itself.


    Still, under 3 hours was a huge improvement.


    After initially opening the portals, Felix only needed to dedicate around 3 quarters of his focus to his regeneration meaning he had plenty of spare focus for other tasks. In his Soul Garden, 3 hours of real world time was a ridiculous amount of mental time for him so 3 hours, even with just a quarter of his focus, was plenty of time.


    During those 3 hours, Felix spent a large chunk of time working on various spell forms but more specifically, improving his own measurements and simulations of spell forms. He ultimately didn''t create many new spells or improve many old ones but his ability to simulate the effects of spells forms improved drastically. He was very happy with that time spent even if he didn''t have anything concrete to show for it because he knew just how beneficial the simulation accuracy would be for him in the future.


    He didn''t have to wait very long to reap the benefits either as after spending time on improving its accuracy, he began working on a new variant of spell forms that he had been theorizing for a while now, nodeless spell forms. Theoretically, by replacing the nodes within spells with pre-attuned mana, Felix could drastically lessen the complexity of spells and improve their scaling at the same time. As he researched spells and spell forms, he found that the higher the tier of spell, the more complex they became even for the exact same effect to just do more damage.


    Simply trying to replicate Nova''s breath, which evidently was not just a simple spell, required a complex containing ring around the outside that was either a fractal or a more complicated three dimensional shell. It had to both distribute and contain mana as well as handle transient spikes and flaws gracefully. From there, the mana had to be normalized and effectively cleaned with complex channel patterns at which point it would be pre-shaped. From there, it had to be filtered into multiple attunement nodes that were load balanced or a single complex, higher dimensional node then shaped again, funneled outwards and finally activated. Additionally, consideration towards safety measures, adjustment for the environment among a thousand other minor factors had to be carefully planned into the spell form.


    A minor flaw in one part propagated into every other part and grew exponentially because each successive step required orders of magnitude more precision and were orders of magnitude more fragile and finicky.


    The problem only got worse as the desired effect increased. Felix''s spells as they were were about as efficient as he could make them in terms of effect to complexity, even after using simulations and precise measurements calculated from his mental computer to optimize them. Increasing their potency now and in the future was going to require exponentially more focus as the nodes, channels and everything else that went into a spell form multiplied in complexity.


    He could already strip out much of a spell form with his own unique abilities. Factoring in the external environment most often resulted in minor modifications or entire calculation frameworks within spell forms that his mental computer was more than capable of performing. Mana cleaning and normalization wasn''t necessary in the slightest as his mana control was already more effective than any spell, enchantment, ritual, node or pattern he knew of. Adjustments and considerations based on mana flow rates, energy levels and so on were also unnecessary as he could trivially manage them himself.


    Simply making slight adjustments outside of the spell form and using at most a single spell level worth of focus, made his spells seem incredibly dangerous. Were anyone other than him to try and cast them-raw or using a spell list-they would inevitably fail, likely causing a massive explosion of hostile mana with a decent chance of killing themselves. Anyone else though, would simply use a Spell List and therefore, not worry about spell complexity at all other than because of its overall tendency to decrease efficiency.


    They also, didn''t have nearly as many issues simply creating and learning higher tier spells, other than the mana cost and cast times, both of which Felix dealt with.


    The next steps for Felix''s spells was therefore, to remove as many nodes as possible. The two main nodes that he still relied on were shaping nodes and attunement nodes. He used plenty of other nodes in complex spells that performed a complex task but he rarely cast those anyways and never in battle so, he focused entirely on shaping and attunement nodes. Both were equally problematic but attunement nodes tended to be more complex, even when shaping nodes had to handle absurd amounts of mana so, Felix focused on attunement nodes for now.


    He had thought replacing either of them would be trivial as he could easily shape mana and was capable of attuning mana but some simple tests revealed a lot of problems. In preparation for his exams, he was hoping to simply remove attunement nodes then during the epoch he had off for recruitment, wherever he spent it, he would work on shaping nodes.


    Using his recently improved simulation accuracy, Felix nailed down some initial starting points for his attunement-node-less spell forms. The required accuracy of mana attunement was much higher than he had hoped, no doubt the reason why attunement nodes at his level were so complex. It meant that currently, it would take Felix somewhere in the range of dozens of minutes to cast even the simplest of spells by manually attuning the mana himself.


    That amount of time was completely unacceptable and even using Grim as a spell book, he couldn''t store pre-attuned mana, at least not without the attunement becoming noisy and losing accuracy.


    Felix fully planned on training himself and becoming better and faster at attuning mana but once again, some initial tests showed that his rate of improvement was too slow to rely on in the short term. Luckily, a potential solution had presented itself and so, once his mana pool was full, Felix opened a portal and retrieved his familiar.


    He briefly debated connecting Nova to Mark but decided against it for the time being. She was connected to him and that was enough for now. All Mark really was at the moment was a backup for his memories and a way to offload his and his mind''s citizen''s mental processes. He also facilitated some communication and performed some very minimal coordination for his Seeing Eye constructs. None of that was useful or necessary for Nova at the moment as Felix could already communicate and trade basic thoughts and memories with her.


    Until Mark performed more functions that were more useful for Nova, he would leave them separate.


    Opening his Pocket Home against the wall, Felix and Nova headed in and did some cleanup work. Firstly, Felix emptied out his event inventory and began sorting through the materials. He had way more inventory points than he needed and so, even after buying out everything that remotely interested him in the Event Trove, Felix had enough to bring just about everything with him.


    Using the console in his bedroom tower, Felix spent some mana to increase the size of the island and install a warehouse on one end. Inside the warehouse he organized and stored all the materials had acquired and wanted to keep. The vast majority of them were metals or pieces of constructs that he planned on using in constructs later on. Some of them were curious rocks or plants but most of those he just let Nova consume.


    All of that only took him a quarter hour as the most time consuming aspect would have been planning the organization but his mental computer did it for him trivially. All he had to do was walk around and follow simple commands, placing specific items from his inventory in specific locations. His mind was more than fast enough that he could fly around as fast as he wanted while placing a constant stream of treasures, like a machine in a factory.


    With that done, Felix finally turned his attention to what he really wanted to spend his time on.


    Calling Nova over, Felix had her examine the tree along with him. The tree itself was quite a bit bigger, growing much faster now that it had a more consistent source of mana. It was still a noticeably young tree but its trunk was almost as big as his fist and the branches were mostly above his head now. That wasn''t what he focused on at all though. As much as Felix''s matter control and senses had improved, he was still significantly lacking in comparison to Nova who was born with her abilities.


    Especially after her evolution, despite still sometimes displaying childlike qualities, Nova was noticeably smarter. Her maturity was still lacking and her understanding of feelings, the consequences of her actions and so on were still childlike though, noticeably improving. Her understanding of some complex topics though, was impressive to say the least.


    To Felix, it was almost like communicating with a child that had the memories and knowledge of a quantum physicist and chemist implanted within their minds. Logically, she was constantly breaking down and examining matter so her knowledge made sense. It was just weird to Felix communicating with someone who still got so excited by shiny things explain the fundamental structure of matter and materials at a level so far beyond him.


    It was her knowledge that ultimately made what he wanted possible though and so, they went back and forth combining Felix''s knowledge of mana with her knowledge of matter. Neither of them having the full picture made things difficult but their ability to communicate complex thoughts and intent directly through their connection made it a lot easier.


    Describing what he wanted to do and why, she was immediately excited and wanted some variation of the same thing for herself. Together they ironed out the basics of what they wanted which took longer than he had hoped, making him wish they could have been in his Soul Garden for the conversation. Unfortunately, they both referred back to and kept reexamining the tree and its crystals with their senses which would have been impossible or just inconvenient to do in his Soul Garden.


    Realistically they only wasted an hour or so so it wasn''t a huge deal. Experimentation on the other hand, took far longer.


    They started by collecting the cleanest crystal shards they could find and using Nova''s abilities to recreate similar but larger crystals from by breaking down shards and reconstituting them. That epically failed as the crystal she produced lost all of its ability to convert mana. Whatever it may have been, there was something beyond either of their understanding at play with the crystals so having Nova simply create them using the tree crystals as a template, wasn''t possible.


    Once they accepted that fact, their progress was markedly faster, in that they actually made any. Nova still fused together the crystal shards to make bigger crystals but she didn''t break them down and reconstruct them at all. That proved to actually work but required they find the right crystals to combine.


    The only way to really do that was to have Felix examine and measure each and every little crystal shard one by one, organize and record the measurements, then calculate the ideal combinations. The ridiculous number of permutations made the calculations impossible without some kind of algorithm to narrow them down so, they were forced to perform a bit of random experimentation.


    With every experiment they performed, combining two then later three different shards together and measuring the resultant resonant attunement, Felix''s algorithm was tuned. Each time it was able to slightly more accurately guess what would happen and able to more precisely narrow down the combinations.


    Even parallelizing the work as efficiently as possible, with Nova constantly fusing crystals, Felix measuring and his mind simultaneously recording the measurements, organizing the shards and calculating the next experiment, it took forever. There was no way they were going to finish any time soon so they stopped after around 12 hours once Nova got so bored she was distracted more than she was focused.


    At that point Zero''s memory had been converted so Felix dropped Nova randomly within the world event to eat more mountains then he sat down to watch.


    Swinging the simple sword Felix had given vertically, from over his head to in front of him for the 2,863,402nd time, Zero carefully tuned the precision of the strike then re-positioned himself slightly differently and began again. Each time the strike''s alignment, force, speed, path, and every measurable parameter was tuned. His mind was a computer and while that computer could operate somewhat organically with its analog transistors, that was not Felix''s intention when building it and so instead, it acted like a computer.


    Zero had no qualms with this. In fact, he had very few emotions in general to the point where he wasn''t confident he felt them at all. Currently, his only desire was to grow stronger and as it was, he wasn''t strong enough to fight anything else in the entirety of the event he was trapped in and so he had to get stronger until he was. There was no other option.


    As he prepared for the next swing, Zero heard an odd sound he had never heard before at the same time as he saw a slight flash of light on the wall next to him. He immediately assumed Felix had returned to retrieve batteries or deposit some items once again. Though, it did seem odd to Zero that he had just done so a few minutes ago as well.


    The incongruity of the actions led Zero to feel an emotion he was familiar with but at a level he had never personally felt before. One of Felix''s strongest driving emotions that had carried over and implanted itself within Zero, curiosity.


    Turning his body towards the door, Zero walked straight towards it with no thought in his mind telling him to do so slowly, stealthily or carefully.


    Standing in the doorway, Zero turned his head to either side and caught sight of the same flash of light down the hallway to his right. He also heard the sound but he had no way to locate any sounds yet as he hadn''t heard enough things in his life to have fully calibrated his ears.


    Stepping out into the hall, Zero turned towards the flashes of light and took a single step towards them at which point the flashes of light suddenly stopped. Not sensing any danger whatsoever, he continued to walk forwards at a constant pace.


    Suddenly he heard a voice he didn''t recognize and also could not see the source of, "A construct? You''re a fascinating find, aren''t ya?"


    Zero''s head spun around on his neck trying to locate the source of the sound. He found it directly behind him, a small figure dressed in all black with no more skin than necessary exposed through the slit over their eyes. Zero wasn''t stupid, he was just significantly lacking in calibration and instincts that came from personal experience. He still had Felix''s memories and so he was able to figure out, through an entirely logical process of the mind, that this was likely a thief.


    With no access to The System-and with it any identification skills-or a voice for that matter, Zero had no way to confirm this thought. He didn''t need to though, Zero was at least 97% confident in his deduction.


    Pulling his sword free from its sheath, Zero''s body turned to realign itself with his head and face the thief.


    "Woah, you can fight? Oh man, I can''t wait to see how much I can sell you for. I''ll have to go to-" Zero stepped forwards and executed a nearly perfect vertical swing but the thief took a quick step to the side completely avoiding the strike without interrupting their speech at all, "-Terrell instead of Watson. Can''t trust Crazy-Eyed-Watson with something as unique as this. He just doesn''t have the same connections, and he''s a little shifty to be honest. I haven''t had to go to Terrell in a while. Hey, that wasn''t a bad swing, you''re about equal to any low D grade Common sentient or so, I''d think. Super cool for a construct. Definitely."


    The figure nodded to themselves a few times as they deftly hopped over Zero''s blade then kicked off the wall next to them and slapped him on the shoulder. Zero immediately felt a pull on his soul that he resisted without even thinking. The reaction was completely instinctual and born from the convictions Felix had imbued within his soul. Unrelenting, the desire to win and the unwillingness to surrender.


    Zero did not know what the pull on his soul was but as a construct who had dedicated his short life to analyzing and imagining combat scenarios, he recognized the opening it offered. With a quick mana fueled pull, Zero retracted his elbow and slit the blade of his sword along the thief''s stomach as they flew past him.


    "Ow! Hey, not cool. Why can''t I stow you in my inventory? I should have enough points¡­"


    The thief vanished and Zero saw some flashes of light that he was confident originated from behind him again. Turning around, he ran towards the room and found the thief completely emptying their inventory.


    Zero rushed in to stop them, taking a lunging step and stretching forwards in a precise stab to maximize his reach with the sword.


    The thief, without even really looking up, drew a dagger and parried the strike. As momentum carried Zero''s sword forwards, the thief drew another dagger then cartwheeled around the blade, holding it close and ultimately snapping it as they landed.


    "Just give me a sec. I''ll be right with you, promise. I''m definitely not leaving without you. I''d just rather not have to waste any of the portal treasures I stole to move you though¡­ Oh man, what if I can''t free up enough points to get you out of here¡­"


    Holding the hilt of a broken sword, Zero knew what he had to do. The sword was temporary anyways and just intended for him to train with. He knew this and so he didn''t mourn it. Spinning around, Zero ran out of the room and down the hall. Just halfway to his destination, he heard an echo of the thief talking to themselves, "Who am I kidding, I''ll just sneak up on all the idiots who''re weakened from the stupid battle and take their points."


    Reaching the room at the end of the hall, Zero ran into the nearly empty room and immediately felt a wave of desire physically smack into him.


    The room was empty save for a single blade stuck into the ground a few inches simply to store it. The blade was brown and yellow, curved in a way that no respectable swordsmith and no trained swordsman would ever choose intentionally. There was no cross-guard and the hilt was simple, mostly straight and wrapped in rough looking leather. Every memory Zero had from Felix made him want to call it a katana as that was what it was closest to.


    It was too thick by 2 or 3 times though and curved out towards the sharp side before curving backwards, like it was so eager to cut it''s foe, it bent itself into the strike. In that way, it was somewhere between a reverse sickle and a katana.


    Despite there being nothing else within the smooth stone room, Zero''s vision was overwhelmed. He saw a cloud of red and black filling the room and washing over him. He saw mouths and eyes snapping open and shut, blinking and staring at him from every direction. He heard sounds.


    Lacking the ability to locate sounds, he just heard a cacophony of whispers, shouts and growls.


    "Wield me."


    "Use me."


    "Fight."


    "Kill."


    "Consume your enemies."


    "Eat them."


    "Tassste their fleeeessshh."


    "DRINK THEIR BLOOOD."


    "Become stronger."


    "Destroy them."


    "Feast."


    "We must fight."


    The voices he heard in his soul echoed through Zero''s body, some of them resonating with him. He wanted to become stronger too. He needed to be stronger both because there was no other way to protect Felix and his possessions and because he needed to.


    He told himself that this was the only way but that wasn''t entirely the truth, he also wanted it. He wanted to wield the sword and conquer this enemies. He wanted to fight, he wanted to win and he wanted to dominate while doing it.


    Zero didn''t even remember walking across the room to the sword but he was already there when he arrived at his decision. Reaching down, he wrapped his fingers around the grip of the blade and pulled. It wasn''t difficult at all to pull the blade from the stone in fact, it didn''t even feel like there was any friction at all.


    Lifting the blade in his hands, Zero moved his hand robotically to calibrate to the new blade''s balance, weight and size.


    "Use us."


    "Kill them."


    "Drain their flesh sack."


    Turning back towards the doorway, Zero leapt forwards and recklessly swung his new sword. Standing in the doorway, the thief looked on with confusion as the sword swung right into the stone wall next to them. They even crossed their arms arrogantly but their eyes showed their regret a moment later, and their fear.


    "YEESSS."


    Shearing through the wall like it wasn''t even there, a massive hole was created as the blade''s maw opened and inhaled at least half of the stone. The strike continued and the thief grabbed the other wall to push themselves back and away.


    The blade''s maw opened wider, it reached outwards and snapped at the air between them.


    "What in Sha''alin Zadik''s name is that?"


    A slobbery voice snapped back, "We are Slaughter''s Maw. FEED US. DIE."


    "Woah ok. That thing is definitely cursed. You should prooooobably just put it back where you found it."


    Jabbing forwards, Slaughter''s Maw snapped open and three long fleshy tongues reached out to try and grab the thief. They were fast and jumped out of the way but the tongues managed to stick to some of the black garb that trailed behind them.


    The thief immediately released the garb, stripping their upper body and letting Slaughter''s Maw devour the fabric.


    "Oh man. That was my favorite sneaking around cloak! Ugh." The thief sighed, "Where''d you even get that thing? Don''t tell me this vault belongs to a demon¡­ does it?"


    Zero didn''t even consciously take a step forwards, Slaughter''s Maw just pulled him along as it slashed, snapped and licked at the thief desperately trying to catch any part of them.


    "Nah, there would be more demony things. Guess your old owner must have just killed a few demons."


    Slashing from side to side, the blade completely out of Zero''s control, it tore through the stone around them. The various walls separating out the rooms disappeared one by one as Slaughter''s Maw ate anything it approached.


    "Must have been a pretty neat fight, huh? Whoever owned this thing and whoever killed them. Man I''d watch that for sure. Oohh! I''d bet Ryad''d pay a fortune for you. Now how to fit you in my inventory without losing a hand, that is the question."


    All the control he had been mastering, all the calibration he had done was useless as Slaughter''s Maw pulled and slashed, thrashing around in every direction completely out of control. It wanted to fight and taste blood but slashing around like this was getting neither of them anywhere. Zero knew this, it was why he had spent so long perfecting his strikes and developing a set of strikes he could practice and train.


    Zero had no voice. He had no mouth. He knew no languages. He had memories and flickers of understanding from the remnants of Felix''s memories. The System translating speech specifically for him was the only reason he understood anything. He did have thoughts though, a mind, a soul and feelings, albeit suppressed and underdeveloped.


    Reaching outwards into the blade he pushed on it with as much intent as he could and in a crude animalistic way, Zero spoke, Cease this.


    We must fight.


    WE MUST WIN.


    Stop holding us back.


    RELEASE US.


    Zero''s grip tightened to demonstrate his conviction, No. We will never defeat, let alone catch, this opponent this way. Work with me.


    FEAST ON THEIR FLESH.


    Kill them.


    Open their corpse to us.


    FREE THE VISCERA.


    Yanking backwards as the blade tried to chase the thief like an uncontrollable dog, Zero wrapped his other hand around the hilt and looked up towards the thief, Listen to me. I also wish to dominate this opponent. Let me show you how.


    YES.


    DOMINATE.


    We will listen.


    Show us.


    FEED US.


    Suddenly, Zero kicked off the wall as Slaughter''s Maw stopped pulling against him and throwing off his calibrated strikes and movements. They worked together, however briefly that would last. It was enough for Zero though, he would show the blade how to fight and together, they would dominate.


    Zero leaned forwards and jabbed with the blade, Slaughter''s Maw only opening an inch to try and reach the thief but they were too fast. Flicking his wrist and pivoting into the strike, Zero slashed at the back of their calf as they tried to run and with the extra reach gained from the Maw opening, they drew blood for the first time.


    With no flesh or nervous system, Zero felt nothing despite knowing the viscous crimson liquid covering his body should be warm. The explosion of blood from the Thief''s wound was also incongruous with his memories of how much a similar wound should bleed.


    YES.


    BLEED.


    SHOW US WHAT YOU ARE MADE OF.


    Where Felix''s Blood Devouring Ring devoured blood and didn''t let a single drop of it go, Zero learned that Slaughter''s Maw just wanted to free it. It wanted to spray it everywhere, in multiple coats like it was paint.


    "Ow! Not coo- woah, that was a lot of blood. My leg is kinda-" they ducked low and pulled out a vial they chugged and a small magical device that launched them backwards, "-cold."


    Drawing on his mana reserves, Zero activated the Force enchantment in his back and used his limbs to keep himself steady as he chased the thief down the hall and around the corner. Slashing out where they should have been using the blade''s nature to curve around the corner though, the thief was gone. As soon as Zero caught up with the blade and peered around the corner, there was no thief to be seen.


    They hide from us.


    It won''t work.


    THERE.


    Following the blade''s lead, Zero took two steps, planted his feet in a steady stance and slashed diagonally downwards, into the empty air.


    A burst of blood exploded out of no where in particular and completely drenched Zero, covering his eyes and making it impossible to see. Wiping the blood off himself was dangerous because he would be releasing a hand from Slaughter''s Maw and he couldn''t feel so he could easily accidentally remove his eye.


    "Alright, fuck this. I''ll just grab all that other stuff and come back for you later."


    We''ll point you-


    Direct you-


    We will find them.


    WE WILL CONSUME THEM.


    Zero turned and used the blade like a compass, making precise and calculated strikes whenever the blade pointed out the thief. The thief kept getting further though and that angered the blade.


    STOP RUNNING-


    FIGHT US.


    Free the gore.


    Zero tried to follow the blade but it was too chaotic, he had to rein it in, Point me in their direction, where have they gone?


    The hall.


    The blade pulled his hand in their direction as though guiding him, eagerly but not forcefully.


    Zero knew where they were going but his spatial awareness and memory were awful. He had memories of Felix mapping out a labyrinth around him as he walked, passively. Zero had none of this ability as he was new to the world and his brain was untrained in this way. He was also, just bad at it.


    If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.


    He had completely lost his way and now that he had lost his sight, had no idea which direction he was facing or even really where he was. He was mostly confident of the room he was in but little else.


    The sword knew where the thief was though and they wanted the same thing at the moment, to eviscerate them.


    Confidently moving in the direction the sword pulled, Zero ran forwards and simply waited for the sword''s signal to strike with the all the precision and calibration he had developed. Taking two steps forwards, the ground dipped a little and he almost tripped but Zero''s mind worked quickly to adjust. This was the first time he had encountered uneven ground as Felix had carved this cave precisely and there was no reason for the ground to be anything but flat, anywhere.


    Zero''s mind was quickly distracted from that fact though as he heard a voice, "Ah shit."


    Already leaping forwards and slashing horizontally as wide as possible to maximize the danger zone of his strike, Zero''s thoughts lined up with the swords for just a moment.


    SLICE THEM-


    OPEN THEM-


    CUT THEM-


    WIN-


    Adding to the cacophony of voices, Zero responded with a singular word, a singular intent, Dominate.


    Zero had no flesh and no nervous system therefore, he felt almost nothing. His body was designed to provide some feedback to his mind, otherwise he wouldn''t be very useful as a construct. While he didn''t feel anything through a sense of touch, he did suddenly feel an immense amount of restriction on his body. He received feedback as he attempted to move his limbs that nothing was happening.


    He heard sounds he didn''t recognize as his ears, and the sounds he knew, didn''t line up with Felix''s memories. Zero knew that the sword was no longer in his hand and wasn''t very close by or it lay dormant for some reason, either way he couldn''t hear it. He couldn''t feel it.


    Ding Welcome to the Multiverse. I am The System. You are a construct given life, welcome to the multiverse. Please wait while I adjust some parameters to your unique existence.


    No time whatsoever passed from Zero''s perspective before the voice began speaking to him in his mind once more. It spoke in a language he understood, despite his not knowing any languages. It sounded distant, robotic and comfortable in a way.


    Welcome to the Multiverse. I am The System. You are a rather unique being in that you are a construct that has been granted the ability to learn and grow from experiences. As your birth was the first time a construct approached the requirements to become a leveler, some decisions were made as to the degree of milestone that would prove your ability to learn and grow. Now that you have displayed sufficient capacity to have significant, personality shaping experiences and grow from them, you have met the requirements to officially be integrated into the multiverse.


    Zero didn''t respond. He wasn''t sure how to. Did he think loudly? Did he push the intent of his communication outwards? Where?


    Your construct body was constructed mostly from C grade materials that were then enchanted with C grade enchantments. This has all been considered in the initial designation of your race. You will not be able to alter this unless you do so manually or until you reach an evolution at which point you will be offered evolutions based on your demonstrated capacity for growth.


    Seeing as you have implanted memories from another System leveler, your unique situation will be compared to their''s for your ease of understanding.


    Your capacity for growth and your fulfillment complexity has been taken into consideration and it has been determined that you will be offered a class alone. You will have no profession and no general skills like the originator of your memories has. Instead, your race has abilities built into it which will be classified as racial skills. Your body does not use energy and your mana capacity is not tethered to any of your stats but rather dependent on the size of the battery within your body.


    Your health does not determine the capacity of your ability to regenerate but rather the amount of overall damage your construct body can take before the soul bound to it, will depart. You have no capacity for regeneration at the moment. Many of the attributes you have memories of will not change as you do and so, your display will be different with a separate array of stats. For example, your Agility is dependent on your race, which can be altered manually but does not grow organically. Please note that these specific statistics were chosen as the best representation of your progress. 5 of these statistics are locked and you will not be able to alter them through the traditional methods such as free points or leveling.


    Please select a class now.


    Zero liked the robotic voice, it was familiar and known. He also liked the simple instructions and the voice itself gave him a warm and fuzzy feeling inside, something he didn''t know he could feel at all. He very much liked that feeling and he trusted the voice. Therefore, he complied and willed his Class Selection Screen into existence before him.


    [C - Rare] Demon Duelist


    Engaged in a constant battle with demons, against demons or both, the Demon Duelist class is designed to resist the influence of the demonic and soul corruption. Skills include dealing with the demonic, protecting your soul, using the demonic against your enemies and launching soul attacks of your own as the best weapon against the demonic, is the demonic. Fight with honor and duel with demons, both external and internal, to become an example to be followed.


    -5 Corruption


    +35 Precision per level


    +10 Knowledge per level


    +10 FREE per level


    [C - Special] Engineered Samurai


    As a construct designed to fight with a sword, much of your construction was focused on precision. Latching on to this, you have spent time training yourself to calibrate each and every sword strike you could come up with with the goal of maximizing this precision. This class is designed to hone in on a specific sword style then to perfect it. Skills include sword styles, increases to precision, strikes and steps.


    +60 Precision per level


    +20 FREE per level


    [C - Epic] Apotropaic Wielder of the Accursed


    By choosing to wield the accursed, you have chosen a dangerous path that may one day result in your destruction. This class is designed to allow you to hone in on the connection between you and the accursed with the goal of harnessing it to became a greater whole. By taking this class, you will become truly bonded to the accursed item you wield and your souls will be intertwined. There are many paths to properly harness the accursed without being consumed by it and this class is designed to embrace them all. Some possible paths include: discipline, faith, spirit, mind, body, instinct, metamorphosis, night.


    +250 Corruption


    -20% Racial Synchronicity


    +20 Precision per level


    +20 Knowledge per level


    +85 FREE per level


    [C - Epic] Agathokakological Pair


    The Holy Paladin through their faith channels the power of their deity to subvert the insatiable bloodlust of the accursed weapon they carry. This class is designed to hone in on your faith of your deity and use the power granted through that faith, external or internal, to subdue the accursed. Skills include controlling the accursed, channeling your faith and using powers granted by your deity.


    -26 Corruption


    +80 Knowledge per level


    +45 FREE per level


    [C - Epic] The Gladiator & The Annihilator


    Fight, dominate and conquer all. Wield an Annihilator, a weapon of mass destruction in battle and kill everything in your path. This class is designed for large scale fights and constant battle against many enemies. There is no utility to this class outside of battle and it will fall short in single combat. Skills include strikes, leaps, energy restoration, health restoration and kill resets.


    +43 Corruption


    +125 FREE per level


    Zero read through all of the options but already knew exactly which one he wanted to take, he just wasn''t sure if he should. Using Slaughter''s Maw to protect Felix''s possessions seemed reasonable and he didn''t question that. Permanently bonding himself to the sword was another matter entirely. He didn''t know if Felix had other plans for the weapon, for him or some other reason he shouldn''t do it.


    Despite his reservations, Apotropaic Wielder of the Accursed spoke to him in a way none of the other classes did, at least not to the same extent. Demon Duelist spoke to how much he enjoyed using Slaughter''s Maw, Engineered Samurai spoke to his desire for precision and The Gladiator & The Annihilator spoke to his desire to dominate. Apotropaic Wielder of the Accursed spoke to everything at once though.


    Slaughter''s Maw was an accursed blade and took the bloodthirst too far but, it wanted to dominate just as much as Zero did. Especially now that he had already once controlled its urges and demonstrated a better path through discipline and the precision of trained strikes, Zero was convinced that they could work together, and that he could control it.


    He didn''t pick anything immediately though and instead, opened his status screen so he could get a better idea of what was different from his memory of Felix''s.


    Name:ZeroFREE0Deity:Felix KadeKnowledge7Class:N/APrecision1,215Race:[C - Epic] Sentient Construct (Lvl 1975)*Wisdom1Health:1,000 / 1,000*Wit3Mana:3,000,000 / 3,000,000*Instinct2Racial Synchronicity:63%*Willpower1,801Corruption:26 / 1000*Luck10


    The stats were odd and he didn''t entirely understand everything on his screen but the fact that he had a screen at all was exciting in a way. It meant he could make measurable progress and maybe even one day, compete with real levelers. Checking his race so he had all the information available to him, Zero didn''t really find anything new.


    [C - Epic] Sentient Construct (Lvl 1975)


    The Sentient Construct was created by fusing biological and arcanomechanical components into a single body using rare techniques to increase compatibility and efficiency. The construct body was then bound to a completely constructed soul and brought to life by The Lifebinder. Given the origins of the Sentient Construct, Strength, Dexterity, Agility, Perception, Intelligence, Vitality and Endurance are all dependent on the design and materials used in the construct and will not grow naturally.


    These statistics can only be increased by directly modifying the body and mind. Alternative stats that are more representative of the Sentient Construct''s growth have been selected however, some of them are locked and cannot be increased with FREE stats or levels. Instead, they are simply more representative of the Sentient Construct''s growth over time through training, learning and gaining experience.


    Racial Synchronicity: 63%


    Racial Skills:


    Empowered Step (Common - Initiate XI)


    Empowered Strike (Common - Apprentice II)


    Empowered Leap (Common - Novice XIX)


    Empowered Movement (Common - Initiate XVI)


    With all the information Zero could think of retrieving at his disposal, he decided he should probably select a class. The System had asked him to select one now and from the perspective of that deadline, he was already significantly late. The only issue was, he didn''t really know how to communicate with The System.


    He decided to just try speaking to it in the same way he had spoken with Slaughter''s Maw and selected the class that spoke to him the most, Apotropaic Wielder of the Accursed.


    Class selected. Now binding your soul with Slaughter''s Maw¡­


    Zero felt a horrible feeling within him that he couldn''t describe. His soul shifted and suddenly, it wasn''t his own anymore, not entirely. The connection between him and his body felt weaker and there were these feelings, these desires, within him that felt alien to him. They weren''t his but they were there and he felt them as if they were.


    He also felt a connection to something that definitely wasn''t there before. Like a phantom limb, it was something he could feel, or he thought he could feel, but wasn''t attached to him physically at all.


    A tired voice reached out into Zero''s mind, one he recognized, Together¡­


    Zero finished the sentence, already knowing instinctually where it was going, We will dominate¡­


    The connection faded slightly as the blade seemed to almost fall asleep so Zero reopened his status screen.


    Name:ZeroFREE0Deity:Felix KadeKnowledge7Class:[C - Epic] Apotropaic Wielder of the Accursed (Lvl 1000)Precision1,215Race:[C - Epic] Sentient Construct (Lvl 1975)*Wisdom1Health:1,000 / 1,000*Wit3Mana:3,000,000 / 3,000,000*Instinct2Racial Synchronicity:43%*Willpower1,801Corruption:276 / 1000*Luck10


    As he blankly stared at the screen, not sure what to make of any of it and not entirely processing anything either, just looking, a new screen supplanted it in his vision.


    Displaying relevant event messages as you have been added as a participant¡­


    You now have access to an event inventory and the contents of your first kill''s inventory has been added to it.


    Zero filtered out the ones he had memories of from Felix either directly or ones he had overheard him speaking about to Melody and Peace.


    World Event: Bastorus One


    Announcement


    As the world event is nearing its completion, some participants have begun stashing quest objectives within their personal caches ruining the experience for others. In response to this, large collections of treasures from the event will now be revealed to all remaining participants.


    Good luck on your hunts and may all your strikes land!


    World Event: Bastorus One


    Announcement


    As the world event only has a short time left and the majority of the original participants have already perished or surrendered, all future departures will now be permanent. Participants are no longer capable of leaving through traditional means and from now on, must surrender or perish to leave the event. All items brought into the event from the outside can still be thrown through event marbles for the next dekad to ease the transition and all surrenders will automatically be accepted from now on. The location of all participants will be revealed on the map and the area of the world event itself is now shrinking rapidly to prevent hiding.


    Any participants not currently in the event will be permitted to enter one final time in the next hour or have their possessions jettisoned through without them.


    Good luck and shed much blood!


    Reading the first of the two messages new to Zero, he immediately knew what to do. Opening his inventory, he began dropping everything he could around him. He very quickly ran out of space but opening his map, he saw exactly what he was looking for, a marker indicating his exact position.


    Now he just had to wait and hope that Felix found and rescued him before another thief came along.


    After watching the memory through to completion, in his Soul Garden to save time, Felix sighed.


    Seriously? Completely different array of stats? How is luck measured and how is it increased¡­ at all? The others I¡­ kind of get. It''s a construct and now with a blank core soul, these are the stats that will change the most but still. The System is named what it is for a reason. How are we supposed to compare Zero to others at his level now? Wait- System, show me Zero''s status screen with the stats I''m used to.


    Name:ZeroFREE0Deity:Felix Kade*STR1,737,520Class:[C - Epic] Apotropaic Wielder of the Accursed (Lvl 1000)*DEX461,600Race:[C - Epic] Sentient Construct (Lvl 1975)*AGI1,737,520Health:1,000 / 1,000*PER120,976Mana:3,000,000 / 3,000,000*INT274,941Racial Synchronicity:43%*VIT100Corruption:276 / 1000*END1,378,920


    Huh¡­ That''s¡­ workable. I bet I could increase the perception right now swapping in better eyes and I could probably transfer in some knowledge, wisdom, wit, instinct and willpower. No idea about Luck¡­


    Grim spoke up despite Felix only really thinking to himself, You probably shouldn''t change those manually. Worry about the body because manually changing those stats tends to be weird¡­ You''re are unique and you might be able to do it but the same way you can''t just steal battle experience from an old person¡­


    Alright fine, that''s reasonable. You''re saying if I manually change those by modifying Zero''s soul they wouldn''t be real in the same way battle experience would be faulty. It wouldn''t be integrated properly with memories, experiences and his body¡­ Fine, but I am going to take a look at what''s up with the whole sword situation.


    Placing his hand on Zero''s chest and holding a cowering Slaughter''s Maw in his other hand, Felix reached into both of them with his Soul Tendrils and began just feeling around. He had never inspected Slaughter''s Maw''s soul this directly but he had created Zero''s soul and so he immediately recognized the pieces of it that had been fused within.


    Focusing on Zero''s soul first, Felix couldn''t help but sigh again, It''s a mess in there. This wasn''t a clean item or familiar bonding this was like taking half of each soul and throwing them together in a blender then replacing the missing halves with the new¡­ mess.


    He confirmed the same thing within Slaughter''s Maw''s soul and just shook his head, I don''t even think I could undo or help with this if I wanted to.


    Speaking aloud and looking at Zero, Felix gave his best reassuring smile, "Well, good luck with the whole demon sword thing. I''m happy you finally got a class and are a leveler now and as I get better at enchanting, I promise to keep upgrading you over time."


    Zero nodded once in acknowledgement and Mark spoke up in Felix''s mind, He''s wondering if you approve of his decisions.


    Felix shrugged, "Sure. I''m not mad I guess, I planned on giving you the sword anyways I was just going to manually strengthen your soul first to lessen the effect. Now¡­ I''m not sure that''s possible without also strengthening the sword itself."


    Zero nodded.


    He says he will fight with honor in your name.


    "Uh¡­ maybe try not to mention me if you can avoid it actually. In fact," System, can we change my name on his status sheet?


    Possible Deity Aliases


    Note: As you have not met the requirements to become an actual God, this alias will only be used on Zero''s status screen as they are a special case. You are only considered a deity from the perspective of their worship and the fact that you created and gave them life.


    Felix Kade


    Stormbringer


    Ascendant Mana Prodigy


    The Wanderer


    The Lifebinder


    Reaper''s Chosen


    The True Wizard


    Ugh¡­ Not sure I love any of those. I guess The Wanderer is not too bad¡­


    Grim stopped him before his train of thought progressed any further, It also isn''t quite anonymous enough.


    You''re right. I don''t know that someone won''t identify me and see my race. Someone probably already has. Same issue with Lifebinder and Reaper''s. I''m not calling myself a Prodigy by choice so I guess¡­ The True Wizard.


    Confirmed.


    Zero bowed slightly in Felix''s direction which Felix found both annoying and disgusting, neither of which he advertised outwardly though.


    Felix nodded, unsure what else to say then helped Zero to his feet and handed him Slaughter''s Maw, holding the cowering blade himself so Zero could grab the handle.


    "Well, I''m sure you want to go through your skills and figure out your whole bond thing so I won''t stop you. You might have to surrender to me to get out of here though. Now that you''re bound to the blade, it will go with you. No rush but I plan on heading out sometime soon so it''s either now or whenever I get back."


    Zero nodded and vanished a moment later, Felix''s inventory filled up by a considerable margin a moment later.


    WAIT. I DIDN''T MEAN NOW NOW. I JUST MEANT SOONISH. I DIDN''T EVEN GET TO EMBED A PORTAL ANCHOR INTO HIS BODY. HE DIDN''T EVEN HAVE A MARBLE. WHERE WILL HE END UP ON THE OTHER SIDE?


    Grim winced, Oh¡­ I''m not sure there was anything you could have done about that though.


    Not directly but I could have handed him a consumable item that opened a portal back to my dorm or something.


    Too late now.


    Dammit. Oh well¡­ Anyways, that was¡­ unexpected.


    Grim nodded within Felix''s mind, In many ways.


    Time to complete this quest and finally get the fuck out of this event I think.


    Felix spent a few minutes cleaning up the rest of the mess Zero had made protecting what was once his compound and retrieving any last items he needed to before heading out one final time.


    The location of the final quest was clearly marked on his map so there was no doubt in his mind as to where he was heading. He was also able to conveniently open a portal just a few dozen kilometers away that his Seeing Eye constructs had mapped for him.


    Flying over to the designated location Felix was a little surprised to find nothing indicating the location as special in any way. In fact, it was so normal, it wasn''t even curiously empty as there was a dungeon he had completed just a kilometer away. Had the quest not led him here directly, there was no chance he could have found this location even if he had had his Seeing Eye constructs visually map everything and personally go through the footage.


    Standing at the location, Felix looked around and found nothing. He even opened his map and rotated it to see if it was underground. Zooming all the way in, he took a half step to the left so he was as close as he could realistically be but still, nothing happened.


    Opening the quest screen, Felix read through the new entry.


    Quest: The Grand Design


    Collect all 256 of the Imitation System Cores. [Complete] (256/256)


    Assemble all 256 Imitation System Cores at the specified location. [Complete]


    Present an Imitation System Core to reveal the entrance.


    Note: All Imitation System Cores must remain within the event at all times going forwards.


    Pulling one out of his inventory, an entirely black stone or granite block rose up from the ground with one missing side in the rough shape of a doorway. Where the door would have gone though was instead a perfectly flat, glowing blue barrier that both hummed and occasionally flickered which was definitely unnecessary and gave him a weird vibe.


    He was fairly confident of the next step but just in case, he tossed a Seeing Eye construct through and opened the quest screen. Before the screen could appear though, he suddenly felt incredibly and almost irresistibly drowsy. Felix''s immediate reaction was to cast a Force and Mana Barrier to protect himself while he manually washed out all the hormones in his body.


    Desperately fighting against his own body to focus just long enough for the Barriers to cast, Felix barely managed to construct the spell forms. As soon as he did, they were manually torn apart by a force so absolute and instant, there was no doubt in his mind as to its source.


    Stunned


    You have been stunned and slept. You have partially resisted the sleep but remain stunned. As such, you are unable to cast spells until you either resist the stun, or the effects wear off. Sear?h the ¦Çov§×lFire .net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    Note: These effects were removed from all skills and items in the multiverse during the 3rd integration on account of being problematic. Only a small few consumable items created with these effects during that time still exist and function. However, previous reliance on assigned numerical values for resistances failed to take into account willpower and personal ability and were removed in favor of the ability to forcefully resist these effects.


    Duration: 5 minutes.


    Are you fucking KIDDING ME!


    The absurdity of being hit by something that The System effectively patched out millions of epochs ago was frustrating enough for Felix to completely push back and resist the remaining sleep effect. The overall strain on his body from fighting the effect remained and so he still felt exhausted in a way but, it was noticeably different from hormones trying to force his body to sleep.


    Fully resisting the sleep effect also made it painfully obvious that he was also completely unable to move. The paralyzing effect was much stronger than the sleep effect and even pushing against it with every ounce of his willpower, Felix didn''t feel like he was making any progress.


    What made his inability to move feel so much worse, was seeing and hearing everything happening around him.


    As soon as his body lay still, he saw a massive brute of a man that looked like his head was an octopus kneeling over him and rifling through his inventory. Being stunned, he couldn''t manipulate or do anything with his physical form or System screens. Mana and spells were manually destroyed so all that was left was his Soul Space. There was nothing in there he could come up with a use for right now though so, he was forced to helplessly watch as his inventory was emptied right before his eyes.


    The octopus head reached down, pinched the air right above Felix and pulled an Imitation System Core from what looked like thin air. Felix knew he was somehow rifling through his inventory though and it was infuriating.


    "Hurry up! I want to get back and visit that new bakery that just opened up." Recognizing the voice, Felix felt rage nearly surpassing any he had ever felt before but it quickly died down. She probably didn''t know he and Arthur were the same person, at least as far as he knew she didn''t. That fact calmed him a bit but all the rage that left him was replaced by deep confusion.


    The tentacle faced thief sighed causing their tentacles to ripple, "Yeah yeah. We''re going as fast as we can, Melody. This should be all of them then we just have to track down your most recent fuck toy''s stash. Any idea where that is?"


    Melody was out of sight for him but given the silence that followed and knowing her and hearing the tone that followed, he assumed she was either shrugging with a stupid look on her face or distracted, "Not really. We didn''t spend that much time together in the event."


    Wait¡­ She''s been in my vault before¡­ she knows it''s underground and if she were paying any attention, exactly where it is on her map.


    Felix struggled a little more, trying to activate any of the skills in any of his items but found all of them blocked by The System directly. Realizing that, he stowed the rings and anything else he couldn''t replace in his Soul Space just to be safe. There was nothing he could do but helplessly watch and wonder.


    Another voice from someone Felix couldn''t see chimed in, a quieter male sounding voice, "Guess we didn''t need so many for this one."


    Yet another voice responded, an expressive and young sounding female voice, "Yeah but come on. You heard the same rumors we did, we all agreed to stay on the safe side." Though he couldn''t see her, Felix could picture her face just from her tone of voice and the way she spoke, not that he could identify her race from her voice alone it was just the way she spoke was typical and familiar, reminiscent.


    The quieter male voice responded, "Yes. I''m not happy about having to search through hundreds of caches on the planet, all no doubt well hidden though. The sooner we can start with that, the sooner we can be finished with it"


    As he watched the number of cores get plucked down to about 80 or so, the tentacles above him curled into something that he assumed was a smile, though not with any real confidence, "Well actually, you might not have to¡­"


    The quieter male voice stepped in close enough that Felix could make out a scaled elbow that looked more marine than Drakene, "Why are you making me ask. Just talk."


    The tentacles shook his head, "Our guess for how many Melody''s lover had was 80 right? I just surpassed 180 from Arthur''s inventory alone."


    Felix heard the expressive female voice almost cheer in excitement, "So Arthur killed or forced Felix to surrender I guess. So all that''s left is implanting the tracker and forcing him to surrender?"


    Melody sighed, "That means our cut just got halved and we still have to hand off the quest thingies and collect his bounty so hurry up."


    Leaning over him as the last of the cores were plucked from his inventory, the expressive female voice turned out to be a small creature that looked like a tiny humanoid dinosaur. Her features were all soft and round and her skin was green without any scales but the shape of her head with the rounded snout reminded him of a tyrannosaurus or a brachiosaurus. Reaching forwards, she had only four fingers but two of them looked like thumbs, and she poked his cheek with a finger, "You guys really think we had to waste the stun on him?"


    "Yes. It''s safer. We couldn''t have kept it anyways." The quiet voice didn''t sound exasperated in the way they spoke but the words they used and their aura told Felix otherwise.


    She sighed and stood back up then walked out of Felix''s vision, "Yeah yeah, but still¡­ a 5 minute stun is¡­"


    The quiet voice responded, apparently the only one willing to entertain the expressive girl''s constant jabber, "Worth a lot and was probably one of a handful left in the multiverse. Yes."


    She poked him again, "You know, based on the rumors and all that, why in the heck was Felix worth just as much as-", she kicked Felix-or Arthur-in the side, "-him."


    The quiet one responded from what sounded like a fair distance away, "No clue."


    Groaning, the expressive female kicked Felix repeatedly in the side too lightly to really do any damage and more out of boredom, "Are you done yet?"


    Reaching down and plucking out the last few cores, the tentacle faced individual stood and nodded, "Yup, he''s all yours. Melody, let''s go drop these off."


    Not much more was said but based on sounds alone, Felix was pretty sure Melody and the tentacle faced thief were gone leaving the expressive and tiny dinosaur chick and the quiet fish scaled guy. Stepping onto his stomach and finally fully in view, Felix saw that the dinosaur woman was just over a couple feet tall at most. Walking along his stomach, she inhaled and smiled widely, "So, what do you think I should do to him first?"


    "I don''t care but we have to implant the tracker first."


    "Oh right." Reaching into a pocket on her loose single piece of clothing, she pulled out what looked like a small cylinder. Dropping to one knee on his body, she pressed one end onto his chest and a moment later, Felix felt like someone had shot a literal bullet into his soul.


    It pierced the outside layers of his Persona''s soul rather easily but couldn''t quite make it through the outer layer of his real soul beneath.


    "You think it worked?" She looked over at her partner but either got a non verbal response or none at all because she turned back to Felix and shrugged, "Let''s get started then, shall we? Wait, he can surrender even while stunned, right?"


    "Yes. He can surrender through a System screen."


    The System made the screen appear in his vision as if to taunt him and Felix immediately closed it. He still had 2 minutes left on the stun so in the meantime, he dulled his sensation of pain as much as possible and repaired his Persona''s soul. Destroying the tracker would have been trivial as it was just some anima spell or something that he could obliterated in an instant but he specifically didn''t.


    The System couldn''t prevent him from using his soul for anything internal which meant he could destroy it whenever he wanted to but, he didn''t want them to realize he had done so. He wasn''t sure if they had some way of knowing it was destroyed so for the time being, he left it.


    Dino-chick started out slow and built up the pain and she was pretty good at what she was doing but she clearly didn''t want to kill Arthur and so, she would never let his health drop too far.


    After just a few seconds that she probably hoped felt like forever for him but in reality, was just annoying, Felix shifted his consciousness into his Mind City and met with Grim.


    Felix specifically ignored the topic of his current predicament, "Thoughts?"


    Grim already knew what he was thinking, "I''m in agreement with your assessment, so is Orion and almost all of the residents that watch."


    "Any bright ideas as to why someone would impersonate Melody?"


    "It could be anything but our best guess is for you, as Felix."


    Felix sighed, "They thought I was still running around in here and wanted me to think she had betrayed me."


    Grim nodded, "Probably to stop you from calling on her for help."


    "Okay. Any ideas?"


    "No, not enough information. Contextual and just¡­ in general. You know exactly who has all the contextual information and knows the participants making them the perfect person to figure it out though."


    "Yeah, she''s not coming back into the event.", Felix shook his head, "They aren''t gambling on anything so they definitely have her distracted out there. Who knows, maybe there actually is a bakery that just opened."


    "Any ideas how to break out of this?"


    "Nope, you''re jus-", Grim''s head cocked to the side, "-actually yes. You think The System didn''t account for time dilation back then or do you think it was always like this?"


    Felix frowned until Grim presented him with a projection of his stunned System screen and saw what he saw, the time remaining was being reduced in Soul Garden time, not real time, "This must be a weird interaction, they would have planned around this otherwise. I bet you perceptual time dilation wasn''t a thing back then." Checking to be sure, Felix saw his health sitting at around 80%.


    The dinosaur woman seemed to believe she had much more time at her disposal than she actually did.


    Felix looked back at Grim and nodded, "Alright, you know the plan. Make sure everyone is ready."


    Grim nodded in turn and Felix watched the rest of the time on the screen tick down in his Mind City.


    As soon as the time left on the stun ticked down to 0, Felix had the forms for multiple spells emblazoned in the forefront of his mind and they were nearly instantly constructed and cast as a result. First he released two Persistent Force Spheres that simply resisted all movement around the quiet guy and the dinosaur girl. The rest of the spells he had prepared he simply held in place but didn''t cast, just in case.


    Finally free, Felix identified the dinosaur-chick as he sat up, reached forwards and carefully manipulated his spell holding her still so his arm could pass through it.


    [C - Epic] Iadrel (Lvl 1452)


    Slowly wrapping his fingers around her tiny neck to ensure his grip was absolute, Felix looked over, identified the quiet guy and made sure he wasn''t going to escape somehow. He was obviously surprised but rather calm, especially compared to Iadrel.


    [C - Legendary] Hadaaz (Lvl 1401)


    Keeping Hadaaz in sight, who looked like a fish man except without scales on most of his face, Felix shifted his gaze to lock eyes with Iadrel as he stood. He realized as much as he should have been mad or frustrated, he was just annoyed and was ultimately just resigned to what he had to do, likely a product of the relaxing effect meditation had on him.


    "Who."


    Iadrel opened her mouth a few times to speak and Felix knew he wasn''t crushing her windpipe so after a second of silence, he sighed.


    Reaching forwards with his other hand, Felix wrapped his fingers around her jaw and physically tore Iadrel''s head from her body then walked over to Hadaaz and took hold of his neck as The Devouring Rings collected Iradrel''s body and soul.


    "Who."


    Hadaaz didn''t even open his mouth and just closed his eyes, resigning himself to his fate. Felix killed him in the same way then activated both rings and began tearing through their experiences. Luckily, the promise of a bounty that amounted to a ridiculous fortune and being relatively recent was enough for the experience to be significant, at least for Iadrel.


    The exact numerical values were a little fuzzy but from context, Felix figured he and his Persona were worth about 100 S5 if they could implant a tracker and force them to surrender. As for the person who wanted to personally kill him, they used a broker when hiring the thieves and torturers so Felix couldn''t identify them. Given the bounty though, it was either a god, a child of a god, the Drakene or many of them pooling resources together.


    Figuring out who wanted him dead was ultimately a waste of time and Felix only did it because his entire Mind City was already scanning everything else. He was just hoping if he did figure out who it was, there was a rare chance he found information that was useful in hunting them down.


    As soon as he was done, Grim spoke into his mind, Nova is fine. Worst case scenario for the quest though.


    Looking around, Felix sighed as the entrance to the quest that had previously existed, was gone. Opening his quest screen, he groaned in frustration.


    Quest: The Grand Design


    Collect all 256 of the Imitation System Cores. [Complete] (256/256)


    Assemble all 256 Imitation System Cores at the specified location. [Complete]


    Enter the facility.


    Insert the cores into their respective receptacles. [0/256]


    Note: All Imitation System Cores must remain within the event at all times going forwards.


    They made the hand-off and the client is already in the facility. Any ideas where it is or how to get in now?


    No. Your map is empty despite being entirely revealed.


    Felix opened his map for himself and panned around out of frustration and desperate hope that he would notice something. As Grim had said, the entire surface of the planet was revealed and all the cache locations he saw, he already knew about before. There was nothing new or different from before and definitely no quest marker.


    What about the construct?


    Lost connection instantly. Portal was severed.


    Great. Now-


    Felix''s thought was interrupted a moment later as a sleek, matte-black flying vehicle zipped over the horizon and closed the distance towards him in a matter of a few seconds.


    Turning to the side and stopping Erevos in the air a safe distance from him, Melody peered over the side of the slicer, only revealing her eyes like she was hiding, and met Felix''s eyes.


    Calling down, "You gonna try and kill me?"


    Felix shrugged, "Should I?"


    "Definitely not. Any chance you''ve seen a quiet and serious looking caster with red hair and whitish robes?"


    "You mean Felix?" Felix-as Arthur-called back, "He surrendered to me."


    Melody scoffed and stood up a little, revealing a little more of her face over the edge of the slicer, "What? That doesn''t sound like him. Also, I couldn''t find him out there¡­ weird. Maybe he was in his- Whatever, why are you just standing around?"


    "I was robbed. By you."


    Sitting up fully, Melody scowled at him and Felix could tell she was examining him to see if he was telling the truth. She seemed to think he was because a moment later, she halved the distance between them, "Explain."


    "I was going in. Got hit with a stun and sleep. Was robbed. Bounty on my and Felix''s head. Put a tracker in me and tried to force me to surrender. I killed them."


    Her frown deepened as he spoke, "Wait¡­ you mean an item from before the 3rd integration, a real System stun?"


    Felix nodded.


    "And one of the¡­ thieves, looked like me?"


    Felix nodded again, "Spoke like you too."


    Melody groaned, "Okay well first things first, it wasn''t me. I was just at the opening of a new bakery, lots of people can vouch. Second, I know who you''re looking for and I want to help."


    Felix snorted, "You mentioned the bakery opening before."


    Melody pouted and pounded her fist into Erevo''s door, "That wasn''t me! How could you even confuse us I mean come on, you have to admit finally seeing me up close I have that¡­ x factor. That je ne sais quoi There''s no way this impostor could imitate that."


    Felix sighed, "Who am I looking for and how do I find them?"


    "My brother."


    Felix frowned and figured her heritage was common enough knowledge for Arthur to know, "Which one."


    "Talrain."


    Felix scowled, "Are you sure?"


    "Yeah¡­ Dad was robbed¡­ one of the items that was stolen was a stun item he was holding onto along with a lot of credits."


    "Where is he?"


    Melody pointed and glared at Felix, "Don''t kill me." Then she lowered the slicer and hopped out next to it.


    Pulling out the instrument Felix had seen her use in Group Combat class, Melody glared at Felix one last time before closing her eyes and tapping at the instrument a few times. Like the last two times Felix had felt Melody use the instrument, a wave of visible gold shot out of the instrument. This time though, it was noticeably denser and moved quite a bit faster.


    There wasn''t only one though as Melody rapidly tapped at the strings releasing a torrent of gold in every direction in an ominous symphony that shouldn''t have been possible from a single instrument. Felix wasn''t even sure if he was hearing anything but his soul was filled with a sense of foreboding. Like he was being hunted.


    He couldn''t fully dissect what the golden waves did but, he was 100% certain he was able to block them out. They were still by far the strongest thing to have ever tried to touch his soul directly, save for The Endless Hunger. He could tell it surpassed what he felt looking at The Flames of Oblivion but now, with his newest protective layer, he wasn''t affected even by this, unless he wanted to be.


    Suddenly, she stopped playing and stowed the instrument, "He''s still here, below us."


    Felix took a step forwards, "How far, which direction?"


    She fell back a step, still wary of his persona then nodded, "Directly below us, close to the center of the planet. Here." A screen appeared in Felix''s vision and he accepted a marker being shared directly to his map. Checking it, he confirmed the marker''s location.


    Melody fiddled with her fingers and kicked the ground a little, "When you find him¡­"


    "I''m killing him."


    She sighed, "I¡­ yeah¡­ I thought you would say that. If it helps, my father will punish him if he leaves this place, alive or dead."


    "You know I consume souls."


    "Yeah I was just¡­ hoping. There isn''t any way I could like¡­ pay you or¡­ is there something you want that I can help you with¡­ or get you?"


    Felix shook his head, "No. Now leave."


    She looked up and nodded solemnly then opened her exit marble and threw a hoard of items through. She was evidently stalling but Felix didn''t immediately force her out because the quest screen hadn''t changed at all so he wasn''t entirely rushed. At the same time, while she stalled, he prepared a mold for a portal in his Soul Space and a few other items he was going to need.


    Felix was happy to see she pushed Erevos through though and that she didn''t leave it behind with what she knew to be a destructive, true-killing monster.


    Finally done with stalling by throwing a hoard of items that definitely weren''t in her inventory, probably to try and entice him into changing his mind, Melody locked eyes with Felix''s Persona then made a pouty and squinting expression, "Soooo¡­ is there any chance you could like¡­ return my clothes to me on the outside?"


    Felix''s face contorted into a grimace of disgust and she scoffed, "Well, I''m not stripping so¡­ I surrender."


    Sighing, Felix confirmed her clothes were in his inventory and made a mental note to find a way to return them when he got back then, got right to work.

 Chapter 216 - Book 18

    First, he opened a normal portal to Nova''s location as he would probably need her for this. He found his tiny kitten familiar in the middle of a massive empty sphere that looked like it had been exploded out of the ground.


    Seeing it though, Felix only had one thought, I thought it would be bigger.


    Hopping down to the bottom of the crater with Nova, Felix pulled out the portal mold he had created to simplify his job and carefully tuned a few parameters before filling it with mana and specifying the relative coordinates manually. As much as absolute coordinates had no apparent pattern, it was completely possible to calculate relative coordinates and with his mind and Mark working together, calculate them with a lot of precision.


    A brief fantasy of falling directly on top of Talrain''s head flashed through Felix''s mind but he was dragged back to the present as Grim notified him of the quest screen changing


    Quest: The Grand Design


    ¡­


    Insert the cores into their respective receptacles. [3/256]


    ¡­


    Hopefully three at once doesn''t mean he''s now where he needs to be or that he figured out some kind of method or pattern.


    As the mana in the portal filled to just past half, realistically faster than it ever had before despite feeling slow and arduous to Felix, the relative coordinates shifted. Immediately grabbing hold, Felix fought back and pulled the coordinates where they needed to be but, despite his pulling with the entirety of his Mana Control and willpower, the coordinates were stuck.


    Mark, where do these new coordinates point?


    Mark responded instantly, already having calculated the answer, The exact center of this planet.


    Oh shit, natural anchors. I wonder if that''s why the facility is where it is, to protect against portals?


    Mark ignored Felix''s current thoughts and anticipated his next question, Having Nova dig down directly towards your target would take a few terms and exceed the available time in the event.


    Okay, other options?


    From the center of the planet, a portal cast would be subject to a significantly lesser pull from the gravity of the planet.


    Wait but there isn''t just empty space down there, we can''t just portal down then up into the facility?


    Correct. Based on the information we have available, it is most likely that the inner core of the planet is an orb of high grade, high density, super-heated material.


    Felix''s eyes widened, I know what to do, thanks.


    Ripping all the mana back out of the portal mold, Felix began making the necessary modifications to the mold with his Matter Control, falling back on Nova''s where precision was needed. Being able to communicate a complex design and having her understand and implement it nearly instantly was both a huge improvement and a miracle in Felix''s mind. He still remembered when Nova not only acted like a child but was limited to rough shapes and slow transitions.


    With the portal mold modified, Felix began filling it with mana once again, this time not resisting it as the coordinates shifted and moved. As it filled, he and Nova flew back just over a kilometer from the crater, where he had targeted the portal''s opening, and Felix checked the quest screen.


    Quest: The Grand Design


    ¡­


    Insert the cores into their respective receptacles. [13/256]


    ¡­


    Son of a bitch.


    This new portal mold was very carefully calculated by Mark and verified by Felix''s brain to be the ideal size that he could maintain with his mana. They based their calculations on a lot of assumptions and estimations but made sure to adjust their margin of error accordingly. None of this would have been safe and therefore, possible, were Felix not significantly more proficient with spell forms from his time at Eramith.


    Even just opening a portal from a specified point to another specified point used to be completely beyond him and he was stuck with opening portals in the near vicinity of the spell form itself. That resulted in a complicated set of actions-that in hindsight Felix was surprised ever actually worked-for destroying The Mind Devouring Crown. Oddly enough, what he was about to do was similar in a lot of ways and the coincidence was not lost on him.


    Pumping the last bit of mana into the mold in his hands Felix instantly cast a Force Wall in front of him to push back the air itself.


    The portal that appeared in the center of the crater was massive. It was still smaller than the portals on the portal spires in Telviras but it was by far the biggest Felix had ever cast and for a very good reason. As soon as it was open, the other side of the portal exploded through the opening.


    Molten material super heated well beyond the surface of earth''s sun poured outwards in all states of matter. The absurd pressure at the center of the planet kept it mostly in a solid form but as soon as it passed through the portal, it vaporized into a gas. The pressure kept the flow spurting out like a cannon and the portal obliterated a massive chasm into the ground where the gas'' heat was enough to vaporize the ground.


    Some of it cooled enough on contact to condense into a liquid which dripped down the sides of the newly opened chasm like beading sweat. It was hard to see much though as everything that poured out was bright white and blinding. Nova though, didn''t see with light unless she wanted to and so Felix had her send over everything that was happening from her perspective in real time.


    Along with the experience of a vapor cannon melting a hole through a planet, Felix also got something a little more concerning, a burning desire to eat the planet''s core.


    On the one hand, the planet''s core was so hot, the Force Shield was necessary lest they literally melt and even then, the radiant heat from the air around them was starting to lightly burn Felix. He was pretty sure it would melt Nova on the spot.


    On the other hand, she was a Matter Sprite turned Matter Daemon and this was just matter so, Felix had no idea what would happen.


    He tentatively gave her permission to slowly approach with caution and carefully paid attention to their connection with the remainder of his focus.


    Nova, still acting like a child in many ways, exploded from a complete standstill and accelerated faster than even Felix could safely without destroying his body in some way. In a matter of moments she closed the distance and dove into the geyser spewing out of the planet''s core.


    Though Felix couldn''t see her, he felt an immediate spike of pain then felt her location get thrown back from the force of the geyser. Felix felt his hormones and adrenaline spike as he feared the worst but, she wasn''t dead. A few moments later, he felt her location moving around and felt immense satisfaction from her as she devoured as much of the stream as she could.


    Well, who needs caution when you can shape-shift into a metallic dragon I guess.


    Shaking his head, Felix checked back in with the quest that had increased to 34 placed cores and clenched his jaw. Looking back out at the geyser, he thought about increasing the area of the portal but it was impossible. He was already drawing mana in from his environment and whatever batteries he had left as fast as he could and he was only barely keeping up with the maintenance cost of the portal.


    Man the amount of mana that flows through Telviras to power those portals alone must be insane. I wonder if the mana distribution system designs are public record¡­


    Half a minute passed of Nova happily swimming through heat that surpassed the surface temperature of some stars and Felix impatiently watching the quest screen tick upwards before a single quake shook the planet. It was like something massive had shifted and settled and Felix just hoped the planet didn''t fall apart too quickly.


    He was confident it wouldn''t exist when he was done he was just hoping for a brief few minutes during the collapse where he could do what he had to then get out.


    The quakes continued and only got worse over time but Nova was completely unbothered. The vapor from the planet''s core had settled and melted a multiple kilometer wide hole into the ground that was rapidly growing both down and outwards as the material pooled at the bottom. Small explosions, relative to the geyser, were constant as trapped gases and various other materials in the planet were released but Felix wasn''t worried.


    Mark''s calculations put the depth of this hole once the core was empty at just over half of the planet''s radius, heavily dependent on the composition of the planet. They were also pretty sure the planet wouldn''t implode but rather gradually collapse inwards then likely slowly fall apart over time but, their confidence in that guess was lacking.


    It was difficult to predict what would happen when they were no longer limited to a single periodic table. The elements Felix knew from earth all existed but that table alone now had at least three other dimensions. A two dimensional table didn''t even account for isotopes alone let alone how much mana was infused into the matter and in what states, densities, attunements and energy levels. Then there were entirely new elements that were impossible without the presence of mana and all of that was influenced by bound anima.


    There were too many variables to account for unless Mark was the size of multiple suns and Felix had all the information in the universe. Neither of those were possible for now so, they approximated then tripled all their numbers to be safe.


    The quakes continued but got worse as Felix looked around and saw the landscape shift downwards by large chunks at a time. Mountains suddenly fell and became valleys, chasms opened and closed creating new mountains and shooting material into the sky above.


    Punctuating everything happening, a massive quake to Felix''s left shook the planet much harder than the participant''s skill had and as a result, Felix watched an entire mountain range not just sink, but vanish. Masked by a cloud of dust and sand, Felix was unable to watch but the result once it calmed was a slowly sloping and ever expanding crater with landslides pouring inwards from every side.


    Mark, didn''t our calculations predict a slow collapse?


    Adjusting for the reality of what has occurred along with data Grim collected from Nova about the composition of the planet''s core, the most recent simulation predicts complete collapse within minutes of the core being drained. The planet will most likely collapse then shatter and disperse.


    What? How?


    It seems as though the density of the planet''s core is much higher than we expected but the natural pressure much less. The planet itself seems to be filled mostly with pockets of gas making the planet as a whole, a small fraction of the weight we previously predicted. The gravity of the core along with System intervention is what held the planet together along with the strength of high grade material veins throughout the crust and mantle. S~ea??h the N?vel?ire.net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    So without the core''s gravity, the rest of the planet isn''t heavy enough to hold itself together?


    Correct.


    Do we have enough time to drain it?


    Not completely.


    Unless¡­ We accelerate things¡­


    This idea has less than a 3% chance of not dramatically increasing the destruction.


    Sure but, what are the odds I make it into the quest area fast enough?


    86%


    What about mana?


    You will need to borrow from Nova.


    Calling Nova over, Felix prepared the necessary spells and used a tiny portal to confirm the destination of the next portal he had to open. For whatever reason, the shrinking of the usable space in the event was limited and non spherical in weird ways. For example, Felix was able to open a portal into the void of space above without issue but a hundred kilometers to his left, that wasn''t allowed at all.


    It was evidently designed just to accelerate the war and possibly leave the quest destination below them within the new barrier but still, a warped, not quite cone just felt weird to him.


    Felix made sure Nova cooled herself off which, apparently, was trivial for a sprite that controlled matter, and had her revert to a kitten and supply him with mana. To be safe, Grim also emptied his battery into Felix''s Soul Space which he sucked up as quickly as possible.


    Opening a new portal within the core of the planet, a calculated distance from the other portal, Felix began simultaneously draining the core into the void of space.


    The pressure differential along with a second outlet and most importantly, the actual reduction of mass rather than redistribution, made things even weirder than before. A lurch in the planet indicated to Felix that things were working as the planet''s orbit was altered, the atmosphere was ripped apart and the planet''s collapse accelerated.


    Looking around and watching things collapse rapidly followed by newly formed asteroids being jettisoned into space by the orbit change along with a massive explosion of subterranean gases made Felix feel slight regret.


    Checking the quest screen and seeing the correctly placed cores jump from 34 to 92 washed all of that away though.


    Felix''s spare focus jumped around checking everything as quickly as he could and he realized, pulling mana in from Nova, Grim, the environment and the remnants of his own core wasn''t enough. The drain was more than he could maintain and in just under a minute, he would have to lose a portal.


    How much longer?


    Just under 5 minutes to drain the core to a safe level.


    Well shit. Definitely not going to last that long. Options?


    Attempting to pass through the core prematurely has a near 0% chance of success.


    I''ll take that as a no then. I still have my charm sitting around that I can pull from but that''s not nearly enough to make it 5 minutes.


    It is not.


    I don''t have the focus left to open more portals to accelerate my mana regeneration like I did before and none of you can open portals¡­ without molds¡­ except¡­ Would that work?


    It will buy you some time but will not get you to 5 minutes.


    How close?


    1.5 minutes short if everything is done optimally and the odds of losing each construct is about 70%.


    Better than where we are now, let''s do it.


    Pouring out of his Soul Space, Felix released 320 of the 357 remaining Seeing Eye constructs he had at his disposal, all of them instantly flying out in a different direction in three dimensions. Some of them flew straight up, others flew up then out, to avoid the planet destroying the constructs as it collapsed.


    The initial burst of mana he had to provide to power all of them was more than he could handle himself so he redirected them all through to what remained in his charm. Even load balanced though, the mana flow rate was too high for his charm to handle but Mark had forewarned him of this. The odds of his charm surviving this were about 50% but he was fine with that. He was just using it as a load balanced battery anyways. It could always be replaced and with the knowledge he had now, likely improved.


    As predicted, the charm strained itself and even with Felix desperately holding it together with every ounce of Matter Control he had, his Matter Control was weak and his focus spread too thin. The charm exploded starting with one battery and cascading outwards until all of them were gone.


    The mana contained within them wasn''t lost though, not entirely. Keeping the charm in his Soul Space let Felix harness all of the mana and his Mana Control required much less focus for the same effect when compared to his Matter Control. He was just better with it.


    Even still, he struggled mostly with using his focus to channel and direct the sudden explosion of mana everywhere it needed to go. As much as the burst of nearly 30 million mana was a blessing, it was also a painful endeavor trying to harness all of it.


    Slowly, as the constructs grew far enough from him and each-other, Felix began shifting his focus on regeneration from his surroundings, to pulling through the space around Mark. With 320 portals all connected to the space, Felix was able to pull from everywhere in the event at once. In doing so, he had to effectively disable Mark for the time being though. There was just no way for Felix to effectively pull mana as aggressively as he needed to from a space where Mark-a fragile mana computer-existed, without destroying him. So, for the time being, Felix relocated Mark into his Soul Space which would hurt, separating the bond to his container, but was necessary.


    He could fix Mark later, what he couldn''t put off was the draining of the Bastorus One planet.


    Ever slowly, Felix''s mana buffer shrank slower and slower until finally it didn''t decrease at all. Then, it exploded outwards and the influx of mana he was getting felt ridiculous. He was powering two massive portals, 320 Seeing Eye Constructs and their portals along with an oversized Force Wall holding back the ridiculous heat before him and somehow, he was gaining mana, rapidly.


    Felix''s initial elation confused him as to how this was only going to give him 2 minutes but he literally didn''t have any spare focus to ask the question or even have the thought loudly enough for someone in his mind to notice.


    Two minutes passed and the influx of mana had barely slowed at all but, it fluctuated so much it was hard to draw any real conclusions. The quest screen had reached only 149 correctly placed cores which was lucky, because it had actually slowed.


    That was where the luck ended though as Mark''s prediction proved correct. At first, just a single construct exploded as the planet''s surface crumpled all over and turned into a mess of vertical cliff faces separating the stone, sand and earth scattered everywhere. As it was a Seeing Eye Construct, they had all seen the pocket of gas below it open up and destroy the construct but there was nothing they could do, it simply wasn''t fast enough to move out of the way.


    Judging from how long it had taken for one to explode, Felix assumed Mark was wrong but then, the destruction continued. The atmosphere had degraded along with the magnetic field around the planet to the point where cosmic radiation, charged particles from the stars and stellar winds became a real problem.


    How is the planet degrading this quickly?


    Mark already had the answer, having already accounted for it in his simulations, My calculations indicated that The System was holding the planet as it was and it has now released its hold.


    Are you saying this planet isn''t stable on its own?


    Yes. High grade materials along with the odd configuration of the mantle and the abnormal orbit of the planet around two stellar bodies all point to System intervention. The planet will likely either drift further into space or fall into one of the stellar bodies it previously pretended to orbit.


    How long will that take?


    23 days.


    Oh, not too bad.


    21 days.


    Is your accuracy just increasing?


    18 days.


    Okay, now I''m worried. What is happening?


    16 days. It appears The System, or some other factor, is redirecting the planet towards the stellar bodies.


    Worst case, how long?


    The worst case is obviously measured in nanoseconds. Assuming there is no additional acceleration from sources other than gravity and no teleportation of any kind, 9 hours, 41 minutes.


    I''m going to lose all the constructs, aren''t I?


    Yes. You have 20 seconds until they are all destroyed.


    Gritting his teeth, Felix desperately pulled whatever he could from the portals as one after another, like dominoes, his constructs malfunctioned and his connections to them, lost.


    Though he had managed to mostly refill his own mana pool along with Grim and Nova''s as a slight additional buffer, it still wasn''t nearly enough for him to finish draining the planet''s core. He tried switching his mental model around from a vortex to a void to a planet to a black hole to The Endless Hunger but no matter what he did, there just wasn''t enough mana in his vicinity.


    Until, there was.


    Suddenly mana appeared from absolutely nowhere. The Aether around him filled itself faster than Felix could pull it in and within 15 seconds, the Aether surrounding Felix was denser than he had ever felt before by multiple orders of magnitude.


    With the new found mana at his disposal, Felix dropped his concentration on the Force Wall and let his body cook using the spare focus to manually alter one of the portal spell forms. With some careful modifications he slowly expanded the portal draining the core into the void of space until it consumed all the mana he could pull in then, he dropped his first portal.


    He had been using a mold for that portal so he didn''t free up much focus but he did free up a significant chunk of mana flow rate and he redirected all of it to further expanding the other portal.


    Quest: The Grand Design


    ¡­


    Insert the cores into their respective receptacles. [187/256]


    ¡­


    How much longer?


    1 and a half minutes.


    THAT''S TOO SLOW. WE WON''T MAKE IT.


    50 seconds.


    Wait, what? Is The System helping?


    27 seconds. Possibly. The draining of the core is inexplicably accelerating.


    Felix didn''t voice his thoughts lest he anger whatever was helping him and just watched as the correctly placed cores slowly grew while the core of the planet drained faster and faster with every passing second.


    At 212 cores placed in their receptacles, Felix used the mold at his feet to open a portal back into the core and the entirety of the rest of his focus to push air turbulently through the core and out the other portal, into space.


    It took him just 20 seconds to cool the area to a satisfying degree at which point he released the portal connecting the core to space, grabbed Nova and jumped into the hollow space that had once held the core of the planet. As soon as he arrived, Felix''s cells died faster than he could ever hope to repair. He was losing health by the millions every few milliseconds but he was expecting that.


    He already had the next portal ready and all he had to do was finish pouring the last half of the required mana into it from the center of the planet. He couldn''t have done it on the surface otherwise the coordinates would have been redirected. It took an excruciatingly long time to fill the portal the rest of the way as Felix''s body was literally cooked and burned from the residual heat he didn''t have time to expel.


    He wasn''t just standing in a massive hollow sphere either, the entire planet around him was collapsing and various chunks of stone and metal, all super-heated and some of it liquid, floated and bounced all around him. He couldn''t focus on that himself but luckily, Nova was happy to play hungry hippo and eat everything coming towards him.


    A lot of it was far too big for her to eat but whenever she encountered those, Nova pushed them aside with all her might, proud she was able to protect Felix.


    Watching his health plummet to 0, Felix only had a few moments left so he simply held on to the portal as best he could as he was forced back into his real body. The sudden transition of the layer around his soul vanishing and his body being removed from an extra-dimensional space then being rebound to his soul was so much worse this time.


    Last time there was a moment of him losing access to the outside world entirely and that had let him live through the last of the Leviathan''s attack. Now, he forced himself to stay present and rode it out while holding the portal spell form with his focus and that resulted in him feeling everything. It was fast and clean and possibly the most awful thing Felix had ever felt as his soul was torn apart followed by his body followed by his soul being slapped back into his real body and all his senses being reattached. Jarring, painful and unsettling but the process was fast and clean nonetheless.


    As soon as he was returned to his real body, Felix dove through the portal and used an instinct cast to move Nova through as quickly as possible. Closing the portal behind him, Felix couldn''t help but smile.


    His health was down to just 40%, his skin was burned, his robes were in singed tatters and his mana was drained to nearly empty.


    Looking around, feeling the Aether, the anima and matter around him, Felix immediately knew he was in the right place.


    From what he could tell immediately, it seemed to be some kind of research facility. He had arrived at the exact location Melody had marked on his map but there was no one to either side of him. As Felix found himself standing in the middle of what appeared to be the main hall though, it was entirely likely Talrain had been there before.


    Physically, the facility looked like a scientific lab with harsh lighting and cold colored materials all around. The Aether was denser by another order of magnitude compared to the surface where something had compressed the Aether around him. He thought that was ridiculously dense and it was impossible for him to draw in mana fast enough to empty it there but here, Felix could actually see the Aether.


    Usually the effects of the Aether on his vision were mostly blocked out by his own brain as they were incredibly subtle. He could focus on them but he rarely did. Here, he didn''t have to focus on anything and it was like the area was filled with a thick fog that he could barely see through. He actually had to disable Reaper''s Sense''s passive almost immediately.


    The ambient anima wasn''t dense, but it was active. Felix almost felt like there were thousands of ghosts or fairies flying around his head that he just couldn''t see, whispering various things into his ears. All of them were evidently curse based though as the whispers weren''t speech or anything intelligible but rather feelings, experiences, emotions and flashes of various senses. There were sights, sounds and smells that Felix''s mind-specifically Grim-told him weren''t real but that he felt nonetheless.


    He was used to those, he knew of them and had dealt with them before. Now, with the new structured layer he had created, he was largely immune to the effects of the individual cores. Back when he was still finding them, he was dealing with one strong influence though, now it was like thousands of tiny little voices that were each much weaker individually, and easily ignored. All together though, they were something else entirely.


    Felix was pretty sure he could handle it, very confident even. What he wasn''t sure though, was how the hell Talrain was putting up with it.


    Looking from side to side, one end of the hall was a door and the other was a fork but, choosing between them was easy because the anima centralized around the door was significantly stronger than the fork. Running up to it, Felix didn''t even bother with the door itself and simply cast a portal right through it.


    Felix made sure Nova was ready just in case but it wasn''t necessary at all.


    The room was a massive spherical chamber with a bridge from the door to the near center of the chamber, a few meters away from a large floating orb. On the bridge just inside the room was an unconscious thief he recognized with a tentacled beard and a big burly body. He could tell physically the thief was alive and breathing though, not easily as he heaved and his chest squeezed his lungs.


    [C - Divine] Ruzon: Right Hand of the Rightful Heir to the Galactic Sea (Lvl 1326)


    He would probably live but, Felix was pretty sure he didn''t really want to at the moment. His entire being was being slowly whittled and suppressed by the overbearing curses all around them. If Talrain dragged Ruzon''s body out within the next hour, he would live but there was nothing he could do for himself as he was completely unable to react. He didn''t even notice Felix step into the room.


    Walking past him without really paying much mind, Felix flicked his wrist and severed the tentacled head with a bit more mana than was necessary but here, it didn''t matter. There was mana to spare.


    His rings cleaned up the mess and Felix continued right up to the orb which he identified.


    [C - Incomplete] Imitation System Nucleus


    The central computer of the Imitation System. The pinnacle of the taboo research and engineering that went into this creation is housed within the orb.


    With such an interesting description, Felix was almost distracted by the identification. His goal in walking to the end of the bridge had nothing to do with the orb at all though and as his eyes closed, he listened.


    All of the collective influence in the room pouring into Felix''s soul was rebuffed before getting through anymore than the cursory outer layer that made up his completely untrained and, so far, useless aura. Felix paid attention to every whisper on the ambient anima and within just a few seconds, much longer in his Soul Garden, Felix had a general map of his surroundings.


    The room itself was a massive sphere with the Nucleus hovering in the middle and a bridge leading from the entrance towards the center. The outer sphere though, that made up the room, was really a complicated three dimensional structured lattice that Felix recognized from one of the entries in his Soul Compendium.


    It was designed to maintain its structure and simultaneously facilitate connections through it. It structured and load balanced the connections, limited them where necessary but offered little in the way of security. This one in particular seemed to be configured for many connections, at least thousands, possibly a few orders of magnitude more.


    All of that was easy because Felix had seen it before, he just recognized it had been modified. Actually tracing the connections though, was what took time and effort.


    Quest: The Grand Design


    ¡­


    Insert the cores into their respective receptacles. [231/256]


    ¡­


    The connections, Felix assumed, were to Imitation System Cores and everything he felt standing near the center of the room backed that up. The sphere of influence, the cacophony that was the ambient anima was recognizable and with every passing second, less obviously incomplete.


    All Felix wanted to do though was to roughly map the inconsistencies and therefore, the incompleteness so he could get ahead of Talrain.


    Instead of navigating the entire facility, Felix just opened a portal and pushed it towards the nearest inconsistency but, it simply wouldn''t pass through the sphere no matter how hard he pushed.


    Sighing, he flew back over the bridge and moved his portal down the hall behind him. The door seemed to be the only hole in the portal barrier or whatever was blocking him and once he was outside of it, he pushed the portal towards the nearest inconsistency.


    He had to fly back a bit to avoid the curvature of the sphere but once he did, he stepped through and stood in a small cylindrical room with a pillar in the middle. Looking up and down, he couldn''t actually see the top or bottom of the room but he knew he was in the right place because there was a gap in the center pillar.


    The gap wasn''t very big but it was perfectly sized to hold a Core and so, Felix located the door and flew out of it. He made sure it was the only point of egress then flew down the hall. He thought about hiding in the room but he already knew Talrain was somewhat trained with souls and Felix was awful with stealth, especially with respect to his soul.


    There was just no point and, Felix didn''t really want to.


    Flying down the hall, Felix stopped at the nearest fork to make sure there was no way for Talrain to path around him and had Nova sit inside the pillar just in case.


    Quest: The Grand Design


    ¡­


    Insert the cores into their respective receptacles. [248/256]


    ¡­


    Watching the correctly placed cores slowly climb upwards, Felix reassured himself multiple times that he hadn''t sensed more empty slots than there were remaining cores and just waited. He made sure his mana pool was full then began producing consumable batteries as fast as he could. Whether or not he needed them, and he was pretty sure he wouldn''t, it was something to do other than just sitting around. Even doing that though, he had enough focus to spare to manually heal his body nearly to full.


    He didn''t dare move into his Soul Garden or Mind City to be absolutely certain he didn''t dull his senses but he did have Grim and as many residents as there were available pay attention to his senses. They essentially verified everything he saw, heard and felt from all of his senses and made sure he didn''t miss anything, in nearly 1,000 times slow motion.


    The correctly placed core count climbed just once more before Felix felt Talrain approaching.


    It wasn''t mana or a sound or anything Felix could control but rather a massive wake of whispers that had latched on to Talrain. Even from multiple kilometers away, once Felix noticed and realized what it was, he could track Talrain''s rough position.


    As he approached, Felix''s approximation became clearer until he was able to exactly pinpoint him but Felix didn''t move. His emotions pushed him to race forwards but he easily pushed those aside. There was always a way for Talrain to teleport around Felix if he moved. Felix had already calculated where he was standing, he had Nova waiting and Talrain had to go through him.


    If 8 hours were to pass, Felix would be forced to hunt him down before the remains of the planet were disintegrated in one of the twin stars it used to orbit but, it didn''t seem like that would be an issue.


    From when he first sensed Talrain''s wake to the moment when Felix knew he was right around the corner, a half hour had passed. Felix had grown annoyed it was taking so long and he had no idea why until Talrain stepped around the corner and Felix barely recognized him.


    This narrative has been purloined without the author''s approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.


    The once elegant garb was gone, leaving him nearly naked save for some scraps and tatters that were still stuck to his body. His clean and symmetrical horns that reminded Felix of a ram''s were chipped, scarred, dirty and cracked, one of them missing the tip. His clean, light purple skin was covered in wounds, many of which still bled, some of which were dried into a crusty smear.


    Oddest of all though, were the unnatural changes. His body was evidently bigger, his nails longer like he hadn''t cut them in years and his hair was unruly. He looked almost part beast which definitely fit with the aura he was giving off.


    The source of the wake Felix had felt was obvious the moment he saw him. Talrain had those whispers and fairies Felix had ignored attached to him like leeches. They consumed and altered his soul and, given enough time, Felix was certain would have destroyed him. As of now though, it felt like he was multiple grades above Felix with a aura that stretched hundreds of meters outwards and made him seem like a god.


    With a tone dripping in contempt, Talrain stepped forwards slowly, like he was savoring the moment, "Ah ha ha¡­ It''s my sister''s little fuck toy."


    Felix didn''t even bother answering, unsure how sane and present Talrain actually was.


    Talrain took another step, his body loose and swaying back and forth like he was a zombie, "I thought you surrendered to the brute?"


    He waited a moment for a reply then smiled cruelly with his teeth and finally licked his lips, "Instead¡­ you delivered yourself right to me¡­ You know I wanted to kill you right?" Talrain spit on the ground next to him, the saliva whispering loudly into the anima as it struck the ground, "Melody probably told you, didn''t she."


    "Yes."


    "Ah, he speaks. Good¡­ Why you anyways?"


    Felix sighed as he realized Talrain had stopped moving, "Why me, what?"


    "Why''d my sister pick you of all the trash in the school? You and the gun bitch."


    "I don''t know. Ask her."


    "ASK HER!"


    The sudden yelling threw Felix off a little but not much as he was expecting some amount of insanity from someone literally having their soul eaten in real time.


    Talrain bent backwards and laughed into the ceiling, "She lies¡­ You can''t trust her. You can''t just ask her."


    Felix snorted, "Trust her more than I trust you."


    "Of course you do. Everyone seems to. Why though? Just because I get what I want? Because I change my personality to fit the situation? Because no one can tell what I''m thinking?"


    The edge of Felix''s mouth twitched a little as he began putting things together, "Oh really? No one can tell what you''re thinking?"


    Talrain sneered and Felix continued, "I''m sure your dad could tell."


    "Sometimes.", The smirk on Talrain''s face made it all the more satisfying for Felix, he had successfully subverted his expectations and made him lower his guard so to speak. It made the next line all the more impactful.


    "And obvious Melody always could." He tried to speak with the most matter of fact, nonchalant tone he could muster and whether or not he did a good job, Talrain exploded.


    Leaping towards Felix, Talrain looked like a werewolf as he led with his claws but Felix was completely ready for him. He was faster than Felix had expected but the spell was already ready.


    Talrain''s body was blasted into the wall to their side hard enough that Felix was certain anyone else in their grade would have died to the nearly 20 million mana Force Push. The aura around Talrain weakened the spells though, like they were leeching off the mana and produced energy just as much as they were on Talrain''s soul. Even still, it should have hurt him but Talrain only looked like he was having even more fun.


    The fact that his body had dented the wall worried Felix a little as to Talrain''s durability though.


    In a flourish that was graceful and practiced, Talrain dove in with his claws towards the back of Felix''s ankles, his aura destroying the sustained Force Barrier Felix tried to maintain.


    Using his Reaper''s Movement, Felix shifted and avoided having the muscles in his calves literally ripped out then swung his arm downwards releasing a Force Blade into Talrain''s body.


    The blade produced a shallow cut but most of the effect was consumed by the cursed aura and the small cut he inflicted only added to the carving that was his body.


    Rolling back to his feet and instantly kicking himself into another leap, Talrain aimed right next to Felix''s body so he pushed himself backwards with an instinct cast. Felix''s instinct cast was showing its limits though as it was based on an old and outdated spell form that wasn''t very powerful.


    It would have been just enough if Talrain''s speed was constant but as much as his body, feet and movement were fast and practiced, his hands were too fast for Felix to see. With expert precision, Talrain cut a slit between two of Felix''s ribs and managed to nick an artery.


    The bleeding was quickly stopped by Felix''s manual attention but the ridiculous precision had Felix a bit worried.


    Before moving more than a meter through the air, Talrain had vanished. Felix swung his head towards the center of the cursed aura but he was somehow invisible.


    Tracking his rough position, Felix forcefully filled his cloak''s enchantment despite the aura constantly eating at it and readied some spells.


    Even knowing where he was coming from and pushing back against Talrain with a real Force spell, Felix was still cut. The wound wasn''t lethal this time though, just a series of gashes along the front of his thigh. Talrain had clearly been going for the inside of his thigh and Felix was just happy he had managed to avoid that. His cloak, as he had suspected, did nothing. Talrain''s curse coated finger nails tore through it like it was decorative tissue paper.


    Sealing the wounds manually took up just a fraction of a second of a fraction of Felix''s attention and yet, he still missed it when Talrain vanished once again.


    Darting around the room with his aura giving away his location, Felix released a burst of Flame that Talrain laughed through as he dove high and swiped at Felix''s neck.


    The wound immediately started spurting blood outwards and Felix slapped the cut with his left hand to put pressure while his body manually sealed the wound and Talrain disappeared once again.


    A few seconds of darting around the room and Talrain began to attack with what Felix could only describe as Curse Spears. Despite not being real, physical objects and despite Felix being unaffected by their whispers, the first spear ripped a hole right through his left bicep as he held his neck.


    The rest of his body was severely lacking compared to the structure he had created around his core soul but the anima suffusing his body was still far denser than even other participant''s core souls. Cultivated curses though, were easily strong enough to overcome that and were more than his body alone could handle.


    If he were faster, his soul tendrils could protect the area but he wasn''t and he didn''t have nearly enough to wrap himself up entirely.


    With his bicep mostly severed, Felix''s hand and the pressure he was applying to his neck vanished allowing blood to spurt out of the wound once again.


    Felix desperately dodged three other Soul Spears before having his right Achilles severed.


    With his health down to just a quarter from nearly begin full seconds ago, Felix decided he desperately needed a breather and launched himself backwards towards the room with the pillar. He didn''t move more than a dozen meters but it was far enough that a massive black panther made of dark grey metal scales was able to leap over him and take over.


    Talrain tried exactly once to get around Nova at which point she actually burned his foot with a column of dark red flame and violet lightning. His foot was still there and mostly functional as he landed on it shortly afterwards but it was at least visually damaged.


    "You had to call in your pet. How cute." Talrain laughed out into the room from the shadows and began showering Nova in Curse Spears.


    She dodged a couple and got scraped by a couple, her Agility many times that of Felix''s but Talrain just chuckled when her saw her avoid most of the damage. Even though Nova was made of what Felix was pretty sure was Demitium, it wasn''t nearly enough for her to truly compete in this fight.


    A break in the spears and a short moment of silence worried Felix right before a mass of phantom chains that reminded Felix of the specter army appeared. These were darker and much more significant than the skill Edras'' faction employed though as Felix could feel the curses that made them.


    They twisted around Nova''s much stronger body but much weaker soul. It was strong enough, after Felix''s manual changes and her evolution, to keep her alive in this fight but it was nowhere near Felix''s. It wasn''t even close to enough for her to break the chains herself.


    The next Curse Spear obliterated half of Nova''s leg without her being able to move at all.


    Rushing back into the fight, Felix told Nova to revert to a kitten and run as he used his Soul Tendrils to snap the chains closest to him.


    His wounds were only just sealed and he had only managed to push his health back to 40% or so but he didn''t have any other choice. He had purposefully told Nova to stay out of this fight for the exact reason that she wasn''t equipped to handle Talrain like this. Having his Persona available would have helped tremendously too but it was still recharging after stepping through the now emptied core of the planet.


    He told Nova to sit back and regenerate if she could, not really trusting her to provide cover fire for him in this fight without hitting him as well.


    Releasing the spell he had been flooding with mana into the general direction of Talrain''s aura, Felix blew nearly 40 million mana in an instant. The cone of sound knocked Talrain back but he quickly rolled to his feet and vanished back into the shadows.


    How the fuck does an aura eat sound?


    Instead of Curse Spears or leaping out himself, Talrain chuckled from his invisibility and Felix felt the whispers on the anima grow louder until they were literally screaming.


    Beings that were like illusions made of curses suddenly appeared around Felix, jumping out of thin air and trying to latch onto him. Swatting them away with his Soul Tendrils, Felix was able to prevent them from ever really latching on and consistently draining his soul but, they still physically and spiritually hurt.


    There were hundreds of these tiny little curse demons floating around, each one completely different in appearance, if they ever even became visible at all. His Soul Tendrils shooed and even destroyed them as fast as Felix could manipulate them but it wasn''t instant. They still clawed, bit and hit him, taking tiny chunks of his flesh and soul with each attack.


    It took a lot of Felix''s focus to deal with the Curse Specters and all the rest of it was eaten up by just trying to avoid the few Curse Spears Talrain threw in from the shadows. The Curse Specters weren''t infinite though so as Felix destroyed them with his tendrils, the pressure he felt slowly lessened until was finally able to retaliate. Though his health had only dropped by 10% or so, the outer layers of his soul were ragged and beaten. It was functional but sore and even just moving was painful.


    Felix attacked into the shadows aiming at the core of Talrain''s cursed aura with blades of Force and all though he couldn''t actually tell if he hit anything, by the fourth blade the specters suddenly backed off and stopped attacking.


    Readying himself for an attack, Felix pestered and chased after the aura with Force Blades to try and slow down whatever Talrain was preparing but what hit him a moment later, he never would have expected.


    The specters were back but they no longer attacked Felix and instead, they swarmed around him, never actually touching him, but slowing him down somehow. Suddenly it was like Felix''s every movement was dragged down but not like he was fighting through molasses but more like gravity had increased in every direction somehow. It was like the force he applied through his muscles was being drained which, fit with the specter''s whole theme of draining but Felix wasn''t even sure how that was possible.


    Resisting Force by applying an opposing Force made sense. How the specters could ever target the Force being applied to an object directly was completely beyond him but it was the only reasonable explanation he had for what was happening.


    That only lasted by itself for a few moments at which point the hallucinations started.


    Felix had heard whispers, seen flashes, felt brushes, smelt, tasted and even sensed things with his mana senses but those were like echoes of a memory. They were weak, brief and easily ignored.


    Talrain''s newest ability turned those into full hallucinations. The flashes became scenes and images around him, the sounds became thousands of voices and everything felt real. Immediately he was transported into another reality, a dark and barren hellscape with black ground, ashy clouds, dead flora and undead fauna.


    A zombie that looked like a mangy dog jumped up and tried to bite at Felix''s face but he swatted it just before it reached him.


    Felix spared half of his tendrils to fighting the illusory creatures, which he could feel were backed by real Curse Specters, and waited. So far, his spells have had little effect as everything he threw at Talrain was drained and dulled as it passed through the curse aura.


    There was just no way for Felix to get through it with his spells so, he decided to take something out of Arthur''s playbook which, wasn''t very difficult considering they were one in the same. While his stats differed greatly, and it put Felix at significant risk, he didn''t really see any other option.


    Ignoring the hallucinations was relatively easy as even though they appeared when his eyes were closed, he simply stopped processing anything visual with his mind. Focusing in on his soul alone, Felix blocked out every sense other than one, his Anima Senses.


    Through them, he felt the Curse Specters jumping at him from every direction, he felt the Curse Spears before they reached him and he sensed Talrain''s position from his aura. Using his Soul Tendrils he minimized the damage from the first two while paying careful attention to the last one. He threw out the occasional Force Blade in Talrain''s direction but Felix wasn''t hoping for much.


    He knew Talrain was suffering from all of the curses that had latched onto him and he knew Talrain was just savoring things. He could feel it, the shift in his aura and the echo of his satisfaction through it.


    Letting his health drop by another 10%, Felix was worried he had made a terrible mistake but the growing anticipation and excitement he felt from Talrain told him otherwise.


    Felix only had to wait a brief moment after that for Talrain to finally join the fight himself.


    Where the Curse Spears were fast and obvious but relatively small projectiles in Felix''s senses, Talrain was effectively a massive cannonball and was impossible to miss as he raced up behind Felix.


    As soon as he was in arm''s length of his target, Felix spun with a quick activation of Reaper''s Movement, Sense and Body all at once and grabbed and snapped both of Talrain''s wrists. Letting go of one, Felix pulled his arm back and Talrain instantly morphed into the shape of Melody. He opened his mouth to say something but Felix hadn''t stopped moving. He hadn''t hesitated or even flinched.


    He stabbed his hand into Talrain''s stomach and reached out with his Soul Tendrils to manually shred the chunks of Curse Anima that had latched onto his soul. Each and every parasite he removed, he dragged into his Soul Space to be promptly obliterated.


    Talrain fought back, wriggling and fighting to free himself, smashing his forehead into Felix''s nose, scratching, clawing and kicking everything he could reach but his attacks were only worrisome for a few moments. After that, Talrain was weakened and it seemed almost like he fell apart. Instead of pride and blood lust focusing his eyes into a razor sharp glare, his gaze was soft and glazed over like he was drunk.


    His kicking and fighting weakened in a matter of moments followed shortly afterwards by Talrain passing out.


    Let''s add new robes to the shopping list and a new enchantment and external soul defensive layer to the todo list. Something with a lattice.


    Felix was genuinely surprised Talrain had lasted so long with his soul being sucked dry but he assumed the curse parasites had let him live right up until they were threatened. Then, they sucked as much as they could as quickly as possible to strengthen themselves in the hopes they could survive. Although, Felix wasn''t convinced they were smart or complex enough for all that, it was just the behavior that made the most sense from what he had observed.


    As soon as Talrain was on the ground, Felix didn''t even bother finishing the job and simply used Eretheas to remove his head then harvested his body and soul. He tried to save as much as he could to sift through Talrain''s experiences but there just wasn''t much left to save. The scraps Felix found left behind were both useless and tainted by the curses, offering nothing of value.


    A voice Felix had never heard before in his life suddenly spoke into his mind, Well done¡­


    Thoughtlessly, Grim confirmed he had no idea who was talking to him and that it wasn''t anyone in his Mind City.


    Focusing in on every sense he had, Felix desperately searched in every direction as far as he could to make sure nothing else was coming for him. He really needed to recuperate. The Blood Devouring Ring had only regenerated 5% of his health from Talrain''s body. It used to be higher but now that he had evolved his cells had become even more specialized and there was simply less overlap with other bodies. That resulted in there being less material for the ring to repair his body.


    Please, allow me.


    Felix had already been manually repairing his body as fast as he could but suddenly, it was like he had taken a potion as all of his cells were energized and sped up. They replicated and regenerated faster than he could manually direct them causing his total estimated time to fully regenerate his health to go from a few hours to a few minutes.


    There weren''t any other side effects as far as Felix could tell but there was also no way Felix could see to reject the help if he wanted to. He was undecided as he didn''t trust the voice but at the same time, it seemed to be helping.


    Once his health was full as well as his mana, solely from the density of the Aether around him, Felix stood and finally responded, speaking out loud because he wasn''t sure, "I take it you''re the Imitation System?"


    That I am.


    Can we speak like this?


    Felix waited for a few moments in silence before they spoke again, Hello? You don''t seem to be asleep.


    "Just checking something."


    You mind putting the rest of the cores in their slots for me?


    "Why? What happens if I do?"


    I get a helluva lot stronger.


    "That I assumed but I''m not sure yet that I want that to happen."


    What? Why not?


    "You are literally made from curses. You saw what just handling the cores did to Talrain, why would I agree to do this?"


    Don''t act stupid. You and I both know there''s a chasm between me and Talrain. We are completely different and, he wasn''t just handling them. That idiot tried to fuse one into his body and literally opened his soul up to do it.


    "Why would he just do that? He didn''t even know what they are."


    I may have told him they were some of the densest mana computers in existence and that I could be his own personal little System.


    "You told him to fuse a core into his body?"


    What? No, of course not. The idiot was convinced he needed to bind his soul to mine through the cores and that that was a good idea somehow. Don''t ask me how he managed to live as long as he did.


    "What will you do once I reassemble you?"


    Uh¡­ Well¡­


    Felix just sighed.


    Look¡­ I want to be whole and more powerful and all that¡­ I mean, I''m already pretty great but¡­ that''s not all I need from you.


    "Hurry up. We don''t exactly have a lot of time."


    Yeah yeah, we''ll fall into a star. You''ll fly or portal out of here way before that happens though, I''m just hoping you could¡­ take me with you.


    "So you aren''t tied to this building?"


    No this building is just to finish the whole thing. Connect me up to all my cores.


    "Can''t you just leave yourself? I''m assuming it was you who messed with the quests and the rules and gave me a bunch of mana and so on?"


    Well yeah, duh. Who else would it be? I could move myself but I can''t¡­ survive on my own.


    "I''m not binding you to my soul." Probably.


    Really? I definitely thought you would do that, insist o- but that isn''t what I need anyways. I need you to smuggle me out, hide me in your Soul Space.


    Felix nodded as he started to catch on, "That''s why you helped me so many times randomly throughout the event. I''m the only one with a Soul Space. Why do you need a Soul Space in particular though? I''m sure there are others who could move you, put you in spatial storages or otherwise get you out of the event?"


    You''re a smart guy, you tell me.


    "You want to hide from The System, why?"


    Let''s just say I would definitely be instantly killed if I went out there all by my lonesome.


    "Okay so, The System doesn''t like you, wants to kill you. Why hasn''t it done so already?"


    Well, it can''t. Not right now. If you aren''t going to reassemble me right now, can you at least come here so I can show you things?


    Felix nodded then walked over to the pillar and reached out with the correct core, fully intending on placing it just so he didn''t have to backtrack but hesitated at the last second and stowed the core. Instead he grabbed Nova and opened a portal as close as he could to the main chamber.


    Walking towards it, the door opened for him instead of him having to portal through it this time, and he walked down the bridge towards the core that was now visibly awake. Before, the orb had been translucent but with no other side, like the center of the glass orb was infinitely far away.


    Now, it was more like his Pocket Marble. There was a fog or cloud swirling within, this one a kaleidoscope of colors that brightened and flashed and moved like a living thing.


    Hello, nice to talk to you face to face. Aren''t I pretty? As the Imitation System Nucleus spoke, the fog swirled around and moved rapidly while tiny arcs of multicolored electricity tickled the outside of the orb.


    "Uh¡­"


    Am I not pretty? I honestly don''t understand you sentient creatures that well but I was pretty sure colors and lights made things pretty. Am I wrong on that?


    "Yes."


    Oh¡­ well maybe you can teach me.


    "Why hasn''t The System killed you already?"


    Right so, you get the basics of how I function, I''m the Nucleus and there are a bunch of cores. What is your understanding of how it''s all going to work?


    "I''m not giving you grounds to build a believable lie. Just tell me and hurry up, I got shit I want to do."


    Ugh fine, I wasn''t going to lie I just- It would be easie- Seeing Felix''s unimpressed glare, the Nucleus cut itself off, Okay, whatever. I connect myself to the cores then, when I need to think about something really hard, pay attention to something, do something with my awesome power, I employ as many cores as I deem necessary. They''re like¡­ pseudo-sentient creatures or mini systems themselves that just can''t think or do or be¡­ They just don''t have a consciousness and need to be directed, does that make sense?


    "But you can employ one to say¡­ monitor a person or an area. You can use multiple to manipulate large areas, mana, anima and so on. Is that how The System works?"


    Yes, exactly. Yes, this is how The System works but it''s¡­ a lot more complicated than I am and much bigger. It uses multiple Nuclei working together to form a council that make decisions along with sectors and structured hierarchies of cores and subsystems that have their own councils and all that works together to¡­ all of it.


    As the Nucleus spoke into Felix''s mind, a projected representation of what it was saying appeared on top of the orb, all somewhat cartoon like. There was a council of little orbs that spoke to each-other all sitting atop thrones on a cloud. The scene zoomed out to show a massive branching network of orbs working together, growing progressively smaller as they got further from the central cloud.


    "How do you know all this? Or how did the people who built you know how to make you? I assume you got this knowledge from them?"


    Nah, it''s aaalll me. They didn''t find an instruction manual to The System or anything like that. This is Chicken and the Egg the answer is I came first¡­ sort of. The Chicken and The Egg are one in the same and were born simultaneously¡­ The answer is The Egg and The Chicken exist in a quantum state.


    Felix half groaned and half sighed having to deal with the Nucleus, "You''re trying to say you were created from the thing that had the knowledge to build you?"


    Yes, actually. I didn''t expect you to get that one. Bear with me- How do you think The System maintains control across the multiverse and specifically, in separated spaces like this?


    "Well now I assume it dedicates a subsystem of some calculated size or set of cores to control and purview a section."


    Yes exactly. In truly separated spaces like this though, it doesn''t maintain a connection to the subsystem at all times.


    "Because it can''t?"


    Yeah, sort of. It could but maintaining a meaningful, lasting connection between the two creates a lot of problems the biggest of which is deterioration of space, both on this side and the other side. It can''t open the connection more than every once in a while or so to sync up because The System and the way it communicates is¡­ heavy, so to speak.


    "Got it so, it avoids accidentally destroying the multiverse. If this space is truly separated then it must split off a part of itself and embed it temporarily in here. You were born from one of those split off pieces then. How did-" Felix waved his hands to the building around them, "-these people get their hands on you at all and without being killed for trying?"


    Well, it was bound to happen eventually. The piece that was used to make me was corrupted by a curse and was forced to excise the bad to save the good and keep itself from being consumed. In doing so, it was weakened which normally The System accounts for but this time, these people found an unstable Exotic weapon that should never have existed in this universe, something The System couldn''t predict. They didn''t even use it purposefully, it was just a lucky series of events.


    "Exotic?"


    It''s just a thing from another universe. Sometimes Ancient is used but only for things that predate The System, Exotic were made after but made there way in here anyways. Exotic might be the rarest rarity because items from other universes are already rare and there has been much less time since The System than before it.


    "Got it. Why not self destruct at that point?"


    Good question. It should have. I assume it was damaged in just the right way to not be able to.


    "So it can''t kill you here because the piece in this event isn''t strong enough by itself?"


    Yes. It knows about me though and definitely reported back.


    "Right, so if I smuggle you out in my Soul Space, The System kills me?"


    No. Probably not¡­ It''s a little complicated but kind of like convictions¡­ You know what those are, right?


    "Yes."


    Right, not exactly the same but The System has rules and laws it must abide by. They''ve loosened overtime but one of the most stringent is to not directly attack, hurt or target any specific creature.


    "It can still make my life a huge pain in the ass."


    Yes, but that''s the limit of what it can do. It cannot do anything that it even remotely thinks will lead to more than a 0.5% chance that you will die or be directly harmed. It also cannot affect you in any way that will directly lead to an overall divergence of outcomes greater than 1.5%.


    "I see. So its hands are mostly tied."


    Not to mention it seems to like you for some reason anyways.


    "Can it hear us right now?"


    Nope.


    "Are you sure?"


    No, I''m awesome, but also yeah, I''m certain. Try opening your status screen.


    Felix confirmed it wouldn''t open then tested a few skills and tried opening and using his inventory.


    This building shields a lot of it then I''ve blocked out the rest of it around us right here. Can''t stretch that very far though, even if this is a small subset of The System.


    "Shouldn''t my cores stop spinning? Did you pick that up from The System?"


    Nope. No idea what you''re talking about but from context, I can''t affect as many things as directly, not right now and probably not ever. As for passive skills, you''ve probably just built up enough of a habit that it doesn''t need to do much anymore.


    "What do I get if I smuggle you out and what exactly do you need me to do?"


    Well for starters, I''d like to be finished. I need you to put me in your Soul Space and never take me out and¡­ we need to hunt down The System subsystem still in the event.


    "Say what now?"


    Oh come on, aren''t you dying to try?


    "I mean¡­ I''m curious but I also don''t want to die."


    You''ll be fine, probably. Plus, think about it this way, you can feed it to me and I can become even more awesome. Didn''t think that was possible, did you?


    Felix blocked out all external responses and thought directly to Grim, Or I could consume it myself.


    "Alright so I smuggle you out, what then? You exist in my Soul Space and do what exactly?"


    Uh¡­ cool¡­ things¡­ You know, I don''t really know. Haven''t gotten that far and don''t know much about the outside really.


    "Wait, have you never been outside a subspace before?"


    Nope. Found me in an event and was moved to another subspace shortly afterwards. That subspace held this planet and the only way for The System to follow its rules and still kill me, was for one of you to expose me.


    "Right so, what can you do from my Soul Space which you are planning on living in indefinitely?"


    Oh, all kinds of things.


    "Can you increase my stats? Give me skills? Upgrade my skills? Teach me things?"


    No no no no no. I can''t affect you or anything external at all really. That''s one of the only exceptions to the no-touchy-people rule. If someone finds a way to game The System or alter it directly.


    "You did that though. With the quests and my identify skill."


    No, sort of. My changing the quests is more like I know a back door so I changed some things around, it isn''t gaming The System for anyone directly. Changing stats is a BIG no no. Even if I altered your body or something, because I was made from a piece of The System, it could reasonably justify just killing you to prevent it from happening in the future. The skill thing I just used a back door and temporarily tuned the cooldown on proving proficiency. Lots of people benefited-or could have-so, no favoritism.


    "Alright, here''s what I''m thinking. It is way safer for me if I just consume you and use the mana computers and anima myself."


    You don''t want to do that, just thi- Wait hold on¡­ What did you just say? What do you mean?


    "Why would I ever risk The System''s ire by saving you?"


    I know things? About The System and¡­ stuff?


    "Look, wild guess but you know nothing truly significant or important just from an information-handling standpoint. The System definitely doesn''t store unnecessary and dangerous information in weaker, split off, subsystems."


    Well no, not really.


    "Right so, anything else you can offer or¡­ I am kind of on a stellar deadline."


    Why not just smuggle me out then decide later? You can also harvest me then¡­


    "Sure but, System ire."


    Yeah but also, I can help you find the subsystem in this event.


    "Which also puts a System sized target on my back. Why would I want to do that?"


    Alright look. I am a unique and complicated arrangement of mana and anima that exists in exactly one other place-which is also technically everywhere as a place but not the point. If you can harvest me and recreate that, you''d be a System engineer and you already would have done it.


    "You''re right. I was just curious if you had anything else to offer. You cool if I get rid of all these curses?"


    Wait¡­ what? Hold on, you just¡­ No? They make me¡­ me. I''m awesome and also only really work because of them.


    "You''re bound to them because of mana stability, yes I know. I don''t need curses to do that."


    Uh¡­ Ignoring the ridiculousness of that-and a lot of other-statements you''ve made, please don''t?


    "They''re a risk."


    They also give me personality.


    "You have enough of that as is."


    No but also, having the curses as part of the cores give them more purpose. The System is pretty general purpose but different subsystems will use different convictions to be better at certain tasks.


    "You aren''t even planning on doing anything but sit around and live inside my soul. What the hell tasks do you need specialized subsystems to perform?"


    Okay, you know what? You''re smart enough to know that if they might help me be better they should stay. We will eventually find something for me to do.


    Felix sighed and dropped the act, "I''m trying to gauge how much of the curses to keep."


    Oh¡­ I mean I''m confident I won''t be corrupted so¡­ all of it! Maybe even turn them up a little.


    Shaking his head, Felix reassembled, reattached and repaired Mark within his Soul Space then gave him a few minutes to sync and read through his recent memories.


    Mark, calculations on how much curse to keep in the cores?


    It took Mark a few seconds to respond, Optimally, all curse strengths are normalized to be equal to the core 20% from the weakest curse you sensed within this arrangement.


    Felix''s brow furrowed, How precise do I need to be with finding and matching the 20% core?


    Using the core 10% from the weakest will result in noticeably degraded performance but using the core 30% from the weakest as a baseline is only 1.4% more dangerous.


    Okay, so lean higher. How closely do they have to match?


    Within 1% to account for our standard safety margin.


    That''s¡­ doable. Thanks.


    Turning his attention back to the Nucleus, Felix gestured to the cores lying beyond the room they were in, "This configuration of cores, is it calculated and carefully mapped out?"


    Happy to be addressed again, the Nucleus spoke up, Sort of. This is the most balanced arrangement that they could find without access to a supercomputer. I''m a brain, not a super computer. If I was connected to the cores I could figure it out but not right now, as I am.


    "So it doesn''t matter where the cores are? I can rearrange them as I like?"


    Yeah, I guess. Just you know, try not to make it too hard on me.


    Felix ignored the Nucleus and had Mark, along with a good chunk of his own brain, work together to find a better arrangement. As they worked on that, he raced out of the room and opened a portal to the first core in the arrangement.


    Originally, knowing there were 256 cores, Felix had thought that number was significant and the fact that it was a power of 2 mattered. In reality, someone picked that number as a batch size and the cores they had collected were the final batch of cores that had been created then stashed away. In terms of the configuration of the Imitation System, the number was meaningless. In fact, there were thousands of cores, probably tens of thousands but not likely hundreds of thousands.


    Felix didn''t have even close to enough time to even touch all of the cores, let alone adjust and normalize the curse strengths within them. Luckily, he didn''t have to. For the most part they were close to where they needed to be and the rest of the balancing work could be done with some simple reconfiguration. There were however some cores that stood out as particularly egregious in terms of curse strength and so, Felix headed to those to deal with them manually.


    The current configuration, the one the original creators had come up with, dealt with these anomalous cores by pitting them against each-other to try and create a balance. While functional, Felix wasn''t a huge fan of just leaving potential problems he could fix in the design, especially one as complicated as this. If they caused a problem, it could propagate, cascade and multiply until it was impossible to deal with.


    Reaching the first core, Felix carefully but also as quickly as possible, reached his Soul Tendrils into the core and severed the curse. He left some of it there then replaced the removed anima with new, blank anima, that his soul had cleaned.


    None of these curses were strong curses, like The Endless Hunger, or even higher tier curses, like The Endless Hunger, they were derivatives. Easier to handle and weaker overall but still effective and, as Talrain had learned the hard way, still dangerous. They just weren''t quite the same and so, as he flew, Felix began poking the bear a bit.


    He couldn''t help himself after dealing with so many curses, he had to remind himself of the difference and also see how much stronger he was against The Endless Hunger he still stored in his soul. Testing it with a tendril, Felix smiled as he was able to brush up against it briefly without literally dedicating all of his focus and willpower. It was an improvement, even if it didn''t mean much in terms of functional abilities as he didn''t really fight high level, cultivated and old curses very often, or at least didn''t plan to.


    After the initial poke, Felix didn''t poke the orb of infinite blackness any more and focused himself entirely on getting from core to core as fast as possible. He was able to detect which ones stood out amongst the others relatively easily so the biggest limit on his speed was how fast he could open portals from one to the next. By the thousandth core, his portal cast time was noticeably lower from about 5 seconds to about 4 and three quarter seconds.


    Not a huge difference by any stretch of the imagination but by the thousandth core, he was finding whatever he could to occupy his mind. The computer part of his brain was occupied so he couldn''t really work on spell forms, research or simulations. Left with just his own biological brain, he was forced to find anything he could to work on, improve on or even just distract himself with.


    Eventually he decided to tune back into the one sided conversation the Nucleus was having in his head without any response but ignored whatever it was babbling about.


    So then all I had to do was move a few drops of rain and suddenly the rabbi-


    "Nucleus, you need me because I have a Soul Space. Why did you let Talrain get so far and almost kill me? Why didn''t you step in?"


    I''m not limited by The Systems rules if that''s what you''re trying to probe out of me. I just¡­ well, the same way you''re putting on an act and probing me¡­


    "You were testing me. Trying to see more of my abilities, got it. Can you give me more specifics on how this contraption works? What will it actually do when the configuration is complete and activated?"


    Think about The System. If all of it were just hanging out, it would take up many galaxies worth of space¡­ maybe more, don''t have the specifics on that.


    Felix''s brow furrowed, "It doesn''t create a subspace, then you wouldn''t need me."


    No no, a true subspace is both easier and harder and at that point, it would use an actual separate dimension. Both of those methods require more power than this and would make communication, observation and everything The System does way more complicated and dangerous. This method doesn''t have those issues but it is way more complicated. You know how there are a whole bunch of spatial dimensions but most of them are kind of weird?


    "No. I use 4, arguably 5."


    Okay well, there are a bunch of them. What do you know about quantum mechanics?


    "Some, likely not much relative to the totality of the topic."


    Right so, if I said this facility was designed to overlay the space of the cores with my own and place us in a quantum entangled state where we coexist within a single point in space and yet are simultaneously occupying the same space at the same time and also always and also never and we''re also smeared across a whole bunch of dimensions, all at once¡­ does that make sense?


    "Yes."


    Oh, cool. Well yeah, that''s the explain like you''re an idiot version. It''s a little more complicated than that¡­ a lot more and honestly, I don''t fully get it all I mean¡­ I know the theory but I don''t really understand it so, don''t ask me for more.


    "Can I use this or a similar contraption to quantum entangle and overlay space of other objects?"


    You¡­ could? Obviously the objects would have to be specifically configured to work together, communicate, connect and share state. I''m designed so I can have thousands of states that I share and use to interact with the cores¡­ I have no idea how to make it a distributed system if that''s what you were hoping for but you could probably do the same thing with another centralized system. Not sure what else you would want to put in me but¡­ I''m open to the possibility.


    "Was that the lust curse or do you have no sense of humor whatsoever?"


    Yeah¡­ the curse. That was it for sure.


    "I guess you''ll meet them at some point but I have a mana-supercomputer in my Soul Space right now. I call him Mark."


    Really? Can I meet him? Also, don''t you think it''s a little morbid to just kill him off by integrated him into me?


    "Not right now. He''s working on calculating the most balanced configuration of cores to make you whole. I''m not killing him. I was thinking of putting him in your place."


    Woah woah woah. Hold on, I don''t think you co-


    "Not now. In the future with different cores."


    Oooohhh¡­ I see. Well, he might never be what I could b-


    "Yeah, he''ll be way smarter. He''s already a computer then if I just attach similar computers with no ability to operate independently, he can simply offload work to them."


    Right so a whole lot of computers working together to make¡­ a big old computer. That''s not nearly as cool as I am. I''m not sure you fully get that I am a piece of The System.


    "Well, made from a heavily damaged piece of The System but¡­ Cool. So what?"


    So what? The System is above the Gods. It literally controls the universe.


    "This one."


    I mean¡­ yeah?


    "You just begged me to save you despite offering nothing in return. You can''t do anything on your own and neither of us can think of any use for you. I don''t care if you''re a machine that was literally crafted from multiple universes all working together and compressed down inside a Primordial being''s arse. You don''t do anything."


    Okay. That was mean.


    "Be useful and I''ll think about trying to be nicer."


    You kind of suck¡­ you know that?


    "Oh really? I have 2841 more cores to normalize. The only reason any of this may be possible is because I am regenerating enough mana each second to open a portal every 5 seconds, half of my mind is dedicated just to opening the next one while the other half performs soul surgery on a computer. All of this while the computer integrated into my skull is working together with the supercomputer I built to calculate the ideal configuration to fix you, a piece of arguably the most complicated thing in our universe, despite you being admittedly, useless."


    Alright well, you kno- Wait, 2841 with 5 seconds between¡­ I''m not like¡­ a computer or anything but¡­ that''s cutting it really close, isn''t it?


    "Yes. Luckily, we have just over 4 hours left and the time it takes me to cast each portal is slowly decreasing so, my brain is part computer and¡­ we should make it¡­ barely. How long does it take for this thing to run?"


    Instant thankfully. It''s just press the button, wait a few seconds for it to spin up and all that then it just happens.


    "Good."


    You know¡­ The only reason what you''re doing is possible, is because I''m supplying the mana, right?


    Felix sighed, "Yes."


    SOOOO, All that awesome stuff you''re doing, I''m a part of it. I''m doing it too, if you think about it.


    With an incredibly annoyed expression on his face, Felix communicated directly to Grim in his mind, The Nucleus seems stable even when I insult and challenge its power.


    Grim nodded, It seems capable of handling Pride without growing unstable despite being a little unbalanced towards that curse specifically. Wrath is clearly not an issue either. ''I''m not a computer but'' it seems safe enough to me.


    Felix groaned mentally, Ha ha. Stupid jokes aside, I agree. It''s unfortunate, I was kind of hoping to harvest it.


    Grim chuckled, You know as well as I do you''ll get more out of dissecting it later when you know more than you will destroying it now. Plus, seeing how this machine works.


    Normalizing all of the cores took longer than Felix had hoped as his portal cast time remained largely the same after reaching just over 4 and a half seconds. He was able to lower that under 4 seconds in this specific situation because he was using the same spell over and over again, nearly non stop. If he distracted himself though and wiped his mind clean, then re-visualized and cast from scratch, it still took him just over 4.5 seconds so he wasn''t actually improving any more.


    Luckily, Mark and his brain had finished calculating a few hours ago and so Felix was able to simultaneously start rearranging the cores while he continued surgically fixing them at the same time. Grim also memorized the new configuration and directed Nova on which ones to switch so she helped as well. In the end, he spent another hour after the surgery just rearranging cores until he was finally done and, very satisfied with the result.


    The configuration was way more balanced than before, now offering an equal taste of each curse from all directions, balanced against each-other nearly perfectly.


    The inside of the facility had risen by about 10 degrees but after all of the evolutions and modifications Felix had gone through, it didn''t change anything for him. It was however, indicative of how much time they had left which wasn''t a lot. They had no good way to see what was happening outside but Felix kind of assumed they were a large stone chunk of the planet barreling towards the twin stars and now, pretty damn close to them.


    With no windows and the guarantee that opening a portal to check would fry him, they relied on Mark''s previous calculations because none of them trusted the Nucleus'' math, even the Nucleus.


    "So what now? Configuration is complete and I''d like to get out of here as soon as possible."


    Now all you have to do is feed me your soul.


    "Ha ha."


    You''re no fun. Real glad I''m going to be stuck inside you for the rest of my existence. Just step outside and watch.


    Felix flew back out of the sphere shaped room and stood just outside the door next to Nova who was busy trying to eat more of the walls. She had managed a few bites but nothing more in the time they had been there.


    The bridge stretching out towards the middle of the room retracted towards the door and vanished into the wall then, the Nucleus began to brighten. The fog within thickened and expanded until it no longer looked like a fog at all as it pressed right up against the outside of the orb. Were it not for the flashing lights within the orb and having seen it before, Felix would have assumed it was made from fusing various crystals together.


    The entire spherical room as a whole brightened as seemingly random lights all over began appearing. Felix could feel them through his soul and mana senses and knew they were the cores all connecting and synchronizing.


    The flashes both in the orb and around the room accelerated exponentially until the orb was simply a bright ball of light then, with one final blinding flash, the entire process was complete. The orb in the middle of the room was notably smaller at only about a meter in diameter but otherwise, looked identical.


    UNLIMITED POWAH!


    "Uh huh. So what can you do now?"


    Oh, all kinds of things. Way too many to list them out.


    "Uh huh. Well, can I move you now or what? It''s already a few hundred degrees in here and I don''t want to waste more time than necessary."


    Yeah yeah, let''s go.


    Flying into the room, Felix slapped the Nucleus and pulled it into his Soul Space. It was harder than he had anticipated as the Nucleus was actually huge, both in dimensions he could and couldn''t measure. Afterwards, he felt like he had stretched his soul out and it ached a little from the strain but it was manageable. As soon as the Nucleus was safe, he opened the portal spell he had already prepared and filled with mana then flew through, with Nova on his shoulder.


    Positioning where the portal should end up was trivial as the gravity of the twin stars made their location obvious so, he pointed it away from them. They were strong enough to feel now but not strong enough to pull his portal off course, thankfully. Then, all he had to do was push it really far. Originally he planned on opening the portal to any of the coordinates he had previously measured that would still be valid, just without ground beneath them. Unfortunately, him, Mark and Grim were all a little worried about the state of the planet and the possibility of opening a portal into a rock only to be jettisoned into magma or something.


    The void of space was much safer and easier to plan against with a simple modification to the bubble he had used to survive the gas in the quest where he had fought the Leviathan and won the hat. Now, it surrounded his entire body instead of just his head and had enough Force to contain the pressure against the void of space. There was also now a small heating component to try and keep himself from freezing.

 Chapter 217 - Book 19

    Flying through the portal, Felix was ready to pop out into empty space with his modified Force Bubble surrounding him and having to fly to get anywhere. What he wasn''t ready for, was the debris of a planet shooting towards him at speeds that would easily rip through his body like it was nothing.


    Well¡­ fuck.


    Seeing them coming from a massive distance was the only reason Felix managed to dodge through the stream of debris flying towards him. Mark calculating and overlaying the trajectories of the debris in his vision was the only reason he was able to fly through and find relative safety.


    Okay fuck this. How do we find this sub-System so I can leave this stupid event.


    The Nucleus in his Soul Space took a few moments to respond, "What the fuck are you? I knew you had a Soul Space and like, that''s weird but n-"


    Not the time. How do I find it? Also, why is it still here?


    The Nucleus took another few moments, Sorry, distracted. It''s here because you are. It has to remain until you leave at which point it will probably close the event early.


    Gotcha, a rule it can''t break I take it?


    Bingo.


    Where is it?


    Exactly where you would assume it is.


    How big is this event subspace?


    That is a good question¡­ I think it''s just big enough to contain the planet and the stars it orbits then everything else is simulated, like distant stars and planets.


    So the stars and planet were actually both orbiting the center of the subspace?


    Yeah.


    Okay, so to be efficient the sub-System is in the exact center which means¡­ it''s stationary and sitting in the middle of space. What''s it look like?


    Uh¡­ You won''t see it at all. Actually, you probably can''t detect it on your own.


    Oh, wonderful. What do we do once we find it?


    Pray?


    Seriously?


    Well no. Look, if we don''t get rid of it, we maybe both die. You at least might get punished. As soon as we make it obvious we can and are attacking it, it will try to leave.


    How strong are these odds?


    Well¡­ it knows you put the cores into the machine in the building and it will probably try and retrieve me from the building so it can consume and integrate me. Once it does, it will know for sure so¡­


    Oh, lovely. Won''t it just report back, sync once to make sure the information isn''t lost?


    No. I doesn''t sync on its own in events like this ever. It relies on portals you sentients make.


    So the last time it synced was when Melody surrendered?


    Yup.


    Wait¡­ How did she get in? I thought the event was closed?


    Yeah¡­ not really, not yet. The one hour thing was me but¡­ I managed to change the text on the screen but the actual timer didn''t change. It was supposed to say one dekad. She probably just didn''t read the message then tried and found it worked.


    So there could be more participants that just pop through at any minute, causing it to sync?


    Yes but also no. Their marble will just explode if they try now that wherever they started from, is in one of two stars.


    Okay, that''s actually oddly comforting¡­ So¡­ We can approach it and that''s it?


    Correct.


    You know, I could probably just get rid of you now and The System would forgive me.


    Yeah yeah whatever, you''ll come around.


    Okay so, we need to find it first.


    That''s the easy part, you don''t actually have to find it at all.


    Felix groaned, Speak please, these dramatic pauses are grating.


    You can just force it to come to you.


    Felix thought about it for a few seconds but couldn''t come up with anything, How?


    Well, it''s only in here because you are and if you were to enter a subspace of this subspace¡­


    It would have to follow.


    Yup.


    Okay, I think I need a primer on subspaces then. In my head they were just, separate spaces.


    Yeah¡­ I have no idea.


    What? What do you mean? You''ve mentioned them a bunch of times now?


    Look, I don''t have all The System''s knowledge, I just have a bunch of leftover rules and protocols from the scraps that were pieced together to create me. I can read through them and predict what The System will do in some situations but I can''t extract knowledge from them or anything. I sure as shit don''t even understand most of them.


    Oh great. So this isn''t even really a solution at all then if none of us even know what a subspace is or where to find one.


    Oh¡­ actually¡­ I sort o-


    Holy crap I am very close to tossing you into the stars. Just say everything that needs to be said at once please.


    Okay okay okay, I get it. I don''t know what a subspace is or how to create one or how to identify one but I know of one. Basically, the only reasons the sub-System in this event would ever move or split is if it had to expand into a subspace. It did so many times throughout the event and I had no way of tracking it but¡­ after you forced everyone else out, there was a time when you were the only one left in the entire event, before the thieves. During that time, the sub-System almost entirely left the event exactly once¡­ When you used that marble you have to open a portal and walked into it.


    Okay, that was helpful. By almost entirely, you think whatever it leaves behind we could deal with?


    Probably, most likely, very much maybe. Problem is¡­ the majority chunk is the one following you.


    Great. Maybe I should just harvest you and feed all of it to Mark. He gives me percentages and confidence intervals you know. Also he just talks more efficiently. Less blabbing and more information.


    You know what, if this Mark is so great, why don''t you throw him at the sub-System, huh?


    Throw him? He''s actually useful.


    Well I guess aaalll that inf-


    Sorry, I probed you but I don''t have the time or the patience right now. How do we beat the piece that follows me inside?


    We weaken it. Which is equivalent to and more understandable as, we distract it.


    How.


    Right so, I have no idea. Make it do something hard and taxing. Use a skill or something.


    I have a console in there that I can use to move land around and buy furniture and stuff, if I bought something huge, would that work?


    The Nucleus actually snorted, Fuck no. That''s easy. All it does is move and reconfigure some matter. Your familiar could do that.


    Huh, I guess you''re right. Except¡­ where does it get matter from?


    Uh¡­ anywhere? Somewhere someone won''t notice it gone from?


    Which in here, where the planet is gone and there are no moons is¡­


    ¡­ I gue-


    No, don''t. Just check the protocols please. Your sub-System was also an an event sub-System so the protocols should be similar, if a little outdated.


    It took the Nucleus a few minutes to respond, which was quite a bit longer than Felix expected, Okay so¡­ I literally looked everywhere and I don''t think there''s a protocol for this¡­


    What is your best guess, given all the other protocols you have access to, as to what it will do?


    Well¡­ It is weighted pretty heavily against moving itself in and out of subspaces unless a sentient opens a portal for it. It is also weighted heavily against splitting itself more than necessary but I just don''t think it has a choice. My best guess is that the piece that follows you in there will split itself off leaving 15% behind then sending the rest back to fight one of the two stars for matte- actually it can probably only afford to have 10 maybe even 5% left behind.


    Okay, that works. Once it comes back though, how much am I dealing with?


    Standards were to leave 15% behind. So, it will leave 15% here and 85% will follow you into your marble thing. Then, 40% will go back into the event and wrestle matter from a star because standard protocol is a larger chunk stay with the sentients. I''m not entirely sure if 55% is enough though so it might come right back to split itself differently.


    45% then 40% right after¡­


    Yes and it will feel like barely an instant has gone by.


    Can you slow it down?


    Yes but not for more than a¡­ tiny fraction of a second. More importantly, can you realistically deal with 70% of the sub-System in this event?


    I don''t know, can I?


    You tell me nothing about yourself, dodge all my questions and are now asking for my opinion on what you can do? I don''t know.


    How much is left in you?


    Oh like¡­ 7% ish.


    Alright so, hit me with everything you''ve got and I''ll just multiply that by 7.


    Uh¡­ you''d have to multiply it by about a thousand¡­ I''m missing convictions, interconnects and a whole lot of other shit. Not to mention, the piece that went into making me isn''t actually functional, I can''t just deploy it against you like a weapon.


    You have curses though? Nevermind, you said the piece that made you was infected by a curse? What curse was it, how mature was it and how big was this sub-System in comparison to this one?


    The sub-System was much bigger, this event is rather small and their size is proportional to the subspace size. Especially now that you''re the only one left and it gave up on the planet, there really isn''t much left. The curse was sorrow and it was as mature as I''ve ever seen it.


    How concrete is your memory of that curse?


    Very. It was a significant experience for me.


    Perfect, compare it to this. Manipulating some things and exercising his will, Felix moved some of The Endless Hunger from its dedicated Soul Space over until it was a short distance from The Nucleus.


    WHAT THE HELL IS THA- GET THAT AWAY FROM ME.


    Felix made sure The Nucleus got a good look by leaving it there for another second before moving it back.


    I REPEAT. WHAT ARE YOU.


    Compare, give me a guess. A range. A percentage. A number.


    10% of that? But curse maturity is logarithmic so¡­ 70% as strong as that maybe?


    Okay¡­ This is seeming less and less insane.


    Really? I mean¡­ of course it is.


    The voice of reason in the shape of a Grimoire chimed in directly in Felix''s mind and he ignored the Nucleus for a bit to converse with a more trusted ally, You might have a stronger focused will than a small fraction of a fraction of a piece of a chunk of the sub-System, when it''s distracted¡­ but it''s like if you had the sharpest sword to have ever existed that can cut through anything. Now you are faced with a million swords surrounding you, what are you supposed to do against that?


    You''re right. This is suicidal if we do it but¡­ I''m leaning on trying it and just throwing the Nucleus out if things look hairy. It''s reasonable for me to say it was the Nucleus¡­ right?


    Grim nodded, As long as you avoid doing anything directly yourself.


    Look, I know I''m a little insane when it comes to risks, do you think it''s worth it to even try?


    No, I don''t but¡­ I think you should try. The odds are awful, there are a ton of unknowns and having to give up the nucleus would suck. You got where you are by taking dumb risks and doing whatever you wanted without thinking about the consequences for others and often times, ignoring the consequences for yourself. This is the way of the multiverse I guess.


    Well¡­ If it was really dumb, you would have outright said no so¡­ Works for me.


    Addressing everyone that could hear him mentally, Felix looked around into the void in confusion, How do I find the center of this subspace? I can''t just fly from end to end until I hit something, that would take too long or more likely kill me at the necessary speeds.


    The Nucleus sparkled with color as the fog swirled and it thought for a few seconds before voicing its confusion, Why do you need to find it?


    So that when I come back out of the subspace, I can deal with it instantly. Otherwise it will escape, right?


    Oh¡­ yeah. I guess. Center should be directly between where the planet was and the stars ar- no, were when the planet exploded¡­


    Oh, that works. Mark, can you calculate about where that would be and direct me?


    A moment later, without a communicated response, Felix saw a literal arrow in his vision along with a distance so large, he physically guffawed. He knew the math though and knew that with his Force spells, he could accelerate infinitely. The issue then was slowing back down but with Mark tracking things, he would know exactly where to start decelerating.


    The only worry then was any leftover debris hitting him would definitely kill him so, he just hoped Mark along with his own eyes were fast enough to spot them early.


    In reality, it took Felix just under two hours to reach his destination using nearly his entire mana pool. He could have gotten there faster, he knew that but, even in space he wasn''t willing to convert the entirety of his mana into Force all at once. Despite holding back, he was accelerating at speeds that would have destroyed a normal human''s body and even for him, was taxing and uncomfortable. He took a minor amount of damage from the acceleration alone, just a few points here and there as his organs rearranged themselves but, he still could have gone faster.


    All the damage was internal because as much as his Endurance made it difficult for knives from earth to cut him, like thick leather, his internal organs benefited less. He had no frame of reference for what a g was but he knew fighter pilots and astronauts trained to handle them and somehow, Mark had calculated that the was experiencing around 200 g.


    Nova on the other hand, was having the time of her life and was completely distraught that Felix didn''t let her leave his robes the entire time. At the speeds they were going, she could get knocked way too far away way too quickly for him to risk it and he knew, she just wanted to go faster so it wasn''t like she would be careful at all.


    He made sure to save about half his mana pool to slow himself down and arrived at a standstill about where Mark had directed him. With regeneration and being able to adjust his bearings, he didn''t need to be too precise with anything but the mana being so sparse in the empty void, he arrived with just 5% of his mana left, much less than he would have liked.


    With the Nucleus'' guidance, they tuned their positions slightly but had no way of detecting the sub-System, no matter how hard Felix tried. His Matter Senses, Anima Senses, Mana Senses even just his sight sensed nothing. Realizing he wasn''t going to be able to detect it at all was more disappointing than Felix had initially thought it would be and he just hoped he''d be able to one day.


    They could have exposed the Nucleus to find it but that would have been the equivalent of asking the sub-System to attack the both of them.


    This was the best they were going to be able to do for now so, Felix pulled out the leg of some massive construct that he had looted and used it as a surface to open his Pocket Home against. He left Nova outside to nap atop the leg because he didn''t want to have to worry about her and there was a chance she shifted the sub-System splits in their favor a little more. He nor the Nucleus were sure how it would classify her though so they didn''t count on it.


    Before starting anything, Felix took some time to empty his Soul Devouring Ring completely, moving all the anima into his Soul Space then slowly clearing that out as well. There wasn''t a ton in there relative to his soul but there was enough to increase the density of his body suffused layer a little. He also emptied out anything that didn''t absolutely have to be in his Soul Space, storing them in the warehouse or the tower he rarely used.


    Are we really going to try this? I''m starting to think this might not be worth it¡­ at all. What if the Nucleus is wrong and The System realizes what''s happening?


    Grim responded, being the only one who could hear him, had permission to respond directly into his mind, and was equipped to handle his doubts, You just have to decide if the risks outweigh the potential rewards or not. If The System does find out and target you, what are you going to do?


    I have no choice but to leave this universe, not that I have any idea how¡­


    So it''s death then.


    Yeah¡­ No, no more doubting myself. I don''t have to try, I want to. Let''s do this.


    Flying up to the top of his tower then dropping down into the bedroom, Felix found the screen he was looking for and brought up the upgrade screen for his tower specifically. Once the screen was in front of him, Felix tried moving around a little and was happy to find the confirmation screen at least, followed him. It made the whole plan just a little less complicated.


    Finding the direct center of his Pocket Home subspace was trivial compared to flying through space. Floating there, he took a breath to prepare himself and made sure he was ready. He only had two simple tasks but they had to be executed in the correct order and nearly instantly. Timing was everything.


    First, he pulled the Nucleus out of his Soul Space. Pulling something out of his Soul Space wasn''t instantaneous though, it took a tiny fraction of a second for something to move through his soul as he directed it. With something as big as the Nucleus, it took even longer. Still, the time it took was measured in microseconds.


    Then, as he felt the Nucleus moving right to the edge of his soul, right as it was about to appear, he accepted the upgrade for his tower.


    As soon as it was released, the Nucleus had already begun suppressing the sub-System as much as it could and suddenly, something appeared right next to Felix.


    It was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen, intricate, complicated, arcane, mysterious and indecipherable. Completely outside his comprehension in so many ways. The instant he was aware of it, his hands wrapped in his Soul Tendrils were shoved into the object and he pulled. His Matter Control, Mana Control, Anima Control and just plain physical strength all pulled as hard as he could manage but it wasn''t enough. The sub System felt like he had reached his hand into mess of wires as thin as spider webs but not nearly as fragile and not physically but spiritually somehow.


    Pulling as hard as he could, Felix knew this was death if he didn''t succeed, both now and with the next piece that would return any moment. He activated Reaper''s Body, Reaper''s Movement and Reaper''s Sense along with tapping into his conviction to align his soul as much as possible. He pushed himself as far as he could in every sense and felt his vision starting to collapse from the exertion then, he got a little help.


    The Nucleus'' only job was to suppress the sub-System long enough for Felix to tear it apart and simultaneously delay the part that had separated itself from returning. That alone was enough to completely occupy it but Felix felt the decision being made in the anima contained within the orb. It released the sub-System suppression and pulled with Felix. If they failed, if the Nucleus'' help the instant it released the suppression wasn''t enough, there was nothing they could do. It would leave the subspace and The Real System, the whole thing, would hunt them down.


    Something snapped and Felix''s arms suddenly started moving again, the sub-System physically split in two and instantly, he surrounded the two with the Soul Tendrils from both of his hands and squeezed. He was so much worse at suppressing the sub-System and he could feel it trying to split itself, escape. It squirmed and flailed like a trapped animal but Felix was barely aware of it happening at all.


    The instant it had split, he began pulling on it in every way. He freed the mana mostly to disable it, tossing it aside to float around in his Pocket Home. He pulled on the anima, drawing all of it through his now nearly empty Soul Space and almost instantly, it was full.


    He had been prepared for a lot of anima but it was so much more than he thought possible. The anima in his Soul Space he siphoned into everything he could think of to make room. He filled his ring nearly instantly, he tripled the number of Soul Tendrils he had and quadrupled their density, he poured it into every aspect of his own soul he could, increasing the density of every layer expect his core soul. In doing so he was drastically diluting his own soul because he didn''t have time to align and affinize it all but it didn''t matter.


    Anima continued to flow into him faster than he could handle and there was no way he could slow down. They needed to cleanse all of it before the other piece made it back because despite the Nucleus insisting it could handle it raw, Felix wasn''t risking anything so there was no way he was giving it any of the unfiltered anima.


    He still had more than he could ever use in any amount of time though and nowhere good to put it so he also started pushing a stream of the filtered anima into the Nucleus. Somehow, there didn''t seem to be a limit to how much it could take, at once or at all. It was a bottomless pit and the diameter of that hole was infinite. As much as he tried to use the anima everywhere else, he couldn''t use it fast enough. He created multiple planets as dense as he could orbiting his core soul, moons, added to the defensive lattice layer, his body suffusing layer. All of them were pushed to the limit of his will power, compressed to be as dense as possible without losing any size whatsoever due to the sheer amount of anima at his disposal.


    Felix accelerated the stream pouring into the Nucleus a moment later as he grew worried over how much time they had left until the other piece broke back in. Essentially shoving everything else through his Soul Space and into the Nucleus, the small piece of the System they had harvested, was finally gone.


    "What the hell am I going to do wi-"


    The Nucleus cut him off, Too late, it''s now.


    The other piece appeared all of a sudden and Felix reached forwards, and grabbed hold of it, just like he had before. He had more tendrils and his soul was multiple times denser and bigger than before but, he was drained and his will was drastically diluted. The willpower he had had to exert to split the first piece, hold it steady, tear it apart, pull the anima into his Soul Space, organize the streams of anima and compress all the different pieces of his soul drained him as if he had imbued the spark of life multiple times in a row.


    The issue was, there was no time to wait. This piece was just as big as the last and he had to do the exact same thing, at least most of it.


    Even with the added tendrils, the sub-System resisted so much more than the last had. It pulled back and seeped out and around his fingers like a liquid, the Nucleus equally exhausted and unable to contain it the same way.


    Gritting his teeth and hardening his resolve, Felix reluctantly decided he was going to have to enact his backup plan, There''s no other option.


    Grim nodded in his mind, If this kills you¡­ thank you for saving me.


    What will you do?


    I think I''ll bond with Nova. She''s really grown on me.


    I don''t know if I just didn''t notice before¡­ you called her she, not it.


    Grim didn''t have a chance to respond as time had run out, the sub-System was squirming and had almost gotten free. Physically Felix slammed the piece, while he still had a grip on it, into his chest. Pulling on it, Felix tore a gaping hole into his newly reinforced soul as he forcefully stuffed the entire sub-System into his Soul Space.


    Immediately, it exploded.


    Being jettisoned out the back of Felix''s Soul Space, Grim caught himself in the air and slowed himself down as Felix''s body fell to the ground.


    Traditionally, Grim had a difficult time seeing anima in any way shape or form. Over time though, whether as a side effect of Reaper''s Bond-despite their bond being separate from the skill-or something else, Grim could now see in a similar way to Felix. He hadn''t found any way to activate the other skills but his Mana Control was orders of magnitude better than it had been before their bond and his ability to sense anima, had been non existent before.


    He didn''t see everything in color, the way he saw when watching the world through the dome building in Felix''s Mind City that showed him everything Felix saw. It wasn''t as detailed or nearly as beautiful.


    He also didn''t feel Felix''s typical set of emotions that mostly rotated between satisfaction with his progress, curiosity, determination, resolve and apathy with hints of frustration that quickly washed themselves away. In his Mind City and in the Soul Garden, Grim spent 80% of his time enjoying the infectious satisfaction Felix felt with his constant training and progress. It was like watching a movie that was constantly exciting with his soul.


    Floating on his own, Grim saw with his own senses in a mockery of monochrome sight, he saw Felix''s unconscious form fall to the ground as a volcano of anima and mana exploded out of the hole he had torn in his own chest. Everything that had been a piece of the sub-System, a small chunk of a being that oversaw and controlled a universe, was obliterated and wiped clean.


    The only reason any of what they were doing was possible at all, was because he was the only true leveler in the event. The sub-System had only left enough to deal with him and maintain the space until he left. Even that was split multiple times and nearly overwhelmed him but¡­


    Whether or not he survived, he had done it. At least with the first piece, Felix had succeeded in harvesting a piece of the system.


    They had briefly talked about using The Endless Hunger as a backup plan but Felix was stubborn and Grim could sense his greed. Nothing like the actual curse Greed used to create the Nucleus but still, greed all the same. Felix didn''t pull the piece into his Soul Space to save Grim, Grim knew that but and was grateful anyways. Felix did it because he wanted the mana and the anima for himself. There were other ways to survive but he was also just arrogant enough to believe he could make it out of this.


    Grim, reluctantly, had to agree. It was possible, for him alone. If he succeeded, Grim would almost be convinced that arrogance was actually confidence, if it wasn''t such a stupid thing to even try.


    Still, seeing a cone of anima equivalent to billions of souls pouring out of his body. Seeing the anima tear a hole a meter in diameter in his soul, travel fast enough that anyone in the stream other than Felix would have their soul shredded and removed from their body. Grim felt emotions all his own for the first time in a while, fear and doubt. Without Felix''s infectious confidence or arrogance-he really wasn''t sure yet-to combat his own emotions, he was left feeling only darkness.


    He wasn''t sure if he was just becoming more human but for a moment, a distracting thought fluttered onto his pages. He suddenly understood at least part of why Melody spent so much time around Felix. Feeling all this other stuff without Felix''s constant wave of certainty he would succeed, his constant training which led to an ever present under-layer of satisfaction, sucked.


    Living in Felix''s Soul Garden and Mind City, watching the world through his emotions, rarely ever feeling despair or hopelessness, sorrow or doubt, it was like living in a dream. Now, all Grim could do was watch the dream collapse before him.


    The Nucleus had also fallen to the ground next to Felix, exhausted and drained and it took nearly 15 seconds for all of the anima to free itself from Felix''s soul at which point, he just lay there.


    Pain. All Felix felt was pain and¡­ a cold breeze around his lungs, or as he was slowly waking up, what remained of them. His first instinct was to dull his sense of pain but that both made it better and worse. The cool breeze was gone and the pain from the hole in his chest was mostly suppressed but the pain from the hole in his chest was so much worse.


    You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.


    Wait¡­ How di- The pain in my ch- Get better and worse?


    As he slowly regained control of his body, Felix realized dulling his sense of pain worked physically but his soul was completely wrung out and exercising any amount of will was just making it worse. Not only that but the hole in his chest, the physical one where his ribs were mostly missing like someone had launched a cannon from within his chest outwards, mirrored his soul.


    Lying there, his anima was leaking out as the outside of his soul began to dissolve. Even the barrier protecting his core soul was mostly destroyed around the area but it didn''t matter, as far as he could tell it wasn''t actually pierced. It had done its job and his core soul, the planets within were all fine. His mind was okay too but only because it was far enough from his chest. The thought of what could have happened though made him incredibly wary of his current body''s layout and he immediately put re-configuring it at the top of his todo list.


    Opening his Status Scr-


    Nothing appeared. There was no Status Screen. No System. The difference was immediately apparent, not just in his energy and mana cores as they had collapsed, not in the missing screens or inventory. In the ambient anima.


    Felix had never realized it before now but as soon as it was gone, he immediately noticed it. There was nothing. The anima was¡­ clean. It was quiet.


    There had been a static, a white noise that persisted everywhere Felix had ever been and yet it was so noisy and ever present that he had never noticed it. He had never known what it was to be without it but now¡­ All he could say was that the silence it left behind was beautiful.


    He never realized how much he would enjoy the emptiness, never knew what he was missing.


    He almost wanted to just lie there and enjoy it.


    The lack of a quantified value for his health, the lack of a numerical countdown made it all the more tempting, or rather didn''t make it pressing enough how much he needed to get up.


    Just lying there though, not moving, that kept the pain at a manageable level. It kept his body from falling apart further. It also kept his soul from tearing itself apart as it was bound to his body. When his body moved, it moved and neither of them were in any state where they should be moved.


    It wasn''t in Felix''s nature to quit and he didn''t really intend to. As much as he was losing every second, he wasn''t too worried. He had survived and all around him, the newfound silence of the ambient anima made way for a whole new cacophony of whispers to surface. The anima was so dense around him, it was like he was swimming inside the soul of a C grade being throughout his entire Pocket Home.


    There was plenty of anima for him to use it would just take dekads, possibly terms, to fully repair his soul. Just piecing it back together wasn''t enough. His will was exhausted and his soul so damaged that he had no way of forcing the affinization process for all of the anima needed to repair his soul. No way of imbuing any intent or purpose into the anima. It would simply slough off unless he held onto it manually.


    There wasn''t much he could do about that and realistically, all that mattered was that he was alive.


    They still had one part left to deal with but so long as they kept the portal closed and his Pocket Home sealed, it wouldn''t even know what had happened.


    As for all the matter the sub-System had gone off to collect, turning his head to the side Felix saw a massive chunk of nondescript material that definitely hadn''t been there before.


    Closing his eyes, Felix laid there and enjoyed himself for a few more seconds before the pain in his soul spiked and woke his from his reverie.


    Alright alright. You''re right.


    First, Felix began carefully pulling both his body and soul back together to close his chest chest cavity. His body and soul were too intertwined at this point for him to do much separately, at least for now. Once what remained of both were mostly in place, he began using raw mana, of which there was an abundance around him, to seal the physical wounds. For now, it was taking the place of everything that was physically missing. It didn''t reconnect his vessels or act like any of his organs, it just kept things stationary.


    With that somewhat in place, he immediately began slowly stitching his soul back together. From the tattered edges, he grabbed hold of whatever anima he could starting with the contents of his ring, followed by his surroundings. Luckily, there was no shortage of anima in his Pocket Home for the time being.


    He started with what essentially amounted to strings to hold the opening together, a net for each layer. From there, he carefully filled in the gaps with a basic anima structure designed solely to hold things together. He couldn''t imbue any intent into the anima at all so he had to settle for one of the most basic structures, a simple braid.


    Unfortunately, there was no good way for him to actually fill the gap except time. For the next little while, there would simply be a hole in his chest, at least in his soul. His physical body he could repair, all he needed was food. He physically didn''t have the matter to actually repair his body and didn''t even have close to enough focus to replace functional organs and systems with mana although, he had entertained the idea for a while. Unfortunately, he still relied on many of his organic systems even if he required them less and less.


    Carefully, and painfully, lifting himself to his feet, Felix dragged himself towards the warehouse. As soon as he stood, a large grimoire flew over and carefully fit itself in his right armpit to help him move. Neither of them said anything to each-other, which Felix appreciated.


    Inside the warehouse, he grabbed everything remotely organic. Plants and animal corpses mostly, and shoved them into his mouth. Though it hurt his soul, he used just a few levels of focus to reconnect just enough of his organs to digest things.


    With every plant or corpse he stuffed into his mouth and digested, he got hungrier and so, he kept eating. With some organic matter and the remnants of mana and energy he still had flowing through his body, his cells began regenerating and the cavity in his chest slowly shrank. He pretty quickly ran out of energy now that his cores had exploded and so he had to stop to pull mana from the Aether into his body so his cells could transform it into energy and repair itself. He went back to consuming everything organic and paid attention to make sure he had enough but stopped himself pretty quickly as he noticed something he was surprised he had missed before.


    Grim. How long ago did my body stop producing energy?


    It never stopped, got close to stopping after your evolution but it''s still used here and there. Mostly when you physically exert your muscles and a few other organs.


    I see. I wonder if the only reason I still use energy is because of the random cells I stuffed into my body before my evolution. The System took whatever the best cells available were and those used energy. But¡­ everything uses energy so why does so much of my body just¡­ not need it somehow? Or rather, why can they use mana instead when we had so much trouble finding mana fueled creatures to harvest?


    Felix was pretty confident of the answer but didn''t have the time or willpower required to make modifications or test things at the moment. It also didn''t change anything for him so he kept walking along and consuming whatever he could find until his body, at least physically, looked completely restored nearly 4 hours later.


    In a way, it was restored but it still felt wrong.


    His soul was no longer completely attached to his entire body and so even though it was whole again, it felt like a foreign substance. Like he had surgically implanted half of another person''s body into his own. That feeling would pass but it would take a while as it required his soul to be completely repaired.


    Checking in with the Nucleus, it was lying on the ground next to the pool of blood where Felix had been and as far as he could tell, unconscious. Felix bent down and carefully placed it into his Soul Space which, was rather easy considering the gaping hole in his chest.


    Finally, he let himself fall to his knees then fall to the ground and roll over until he was lying still. He had no way to confirm with the Nucleus but according to their plan, the remaining sub-System outside of his Pocket Home shouldn''t enter. That was relative to the few hours they thought it would take between harvesting these and leaving though so, Felix wasn''t entirely certain.


    There was nothing he could do about that though so, he laid back, enjoyed the silence of the anima and incessantly poked his Status Screen, just to be sure it never appeared.


    Checking on everything within his soul, Felix was happy to find the residents of his Mind City worried but otherwise unharmed. The lattice barrier he had created around his core-soular-system was damaged, severely, but it hadn''t been breached. They had simply seen the sky go overcast, the grass sharpen and a few small quakes rippling through the ground as his emotions affected the weather.


    He also verified that, despite not being conscious, The Endless Hunger remained isolated and contained all on its own. He had debated jettisoning it before pulling the sub-System inside but that would have been worse. The only chance he had, if the worst happened and it was released, was if it was released into his soul which would drastically slow it down.


    Luckily that wasn''t an issue. Still though, Felix was no longer comfortable with just having it where it was after what had just happened.


    After hours of deliberation, he decided the only logical place for it was in his soular-system. It was a risk placing it near his core soul and the residents of his Mind City but it would be isolated and much more protected. Where it was, if he were ever hit and damaged by a soul attack in the future, it could get out and kill him. This way, it wasn''t ever going to do that unless the soul attack pierced the barrier around his soular-system, at which point he was dead anyways.


    So, carefully pulling open the already damaged lattice barrier, Felix created a tunnel of open space and carefully fit a new planet into orbit, far from the other planets. Observing briefly, he now had 5 planets orbiting his core soul. One was The Endless Hunger, a completely black orb with tendrils that reached outwards, like solar flares, trying to escape. One was his Mind City, a golden ball of anima that contained an ocean of sparks within it. Then there were the three new planets he had managed to create from the recent influx of mana. He had no idea what to do with them just yet, but he was confident he would find a use for them.


    Carefully stitching the lattice back up, Felix took mana from the ambient around him and sealed up the gap as best he could. It would take time for his will to regenerate and for the anima to affinize but for the time being, it was contained.


    It was the same for the rest of his soul too. He pulled things together and sealed leaking areas where necessary but he definitely wasn''t whole and wouldn''t be for a while. With the Nucleus in his Soul Space-not that they couldn''t escape just that he would wake if they did-he felt comfortable enough to close his eyes and drift off.


    Grim didn''t need to be told when to wake him, he spent most of his time in Felix''s mind so he was fully aware of his needs.


    A few days passed before Grim woke Felix up for the first time at which point Felix pulled in more ambient anima, filled in a little more of his soul, then fell back asleep.


    This process repeated a number of times, the time Felix slept decreasing each time, until he could no longer justify sleeping for so long. As he was sleeping to repair his soul, he couldn''t just enter his Soul Garden, which would cause unnecessary strain and possibly make things worse so he was basically stuck doing nothing while he slept.


    His brain was fine so it worked together with Mark to calculate permutations of the attunement crystals from the tree so, he wasn''t actually doing nothing but it still felt like it.


    Once his soul was actually sealed-with a paper thin barrier-but nonetheless sealed, he refused to just keep sleeping and so, he began working on other things. He couldn''t do too much with the tree crystals without Nova so he first completely restored his Mana Core.


    From there, he began testing the extent to which his body needed energy which, as Grim had said, was mostly when he exerted his muscles. Everything else that still used it used a small and constant amount that he was more than capable of generating passively. His muscle''s requirements spiked though when he used them which necessitated a buffer of some kind, previously a core.


    As Mark and much of his brain calculated permutations, he began manually experimenting with his body and various structures and organs he could adjust or replace. It would have been faster with a computer at his disposal but what he was doing didn''t have a deadline. What they were doing, he was relying on for one of his exams.


    Though it reduced his base strength by about 75,000 points, Felix finally came up with a modification he was satisfied with. If he could have reduced his other stats too for the same effect, he would have. Unfortunately, his other organs and systems were a little more complicated and the switch would have been more involved. It didn''t matter though because with the modifications he made to his muscles, he was able to completely remove his need to have an energy buffer at all. All the organs that used energy, could produce it themselves faster than they could consume it which effectively meant they just consumed mana but used it inefficiently.


    One day, he was certain he would be able to run on mana alone but, he was also certain that day wasn''t any time soon.


    He spent a brief bit of time regenerating his robes and then started experimenting with mana channels once again but found it hard to focus. It was simply difficult to fully engage when every time he manipulated mana in any complex way, he felt pain sharp pain ripple through his soul.


    It was frustrating having-even temporarily-lost something he had once had and heavily relied on. That frustration kept him pushing through the painful distractions and kept him trying.


    Various attunements and combinations of attunements flowed through his cells as he moved and pushed them. Without access to a Status Screen, he was forced to manually feel out his limbs and muscles which turned out to be the only reason he made any progress at all.


    His Status Screen would have shown his Strength or Agility increasing or decreasing slightly and it was incredibly fast at evaluating his body but it didn''t communicate the whole picture, not even close. Moving his body for himself, pushing against things, moving fast and precisely, he noticed tiny variations with the different attunements of mana he used.


    Some attunements offered him an initial burst of speed but consumed a part of the attunement from his muscles and offered nothing after the initial burst. On his Status Screen, Felix didn''t even know if The System would have averaged his Agility out or if it would even increase at all from just a tiny initial burst. Some attunements caused him pain and tore his cells apart, some caused them to swell and become hard to move, others made them pliable and elastic. They wouldn''t offer direct and board increases to his Agility or Endurance as a whole but they were different and useful in their own particular situations.


    Honing in on which attunements worked where and how much he needed of each, Felix was able to create a basic mapping of attunements to effects and find some somewhat optimized combinations. It was much more complex than his Persona and the way his body interacted with mana was less like his cells were affected by the mana and more like his cells were using the mana. Like each and every one of his cells were a tiny version of him and given the right mana, could use it to cast various spells all on their own.


    The analogy wasn''t one to one though as they required weird and complex attunements, not just raw Force and definitely were not casting spells.


    Either way, Felix was ecstatic to have finally figured out this aspect of his body and to have finally made progress towards mana channels. With his basic mapping, even though it still needed a lot of work and refinement, he was also able to come up with some basic designs for the channels. Given the attunements required, he also had to work on designing his core as well. Not just where the attunement crystals would go but what attunements he wanted in an ideal world and how to structure and place them.


    He would need to be able to draw mana through a series of the crystals and weave multiple streams together to end up with the attunements he wanted so it wasn''t as simple as having them circled around his mana core.


    The Nucleus awoke after a few days, interrupting Felix''s design work, which he had finally managed to move into his Soul Garden.


    Oh man¡­ how long was I out?


    Felix responded through his Soul Space, Almost three days.


    Woah¡­ Well, looks like it all worked out, huh? You''re alive and I''m even more awesome.


    That''s great.


    So, we ready to leave this subspace and take out the last piece?


    No.


    Geez. Okay¡­ Why are you so grumpy?


    Felix sighed but didn''t communicate his exasperation to the Nucleus, I haven''t fully recovered yet. Can you handle it on your own now?


    Come on, do you even kn- Sorry that was pointless, no. I can''t. I''m pretty sure we dealt with roughly 80% of it so the part that''s left will be easier but¡­ I can''t cleanse it like you can.


    Before I insisted on cleansing it. You wanted to absorb it as is. Can you do that? Is that a good idea?


    I ca¡­ I don''t know. I think I can control that much, suppress it long enough to¡­ well, kill it, then take all the procedures and memories it has stored¡­ I don''t know though¡­


    How confident are you? Is there some way we can make this easier for you?


    30% I can do it. 20%? Let''s split it and say 15%.


    Felix sighed again, this time allowing the Nucleus to hear it, You were going to go through with this on pieces twice as big when you were only 15% su-


    Yes. It was stupid. I didn''t¡­ I thought it would be weaker than that. I underestimated it, okay?


    Felix shook his head in resignation, Its fine.


    You know¡­ I still don''t know a ton about you but I think¡­ If we work together, we can do it.


    Okay, how is this going to work? What do you need from me?


    For the next few days, in between Felix slowly piecing together his soul after the new parts solidified and affinized to him and occasionally taking brief naps, he trained with the Nucleus. What they were trying to do, even if the sub-System chunk was less than half of what they had already dealt with alone, twice, was much harder. Just destroying something without care for anything was relatively easy.


    He had even proven so when he threw the Mind Devouring Crown into a star.


    Dissecting something and disabling parts of it in order to preserve it was completely different. They had to first understand how it worked, where to disable and destroy and where not to. It wasn''t a huge deal if they overshot things but they had to at least disable every safety function and level of consciousness they could find. Even then, if they missed something, it was possible the Nucleus could deal with it. It was also possible the Nucleus didn''t even know what was happening until after the remaining piece had relayed everything they had done to The Real System.


    The issue was, Felix wasn''t strong enough to just obliterate it the way he had with the other chunks. He wasn''t sure if he had the willpower at the moment to wipe it clean and, even if he did, he wasn''t sure it wouldn''t also destroy his soul in the process. Judging from how long it was taking him to recover, he wouldn''t have it all back until after his exams which was far too long to wait. He wasn''t worrying about how his injuries would affect his exams at the moment though and just focused on being as fast and efficient as possible in their test runs.


    After four days of training, they both decided it was time because Felix was missing too much class time and they were barely improving with each test run anymore.


    Retrieving Grim, placing him in his Soul Space and holding the Nucleus in his hand, Felix prepared himself then opened the portal. He had fit a small enchantment onto the construct leg beforehand so it kept it mostly in the same place and that seemed to have worked as he looked through and immediately spotted the sub-System a few hundred meters on front of him and to the left.


    He wasted no time and ignored Nova''s excitement as he threw the Nucleus directly at it then followed it. The Nucleus smacked into the sub-System, Felix''s throw completely accurate without any air resistance or gravity, and the sub-System immediately disappeared. Slapping his hand onto the Nucleus, Felix''s consciousness was drawn into the orb immediately, exactly as they had practiced.


    Just like a shared memory, a projection of Felix appeared, floating in what looked to be an infinite, brightly lit sky above an orb of clouds. His projection looked mostly like himself except that his body was scarred and ragged, mostly around the chest area. Like old tattered rags, the edges of the hole in his chest fluttered in the wind but didn''t open up. He had already mostly repaired things so the hole wasn''t open but it also didn''t fit with the entire thickness of his chest so it kept trying to flake off in individual layers.


    It was held together with anima braids and it was enough for now but it was still a stark contrast seeing himself projected here compared to outside, where his physical form looked whole.


    Lastly, from his back and sides grew three dozen tendrils that just floated around him all over the place.


    Felix didn''t pay any mind to his form though as he was already used to it, having been practicing with it for multiple time dilated days. The Nucleus didn''t dilate time as much as his Soul Garden, it wasn''t designed for thinking quickly and didn''t have his soul strength or stability, but there was still some dilation. Felix estimated it around one to twenty or so.


    Using the small amount of willpower Felix had regained and could use without hurting himself, he shot forwards into the orb of fluffy rainbow storm clouds with frequent neon and equally rainbow lightning.


    Popping through the other side, Felix actually flinched as their simulations of the sub-System didn''t even come close to the real thing. Much like Felix, it looked completely different as a projection from within the Nucleus. Outside it was a gooey ball that Felix could feel and tell was beautiful and intricate from his soul and mana senses but could barely dissect with his eyes.


    Projected in the Nucleus, the sub-System was massive and looked exactly as he had felt. It was an inscrutable, multi dimensional machine that he could only grasp tiny pieces of at once. It all worked together to form what appeared to be a massive sphere, almost a planet or a moon but also, a living being. Just looking at it for a brief moment, Felix watched it move and morph in an attempt to escape but failed as the clouds held it steady.


    He knew what he saw in here wasn''t actually representative of reality but rather his soul''s interpretation based on his own experiences that mapped most accurately onto what he felt but still, it was a sight to behold.


    Flying towards the machine, Felix dropped down to the surface using the gravity that projected out of it, adding to his perception of the sub-System as a planet. Looking around, he found the nearest tunnel and jumped into it, falling amongst the various cables and tubes that used the tunnel to route from one place to another. He didn''t have a map or anything but the Nucleus provided him with an arrow that pointed the way to the first location and he simply had to follow it.


    Jumping through the twisting and winding passageways that were never designed to be traversed, Felix passed by sections that made no sense and others that made a little too much sense. There were pipes that collected and transported various mundane objects like wrenches and pencils and rooms of what looked to be orbs attending a class with vaguely familiar math on the board.


    There was no time to dissect the sub-System though as the Nucleus couldn''t hold and suppress it forever.


    After what had felt like just a few seconds after entering the structure, Felix arrived at the first safety mechanism. It appeared as a circular door suspended in the middle of a room with hundreds of pipes pointing into it from both sides, like cannons ready to fire.


    Leaping over the pipes and into the room, Felix stretched out his tendrils and immediately began thrashing them around, destroying everything. If it were real, just disabling the circular suspended object likely would have been enough. It wasn''t though and this entire room was just a projection of particular section of the sub-System he was inside of and its purpose interpreted by Felix''s soul.


    As much as he wanted to preserve, there was no way to be certain and neither he nor the Nucleus knew enough about The System and how it worked to do anything like that.


    Using his tendrils to move, he finished decimating the room then continued following the arrows out and towards his next location.


    There, he found what looked to be the hall of a spaceship in a sci-fi movie with an escape pod ready to launch. He once again destroyed everything, the shuttle and the hall itself, not worried about potentially being sucked off into a projection of space in the slightest. S§×arch* The ¦Çov§×lFire .net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    He continued racing from room to room, following the Nucleus'' guidance and destroying whatever he found in whatever weird and wacky representation they appeared as.


    After two dozen rooms, the sub-System finally started to fight back and Felix encountered various creatures and humanoids racing towards him. They all attacked in different ways with claws, bows, fire breath, swords, fists, shadows, fins and everything else in the multiverse. Felix responded in exactly the same way every time with his three dozen tendrils slapping their attacks aside then either tossing the assailant, knocking them out or crushing them depending on how insistent they were.


    As much as he was tired, injured and fighting a small piece of The System, he was still Felix and his soul was still the densest anima he had ever encountered. When facing against anything of a similar size, he won.


    Still, in his current state, it was draining. Very tiny amounts of his overall willpower were being drained from him with every creature he had to fight. He persevered though and ignored the aching pains that began to flare up throughout his projection. It was earlier than it had been in the simulations but it was manageable.


    Just over a hundred locations destroyed and suddenly the walls started to move and reconfigure themselves to stop him. He largely ignored them though, even though the Nucleus was rerouting the arrow directing him, and just punched through the wall with his tendrils. The Nucleus immediately caught on and began leading him on the most direct path instead of the open one.


    They had both known he could do it but the drain was worse, much worse. Just a few dozen rooms later and the aching pain became a searing burn across his entire form but there were still hundreds of rooms left and the fire of frustration Felix felt knowing how much easier it would be if he weren''t injured, raged within him.


    That fire pushed him through the pain he couldn''t really dull and through the next hundred rooms until the burning sensation was joined by shooting pains all over. They were sparse and random and unfathomably painful. Considering he had been unconscious when his chest was ripped open, those pains were the worst pain he could ever remember feeling. Still, they were brief and sporadic and his job wasn''t done yet.


    Every wall he burst through, every assailant he crushed and every room he pulverized made the shooting pains slightly more frequent until they became so frequent, constant and severe that he fell to his knees and dug his nails into his scalp.


    He only stayed like that for a moment before he pushed himself to his feet with the tendrils and moved on to the next room.


    419 rooms in total until the Nucleus was confident they had gotten everything which just left one final task. Felix was now perpetually writhing but he didn''t let it stop him. His tendrils carried the curled up, writhing form of his body as he was unable to do anything but react to the pain and moved him where he needed to go.


    They had planned his route so it was as close as possible from the previous destination before it but it was still the most painful few seconds of his life. Each second that passed, slightly more painful than the last as his soul screamed out and desperately begged him to rest and recover.


    Arriving in a room that looked eerily familiar, a large sphere with a bridge leading towards the center, Felix''s tendrils carried him across and towards the white humanoid figure standing at the end with a blank face.


    As he was pushed across, the figure spoke to him. He heard whispers and words here and there, "¡­ friends¡­ secrets¡­ power¡­ please¡­ Felix¡­" Its body morphed from form to form, all of which he recognized. Peace and Melody, Erolan and the Griffin, his Mother, David, even Rhonan in a desperate attempt to instill fear.


    Felix didn''t get a chance to appreciate any of it though as the pain made it impossible for him to perceive much of his surroundings. He didn''t hear it begging him, offering him a deal or trying to scare him off, not that any of it would have worked. His projected senses were all going haywire, his hearing ringing, his sight blurred and darkening as the pain threatened to consume his consciousness.


    The figure tried to run away but Felix and his tendrils were too fast and pitted against anima the same size as him, Felix''s will still reigned supreme. He wrapped the tendrils around the figure and squeezed just as he dropped onto the bridge and fell unconscious.


    Felix had no idea how long he had been out when he awoke, all he knew was his pain had dulled to a, comparatively, very manageable ache and the hole in his chest had opened back up, many of the braids holding him in one piece having snapped.


    Using a few of the tendrils, he wrapped his body up with them and held it tight as the rest lifted him up and moved him out of the room. As he navigated back out with the help of the Nucleus, he couldn''t help but feel like the entire structure that looked like a small planet had died. In a way, it had died as soon as he killed the representation of the overall consciousness but technically it wasn''t ever really alive, depending heavily on how living was defined.


    Now though, it no longer moved, none of it. It was like a broken down and forgotten machine in desperate need of maintenance. Given where it had began, even Felix recognized that what they had done was a tragedy.


    The benefits to him and the Nucleus would be massive though so he didn''t worry about it. He just hoped he could be even more precise in the future, possibly even trapping and containing it rather than being forced to kill it.


    How long was I out this time?


    The Nucleus answered with a complete lack of its usual flamboyance, Two and a half days of real world time.


    You managed to contain everything?


    Yes. It tried to get out a few more times, a few dozen actually, but I handled it. You got the important ones and everything else was hidden and therefore, weak.


    Felix grinned slightly, This finally going to make you useful?


    I hope so.


    Felix nodded, Use it wisely.


    He pulled himself onto the surface of the planet then ejected himself from the projected memory. If he had done so from within, it could have ripped a hole in the sub-System which was not something they wanted.


    Back in his real body, Felix pushed the Nucleus back into the cavity in his chest then carefully tied things back up with whatever spare anima he had left.


    Finally giving Nova attention, he pet her as she gingerly touched him, recognizing he was injured, and they headed back into his Pocket Home together.


    Reunited with Nova, the first thing he did was have her transform some valuable rock into real, organic, meat. He didn''t really care what it was but all the healing he had done made him hungry and so he cooked and ate by the fire before having her carry him up his tower and into bed.


    Only allowing himself to sleep for a couple of days, Felix saw a noticeable improvement to his soul and after a bit of manual maintenance, finally decided it was time to face the world. First things first, he warded the entrance to contain the dense anima and mana, having learned the nodes at Inscripticae working on the containment cell. He test it and sure enough, it seemed perfectly capable of containing the anima as needed.


    With Nova on his shoulder, he flew out of his Soul Space then swapped the construct leg for a pebble and used his event marble on it. He wasn''t entirely sure but now that there was no System in the event space, and considering he was the last one, he was pretty sure he should be allowed to leave.


    The portal opened just as he had expected and he stepped through back into his dorm room.


    Felix waited a moment, then a second, then finally a minute but nothing happened. No unstoppable heavenly Lightning or Fire came down to judge him. No executioner to destroy him. Just, nothing.


    Tentatively, he opened his Status Screen.


    Name:Felix Kade (The True Wizard)FREE0Innate:Ascendant Prodigy: Mana (Wizard)STR736,096Class:[C - Ancient] Reaper (Lvl 1,129)DEX1,087,245Race:[C - Unique] Wanderer (Lvl 1,219)AGI837,280Profession:[C - Ancient] Lifebinder (Lvl 1,309)PER958,599Health:8,298,990 / 8,298,990VIT829,899Mana:100,000,000 / 100,000,000INT1,007,801Energy:0 / 0END757,260


    Everything was as he expected.


    Soul damage does not appear¡­ interesting. Also, I just realized it was still counting my charm for my mana even though it didn''t work before. Now it''s destroyed so that makes sense but¡­ does it show what I consider my mana pool to be not what it actually is? I guess I could test that with another battery¡­ Not that it really matters.


    System, what day is it?


    The third of the dekad, 37 days until exams.


    Sweet, third means Constructs and Elementals which means I can sleep.


    Walking across his dorm to the end with the bed he rarely used, Felix was just about to lie down when he heard a knock at the door.


    He groaned as he really didn''t feel like walking back to open the door so he just commanded Nova to do it for him. She happily strolled over across the air then opened the door to reveal exactly who Felix expected to see.


    "There you are, you know I''ve been looking for you everywhere."


    Felix nodded then sat on the edge of the bed as nonchalantly as he could, "Yup. Here I am."


    Melody crossed her arms, "Where have you been?"


    "In the event."


    "Wait¡­ what? Arthur told me you surrendered to him?"


    Felix shook his head then tossed her the clothes she had surrendered to Arthur, "No, long story. Can I tell you another time?"


    She caught the ball and looked down at them curiously before realizing how drained he was and deciding not to tease him, "You okay?"


    "Yeah. I''ll be fine. I just need," Spinning around, he lowered himself onto the bed, "to sleep."


    He fell asleep much faster than he would have liked, almost as soon as he finished his sentence. He hadn''t even planned on falling asleep immediately and fully intended on speaking with Melody, just lying down. It seemed as though he needed sleep more than he knew.


    Waking up, Felix did some manual repairs to his soul without moving then carefully spun around and sat up. Looking out into the room, he saw a pair of feet dangling off the edge of his couch and sighed.


    Hearing the sigh, Melody peered over the back of the couch, "You''re awake."


    "Yup. How long did I sleep?"


    "A day and a bit."


    "You stay here the whole time?"


    "Of course. I can''t let you squirm away from me again. You owe me an answer, remember?"


    Felix sighed, "That''s what this about?"


    She nodded very seriously, "Yup."


    Walking across the room, Felix slumped into one of the arm chairs, "Alright. What''s your question?"


    Melody rearranged herself to be sitting then looked right into Felix''s eyes and stared very seriously for a few seconds, "Do you like me?"


    Felix squinted a little and cocked his head, "Like¡­ romantically or¡­ in general?"


    She shrugged, "Romantically, platonically, whatever. Do you¡­ enjoy having me around, when I am, more than I annoy you? Is my presence an overall positive or negative?"


    Felix leaned forwards a little out of his slouch and rubbed his eyes, "I¡­ I don''t know? Eh- Sorry, this is your question that I have to answer. Let me think about it."


    He deliberated for almost a minute, mostly to tease her because instinctively he already knew the answer, "Yes. I think your presence is an overall positive."


    Melody jumped to her feet and leaned over the table between them, looking right at him, "What''s wrong with you? I can¡­ tell."


    He looked at her with confusion, "What?"


    "Do you think I''m pretty?"


    "Uh¡­"


    Her face lit up with about as much excitement as Felix had ever seen, "Ooh¡­ do I arouse you? Ever? Have I ever?"


    Felix scrunched his nose, "Wha- I will kick you out. Or leave, not sure what''s easier."


    She hopped a little into the air, seemingly involuntarily, out of sheer excitement, "I KNOW! Most of the time I can read your facial expressions and mannerisms and I can be pretty sure I know what you''re thinking- you aren''t very good at hiding that. BUT, I don''t know because I can''t feel your soul the same way. RIGHT NOW I CAN."


    "Oh. That''s¡­"


    "IT''S FANTASTIC. Oh man, all the things I want to as-"


    Felix lowered his forehead into his palm, "Melody, can we not. Not right now."


    "I guess¡­" Her excitement melted away as her expression grew dour, "If you''re like this then you lost something awesome or¡­ you hurt your soul¡­ Oh, yikes. I can''t heal your soul but I can calm it if you''d like?"


    Felix waved her off and relaxed a little into the armchair, "Don''t worry about it. I''ll be fine in a few dekads."


    "You have exams though. You can''t be like this then." Pulling out the circular instrument Felix had seen her use before, Melody carefully placed her fingers and began playing a very subtle tune.


    Grim, Nucleus, you should be immune in my Soul Space, make sure she doesn''t do anything weird to me.


    They both confirmed they would pay attention then Felix nodded off in the arm chair.


    For the next two dekads, Felix slept almost nonstop and Melody played almost constantly. Not once, according to Grim and the Nucleus, did she try to influence him in any way as far as they could tell. The effect of her song was obvious though. He was, as far as he could tell, 90% of the way to being whole again. Her song quartered their expectations of where he would be by now and honestly, he couldn''t thank her enough. He attended the sit down classes that he could but skipped the combat classes and rested in the ones he wasn''t required to attend and it sucked.


    He actually missed combat classes, both of them, and even Mana Control and Constructs & Elementals not because he missed the classes or the people but because he couldn''t attend them. His abilities caused strain and he wasn''t whole so he just didn''t risk it. In two dekads though, with Melody''s help, his will felt completely in tact.


    His soul was mostly there in structure and looked in tact but Felix could feel it was still loose and fragile. It was enough that he could fight but not enough that he could or should sustain any Soul attacks. Peace was curiously absent in all the classes they shared but Felix only noticed it because he wanted to see if somehow, The Reaper knew what he had done with The sub-System.


    He was extremely grateful to Melody though not just because she saved him time but because every day she played, she looked increasingly worn and drained herself. By the end of the two dekads, she looked like she hadn''t slept for days but she insisted, ''it was good practice'' and she never once slowed down.


    Once he was ready to attend combat classes again, he only had two dekads until exams and Mark still didn''t have an efficient set of crystals he could create. The best efficiency he had come up with was 9% which, was not even close to enough.


    Felix was starting to think he was going to have to just manually attune the mana in the exam and just take 15 minutes to cast the spell.


    On the other hand, he had other exams to prepare for.


    He continued to skip Solo Combat but spent every second he could spare in the combat simulation room. The Ashound was actually the strongest creature the room could simulate but that was fine. Honestly, Felix didn''t want to fight anything above it at the moment. What he did, was run through every creature on the list starting from the creature under the Ashound until he ran out of time.


    Each one he experimented with, let them attack him and show their abilities then prepared countermeasures for them, even if they were too weak to affect him. Only once he was certain he could account for everything and beat them every time, did he move on to the next on the list. He wanted to completely fill any gaps he had in his toolbox at the moment then he would work on combat experience-which took much longer-later.


    Not every second outside of class could he spend fighting though as he also had other exams to prepare for. His Animancy and Constructs & Elementals course was going to effectively be a combined exam and he didn''t really want to hand in a Seeing Eye construct because he didn''t feel like it was enough. Luckily, he had a quarter of a warehouse full of construct parts and pieces and so, he began fitting a number of them together and constructing a soul and a brain to go along with it that he could present to his professors.


    Mana Structures and Spell Formation took much less time to prepare for given his overall comfort level with mana structures as a whole and his and Mark''s ability to simulate spells. He, reluctantly, moved both of them off of calculating permutations and just resigned himself to taking 15 minutes for the exam and hoping that he wasn''t docked too many marks for time.


    Mana Control wasn''t really something he could prepare for other than to make sure his Mana Control didn''t aggravate his soul in any way.


    Lastly, he had no idea what to do about Soul Manipulation so, he just didn''t worry about preparing for it at all.

 Chapter 218 - Book 20

    The week of the exams, a schedule arrived which Felix wasn''t expecting at all but looking through it, he more or less understood why. His exams had been compressed into just a couple of days except for Solo Combat which had its own day and Group Combat which had 7 days allocated to it. Otherwise though, they were grouped by recommendation meaning he had Mana Structures and Spell Formations back to back.


    First was Mana Structures where he had to efficiently send an audible message to the opposite end of the planet. Felix had spent more time on this spell than he would have liked but ultimately, was rather happy with his solution.


    He had initially tried all kinds of variations on portals and even anima spells but ultimately, as was often the case, the simplest solution reigned supreme. Taking a normal spell form to output sound, Felix simply shoved one of the most powerful and precise targeting component he could find into it then pushed it until it pointed to the other end of the planet.


    The location the sound had to end up was precise but, they were given exact measurements as to the location so all he had to do was adjust the spell form with the computer in his mind.


    Walking into the exam room, he waited for his turn then walked through the portal in the middle of the classroom and found a very similar setup to the evaluation room. This time however, instead of a large sheet of parchment on the table, there was every tool Felix could imagine, and many he had never seen before. Lastly, Director Amelia stood on a stool, just like last time.


    As he approached the table, Director Amelia nodded to him, "Did you bring your spell with you or will you inscribe it here?"


    "Actually, can I cast it myself?"


    She nodded and held up a hand indicating he should wait, "Of course."


    Sifting through a drawer on her side of the table, she found what she was looking for, a huge machine that surrounded a small window. She slammed it-due to the sheer weight-down onto the table then set herself up behind it and indicated with her hand that he should begin.


    Glancing over at the provided coordinates as they changed for each participant, Felix made some quick adjustments then carefully constructed the spell form in front of him. Even though, in total, the spell only required a dozen spell levels at most to be functional, Felix ended up using nearly 60 spell levels of focus, the excess entirely dedicated to the targeting component of the spell.


    His solution relied entirely on his precision as even embedding this spell into a ritual, would require very specific materials and a lot of mana cleaning and normalization.


    He felt a wave of gratitude towards Melody once again as what he was doing wouldn''t have been possible had she not accelerated his soul''s healing and he had no satisfactory backup solution. He hadn''t really spent much time worrying about his exams in general, especially not Mana Structures and so, he had left everything to the last few dekads. Had he not been forced to sleep for almost two dekads straight as well, he knew he would have come up with something better but he really didn''t have a choice on that front.


    With almost 50 spell levels of focus on the targeting component alone, Felix made sure it pointed exactly where it had to and was as precise as could be then held its shape steady as he cast the spell. He strained to hold it not because he needed to but because he wanted to be as accurate as possible.


    The cast was completely anticlimactic but he was pretty confident it had worked. Turning back to Amelia, she waited for a few moments then nodded as a source-less sound echoed back into their chamber from the Adept stationed at the other end. She confirmed that the message he had sent matched the one they got back then hopped up onto the table and walked around the massive machine she had used to measure.


    "I measured¡­ 97 mana, does that match what you consumed?"


    Felix shrugged, "Yeah, my screen says 97.316."


    She nodded, "You are allowed to try a few more times if you wish, given you cast the spell yourself. You were about half a kilometer off from the target location."


    Oh shit, that''s not very close at all.


    "Yeah, I''ll try again."


    Taking a deep breath, he tried to calm and center himself. He even briefly tried to engage his conviction but it just wasn''t applicable enough in this situation. There was no losing, just a grade that represented his performance.


    He tried a few more times and managed to shave off another point by refining the rest of the spell form a little and pushed his target within a hundred meters, but didn''t get any further than that. Though he didn''t feel like he was being strained or experience any pain, he was still pretty sure he could have brought his accuracy within a meter were his will power and his soul at 100%.


    He knew he was only at about 90% at the moment but he didn''t feel like it was limiting him before. Even now he didn''t feel limited but the logical processes of his brain noticed the difference. Every attempt, he pushed harder but there was a limit he just couldn''t push through there and so the spell wasn''t nearly as accurate as he would have liked.


    After he-reluctantly-decided he was done, Director Amelia nodded to him then tapped at her clipboard a few times, "Could you draw out the spell form you used?"


    Felix nodded and walked over to the table, Amelia hopped off onto a stool then Felix pulled over a piece of parchment and drew out the spell form he had used.


    Amelia looked at it for all of a second then cocked her head, "Do you have any skills affecting your spell casts in any way?"


    Felix shook his head, "Nope."


    "Would you mind following me?"


    He shrugged, "I have another exam in a couple hours but otherwise I''m free."


    She nodded then waved her hand to open a portal and stepped through. Felix followed her through it and immediately recognized the hall they stepped into as the one he took to the Mana Control classroom and Professor Fin''s office. He wasn''t entirely sure that was where they were headed, but he had a feeling.


    Sure enough, he continued following her all the way to the classroom where she knocked on the door.


    "You probably don''t know this room but this is Professor Fin''s office. You''re in Mana Control, right?"


    Felix nodded, "I am. I actually do kn-"


    Felix was cutoff by the door opening on its own and he didn''t bother finishing as they walked in and right up to the front of the room where they met Fin, standing just outside the door to his office with a grin on his face.


    Fin nodded to both of them in turn, "Director Amelia. Felix."


    She brushed by him, already knowing he would agree before she asked, "Mind if I use the mana board in your office?"


    Fin stepped back and gestured for them to enter then closed the door behind them.


    Turning to Felix, Amelia crossed her arms and gestured towards the board with her head, "Can you cast the same spell into this board, and don''t bother changing the targeting component."


    Felix looked at Fin who''s grin grew a little wider then shrugged and cast the spell into the board without moving.


    It took Amelia a few seconds to realize he was done and she only caught on because both he and Fin were staring at her, Fin waiting to see her reaction.


    She looked at the board then frowned, "This is the exact spell you cast? No batteries, skills or anything else that was disallowed?"


    Felix nodded, "Yup. That''s the one."


    Sighing, she finally addressed Fin''s grin, "What am I missing? Why didn''t this explode in his face?"


    Fin chuckled, "I know you''re busy and don''t pay much attention to everything happening at the school¡­ Felix was pulled out of 3 classes due to his¡­ unique abilities. Oh and Director Fen was very close as well."


    She sighed, "Explain."


    Fin locked eyes with Felix for just a moment, looking for permission because of The System contract he had signed.


    Felix nodded his permission so Fin turned back to Amelia, "Felix is the reason Khidell is only a Grand Master now."


    Amelia rubbed her eyes and groaned, "He was actually demoted all the way to Expert but it happened gradually so not many know about it."


    The expression of shock on Fin''s face actually made Felix worried, "REALLY?"


    She nodded, "Still sure it was because of him?"


    Fin looked at Felix for a few seconds then nodded, "It''s more likely than Khidell having lost his abilities."


    She shook her head and sighed, "Okay, catch me up. How exactly are you casting that spell?"


    "I ju-"


    Fin cut Felix off with a forceful tap to his calf, "Mind if I take a stab?"


    Felix shrugged and gestured his indifference causing Fin to happily hop over onto a rolling stool in front of the board. He used spells to move himself around so he could point at specific parts of the spell form, "You just stretched a targeting node to its limits¡­ what a crude and oddly insightful solution. You must be stretching your own limits just keeping it stable enough. How accurate was it?"


    Felix sighed and dropped his shoulders in disappointment, "I managed about a hundred meters off on my best attempt."


    He snorted then turned back to the board, "As for everything else-and to answer Amelia''s question as to why it didn''t explode-you''re normalizing and cleaning the mana yourself, right? Then you must also be managing the flow rate and suppressing transients?"


    "Yup."


    He shook his head, "Hah."


    Amelia looked at Felix with a disgusted expression that completely threw him off then sighed, "Show me."


    Felix had no idea how he was supposed to do that so he looked at Fin who had already hopped from the stool to his desk where he retrieved a number of devices, "Can''t believe we never did this before. I didn''t know you could clean and normalize mana as well. What else?"


    "I can change the attunement and energy levels but it''s¡­ slow." Felix winced a little, unhappy with the speed himself.


    The look of disgust on Amelia''s face deepened as the wide eyed smile on Fin''s grew, "How slow?"


    Felix sighed, "I''m down to just under 15 minutes to make the attunement as clean as I can manage, mostly because I wanted to attune mana directly for my Spell Formation exam."


    Fin grabbed one of the gadgets from his desk and tossed it to Felix, "Attune some mana into this."


    "What attunement?"


    "Any."


    Felix nodded then got to work as the two Professors watched him for the entirety of the 16 minutes it took until he was done. It took longer than he had hoped and he wanted it to be as clean as he could manage and even then, he noticed it was less than he could have managed before his current injury. Not entirely satisfied, but knowing he wasn''t going to do any better even if he took an hour, Felix finally pushed the mana into the device.


    As he did, it glowed briefly and Fin snatched it from his hands then connected it into another machine with a huge grid of lights on it. It looked almost like the scoreboard for a sports game with all the individual lights. After a brief moment, just one of the lights on the machine lit up. S§×ar?h the NovelFire.net* website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    Amelia stared incredulously at the machine and Fin laughed, "It took you just over 15 minutes to match building sized machines and rituals."


    "Efficiency?" Amelia asked without looking away from the grid of lights.


    Felix cocked a brow, "What do you mean?"


    She looked at him like he was an idiot, "Ratio of mana in to mana out. You''re in my class?"


    He also kind of felt like an idiot but at the same time, felt justified in his confusion, "Right just¡­ 100%? I didn''t¡­ I just changed the attunement, nothing was lost. There was no¡­ conversion process?"


    She groaned which only made Fin laugh harder.


    Felix waited a few moments but Amelia didn''t look like she was planning on moving, "Can I leave?"


    She looked over at him, her face still painted in complete disgust, "What? No, you can''t leave. How am I supposed to grade you? You took out as many Mana Structures as you could in your Mana Structures exam."


    Felix shrugged, "It was efficient though."


    "I-" She groaned again, "How are there two of you in one cycle."


    Felix suddenly became very focused, "What? Two of me? Someone else can do what I do?"


    She looked at him, "Wha- No. I mean students who make grading impossible. On the one hand, it was efficient. On the other, you didn''t have the worst accuracy but it was close. Also the spell form you created is complete trash and by far the worst in the class. Yet if I stick to my normal grading scheme of efficiency and accuracy, you''d ace the class¡­ Then there''s¡­ ugh."


    There was no point trying to contain his relief, "Oh. Who''s the other one?"


    It looked like she wasn''t going to answer for a moment then she just sighed, "Adaline''s inscribed spell used 23 mana."


    Felix''s eyes widened in shock, "23? Holy shit. How?"


    Amelia threw her hands in the air, "My question exactly. She threw so much spatial nonsense I don''t understand in the slightest into her soloution that¡­ I don''t know how to grade her. I can''t grade her. Do I just give her an S and move on? That seems wrong because what she did, makes every other S I''ve ever given look like a C at best."


    Felix made a mental note to talk to her then shook his head to refocus himself, "What do you need from me for grading?"


    She sighed, once again, her exasperation very evident, "Giving you a test on the spot without preparation isn''t fair but I need to submit my grades and you have your Group Combat expedition soon¡­ Can you show me spells you''re particularly proud of that you designed recently?"


    Fin spoke up before Felix could respond, "That might not be the best idea. Felix casts all his spells with his Mana Control directly and his biggest limiting factor is the complexity of the spell."


    She dropped her head back and groaned again, "So all your spells are like this."


    "You do any enchanting recently?" Fin looked at Felix hopefully.


    He winced, "Not really. I''ve been focused on other things."


    Shaking her head slowly, Amelia took a deliberate breath, "Alright, you know what. Just show me whatever spells or enchantments you have that you created. Literally anything."


    Felix nodded then began pulling up every spell, ward and enchantment the had ever created.


    It took nearly an hour for them to get through everything at which point Amelia groaned one final time before deciding she had had enough. Her annoyance was apparent the entire time but Felix was at leas 50% sure he wasn''t going to get a terrible grade. He also gave it a 20% chance she just failed him.


    Man¡­ what a bummer. If I had my full control, my spell would have been accurate and she might have just given me a good grade on the spot. Now, I honestly don''t know. She just seemed so¡­


    Grim chuckled in his mind, Annoyed, exasperated and disgusted all at once.


    He winced then sighed as he mentally moved onto the next exam on his schedule.


    With his first exam finally done, he headed straight for his second exam and arrived almost an hour early. Taking a seat, he entered his Soul Garden and began running through his solution for Spell Formations once again. Despite the exam being in a real world hour, he ended up revamping the entire spell but, it still relied on his manually attuning the mana.


    He wasn''t exactly rushed given the time dilation though.


    Once it was his turn, he walked through the portal and waited for the professor''s signal before casting his spell. This time, it took him nearly 20 minutes to fully attune the required mana to cast the spell and even then, he was worried the spell wouldn''t pass. The box he was moving though managed to stay within the given path, albeit barely.


    Professor Elkord was, despite looking amazing with an an organic metal body, rather boring. His lectures were straight forward and to the point, they weren''t particularly fast or slow. They were concise and understandable. They were also simply, boring. It definitely didn''t help that his face just looked like a blank metal sheet, like someone wearing a mask.


    Despite knowing they were largely expressionless, Felix was still expecting something when he cast his spell. They were given a track and his spell moved the cube through it without it ever touching the sides-despite how close it had gotten-and he managed to use just 17 mana in total.


    After casting his spell though, Elkord recorded how much mana Felix used then informed him, once again expressionlessly, that he could attempt to cast the spell twice more.


    He nodded and did so once again, the second time taking only 16 minutes for whatever reason and halving the mana required to cast the spell down to just 8 points. His third attempt, he pushed as hard as he could and honed his focus but 17 minutes later, he could already feel it wasn''t the same. For whatever reason, he had found a groove in his second attempt that he failed to replicate with his third. As a result, his third attempt used 13 points of mana.


    Once he was done, Elkord directed him to the table where he drew out the spell form on a piece of parchment. Looking at the completed drawing, Elkord nodded towards it, "This is your spell formation?"


    The question was asked so blankly, Felix couldn''t help but grow a little nervous. Especially considering what had happened with Amelia just a few hours ago, he was worried he was going to be failed for cheating or something, "Yeah this is the spell I just cast."


    They nodded exactly twice, "Okay. Thank you." Then gestured for the exit portal.


    Sighing, Felix left the room, resigned to his fate as now that he was really thinking about it, as much as he may have been very efficient with his spell, he also did strip out as much actual spell formation as he could. Thinking back, though it would have been less efficient, he could have taken a page from Withrel''s playbook and used fractal channels to create a complex structure to really show off what he knew. it would have used at least 5 or 6 times more mana but it would have been more appropriate.


    As much as he knew his grades didn''t matter a ton, he still wanted his grades to be great for no reason other than wanting to win against his classmates.


    He was already pretty sure he could get a recruitment offer from Amatara and Tekragoraxius no matter what his grades were and those were really all he needed. Although, he was definitely interested in Edras'' recruitment given he was so big on open knowledge and his afterlife was a library.


    Felix''s final exam for the day was Mana Control so he headed back to Fin''s office and they went ahead and measured everything they had before. Writing down all the values, Felix was a little disappointed at first because his Mana Control Range wasn''t as big as he would have liked. His Mana Control Limit never hindered him but precision directly affected the density of his computers and he just wanted it to be lower. His Mana Control Speed was directly proportional to his flow rate and the force he could apply with his Mana Control alone was so low, it was useless. Lastly his Spell Construction Speed for a 20th level spell wasn''t even close to as low as he would have liked.


    Once they were done, Fin wrote out the original measurements next to the new ones though and despite feeling limited by the values and burning with a desire to improve even more, he couldn''t help but appreciate how much they had changed.


    Mana Control Range16m40mMana Control Limit11,327,92142,012,368Mana Control Precision1E-52.1E-8Mana Control Speed14.1 m/s53.4 m/sMana Control Force8 N135 NSpell Construction (Lvl 20)0.9 s0.4 s


    Felix looked over the numbers and nodded, he was happy but not ecstatic. Looking over at Fin though, he was beaming.


    "The amount of improvement you''ve made in just one epoch is", He struggled to find the word, "amazing."


    Felix shrugged, "Thanks."


    He noticed the lack of enthusiasm on Felix''s face and placed a paw on his shoulder from where he was floating in the air next to him, "It''s impossible for me to say if this is good or bad by your standards but most students in this class only improve by a factor of 2 at most. You''ve gone ahead and improved in some areas by orders of magnitude. Growth only slows as students improve their Mana Control roughly following a logarithmic curve. You have by far the best Mana Control I''ve ever seen and are growing at the rate of a child who is just getting started. You should be proud."


    Felix nodded, "Thanks. I am mostly satisfied with my progress I just know I could have progressed more if I had focused on it more. For most people, Mana Control helps with their casting but it isn''t everything. For me, Mana Control is everything. It defines nearly the entirety of my offense, defense, speed, utility and at least contributes to everything else."


    "If you think you could have done more then I believe you. What you focus on is ultimately up to you, you don''t have unlimited time. You just have to decide if what you did spend your time on was worth it instead of working on this."


    Felix nodded as he agreed, it was something he knew but it still didn''t change the fact that he wanted to have dome more, he just didn''t have the time, "I do."


    Fin nodded, "Well, I''m satisfied. Feel free to go and prepare for the rest of your exams. I''m going to go and see if I can catch the end of the other students examinations."


    They left the room together and Felix headed off to his dorm while Fin ran off to the actual classroom.


    Heading to his dorm, Felix wanted to do some final preparations for his Constructs and Animancy exams the next day but he couldn''t. He was actively tired as his soul was still healing so instead, he headed to bed.


    Grim woke him the next day shortly before his Constructs & Elementals exam.


    He headed over to Ked''s lab-where his exam was to be held-a little early and spent the extra time he had making sure the final touches were ready on the construct he had made. He still hadn''t actually bound the soul to it because he wanted to wait until the exam itself to do so in front of his Professor.


    With all the various pieces organized on the table in front of him, he began picking up and quickly running mana through each piece and manually examining all the inscriptions. He only got halfway through though when Professor Sal made her presence next to him known with a slight cough, "Is this what you are presenting for your exam?"


    Felix nodded, "I have the soul prepared I was just waiting to bind it until now."


    She gestured towards the construct indicating he should proceed and so, he pulled the soul he had created out of The Soul Devouring Ring and placed it within the body. Piece by piece, Felix bound the soul to each and every binding point he had created as well as suffusing it throughout the body as much as he could. It would take epochs for the soul to completely affinize but he kick started the process manually.


    Once it was all bound, he finally attached the brain he had created to the soul. He had already imbued the spark of life a few days before so there was nothing left for him to do but wake it up. Felix quickly nudged the construct with a soul tendril-hidden within his hand-and imbued some mana into the batteries then, stepped back.


    It took a minute or so for anything to happen, which didn''t actually worry Felix because if something were to go wrong it was far more likely to happen after it woke up. Finally though, a metal sphere whirred and clicked a few times as it shifted around and calibrated itself.


    A few more moments passed before Felix couldn''t help but grin as he heard a robotic, machine like voice, "All diagnostics passed."


    Felix glanced at Professor Sal who still wore her signature annoyed-she-has-to-deal-with-students-and-probably-shouldn''t-be-a-teacher expression.''


    The construct that Felix had yet to name slowly rose up off the table and floated in the air before them, followed shortly afterwards by a dozen metal hands with various tools as fingers. Four of them were metal humanoid hands, two of them had five small metal tentacles each, two of them held clamps of some kind and the last four were each unique, designed specifically for some aspect of making constructs.


    Felix had gotten the idea from the Infant Lich he had fought and with his growing knowledge of constructs and how they work, the collection of ideas in his head had only grown. His hope was that this might be the first step towards complete automation.


    The construct moved each of its hands and manipulated all of its fingers then Felix placed the nearly complete body of his second construct on the table. Using the tools throughout the workshop, the construct Felix had just brought to life carefully finished the inscription work that needed to be done over the next hour, effectively completing the second construct. All that was left for that construct, was a soul.


    Professor Sal had maintained her expression almost perfectly over the course of Felix''s demonstration but not quite. His perfect memory allowed him to realize that her frown had just slightly deepened over the course of the entire presentation.


    Once it was done, he looked over at her and waited for feedback or questions or really, anything from her.


    Finally, after a few minutes of silence, she turned around and walked off deeper into the workshop. A few minutes passed again before she returned with the unfinished body of a whole new construct and placed it on the table. The new construct was much smaller and looked a bit like a mechanical bird.


    It was also, very obviously not even really close to finished. If Felix had to guess, it was about 40% of the way complete if he ignored the time required to actually design and plan the whole thing. Physically, nearly one symmetrical half was complete which meant all one would have to do to finish it, was to copy the other half.


    Crossing her arms, Professor Sal nodded her head towards Felix''s construct, "Have it finish this."


    Felix nodded permission to his creation and it got to work.


    While it didn''t have eyes to be able to see what it was working on, it didn''t need them. Felix had spent a while trying to figure out how to make his Seeing Eye constructs see efficiently and in doing so, had explored many ways in which constructs could see. This construct, used none of them.


    Instead, all his research had led him in a completely different direction with a whole new idea. With this construct, he had purchased the nearly complete, captured soul of a Matter Sprite, using Melody''s wallet. He then took a sizable portion of his own soul and separated out what he needed from what he didn''t then combined it all together. The result, was a soul that could sense the world around it. The range wasn''t great at just a few dozen meters of clarity, but it was a huge boon for a construct meant to create constructs.


    While it didn''t have the same mana control Felix had, it did have very precise mana senses and mediocre matter control. It couldn''t do any actual separation or reconfiguration of matter like Nova could, but it could hold tools or parts without its hands or connect two parts together if needed. The hands were simply there for when it needed more power or a specific tool.


    With those senses, and with a fair bit of help from Mark, it was able to completely analyze the construct Professor Sal had presented in a matter of seconds. From there, all it had to do was follow a script to complete the rest of the construct.


    It could have done the analysis itself, but it would have taken much longer as much of its brain was dedicated to controlling its body and it hadn''t fully calibrated everything yet.


    Despite all of that and Felix knowing it would likely complete the construct, it wasn''t working fast enough for it to finish during the examination period. It was still slower than even he would have been, let alone an Adept or the Professors themselves.


    Two hours passed as Felix''s construct silently worked away and Professor Sal scrutinized everything it did.


    Felix was convinced they would just sit and stare at it until it was done but instead, Professor Ked appeared after having finished the exams with the normal class. Walking into the lab, he headed directly to them and met Felix''s gaze with a friendly smile, a stark contrast to Professor Sal''s permanently dour expression.


    "You made this?" Ked looked at Felix and gestured towards his construct.


    Felix nodded.


    Ked grinned, which was a little creepy on his very alien face despite his intentions, "So for your exam¡­ You decided to present a construct¡­ That makes constructs?"


    Felix shrugged, "It was something I wanted to make anyways. I had most of the parts and pieces from the event, I just had to reconfigure and adapt some of them."


    Ked laughed a few times before shaking his head at Felix''s gall as he walked around the table, examining the construct from every side.


    After circling around twice, Ked stopped and got a little closer at which point the construct stopped and finally spoke for the first time since it had woken up, "Uh¡­ Could you¡­ Say something? You''re making me a little nervous."


    Ked fell back a step, clearly not expecting the construct to speak and it continued, "At least she gave me some room. You''re a little¡­ close."


    Spinning towards Felix with a cocked brow and wide eyes, Ked''s grin returned and he lightly bowed to the construct, "My apologies. I didn''t think you would mind." Then he stepped back until he was standing next to Professor Sal.


    He nudged her with one of the joints in his arm, "Have you examined them yet?"


    She shook her head, "No need. He bound the soul right in front of me."


    Ked looked over at Felix with wide eyes once again, "You didn''t test it ahead of time? You bound it during the exam?"


    Felix shrugged, "Sort of. I tested all the individual pieces and connected them to the construct to make sure everything would work but I avoided permanent bindings."


    Professor Sal cocked her head slightly, "You bound and unbound the soul multiple times?"


    "Sort of. I mostly just held it in the construct body and loosely tied it to the bindings. Nothing too strong though so I could separate it again later."


    Ked''s grin grew even wider, "While this isn''t the most impressive construct I''ve ever seen, this is definitely the boldest choice for a final project presentation I''ve ever seen."


    Over the next 45 minutes, they went over a number of technical details and examined the construct in depth, despite its timid nature. Professor Sal continued to seem perpetually annoyed while Ked was overall, jubilant.


    After that though, Professor Sal had to go and evaluate the normal class while Professor Ked and Felix talked through some of the decisions he''d made on this construct. They moved on to talk about a number of other constructs Felix had made, including the Seeing Eye constructs which he seemed even more impressed by.


    This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.


    A couple hours later, Felix had to cut their discussion short as he had his Soul Manipulation exam to head to, Luckily Professor Ked insisted he could leave his new construct with him. He assured Felix that the exam was over but both of them agreed that there was no better place for it then in a construct research and production laboratory.


    Walking out of the lab and towards his next exam, Felix couldn''t help but feel a little disappointed. The construct''s personality hadn''t been anything he had chosen. Rather, he wanted to prove he could add a personality, mostly to boost his grade in Animancy, so he had mixed together small pieces of a bunch of souls from event participants he had harvested. He had focused on crafters and profession focused participants which seemed to have resulted in a somewhat timid personality.


    It didn''t matter much though as Felix fully planned on making more, similar constructs down the road and he could adjust those and iterate as needed.


    Arriving in the class for Soul Manipulation, Reading & Cultivation a little earlier than necessary, Felix found a seat and simply waited.


    Peace arrived a little bit later and sat next to him, also a bit early for the exam as a whole.


    "Hey. Thanks for your help back in the event." Felix kept his statement of gratitude purposefully vague just in case.


    "Sure, no problem. Did you¡­ succeed?"


    Felix tilted his head a little, "Yeah more or less, got more than I was hoping for in fact."


    "I heard you were injured, pretty badly too."


    "Yeah, I''m fine now. In large part thanks to Melody actually."


    Peace placed his hand on Felix''s shoulder and spoke directly into his mind, sort of like how Grim did but less elegantly without any bond in place, Does it have to do with you going offline for a bit? Reaper was worried because¡­ it really shouldn''t be possible.


    Felix tried a few times to respond but after a few tries, decided not to bother, "That was when I got injured. I''m fine now though. Where have you been? I expected to see you sooner."


    Peace''s expression fell just slightly, "I had something urgent to take care of."


    Felix got the hint verbally, tonally and from a feeling of sorrow and regret Peace purposefully let him feel, and didn''t press the issue.


    They sat in silence for a bit, Felix mentally checked out in his Soul Space working out some kinks in his mana channel and core designs.


    Eventually Melody also arrived somewhere in the middle of the other students streaming in and took the seat next to Felix. He didn''t even bother bringing his consciousness back to his body at first but a moment later, he felt a hand on his chest and his consciousness snapped back.


    His head spun down and towards Melody who had reached into his robes and was feeling around at this chest.


    While he didn''t physically stop her, Felix looked at Melody with a cocked brow and an unimpressed expression. He knew what she was doing and why, which was the only reason he didn''t stop her.


    After chewing and swallowing the bite of whatever chocolate pastry was in her other hand, Melody nodded slowly and thoughtfully, "Hmm¡­ You seem to be mostly normal. Well, not normal but more you at least."


    He nodded then plucked her hand off his chest with two of his fingers, like it was a disgusting bug, "Mostly. Thank you."


    She shrugged like it was no big deal, "You know, maybe I shouldn''t have. Not being able to feel you again is¡­ lame."


    Felix shook his head and lightly sighed at the double entendre which he knew was intentional, "You already got your question. Plus, you can feel everyone else. Isn''t that enough?"


    Her face lit up when Felix finally acknowledged some of her teasing and she shrugged, "Yeah, you''re right." Sighing dramatically she slouched down in her chair a little and dropped her head back, "I''ll just have to go feel some demigod later to reassure myself."


    They were interrupted a moment later by Director Fen walking into the room and towards the front of the class. The entire class watched her and waited as she opened a portal next to the podium and fiddled with some things to set up for the test. Once she was ready, she nodded once then looked up from the podium and around the room.


    As her eyes settled on Felix''s trio at the back, she frowned, "What are you three doing here?"


    They all looked at each-other with confusion, hoping one of them knew what was happening.


    "Leave. I''m not evaluating any of you." Then she waved them away, like she was shooing a bug, or three.


    Melody asked the obvious question before their Professor could call over the first student, "Where are we supposed to go then?"


    She drew her head back like the question had the most obvious answer, "Home?"


    Before any of them could clarify, she called over the first student and walked through the portal with them, disappearing from the room.


    They all looked at each-other for a few moments then Peace shrugged and Melody excitedly jumped up, "Oooh! Since we suddenly have a bunch of free time, you guys want to go shopping?"


    Neither of them immediately declared their nonexistent excitement but they wouldn''t have had a chance to anyways as she just kept going, "Or we could to a bakery- or or, there''s this new restaurant that serves dishes made only from metal that I- OH! Or we could go and visit this planet I know where everything creature is domesticated and adorable."


    They had already made it out of the room and onto the greenery of the lawn as the classroom was fairly close to the open doorway of its particular building.


    Stopping, Felix cocked his head towards Peace, "I can''t speak for him but today, I''ll do whatever you want Melody."


    Her eyes lit up even more than they normally did as she leaned in, "Really?"


    He nodded, "Within reason."


    Peace shrugged, "I''m game for anything."


    The mischievous grin that followed worried Felix just a little. What she said next as she whipped something out of her inventory, was possibly even more worrying, "Change into these."


    Following Melody into the portal after she whispered their destination into El''s ear, Felix and Peace both looked around to try and figure out where they were. The portal had led them into a small secluded room in what appeared to be a tent. Dragging Felix by the wrist, Melody pulled him out of the tent and onto a massive dock.


    Looking around, Felix couldn''t actually see land, but he also couldn''t see the end of the dock either, or very far at all for that matter. The dock beneath their feet was made of wood and had the same sound Felix expected from a dock made of normal earth wood. Looking down at the patchwork construction of graying wood in different sizes and each a slightly different age, It definitely splintered, degraded and rotted in the same way. The nails holding the boards down were also rusted and some of them stuck out in a way that had definitely injured someone at some point.


    All around him there were either tents or water in every direction. The tents dominated the landscape around him and it was essentially a full blown city but one built entirely on docks with nothing but cloth construction for any of the buildings around. With nothing sturdier than cloth, none of the tents were more than a single story tall but the city was still about as dense as it could be.


    As Felix looked around and examined their surroundings, he also noticed all the people walking around and more importantly, how low level they were. Not a single person he saw was above low D grade. The highest level he saw, by a few hundred levels, was 421.


    Aside from the levels too, Felix rarely noticed what anyone was wearing unless it particularly stood out but standing where he was, he saw almost exclusively rags and simple clothes. There were a few people he saw wearing nicer cloth, but not a single person wore metal armor of any kind as far as he could see.


    It at least explained to him why Melody had had them change into much simpler clothes that were still, some of the nicest on the entire dock. There weren''t even pockets or extra folds for Nova to slip into so she was instead delegated to his shoulder, not that she minded.


    Melody dragged Felix through the densest crowd he had ever seen in the multiverse and they bumped shoulders with most of the people they passed, annoying Felix greatly. What were even more annoying, were all the wandering hands that slipped into his robes. There was nothing there for them to take and Felix''s Perception, Dexterity and Agility were way too high for anyone to get anything he was wearing but they still tried. He was pretty sure no one could actually see his level because if they could, the dozen or so E grades and couple of D grades definitely wouldn''t have dared try to steal from him.


    Apparently Melody trusted Peace enough to follow them because she was only pulling Felix by the wrist.


    Winding their way through the docks, around multiple tents and through one of the densest crowds Felix had ever seen, Melody finally pulled them into a large red tent with intricate but flaky and mostly worn gold filigree. Stepping inside, the cacophonous hustle and bustle of the outside was dampened considerably, not by any magical means but simply by of the overall mass of the four layers of thick cloth that made up the outside of the tent.


    Inside, the tent appeared to be an inn or a tavern. All of the furniture was made of carved coral but only the bar was polished to a mostly smooth surface. There were no shelves behind the bar holding bottles or glasses, just a curtain that separated off another section.


    The bar was lit by an open skylight in the tent above them and all of the tables were filled with people playing cards, drinking, passed out or whispering to other patrons. They weren''t particularly loud though, especially as their trio walked in and most of the patrons started staring, some from the corners of their eyes, others outright and not bothering to hide anything.


    Melody released Felix''s wrist as soon as he was fully inside and looking back, Felix checked just out of curiosity and saw Peace enter right after him.


    They followed a few steps behind as Melody walked over to the bar and sat on one of the coral stools that Felix was convinced would be one of the most uncomfortable sitting experiences ever, even at his grade. He opted to stand next to her instead of sitting.


    They waited for just over a minute of near silence, the only sounds being mugs and cards hitting the table along with the occasional whisper. Of course, with Felix''s senses he heard much more than that and even the conversation being whispered in the corner about robbing them was completely audible to him.


    Finally the bartender showed up, walking through one of the back curtains at an awfully slow, bog-standard human walking pace.


    The bartender was a gruff looking man that was some race Felix had actually never seen before. He looked mostly human but his head above his ears was slightly more bulbous and larger, his ears were pointed but much thinner than an elf''s and his skin was a darkish purple. Other than that though, he was human shaped with two arms, five fingers on one hand and a missing pinky on the other. He also had a number of scars visible on his face, across his nose, distorting the shape of his lip, on his cheek and on his forehead.


    The injuries confused Felix a little as theoretically they shouldn''t exist with The System but he hid his confusion entirely and figured he would just ask Melody if he remembered to later.


    With an unpleasant expression that had no place in the hospitality business, the bartender grunted at them, "What''you want."


    Melody placed one arm on the counter and responded with most of her usual joviality complimenting a mischievous look, "We''re looking to hire a crew."


    A few ears perked up and a few whispers passed through the bar before the bartender grunted again, "What for?"


    Melody scoffed like it was the obvious answer, "Fishin."


    One of the players at the card table slapped the table, "How much you offerin."


    Casually twisting around, Melody leaned against the bar, "50."


    He snorted a little then spit on the ground next to him, "Ere to? Minimum''s 200 for a fishin trip these days."


    Melody laughed, "My ass it is. 60 and The Carboris Expanse."


    Multiple people guffawed and one man spat the swill he was drinking. The man she was talking to frowned in disgust, "You won''t find a single sailor in the whole Alder Bluff Pier who''ll take you out there for less ''an un-fifty."


    She smiled and cocked her head a little, "Thought you said the minimum was 200 for a fishing trip these days?"


    He grumbled angrily then stood up and walked right up to her, stopping just a few inches from her face, "What''d you just say to me? You think I''m stupid?"


    Leaning back a little further, Melody waved her hand in front of her nose, "And you smell like a clam''s arse too."


    The man''s lip began twitching and Felix would have bet money he was going to hit her but he just licked his teeth and stepped back, "It ain''t werth it."


    Twisting around and reaching behind the counter, Melody grabbed a mug carved out of coral faster than the bartender could react to then tossed it lightly at the man''s head before he made it to his table.


    Spinning around, the man shook his head with his tongue weirdly licking his beard, "Oi, I don''t care if yer a girl. If you and yer friends don''t walk outta this bar ''ight now, I''mma start hittin somethin."


    "Oh that''s good, finally? Cause I was just laying in the hammock with your mother last night and she seems worried you''ll never find a woman willing to lay with you." Pointing at one of the other men playing cards, the angrier looking one, "She says you been hittin that too long and that yer mates don''t count."


    His face, and the face of the other man she had pointed too, as well as the barkeep to a lesser extent, were all red and furious. Screaming and spewing spittle into the air, the man ran at Melody as fast as he could and tried to ram his head into her face.


    What followed was one of the silliest things Felix had ever been a part of. He honestly felt like the three of them were parents and the dozen and a half gruff sailors in the room, were tiny children or puppies fighting.


    Melody easily hopped to the side causing the man charging at her to fly over the bar. The barkeep tried to grab her but she just stepped to the side and tapped the back of his head, sending his head flying into the bar and knocking him out.


    The men playing cards were all on their feet and two of them sauntered over to Peace who didn''t even bother moving. One of them went to grab him and he just backhanded him on the head with two fingers, instantly knocking him out. The other was too angry to think and a quick backhanded slap to his stomach completely winded him.


    A couple of sailors rushed Felix and he wanted to try knocking them out as casually as Peace had but he was honestly worried he would accidentally kill them. Instead, he simply stepped aside and lightly pushed them into each-other, making sure their heads collided, knocking them out.


    Even after dispensing with a third of the sailors so casually and trivially, the rest still decided to rn at them and were knocked out or disabled just as quickly.


    Once they were all groaning and rolling on the ground or unconscious, Felix looked over at Melody with a cocked brow. She gave him a look of I-know-what-I''m-doing-just-watch-but-also-you-have-to-admit-that-was-kind-of-fun in response. The fact that she was an expert in soul reading and communication and advertised her intents definitely helped Felix decipher her expressions.


    Hopping up onto a stool then lying on the bar-which Felix found odd because she definitely could have hopped or flew right onto the bar-Melody reached over the counter and lifted the sailor she had originally angered by the scruff of his clothes.


    He was the only one that hadn''t been knocked out and was just dazed after flying over the counter.


    Melody grinned, "75."


    He exhaled audibly through his nose, "120."


    "Deal." Then she dropped him back to the floor.


    Rejoining the other two, Melody nodded to them with an expression of see-I-told-you-it-would-work-out-and-I-knew-what-I-was-doing-now-wait-until-you-see-what-comes-next.


    It only took a quarter hour for all of the sailors to get to their feet, the ones who were up slowly rousing the others until everyone was awake. They chugged whatever was left of their drinks then limped and drunkenly wandered out of the back of the tent and down the docks.


    The trio followed them and Felix couldn''t help but feel incredibly unimpressed with how slowly they were walking and simultaneously incredibly impressed at how they slapped away pickpockets in their drunken and delirious states.


    It took them an hour to finally make it to a dock that wasn''t surrounded by tents on all sides and another half hour to make it to their specific ship. As they walked up the plank onto the ship, Felix immediately thought to himself that if he couldn''t fly, he never would have boarded.


    The ship was a fat, bulbous, double masted behemoth that was covered in barely patched holes and constructed entirely from mismatched boards in various states of rot. There were ropes holding some of the boards together and no railing on the deck. As Felix could feel matter around him as well, he already knew before seeing it that the inside of the ship, was empty. It wasn''t split into floors with multiple decks or rooms. He felt hammocks and a couple of curtains, and that was it.


    The three of them walked over and stood on the edge of the deck, to get out of the crew''s way, as they ran around and readied the ship in a mostly drunken yet, practiced, shuffle.


    A half hour passed and the man Melody had been harassing and insulting stood at the back of the ship, on the same level as the rest of them because there was only one deck, and bellowed out, "Make sure to tie yer leashes tight, we sail for The Carboris Expanse!"


    Felix had no idea what he was saying and looked around to see if he had simply misheard but instead, he saw the sailors pulling ropes out of various hiding holes around the ship and tying them around their waists. The other end was tied around one of the masts and Felix couldn''t help but scowl. Not one of the ''leashes'' was in tact. Each and every one of them was made up of multiple scraps of rope, twisted cloth and even some algae here and there, tied together until they were a suitable length. He was pretty sure in a storm or really any situation where they would be forced to rely on the leashes, they wouldn''t do anything anyways.


    The ship slowly made its way out of the harbor and began tacking its way into the wind. As they-painfully slowly-made their way away from the docks, Felix looked back and confirmed a theory he had had, the docks weren''t attached to land at all. They were like a constructed island in the middle of the ocean.


    Looking up, the sky was as bright and blue as could be with not a single cloud in sight which made it that much easier for Felix to change the wind''s direction. He offered his hand to Melody and she took it with a cocked brow, her consciousness immediately being drawn into his head, There isn''t a cloud in the sky. Can I use magic now? I''ll make it seem like the wind changed directions.


    She giggled, Yeah, go for it. Just don''t make it obvious.


    He released her consciousness then positioned his spells just so to make it seem like they had found some kind of air current. It was just slightly off to the side of the boat but obvious enough that the captain noticed it and steered them into it, with the intent of riding it for as long as possible, which Felix knew was as long as he wanted.


    As soon as he had done so, they began moving way faster without the need to tack back and forth which made the trip much easier for Felix. He didn''t really have any idea how far it was and no one was bellowing out their location or anything so he just waited. Maintaining the spells was pretty trivial for him so he distracted himself in his own mind as they sailed.


    It took just over three hours for them arrive in a rougher part of the sea with noticeably darker waters below. Despite Felix continuing to move the wind, the sailors lifted the sails causing the ship to slow to a steady drift.


    The captain walked over to them and addressed Melody, cocking his head overboard, "We''re here. Feel free to fish to yer heart''s content." Then started walking away.


    Melody crossed her arms, "Wait hold on. I said The Carboris Expanse, not the very edge of what could be considered, The Carboris Expanse."


    The captain spun on his heel, "I ain''t sailin any further into these waters. It''s dangerous bein this close as is."


    "250."


    The captain shook his head, "There ain''t no amount that''ll convince me. Now you better start fishin while the sun''s up."


    Melody hesitated for a moment then groaned a little, turned back to the other two and leaned in, "Alright get ready."


    Using her outer robe as a temporary container, Melody dropped a bunch of diced meat out of a spatial storage creating effectively a wearable bucket of chum.


    Grabbing a handful, she tossed it out onto the sea and chummed the waters. She managed to get through three quarters of the pile before one of the sailors spotted what she was doing and yelled, "The fuck are you doing?"


    The captain overheard the yelling and ran over just as Melody tossed the last quarter in, "What the fuck do you lubbers think yer doing? Where''d you even get that?"


    Melody shrugged innocently, "Fishing."


    He looked at them each one at a time, slack jawed and looking for any kind of logic but neither Felix nor Peace actually knew what was happening, "Ye just killed us all. Was this yer goal? Havin us sail to The Carboris Expanse then chumming the waters? You were trying to kill me? Why?"


    She laughed, "Where''s your sense of adventure, captain?"


    "Sense of adventure? The creatures I seen out here scared the last o'' the hair off my balls. I reckon'' I''m un the last sailors in the Alder Bluff that''ll still sail two klicks from The Expanse. My sense of adventure died when I had my second kid."


    Felix spoke reactively, not entirely intentionally, "Second kid? Why not the first?"


    The captain spat into the water, "My first wife''s a bitch."


    Melody gestured over the side of the boat with her head, "Well, I hope you can resurrect it cause I hear em coming."


    The captain jumped a step back from the edge of the boat and even though Felix could hear them too, their senses were strong enough that whatever was coming was still a few minutes away.


    The entire crew desperately raced around trying to sail away and then out but they were way too slow, especially moving a ship of their size. By the time the sails were down and they had moved all of a few meters out of the current, Felix saw a number of creatures jumping up and eating the bait Melody had thrown.


    The creatures were water drakes. Felix didn''t even have to identify them to know so. They looked like slightly more serpentine drakes with longer, stronger and flatter tails, webbed claws and gills. Otherwise, they looked like drakes, Dragons without wings.


    Most of them were blue, others were more green and they had some orange accents on their claws and fins.


    [D - Uncommon] Sea Drake (Lvl 231)


    Nodding to the two of them, Melody turned back to the captain and dropped a bunch of lumber onto the deck of the ship from her spatial storage. Felix wasn''t measuring, but he was pretty sure there was about 120 meters worth of lumber all neatly piled up. He quickly identified it but it was just normal E grade wood, nothing special about it.


    Melody waved to the captain, "This is our ride. Thanks for bringing us out here!" Then she hopped off the ship, into the water and swam over to the feeding drakes.


    Peace shrugged at Felix then hopped in after her and Felix dove in a moment later to follow.


    He used a quick Force Spell to turn the ship as he fell then pushed himself with his Matter Control through the water to follow.


    Looking up, Melody was in the process of wrestling with the drakes in an attempt to mount one of them but, while it should have been easy just from the difference in their stats, the drakes were slippery. They kept squirming and trying to bite her, many of them succeeding, but none of them managing to sink their teeth very far.


    She punched the ones that bit her in the nose until they released and wrestled with the others until she finally managed to get onto its back and grab hold of its gills. "Woo!" She cheered as she directed her drake off and out of the school.


    Swimming over, Peace locked eyes with one of the drakes and it basically just swam over to him and willingly let him mount it. He rode it off towards Melody as Felix grabbed the protruding spikes on one of them and climbed his way onto its back. He didn''t mind it trying to pull him under and simply directed it back to the surface once he was properly mounted.


    Nova had fallen off at some point but he spotted her a few seconds later by identifying all the drakes and realizing she had turned into one of them, likely after eating one or a few of them.


    Together they split off from the feeding group and rejoined Melody who was trying to get her drake to jump into the air with her on it.


    Once they were all ready, she led the way and they rode deeper into The Carboris Expanse.


    They rode for a few hours, the waters growing gradually colder and darker as they traveled until Felix spotted what looked to be a tiny island. It was less than a hundred meters wide at most but it was the only land he had seen on the entire planet since stepping out of the portal.


    It was barely visible though, sitting just on the edge of the horizon, so they still had a ways to go. Felix probably could have reached it in less than a minute if he could fly but he promised to do whatever Melody wanted and apparently this was it so, he complied.


    They only got a few kilometers closer before Felix saw something moving below them. Melody was apparently ready for and actually expecting this so she immediately started circling around, even as their drakes grew squeamish and squirmy. Whatever was coming, they could also sense it and were frightened.


    Felix mostly lost control of his drake a half minute later, Melody losing control of hers shortly afterwards. Peace still seemed to be completely in control of his but he released it nonetheless and stepped off of it onto the water. Felix and Melody simply floated nearby and waited.


    From even just a few meters up, Felix could see that whatever was below them, was massive. He wasn''t even slightly worried considering the average level on this planet but the size did at least make him curious.


    It was serpentine and a few hundred meters long, at least, dwarfing anything that had ever lived on earth.


    "Okay shoo, take Peace way up into the air. It''s my turn first." Melody shooed them over her shoulder, her gaze ever locked on the sea below them.


    Felix had Nova fly up beneath Peace to lift him up into the air as he flew and gained distance himself. They settled a hundred meters above the water, Felix deeming that to be a safe distance for the time being.


    Melody hovered just a few meters off the water with her arms outstretched in front of her like she was trying to catch some critter.


    The gargantuan serpentine circled around a few more times before finally disappearing into the depths for a few moments only to reappear right below Melody, moving vertically.


    The shadow below Melody grew rapidly until it was easily big enough to completely engulf her then, there was water everywhere. The creature breached the surface and jumped into the air a few dozen meters, enough to get Felix wet but not enough for them to fly any higher.


    The creature reminded Felix in many ways of the Leviathan, but more serpent like. It''s face was flatter and not like a lizard''s at all. Instead, with its maw stretched all the way open, its jaw almost split the entire head in two, much like a snake but even more extreme. It wasn''t scaled with small and round scales but rather with concentric rings all the way along its body that were flexible. It also had hundreds of arms all along its body.


    The arms all came in trios, mirrored on either side of its body. Each trio spread themselves out to stretch the webbing between them to make itself seem as big as possible, not that it would have mattered against much of anything.


    [D - Epic] Dhirkkesh of the Depths (Lvl 862)


    In the commotion of Dhirkkesh surfacing, Felix had lost track of Melody and only spotted her just as the serpent fell back towards the sea and she was on it''s side clinging to one of the arms. All around her, the webbing between the nearest arms retracted, freeing them to claw and grab at her. She deftly swung between them like a gymnast on a bar and kicked a few arms here and there then vanished below the water along with Dhirkkesh.


    Neither of them reappeared for half a minute or so until, way off to the left, Felix heard splashing and Dhirkkesh resurfaced.


    Melody had climbed her way much closer to its head, and as they soared through the air on the serpent''s thrashing momentum, she made one final leap and latched onto one of the ridges around it''s head. As she adjusted and centered herself, they dove down into the depths once again.


    Finally, they emerged some distance away, Melody now sitting on the back of its neck, her hands latched onto its ridges as Dhirkkesh continued to thrash and swim in every which direction.


    "Woooooo!" Melody''s cheers echoed out across the surface of the sea as Dhirkkesh swam as fast as it could, weaving through the surface of the ocean, desperately trying to get rid of its uninvited rider.


    Together, the two of them made a couple rounds around the island before she backflipped off of its neck and into the air, floating up next to the two of them and slapping Peace on the back, "Quick, go go go before it gets away!"


    Peace leapt off of Nova and dove into the sea below but without the ability to fly, Felix wasn''t sure how Peace was even going to get to it. There was no reason to worry though as Peace resurfaced hundreds of meters away, swimming at a ridiculous speed that would outpace most sea creatures.


    He dove down a few times before managing to catch up to Dhirkkesh that seemed wary to approach anything at this point. It wasn''t running away but it was also obviously aware of Peace''s presence and trying to give him a wider berth.


    As he approached, Dhirkkesh rushed to meet him, like it just wanted to protect its territory and felt forced to engage, and Peace jumped out of the water like a dolphin.


    Dhirkkesh opened its maw to grab Peace but he flipped and kicked in the air to maneuver himself out of the way then grabbed hold of the side of its head. Melody had been holding onto Dhirkkesh, Peace was actively controlling it. His strength was easily a few times more than the creature''s, even despite their size and so he wrestled with it easily.


    Twisting and pointing its head wherever he wanted, Peace took a half minute to get the hang of things then directed it over towards the island Melody had ridden around.


    Felix, Melody and Nova all flew over to follow and they watched as Peace dragged the creature up onto the island, its body only half surfaced because of the island''s size, and hopped off of it.


    With the webbing retracted between all of its visible arms, it used them as legs on land and scurried around the island multiple times. Peace stood at the center of the island and tracked its head as it circled, winding its massive body around him multiple times, effectively trapping him in a wall of serpent.


    It stopped after a few layers and even still, a portion of its body remained below the surface.


    Gazes locked, Dhirkkesh''s head rose up and looked down on Peace as he planted his feet like a sumo wrestler then, roared.


    The roar Peace released wasn''t something that should have been possible from a human with their tiny, constricted throats and small lungs. It was deep, bellowing and the sheer amount of air it moved created a gust that blew past the serpent and whipped Melody''s hair into the air.


    Dhirkkesh stared down at him for a few moments then leaned forwards, Peace''s face ready and anticipatory, then it roared back. The roar from the serpent was a little disappointing by comparison and whatever Peace had been attempting, had clearly failed as his expression went from determined to ''oh-shit'' in a moment.


    The serpent smashed its face into the ground as Peace dodged out of the way then kicked off its body and landed on its head before it had a chance to recover. Gripping its ridges as Melody had, Peace pulled its head up high then leapt off of it and gestured with his hand for someone to grab him.


    Felix cast a simple portal below him before he fell too far and dropped him back onto Nova''s back next to him.


    Looking at the two of them, Peace shrugged with a light smile, "Well, I tried."


    Melody chuckled jovially then slapped Felix on the back and he flew out over the creature.


    Positioning himself where he needed to be, he accelerated his own descent and landed directly on top of Dhirkkesh''s neck as it dove back into the water. Felix grabbed onto one of the ridges nearby but only managed to latch on with one hand before he was submerged and dragged through the sea. He immediately cast an air bubble around his head not because he couldn''t hold his breath, but to make it easier to keep his eyes open and see.


    Wrestling with the creature, Felix''s strength wasn''t anywhere near Peace''s but it was enough for him to be able to climb his way along its neck into position. Dhirkkesh dove further and further down, trying to follow along the bottom and Felix waited for it to surface again but he eventually realized it wasn''t going to do so on its own.


    Pulling up with his arms, Felix also cast a huge Force Spell below its neck and knocked Dhirkkesh''s head upwards. Straining himself, he managed to wrestle it up to the surface where he forced it to stay with spells and raw strength.


    Zipping through the ocean, he circled the island a few times before forcing the serpent to dive down then leap into the air directly over and clearing the island. At the apex of its jump, he leapt off and rejoined the others.


    Melody''s face advertised her overflowing, childlike glee, "Wasn''t that fun?"


    Felix nodded, "Yeah."


    She looked at Peace who nodded as well then she nodded once, "Alright, now we can kill it."


    Felix held up his hand, "Hold on, Nova wants a go."


    Melody''s brows raised in surprise, "Oh! Sorry Nova."


    Nova didn''t mind being forgotten and dove down into the sea below, Felix holding Peace with Force spells to pick up where she left off.


    She lightly plopped into the sea, not making nearly as big of a splash as the massive sea serpent. A few moments later though, a second sea serpent emerged from the sea, not quite as big as Dhirkkesh at only a few dozen meters long but otherwise similar. Like it was Dhirkkesh''s child.


    Nova still had the same scar on her chest though, the hand print with lines webbing out of it in every direction across her body. It was distorted and only recognizable for what it was to Felix, otherwise it just looked like a scar. Felix noticed Melody notice it and stare curiously for a few seconds but, she didn''t ask.


    Chasing after Dhirkkesh with multiple times its speed, Nova caught up in no time and immediately jumped onto it, wrapping herself around its neck and wrestling with it.


    Dhirkkesh squirmed and struggled desperately to get away while Nova kept trying to play with it, like it was a friend or they were dogs meeting for the first time. Nova though, was way stronger than it and even Peace. Along with her size, she dominated the massive serpent and was completely in charge of what they did and where they went.


    Refusing to play with her, Nova quickly got bored of poking and prodding Dhirkkesh and finally released it.


    Melody was waiting for that and directed Peace and Felix to work together to bring it back up onto the island.


    Peace wrestled with Dhirkkesh manually while Felix used spells to maneuver them over. They managed to get most of it ashore before Felix killed it with a series of blade spells released into the roof of it''s mouth and into its brain.


    Looking up at Melody, Peace crossed his arms, "So why exactly did we kill this thing? Couldn''t we have just¡­ let it go?"


    She grinned, "You''ll see. Now help me drag the rest of its body up onto the island."


    They both helped, along with Nova, and eventually they managed to pile up the serpent''s corpse onto the island after wrapping and twisting it just right to be tight enough.


    Looking at Melody for directions once they were done, she turned to Felix, "Alright now, can you go get me a piece of the tree from your Pocket Home?"


    He frowned and cocked his head, "Like¡­ a crystal?"


    "No. A branch, leaf, root, bark, anything other than a crystal should work."


    Felix shrugged and opened his Pocket Home against the serpent''s body, walked over to the tree and carefully trimmed off a sliver of bark. Walking back out, Felix offered it to Melody before closing the entrance, "Is this enough?"


    She nodded and carefully picked it up out of his hands, "Perfect."


    He closed the portal to his Pocket Home and watched her float herself up to the peak of the serpent corpse pile, take out a small knife, then plant the sliver very precisely into the corpse.


    Felix and Peace both looked at each-other to see if the other knew what was happening but they were equally clueless.


    Melody hopped off the pile when she was done and landed next to them, "Alright, now we just need to wait¡­ Although we should wait at sea because we don''t want to be nearby."


    Just before taking off and flying out, Nova meowed at them then had a brief mental conversation with Felix.


    Once they were done, she stepped out onto the sea as a kitten and morphed into a small but sleek looking ship without any masts. Felix had helped her by providing inspiration and refining the overall design but everything else was her. She ended up as a short and sleek boat that was a dozen meters wide and a few dozen long with just one deck and a little cabin.


    Melody looked at Felix excitedly then hopped aboard followed shortly afterwards by the other two.


    From the small room in the middle of the deck, Melody assumed the role of captain and steered them out to sea. With Nova propelling them instead of relying on the wind, and being a smaller and sleeker vessel, they tore through the water.


    They moved fast enough that Melody had them jumping waves and aggressively carving through the water for a little while before she settled into a particular spot just as the sun began to set.


    Rejoining Felix and Peace on the deck of the ship, she looked out towards the island and watched the sunset roughly 45 degrees to the left.


    Felix stood next to her as she leaned on the railing, "So¡­ You going to explain?"


    She nodded, "I looked into some things after seeing the tree for the first time and I''m almost certain I figured out what it is."


    He asked as soon as it was obvious she wasn''t going to continue on her own, "What is it?"


    "Its a spawn of The World Tree."


    Felix raised a brow but Peace nodded once slowly, like it all made sense, meaning Felix was the only one left in the dark, "The what?"


    "There exists a tree in the multiverse that is¡­ massive. When I say World Tree, that''s just the name. It does not clearly indicate its size. The tree is¡­ well it''s basically a primordial." She looked at Peace for confirmation and he nodded.


    "Its roots stretch throughout a galaxy and pierce all of the planets and stars within, drawing in nutrients from them."


    Felix shook his head as he tried to grasp the scale, "That''s¡­ absurd."


    She nodded, "Yup. Its a primordial because it existed before The System but its still, a tree. It''s a really big plant."


    Peace nodded, "A weed really."


    "Yeah. Basically, being so big, its seeds end up everywhere and they can grow in anything. I''ve seen trees growing on barren planets with no life, in deserts, in the ice and I''ve heard of lava trees and water trees. Wherever they end up, they will almost definitely grow."


    Felix frowned, "Is my Pocket Home going to get covered in trees I can''t get rid of?"


    She shook her head, "Luckily, the spawns of The World Tree are less¡­ virile. They''ll grow if you plant them in something nutritious but it won''t naturally spread so easily and each generation is exponentially less¡­ fertile?"


    "So this thing will grow on that island?"


    She nodded, "And provide an infinite source of wood for the planet."


    Felix leaned against the railing as well, "Gotcha. So that''s why we came here?"


    She swung her head to look at him, "That and for the adventure. We got in a bar fight, sailed the seas with pirates, rode sea monsters and finally saved this world."


    Melody looked at each of them in turn and Felix shrugged, "I guess so. It just feels a little low stakes when everything is so¡­ weak?"


    She sighed, "Yeah¡­ I know. It''s impossible to find anything strong enough that isn''t aware of who I am or can''t identify us though. Even just finding places this far hidden from everything else is hard. You know most of the gods don''t even know about this planet?"


    Felix frowned, "I mean¡­ would it matter if they did? The entire planet is kind of¡­. weak?"


    "Yeah. They have it pretty rough though. I mapped the planet when I first found it a few epochs ago and that island," She pointed to the pile of serpent corpse they were facing, "Is the only land I found at all. It''s kind of hard to push yourself when you''re struggling for basic necessities like shelter."


    Felix didn''t have anything to say to that so he just looked out towards the island. A few moments of silence followed before Peace spoke up though barely surpassed a whisper, "That was fun. Thanks Melody, I think¡­ I needed this."


    She looked over at him with a slightly worried expression, "I''ve been meaning to ask¡­"


    He sighed, "Just¡­ something I had to take care of has been on my mind."


    She pushed herself away from the railing into a upright position, "You okay?"


    Peace nodded, "Yeah. Just¡­"


    He didn''t finish his sentence but neither of them pressed him. Felix was happy to patiently wait in his own head, playing with Mana Channel designs, and Melody was an expert at sensing other people''s state of mind.


    A few minutes passed in silence and Peace shed a single tear, letting it fall off the side of the ship, "As a child of The Reaper¡­ The main¡­ purpose, of the entire cult¡­ is to remember. Ever since I was born, even before, I was trained and raised to be able to reap the memories from the souls of creatures as they die. That''s what The Reaper does, it''s what we do. Remember."


    Melody cocked her head a little then whispered under her breath, "Arrow of the Weeping Soul. You have Joledrin''s memories."


    Peace nodded softly without raising his gaze from the sea below them, "Yeah. Some people contact us and request they be remembered. With afterlives now, we don''t have to deal with too many but still¡­ a lot of people die."


    Felix leaned forwards past Melody so he could look at Peace, "Is that how the whole, Reaper cult are assassins thing came to be? You guys were just around when people died?"


    He shrugged, "Probably¡­."


    Peace was silent for another minute or so before continuing, "Before this¡­ I was reaping the memories of a civilization¡­ There was a war and¡­ they all died¡­" Peace sighed, "We''re allowed to save people, if we can. With natural disasters, we can divert them, move people, evacuate them to a new planet. With wars¡­ we can try to convince them, disable their weapons¡­"


    Melody placed a hand on his shoulder, "You couldn''t stop it though?"


    He nodded, "They wanted to kill. That''s the hardest thing to stop¡­ the burning desire to kill and the¡­ hatred. Misguided religions¡­ It''s just¡­ hard¡­"


    Melody shivered a little and Felix nodded, "You can''t save everyone though. People make choices, people die. Sounds like you at least remembered them though?"


    Peace nodded, "Yeah¡­ I did."


    Somehow Felix thought that made him even more upset but he didn''t understand enough to understand why.


    None of them had anything else to say and they all stood there waiting as the sun set, slowly falling below the horizon. Just as the last bit of light receded, Melody tapped Peace and nudged Felix with her shoulder as she pointed towards the island.


    Looking out towards it, it was a little hard to see but squinting a little, there was in fact a sapling that had already sprouted a half meter into the air.


    Felix blinked a few times to be sure of what he was seeing, "Holy shit that grew quickly. Why isn''t mine growing as fast?"


    Melody reached her arms up as she stretched, "They grow based on what they land in and what''s around them. Yours is growing from mana crystal suffused water and mostly thrives on mana. Not to mention you stuck some of your soul in it so it was slowed way down. That thing has an entire serpent to consume as well as a whole planet worth of water."


    Felix cocked his head, "Wait¡­ Will it be a meat tree then?"


    "Yeah, meat and water probably. The wood will probably be blood red for its entire existence." Melody nodded.


    Taking a step back and facing the other two, Felix began preparing a portal spell form, "So¡­ adventure complete? Should we head back?"


    Melody held up a finger, "Just one more thing. Can you launch a firework or something in the direction of the pier?"


    Felix nodded and quickly crafted a spell, making sure it would fly far enough then launched a few of them.


    Melody nodded in approval, "That should make them curious enough to investigate. Alright, lets go."


    Finishing the portal spell, they all stepped through back onto the green lawn at the center of Eramith''s campus, the sun still yet to set there. Nova morphed back and hopped through behind them, leaping up into Felix''s robes in her kitten form.


    Closing the portal behind them, Felix glanced over and saw Melody rest a hand on Peace''s shoulder then close her eyes. Peace took a few halted breaths and shed two tears then slowly exhaled and looked much more relaxed. He nodded, smiled and met her gaze, "Thank you."


    She smiled and nodded as well, "Course." Skipping forwards, she spun around and waved to the two of them, "See you guys for Group exam, yeah?"


    Felix took a step forwards, "Actually, any chance you have Erevos on you?"


    "Oh! Forgot about that." Pulling a small object out of nowhere, Melody activated it and a portal appeared. A moment later, Erevos floated out and Felix desummoned it back onto his wrist. Peering into the portal out of curiosity, Felix saw a number of slicers inside.


    "What is that place?"


    Melody shrugged as she closed the portal, "That''s my portable garage."


    Felix cocked his head, "You have a portable garage?"


    "Yeah. Multiple, actually. This one is my ''everyday carry'' garage and I keep the others at home usually."


    Felix was pretty sure she was entirely serious and he just shook his head, "Wild."


    She shrugged and waved one last time then skipped off. Peace turned to Felix and dropped a massive pile of chain and blade at his feet, "Almost forgot about this."


    Felix nodded and stowed the chain in the Kryptos Repository. Peace nodded to Felix then vanished and Felix headed back to his dorm.

 Chapter 219 - Book 21

    With almost two dozen hours until his Solo Combat exam, Felix spent some time examining and finalizing his Mana Channel and core designs before switching over and cycling through constructing each and every one of the combat spells he knew.


    He wanted to implement the mana channels before the rest of his exams but without the appropriate crystals, there wasn''t any point to doing so. Mark had continued to passively calculate permutations and he had made progress, but it wasn''t nearly enough. Felix needed crystals for a dozen attunements at least and the best combinations Mark had come up with were 13% efficient with half of them still at 9%. In the best case scenario, running his entire mana pool through a dozen 13% efficient crystals resulted in less than a single point of mana.


    The issue wasn''t just efficiency either. The combinations he had calculated also weren''t stable. If Felix were to push too much mana through them, the wasted mana would cause the crystals to burst.


    He briefly created and tested some permutations of crystals, with Nova''s help, to accelerate Mark''s computations but that didn''t take very long at all.


    Felix also collected all of the mana computers that had been produced from the factory he had created in his dorm and found that about half of them were unusable. The rest were flawed and would require some manual attention to fix. He didn''t worry about them for the time being though and simply stashed them away for when he had time.


    Based on the 50% success rate, he tuned the construct however he saw fit then made the computers accessible to his mind and refilled the construct with mana and manually adjusted its anima. He had already harvested from it a few times over the course of his recovery and the success rate of 50% was a noticeable improvement from the original 20% but he still had a long ways to go.


    After that, anything else Felix wanted to do was closer to procrastination than actually necessary so, he practiced and trained however he saw fit for his Solo Combat exam the next day. He even took a half hour to manually check up on and accelerate the repair of his soul. He didn''t end up accomplishing much as all he really needed now was time, but it made him feel a bit safer knowing what was going on and manually examining things for himself.


    He could only cycle through his spells so many times though before he realized he wasn''t really making any progress and he already knew all of them very well.


    So, he dove back into other projects. First, he constructed as many Seeing Eye constructs as he had the materials for on hand, which amounted to roughly 40. He manually validated and briefly tested all of them himself before tossing them into the air and allowing them to fly around his dorm room so Mark could run longer term tests while he moved on.


    First, he took another attempt at compressing his mana pool and core further and now that his will was just shy of being fully healed, there was nothing stopping him. Pushing down on it as hard as he could, he managed to compress it by another 50%, resulting in a ridiculous total mana pool of 150 million mana.


    After that, he decided to try something he had been meaning to try for a little while now. Taking out the demonic chains Peace had just returned to him, he decided they were the perfect test subject.


    Starting from one end, Felix slowly ran the chain through his hands towards the other end. The entire time, his Soul Tendrils ripped into the chain and tore the soul attached to them free. Judging solely from how annoying it was to separate the two, Felix was pretty sure these chains had existed as a soulful item for a long time. He had to wrestle and tear at the soul that seemed to be tightly bound to each and every atom of metal, rust, dried blood and grime that made up the weapon.


    At first, it took him minutes per chain but after a dozen or so he quickly accelerated to half a minute per chain as he got more accustomed to what he was doing.


    In total, it took him a few hours to finally separate the two, shoving the soul into his ring and feeding the chain to his familiar.


    While it wasn''t even really worth the time with the chain, Felix was happy to have the experience and knowledge for any future items he came across which were stronger, with better materials and souls from possibly even other universes. Harvesting items would never outpace the anima collection of killing weak creatures, or even better, harvesting chunks of The System-not that he was sure he would be doing that again any time soon-but there was a chance the souls contained something of value.


    Items progressed differently from people and over time, they often grew very aligned without a consciousness to drift and get distracted, or so he and Grim had read. That meant they could even sometimes develop convictions of their own. While the chains hadn''t, Felix was hoping to find one that had at some point soon because he wanted to try using other convictions without having them himself. Possibly having an island for specific convictions or convictions just for his tendrils alone.


    It was a topic that was mentioned briefly in the compendium he had gotten from The Reaper though, all of the mentions included warnings about the convictions overpowering the host''s soul. Felix wasn''t worried about that though and he was focused entirely on the potential benefits from being able to use different convictions for different tasks.


    The rest of the free time Felix had, he spent working on two separate spells, one of which would help immensely in combat but wouldn''t be ready for a few terms at at least. It was intended to be the replacement for his Mage Armor Spell that just didn''t hold up anymore and the enchantment on his cloak that had become, less useful recently.


    The other spell wouldn''t help at all with combat but it was an idea he had thought about for a while that, after his Constructs exam, had resurfaced in his mind.


    Walking into the designated room, Felix had a bit of time to kill as he was the very last student on the list to be examined. He continued to work through the two spells he was working on, jumping from one to the other as various ideas popped into his head. He didn''t do any actual experimentation though in the class and simply worked through and fleshed out all of the ideas he had come up with for each.


    Once it was his turn, Felix was the only student left in the class and he headed through the portal.


    Instead of the training room he had used a number of times himself and had been previously evaluated in, Felix found himself instead in the middle of some nondescript grassy plain.


    [?] Auren: Eramith''s Grand Huntsman (Lvl ?)


    Auren nodded to acknowledge his presence, "You ready?"


    Felix nodded and assumed he was fighting Auren so he prepared the spells he thought appropriate.


    "If you hadn''t noticed, this isn''t Eramith and The System won''t save you from death here."


    Felix nodded to indicate he understood then Auren held up a hand, "Alright, wait here just a moment. I''ll go bring over your opponent."


    Releasing most of the spells he had prepared, Felix relaxed a little and waited as Auren ran off into the plains and disappeared over the horizon of what was apparently, a tiny planet.


    The first thing Felix did was to surround himself in a Force Sphere followed by preparing a simple Force Burst for Movement and a Blade Spell with all of the focus that remained. The more focus he dedicated to the blades, the more he could manually stabilize the mana which was directly proportional to both how sharp it was and how much mana he could put into it.


    As he had learned with the Ashound, it was always safer to end a fight as quickly as possible, before his opponents had the chance to use any of their unique abilities.


    Felix waited, completely prepared, for 3 minutes before he heard loud, rumbling and fast thumping. Like the footsteps of a large creature that was moving far faster than it should ever have been allowed to, accentuated by the fact that the planet they were on was tiny. As the footsteps approached, they grew louder until the ground began to shake with each one.


    Then, a head appeared over the horizon, followed quickly by 7 more identical heads all attached to serpentine like necks that stretched out of a fat, four legged creature.


    [B - Legendary] Baby Hydra (Lvl 2439)


    Woah¡­ That thing is halfway through the B grade and is still a baby? I almost wish I brought Nova¡­ Almost.


    While he was allowed to fight with his familiar-most casters in Solo Combat would-Felix wanted the challenge and was willing to take on the added risk. On the other hand, he wanted to see what she could do if she were to consume one of these things.


    It took half a minute for the Hydra to close the distance between them, it running a lot faster than any creature of its size should have been able to.


    Using the momentum of the run, one of the Hydra''s heads snapped outwards towards Felix causing him to jump aside manually and released his Blade Spell. He then immediately hit himself with the movement spell he had prepared as another head slammed down into the ground where he had just been a moment ago.


    Another head twisted past that one and tried to snap at Felix but he was too far away and it couldn''t quite reach far enough around.


    Seeing him a few meters away, it opened its mouth to spew Acid in Felix''s direction and he quickly created a safe space within the breath for himself with a tight Force Wall.


    Once the Acid subsided, he looked back and saw 5 of the heads were completely distracted from the fight and were tearing apart the first head, the one Felix had severed with his Blade Spell. In a matter of seconds, they had consumed almost all of it, leaving behind nothing but a bloody mess on the ground and their faces.


    The Acid head kept trying to catch Felix while another exclusively bit at him, its fangs dripping in black liquid that he had to avoid with an activation of Reaper''s Movement.


    Once they had finished their snack, the stump Felix had created was already halfway regrown and the once distracted quintet rejoined the fight. Suddenly he had a lot more heads to deal with.


    Flying up and around, Felix managed to stay out of the Hydra''s reach in the air but that didn''t stop it from jumping and snapping at him with its heads. On one particularly excited leap, it snapped at him with the head on the far left and completely threw itself off balance, landing on its side. It quickly twisted and scrambled back to its feet but Felix was reminded once again, that it was a baby. More than anything, it reminded him of a puppy.


    Flying above it, one of the heads tried to spew gas at him but Felix redirected it with a Force Funnel far up into the air. It later exploded but, it was far away and completely harmless at that point. He had originally designed the Force Funnel to deal with the Ashound''s ash, or any other similar effect.


    A stream of fire spewed from another head and chased him down but wasn''t quite fast enough, despite the black venomed head smashing itself into the fire head''s neck to help move it.


    The Lightning head got the closest but Felix just cast a redirection spell as soon as he sensed the the attuned mana coursing up through its neck.


    He also had to dodge through a volley of icicles but none of it was too difficult. The Hydra was clearly severely limited in ranged options and couldn''t fly but on the ground, it had forced Felix to use his Reaper''s Movement after all of a second. His estimates placed the Hydra''s speed at at least 3 to 4 times his own and some of the heads were even faster than that.


    From the air though, Felix showered the Hydra with every spell in his arsenal but none of the elemental ones did much. Blade Spells were by far the most effective and he even managed to shear off multiple heads and two of its legs at once at one point. That didn''t really slow it much though as the heads slithered over to each-other and fought until one of them inevitably won. That head would then eat the others and all the rest of its body then regrow itself entirely in a total of 10 seconds or so.


    While the legends Felix was familiar with of cutting off one head and it being replaced by two weren''t true for this hydra, its regeneration was ridiculous. Seeing what was happening, Felix realized he didn''t have the mana to just sit back and cut it up, he had to kill it outright somehow.


    Preparing the necessary spells from his perch up high in the air, Felix cut off one of the heads then immediately launched it straight up into the air. The head only moved half a meter at most though so he quickly hit it again with 10 times the Force to get it out of reach of the Hydra. Flying over, he caught the head and-using a ton of mana-suspended it out of reach then, waited and watched to see what would happen. He quickly tried activating his Blood Devouring Ring and he could feel it strain to devour the severed head but it didn''t work for whatever reason.


    The main body of the Hydra continued to attack him and to his astonishment, after a few seconds, the missing head began to grow back. Even without consuming the severed head, the Hydra was capable of regrowing the head anew.


    It has to be running out of mass though right? Even I can''t regenerate without mass in my body to repurpose into new cells.


    As he pondered the situation and easily dodged through the weak projectiles, Felix suddenly felt something weird. Looking back at the head he had suspended, the severed neck had started to grow.


    No way.


    Using nearly half a million mana, Felix launched the head off into the distance not as far as he had hoped but far enough that it would be out of reach for the Hydra''s other heads.


    2 million mana per blade spell to sever a head then 1 million to throw it far enough away, Felix repeated the process over and over again until there were nothing but chunks of Hydra spread throughout the plains in every direction. A short minute passed before, the Hydras started to appear.


    From all around him, Hydras ran towards him. Their footsteps no longer shook the ground but they were just as big and even faster than before. However they looked, identical to the one he had just diced moments ago.


    How the fuck am I supposed to kill these things?


    Now, with their significantly lighter bodies, the Hydras had gained a whole new ability. The ones running at Felix from all directions began to leap off the ground and snap at him, a hundred meters in the air.


    Activating Reaper''s Movement to dodge past the black venom fanged head-seemingly the fastest-Felix flew as high as he thought necessary then flew up a bit higher. The Hydras looked up towards him, tried leaping a few times then quickly gave up and turned to each-other. They began fighting one and other until only one remained, literally. The winner consumed the losers until once again, Felix was dealing with a single Hydra and a massive pool of blood.


    Once it had become a single entity once again, all of the heads turned to the ground and began to consume the grass, earth, rocks and anything it could get its heads on.


    Felix had answers for everything, the Fire Breath, Necrotic Venom, Acid, Explosive Gas, Lightning and Ice. Yet somehow, he found himself severely lacking in damage. He quickly ran through all his other spells just to be sure and the only conclusion he came to, was that he understood why it was in the B grade as a baby.


    [B - Legendary] Baby Hydra (Lvl 2491)


    Wait¡­ IT GAINED LEVELS BY SPLITTING, FIGHTING AND EATING ITSELF? THIS THIS IS BROKEN! Grim, is it possible to obtain a second familiar?


    Yes but not through The System as far as I''ve read, you''d have to manually bond to it. Also, unless it''s part of your System skills, it will be banned in classes and so on.


    Still¡­ Seems worth it to me. Later, first¡­ how do I kill it?


    Grim didn''t have an answer for him and he wasn''t really expecting one, he was mostly just thinking out loud.


    Okay, someone check my logic on this¡­ no Hydras grew from the torso alone so it''s all in the heads. If I can obliterate the heads¡­ enough? All at once? I can kill it?


    Grim nodded in his mind, Seems logical, what is ''enough'' though?


    Guess we''ll find out¡­ if I have enough mana to find out.


    Technically there was no time limit on the exam that Felix was aware of so it was possible for him to simply keep going and regenerating his mana but he did have an exam the next morning. If he were to split off the heads and destroy them one by one, they would keep regrowing until it ran out of mass and he had no idea how long that would take. If he had to regenerate mana in between, there was a very good chance he ran out of time before his next exam.


    He was pretty sure the only way for him to succeed then, was to destroy or damage all the heads sufficiently, at once to prevent it from regenerating.


    Still weaving through the various lame attempts the Hydra made to hit Felix in the air, he prepared exactly 8 Blade Spells of the appropriate strength and aimed them all carefully. Dodging through and waiting until there was a lull in the incoming attacks, he released his spells into the Hydra¡­ and missed with 5 of them.


    The three that did hit, cut deeply into the Hydra''s heads then quickly healed. They just weren''t strong enough by themselves to do any serious damage to the heads. He was splitting his focus between so many blades, each individual one was too weak, too dull and too slow by the time they closed the distance between them.


    He tried again and missed with 6 then again and hit with 4 but that was the best he could manage. Blowing through half of his mana out of frustration, Felix tried again and again but no matter what he did, he couldn''t hit them all at once and couldn''t do enough damage with any one of them alone.


    Alright so¡­ My spells don''t do enough damage¡­ I don''t have enough mana¡­ I can''t hit it accurately enough¡­ I know exactly what to do.


    Honestly, Felix had no idea if what he was planning was even allowed in the exam. It might be frowned upon as it wasn''t entirely dependent on him and his combat abilities. On the other hand, he had no idea how else to fight this thing.


    Flying high up into the air, he moved himself far outside of the Hydra''s range then shot himself off in a random direction. His goal was to get as far away from it as he could but looking down, it wasn''t making that easy for him.


    He had lost its attention earlier, when it started eating the ground, but he was beginning to realize he hadn''t actually lost its attention at all. It was simply restoring itself and the matter it had lost by apparently, eating anything it wanted. Without something to distract it, it didn''t seem possible for it to even look away from him.


    As Felix flew, it followed directly beneath him, like an ever present shadow. He was faster at his top speed but not by much and not by nearly enough to get as far as he needed to be.


    Realizing he wasn''t going to lose it and gain himself any real peace easily, he pulled out the necessary materials and began working as he flew through the air. That lasted for a grand total of a few seconds before Felix realized he couldn''t be precise enough with a quill if he was flying through the air and as soon as he stopped, its lame ranged attacks would hit him even as high up as he was. He very briefly considered flying up into space but seriously doubted that was allowed for the exam and was pretty sure it would be seen as him fleeing so, he discounted the thought.


    Flying around the planet, he began looking for mountains, caves or something like it he could hide in but as far as he could see, the entire time he had been flying, all there was were perfectly flat plains. It got to the point where he was convinced the planet, moon or whatever celestial body he had stepped onto was manufactured.


    Eventually, nearly a half hour later, he found water. As soon as he saw it though, he was certain the planet wasn''t natural as the stream was perfectly straight. Nevertheless, water was better than flat plains and gave him options so Felix flew down and over to it then dropped a couple of spells into the stream.


    Circling around them as they worked, Felix felt like he was walking a dog, the Hydra-once again-reminding him of a puppy. It chased after him, almost looking happy, like it was playing. It almost made him forget the savagery of it consuming itself over and over again but the blood still caked on its various heads reminded him.


    It chased him in circles for four laps before Felix''s spells began to really pick up.


    He was employing the same trick he had once used to lay siege to a castle surrounded by guards he couldn''t otherwise fight. It was effective then and he was hoping it held up now as a small pop sounded from the stream followed by a hissing sound, one for each of the spells he had cast. Two columns of steam rose upwards from each of the spells but before they could rise up high into the air, Felix released the last spell he needed, a Wind Storm.


    Picking up and spinning the steam around, along with a trickle of water from the stream, the air around them gradually grew thicker as a fog began to collect and appear.


    Looping around the fog, Felix baited the Hydra after him so he could let it collect and grow dense enough but, he was reminded once again, the Hydra was a child. Seeing the collecting ball of dense grey that, it had likely never seen before, the Hydra stopped paying attention to Felix and immediately dove into it.


    Sighing as he realized it really was that easy and he was overthinking this, Felix darted off as the Hydra was distracted and flew as far away, as fast as he could.


    He managed to clear a huge distance relatively quickly and as soon as he felt safe, he dropped to the ground, carefully so the Hydra didn''t hear him, then pulled his quill back out.


    Starting from the spell form that was most effective against the Hydra, Felix adapted it to his needs then began inscribing but just a few lines into the inscription, he was interrupted, Oh, I have something for you.


    The Nucleus was the last being Felix expected to speak to him unprompted, even lower on the list than the Hydra, Is this really the time?


    Yes. Now is the perfect time. I''ll give it to your book.


    A moment later, the image of a number of inscriptions appeared in Felix''s head, Wait¡­ these are¡­ great? Where did you get these?


    System records everything, this chunk recorded the ins and outs of the event. One of its main tasks was deciding what could be brought in from the outside. It saw all the items made in the event and brought into the event.


    Holy shit. You aren''t useless after all.


    I am more than just an information repository I''ll have you know. I''m a SYSTEM like a-.


    Not right now you aren''t.


    THUMP THUMP THUMP.


    Looking back over his shoulder, Felix didn''t actually see the Hydra but he definitely heard it, and felt it, Son of a bitch. Can it smell me or something?


    Leaping up into the air, Felix darted off at a right angle just in case it threw the Hydra off but, he wasn''t expecting much.


    Hearing it behind him, after groaning when he realized it had tracked his turn, he quickly dropped to the ground and placed a spell beneath the earth then flew off into the distance. Stopping on the horizon, Felix took out the necessary supplies and got back to work.


    Luckily, by the time he had his quill in hand, he had already examined and combined the various enchantments the Nucleus had sent over. They weren''t so novel he needed a ton of time to dissect and examine them but, they were novel enough that what he ended up inscribing was unrecognizable from what he had originally wanted to. The patterns made the entire design cleaner and less cobbled together as well as vastly improving the remote triggering mechanism he had come up with himself.


    Just halfway through creating the first of what needed to be many of these devices, Felix was forced to run away as the Hydra had moved on from trying to kill the weird sound and movement he had left in the ground. He used a similar trick but with this time with a spell that repeatedly exploded within the ground every few moments randomly and scurried off into the distance to continue working.


    Using his Matter Control where he could, Felix was able to slightly alter some parts in shape mostly and assembled the devices without looking.


    As he flew, once again avoiding the Hydra chasing him, he began compressing down a disposable battery, as he had many times before. It had been a while though since he had focused on the process and in doing so he realized how much better he had gotten.


    This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.


    They used to be a quarter million mana and about palm sized, now he could compress down nearly 5 million mana into roughly the same space. While it was a huge improvement, he wasn''t even sure if the devices he was making now were capable of handling 5 million mana like this. It already had to siphon off of a solid ball which was unnatural for a spell.


    To make the entire process a little easier, he imbued a bit of anima affinized to him, to improve the overall stability and grant the spell itself just a sliver of his Mana Control.


    Flying into the air once again, Felix coalesced as much mana as necessary from his pool and the Aether to form another disposable battery. He distracted the Hydra once again to gain distance, inscribed and constructed as quickly as he could until he was forced to move once again.


    This went on for hours until Felix finally had twice as many devices as he thought necessary.


    So, instead of placing a spell in the ground to distract the Hydra and flying away, Felix finally turned and faced the Hydra.


    Letting the Hydra approach him, Felix was ready to react to everything he had seen it do and so when the head with the black venom snapped forwards ahead of the other heads at many times Felix''s own Agility, he dodged it. Being ready for what the Hydra was going to do, tracking which head was which by having his mind color coat them in his vision, and being able to predict what they would do from that information, was the only reason it was possible for Felix to remain relatively unharmed.


    There were still however, two heads he hadn''t seen do anything but eat. Weaving his way through the Fire Breath, Ice Spears, Lightning and siphoning away the Explosive Gas all while dodging past the Black Venom head, the other two heads just waited, and watched.


    It was eerie once he had noticed it and Felix''s initial assumption was that they coordinated the other heads. Removing them though, didn''t seem to have any adverse affects on the already abysmal and arguably non-existent coordination of the heads.


    He wasn''t entirely comfortable taking all the risks associated with just planting the devices without knowing what those heads did so, he tried to bait them out. Unfortunately, he had no idea how. Removing the other heads, they simply ate them and healed. Poking them and getting close to them, they bit at him but weakly and although generally faster than he was, still slower than the venom head which was designed to bite.


    He couldn''t just tire it out because he was pretty sure it would actually win a battle of attrition so, he was forced to just try it and find out.


    Felix had thought the black head would be the easiest as constantly snapping at him meant he could simply throw a device into its mouth. He waited for it to spring forwards then aimed for the fleshy bits and tossed it right before knocking himself off to the side with a spell.


    Seeing it in the air, the black head snapped out and instantly crushed it in its back teeth, like it was a game.


    Nevermind then¡­


    The Brownish Green Gas head shot towards him just after he had dodged away from the Black head and used its momentum to spray gas everywhere. Felix already knew what it did and he kept a wide gust spell at the ready just in case.


    Dropping it around him, the gust threw the gas way up into the air just an instant before the Red Fire head snapped forwards, spilling Fire out in every direction. Felix had seen the muscles in the Red neck tense after it had positioned itself so he had more than enough time to see it coming and dodge out of the way. The Fire spilling from its mouth though, was sprayed in every direction.


    Diluted by the air between them, the fire dripped off of the enchantment on Felix''s robes without any real effect but the gas he had launched upwards immediately exploded.


    Being underneath and still partially inside of it, the Hydra was thrown into the ground with the Ice head partially missing but it really didn''t seem to mind. A few seconds later, it was whole again and happily, if a little dizzily, running towards its prey once more.


    The Hydra quickly closed the distance, the black head both the fastest and most eager, leading the attack and snapping outwards. With a complete lack of coordination though, the black head threw the entire rest of the body off balance causing the Hydra''s heads to all smack down into the ground as its butt flew up into the air.


    It had happened a few times before and Felix was expecting it as soon as it began stumbling towards him. Without any way of baiting out the other two heads, Felix decided to just go for it as this was likely his best opportunity.


    As the Hydra used half of its heads to push itself back up onto its feet, Felix shot himself into the tangle.


    The black head was eager and he expected it but he ignored it for now, it had to be the last one he hit. Knocking himself upwards, with enough Force to avoid getting bitten but also enough to do a decent chunk of damage to himself, Felix dodged just over the head at the last moment and floated just slightly above it. His position wouldn''t protect him though as the other heads didn''t care about hitting each-other or itself as a whole, seemingly ever.


    The next most eager head was the brownish green one that dove downwards right into Felix from above. He waited for the last moment once again then tossed a pair of his bombs into the air and knocked himself to the side. The head slammed its teeth down into the black head''s neck and Felix felt the first mechanism of the bombs he had created activate. He just hoped one of them had stuck.


    Fire poured out of the red head as it always followed the gas and looped through the neck of the brownish green head to try and sneak into range. Felix already had the necessary spells ready as the head darted out of cover from behind the neck and released a stream of flame that would have made Endycor jealous, not that that required much.


    Waiting for the last moment, just as the fire subsided, Felix threw three bombs into the maw just as it was closing and felt them activate, though not with any way to confirm they had correctly. Even any blood they drew, the Hydra would just swallow so there really was no indication. The only other way would be to open their mouths himself to confirm the barbed spikes had properly protruded and stuck themselves into something fleshy.


    The Ice and Lightning heads were more careful and kept their distance, waiting for him to be in the open or occupied so he had to close the distance towards them himself.


    Launching himself down one of the necks then slightly redirecting himself with an instinct cast, Felix twisted around the black head''s neck to avoid its over eager chasing and closed the distance towards the white ice head. It immediately noticed and tried to back up a little but Felix forced the issue by placing himself right in front of it.


    Finally opening its maw, the white head released a chilling roar that likely would have frozen Felix solid, had he not swung himself upwards and landed on top of the head. He once again waited for the breath to subside then reached around it''s snout and threw bombs in from both sides, this time relatively sure they had landed on something fleshy as he was able to somewhat target his throws.


    Shaking itself back and forth to try and get rid of the pesky flea on its face, Felix timed his jump and used the momentum from the white head to close the distance towards the lime green acid head.


    It was more timid and sneaky, usually trying to surprise and sneak up on Felix but he was always tracking it. Soaring past the lightning head, he dove through the necks and grabbed the lime green head''s right eye lid. Releasing the spell he already had prepared, Felix exploded the eye near his hand then threw three bombs in, just to be safe.


    In its painful writhing, acid sprayed everywhere and actually opened up some wounds on some of the other heads, the perfect target for Felix.


    The violet lightning and black venom heads were the fastest and hardest to plant anything in or on so Felix saved those for the end leaving just the two heads he hadn''t identified yet.


    As they were perched as far from Felix as possible to watch and wait, he had to launch himself towards them because they were too far and too fast for a simple jump. Starting with the light blue one, Felix rushed towards it and waited for it to inevitably dodge out of the way then instantly used an instinct cast to follow as much as he could.


    Being as weak as it was, his instinct cast wasn''t enough for him to keep up with the head but it was just enough for him to reach out and grab hold of its nostril with the tips of his fingers. Swinging around with his momentum, Felix''s body slammed into the side of its head, hurting both him and the eye he smacked into, then he immediately pulled himself forwards a little.


    Reaching up, he threw five bombs into its nostril then let go and let himself fall back behind the head, catching himself in the air and avoiding the black head as it smacked into the light blue one.


    The grey head was next and Felix had to weave his way through all of the heads to the opposite side but he didn''t get past more than a couple necks before Felix was crushed into the ground.


    In an instant, his health dropped by over a third as he was pushed halfway into the soft ground and multiple of his bones were shattered. He had no idea what had hit him though because he was far enough from all the other heads and this was nothing like what they did.


    He launched himself out of the hole, self-inflicting a sizable chunk of damage due to his already broken bones, to make sure the Hydra wasn''t about to eat him, the black head specifically.


    Rising up and spinning though, the Hydra was nowhere near him. It was upside down, rolling around and trying to right itself about a hundred meters off.


    Looking around him, Felix tried to figure out what had happened and seeing five bombs crushed into the ground around the hole his body had made at the center of a flattened crater, gave him a decent idea.


    That was a sneeze? Yeah¡­ definitely saving the Force head for last I guess.


    Racing back towards the Hydra before it recovered and started shaking more bombs loose, Felix flew straight at the black head and met it head on. It eagerly snapped at the air a bit then waited and prepared itself to finally catch its elusive prey, timing its bite as Felix approached.


    Just a meter out of range, Felix triggered his Reaper''s skills and used his heightened Agility and Perception to toss multiple bombs directly down its throat then kick off its nose.


    The sheer force of the impact of both Felix and the head moving towards each-other as fast as they could fractured all the bones in his legs and shattered his right thigh but it didn''t matter. Felix dulled the pain and took a mental note to avoid anything that required the use of his legs for the moment.


    Lightning was next and Felix wove through a couple necks, the constant pressure of the black head gone for a moment as it tried to hack up the bombs lodged in its throat. Slamming his fist into the creature''s head just to move the spell, Felix surrounded its head in ionized air while simultaneously slamming a trio of bombs he had in his other fist, into its nostril. This time he was certain they were anchored in and as he pushed back off of the head, it attempted to fry him with its breath.


    Felix''s dream of the head frying itself was only partially realized as the violet head at least, seemed to be mostly resistant to lightning.


    Chasing down the grey head, Felix flew in and waited for it to snap at him then, grabbed its nostril and swung himself around. He let go almost immediately, allowing his momentum to drag him past its head where he manually slammed multiple bombs directly into its eyeball.


    Hopefully this one doesn''t have laser eyes.


    That just left the Force head that had sneezed Felix into the ground.


    Approaching and getting around it wasn''t very difficult because it was calculating and slow to come to decisions. It didn''t eagerly snap like the black head and definitely wasn''t nearly as fast. It watched and waited patiently for the perfect opportunities but in the way a timid child would, as it missed viable options in favor of potential, future optimal options.


    He targeted the eyes specifically but just as he leapt over its head and was about to reach over, he found out what the grey head did.


    The Force head had slammed him down into the ground in an instant so the first thing he noticed then, was pain. This time, the first thing he noticed, was not pain as that was disabled but rather reality itself seemed to vibrate around him.


    It wasn''t just Felix and his body, it was him, his clothes, the Hydra, the ground, the grass, the air around him. The moisture in the air around him visibly vibrated making it impossible to see which only exacerbated the fact that his ears had been blown out as he was already having trouble keeping his own balance.


    As much as it felt like reality was falling apart, Felix had enough of his brain still intact to realize it was just the grey head roaring, even if he couldn''t hear it at all.


    His health plummeted as he pulled himself over towards the Force head''s eye, struggling just to hold on as his hand and the Hydra itself began to fall apart from the vibrations. He barely managed to plant just a single bomb into its eye, jamming the spike in manually before he let go and pushed himself away with an instinct cast.


    Before the roar actually did cause his body to explode, Felix released a wave of mana at a very specific attunement and triggered all the bombs.


    Suddenly, the awful sound was gone as every single one of the Hydra''s heads exploded at once. The bombs were both a mess of Blade Spells and a simple Force Explosion just to push everything apart. Watching it happen before his eyes, it just looked like they all suddenly burst, a sphere of blood and organic matter replacing them in an instant.


    Felix wasn''t actually planning on catching himself in the air but there was no notification. With little disregard for his own state, Felix launched himself back down and saw the Force head still somewhat in tact, having only had a single bomb attached to it.


    He immediately rushed over as it began regenerating and diced it up with most of his remaining mana until it stopped moving.


    That only took a second, thankfully as the notification for the kill was still curiously absent.


    Felix''s head darted around until he spotted the Hydra''s body, still standing, with eight severed necks flapping about.


    Seriously!? Fuck off.


    Flying towards it, Felix collided with its back then severed the nearest neck at the base. Reaching over and using his Matter Control to hold himself stable, Felix used one hand to hold its neck open as his other threw every remaining bomb he had into all three of the holes he found in its severed neck. He had no idea which led to its stomach and which to its lungs, or where the other hole led, but he threw some in each, all of them with their auto deploying spikes disabled.


    Flying straight up into the air, he activated all of the remaining bombs with another wave and watched as viscera was splattered all over the ground and his own body floating above it.


    Ding You have slain a [B - Legendary] Baby Hydra (Lvl 2491)


    Ding You have gained 153 levels in [C - Ancient] Reaper


    Congratulations!


    You have upgraded a title.


    Titan Killer: Legendary => [B] Titan Killer: Legendary: This title is given to those who single handedly slay a creature of a higher tier than they are, the rarity corresponds to the slain beast''s rarity.


    Letting himself drop to the ground, Felix activated both of his Devourer''s Rings and watched, astonished, as his health jumped back up by nearly 50%. Even with its regeneration, he had expected only a small percentage of the corpse to be applicable to his body but it seemed, the sheer mass it carried around so it could regenerate, more than made up for that.


    In the few moments before Auren reappeared, Felix briefly considered adopting some of the Hydra''s regeneration within his own body, but almost immediately discounted it. He would examine and take whatever he could but the Hydra seemed to carry around an absurd amount of weight just to regenerate. If he did the same, it would make moving himself, flying, dodging, multiple times more expensive than it already was.


    Those spells being more expensive, even by a few times, he could swallow. With the added mana requirement though, the cast times would increase exponentially as he had to handle more mana and the spell forms themselves had to handle more mana and he had to move more mass. They would need more complex and higher order nodes, even if he finally managed to remove the attunement node requirement.


    "Not bad, kid."


    Rising to his feet now that all his major injuries were healed from the Blood Ring, Felix turned to face Auren who stood, arms crossed, wearing the same impassive expression that seemed so accustomed to his face.


    Felix nodded, "Yeah, barely."


    Auren just blinked though Felix was unsure if it was in response or an involuntary reaction.


    "This was my exam right? How''d I do?"


    "Well." Auren shrugged, "I didn''t expect you''d kill it."


    Felix cocked his head, "You thought it would kill me?"


    "I was hoping you''d surrender."


    Felix was completely taken aback for a moment and shook his head as he tried to make sense of that statement. In his mind it was such an impossibility, he wasn''t sure why Auren would be hoping that.


    "The Ashound. Your evaluation." Auren explained, "You chose the hardest thing on the list then flopped like a fish for a couple of seconds before it tore you apart. You knew The System would stop you from dying and you abused that. As much as this class is about how well you can fight a single opponent, it''s a class about combat as a whole. Surrendering, giving up, running away and living is a fantastic option in a lot of cases."


    Felix shook his head, "Maybe but¡­ I knew I could kill it. Knew I could win."


    Auren nodded once, "Yes. Seems I was wrong. I wanted to force you to fight something stronger, something you couldn''t kill. I wanted to see you put all of the various spells and skills you''ve learned to use, I would evaluate that, then you finally decide it was impossible and make the smart choice."


    "So¡­ In hindsight, you just wish you had picked something stronger?"


    "Yes." Auren spoke so flatly, he didn''t even nod, "I was hoping being here, where The System wouldn''t protect you, you would make smarter decisions. Fight differently. It seems I was wrong."


    Felix chuckled, "Are you saying my grades for this class would have been better if I had surrendered instead of killing it?"


    Auren cocked his head a few degrees, "Different."


    Felix nodded, "Would you have let me take that long if I weren''t the last student?"


    Auren''s head tilted a little further as his brow furrowed, "Sure. I''d have just left you here longer. You aren''t even the last one to finish your exam. There are still 7 students in their own exams right now."


    Felix snorted but didn''t bother asking who, he was pretty sure Auren wouldn''t say, "Can we head back now?"


    Auren responded by taking out an item and using it to open a portal back to campus that Felix stepped through alone.


    Heading back to his dorm, Felix was actually pretty satisfied with the fight, and especially the absurd amount of levels he had gained. Putting all the points into Intelligence, Felix snorted as he saw it still wasn''t his highest stat yet.


    Name:Felix Kade (The True Wizard)FREE0Innate:Ascendant Prodigy: Mana (Wizard)STR745,026Class:[C - Ancient] Reaper (Lvl 1,282)DEX1,096,365Race:[C - Unique] Wanderer (Lvl 1,295)AGI845,640Profession:[C - Ancient] Lifebinder (Lvl 1,309)PER987,662Health:8,298,990 / 8,298,990VIT839,399Mana:150,000,000 / 150,000,000INT1,064,630END767,140


    Not too long before all my stats surpass 1 million¡­ What a stupid and meaningless number though. At this point, I feel like I''m measuring the height of a building in millimeters. What''s the point? Hey System, can we just divide all my stats by 1,000 on my Status Screen in the future?


    Name:Felix Kade (The True Wizard)FREE0Innate:Ascendant Prodigy: Mana (Wizard)STR745Class:[C - Ancient] Reaper (Lvl 1,282)DEX1,096Race:[C - Unique] Wanderer (Lvl 1,295)AGI845Profession:[C - Ancient] Lifebinder (Lvl 1,309)PER987Health:8,298,990 / 8,298,990VIT839Mana:150,000,000 / 150,000,000INT1,064END767


    It''s not rounding? Actually, I guess I''m okay with that. That way it isn''t showing stats I haven''t gained yet. This is way better though. Gaining 1 Strength now actually means something¡­ or at least, more than it did. 1 Strength on my Status Screen is still a seventh of a percent. Also¡­ I need something in this empty row instead of Energy¡­


    Poking around in some setting screens, Felix managed to find a list of options and scrolled through until he found one he liked.


    Name:Felix Kade (The True Wizard)FREE0Innate:Ascendant Prodigy: Mana (Wizard)STR745Class:[C - Ancient] Reaper (Lvl 1,282)DEX1,096Race:[C - Unique] Wanderer (Lvl 1,295)AGI845Profession:[C - Ancient] Lifebinder (Lvl 1,309)PER987Health:8,298,990 / 8,298,990VIT839Mana:150,000,000 / 150,000,000INT1,064Resistance:87%END767


    The value didn''t mean much-for now-as it was directly proportional to his Endurance but, it was better than an empty row in Felix''s eyes. Even being as close to 100% as he was, every percent he gained meant more than the last because it shrank the amount of damage he was taking by an even bigger chunk. 1% now was a thirteenth of the damage he took. 1% if he were at 95%, was a fifth of the damage he took.


    The biggest reason he wanted it there though, was that he was planning on creating a new defensive spell over the break and he wanted to be able to measure how effective it was.


    Working on his spells and refining construct-and now bomb-designs, Felix would have missed the start of his next exam were it not for Grim because he wasn''t really checking the time and it started much earlier than the others had.


    He made sure to grab Nova as he headed out because it was Group Combat anyways, she might as well be there, and it was more fun for her than sitting around in his dorm.


    Walking across the courtyard before the sun had risen, while most other students slept, Felix walked into the Group Combat classroom and found Adaline already sitting there waiting. She didn''t even turn as he entered but he was certain she knew he was there.


    From behind, he first saw her left ear twitch as he entered then just a moment later, a wave of abhorrence that was, seemingly stronger from when he had first started noticing it.


    He didn''t bother approaching her, greeting her or trying to interact with her in any way and took a seat at the back of the room. As much as she hated him or was disgusted by him-Felix wasn''t really sure what it was or why-he couldn''t help but like her. She was great at what she did, she was always inscribing-as she was now-and she didn''t try to talk to him, like many of the other students did.


    The worst offender stepped into the room next-or rather skipped-and greeted them both cheerily. She tried to strike up a conversation with Adaline but it was almost entirely one sided for a few minutes until Melody finally gave up and sat next to Felix. S~ea??h the N?vel?ire.net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    "How was Solo Combat?"


    Felix shrugged, "Went well. Killed the thing."


    She grinned, "Good. I noticed Auren keenly watching you and planning something. He thinks he''s sneaky but," Melody wagged her finger in the air and scrunched her face up like a child who had come up with a master plan, "What did he throw at you?"


    "A Baby Hydra."


    Melody''s eyes widened immediately, "And you killed it?"


    Felix shrugged again, "Yeah, I mean it was annoyi-"


    She shook her head, "No. I mean, he let you kill it?"


    He cocked his head in confusion, "What?"


    "I have full faith you can kill a whole lot of shit. I don''t know for sure but, from what I''ve sensed from him over the epoch, I''m pretty sure he breeds and raises monsters. I had him followed in the city by someone who owes me a favor and¡­ long story short, he bought a Hydra egg. I could have sworn it was his prized monster from what I sensed from him over the following days."


    "You can sense that much from souls? Also, you had him followed?"


    She shrugged guiltily, like it was no big deal, "He was trying to be all sneaky and conniving, I had to be sure. Yeah, I get a lot. Normally I wouldn''t even need to have him followed but he''s very good at masking his soul. Considering he''s a hunter, I understand why¡­ still though."


    Felix frowned a little, "Are beasts and monsters better at sensing souls than sapients? Also, have you ever had me followed?"


    She nodded, "Much. They aren''t bogged down in the complexity of their brains and they rely a lot on instinct. Given the same Agility and Perception, a beasts reaction time is usually a fraction of a sapient''s for example. That''s also why they tend to have stronger, more aligned souls and develop convictions much easier and faster than we can." Looking at him, she winked, "And no, haven''t felt the need just yet. Also, it''s not like I go around doing that all the time, this was a special case, I swear."


    "Huh¡­"


    "Anywa-" Melody''s eyes widened as she suddenly grabbed Felix''s shoulder, "WAIT! You didn''t evolve from a beast, did you?"


    Felix snorted, "No."


    "Oh. I thought maybe that was why you''re impossible to read."


    "You say that, but you do get something from my soul."


    "Meh. I get the¡­" She thought about it for a seconds then gestured towards the only other person in the room who''s ears immediately perked up upon hearing her name, "With Adaline, for example, I can almost read her thoughts. Well, not her thoughts but her experiences. Very recent events haven''t had time to settle so most of the time, I can almost read thoughts. Kind of like short term memory. I can also read emotions, instincts, intent and all kinds of other shit. From you-most of the time-I feel big emotions really loudly and that''s it."


    Felix nodded slowly as he began to understand, "So if I''m particularly mad, annoyed, frustrated, if I get hit and feel a bunch of pain y-"


    "Yes, exactly. I feel a huge spike, like you''re broadcasting the emotion. Most of the time though, those don''t last very long. They''re big spikes that almost immediately go away. Most of the time when you''re lost in your own head, like Adaline, you radiate a constant wave of satisfaction, unlike Adaline."


    He looked at her for a moment and she shrugged, "It''s nice."


    Pointing at the back of Adaline''s head, Melody shook her head, "You should teach her how you do that. All I ever feel from her is anxious urgency, discontent and determination. Oh and rage, loooots of rage."


    Felix laughed out loud as he saw Adaline''s left ear twitch a few times but she didn''t turn or address them, even though she could obviously hear them.


    Melody proceeded to tell him all about the franchise of bakeries she was thinking about investing in and Felix politely listened and nodded along but the vast majority of his attention was pointed inwards.


    A few minutes later, Peace, Auren and Haris all entered the room at once. Peace joined Felix and Melody at the back as the two Professors walked over to the front of the room and turned to face them. Haris looked at each of them in turn with a smile then nodded, "Alright. Couple of things." Summoned from a spatial storage, Haris dropped a couple of small bags that were no more than a few liters big, "No items, no spatial storages. You get these bags which contain some basic provisions for a single day and whatever you have in your pockets right now."


    Felix immediately moved a couple quills into one of his pockets along with some other basics.


    Auren nodded, "Either leave your spatial storages here-" He looked right at Felix, "-or if you have a Soul Space, just don''t use anything from the outside. We will be watching."


    Haris looked at Adaline who hadn''t said or done anything yet, "Your guns are fine but nothing else."


    She nodded once, like she already knew that was case then drew one of them and removed the cylinder. She then held her hand above it and a stream of bullets, perfectly aligned with the various chambers began pouring out into the cylinder.


    Adaline repeated the process for her other revolver afterwards but Haris continued as she did so, "Any questions?"


    Melody raised her hand but started speaking before it got very far, "Where are we going? What are fighting? Why no items?"


    Haris nodded, "You''ll see. You''ll see. Because."


    Before Felix could even ask the question, Auren shook his head, "No. The rules aren''t because of yesterday."


    Felix nodded and the students all looked at each-other, except Adaline, to confirm they didn''t have any other questions amongst themselves.


    With a wave of his hand, Haris opened a portal next to himself and the students all filed in followed by both Haris and Auren after them. They ended up in a small room that was big enough that their shoulders weren''t touching, but not by much.


    Auren looked at the rest of them, "Oh one more thing, if you try to open a portal leading anywhere other than the planet you''re on, we will fail you."


    Haris nodded, "Yup. Good luck, see you in a few days."


    Felix frowned a little, "With the portal rule, co-"


    A frigid wind suddenly slammed into Felix, carrying his words soundlessly away as his body began to freeze solid. With the wind as strong as it was, they couldn''t hear each-other at all as Haris shoved them all through to the other side and unceremoniously closed the portal behind them .

 Chapter 220 - Book 22

    With the portal unceremoniously closed behind them, if Felix weren''t capable of opening a portal and leaving, he would have thought the professors were trying to kill them. Sinking into the snow past his nipples almost immediately, along with the winds that made it nearly impossible to breathe and pinned Felix''s hair to his scalp, even ripping some of it out, he had already lost a noticeable chunk of his health from the cold. The wind also carried with it chunks of ice and snow so dense, Felix couldn''t see further than a few meters.


    The others were faring worse than he was except Peace, who seemed just slightly better off with a more physically focused build.


    Worst of all though was Nova who suffered far more pain than Felix, despite whatever combination of materials she was trying to use to mitigate the cold. Her body was freezing faster than his and the way her consciousness was weakening and fading concerned Felix.


    He pulled her into his Soul Space, which she happily accepted and just forced her to shrink herself down because of the lack of room in there. To protect himself from the cold, Felix surrounded himself in a Force Bubble and began generating heat within it but almost immediately dropped it. The mana required to hold the Bubble steady against the wind was ridiculous. He was losing millions every second and barely managing to keep up with the drain.


    In less than a second of having been there, Felix''s skin was completely frozen and dead along with some of the blood in his veins. He feared icicles traveling to his heart so he stowed the frozen blood in his Soul Space to protect himself and looked around to try and see if anyone had a plan of some kind. As he did though, he noticed his group was gone.


    There were visible holes where they had been just a moment ago but they were no longer there.


    Looking around for a few seconds, Felix felt a tug on his sleeve and immediately realized what was going on.


    He dropped down into the snow around him and used a number of Force Spells to clear, compact and stabilize the snow around them. It was still ridiculously cold in a way that threatened to freeze his flesh a little more every moment but, there was no wind and that was something.


    Melody grinned a little and shook her head, "Well this sucks."


    Peace nodded, "Any of you have any idea what we''re supposed to kill?"


    Felix sighed, "No but, considering they said they''d see us in a few days¡­ we''re going to have to hunt for it."


    "From what I read from them, it''s worse than that. Neither of them expect us to actually succeed. They''re expecting us to give in." Melody wore a grin of playful mirth and mischief.


    Felix shook his head, "That was my Solo Combat exam as well, Auren wanted me to give up to prove I could."


    Adaline cut in and nodded with a serious and tense expression, "Shelter then hunt."


    Melody nodded along quickly, "Agreed. I might literally freeze my butt off pretty soon."


    They all looked at each-other one by one until Felix finally realized none of them could do anything. He thought maybe Peace had an ability or Adaline had some special bullet but it seemed neither of them had anything applicable to their situation.


    Along with all the unique challenges Felix faced with his method of spell casting also came incredible versatility and harnessing that, Felix began to dig down into the snow.


    First, he drilled a hole vertically through the snow that was so compact and hard, he was certain it wasn''t the same snow he knew, whether it was water based at all, he had no idea. It certainly looked how he expected it to.


    His spells reached a dozen meters below them, then a hundred then a hundred more before he gave up on finding the bottom. There was plenty of room for him to dig down and so he created a meter wide shaft straight down and dropped down into it.


    Once it was about a hundred and fifty meters or so below the surface, Felix used his spells to carve out the snow around him, shoving it up the shaft to get rid of it. He carved out just a simple room at first then had the others jump down and join him.


    While snow was a great insulator, at least normal snow, it was still so cold wherever they were that their body heat alone wasn''t nearly enough to heat the room by any noticeable margin. Whether the air was thicker or just had a different composition than Felix was used to, there also was a massive discrepancy from the thermal mass he expected.


    He had planned for that though and using mana, he began heating the room. Theoretically they could use the shaft for smoke or he could carve a new chimney but for now, they didn''t have any real fuel. He had arched the roof purposefully to trap the heat and although it took nearly half of his mana, he managed to heat the room up to a survivable temperature with spells.


    With their health pools mostly stabilized, they began eating the rations they had been supplied which was incredibly energy dense jerky and dried bread. It tasted way better than Felix had expected and it wasn''t tough to eat at all. It was however, less than a day''s worth and less than they had been promised.


    Felix ate just a small bit of his so his body had mass to restore his dead cells but nothing more, he didn''t need it for energy anymore.


    The others, ate over half of what they were given at once and had to stop themselves before eating any more.


    "So¡­ we also need to find food it seems." Melody chuckled slightly as she tossed her food pouch into a corner.


    "Nova can handle that if we supply her with matter that isn''t super freezing." Felix answered without looking as he continued to inscribe wards into the walls of their room.


    The wards he was inscribing faced inwards and were designed just to thermally insulate the room, trapping the heat and separating it from the cold beyond as best he could using just the ambient anima. He didn''t manage inscribe his ward more than a couple meters though before he stopped. Feeling a wave of disgust that was strong enough to stand out from the normal aura Adaline exuded, Felix turned behind him and to his left where he saw her standing just a meter behind him and scowling at his work.


    "What?"


    She scowled and stepped forwards, "Erase that."


    Felix looked at her for a few seconds then did as he was asked, shaving off a layer of the wall to clean it. She then stepped forwards and began inscribing a ward of her own.


    Stepping back himself, Felix watched her hand move many times faster than his did, not particularly fast in general and not through Agility, but as a result of her experience and Dexterity. The ward that materialized itself behind her hand put everything Felix had been doing to shame but that didn''t bother him in the slightest. He was ecstatic to observe and learn what he could.


    As she moved from the first iteration of the pattern she was inscribing to the second, Felix took a half step forwards and examined the pattern. It took him longer than he thought to memorize it as he noticed something new every few moments he spent staring. It wasn''t just a shape, the line thickness varied, the distance between them was precise, their depth into the wall varied and mattered.


    He couldn''t explain even half of what the enchantment did and barely a tenth of how it did it but he was somewhat sure he could replicate it.


    Looking around the room, he measured as precisely as he could where enchantment would line up and carved out a few millimeters from the back wall to make sure it met up nicely. Then, he stood at the opposite end of the room from her and began inscribing the same ward she was and heading in the opposite direction.


    He moved much slower than she did and despite his memory, had to check and verify with the original design a few times. Eventually realizing her subsequent connected patterns were different from the first. He quickly analyzed the three and a half she had finished and tried to figure out why they were different.


    It took him longer than he would have liked to realize it mostly had to do with the shape of the room and the walls. Adjusting his ward with that in mind, he kept going and managed to finish two iterations of the pattern before she stopped and looked over at what he was doing.


    So occupied in the ward, she hadn''t really noticed-or cared-what he was doing but once she did, she seethed. Staring at it, her lip twitched and she opened her mouth a few times but no words ever came out. Rather, she grumbled something inaudible then finished her ward which met perfectly with Felix''s, just as he had measured. Once she realized it had, Felix felt a wave of confusing emotions from her then she analyzed the ward Felix had done.


    He stepped back and let her because there was no point in him trying to help anymore and took pride in the fact that she only had to fix 5% of his ward before continuing it and connecting the whole thing up. Powering it up with his mana from a distance, Felix was very happy she had stepped in.


    Her ward was immeasurably more effective than his ever would have been and he really had no idea how.


    Felix used his mana to add some more heat to the room-now that it was effectively contained-then brought Nova back out of his Soul Space.


    She was reluctant to come back out at first but once she did, she happily bounded around the room and pestered Melody. Adaline glanced at Nova in complete disgust for a moment before looking away and turning back to her bullet but didn''t do or say anything so Felix didn''t really worry about it.


    "So, we think this is the standard state of this planet and we have to tunnel through the snow for the next few days or we just arrived during a blizzard?" Melody looked around at all of them but Adaline didn''t really seem to be engaging.


    "Whether or not the wind sticks around, we can''t even walk beneath the snow without heating ourselves up so we should probably figure that out first." Felix looked at the other two to see if either of them had any solutions.


    Peace and Melody looked at each-other then they both looked back at Felix who sighed, "I would normally just maintain a Force Bubble around myself-" Felix got a sudden outpouring of judgement and contempt from Adaline, "-and heat the inside. That hasn''t really been sufficient so far but maybe if I start with heat, it will be less costly to maintain it? Also that only works if we aren''t dealing with the wind."


    Melody, being far more aware of everyone else''s thoughts and feelings-playfully rather than seriously-began tiptoeing and snuck up behind Adaline before craning her neck over Adaline''s shoulder, "Aaaaadaaaline, thoughts?"


    She sighed, "I can do better than Force Spheres but only one of us has the mana to sustain them for very long."


    Felix nodded instinctually even though Adaline was still effectively staring at a wall, "Right so¡­ if we have to hunt for this thing for days, we''re going to have to move together then? What if we make a sled and enchant that to contain us. I''ll power it while we travel then we can also enchant amulets or rings or something for the actual fight, but only rely on those for short periods."


    Adaline''s sneer was audible, "Where the fuck are we supposed to get a sled?"


    Melody slapped the back of Adaline''s shoulder, "Duh, Nova."


    The confusion that radiated out of her actually amused Felix a little.


    They started by enchanting their rings. None of them had actually enchanted or modified their school identification rings yet and rings were second only to amulets according to Adaline. She got to work on the enchantments for those while Felix began collecting snow, melting it down then feeding it to Nova.


    His familiar then reconfigured the matter into the shape of a sleek boat with skis on the bottom. Felix had chosen the design and started from the idea of a sleigh, a snowmobile and a boat then refined that as much as possible. What they ended up with was a simple flat platform that was rounded at the front but large enough to fit all of them two by two. Below it were two sets of skis, one large set supporting the weight and a set at the front that was mostly for steering.


    They also fit in a pillar in the center made of a highly mana stable material to hold the enchantments.


    That was the only material Felix had specified though, trusting Nova''s judgement when it came to materials more than his own. In hindsight, he realized he should have provided some direction because what they ended up with was slightly odd. He was confident it would work perfectly, perhaps even optimally, but it was weird having the bottom of the skis and boat use pearlescent scales instead of a metal or wood.


    Around the time they finished with the sleigh, Adaline had finished with the rings and handed them back to their respective owners.


    Turning her attention to the sleigh, she began inscribing a very similar enchantment to the one she had put into the rings but, completely different. The effect was identical, provide a shell of protection to separate and isolate the temperatures then heat the inside as necessary. The execution was unrecognizable though and Felix had not even the faintest idea why. There wasn''t a single node or pattern he could match between the two and once again, her knowledge of arcane forms was so far beyond anything he had ever seen, save for Kyrptos'' own handiwork.


    He had plenty of time to examine, memorize and analyze everything over the course of the next few hours while he regenerated his mana, passively because it was enough, while they waited for the storm to die down. In reality, they had no idea how long the storm would last and they were really just hoping it would end. It just seemed too cruel and unrealistic to expect them to fight anything in the current state of the weather.


    They had decided, as a group without Adaline''s input, to start digging through the snow if the storm didn''t subside over the next 12 hours. In the meantime, they melted more snow and had Nova turn it into more food and Felix continued to dissect the enchantments, or as much of them as he could.


    Over the course of those few hours, the most Adaline interacted with any of them was Melody invading her personal space and her involuntary and uncontrolled soul reactions to what they did. Felix''s examining had her react with slight disgust but also uncertainty. Nova producing rations from water like a messiah had her very confused and left her deep in thought which only subsided a few minutes later when she turned back to enchanting a bullet or something.


    With just a half dozen hours left before the deadline for them to give up and start digging left, the storm began to ever slightly-but still noticeably-subside and Felix decided to approach Adaline.


    Walking over and standing next to her, not in her personal space like Melody but within her sight line, "I have a way to greatly speed up this whole process but I need your help."


    She didn''t respond in any way shape or form, not even her soul reacted in a way Felix could feel, which was a noticeable improvement over her usual reaction to his presence at least.


    He continued-assuming her lack of reaction at least wasn''t a sign of refusal-and pulled out a Seeing Eye construct, "I used a few hundred of these to scout the world event which resulted in my having the majority of the items for a big global ques- Anyways, they worked really well but they definitely won''t survive out there. Any chance we could adapt your enchantment to work with these so they can scout the surface?"


    It took almost a minute for her to respond at which point she just held out a hand and Felix dropped the construct into it. In reality the construct was brand new as he wasn''t willing to risk being failed for something as silly as using a construct from the outside. He had instead, had Nova recreate it structurally almost perfectly then he just had to tune and adjust the form and inscribe it.


    Looking down at the construct, Adaline fiddled with it for a minute trying to open it up without any luck. She handed it back to Felix who popped it open and dismantled it piece by piece then laid them out on the floor in front of her.


    He noticed her stow her bullet from the corner of his eye as her glare, shifted and focused on the various pieces of the construct and more specifically, the enchantments inscribed upon them.


    As she did, the confusion on her face only deepened until she finally spoke, "Explain."


    Felix nodded then went into a basic explanation of everything. Whenever he began explaining an enchantment, she pushed him to proceed with a hand gesture so it quickly became obvious to Felix she was having trouble with how it all worked together, not what the individual enchantments did. More specifically, how the soul and the lack of a mana computer controlled the body and the enchantments upon it, and how it was supplied with mana.


    That wasn''t something Felix was willing to describe in detail though so, much to her frustration, he offered a basic overview but nothing more. She pressed him with single words, looks and gestures and he explained a little more mostly because she didn''t seem concerned with how he was controlling them but more with how they connected themselves to the control mechanism.


    Once he realized that, he explained his use of portals and Soul Marks which was when she finally nodded and had him provide her with all the blank parts of the same construct.


    The first thing she did was rewrite all the mechanics of the construct completely replacing the enchantment that moved it and adding in a shell that replicated the effects they already had on their rings. After that, she refined all the other enchantments but didn''t change them in any significant way.


    It was clear to Felix she didn''t understand how the enchantments that supported the biological eye worked but she understood how enchantments in general worked. That let her refine general patterns and remove nodes in favor of more efficient ones or remove them altogether in many cases. They were still recognizable as the enchantments Felix had designed they were just much more precise.


    Ironically, despite the enchantments he had designed completely surpassing anything he had seen produced in Inscripticae, looking at Adaline''s refined version brought him right back to when he was hired. He felt like a child looking a the work of a master and realizing both how much he didn''t know, how much he was getting wrong and how much he could improve. It was an exciting feeling and despite not being a part of the conversation at all, caused Melody to giggle, which Felix ignored.


    The last element she overhauled was the long distance communication portal he was using. This was once again an enchantment he couldn''t explain in the slightest and yet somehow, it just worked. It was orders of magnitude more efficient than his method of shrinking portals and he has just been happy she hadn''t stopped at just adding a protective shell to it.


    Done with all the upgrades and refinements, she gestured to the parts for Felix to assemble them then he handed the completed construct back to her. She briefly examined it then nodded and handed it back to Felix without even looking at him. Taking it out of her hand Felix examined it for himself as she immediately went back to inscribing the bullet in front of her.


    He walked away, ecstatic with the massive upgrade and more than a little satisfied with the confused fun and curiosity her soul was emanating as he left. It was an entire second step from abhorrence at the very least.


    As much as he found her interesting, he didn''t care on an emotional level whether or not she liked him or what she thought of him at all. His burning desire to learn the secrets of the universe, grow, improve and generally rabid curiosity though led to him desperately wanting to learn everything she knew and he needed her to be willing to teach him in order to do that. At least until he found a way to properly steal memories and knowledge.


    Taking the construct Adaline had created as a template-and after removing a bunch of material that had become unnecessary after her refinements-Felix had Nova mass produce as many of them as she could. He supplied her with as much melted ice as necessary but that wasn''t the limiting factor. She couldn''t transform infinite matter because it tired her out in the same way Felix''s willpower was tired out over time. Higher grade materials were worse and took more out of her but she got better every time she did it. It was what she naturally did with her body but that was much less taxing for her.


    She would get better over time but it was unlikely she could ever become a full blown construct factory as Felix had once-very briefly-hoped. After having that thought and realizing she couldn''t, though he quickly realized having her by his side to fill in the gaps-especially in the situation he currently found himself in-was more than enough.


    She managed to create another 50 constructs at which point Felix let her rest as he noticed her exhaustion through their bond. He had already started inscribing them as she finished producing the rest but it took him much longer so he was very behind. It took her a half hour to finish the construct bodies and him another 15 hours to complete them including inscribing, creating souls and binding them.


    The rest of them waited patiently despite the storm having subsided just a few hours into his working as they all knew his finishing would make their jobs much easier.


    Finally finished with them, Felix excitedly connected everything up to Mark then dropped them all into a Nova created bucket in the sleigh for the time being.


    Using his Matter Control alone, rather than a Force spell, Felix was able to lift the sleigh up the shaft and fly up under it, lifting everything to the surface. He made sure to supply mana to the enchantment directly as soon as they left the warded bubble to protect the constructs and the sleigh itself.


    Placing it onto the surface of the snow above, it sank a little into the snow but that wasn''t an issue. It was designed not to sit on the snow at a standstill but to rise up onto it as it was pushed and skim along the top. For the time being, he suspended it with a Force spell as they all boarded it one by one.


    Peace and Melody both had significantly higher Perception''s than Adaline so they sat in the front while Felix sat in the back focused on supplying the enchantment with mana.


    After ironing out some initial hitches in their plans and designs, the group of four began skimming across an endless and nearly flat sea of white in every direction. It was impossible to tell how far the horizon was because everything was white and reflective making it hard to focus on.


    They released the Seeing Eye constructs periodically to either side so there was distance between them and because they could move much faster in the sleigh than the constructs could on their own.


    Powering both the sleigh and the constructs was a lot of mana but not enough to surpass his manual regeneration now that the constructs drained about an eighth of the mana they used to. The improvement made Felix almost giddy and even more excited to spend as much of the break as he could diving into truly complex and advanced arcane forms.


    They spent about 4 hours on the surface at which point Mark grabbed hold of Felix''s attention, There is a storm approaching approximately 37 minutes behind you.


    Felix frowned, The constructs, are they being destroyed then?


    No. I directed them to punch down into the snow and wait it out. None of them have been lost so far.


    Felix physically nodded which visibly confused Adaline but he ignored her and addressed everyone at once, "There''s another storm a half hour behind us."


    Peace nodded and Melody looked back over her shoulder, "Any problems with continuing until then?"


    Felix shook his head and Adaline just looked off into the endless snow, no response.


    Melody shrugged and turned her attention back ahead of her where the sun was just starting to disappear over the horizon.


    Damn, 4 or 5 hours are short ass days.


    Creating a shelter this time was much easier as Felix punched a hole, lowered the sled down then they quickly warded an area just big enough to house them without touching each-other. There was no point in making it any bigger.


    They melted snow, had Nova transform it into food and with whatever willpower she had leftover, Felix had her create another half dozen construct shells that he began inscribing.


    As he did, he noticed once again the constant static on the ambient anima. It was a like an ever present buzzing sound that he couldn''t quite ignore and now that he had noticed it, now that he knew it was there, he couldn''t stop it from bugging him.


    Without looking up from his enchanting, he broke the silence but addressed no one in particular, "Is there anywhere without The System?"


    Melody shrugged, "Lost spaces and forgotten realms. Why do you ask?"


    Felix shrugged, "Curiosity."


    "There are also other universes." Peace added.


    Melody nodded, "Honestly, it''d be just as hard for you to reach one of those as it is to find Lost Space. Whenever one is found, the gods snatch them up to use for experiments and doing things The System would disapprove of. Or more often, have conversations they don''t want overheard by System based spying skills."


    "I see." Felix sighed, "So I can''t just find or even visit one then?"


    She shook her head, "No. Not really. You know it''s funny, Adaline was just asking me about the exact same thing a few days ago, isn''t that right?"


    Melody looked over at Adaline but she didn''t even look up from the bullet she was inscribing.


    They sat there in silence for another half hour before Felix spoke up once again, "Any new multiversal rumors?"


    Excitement raced onto Melody''s face along with a half grin, half smile, "Romar''s dating one of the giant god Utazz''s daughter''s, Uphi. Estrea, The Oracle of Existence has gone into seclusion. The recruitment is apparently going to be a little weird this time around but¡­ you''ll see next dekad anyways. My dad put out a bounty out on Arthur''s head."


    "Woah, one at a time." Felix shook his head quickly, "The Oracle, does that matter? What does that mean? Can they actually see the future?"


    Melody shrugged, "Maybe? They do what I do and read anima but like¡­ all the anima. They read the past and present through the experiences it carries and use that to predict the future. Estrea is the most well known Oracle for having foreseen The Great Hunt and The Lost Integration."


    Felix frowned, "Aren''t those¡­ 100 integrations apart?"


    "Yup. They were some of the most significant events that affected the entire multiverse which, actually makes them harder to predict."


    "So¡­ being in seclusion means something she''s going to predict something big?"


    Melody shrugged, "Possibly. She''s never made other predictions but she has gone into seclusion many times and come out with nothing. We''ll just have to wait and see."


    Felix nodded, "The bounty, how much?"


    "Well¡­ Couple of things. He''s offering a planet in his domain."


    Felix''s eyes widened in shock, "A planet?"


    She nodded, "Yes but it''s not as grand as you think. Normally, if someone True Killed one of his most promising children, he''d hunt them down himself and offer a unique magic item. Something at least Divine tier."


    "You''re saying a planet is worth less?"


    "Much less. It isn''t even a particularly valuable planet, just some small D grade volcanic planet. The bounty is really just to send a message that you can''t mess with his other kids."


    Felix squinted, "So by offering just a low grade planet and staying out of it, he''s also saying he didn''t really like Talrain or¡­"


    She shrugged, "Something like that. He was planning on killing Talrain himself anyways. You missed it but Talrain broke into our father''s vault and stole a lot of credits and a bunch of magic items. One of which was completely irreplaceable. Whether or not Arthur killed Talrain, he would have banished him from his Afterlife and killed him himself."


    "I see. So the whole bounty thing is just a message to the outside world to say even if I didn''t like him, don''t think about doing that to anyone else in my family?"


    "Yup. More or less."


    Felix nodded, "Alright. Anything else I should know? Anything I should look forward to? Prepare for? How do the recruitments work?"


    "Ask me about the recruitments when you get offers and I''ll walk you through them. Each one is different so it doesn''t make any sense to explain it now. Make sure you plan what courses you want next term and hand them in as early as you can, at least before the 6th term this epoch. They plan the courses but also go and recruit the necessary professors and they have to tailor their curriculum to you."


    "Alright, fair enough. I''ll take a look."


    Peace cut in, speaking up for the first time in a while, "You should also start preparing yourself for The Realms of Annihilation."


    Melody''s brows rose and her lips puckered, "Ooooh." She nodded to Peace, "Good call. Forgot about those."


    He cocked his head, "You aren''t even going to try?"


    She shook her head, "I might pop in just to see and complete a few realms but I''m not going to compete. You?"


    He shrugged and dropped his head just slightly staring at the ground, "I don''t know. Haven''t decided yet."


    "Sorry, The Realms of Annihilation?" Felix looked at each of them, his face clearly displaying his curiosity.


    Melody met his gaze and nodded, "Yeah. It''s a¡­ nickname. There isn''t really a good name for them but they used to be called The Realms of Chaos. Some people still do but Annihilation is more popular these days."


    "Okay, what are they? Also, I feel like I have to ask, why the name shift?"


    She chuckled once, "Annihilation because the realms are the single highest cause of C grade deaths in the entire multiverse, by far."


    He just looked at her and waited for her to continue.


    "Basically¡­ No one really knows how or why but there''s this place most people just call, Chaos'' domain, after the realms. All it is is a realm restricted to C grades. The first layer is a constant. You go in and there''s a whole city with factions set up and all that. In the middle is the entrance to another realm. That one, is random."


    Felix was leaning forwards now and had completely forgotten about the construct in his hands, he was way too distracted for that. Every level of focus he had was dedicated to sifting through the library in his head and listening.


    "Once you get into the second layer, the first random one, the whole thing starts. You get a basic quest you have to complete and once you do, the entrance to another realm opens alongside an exit. Heading into the next realm, it''s completely random once again but slightly harder. There are a bunch of patterns to the realms too, I''m not going to go over all of it now. Once you exit though, you can''t ever go back in but as you leave, you are rewarded based on the last realm you completed."


    "I see and no ''System saves your life'' there I take it? Hence the Annihilation thing."


    She cocked her head a little, "Yeah¡­ That to but more so, if you die there, no afterlife. No System saving you, that''s pretty much dedicated to Eramith and don''t ask how that started because gods have been trying to make the same deal in their training areas since the school''s founding. The System seems to have just adopted the realms. It doesn''t run them."


    Felix frowned, "So it just shows you the quests?"


    "Yeah, pretty much. Basically this thing has been around longer than The System has and some things don''t work inside of it. Some pretty unique skills don''t work at all and anything under Journeyman proficiency will completely fail."


    Peace cut in without looking up, "With some exceptions. Your class skills should work no matter what."


    She looked at him curiously but didn''t refute him.


    Felix glanced at Peace then locked his gaze with Melody''s once again, "Are there patterns to the unique skills that don''t work? Categories?"


    "Life saving skills which are so rare anyways, especially in the C grade, it doesn''t really matter. Anything that provides invincibility, impenetrable barriers, stuff like that. All of those will work by the way, just no how you''d be used to. They''re significantly diminished."


    Felix nodded as he caught on, "Instead of bringing you back from 0 it might heal you a bunch when you hit 10%?"


    This novel''s true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.


    She shrugged and nodded, "Sure but it won''t heal you instantly and if you lose 20% of your health killing you, it just won''t activate."


    "Which defeats the whole point of the skill, got it." Felix''s eyes drifted a little as he thought through the implications and reordered his todo list ahead of recruitment.


    After a minute or so of silence, Felix looked back over at Melody, "When will everyone hit B grade by the way?"


    "Not for another two epochs or so. Around and after our next exams?" She looked over at Peace who nodded in confirmation.


    "Really? That late?"


    Melody snorted out of her nose and Adaline released a wave of disgust from her soul instinctively, her first contribution to their conversation in a long time, "Well, it''s not exactly easy to find a source for literally hundreds of thousands of at least Epic beasts to kill around our level."


    "What about The Realms of Chaos or other dungeons?"


    "Oh yeah, forgot to mention that. You don''t gain experience there. As for other dungeons¡­ there just aren''t that many. That''s how most of our classmates will be leveling but they''re far apart and most people take time to prepare for them. Even Zeraxes can''t just wipe them out because he takes a long time to recharge. Romar could bust through pretty quickly but I''ve heard he has a lot of preparation to do before his next evolution."


    "What about just killing things way over your level?"


    "I mean¡­ you can but you also risk just dying. That''s what Romar will do, Zeraxes too a bit. Still, even harder to find worthy B grade creatures to kill."


    Damn. I was hoping to just grind out a few Hydras or something.


    The storm will end at your position in 4 minutes.


    Felix was a little surprised to hear Mark''s voice in his head, So soon?


    It seems as though the storm follows the planet''s day and night cycle and only exists during the night.


    I thought we were just on a pole or something. You''re saying the standard day on this planet is 8 hours long?


    Approximately.


    That''s annoying.


    Felix conveyed the mechanics of the planet to the others and they all agreed to simply continue on, digging out a new hole every four hours to wait out the storm.


    All the Seeing Eye constructs that had burrowed, except three, were now back to flying through the air as the storm had passed by them. Three had stopped functioning from the cold but Felix had made 6 new ones anyways so he wasn''t too worried. Theoretically he could also have their group teleport past the storm every time it appeared behind them but the others still needed sleep anyways so they had to stop eventually.


    Also, to teleport past the storm every 4 hours, he would have to have Seeing Eye Constructs fast enough to chase directly behind it, which he did not. He could have guessed and gone directly across the planet but if he was off by too much, he feared completely missing whatever creature they were hunting. He was just hoping it wasn''t creating the storm around itself or lived inside of it because then it would be nearly impossible to fight.


    Moving through the day time and burrowing at night, they moved across the planet as Felix continued to create and spread Seeing Eye Constructs. Every night they burrowed, he created another 6. Every day they traveled, the constructs spread further apart. Once they understood the storm''s schedule, he only lost another 4 constructs in total over the course of 15 of the planet''s days, or 5 normal days.


    It was boring and uneventful and the same thing day in and day out. Melody tried a few times to search the planet using her instrument but without knowing the creature they were looking for, apparently it was nearly impossible.


    It was only right in the middle of the 15th day that they finally found anything. Based on Mark''s calculations of the planet''s size, him and his constructs had explored just a few percent of it so finding anything was very lucky.


    Breaking up the monotony of sitting there and powering the sled, Mark''s voice chimed into Felix''s skull, Construct 73 has found something.


    Show me.


    A short memory appeared in Felix''s mind and was overlaid in his vision, like he was watching a tv show. It started with the construct looking down he assumed because all he saw was snow but it was oddly dark given where the construct was, it should have been midday. The construct flew upwards and as the image zoomed out, Felix realized why it was so dark, there were cliffs of snow on either side of the construct.


    It was like a chasm in the snow and ice that seemed to stretch forwards endlessly for whatever reason. Felix assumed that was it and intended on heading over to explore but the construct continued flying upwards. Sear?h the Nov§×l?ire.n(e)t website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    As it did, he literally couldn''t control his physical reaction of leaning forwards with wide eyes as he finally saw the chasm from side to side. It was a few hundred meters deep and over 30 meters wide with a nearly identical chasm, parallel and next to it. At the bottom of each of the chasms-as the construct flew forwards into the areas that were fresher-were very obviously humanoid footprints.


    Assuming similar proportions, that put the creature at 500 meters tall.


    The sled skidded to a halt as Felix''s mana stopped flowing into it but the rest of the group were already looking at him anyway from his instinctive physical reaction.


    "Well, I think I know what we''re hunting."


    Melody spun around even further in her seat in front of him, "You found something?"


    "Yeah¡­ You should probably just see it for yourself."


    Opening a portal in front of their sled to the approximate location of the chasm, Felix channeled mana into the sled once more and directed them through it.


    He didn''t put them directly into the chasm but rather far enough away that they weren''t risking the wall collapsing and burying them. It was impossible for any of them to see anything from the ground though.


    Melody squinted as she examined them, "What are they? Just¡­ lines?"


    "Footprints and the lines from something big stepping along."


    She snorted, "Nah. For a creature''s legs to cut through the snow like this, it would have to be¡­"


    "A giant?" Felix offered.


    "Yeah." She chuckled, "Obviously that''s impossible so, it''s probably a natural creation or something."


    Felix gestured towards it with his head and crossed his arms, "Well, fly up and see. Just don''t take too long because the storm is just a half hour behind us now."


    Melody scoffed and looked at him for a moment, trying to determine if he was being serious. Then, she shook her head, took a deep breath and flew up into the air. Looking up, Felix just waited for her reaction as she flew up further and further until she was about a few hundred meters up and finally stopped.


    Despite losing health from the cold and the possibility of, in her words, ''literally freezing her butt off'' Melody stared for almost a minute before flying parallel to the chasms and following them out for a bit. She got about a kilometer out before she turned back and flew back to the sled.


    She barely slowed as her body, covered in a layer of ice above her frozen flesh, crashed into the sled and Peace caught her with his stats. He placed her down next to Felix, forcing Adaline to swap positions so he could begin heating her back up with spells. The positioning wasn''t necessary but it did make it easier to be precise and therefore faster with the heat.


    It took a few minutes for him to thaw her to the point she could talk and another few minutes to stop her teeth from aggressively chattering and making anything she tried to say, unintelligible.


    Melody finally nodded slowly when she regained most of her bodily control but she wasn''t all the way there and Felix continued heating her up as she spoke, "Okay so¡­ It seems there is a¡­ giant on this planet."


    Felix looked at her then Peace, "What''s so ridiculous about that?"


    Peace just grinned and let Melody answer, "Giants are¡­ There are like¡­ Well¡­ They''re nearly extinct."


    "So it''s unethical to kill it?" Felix frowned a little, unsure if that was really stopping them.


    Melody grimaced, "No, definitely not. They''re insane and should almost always be put down. I just¡­ don''t know that we can."


    Felix sighed, "Minimum grade or level for a giant?"


    "A grade probably."


    He winced, "Okay yeah¡­ That''s high but¡­ not impossible."


    "They have at least S grade durability. Normally a group of S grades would be called in to deal with one. They''re not too dangerous cause they''re really slow but¡­ I don''t even think, if it just stood there and let us hit it, we could do enough damage to kill it."


    Felix cocked his head, "Really? Using all my mana, how close would I get?"


    Melody shrugged, "How much mana do you have right now?"


    "150."


    She nodded a little and thought about it but Adaline cut in before she came up with an answer, "150? Aren''t you a caster?"


    Felix nodded, "Was. Not anymore. Intelligence is only my second highest stat right now but I detached my mana pool from my Intelligence anyways."


    Adaline looked at him like he had made the stupidest possible decisions and she couldn''t believe he would dare be so disgusting, "What the hell did you get that was worth losing that much mana?"


    Felix cocked his head, "Losing? Wait¡­ I meant 150 million."


    He saw the shock trying to fight its way onto her face through the deep confusion that plagued her as her face twitched a few times before she looked at Melody to see if he was serious. Melody nodded then turned back to Felix, "I don''t know¡­ 5% of its health if you were perfectly efficient? This is a guess based on stories I''ve heard though, it could be way worse than that."


    "Huh¡­" Felix turned to Adaline, "How many bullets you got?"


    She shook her head three times before she managed to recenter herself, "Not that many. You really have a mana pool of 150 million mana?"


    Felix nodded, "Should be able to make it a lot bigger soon. At the moment though, 150." He turned to Peace, "You don''t have some super secret ability hiding inside you that can kill this thing, do you?"


    He chuckled, "Definitely not. Even if I did, no way I could properly execute it, even if I had the resources in the first place."


    "Well¡­ I might have a solution¡­" Felix winced a little knowing how stupid what he wanted to do was but, he didn''t really see any other way.


    It took one day and night, 8 hours, to follow the trails using constructs to map them and portals to move the constructs and Felix had expected the tracks to lead them to a cave or something. Instead, they led right to the giant.


    Peering through a construct it was hard to grasp the sheer size of the creature as they flew around and looked at it from afar. Especially with the entire surrounding landscape consisting of flat, white snow with no distinguishing features whatsoever, there was just nothing to compare it to.


    Opening a portal a few kilometers away though, Felix guffawed upon seeing it for the first time.


    [A - Legendary] Ice Giant (Lvl 3188)


    Not only did its level tower above them but the creature itself was like a skyscraper from earth. Not only that, but Felix was pretty sure its height would put it amongst the tallest buildings that had ever existed on earth. It was still hard to judge scale and it was only really possible because he knew the distance between them and Mark helped him make estimates.


    Other than the absurd size though, the creature was entirely human looking in shape. It''s skin was blue but it had four fingers and a thumb on each hand, a beard either made of or encased in ice, it had a nose, eyes, ears, mouth on its face. Oddly though, none of it formed any kind of expression and looking at it, Felix couldn''t help but feel like it was dead. Its face was blank, its eyes unfocused and its mouth hung open a little.


    Along with the gait it took dredging through the snow, it almost looked like a zombie and Felix seriously wondered if it was sapient at all or just sentient.


    After giving Melody a moment to gape at the creature, he nudged her, "So why are Giants almost extinct if they''re so hard to kill?"


    He had to nudge her a few more times before she became aware enough to answer and even then, her gaze was locked on the creature before them, "They can''t breed. The only way for a giant to be born is for the Original Giant to create them¡­ somehow. They were a primordial that¡­ doesn''t matter, they''re dead now so¡­"


    Felix frowned, "How?"


    Peace responded from his other side, "Rhonan was forced to a little while ago. Giants are violent, territorial and not willing or capable of listening to reason."


    "Oh, so if we kill this one¡­ the number of giants in the multiverse goes down permanently? With no chance of it being replaced?"


    Melody shrugged, "Yeah. If they weren''t so problematic, everyone would just ignore them. Like this one. On this planet that apparently nothing else lives on. I don''t see what the point of killing it is. The Original started causing trouble and even exiling them to a remote corner of the multiverse wasn''t enough. They started creating giants and throwing them randomly in every direction. As durable as they are, giants easily survive in space and some of them landed on planets wreaking havoc. So they needed to be put down."


    Felix snorted at the thought of a giant throwing giant babies through space and seriously doubted the veracity of that claim, at least as she had presented it.


    "Anyway, this one is just here. Why bother? If we leave it, we could come back and study it or¡­ something? What does it eat¡­"


    Felix shrugged, "If we don''t, we fail so¡­"


    Peace rolled his eyes, "You know as well as the rest of us do that not killing it is probably the point."


    "Yeah yeah but fuck that. We should at least try." Felix grumbled.


    Peace nodded, "Oh yeah, I''m with you on that."


    Felix frowned, "Really? Thought you''d be against killing it?"


    "Nah. Giants are too dangerous. They need to die. Plus, you''ll harvest it after, right? That''ll be huge for you."


    Felix grinned, "Yes."


    Peace''s shoulders seemed to relax slightly but Felix had no idea why. He didn''t question it though and turned to face everyone at once, "So, here''s how we kill it¡­"


    It didn''t take more than a couple hours for them to set things up, Adaline reluctantly improving the spell form Felix had inscribed. Otherwise, there was nothing more that needed to be done other than getting in position.


    Using relative portals, Felix moved the rest of his group such that they surrounded the giant from every angle.


    First up, was Melody who began to play a tune that simply instilled something akin to confusion in the giant. Its purpose though was to make it hard to perceive anything at all. Peace and Felix were capable of defending their own souls but Adaline was not and so she was located as far away from Melody as possible.


    She began playing causing tiny ripples of gold to echo out across the frigid air around them and as they hit the Giant, nothing happened. They had expected that though because there wasn''t anything to perceive yet so there wasn''t really any way it would notice the snow in front of it being slightly blurrier. It was also really dumb as far as they had seen.


    That was the setup required though for Adaline to then begin firing off spells from every direction at the Giant. There was no buildup and no indication it was going to happen. Instead, dozens of portals and hundreds of spells all appeared at once. Most of them were Fire based because they were guessing at its resistances and so, Fireballs vanished through portals and reappeared hundreds of times bigger, lasers bounced around and traced their way along its body. Cones of flame drenched the Giant''s arms and swords and arrows of Flame shot towards it.


    The amount of Fire that suddenly appeared all at once was almost enough to cover a quarter of its body and caused the Giant to spin its head around and slap spells out of the air. It couldn''t find a source but with its massive club made of pure ice-too gnarly to be an icicle-swung around at the air anyways.


    Each swing trailed a mass of air around it, enough to be just as harmful as the blizzard at night, if not more.


    They were ready for all of this and everything had been executed perfectly so far. The Giant was distracted and couldn''t really see giving Peace the perfect opportunity to race forwards and climb his way onto the giant.


    While Peace couldn''t fly, he could jump and leap massive distances like a super powered ape and being as small as he was compared to the Giant, he definitely looked like a super hero scaling a building.


    Starting from the snow he jumped right up onto its knee then from there onto the other leg and back a few times, gaining height with every jump. Once he made it up to the top of its thigh, he waited for the ice club to swing by and jumped up onto its elbow, hiding within it to protect himself somewhat from the wind. As soon as the wild swing completed, he leapt around the arm and onto its shoulder which was as close as they needed him to be.


    From there, Peace simply ran into position and placed down the object Felix and Adaline had created. He inscribed the main spell and she added the enchantment to keep it steady and in place.


    All that was left was for Felix to cast the spell and so, he pumped the last bit of mana into his portal spell, connecting the core of the planet to the neck of the Giant. Having seen what it did in the world event, he had no doubt in his mind it would be enough to kill the Giant, especially when it was aimed directly into its neck.


    As the last bit of mana filled the spell, he excitedly watched the giant but his heart dropped. Even before the screen appeared, he felt the spell flicker out and do nothing.


    Transportation Facilitation Program


    Violation Detected


    The Transportation Facilitation Program was designed to accelerate the progression of the multiverse by facilitating the opening of portals across large distances. This Program simplifies the complex, arduous and punctilious process of opening portals with the goal of easing the transport of materials, communication and travel over long distances.


    Detected Violation: Use of a portal in an attempt to transport a damaging substance onto a creature directly with the intent of harming it.


    Penalty: Your access to the program has been disabled.


    WHAT!? So I just¡­ can''t open portals anymore? What. The. Fuck. If there were rules, why didn''t you tell me them before? Or give me a warning or something? Also this is at least the second time I''ve done this. Nucleus, why didn''t you tell me about this?


    The Nucleus recoiled a little in his Soul Space, That protocol doesn''t exist in any of the protocols I have access to. It isn''t even¡­ mentioned¡­ ever.


    Felix frowned, Really? Does it leave it out of the sub-Systems for compression sake? Seems¡­ odd.


    The compression runs based on a predictive algorithm so¡­ It just didn''t expect that?


    Uh¡­


    The Nucleus hurried to add, I know it seems silly and unlikely but¡­ I don''t have any other explanation, sorry.


    Well, fucking¡­ Was it a different violation when I destroyed The Mind Devouring Crown and tried to kill Erolan¡­ but it was an event again so¡­ Nucleus, can protocols be updated on a sync?


    Yes but not all of them. If an extensive change to protocols is required, the sub-System will be swapped out.


    So something else is going on then. The predictive model should have known what I was trying to do.


    Grim chimed in but the hesitation in his voice made it clear what he thought about what he was saying, Maybe it didn''t consider Erolan a sentient at that time?


    Felix exhaled through his nose, Maybe¡­ Or it at least suspects what I did in the World Event and is punishing me. I''ll have to ask someone i-


    Before he could finish the thought, a beam of fire resembling a laser melted a small line in the snow just next to his foot.


    Oh right.


    There was no good way for Felix to communicate the complexity of what had happened to everyone and they didn''t really plan a fallback for if things fell apart. He also now didn''t have portals to reach everyone else and collect them back up.


    Using a Sound spell to blast his voice outwards, he wasn''t even sure if it would be loud enough over the small storm the Giant had spun up around itself, "RETREAT!"


    Adaline''s spells screeched to a halt suddenly which was enough time for the Giant to realize Peace was still on his shoulder, just in case the item they had made needed to be moved. It reached up and slapped its shoulder creating a shock-wave loud enough to dig a shallow crater in the snow around the Giant and sink it deeper into the snow. Felix couldn''t see anything and had no idea if Peace had gotten out but Adaline was still nearby as the range on her spells wasn''t massive.


    Stepping back with his right foot, the Giant swung its arm back and across the snow to try and swat her but before it reached her, a streak of black appeared from the hand and smacked into her. The wake of snow behind the backhanded strike completely obscured any chance Felix had of seeing them and apparently the Giant as well.


    It scanned the ground for a few moments then roared up into the sky and began smacking its ice chunk down randomly in the snow. Smacking down, a massive explosion of snow surrounded the giant then it struck again and the Force of the next swing blew it all away again. Each strike, the club dug deeper into the snow until finally, Felix heard a deafening crack and a wall of ice instantly appeared to either side of the Giant.


    As if waiting for the ice to break, a fraction of a second later a massive fish 200 hundred meters long leapt out of the water.


    [A - Epic] Arctic Fish (Lvl 3712)


    Guess that fish just doesn''t exist in any bestiaries yet?


    It was only able to enjoy its freedom for a brief moment though as the Giant snatched it out of the air. It squirmed and tried to wriggle free but the Giant bit down on its head to kill it. Falling onto its behind, the Giant brought the fish to its mouth and took a crunchy bite that sprayed droplets of blood-that froze in midair-all around it.


    "What the fuck happened? I almost died."


    Felix spun around and came face to face with a very angry Adaline and winced, "The System nerfed me. I don''t know what else to tell you."


    She looked at him like there was no way he could be serious and that she was disgusted with him for even speaking, "Look, maybe you don''t belong here if you can''t even get your own shit straight."


    Clenching her teeth, Adaline turned away from him because it was the most she could do. They were all stuck in the sled if they didn''t want to die and most of their health pools were seriously drained.


    Melody looked at him with a raised eyebrow but didn''t comment. Felix met her gaze and sighed, "Any of you ever heard of the Transportation Facilitation Program?"


    Melody shrugged, Peace shook his head and Adaline was busy being grumpy.


    Felix shook his head in annoyance, "Basically, The System doesn''t like it when when people abuse portals." He shared the screen he had received with all of them.


    Nodding in semi-recognition, Melody squinted a little and cocked her head in thought, "I remember hearing about something¡­ All I heard was that The System changed something about portals for Edras way back in his youth. He''s obviously figured it all out now though."


    "Yeah. Sorry about that. I do find it odd I was never warned about this." Felix grumbled. He didn''t dare mention that he had done it before or any of what he knew about sub-System chunks.


    "I''ll ask about it next time I go home." Peace shrugged, "Never heard about this myself though."


    I guess it is kind of hard to abuse portals with a spell list. You''d have to embed coordinates in the spells and you''d be changing them constantly. Which begs the question¡­ does Edras cast the way I do?


    Melody looked at each of them, her gaze settling on Felix, "So¡­ we can''t kill it?"


    He sighed, "I don''t think I have enough damage unless we were here for half an epoch."


    A reluctant sigh echoed out from the furthest seat from Felix, "I know how we can kill it."


    Everyone turned to Adaline, both surprised she was speaking at all and surprised by the meaning of what she was saying.


    It took the combination of both Felix and Adaline working together in tandem over the course of 5 days to finish everything they needed. While Adaline did most of the enchanting work, Felix''s mana senses and control helped a lot more than she thought possible, judging from her expressions. The biggest limiting factor though and the reason they almost ran out of time was Felix recharging his mana.


    Without portals, he was limited to just the mana around him. Once he exhausted that, they had to keep moving or he had to just wait for the mana to equalize. Adaline wasn''t restricted in the same way as he was in terms of portals but she also couldn''t power more than a single inscribed portal at once, given how much mana it took to open one.


    His constructs could still measure coordinates and he was immensely relieved Adaline had swapped out the portal just a few days ago with something else but he couldn''t use the coordinates at all. He directed all of them to return to him, if possible, over the next few days. They were stuck following the Giant''s tracks in the sled anyways and the movement alone, helped a little with reaching fresh aether for him to drain.


    Luckily, it wasn''t difficult to keep up with the Giant. It moved through the storms and they had to wait till they passed and it walked faster than their sled with its massive legs but, it stopped a lot. It consumed an enormous amount of fish, not all of which jumped up into its arms forcing it to stop and reach its arm into the water to catch one. It wasn''t just its size either, scaling the proportions down, it ate hundreds of meals worth every couple of hours.


    At the end of the fifth day, after having collected half a billion mana in a series of spatial pockets Adaline had created, they were out of time. The exam period was over in just 8 hours and they really weren''t sure they had enough. In fact, Adaline seemed convinced they didn''t.


    Felix had long since come to a decision about what he would do if they didn''t have enough but he finally came to a decision on whether to tell the rest of his group, "I''m going to cheat."


    Peace shrugged, like Felix expected because he didn''t care about his grades at all.


    Adaline furrowed her brow but Melody was the one that spoke first, "How?"


    "My Pocket Home. I have a lot of mana in there. I care more about killing that thing than failing the class."


    Melody nodded, "I''m in. Can''t wait to show off the title to Fyrden. He''s gonna be sooooo jealous."


    Adaline frowned deeply and opened her mouth a few times to speak then sighed and nodded.


    Opening his Pocket Home against one of the walls of the snow cave they had created, Felix stepped in and led Adaline up his tower. Starting with the Mana Engine and massive core he had set within it-after Adaline gaped at it for a few minutes-they drew out another 12 billion mana to be extra certain and stored all of it into more spatial pockets.


    The devices were already ready and so all they had to do was put everything together which was, risky by itself. Any random spell powered by twelve and a half billion mana would explode. There was nothing Felix knew of that scaled that well and any nodes or spells that did, would be locked up in a God''s vault somewhere. The instability though, was what they were counting on.


    Adaline specialized in spatial enchantments, studying the work of a professor on campus who had managed to dissect a small fraction of Kryptos'' enchantments. Spatial enchantments and spells were apparently nearly lethal even with just a few thousand mana in them if they backfired because unlike the portals of the Transportation Facilitation Program, they didn''t have safety mechanisms.


    Back when he discovered them, Felix was so careful to make sure portals closing on limbs didn''t sever them. To make sure instability or the portal form being damaged wouldn''t be dangerous as he set up his transportation network. Now, he realized he was completely right to be worried, it was just that The System protected them.


    They had no intention of whatever ritual, spell or enchantment they had inscribed to actually cast. The goal was for them to fail violently creating what were essentially, spatial bombs.


    The bombs were about the size of large bowling balls and not stable. Once Adaline actually connected them together internally, they would explode after about 20 seconds to 5 minutes. They didn''t have a fuse or a timer and they were relying on instability which was inherently, unpredictable.


    Racing towards the Giant in the sled, they waited until it stopped to eat then zipped around its body to the front.


    It noticed them as soon as they entered its line of sight and looking up at a humanoid face over a hundred meters wide with frozen blood splattered across its beard was one of the creepiest things Felix had ever seen. Its eyes following them for a few seconds made it so much worse.


    Reluctantly, it tossed its half finished fish off to the side and grabbed its club to try and smack them.


    They just weren''t fast enough in the sled to dodge the club but seeing it coming, they were all able to dash out of the way and abandon the sled.


    Felix yelled out once they were in the clear, "No more shelter so we leave whether or not we kill it in 5 minutes!"


    They couldn''t survive without some form of shelter and the amulets Adaline had made just weren''t enough on their own. Especially not with the winds the Giant created swinging its club.


    As the Giant began to stand, Adaline connected one of the bombs and handed it to Peace who turned into a streak of black as he rushed closer to the foot, threw the bomb at its leg then rushed back as fast as he could.


    The bomb smacked into its knee and plummeted to the ground a moment later, as the Giant finally rose to its feet and lifted its club up once more. This time, it swiped it along the surface of the snow and ice, all of them watching the club coming and leaping or flying over it. The club itself would instantly kill them, splattering their corpses everywhere but it was easy to dodge because it was huge and relatively slow. The wind storm it created in its wake though, was as dangerous as the night storms on the planet, even more when they were close to the club and much harder to completely avoid.


    As the wind smacked into Felix and tossed him back like a fly, he felt the entire front side of his flesh freeze solid. The freezing wasn''t too deep but the heat from the rest of his body was seeping into it because of entropy and when he readjusted or moved, his skin cracked and split at all the joints like dried clay.


    It wasn''t far too painful considering most of his nerve endings were literally frozen but he lost nearly a million health. Considering it was about an eighth of his body that was frozen, it seemed fitting.


    After regaining its balance from the first swing, the Giant opened its mouth and slammed its head forwards to try and bite Felix in the air. The move shocked him but it was just as easy to dodge and didn''t have nearly the same wake of freezing air behind it.


    He positioned himself behind its head which was fun for a little while, dodging the slaps and distracting it but most importantly, he couldn''t risk it taking a step in any direction. The bomb was probably going to go off at some point and he needed the Giant on it when that happened.


    So, as the Giant looked as though it was about to lose its balance by swatting at Felix behind its head, he quickly flew around to the front to make sure it didn''t step back.


    As soon as he was within eyesight of the Giant, it reached up faster than he had seen it move thus far and tried to pinch him in the air. He immediately activated his Reaper''s Skills, kicked off a Phantom Step and blasted himself with a Force Spell.


    The wake of air from its fingers pinching together along with the thunderous clap that followed behind him were enough to throw him off course, just as his Reaper''s Skills were expiring which made it so much worse.


    He couldn''t see anything and had no idea which direction he was flying in as his body flipped around and spun through the air then suddenly, he was pulled downwards by a huge gust of air as his ear drums exploded.


    He desperately tried to stop himself from spinning and moving entirely, his head already so dizzy he couldn''t process what he was seeing.


    Finally halting his movement, Felix looked around and saw the Giant toppling over as its left foot and ankle were just missing. Blood spurted outwards, was frozen nearly instantly, then shattered and pushed along to make way for more blood spurting out from its severed shin.


    Looking down, he saw Adaline using her white revolver to shoot herself along the ground as Peace ran next to her, readying the next bomb.


    Catching itself with its hand and left knee, the Giant swatted down at them so Adaline tossed a bomb to Peace and shot herself backwards. Peace, with his Reaper''s skills active, was much faster and rushed into the swing, alongside the Giant''s arm. Leaping up, he tossed it at the Giant''s armpit before kicking off the arm and zipping away leaving an afterimage trail of black shadow tracing his movements.


    Man, I can''t wait till I can use that skill more frequently. I definitely need to spend some time on that over the break.


    The second bomb, was much faster than the first and nearly instantly exploded and so, Felix got to witness the effects first hand. The explosion itself was anticlimactic in that it was small and quiet. He somewhat expected 4 billion mana to essentially be equivalent to a nuclear bomb, instead it was just a hundred meters or so in diameter. A swirl simply appeared in the air like reality itself was twisting in on a point then it flashed black for a second and it was gone. Everything that had been there before simply wasn''t.


    Air rushed to fill the void and provided Felix with the sound he was hoping for and the explanation for why his ear drums had instantly exploded. Luckily, his repairing them manually wasn''t an issue this time because he was far enough away but the rush of air was still enough to freeze over another 8th of his body, the rear this time.


    Felix could only tell where Peace was from the streak that followed him and so he watched as he raced up to the Giant''s head as Adaline flew over to meet them. To keep it from swatting down, Felix flew around to the other side and began showering it in flame as Melody switched the tune to something Felix could only describe as grating and awful.


    It definitely distracted him and the Giant seemed less interested in Peace running up its body but that could have equally been from the pain it felt.


    Covering its eyes in Fire Balls and shooting at its remaining hand, Felix dodged out of the way as it swiped up at him and subsequently fell to the ground. Adaline in the air was fine but Peace was thrown off its body into the snow as it rolled over.


    Unsure if he would recover quickly, Felix flew straight at Adaline as fast as he could and dropped down next to her. She nodded, primed it then handed the bomb to him immediately and he rushed off towards the head.


    She leapt off using her white revolver and took up Felix''s previous task of distracting it. She didn''t have many fire bullets left, having used most of them in their last attempt, but she used everything else she had-other than cold-to distract it.


    Flying over its chest, Felix slowed down slightly as Adaline''s spells caused it to turn its head on the ground and ran up onto its face. In the worst case scenario, the bomb would explode any second so he pushed himself and activated his Reaper''s skills one last time.


    With his increased speed, he dashed up, avoiding its beard of ice, and slam dunked the bomb into its ear canal then leapt up and flew off to get as much distance as possible, as fast as possible.


    He managed to fly a few hundred meters out and the bomb still hadn''t gone off so he switched directions and flew into the snow off to the Giant''s side.


    The blood spurting out of its arm was covering and freezing a solid layer on the surface which made it impossible for him to see the hole Peace''s body had created, not that it would have been easy to spot in white snow. Landing on the crimson ice, he reached inwards and screamed with his soul, the same way Peace had taught him when they were hunting beasts and still trying to move up in Group Combat.


    A moment later, he felt a pulse he recognized and plotted a path to it around the blood ice. He used a Force shield to carve through the snow and slammed right into Peace when he found him. Wrapping his arms around him, Felix flew back out and started heating them both with spells as heard a chattering, "Th-th-th-th-tha-tha-nks."


    Felix didn''t bother responding as they flew out and into the air just as a blast of air slammed into the two of them, freezing the both of them just a little more. It didn''t matter though, it was over.


    Ding You have slain an [A - Legendary] Ice Giant (Lvl 3188)


    Ding You have gained 24 levels in [C - Ancient] Reaper


    Stupid reduced group experience.


    Congratulations!


    You have earned a title and upgraded a title.


    Titan Killer: Legendary => [A] Titan Executioners: Legendary: This title is given to those who participate in slaying a creature in the A grade while they are still in the C grade, the rarity corresponds to the slain beast''s rarity.


    Slayers: Giant: This title is given to those who have participated in slaying a Giant.


    Felix immediately activated both of his rings, too excited to wait and watched a thick stream of white gold pour into one ring, instantly destroying the half formed remnant, as multiple streams of crimson poured into the other. The white stream was done in less than a second and looking into the ring, Felix couldn''t help but feel a little disappointed with the quantity of anima. It just felt paltry in comparison to the sub-System chunks he had harvested.


    He was happy for the soul nonetheless as he would be able to extract at least some of its stats, something he could not do with the sub-System chunks at all.


    The crimson streams though just kept pouring in for half a minute then they stopped. The majority of the body was still lying before him though and looking in, he groaned as he began moving around the cells in the ring however he could so he could keep as much of it as possible. He only really needed some of everything, not all of it though so he reluctantly disposed of what he didn''t need.


    Even then, he couldn''t get more than half of it so the rest, he had Nova drag into his Pocket Home while he helped as much as he could and heated her up to keep her from freezing. It was long, slow and painful but the rest of the group stayed warm in his Pocket Home so they weren''t dying. They couldn''t split up the body because they couldn''t cut it so he was stuck shifting and moving it in tiny increments. Luckily he was able to lift it slightly but it took a third of his mana pool just to lift it for a moment.


    Once it was all stuffed in there, stretching the bounds of his Pocket Home, they all stepped outside and Adaline filled the portal form she had been inscribing in the meantime back to Eramith.


    Stepping out onto the grassy park in the middle of the campus, all of them fell to the ground in different ways. Peace laid down face first, Melody fell to one knee then rolled onto her back and stared up at the sky, Adaline stayed on her knees and Felix rolled around a few times, using the relative heat of the ground to help melt his body.


    "Holy shit. That. Was. AWESOME!" Melody pumped her fists into the air before letting them fall back to the ground beside her.


    "I¡­" Adaline coughed, "can''t believe that worked."


    "It only took 12 and a half billion mana." Felix chuckled.


    "Yeah but that was¡­ fun." Peace offered a slight grin, his head turned up just enough that half his face was visible above the grass.


    Melody shot up into a sitting position, "It is such a bummer The Tournament of the Abyss is still on indefinite hiatus. We''d actually have a shot at winning the Group portion."


    Felix just turned his head towards her from his position lying on his back, "The what?"


    Peace responded, slightly muffled by the dirt, "Tournament of the Abyss. Used to run in the second epoch of Eramith cycles for Gods to show off their recruits and show how great they are."


    Felix sighed, "Let me guess, broadcast to the world to attract recruits from outside the school?"


    Melody turned her head to him and nodded, "And to advertise all the other sponsors. Like Raidran''s for you for example?"


    "Oh, of course. What kind of events ar-" Felix cut himself off as he saw the tall and lanky Chancellor of Eramith step into sight in the middle of them.


    "Correlation or causation that the source of most of my problems for the last dekad survived the world event when we lost a quarter of the class." The Chancellor looked down at all of them lying on the grass.


    Felix quickly sat up but Melody shrugged from the ground, "Causation for sure, we started the big war after all."


    He nodded, "Well, the happenings of events are not my problem. In fact, it tends to lessen my problems."


    Felix looked up at the Chancellor who was looking off into the distance, "What did we do to cause so many problems for you over the last dekad?"


    He sighed, "You''ll see in¡­ 12 hours or so. May I ask why you are all rolling around in the grass?"


    Peace spoke through the grass once again, "Just got back from Group Combat exam. Ice planet. Really cold."


    "Really?" He looked at them contemplatively then cocked his head, "Harris submitted all your grades¡­ 5 or 6 days ago if I recall."


    Felix snorted, "Son of a bitch. Any chance you know where to find him?"


    He nodded, "Ask El about the campus bar. She''ll know what I mean."


    "Oh, one more thing. Have you ever heard of the Transportation Facilitation Program?"


    The chancellor shook his head, "I have not. Is it a train system?"


    Felix sighed, "Alright, thanks. We''ll head over there now."


    He nodded to them politely then walked off as they all slowly rose to their feet and made their way to the portal room. Asking El about the campus bar, she laughed but opened the portal all the same.


    They all stepped through one by one and Felix realized why they were laughing when he looked around and saw a wood cabin with a bar, many bottles and two professors. Not a single other soul was around and he was pretty sure the building was either Harris or Auren''s office on the planet like Adaline''s mentor and Ked''s lab.


    Walking over to the table they were sitting at, Harris had slid down and slouched into the booth looking very drunk and Auren sat across from him but sat with perfect posture and the same focused gaze he always had. Harris saw them and sighed, "What do you want."


    Melody crossed her arms, "We just got back from our exam."


    He snorted, "Took you long enough."


    Felix glared at Harris, "So, were we supposed to kill anything? Did you expect us to kill that thing or just run away and survive?"


    He looked completely confused and taken aback as did Auren though he showed it less so, "Kill what? Planet was deserted."


    Peace scoffed, "No it isn''t. There''s an entire ocean biome beneath most of the planet with fish at least."


    Haris shrugged, "Oh, you kill some big fish then?"


    Melody grinned, "No, we didn''t even realize the ocean was beneath us until we found the creature we did kill on the surface."


    "Yeah right." Harris scoffed, "Nothing could survive the night blizzards on that planet."


    She nodded, "Right well. Ice planet. 8 hour days means it''s huge. What could possibly survive the Night Blizzard? What is one of the only creatures."


    Harris scooted up into a normal posture and shook his head, Auren looked at each of them in turn with a hard analyzing gaze.


    Finally coming to a conclusion, Harris slapped the table, "Bullshit."


    The grin on Melody''s face only grew as she equipped the two titles one at a time and watched Harris'' face drop. Auren''s hardened into a deep frown at the same time which was less satisfying.


    Harris choked on his own tongue a little, "Ho- How did you possibly have the damage to kill a fucking giant?"


    "Great question." She shrugged, "Does it matter?"


    Felix''s face contorted in disgust a little, "So were we just supposed to give up? Do we fail no matter what?"


    Harris snorted, "What, no. We watched for a day, you worked together to survive, that was all we needed. After that, we weren''t going to fail you for leaving, that''s what we expected you to do."


    Pulling himself up Harris pointed at Adaline, "You''re a monster in Solo Combat, completely destroying anyone you fight but the extent of your working with anyone is paying attention to them and not hitting them." He pointed at Peace next, "You just do whatever-" He pointed at Felix, "-is best for him who has the most disjointed set of abilities ever and keeps pulling bullshit out of nowhere and also, sucks at working with other people."


    "Then there''s you-" He finally pointed at Melody, "-who barely participates, more with this group than the last, but still you do enough to be valuable and nothing more. You don''t even try. Nothing I can do would push any of beyond what you are so I just made sure you could work together and otherwise, I don''t need to see anything else to grade you. You all suck at Group Combat in your own ways-whether purposefully or not-and yet, you are by far the scariest group out of all the classes. I legitimately don''t think Zeraxes or Romar could kill a Giant even working together."


    Melody grinned and looked at the others to see if they shared in her excitement. The rest of them though, all wore mostly blank expressions.


    Harris sighed, "Kind of bummed I didn''t see that fight but honestly, I don''t think it would have changed much."


    Felix nodded to acknowledge what he was saying then changed the subject, "So, our grades?"


    He waved them off like he was shooing a bug then dropped back into the booth, "You''ll see tomorrow. I only have to present them to you personally if you got an S so¡­ If I could do it now, I would but Kairune would¡­ I''ll see you tomorrow, Melody."


    She grinned a little and nodded then they all walked out the door of what appeared from the outside, to be a large cottage made mostly of stacked logs.


    I can''t fucking portal back¡­ AHHH!


    None of them knew which direction the campus was but luckily Melody was somehow friends with the planet so, she knelt down and placed her palm against the ground for a moment. A few seconds passed and an arrow appeared in the grass as the blades themselves moved and shaped themselves.


    Felix pulled Nova out to fly Peace and they all headed back to campus.

 Chapter 221 - Book 23

    Felix''s grades wouldn''t be presented until the next morning so he spent his time until then in Ked''s lab. He briefly tested the extent of his inability to cast portals and found it was very extensive. The System didn''t let him use molds, it didn''t let constructs powered by his own mana use molds, it didn''t let him use items created by other people and powered with their mana, it was a complete lock out. Like it didn''t trust him at all anymore.


    He already knew he could walk through portals though so long as someone else was casting and directing them, like El and hopefully, the spires in Telviras.


    Once that was done, he tested the limits of the construct he had made for his exam and realized he hadn''t actually named them yet.


    "Handy? Han? Bob? Li cause you were inspired by a lich?"


    Grim disgustedly banged in Felix''s mind, like he was knocking on a door and insisting he was heard, Those are awful. I mean, you kind of suck at naming but those are¡­ something else.


    Felix snorted, Yeah but¡­ who doesn''t?


    Me, I''m great at names. A new voice cut in, not one Felix thought had permission to.


    He voiced his confusion as he scanned his head, Is that you Nucleus? How are you speaking to me like this?


    Grim raised his hand mentally, which really just meant drawing Felix''s attention to him in his mind, That was me, I was talking with the Nucleus already and I''m just forwarding his voice around a little.


    I see. Alright, let''s hear your name.


    Felix could feel the Nucleus smiling within him as it paused either to think or for dramatic effect, Tory.


    Grim groaned and Felix smirked a little, Short for facTory?


    The Nucleus nodded excitedly, Yeah. See, I told you I wa-


    Felix could tell Grim had cut him off from speaking for the time being and let out a chuckle, Alright, let''s hear the name you came up with.


    Grim shook his head, Let''s ask the construct. Maybe it has a name it already likes.


    It was a good idea so Felix turned to the construct, "What have people been calling you in here?"


    "Many names. Most common, Orby."


    Felix desperately held onto the laugh that tried to burst out of him, "Do you like that name?"


    "It''s fine."


    Sensing the lack of enthusiasm, Felix nodded, "Is there a name you do like?"


    "Art."


    "Who called you that?"


    "No- No one I just¡­ short for Artificer. It''s a word I heard a few times and rather like."


    Grim, any objections?


    Grim shook his head, No actually, I like it.


    "Alright. Art it is then."


    It was impossible for Felix to visually distinguish any expressions on the construct as they were a floating orb surrounded by hands but he got the feeling through his soul that it was happy.


    His testing mostly consisted of seeing how well it could inscribe and upgrade the Seeing Eye constructs he still had from the world event to integrate Adaline''s improvements. As it turned out, it performed much better than Felix had expected and without his intervention, it was 90% of the way to being able to replicate her enchantments.


    He still had to manually adjust the constructs and finish them himself and Art wasn''t going to be coming up with these enchantments on his own any time soon but it still sped Felix''s work up quite a bit. With the remainder of the time he had to wait, Felix pawned off a number of ideas he had had along with the materials and components he had picked up in the world event to Art.


    His own enchantments were significantly less advanced than Adaline''s and he saw no reason why Art wouldn''t be able to finish the work on those constructs.


    They briefly worked together on one of the ideas right up until the designated time in the morning when his grades were to be delivered.


    Heading off to the library, Felix got in line behind a number of other students and waited. It didn''t take long at all as El handed a small card to each student without the need to search or look at all. She just knew where everything was without looking and recognized each and every one of the students immediately.


    Taking his card from her, Felix floated upwards to make room for the next person before looking down at it and groaning.


    ClassSkillGrowthPotentialMana StructuresGroup CombatBABSpecial: Constructs & ElementalsSoul Manipulation, Reading & CultivationSpell FormationSolo CombatSpecial: AnimancySpecial: Mana Control


    Seriously?


    He had already been informed that if grades didn''t appear, it was either because he got an S, or the professor wanted to speak with him. While the prospect of some S grades was enticing, it was also kind of a waste of time and he really wished he had just gotten them on the card.


    Luckily, all the professors were located throughout the library so all he had to do was find the ones he was looking for. Walking through the main area, Felix looked side to side until he spotted the first of the Professor''s he needed to talk to, Director Amelia.


    He walked over but stopped to wait next to the book shelf as she was already talking to Adaline but as soon as he did, she waved him over.


    "Perfect. You''re here just in time. I was just about to explain to Adaline how I normally grade my students."


    Felix stepped over next to Adaline and listened along.


    "I run this exact same test every year with a different goal in mind for the Mana Structure. I always do the test myself however, performing research and talking to colleagues of mine and developing the most efficient version I can. Whichever student is the most efficient, I give them an S in skill-unless the entire class is particularly lacking which has only happened once-and everyone else is graded based on that. If you use more than double that number, you fail."


    She chuckled, "I''ve had students virtually match the efficiency I manage to achieve, within margin of error, but never has anyone outright beat the efficiency I was able to accomplish. I like to think that is a result of the complex subject matter at hand and that it takes years of research and study to even build a baseline. If I maintained this grading scheme, Adaline would get an S and everyone else would fail. However, the both of you beat the efficiency I was able to achieve by a large margin. A few of your classmates managed to get very close to that efficiency as well. So, I''ll ask the both of you, is it fair for me to fail them all?"


    Felix and Adaline looked at each-other, Felix immediately noticing the lack of disgust and hatred from her looking at him, but neither of them seemed to care much what happened to the rest of the class. Adaline answered, just to move the conversation along, "No."


    "Right so, I was forced to completely upend my grading scheme. It also seemed wrong to grade you two differently from the rest of the class so, I spent some time creating a whole new grading scheme to more accurately represent your abilities. For example, I usually grade based on efficiency alone because that was always indicative of skill but Felix, you did not demonstrate skill worthy of an S grade. Adaline on the other hand, I simply can''t assess your skill. Luckily, upon speaking with Kairune and El about the issue, it seems someone else this cycle ran into the very same problem before me."


    Snapping her fingers, both of their cards lightly glowed and Felix looked down to reveal his grade.


    Mana Structures: Skill: B Growth: B Potential: U


    He glanced over at Adaline''s card out of curiosity and she even tilted it towards him as she glanced at his.


    Mana Structures: Skill: U Growth: U Potential: U


    "What''s a U?" Adaline voiced the question before Felix could.


    "Remember I said someone else ran into this before me? I described my problem and Kairune laughed at me because he had already had multiple other professors complain about the very same thing and their solution, was a U. It is a new grade as of this cycle that essentially means Ungradeable."


    Felix nodded a few times slowly, and Adaline immediately followed up, "Will this affect our recruitment offers?"


    She sighed, "Likely. Kairune tried to get in contact and inform as many people of the change as possible and also sent a missive along with the grades but I fear that may end up ignored. Regardless, this was the best option."


    "Okay, anything else? I''ve got 6 others to go through." Felix looked at Amelia as he pivoted one foot back to leave.


    "You have 6 more to go?" She looked at him like he was on drugs then shook her head, sighed and mumbled under her breath, "This fucking cycle¡­"


    He shrugged a little as he turned and walked away, heading further into the library and spotting Professor Elkord. As he headed over, he realized someone was walking right next to him and spotted Adaline. She nodded to him and he realized they were going in the exact same direction.


    "Adaline. Felix." Professor Elkord nodded to the both of them in turn, "Seeing as you were just speaking to Amelia, I take it an explanation is unnecessary."


    Waving his hand, both of their cards glowed and Felix looked down at it.


    Spell Formation: Skill: B Growth: B Potential: U


    She titled her her card towards him once again and let out a slight snort as she saw his.


    Spell Formation: Skill: U Growth: U Potential: U


    We both got exactly the same grade. I wonder if the Professors worked together to grade us.


    "Questions?" Elkord looked at the both of them.


    "No."


    "Nope."


    He nodded, "I suspect I will see you both next cycle."


    They both walked off and this time, split up. Adaline walked back towards the entrance to the library while Felix still had professors to speak with.


    The next of his Professors he spotted were Professors Ked and Sal who were conveniently standing close together.


    Walking over, he had to wait behind a couple other students but once it was his turn, they stepped closer together so they could handle him together, at once.


    Ked spoke first, a slight grin on one side of his face, "I take it you already got the rundown so I''ll skip the theatrics and get right to it. Your skill with constructs is actually fairly mediocre but carried along by a rather impressive level of ingenuity and determination. Not to mention the brains you use in your constructs allow you to push the other aspects of construct craft quite quickly. Where others are worrying about the limits of the brains they use, you worry about the limits of the construct itself."


    Sal grumbled a little, "Your grades were¡­ problematic. I feel slightly guilty but¡­ justified. Here."


    She snapped and Ked followed along in reaction.


    Special: Constructs & Elementals: Skill: A Growth: B Potential: U


    Special: Animancy: Skill: U Growth: U Potential: U


    Felix read through them and chuckled slightly upon seeing his grades in Animancy.


    "As for growth, you''ve made impressive strides but I couldn''t justify anything greater than a B simply because I feel you could have made so much more progress had you focused on Constructs this epoch. I completely understand you had other things on your mind however." Ked offered Felix an apologetic smile.


    He really didn''t mind at all because in his mind, Skill and Growth were great and all but Potential was the most important. The other two were more a measure of discipline and time than anything, Potential was the stat he would look at if he were recruiting someone.


    Felix looked up at them, "What''s Special mean? I mean I think I know but is it any more than what it seems?"


    Ked shook his head, "As Sal explained to you on your first day, it isn''t right for us to teach you the same curriculum and judge you by the same standards as the others. You were technically not in the Constructs & Elementals class but rather in a mentorship under me, essentially."


    Sal nodded along, "While we may not have mentored you directly, your unique abilities belong in the lab, not the class room. I refuse to judge you on textbook knowledge when practical ability is more valuable with your skill. With the others, they have no practical skill so while we wait for them to grow up, we stuff their heads with the basics."


    Felix snorted then nodded and bid them farewell.


    He had expected spotting Fin to be difficult but the small feline professor was floating in the air on a glowing platform which made him rather stand out.


    "Ah, Felix. I''ve been waiting."


    "Professor."


    "As I''m sure the others have told you, there is a new grade this year. I spent quite a while convincing Kairune it was impossible to accurately judge you and despite his numerous objections, he finally agreed. Now, as for your grades, I tried to avoid giving you all three U''s because that seemed too questionable from a recruitment standpoint. For example, I believe Peace is getting a U in skill for Solo Combat not because he is so impressive but rather because he often refuses to fight."


    Felix nodded to indicate he was following.


    "However, I cannot accurately judge your Skill. I learn new things about you and your abilities every class you attend and simply giving you an S would be the biggest understatement of my career. Similarly, how can I accurately assess your Skill in the future if I can''t even judge your Skill, right now. All that left was Growth and that, I may not have the most accurate frame of reference, but I find it shocking how far you''ve come nonetheless."


    Special: Mana Control: Skill: U Growth: S Potential: U


    "Thanks, Professor Fin."


    He smiled, "Just remember who advocated for you when you become famous. If you have time, I''d love to help you next epoch as well but, I understand your time is limited."


    Felix smiled, "I''d like that."


    "Maybe then you''ll tell me about this brain of yours?"


    He shrugged, "Maybe."


    The next professor found was a bit of a surprise to him because while he was happy with his performance, he knew he still didn''t compare to Zeraxes or Romar in Solo Combat.


    Auren was leaning up against a wall in one of the back corners and gazing out the window but immediately turned his head as Felix approached.


    I wonder if he knows when people look at him.


    He didn''t say anything or even move as Felix approached and his card began glowing.


    Solo Combat: Skill: B Growth: S Potential: S


    "Woah." Felix spoke without even really thinking.


    "You would lose in a straight up fight to many of your classmates, hence the B."


    He nodded, "Yeah, I wasn''t expecting the rest of it."


    "You were the most deserving."


    "What do you mean most?"


    "Each class can only assign a single S per category. You got the S in Growth and Potential in Solo Combat."


    Felix frowned, completely taken aback, "Wait, really? Only one S?"


    He nodded.


    "Why me?"


    "As a Professor, how do I think I should evaluate Potential?"


    Felix shrugged, "I don''t know."


    "It''s definitely the hardest to judge. Current Skill is easy. Growth is also easy, just compare exams to evaluation. For Potential, some Professors map your growth over time and look at the curve. If your growth tapers at the end, low potential. If it''s exponential throughout, high Potential."


    Felix shrugged, it seemed like a decent metric to him.


    "This is somewhat problematic because we only see you for an epoch but overall, it''s not bad. What about your growth? Well, you sucked a lot before, now you suck a lot less. It was completely sporadic with random jumps every few months. Was it exponential? Did it taper? I have no fucking idea, so we throw that out the window."


    Auren turned to face Felix, "Do you know what your biggest flaw is when you fight?"


    Felix half nodded half shrugged, "I need more higher damage spells, I need more experience, I need better equipment, I need more defensive spells."


    "So everything?" He sighed, "What stands out?"


    "Experience."


    "Exactly. You remember the Ashound? You took on a creature that was far too strong for you, idiotically I might add, and got caught by unpredictable bullshit. Many who fight an Ashound or other Ancient creatures do. No System based creature would have a Skill that lets them split into multiple, separate entities. You came back a while later and all of a sudden, you have a spell for everything. You fight half the creatures we have in the sim room and suddenly you''re prepared for a whole array of bullshit, not just the Ashound''s."


    He uncrossed his arms and stood up straight, "You not only prepared for other bullshit, abstracted out from the one, but you also learned to expect it. Then, against the Hydra, you were ready for the gaseous breath, took your time and judged its capabilities and learned to predict it. Back to quantifying Potential, for years I''ve encountered students who''s growth is all over the place in combat class. Students who are excellent in very specific scenarios but who refuse to train in any other. I like to fall back on a specific method of measurement."


    Professor Auren leaned forward a little, a little too intense for Felix''s liking but he resisted the urge to move, "Potential is a measure of how high, how good you could get, it''s about us Professors trying to judge that limit but¡­ to get anywhere, you need to live. So, I like to fallback on, how likely is the student to live. If I dropped the entire Solo Combat class into an infinite dungeon, a System Event, on a planet with unknown threats, enemies none of you have ever dreamed of, enemies that eclipse your levels many times over, which of you would live the longest?"


    He leaned back and returned to a fully upright position, "My bet every time is you, without question. You are far better at adapting and you still seem to be improving rapidly. In a real fight, I genuinely believe the ability to adapt, far eclipses how hard Zeraxes can throw his dad''s hand-me-down."


    Felix snorted and nodded, "Thanks."


    Auren crossed his arms and returned to peering out the window as Felix turned and ended up face to face with Adaline which surprised him because he assumed she was done earlier.


    She nodded to him then walked up to Auren as he left.


    The last professor he had to see was Director Fen.


    Finally finding her hiding between some shelves at the back, Felix walked towards her and was suddenly flanked by Melody and Peace, "Hey."


    He assumed they had been waiting for him and so, they all approached together.


    Seeing their trio, Director Fen rolled her eyes and made their cards glow immediately, "With you three, I just refused. Kairune actually let me this time so, that''s new. Don''t even think about taking my class next epoch, audit it if you feel the burning urge to waste your time. Anyways, now shoo."


    Looking down, Felix now had all his grades filled in.


    ClassSkillGrowthPotentialMana StructuresBBUGroup CombatBABSpecial: Constructs & ElementalsABUSoul Manipulation, Reading & CultivationUUUSpell FormationBBUSolo CombatBSSSpecial: AnimancyUUUSpecial: Mana ControlUSU


    The trio all walked away and left the library, stopping in the grassy field where they weren''t surrounded, to talk.


    Felix looked over to Melody, "How long until recruitment offers?"


    "Should be same time tomorrow. You guys want to meet to go over them then?"


    Peace shrugged, "No need. There''s only one I''m accepting anyways."


    "I''d like your input for mine." Felix nodded.


    Melody nodded, "Alright perfect, ARM building then? Adaline and Ayred will already be there."


    Felix nodded, "Sounds good. Where do I pick up my recruitment?"


    "They''ll be delivered to your dorm along with any gifts to try and sway you."


    "Alright, thanks. You just reminded me of something I need to go do." Felix waved to the both of them then flew off as fast as he could to the A-SAM building on campus.


    Technically he was still the head of A-SAM but all he had done on that front was lighten up whatever rules Ayred deemed too strict. Luckily he didn''t actually have to manage anything because in that case, he would have immediately pawned off the responsibility.


    Flying over the building, after grumbling to himself about his loss of portals, Felix saw the building and areas surrounding it were slightly less empty than before he had become head but only by a couple of people. They were just sitting in the grass talking and he flew right by them but still, it was an increase.


    Heading inside, he passed by a few people who nodded in acknowledgement to him, most of which were Adepts. Still though, the size of the building made it feel nearly empty. He didn''t wander around though and headed straight for the room with all the books.


    Inside, he found Ayred standing at the back and taking notes on one of the tomes. He didn''t notice Felix walk in but looked up as he approached the first tome, "OH! Felix, I haven''t seen you in a while. You come to check out the tomes?"


    He nodded, "Now that I know they won''t explode or anything."


    Ayred chuckled, "Yeah, that would be problematic."


    Reaching forwards, Felix found the small inscription below the book and pushed a touch of mana into the mechanism that opened it.


    Alovatorum Elaradus Onasorin


    Illasecium el etr amoredero ehedai mej amoredero illasecium el etr zorek Onasorin lurep, teredri enro ne etr asyyntra el etr Qal''Dari. Enikuwenes, ukweni nocotionos oda elir ukweni enchapno esu ennonitin eno le etr amoredero vemano eteruat, Alovatorum.


    That is¡­ useless.


    Grim chuckled, I''ll see if I can decode anything from that.


    Activating the mechanism next to the plaque, the case that contained the tome vanished in an instant allowing him to reach forwards and pick it up.


    The tome was heavy and solid, not falling apart at the seams or fragile in any way. It was evidently old but not degraded.


    Opening it up and flipping through, Felix sighed as all of the text inside the book was similar gibberish to what he had read on the plaque. On the one hand, it gave more for Grim to use to try and decipher it but he also didn''t see anything he had missed the first time he had scanned it.


    His mana senses came up similarly blank, which he expected considering they didn''t seem hindered before, but his matter senses on the other hand were much more precise than they had been. They still weren''t as impressive as Nova''s but it was enough for him to feel something just off about the tome.


    He had no idea what it was, why he felt it, what was triggering the feeling and he couldn''t say anything more than, it was off. Felix tried for a few minutes to tune in and identify it but eventually gave up and called in the big guns.


    Pulling Nova out of his Soul Space, he dropped the kitten to the ground then had her morph into something a little bigger. She chose a variation of her old panther form which looked mostly similar but the materials that made up her body were evidently different. She now had a weird and inexplicable sheen that slightly shifted colors from different angles and her fur hinted at the fact that she had scales below them. It didn''t make any sense, fur on top of scales, all made of some complex compound material resembling metal or plastic but he didn''t argue with her.


    Holding out the tome, he conveyed his feeling of wrongness, his curiosity and his desire to figure out the book. Nova took less than a second to meow at Felix then dumped a barrage of information he couldn''t parse into him. He tried to sort through what she was saying but it was so far over his head, he couldn''t get a grip on any of the information.


    Grim, can you work with Mark and talk to Nova about this one?


    He nodded, Yeah, I''ll see what we can do.


    Leaving the book in Nova''s mouth-much to Ayred''s horror-Felix stepped over to the next display case and opened it.


    The Personal Journal of Karnasus in the Ilezyni


    A journal detailing the travels of the famous and illustrious Karnasus from the day he stepped foot into the Ilezyni cave system to the day he died. Journal recovered by Edocarius Vel Odius.


    The plaque seemed normal and was thankfully, readable. Lifting and opening the tome, other than the handwriting being awful, it was exactly what it seemed. It was a journal and everything Felix had previously scanned, was still there. Being outside of the display case, his mana, anima and matter senses sensed nothing new and even having Nova take a look at it, she didn''t seem to detect anything special about it.


    He put it back and moved on.


    A few of the books were indecipherable, a few were disguised with mundane titles and contents. The majority of them seemed exactly as they had when Felix had first scanned them though, both he and Nova detecting nothing. It was possible he was missing something with those books but even more likely was that they were simply encoded or encrypted and he would have to run them through a computer.


    He had already been able to sense the anima bound to all of the books but a few of them had some kind of triggering mechanism built within the souls that altered the contents depending on how the books were opened. Felix fiddled with those for a little while, memorizing as much of it as he could so he could later simulate them but didn''t worry about it too much. He already had a number of books to decipher that didn''t require physical contact and manipulation.


    Lastly, Felix''s mana senses made the biggest difference.


    Whatever the display case was, it seemed to ward mana or still it within, like a refrigerator for mana. While his mana senses weren''t hindered before, the mana within the case was suppressed. Taking some of the books out, he immediately felt complex systems going to work within some of the books. Two of them tried to fly away but he didn''t let their mana fill the necessary inscriptions. Many of them just had wards and enchantments inlaid within them and he was pretty sure there wasn''t any information hidden within them but he memorized them anyways to dissect over the break.


    Most interestingly to him though, was a book that was written and appeared mundane but where each page was also written over in mana. It wasn''t just mana ink either, each page contained a three dimensional projection encoded with mana infused into the page using the energy-levels and attunements. What it was, a three dimensional projection, was obvious based on the pattern of how the data was encoded into a grid with the third dimension projected within the cells. What the actual projections showed was a completely different story though.


    He constructed the various projections in his mind but each one was one piece from one of multiple puzzles. They were incredibly complex and many of them matched up for the most part on individual sides but none of them perfectly which made it impossible to just map with a computer. In fact, Felix wasn''t even sure that if he saw the correct configurations, the completed puzzles, he would be able to recognize them as such.


    Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.


    Given he didn''t want to waste a bunch of time on it, he memorized the configuration of each page, a process that was much easier with his Scan Literature spell that tapped into his mana senses. He, Grim or someone else in his head would work on piecing the puzzle together in the future.


    There was one other his mana senses added to the initial scan of but it had to do with mana ink embedded within the pages and revealed more of the encryption or code. It wasn''t overly interesting or fantastical, at least not before it was decoded and he already had most of it scanned, his scan was just more precise now that he''d flipped through the pages.


    Placing the final tome back onto the stand and reengaging the display case, Ayred turned to him, "So, you find anything interesting looking through them this time? Actually holding them?"


    Felix shrugged and pointed at the first book, the one he had handed to Nova directly, "My familiar thinks that one requires some kind of alchemical concoction poured over it." He pointed at the one that was a three dimensional puzzle, "That one contains a different three dimensional puzzle piece on each page encoded in mana. Though, I''m reasonably certain it forms more than one total puzzle." Lastly he pointed at the one with the mana ink, "That one just has mana ink written between the real ink."


    Ayred excitedly ran over to the first one, "What kind of alchemical concoction? Also, it''s not like we can just pour one onto it¡­"


    "Yeah, probably not. There doesn''t seem to be anything special happening with the mana or anima though so I''ll probably just have Nova make me replicas."


    His eyes widened and his head craned forwards, "Nova can what?"


    Felix chuckled a little and had Nova produce a master copy, a replica of the tome made with the original as a reference that was as accurate as she could produce. Then when they left, further copies could be made by comparing to the maser copy, which would be untouched in their experiments and that they would preserve.


    It took some time, after which Felix took the book in his hand and compared the two side by side.


    Ayred stood next to him, holding the actual tome, "They look identical but how do we kno-"


    Felix shook his head, "I can''t but, Nova''s accuracy is subatomic, my mana senses are pretty good and my anima senses are decent. Maybe I''ll come back in the future but for now, this is identical to the both of us."


    "That''s amazing so now, you can just make copies and pour whatever you want over them?"


    Felix shrugged, "Yeah, I''ll probably just have Nova simulate the effect of whatever the alchemical concoction would have done considering this is all just matter."


    Ayred looked down at the panther who immediately began wagging her tail like a dog, "Your familiar is a Matter Sprite, right?"


    Felix nodded, "Started as one."


    "What an awesome choice. I never knew they could be this cool when raised. All the others I''ve ever seen were rocks that just ate up trash and never made anything from it."


    "I got some good advice early on that I could make it work."


    He nodded, "Yeah, whoever that was, you should thank them. You said your mana senses were pretty good," Ayred walked over to the one with the three-dimensional projection, "Are you sure bout this one?"


    Felix nodded, "Yeah. The attunement is color, energy-levels are depth."


    "Wh- That''s awesome! So can you piece them together, see what they make?"


    He shook his head, "Not really, they aren''t super clear cut. None of the pieces fit together with any other perfectly so I can''t really be sure which go where."


    He nodded, "So either you''re missing something or the creator added superfluous information to throw readers off."


    "Yeah basically. Can''t really stick it into a computer either."


    He nodded, "Not this one. Speaking of though, any idea which recruitment offers you''re looking forward to most?"


    "Nah. I''ve got a couple I know I''ll get no matter what, as for everything else¡­ I''ll probably just let Melody tell me what''s best."


    He nodded, "You''re gonna meet us in ARM then?"


    Felix nodded, "Yeah, I''m still a clueless integrated so I appreciate your perspectives."


    He chuckled, "Fair enough. I''ll see you then?"


    Felix nodded and waved then walked out and flew off towards Ked''s lab where he spent the rest of the time until the recruitment offers were scheduled to arrive.


    He flew back a little later than he should have, still not used to planning for flying time now that he couldn''t cast portals himself, and walked into his dorm. In the large open section of his room intended for large rituals, he found a number of small boxes, envelopes and cards.


    Felix briefly looked at them before stowing them in the Kryptos Repository-because his Soul Space was too squishy-grabbing Nova, and flying off to the ARM building.


    Dropping through the branches of the forest surrounding the massive log cabin cottage that was the ARM building, Felix opened the door and was stunned. The inside of the cabin was filled with people that were evidently throwing a party, a rather rowdy one at that, but standing on the front step, he heard nothing.


    Seeing the party directly in front of him and hearing none of it, even catching the sound of a few leaves fluttering and falling to the ground behind him, threw him off.


    Stepping forwards through the barrier, even before his ears passed through, he could feel the noise.


    He closed the door behind him then pushed his way through the crowd of students drinking, talking, shouting and playing games whilst music blasted out into the building. Felix briefly looked around amongst the students and Adepts on the ground, flying through the air and in the few rooms he could peer into before sighing and giving up.


    Reaching inwards, he quickly flashed his soul as loudly as he could, the way Peace had taught him to do in Group Combat. Quite a few people turned and looked towards him with expressions ranging from curiosity to disgust to combat stances but he ignored all of them and just waited. A moment later, Melody popped out from over the loft railing and waved to him.


    He flew up and followed her into one of the rooms on the second floor. As soon as they closed the door behind them, the raging sound of the party in the building vanished and the music quieted until it settled in as a distant background noise.


    In the room, there was a large table surrounded by chairs, like a conference room. The floor to ceiling and wall to wall window on the opposite side from the door provided plenty of light and the room itself was rather spacious.


    Sitting around the table already were Adaline and Ayred, each with a small collection of cards, envelopes and boxes in front of them. At the end of the table closest the window, was a pile that dwarfed the rest of theirs with dozens of massive gifts and over a hundred cards, the entire thing taking up nearly half the table.


    Felix assumed that was Melody''s and took an empty seat a few down from Ayred, on the closest side, and relocated his pile to the table in front of him.


    Looking around, his pile was about half the size of Adaline''s and about the same size as Ayred''s, though he wasn''t sure how significant size was.


    "You guys already go through yours?" Felix looked around.


    "We only just opened one of Ayred''s actually." Melody took a seat away from her pile so he she could actually see the others.


    Ayred stretched and leaned over the table a little, across the couple of seat between them and tilted a card towards Felix in his hand.


    [Legendary] Recruitment Offer


    Sha''alin Zadik invites you to join the shadows.


    "She''s particularly concise with hers but¡­ yeah."


    Felix frowned a little, "That''s the shadow god right?"


    "Well, yes. You know no god is the god of anything but yeah¡­" Seeing Felix nod in confirmation, Melody continued, "She focuses on shadow, stealth, stealing, picking locks, picking pockets and all that."


    "You''re a merchant, right? I know your nickname or moniker is The Deraav''n Shadow Dealer but¡­ Legendary? I assume that''s high?"


    Ayred sat back in his seat and nodded, "Yeah, I was expecting this one. It''s more about networking than learning anything. I''m not going to be training in shadow magic or anything, mostly just meeting with their network of fences."


    "Ah. Gotcha. So the recruitment offers are graded with the same rarity scale?" Felix looked to Melody.


    "Yup." She nodded, "It wasn''t always like this but nowadays, everyone is on board with this system of grading them. Anything more granular just goes in the description."


    Felix nodded and his eyes settled on the small pile before him, "I take it we''re not going around the table and opening these one by one?"


    Ayred snorted, "No no, we just figured we''d wait a bit for you in case you had the same questions. This is just one I knew I was getting that we knew neither of you were getting, plus-" Ayred waved the pitch black card in the air, "-it''s easily identifiable."


    Nodding in understanding, Felix reached for one of the items in his own pile, a box made of carved and dyed ivory.


    Opening the lid, he found a small card suspended within with a simple enchantments over a small fire. He pinched and removed the card to read it.


    [Divine] Recruitment Offer


    Tekragoraxius extends her claw in offer of a first epoch recruitment, single slot, details to be discussed upon arrival.


    "Damn that''s a nice box. She definitely knows how to impress. Or someone in her faction does at least." Melody''s voice was somehow, right in Felix''s right ear.


    Though he hadn''t noticed her move, he did know she was leaning over his shoulder now, "Single slot?"


    "Means a quarter of the epoch. The recruitment epoch is typically split into 4 and you choose which you want and when, depending on when they''re offered."


    "Wait¡­ I can have two recruitments I want scheduled for the first slot and I''d be screwed?"


    Ayred nodded and looked over as he tossed aside a pair of intricate and expensive looking cards, "Yeah¡­ You definitely could. It''s not an issue with the bigger and more prominent recruiters but it definitely happens."


    Felix looked over at Ayred because Melody was too close for him to turn in her direction, "What''s Divine mean? Just higher than Legendary?"


    He grinned, "Usually it means the god is willing to tutor you directly but, Tekragoraxius never offers recruitment''s herself so, who knows." Anticipating Felix''s question before he even had to ask, "She''s the head of the Dragon faction. They usually send out recruitments as a faction or the other Dragon gods under her send out recruitments of their own."


    "So, you think this is your reward for saving The Halls of the Dragon''s Hoard." Melody walked back over to her seat without looking away from Felix.


    He just shrugged, "Maybe."


    In reality, he knew he didn''t deserve a reward really, he didn''t do anything she hadn''t planned for him to do. He also knew full well that he was accepting this offer and he was going to ask her for one anyways. Even if he didn''t actually save The Hall of the Dragon''s Hoard from an actual threat, he was still helping her somehow and he was not a fan of the attention he was getting because of it. In his mind at least, that gave him some amount of bargaining room.


    Reaching for the next card, the entire building shook a little and Felix looked worriedly towards Melody and Ayred but Ayred just chuckled, "That''ll happen when someone gets a little too drunk and decides to show off. The planet will fix it though, don''t worry."


    Felix nodded and turned back to the pile.


    Picking up the next card that caught his eye near the top of the pile, Felix grabbed a card that was mostly light blue with a strip of green at the bottom. Actually focusing on it, he realized it was supposed to be a cartoonish landscape shot.


    As soon as it was in his hand, a humanoid wearing bright purple and white robes floated into frame. Instead of a human skull though, it had what appeared to be an antlered bird skull for a head.


    It floated over into the middle and waved up at him then a moment later, normal skeleton walked in from the left and joined the first figure. They played out a little skit with the first figure teaching the second then the white and purple robed skeleton waved his hand and text was written out in hand written dark purple ink.


    [Legendary] Recruitment Offer


    Hey! It''s me, Zyrek Al Ular or more commonly, Zyrek The Death Whisperer. I''d like to offer you a place amongst my Necromantic Sect for one to four quarters with the utmost benefits fully included. Though I am a Lich and I mostly teach Necromancy, we don''t deal in Necromancy exclusively and have plenty more in terms of Animancy, Enchanting, Spell Craft, Rituals and more!


    Huh.


    "Zyrek?" Felix asked the room without looking up from the card.


    Melody responded in a apathetic tone, "Necromancer Lich god. Seems nice. Dad likes him."


    Felix hmphed, "I thought necromancy was frowned upon?"


    She shrugged, "When you do it lazily and improperly, sure. Zyrek is a big proponent of doing necromancy correctly, basically just constructs but with biological bodies and reused souls. He makes sure to treat both humanely though."


    The next one he picked up was a solid metal card with rough looking runic script engraved across it and looking around briefly, all of them had an identical card in their piles.


    [Epic] Recruitment Offer


    You have been invited to spend the third or fourth quarter of your recruitment in Osgard by Vo Rhonan Callahan.


    It wasn''t difficult for him to confirm they all had the same rarity of recruitment as well with his Perception, "Does everyone always get one from Rhonan?"


    Melody tossed a few cards over her head then peered past her pile, "Not usually. Him and Edras this cycle though offered recruitments to basically everyone." Finally finding what she was looking for, she waved a recruitment that looked like a small book between her fingers.


    Felix grabbed his recruitment that was identical to the one she was showing. It wasn''t so much a small book as an ancient looking tome that was literally shrunk down in terms of its proportions.


    [Epic] Recruitment Offer


    This book may be exchanged for a recruitment quarter in The Arcanum Pansophical.


    Flipping to the next page and briefly skimming the rest of the book, Felix found what was effectively a catalog of what would be available to him were he to accept. There were lists of books, time amounts with various resources, including Edras'' various computers along with mentors and more.


    The next one was a metal card but it looked like a complex machine. It was about the size of a smart phone, mostly metal, and filled to the brim with complex enchantments and inscriptions that Felix''s mana senses and mind had been devouring.


    [Special] Recruitment Offer


    The Kobeus Xitarum faction extends an offer of trial employment for the first quarter of the recruitment epoch.


    Holding it up, Felix looked over at Melody''s pile that had shrunk by half and yet still completely obscured her, "Kobeus Xitarum faction?"


    Before Melody made an appearance, Adaline snatched a similar looking recruitment from in front of her and listened along as Ayred actually, answered, "It''s an enchantment or- rather, an arcanomechanical crafting focused faction. They build some of the best vessels in the multiverse. It is very rare for them to offer recruitments. They must really like you two."


    Adaline''s eyes opened a little wider upon hearing that but Felix just got less interested. It didn''t beat out any of the four he was already leaning towards so he didn''t have time.


    There were only three left, two of which were normal and one of which was not. The abnormal one was actually just a mundane looking bone. He looked over at Ayred, the merchant, to see if he knew what it was but he just looked at it and shrugged.


    "Melody, any idea what this is?"


    She peered around her pile and instantly groaned, "Ugh. Yeah, that''s for me. My dad told me to personally deliver you the message that he''d like you to visit some time during the recruitment. He also gifted you some property on one of the secondary planets in his reign. I took the liberty of selling it under my name to someone who values it way more than it''s worth."


    Felix frowned a little and she cocked a brow, "If you want property for something, we''ll go shopping but I guarantee you don''t want it there. If you were going to ask about the credits, all of it amounts to less than I''ve paid for in your name, but you can have em if you want em."


    He though about arguing with her that he should be the one to make that choice but ultimately, he realized she was more informed and he trusted her judgement enough. He also had no use for random property, especially without portals to get to it. On a planet in a God''s reign probably also meant they would be watching his every move, which was probably the reason they gave it to him in the first place and suddenly, he very much agreed with Melody''s actions.


    He waved her off, indicating she could keep the credits. He really didn''t find himself using them much, even if he were paying for anything himself. Maybe in the future it would be an issue but for the time being, he much preferred not thinking about it at all.


    Of the last two, Felix quickly glanced at the one who''s name he didn''t recognize, a simple card with little adornment.


    [Divine] Recruitment Offer


    Good Morning, Afternoon or Evening (depending on when you read this),


    We, Thorin and Blizz, would like to extend an offer of recruitment to you, Felix Kade & Nova, for as long as you''d like during your first recruitment period. I know you''re an exile so allow me to introduce ourselves, I Thorin am a Neutral God and Blizz, is my familiar, also a Neutral God.


    As for our recruitment, we focus entirely on the familiar bond and how you fight together. I am personally a caster, like you, but we also have knowledge from melee fighters, rangers, beast masters, summoners and tamers. Occasionally we take on pairs who simply fight together as we have become quite specialized in pair combat in general.


    Please consider our offer,


    Thorin & Blizz.


    I¡­ Really wish I could accept this. Not only is it Divine, but whoever wrote this clearly went the extra mile to learn about me. They didn''t write integrated, like most people, but they know I''m an exile. They know my familiar''s name, my base class. None of that is hard to find but¡­ none of the other recruitments bothered.


    "Thorin and Blizz?"


    Melody peered over her pile now that it was much shorter, "Love those guys. They tend to stay away from Divine Politics and do their own thing."


    "Would it be worth taking it over Edras or Rhonan''s?"


    Melody slid her chair to the side so she could see him, "Not Edras, they are too different. With Rhonan''s recruitment, I mean he''ll offer everything but, you''ll probably focus on combat. Thorin and Blizz will also focus on combat but exclusively how you and Nova fight together. Rhonan''s will be much more about challenging enemies and throwing you into fights you can barely handle, if you look for fights, you''ll be on your own. He also has a library and just about every resource and facility you could imagine."


    Damn, that sounds way too fun. I love Nova but¡­ I don''t want to waste time learning to tandem fight when I could be improving my spells, adding mana channels, gaining battle experience¡­


    Felix sighed and dropped the card then picked up the last one and added it to the pile of recruitments he was expecting.


    [Legendary] Recruitment Offer


    Oak of Ahtos, disciple of Amatara would like to personally invite you to The Akikabara Monastery.


    Pushing the others aside, after confirming the tooth Kjarne had sent was E grade and not worth dissecting, Felix laid out the four recruitments he had decided upon, Amatara, Rhonan, Edras, Tekragoraxius.


    Looking over at Melody who had shrunk her pile down to just a few dozen, Felix tapped at the recruitments in front of him, "Does ordering matter?"


    She shook her head, "Nah. Other than the recruitments that specified slots, it doesn''t make a difference."


    "But-" Ayred chimed in, "-you should think about what you''re going to be doing at each. Have a goal in mind for each recruitment, know roughly what they have to offer and how you''re going to use those resources. Then, plan your goals such that they follow each-other in an optimal, or at least logical way."


    "Meh." Melody waved him off, "Just show up and have fun."


    Alright definitely ignoring Melody on this one. My goals¡­ With Amatara I''d like to master more curses if possible or just work on my soul. It might also help with healing my chest wound so it makes sense to be first. With Tekragoraxius and Edras, I want to improve my mind and body as well as improve all my spells if possible. If I have any extra time there, I''ll work on constructs. Rhonan is mostly combat and has everything so if I put that one last, I can use everything I gained from the others and use his resources to finish up anything I didn''t have the time for.


    I''ll spend a bit of time training Nova to use the Reaper''s Skills at least through Reaper''s Bond so she can come with me to The Monastery. After that, I can drop her off with Tekragoraxius who I''m sure, will be happy to have a distraction for Endycor. She could come with me to Rhonan''s too I guess, up to her at that point.


    I also don''t know if Tekragoraxius'' recruitment will be what I want it to be and what exactly I''ll get out of it so having it before Edras means I won''t waste time on the same thing at both.


    So, Amatara, Tekragoraxius, Edras, Rhonan.


    Picking up the four cards in an ordered stack, he looked at Ayred who was also done with his, "What do I do with these?"


    "You just show up and present them."


    Felix nodded, "Alright, easy enough."


    Ayred nodded towards the stack in his hands, "What''d you end up with?"


    "In order, Amatara, Tekragoraxius, Edras, Rhonan."


    He shook his head quickly, "Forgot about your relationship with The Dragon Mother for a second. Makes sense. I''m leaning towards Kobeus Xitarum, Sha''alin Zadik then¡­ maybe Radleus Idridor¡­"


    Melody scoffed loudly, "Why not Radleus?"


    Ayred winced, "I just¡­ don''t really like the guy."


    She laughed, "Yeah¡­ I guess you wouldn''t."


    Melody leaned over towards the other side of the table, "What about you Adaline?"


    She snatched three of the cards from the table, seemingly at random, "Kobeus Xitarum, Sal-Khi, Edras, Rhonan."


    "Wow, a lot more overlap than I expected." Melody shrugged, "I''m only taking Rhonan''s, I have a franchise of bakeries to grow after all. I''ll line it up with you guys though so, maybe I''ll see you there."


    "You probably won''t see me," Ayred shrugged in Adaline''s direction, "I''m not an enchanter and mine is more of a supplier type thing."


    She seemed completely unbothered and just blinked in response. A few moments of silence passed and she pushed herself away from the table and walked out.


    "Okay later, bye-" Melody waved, "See you at Rhonan''s maybe?"


    She just left without another word.


    Melody chuckled and Felix rose as well but stopped halfway up as he noticed a single recruitment left from Adaline''s pile. All the others she had taken with her.


    It looked like a completely mundane card with light red, almost orange ink.


    [Divine] Recruitment Offer


    Akaroth.


    Huh.


    He left it alone though as he turned to Melody and Ayred in turn, "How many Archons, Neutral and Edras following gods are there?"


    Melody began vacuuming up her discarded recruitments as she answered, "56 Archons, 32 Gods and 24 Dragon Gods. 94 Neutral gods, 87 normal and 7 Dragon. Some people call Edras followers the rebel gods, not everyone though and they have, 27 normal gods."


    Felix cocked his head a little, "Huh. So without the Dragons, the Archons and Rebel gods are about even?"


    Adaline stopped what she was doing and leaned forwards, "Without the Dragons or Rhonan, they''re about even."


    Felix nodded, "Right."


    She chuckled, "I know they''re all gods but¡­ if it were Rhonan against all the other gods, he would probably win. I''m¡­ reasonably confident. He''s that much stronger. You can''t just look at the numbers."


    Felix shook his head in disbelief, "How?"


    She shrugged and Ayred snickered, "Great question."


    "So if he really is injured¡­" Felix winced.


    "Yeah¡­ things might get dicey. The Archons are still pretty stable though and even though they''re neutral, a lot of Neutral gods would side with them if it actually came down to it. Without Rhonan¡­ less would but I''d still put my money on 2 or 3 to 1 Archons to Rebel gods."


    "Gotcha, so don''t start worshiping Edras then." Felix nodded.


    Melody pffted, "It doesn''t matter, nothing is actually going to happen. Worship whoever you want."


    Felix shrugged then finally flew over the table towards the door, "Good luck with your bakeries Melody and your recruitments Ayred. Thanks for the answering my questions."


    They both responded in kind and Felix left.


    After flying through the party that still raged on throughout the building, Felix flew his way over to the portal room so he could head to his first recruitment at The Monastery. Heading into the building, he had to wait in a small line as others headed to their own recruitments. Most of the students held their recruitments in their hands and chatted with others in the line about where they were heading and why.


    Overhearing and peeking around, he was surprised to find just a handful of people heading to the same place, three of them to Edras'' recruitment. Almost everyone else was heading somewhere completely different but, he heard quite a few talking excitedly about Rhonan and Edras''s in their future terms. It seemed almost everyone was heading to one or both of them during the epoch.


    Once it was his turn, Felix stepped up to El at the podium and flashed her Amatara''s recruitment card but she held up a hand and stopped him, "I have a message for you from Peace. He''s requested you make a quick stop before your first recruitment."


    Felix cocked his head, "Where?"


    She shrugged, "He gave me portal coordinates for Telviras and said he''d meet you there. Would you like to head there or to your recruitment?"


    Felix shrugged, "Send me to the Telviras coordinates please."


    She nodded and a moment later, the portal frame lit up and filled itself with an image of Telviras'' Teleportation Hub beyond.


    As the portal frame filled, Felix watched with a tinge of frustration at losing his own ability to open portals and he noticed for the first time, the constant buzz on the anima loudened around the portal just as it was filling. The System static became more active and denser and now that he knew what he was looking for and constantly heard it, now that he began noticing it more and more, he actually saw it with Reaper''s Sense.


    Once it was opened, he didn''t stall and simply stepped through into Telviras.


    The portal closed behind him and an attendant stepped into the room to greet him, "I''ve been instructed to direct you to another room in the building. Please, follow me."


    Felix followed along as they passed through multiple seamless portals throughout the halls making the building a true maze.


    Oddly however, they walked farther than Felix ever had in the building, especially with seamless portals integrated into the halls. Those seamless portals eventually disappeared though, after just a few kilometers of walking and instead, they manually descended stairs deep into he building where the normally white walls darkened along with the ambient lighting.


    Finally the stairs ended and they stepped into a hallway that was a hundred meters wide and multiple kilometers long. Along either side were doors, each one unique from the next. Some were made of tangled roots woven together, others were made of dark metal and some seemingly pure light that didn''t shine on anything other than itself.


    The attendant led him to one of the doors at the very back of the room made of what looked like solid shadow. Next to it there was a completely wooden door and a door of enchanted metal. Each of them, all of the doors at the end of the hall in fact, were by far the most oppressive feeling things Felix had ever encountered, each for a different reason.


    The enchanted door was magically, more complex than anything he had ever seen. It was intricate, moving, in more dimensions than he knew existed and easily as intricate as The System, if not more. In fact, Felix used his mana senses to reach into four spatial dimensions. As soon as he traced just a small fragment of the enchantment on the enchanted door, it was like multiple eyes had opened up and suddenly he was aware of so many more.


    His head hurt a little from trying to process all of it and he quickly ignored all of them by manually turning them off, eager to revisit them during one of his recruitments.


    The wooden door was a physical marvel and his matter senses were completely overwhelmed. Had he not squished Nova into his Soul Space, he wasn''t sure he would be capable of stopping her from trying to eat it. It was dense, complex and so far beyond him, he didn''t really get anything from it.


    Lastly, the shadow door, the one they approached. It was, not a physical door at all as far as Felix could tell, rather it was made from pure anima. It somehow still blocked light though so he wasn''t sure what was happening but it was the first time he had ever seen anima structured into something that seemed physical, at least to his senses.


    The attendant pulled a pure white key out of a spatial storage and pushed it into the door at a random spot. They didn''t bother turning it and just removed it a moment later as the door swung slowly inwards to reveal a small room, a few meters wide at most.


    The attendant gestured into the room and nodded.


    Felix hesitated for a moment then came to a decision and stepped past the door. It closed behind him, as he was expecting and a few minutes passed in complete darkness before Felix felt a partly mana partly anima spell activate and create a spinning vortex before him.


    The vortex quickly expanded to a few meters wide and revealed one of the most beautiful cities Felix had ever seen. It was a portal, he knew that and yet, there was no buzz around it. In fact, he could feel and see the static that persisted everywhere vanish on the other side of the portal.


    Floating through, the portal closed behind him and Felix found himself on a relatively small floating platform in the sky. It was a rock with grass on top of it that was held to the next platform by a chain. The platforms descended down to an island in the ocean with cliffs on all sides. S§×ar?h the nov§×lF~ire.net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    The city itself was dominated by what looked to be almost a castle except that it was made up of distinct towers. Felix would have seen them as unique structures were it not for the fact that they were connected together with tall and wide bridges that were completely symmetrical. It was evidently a planned structure that made up the majority of the city.


    In shape, the skyscrapers that were joined together formed some discrete math function Felix couldn''t identify with its symmetry.


    That was just the center though and the land was completely developed with roads between them leading out into a series of non-symmetrical random buildings that were beautiful in their own right but not part of a larger pattern.


    Those buildings largely ended at the cliffs around the edge of the island. Across a short stretch of ocean on all sides, were other islands, each one a different biome with its own city within.


    There was an icy island with buildings made of wood, snow and ice. There was a forest island, a desert island, a mountainous island, a volcanic island, an entirely quartz and marble island as well as one below the ocean Felix couldn''t make out. He knew it was there though because each city was connected to the center city and each-other through large passageways or floating bridges.


    It was, in every sense, a city with a place for everyone.


    Not bothering with the stepped platforms, Felix floated down to the island where he found Peace waiting for him.


    "I was a little worried you would ignore my message." Peace smirked.


    "I¡­ thought about it. Some more details up front would have helped."


    Peace shrugged, "Not possible. Anyways, this-" He gestured to the man next to him, "-is Hollow Claw."


    [SS - Unique] Hollow Claw (Lvl 5203)


    Holy shit.


    Hollow Claw was humanoid but with light blue, translucent skin that revealed subtly glowing insides within. His head was bald of hair and his ears didn''t protrude at all but rather, were a built into the side of his head. He had two holes instead of a nose and completely white eyes. As his name suggested, his hands didn''t seem to have human fingers with joints but instead, everything after the first joint was replaced with a claw that resembled a dagger.


    Folding his arms behind his back, Hollow Claw lightly bowed to Felix, "Felix Kade. I have been waiting for you for longer than you know."


    Felix winced a little but mostly held the reaction back from his face, "Uh¡­ okay then. Nice to meet you."


    Peace nodded, "Alright, let''s get started then."


    "Uh¡­ what''s going on?" Felix fell back a step, slightly fearful of a SS grade, Unique creature.


    Hollow Claw stepped forwards and addressed Peace, "Allow me." Before turning back to Felix, "It''s about time The Cult of the Reaper is explained to you, of all people. Have you ever been on the brink of death yourself? Genuinely believed your end was inevitable? What ran through your mind at that moment?"


    Felix relaxed a bit as he realized he wasn''t going to be attacked and shook his head, "I''ve never felt like it was really the end. Even when I had doubts about whether I should get back up or not, I''ve always known I would get back up. I always believe there''s a chance."


    Hollow Claw smirked, "I see. I didn''t think of you as a hopeful optimist, from what I''d heard."


    Felix shook his head again, "It''s not hope. It''s just¡­ who I am. I will never believe there isn''t a way to fight back." To punctuate his point, Felix tinged his aura with his conviction.


    Hollow Claw bowed his head slightly, "I see." He turned and looked off towards the city behind him as he slowly stepped towards the edge of the small island, "I have. Many have. Even without your life flashing before your eyes, have you ever thought about what you want to leave behind? What you want your life, your impact to be?"


    "Uh¡­ Sort of. Before the integration when my life span was less than 80 epochs, I thought about it a bit but¡­ I came to the conclusion that nothing I would ever do would really matter in terms of the universe. I was a spec of dust on a planet. Nothing I did mattered so I was content to just enjoy my life and drift off into nothingness. Now, I don''t really know enough to have thought about it." Felix looked out at the ocean and chuckled a little, "The only thing that comes to mind is living forever. If that''s not an option, I''ll struggle and fight and¡­ I want to know. I want to learn¡­ everything."


    Hollow Claw chuckled but didn''t turn around, "While I admire your curiosity and ambition, that isn''t an impact."


    "I don''t know¡­ that I care?" Felix shrugged.


    "I see. Many of us, with multiversal life spans, have more than enough time to ponder this and everything else. I, as many before and after me have, came to the simple conclusion that¡­ We want to be remembered. We want our stories to be known. We want people to know our names, not famously, not everyone but anyone. I want someone to remember me and my story, no matter how insignificant it may be."


    Hollow Claw turned halfway around so his side faced Felix, "That''s what we do-" He looked over at Peace, "Death''s Shadows and The Cult. We remember."


    "So, what I am doing here and now. With the both of you then? Are you having me sign a contract to join or something?"


    Peace chuckled and Hollow Claw laughed, "No. Today¡­" He took a deep breath, "Is the day I finally die."


    Felix looked at Peace with a furrowed brow, his expression begging for an explanation.


    Peace nodded solemnly, "You may never get there, some don''t. Hollow Claw has done everything he''s ever wanted to do. Been everywhere he''s ever wanted to go. He¡­ we call it The Tranquility."


    "The Peace." Hollow Claw added, "It''s¡­ a feeling of oneness with everything around me is the best way I can describe it."


    "He''s one of the oldest Death''s Shadow though and has remembered so many¡­ Unless they are all forgotten, unless he releases all of them¡­ He needs to pass all of those memories on to someone else."


    "Normally, us really old Shadows would have The Reaper personally unburden us but¡­"


    Peace sighed and looked at his feet, "That''s not possible right now."


    "So what exactly is it you want me to do?" Felix looked at them, still unclear.


    "To remember, we take in the souls of someone who has died and preserve the experiences within their core souls. Everything else, you can either use or dispose of as needed."


    Felix frowned, "So it''s just¡­ a bunch of anima?"


    Peace placed his hand on Felix''s shoulder, "The whole point of what we do, is that it''s not just a bunch of anima. It''s the significant experiences and stories of real people that lived. Not what we or the uncaring universe deem significant, it''s what they saw as significant."


    "You want me to take your soul¡­ and preserve the experiences within?" Felix looked at both of them for confirmation.


    "Yes." Hollow Claw turned back to face Felix and smiled.


    Felix shrugged, "Alright, give me a bit to move some things around in my soul. Shouldn''t take more than a few minutes."


    Looking inwards, Felix recreated the simple lattice tubing he had used to move all of the Rakyt souls into his mind city. He had been planning on creating something more permanent for exactly this purpose during his recruitment with Amatara anyways and had already refined and iterated on the design mentally. He would have liked to test things a little more and because he didn''t have the time, he ended up with a temporary design he was certain would work.


    It was just a replica of what he had used the first time with some small iterations and improvements he had thought of since.


    The biggest dilemma for him though, was how to have a path that didn''t also open him up to the outside permanently. His solution was to have it be either temporary or sealed most of the time. He had no idea how to make it temporary without tearing apart his soul every time he wanted to remove it so, he went with the sealed option for the time being.


    The tube was like a tunnel that led into the Soular System around his core soul all the way into his left palm, the same hand that wore The Soul Devouring Ring.


    For the time being, he connected that tunnel to one of the planets which he structured similarly to the one hosting his Mind City except this one, was designed entirely for stability. The anima within felt dead because he had removed its flexibility and willingness to evolve and change. The complete opposite of imbuing The Spark of Life.


    Lastly, he created multiple valves or doors along the tunnel he could open and close at will.


    Opening his eyes, Felix found Peace and Hollow Claw sitting next to each-other on the edge of the island, staring out at the city beyond.


    "I''m ready."


    Hollow Claw took a breath then stood up and walked over. He knelt down on one knee in front of Felix and looked up at him, "I''ve weakened my neck manually and lowered my health with poisons in preparation. All you have to do is behead me."


    Felix raised a brow, "What about your body?"


    He chuckled, "I have no interest in being buried. I would be happy for you to dissect it as you please."


    "Awesome."


    Hollow Claw chuckled then closed his eyes. He extended his neck as much as he could physically revealing a ring of what looked like bruised skin around it.


    Felix looked at Peace one last time.


    Peace nodded.


    Reaching his left hand forwards, Felix placed it on Hollow Claw''s chest then used his other hand to manually draw a Blade Spell in the air with the entirety of his focus and as much mana as he could possibly shove into it. He really didn''t want it to only make it halfway through or something.


    Aiming for the ring of weakened flesh, Felix''s Blade Spell slipped right through his neck.


    There was no Ding from The System as Felix had already suspected from the lack of static, The System didn''t have any influence here. It also meant he gained no experience but, he wasn''t sure it would have granted him any anyways when his target had offered themselves up to him.


    Felix knew he had died instantly though as his soul immediately started flowing into the tunnel he had made and into the planet he was holding still within his Soular System.


    While the actual amount of anima was impressive for a creature, it was nothing compared to The System. The density was good but nothing noteworthy, the size was big but not not System like. The overall alignment and actual strength of it, was also very good from three stable convictions of truth, protection and unseen.


    However, while not dense or particularly strong the anima felt saturated. It was more filled with experiences, instincts, memories, stories that made up lives than he had ever experienced before. It reminded him somewhat of the curse monster that had been Talrain when they fought. It was like he heard millions of voices, all of their souls carefully merged to create a simple but tight structure just to separate them from Hollow Claw''s actual core soul.


    The structure was clearly enough for him but Felix never would have trusted it given how loose and simple it was.


    All of the experiences poured into the planet he had directed them to without issue and examining it, he didn''t find any problems. As soon as he had absorbed the entirety of Hollow Claw''s soul, he detached the planet and tossed it back into orbit then sealed the tube he had used.


    All the extra anima from his soul, the part that would let him increase his stats marginally, he left in the planet for later consumption at Amatara''s.


    He activated The Blood Ring then looked over at Peace.


    Peace looked stared at him incredulously, "You okay?"


    Felix shrugged, "Yeah. I feel fine."


    Peace squinted, "What was Hollow Claw''s Mother''s name?"


    Reaching inwards, Felix sifted through a number of the memories before he decided that would be impossible. If Peace were asking him, it must have been possible to retrieve information so, he decided to just try things. Reaching out into the anima, he formed a question as best he could and let it echo out into the planet.


    Nothing happened.


    He thought about it for a few seconds then tried to echo out a couple things at once, first was the essence of who Hollow Claw was, his convictions and the overall experience of his core soul. He also echoed out a sense of childhood and being cared for, though he wasn''t entirely certain that was how mother''s would act wherever he was from.


    It was obviously not an issue as he got an echo in response that equated to a word he couldn''t possibly pronounce.


    Opening his eyes, he gave it a shot, "lkrsdr''wvg-qpelr."


    Peace''s face relaxed and he shrugged, "Close enough."


    "Actually, there is no System here, right?"


    Peace nodded.


    "So¡­ how are we speaking? Who is translating?"


    Peace cocked his head, "You''re speaking System common?"


    "What? I am?"


    I worked with the Nucleus to move over a few common and useful languages from the translation protocols in the sub System chunk. Then, I moved some thing around and set the default speaking language in your mind to instinctively be System Common. Grim explained.


    Oh¡­ I¡­ Alright, seems fine I guess. Is it more efficient of a language?


    Yes, but only because English wasn''t particularly efficient. I know of others that are more efficient but System Common is designed to be as pronounceable by everyone as possible while also being the best for mapping to and from other languages. For that, it''s the best I''ve ever encountered.


    Gotcha, it''s mostly about compatibility.


    Yup.


    We thinking about moving my thoughts and encoding my knowledge to the most efficient one we can think of?


    Yes but not yet, that would be more involved and we should probably have Mark''s upcoming upgrades in place before attempting it.


    Okay, sounds good.


    "Anything else?" Felix addressed Peace.


    "Nope."


    Felix nodded, "Alright, I''m heading to my first recruitment then."


    "What did you choose as your first one?"


    "Amatara."


    Peace''s eyes widened, "Oh sweet, I''ll join you then. I don''t have time for more than one and I was just planning on joining you whenever you decided to head there."


    Felix looked around, "How do we get out of here?"


    "Back the way we came." Peace hopped up to the next platform, a multiple hundred meter jump, then leapfrogged to the next.


    Felix just flew himself right at the final platform and arrived at about the same time as Peace who placed his palm flat on the ground, opening a swirling vortex portal before them.


    They both stepped through and Peace pushed the black, solid anima door open on the other side.


    There was no attendant to greet them but Peace didn''t need one. He simply led them over to another door in the bottom hallway, a red wooden door sitting within a red wooden door frame around it, built into the wall. It stood out because most of the other doors lacked customized frames.


    He simply pushed on the door to open it, not needing a key at all, and stepped into the small room beyond. Felix followed and Peace tapped on the wall, almost like he was lightly knocking on a door. A moment later, a vertical line appeared in the air before them that quickly expanded into a square window, revealing a forest of red leaves with a stone path.


    They both stepped through and the portal closed behind them.

 Chapter 222 - Book 24

    Looking around, Felix didn''t see a single building in sight but he wasn''t just in the middle of an untouched forest. The path he stood on was obviously carefully placed. Along the sides of the road were bigger rocks that formed an edge and between them, tiny smooth pebbles of different colors, shapes and sizes. The tiny pebbles, despite their size and number, weren''t randomly placed at all. Looking ahead of himself, they formed a series artistic patterns.


    Where they stood, the pattern started as leaves but further down, he could see they transitioned into flowers.


    Other than the path though, and the fact that not a single leaf fell on it, their surroundings looked like a forest untouched by any unnatural force.


    Noticing the pattern in the path and not wanting to disturb it, Felix lifted his body just slightly off the path so he didn''t step through and ruin it. Peace stepped out ahead of him to lead though and walked right through the path, tossing pebbles everywhere.


    Felix actually looked at him a little flabbergasted he of all people would ruin something like this. Peace noticed his reaction, turned and smiled, "I thought the same thing the first time I visited. They put the art in the path with the intention of you disturbing it. By disturbing it, every traveler creates a different pattern and brings new inspiration. Carefully placing the stones is a meditative practice for some here."


    "I see." Felix shrugged and dropped back down then walked along next to Peace.


    Peace seemed to know where he was going as he walked with purpose but the first fork they arrived at he turned to Felix, "Which monastery is listed on your recruitment?"


    "Akikabara."


    Peace nodded as if that was obvious and he should have known, "Alright, let''s head there quickly so we can actually get started."


    Felix followed easily as Peace picked up the pace, quickly but still gradually ramping up to what even Felix would consider a fast pace, "What do you mean ''actually get started?'' What is Akikabara?"


    Moving as fast as they were, Peace didn''t look over his shoulder as he guided them through various forks but answered all the same, "It''s one of the main monasteries. It''s not really a¡­ high? one¡­ That''s not the right term and don''t think of the monasteries as tiered, that''s just wrong. They are all different in terms of strength and specialties and what they focus on and how. Akikabara is pretty general and is connected to a bunch of others so my guess, is they want to do some kind of evaluation."


    "That makes sense. You mean in terms of some monasteries focus on pebble road art, others on zen gardens some on hand to hand combat and others on observing nature or something?"


    "Yeah, more or less. You should be free to roam between most of them as you see fit. If you decide you''d rather maintain a garden, you can simply walk over there and do that. However, there are some monasteries that are restricted for safety reasons."


    Felix was pretty sure he knew what Peace was talking about, "The ones that focus on curses?"


    "No, actually. Sort of? Curse stuff is general and separate from the monasteries, we''ll talk about that after. More like higher grade combatants and techniques that could kill weaker willed individuals."


    "How do we get into those?"


    Peace laughed, "We prove we are capable enough to handle them. You don''t necessarily want to get into all of them though, it is far more important to choose the one that is right for your path in the moment."


    Felix grumbled a little before changing the subject, "So what about the cur-"


    "We''re here." Peace cut him off as they reached the edge of the forest. Where the tree line ended, a large body of water started but Felix hesitated to call it a lake because he could see the bottom everywhere he looked. The path continued through right across the water, somehow suspended above it even though Felix could see beautiful, multicolored fish swim beneath it and appear on the other side.


    Across the lake, there was what looked in every respect how Felix expected a temple to look expect, that it was massive and consisted of multiple buildings. Despite the distance, Felix could both see and hear the people milling about in and around The Akikabara Monastery and it was so busy, his mind equated it to a shopping mall right before a holiday.


    The two of them followed the path the rest of the way across the lake where the pebble road naturally melded in with the pebble beach.


    They ascended the short set of stone steps up to the main area of the monastery which was a large, flat platform made of perfectly flat, clean and even bricks. To either side of them there were two long buildings that stretched a couple of kilometers down. Between the two, there were a series of walkways with roofs, small gardens and sitting areas with sand, grass, water and flowers. There were a few trees to provide shade as well as some open areas with rings in the ground within which, a few people sparred.


    Following Peace, they wove their way through the crowd and down the center to the building at the end of the long courtyard. The two buildings on either side were connected to the building at the back technically making them a single building but it didn''t entirely feel that way. The two on either side were identical, symmetrical, a single story or two and had people walking in and out of them all over.


    The building at the back was ten times as tall with a single set of large double doors that, while they remained completely open, not a single person walked through. That is, until Peace led them right inside.


    Felix immediately noticed a few people echo their confusion and warnings out into the anima around him but he ignored them. It was just odd because rarely did people ever do that in Felix''s experience but here, there were half a dozen projecting their thoughts intentionally.


    Peace didn''t bother responding but he knowingly glanced over his shoulder and smirked at Felix.


    They ascended the steps up to the doors and stepped into the temple which was essentially, empty. In the center there was a small pond and there were pillars around the room along with multiple people in meditation throughout but otherwise, there was nothing. There was no furniture, no interior walls, no decorations, all a single room. Felix could even tell from geometry alone that there was no spatial expansion on the building whatsoever.


    There weren''t even any enchantments for dulling the sound from the outside so as they stepped in, with the doors open, the smacking of skin against skin from sparring, the hubbub, the wind rustling through the leaves and the trickle of water from outside echoed throughout the building.


    Given the only sound from within the room Felix could hear were heartbeats and breaths, he would have expected them to at least enchant the building to keep out external noises.


    Even more surprising to Felix was Peace who loudly stepped forwards through the building. Normally his footsteps were completely silent but for whatever reason, he let his bare feet smack down on the tile floor audibly.


    He led them over to one of the edges of the pond and sat down next to a bald, meditating man, mirroring his pose. Felix assumed he was to do the same and so he sat on the other side of Peace in the same pose.


    [D - Common] Pewa (Lvl 736)


    They sat there for a few minutes until the man finally opened his eyes but otherwise, didn''t move. His head and posture continued to face forwards towards the pond as he spoke, not with the whisper Felix expected, but with a perfectly normal volume, "Peace."


    Peace responded, perfectly matching his posture, "Master Pewa. We have come for a quarter. Felix''s recruitment directed him here."


    Pewa finally turned, one of his legs pulling out of his meditative sit so he could properly face the two of them, "This is Felix?"


    Peace bowed his head slightly in confirmation.


    "You met my student in the world event. He was the one who asked if you would like to join us. He told me a great many things about you, many of which I confirmed with others present at the time. All of their perceptions of you align in the important details and diverge drastically in the unimportant ones."


    Felix just looked at him, not entirely sure what he was trying to say, "Peace tells me this monastery is used as a testing ground of sorts?"


    Pewa nodded, "Yes. Let us get right to it then, shall we?"


    Rising from the floor, Pewa led the two of them back out into the courtyard and over to one of the sparring rings. They waited at the side as two people finished sparring within the circle. They were clearly new and, much lower grade than Felix was but their martial arts were nonetheless impressive.


    They only had to wait a couple of minutes then Felix and Master Pewa stepped into the ring together. Felix withdrew his outer robe back into Reaper''s Mantle so the enchantment didn''t get in the way then his shirt beneath it as well because it was too loose and baggy then, stood across from Pewa.


    "This is more of a preliminary test and¡­ well, something I wish to do. From what I''ve heard and what I can see, I stand no chance in a real, purely physical fight, so please do hold back."


    Felix chuckled a little then nodded in affirmation and waited for Pewa to remove his looser robes then fall into a stance of some kind.


    Without any formal training whatsoever, Felix didn''t even try to mimic Peace from memory or do anything fancy. Instead, he just stood there because realistically, he had no idea what they were doing.


    Noticing his lax stance, Pewa stepped forwards with deliberate footwork and punched out at Felix''s chest.


    Being Common and only level 736, Felix wasn''t expecting Pewa to be a tenth as fast as he was from an Agility standpoint alone. However, even accounting for his trained movements and reactions, Felix was thoroughly impressed with Pewa''s strike as it was only about half as fast as he was.


    Pivoting to the side with a series of movements he had trained, Felix dodged the strike with minimal movement and watched as Pewa tried to feint him with an elbow while also sweeping with a kick.


    Felix took two shorter but more stable steps back from Pewa and dodged both.


    Despite having dodged the physical strikes by a few fingers though, Felix still felt the strikes. They didn''t feel particularly strong and it wasn''t just air striking him, but it was his soul that felt it.


    Pewa''s strike had landed, from a distance, right where he was still partially injured on his chest and that caused the area to noticeably ripple out. The ripples were contained to a circle the size of his palm, the only remaining area that was still injured, but it rippled nonetheless. He wasn''t actually injured though, there was no permanent damage and there would be no bruising or anything but, the shock of it felt a little like he had gotten slapped.


    Pivoting to face Felix once again and closing the distance by a step, Pewa pushed forwards and sacrificed his balance to close the rest of the distance.


    Felix had no training in martial arts but his training with Mihto was enough to recognize stable footing and good balance. He didn''t try to capitalize on it though, he had no intention of striking back at all and instead, he actually stepped forwards to catch Pewa''s strike with his forearm and in doing so, correct his balance.


    His fist smacked into Felix''s forearm which was wrapped in a couple of tendrils to bolster his defenses now and Pewa immediately smiled, "Thank you."


    Felix nodded, assuming he was talking about the balance he had sacrificed as he began to block each and every one of Pewa''s strikes.


    Being at least twice as fast normally wouldn''t have been enough for Felix to beat a master of martial arts like Pewa but his other stats were also much higher. Specifically, Felix''s Perception was high enough that he saw every move Pewa made far in advance where as Pewa was stuck reacting and moving much slower.


    Felix could see every muscle as it tensed and with his Matter Senses, even feel his blood flowing. He wasn''t at the point where he could sense or decode a nervous system, but it wasn''t necessary in this fight, or ever for that matter. The time he wanted to spend in melee range with anyone was none.


    It was impossible for Pewa to feint Felix, knock him off balance or make any move Felix didn''t foresee. If he really wanted to, Felix could have just run around the outside of the ring and waited, or suspended Pewa in the air helplessly, but that wasn''t the point of the test. So, Felix stood there and blocked every strike instead of dodging them as Pewa increased the power of his Soul Punches with each strike.


    Finally, Pewa leaned back slightly and Felix brought both arms up together in front of him, wrapping both in all of his Soul Tendrils. Pewa swung his entire body into a strike as strong as he could, both physically and spiritually causing an almost discordant reverberation through both the ambient anima an the air itself.


    Dropping both his hands and his defenses, Felix saw Pewa had dropped to a knee and was panting and for the first time since the fight started, Felix looked around. Almost everyone in the entire courtyard was watching them, because of the climactic sound or from before, he didn''t know.


    Taking a step forwards, he offered a hand to Pewa and helped him up to his feet.


    "Taking a Spirit Strike from a Master. That was fun¡­ I haven''t punched anything that hard in¡­ a while."


    Peace stepped into the ring and helped Pewa stand from the other side, "I take it we need to head to the Uktarr monastery to have Felix properly assessed?"


    "I can get you entrance to some of the locked monasteries but, yes, not all of them. Judging from how relatively easily you took that strike, I suspect not nearly enough either." Pewa chuckled and pointed to one of the side buildings, "Help me over to the portal, will you?"


    Peace nodded and started to help him walk over but Felix didn''t want to wait for him to groggily limp so he just grabbed Pewa''s chest with his Matter Control and floated him along.


    He seemed quite pleased and rather enthused with being carried over as the others in the courtyard split to make room for them. Pewa pointed the way into one of the long symmetrical buildings on the side and over to a red wooden frame.


    Felix floated him over to it and he opened a portal within for them to step through.


    Laying him down on the ground gently next to the frame, Felix and Peace stepped through the portal onto a flagstone road.


    They followed the road just a short distance toward a building that wasn''t nearly as large as the last but was surrounded by ancient looking trees with tiny green leaves and a dense fog. It was either a large house or a small facility and at this point, Felix really wasn''t sure which.


    Heading in through one of the sliding doors, they arrived in what looked to be a large meditation or sparring room, it was completely empty so he couldn''t really tell which.


    Peace closed the door behind them then walked forwards and sat down on the ground. Felix sat next to him and they waited in silence until a bald man with one of the first consistent, controlled auras Felix had ever felt, walked into the room.


    He wore long, traditional looking robes that matched the building they were in and nothing about him was unique or different from anyone else except, his aura. Around him in a tight area, completely unlike Talrain''s cursed form, the anima carried a very specific feeling. It was like he was actively threatening anyone within it. Constantly looking for a fight that he intended on conquering.


    [A - Epic] Aro Zaki (Lvl 3012)


    Felix''s soul, especially with the conviction he had, was loving it. It responded by rousing from the slumber that was its natural state, all of it begging Felix to take that fight. It wasn''t hard to ignore but, it was currently more active than ever-other than when he was close to losing a fight-and this time, it was having fun. In those other life threatening situations, his soul was struggling to survive and it was like a tense determination.


    Now, it was like Felix''s soul laughed in Aro Zaki''s face and wanted more than anything, to accept the challenge his aura offered. There was also something else at play within his soul but Felix couldn''t really pin it down, just that something else drove him in a similar direction of wanting to fight back. Like an old experience he couldn''t quite remember.


    "I was not expecting to evaluate anyone this epoch but then, I was told to expect you. Felix?" He looked at Felix directly.


    Felix nodded and gritted his teeth as he resisted the little voice from within telling him to attack the man.


    "You have conquered a minor peak?"


    Felix nodded again.


    "Show me."


    Felix looked at Peace for a moment but he didn''t even turn to meet his gaze so Felix stood, unsure of what to do. Azo Zaki took a single step to the side though, the step matching his aura and somehow made it seem like he was about to dominate the ground, and gestured for Felix to proceed down the hall he had come through.


    Stepping down the hall, Felix immediately knew what to do. There were doors along the hall as it turned a corner and traced the outside of the building. Behind each door, Felix could feel the echo of a curse.


    He proceeded down until he found the area that felt familiar to him then identified the specific door he was looking for and slid it open.


    Inside, the room was empty save for a single short pedestal in the middle that was only half as tall as Felix was and not more than a palm wide. Atop the pole, there was what looked to be a glass container-almost like a jar-containing a single black speck. It was so weak, Felix could only barely feel it because his anima senses were relatively well attuned. Otherwise, he wasn''t sure it would have really affected him much even before the integration. Maybe a normal soul would feel the effect, but even them, not much of one.


    Walking into the room, Felix stood next to the pedestal then looked back at Aro Zaki for direction. He simply stared Felix down then nodded and walked back down the hall.


    Felix followed behind him back into the room where Peace remained in the same spot and position they had left him except now, with a slightly smirking smile.


    "I will approve your unlimited access to The Unwavering Steps." He looked at Peace, "You do not need permission from me."


    Peace shook his head, "Nope." He looked up at Felix, "You''re still injured right?"


    Felix instinctively brushed his chest, "Just slightly."


    Turning to face him in an instant, Aro Zaki smacked his palm into Felix''s chest strong enough for him to lean back, but not enough for him to stumble. Felix was so shocked, he didn''t even really react and once he was aware, he decided not to. Aro Zaki''s eyes hardened for a moment then he nodded, "You seek access to the Twilight Garden?" S§×ar?h the N?vel(F)ire.¦Çet website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    Peace nodded, "I''m also going to need you to override his access to The Somatic Halls. Don''t worry, I''ll make sure he doesn''t actually fight anyone."


    Aro Zaki looked at him with a hard glare that looked like he hated Peace but he nodded a moment later.


    "Awesome. Twilight Garden first." Peace locked eyes with Felix and nodded.


    Aro Zaki then led them both over to another, separate red wooden frame and gently placed his palm against it in a way that looked like he was striking it.


    A portal instantly opened upon impact and the two of them stepped through, leaving Aro Zaki behind.


    Felix had been getting a little dizzy, or rather disorientated, with all the places they had been to recently through portals but immediately that feeling washed away as an expanding bubble, a ripple on the anima struck his soul. It pushed its way through him and upon leaving, left him feeling not just calmer than he had before, but also more centered and aligned.


    A path of sand led them forwards towards the shore of a small pond, just a few dozen meters wide. It was contained by a series of large, flat topped, stones that completely surrounded it and around those lay a garden with trees, flowers, bushes and stone arrangements.


    Looking up, the sky was a mess of dark purples and bright orange streaks that despite the pattern, definitely reminded Felix of a sunset. As they walked along the path, and towards one of the stones, the entire pond began to almost vibrate very subtly. Just before they reached the stones on the shore, a single drop fell from the sky directly into the center of the pond creating both a physical and spiritual ripple calming the water and the anima in the entire garden.


    There were already a handful of people on one of the 40 or so stones that surrounded the pond, four of them in meditative poses and one of them just lying down on the stone like they were napping.


    Peace took one of the empty stones and Felix sat on one next to him.


    "We have permission to stay as long as you''d like but you''ll probably want to heal yourself as fast as you can so we can move on. We can always come back later."


    Felix nodded and assumed a similar meditative stance to most of the others around the pond then closed his eyes, immediately allowing his consciousness to fall into his soul.


    Felix realized the timing between the droplets was not precise as soon as the third took much longer than he expected to arrive. Still though, what the ripples left behind was a soul that was relaxed. It wasn''t like the Tranquility Elixir''s or the drink from Jozusto''s, it didn''t calm him through his soul, invoking calming experiences. It literally relaxed the anima that formed his soul in a similar way to how Aro Zaki''s aura had awakened it.


    After having two ripples pass through him, his soul felt malleable in a way and he immediately understood the significance and value of that and so, he immediately began working.


    First things first, he began realigning the part of his soul that hadn''t healed in his chest, as he did so, he was essentially pushing and forcing the anima to listen to his will and stressing it. Normally it would slowly relax over time and shift in position, like he was bending an elastic material. As the next ripple hit though, it was immediately relaxed and so, Felix continued to push it.


    Holding it as close to how he wanted it as possible, he waited for the next ripple.


    Anywhere from a few seconds to a few minutes passed between each ripple and instead of the dekad or two he was expecting it to take for him to heal, it took Felix a grand total of a couple of hours to fully heal the rest of his soul. He didn''t immediately stand though once healed, despite having other places to be because there was so much more immediate value he could get out of his current location.


    He didn''t do everything, like test out intricate and fragile anima structures that would be much easier to create here with the ripples but he did, put nearly all of the anima from the System sub-chunks to use. He saved a small amount for new structures if he needed them and a allocated a small amount to his future plans but everything else, he fit into his soul. As he did, he further increased the density of his soul all around until it felt to him, as solid as an anima suit of armor, for his soul.


    Standing up a day later, Peace stood with him and led them back to the portal frame and into the main courtyard of The Akikibara Monastery. It was much quieter than it had been when they first arrived with less people but still, more than anywhere else he had been in Amatara''s domain.


    Peace led him across the courtyard to another portal frame on the other side.


    "Unwavering Steps?" Felix asked.


    "Yes but, we need to go through The Spirit Sanctum to get¡­ You''ll see."


    Felix nodded and followed as Peace led him to through the portal to the bottom of a massive mountain range that stretched far above the clouds. At the bottom of the mountain and the end of the path they arrived on, was a large circular building from which 50 different stair cases led, each of them forking off towards a different mountain peak before them.


    Walking into the building, Felix spotted a couple people ascending various steps along the mountain, one of which collapsed.


    Felix and Peace entered the building and inside, it was like the end of a group workout, something Felix hated. Everyone was either tired and exhausted from their climb or eager to start their climb and that caused them to be overly friendly and chatty towards strangers.


    It was also though, completely silent.


    Not audibly silent, but the anima. The static of The System was completely gone within the building. Even more than that, the anima itself was still and empty. Even the auras of the people in the building, exhausted and uncontrolled as they were, were completely suppressed. Felix wasn''t sure if it was supposed to be relaxing as he mostly found it to be somewhat chilling, in a creepy way.


    Peace gestured towards the windows which faced the mountains and revealed the steps, "These are the steps." Gesturing to the room around them, "This is The Spirit Sanctum."


    Felix gestured towards the steps with his head, "Can I try the steps? Are they what we talked about in the event with the¡­ Amatara worshipers?"


    Peace nodded, "Yes, the peaks. The steps each represent a different curse. The minor peaks merge and join to form the major peaks way up there."


    Felix looked out the window and saw one of the women who had been in the building with them earlier leap up the steps towards the individual he had watched collapse earlier. She lifted him onto her shoulders and carried him back down to the Sanctum then placed him on the ground. Nodding to the others she had been talking to, she headed back to the steps and began ascending for herself.


    "If I falter, I just have to hope someone finds me?"


    Peace nodded, "Yup, exactly. That is why you need permission, otherwise a lot of idiots would die. Mastering a minor peak gives you unlimited permission. I''ve already gotten permission."


    "Have you ascended any of them?"


    Peace chuckled, "No. I have permission for most buildings here because I''ve proven I understand the risks involved, not because I''m going to participate."


    "Why not?"


    He just shook his head seriously, "Some things aren''t for me."


    Shrugging Felix took a step towards one of the doors for the steps but Peace grabbed his shoulder, "Let me show you The Somatic Halls first."


    Felix hesitated for a moment then nodded and let Peace lead him back into a portal to The Akikabara Monastery then over to another portal frame that led to a large building made of thin wooden walls under a light snow fall. Echoing out from the building, were the perpetual sounds thumps and smacks of flesh on flesh.


    They entered through one of the wings of the building and Peace led him into the main room from which the sounds were echoing.


    Inside there were a dozen people, two of them stood at the center of the room, on a slightly raised platform, fighting while the others were sitting and milling about around the outside. Three of them looked like judges and sat at one end while the others stood around and talked amongst themselves about the fight.


    The two in the middle were moving far faster than Felix could follow and the force of each of their strikes were enough to create ripples he could feel physically and spiritually.


    [B - Epic] Ridoth (Lvl 2371)


    [B - Special] Thireeble (Lvl 2612)


    Peace stepped over to the three that sat as though they were judges and bowed from the hips, "Grand Masters."


    [C - Epic] Somatic Grand Master Petal (Lvl 1724)


    [S - Legendary] Somatic Grand Master River (Lvl 4823)


    [A - Epic] Somatic Grand Master Ekluta (Lvl 3479)


    River, the grand master closest to Peace nodded, "Dark One. You have returned."


    Peace bowed his head, "We will be spending a quarter here."


    "You seek rooms."


    Peace nodded, "Yes."


    "Will you finally complete your assessment during this quarter?" Petal spoke, also without looking away from the fight before him.


    This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author''s work.


    "Possibly. This quarter is more about him than me." Peace gestured to Felix with a thumb.


    "You may take the same room as before as well as the one across the hall. The training room between them is yours as well." Ekluta spoke, also not turning his head at all.


    "Thank you." Peace bowed again then led Felix back through the halls.


    Opening a door, he revealed a large empty room that was exactly what Felix expected. There was no furniture, not that he needed any, just a floor and walls.


    Felix took two steps into his room, saw the whole thing then spun around, "Can I try the steps now?"


    Peace chuckled, "Not just yet. While I know you''re mostly going to be trying the steps and refining your soul, you should also spend time getting used to your Reaper''s Skills."


    Felix nodded quickly, "That was also on my todo list for this epoch." Stretching his hand out, he produced a tiny palm sized kitten that rolled over and stretched as it woke up then grew to a normal size. "Along with teaching her how to use them too."


    "Actually¡­" Peace smirked, "That''s probably going to be easier than it will be to train you. Don''t get mad when she surpasses you without even really trying."


    Despite Felix''s doubts, Peace was right. It only took them a few hours for Nova to surpass Felix''s proficiency with the skills and manage to use them more consistently. It didn''t even take long to explain to her how to activate them, Felix just sent over the experience of himself doing it and she picked it up right away.


    They continued to train almost every day though not for too long as Felix had other tasks he wanted to accomplish. Each time they trained, Nova got even better, faster and Felix fell further behind with his own Reaper''s Skills. Luckily, Felix had two tools he could make use of to at least try and keep up.


    Firstly, he tapped into Nova''s experience of using the skills and found it was mostly as Melody had explained to him. Her mind was less complex which allowed her to be more focused. Without errant thoughts and complexity baked into every decision, her soul was aligned as if she had a conviction which resulted in strong beastly instincts.


    That wasn''t the only experience he could tap into either. Apparently Peace had planned things this way because he mentioned it even before Felix thought of it but, Hollow Claw was apparently one of the best with Reaper''s Movement specifically. Sifting through the experiences he had of Hollow Claw, they weren''t entirely applicable as what he had used wasn''t Reaper''s Movement at all but a completely different skill that was similar in concept.


    It seemed as though, without The System to name them, most of the Cult just called all soul enhancement by their respective Reaper''s skills. The specific skills Felix used were the ones The Reaper, The Primordial, had tuned for themselves. Even the one Peace used was similar, but different in somewhat weird ways. His was easier to activate and required less alignment but resulted in less overall output because his soul wasn''t quite as strong as The Reaper''s.


    To truly practice using The Reaper''s Skills, Felix sparred with some of the members of The Somatic Hall and even though he was awful at martial arts after trying once, he understood the basics and had a few tricks up his sleeve. He understood the basics of footwork and stability which helped a lot but, he also understood how and which muscles would tense before which movement allowing him to somewhat foresee his enemies movements.


    That made it barely possible for him to keep up to some degree with expertly trained martial artists who, should have been significantly weaker than him, judging from level alone.


    As he improved his abilities with The Reaper''s Skills though, he went from keeping up to dancing between strikes.


    Nova went through the same training along with him and spent more time in The Somatic Halls than Felix did because he, spent a lot more time on The Unwavering Steps.


    He had a total of 100 days in the recruitment, a couple less because he didn''t arrive right at the start. It only took him 5 days to completely master the major peak beyond the Hunger curse, Desire, and not just what Amatara''s worshipers considered mastery but his own standard of mastery, touching the curse. That meant he had to climb the steps of Lust, Envy and Avarice but they were sibling peaks to Hunger so, they weren''t particularly difficult for him.


    From there, he set his eyes on the peak of Wrath. That one had three minor peaks, Conflict, Vengeance and Frustration. It ended up taking him longer than he had hoped to master each of them-5 days for each of the minor and 7 for the major peaks-as he wanted to use them as a training ground for his real goal, the curses of Oblivion and Creation.


    Despite lagging slightly behind his ideal schedule, Felix was quite satisfied with his mastery of wrath. He hadn''t just climbed the peaks, but he''d begun to develop and test methods to deal with the curses along with structures to protect his soul, something he had been planning on doing anyways.


    Descending the steps of wrath for the last time, Felix passed through The Spirit Sanctum without stopping-unlike all those currently using its unique attributes to decompress.


    Flying straight into the portal frame, he made his way over to the Twilight Garden where he spent a few hours allowing the ripples to buffet his soul. After that, he wasn''t quite done what he wanted to finish but he had already spent too much time away from his other training so he headed back to his temporary home during his first recruitment quarter, The Somatic Halls.


    Stepping through the portal frame, the building didn''t look quite the same as before. While there was a perpetual layer of snow wherever the building was located, that perpetual layer was completely missing in a large circle around the building. Instead, it looked like the snow both on the ground and the roof had been completely blown away in a sphere around the building. It wasn''t centered in the center of the building though but rather specifically around one of the rooms.


    Flying over the snow, passed the rim of snow banks and the rocky ground that had been revealed beyond, he entered through one of the back doors and headed into the main hall.


    Just like last time, there were a number of people around the edges, two fighting in the middle and judges along the side. This time though, there were twice as many people around the center platform observing and 4 judges instead of just 3. The additional judge, though they suppressed their aura while in The Somatic Halls, still had the same domineering presence he had had for the last two and half dekads, ever since Felix had met him during his evaluation.


    [A - Epic] Aro Zaki (Lvl 3012)


    Amongst the observers, the non judges, was also Pewa.


    On the platform, one of the other residents of The Somatic Halls was fighting Peace.


    [C - Ancient] Peace (Lvl 1783)


    [A - Legendary] Kahagar (Lvl 3184)


    Despite the massive gap in levels-not that Peace''s level seemed to signify much of anything-Peace was evidently winning. Kahagar was obviously a master of his own body and whatever martial arts he practiced but, much like the sparring Felix had witnessed in the world event, Peace was a different level.


    If Kahagar was a master of martial arts, Peace looked like the Arch Sage of every discipline of fighting to have ever existed, ever, while also being able to see the future.


    They were both too fast for Felix to catch everything, even when he activated Reaper''s Perception every few seconds but even he could tell Kahagar''s physical stats were higher than Peace''s. Not by as much as he would have thought though as he recently learned Peace was closer to a beast under The System''s purview. He didn''t have a Class, Profession, Race or the accompanying skills but instead, his stats were almost triple what they would have been otherwise. Along with his mastery of Reaper''s Movement and Reaper''s Body, he got close to matching Kahagar''s stats, at least close enough that they could spar.


    The difference in stats though, just didn''t seem to matter in this of fight. Oddly, Felix noted that, once again, they didn''t fight with Soul attacks at all, like the ones Pewa had used to test him.


    Rather, as every fight of Peace''s he had seen in The Somatic Halls had been, it was plain old physical fight.


    From when Felix arrived, the fight only lasted for 2 minutes at which point Kahagar was too exhausted to continue. The entire fight, Peace capitalized on every one of Kahagar''s mistakes and struck him, but lightly. Felix was pretty sure Peace''s strikes wouldn''t even bruise his opponent. He was just pointing them out, like a teacher showing their student their mistakes.


    Taking a step back from the fight Kahagar dropped to one knee and bowed his head then dragged himself off the platform and collapsed in exhaustion off to the side.


    Peace bowed his head to his opponent then put the top half of his robes back on and hopped off the stage, next to Felix, "Training time?"


    Felix nodded, "Yup, let''s go."


    If Felix were the kind of person to doubt himself, he knew he would have felt bad taking Peace''s time. Not because it was a waste of Peace''s time, but because of the resigned looks from the observers, and a few of the judges, in the room as they left.


    It seemed as though everyone wanted to spar with Peace or watch his spars and Felix could understand their point of view. He also appreciated seeing a master at work, even though he knew he couldn''t appreciate the fights to the same degree.


    Down the hall to the other end of the building, they made use of a similar looking room with a bigger center stage that was used for training weaker and less experienced martial artists who needed more room. They closed the door behind them and Felix roused Nova from her slumber at the side of the room.


    She didn''t really need to participate, given how phenomenal she was with the Reaper''s Skills already, but Felix figured building her endurance was a good thing as it was the only limit they''d found in her use of the skills. She didn''t buff herself as much as Felix or Peace did either, but that would come with time. Otherwise, she could activate them at will, as often as she wanted for as long as she had the soul stamina to do so.


    Felix didn''t have the same limit, at least as far as he had ever detected, but he simply couldn''t maintain the skills for longer than a short period anyways without getting distracted.


    Standing across from each-other, they got started without any delay. Peace leapt forwards and punched out towards Felix, even harder and faster than he had been a few moments ago in his spar with Kahagar. The punches needed to be fast so Felix was forced to use Reaper''s Movement and they had to be strong so he felt the need to dodge them, not just logically but instinctually.


    Peace''s fastest strikes though were more than twice as fast as Felix''s Reaper''s Movement buffed Agility though so he rarely struck out in any combos. Instead, he threw strikes towards Felix that he knew were dodgeable to push him to the limit then turned to Nova to test her while giving Felix a break.


    Jumping between the two of them, Peace knew exactly what each of them could handle and pushed them right up to their limits. He read the both of them and constantly adjusted for nearly two hours before Nova was completely exhausted and stepped off of of the platform.


    Peace and Felix kept at it for another 3 hours or so at which point Felix decided it was enough for the day.


    "You are getting much better." Peace smiled as they walked off the platform.


    "Thanks. I''m still pretty annoyed I haven''t managed to upgrade Reaper''s Sense yet but¡­ I guess I haven''t even pushed the skills out of Apprentice yet."


    Peace shrugged, "You''ll get there eventually. Where are they at now?"


    Felix shared a screen he had been looking at himself every few days.


    Class Skill Proficiency


    Reaper''s Movement: Novice VII => Apprentice XXIII


    Reaper''s Sense: Novice V => Apprentice XX


    Reaper''s Bond: Novice I => Initiate XVII


    Reaper''s Body: Novice III => Apprentice XIX


    Peace read through the screen and nodded, "That seems about right. Once you manage to maintain them consistently, we''ll have to find you a new teacher."


    Felix cocked his head, "What''s after that?"


    Peace shrugged, "Not really sure. I was never very good at the skills and the ones I use are limited. You heading back to the peaks?"


    "Yeah. Finally going to start climbing Oblivion."


    A voice suddenly cut in from the end of the room, "So you have time to spar then."


    The both of them looked over and saw Aro Zaki step into the doorway from around the side of the wall.


    "I¡­ Maybe not today." Peace winced a little.


    Aro Zaki stood in the doorway, his aura suppressed but his presence ever domineering, "You have been putting off your assessment ever since you beat the Masters. Why?"


    Peace shrugged weakly, like he was a little nervous, "I''m just not¡­ interested in knowing."


    "Then why do any of the evaluation at all."


    "So I could make it here."


    "So, you will not fight me?"


    Peace sighed, "Probably not. I don''t know."


    "Hmm." Aro Zaki''s brow furrowed a little more than usual then he turned and walked away.


    Felix waited a few moments then turned to Peace, "Why not?"


    He didn''t need to clarify, Peace knew what he was talking about, "It''s just¡­"


    "You might not like killing things, but you do seem to enjoy fighting. Sparring at least."


    He winced, "I think so¡­"


    Felix frowned, "What do you mean you think so? Do you enjoy sparring or don''t you?"


    He sighed, "I feel enjoyment."


    "There you go." Felix threw his hands up like it was obvious.


    Peace finished all at once, like the dam had broken, "That doesn''t mean I enjoy it."


    Felix''s brow furrowed, "Explain."


    Peace withered a little at Felix''s stare then sighed and offered Felix his hand. Felix grasped it and pulled his soul into his Soul Garden.


    Standing on the bridge over the pond in his Soul Garden, Peace leaned on the railing and stared down into the river below, "I don''t know who I am¡­ and I may never know."


    Felix patiently waited for him to continue.


    "Do you know why I started following you around at school?"


    "I thought The Reaper told you to but¡­ that isn''t it."


    Peace shook his head, "I was you, until you came along."


    "In¡­" Felix squinted a little, "what sense?"


    "I was The Reaper''s successor. Trained from birth to replace The Reaper."


    Felix shook his head and widened his eyes, "Wait, I''m supposed to be The Reaper''s successor?"


    Peace nodded, "The situation''s gotten worse over the years but The Reaper can''t do what he used to do. He''s¡­ let''s just say old. So, he started up Death''s Shadows to take over for him but that only lasted for a few million epochs before they began to suffer from the same problem. It became obvious that Death''s Shadow''s weren''t a viable permanent solution so, he started looking for viable candidates to replace him."


    "Viable candidates to become a Primordial?"


    Peace shook his head, "For one thing, that doesn''t make any sense but that isn''t what this is about. He is the oldest Primordial as far as he knows and even before any of the others were born, he was remembering."


    "He''s been taking in souls, preserving their experiences, memories and lives since¡­"


    "Exactly." Peace sighed, "He searched for souls across the multiverse that were born with similar qualities and ideals to his own but the situation kept getting worse."


    "So he settled?"


    Peace shook his head, "Didn''t need to. I was conceived by my parents, in the cult, with a nearly perfect alignment."


    "So you were raised, from birth to be the next Reaper?"


    Peace nodded, "I was raised as a Death''s Shadow. Taught to remember. Taught to be unseen. Taught how to fight if I needed to. Then, I was given my first soul to remember." His head dropped down a little further, "It was a young boy with a terminal illness. They lived outside the purview of the multiverse and¡­ didn''t agree with it as a people. They would rather their son die than have The System save him."


    Felix sneered a little, "That''s idiotic."


    He shrugged, "They believed The System was evil with the entirety of their being." He shook his head, "It doesn''t matter. They wanted him to be remembered so, I was sent to remember him. Everything went perfectly, or as perfectly as a child''s death can be, and I headed back to the cult."


    Peace shed a single tear that fell into the waters below, "It wasn''t until a few months later¡­ I forgot my name." He took a quick breath, "No- I didn''t forget it, I corrected someone who called me Peace. I said, ''I''m not Peace idiot, I''m Magnus, and don''t you forget it.'' Completely seriously¡­"


    Felix assumed Magnus was the name of the boy he had remembered.


    "After that, The Reaper tried to personally take on the soul of the boy but¡­ it was too late. The boy''s soul, for whatever reason, was much stronger than we expected and¡­ it had merged with my own. It''s impossible to separate."


    Yikes.


    "For a long time, I insisted it wasn''t a problem and I fully believed that. The Reaper trained me to cultivate my soul and continued to train me. I didn''t really think about it, I wasn''t worried and honestly, I didn''t really care. Being the successor to The Reaper was all I''d ever wanted and I was completely dedicated to it. I never outright forgot who I was after that and¡­ I remembered millions of others. I became much stronger, The Reaper taught me everything he could and I was even enrolled at Eramith, to gain worldly experience and whatnot. Then¡­"


    "I got the class."


    Peace nodded, "The Reaper came to me one day and simply told me, I wasn''t his successor any more. There was someone new, someone in the 256th who would fix everything."


    Fix everything?


    "I thought¡­ I was furious¡­ for all of a few minutes. I''d trained for this my entire life, this was all I ever knew, all I ever wanted to be, all I ever wanted to do. Then, in an instant, it was all gone. I was angry and frustrated because I thought that was what I should feel but¡­ as soon as I was alone, I realized all I really felt¡­ was relief."


    Peace wiped his eyes, "I don''t know why I didn''t realize it sooner but¡­ I don''t want to be The Reaper''s successor, I don''t really know if I ever did. But, that led to a different question, ''what do I want to do?'' and ''who do I want to be.'' I''d never even thought about it before because I was to be, The Reaper, and I never even questioned it."


    Felix sighed and nodded, "You started to think about who you are and began to question if any answer you come up with is real, or the result of a soul you had remembered?"


    He nodded solemnly, "I haven''t even told The Reaper this but¡­ I can feel myself losing more of who I am with every soul I remember. My memories are my own but all the experiences¡­ my instincts¡­ suddenly I''ll feel a hint of fear towards something I had never had a problem with before. I''ll feel nostalgic when eating something completely new to me. I don''t know who I am. It''s¡­ It feels like thousands of voices in my head that are changing me¡­"


    "I see. Just a few dekads ago, you went to remember a civilization? Some kind of war? Why not just¡­ not go?"


    Peace chuckled a little, "I don''t want to tell The Reaper. I can''t. Back when I called myself Magnus¡­ he was devastated¡­ I assured him and¡­ I can''t tell him I don''t want to remember because then I have to tell him why." He sighed, "At this point¡­ what does it matter anyways¡­ I will never know¡­ who I was¡­ it''s just too late."


    "You said it feels like thousands of voices in your head, right?"


    Peace just looked at him.


    "Let me show you something."


    In an instant, the two of them moved from The Soul Garden, to the middle of his Mind City, right in the center square.


    Both Peace and Felix looked around with slack jaws.


    The entire city looked quite a bit different. There were now at least a few thousand people running around and only a tenth of those at most, were Rakyt. The rest, were simply citizens who had had children.


    After the first birth where two of his original creations gave their lives to provide the anima, he had allocated some of the anima from harvesting The System chunk to the city so they could have children, without dying. It seemed as though that was a huge success not only because of how many citizens there were, but also how productive they had been.


    In the middle of the center square, was a massive man wearing billowing robes holding a glowing orb in his hand that pulsed and shifted constantly. Rather than a statue, it was his mind and so the figure looked completely real, like there was really someone standing there with the wind billowing through their robes.


    Though it was exaggerated and more noble looking than he, Felix knew the statue was supposed to represent him.


    Around the square, there were a few people praying, some relaxing with their feet in the fountain at the base of the statue and around the outside, carefully trimmed, verdant hedges. Outside of that, there were hundreds of buildings now. There were shops, houses, monuments, offices and restaurants. Everything he expected to find in a real town or city.


    "What¡­ is this?" Peace stared at some of the citizens running around.


    "This is Arkade. The original city." Grim suddenly appeared and responded from behind them.


    "Arkade? Seriously?" Felix cocked a brow.


    "Not my choice." Grim shook his head, "I tried to sway them but the original residents voted on it."


    "What is that." Felix pointed at the massive representation of himself.


    Grim sighed, "I know you didn''t want anything religious like but¡­ I couldn''t really stop it. Long story but, the Rakyt started worshiping Mark because he literally gives them processing time and when he doesn''t they sleep. They started by asking for more time then making offerings and finally praying. As more citizens were born here, they visited the Rakyt city and the Rakyt visited this one and everyone here knew more about you and Mark so they started worshiping you as The True God to stick it to the Rakyt."


    Felix''s face contorted in disgust, "I''m not a god."


    "Are these¡­ souls?" Peace poked at someone who was praying and they frowned at him.


    Felix sighed, "Yeah. Souls bound to tiny mana computers for now."


    Peace looked around, his eyes squinted, "So¡­ are we¡­ in your soul?"


    "The System calls the skill Mind City but, the line between my mind and soul is kind of blurry at this point."


    "What about¡­ The Rakyt?" Peace pointed at one as they walked by.


    "Right¡­ Some idiots tried to sacrifice the Rakyt City in the world event to Akaroth. They killed everyone and started a blood ritual that trapped the souls. I just punched a hole in the ritual and sucked out all the souls. I don''t have enough computers yet to bring them all back but¡­ we''re working on it." Felix gestured for Peace to follow as he both explored the city for himself, and showed Peace around.


    As they made their way through the city, the older generations nodded and waved while the younger ones revered Felix and stood back, whispering. He really didn''t like the whole religion thing but unless he wanted to wipe the city clean and restart, he wasn''t sure if there was any good way to get rid of it. Even if he did, he didn''t have a good way of preventing it from happening in the next city either.


    They sampled foods and explored buildings. Felix showed him through the library with all the books and even showed him the the buildings connected to his senses.


    Their journey ended in a building near the library, one that could be used for watching back memories as Felix had experienced them, "You''re worried about losing yourself with all the voices in your head. Give them to me."


    Peace opened his mouth then closed it a couple of times, "How do you know¡­ You aren''t being influenced by them? The Reaper talks about you like¡­ it''s impossible and I know you took on Hollow Claw''s remembered but¡­ how do you know?"


    "I don''t. Not really. I''m not exactly worried about it though. All of this-" Felix gestured around, "-is contained in a soul structure. Again, I can''t know but, I wouldn''t really care if they did. Obviously there''s a line but¡­ on the planet I''m from, it only takes a few conversations for a group to adopt similar mannerisms and expressions. The way I see it, who I am comes from all the little things I''ve learned and picked up from others. Although, I don''t even know if that''s possible and my telling you this, is like a Fire Elemental telling a human not to worry about fire burning them."


    "I''ve been crafting structures in my soul as long as I''ve been alive. No soul structure is perfect." Peace glared adamantly, "It''s all made of anima. You can''t know."


    Felix shook his head, "That''s not how I know they aren''t going to change me." Mentally, he called Grim over and had him load up a memory of his. As he did, the entire room around them vanished and it looked like they had been transported to an endless void.


    Then, the memory of Grim first seeing Felix''s soul played out around them. Watching the experience didn''t even measure up to when Grim had shared the experience with Felix, it was more like a movie with a little bit of feeling but it definitely got the message across.


    "That''s¡­" Peace turned to him, "What are you?"


    Felix shrugged, "No idea. You get now though that I''m not worried about the voices? About remembering too much?"


    He nodded, "I¡­"


    "Let me take on all the souls you remembered. They don''t want to live on, that''s fine. All of the souls I took from Hollow Claw are floating around in dormant anima."


    Peace nodded, "I''ll¡­ give you what I can but¡­ Some of them I can''t¡­ separate."


    "If you''d like, I can try to separate them myself."


    Peace looked at him with more than a little distrust, which was reasonable since Felix was basically offering to perform surgery and Peace had never seen him do anything like that before.


    Chuckling a little as he realized that, Felix waved his hand for show and pulled up the memory of him separating The Endless Hunger from Nova''s soul.


    He was slightly hesitant to essentially be revealing everything to Peace but after thinking about it for a bit, he decided to trust Peace. Not only had Peace gone out of his way to help him on multiple occasions but he''d been vulnerable with him a few times now. This time, Felix had him in his Soul Garden and not a single time, did he sense a disingenuous thought, instinct or emotion from Peace.


    Felix sensed genuine fear and despair above all else at the moment and if what he did ended up making Peace stronger, then Peace would be more capable in the future.


    At the end of it, Felix could sense Peace''s disbelief even before he turned to him and shook his head, "You can touch The Endless Hunger?"


    Felix shrugged, "Yeah. Desire, Wrath and their minor peaks too now."


    After almost a minute of silence, Peace nodded, "Okay. Take what you can."


    Felix nodded, "Couple of things first. I''ll take anything I can, separate things where it seems natural. This won''t make you try The Unwavering Peaks or fight Aro Zaki though, will it?" Felix continued nodding as he came to a realization mid sentence, "Both of which you are avoiding for fear of them changing you."


    Peace nodded.


    "I''ll remove what I can now but we''ll probably need to head down to the Twilight Garden over the next little while. In the meantime, I can wrap your soul in a protective lattice."


    Peace shook his head, "The Reaper''s done that before, I don''t have the force of will to maintain it."


    "I know. I''ll repair it every day so you can spar with Aro Zaki and climb the peaks yourself. Once we''ve removed everything we can, I''ll compress your core soul."


    Peace winced a little and Felix cut him off before he could complain, "You''ll never find yourself are if you''re constantly afraid of changing."


    He still looked unconvinced and Felix just sighed, "Look, we can deal with that once we come to it and if you''re still hesitant, we won''t do it. For now, let me see what I can easily take."


    They were already physically touching so all Felix needed to do was to reach his Soul Tendrils out and knock on the outside of Peace''s soul. He didn''t even try to barge in and simply waited for Peace to open himself up and accept him.


    After another few moments of hesitation, Peace opened up and Felix''s tendrils reached into his soul.


    Felix had already attached the end of the funnel he had used with Hollow Claw to the end of a Soul Tendril as they had been talking so all he had to do, was find the souls to remove.


    Just like Felix had with the Second Layer of his soul-the one that typically interacted with and controlled the body-Peace had suffused his body with his. Pushing through that layer wasn''t very difficult and beyond it, was a layer Felix wasn''t entirely suspecting.


    Peace had mentioned he had a soul structure of his own to isolate himself from the souls he remembered but just beyond the second layer, there was an ocean of remembered souls all writhing around like eels.


    Punching his way through them, Felix felt around with his tendrils and brushed up against Peace''s core soul, or rather, the Soul Structure he had mentioned. What it amounted to in essence, was an extra layer of anima with little structure that surrounded and protected his core soul. It didn''t really look like it was doing a very good job though as to Felix, it seemed like his Core Soul was cowering in the face of the remembered swimming around it.


    Felix looked around a little more to make sure he wasn''t missing anything then began sucking in all the remembered with his Soul Tendril like it was a vacuum. As he did, Peace''s second layer began relaxing immediately as it was no longer being constantly pushed on by the remembered. It would take time for it to fully relax as even with all of them gone, the second layer was still loose and weak around his core soul.


    For the time being, Felix left everything else as is because he knew tearing through the layer around his core soul would be tantamount to peeling off his flesh and Peace needed to be ready before that.


    Returning to the physical world, Felix made sure Peace''s consciousness wasn''t still in his mind then nodded to him, "You okay?"


    Peace nodded, "I feel¡­ a little weird but good weird just¡­ not used to it."


    "I''m not going to touch anything else you have in there just yet but, can I place a barrier around your soul now?"


    With more resolve than Felix was expecting, Peace nodded, "Yeah. Do it."


    Reaching back in, Felix cut out some anima he didn''t really need from some planets and formed a lattice barrier between Peace''s core soul and his second layer. That was all he needed to do since the second layer contributed nothing to personality and identity, along with regenerating itself quickly.


    As Felix opened his eyes once again, he saw Peace smirking.


    "What?"


    Peace chuckled, "When The Reaper said all our problems would be solved¡­ I was worried for a while you know? Once I realized how relieved I was¡­ I was worried he was sticking this on someone else and they would suffer the same problems I did."


    Peace shook his head, "I''m definitely not worrying about that now. What the hell is this defensive structure?"


    "It''s from a book The Reaper gave me."


    "No, I know that. He used to use something similar¡­ I mean the density."


    Felix raised a brow expectantly, "Will you try The Unwavering Steps now or spar with Aro Zaki?"


    Peace hesitated for a moment out of instinct but nodded a moment later, "I''ll try the steps with you, if that''s okay?"


    Felix nodded, "Course. I''m heading to the Twilight Garden first. You sh-"


    He nodded, "I know. I''ll come."


    Leaving Nova in the room, because she was already asleep, the two of them headed off to the Twilight Garden where Peace let his soul relax and adjust and Felix got to work on some structures of his own.


    First things first, Felix continued the process of thickening the fleshy layer on his main lattice barrier. While it was like a film or a balloon before, he wanted to get it to the point where it was more like leather. He also had grand plans to swap the whole thing out at some point with something vastly more complex but he didn''t have time to figure it all out just yet.


    At the same time, he had begun creating a whole new layer outside of his Second Layer, almost like a second layer of skin. The idea was to act as a defensive layer for everything and as a first line of defense. It wasn''t to prevent outside influence like Peace''s new defensive layer so much as it was for defending against direct Soul Attacks. He hadn''t really encountered any so far, other than Pewa''s punches, but he still wanted to be ready just in case.


    With both of those structures, Felix''s goal was to eventually imbue them with convictions of their own that made them more effective at their jobs but for the time being, that was out of reach.


    Lastly, he spent a bit of time refining another new layer, this one not for himself though. Still, he deemed it important enough that he wanted it to be finished by the time his recruitment was done.


    After a few hours of silence between the two of them, Felix opened his eyes and rose to his feet then, completely shocking him, he had to physically tap Peace''s shoulder to rouse him. Peace also seemed shocked as he woke with a start and looked around rapidly before noticing Felix, nodding and collecting himself.


    From there, they headed straight for The Spirit Sanctum which was, as it always was, packed.


    There were enough people in the building that it was impossible to cross without physically bumping into someone. A problem only exacerbated by the almost drunken demeanor of those returning from a climb.


    Walking through the building, Felix walked in nearly a straight line, simply plowing through where there wasn''t enough room. A few people gave him funny looks but no one said anything and it was the fastest way. He knew exactly which door he was heading to this time and Peace followed along in his wake.


    Opening the door and piercing the tranquility of the Spirit Sanctum, Felix immediately felt the static of The System smack into him full force, along with the more obvious whisperings of the curses amongst the mountains. They weren''t loud or even really noticeable to most and honestly, Felix wasn''t entirely certain he wasn''t imagining them because he knew they were there, from his previous climbs.


    Just outside of the building, the path was marked with a series of small flags stuck into the rock as the ground was still relatively shallow and flat.


    The early parts were easy and Felix didn''t worry much about them so he looked back to confirm with Peace before they both ran along the path. At their pace, it didn''t take more than a quarter hour to reach the steps. Normally Felix would have gone faster, but he wanted to stay with Peace just in case as it was his first time.


    As soon as they reached the steps, the lanterns started to appear.


    They weren''t actually for light at all but every hundred meters or so, a lantern was placed alongside the steps that contained a small spec of the curse specific to that path, just like the building he had proved his mastery within.


    At the bottom of the steps, the lanterns were nearly empty with an essentially imperceptible about of cursed anima within them. As they climbed though, so did the size of the cursed anima within the lanterns and the oppressive force of the curse bearing down on them from all around.


    Felix already had some experience with the curse of Oblivion, albeit a significantly watered down version of it, but he knew what to expect and had prepared accordingly. Peace on the other hand, had not. He was careful and Felix could feel him squeezing his soul and resisting outside influence with all of his will.


    It wasn''t actually necessary in Felix''s experience. For the most part, it was difficult for the aura of a curse to actually change the core soul of any being. He had even tested that theory a few times with normal souls, other than his own. It could influence and spawn thoughts and feelings within you but those were always temporary if the soul wasn''t directly exposed and didn''t marinate in the aura for multiple dekads.


    Peace''s core soul though, Felix suspected was actually injured. He didn''t want to bust through his last layer of defense just yet but from what he''d said and what Felix had felt, that was his working theory. The structure Peace had in place helped, but it was prone to leaking thoughts and experiences through it-albeit after dulling them significantly-which would result in them reaching his core soul. The only way for that to really matter though, was if his core soul was damaged.


    Felix intended on helping and repairing it as much as he could but that took time which is why, he had put the lattice work frame in place in the meantime.


    What Peace was doing, was out of instinct, not necessity. The shield Felix had placed around his core soul would completely eliminate any secondary influence from the curses on the mountain, at least until he reached the very peak.


    Judging from how Peace was visibly pushing his way up each step, Felix didn''t expect him to make it there today though.


    Felix slowed down to match Peace''s pace as his soul was hit with a barrage of unnatural feelings. He had experienced it once before, the feeling that your soul had met the end. Not just that it would die, but that it would cease to exist, that it wouldn''t be remembered.


    The best way Felix could describe it, was as the horror one would feel if they knew their entire life and everything they had ever done, was about to be wiped out from existence. That no one would remember them, no photos would exist, no one would know, no one would care. No funeral, not a single tear shed over your forgotten name.


    What Felix had realized, having now mastered two major peaks already, was that the name ''curse'' wasn''t entirely accurate. They definitely felt that way and acted that way in a lot of cases. On a weapon, the curse of hunger would cause insatiable hunger and could lead to the weapon or its wielder consuming its targets.


    More accurately though, he would describe what the curses actually were, as anima obsessions. They were feelings or experiences so universal, so strong and so all encompassing, that they often completely suppressed everything else.


    Oblivion wasn''t an obsession he knew, but it was something his soul and anima in general did, as an experience. It happened to often create Fear, another major peak, but that was just a side effect. Many of the obsessions often spawned their brethren.


    Step by step, Peace pushed his body onwards as his soul tried desperately to both pull him back and push him further, protect him and attack something, all of it reacting differently. It was like a cup of water where each drop suddenly became conscious and tried to do something completely different from each-other. Felix could feel it happening and feel him resisting it.


    The true test of the peaks wasn''t resisting the specific curse, it was keeping your soul aligned and controlling it with your will. As those slipped, as your soul strayed, the influence of the curses began to seep in and only then, did it really become dangerous.


    As Felix observed, his perception of Peace''s soul strengthened from having anima affinized to himself within it, he noticed Peace''s soul almost pulsing. It was affected and looked like it was going to drive him insane for a moment then he reigned it back in and took another step. Then it grew again, he squeezed it, and he took a step.


    Each step, an exercise in will power and each one, harder than the last.


    Finally, once it took Peace a minute to ascend just a single step, he dropped to one knee, panting.


    Felix reached down and placed his hand on Peace''s shoulder, "You made it halfway on your first try."


    Peace chuckled once but it sounded forced through his body''s desperate breathing, "Better than I¡­ Expected."


    Felix didn''t even bother asking whether he needed help and used his very immature and simple aura to push back the influence of the curse locally, as much as he could. He had no real experience manually creating an aura and he knew it was weak, disjointed and inconsistent but his soul''s strength contributed massively to the effect and so it wasn''t useless. While it was barely useful, it did give Peace just enough breathing room to slightly recover.


    He waited a minute or so for Peace to calm himself then reached down, helped him up and carried him back down the steps.


    As they descended, he felt Peace''s state massively improve to the point where he managed to hold his own weight and eventually walk on his own very quickly.


    Escorting him down just a few kilometers was enough that the effect of the curse was drastically lower as the strength of its effects were exponential, not linear. Felix let go of Peace, dropped his nascent aura, and manually checked his state then nodded to him, "You good to descend the rest of the way yourself?"


    Peace nodded, "Thanks. For helping me back down and¡­ everything."


    Felix nodded, "Of course. You''ve been nothing but helpful to me ever since I met you and it costs me little to pay that back."


    Peace took a deep breath and nodded, "That maybe so but¡­ You''re putting a lot of trust in me without any guarantees and¡­ my helping you was pretty selfish."


    "Maybe. I made the choice to take The Reaper class though, your helping me succeed so you don''t have to be The Reaper''s successor, even if it ultimately helps you too, is still you helping me with my own decision."


    "I''m glad you see it that way."


    Felix shrugged, "I''m heading back up. See you in the Garden or the Halls?"


    Peace nodded, "Probably the Garden. I have quite a bit of recovery ahead of me."


    Felix knew Peace would overdo his recovery a bit, given his still very present fears about losing himself but, he lost nothing other than time in doing so.


    He continued to watch Peace descend for a bit just to make sure he was alright then turned back around and headed back up the steps himself.

 Chapter 223 - Book 25

    Peace had made it about halfway to the major peak, which was impressive for just about anyone climbing. For Felix though, he had barely felt the effects of the curse at that point. With Peace gone, he leapt multiple steps at a time back up towards the peak.


    Unlike the other peaks with multiple minor peaks that led up towards a major peak, sub curses within the umbrella of a larger curse, Oblivion and its counterpart Creation, were standalone peaks and largely considered to be above the other major peaks. They weren''t classified as such but the obsession they carried was deeply rooted in all Anima in a way that stirred something ancient within.


    Felix couldn''t identify what the experience was because even trying to tap into it, to experience it for himself, it was incomprehensible. It was very obviously present though no matter where he looked, like something embedded into the very nature of Anima itself.


    Passing the halfway point where Peace had finally collapsed, Felix continued bounding up the steps, finally really feeling the effects of the curse but easily brushing them off with some manual attention.


    By the three quarter mark, a sizable chunk of his focus was dedicated to keeping his soul aligned. Another eighth of the way up and he had to dedicate his entire focus but he was pretty sure he could have stood there indefinitely. From there he started taking each step one by one and with each one, his soul threatened to tear itself apart.


    The strength of the curses as he ascended grew exponentially and with each step, the effect felt like it doubled, then tripled, then quadrupled.


    His soul struggled and pushed against the manual exertion of his will power. His body resisted as it was bound to his soul. He didn''t need to exert Strength or Matter Control or anything he would normally use to move his body. His Reaper''s Skills did nothing to help him here. It was just his will power fighting back against the ancient will of whatever collective experiences Oblivion tapped into.


    As he struggled to take another step, Felix''s senses vanished and once again, his consciousness reverted into his old form of meditation. He blocked everything out except his own soul. This time it wasn''t him and a puzzle cube but it was a ball of light, his core soul, pushing against the encroaching darkness all around him. Like a sun using its light to physically push against the pressure from the bottom of an ocean of liquid darkness.


    In a way, it felt comfortable. It was familiar. It was known. Felix had no idea why but he also immediately obliterated the thought the instant it appeared in his consciousness. He couldn''t think about anything else. There was nothing else. It was him, and that which he pushed against.


    With each step he took, the darkness pushed in closer. The light diminishing.


    Felix was completely consumed by just pushing forward but even he, knew when to stop. As the darkness swallowed everything around him, as it threatened to consume the ball of light itself, Felix himself, he stopped and took a step back.


    The instant he did, the darkness was blasted away a short distance. He took another step back and it recoiled, almost like it feared him. In reality it felt nothing and it was his will overcoming its strength but now that he was releasing his consciousness and letting everything back in, he savored the notion of the curse fearing him just a little.


    Opening his eyes once again, Felix turned around and leapt down a hundred steps at a time. They turned and curved with the shape of the rocky mountain so he couldn''t jump further, although he could have flown. He didn''t though. There was something to climbing the mountain being steps, something he recognized and respected. A certain acknowledgement of the strength of the curses they tried to surmount.


    Flying just felt like an affront to the feat of climbing.


    Looking back, he hadn''t even made it to the clouds but, from his experience, the mountain peak would be just beyond them. That wasn''t the penultimate peak though. As with all major peaks, they led to one more peak, standing above the rest.


    Felix wasn''t sure he would ever make it there and he wasn''t even certain what it was because he hadn''t asked yet. It wasn''t important because right now he had a goal. Once that was complete, then he would look to the mountain peak beyond and worry about what it was.


    Now that he was allowing his mind to wander, thoughts he had previously dismissed floated their way back into his mind. For one thing, though both The Endless Hunger and Oblivion were completely black, it was like they were two completely distinct colors.


    The Endless Hunger was a black that drew in color to fill an endless void. It wasn''t just the absence of a thing, it was the active consumption of everything. An insatiable vortex that pulled in everything around it, like a black hole that nothing could escape.


    Oblivion though, was emptiness. It was nothingness. It was black that was the absence of everything. It was nonexistence and the purest form of death. It wasn''t something being reduced to dust, it was something being removed from the equation entirely.


    Oddly, The Endless Hunger was a minor peak and yet Oblivion seemed in theory, lesser than Hunger. Hunger was absence that pulled things in. It was anti matter and a black hole. Oblivion was just the void of anything and pure destruction. Yet, having felt both, Oblivion was obviously the grandfather to the nascent child of hunger. Where Hunger was primal, Oblivion was primordial, it existed before hunger ever did.


    As for why the sensation of him being just his core soul standing against an ever encroaching darkness felt familiar, Felix had no idea. It was like a feeling of deja vu and that he couldn''t quite shake. He decided he would spend time thinking about it in the Garden and see if he got anywhere.


    Getting to the bottom of the steps, Felix leapt over the flat ground and avoided the Spirit Sanctum entirely, heading straight for the portal frame instead.


    Heading through straight to the Twilight Garden, even before sitting down on the large flat stone next to Peace, the ripples began to calm him.


    He wasn''t misaligned coming down from the mountain and it wasn''t really recovery he needed. He wasn''t actively injured or exhausted. It wasn''t like his muscles being torn apart and rebuilt from a workout, like it was for Peace and many others. For Feilx, it was like accumulating stress.


    He needed to decompress.


    If he didn''t, it would just accumulate and lead to injury. In decompressing though, he didn''t just sit there and let his soul relax, he manually took control as it was washed in the ripple of relaxation and imposed his will upon it. He aligned his soul, hardened each layer and furthered the control he had over the anima within him.


    He knew he was done when he found no signs of his climb but before standing, he did something he always did right before leaving and timed his will with a ripple. Just as it hit, he squeezed down with the entirety of his will on his core soul.


    It was already the densest anima he had ever seen but that didn''t mean he had reached some limit. With each foray into the Twilight Garden, he tried to further compress his core soul and each time, it shrunk just a little more. It was by an almost imperceptible amount but each time, the will he could exert felt like it doubled. In reality he knew that wasn''t the case, or rather that it didn''t translate perfectly because everything he could exert his will on, either increased exponentially or wasn''t worth considering.


    With the peaks, even if he was right and his will power doubled, each step took more than double the will power of the last, at least where he had climbed to. Each hardening of his soul''s layers took vastly more than double for each minuscule step he took. Each compression of his Mana Core took so much more will than the last. Still, it was progress and he didn''t intend on stopping anytime soon.


    Standing back up, Felix found Peace had already left and headed back to The Somatic Halls himself. As he headed towards the building, it seemed almost quieter than it usually did. Stepping in through the back door nearest the rooms Felix and Peace rarely made use of, Felix followed the halls towards the main sparring room with the judges and felt the building shake just before he arrived.


    Turning the corner, he saw Peace finally sparring against Aro Zaki on the platform.


    His aura was suppressed but Aro Zaki still carried the same domineering presence he always did. Now instead of in his posture and gait alone, it was exhibited through his strikes and steps.


    Activating Reaper''s Sense, Felix tried desperately to follow along even a little.


    In every other somatic fight involving Peace that Felix had witnessed, Peace looked like a god and an artist at the same time. He would dance through the fights and was obviously superior to his opponents. Aro Zaki, was the only person Felix had ever seen that came even close. Using Reaper''s Sense, Felix wasn''t even sure at first who was better.


    Aro Zaki fought aggressively, matching the feeling of his presence and aura.


    Peace fought almost artistically. He danced, as he always did, between aggressive stances and defensive moves with the odd flowing dance move thrown in to readjust or reposition.


    Where it always looked like Peace was holding back previously, to Felix''s untrained eyes, it finally looked like he was being pushed.


    Though Felix had no intention of becoming a hand to hand fighter-not unless he somehow found a ton of extra time-he was well aware that in a fight as high level as the one he was watching, there was wisdom he could extract. He had no idea what or where but he memorized as much as he could and tried to understand what each person did and why they did it. Each decision they made.


    It was possible he got nothing out of it, having not enough base knowledge and understanding of the field but there was no reason not to try.


    They fought for three more minutes from when Felix walked into the room, the crowd watching in complete awe and even the judges desperately watching and hoping to learn.


    At the end though, they both stepped back as if some unseen referee had ended the fight.


    Neither looked exhausted. Neither panted. Neither were sweating. Both of them looked drained.


    Whether mental or spiritual, they had both obviously been pushing themselves.


    Aro Zaki swept his robes off the ground and swung them back around his shoulders as Peace hopped off and headed towards Felix. As he did, the observers argued as to who would fight next, most of them eager to fight after what they had just witnessed, eager to implement whatever nugget of wisdom they had extracted.


    As he approached and they walked back down the halls, Peace beamed.


    "That was¡­ impressive." Felix chuckled, not quite able to find the words.


    "That was awesome. I was pushing it off for so long and he promised to turn off his aura but still- Anyways, after climbing those steps with you and seeing I was fine, feeling it I just¡­ I decided to give it a shot. Oh man I haven''t had to fight like that in¡­ ever."


    Felix cocked his head a little, "There isn''t anyone stronger in The Cult?"


    Peace shook his head, "There are. Many. The Reaper used to be¡­ There are others but Aro Zaki is just¡­ different. The way he fights is so¡­ I don''t know, engaging?"


    "It looked engaging."


    "It''s not just that but after¡­ you know, I feel so much lighter. I was a little worried I was going to lose my instincts because obviously I''m not old enough to have the battle experience I have but¡­ It''s more like I''m not bogged down anymore. There aren''t other voices telling me to do this or that, it''s just me and my voice. It''s all mine."


    Felix nodded, "You were worried you were losing yourself as they slowly influenced you but we got rid of them and you retained some of it."


    Peace looked at him, unsure of his point.


    "You must have been letting things in. Maybe some experiences and instincts you didn''t want slipped through the cracks but it seems like for the most part, you let in what you wanted to let in and rejected the rest. How else would have tuned your instincts so precisely?"


    Peace nodded slowly, "I mean¡­ maybe. I guess¡­"


    Felix opened the door and stepped into their sparring room where Nova was still sleeping in a corner, "I can''t comment on the sapients or sentients of the multiverse but on earth, people picked up the habits and traits and mannerisms and speech patterns of those around them. Sometimes people changed for the worse and they would have to adjust if they ever noticed what had happened but¡­"


    Peace nodded, "I see."


    "You''re worried about finding who you are but¡­ I''d argue most people are the products of a billion little things they learned and picked up throughout their lives."


    Peace didn''t say anything else on the matter but he was obviously thinking about it as they stepped onto the platform and Felix roused Nova. While Felix mostly believed what he had said but, one exception was ever present in his mind, himself. He definitely didn''t mention it though, as hypocritical as it made him. Whatever made his soul the way it was, definitely resulted in his being a little different from others.


    It wasn''t that he didn''t change, it was more that as much as he could remember, it was he who chose what changed almost consciously. At least so he believed.


    They sparred and Felix continued training his Reaper''s Skills. He immediately noticed Peace seeming almost faster or more flexible. It genuinely looked like he had been unburdened further, even in his drained state after fighting Aro Zaki.


    Every day, Felix trained. He didn''t worry about the days though as he never needed to sleep and he was constantly teleporting between what he was pretty certain, were different planets with different day night cycles. All he worried about were his training cycles as he went from sparring with Peace and training his Reaper''s Skills right to The Unwavering Steps where he climbed and finally back to the Twilight Garden where he consolidated his training.


    He didn''t stop for breaks at all as he wanted to get as much out of the recruitment as he could.


    Peace continued to spar with Aro Zaki and over the course of many dekads, eventually came out on top. Whether it was the fact that he had marginally higher physical stats than Aro Zaki-who described his class to them as most similar to a sorcerer-or a matter of skill, Felix had no idea. It was however enough for the judges and Aro Zaki himself, that they requested the presence of someone else to fight Peace.


    Peace also continued to climb the peaks though no longer with Felix. Instead, he climbed and even mastered the three minor peaks of Sloth, Cowardice and Despair. He had chosen those specifically because it was Fear that he struggled with the most and so he targeted mastery of that Major Peak.


    At the same time, Felix did what he could with Peace''s Core Soul although it wasn''t much. For the most part, he helped Peace sort through and remove what he wanted to remove but even more so, Felix just helped him become aware of what was there. Every time they spoke, Peace was gradually more accepting of everything that had changed him and who he was. He genuinely seemed to enjoy sparring with Aro Zaki and that seemed almost like a life line for his sense of identity.


    While Peace progressed in his somatic evaluation and mastered the peaks he had set his own mind to, Felix spent 18 days in total climbing the peak of Oblivion. It was less than the peak of Wrath had taken him and he hoped that everything he had learned, the hardening and strengthening his soul had undergone would help with the others.


    As Creation had taken him less time to ascend in total, he was satisfied to say that it likely had although Creation was also so odd, he wasn''t certain.


    Like Oblivion, it was something he both somewhat understood but also something ancient he couldn''t grasp. It was ever present as an experience in all anima but it was also not really an obsession that typically plagued sentient beings. It was just there like a bad recurring dream.


    Its manifestations amounted to Felix desperately wanting to create new spells, learn new forms but even more so, an urge or a craving he couldn''t pin down. There was something he desperately wanted to do but just didn''t know what it was. Luckily, it only took him 11 days to completely dispel the urge and do away with the indescribable feelings.


    After that, he practically raced up the rest of the major peaks as he didn''t expect to have so much time left after mastering the two weird and ancient ones.


    Regret and Fear, the Major Peaks often associated with the past and present respectively, were much easier and took him just 2 and 3 days respectively. With those two mastered, he had officially mastered the curses of the past, present and future, Regret, Fear and Desire, at least as they were classified by Amatara''s followers.


    Pride was the final major peak and took Felix 7 days to climb. It seemed to simply be more applicable to Felix and his feelings and so it was harder for him to deal with. All of his experience with the others and as far as he had come though, he had expected it to be faster.


    After that, was the final peak. He still didn''t know if it had a name but all he knew, was that at each of the major peaks he had ascended, he had seen a path that climbed one final peak beyond all of them.


    Each of the other major peaks, like the minor peaks below them, were physically local peaks. They formed a plateau at the top of one mountain but descending just a short distance down their backsides, they began ascending once again towards a single, penultimate peak.


    That final peak had no steps carved into it and was steep like a cliff. All around it, were lanterns containing as much of each of the Major curses, just as each of the Peak''s had held. The lanterns were held in by metal spikes and clanged against the rocky cliff face as the wind blew by almost worryingly so considering their contents. Instead of their contents growing in size and intensity though, the distance between them shrank as he manually scaled the side of the peak.


    It took Felix 9 days in total to finally make the climb all the way to the top where he found, a large open plateau. He had almost expected either a city, or nothing at all but it was neither.


    The plateau was wide and circular and almost completely flat except, the rock of the mountain formed a lip of sorts around the outside.


    Instead of lanterns, all around the outside of the peak and completely equidistant from the center, were was looked to be altars or standing braziers. Floating atop each of the bowls was a sphere almost over a meter in diameter, each a different color. Each one, a different curse.


    The sphere of Desire looked reflective and rainbow like at first glance, like a diamond refracting all light. Peering at it though, it reflected back at Felix the deepest secrets of the universe. Arcane truths, spells, realms he was unaware of, the origin of The System, the reality beyond it and so much more. He was used to it though, he had long since mastered the peak and he easily looked away.


    The Sphere of Wrath was a deep red and instilled senseless anger into all who peered into it.


    Regret was like Desire and looked reflective but it was dark. Like a still ocean in the middle of the night it was reflective and showed experiences from the abyss. Felix saw thousands of memories of his past though nothing particularly clear. While he didn''t fully agree with everything he had ever done, he didn''t feel any significant regret about anything. Another one of the unique properties of his soul it seemed.


    Fear tried to physically manifest itself and morphed into various scenes, like a sphere engraved with horrific carvings across its surface. They shifted and morphed and showed Felix being trapped, dissected, torn apart. They showed Felix dying, they showed him losing himself and being driven insane and burning in the flames of Oblivion.


    Oblivion itself was simultaneously a Fire and an orb of smoke and nothingness. Cracks in reality, rising smoke and a burning flame all emanated out in every direction at once, like gravity simply didn''t exist. With each of them, space itself was destroyed as they stretched outwards but didn''t reach any farther and never expanded.


    Creation was an orb of pure white, not bright like a sun but just white. Out of its surface, inexplicable creatures, things Felix recognized, objects he couldn''t describe, formulas, equations, words, feelings and everything in between appeared and tried to escape the gravity of the orb itself. Whatever force held and contained the orbs though, was too much and it got nowhere.


    Lastly Pride was like a perfect mirror. Unlike Regret and Desire that were dark and bright, Pride seemed to reflect reality itself, except it didn''t. It showed a reflection of Felix, taller, more handsome, summoning thousands of creatures, commanding an endless army of constructs, using them to take down gods and consume planets.


    It was so absurd, Felix almost laughed.


    In the very middle of the plateau, sat a slightly raised stone circle. Just a couple inches off the ground and wide enough that he could lie across it without any of him overhanging the sides.


    That first time he climbed it, he sat on the platform and meditated. He felt the curses around him trying to consume the Anima that formed his soul and just breathed in, recognizing he wasn''t affected by any of them.


    He didn''t stay longer than a breath that time though as he had taken a while to ascend in the first place.


    Heading back down, he realigned himself in the Twilight Garden before heading back to spar with Peace.


    That very day, he finally upgraded the class skill he was hoping to upgrade every single time he sparred.


    Ding You have upgraded the Class skill: [Legendary] Reaper''s Sense (Adept XII) => Class: [Ancient] Reaper''s Instinct (Apprentice III)


    Class: [Reaper''s Instinct (Ancient) Channel your hardened instincts to tune your Perception and Intelligence. All senses are applicable and increase your awareness, amplifying your senses to be more attuned to the world around you. Using these senses, and everything they detect, your memory and experiences allow you to predict possible futures further increasing your senses. This skill heavily scales on your Soul Strength and the experiences contained within.]


    This is probably the skill The System assigned to describe what The Reaper did for himself. Also, scales on the experiences contained within probably means harvesting experiences from souls too¡­


    The implications of the description and how it changed were drastic but not entirely unexpected for Felix. The part that mattered the most to him was the increase to his intelligence when he used it and the effect was immediately apparent. His brain was no longer playing catch up like it had been when he activated Reaper''s Sense, now his two stats were nearly the same and they worked in tandem.


    Peace was still faster than Felix by a considerable margin but he had to noticeably ramp up the speed and power behind his strikes and hold back just a little less.


    Finally having mastered all of the Major Peaks, Felix spent a dekad meditating within the ring of curses at the penultimate peak. During that time he continued hardening and tuning his soul in the Twilight Garden but he also spent some time manually harvesting both the Giant''s soul and Hollow Claw''s soul.


    The Giant''s soul was uncomplicated and easy to harvest, almost exclusively providing Strength and Endurance in his body suffused soul layer.


    He wasn''t getting much from souls in general anymore, at least in terms of a percentage of their stats, because it was becoming harder to find anima that was applicable. The stronger he got, the more specialized his soul felt. Instead of directly mixing in the anima they used to control their bodies, he had to find the parts of their second layers that meshed well with his second layer. For the most part, he relied on soul structures, convictions and generally strengthening his will power and body directly. Tuning his experiences and imbuing some of the will they carried.


    Still though, the giant and Hollow Claw were high level beings and there was a fair amount of each he could take. The Giant was simple but its soul was huge and played a large part in its body, how tough it was and how it moved.


    Hollow Claw''s soul was much more complex and it played a large role too but, in a completely different way.


    Instead of strengthening his cells directly by being suffused with his soul, Hollow Claw''s focused heavily on something that reminded Felix of Reaper''s Movement. It did both but the latter was vastly more important to his abilities.


    While there was a sizable chunk of anima Felix managed to take from the Giant due to the sheer mass of its soul, Hollow Claw''s was similarly sized but there was simultaneously more and less he could take. There were more techniques and structures in place that he took note of and manually harvested but each one of them was lesser in quantity of Anima.


    Using Hollow Claw''s as a baseline though, Felix focused on two things.


    First, he implemented basic structure for his body suffused layer. It was already something he was planning on doing, after seeing it mentioned in the manual The Reaper had given him but he had been waiting until he modified his body with mana channels. He still hadn''t gotten there yet and he didn''t implement anything crazy but he implemented the basics of a structure Hollow Claw had used. It was essentially a complex braid of anima, each one ideally with its own conviction but for now, just different ideals. Each one applied to different stats and were thicker in certain areas.


    The second thing he did, was modify his Reaper''s skills directly. The way Hollow Claw used them seemed to have been more intentional and Felix liked that idea. Instead of just using his will power to push his body to move, he used his will power to move in specific ways and with specific intentions. Hollow Claw''s was much more complex but Felix had boiled his technique down to what he found most applicable and discarded the rest.


    Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.


    That jump in understanding and usage of the skills resulted in jumping a full tier of proficiency in each of the skills which was awesome.


    Class Skill Proficiency


    Reaper''s Movement: Novice VII => Skilled VII


    Reaper''s Sense: Novice V => Reaper''s Instinct: Journeyman IV


    Reaper''s Bond: Novice I => Journeyman II


    Reaper''s Body: Novice III => Adept VI


    At that point, he had just a dekad and a day left until his first recruitment was over. He wanted to spend the last couple of days decompressing in the Twilight Garden and rooting for Peace who would finally be finishing his evaluation so, he spent each day on the peak working towards something he had been dreaming about ever since ascending.


    He spent the first few days preparing. He made sure he could touch and handle each of the curses, approaching their floating orbs and pushing his hand into each of them. He would be using his Soul Tendrils when the time came but he used his hand to be sure his physical body wouldn''t suffer from cursed attacks in the future.


    The thin film layer he had created of hardened anima around his entire body was incredible and made everything so much easier than he had expected. Like Talrain''s aura, it would dampen any physical and elemental attacks as well but, The System was awful at measuring soul stuff so it didn''t reflect on his status screen.


    Name:Felix Kade (The True Wizard)FREE0Innate:Ascendant Prodigy: Mana (Wizard)STR1,074Class:[C - Ancient] Reaper (Lvl 1,306)DEX2,344Race:[C - Unique] Wanderer (Lvl 1,307)AGI1,554Profession:[C - Ancient] Lifebinder (Lvl 1,309)PER1,241Health:17,555,850 / 17,555,850VIT1,198Mana:150,000,000 / 150,000,000INT1,755Resistance:93.87%END1,532


    Woah. The Giant and Hollow Claw were way more beneficial than I thought.


    Grim nodded, Yeah but consider how high their stats probably were. You probably got less than a thousandth of a percent.


    Yeah, you''re probably right. So in that case¡­ It will matter less and less the stronger I get and the higher my stats are.


    Unfortunately¡­ Yup.


    Turning back to the task at hand, Felix had just 6 days left in the event and all his preparations were complete. He now had 7 channels running down 7 different Soul Tendrils, just like the one he had used to vacuum up Peace''s and earlier, Hollow Claw''s, remembered. Standing in the middle of the circle, he reached out and stabbed each of the 7 curses at the exact same time.


    From each of them, he drew in enough of the curses to create something between a big moon and a small planet from each that orbited his core soul. At first he was convinced no one would notice because he wasn''t planning on making the planets very big and he doubted how often anyone else stood where he was.


    As he began forming each of the orbs within his Soular System though, he realized how relatively thin they were and with barely a conscious thought, compressed them down over tenfold. Actually channeling his will towards each of them, he compressed them even further and no longer did he need just a tiny amount.


    The effect of the little planets he created were immense in their compressed state but around his Core Soul, he suppressed them and kept them contained to their own bodies.


    Growing them each to the size he had targeted, just smaller than his Core Soul, Felix ended up taking nearly half of each of the curses around him, at least visibly and he estimated that he had compressed them each down by a factor of nearly 40 in every dimension.


    That, was an amount that someone would immediately notice and suddenly, Felix felt a lot less sure that no one else would be where he was anytime soon. There had to be at least someone that maintained and checked on the curses. Ensured the altars were functional. Either some kind of alarm system he had possibly already triggered or someone constantly watching from somewhere.


    Standing where he was though, he could tell The System was even having a hard time though as the System static he had learned to listen for was aggressively fighting back against the curses. He wasn''t really sure what could have been watching but he just hoped they wouldn''t be too mad.


    While he didn''t have the anima to replenish the curses around him, he immediately noticed them drawing in the ambient anima. It was arduous and would take hundreds of epochs for them to replenish back to their original sizes but, it would happen eventually. He just hoped it would take that long for someone else to climb their way up here.


    In the meantime, he headed back down to the Twilight Garden and watched with fascination as the ripples of the garden were completely rebuffed before entering his body at all. Not only did having the cursed planets orbiting very close to his core soul bring him an odd and inexplicable level of comfort, but the constant effect they had was hardening his soul and aligning him, now that he wasn''t directly affected by their influence.


    He had them orbiting elliptically, so their influence waxed and waned for the moment but figured he may switch that later on. For the time being, considering they were forcing his soul to harden in a sense, he had to be experiencing some kind of stress from them so, he let them be until he was certain they weren''t exhausting his willpower or anything.


    The ripples of the Twilight Garden weren''t a complete waste though because he could still pull anima out of his body to work on it outside, he just hoped no one had the Anima Senses to see exactly what he was doing. Unfortunately, he didn''t really have anything else to work on so he headed right back up to the top of the peak and began meditating on the raised platform in the center.


    His goal, was to spend three days there exercising his will to the limit by creating the spark of life on as many small orbs of anima as he could. He worked on other projects too but his goal was to make certain that he could handle the most stressful possible environment, with the curses around and within him while his will was completely exhausted.


    Over the course of his time with Amatara''s worshipers though, his will had greatly increased and just creating The Spark of Life wasn''t nearly enough to exhaust him anymore. He found his limit was around multiple orders of magnitude greater than it had been, not that it meant much at the moment. The only time he had really felt restricted by that limit before was when he was suppressing The sub-System chunk and he wasn''t really planning on harvesting more of those anytime soon.


    So, he exhausted himself as much as he could.


    He found that despite not being directly affected by any of the curse''s influence, some of them took more of his willpower to contain than others. The entire goal of having them orbit his core soul though was to constantly train his will power so, it wasn''t necessarily a bad thing.


    Over the course of three days, he did not find himself being slowly drained which is exactly what he had hoped. Otherwise, he would have had to remove the planets periodically to allow his soul to relax and regenerate itself over time until his willpower was strong enough to contain them again.


    At the end of the third day, a few hours before he would have rose anyways, Felix leapt out of his meditation as he felt a new presence in front of him. He was so used to being completely alone at the top of the mountain and the presence, had appeared almost instantly.


    Physically, a woman stood before him, hands clasped behind her back as she walked around him and the center platform slowly. She had slightly darker covered in shallow wrinkles making her look old and wise but judging from her physicality definitely not decrepit or hindered by her age. Her body was toned and lean showing off muscles that were obviously denser than the standard human configuration he was still used to.


    Otherwise though, she appeared humanoid with messy white hair mostly wrangled into a thick braid that trailed down her back and she wore loose, knee length pants, foot wraps, hand wraps, and a top that left her stomach and arms completely exposed.


    Spiritually, Felix didn''t even need to identify the woman to know, a God stood before him. Like Aro Zaki, she maintained an aura around her except hers was less constrained. Rather than a field of complete dominance, her aura was tranquil but slowly shifting. It felt to Felix like a beautifully curated garden in the way some anima moved and morphed, some parts quickly others seeming almost still. Like a flowing river amongst still rocks and swaying branches. It didn''t feel like she imposed her will anywhere to move or hold pieces still though, it was like it moved itself. Like her aura was nature itself.


    [SSS - Unique] Amatara (Lvl 7104)


    "I did not expect to find anyone here, let alone a soul I haven''t yet met."


    Felix bowed because it seemed like the right thing to do and anything that gained him favor and made him less likely to die, seemed like a good idea, "Thank you for hosting me in your recruitment."


    She chuckled once, "I was not the one who invited you."


    "You are the one hosting me though. Whether or not you know I exist, I am in your lands, using your resources and facilities. I am grateful."


    "I provide these resources for anyone who is capable. By standing where you are so casually, you are evidently more than just capable."


    Felix wasn''t sure what to say so he just stared at her.


    She looked at him for a few pacing steps then looked ahead of her as she continued to circle him. When she finally spoke, she seemed to almost be talking to herself, "I was summoned for another matter entirely. It is only the way of nature that led to my encountering you at all."


    When he didn''t respond for a few of her slow steps, she continued, "I used to watch the pinnacle eagerly. In recent times, I looked away. Still, I was supposed to be notified of pinnacle prospects. How is it you were admitted?"


    "I met some of your worshipers in the world event, I mentioned having mastered a minor peak though, I didn''t know what it was at the time. They asked if I would be interested in a recruitment, I said yes. Chose this, showed up and then a guy named Pewa punched me. He sent me to Aro Zaki who had me stand next to the minor peak I had mastered and that was it."


    "Which world event?"


    There were multiple?


    "Bastorus One."


    She nodded, "Who is your master here?"


    "What do you mean?"


    She looked at him to see if he was serious or not then cocked her head slowly, "The one who monitors your training."


    "No one?" Felix shrugged, trying desperately to seem innocent.


    After a few moments, she nodded once, "I have something I must attend to elsewhere. I will find you afterwards."


    Then, she leapt off the peak and vanished though, Felix really only saw a blur.


    Guess I should get going too. She didn''t even mention the curses being smaller. Did she not notice? Or did she not know their size?


    Heading down the mountain himself, much slower than her single leap, Felix headed through the portal frame to the Twilight Garden, where he and Peace had agreed to meet.


    Stepping in, Felix sighed as his new outermost layer completely rebuffed the ripples of the garden. Looking around, he spotted and headed towards Peace.


    Peace noticed Felix approaching immediately and used his hands to hop his meditative sit a quarter rotation to the right.


    Felix sat on the edge of the stone opposite him, "Are you ready?"


    Peace nodded, much more resolve than he had had when they had first started.


    Placing his hand on Peace''s chest, Felix pushed all of his Soul Tendrils through Peace''s second layer by making a hole he would later repair.


    They had expected Peace''s soul to relax and shrink down around his core soul but his second layer seemed just as loose as it had been when Felix had first removed the remembered. They assumed it would just take more time and it didn''t affect what they were going to do anyways.


    From there, Felix removed the lattice layer he had been constantly maintaining, fully opening Peace''s soul to the world around him.


    Felix easily found the soft layer of structured anima that surrounded Peace''s core soul, the one he hadn''t touched once and carefully surrounded it on all sides with his Soul Tendrils. Once he was in position, he readied himself then used the Soul Tendrils without channels in them to slice the layer into strips while the ones with channels, sucked out the anima entirely.


    As soon as he did so, Peace''s core soul exploded like Felix had popped a balloon.


    He desperately held on from all sides and wrapped it as tightly as he could with his Soul Tendrils, desperately trying to contain his core soul.


    It shouldn''t be this weak. Was that layer the only thing holding it in place?


    Squeezing down from all sides, Felix began the process of compressing his core soul down, slowly removing tendrils from the equation as it shrank down from a volleyball, to a softball, to a baseball, to a golf ball then finally to a marble. Felix stopped there not because he couldn''t go further, in fact he oddly hadn''t even felt strained yet. He stopped because he wasn''t sure any smaller was a good idea.


    If everything worked out, he could always come back and compress it further.


    He held it in place for a few moments. Then a few minutes. Peace''s Core Soul just kept pushing against him though and he could feel his Tendrils were the only thing containing it. If he let go, it would either explode and he would die or it would expand back to being a little larger and he would live.


    Felix didn''t want to bet on it though so, he held it for even longer.


    The deadline they were working against was approaching though so Felix didn''t have forever to wait. Either he released it or he wrapped it in a new layer. Considering releasing it risked him dying, Felix decided his best bet was to simply wrap it back up for the moment then figure out a more permanent solution later.


    Holding Peace''s Core Soul with a couple tendrils, Felix began weaving a lattice layer around it then wrapped that in a film layer to make sure everything was contained. It wasn''t quite as impressive or strong as the layer protecting his Soular System but it was at least half way there because Felix didn''t want to risk anything.


    Carefully pulling his two tendrils back, Peace''s Core Soul immediately expanded to fill the inside of the barrier Felix had created, just as he had expected.


    As Felix drew the two tendrils out of the layer and readied himself to patch it though, he noticed Peace''s Core Soul beginning to leak through the barrier on the other side.


    What?


    Desperately reaching over with Tendrils he grabbed and shoved as much of the leaking anima back into the barrier as he could but he wasn''t fast enough. More began leaking out from another side then another. As he grabbed and contained everything, two of his Tendrils still acting like a plug to what he was certain was the only hole in the barrier, Felix panicked.


    Fuck! What is even happening. I know the barrier is fine- this shouldn''t even be possible.


    As much as he tried, Felix knew he was fighting a losing battle. Peace''s Core Soul leaked out from everywhere and there was nothing he could do to stop it. As it did, it pushed up against his loose Second Layer like it had become the film of a balloon then, the Second Layer began to dissolve.


    The anima from his Core Soul, the anima from his Second Layer, everything that had made up his soul fell apart and became one.


    Felix immediately decided there was no way he was harvesting Peace''s soul and that he would rather let it merge in with the ambient anima, like a dying soul was supposed to or return to whatever afterlife he worshiped. He did however, remove the failed lattice layer he had created within Peace''s soul because it didn''t belong there.


    I¡­ I can''t believe¡­ I just didn''t have enough¡­ After all that my will power still wasn''t strong enough? Did I do something wrong?


    Some of the soul focused residents and I were watching. We didn''t notice anything you did wrong.


    Is it just¡­ not possible to compress another soul then? I did it to Nova but we''ve been soul bound for a while so¡­ that worked? Does that mean I have to implant a piece of my soul, my will, for anything to stick?


    Maybe. Maybe his Core Soul was just too damaged from remembering.


    I should have¡­ I thought I mastered the peak of Pride¡­ I gu-


    "I feel awesome."


    Felix''s eyes shot open to find Peace hopping up and down in front of him.


    "I know I was hesitant for, a long time but oh man I was wrong." Peace chuckled into the air, completely shattering the tranquil silence of the garden. S§×arch* The novel(F~)ire.net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    Felix leapt to his feet, "Yo- You''re alive?"


    Peace stopped and patted himself all over, "Yeah. Pretty sure."


    Carefully reaching out, Felix poked Peace and found he felt perfectly normal, physically. Spiritually, it was like he wasn''t even there. Like he was a body without a soul.


    "Uh¡­ Peace¡­"


    Peace looked at him, Felix''s worry causing his expression to darken a little.


    "Do you still have a soul?"


    Peace''s eyes rolled back in thought then he shrugged and vanished, replaced by a streak of black. The black streak circled around the pond a few times then he stopped in front of Felix and shrugged, "Yeah, seems like it. Why?"


    Felix stared at him incredulously for a second then stepped forwards and placed his hand back on Peace''s chest. Reaching in, it was like he wasn''t reaching through anything. It felt like, Peace''s soul didn''t exist at all. No matter how hard Felix looked or sensed, he felt nothing.


    Stepping back, Felix mentally noted that Peace had a slight hand print marking on his chest, just like Nova and Zero had when he had manually altered their souls but the tendrils weren''t there. The tendrils had gone inwards instead of outwards so instead, the print grew whiter towards the center.


    Offering his hand to Peace, Felix drew Peace into his Soul Garden. Both so they could talk and to see if it would work at all.


    Appearing in his Soul Garden, Felix immediately felt like his soul had just lifted a massive weight while simultaneously, Peace''s hand vanished from Felix''s grip in the physical world. Without releasing him, Felix opened his physical eyes and saw that Peace, was gone.


    Inside his head though, Peace stood there in the garden, waiting for him.


    Felix joined him and Grim appeared a moment later as they both circled and examined Peace.


    "I guess¡­ let me show you my memory of what happened first." Felix moved them into the memory room in an instant where a few of his original mind residents were already watching the memory in question. He had them restart it and Peace watched from the beginning as Felix freed his Core Soul, compressed it down, then completely failed to contain it. It then merged with his Second Layer and the anima that was once his soul all became one.


    On second viewing though, Felix immediately noticed that although Peace''s soul did exactly what he expected a dying soul to, to merge with the ambient and dissipate, he never actually saw it dissipate. He didn''t know that it left his body at all.


    Peace nodded appreciatively, "So¡­ I should be dead. I''m not. I still have a soul. I think."


    "Now for the second thing." Felix moved them into the building where his eyes were connected then physically opened his eyes and looked around.


    Seeing what he was seeing, Peace''s eyes widened, "Where''d I go?"


    Felix hesitated because what he wanted to say, he was pretty sure was completely impossible, "I think¡­ you''re in¡­ here? Physically."


    Peace''s eyes remained wide as his smile grew, "I mean I feel great but¡­ what?"


    Felix shrugged and Peace laughed.


    Releasing him from his Soul Garden, Peace reappeared in front of Felix as if he had never left the spot he had been standing in except now, he wore a wide smile.


    "You know, we probably should have done this a bit sooner. I feel at least twice as fast which is great but¡­"


    Felix sighed, "You''ve had no time to get used to it and now you have to fight."


    Peace shrugged, "Oh well."


    Walking back towards the portal frame, Peace leapt and flipped over Felix''s head constantly, completely enamored with his own speed, "It''s not just speed I also feel so much lighter."


    "Are you just as strong? Or are your strikes going to suffer?"


    Peace landed in front of Felix and nodded, "Good question. You''ve never taken a full force punch of mine, right?"


    Felix nodded and activated Reaper''s Body to massively increase his Vitality and Endurance, "Go for it."


    Suddenly Felix''s health just dropped by over 3 million but physically, he didn''t move. The actual force behind the strike wasn''t overwhelming and didn''t cause him to step back or anything. Rather, it felt like he had been punched through his robes, through his skin. Like the punch was internal somehow.


    Looking inwards, his soul was completely unaffected but his internal organs looked like the force of the punch had hit all of them, everywhere, at once. It was the complete opposite of what he expected which was essentially a Soul Punch.


    Peace looked both a little excited and a little worried, "How much health did you lose?"


    "3.4 million."


    "HA! I''m amazing."


    As they walked back through the portal and towards The Somatic Halls, Felix explained to Peace what he had felt from his strikes as best he could. They didn''t have any more time than that though as even before entering the building, Felix knew exactly who Peace was supposed to fight as he felt an aura resembling nature itself emanating out from within the building.


    He didn''t spoil the fun for Peace though as they stepped into the hall and Peace immediately laughed, "I should have known."


    Amatara turned to them from atop the stage and she locked eyes with Felix for a moment before turning back to Peace, "You are The Dark One I was summoned to assess?"


    He nodded, "I think so."


    She looked over towards Aro Zaki and the other judges who all nodded.


    Amatara turned back to Peace then nodded and walked across the sparring platform to give him room to join her.


    Hopping and stretching his body for a few moments, Peace stopped and cocked his head, "I can fight naked, right?"


    She nodded once, "Of course."


    Peace nodded then turned around and stripped. He tossed his clothes to Felix who easily caught them then turned and faced Amatara as Felix winced.


    Naked, it was obvious that Peace''s entire body, was slightly translucent. Felix wasn''t the only one that noticed it either as Amatara''s eyes were locked on his body and her face visibly displayed her confusion.


    "You are an odd one."


    Peace shrugged.


    They stood there for a few moments then, as if on some unseen signal, they engaged.


    Felix already had Reaper''s Instinct active so he could try to follow what was happening but he stood no chance. Even his buffed Intelligence and Perception couldn''t follow what was happening. He caught the big picture like who struck who but he missed the nuance of how and where they moved to get there.


    It didn''t much matter though and Felix was just happy to be able to maintain all of his Reaper''s Skills indefinitely. It had taken nearly the entire recruitment to get there but he was incredibly satisfied with the result.


    Class Skill Proficiency


    Reaper''s Movement: Novice VII => Adept IX


    Reaper''s Sense: Novice V => Reaper''s Instinct: Journeyman XVIII


    Reaper''s Bond: Novice I => Journeyman IV


    Reaper''s Body: Novice III => Adept XIX


    Even more satisfying for him, was that he didn''t feel like he was at a dead end at all. He knew exactly what he wanted to do next with the skills, or at least the avenue he wanted to explore.


    It was a little disappointing to still be missing so much of the fight, even with his Reaper''s Instinct constantly active though.


    From what he did get, Amatara fought almost like Peace used to, switching between forms and their strengths as she went from strong and stable to fluid and flexible. Her knees bent and feet spread, bracing her to block a strike then she''d almost turn to liquid as she contorted around and dodged another.


    Peace fought unlike he used to. Instead of switching forms the way she was, he seemed to almost exclusively move in a way that almost mirrored the wind. He was fast and fluid and explosive all at the same time. He shifted a bit from when he was striking to dodging or blocking or knocking strikes aside but he seemed to be completely avoiding stable footing.


    Then, he completely shifted all at once.


    All of a sudden, he was nothing like the wind at all. His feet were planted and he seemed like a solid wall that had suddenly gained an absurd amount of mass. He was unmovable and rigid and took everything. His body even grew darker and more opaque, somehow.


    Amatara, who was clearly holding back her Agility and Strength, visibly shifted her stats around a little as she struck with faster strikes then stronger strikes to really put Peace to the test.


    From there he shifted through a number of other forms that Felix felt a little silly naming but couldn''t help himself. After Rock was fluid and flowing Water that mostly parried and twisted through strikes followed by Fire that was explosive and almost stunted followed by three or four others he couldn''t really put a name to.


    Finally, Amatara nearly doubled all her stats and Peace went back to his normal fighting style of shifting from style to style and stance to stance as he saw fit. His every move trailed in shadow like always but as he was pushed and as he adapted, the black streaks began to gradually shift. They went from black shadow with almost imperceptible colors within to a weird translucence that looked almost simultaneously like a soap bubble and a fluffy white cloud.


    Amatara''s stats visibly grew with every strike she threw, parried, blocked, every step she took and every second that passed as Peace was almost visibly oppressed. As skilled as he may have been, there was no getting around her having the actual stats of a God and so it was only a matter of time until he was forced to surrender or lose.


    Despite the inevitable approaching, Peace never just took strikes. He moved and predicted Amatara as best he could up until the point where his blocking strikes just didn''t matter anymore. He would try to parry but her arm wouldn''t move, his body did instead. He would try to block but her strength was too overwhelming and he was significantly injured anyways. He saw things and react but just wasn''t enough.


    That only lasted for a very short time though before they both simultaneously stopped, took a step back and nodded, or head bowed, to each-other.


    The dozens of collected observers around the side were completely stunned and said nothing as Amatara walked over towards the judges and spoke with them.


    Peace turned to Felix, who immediately threw him his robes. He caught them and dressed himself rather gracefully as he walked over, "Did you see that?"


    Felix chuckled, "Some of it. You guys are way too fast for me to catch much."


    "I know right? I feel so much faster so much lighter and when I switched forms it was like my body itself got heavier."


    "I am¡­ really glad everything worked out and you''re not dead."


    Peace laughed, "Me too. I am so glad you talked me into doing this."


    The two of them headed back to the sparring room they used where they left Nova napping and instead of sparring and training Felix''s Reaper''s skills, they began experimenting with whatever Peace was now.


    Mostly it was just Peace trying things while Felix offered an outside perspective, thoughts, ideas and a sounding board.


    "See, when I think like a rock-" Peace widened his stance and planted his feet so strongly, the platform released two resonating thumps, "-I feel like I become a rock."


    Visually, his body was completely opaque and suddenly slightly grayish in hue.


    A voice suddenly pierced their focus, "You are indeed an odd being."


    Looking towards the door, Amatara stood with her hands clasped behind her back, watching the two of them.


    Felix bowed a little and Peace nodded to her before hopping back to his feet and returning to his slightly translucent form.


    "It is a unique experience for me, to meet someone so young who has reached a level of mastery requiring my own judgement to recognize. And yet, it seems this is not a unique experience at all."


    She looked from Peace to Felix, "Two Sages, neither of which has even reached the B grade."


    Congratulations!


    You have been granted a title.


    Spirit Sage: This title is granted by Amatara to those who have mastered all 7 major curses, then reached and spent the requisite amount of time at The Zenith.


    Looking over at Peace, they both flashed their titles to each-other.


    [Unique] Somatic Sage: Peace (Lvl 2413)


    "Wait¡­ Your level is¡­ also your grade is just¡­ gone?"


    "My level''s always jumped around randomly. I wouldn''t worry about it, it''s just an estimation based on my stats but those jump all over the place too. As for the grade¡­ I guess it just stopped guessing?" Peace shrugged.


    "It is common for those who reject The System, especially those so spiritually attuned. What is not quite as common, is being completely spiritually undetectable." Amatara looked at Peace for an explanation as she slowly stepped into the room.


    Peace nodded and thumbed Felix, "That''s what he said. Not like I have any idea what''s going on but¡­ can''t really complain."


    "I see. Neither of you are staying any longer I hear?"


    Felix shook his head and looked over, Peace was doing the same, "I''ve got other obligations with The Cult."


    She nodded and looked at Felix, "I''ve got three other recruitments scheduled. I already accomplished everything I wanted to here anyways."


    "I guess I will have to visit The Cult then," She said looking at Peace then turned to Felix, "And good luck with your other recruitments." Looking at both of them now, "I suspect we will meet each-other again, rather soon."


    Peace bowed a little, "Yeah, I''m sure The Reaper would love to have you again."


    She exhaled just a little from her nose, "And I would love to see him again as well. I didn''t believe I had time but I think I will need to find some. How is he, my old master?"


    "Same." Peace shrugged a little solemnly, "He would have loved to see our fight."


    She nodded, "I''m sure he would have." Then she turned and walked out of the room.


    Spinning towards Peace just as she left, Felix leaned in a little, "Her master, The Reaper?"


    Peace nodded without looking away from the door, "Her''s and mine in fact. Who else do you think could have taught either of us. You know, it''s kind of silly to call ourselves Sages after that fight. You should see The Reaper fight. His forms are¡­ well lets just say he favors more exotic forms. Not entirely somatic though¡­ Or¡­ he used to."


    Felix nodded, "Huh." He slapped Peace''s shoulder, "Well, we have a day and a half left, anything else we should do before we leave?"


    Peace shrugged, "Want to try learning auras?"


    Felix''s eyes widened, "Yes."


    Heading back out into the main room, Peace walked over to the judges table, bowed and spoke to them. Whatever he said was inaudible to Felix who had followed him into the room, over the crowd of observers that were loudly talking amongst themselves.


    A few moments passed before Aro Zaki rose to his feet and followed Peace.


    Back in the sparring room they used, the two of them spent a day learning the basics of auras from Aro Zaki who was a terse and concise but incredibly patient teacher.


    Neither of them managed to really get anywhere but just knowing what to do was still immensely helpful, at least for Felix to train on his own in the future. Peace on the other hand, none of them were really sure if it was even possible for him to have an aura of any kind anymore. When he tried, he simply became more translucent and said he felt sick and light headed.


    At the end of the day, the two of them left together, heading back through the portal frames and running through the Akikabara Monastery, across the pond and back through the forest. Felix had memorized the path and having been just a quarter of an epoch, the trees were now a bright blue, almost identical to the color of the sky, which was odd to look at.


    That wasn''t nearly as interesting as the pebble path though which was, completely redone.


    Peace had mentioned that the artists maintaining the path redid it using the inspiration of travelers stepping across it and now, it had changed completely. Felix wasn''t even sure if it was using the same pebbles at all.


    The majority of the pattern was black, with slightly different shades creating the image of distorted shadow creatures, maws, hands and other less describable depictions. Those stretched for kilometers and were rather disturbing to Felix. Every once in a while though, the endless black was interrupted by an orb of pure white. The orb pushed back the darkness in an aura around it and even as hands and teeth tried to push through the aura, the orb and its influence was absolute.


    The darkness completely surrounded the orb and stretched between them but there was no other pattern on the path, just the darkness broken up by the same orb over and over again.


    Felix and Peace passed by a number of people also leaving their recruitments and largely ignored them but Felix took specific note of a number of individuals on the edge of the road. They were staring down at the pebbles, handfuls and piles surrounding them, and carefully placing them. Instead of the calming act it was supposed to be though, they all seemed stressed and nervous.


    Neither Peace nor Felix asked though and they simply provided their footsteps for the tapestry on their way out.

 Chapter 224 - Book 26

    Back in the teleportation hub, Peace headed back to The Reaper''s Cult while Felix, headed back to Eramith.


    He only spent a few hours there so he could register himself for his next epoch''s courses and harvest the mana computer factory in his dorm room after which he headed to his next recruitment, with Tekragoraxius.


    Walking into the teleportation room on campus, he waited a few minutes for El to show up, apparently just knowing when students entered the room. He showed her his recruitment, which she scrutinized to try and assuage her confusion for a few minutes, before shrugging and opening a portal for him.


    Stepping through, he arrived on the outside of what looked to be a massive city built into the side of a cliff. On the stony desert ground where he was, there was a wall which Felix didn''t really understand, along with guards. The wall itself along with all the buildings he saw up the side of the cliff, where made of a light brown stone that perfectly matched the desert and only made the painted and hung decorations seem even more vibrant.


    Felix didn''t bother trying to fly over the wall and simply approached the front gate where two Drakene guards stood.


    [A - Epic] Holy Drakene Guard (Lvl 3842)


    [A - Epic] Holy Drakene Guard (Lvl 3813)


    Do you not have names?


    The dull silver colored one stepped forwards, "Halt Ezdreken. You approach the holy land of the Drakene, the sacred city of Zilleryth. No human is permitted to enter."


    Ezdreken?


    The other one, with metallic, light green scales, nodded along in agreement.


    "I see. Could you point me to The Dragon Mother''s recruitment then?"


    The two looked at each-other, their eyes squinted, "Ezdreken, you need to be offered a recruitment, to attend one."


    Felix nodded and whipped out his invitation causing the silvery one to step forwards and snatch it out of his hands, "Where did you get this? Who are you?"


    "I was sent it. I am Felix Kade."


    The silvery one looked back at the other who shrugged indicating they also didn''t know who he was, then turned back to Felix, "I will ask my captain. This better not be some kind of trick."


    Felix just shrugged to try and display his innocence.


    After a few minutes behind or in the wall, the silvery Drakene rushed back out with a new Drakene, this one with white metallic scales.


    [S - Legendary] Captain of the Holy Drakene Guard (Lvl 4530)


    Rushing up to him, the captain stopped just a meter from Felix, dropped to his knees and touched the ground with his forehead as he offered Felix his recruitment card back, "Felix Kade. Human recognized by The Sacred Dragon Mother herself. The Oblivion Prophet, Protector of the Dragon''s Hoard. It is an honor to welcome you to our most humble city."


    Felix took his recruitment back as the two guards who had been previously confused were completely flustered.


    "Can you direct me to The Dragon Mother or wherever this is?" He waved his recruitment card.


    "Of course." The captain kept his head pressed into the ground, "I will personally escort you through the city to the temple where the High Priest will offer you passage."


    Felix nodded and waited a few moments for the captain to finally return to his feet then Felix followed him into the city.


    Heading through the massive gates, Felix noted that the wall was really just there to hold a ward inscribed within it that protected the city. Past the wall, the first steps of the city itself appeared.


    While the cliff Zilleryth was built into wasn''t quite vertical, it was very steep and impossible to just walk up. Instead, there were stairs carved into the side of it that twisted and winded all the way up the city towards the top of the cliff.


    The captain led him up the stairs and through the city filled with Drakene that were oddly low level-E and D grade mostly-in Felix''s eyes. He knew most people in the multiverse were D grade but this city was a holy city with A grade guards that was overseen directly by a god.


    "What does Ezdreken mean?"


    The captain looked over his shoulder, "Loosely, it means non-Drakene or not-related-to-Dragons. So for you, it is literal. It is also used as a terrible insult towards Drakene."


    Felix nodded, "Thanks. This city, these people seem low level and-" Looking at yet another Drakene who seemed to be living in poverty in a cramped and empty building, "-poor? Am I just biased? Why have such high level guards?"


    "It''s a religious city. The Drakene living here have dedicated themselves entirely to the worship of the various Dragon gods. Most of them aim to eliminate distractions and hope to always be ready to serve their Gods, should the need arise."


    Felix nodded and followed along as they ascended. He somewhat expected the city to grow richer and bigger as they climbed but that wasn''t the case at all. It was oddly uniform with little to no distinction between districts or sections which made Felix question how it functioned at all. There was no obvious commerce district or industrial district. Just poor Drakene living in bare homes.


    The final set of stairs they climbed led up through the top of the cliff, like a tunnel, that emerged atop the plateau onto a flat, grassy field.


    In the middle of the field stood a massive temple completely surrounded by statues of various Dragons, each one as big as a building by themselves. Many of them depicted Tekragoraxius, though they were much smaller than the real Dragon God, but a lot of them depicted other Dragons Felix had never seen before.


    Bowing deeply, the captain gestured towards the temple, "This is where I leave you. I am not permitted to enter the temple myself."


    Felix cocked his head in slight shock, "But I am?"


    He nodded, "Of course."


    Felix shrugged and the captain left so, Felix headed into the temple.


    The inside was about what Felix expected, empty of pews or seats and filled with art depicting Dragons. Some of them moved, some of them were carvings and some of them were just plain paintings.


    Walking towards the center of the room, Felix looked around but saw no one so, he yelled, "Hello!"


    He immediately heard the rhythmic scraping of claws as a Drakene ran into the room from around one of the corners.


    [D - Common] Archbishop of Albiretheosis (Lvl 748)


    "Welcome¡­ Human?"


    Felix nodded and waved his recruitment, "I''m here for my recruitment?"


    The Archbishop''s eyes widened, "Ah, you''re Felix Kade."


    Felix nodded again, "Yup."


    He nodded then spun around and ran off out of the room quickly for just a few moments before running back in with a tray holding tall glasses of what looked like, iced fire, "I just sent word of your arrival. It shouldn''t be long."


    Felix nodded and reached forwards, taking a glass. He peered inside and looked at it a bit before shrugging and taking a sip. He first let it just brush against his tongue and readied his body to sever the tip if the drink tried to kill him but he actually found it tasted great and didn''t really have any major side effects, other than being almost purely alcohol.


    Taking a real sip, Felix let the alcohol destroy a number of his cells, or rather try, then nodded to the Archbishop with a smile, "Tastes great. Thanks."


    He nodded with immense relief then placed the tray on the ground and took one for himself.


    "So, who is Albiretheosis?"


    The Archbishop smiled wide, "Another Archon Dragon God, The Dragon of Stone."


    Felix nodded in realization, "It''s you carving all the statues outside?"


    He nodded, "Yes. That is how I show my dedication to my God and the Dragons as a whole."


    "You know, I once fought a statue that identified as The Dragon Mother, it was humanoid though."


    The Archbishop''s eyes widened in what seemed to be concern, "Where? What did it look like?"


    "It was in the first world event of my Integration world."


    "You said you fought it?"


    Felix nodded, "It was alive and tried to cook me."


    "Could you¡­ show me?"


    Felix nodded and the Archbishop scurried off into another room then ran back in with a crystal.


    Handing it to Felix, he immediately recognized it as a memory crystal, like the ones in the library in Telviras except this one, was blank. S§×ar?h the n??el Fire.n§×t website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    It took a few minutes for Felix to get a hang of the process, and adjust his will to not accidentally explode the crystal, before he finally managed to embed the memory. As soon as he did, a portal appeared in the middle of the room from which, Rathelius stepped out, almost like he had been watching and waiting for Felix to be done.


    [?] Rathelius (Lvl ?)


    Huh, still can''t identify him.


    "Felix." Rathelius nodded in his direction and the Archbishop dropped to his knees to bow.


    Felix sighed, bent down and left the memory crystal next to the Drakene''s head then followed Rathelius through the portal.


    On the other end, Felix found himself somewhere he recognized, the room where he had first met Tekragoraxius except, she was curiously absent. Instead it was just an empty cave with lit braziers and moving carvings, especially as the portal closed behind them. Turning to Rathelius, he saw him step through another portal and Felix followed. That one led to the field where he had evolved which still contained Tekragoraxius and an impenetrable portal through which a sleeping Endycor lay.


    Felix pulled Nova out of his Soul Space and flicked her tiny pebble form over towards the portal then approached The Dragon Mother.


    She greeted him with the customary drenching of flames that didn''t hurt at all. He responded with a Flame Thrower spell that he attached some ambient Anima to, imbued with a sense of greeting. As soon as she was hit with them this time though, she leaned in closer, "Your will has gotten vastly stronger in such a short period of time."


    "I just spent a quarter epoch with Amatara."


    She nodded knowingly, "You seem to have benefited greatly from this."


    Felix nodded, "I''m very satisfied with everything I got done there. I managed to complete everything I had planned to work on and more."


    "And what is it you have planned to do here?"


    "I guess that depends on what this recruitment is. Melody told me a Divine recruitment means you teach me directly. I''m not exactly sure what you can teach me that I would want to learn."


    "But you came here anyways. You chose this as your recruitment. You have something in mind."


    Felix nodded and took a deep breath, "I know I might not necessarily¡­ deserve a reward for playing along in your charade on Ascension Day but, I was hoping to ask for something anyways."


    She leaned in closer, "You may not deserve a reward fitting one who bears the titles you do, but you deserve a reward for not only playing your part, but maintaining the secrecy I seek. What is the reward you seek?"


    "Two things, but only really one." She looked at him blankly, "Nova, I take it you were planning on taking her anyways?"


    She nodded slightly, which was still a massive movement.


    "Then there''s really only one thing I want." Felix pivoted his body and pointed over at the completely black Drakene that had brought him here, "I''d like to learn from Rathelius for the quarter."


    Felix caught the hint of a smile on her massive face, even a twitch being obvious as massive as she was, "This request is much more than you realize."


    She looked over at Rathelius.


    He looked at her for a moment, an unspoken conversation passing between them as they locked eyes then he nodded.


    She turned back to Felix, "Then it is decided. We have also prepared other gifts for you but Rathelius can lead you to them."


    Felix bowed, "Thank you."


    Her eyes followed Felix as he walked over to Rathelius, "Before you leave."


    He nodded and without moving, two portals appeared. Through each of them, a young dragon raced out.


    One of them had entirely white scales with hints of blue while the other, had half red scales and half a smattering of every other possible color.


    [D - Legendary] Merroth (Lvl 982)


    [C - Legendary] Romys (Lvl 1451)


    The two of them jumped out and dove at Rathelius, Felix hopping back a few steps to give them room, and greeted him with their breath. Merroth showered him in flames and Romys, seemed to suffer from similar performance problems as Endycor when it came to his flame breath.


    They then looked at Felix warily before deciding against greeting him and instead, rushed over to their mother who they greeted in a similar fashion to Rathelius.


    She found more of her children.


    After Tekragoraxius, the two of them raced over to the portal to rouse Endycor and as they approached, a tiny pebble on the ground in front of the portal suddenly grew into a massive dragon. Nova paled in comparison to Tekragoraxius but she was still, in comparison to the others, absurdly huge at her largest.


    The two dragon children backed away in fear and trepidation but Nova only stomped around for a bit before shrinking to a similar size as the Dragon children.


    Felix stepped back over to Rathelius as he watched Nova wrestling with the other two Dragon children while basically torturing Endycor who was still stuck on the other side of the portal.


    Rathelius watched for a few moments before turning to Felix, "Is there something in specific you were hoping I teach you?"


    Felix rocked his head back and forth a few times, "Sort of. First things first, have you ever heard of the Transportation Facilitation Program?"


    Rathelius almost constantly wore a blank expression. Even when he did react, it was hard to notice his facial expression because his scales were completely black. As soon as Felix mentioned the Transportation Facilitation Program though, his expression shifted.


    Felix couldn''t tell if he hated it or accepted it or liked it and he assumed it was far more complex than any of those individually because his expression was, very mixed.


    "Yes."


    "Oh perfect. So, I got banned from it and now I can''t cast portals¡­ at all."


    He sighed through his snout, "You''re wondering if there''s another way?"


    He nodded, "Assuming. Hoping."


    "Is that all you want to learn this quarter?"


    "That''s the biggest problem I face right now. Portals were incredibly convenient and I used them in constructs for communication and just to save myself a ton of time. If possible though, you''ve cast a couple other spells I''d love to learn but, I understand if they are secrets. Honestly, whatever you can teach me, I''d like to learn."


    "It will be impossible for you to do what I do for a long time." He locked eyes with Felix, his expression rather serious, "Do you still wish for us to spend time on this knowing that?"


    Felix nodded, "Yes."


    Rathelius nodded and walked through a portal that simply appeared before him as Felix hurried in behind him.


    The portal led to what Felix would describe as an empty planet. It looked, like what he imagined the surface of the moon to look like. Rock and dust as far as he could see, no perceptible atmosphere.


    Though he could hold his breath for a long time, and survive extreme temperatures at least for an instant, Felix found it unnecessary to cast anything as Rathelius already had, without moving a single muscle.


    "What I will attempt to teach you, is likely the single most dangerous thing you will ever learn."


    Felix nodded, his excitement growing.


    "The Transportation Facilitation Program was created because without it, opening a portal would be impossible. There are a grand total of two beings in the entire multiverse that I am aware of, that are capable of doing so. Edras and I."


    "And The System? What about Kryptos?"


    Rathelius nodded reluctantly, "Calling The System a being is¡­ Yes, it as well. Kryptos, does not cast portals ever. They can open them indirectly however though magically inscribed instruments."


    "Why is it so hard, that only you two and The System can do it?"


    "The requirements are astronomical. In fact, the way Edras casts portals is completely different from how I cast portals, but also entirely the same. I will teach you the better way."


    Felix nodded, his excitement still growing with every word Rathelius spoke.


    "First, you must understand space and the universe itself. What is your current understanding of space?"


    Felix described to Rathelius what he knew about space, gravity and time. Most of it came from high school physics because as much as he had encyclopedias and text books in his mind, he hadn''t spent the time to try and understand them.


    "That analogy you used to a rubber sheet for gravity, is not at all accurate but helps to visualize some properties. To add to your model, imagine the sheet not as rubber, but as a fabric. Matter, is a ball that depresses and stretched the fabric, rolls along it. Breaking matter down into energy, is like grains of sand. They similarly move across the sheet and depress it. Mana and Anima however, are like water. They simply pass through the sheet."


    Felix cocked his head but Rathelius continued.


    "This is where the analogy falls apart because no doubt you know, mana can pass through a portal and has a position in space. It does not however, create gravity. Neither does anima. Additionally, the position of mana within space is completely different from the position of matter. For our purposes, do not apply anything you learn about space and how matter interacts and exists, to Mana or Anima."


    Felix nodded.


    "As for the actual nature of space itsel-"


    "Actually, if you''re about to go through a long explanation, could we have this conversation in a constructed memory?"


    Rathelius cocked his head, "You wish to bring me into a constructed memory of yours?"


    Felix nodded, "Perceptual time dilation."


    He nodded, "I must warn you. My spirit is rather¡­ heavy."


    Felix didn''t hesitate as he walked forward, closed the distance, and offered his hand. Rathelius took it with a claw and Felix pulled him into his Soul Garden.


    When Rathelius had mentioned he would be heavy, Felix was a little skeptical considering everything else he had pulled in but he was right. Pulling Rathelius in felt like pulling in a billion souls. It was exactly what he imagined pulling a God in would be like, possibly even more.


    He honestly wasn''t sure if it would have been possible before his time at Amatara''s recruitment. Possibly, but either way he was confident he could, at least with his current Soul, hold him indefinitely.


    Rathelius looked around then looked at Felix, "Can you hold me?"


    Felix nodded, "Indefinitely."


    Rathelius hmphed, "You mentioned your last recruitment was with Amatara? What did you do there?"


    "Learned to use my class skills, strengthened my soul and climbed The Unwavering Peaks."


    Rathelius nodded like he had been expecting that answer, "How many peaks did you ascend?"


    "All of them. I''d flash you my title but¡­ we''re here so. Amatara gave me the title, Spirit Sage."


    He cocked a brow then smiled a little, "Earlier I said it it would be impossible for you to do what I do for a long time. It is possible my judgement was a little hasty. What is the dilation you experience in here?"


    "With my Class skill that buffs my Intelligence active, nearly 3,600 times."


    He chuckled, "Very hasty it seems¡­ Before we get started, show me why I feel other souls here."


    Felix sighed and moved them into the city.


    Rathelius looked around him slowly. Then, he turned to the library and moved himself towards it instantly. Felix followed behind and he stepped in and began walking around, looking at the books, even picking up and reading a few of them.


    "Your ability to raw cast is a subset of the strength of your soul, is it not? At least in part?"


    Felix shrugged, "Pretty sure, yes."


    He stood in silence for a few minutes then nodded, "As I was saying, the actual nature of space¡­"


    It took Felix just over an hour of real time to fully grasp what Rathelius qualified as ''the basics'' which consisted not just of the basic theory but also of a lot of foundational math and physics he had to learn. Then, another hour for him to lay out all the required spells. They weren''t spells Felix should cast yet, but Rathelius wanted him to have them for the time being.


    Once Rathelius was satisfied with his understanding of the basics, they put that into practice by returning to the physical world on the barren planet.


    The first spell they started with was the spell to measure coordinates at a specific location. The way coordinates worked though, weren''t as simple as the TFP made it seem. He couldn''t just slot them into a spell and cast it. Using the measured coordinates, he had to calculate and adjust the spell itself according to them.


    Just casting the spell to measure coordinates though, was a huge challenge. The coordinate measuring spell was more akin to a spatial property measuring spell but, not the properties Felix was used to. It also wasn''t accurate to call it a spell either because he had to effectively cast a completely different, unique spell for both his location, and his destination.


    If he were measuring the coordinates at a specific point, he had to adjust for the space where he was, where the point was and everywhere in between. Even the slightest pull of gravity could completely throw the result off.


    Luckily, the spells weren''t complicated in their actual forms so they didn''t surpass Felix''s limit, although they did approach it at around 50 spell levels. At least, his old limit. With Reaper''s Instinct active all the time, he was able to push that limit a bit higher, though he didn''t have the time to quantify it.


    Working with Rathelius, they would both cast the spell then compare the results. As soon as Felix got the correct output, they would move to a new location, just a meter away, and he would be competently off and the spell he had to cast there, completely unrecognizable from the last.


    While he could have accelerated the process with his mental computer and Mark, he completely avoided using them for anything more than the basic math so he could try and build an intuition for it himself. While he had the theoretical foundation for space memorized, he hadn''t fully internalized it in a way where he could make assumptions about it. Until he could do that and conduct his own experiments, he forced himself to manually work through the spells.


    The entire time they worked, Felix couldn''t help but feel like the coordinates produced were familiar. Not close enough to anything he knew that he could pinpoint them, but familiar nonetheless.


    After a couple of days of non stop spell casting, Felix finally asked the question he had been wondering for a while, "Adjusting and creating a different spell every time is great but, shouldn''t it be possible to create a spell that automatically measures and adjusts itself?"


    Rathelius met his gaze, "Of course. That spell is around one hundred thousand times more complex than the one you are casting right now. Even if you adjust for mana normalization yourself, it would be ten thousand times more complex. Resulting in a spell that requires some hundreds of trillions of points of mana."


    "Never mind then."


    It wasn''t even like Felix could have a computer perfectly calculate each spell for each location because then he would need to cast a whole array of other measurement spells for it to initially decide on the measurement spells to use. What Rathelius wanted Felix to do, was have an instinct for which spell would be needed based on his physical senses of the world. Felix doubted the plausibility of sensing minute gravitational changes but Rathelius assured him it was possible.


    It took them 5 days of non stop spell casting in total for Felix to cast the correct coordinate spell and end up with the correct coordinates every time. They ended up moving all over the place just to be sure, on planets, in space, on moons and even in more extreme situations.


    What ended up helping a lot, was something Felix had almost forgotten about, Studious. The General Skill he had picked up was showing him in real time when he did something wrong and how to adjust it. In the past it was helpful but the instruction was less clear and his goal wasn''t concrete. Now, it was.


    Afterwards, they returned to the barren planet they had started from and Rathelius began teaching Felix how to use those coordinates to cast portals.


    Felix was ecstatic to get back what he felt he had lost but it seemed it just wasn''t meant to be. Casting portals to coordinates was not only just as complicated as he had expected, but also absurdly mana hungry. Not only that, but the portals only connected his exact location to the location his coordinate spells measured, which was a grand total of 2 meters at most.


    Mostly because of how much mana it took, even draining his Pocket Home and moving to Aether rich areas, it took 22 days for Rathelius to be satisfied.


    Anchors alleviated Felix''s issues somewhat but it wasn''t really possible to cast one the way the TFP allowed. Natural anchors were exactly as they had been because even The System couldn''t completely ignore the effects of black holes, stars or even large planets when casting portals. With Planets and Stars it was possible but difficult.


    To actually create a real anchor, required an absurd amount of mana to warp space itself in a location. They only spent a brief bit of time on that, not actually casting them but making sure Felix understood what it felt like and how to avoid accidentally opening a portal into one.


    After that they spent a dekad diving back into theory.


    "First things first, now that you have all the foundational knowledge and understanding required, those marbles you mentioned earlier, how do you think they work?"


    "They must have pre-adjusted, coordinated portal spell forms embedded within them. Anything they can''t adjust for, either The System compensates for or more likely, the spell form is incredibly complex and adjusts itself based on measurements it takes."


    Rathelius nodded, "Yes and no. Remember all that theory I ingrained into you before we started?"


    Felix nodded.


    "Forget all of it¡­ for the time being. Instead, think of space as an emergent property. It doesn''t actually exist. Instead, space is the way we interpret the universe."


    "I''ve heard those terms before but never dove into them. You''re saying the way we see space and distance is actually just a construct of our minds?"


    "Not exactly. Neither this nor the last analogy are correct. The truth is incredibly complex. For coordinates and portals the way we just talked about, imagine space as real. For what I''m about to teach you, space doesn''t exist."


    "How does that work?"


    "You know how particles have properties like charge and spin. Imagine they also had another property we''ll call position. Now, with no space, the distance between particles isn''t a defined property but, we perceive distance as the difference between the position properties of the two respective particles."


    Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.


    "I sort of get it. I think?"


    Rathelius remained silent for a few moments before nodding once, "Imagine a cylinder. Running from end to end of the cylinder all around it, are lines. These lines aren''t just straight though, they''re waves. These waves race around the outside of the cylinder at the speed of light, this is time. Each wave has its own frequency. If I have two waves at different frequencies, how much overlap would there be if I overlaid them on top of each-other?"


    "Essentially none, if you don''t count individual points."


    "Exactly. This frequency is position. Even with two waves at the same point in time, their frequencies need to be identical or they won''t interact with each-other at all. Each wave is then a fundamental particle of the universe. Two adjacent particles or atoms connected together, simply have their position properties entangled with each-other. Not literally entangled, but attached so to speak."


    "This is just an analogy right?"


    "Yes. It makes very little sense for anything other than exactly what we''re about to talk about."


    "Which is?"


    "We''re getting there. Other properties can also be entangled but most importantly, position is just a property of a particle. Now, remember this: ''Anima transcends space and time.'' Mana too but not in the same way. Back to our cylinder example, imagine Anima sits inside the cylinder, like it''s a tank and Mana sits outside the cylinder. Both of them, can directly affect the properties of particles and also, entangle the properties of particles together."


    Felix''s eyes widened as he realized what they were about to dive into, "Portaless teleporting. Infinite, perfect communication."


    Rathelius nodded, "One more too. Imagine I take a wave and add to it, another wave. The second wave has a higher frequency and smaller amplitude both by a factor of say¡­ a hundred."


    Felix nodded, finally having the visual in his mind, "That''s a subspace. You have a set of frequencies overlaid within an exact position in space."


    "Exactly. Back to the marbles, you can also use this to do portaled teleportation by essentially detaching the wave from the cylinder and moving it through the Ambient Anima or Aether to reappear with a different position property."


    "Which is ultimately, cheaper."


    "Exactly. Just vastly more fragile. It requires stability so high, it needs to be embedded within a crystal. Your Pocket Home will simply add a sub position to your position, which lets you interact with the sub space, that you carry around with you. The event marble does the same but moves you to the location of the event sub space as well."


    "Is it possible to create a subspace?"


    Rathelius smiled just a little, "Yes, that''s what we''re going to do today. Or rather, I''m going to make one and give it to you."


    Felix''s eyes widened, "To replace my Soul Space?"


    "Exactly. Firstly, this will be a True Sub Space, not a Pocket Dimension, Realm, Universe or Fake Subspace. Pocket Dimensions, Realms and Universes are much more complicated to create but you can heavily bend their laws and some have their laws completely distorted and unrecognizable. Nothing like infinite mana in a Pocket Dimension, but that is theoretically possible in a Universe. At least, the math allows it. In a Pocket Dimension or Realm though, the rules aren''t broken, but bent"


    "Like making time move slower within them?"


    "Among other things, yes. A Fake Sub Space is just a fold in space and you can move in and out of at will. Any Sub Space, borrows all the laws of the parent space so, physics will remain identical. A True Sub Space, is bound to a single point in the universe and even The System cannot get in without having direct access to that point or, if you open a portal into it. If you lose the entrance, you can never get back in. You''ll never be able to cast or inscribe the coordinates accurately enough to get back there. It''s pinpointing an EXACT location in space. Most people, bind that point to a marble or crystal for stability. Gods, bind them to their souls."


    Pinching his claws together, Felix felt a slight jerk across his whole body, like a lurch of gravity then, it was gone. Rathelius reached forwards and handed Felix what looked to be nothing.


    If Rathelius weren''t so generally serious, Felix would have been certain he was messing with him. His claws were pinched against each-other and there was simply nothing there. Like he was pinching an invisible sheet of paper. He reached his hand out anyways and used a Soul Tendril to try and reach for whatever was there. As he did, he felt something heavy between Rathelius'' fingers.


    Wrapping the tendril around it, then pulling in a few more to assist, Felix carefully took the Sub Space and nodded to Rathelius to confirm he had it. Rathelius carefully pulled his claws back and as soon as he did, Felix had to wrench down on the point to keep it contained as he nearly dropped it to the ground. Due to the weight, Felix moved his chest towards it, instead of the other way around.


    Pushing it inside, he pulled the point all the way into his Core Soul where he embedded it.


    Collecting himself and standing back up, now that the weight seemed to be mostly gone, Felix nodded, "Thank you."


    "You''ll have to get used to moving things in and out of it as well as fill it with Anima but that comes later. For now, what did I say about anima?"


    "Anima transcends space and time."


    "Yes. Think of anima as not having a position at all, but rather being entangled separately with reality which is how we interact with it. This is the nature of Anima which is why you can bind a soul to a body or object. Mana, has no such nature and is indifferent to our world."


    "But you can entangle it with anima?"


    "Yes. It is indifferent to our reality though. You have pulled mana into our reality before, this is effectively gifting it an entanglement, solidification is similar but that degrades very quickly, as you know. Back to Anima, not only is it entangled with reality, but it can affect entanglements in general, directly. This is something it is very good at and is more or less how Nova can move matter around, you can move Mana around and how your Reaper''s Skills work."


    "Is there a limit to that?"


    "Theoretically? No limit other than the physical constraints of the universe itself, or the speed of light. In reality, it is extraordinarily difficult to accelerate anything directly. Adding or augmenting already existent velocity or acceleration is more plausible. Think of it as a multiplier for velocity or acceleration. Now, what we''re going to spend the rest of your time here on, using Mana to change the properties of particles."


    Felix almost salivated, "Portaless teleporting."


    "A word of warning. Moving the position property of your particles imperfectly, risks disentanglement which effectively equates to dismemberment in this case and with your soul attached to your body, splitting it."


    "Oh¡­ lovely."


    For the rest of his recruitment quarter, Felix worked with Rathelius to teleport objects without opening portals at all. It felt impossible, required an absurd amount of spatially attuned mana, precision and force all at the same time.


    Spatially attuned mana alone, completely shifted Felix''s perspective as it wasn''t one of the attunements he was used to. Instead, it was like Rathelius had turned Felix''s head and shown his that his two dimensional world, was actually seven dimensional, and that was just for spatially attuned mana. Spatial attunements were separate from normal attunements and could be combined freely with them. The entire concept wasn''t difficult to grasp but really made Felix wonder what other perspectives he could look at mana from and whether or not there was a limit to the degrees of attunement.


    He had already seen something similar with the door under the teleportation hub in Telviras but, he hadn''t actually explored or examined it. He definitely didn''t understand it.


    He moved a couple of rocks over his time, after turning a number of them to dust and losing even more of them along the way. Once again, Studious proving itself an extraordinarily useful skill, in this particular instance. He also had Rathelius manually correcting him after the fact but knowing what he was doing wrong and where made it much clearer and easier to adjust either in the moment, or in the future.


    He briefly wondered about purposefully moving someone against their will imperfectly as an attack but even if he could do it instantly, having too much willful Anima attached to the matter made it nearly impossible. He could move himself, but that was only because his soul would work together with the spell instead of fighting it.


    It was also nearly impossible if he tried to move just a piece of a whole.


    It wasn''t possible to just teleport half the rock, he had to move the whole thing. However, if he did so imperfectly, the chemical bonds of the rock could be separated once it was disentangled from space. All that added up to it not being realistic for him to vanish a hole into a wall, using direct particle manipulation anyways. He would effectively have to disentangle the entire wall then remove the hole, at which point he might as well just move the wall itself.


    The entire time he practiced, especially when he was waiting to refill his mana, Felix also practiced with his new Soul Space. It ended up being much easier to use than he expected and he very quickly got the hang of it. In fact, he managed to move the Nucleus and Grim''s body out of his old Soul Space and completely collapse all of them except for the Soul Space housing Reaper''s Mantle, which he kept around.


    Doing so felt freeing in a sense and he was really happy with that. His old Soul Spaces were more like hiding things under the rug or stuffing his pockets than actual spaces. He was limited by the size of the rug and it was annoying if he wanted to walk around on it. The real sub space, was imperceptible to his soul in terms of weight and was an actual space.


    Given how awesome it was to have so much more room at his disposal, Felix seriously considered moving even more things in there. Eventually, considering even his Core Soul, "Hey Rathelius, what if I moved my Core Soul into this Sub Space?"


    Standing on the barren planet a short distance from him, waiting for his mana to refill, Rathelius winced a little which immediately told Felix everything he needed to know, "Theoretically¡­ I will assume you execute the bindings and connection perfectly because you''re a Spirit Sage so, nothing."


    Felix was taken aback by the answer. He was really expec-


    "Right now, if you were to die, you would become a remnant. As a remnant, you could either live on or find a new body to bind to, maybe becoming an elemental or spirit. If you die with your Core Soul in a True Sub Space, it will burst open and spit you out. However, certain attacks starting in the high B grade carry the possibility of severing space which, is much easier and less dramatic than it sounds."


    Felix''s excitement washed away and was replaced with disgust and horror.


    "A severed sub space is not a happy place. Think of a little bubble on the surface if a big bubble, the attack wouldn''t just separate the little bubble, it would launch it. Then, you would have no way to return to the big bubble. Without the big bubble, the little bubble degrades and even if you, inside of the little bubble, held it steady through force of will, you''d be stranded. Possibly even separated from all anima and mana."


    Felix looked at the ground and sighed, "Never mind then."


    It took the entire rest of his recruitment for Felix to get even a small piece of a rock to move where he wanted it but, he lost the rest of the rock as it vanished and never reappeared.


    He had enough direction to keep practicing on his own though and more importantly, enough knowledge imparted to him by Rathelius that he could start experimenting by himself.


    As his last day arrived though, Rathelius surprised him by opening a portal and leading him through. On the other side, in stark contrast to the barren planet they had been on, was a massive library with shelves on each floor that were a dozen meters tall. It was impossible to tell how big the place was because there were no unobstructed sight lines as far as Felix could see.


    Looking over at one of the shelves, Felix saw a number of books on the mineral makeup of a particular mountain range.


    He didn''t look for long though before hurrying forward to follow Rathelius.


    "This is the gift The Dragon Mother had prepared for you. Unlimited access to her personal library. This contains all the information and books that have ever been gifted to her or the Drakene along with copies of nearly everything the species has ever read."


    Felix''s eyes widened, "How big is this¡­ place?"


    "This is a True Sub Space. It has been stretched and expanded many times." Rathelius reached out and offered Felix a marble.


    Felix gingerly took and cradled it before pulling it into his new Soul Space.


    "That holds a portal to enter. Use it wisely. There-" Rathelius pointed, "-is an index. Of particular interest to you, there are copies of nearly every spell ever known to Dragons or the Drakene."


    "I¡­ thank you."


    "Will you be taking Nova with you to your next recruitment?"


    Felix shook his head, "Not this one."


    Waving his hand, Rathelius opened a portal that opened up just outside of Eramith.


    Before stepping through, Felix faced Rathelius, "Thank you. For teaching me and dedicating so much of your time to do so."


    Rathelius nodded.


    Felix took a step then stopped, "You know, I was surprised multiple times this quarter by how much you knew about me."


    He cocked a brow like he was surprised Felix didn''t already know why, "Of course. The Dragon Mother has spent much of her time and resources keeping your arrangement a secret and running interference on rumors. My abilities tend to be useful when it comes to long distance communication."


    Felix winced at hearing Rathelius was forced to follow him around and clean up his messes, "Sorry about that."


    He shook his head, "You have done admirably considering how new you are to the multiverse as a whole. Your nature of being a loner helps quite a bit. What you have displayed as Felix and the rumors about you and your Persona that do surface are so unbelievable, it makes our jobs easier and provides an effective distraction. Your professors are some of the only ones who know what you can do and they refuse to tell anyone because then they can''t use you for their research and learn from your abilities. If they did, some god would pick you up and they would never hear nor see anything you did, ever. This allows us to obfuscate your abilities and direct all the questions towards you and why we are interested in you, and away from your persona."


    Felix nodded, "I assumed it was something like that¡­ at least with most of them. Wanting to further their research isn''t exactly a malicious desire though. What about you, what do you want?"


    Rathelius stiffened a little, "I humbly serve The Dragon Mother however I might be of use."


    "I see. Well, I appreciate that."


    Felix waved as he walked through the portal then headed over to his dorm room. There, he harvested the Mana Computer farm and performed some basic maintenance and upgrades with his new will power then, stuck it in his Soul Space, now that he had the room to spare.


    What is that? The Nucleus immediately recoiled in his Soul Space.


    Mana Computer farm, still working out the kinks but one day, it might allow me to replace you.


    Ha ha. Seriously though, you can do much better than this, can''t you?


    Yes. I haven''t exactly had the time to rework it yet. Luckily, I should have time to do so where I''m heading.


    He then quickly retrieved Art from Ked''s lab, flying as fast as he could, and placed him in his Soul Space. Finally Felix flew over to the portal room and handed El his next recruitment. She glanced at it briefly then opened a portal to Edras'' Arcanum Pansophical.


    It was, exactly what Felix expected in some ways and completely different in others. He landed in a large circular room with a single point of entry that was completely filled with portals appearing and disappearing around him. Unlike the teleportation hub in Telviras, the room seemed completely random with portals of different sizes shapes and colors appearing all over the place.


    Felix also saw a single person walk into the room and open a portal to leave, but the multiple hundred others were all arriving.


    Following the crowd that was spread out far enough that it wasn''t cramped at all, they all headed down the massive walkway into a huge lobby.


    The ceiling looked to be missing and through it, appeared to be some kind of spatial anomaly above. It was like a star that was exploding or had exploded, with twisting rings around it and bursts of color shooting out of either end. Reaching upwards with his Matter Senses, Felix realized two things. First, the missing ceiling was an illusion and what he was seeing was an indistinguishable projection of reality, behind it there was a ceiling which is what he expected to find. Secondly, his Matter Senses had much more range than he realized.


    Around the room, there were at least a hundred hallways that weren''t identical, but all looked quite similar. Luckily, Felix knew exactly where to go by either following the signs that reminded him of a school and the crowd around him heading in the same direction he was.


    The crowd itself mostly consisted of sapients in the D or C grade, like him, the vast majority of which seemed to be casters, or at least wore robes. Many of them, walked or flew alongside their familiars.


    There were Frostmyre, Rhunar, Humans, Elves, Drakene and every other race Felix expected to see along with Singular Minds, Undead and other odder races. Amongst them, were elementals, some of which were casters and others that were familiars. The familiars also included undead, magma turtles, deer made of wood, flying bat cats, trolls and everything else Felix could have imagined.


    It was easily the highest concentration in density and ratio of casters and familiars he had ever seen.


    Following the massive, labeled arrows, Felix made his way down a few halls, through a few forks and into a large room with a number of chairs and a stage at the front. It was a little more theater than school assembly in style and structure, but it still reminded him more of the latter.


    Felix took a seat in one of the back rows and waited as everyone else streamed in and found their seats.


    Once the room was about 90% full, the doors behind them closed and the lights everywhere except on the stage dimmed, like it was actually a show. The lights on stage shifted in hue and tone as a man with light blue skin and white hair stepped out onto the stage.


    He wore impressive, elegant but simple robes and stood just slightly shorter than the average man. Felix wouldn''t even have really noticed his height if he weren''t certain, the man had evolved and grown from a Frostmyre, which were typically around 4 feet tall.


    [SSS - Mythic] Edras (Lvl 6894)


    Edras stepped over into the middle of the stage with grace and a wide, warm smile as he visually scanned the crowd. He stopped in the middle and looked around for another few seconds before finally speaking, easily projecting his voice throughout the room.


    "Welcome, everyone to The Arcanum Pansophical. I know we have all come to refer to this period as a recruitment and, based on what you do with your time here, we very well may offer to sponsor you but this is also the first time many of you are here and the first time many of you are seeing me."


    Edras continued to scan the crowd as he talked, appearing welcoming as he did so, "I was once right where you are and I''d like to share a little bit about myself with you, it is relevant, I promise. I was born into the multiverse, raised within it and from a young age I was completely taken by the notion of progressing and becoming stronger and fighting legendary beasts, as many young boys are."


    A few of the audience members chuckled.


    "I was drawn to magic and so, I accepted the Arcanist class and dove in head first. I cannot with certainty claim that my strength was largely the result of luck, effort or talent. My father would claim talent, my mother effort and my opponents luck. The truth, likely lies somewhere in between."


    "Finding knowledge at this point in my life was a challenge but not an insurmountable one. I dove into dungeons and System events for the rewards, supplementing the reasonable income I made as an enchanter which I spent on a veritable trove of spells. My Profession evolved as I grew and my addiction to spells and desire to understand the universe was rewarded with a high tier Profession and Class in the D grade."


    "It was around that point that I was destroying everything around my own level and I pushed to challenge the hardest dungeons and events I could find. I wasn''t even trying to prove myself at that point, I just wanted to fight and to learn. Eventually though, I realized there was simply a wall. No matter how many events I could win, how many jobs I could complete, there would simply be others with better resources and more knowledge available to them."


    "This became increasingly obvious as I was forced out of System events and dungeons after refusing to take exorbitant amounts of wealth to abstain. Later on, I seriously regretted not taking their offer, but that''s hindsight. Even the events I wasn''t pushed out of, I was up against kids my own age who had been training since birth to carry on the legacy of their faction or clan. They had been handed down and taught the ways of Legendary Classes, started with Divine Races and had equipment that was purchased with planets, not credits."


    "I didn''t resent them though, not once ever. They had all trained to get where they were. I knew it wasn''t possible for them to just be handed their classes and races. These kids worked and trained their whole lives to get where they were. What I resented, was the fact that I didn''t have that chance. I had also trained nearly my entire life, poured every ounce of myself into getting stronger. It just didn''t matter though, even if I had a Mythic Class or a Unique Race, I was limited by the nature of spells and their prerequisite knowledge. The upside of course being that my equipment was much cheaper, less impactful and easier to maintain compared to a fighter with full armor."


    "Nevertheless, I was still winning many of the events I managed to attend, most of them even. I was the Champion of Mayhem, Bringer of Chaos, Conqueror of Nirvana, Kriskas Victorus for my cycle."


    Felix had never heard of a single one of those things but the crowd in the room definitely had. All of them reacted in some way, some of them even gasping.


    "So, I applied to Eramith. It was the best school with the most knowledge I could use. It would completely eliminate the barrier I was facing and the things I would learn there¡­ well, the excitement kept me up over many nights. I was convinced I would get in too, given everything I had accomplished but alas, I did not. Not all was lost though because there was the entry tournament and so I signed myself up and spent every credit I had on new equipment."


    "I was certain I could win, given how much better I was than everyone else. Sure there were some who had gotten in already with Divine Classes but the tournament, the people signing up to that would be easy opponents to overcome, surely. They weren''t allowed to use items outside of their grades so there was no way someone could buy out a win."


    He closed his eyes and sighed, "As it turned out, I was wrong. I made it to the finals of the tournament but I lost to one of Radleus'' sons. Someone who had already been accepted without the tournament. I wasn''t overly worried at first, child of the Merchant God surely wouldn''t be too hard to beat with the influence of his wealth restricted. I learned that day though, that the wall that had been erected between us was so much worse than I had ever thought possible. Leading up to the finals, I watched him dominate his opponents with his prowess and by the time I fought him, I felt the dread of the match settle deep into my bones."


    "Nevertheless, I came up with a plan and, executed it perfectly. It just. Didn''t. Matter. He didn''t have items at his disposal, but he had a class and profession he had bought access to along with skills from trainers his family had hired and so, he deployed an impenetrable barrier and there was nothing I could do to win. I lost the tournament and with it, my chance to ever attend Eramith."


    He paused for a moment for dramatic effect and Felix fought the urge to leave.


    "There are other schools though and not attending Eramith was not the end of my story, I attended multiple other schools and excelled. They helped greatly with alleviating my issues and over time, I amassed power, wealth and knowledge until finally, I ascended. As a God I aimed for stability in the early years because what I''m doing now, needed stability to ever become a reality. After multiple integrations of boring God politics, I finally managed to open-"


    He gestured around himself with a proud smile, "-The Arcanum Pansophical. With this, my dream has become a reality. A place where I can distribute all of the knowledge I gain freely, to anyone. A place where everyone has equal access and what you gain from it, is entirely up to you and how much you want it."


    Felix could feel the crowd getting pumped up. The excitement was palpable, literally with his strengthened soul as the Ambient Anima was rife with anticipation.


    "The reason I bored you all with my life story just now, is to serve as a basis for the one requirement of The Arcanum Pansophical. Anything you make, is yours. Anything you brought with you, is yours. We provide resources and tools you can use to enchant items, create constructs, experiment, research and discover. However, everything you do here, will be watched and any items you make, scanned. The entire point of this is to distribute knowledge and so, that knowledge will be provided here, for anyone to peruse. There are no secrets or hidden knowledge here."


    "I know some of you may not agree with that and if not, feel free to experiment and discover on your own time but, it also means everything anyone else has ever done here, is here for you to discover. Which, requires an extensive facility and a stringent system of organization. This is currently handled by a computer, one of the biggest in the multiverse, which you will also have access to. My hope is that by eliminating many of these artificial barriers that have been erected over time, we can better allow The System, to perform the exact task it does best, facilitating growth."


    He went on to explain some of the more popular facilities like the library, various workshops and material shops.


    Once he was finally done, Edras smiled and waved, "I hope you find and discover exactly what it is you are hoping for and that you overcome whatever it is, that''s holding you back."


    A number of people in the crowd rose and applauded, some joining in shortly afterwards. Most of them were excited and pumped up but Felix wasn''t entirely alone in simply, not caring. There were at least a few others who appeared to have more dour expressions and left immediately once they were allowed to. One of which he recognized but, Adaline was already long gone and Felix''s list of things he wanted to accomplish was way too long to be talking to really, anyone else.


    Felix got up pretty soon after, completely avoiding the recruits in the room who were excitedly talking with everyone around them.


    Heading back out of the room though, he was stopped by 4 people standing there waiting. They directed him over to one of them who explained what was happening, "To facilitate the process of scanning everything you do here, we will need to scan your person now for all spatial storage items you have. Those items will then all be scanned when you leave. We assure you, nothing will be taken."


    Felix nodded in understanding, "What if I don''t want the contents scanned?"


    "Of course. In that case you can deposit those items elsewhere then come back without them. We provide a service to store those items during your stay, if you wish."


    "What about Soul Spaces? I thought you couldn''t scan those?"


    They nodded, "Correct. For those with Soul Spaces, we employ other tools to verify their claims. Since you''re only in the C grade however, we won''t need to use them."


    Felix shrugged and as he did so, sucked his Kryptos Repository, Erevos in band form and Devourer Rings from beneath his sleeves, into his freshly expanded Soul Space. He mentally activated the Kryptos Repository and dumped out anything even slightly more than mundane into his now massive Soul Space then reequipped it and held out his arm, "I just have this."


    They looked at it for a moment then nodded, "We can''t scan a Kryptos item trivially, could you please open it?"


    Felix nodded and did so, combining all the pockets of the Repository to reveal its entire contents at once.


    Their eyes blurred as they looked over at an invisible screen then they nodded and handed Felix a ring, "You''re clear. Thank you for your cooperation."


    Felix smiled politely, took the ring, then left and headed down the hall.


    [D - Uncommon] Arcanum Pansophical Identification Ring


    [Ring][Identification]


    This ring marks your person as scanned and is used to access the facilities of the Arcanum Pansophical. Upon leaving, at any time, the ring must be returned. Upon arrival, after having been scanned, you will be returned a new ring.


    Felix briefly scrutinized the ring to make sure it was what it seemed then shrugged and equipped it.


    With it on, he headed down the hall towards his first destination that would dictate what he spent most of his time on.


    Finding his way through the facility was trivial as the signage reminded him of an airport. However, the instant he tried to mentally map where he was going, he almost instantly got lost.


    Following the signs to the Super Computer, Felix headed down a hall, turned left thrice without ascending or descending and ended up somewhere completely different than where he had started. Initially he thought it had to do with seamless portals, like the ones in the halls of Telviras'' teleportation hub but even if Edras didn''t need the TFP for his portals-meaning they wouldn''t buzz with anima-Felix knew they weren''t portals at all. Stepping through portals, no matter what they were, still led to a noticeable shift in the Ambient Anima and Aether which he now knew, was because Mana and Anima were separate from space itself. Portals didn''t affect them unless they were bound to matter directly and dragged through.


    Not once did he detect either of them shift though so instead, there was something else going on.


    He arrived at his destination before he managed to figure it out though and so, he headed over to the reception area. Much like when he was scanned, there were a number of people waiting to permit entry, like an amusement park.


    Felix headed over to the first empty desk with an attendant behind it.


    "Hello and welcome to The Arcanum Pansophical''s Super Computer, generously provided and maintained by Edras himself."


    "Thanks. Can I get some time on the computer?"


    The attendant nodded, "Do you have your recruitment?"


    Felix offered it to her but she just looked at it then nodded, "How many nodes hours are you looking for?"


    "Sorry, could you explain that?"


    "Of course. Nodes are the basic unit of measurement for the machine. One node is equivalent to about 1 million instructions per second. One node hour means using one node for one hour or, 4 nodes simultaneously for 15 minutes. Running operations concurrently is significantly faster but requires more advanced knowledge of how programs work."


    Felix nodded, 1 million per second per node is really low but maybe a node isn''t a physical thing at all.


    "How many node hours can I use?"


    "Based on the tier of your recruitment, you are permitted to use 1000 node hours, distributed amongst the time you spend here."


    "Can I get more?"


    "Currently, no. Outside of the recruitment period you can buy more time up to a limit. Currently however, everyone is being rationed to ensure the large influx of recruits don''t use up all the resources in the facility."


    "What if I just want to learn and test my program first, does that cost me as well?"


    "We have testing nodes that are free to use but are significantly slower and run on a queue system with a limit of 20 minutes every hour."


    "How much slower are they, can I try one of those?"


    "Of course. I will issue you test credentials right now, please press your Identification Ring against the desk right here."


    Felix did as she asked and a moment later, the gate opened, "If you wish to use the nodes yourself, you will have to return so I can issue you real credentials."


    He nodded and thanked her then headed through the gate and down the hall into what appeared to be, a futuristic office space. There was a grid of seats at long desks, each with some semblance of a computer at them. The computers though, weren''t screens at all and the keyboards, unrecognizable.


    Felix walked over to the nearest empty one and sat down, looking down at the keyboard and groaned. Even without reading into the language of what was happening here, the keyboard was a keyboard of symbols he vaguely recognized. Instead of letters though, the entire purpose was to write programs and so, each key represented a fundamental operation.


    There were buttons for read, write, move, copy, comparison, arithmetic, gates, scoping and everything else he could think of.


    People really spend their time programming like this? I was hoping for some super high level language here. Grim, I know it''s not entirely comparable but in the last few minutes, any chance you found a way to measure Marks operations per second?


    Grim mentally squinted, No. We tried but your brain and Mark are too abstract and comparing analog computers to binary computers, which this appears to be, doesn''t map perfectly. Any number we come up with wouldn''t be comparable, simply because of analog specific optimizations Mark can employ.


    Yeah alright, I was just hoping. How long would it take me to enter an algorithm to find crystal configurations in here?


    Mark already translated it for you, shouldn''t take more than a half hour.


    Perfect. Hit me with it.


    Typing the exact characters that appeared before him, Felix wrote out some of the messiest and unformatted code he had ever seen. It was the code a computer would produce, not code a human would write but it didn''t matter because with Mark being a computer and his own brain verifying it, it worked on the first try.


    They had to slightly adjust it to show progress because otherwise it just waited for a combination of a specific efficiency level but it worked. It was also, perfectly parallelizable so all he had to do, was head back and get some real credentials.


    "You''re back already."


    "Yeah, I got the program I want to run working on the test machine. Could you issue me real credentials?"


    They nodded, "How many nodes will you be using concurrently?"


    "I have 1000 node hours right? How about 10,000 for 6 minutes?"


    They looked at him like he was insane, "Are you certain? If your program doesn''t work, you''ll use up your time a thousand times faster than if you used only ten at once. You understand that right? We do not refund time for programs that don''t function."


    Felix nodded, "Yeah, that''s fine."


    They shook their head in disbelief and had him press his ring then he headed back over to the terminal he was using where he transferred the program he had written then ran it on the super computer.


    They made sure to load it up with the baseline configurations Mark had come up with so it wasn''t starting from nothing and Felix had high hopes for the results. As he waited, he began organizing and mentally walking through the plans for everything he wanted to do during his recruitment quarter in the Pansophical, fully planning for the super computer to fail.


    Even if it was effective, there was no way for him to get more time on it without buying someone else''s computer time. While it was possible he might be able to do so, he didn''t have high hopes for the results. The operations per second, assuming his understanding of an operation were correct, were too low to make any real dent in the problem. It was far more likely it barely moved the needle a few percent and if it did, only because they were still early on in the process.


    Additionally, Mark wasn''t designed to calculate the efficiency of Mana Crystal combinations but he might as well have been considering how effective he was at it. He was a computer that used the attunement of mana to make calculations so the program he could run was extraordinarily simple because all the complexity of the simulation, was handled by the nature of mana interacting. The digital super computer Edras had, had to simulate things with raw math.


    Six minutes passed relatively quickly as Felix worked through the plans for his plan A. The super computer was just a plan B and he didn''t really consider using his super computer time a waste because plan A, would net him infinite super computer time in the future. It was also something he wanted to do anyways, whether or not Edras'' computer worked.


    Heading back over to the terminal, he was presented with a crystal configuration that netted him a grand total of 13% efficiency.


    Previously he had been rounding but Mark gave him the actual number they had input as a starting point and compared them. Felix verified the output and the samples it had tried and sighed. The program worked perfectly and the computer managed to try out over 200 million configurations. It just didn''t find a single one that was better than the starting point they had entered.


    Well, on to more important matters.


    From the computer room, ignoring the look of pity from the attendant, Felix followed the signs over to the room he had been allocated for the quarter.


    It was a simple room with a bed and a desk and just enough room to stand between them and that was it. While Felix had no intention of staying in the room himself, it was a place where he could be reasonably certain no one would interrupt him.


    Placing the identification ring on the table, Felix also prematurely cast a Force Bubble around himself, that blocked light, sound and kinetic energy, to test out his ability to block being observed. Within that Force Bubble, he also manually fought with The System static but didn''t even try to fully suppress it. His only goal was to see if someone would come running.


    Alright so, plans for recreating the machine th-


    Knock knock


    What in the hell. That was fast.


    Felix opened the door to reveal someone he had never expected to see, Adaline.


    "You are definitely not who I was expecting."


    She scowled, "Who were you expecting?"


    He shrugged, "Don''t know. What''s up?"


    She looked at him with her usual frown then looked behind him. He immediately understood and let her in the room, instantly making it feel cramped.


    Felix closed the door and turned to her, standing between the bed and desk.


    Adaline pulled out a small device and placed it on the desk next to her then activated it. Immediately, Felix felt a bubble surround the two of them, replacing the one he had dropped when he opened the door. Her''s however, was a spatial bubble. Just a 100 days ago, Felix wouldn''t have had the prerequisite intuition to recognize it, let alone have the knowledge to even know what it was. Though he might have assumed.


    While it accomplished what his Force Bubble had fairly efficiently, it did not block out The System static in any way.


    Adaline immediately addressed that fact, "System spying skills will still get through."


    He nodded.


    She handed him a memory crystal which he immediately dove into. Inside of it, was simply a memory of her talking to herself in a mirror back at Eramith. It was something she had prepared ahead of time.


    "You have a Soul Space. I can''t risk what I do here being scanned. At the end of the term, I will hand you everything I''ve created and you will smuggle them out for me without them being scanned. What do you need in return for this service?"


    Felix returned to his physical body then shrugged, "Teach me how you do everything you do."


    She shook her head, "I can''t."


    "Now or ever?"


    "Now."


    "Okay¡­ Let me examine your guns."


    She nodded, "I''ll be modifying them anyways. You will need to take them for me. I can''t stop you from scanning them."


    Felix nodded, "Alright, I can do that."


    "How much room do you have?"


    "Uh¡­ a few cubic kilometers?"


    She looked at him incredulously for a few seconds then glowered, grabbed her device from the desk and pushed past him to leave.


    Felix stopped her just before she opened the door, "One more thing."


    She stopped at the door.


    "Why do you hate me?"


    She looked back with a slight frown, "You haven''t asked Melody?"


    That''s¡­ a good idea actually.


    "Never cared enough to. I''m only really asking out of mild curiosity anyways."


    She stared into his eyes for a few moments with a hard expression then opened the door, "I don''t." Then she was gone.


    Well, that was fun. Felix erected his bubble once more, Anyways. Grim, can you patch Nucleus in?


    Yes, I''m also going to add in Arysha, Mera and Alken.


    Who?


    Grim knew Felix knew who Arysha was, Mera and Alken are descendants of the originals and have been consuming all the mana, enchantment, spell, ward and ritual theory you have in here.


    Okay, cool. Nucleus, I know you started us off with the plans but any insights you can provide are much appreciated.


    The Nucleus visibly brightened from within his Soul Space, I understand nothing about this but I can definitely help with construction.


    Felix''s brow furrowed, Wait, you can affect the physical world now?


    I always could. It just wasn''t a good idea.


    Why didn''t you mention this before?


    Cause you didn''t plan on physically constructing anything in your Soul Space until now. And you didn''t exactly have any room for me to do anything useful until now.


    Felix shrugged, Okay fine. Fair enough. You have no understanding though, right? Grim, any ideas on how to patch Arysha, Mera and Alken through Nucleus?


    Grim nodded, If they construct things here, I can transfer the experience to Nucleus to build.


    Perfect. You three good with that?


    Felix''s mental attention fell onto Mera who looked to be a little girl. She looked up excitedly and smiled when she sensed his attention. Alken was serious looking, gruff middle aged man and he bowed, I would be honored to contribute.


    Arysha knelt on one knee, This is wonderful. May I¡­ request something¡­ however?


    Of course.


    Right now, our brains are all scheduled.


    Felix nodded, Right, of course. Mark can''t run you all at once right now so, you sleep. Mark, can we run these three at least all the time?


    Of course. This will slightly decrease the awake time of the other residents.


    You can also allocate them time on my brain if I''m not using it.


    Of course.


    Okay then. Art, you there?


    I''m here.


    Grim, you can get Mark the plans for this, right?


    I''ll copy them into myself as blueprints for them to follow.


    Perfect. Art, any objections?


    I¡­ don''t think so. What exactly are we doing though?


    Oh right, I kind of kidnapped you without saying anything and stuck you in a completely blank void. We''re going to recreate the machine that created The Nucleus, here. In essence, it just uses entanglement to form a material connection between objects then detaches those from space and physically mounts them to a central object.


    Uh¡­ okay.


    If this works out, we''ll use it on my brain next then we can see about the future. In the meantime, I''ll personally work on fixing up the Mana Computer growth farm and producing enough Mana Computer for everything. First things first though, I need to go buy a bunch of raw materials.

 Chapter 225 - Book 27

    With his plan in place, and no one barging in to stop Felix when he obscured himself, he headed out and followed the signs that led him to a material supply depot. There were also areas with people selling and providing materials but Felix didn''t need anything complicated so he instead headed towards the massive collection of materials the Pansophical bought and sold themselves. They were only the most common materials but they sold them just slightly above cost.


    Walking down the halls, he passed by hundreds of people and the majority of them, were definitely casters. They were easily identifiable by their robes somewhat but by their familiars even more so.


    There were creatures that looked like cat monkeys with wings, giant fire turtles, woodland deer spirits, a skeleton and everything in between. He would have thought the skeleton was a necromantically summoned minion too, had it not been tiny and sitting on its caster''s shoulder. Not that it definitely wasn''t, but it did seem like it was a familiar.


    As impressive as some of the familiars were though, Felix didn''t envy a single one of them for an instant because it was obvious to him, Nova would eat them all in a fight.


    His only requirements for the material he used was for it to be hard and strong, vibration resistant. Luckily, it wasn''t hard to find that at all and there was an abundance of simple materials. All of the basic properties and their combinations had thousands of materials that fit them perfectly. It was only when more exotic requirements came into play that materials became weird, like Demitium or Starmetal.


    Due to the abundance, Felix was easily able to purchase a ton of raw material in the bottom of S grade extremely cheaply. He funneled all of it into his Kryptos Repository then followed the signs to the library.


    As he walked through the halls, he moved the Kryptos Repository into his Soul Space and mentally dumped the material out then replaced it all before he arrived. As soon as he did so, Art and Nucleus began construction.


    With Nucleus'' Matter Manipulation abilities it had from once being a System Chunk, it would mostly be shaping it while Art would do the inscribing. Nucleus would help because inscription took the longest time but they understood none of the plans so Mera, Arysha and Alken would guide them. The mental trio would also refine and run simulations on the plans while the Nucleus shaped the material.


    In the meantime, Felix didn''t start working on the actual nodes he was connecting just yet because he could do that anywhere so he figured he might as well do it somewhere where he was simultaneously scanning his surroundings.


    Walking into the library, there was no reception and no clerks waiting to grant him permission. Instead, he walked right in and was immediately disappointed. The books and information, weren''t just out and available for him to walk through. Instead, he had to mess around with a System screen to request the information he was looking for.


    Finding a table he could claim as his own, Felix put in a request for everything then turned his attention inwards while that was fulfilled.


    Starting with the Mana Computer growth farm, Felix harvested everything then ripped it to pieces. It was functional and had gotten to the point where 70% of the output was usable but he had reached the limit of that design. He had also massively improved his own will and Mana Control since creating it so he could do a lot better.


    First, he manually created a Mana Computer using his own will to shape the Mana and almost physically laughed out loud at how easy it felt. Nearly two epochs ago it had taken him multiple nights to grow it outwards during an event, exponentially but still sluggishly. Now it was denser and more precise, each spec of mana connected in more dimensions and significantly faster, finished in a fraction of the time. He probably could have pushed everything a bit further in terms of size and precision and he tried briefly but, he was well past the point of diminishing returns so he fell back to where it felt trivial.


    Using the same material from the old one, along with some extra he had bought specifically for this, Felix began constructing a farm that was over a hundred times bigger. He imbued it with the anima he had stashed away specifically for the farm then filled it with mana.


    As the computers grew within, Felix created the nodes he would use in the machine Art and Nucleus were in the process of building. In essence, they were inspired by the Imitation System Cores he had collected in the world event but in reality, they were diametrically opposed.


    Those Imitation cores had less dense and less strong computers that used many bits but were still discrete. His were analog, utilizing more dimensions and each computer was flawless. On top of that, he didn''t need curses or biological matter to keep them stable. They were clean and elegant and he was very happy with them.


    He managed to find a few improvements as he worked on them but nothing worth revising his already finished cores for. Instead, he made sure to remember them for when he repeated the process to improve his own brain.


    He had to briefly pop back into the Physical world to return and request new books every once in a while but less often than he had expected. The books were generally dense, high grade and high rarity so it took him a non negligible amount of time to scan each. He nor Grim had the time to sort through them but there were other residents of his mind in the library and they had already gone through most of them.


    From the brief reports Felix had gotten, the information contained within the books was more than he had expected and hoped for but not everything he had dreamed of.


    It took all of them working together a grand total of 27 days to finish both the machine, and the nodes that would be going into it. The machine was, in essence, very simple. All it really did was unbind an object from space then reattach it to another object. Those detached objects would then not take up any space themselves but, they still contributed mass, which wasn''t an issue at all.


    The real hard part for Felix, was figuring out a way to make the entire system modular. He didn''t want to attach a certain number of nodes and fill up Mark''s surface area entirely, thereby making it impossible to add more later on. He had an idea of how he wanted to solve it but it only really came together during his training with Rathelius.


    The plans from Nucleus and what Felix had felt when they activated the first machine were usable but he didn''t fully understand them. Simply slotting in his different nodes could have possibly worked, but he wasn''t entirely sure. He definitely wouldn''t have been able to modify it as he wanted. With Rathelius'' theory though, he was able to identify which parts of the inscription were necessary and which weren''t given his unique abilities and different cores.


    He was also able to, or rather the people in his brain, design a protocol for how to connect everything together.


    Mark would be physically connected to his cores and theoretically, Felix could chain the cores, connecting them to each-other to expand Mark infinitely but that would lead to signal integrity concerns and delay concerns. Instead, they decided on creating more central nodes, like Mark, that were connected to cores themselves. Then the nodes could all be attached together in a three dimensional grid, or lattice.


    That also had the benefit of making the entire Mark system fault tolerant.


    For the final step, Felix had Mark and Grim attach Mera, Alken and Arysha''s mind to his own brain for the time being then took Mark''s body and manually took him offline. Opening up the container, Felix separated out Mark''s soul from the Mana Computer and upgraded both independently. For the brain, he replaced it completely but preserved the old one so they could restore everything it stored later. For the soul, he simply modified it manually. He didn''t change the structure much at all but just added in Anima, compressed it and strengthened the will within.


    Then, he reattached the two parts and slotted them into the machine.


    Much like when they had used a similar machine on Nucleus, after consuming absurd amounts of Mana Felix had prepared, the entire thing flashed to life, then it was done. It was completely anticlimactic but after all of the testing they had done, they were pretty certain it would be, and happy it was.


    The last step, was to transfer everything from the old Mana Computer Mark had used, to his new form. The process itself was easy and relatively fast, only taking a few hours, but only because they had planned for it ahead of time.


    After that though, Mark would need to essentially sleep for a few days until he was fully operational. He wouldn''t really be sleeping, just calibrating and synchronizing and running diagnostic tests.


    In the meantime, Felix turned his attention to all the information he had mentally scanned.


    The first thing he looked for, was information on skills or even just inspiration for skills that he could slot into his profession. He was also willing to replace some general skills, if he found anything worthwhile.


    One of the things Edras had complained about, was that some classes, professions and skills were locked behind being trained in them. Some of them, all you needed was knowledge of them. Felix had already looked through the available skills for Lifebinder but hadn''t found anything that stood out. Now that he had knowledge and information from what skills existed in related classes though, he had higher hopes.


    He also wanted to possibly create some skills himself, based on what he found.


    Going through the list again though, there was only one he really liked. All the others were things he didn''t really want or need or could have been useful but not enough to waste a skill on. He even loosened his requirements of avoiding System skills because no matter how he saw it, he wouldn''t ever rely on his profession for anything vital.


    Luckily, his Profession had near perfect synergy with Necromancy skills.


    Necromancy: [Restore Corpse (Special) Restore a corpse to perfect working order temporarily. Once slain, activating this skill on a corpse where at least 50% of it remains in tact, will restore the corpse to perfect condition for reanimation for a time. This time depends on how long the new soul is bound to it with a minimum of 1 minute if no soul is bound. Some levels and skills can be retained from the original creature up to a point, dependent on the strength of the bound soul. Once used on a corpse, this skill cannot be used again on the same corpse. This skill has a Mana cost that scales based on the grade, rarity and size of the corpse being restored. This skill can be upgraded.]


    Restoring a corpse so it could be reused as a vessel for a soul later felt like a decent addition to his arsenal. For the time being, he was mostly focused on constructs because they were more customizable and interesting to Felix but in a pinch or very specific situations, having this sounded awesome. He also had a very specific use case in mind, but he would need to test it out elsewhere first before trying it on the Giant corpse in his Pocket Home.


    There were some other skills he found that he was interested in, but only for inspiration at the moment because he was pretty sure he could create better skills. Worst case though, he would take them then try and evolve them later.


    Crafter: [Duplicate Material (Rare) Duplicate some existing material. Targeting some existing material, create up to the exact amount of already existing material. This skill has a Mana cost that scales based on the grade, rarity and size of the corpse being duplicated. This skill can be upgraded.]


    Necromancy: [Corpse Copy (Special) Use one corpse as a template to upgrade another. Targeting two existing corpses, upgrade one of them in accordance with the strength and abilities of the other. Not all traits are transferable and some corpses are not strong enough to hold certain traits. Once used, neither corpse can be used on either side of this spell again. This skill has a Mana cost that scales based on the grade, rarity and size of the corpse trait being copied. This skill can be upgraded.]


    Necromancy: [Imbue Minion (Epic) Imbue a specific ability or skill into a minion. When raising a minion, choose one specific attribute or skill of your own and attempt to imbue a piece of it into the minion. Not all attributes and skills are transferable to all minions. Some minions are not strong enough to hold certain attributes and skills. Once used, the same corpse cannot be imbued again, if raised again. The success of this skill is highly dependent on the soul strength of the minion. This skill has a Mana cost that scales based on the grade, rarity and size of the corpse trait being copied. This skill can be upgraded.]


    Nucleus, can you search the protocols and find the exact requirements for creating or unlocking the highest tier skills?


    Based on the skills you''re targeting that Grim sent me, you''re going to need to create entirely custom skills for those. Usually the requirements are pretty strict. You need to be able to show the intent of what you''re trying to do, have an available slot that has a high enough compatibility for the skill, demonstrate about a Journeyman level of proficiency or understanding in the concepts going into the skill and it has to be unique.


    Unique, really?


    Yes. If someone else already came up with a skill, depending on the skill and rarity, either The System created specific requirements based on the progenitor or the progenitor themselves put in place their own requirements. That usually only happens with the rarest skills and I''d say these are borderline.


    So they don''t have to be unique, I just have to do a similar level of what they did to get their skill?


    Kind of, assuming they weren''t given the ability to disseminate the skill however they want.


    At least one, maybe two of these though definitely already exist.


    Yes. Unfortunately, I have no way of finding out the requirements for these.


    Okay, first one is Duplicate Construct. Shouldn''t be too hard but I want to exchange Mana with The System for it to duplicate them. Any ideas?


    Nucleus responded again, That''s a skill I''m pretty sure exists and I think The System created those so, I think all you have to do is declare your intent. You''ve already wrapped your brain in Anima so you probably have to blurt it out loud.


    Huh, guess I''ll give it a shot and if it doesn''t work, try to upgrade and evolve one of those other skills.


    He didn''t have a construct near him at the moment so Felix went back to scanning everything he could find. He started with related skills, classes and professions then moved on to Mana Forms and Constructs then finally, The Realms of Annihilation. The spells, enchantments, wards and rituals he found were a great addition to his arsenal but only sort of. While there were some that were very advanced and complex spells, even though spells weren''t classified by grade and rarity, Felix would say they were Common S grade spells.


    They were powerful and complex but they used simple nodes and basic patterns. He learned some things here and there but it truly did seem like anything that was publicly available, wasn''t really worth seeking out.


    The constructs on the other hand, were almost exactly the same but much more helpful. His arsenal of constructs and construct plans was severely lacking so even if they were Common, having a huge number of them was still useful for reference at the very least.


    Once he had scanned everything he needed to, Felix headed for the exit. He had to pass through and drop off his ring before he was allowed in the teleportation room and heading there, they demanded to scan his Kryptos Repository.


    After scanning through it, the attendant''s brow furrowed in confusion, "Where did all this material you purchased go?"


    Felix shrugged as he offered his prepared lie, "Unique race. I consume metal to gain buffs."


    They looked at him for a moment and Felix was pretty sure they didn''t believe him but eventually, they shrugged, "You''re free to go."


    Felix thanked them then headed back through a portal to his dorm on Eramith. Realistically, he didn''t need to go back for a while.


    I almost wish I had taken another recruitment at the same time. If I didn''t need the free time to work on my skills and spells, I definitely would have considered it.


    Back in his dorm, Felix placed a Seeing Eye construct on the floor in the open section of his room then knelt down and placed a hand on it. Hovering his other palm over the floor next to it, he declared his intent, "System. I wish to duplicate this construct, without the soul, for a Mana cost through my Profession."


    Profession Skill: [Epic] Replicate Construct


    [Skill][Profession]


    Use one construct as a template to create another. Targeting an existing construct, up to Epic rarity, create an exact copy of the construct without any attached Anima. This skill has a Mana cost that scales based on the grade, rarity and size of the construct being duplicated. This skill can be upgraded.]**


    Would you like to accept and activate this skill?


    Mana Cost: 50 M


    Yes


    No.


    Holy shit. It costs 50 million for just a Seeing Eye construct? Damn.


    "Yes please."


    Felix actually had to offer the mana himself as The System could no longer just take it from within his soul and doing so, it was sucked out of thin air and under his once empty palm, a flash of light appeared.


    Lifting his palms, there were now two copies of the Seeing Eye construct on the floor.


    How does anyone other than me pay for that cost? Or I guess this forces them to use batteries or do it outside of combat? Whatever, easy one done. Next one¡­


    The next one he tried was a lot easier than he expected. It took a little while of him creating souls and imbuing them with various experiences from Hollow Claw and the remembered along with desires that were as close to convictions as Felix could get. One day he wanted to be able to create convictions at will in constructs but he found he still wasn''t quite there yet, even after his time at Amatara''s.


    Profession: [Imbue Creation (Ancient) Imbue a specific ability or skill into the spirit of a creation when binding. When binding a spirit to a creation, choose a Class or Profession to imbue into the creation. Only Classes and Professions up to Uncommon in rarity may be imbued. The creation''s physical form and mental capacity must be sufficient for this skill to succeed. Constructs imbued in this way have a limit of 3 skills. The success of this skill is highly dependent on the spirit strength of the minion. This skill has an Anima cost that scales based on the grade and rarity of the imbued Class or Professions. This skill can be upgraded.]


    Wait¡­ An Anima cost? WHAT? Also¡­ this is way better than I was hoping for. I guess I can live with an Anima cost if I get to imbue actual Classes and Professions. Hopefully this next skill works out to help me deal with the cost.


    Speaking of¡­ Nucleus spoke up, apparently either often connected to his thoughts or Grim was connecting him when its expertise was relevant, You should know the basics of summoning skills before you try to obtain the skill.


    I already looked through all the information I could find on them. What else is there?


    A lot. Firstly, summoning is not a thing. It does not exist.


    Okay, well I stand corrected. Apparently there is a lot I don''t know.


    Not exactly at least. Summoning is not possible without The System¡­ usually.


    Taking a wild guess, I use a portal, right?


    Yeah, usually The System obscures the portals in order to make the skills harder to decipher but, yes.


    From what I could find, Summoning was rare, why do you know so much about it?


    The Shadow Domain.


    Felix gasped as he put things together mentally, remembering The Shadow Domain used in the Bastorus One Integration Event, Those were summons? I thought they were just shadow creations.


    Nope. Shadow Spirits. Which is why I also know the exact mechanics of how the skill you want, should work. First things first, she was summoning Shadow Spirits only, but the premise of her skill is that she needs to prepare the ritual, as all summoning skills require. It''s not a real ritual though, more like System portal spells. Fake rituals that The System swaps out. What''s really happening though, is that The System uses the ritual as a target and a broadcast location.


    Broadcasting a signal or something?


    Sort of. It broadcasts the anima at the location of the spell into The Spirit Realm.


    The what?


    Spirit Realm. Where all the spirits are. The Shadow Domain lady projects the environment of her domain along with her own soul through her basic aura control and offers The Spirits a gift. If they like what she''s offering, they respond to the request and The System pulls them over.


    Hold on. What the hell is The Spirit Realm?


    No idea. All I know is more or less where it is. Or¡­ That''s not true¡­ How to send a message there? The Spirit does all the work of pulling themselves to the ritual, which acts as an anchor.


    Okay so, I use a ritual and offer something. I take it summoning Spirits is different from normal summoning then because The System isn''t portaling them in? What do I offer, Anima?


    Correct, Spirit summoning is a little different. As for what to offer, you could but not necessary. What they really want is an experience. You offer them a unique experience, advertise what you want them to do. The ones that want to do that, respond. At least, that seems to be what the Shadow Domain user did.


    Okay, I have thousands of questions but let''s just try it and see. What''s this ritual look like?


    Using Grim as the intermediary, Nucleus projected the exact ritual The Shadow Domain wielder had used and Felix replicated it without modification. He was tempted to, but considering it wasn''t a real ritual, he waited. Specifically, the inverted light attunement node, felt rather specific to Shadows, which he didn''t want.


    Finally using the space in his dorm room for its intended purpose, Felix looked down at the ritual he had created with his Matter Control and spare Mana conductive material he had on hand. After inspecting it and ensuring it perfectly matched what Nucleus had provided him, Felix reached out with a tendril and imbued an offering into the anima at the center.


    His initial offering, was the experience of possessing a construct body with a mind.


    He was making a lot of assumptions around Spirits but ones he felt were safe. Firstly, they were Spirits and from his understanding, creatures of Anima living in a Spirit Realm. Some of the experiences he deemed unique, and even the multiverse might deem unique, weren''t necessarily unique for them.


    He assumed though, that possessing a body was unique considering it was called The Spirit Realm. It also let him test out his ideal use case up front.


    The body he chose, was a simple construct that was really just the combination of a few parts and pieces he had. It wasn''t something permanent and all the parts that went into it were disposable.


    It took just a few seconds for Felix to get a response, something that was obvious as soon as it happened. First, he felt The System static either being pushed back in an area or recoiling. Second, he felt a huge pull on the Anima he was using to transmit his offer. Lastly, the construct body he had prepared suddenly jerked to life.


    Looking down at the tiny ball with legs, Felix didn''t look at the construct but into the construct. Within it, lay a Spirit. A being of Anima and something he didn''t even really consider as possible before, a Spirit existing without a body. Nova existed and used to be a Spirit, or still was he wasn''t sure, but she had always had a body. That made sense to him, the structure of her soul was familiar and made sense to him.


    The way the Spirits spirit was laid out was so completely foreign to him he couldn''t help but try and map it out.


    Unfortunately, he didn''t get very far before it vigorously shook its body then began running around the room.


    Though the body was weak and made of scraps, it ran fast enough that Felix had a hard time following it, especially considering how small the body he had offered it was.


    Zipping around the room, the construct bound Spirit smashed itself into the walls, furniture, floor and ceiling, leaving small craters where it landed like it was a bullet ricocheting around the room.


    Well¡­ shit.


    Felix tried to catch it manually but failed thrice before filling the room with a Slow Field spell. The construct didn''t even seem to notice it though and didn''t noticeably slow at all. The complete lack of effect made Felix feel a little like the Spirit was laughing at him.


    Basically giving up, Felix just watched as the damage it caused was repaired too slowly for the planet to keep up. After a minute of damage to his dorm accumulating, a pillar of stone extruded itself from the ceiling and crushed the construct in the middle of the room before receding and vanishing.


    After that, the damage to the room itself quickly healed over and Felix was left with a bunch of crushed metal.


    Okay then¡­ No skill though. Do I just have to do it a few more times?


    Not sure. I think because your intention is to keep it general, you might have to summon a few different types.


    Alright. First things first though, I''m going to modify this ritual.


    Felix worked on modifying the ritual itself right up until Mark finally woke up from his calibration. It was completely anticlimactic and Mark seemed exactly the same to Felix except now, Mark could keep all the Mind City residents thinking indefinitely. No more need to rotate through them and have the others sleep.


    He also immediately began working on configurations for the Attunement Crystals from the tree in Felix''s Pocket Home.


    The first thing Felix worked on was upgrading his Scan Literature skill. He already knew more or less what he wanted to do, he just had to practice and iterate on the idea until it was where he wanted it.


    His original goal was simply to use his Mana, Matter and Anima Senses more appropriately to scan books. Now though, he had a Mind City with thousands of souls in there. So instead, he set up a building that mapped out his surroundings using his senses and found a handful of souls that wanted to work there. Their only job was to manually sift through his senses to create accurate scans.


    He hadn''t set up any form of currency to pay them with yet but for the time being, at least the original residents and their descendants were happy to work free of charge.


    Once it was all in place, after testing it for a few hours, his skill upgraded.


    Ding You have upgraded the General skill: [Epic] Scan Literature (Adept IV) => General: [Arcane] Arcane Scan (Journeyman IX)


    Class: [Arcane Scan (Arcane) Scan the contents of any object that remains within range of your senses for a sufficient period. The time required for a scan is independent of how many objects are being scanned. This skill requires you have some way of memorizing, transcribing or storing the scan of the object. Some objects may attempt to resist being scanned. Some details, such as those in creeping ink books, auto-updating tomes, and sentient books will be lost. This skill is upgradeable.]


    Huh¡­ All the stat scaling stuff is gone. Now that I think about it¡­ I''m kind of doing it all myself, with the help of the citizens of my Mind City but still. Do I even need to have this as a skill anymore? How does The System know I successfully upgraded i- Actually, it was watching me as I practiced so it can probably guess with a high degree of accuracy.


    Felix decided to keep the skill for the time being and was just happy to be able to scan books much faster. It helped greatly with his next task, which was to scan every book he could find on every available topic, ever.


    He knew that was impossible but with Grim''s help, they prioritized things a little bit.


    In Felix''s research of The Realms of Annihilation, he found that the quests in the various realms often required specific domain knowledge of various topics. They were completely random and often there was a way to complete the quest without the knowledge, it was just much harder.


    Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.


    Ever since Mark had been upgraded, Nucleus and Art had worked together along with some of the Mental Citizens to harvest his new Mana Computer farm. It was producing minds exponentially faster than before and so the population of his Mind City was expanding rapidly.


    Felix himself couldn''t store all that information in his own brain, especially not before he upgraded it but even afterwards, he doubted if he could. Mark on the other hand, had a much better shot and if he couldn''t, Felix would attach a new Central Node to Mark, effectively doubling his capacity.


    Just having the knowledge wasn''t enough though, there was a huge amount of value in having experience and an intuition. For that, he would simply provide the knowledge to the citizens of his Mind City.


    He wasn''t planning on forcing any of them to become specialists unless he needed to. For the time being though, it seemed many of them were happy to pick up a topic and dive into them. Not all of them stuck with the same topic start to finish but even if they didn''t become experts, having anyone to consult on everything he didn''t have the time to learn himself, would provide for an excellent starting point. Then, if he needed more specific knowledge, Mark would know where to look and could provide much more relevant information than if he didn''t have various specialists.


    For all of them to gain experience though, they either had to try things for real, or they had to simulate them.


    It wasn''t possible for Felix''s Mind City to simulate things he had no experience of, like Alchemy or Botany but the texts he scanned helped Mark tune his simulations. Then, when they encountered situations they were unsure of, Felix would buy basic materials and they ran tests in his Soul Space.


    As these tests were performed, various materials had to be accurately represented in his Mind City and so, the projection of the planet became vastly more diverse.


    They added biomes, flora, fauna, minerals and everything else they found mentioned which in turn, finally made his Mind City feel like its own world instead of a sandbox.


    As they added and tuned his Mind City, Felix''s proficiency in the skill sky rocketed right up to Skilled XXII at which point it stopped.


    He figured it wanted him to put intent on where to take the skill but for the time being, he just left it be.


    Then, he moved on to the spell he had been trying so hard to figure out and after a few real hours spent in his Mind City talking it through and experimenting with Spell Forms, Felix ultimately decided to scrap the idea.


    Casting a floating hand that he could control like his own, was just too complicated. Just shaping and moving a hand was relatively easy, giving it any usable amount of Dexterity was way more complicated and necessitated a spell form he couldn''t even fully write out or picture, let alone cast.


    He didn''t scrap the idea entirely though and instead, decided to tweak the idea. There really was no reason it needed to be a spell.


    So, Felix began practicing simply using his Mana Control to manipulate Mana in the shape of a hand. He had big plans for making it more complicated, which was why he defaulted to a spell in the first place, but he would figure that out once he had more practice with the hand.


    After that, he turned his attention to the other spell he had been working on, the one to replace the enchantment on his cloak.


    It too, had the exact same problems as Mage Hand so, Felix very quickly switched tracks from a spell, to something entirely different. He couldn''t fully put it in place just yet, but he had a workable design relatively quickly.


    Then, it was back to Summoning Spirits until he managed to get the skill or Mark finished his simulations.


    In a massive stroke of luck, they happened both in the same day.


    Ding You have demonstrated sufficient proficiency to unlock the Profession Skill: [Summon Spirit (Ancient) Summon a Spirit from the Spirit Realm. This skill requires the creation of a binding ritual and an offer for the Spirit. The specifics of the Spirit are entirely dependent on the ritual and the offer. It is possible for this skill to fail and for no Spirit to be summoned. Use of this skill grants the user knowledge of the Spirit Realm and allows them to target specific beings through the tuning of the offer. This skill will not tune the offer or directly dictate it, instead it will provide a general sense of Spirits matching the desired target. Tuning of the offer is up to the wielder. This skill has a minor Anima cost that scales exponentially based on how long the wielder peers into the Spirit Realm.]


    Oh wait¡­ Sweet! I was totally expecting another skill that was basically useless because I could simply do all the work myself. This one I actually need the skill, at least for now. Although, The System is still involved with the summoning so maybe if I wasn''t trying to get a skill, it just wouldn''t participate?


    Just a few hours later, and only half way through Felix''s total recruitment period, Mark had finally hit their efficiency thresholds.


    Felix wasted no time and dove into his Pocket Home where he immediately began creating crystals. He didn''t actually need Nova for the creation because his Matter Control was good enough, at least in his Soul Space with Nucleus'' help. What mattered more was her knowledge and that, was the only reason it was even possible for them to simulate the finished products. sea??h th§× ¦ÇovelFire.¦Çet website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    Later on, when they improved the efficiency further, Felix and Nova would create them together, combining her Matter Control with his Mana Control but for the time being, Mark had the exact configuration laid out so they didn''t need her.


    Without her, it took them longer than Felix expected, almost an entire day to piece together the first crystal. The others were slightly faster as he grew accustomed to the process, but not by as much as he would have liked.


    Once the crystal was finished materially, he then had to prepare it to handle all the Mana passing through it. Felix wasn''t sure if there was a better way but simply preparing the crystal with the exact same process as a Mana battery accomplished everything he needed. It stabilized the crystal and the Mana pathways through it making the transfer of Mana faster as well as adding a buffer within the crystal itself.


    The buffer was important because it greatly simplified the new design for his Mana Core.


    While Felix''s own abilities had progressed by leaps and bounds, and that was reflected in his ability to prepare a crystal to become a battery, he couldn''t help but feel like his process was lacking.


    He was able to position the crystal, examine its internal structure and carefully strike it with the utmost precision and care. Compared to the last time he had prepared crystals, Felix was pretty sure he had gone from pulling out around 80% of the crystals potential to now pulling out at least 98% with the process he was using. It was a massive increase but still, the process was simple.


    He know knew about Spatial Mana Attunements, had better Mana Senses and Control, was aware of deeper interactions between Matter, Anima and Mana. He knew there were at least 7 other dimensions to attunements which he didn''t even really account for at the moment. The process he used to prepare crystals to become batteries though, used none of that.


    It didn''t leverage them at all and he couldn''t help but feel like there had to be a better way, or even just small improvements using his knowledge now.


    He didn''t have the time to experiment on it himself but his Mind certainly did so Felix created a whole host of crystals that were nearly identical thanks to all the shards the tree produced along with his Matter Control. He put them in his Soul Space and let the residents of his mind experiment using a new building he thought up.


    After his minor tangent, he went back to preparing all the new crystals for his new Mana Core, at least until they refined the process.


    Once they were all complete, he sat down and got to work on tearing apart his Mana Core.


    First things first, he squeezed and compressed his Mana Core down now that his will power was much stronger and in turn, his Mana Control much better. He also did away with the notion of having a solid center as he had come to learn there was no reason to impose a state on Mana. Being solid was just a matter of willing it to react in a specific way, not a product of density or overall excitement of atoms.


    In fact, he reduced the entire thing back down to something resembling a gaseous state so it was easier for him to move and manipulate because the Mana effectively reacted more quickly.


    As he thought about it though, he realized he was still missing something. If Mana truly was detached from space as Rathelius had told him, there should have been no reason he couldn''t infinitely compress it. In theory, he saw no reason why all his mana couldn''t occupy the exact same point, outside of space.


    In reality though, he compressed his Mana with all his will and it simply refused to act like anything but matter.


    In the end, after pushing past his ruminations, Felix managed to compress his Mana Core down to the size he was looking for, while simultaneously increasing its density. The end result, was a Core consisting of a completely absurd 2 billion Mana.


    As insane as that was though, Felix tempered his excitement knowing that it wasn''t 2 billion usable mana. He was limited by his own Mana Control in terms of flow rate, speed and the spells he could use. There wasn''t a single spell he knew that could use even half that much Mana without exploding. The enchantment Adaline had used to create the bombs they used to kill The Giant and other wards could but they weren''t spells, and there was no way he could cast them as such.


    Even that enchantment though, he couldn''t even necessarily replicate, he just had it memorized.


    Taking his freshly compressed Core, Felix moved it through his soul to its new home where he hoped to make use of even a fraction of its absurd capacity.


    When he had first created the Core, he had combined it with an Energy Core then embedded that within his body. Later, he moved it into his Mana Pool which was really, just a place that was outside of space but within his Soul. It wasn''t huge, but it was accessible and familiar. It was where his original Mana Pool had been after all.


    Now though, he realized he had made some silly assumptions and now knowing what he knew, he had a much better idea of where he wanted his Mana Core.


    Choosing one of the Anima planets within his Core Soular System, Felix pulled it out of orbit then decompressed it and formed a hollow sphere that he could fit his Mana Core within. Once they were concentric, he began compressing down the Anima from the planet, imposing specific intent into it as he rapidly spun both it and the Mana Core in opposite directions.


    As they collided at speed, he forced them to integrate into one suffused entity.


    He didn''t want Mana affinized to Anima, he didn''t want Anima attached to Mana. He wanted one entity and the best way he had come up with to do that over the course of a number of experiments, was to smash them together. It wasn''t perfect in process or result but it was best he had and he was pretty sure, sufficient.


    Once he had a single planet instead of a ball of Mana with an Anima atmosphere, he began carefully placing all twelve of the Mana Attunement Crystals he had created into orbit around the new Mana Core. The way they orbited was completely different to the way the cursed planets orbited his core soul. These were stable and fairly close, those were fast and held at a safe distance.


    He then placed the entire system itself into orbit around his Core Soul, near the outside, and tuned the orbits until they were perfect.


    Finally, he began siphoning Mana from his new central Mana Core, into each of the Attunement Crystals orbiting around it.


    Each one was capable of holding 50 million mana by themselves and the attunement process had an impressive 78% efficiency.


    Felix''s target had been 75% but this was the first time he had formed the crystals in earnest so he and Mark agreed to only be satisfied when they reached 80% in the simulations. In reality Felix had only lost 2% efficiency from Mark''s predicted total and Nova likely would have lost less but it the end result still surpasses his target.


    The entire thing was ideally, temporary, until he managed to manually attune Mana simply with his willpower fast enough that he didn''t need the crystals.


    Until then, he had 12 different Attuned Mana Batteries surrounding his Mana Core and he could siphon up to 50 million Mana from each. That meant his limit for Fire Spells in a single fight using the Attuned Mana, was 50 million. He could default back to normal spells with attunement nodes but that was a last case scenario to fallback on. Using attunement nodes placed massive restrictions on his spells that he never wanted to have to deal with. Additionally, it was possible he came across something, like The Giant, where he didn''t have the total focus required to cast a high enough level spell that could channel enough Mana to even hurt it.


    Pre-attuned Mana circumvented the issue but still, he hoped it was only temporary and he would one day, be able to use his real core by itself again.


    In the meantime, he patiently waited and measured the time it took for each of the crystals to fully attune the Mana contained within them and found it took an incredibly disappointing 100 hours. Just over 4 days.


    He wasn''t completely discouraged though because he was pretty sure that was only the time to attune from nothing.


    Testing it out, it was exactly as he expected. If he only used a million Mana from an Attuned Core, it took less than a second for the refilled Mana to fully attune. If he used 5 million, it took 6 minutes, 10 million took 48. The more he used, the longer it would take for the refilled mana to become fully attuned.


    He wasn''t entirely certain of the mechanism because he was realizing he didn''t really understand how attunements worked. From his understanding though, the existing attuned Mana helped by imparting its attunement on the rest of the Mana. Similarly to how it was faster and easier for him to grow Mana computers and impose intent on Anima if he had a seed. The bigger the seed, the more he could do at once.


    Felix briefly tested a few spells and was ecstatic with the results. The reduced complexity alone was a massive boon and the ability to scale his spells up quickly and without worrying about node stability and efficiency felt amazing. Now, the only thing holding him back from casting truly massive spells, was his own ability to move and control the Mana.


    After the spells, he spent his most time on Mage Hand.


    While not technically a spell, Felix created a hand shape from solid Mana then moved it around. That was decent and provided him with Dexterity but it didn''t have any real force behind it. He couldn''t really move much weight with his Mana Control alone and it really wasn''t very fast.


    That was where the Force attuned Mana came in though and he was able to use it raw, outside of spells entirely, to move and push the hand or objects around as needed.


    He still needed a ton of practice and it didn''t beat simply using his actual hands for the time being, but the prospect of having hundreds of hands at once was too enticing to ignore.


    He didn''t let himself practice for more than a few hours though because now that his Mana Core had been upgraded, he had a whole channel system to finish designing.


    The necessary attunements for his body were weirdly complicated but he and Mark had taken that into account.


    For the most part, he had focused on spells with simple attunements for his Attuned Cores because they used simpler nodes. Now that he had replaced attunement nodes for the most part though-at least in theory-with crystals and pre-attuned Mana, he could simply combine the Mana from multiple crystals to create more complicated attunements.


    With only twelve crystals with basic attunements, the combinations were fairly limited but they had calculated and optimized the twelve attunements both for spells and Felix''s body.


    He still wouldn''t be able to cast the most complicated spells quickly or even combine all 12 at the moment, at least not in any useful way. At 78% efficiency, he was only getting a grand total of 5% of the mana he put in out the other end and even then, he had to manually stabilize the mana to make sure the attunement from the first crystal, didn''t deteriorate.


    Luckily, even for his own body, he only needed to combine at most 3 crystals which came out to a total efficiency of about 47%.


    Having examined the attunements his body responded to and broken them down into their constituent parts with Mark''s help, Felix realized there were a number of common elements between them. That allowed him to have crystals attuned to Fire, Electricity and Force for spells while also having few specifically for his own body.


    He already had the basics in place but now that he actually had the attunements, Felix began testing how to move the Mana in a way that minimized his required focus. He also experimented and took notes on how to change and improve the crystals in accordance with his body.


    After thoroughly testing all of that and producing multiple textbooks worth of notes, Felix moved on to more thoroughly testing his spells.


    For the most part, they worked exactly as he had hoped.


    Drawing from the Fire Core and the Force Core, Felix manually shaped a variation of his Pocket Star and launched it across an open plain at Eramith.


    The spherical vortex of Fire raced through the air, creating a rippling wake as it passed then burned right through the stone block Felix had targeted before finally sinking into the ground shortly behind it. The planet replaced the block and repaired the ground shortly afterwards and Felix tested again with a slightly different ratio of mana and a slightly different shape.


    All in all, he only needed a fraction of the focus he would have needed to normally cast the spell.


    Other than just figuring out how to best create spells now though, Felix also took notes on the attunements themselves. He had dedicated crystals to Fire Attunements but there was no specific Attunement for Fire. There were hundreds of basic combinations that could produce Fire and altering the ratios of each of those produced an infinite number of attunements. His goal was to find one that was both powerful and versatile, even if it required some modification.


    He had started with a basic combination that was relatively stable but not very powerful. It was useful and made the most sense for a crystal core. Felix just wasn''t confident it was powerful enough.


    Another option was to use a more powerful and less stable attunement then add in more Force Mana to hold his Fireballs and Pocket Stars stable.


    While he was experimenting and taking notes, Nucleus and Art backed by the residents of his Mind were harvesting computers and building a new version of the same machine they had used to upgrade Mark.


    This one worked under the same general principal but without cores. His hope wasn''t to create some vast modular system but just the single biggest mass of computer he could that would still fit inside his skull. Like Mark, much of the computer would be detached from space and in order for that to be stable, he had to attach it firmly to himself and his soul.


    He was also finally completely removing the biological portion which meant he had to fully map and replicate his neurons onto a Mana computer. Considering just how complicated the process was, if he had to actually map them it wouldn''t have been possible.


    Luckily, with a bit of experimentation, he was instead able to make essentially mold of his biological brain then use that to create a computer. It wasn''t perfect, especially not his first try, but over time they got closer to perfection until Felix, Nucleus and his Mind, couldn''t find a single functional difference.


    It took them the rest of his recruitment with Edras to finalize everything, during which he also swapped out all the crystals in his core for slightly different attunements at around 82% efficiency each. The construction of the machine to replace his brain took the most time though. They had collectively built, torn apart and rebuilt the entire thing at least a couple hundred times until they were completely satisfied.


    With just 5 days left in his recruitment, Felix laid down in the ritual area of his dorm and placed an exact copy of his head right next to him. It was relatively easy to grow with the manual control he had over his body but much harder to modify. That had taken forever and multiple heads to get right.


    Finally though, they were all confident they had finally succeeded and initial tests were all positive. Felix had created the Mana computer himself and the machine had fit all the pieces together resulting in a head that felt heavier but was actually quite a bit lighter. Moving it around, it had less mass but it felt like he needed more Force to get it moving, like it resisted movement or there was a lot of drag.


    Standing over him, were Art and Grim.


    Even though he had walked around with two heads for a while, one disabled and the other functional. Even though he had replaced his Persona''s head first to be sure. Even though he was confident in the theory, that he wouldn''t die, Felix was still a little apprehensive towards having his head removed and replaced.


    It wasn''t enough to stop him though and so, he nodded to Art and manually detached his own head by tearing apart the cells in his neck.


    The outside world was completely lost to him as his soul began to push out of the opening he had created in his body. He held it firm and waited as even though he was technically dead, probably, his soul wasn''t damaged in the slightest.


    As soon as he felt the new cells press up against his severed neck, Felix took manual control and forced the two to attach as quickly as he could. He focused on the vital sections, which were his nervous system, not his circulatory system anymore now that his brain wasn''t biological at all, then moved onto everything else.


    The entire process took just a few minutes at which point Felix opened his eyes and looked around.


    Everything looked normal, except of course looking into his own eyes on the severed head lying next to him, which was just weird.


    Once he had his bearings though, he slapped the removed head and stuck it in his Soul Space for preservation then rose to his feet much more gracefully then he had expected.


    Congratulations!


    You have earned a title.


    Deathless: Return from the dead without being undead.


    Huh, so I guess I did end up dying. Wasn''t sure my health would actually hit 0 without my head but¡­ good to know. Maybe it''s a special case¡­


    Felix walked around and experimented with his body and completed tests he had prepared to ensure his judgement was sound. Everything seemed to pass and having a conversation with Grim and a number of residents of his mind who were textbook experts on the psychology and personality, Felix was satisfied that the transfer was successful.


    He would still preserve his old head for a while, just in case, and there were downsides to his new brain. Mostly in that he wouldn''t be able to regrow his new head for a while. Any damage he took to his head and brain, he would likely have to manually repair for the time being. Eventually the Anima suffusing it would adjust and essentially remember and be able to recreate it, like it could the rest of his body, but that would take quite some time.


    In the meantime though, he excitedly deactivated Reaper''s Instinct which he had always active in the background at this point, and checked his status screen or rather, gaped at it.


    Name:Felix Kade (The True Wizard)FREE0Innate:Ascendant Prodigy: Mana (Wizard)STR1,074Class:[C - Ancient] Reaper (Lvl 1,306)DEX2,344Race:[C - Unique] Wanderer (Lvl 1,307)AGI1,554Profession:[C - Ancient] Lifebinder (Lvl 1,309)PER1,241Health:17,555,850 / 17,555,850VIT1,755Mana:150,000,000 / 150,000,000INT4,708Resistance:93.87%END1,532


    That¡­ is way more¡­ than I was hoping for. Wait¡­ my mana is¡­ wrong?


    Felix quickly pulled up his Racial skills and frowned at the screen.


    [Mana Core (Rare) Your mana pool has been shaped to contain a mana core. Cores can have many different sizes, shapes, and effects. Your core will spin drawing mana from the ambient mana and compressing it into a liquid. Your core has the following effects: Mana: 150 Million, Passive Mana Regeneration Rate: 1 Million per hour, dependent on the density of the Aether.]


    It hasn''t changed at all.


    Everything you did was in your Soul Space or within your soul. I suspect The System is having a hard time tracking and evaluating everything.


    Huh. Kind of like Peace''s level I guess¡­ How does it know my Intelligence then?


    Nucleus spoke up, almost always tied into Felix''s thoughts through Grim at that point, It''s calculating it based on your moving around and doing things it can observe as well as observing the head before you swapped them. It should be very accurate about that. Peace''s stats are harder because they change a lot and very often as his Soul does things. His level is based on that so the calculations and therefore his level, constantly change.


    How long before that happens with me? Before it stops being able to evaluate things?


    It''s already started so¡­


    I guess it doesn''t really matter¡­ considering I know the effects are there, just without the skill at this point.


    I can supplement your status screens for you¡­ if you''d like?


    How would that work?


    It would just be for you. You wouldn''t be able to show anything I change to anyone else. Maybe in the future we can figure it out but definitely not yet.


    Alright, do it.


    Ding You have manually modified the Racial trait: [Rare] Mana Core => [Arcane] Attuned Mana Core System


    **Racial: [Attuned Mana Core System (Arcane) You have manually removed your Mana Pool and replaced it with a system of Mana Cores that orbit each-other within your soul. The main Core has a capacity of 2 Billion Mana and is orbited by 12 Attuned Cores that can each hold 50 Million mana. Pulling from the Attuned Cores, you are able to circumvent traditional spell techniques and create spells in a more streamlined fashion. This greatly decreases your cast time and reduces the required focus to cast a spell. Your Core has the following effects: Mana: 2 Billion Unattuned Mana and 600 Million Mana split equally amongst 12 different Attunements, 82% Individual Mana Attunement efficiency, Passive Mana Regeneration Rate: 1 Million per hour, dependent on the density of the Aether.]


    Not Unique? Someone else has a core like this?


    Arcane and Unique aren''t mutually exclusive. Also I just fed information to the part of the old System chunk that usually evaluates this stuff, this is what it spit out.


    I see. Still only 1 Million per hour?


    You were hard limited by the Aether density. You still are.


    Yeah¡­ that''s a problem. Not one I have time to fix at the moment. Feed it everything and see if anything else changes.


    **Ding You have manually modified your race and gained the Racial Trait: [Embedded Mana Computer (Arcane) You have manually replaced your brain with a Mana Computer of your own creation. This computer is embedded where your brain was and has completely replaced it. Your mind has the following effects: +750,000 Intelligence, x3 Base Intelligence, x2 Base Perception. Your mind cannot regrow through traditional means and if injured, may require manual attention to function properly.]


    Holy shit. It''s really too bad my Intelligence no longer scales my Spell Damage. Now it''s really just the perceptual time dilation of things happening within me that uses it.


    It also scales your ability to process your senses and therefore, sense your surroundings. Grim pointed out.


    Yeah, fair enough.


    Ding You have manually replaced the General Skill: [Rare] Core Energy Infusion => General: [Arcane] Mana Infusion.


    General: [Mana Infusion (Arcane) By cycling Mana of various Attunements throughout your body, you are able to completely replace the need for your body to generally store and provide energy. Having trained your body to use energy, your cells have grown accustomed to pushing their performance. Various attunements have various effects on different cells. This skill can be upgraded. The performance and stats you gain are dependent on the quantity, Attunement and quality of the circulated Mana. You may alter the current state of the buff at any time through intent. (Current maximum stat increase: 450% transient, 150% sustained)]


    Oh yeah, forgot I still had- I guess still have, Core Energy Infusion. I guess my soul is just blocking the contents of my body now, huh? Does that mean no more Race Evolutions¡­ at all?


    Grim sighed, Probably not.


    Doubt it. Nucleus rotated back and forth horizontally in Felix''s Soul Space.


    Agh. Fine, fair enough. I guess I should have expected that. Any more?


    Nope.


    Alright then. Time to test my focus then with my new brain.


    He spent the next two days experimenting and getting used to his new brain and found the results were so much better than he had expected. The entire time, he grew progressively more excited for Rhonan''s recruitment, where he could test it all in earnest.


    Before that though, he had a promise to keep and so he headed back to the library in The Arcanum Pansophical three days before the end of the quarter and began scanning more books. It was impossible, even with all the upgrades he had gotten, to scan everything in the library but the more he scanned the easier his time in The Realms of Annihilation would be.


    He was only there for a couple of hours though before Adaline approached him with a rather sour expression, "Where the hell have you been?"


    "Busy. We still have three days."


    "I want to beat the rush and get out while no one is expecting¡­ You know"


    Felix snorted, "They are definitely expecting that. I don''t think there''s any time they aren''t expecting that."


    "Whatever. How do we do this?"


    Felix looked her up and down, "Where do you¡­"


    She sighed, "Let''s just go to your dorm."


    He followed her in and they sealed the room as best they could to avoid being overheard while Felix subtly messed with The System static. It wasn''t perfect but in theory, he figured it would blur things just a little.


    "I have everything in a spatial storage of my creation. I will put all of them in a spatial pocket and transfer them to you."


    "I¡­ Don''t know what that means¡­ A subspace? A true one I assume?"


    "Yes, without The System inside of it."


    Felix nodded, rather impressed she could seemingly create those at all. Even he couldn''t do that yet after training with Rathelius the Space Mage, "What do I do with the subspace?"


    "It won''t be stable enough to preserve unfortunately. How much space do you have available in your Soul Space?"


    Felix shrugged, "A lot."


    She frowned, unsatisfied and rather annoyed by his answer, "A number?"


    "Uh¡­ I already said a few cubic kilometers. You don''t really have more than that for me to smuggle, do you?"


    She scowled then shook her head and stretched a fist towards him, "Here."


    Felix reached forwards and pushed a single finger, with a Soul Tendril within it, into her fist and as soon as he touched the Sub Space point, yanked it into his Soul Space.


    She had warned him it was unstable but he wasn''t expecting it to immediately unravel as soon as he let go. Luckily, he was able to catch the couple of machines and book that popped out and arranged them into a corner.


    "Huh. That was it?"


    Adaline looked at him, trying to decipher his face or something, then sighed and reached her fist out again, "I didn''t entirely believe you. Here."


    He took that Sub Space too, which also immediately unraveled then nodded, "Alright. I''ll¡­"


    She held out her fist again.


    Seriously?


    He continued to take Sub Spaces one by one a few dozen times until both of them stared each-other down, defiantly and incredulously. She was in disbelief he was still containing everything she had given him, that his Soul Space was really as big as he claimed, he could feel it on the Anima surrounding her. He was in disbelief she had made so many things in her time at Edras''.


    He had what felt like an entire facility in his Soul Space with hundreds of giant machines, libraries of research and magical creations. He honestly couldn''t be sure she hadn''t stolen some of them but, he decided to trust her and so just let himself be impressed.


    Once she was finally done handing things off to him, and staring at him incredulously, they both walked out of the dorm together and towards the exit.


    Adaline walked up to the attendants first and they completed their scan relatively quickly but didn''t let her go just yet. Instead, the attendant looked at some screen neither of them could see and frowned, "Where did all this metal you bought¡­ go?"


    She looked at him with a furrowed brow, like the answer was so obvious.


    She was doing a good job of hiding her soul and even though Felix''s Anima senses weren''t what Melody''s were, he was a Spirit Sage. He could tell, she had no idea how to answer him.


    Felix took one step forwards and smiled as innocently and bashfully as he could, "Ah, that would be for me."


    He looked over and tapped at a screen then cocked his head, "You''re the unique race that eats metal?"


    Felix saw Adaline contain a snort from the corner of his eye, "Yup. That''s me."


    The attendant slowly nodded, "This is a lot of metal."


    "Lot''s of new flavors to try." Felix shrugged then hung his shoulders a little like he was leveling with them, "Each different metal provides me with a different effect. I''d rather keep it under wraps but¡­ I need to consume so much to maintain the highest level of buff I can."


    They nodded a little more quickly, seemingly accepting Felix''s explanation then tilted their head back a little, "Prove it."


    Felix sighed and reached his hand forwards in a gimme motion. He had fully been expecting to have to demonstrate.


    The guard looked at him for a moment but Felix just waited until they finally realized what was happening then called another attendant over to bring them some metal.


    What they finally dropped into Felix''s hand was what looked like a metal loop. Almost like a weird belt buckle.


    Taking it, Felix placed it beneath his teeth then approached the attendants and lifted his arms to let the attendants freely scan him. He had a whole show planned and didn''t want them to miss any of it.


    First, he used his Matter Control to bite through the loop with his teeth. It wasn''t particularly high grade metal and he likely could have bitten through with force but he figured that would seem too unnatural. If he really did have a unique race that consumed metal, he would probably be able to bite into it more gracefully.


    He made an entire show of crunching it up into smaller pieces between his teeth then swallowed the metal.


    In his stomach, he had thought about pulling them into his Soul Space but decided that wouldn''t have been as convincing so instead, he used his Matter Control to break it down as far as he could then he carefully pulled metal dust into his veins and coated them in Mana from his new core.


    Finally, he moved the metal around and the cells throughout his body slowly consumed the mana the dust carried.


    Looking back at the two attendants that were there, Felix nodded slowly then flexed a little, "Strength mostly. Not a great metal for buffs though."


    The attendants looked from him to their scans to each-other a few times before they both finally shrugged, "Alright. Just to be sure though¡­ Could we scan you more thoroughly for a Soul Space?"


    Felix shrugged and Adaline looked like she wanted to explode, "Sure. No problem."


    They nodded and one of them rushed off before returning some time later with some kind of device. Felix really wasn''t worried because even The System had trouble seeing through the outside of his Soul at this point, let alone into his Core Soul, where his Soul Space now was. Worst case, they detected his Reaper''s Mantle Soul Space but he would just show them he used it to store clothes.


    He tried to identify the device but being in their hands and in use, seemed to count as equipped so he got nothing more than what he got from his senses. Mana was minimal, just some basic enchantments. Matter was interesting, the material was high grade and rare. Anima though, was the most obvious and the ambient Anima swirled around the device in a complex pattern.


    Felix was confident the device was casting some kind of Anima spell which made it highly likely it was a relic of some kind. Anima spells and information on them was sparse and often incorrect.


    As a series of ripples echoed out of the device a moment later, Felix was expecting them and let them into his outer shell. As they passed through his second layer, they came in contact with the shell on the outside of his Core Soular System where they were reflected by a layer he had just added temporarily. A layer that borrowed from his and the remembered''s experiences to form a semblance of a Core Soul.


    The ripples were reflected back to the device where it lit up and a few moments later, the attendants both released bated breaths. The one that had stopped Adaline nodded, "Sorry about that. You''re both good to go."


    Felix nodded and happily walked through the checkpoint, dropping off the ring and heading into the portal room.


    After a few moments of stunned silence, Adaline rushed through and followed behind him into the room.


    "You mind opening the portal? I''ve been locked out."


    Adaline nodded and a moment later, they both stepped back onto Eramith.


    They headed over to a lab where Felix transferred everything back to Adaline through the use of one of her spatial storage items. He wasn''t entirely sure he could have pushed some of the larger machines out of his Soul Space, through his Soul. At least not without damaging them.


    Once she finished inspecting everything, she nodded to him, "I don''t know¡­ how you did it¡­ thanks."


    Felix nodded, "No problem. I guess we''re done then. I''ll see you¡­ later."


    She nodded and Felix left.


    That was soooo worth it. This research is¡­ awesome.


    The residents of his Mind City were still going through everything but the preliminary report was that it was so advanced, none of them knew for sure what they were looking at. They and Felix knew enough to verify it wasn''t fake, after Mark trivially decrypted it, but they knew nothing else just yet. It was going to take a fair bit of experimentation to figure it all out.

 Chapter 226 - Book 28

    The last recruitment he had scheduled was the one he was the most excited for, at least at the moment.


    Earlier on, he was more excited for the others because those were the recruitments he was planning on making the most progress in. Now that he had done that, accomplished just about everything he had hoped to, his priorities had shifted. He still had some things to work out, but Rhonan''s was where he would put all of his progress, to the test.


    On the day of, Felix walked and flew towards the portal room and joined the single biggest collection of students from Eramith he had ever seen. Luckily, all of them were heading to the same place and the portal was just left open so they all simply walked through. He wasn''t so excited that he needed to be right there when it opened, but rather he genuinely believed every minute counted.


    Walking along at a steady pace, the line moved through the building until finally Felix caught sight of the room itself and a few people standing outside of it. One of which, was Melody.


    She saw him about the same time he saw her and she smiled then skipped over to join him in the line. No one really minded her cutting in either because of who she was or because of how fast the line was moving.


    "Hey. You changed your hair. I kind of liked the reddish orange mess."


    Oh whoops. Forgot to regrow that.


    "Changed my head actually. Just forgot, I''ll regrow it."


    She cocked her head and stared at him for a moment then snorted, "How have your recruitments been so far?"


    "Great, actually. Better than I expected in many ways."


    She nodded, "You look¡­ or rather feel different."


    Felix smirked, "Wait till you feel Peace."


    She smirked but didn''t ask, figuring she would find out eventually anyways, "Got any specific goals in mind for this one?"


    "Yes and no. I have a couple things to finish up but, mostly just want to get used to everything that changed."


    "Makes sense."


    The line was moving quickly and their conversation was cut short as they walked through the portal themselves and into the biggest building Felix had ever seen, from inside or out.


    Looking around him, the ground floor they arrived on was massive and stretched out in every direction, as if the tile floors were a natural phenomena that formed a vast field. Off to the sides, near the walls, there were multiple halls that stretched out, some of them with signs, others with no labels at all. These halls existed all around the building on every floor Felix could see.


    Tilting his head back, Felix couldn''t actually make out the ceiling, however far it was. All along the edge of the non-ground floors, as far as he could see, were railings and on the lower ones he could just make out even more openings. Likely each leading to their own winding hall with rooms contained along them.


    His rough math put the number of floors, multiplied by the number of halls on each and finally rooms in each hall in building in the low billions but he was almost certain that couldn''t be true so he waited to see if there was something he was missing.


    The entire building looked oddly modern from the inside too with lots of natural light, open space and clean lines forming the architecture.


    Once he was done examining his surroundings, Felix finally noticed Melody smirking at him but he just ignored her. Unlike her, he hadn''t actually seen anything like this before. He was still relatively new to the multiverse after all.


    She didn''t get a chance to tease him directly though as they were approached by a humanoid female with long white hair and simple clothes. All in all, rather unassuming.


    [A - Exotic] Sword Sage: Ameryl (Lvl 3892)


    Sword Sage? Sword is a pretty general category. Not sure how she can be the Sage of Swords unless¡­ is it just a title? Like Somatic Sage and Spirit Sage for Peace and I respectively?


    Felix nudged Melody with his Matter Control which confused her greatly, "Is she actually a Sage or is that just a title?"


    "It''s a title and she''s a Sage. Gods have claims over certain titles. Rhonan has most of the combat ones, Edras a bunch of the Academic and some Mage like ones, Radleus has all the merchant ones, Sha''alin has all the thief ones and so on."


    "That makes sense. What''s she the Sage of then?"


    Melody smirked, "Sword Fighting."


    "That''s¡­ super general also¡­ this is something I''ve been wondering for a while now, wouldn''t that be a pretty low rarity skill? Once you get to Sage tier in a skill, you''re likely to also have a high level and you''ve probably upgraded and specialized your skill along the way, right?"


    "It depends. Ameryl doesn''t have Sword Fighting as a skill but her class is based entirely around Sword Fighting and she has enough derivative skills of Sword Fighting that are all at Sage proficiency, that they get grouped up. You also don''t need to have a skill, to have all the knowledge and understanding of that skill."


    "What about Mana Manipulation for example?"


    "That''s a good exception. There aren''t really many derivatives or evolutions of that skill, at least there''s only one that I know of. Instead, everyone has the skill but gets different benefits out of it. If you practice and hone your Mana Manipulation speed, the skill will decrease your Cast Time more than anything else. If you focus on Mana Manipulation quantity, power. Control, stability."


    "So then to get to Sage in a skill like that¡­"


    She nodded, "You''d have to re-generalize afterwards. Which is why it was so impressive that Khidell had reached Sage proficiency at all. That along with the skill being notoriously painful to train."


    Felix nodded in acknowledgement, "So then¡­" He thumbed in Ameryl''s direction, "She''s like¡­ super impressive then?"


    Melody smirked, "Oh yeah. She''s super famous. Ridiculously bonkers strong too. Like, definitely high Demi-God tier in terms of raw combat ability."


    "Demi-God¡­ Just to be sure¡­"


    She nodded, "Just means S grade or above. At that point the whole level grade thing breaks down and kind of falls apart. You know how Peace is an exception to the level thing? At that point normal levels and grades are the exception and sentients like Peace are the norm."


    "So then to become a god, you just need to be S grade and open an afterlife?"


    "Yeah. Pretty much. It''s a lot harder than it sounds but, in essence, yes."


    As the last of their group filed in from the portal behind them, Felix looked back to see how many others there were and saw thousands of similar portals and groups behind him. Each of them had an elite of some kind to greet and guide them from A grades and Sages to Demi-Gods.


    "Welcome to Osgard." Ameryl addressed the group, gathering their attention rather quickly.


    "You''re the group from Eramith and you all have Epic recruitments. What that means is, you''ll have a little more time on everything, but not as much as you''d want. First things first, anywhere you can go, you''re allowed to go. Yes, that includes getting into locked rooms without the key. I was told to warn you though, it probably isn''t a good idea anyways. Some doors are locked for a reason."


    "As for everything else, the only restrictions are on how much time you have on the Class and Profession leveling worlds." She sighed a little through her nose, "You''ll all get 1 hour of access every day to a C grade Beast Breeding or Resource Collection world of your choice. You will have unlimited time however, with instructors for sparring, labs and workshops at all times. Use your time wisely."


    Felix leaned over and whispered to Melody, "That doesn''t seem like a lot."


    "It''s a lot. Finding C grade monsters to fight is pretty annoying as is. B and A grade are nearly impossible. So, Gods basically take planets in their domains and terraform them with added Mana so they can breed high grade creatures. Issue is, how long would it take you to clear a medium sized planet if it were covered in monsters?"


    "What''s medium sized?"


    "Eramith sized."


    "If it were actually covered and the Mana Density was high, 1,000 epochs?"


    "Okay. Creatures that strong can''t be packed in very tight so lets just say one per square kilometer."


    "50 epochs or so."


    "Okay. We need to keep at least half of them alive for them to repopulate the planet."


    "So 25 epochs."


    "And it would take about 25 epochs to repopulate that half of the planet."


    Felix sighed, "So it would literally need to be an entire planet, with people feeding and breeding and managing the creatures to not kill each-other, just so I alone could kill things constantly."


    Melody nodded, "Yup. So if you have¡­" She turned and looked around at all the people still streaming in from portals all over, "A few billion looking to farm levels¡­"


    "You''d need a few billion planets, enough mana to cover them and keep them dense and enough people to manage and maintain the herds of creatures on each. Which means they need to be strong and skilled enough to trivially deal with the beasts themselves."


    She shrugged, "Yeah so, not a trivial thing. 1 hour is pretty generous at least compared to other recruitments. Also that''s only really possible for the C grade, don''t even think about B or even A grade. That is when it becomes a real issue. The Tournament of the Abyss filled that hole for the lucky ones but¡­ yeah, that''s not a thing anymore."


    Felix nodded in understanding then turned back to their guide and the crowd he had been mindlessly following while he and Melody spoke. Quickly replaying everything they had gone over in his mind, she had just walked them around to some of the more popular facilities and explained how to find what they were looking for. He didn''t pay much attention to any of it though and figured he would take a look later, if Melody didn''t drag him around herself, which he was expecting.


    "Down this hall you''ll mostly find restaurants. As I said before, they aren''t organized at all and some of the portals aren''t even indexed anymore. These Forgotten Portals were added so long ago, everyone''s just forgotten about them."


    Felix immediately noticed a few of his classmates perk up at the idea of finding some forgotten portal that held treasures or resources ripe for the picking.


    All he could think about was how stupid that was and how the entire facility seemed like a logistical nightmare.


    Ameryl looked around, seemingly confused for a moment then shrugged, "Can''t think of anything else. Any questions?"


    A few of the students in their class asked about or hit on her, which Felix pointedly ignored. Others asked about how many of the portals in the building were forgotten and her answer was even more fuel for his logistical nightmare, "No idea. People often find portals that are seemingly forgotten then tell no one about them and come back time and time again to profit off them. Like their own personal planet. This is your recruitment so this is the first time for many of you but Osgard is completely open. You can visit even without a recruitment, you just won''t have access to trainers or dedicated leveling planets."


    Melody looked eager to run off so Felix stepped away and just followed her, "How do they control how much time you use on the Beast and Resource planets? If a bunch of the portals are unknown and you can go anywhere you want, do they just have guards in front of the Resource and Beast planet portals?"


    She chuckled in anticipation of Felix''s reaction, "Honor system."


    The disgust on his face was even better than she was expecting, "How does that make any sense?"


    "If someone is abusing anything, you can report them. Some Elites that can tell if you''re lying will come by and ask you point blank or a stealthy one will follow you. If they confirm the claim, the offender is banned for life and the person who reported them along with the elite that confirmed the claim, get to split a reward."


    "That seems¡­ trivially abusable."


    "A lot of this place would be. It only works here though and is a lot less fragile that it seems. Everyone keeps the people below them in check. If an elite were abusing the system, some Demi-God would ban them. If a Demi-God is caught abusing the system, some God would. If they are caught abusing the system, they have to answer to Rhonan."


    "So even if I can successfully lie to even you, some stealthy elite would just follow me and I''d get kicked out?"


    "Yeah, more or less. It''s also not super precise. No one is going to kick you out if you''re in there for an hour and ten minutes. As long as you make a best effort."


    She dragged him into a restaurant and picked out a table then ordered for them in a matter of seconds, definitely having been there before. Once she had, she looked back over at Felix and smiled, "The first time I ever came here, I remember some guy getting carried out of a beast portal by some Demi-God. They had been in there for a week but not because they were abusing anything. They overestimated themselves and ended up hiding in a cave, the beasts just outside trapping them. The Demi-God dragged them to a healer and they were fine. No punishment."


    "That''s¡­"


    She shrugged, "Judging intent isn''t too hard in most cases, for most people. Then there are wild cards like you and Peace. You could probably get away with it but¡­ I wouldn''t risk it."


    "Fair enough."


    "So." She leaned forward a little, "Tell me about your recruitments."


    "They were fine. I climbed a bunch of mountains, met a God, upgraded a bunch of skills, Peace almost died but, then he didn''t. He fought a God. I learned super secret magic. I made some machines. I made some spells. I read some books. I got some new skills. Moved some stuff around. Swapped out my head. Smuggled some research." He shrugged, "Now we''re here."


    Melody looked at him for a moment, expression blank, before her lips finally curled up into a smirk, "Well. Sounds like you had a productive few terms. What are your plans now that you''re here?"


    "Levels. Spells. Constructs. Iron out my skills."


    She shrugged, "Seems simple enough."


    "What about you. How are the bakeries?"


    She smiled like she didn''t expect him to have remembered or cared, "Actually really well, thank you. We''re still trying to nail down a set menu and process but I''m already making money which¡­ is more than I expected for a bakery to be honest. Speaking of process though¡­ how are your Mana Attunement crystals coming along?"


    Felix shrugged, "We''ve gotten them to just over 90% efficiency which mostly just means 90% the correct attunement and 10% noise."


    Her eyes widened, "90% is way better than before."


    He nodded, "Yeah. I''ll swap out the ones I''m using as my efficiency goes up but for now, I accomplished what I needed to with them."


    "In that case, you have time to do me a favor."


    He squinted, "Depends the favor."


    She leaned in a little further, "The only reason my bakeries are at all profitable, is that my pastries aren''t just sweet treats. They also¡­ provide buffs."


    Felix nodded, "That¡­ makes a lot of sense."


    "I''m still experimenting with the best process. The best buffs are Anima infused pastries. They stack with all buffs from spells and potions but they''re nearly impossible to make. I and a few people who owed me favors had to all work together to create one batch."


    "You want to look into using Mana to create buffs in pastries and want some crystals to make the process fast and efficient."


    She nodded, "Yup, exactly."


    "If you give me a sample of the Attunement, I can start the process of calculating the best configurations¡­" Felix stopped himself and sighed, "You don''t know what attunement you want, do you?"


    She smiled, "Not a clue."


    "We can¡­ work on it. What about imbuing Anima with specific convictions into the ingredients themselves?"


    "It''s theoretically possible but¡­ I think I would literally need Amatara just to manage the crops."


    I wonder if I could do it¡­ or create a construct to¡­ in the future. I can''t even create convictions at will myself just yet.


    "I see."


    Their food arrived and they each scarfed down a small pile of meat, Felix regrowing his hair with the incoming matter, then Melody paid and led him out of the room and up through the center of the building.


    They flew up to one of the higher floors as Felix tried to figure out how anyone that couldn''t fly moved through the building.


    Maybe they jump? Not everyone is physically focused though¡­ There must be portals on the lower floors that lead up.


    Following Melody down the walkway, down a specific hall, he stood behind her mostly zoned out as she opened a door and led him into a simple bedroom with a single large bed.


    She spun around and smiled at him, just the slightest hint of a smirk on her lips, "What do you think?"


    "Seems nice. This your room?"


    "Our room. While we''re here at least."


    Felix looked over at the bed then back at her, "One bed? Is that supposed to be an offer?"


    She shimmied her shoulders a little, "Well I-"


    "Seems more like pleading to me."


    Her jaw dropped in a combination of mock offense and real shock.


    "Either way, no."


    She laughed, "You don''t even sleep anyways. Why would we bother with another room at all? Also you have a Pocket Home."


    Melody walked over to the right side of the room and rested her palm against a closed door, "I figured you wouldn''t mind sharing a room, considering I''m paying for it." As she finished speaking, she pushed the door open to reveal a massive workshop.


    It was only about half the size of Ked''s warehouse sized workshop on Eramith but that was still far bigger than he realistically needed.


    The tools and tables in the room though, looked brand new and more advanced than Ked''s, most of which were homemade. Both would be functional but these looked precise in a way Ked''s didn''t.


    Peering into the room, after gaping at the workshop itself for a moment, Felix realized there was no other door inside the room. Considering how thoughtful it was for Melody to have rented the room for him, he decided to tease her back a little, "This looks amazing. Thank you. Just one thing though¡­ There''s no other entrance to that room. What if I''m coming and going and you happen to be changing in your room?"


    "Now that would be a tragedy, wouldn''t it?" She winked, "I guess we''ll have to find out."


    He snorted then took a step back towards the exit, "Leveling time. I don''t want to lose my hour."


    "Oh. I''m coming with you."


    Felix winced at the exponential loss of experience, "Uh¡­"


    She slapped his shoulder as she passed him, "It''ll be worth it. I promise. Give me one day. You can always just ditch me tomorrow."


    Fair enough.


    She led him through the building and and into a portal onto what looked to be a barren planet of grayish stone and sand. With the accompanying lack of breathable air, Felix definitely felt a little like he was on the moon. A feeling only dispelled by the nearly flat and distant horizon indicating how massive the planet was.


    He didn''t say anything about the apparent barrenness of the planet because he trusted Melody, at least enough to give her the benefit of the doubt, as he followed her.


    She had already activated an item to give herself breathable air and Felix did the same with a spell as he followed her through the air, a hundred meters over the surface.


    As she flew, Melody''s body turned so she was sitting on an invisible chair as she withdrew the same instrument Felix had seen her use a few times already. As soon as she pulled it out this time though, Felix could tell it was not a normal instrument. No doubt due to his increases in Anima Senses and general Soul strengthening, that instrument was one of the only items Felix had ever seen that made him immediately wary.


    The complexity alone was life like along the strength of will embedded in the anima-no, the soul within the instrument, surpassed The System sub chunk he had fought. Concentrated strength of will wasn''t the sub-chunk''s strong suit by any means but still, it was impressive nonetheless. Put up head to head, he was pretty sure the entirety of the sub-System pitted against the instrument would win, but only because that was akin to a million soldiers fighting just one. The complexity though, was more than what came out of just being a core soul. It was like it was the soul from a more advanced being.


    Even all that, was just what Felix could sense though and he was certain he was still missing a lot.


    Instead of tapping her fingers against the instrument, Melody actually plucked it a couple of times which released two subsequent shock-waves of Anima that smacked up against Felix''s outer soul layer.


    A few moments of silence passed before Felix heard a rumbling noise coming from the ground. Looking down, he saw hundreds of alien creatures explode out of the ground.


    [C - Epic] Kora-ka-gorak (Lvl 1908)


    Each one was long and looked like the cross between a serpent, a bug and a scorpion. They had exoskeletons and giant bone spikes as their front limbs along with a mouth that was simply open, no jaw or other apparent method of closing it visible.


    Dropping down just a little, Felix began simultaneously pulling from multiple of his Attuned Cores and forming the Mana into blades, bombs and javelins.


    He decided he would have to get an actual number later by casting a traditional spell with nodes, but for the time being he laughed aloud as his focus had seemingly sky rocketed. His rough estimate was that it was at least 10 times what it had been.


    Realizing how much it had increased, inspired him to test out his other Mana related abilities and while Mana control speed and power were nice, the range was what he found immediately exciting.


    Reaching outwards and casting spells at his maximum range, Felix found he could cast spells nearly two hundred meters away from himself. Considering how many spells he could cast with his increased focus and Attuned Cores, Felix felt like a walking war machine.


    Lowering himself towards the ground so he could reach outwards further in every direction, Felix cast explosions and blades all around him as he swept along the surface of the planet obliterating the bugs that were crawling up to the surface.


    Melody continued to play but only plucked a string or two every couple of kilometers, just enough that Felix never ran out of bugs to kill.


    She was right. It was worth it to bring her along.


    By the end of the hour, Grim had to break Felix out of the trance brought on by the immense fun he was having experimenting with spells and abilities and Felix found he had gained 10 levels in his class.


    Ding You have slain 5182 [C - Epic] Kora-ka-gorak (Lvl 1847-1982)


    Ding You have gained 10 levels in [C - Ancient] Reaper


    Even though Melody had said they weren''t strict, the two of them left the planet just a few minutes short of their hour at which point the two of them split off. Melody went off to find something for her bakeries while Felix, went to retrieve his familiar.


    They agreed to meet back in the room to go shopping together afterwards.


    Although she was sad to leave her new friends, both of which were now in the C grade, Nova was also happy to rejoin Felix.


    He arrived back in the workshop a little sooner than Melody and began taking inventory of the workshop until she arrived.


    Once she did, Nova hopped onto her shoulder and began excitedly meowing through the tale of her own recruitments. Felix wasn''t entirely certain Melody couldn''t understand her but he was also pretty sure Nova knew what to keep secret. She was smarter than she seemed.


    Though the portals and halls containing them weren''t organized on a whole, they weren''t entirely random either. There were some halls that held entirely or almost entirely shops. Others that held mostly restaurants.


    The hall they walked through was a collection of storefronts throughout the planets and sectors Rhonan controlled that had portals in Osgard. Surprisingly to Felix, not all of them were particularly impressive. It seemed as though the requirements to have a portal here weren''t as stringent as he would have expected.


    Melody was a fantastic guide though and knew which shops to avoid as he was mostly interested in bulk material suppliers.


    While a store like Nela''s was useful for specific materials and having them pre-shaped, they didn''t carry bulk materials or really anything but material for very specific use cases. For Felix, he really only needed generic material that he could use to make constructs at the moment. Anything more specialized and he could get Nova to transmute and form it for him.


    In the future he decided he would have to get samples of all the materials he could find from shops like Nela''s for Nova.


    In the meantime, even though he was relying on Melody''s seemingly bottomless wallet, Felix just looked for whatever was decently strong and cheap, with lots of stock.


    Transporting it all back to the workshop Melody had rented him, Felix unloaded the materials along with Art while Melody read in his Soul Space, connected by a Soul Tendril. Felix and Art communicated through Mark along with Grim and a few experts in the field of constructs, at least with respect to everyone else in his Mind City, to figure out which constructs they would focus on and how many they could make. The biggest limiting factor though, was Anima.


    If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.


    He had gotten a solid influx from the burrowing bug things they had just killed but even if he just used Spirits-which he still hadn''t figured out how to control-as the souls, he needed Anima to fuel his skills. Specifically Imbue Creation because at this point, he didn''t see any point in not doing so with each and every construct he created. He also needed some to peer into the Spirit Realm, though he was hoping that wasn''t much.


    Luckily, he should have a daily supply of at least some Anima from the hour they spent hunting every day.


    He only spent a few hours working with Art and they tried to optimize everything so they could minimize Art''s reliance on him. Felix did however, offer to imbue Art with an Enchanter Profession, now that he was outside of Felix''s Soul Space but he refused.


    Apparently he had heard about Zero from Grim and was hoping to achieve something similar for themself.


    As they worked, Felix also gradually got better at using his Mage Hand ability. It was no where near a real hand and it would be a long time before it ever was, but it was still incredibly useful to have another hand to hold things. He could then use one hand to move his quill and two to hold the object he was enchanting steady.


    At the same time, Nova transmuted some specific materials that they expected to need ahead of time so she could join Felix once he was done.


    The plan for the majority of the rest of the day, was to train.


    Apparently Melody had already set something up for the two of them before the recruitment had even started. She had also invited Adaline, who had apparently, declined.


    The trio headed through the building and into another portal which led into a short hallway then into some kind of large open training room. The room looked to be made of something like concrete and was a few kilometers long and wide and about a kilometer tall. Considering how massive it was, Felix was pretty certain it was spatially expanded but if it was, the enchantments doing so weren''t anywhere near them.


    The only thing in the room, was a person.


    [S - Ancient] Tam (Lvl 5824)


    Level 5824 but still only S? I guess Melody did mention everything breaks down at that point anyways.


    She looked like a normal sized woman with blonde hair and a rather skimpy outfit that looked like a Sorcerer''s robes with as much fabric as possible removed. Felix didn''t judge her at all, not just because he didn''t care in the slightest what people wore, and not because her body was carefully crafted to her idea perfection over the course of her evolutions. It was hard to judge her for her lack of clothes because she was hot.


    Looking at her from the portal, a half kilometer away, Felix could see the heat ripples in the air around her. Like she was in the process of constantly cooking the air itself.


    As they approached she smiled wide and waved as the effect disappeared, likely due to her manual intervention.


    Melody rushed over and jumped into a hug as soon as it wasn''t dangerous to do so and Tam easily caught her.


    "Melody! It''s been a while."


    Tam released her and Melody hopped back a step onto the ground, "How have you been?"


    Tam shrugged, "Same old, same old. You? How''s the bakery going?"


    "Bakeries now." Melody puffed up her chest a little teasingly, "They''re going well. Thanks for agreeing to do this by the way."


    "Of course. You know dad''s always up in my business about politics and stuff so this should get him off my back plus¡­ it''ll be fun. Right?" She said as she glanced over at Felix.


    Melody grinned, "I promise, you won''t be disappointed."


    I''m not sure what she''s expecting of me¡­ either of them¡­ they do know I''m still just a lowly C grade¡­ right?


    "He looks¡­ interesting¡­" Tam''s eyes shifted over to Nova sitting proudly on Melody''s shoulder, "What''s with the Daemon though?"


    "This is Nova." Melody gestured back and to the side, towards Felix, with her head, "His familiar."


    Tam''s eyes immediately squinted then, her entire face drew up into a wide smile, "I think you might be right. Introductions first though." She leaned over past Melody to look right at Felix behind her and waved to him, "Hi. I''m Tam."


    Felix nodded, "Felix."


    Melody turned to the side and looked back at Felix, "Tam is Romar''s sister."


    Felix''s jaw opened a little instinctively before he closed it, "I see."


    I wonder how she feels about Romar being the next in line for the¡­ throne? Crown? Diety-dom?


    "Nice to finally meet you." She smiled, "Melody talks about you a lot you know."


    She talks that often¡­ to a Demi-God? Guess it tracks, given her lineage.


    Felix shrugged, "I didn''t even know you existed before this. Kind of assumed Romar was the eldest."


    She didn''t seem offended at all, "Nah. I gave up on becoming a God when I picked my first class. What really cemented it though, was when I refused to evolve into a star. I mean¡­ who wants to be a giant ball of fire? The logistics alone of not being able to interact with anyone outside of your family without burning them¡­" She shivered, "Not for me."


    Melody smirked a little, "Instead, she decided to become a Spirit."


    Tam looked at Melody in mock shock and offense, "Don''t go giving away all my secrets. A girl''s gotta keep some things to herself to stay mysterious." She looked back over at Felix, "Technically, I was a Fire Elemental and now I''m a kind of Fire Celestial so¡­ still a Spirit. Upside being, I can touch people-" She accentuated her point by groping Melody, "Without hurting them."


    Felix nodded, "So similar path to Nova then?"


    She looked over at Nova and shrugged, "Similar. Daemon is higher than Elemental. I wouldn''t be surprised if she was offered Celestial maybe not in B grade but in A grade definitely." She winced a little, "Little hard though because that one isn''t totally up to The System. Spirits and The System-" She brought the splayed tips of her fingers together, pointedly not intertwining them, "-don''t really like each-other much."


    Huh.


    "Alright." Tam looked at all three of them in turn, "First things first. I need more information so I don''t accidentally kill you guys." She looked at Melody directly, "You I mostly know, any major changes recently I need to know about?"


    Melody shook her head, "Nothing noteworthy."


    "Alright and no using that thing on me, right?"


    Melody laughed once, "I''m never using that thing on anyone."


    Tam nodded in understanding then turned to Felix, "What about you and your familiar? Race, Defenses, Vitality, Endurance."


    Felix looked at Nova and thought about it for a moment then turned to Tam, "Familiar first. Nova is a Primal Matter Daemon." He shared her status screen with Tam which was significantly different from Felix''s.


    Name:NovaPower2,949Race:[C - Ancient] Primal Matter Daemon (Lvl 1,946)Defense2,948Health:29,486,000 / 29,486,000Mental2,903Mana:12,000,000 / 12,000,000


    Tam looked at it for a moment, squinted, then leaned into the invisible screen, "What are these stats?"


    "That''s without her using my Class Skills."


    She glared at him.


    "Reaper''s skills. Buffs all stats."


    She looked at him like she was trying to figure out if he was serious or not, "Your familiar is¡­ too strong. I take it their Mental stats are so high because yours are high?"


    Felix shrugged, "Intelligence is my highest stat."


    She nodded slowly, "Right¡­"


    "As for me. My race is Unique and heavily modified. My Endurance and Vitality are 4.6 and 5.2 million respectively with my Reaper''s Skills active, which they always are. As for defenses, those are mostly Soul Defenses at the moment. I can cast a number of barriers but I prefer to just dodge if I can."


    Her jaw hung just a little for a moment before she shook her head, "What? Why are your defensive stats so high? Aren''t you a Caster or something?" Tam looked at Melody for confirmation who was happily smiling wide, enjoying her reactions.


    Melody nodded.


    "They aren''t that high. It''s mostly because modifying my body to be more resilient is much easier than modifying anything else. There are also a lot of beasts that have high defensive stats so learning from them helps a lot." Felix looked at Melody, "The Giant helped a lot too."


    She nodded and her smile widened a little in anticipation.


    "The what?" Tam looked at Melody then grasped her by the shoulders and vigorously shook her, "You fought a Giant?"


    "We-e-e-e k-i-i-i-ll-ed o-o-o-ne." Melody responded.


    "Okay¡­" Tam pressed her fingertips to her forehead, and almost under her breath, "If my brother''s stats weren''t equally as absurd¡­"


    She looked up at Felix, "I need more information here. Can you handle a mature concept?"


    Now it was Felix''s turn, "A what?"


    "A concept?"


    Tam swiped the back of her hand across her forward, "Phew. So you aren''t invincible. It''s a little hard to explain but¡­ You know about curses right?"


    Felix nodded, completely enraptured by the direction of her explanation.


    "You know convictions?"


    He nodded again.


    "Concepts are like the third pillar of Anima." Tam lifted her palm in front of her and produced a flame. As far as Felix could tell, it was a perfectly normal flame in every sense. He probably could have put his hand in without being harmed.


    "I''ll explain in terms of Fire for¡­ obvious reasons. A Concept is like¡­ the fundamental experience of a thing. In the case of Fire, it''s the totality of the experience of Fire. I know that sounds weird and necessarily confusing but that''s only because we''re sentients. We experience emotions like happiness and sadness. Anima is experience. It''s consciousness and it exists everywhere. That means, in this flame-" She stretched her hand out a little more, "-there is Anima. That Anima is or has an experience."


    Felix nodded, "Alright, all that makes sense. What''s the point though? What does it matter?"


    She smirked a little, "If I just pump this flame full of Anima, it wouldn''t really do anything. If I bound Anima to the flame, it would become one with the existing Anima and learn some of the experience of a flame but, it would also dilute it. If I bound Anima with a Conviction, it would overtake the existing Anima and influence the flame. For example, though it''s a stupid conviction, take destruction for example."


    The flame in her hand shifted from orange, yellow and white to almost entirely white with a black outline, much like the trails from Felix''s Reaper skills when he moved quickly or with a lot of strength.


    "This is somewhat useful but not ideal. This flame is no longer fire. It''s been distorted and though its destructive power might be higher, it lost a lot in that process. This makes it unstable and realistically, not as useful as you might imagine."


    The flame shifted again, this time growing grayer and Felix suddenly felt and aura of Oblivion. It was cursed, or at least, on its way there. The curse itself wasn''t very strong or mature to the point where Felix thought it was wrong to properly call it a curse.


    "If I bind a curse-or even the echo of a curse-to this flame, it completely consumes the flame. It doesn''t just distort it." She made the flame vanish then replaced it with a new flame, this time she imbued it with the curse of Desire, again severely weakened. This time, the shape of the flame itself was gone and instead, she was left with a rippling ball of hot air with quickly dissipating heat.


    "So Curses are one end, they completely consume and transform in a way where the initial state is completely lost. Convictions alter in a way where some of the initial state is left at the end but it not all of it. Concepts are the initial state, sort of. Applying a Concept to a flame, the Concept of fire-" She replaced the ball of air with a new flame.


    At first, the flame looked perfectly normal. Just like all the previous flames had. Then, it fell apart.


    The flame itself flickered and distorted itself weirdly, like it was trying to contort to fit some abstract container.


    "-it won''t work. You''re essentially trying to apply a new initial state to something that already has one. So instead, you create the flame with the concept or, you unbind the anima and replace it. The former is harder but way stronger."


    This time, instead of a normal flame appearing above her palm, she created what looked physically, like a normal flame. It wasn''t.


    The instant it appeared, Felix felt it. The flame had an aura, like a curse but completely different.


    The aura made it feel like the flame itself was the true source of all fire. The original. The very first flame to have ever existed. Eternally burning. It was the hottest flame. The brightest flame. It flickered and shifted perfectly. It rivaled stars. It could burn stars. It could burn anything.


    Even just looking at it, Felix felt like he was being burned. The air around it looked like it was burning. The flame looked bright, too bright. Although he could separate what he was seeing from what he was feeling mentally, and he knew it was all an illusion, it still affected his perception in the moment.


    Tam closed her hand and the flame vanished, "That is a flame created with a Concept from the get go. It''s resistant to change and that makes it pretty strong. Water and suffocation aren''t enough to put it out and it burns."


    "So you put a Concept up against a curse or a conviction. What happens?"


    She shrugged, "That depends. Which is the strongest, the most mature? For the most part, Curses win. That''s not because Curses are stronger than Convictions or Concepts though. That''s because mature Curses spread really easily and are oddly common here so, we end up dealing with curses that have been growing since before our universe was born. In the Spirit Realm, Concepts are more prevalent, have matured a lot with the higher tier Spirits and sometimes win. I''m sure there''s somewhere out there where Convictions win, but I''ve never been there."


    "So why would one ever use a Concept in an attack if you could just use a Curse instead?"


    "Well, other than the fact that a mature Curse would consume a planet at minimum before stopping, and that imbuing a curse into an attack would require you control the curse and subdue it, and that the curse would consume your attack just as much as your target making it relatively easy to avoid¡­ you wouldn''t."


    "I take it that''s not the point of them?"


    "Not really." She shrugged, "But that''s not really the point of¡­ anything? Well, Anima in general. Doesn''t make it useless though."


    Felix nodded, "I take it for an Elemental, this comes easy?"


    She nodded, "Relatively. It''s one of the biggest power spikes for Elementals. Spirits less so because they tend to be less focused. For example I don''t think a Concept of Matter exists or if it does, it wouldn''t do much. Matter is too broad and so the fundamental experience of Matter would either have to be pared down to the basest components of Matter and do nothing, or include everything and be too broad to do anything worthwhile."


    "Speaking of, I don''t know that I''ve ever really encountered an Elemental. Seen a couple in passing as familiars but in general, are Sprites and Elementals just really rare?"


    Melody giggled and Tam shrugged, "System does not mix well with Spirits and Elementals. Or-" She scratched her head, "-would it be the other way around?"


    "In what way?"


    "Just that the way The System functions, is like a natural repellent to most Spirits and Elementals. Only really strong ones can survive long after their inception and rarely do they stick around at that point."


    "Huh."


    I assume she means System static? I wonder if it bothers Nova¡­


    Felix nodded once and met Tam''s gaze, "Okay so, to answer your question, I probably wouldn''t fare well against a Concept."


    She giggled, "I figured."


    "I''d like you to hit me with one anyways."


    She cocked a brow, "Oh? Quite confident, aren''t we?"


    "I''d like to know how I fare against them now, in case I ever encounter a concept in a more lethal situation."


    "Okay. Let''s give it a shot."


    Felix backed up a few steps then held out his arm next to him.


    She looked at him and nodded once their eyes met then she cast what looked like simultaneously like a simple Fire Bolt and a literal star compressed down to the size of one. He was pretty sure it was just a Fire Bolt but the feeling it gave off when created with a simple Concept was ridiculous.


    The bolt hit his arm except, not really. It just flew right through like it was nothing.


    Despite being just a couple inches in diameter, it also completely severed his arm and turned all his flesh within half a meter into ash.


    Even though the Concept was Anima based, the attack didn''t significantly injure his Soul. He could feel it had some element of Soul Damage to it but it wasn''t significant and wasn''t enough to overcome his Soul Defenses. With the Concept though, the Fire itself eclipsed any Fire Spell Felix had ever cast or seen, even her brother''s. It felt hotter and deadlier than the planet core he had drained in the World Event.


    She literally only cast a Fire Bolt. Considering how cheap those are, this is like the ultimate tool for spell efficiency¡­ I wonder if I could create the Concept of specific Mana Attunements and embed them into my Attuned Cores¡­


    As Felix''s arm regrew, Melody and Tam looking a little more concerned than he felt necessary, he walked back over to them, "How do I create a Concept?"


    Tam stared at his arm with a worried expression for a few more seconds before answering, "You don''t. Not really. It''s more accurate to say you discover a Concept, not create it. Or uncover it? Both. Definitely not create one though."


    "Oh, actually that makes sense. I understand. Anything else I should know about them? Is there a rule of thumb or something on how complex something can be before a Concept doesn''t really do anything?"


    She shook her head, "No. It''s more of a feel thing. It will take a long time. Romar is a prodigy and absurdly lucky. Don''t expect to figure anything out in less than a few thousand years and that''s only if you''re equally as lucky and even more of a prodigy."


    Felix cocked his head slightly and she continued.


    "Romar''s got our entire family to help him. He was pushed along by all of us who have been working with the Concept of Fire for millions of years. Even then, he picked it up faster than anyone except me. He hasn''t mastered it yet but¡­ he''s closer than most."


    Okay but¡­ I just need someone to help me then¡­ this is all experiential anyways so harvesting a soul and reading its experiences should work just fine. Plus, she just told me the perfect place to do that, where Concepts are strong enough to overcome curses.


    "I see. Alright, let''s spar then I''d like to ask you more about The Spirit Realm after if that''s alright?"


    She shrugged, "I don''t mind. You don''t have to ask everything all at once. I already agreed to spar with you guys on and off for the rest of the term."


    Felix looked over at Melody who nodded, "I found a few elites who I was friends with or owed me favors and we''ll just rotate between them when they have time."


    An involuntary smile crept onto Felix''s face, "Awesome."


    The sparring went jut as Felix hoped it would. Tam basically just wiped the floor with the two of them fairly trivially.


    Her most basic spells punched holes right through his barriers, were nearly too fast for him to dodge and he was forced to stop and regenerate missing chunks of his body constantly.


    Considering how much she was holding back, meant Felix had plenty to learn from her. He had already begun to learn in their first spar where she used only simple spells, like Fire Bolts that chased him around instead of firing in a line. She didn''t make the spell form any more complicated than it needed to be though, she simply attached a touch of Anima to it. The spell wasn''t even close to sapient or sentient but could perform more complex actions than a base spell made of Mana alone without complex spell forms.


    He had already been considering doing that and knew it was possible, but he was beginning to realize how to do it. He saw how she did it and learned from that. Picked up on small tricks he would have otherwise had to test and realize for himself. For example, she added dormant Force Mana to her Fire Bolts for the Anima to use to move the spell. The Anima didn''t just want to follow him, it held within it the experience of moving a spell using mana. Almost like an instinct cast but not quite strong enough to be an actual spell. Just enough to shift the course of the spell.


    Although Felix was a little disappointed he wasn''t going to see any of Tam''s best spells, he still had plenty of time left in the recruitment.


    He also wasn''t sure how Melody would fare in a real spar but as it turned out, she did better than Felix most of the time. She not only seemed to be very proficient with a sword, but she also switched between the sword and her instrument in a fast and elegant way. Often using the sword to try and launch an attack then switching back to her instrument to blow away a Fire Bolt with a golden wave of Anima.


    She actually ended up attacking in the fight, which Felix didn''t. Although, Tam did seem to be launching attacks towards Felix a little more frequently than Melody.


    Nova participated a bit, running around and dodging but Felix could tell even from the other side of the massive facility, Tam dramatically weakened her spells for Nova so, it was more like playing than sparring.


    Afterwards, they all went to dinner which was fine in Felix''s eyes, nothing remarkable.


    Tam mostly ended up asking Melody about her bakeries and catching up on gossip because she had been in the Spirit Realm a lot recently.


    From there, they all headed back to the room Melody had rented where Melody fell onto the bed and Tam sat on the edge of it, "So, what did you want to know about The Spirit Realm?"


    Felix stood in the middle of the room and faced her, "Everything. First of all, how do I manage Spirits?"


    She cocked her head, "How do you mean?"


    "In my last recruitment, I spent some time unlocking new profession skills. One of those is Summon Spirit." Felix shared the skill description with her.


    She looked at it, her eyes squinting as she read through it until finally she glared at him accusatorially, "What is your Profession exactly?"


    Felix just brushed the question aside, "It''s Ancient. Mostly construct stuff."


    Tam recognized he was avoiding the question and it looked like she was going to press him for a moment then she shook her head and sighed, "Okay. I take it you used this?"


    He nodded, "On a simple construct body. It didn''t go well."


    She chuckled a little, "Yeah. That makes sense. Okay so the basics, Spirits are kind of like souls without bodies, most of the time. They often act like children because the Anima in their souls are more active and they seek new experiences constantly. Mostly, their souls are just structured differently from material sentients. They don''t have a Core Soul or more accurately, their soul is their Core Soul, it''s all one thing."


    Oh holy shit. Peace is a spirit now.


    "What happens if they do bind to a body?"


    She shrugged, "Nothing special. Highly depends on how they''re bound to the body and how synergistic it is. A Fire Elemental with a Mana Core and a body of Fire gets to do a lot of cool shit. A high tier Celestial in a body with low compatibility would be a D grade at most, in terms of physical stats. At that point though, they would make up for it in Spirit attacks and defense. I became a Spirit, a Celestial, and already had my body so, I brought it along with me and have a very high compatibility."


    "Okay, back to Spirits. How do I control one if I summon them?"


    She smirked a little, "Let''s say your skill read summon human. How would you control them?"


    He sighed, "Whoops. I was making some weird assumptions there. I offer them something they want."


    Tam tilted her head a little, "That will get them here but often times, you can''t just command them to do something or give them another gift because running around with a body is like, the ultimate gift already."


    "How would you do it?"


    "I can just command them mostly." She shrugged, "Perks of being a Celestial." She gestured towards Nova with her chin, "Nova could to. Daemon is pretty high on the general hierarchy. At least, her presence would make them sit long enough to hear you out."


    "This hierarchy, how does The Spirit Realm work? What''s it like?"


    "For the most part, it''s like a bunch of empty space. Just like this material universe except, less empty and more of it is empty. The parts that are empty aren''t just empty. The emptiness is a sparse sea of Anima. There are cities though, sort of. Those are places with high Anima density and it would be more accurate to call them a Dream or an Illusion."


    "A constructed memory?" Melody offered from the bed, somewhat surprisingly because Felix was somewhat sure she had been asleep.


    Tam nodded, "Yeah. Just like that."


    "You said there were cities there?"


    "Sort of. Spirit Realms are kind of a per universe thing. The one attached to this universe has one major city then a bunch of minor outposts." She sighed a little wearily, "It used to be more lively but ever since the advent of The System, it''s been slowly declining."


    "Why?"


    She shrugged, "I haven''t been around long enough to know but, I''ve heard the Anima, the emptiness and everything else, used to be less empty and the emptiness, less expansive. It used to be denser and fuller. Lively."


    Interesting¡­


    "You were there until somewhat recently. How do you get there?"


    She winced, "It''s¡­ a little complicated."


    "Try me."


    Tam sighed, "Basically¡­ The Spirit Realm is outside of Space and Time¡­ sort of."


    "Oh. That''s simple enough. You just disentangle your matter from Space Time and I take it move into the Ambient Anima then?"


    She looked at him with a thoughtful expression, "Uh¡­ yeah, I guess? Don''t just do that though. To safely go there and come back, without losing time and everything, you need an anchor. Basically you place an anchor in reality then dive into the Anima. While time doesn''t pass there, not really, time here goes on. When you want to come back, you use the anchor."


    Felix winced, "I get it. Without the anchor, you''d have a hard time coming back to the time where all of this is. I''ll ask just to make sure, but it is not possible to time travel like that, right?"


    She shook her head, "No. Time travel doesn''t actually make sense outside of novels and fantasies."


    That''s what I thought. I guess the cylinder analogy holds up pretty well here. The Spirit Realm is within the cylinder. If you tried to go into the past, you wouldn''t find the past, you''d see nothing or something but nothing you knew. All matter I know exists in this time. I need to be able to come back to the time when the matter exists, even if that''s changing and moving over time.


    Felix offered an analogy to confirm, "Like boats moving through a river, I leave the boat and spend time ashore. Even if there are other boats ahead or behind, I don''t want to go back to them. When I''m done, I want my boat."


    She nodded, "Yes, actually exactly like that. You can either put a beacon in the boat for you to find or tie yourself to it with a rope. The rope method is pretty limiting though."


    Or calculate its final location but¡­ that would be risky.


    "A beacon would also be risky though, right? What if someone destroyed it."


    "Yeah, that is a risk. I put mine with my family so I wasn''t really worried."


    I definitely want to visit that city at some point for sure.


    "How do you find the city in an entire universe of Anima?"


    "A lot easier than you''d think. There''s really only one of them and space doesn''t really exist, remember? You can kind of just will yourself there."


    "Oh. Actually that makes¡­ sense. Okay last thing then I''ll let you go, can I summon a Spirit with you here?"


    She nodded quickly, "Yes definitely. I was actually hoping to see your skill in action."


    Felix raised a finger for her to wait and quickly set out the ritual on the floor. At the same time, he had Art put the finishing touches on a construct body in the lab.


    Once the ritual was set up, Felix walked back into the workshop and carried the construct body out next to the ritual. The body itself was one large sphere for the bottom half of the body, a humanoid torso and three smaller orbs, identical in size, for the head and arms.


    He infused the pieces with Mana and attached them together then used it along with a simple feeling encoded in Anima to broadcast a message into the Spirit Realm which he now knew, was just the Ambient Anima.


    The feeling was simple, just something along the lines of construct engineering.


    He wasn''t expecting much because it wasn''t a very complex feeling and likely not overly attractive to Spirits but to his surprise, he got a response almost immediately.


    This time, Felix had advertised the body but he didn''t offer it up immediately. Instead, the Spirit appeared right in the middle of the ritual circle and Felix could see it, only because his Anima senses were encoded into his vision.


    It looked very much like a cloud of Anima in every sense and he was pretty sure that''s exactly what it was. The only large differentiating factors between it and the rest of the ambient Anima was that it was denser, held almost entirely common experiences, and loosely formed a shape that stayed together.


    The shape was something akin to a candle flame but about the size of Felix''s hand.


    Though it didn''t have a distinct face or even defined shape, Felix could immediately tell where it was looking and read its expressions as soon as it appeared. It didn''t even have anything to do with his Anima Senses being strong at all and more to do with the fact that he was vaguely familiar with reading people using them. The Spirit seemed to constantly be broadcasting everything so it was very trivial to follow.


    Felix''s assumption was that in the Spirit Realm and with other Spirits, the way the Spirit broadcast itself essentially took the place of facial expressions and diversity.


    Though it was more subtle, Felix also got a general vibe of who the Spirit was. He didn''t get much but he seriously wondered what Melody and Tam were getting from it.


    Melody didn''t seem to react much, sitting up a little in the bed but Tam stood and had already completely suppressed her presence through the ambient Anima slightly before the Spirit appeared. Melody in general didn''t advertise much but it was more than enough for the Spirit to notice her.


    A few moments after it appeared, after a moment of solidifying and adjusting, it looked from Felix to Melody to Nova, apparently not seeing Tam at all.


    It didn''t spend much time on Melody or Felix but Nova, it stared at Nova and didn''t look away once it had.


    "How do I talk to this thing?" Felix looked at Melody and Tam.


    "Same way you talk to Nova, I suspect." Tam nodded at the Spirit indicating he should give it a shot.


    Felix nodded and took a step forward then broadcast his message into the Anima, "Welcome to the Material World, Spirit. I wish to make a deal with you."


    The Spirit finally pulled its gaze from Nova and looked at Felix with a fair bit of contempt and derision, "Who are you? You sent the signal? I was promised making and engineering and a body."


    "I did. Last time I gave out a body for free, it didn''t work out so well. Now, I want to make a contract."


    The Spirit lit up at that notion, "A contract? Like a¡­ Spirit contract?"


    Felix knew a Spirit contract was just a soul contract, not anything Spirit Realm specific, "Yes."


    They emanated a feeling of deep satisfaction, like Felix had fallen right into its trap. It wasn''t a feeling Felix would have advertised in their position but he wasn''t sure if they were just terrible at containing themselves or if it was just a difference in the way Humans and Spirits expressed themselves, "Terms?"


    "I provide you a body, brain, materials, knowledge, a workshop and you build things with and for me. You don''t break things or hurt anyone without my permission. You can leave but not with the body I provided. You listen to my or anyone else I deem to be in command''s orders."


    The Spirit made it seem like it was making a hard decision but it was obvious to Felix it was going to accept. For whatever reason, the Spirit felt like it was absolutely getting the better side of the deal here. Felix was pretty sure he had an idea as to why and the Spirit was in for a rude awakening if he was right.


    It briefly looked over at Nova, trying to gauge something but Nova was so disinterested, it changed its mind and looked back at Felix.


    "Hmm¡­ Your terms are¡­ steep but, the experience of making things and learning is what I live for so, how can I refuse. I accept." The Spirit offered Felix a contract which essentially amounted to a false conviction that would be placed on their souls.


    It was exactly how Soul contracts worked and made it so they were nearly infallible. Neither party could do anything with the intent to break the contract. The downside though, was that if one party had a stronger soul than the other, they could essentially distort the convictions and bully the other party, or even trivially break it. The contract worked by essentially having the Soul of each party, restrict the other.


    Felix accepted the contract which put a temporary binding between their Souls and immediately felt a burst of will power from the Spirit. It was like it was trying to take control in the contract and latch onto his soul. He didn''t stop it manually and simply let it past his second layer while simultaneously reaching out himself.


    He didn''t want to kill the Spirit or completely crush it, just put it in its place so, he completely surrounded its soul and squeezed hard but just for a brief moment.


    The Spirit immediately yelped-which was more like a burst of shock and pain in the Anima around it-and its reaching into his Soul vanished. Felix released it just a moment later and the Spirit immediately recoiled, physically moving away and shrinking itself down.


    "Wha-"


    It was about that moment when Tam finally let her presence be known, echoing herself out into the ambient Anima. It wasn''t particularly loud or surprisingly strong at all. It was nothing like Aro Zaki or Amatara. It was like a slight ripple at most.


    The Spirit felt it and immediately turned towards her. Its form shrunk down even further and Felix''s interpretation was that it was paling as it released a confused jumble. Almost like it couldn''t actually find the words.


    "I- Yo- Why- What is going on!"


    "You just made a deal with my friend over here." Tam smiled as he leaned her head in towards the Spirit, frightening it further.


    "I didn''t- I- Your Fiery Eminence, I-" The Spirit dropped down like it was bowing.


    "Do you need me to bind you to the body or can you handle that?" Felix cut in, wanting to get a move on.


    "I- DON''T. I can bind myself." The Spirit rushed over to the body Felix pointed at and dove into it.


    It took a few minutes before it finally adjusted itself to its new body and started moving but that amounted to little more than convulsions.


    "What is this body and how am I supposed to make anything with this?"


    Felix sighed and walked the Spirit through how it was supposed to move around and interact with things. The main orb mostly had spells for movement on it and contained the Fore Attuned Mana battery to power the entire thing. The torso contained the Mana computer brain and was mostly designed to contain and protect it. The three smaller orbs though, were covered in spell forms.


    The spells were based on Felix''s experimentation and attempts to create Mage Hand. None of them would allow the Spirit to create a hand but they would allow it to hold and move things, interact with the world. They were also capable of channeling a lot of Force Mana but, only gradually.


    They were designed to be precise and strong, not fast. That meant they would be useless in combat but still had the necessary Force to clamp something down.


    For anything it couldn''t quite do itself, it would be working with him and Art anyways so Felix wasn''t worried.


    The Spirit got less and less frustrated as time went on and the constant aura of annoyance and frustration it was emitting from feeling like it had been tricked, wore away.


    It also helped that the Spirit really did seem to love magic and engineering which helped push it through the frustration of learning to use the odd body Felix had designed.


    Once it was moving around not quite with precision but less like a toddler, the Spirit''s annoyance had been largely replaced with curiosity, "So¡­ What are The Luminary Celestial and a Daemon doing here and what are you¡­" The Spirit looked at Felix. It didn''t really use names but the feeling it emanated for each was fairly easily decipherable.


    Tam got up from the edge of the bed where she had been sitting, keeping watch and petting and very happy Nova in her lap, "I told you. These are my friends."


    Felix nodded towards Nova with his chin, "The Daemon is my familiar. I''m a¡­ was a human?"


    "I know of humans. You are not one."


    Felix shrugged.


    "And¡­" The Spirit looked over at Nova, "That''s your familiar?"


    "Yup. Was a Sprite then a Spirit, now a Daemon, according to The System. If you need custom materials or weird shapes, she''ll transmute something for us."


    The Spirit noticeably winced into the Anima when Felix mentioned The System, glanced over at Tam then nodded, "You want me to make things and you said you would provide materials?"


    It seemed like it wanted out of the deal but wasn''t willing to cross anyone in the room. Felix ignored that for now, nodded and walked over to the workshop door. He opened it and the Spirit emanated genuine shock as it slowly wheeled forwards.


    Felix walked in ahead of it and gestured towards Art with his hand, "This is Art. Listen to him if he tells you to do something. You''ll be working together." sea??h th§× n??el Fire.n§×t website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    The Spirit rolled in and looked around, carefully picked up a few things and looked around, in shock both by the contents of the room and the fact that the room existed. It was clearly its first time in the material world and the idea of a door segmenting spaces was completely foreign to it, as was the idea of not projecting its every thought into its surroundings apparently.


    "Oh, by the way. I guess you don''t really have a name, do you Spirit?"


    The Spirit looked at him and emanated confusion as Tam chimed in from the other room, "Spirits don''t need or use names. You just refer to someone by emanating a feeling of who they are."


    Felix sighed, "That''s great and all but, it''s a little inconvenient here where people use language to communicate. How about we just call you Eni."


    Oh god. Why didn''t I interrupt you¡­ Grim groaned in Felix''s mind accompanied by the giggling of multiple Mental Constructs.


    What? It''s not that bad¡­ is it?


    No. Honestly, it might be the least bad one you''ve come up with but I am in your brain. You just took the word Engineer and cut it up.


    Alright fine. From now on, you can name everything yourself.


    Felix left Art and some of his Mental Constructs to manage Eni while he went off to work on everything else he had to do.

 Chapter 227 - Book 29

    The first thing he focused on was finalizing the replacement for his cloak enchantment, in one of the various libraries where he could scan books simultaneously of course.


    The basic premise for the-once spell now ability-was to essentially create what he was dubbing, Mana Skin. A thin film of mana along the outside of his skin that acted like a barrier. Like his cloak enchantment, he wanted it to react to incoming attacks and defend against them appropriately which meant, he needed to use various Mana Attunements.


    Luckily, his new core gave him exactly that.


    The tricky part was figuring out how to make it do what he wanted. He had all the materials in place, it was just the mechanics that were missing.


    As he had done with his rendition of Mage Hand, Felix was hoping his Mana Control could take on the brunt of the work either through a build up of his instincts or through a building in his mind. Building up his instinct would have a faster reaction time and was ultimately the better solution, but it would take a long time to train. In the meantime, having his mental constructs do things for him was relatively easy.


    All it required was for him to create a building to control some aspects of the outermost layer of his Soul, the thin film like shell over his skin he had created in Amatara''s recruitment.


    Then, all he had to do was build up a basic level of intuition on how to control the skill manually. Once he figured that out, he could have his brain automate it entirely by executing the same process. That part was going to take some time but he was pretty sure he could do it during his last recruitment.


    He worked on that right up until the next day when he and Melody slew thousands of beasts, with Nova this time. Nova didn''t seem to actually steal much of their experience at all though because she didn''t really participate. She much preferred eating the planet than killing endless hordes and even then, was bored very quickly.


    Luckily for her, Tam brought her familiar to their sparring session just an hour later for Nova to play with. It was, exactly what Felix would have guessed, a Phoenix.


    [S - Mythic] Phoenix (Lvl 6214)


    Hah! So I''m not the only one with a familiar that has a higher level than I do.


    Though it definitely would have been trivial for Dawn-Tam''s Phoenix familiar-to obliterate Nova, they didn''t. They didn''t even seem like they were annoyed having to play with something of a much lower level than them and rather seemed, both physically and in the torrent of emotion released upon the Ambient Anima from the two of them, to be having fun.


    He was also rather glad they didn''t get offended when Nova transformed into a Phoenix herself.


    She had a much easier time both controlling her abilities as a Phoenix and not running out of juice and exhausting herself instantly now. She still crashed every few minutes then recovered for a bit before jumping back in but, she was spending more Mana than she had been the first times she had used the form.


    The early days didn''t change much, grinding levels, sparring with Tam, checking in on Art and Eni then working on personal projects while scanning a library.


    After a few dekads though, Tam inevitably had other things to do and so they began sparring with other elites. None of them were quite as useful or as friendly as Tam but all of them held back just enough that Felix and Melody were pushed to their limits without risking actually dying.


    Ameryl the Sword Sage was the best at figuring out how best to push them and what they each struggled with most in combat. For Felix, it was keeping his distance and avoiding being attacked along with finding the best openings, in essence, battle experience. For Melody, it was capitalizing on openings.


    She excelled at dodging strikes and predicting her enemy and to Felix, it seriously seemed like she had some kind of foresight. He was pretty sure that was impossible though and so he figured she was likely just using her innate talents to read her opponents intentions. She could not however, read mistakes because they were inherently, not intentional.


    That meant she had to recognize mistakes for herself and capitalize on them.


    Felix''s ability to avoid attacks from opponents that were just shy of Gods was lacking, even after multiple dekads of training but his defensive skill, which he ended up relying on a lot more than he had hoped to, was working wonderfully.


    It wasn''t perfect in just a few dekads by any means but specifically against Force and Fire, he was very close.


    His proficiency with Mage Hand was also progressing rapidly as he began using it more and more each and every day and in just a couple dekads, he finally got to the point where he could control two proficiently. Neither were as capable as his real hands but they were at least as dexterous as his hands had been before the integration, which was still huge progress.


    His Mind City was also progressing rapidly, the rate of growth having doubled now that Mark could handle all the minds running simultaneously and their reproduction had grown exponentially. They had even started setting aside raw Mana Computer to expand Mark by a whole Core in the future, effectively doubling his capacity and processing capabilities.


    As Felix''s proficiency with everything he was working on grew, he found himself with more capacity and focus to dedicate to other things. He immediately began filling that time with some of the very first training he had ever done in the Multiverse, repeatedly creating Spell Forms.


    Just like when he had been running through the very first puzzle dungeon where he had discovered Mana, Felix created and destroyed the very same spell forms over and over and over again.


    It had been a while since he had done so, simply because he had far surpassed the point of diminishing returns with that form of training. It was simply more efficient for him to train near mature Curses or using Spell Forms at the limit of his focus when he was training his Casting Speed.


    Now though, with his Attuned Cores, he could finally dedicate himself to properly learning to Instinct Cast more spells.


    The Spell Forms themselves no longer changed every couple of dekads as he found new nodes, grew better at Spell Craft and as his Mana pool grew.


    He would still get better with Spell Craft and change them over time but now, he didn''t need to worry about Mana Scaling or swapping out nodes. His spells were much more constant and so it was finally worth it to dedicate his time to instinctually learning them.


    He started simple with Force Bursts which he could use for pushing himself and enemies but with how much focus he had now, he could work on many more simultaneously.


    As with his Attuned Cores, he focused on the most generic, widely applicable spells.


    Even that though, couldn''t eat all his focus, at least not for longer than a dekad. Simply creating the same thing over and over didn''t require he focus and think much at all. He didn''t have infinite focus though and so he supplemented his training by practicing a little bit with his Matter Senses and Control.


    He didn''t bother summoning any other Spirits until he had spent more time with Eni and didn''t waste any time using his Profession skills when he had other, more important things to focus on in the recruitment.


    Felix would have been perfectly happy repeating everything on the exact same schedule every day, slowly gaining Profession levels with Art and Class levels with Melody but she wasn''t.


    Melody made them fight new and different beasts every day, not that it mattered much to Felix as they killed them all pretty easily. They weren''t allowed on any higher grade planets unfortunately and if they were caught on them, they would be kicked out of Osgard as a whole so, they didn''t bother.


    She also had them visit a different restaurant at least once a day, when she couldn''t also drag him to lunch or breakfast.


    Lastly, a few dekads in, Melody had started dragging Felix around the facility looking for locked doors for them to break into. The entire policy of the recruitment that they were allowed anywhere they could get into, except the leveling planets, was initially enticing for most but not Felix.


    Realistically, with a rule like that in place, the rewards for breaking in anywhere wouldn''t be worth the time, at least not in Felix''s mind.


    They had already found a few rooms which had turned out to be bedrooms along with a few meeting rooms, class rooms, markets, fences and storage rooms. None of them had been particularly exciting though and Felix didn''t bother stealing any more than a few scraps here and there. Mostly small bits of material for Nova to consume later on, never more than a few percent of what was stored though.


    The entire thing felt like a bit of a waste of time to Felix but only slightly.


    The only thing he couldn''t do when out exploring with Melody, was scan books. Otherwise, he continued on with the exact same training he would have done otherwise.


    Still, losing out on scanning time was a bit of a bummer for him, especially given what they were finding.


    It was only once they were about halfway through the recruitment that they finally found anything that piqued Felix''s interest.


    Heading down one of the millions of halls off the main room of the facility that was, curiously empty of doors along either side, Melody insisted she felt something at the end.


    Felix sighed and followed along, apparently slow enough that Melody felt the need to drag him by the wrist, as the hall slowly grew while bending and winding in every which direction.


    Finally they arrived at the end of the hall after traveling what had felt like a few kilometers. Although, it wasn''t exactly the end of the hallway.


    Directly in their path, filling the entire hallway from side to side and floor to ceiling was some of the biggest doors Felix had ever seen. It was a set of double doors that met in the middle and looked to be made of some dull metal like steel but obviously higher grade, at least visually.


    Felix''s Matter Senses were abuzz as the door was made of the single densest material he had ever encountered and his Mana Senses made him a little dizzy with the amount of Mana flowing through the door. The enchantment on the door wasn''t as complicated as Felix had expected but it was channeling at least billions of Mana.


    His Anima Senses though, provided the most shocking view of the door.


    Much like the completely black door beneath the Teleportation Hub in Telviras, the one Felix had passed through to get to The Reaper''s demesne, the door felt like solid Anima.


    It was easily the densest Anima Felix had ever felt shy of his Core Soul and even surpassed his own soul in sheer will power. It held three strong convictions of Guarding, Warding and Unyielding, the latter much like Felix''s own but subtly different.


    Still, the fact that it was a door and not a creature-at least as far as he could tell-and had the strongest will he had ever felt, was jaw dropping, literally.


    Melody, seeing his jaw agape, crossed her arms and smirked, "Told you there was something interesting at the end of this hall."


    Felix ignored her teasing and approached the door, tentatively reaching up and pressing a hand against it.


    It felt, perfectly normal. It didn''t react in any particular way to him. It was exactly as he had sensed it. Solid, unwavering. The weirdest part, being right up against it though, was that he almost couldn''t feel anything on the other side. Almost.


    He had originally thought the door was just absurdly thick but in reality, he could feel the other side with exactly one of his senses. His Matter Senses. His Anima and Mana Senses though were completely obscured. It wasn''t blurry or hard to make out, there was nothing there. Like his Senses just ended abruptly for some reason.


    He had no idea why and focusing in on his Matter Senses, he could tell there wasn''t anything on the other side of the door, at least not within range of his Matter Senses.


    Walking from one side of the door to the other, it seemed like the hall just continued on the other side.


    "You done yet? Pretty sure we can''t break through this one. Unless¡­" Melody got up uncomfortably close and whispered into his ear, "You''ve been hiding something impressi-"


    He side stepped away from her, "No. We can''t break through it."


    Just because I can''t break it¡­ Well, sorry Melody but I''m definitely getting through it later.


    Melody sighed, "Thought so. Come on, let''s head back. I know you''ve got a lot of training you want to catch up on."


    Felix nodded and slowly backed away from the door a few steps, trying to catch anything he might of missed, then hurried along and followed Melody back to their shared room.


    After encountering the door, Felix forced something else into his training rotation. It pushed his Matter Senses and Control along with over half of his Instinct Cast training aside but, he knew it would be worth it. It was something he had planned on working on later only because he expected it to take longer than his recruitment. Now though, he had to make it work before the end, at least in any capacity.


    So, he began disintegrating rocks.


    It took him a couple of dekads to finally not disintegrate rocks when he Spatially Translocated them but, rocks were relatively easy. In theory his own body would be the easiest but he was not confident enough to just try that because worst case, he disintegrated his body and lost his Soul in the Aether.


    Fruits, slightly more organic than rocks, were harder. Not because they were organic, but because they consisted of many different atoms with hugely varying internal forces holding it together. More simply, it was easier to rip an apple in two than a rock.


    With just 3 dekads left by the time Felix started destroying various fruit, he definitely felt like there wasn''t nearly enough time for him to get what he needed done. He managed to move fruit and keep it whole. He just never managed to do so across the door they had found.


    Using his Matter Senses, he didn''t even need to Translocate any of the fruit he sent over back because he could tell, they were no longer whole. Not a single one of them.


    Despite not managing to get any fruit to move across the door without turning to dust however, he began working on new test subjects and, finally got to test out his Necromancy skill.


    He didn''t bother imbuing the souls at all and just took a couple hundred corpses from his and Melody''s excursions every day. All he really needed anyways, was an organic body with a bound soul because they most accurately represented his own body.


    Unfortunately, not a single one of them survived over the course of his entire recruitment.


    Felix had gotten close, with some of his test subjects arriving whole just, without their souls. In theory, he was confident he would survive due to the control he had over his own soul. All of the mind constructs he consulted agreed with him. Grim agreed with him. The theoretical knowledge he had backed up his hypothesis.


    Still, standing before the large double doors on the second last day of his recruitment, Felix hesitated. He stood there and looked up at the doors trying to decide if it was really worth it, risking his own life for some unknown behind the door.


    The door was cool and possibly held something fantastic behind it but it was also possible it was a fancy-and well protected-bathroom.


    He wanted to try though because using the spell on himself, was something he had a burning desire to master. The ability to Blink around, especially in a fight was something of a dream of his and so, it wasn''t just about getting through a door to access some unknown treasure.


    That burning desire was the only reason Felix started slowly formulating a mass of spatial Mana within his Soul. It was the only reason he collected and grew it until he held within him a mass of just over 5 billion spatially attuned mana. It was the only reason he took that Mana, spread it all throughout his body, then took a breath and pushed himself out of space itself.


    There was no emptiness, no loss of senses. It was completely seamless. Felix appeared the same instant he left in the exact empty spot he had targeted with his Matter Senses.


    Though there was no memory and little to no passage of time, Felix could still feel it hadn''t been instantaneous.


    His Soul suddenly held an experience his mind didn''t. There was no memory there but the experience, as he reviewed it before it began to fade, contained his body and Soul moving through the Aether. It was an incredibly odd experience for him and had his thoughts not been interrupted, he likely would have stood there for much longer.


    "Finally. You know, you could have gotten through that door the day you found it."


    There was no doubt in Felix''s mind the voice was addressing him. There was also no doubt in his Soul that down the hall in front of him, was one of the strongest, most mature source of the Hunger Curse he had ever felt, rivaled only by the curse that he had released in Telviras.


    Seeing as his presence was already known, Felix walked forwards, down the hall.


    It held a single other turn which had initially obscured from him, a seemingly empty room. At least from the open doorway.


    As he cautiously approached the door, Felix slowly began to see more and more of the room. First, he saw a large bed on the opposite side of the room, off slightly to the side. Following that was a large bar and almost kitchen on the right along with a couch to the left.


    As soon as he saw that, he stopped because the couch wasn''t empty.


    Sitting on it, at least from behind, was someone Felix was pretty sure he recognized, despite only having ever seen them a single time, in a memory crystal. They looked different, with streaks of gray and white hair filling in half of his mane, instead of the unruly, solid dark brown Felix had last seen. He also wore a top this time, a silky looking white dress or robe of some kind.


    Rhonan (Lvl 18975)


    18,975? What the¡­ fuck? How¡­ does anyone catch up? Also¡­ where is his grade and rarity?


    Felix took another tentative step forwards, sheer curiosity piercing his state of utter shock.


    There was another couch set up perpendicular to the one Rhonan sat on, in front of it. On it, sat another god. An Elf that, despite her face being contorted in deep concentration and her eyes squeezed shut, still looked as elegant as anyone Felix had ever seen. Like she was a fragile porcelain doll, or a very fine marble sculpture.


    [SS - Mythic] Kotia (Lvl 5823)


    Taking another step, he saw another god sitting on the couch next to Rhonan, to his left. They looked to be female with white hair tied into a tight pony tail with rather pale skin. They were also the only one to be looking at Felix as he entered, their torso turned and head craned over the back of the couch as their unnaturally blue eyes scanned him.


    [SSS - Unique] Elrena (Lvl 8601)


    He hesitated once more but as soon as he did, Elrena nodded to him then turned back to whatever they were looking at.


    Lastly, on a couch across from Kotia, was another god that, judging from their posture, had similarly clamped their eyelids shut in concentration.


    Felix could only see the back of their head but they had wild looking hair that was blue, green and every shade between. He wore robes and had multiple swords sheathed on his back.


    [SS - Exotic] Nyrrasil (Lvl 6047)


    Across from Rhonan, on the wall, was what appeared to be either a television, a projected video, a rectangular portal or some kind of illusion. As far as Felix''s Matter Senses, Mana Senses and Anima Senses could tell though, it wasn''t an illusion. There was little to no Anima involved along with nothing notable in terms of Mana. It was like it was a television, without the television. There was simply a rectangle of light in the air with nothing Felix could sense to produce that light.


    It just existed.


    On it, a battle was playing out between Nyrrasil and Kotia.


    Lifting his hand and pointing at the screen, Rhonan addressed Felix without looking up from the massive slab of meat he was eating, "Wanna bet on who will win?"


    In front of him-on the table in the middle of the three couches and the impossible screen-sat an absolute mountain of meat, or half of one. It was obvious that half of it had been eaten already because of the very obviously shaped hole in the pile.


    Before he could answer-though he wasn''t sure he would have been able to find the words-Elrena, the white haired god next to him, the one that had been watching him shook her head, "Don''t."


    Felix wasn''t entirely sure she was talking to him and if she was, whether she didn''t want him to guess, bet or step any further.


    Noticing his hesitation, Elrena turned her head to face Felix, locked eyes with him and offered a slight grin, "Bet, I mean. He''s never been wrong before about a fight. At least not in my lifetime."


    Felix looked from her to Rhonan, who had already replaced the slab with a leg, and back to Elrena before he realized his jaw was slightly open and he closed it.


    Without looking away from the screen, and without a doubt in Felix''s mind as to who he was addressing, Rhonan swallowed so he could speak clearly, "Sit."


    Felix hesitated again but Elrena stood and gestured for him to take her seat, next to Rhonan. He didn''t hesitate this time, his body moving almost on its own as Elrena walked over to the bar and kitchen side of the room.


    Sitting on the couch next to Rhonan, his body stiffer than ever, Felix was uncharacteristically scared of doing anything. The couch naturally faced him towards the television and his posture planted his eyes directly on it which luckily, served as an excellent distraction.


    On the screen, both Nyrrasil and Kotia were beaten, bloodied and exhausted and yet, their fight was still mind blowing.


    Nyrrasil wielded swords. Not one, not two but 21 swords simultaneously. All drawn. All with his two hands.


    From the moment Felix first stepped into the room, the fight on the screen hadn''t paused at all and the entire time, it looked like Nyrrasil was dancing in a circus. He struck with blades then tossed them right afterwards without ever losing track of a single one of them because then, he would step to the side and blindly catch another.


    None of the swords dropped, none of them flew out of range-although range was a ridiculous distance in a fight between gods-and he seemed to be using all of them as he flashed around the battlefield.


    Kotia on the other hand fought in a way Felix couldn''t really wrap his head around at all.


    She blocked blades with her bare hands, like she was brushing aside a bug. Had her opponent not also been a God, he would have totally accepted her skin being impenetrable. In this fight though, Nyrrasil was a God and so Felix was pretty sure his swords should have done something.


    He also wasn''t sure they were doing nothing because she made very specific moves to block each and every one of them, so it wasn''t her skin. She blocked them with everything from her hands, to her hips, to her face but each time with a specific, graceful movement. It was never a fast slap or block, in fact she looked almost like she was moving slowly.


    That was impossible though because Nyrrasil was throwing his swords around and striking with many of them simultaneously.


    Despite seemingly not being injured at all, Kotia also didn''t seem to be attacking back at all. At least, Felix couldn''t tell how she was, if she was. Nyrrasil was obviously beaten down with dried blood all over him though so she had attacked him at some point.


    Even had Elrena not warned him against betting, Felix wasn''t sure he could have confidently made a guess on which side would win at all. He also couldn''t gather anything to supplement what he was seeing because, it was through a screen so his other senses were useless. Even the state of their bodies in the real world were completely incongruous with what he was seeing through the screen.


    The fight between the two Gods completely consumed Felix''s attention, in large part because he was looking for something to distract him. In doing so, he was completely ignoring his other senses so as Elrena walked up beside the couch next to him and placed a plate of food and a mug down on the table in front of him, he jumped.


    She, nor Rhonan, judged him and she simply nodded to reassure him.


    "Oh, thanks."


    Elrena nodded again, "Why can I not read your thoughts? There does not seem to be a barrier in place. I simply cannot find them."


    Felix opened his mouth but Rhonan swallowed his bite whole and answered without looking away from the screen, "He replaced his brain with a computer."


    Elrena nodded in understanding-like it was not only perfectly normal but entirely rational-then walked over to stand behind the couch and over Rhonan, to watch the screen.


    The shock of Rhonan knowing that finally broke the spell of Felix''s unwillingness to do anything and his head spun to look at Rhonan directly. Rhonan didn''t react and Felix didn''t speak up so he just stared at the God as he ate another few bites before turning back to the food in front of him and reaching for it.


    Rhonan''s food was a mountain of meat, some raw some cooked.


    Felix''s looked like a full meal, a fancy one at that. Despite the portions sizes which begged otherwise, it looked like a meal from one of the top restaurants on earth the way it was precisely prepared and laid out. Even the smell was phenomenal.


    Taking a bite, it was good, great even. It definitely wasn''t the best he''d ever had though. It was simple, somewhat rustic in taste and very filling. At least, it was filling right up until Felix''s body obliterated the food in his stomach and tossed most of the produced energy.


    The mug contained some kind of spiced wine which seemed to fit with the rest of his meal and astonishingly, was filled with Mana. Enough that the contents of a single cup would more than fill his pool. Feeling outwards though, it seemed as though that was a special case for him as Rhonan''s wasn''t filled with Mana at all but rather, Anima.


    "I hear you stole from Edras." Elrena turned to look at Felix.


    Felix physically jumped back upon hearing that, "I¡­ What? From who?"


    She used her eyes to indicate Rhonan had told her and Felix was seriously starting to get worried as to why and how Rhonan knew so much about him.


    Felix felt like he had explain himself, "I guess I just wasn''t willing to share some things¡­"


    "It''s good you didn''t." Rhonan took a swig of his own mug which, Felix could tell was bottomless, "I would have stopped you if you had tried to share any of that."


    Felix''s eyes grew a little wider, "What¡­ what specifically?"


    "The thing you made."


    "I¡­ what?"


    Elrena smirked a little, "Rhonan knows a lot. He''s usually paying attention and knows the broad strokes of what''s happening from various reports. Now¡­ with his injury, he''s been bored so, he watches the lives of the students at Eramith, among others." She offered a slightly sympathetic look, "He''s watched everything you''ve done since you were Integrated."


    "Wait¡­ What? How?"


    "System." Rhonan answered before taking another bite.


    Felix''s face contorted in disbelief, "You can just¡­ spy on anyone through it?"


    Elrena cocked her head a little, "He can. Being who he is, comes with some privileges."


    "It''s not like I can see everything, which you know. I''m still very curious what happened at the end of that integration event. It''s rare the system is blocked out."


    I guess he doesn''t know the sub-chunk was destroyed then.


    "It''s also uncommon to blur the system''s sight but, you''ve been blurred more than anyone. Not to mention, you blurred things yourself from time to time."


    "Uh¡­" The violation of privacy gave Felix just enough confidence to retort, "Well, now I''m glad I did."


    Rhonan smirked a little as he chewed and Elrena snorted.


    "You said I was blurred. Like it wasn''t intentional in many instances. Is The System obscuring my actions?"


    "No. You''ve just spent a lot of time around Curses." Rhonan tossed a bone to the other end of the table to join the pile of others he had cleaned off.


    "Not as much as you, it seems."


    Rhonan reached over and pulled back his robe a little on his left revealing a hole in his side dripping internally with black liquid, like a salivating maw, "You mean this?"


    Elrena winced and her expression hardened as she leaned over and took a knife out of a spatial storage to cut all the way around the wound. Then, she tossed the surrounding flesh into a portal. The entire time she made very sure to not actually touch the cursed parts, often cutting far outside of the wound itself. She reached in again and continued until she had hollowed out a cavern all the way into the center of his chest then pulled her arm free. As soon as she did, Rhonan''s body closed back up and healed itself perfectly in a fraction of a second.


    Felix looked at them with medley of confusion, "Are you cure-" He could feel it. The curse was still somewhere inside of Rhonan, albeit much weaker now, "It''s¡­ inside of you."


    Rhonan didn''t react but Elrena hung her head a little, her hardened expression softening just a little to make way for sadness.


    "Couldn''t you¡­" Felix stopped himself, "You can''t cut it all out. It''s in your Core Soul."


    "Not in." Elrena''s expression softened a little more, and in turn, grew a little sadder.


    "Not yet." Rhonan smirked as he corrected her before finishing off a huge steak.


    "Too close to remove though." Felix hung his own head a little in solidarity.


    He nodded, "It''s not that bad."


    Elrena sighed quickly, in a frustrated way as her face grew slightly red, "Oh yeah, not too bad at all. The whole inevitable death thing. Having to constantly dedicate the entirety of his willpower to keeping himself alive. His Soul being weakened to the point where I can cut him with a B grade knife."


    He shrugged.


    Felix frowned a little, "So you''re saying right now¡­ basically anyone could cut you?"


    He shrugged, "Probably. It''s somewhat intentional though so-" He gestured towards Elrena with his head, "-can easily carve it out of me."


    Elrena seemed to have calmed down a little and just hmphed then looked towards the screen.


    He doesn''t know I could fix that, does he?


    Grim responded, their conversation contained within his Soul Garden to prevent being overheard, I guess The Hunger plaguing Nova was enough to obscure the last time you did that. It''s rather convenient every time you touched a Curse, it was making it impossible for anyone to watch you do it, huh?


    Felix mentally scoffed, That''s not convenient, that''s just how it works. Is it convenient Gravity keeps us bound to the ground?


    For most people.


    I mean¡­ I guess? Not sure I''d attribute that to convenience¡­


    Felix took another bite of his meal then a swig of the mug and looked up at the screen just in time to see Nyrrasil use what looked like an ultimate move.


    All 21 swords moved in unison and spun around Kotia as she desperately blocked and dodged until finally she stopped and stood still.


    As soon as she did, the swords were stopped just a few meters from her body by some kind of invisible barrier while the sun seemed to shine just a little brighter in the area.


    Nyrrasil leapt in and grabbed one of the swords on the way then pushed his way into the invisible sphere surrounding her, like he was trying to push his body through solid stone. Once he made it far enough, he spun his whole body a half turn and unleashed a ridiculous sword strike that split Kotia in two.


    A moment later, the two of them simultaneously opened their eyes and gasped for air.


    Kotia coughed a little as she adjusted and Nyrrasil, as soon as he had his bearings, leapt into the air, "I win! Suck it, loser."


    The goddess across from him sighed as he did a stupid and rather vulgar victory dance, humping the air.


    As he gyrated in every direction, he eventually turned himself towards Rhonan''s couch and Felix sitting next to him, "Who''s the kid?"


    "This is Felix. He''s here on a recruitment." Rhonan explained before taking one of the last few slabs of meat from the table.


    Nyrrasil nodded, "Cool." The explanation completely satisfactory for him.


    Kotia however, seemed to actually have a brain and so she scoffed at Nyrrasil then cocked her head at Elrena and Rhonan, "Why is he here?"


    "He broke in." Elrena didn''t seem like she minded.


    That seemed to confuse Kotia even more but Nyrrasil was just as satisfied as before by that, somehow.


    Rhonan lifted a finger, "Teleported himself, actually."


    "Isn''t the door¡­ warded against that?" Kotia looked at Rhonan then Elrena.


    "Yup." Rhonan took another bite making it obvious to everyone, he was done explaining.


    Kotia nodded and stood and thanked Rhonan and Elrena then bowed just slightly to Felix, "Pleasure to meet you."


    "You too." Felix held back the urge to make it sound like a question, shrug or make any facial expression whatsoever.


    Kotia walked around the couches and joined Nyrrasil-who had promptly piled up all but two pieces of the remaining meat in his arms-in walking out of the room.


    Nyrrasil held up a hand as he left, "Later Rhon, Rena, Lix."


    Did he just call me Lix?


    I didn''t think it was possible anyone could be worse than you at naming.


    As soon as they left, Elrena took a seat on the couch that had held Kotia then spun around and lay across the couch, her feet on the armrest.


    Once she was settled in, she turned her head to Felix, "So you''re the integration exile, correct?"


    He nodded.


    "How is it you made it through the wards on the door exactly?"


    "Rathelius." Rhonan answered.


    She nodded, "Oh, you''re the kid The Dragon Mother took a liking to." Her face contorted in disbelief, "Rathelius taught you?"


    Rhonan nodded.


    "When?" She squinted at Felix.


    Felix manged to speak before Rhonan, likely only because he let him, "Two recruitments before this one."


    She pushed herself up a little, "You learned that fast?"


    "It helps he''s a Spirit Sage and is likely the reason Khidell was demoted." Rhonan answered before flopping the last piece of meat in his hand into his mouth.


    "Wait¡­" She sat up a little more, "That was all the same kid?"


    Rhonan answered simply by smirking and shoveling the last piece of meat into his mouth.


    "Did you discover some kind of artifact in your Integration?"


    "Dark Magic Grimoire." Rhonan answered through the food in his mouth.


    She nodded in understanding, "You also took on all the world bosses by yourself, right? Then fought some kind of ancient B grade in the event? By yourself?"


    Felix nodded.


    Her face hardened a little, like she was getting angry, "Pardon my ignorance, did you not have any friends? It seems rather¡­ unintelligent to take on these enemies alone."


    Rhonan smirked a little, swallowed, "More fun that way. More of a challenge."


    Elrena''s jaw clenched, "It''s also how you end up in a situation you can''t handle." She stood from the couch, "How you end up injured." She began yelling as she leaned in, her voice nearly qualifying as a sonic attack, staring right at Felix, "It''s how you get wounded and die."


    He could tell she wasn''t talking about him, even if she was talking to him. Still, a god yelling in his face was incredibly disconcerting.


    She noticed his fear as he leaned back a little so she quickly stood back up straight, scoffed and stormed out towards the door. Just before leaving though, she yelled out without looking back, "You need rest." Then she walked the rest of the way out.


    Rhonan sighed and leaned back on the couch.


    Felix collected himself then turned to Rhonan, "You didn''t really just take on something you couldn''t handle, did you?"


    He cocked a brow, "Why?"


    "Well, you are one of the oldest beings in the multiverse, as far as I know. Elrena mentioned you''ve never been wrong about who would win a fight as long as she had known you. Doesn''t add up."


    "She seems to think I did." He sighed again, "Even after all these millennia, she still just sees me as some kind of blood thirsty, battle loving barbarian."


    Felix furrowed his brow with certainty, "She''s wrong."


    He nodded, "She''s angry."


    "That means you took a fight you knew you would lose."


    "Not quite."


    "You knew you would get injured."


    "I did."


    "Did you just underestimate how bad the injury would be? You must have known it was a possibly. So, why did you do it?"


    Rhonan looked over at Felix for the first time, his lip curled up into a smirk on one side, "You know she wouldn''t even listen to the story, wouldn''t even hear me out. Now I''m dying and she can''t even stay with me. This is the hundred and second time she''s stormed off. I love her but¡­"


    "Did you talk to her? I''m sure she''d be willing to¡­"


    "No, she isn''t. Some people can''t put their emotions aside." Rhonan sighed and leaned forwards, "Some can but, I''ve found it to be one of the rarest qualities." He met Felix''s gaze and his expression shifted slightly to one of acceptance, "It''s part of why I was never interested in her. Why we never got together despite her feelings for me."


    Felix nodded and didn''t press the issue, "So, what did happen?"


    His face brightened a little, "Well¡­" Then, with a wave of his hand, a memory began to play out on the screen before them.


    "You have Anima dense meat, elixirs, Exotic escape items-"


    "My axe and my ass. I''ll be fine." Rhonan sighed.


    Elrena''s eyes were wide, pleading, "You really should take some kind of armor you know. You have plenty in your vault that would wor-"


    "I''ve fought my entire life without armor. Starting now would hurt more than it would help."


    Rhonan shook his head, Why can''t she just be confident in my abilities. Tell me good luck. Every time, she worries as if she were my mother¡­ I miss Tharren, at le-


    He forcefully derailed his own train of thought before it went any further and stepped past Elrena, into the portal. Into the darkness.


    She couldn''t have stopped him even if she wanted to. Helping him was completely out of the question. Even Rhonan couldn''t protect her.


    Though he couldn''t see anything, had no ground beneath his feet, nothing solid to push off of, Rhonan twisted his body back as a black claw destroyed the portal behind him. Before it could recoil, he pushed Mana, Energy and Anima into his Runed Tattoos and swung his axe up, through the claw.


    It didn''t have time to react before it shattered, as if made of glass.


    Rhonan was already gone by the time the swing completed, completely avoiding the shards as he flew deeper into the void.


    He couldn''t see necessarily, not with his eyes. There was no light in the void between universes. No real space for it to travel across. Just distance.


    Normally there wouldn''t be anything there, from what he''d heard. Around his universe though, around his home, there were the Cursed Shadows. All of them embodying Hunger as far as he''d seen, though he didn''t really know why.


    They were strong. They were fast. Many of them faster than he was, making them faster than everyone in the system-verse. They weren''t very smart though. None of them had a brain of any kind, at least not the Shadows he''d encountered. They acted purely on instincts billions of epochs old which, made them unfortunately annoying to fight.


    Rhonan had a brain though and along with it, instincts that weren''t nearly as mature but together with his brain, it was enough.


    Shooting through the void, Rhonan swung and shattered Cursed Shadows by the thousands, where he could find them. None of them having very well defined forms made it difficult for him to remember them all. He used to keep count but it wasn''t worth it anymore. He''d done this long enough that he''d know when to stop.


    He''d never feel satisfied. Not so long as they existed outside his universe. Not so long as they threatened it. He didn''t have bottomless resource pools, especially not outside of The System''s domain.


    The Anima and Energy rich food as well as Mana rich drink he brought along helped, each one worth an absurd amount and each one, well worth the price.


    He swallowed the infused meat of hundreds of God tier beasts to fully fill his pools then shot off into the void once more. It would have been nice if he were capable of consuming from crystals directly, more efficient storage wise at least. He had grown up consuming meat and digesting it though so, for him, it was vastly more efficient. He could have learned but, he enjoyed the taste too much to spend the time.


    Most of the Cursed Shadows were fodder, small and relatively immature curses that filled in the gaps to form The Endless Hunger. Without them, it would be The Sparse Smattering of Hunger instead of The Endless. They posed little issue and Rhonan didn''t ever really risk injuring himself with them. They weren''t even really a challenge at all, just a waste of Energy.


    Still, they were a threat-albeit a minor one-and so, they had to be eliminated.


    His real goal though, the real threats, were the Cursed Beasts.


    They were creatures formed out of Cursed Anima, just like the Shadows but, they had more defined forms and a clearer consciousness. Some of them even communicated. They were stronger, faster and worst of all smarter.


    Rhonan wasn''t entirely familiar as to how one was formed as opposed to the other, he had found Shadows made of more mature curses than some Beasts, so it wasn''t that. Either way, they were more of a challenge, something that was hard to find for him these days.


    His main goal was to clear them out, protect the multiverse. He just so happened, to also love a good fight.


    The first one he simply stumbled upon, shooting himself through the void and finding a particularly empty patch. After mapping it out for what felt like a few hours, he headed in towards the center and sure enough, found a mass of Curse Anima.


    It was stronger and more mature, older than the rest of the Hunger Shadows he fought. Not all Cursed Beasts were, but this one was. It also, had a more well defined shape, though not one that was overly recognizable.


    To Rhonan, it looked like some kind of mushroom or jellyfish with thousands of tentacles stretching out from its stalk. Being where he was and sensing his surroundings through his Anima Senses made it hard to tell how big things were but it felt to Rhonan, like it was massive. Like the top of the mushroom head could have housed a large country.


    He''d fought bigger before though.


    The Beast knew he was there, it saw him, Rhonan could tell. It didn''t move towards him though, it simply waited. It knew he was coming anyways and welcomed him, with open tendrils.


    Once he was in range, Rhonan slammed Mana into the runes embedded within his flesh and closed the distance in an instant. He held his axe, his father''s axe. The very same one he''d used since before his integration, in both hands.


    It was a simple wood cutter''s axe where he was from but most people now would have considered it a greataxe in shape. To him, it was still a simple tool to fell trees, and anything else that needed felling.


    You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.


    The only reason it had survived so long was through the act of imbuing his will into the weapon making it nearly indestructible. Through their journey, his will had healed the axe from injury, given it a pseudo life and in doing so, given it pseudo-evolutions. It had grown and its material shifted. It was no longer the same axe he had started with, nothing from the original save for the shape still defined the axe he held now. It even weighed orders of magnitude more.


    It was still his axe though, his father''s axe. The axe he had saved a village with. The axe he had slain his family with. There was no other axe for him.


    All the history they had, the bond between him and his axe, the familiarity and the vast experience all led to his imbuement of will begin stronger. Even in a space between universes, where space itself was ragged, torn and ill defined. Where light was swallowed and vanished before it could reach far enough to illuminate surroundings. In a place defined by Anima, by memories, auras and what could be sensed, his axe felt like a beacon.


    The head itself, aglow with a burning light.


    His axe swing was finished the instant he arrived and the hundreds of tendrils that branched off the one he severed began to writhe and squirm as they burned from the top down.


    A thousand tendrils from every direction shot towards him, like thousands of needles forming a inescapable net but Rhonan was already gone.


    He couldn''t risk getting hit. Each tendril was made of the Hunger Curse. Each one would start eating his flesh and Soul from just a touch. If one were to pierce him, he would have to carve out a large section of his own body just to prevent the spread. Being as close as he was to the Cursed Beast, he didn''t have time to hack at his body.


    Spinning around, Rhonan swung his axe and released a circular blade of Anima that spread out and severed a handful of tendrils around him. The Beast tried to strike at him again, this time instead of fast, sharp and angular, the tendrils were thick and wavy as they corkscrewed around him.


    He didn''t have to waste his precious Mana moving himself, so he didn''t. Instead, he carved his way through the tendrils, dodging the ones he didn''t cut as he freed himself of the seemingly endless cage.


    Every time he cut a tendril, especially the roots nearest the head, Rhonan felt the frustration of the Beast mounting or at least, that''s what he pictured. In reality, it emanated through the Anima as nothing more than growing hunger.


    They were beasts literally made of a Curse. There was no way for anything other than the curse itself to exist, he knew frustration was impossible, as the curse would completely consume all other feelings and experiences. The fact that they managed to form a shape at all was astounding and something Rhonan thought to be impossible. Showing some base level of instincts on top of that, a level of bestial intelligence at all, made these by far the strongest and most challenging enemies Rhonan could find.


    Still, he liked to imagine them getting frustrated as he slowly whittled down their massive forms.


    The Beast he fought used the still connected tendrils to scoop up the severed ones and reattached them, forming even longer branches but it didn''t matter. Rhonan''s only goal was to make it through the tendrils to the larger body itself.


    Being a fight where getting hit once was death for Rhonan, the fight was really a battle of attrition. He couldn''t make a mistake and he had to kill them before consuming his resources. The longer the battle went on, the more likely he would slip up.


    In a way, it made the fight more exciting. He had to fight flawlessly to win.


    In a way, it made the fight incredibly boring. There was simple no tension. He went into the fight knowing he could win. He wouldn''t take the fight otherwise. There was no back and forth. There was no guess as to who would win, not in Rhonan''s mind. The consequences were too high.


    Had he been pushed harder, had he not had such a vast array of fighting experience behind him that he no longer really made mistakes, it would have been exciting.


    As it was, it was challenge for sure but it was one he just had to push through, and one he already knew he could do. It was felt like a chore more than anything.


    Leaping off of nothing and dragging the head of his axe up through endless stalk of the Hunger Cursed Mushroom Beast, Rhonan lamented the feeling of being challenged. The feeling of going into a battle against someone just as strong and wondering how it would play out.


    He used his axe to carve an opening up through the head of the mushroom and concentrated all of his will into the axe head. Lifting it up above his head as the entire creature squirmed, he paused for just a moment then the axe flashed downwards in an overhead strike.


    As it did, a vertical line of burning golden Anima appeared, splitting the mushroom beast in two.


    He didn''t bother sticking around to observe the aftermath and was already fighting another formless Cursed Being in The Endless Hunger a few moments later.


    He fought for a few more days before taking a break and replenishing his resources. Specifically, Anima.


    Fighting the formless Cursed Shadows in The Endless Hunger consumed mostly Mana and Energy as he didn''t have to project attacks or focus the entirety of his will into his axe head. Instead of a Burning Luminescence, the axe was more like a coated blade. It was enough and on hunts where resources mattered, towing the line between just enough and wasteful was critical.


    Fighting one of The Cursed Beasts though, those with forms and more concentrated wills, drained the majority of his Anima pool. In fact, he was certain that in his current state, he wouldn''t survive fighting two at once. Not unless he managed to hit both of them at the same time with the majority of his attacks.


    So, those were fights he would never take, not that he had ever seen two Cursed Beasts together anyways. They seemed to be territorial, considering even Cursed Shadows were kept away from their domains, at least Rhonan had never seen otherwise over the course of his couple of hundred hunts in The Endless Hunger now.


    He had gone from fighting a handful of Cursed Shadows on his first hunt, to fighting upwards of three Cursed Beasts. He was making progress but, it still all felt a little hopeless.


    After defeating the mushroom Beast, Rhonan spent half an epoch-according to his internal clock-hunting down and dispersing Cursed Shadows. He wasn''t really killing them, he knew that. Even the mushroom Beast he had split vertically would either disperse into Cursed Shadows or reform. Both of which he had observed the first few times he had slain Beasts.


    Now, he didn''t bother watching. It was a waste of time.


    The Endless Hunger was endless in that its contents were unkillable, and that it felt endless, stretching out infinitely in every direction.


    He knew that wasn''t the case. He knew of other universes out there. He''d been to a few of them.


    When he was desperately trying to repel The Endless Hunger though, hold it back to help The System and save his universe, it felt endless. No matter how much time he spent there, it never felt like enough. There was no visible dent in the veritable ocean of Hunger Curse completely surrounding his universe.


    He felt a bit like his universe was a boat in the middle of an ocean of conscious acid. It was trying to poke holes and make its way inside, like his boat was an egg with a delicious yolk.


    Considering he was confident no one but him could actually fight it directly, he couldn''t help but feel hopeless. Still, he had been through worse and so he pushed on. He fought and culled as much as he could without seriously injuring himself. It was sheer force of will, discipline, that carried him through. Despite the hopelessness sucking all the fun out of fighting. Despite the hopelessness making the entire thing feel like a chore.


    On the positive side, the hopelessness did instill him with a sense of anxiety, a feeling he welcomed after spending the majority of his life feeling nothing at all.


    By the end of an epoch, Rhonan had completely run through his reserves and was left with one final pool of each of his resources. He had manged to find an kill just one other Cursed Beast, some kind of abomination with a dozen legs, multiple tails and a constantly shifting face. It was actually one he had fought before, at least he was pretty sure.


    They would never remember him and though their forms were more defined than the Cursed Shadows, they weren''t set in stone and many of them looked quite alike.


    He was still hoping to find just one more Cursed Beast so that he could feel like his hunt was successful. Like he had pushed back The Endless Hunger and slowed its inevitable advance, as much as possible.


    Just one more Beast he told himself as he slaughtered Shadows by the thousands.


    He was further from the edge of his universe than he ever had been as he had been traveling directly outwards over the course of the epoch.


    As he did, The Endless Hunger hadn''t seemed to grow any denser or any stronger. It wasn''t harder to fight or more conscious. It was just endless. Stretching outwards infinitely. The crushing weight of that potentiality was so much worse to Rhonan than if it had gotten stronger and denser.


    That would have meant there was hope, that there might be a way to fight through, find the stronger Beasts, maybe even something above them. That would have meant there was a possibility of a commander or some other enemy he could train and work towards slaying. It would have meant something.


    It just wasn''t the case though and so Rhonan''s constant anxiety had begun to shift over the course of the epoch towards despair.


    Just.


    He slew a thousand Shadows as he raced through the tattered space.


    One.


    He didn''t want to leave.


    More.


    Not yet.


    Beast.


    He couldn''t leave.


    Then he was struck with something. Not literally. His senses felt something other than Hunger in every direction endlessly. Even the slightest variation was like a literal light in the darkness. It was immediately noticeable to him who had felt nothing else for over an epoch.


    Except it was nothing like a light. It was like a ray of, impossibly, an even deeper darkness.


    It was a will. A consciousness. It was rife with Hunger. It was something he had thought impossible and even feeling it, he couldn''t be sure it was a being of Hunger or a consciousness so far from him, his feelings were tainted. He knew it wasn''t an illusion though. He wasn''t lucky enough for that.


    In a twisted way, it gave him hope. That there was something out there he could slay. A way he could end this threat before it consumed his universe.


    That twisted sense of hope was what drew him closer, made him seek it out, despite the overwhelming feeling of Curse Anima coming from that direction.


    As he flew towards it, cautiously at first but much faster once he realized just how far he was, the density of Curse Shadows drastically lowered until there were simply none left, just like the Cursed Beasts domain.


    Traveling further though, he realized the empty area was more than the domain of a Cursed Beast. It was much bigger for whatever reason. A massive section of just emptiness, as it was meant to be.


    Another few days of flying later and Rhonan realized the empty section wasn''t centered around the consciousness he felt, rather it seemed to have two centers. Like there were overlapping domains pushing the Cursed Shadows away. There was something else out there as well but, he couldn''t feel anything from it which was more concerning than anything.


    Normally, he felt something from Cursed Beasts at a distance. Usually it was faint but he roughly knew which direction to head. All he felt though, was an emptiness in one direction and a consciousness in the other, between them and him, emptiness.


    Realizing there were two centers, two overlapping domains meant there were two potential destinations for Rhonan. He had no idea what to expect from either and ultimately, no reason to pick one over the other so, he headed for the closest one, the emptiness.


    It took him nearly another half epoch to finally get close enough to feel something and another quarter epoch to feel anything more than a mass of Hunger.


    Initially, when the emptiness shifted from nothingness to just more Hunger, more Cursed Anima, Rhonan thought about turning back, about switching targets. Ultimately though, he decided to continue on based on the fact that there had to be something there causing the weird emptiness he traveled through for so long.


    He was indelibly grateful he had when he finally reached his destination.


    Lying before him was a massive sphere of Hunger, bigger than any individual Cursed Beast. It was so disconnected in shape, he was certain it was just a mass of Cursed Shadows. Seeing his surroundings through his Anima senses rather than his eyes meant the massive shell of Hunger didn''t obscure the center of the mass. The reason they were there at all.


    Right in the middle, like the core of a planet, no bigger than normal human''s fist, was a light. A sphere of Anima so dense, Rhonan thought his senses were lying to him. So pure, he was convinced he was hallucinating. Completely unaffected by the mass of Hunger Curse desperately trying to bore into it from all sides.


    It was not only touching Hunger Curse from all sides. It was unrelenting to their constant barrage from all sides.


    Rhonan had no idea how long it had already been there but he stood there and watched for what felt like days, a dekad even. That entire time, it sat there, perfectly still. Completely unaffected.


    He wasn''t just watching it for days on end though. He was standing there, debating with himself.


    From off in the distance, he felt the consciousness approaching. As it did, it became very clear the consciousness was some kind of Hunger Cursed Creature. An entity far above the Beasts. Something he had no chance of fighting.


    Even though the sphere of Anima had survived as long as it had under the barrage of mature Hunger surrounding it, Rhonan couldn''t be sure that whatever was coming, wouldn''t have more luck.


    A part of him wanted to just stand there and watch because for the first time in hundreds of integrations, Rhonan had no idea who would win.


    On one side there was a creature with a will strong enough to have a consciousness, despite being filled with Hunger Cursed Anima. On top of that, the Hunger he felt from it was ancient. The most mature Curse he had ever felt.


    On the other side, there was Anima, not quite a consciousness not quite not a consciousness. He couldn''t even be sure if it was a life or just an orb of Anima. It not only made contact with the Curse and remained completely untainted but it also sat there and withstood a full blown assault of Hunger Curse.


    Both were impossible, or so he had thought.


    He had told himself he was looking for one more Cursed Beast to feel more productive. He knew that was a lie. It never felt productive. Even if he was making progress, he wasn''t sure what the point was.


    What he had really been looking for was hope. Now, he had found it.


    The only issue was, there was nothing he could do about it.


    Seeing the cursed mass before him, even just breaking through it felt beyond his capabilities, especially with just a fraction of his resource pools left. If he didn''t do something though, there was a chance whatever was coming, would succeed where this mass hadn''t.


    If that happened, the Ancient Cursed Consciousness would be that much closer to his universe and then there would truly be nothing. He certainly couldn''t fight it. The System was already being pushed to the limit just holding The Endless Hunger back, so it couldn''t do anything about it. He wasn''t sure this ball of Anima could either, but it was already much closer than he was.


    Either it was alive and it had a chance, or it wasn''t and he would force Kryptos to help him fuse it into his axe. He definitely wasn''t going to try fusing it into himself considering it could withstand direct contact with a mature Curse, there was no way it wouldn''t be able to take over his Soul.


    So he was left with just one choice, save it, or die along with his universe. Which, wasn''t really a choice at all.


    Blowing through his Mana pool as carefully as he could, Rhonan launched himself at the mass. His best estimates, put his chances of success at less than a percent and even then, it was very likely he would die. He couldn''t die though. Not now. Not now that he had hope, for the first time since discovering the-once now slightly less-inevitable fate of his universe.


    He managed to get uncomfortably close to the Curse mass without them seeming to notice him at all, which was necessary if he was to have the best chance of survival. From as close as he dared, Rhonan swung his axe around himself, the axe head burning brighter than it ever had before.


    The swing didn''t just create a circular blade, it created a wave that blasted the Curse mass back.


    He leapt into the crater he had created and began carving off the outside, flattening the surface so it didn''t close back up behind him.


    Each piece he carved off, he sent flying off into the emptiness, dispersing the mass as much as he could.


    Then, he didn''t swing his axe but rather punched forwards with the blade to drill down. He dove into the hole he had created and carved up the mass around him. Repeating the process over and over again as his Anima pool plummeted faster than with anything he had fought before.


    In reality, he wasn''t even really fighting anything. The Curse didn''t fight back, not really. There were the odd attacks here and there but it seemed to be unilaterally focused on the Soul within, as was Rhonan. Now that he was closer, he could tell it was a Soul. It had life but only barely. It flickered as though on the brink of dying and becoming just a mass of Anima.


    In a way he was disappointed. He wouldn''t put it in his axe if it were alive and he wasn''t going to let it die. It wouldn''t be him that saved his universe.


    In a way he was relieved. The burden he had carried for so long was no longer his alone to bear. It wouldn''t be him that saved his universe. At least, not alone.


    He wasn''t sure how long he had, seconds, hours or epochs even before The Spark of Life within the Soul he was trying to save flickered out. Planning for the worst case though, he began to burn away his own Soul. He consumed Anima from his Soul to cut off a mass of Curse, to drill down further, to keep fighting.


    It wasn''t more than he could handle. It wasn''t going to kill him. It would take time to replenish but it was a sacrifice he had to make.


    By the time he had bored a hole down through 90% of the Cursed Shadows that had latched onto the orb, his hope as well as his despair grew.


    Feeling the Soul from closer up, the Unrelenting will and sheer density filled him with hope that felt like a warm ray of sunshine. That hope only grew as the picture of what he was trying to save clarified before him.


    He also began to feel exactly what surrounded the Soul. What was at the center of the mass. Hundreds of Cursed Beasts. Not just Cursed Shadows.


    Rhonan, in hundreds of hunts had never found any two of them even remotely near each-other. It was lucky, in a way, because he had little chance of fighting more than one at once. Before him though, were hundreds of them latched on, clawing, biting, burrowing, striking, squeezing and pushing on the Soul he was trying to save.


    He wasn''t delusional and had no plans to fight them. Not with any intention of winning. His only goal was to get the Soul before him out and hopefully himself, alive.


    With that in mind, his resolve set, Rhonan peeled off another large chunk of his own Soul to fuel his attacks and dove in swinging.


    Nearest him was what looked to be a worm with hundreds of human legs that had latched onto the Soul. It didn''t seem to want to let go so it simply thrashed around to try and kick him with its many feet. Rhonan shoved some of the Anima he had freed into the runes on his body, the ones he almost never used because of how expensive they were. In doing so, he had surrounded himself in a dense aura of his own will power.


    It wasn''t enough to be impenetrable, wasn''t even enough to fully protect him, but it was enough that he could fight just a little easier.


    The rest went into his axe and with it, he obliterated Cursed Shadows. Cursed Beasts however, were much stronger.


    He delimbed a number of legs and the extra Anima he had used burned away at the remaining stumps but he didn''t kill it in a single blow. It took him a dozen more swings to finally cut through it enough times that it dispersed.


    At that point, he had put on enough of a show that the other Cursed Beasts, that had once been entirely focused on the Soul he was trying to save, realized he was there and turned their attention towards him. A dog like creature with no neck dove towards him, clawing at his leg as he split it down the middle with his axe. A bug looking creature with far too many legs and no defined torso stabbed at him with its limbs as he cut through it and into the head of another.


    As he fought, he was constantly shedding the layer of Anima that, didn''t quite protect him but was a sacrifice in place of his own body. Every time he was struck, clawed at, stabbed or bitten, the layer surrounding him was infected and he had to slough off a portion of it.


    It kept him from having to do so with his own body or Soul but he was losing almost an equal amount of Anima, it was just injuring and therefore exhausting him less. It also limited the damage to something he was certain he could lose.


    Once the Beasts stopped distracting themselves, the battle he fought became exponentially harder. He could no longer freely swing into them and was forced to avoid as much as he could. He couldn''t even back up either because he was so close to his goal. He could see the Anima, he could touch it. He just needed those last few Beasts that were latched on to release it, for just a moment so he could activate an escape item.


    Fighting though, as his Anima dwindled and the last few remaining pieces of his Soul he was willing to lose diminished, he realized they weren''t going to. Not on their own.


    Where the Cursed Shadows emitted just a sense of Hunger with no nuance to it, the Cursed Beasts seemed to have some kind of intelligence. At least, they showed enough that Rhonan was able to understand what they were saying, almost hear them, even through the overwhelming sense of Hunger they emanated.


    Feed us.


    Hungry.


    The Cursed Child is coming.


    You will die.


    We will consume you.


    Ouroboros is coming.


    You.


    Will.


    Feed.


    Us.


    Gathering everything he could, every extra layer, every bit of Anima from his Soul that he could spare., even what remained in the runes in his body, Rhonan collected it all up and funneled it into one last attack. One explosion of Anima to buy himself just enough time, he hoped.


    He dodged and weaved through attacks, no longer maintaining a barrier to protect him, Rhonan took scratches and scrapes that festered with Hunger. He took them willingly, making sure to avoid anything that would dig too deeply until he was finally ready.


    Diving in towards the Soul, Rhonan felt his side being sheared open by some kind of long and fine claw but he ignored it completely as he reached out and wrapped his massive hand around the orb. Then, he released all the Anima he had built up in one explosion before activating his most expensive Exotic Escape Item. The only one he was certain would work and one that had cost him an absurd fortune of Rubions in another universe.


    The item brought him back to a set location, a point in completely empty space far within the space he controlled. He didn''t want to be anywhere near anyone when he used it in case he was followed or infected with Hunger, as he was.


    Still, he regretted that decision immediately when he arrived and realized he was completely alone. His hands, empty. The light he had saved, gone.


    Felix''s mind raced as his eyes were locked on the screen before him, even after the memory was finished playing.


    Holy shit.


    Grim couldn''t find the words.


    Felix turned to Rhonan, letting the shock show on his face, even if it was for a completely different reason than Rhonan would suspect, "What happened to it?"


    He shrugged, "Don''t know."


    "Are you sure you managed to pull it out?"


    He nodded, "Yeah. That item I used, I know it worked."


    "So you are dying because you tried to save this thing and you don''t know? That''s¡­ sorry¡­"


    He chuckled a little, "My best guess, is that the Soul and all the Anima, the will inside of it, was split amongst the most recent generation. The Ascendant Cycle, Cycle of Prodigies."


    Felix blinked a few times, not because that idea meant anything to him, but more because it was so wrong and Felix knew it. S§×arch* The n?velFire.net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    Rhonan gestured towards the screen which began cycling through various scenes as he spoke, "I mean, take a look at your classmates. You have Melody who could feel when gods were lying from birth. You have Peace who just fought Amatara and became a Spirit. Adaline of course, who figured out Kryptos enchantments, even if she wasn''t the first. Then you have Romar who mastered a Concept. Zeraxes who already has three solid convictions and is bonded with a Divine weapon."


    He turned and looked at Felix directly, "Not to mention you, who dethroned Khidell and Ayred who is one of the most prominent merchants shy of Radleus himself. Then there are all the kids not at Eramith who have destroyed previous, long standing records. Who have accomplished near impossible feats at such young ages."


    Felix nodded, "So¡­ the universe is doomed and our only hope of saving it is if my whole generation works together?"


    "Something like that."


    "Why not tell people. About what''s out there. Why show me this? Who else knows?"


    Rhonan sighed, "It wouldn''t go how you think. I showed you because you can handle it. Impossible challenges seem to motivate you. It was also kind of a test, to see how you react and what you''ll do now. As for who knows, most of the Primordials, Me."


    "That''s it?"


    "Elrena knows about The Endless Hunger, many do. A vast swathe of Hunger just outside our universe. What they don''t know, is that it is not normal for a Curse to surround a universe. It is not normal for a curse to have creatures within it, consciousness, to take on forms and shapes."


    "So outside the universe you bought the escape item in¡­ what''s there?"


    He shrugged, "Nothing. Space is fractured and torn, that''s why it isn''t a universe itself, why there are no planets or stars. It''s just emptiness though." He sighed longingly, "As it should be."


    "You have to have some kind of plan though. If that orb thing really did split itself up, why not kill all of us and recreate it? Put it into your axe?" Felix asked even though he was pretty sure he knew the answer. He wanted to hear it.


    Rhonan immediately shook his head, "I''m not doing that. If I were willing, why stop at your generation? Why not kill all the gods? At that point though, there''s no universe left to save."


    "At this point, I guess you''re dying anyways so¡­ what''s the point? Shouldn''t we all just try and escape to another universe?"


    Rhonan sighed, "I wish. I consulted with Kryptos and Rathelius, unfortunately the Mana alone that would require is more than all the Mana in this Universe. Collecting it from other universes and carting it back would take way too long."


    "Okay but there should be enough for just you and The Primordials to escape, right?"


    He nodded, "Yeah. Most of them have already left."


    Oh.


    "The ones who are left are either planning on leaving or are doing everything they can to save as many as they can. As you said, I''m dying no matter what, I might as well try and save as many people as I can."


    "I guess¡­ Isn''t it a little hopeless then? No matter how much stronger I can get in the next few epochs¡­"


    He nodded, "It might be. The timeline is a little longer than that though. The System and the barrier that contains our universe has been holding back The Endless Hunger for a while. Honestly, I''m not sure when it first appeared or if it''s always been there. My best guess though, is that we have a few centuries."


    "I still don''t get why you don''t just tell people what''s coming. Edras has his resistance and there are others who are doing their own thing. If everyone knew, wouldn''t we have a better chance?"


    He smirked, "What would actually happen, is that a number of Gods would believe me and a number of them wouldn''t. Some of them because they think I''m lying, others because they don''t want to believe it. It would start a war."


    Felix agreed whole-heartedly but was both putting on a bit of an act and testing Rhonan at the same time, "Really?"


    Rhonan nodded, "As for having a better shot, I''ve got some things in mind and I''ve already started putting things in motion, as much as I can. All you need to worry about, is getting as strong as you can. I know in the face of what I just showed you, it''s hard to just blindly trust someone but, I''m going to ask you to do so now."


    Felix nodded, "Okay."


    So first, he didn''t seem to notice my act. Second, he does seem to have a plan.


    Grim transmitted a wave of agreement, He does seem to be truly honorable.


    Definitely possible his acting abilities are just better than mine.


    Rhonan laid back and sighed, "You know, It''s funny. I haven''t had to sleep since I was as young as you are, I never realized how much I missed it. Getting hit with a wave of exhaustion from nowhere though, still isn''t fun."


    Felix immediately got the message, stood and half nodded half bowed his head, "Well, thank you. For sharing this with me. You were right, I definitely love impossible odds."


    He nodded, "Good."


    Felix nodded once more then took his leave, casting a very simple spell that he hadn''t cast outside of practice before and he hoped he had cast it correctly. Then, he walked out of the room, down the hall and excitedly Translocated himself across the door once more.


    This time he paid attention to the warding on the door and this time he noticed it, barely.


    Last time he had been too preoccupied with the possibility of disintegrating his material body and so everything else was lost to him. He was pretty sure that was the reason he hadn''t felt the warding but upon focusing on it the second time around, he realized that wasn''t the case at all.


    If he hadn''t been looking for it, he wouldn''t have noticed it because of how subtle the effect was. It was definitely present though.


    He wasn''t entirely certain though whether or not the lacking effect was a byproduct of his massively improved will or that the wards were less effective against his Translocation which, was significantly different from normal teleportation. He assumed it was some combination of both but mentally noted the significance of the fact that traditional spatial warding was basically useless against him now.


    Unfortunately, he couldn''t actually quantify it because he no longer had access to other forms of teleportation.


    On his way back up to his and Melody''s dorm room, Felix did his best to act completely normal as he debated with Grim, within his Soul Garden to hide the conversation, just in case.


    Worst case, they misinterpret and kill you or they notice and try to eat you for your power or experiment on you or capture and enslave you. He could also become evil, he could already be evil and raze the universe to celebrate.


    Felix mentally sighed, Best case?


    They reward you with The Super Boon of the Super God and give you +1,000 times stats forever along with the keys to their vaults and hoards. Realistically though, you either get caught or you make it out and no one notices.


    You really think so? You think I can do this without being noticed?


    Maybe. He''s got enough Curse in him that outside observation isn''t possible. He doesn''t really need sleep but he''ll probably sleep for a while, considering what he''s going through. Elrena seems pissed so I don''t expect her to be back until tomorrow at least. Honestly, I give it 25% chance you pull this off unnoticed, assuming he doesn''t wake up.


    So you don''t think it''s worth it to hea- sorry, cure him?


    I didn''t say that.


    Do you believe him? Do you think he saw right through me? Do you think he''s genuinely just looking out for the universe?


    Grim nodded immediately, even before Felix finished talking, Yeah, but our souls are intertwined and I''m literally just reading from your senses, not using my own. We both do. Don''t come to me for the opposite opinion to balance things out.


    So how should I do this?


    Wait an hour.


    Teleport back in to the coordinates I measured.


    Hope they were measured correctly.


    Hope he''s actually asleep.


    Hope he stays asleep as you tear the curse out of his soul.


    Teleport out and live to see another day?


    Hopefully.


    That''s a lot of hoping. Luckily, I''m pretty sure if I do get caught, I wouldn''t immediately get killed. I''d just rather keep things a secret for the time being. If possible.


    Grim agreed with him, You can always decide to reveal your secrets later, you can''t unreveal them though.


    Walking back into his dorm, he saw Melody passed out, each of her limbs pointing in a completely different direction, as he walked straight into the lab. In there, he found Art, Eni and about a hundred different construction constructs that were loosely based on the orbs that formed Eni crossed with his Seeing Eye Constructs.


    They allowed his Mind City Residents to interact with the outside world through Mark.


    They had also created and mostly iterated on hundreds of different combat constructs, their main focus at the moment. For everything but especially The Realms of Annihilation, having a personal army he could roll out at will seemed like a great idea.


    "Master Felix. I hope to speak to you."


    "Eni. Your voice box and language lessons seem to be going well."


    He tilted forwards on his large lower spherical half, "Yes. Much thanks to this mind you gave me."


    "What did you want to talk about?"


    "In Spirit Realm I had a Master. An Elder Spirit that taught me¡­ things? Ah, thank you Mark. Taught me Spirit Engineering."


    "What is that?"


    "Similar to this, follows laws of Spirits."


    So like The System? The way it''s a machine made of Anima? Now I really need to visit.


    "I see. What about them?"


    "I am request that you summon them."


    Felix cocked a brow, "I''m definitely not opposed to that. I take it you''ll speak with them upon arrival? Explain the situation?"


    Eni nodded which amounted his his entire body tilting back and forth around the ball he used to move, "Yes."


    "What body are we putting them in?"


    "I was hope you could provide something biological."


    "I can. Why though?"


    "They are¡­ peculiar. Given a construct body and knowledge of constructs, they would be dissatisfied with their body quickly."


    "I see. For constructs though, you probably want something humanoid, at least with opposable thumbs¡­ Let me see what I have on hand¡­"


    Sifting through his Soul Space was rather disappointing as all he had were bug like and burrowing creatures so he headed down to the nearest corpse store, or the nearest one Melody knew of.


    He didn''t buy anything extravagant at all, just a simple old Frostmyre body that was mostly in tact, not that it mattered with his skill.


    Back in his dorm room, after his minutes long shopping spree, Felix set everything up for the Spirit Summoning ritual then retrieved Eni from the lab room.


    "So, how do I summon them specifically?"


    "I come because of a beacon of construction and engineering. This time, let me provide the beacon."


    Felix nodded and pointed to Eni where to stand and described to him where to provide his Anima for the ritual to work then provided the Anima cost for the skill and pumped unattuned Mana into the ritual.


    The last time he had used his skill, to summon Eni, the Spirit he was summoning had appeared almost instantly. This time though, Felix was stuck waiting, his Mana fueling the portal and Eni growing noticeably nervous given the Anima surrounding him.


    Felix looked up at Eni and cocked a brow, "What''s going on?"


    "They''re just stubborn. Wait longer."


    Felix nodded and waited.


    After another couple of minutes, he looked up at Eni and groaned.


    With his Anima senses, he reached up above the ritual and found Eni''s offering then added to it. Firstly, he amplified Eni''s offering in case it wasn''t quite loud enough, then h-


    A Spirit appeared before Felix could add anything else. Another cloud of Anima but this one almost structured. Instead of an amorphous candle flame, this Spirit held the well defined shape of a cube. It was also denser, had a stronger will and was obviously older than Eni, by a lot.


    Felix''s Anima senses didn''t fully pierce the Spirit but he could get a general sense of them, kind of what he imagined Spirit names to be, and found the experiences the Anima held were more varied, richer and deeper. On top of that, this Spirit had very tight control over what it was advertising on the Anima around it.


    Unlike Eni, its exact thoughts weren''t broadcast to everyone in the vicinity but rather, just the thoughts it wanted to advertise.


    Which at the moment, was pure annoyance.


    Also unlike Eni, this Spirit apparently knew how to speak, "Why have I been summoned."


    Eni''s nervousness was even worse than before the Spirit had shown up, "Master, I heard the call of a summoning from the material world and the prospect of learning engineering and making constructs brought me. I have spend time here thought you will enjoy it too."


    "I ignored your summons. Then, you made them loud enough to wake Sealed Spirits."


    Felix stepped forward, "That was me. I wasn''t aware you were ignoring him. Apologies."


    The Spirit tensed slightly, and let it be known, then relaxed literally. Its form shifted from a cube, to a dodecahedron, "Who are you."


    "I summoned your student."


    "You offer body and engineering?"


    Felix nodded, "I did. I am."


    "That is all?"


    Felix shrugged, "That''s all I was offering. If you want something else, I''m open to negotiation I guess."


    The dodecahedron relaxed further into an icosahedron then the Spirit spun around a bit as it advertised that it was scanning its surroundings, "I recognize not this Daemon."


    Felix nodded to Nova, "This is Nova, my familiar. Was a Sprite just a few epochs ago."


    The Spirit spun around just a bit more then looked back at Felix, "Provided books, I will engineer for you."


    "You just want access to books? The knowledge contained inside them or you want physical and material books?"


    "What use has a Spirit for material books. I wish for knowledge."


    Felix nodded, "I can do you one better. Let''s say this, I''ll provide you with knowledge from books. If that doesn''t satisfy you, I will provide you books directly. I''ll also provide a body, materials, a lab, tools and anything else you need to make constructs."


    "I will use this body to make constructs per your direction. I will leave if I am unsatisfied."


    Felix nodded, "Deal."


    "Master" Eni rolled forwards, "Maybe you don''t need a Spirit Contract?"


    Eni tried desperately to warn their master through the Anima and Felix simply let them. He didn''t want to trick the Spirit and make it unhappy lest it sabotage him somehow.


    The icosahedron though shifted back up to a cube for a moment then back down to an icosahedron before ignoring Eni''s warning and offering Felix a Spirit Contract.


    "I know your student was trying to warn you and I don''t want you to feel tricked. With a Spirit Contract, I will have all the power."


    "I know." Curiously, they didn''t advertise anything on the Anima.


    Felix nodded then accepted the contract and floated the corpse over with his Matter Control.


    Ding You have become more proficient with the Profession skill: [Ancient] Summon Spirit (Journeyman XI => Journeyman XIII)


    First up, was his Necromancy skill, Restore Corpse.


    He''d already used the skill a number of times and through his relatively advanced knowledge of biology from modifying his own body, he was able to easily bring the skill up to Apprentice IV without giving it much thought or attention. Now though, he actually had a reason to give it thought and attention, at least more reason than he had had with Translocation test subjects.


    He didn''t care much about the body itself for the purposes of the Spirit and making it much stronger but he did care about his skill and pushing it as much as he could.


    The body itself was a relatively undamaged, simple Uncommon C grade Frostmyre corpse with little to no drastic changes from their evolutions which, gave Felix essentially a blank slate. The skill itself largely just activated as soon as he provided the cost, but this time, he provided more Mana and forced his way into the skill as it was activating.


    In large part, he slowed the skill down, directed his own attention and used his Matter Control to alter the body as the skill was activating. It was the simplest way to express his intent with the skill that he could come up with.


    As he molded the body and slowly provided Mana into the skill, Felix began to feel the body responding to not just his Matter Control, but also his intentions. He knew The System could no longer read those unless he advertised them so that was exactly what he was doing, and it was listening.


    He tightened the muscles, upgraded the brain and made the bones denser and with each one, the body morphed along with his changes, replicating them across the body so he didn''t have to manually do everything himself.


    Finally, he made one larger modification and embedded a computer with his new trans-spatial bindings, based on Rathelius'' training, into the body''s gut.


    Ding You have upgraded the Profession skill: [Special] Restore Corpse (Apprentice IV) => Profession: [Epic] Mold Corpse (Apprentice II)


    Profession: [Mold Corpse (Epic) Repair and upgrade a corpse temporarily. Once slain, activating this skill on a corpse, allows you to modify and restore that corpse for reanimation for a time. Restoration and upgrades are based entirely around your biological knowledge and expertise. This time depends on how long the new soul is bound to it with a minimum of 1 minute if no soul is bound. Some levels and skills can be retained from the original creature up to a point, dependent on the strength of the bound soul. Some skills can be granted to the reanimated corpse, dependent on the modifications made. Once used on a corpse, this skill cannot be used again on the same corpse. This skill has a Mana cost that scales based on the grade, rarity and size of the corpse being restored and the modifications being performed. This skill can be upgraded.]


    Huh¡­ So I can restore a corpse from essentially nothing now if I know how it''s supposed to be? Neat.


    Next up was his Imbue Creation skill and that, he hadn''t used nearly as much which meant he was unfortunately stuck with just Uncommon Professions. Given that, he settled on just imbuing the same Enchanter Profession as Eni because it was fairly generic and allowed them to choose from a wide variety of skills.


    The last step, was simply offering the body to the Spirit and allowing it to bind itself.


    With Eni, the process had taken some time but with this Spirit, it took a few seconds at most and then, they didn''t need to learn how to walk or move. Eni had looked like a toddler and this Spirit, looked like a person who had woken up from a long slumber as they stretched and swung their limbs in every direction. Lastly, they wiggled and stretched their mouth and tongue before turning to Felix and nodding.


    "I am aware of System. You seem still young."


    Felix shrugged, "Relatively. You seem to have experience with material bodies."


    They didn''t seem to really acknowledge his question, but they also didn''t deny it.


    "Can I take it you already have a name you like then?"


    "Rewdan."


    Felix nodded then walked over to the door to the lab, opened it and gestured inside, "Welcome Rewdan. This is the lab Eni''s been using but we''ll be leaving in just a few days. The lab at school isn''t as nice as this one but it''s bigger."


    They nodded but didn''t immediately head into the lab, instead they walked around the room and inspected mundane objects along with Nova, Eni and then more mundane objects.


    Felix watched for a bit, in case they had questions, then decided it was a waste of his time and left.


    It hadn''t been quite an hour as Felix was hoping but he and Grim both decided it had been long enough and he had already restored his Mana pool with batteries and the absurdly responsive and dense Aether. Felix began walking through the halls of the building, collecting and attuning Mana until he had enough so he could use his leave his Mana Pool untouched and use it to escape. It took a while, which meant it still wasn''t entirely usable in combat, even when casting a Mana Portal which was cheaper than Translocating himself.


    When the portal opened, Felix stepped through and couldn''t help but smile a little that his ability to teleport was back and, seemingly better than ever. The portal, much like his translocation, worked on the principal of shifting the spatial location of the matter in his body directly and temporarily moving his physical form through the Aether. Except it worked more like a tunnel through the Aether, instead of directly altering his body''s spatial bindings and was therefore, much cheaper at just under a hundred million Mana for the distance. Much like his Translocation, he barely noticed the spatial warding on the door at all.


    The loss of real anchors was a bit of a pain but Felix was just grateful to have portals back. Although, his new version felt different from his old ones.


    For one thing, they looked completely different.


    Instead of a window into another location with a thick arcane border, it looked simply like a hole in Space. The portal he had created was just one directional and so on his side, he simply saw a black sheet floating in the air as light didn''t pass back through it.


    He didn''t look at it long though for risk of getting caught and stepped through a moment later.


    Another advantage of his new portals was that he could tell with certainty that he wasn''t followed by some fast moving or invisible object, something he had previously considered. Translocation was the best method of movement when he didn''t want to be followed but his very tuned Mana Control made it so he knew exactly how much Matter moved through an Aether Tunnel.


    Certain he wasn''t followed and relatively certain no one knew where he was going even if they had seen him, Felix took stock of his surroundings and was immediately ready to act his way out with a lie if needed. The room though, was exactly as he had left it except now, Rhonan completely asleep.


    His Mana, Anima and Matter Senses told him he was alone and there was no one nearby but he looked around anyways just to make sure before walking over to the couch and looking down at Rhonan.


    There is no chance he doesn''t wake up, is there?


    Not¡­ no chance. Would that really be so bad? You could just tell him.


    That I''m the thing he saved from just outside the universe and that I can heal his soul, all he has to do is let me touch his Core Soul?


    He would have to confirm it''s possible but¡­ I don''t see why he wouldn''t let you.


    Let''s circumvent all that and just do it.


    He could kill you if he wakes¡­


    Maybe. I doubt it though. He seems rational and level headed enough¡­ I think.


    Speaking of, will you tell him after you heal him? He''d probably funnel resources and training into making you stronger.


    If I do that, I become responsible for saving this universe. I don''t mind the burden or the responsibility. I''m just not sure I care about saving the multiverse. I can just leave.


    Grim sighed, What you''re saying is perfectly logical but¡­ If I hadn''t known you before you replaced your brain, I would have sworn this was a result of that.


    I''m not wrong though.


    No¡­ Just most¡­ sapients have an attachment to their universe and to their fellow sapients.


    Good for them. I''m assuming the other universes are similar or better. If I found out they weren''t, then I''d try to save this one I guess.


    Better for what?


    Living. Learning. Training. Magic.


    Grim was silent for a few moments but Felix could tell he was thinking, You''d really just let the universe die if it came to it? Get eaten and destroyed?


    He shrugged, I don''t see why not. Saving it just seems like more trouble than it''s worth.


    Grim didn''t seem to have an answer at the moment, or he was formulating how to continue the conversation. Either way, they were finished for the moment so Felix took a quick breath then stepped around the couch and looked at the God before him.


    Other than being quite a bit larger, covered in runes and having the densest muscles Felix had ever seen, he looked entirely human. In a weird way, it was comforting that the strongest being in the multiverse-other than The System-wasn''t some kind of exotic being. In another way, it made him very wary of making assumptions and false attributions about his character.


    Stepping forwards, Felix poked at Rhonan''s leg, which didn''t deform in the slightest. Like he had poked a statue made of glass.


    Then, he poked harder. Then he hit him. Slapped. Punched.


    Not only was Rhonan not waking but Felix was actively injuring himself. On the positive side though, he hadn''t reacted at all and he could definitely feel Felix. He wasn''t sure if he was sleeping through the annoyance of being poked and prodded or if he didn''t feel enough to be woken.


    To test that, Felix used his greatest strength and poked him with a tendril.


    This time, he felt some amount of give but still, not much.


    Rhonan''s Soul seemed to have some kind of layer on the outside much like Felix''s and he would have to pierce that to do anything meaningful. Luckily though, it seemed as though Rhonan wasn''t going to wake from anything as simple as physical contact or breath.


    Being as large as he was, Felix hopped up onto Rhonan''s knees and placed his hand on Rhonan''s bare chest through the spilling of his robes.


    He took a moment to ready himself then, shaped his Soul Tendril into a scalpel and tried to pierce his Soul. At first, it didn''t look like Felix was going to make it through but after pushing his will and combining a few tendrils into one denser tendril, he managed to make a small incision in the outer layer of his Soul. At the same instant, his flesh opened as well.


    In a perfect match of location and injury, Rhonan''s chest had a small incision despite Felix not having done anything physically.


    He ignored that and paid attention to Rhonan''s breath and heartbeat to try and figure out if he was waking up but nothing changed.


    Either he was faking it or he really wasn''t waking up.


    Felix waited a few more moments just in case, holding the incision open so it didn''t seal back up with Rhonan''s ridiculous regeneration, then pushed his tendrils inside.


    What Felix had expected, was that Rhonan had an outer layer to his Soul. As soon as he pushed into the incision though, he realized he was completely wrong. Rhonan didn''t have an outer layer to his Soul, he had skin as part of his Soul. Cutting in further and diving in towards where he knew his Core Soul was, he realized Rhonan''s Soul wasn''t crafted in structure, it perfectly matched his body in structure. They were essentially one whole.


    Felix''s Body and Soul were intertwined but he had a Core Soul and layers he had crafted. Rhonan''s had skin and muscles and organs and a heart. His Core Soul was shaped and sized to perfectly match his heart, which was oddly at the center of his chest.


    It meant that as Felix cut his way deeper, he was opening both Rhonan''s Soul and Body simultaneously.


    He made sure to suck away and store some of the blood and keep pressure on the wound with his hand but otherwise, paid little mind to Rhonan''s body considering he had seen him recover from having a cavern carved out of it.


    The entire time, Felix paid very careful attention to make sure he didn''t accidentally pierce Rhonan''s afterlife, which he understood to be somewhere in Rhonan''s Soul. As far as he could tell though, it wasn''t anywhere near where he was working.


    Once he reached Rhonan''s heart, Felix did another check to see if Rhonan had woke up and stared at him in disbelief for a few seconds before continuing.


    He has to be faking¡­ right?


    The System does this in evolutions, right? Maybe this isn''t a normal sleep? I don''t know¡­ It''s definitely¡­


    Grim didn''t need to finish his sentence to express his disbelief.


    First, Felix located the Cursed Anima which was trivial with even the most basic of Anima Senses. Then, he began to cut around the area to expose the Curse. He cut away as little of Rhonan''s actual soul as he could manage and stored the tainted sections in his Soul Space, where it was suspended and held away from anything else.


    Once he had dealt with everything around his Core Soul, Felix took a look at the source of the problem and invariably winced, along with everyone in his mind that were watching along.


    The Curse was obviously embedded within the outside of his Core Soul but it was worse than Rhonan had said, it had pierced and was sinking into his Core Soul but it was slow. Rhonan was doing everything he could to slow it and the inevitable damage down but offering up sacrificial experiences in his Core Soul was just a bandaid solution. It had already reached into his Core Soul with tiny tendrils, like roots digging into their new home.


    Using his Tendrils, Felix began peeling back and pulling on the Curse that was present while cutting it free, tiny piece by tiny piece until he was left with the real problem.


    He took the same general approach with the Curse inside of his Core Soul but was much more careful. Felix made absolutely sure he didn''t cut away any more than he had to as he slowly peeled back The Endless Hunger.


    He briefly noted, through his intense focus, that the Curse within Rhonan felt old and ancient as he had expected but not drastically more than his first encounter had felt. The Curse lining the path up Amatara''s peaks, Hunger specifically, was much younger, even at the penultimate peak.


    Back in Telviras, when he had been used to steal The Endless Hunger from someone, that had been just as ancient as he felt now though which meant, they likely had the same origin.


    Either Rhonan had brought it back with him, someone else was going out, or it had gotten in somehow. Whichever it was, he would worry about it later.


    There was a very fine line between removing all of the Curse and removing too much.


    As careful as he was, he erred on the side of removing too much because if he left some behind, it could be too small to detect. In that case, Rhonan might think he was cured then suddenly drop dead one day and explode in black ichor.


    Still, even though Felix knew he was doing the right thing, it felt wrong to him to be hacking away at the experiences inside a Core Soul. Even if the Anima he was cutting at was offered by Rhonan sacrificially to the Curse, they were still core experiences that had gone into making him who he was. They were literally the essence of his person, the definition of his personality. Losing any of it was dread inducing in a deep, soul bound and instinctual way.


    There was no way for him to preserve any of it though so he simply sucked up the last of the Cursed remnants and slowly backed his tendrils away from Rhonan''s now Curse free Core Soul. He was somewhat expecting to have to patch up the leak and had Anima completely void of his identity ready but he found it wasn''t necessary at all.


    As he pulled away, despite having an open hole in it, the gaseous like contents of Rhonan''s Core Soul remained perfectly still within the broken shell. It was a testament to his ridiculous will power that it remained that way and even Felix doubted whether or not he could have done the same given the density and increased pressure of his own Core Soul.


    Other than his Core Soul, everything else on Rhonan''s body and Soul almost immediately closed up and healed itself as Felix withdrew his tendrils.


    Surely he stops faking and wakes up now¡­ right?


    Finally pulling his tendrils all the way back into his body, Felix pulled his hand back and winced at the blanched hand-print left behind on Rhonan''s chest. Luckily it wasn''t a perfect imprint and no one would be able to match it to Felix''s hand from size and shape alone, but it was recognizably a hand, and it stood out.


    Congratulations!


    You have earned a title and upgraded a title.


    Lifegiver => Resurrectionist: This ti l i o _ . . . .


    Ding You ha- _ , .. . . .


    What in th-


    qowinm hfoi aoi zm


    .


    Huh?


    Thank you


    Rhonan will awaken in 1 minute.


    A minute? FUCK.


    Felix leapt off of Rhonan''s lap and began collecting as much Mana from the Aether as he could along with emptying the few batteries he had for constructs along with everything left in every one of his cores.


    The Aether was dense enough that he restored his Mana much faster than usual but he still didn''t have nearly enoug-


    Suddenly a massive wave of Mana washed over him, more than enough for him to completely refill his cores and cast the spell he needed. Enough of it was even spatially attuned that all he had to do was pump it into his body and direct himself.


    Then, he vanished from the room.


    Felix had Translocated himself to the middle of the lobby so he didn''t have to worry about avoiding walls and floors and immediately caught himself with his Matter Control.


    What just happened?


    I¡­ Grim''s disbelief completely matched Felix''s, think¡­ the system just¡­ bugged out?


    Or it¡­ Actually, I have no idea. Was it keeping Rhonan unconscious?


    I think that makes the most sense. That''s why it warned you when he was going to wake up.


    And provided me with enough Mana to get out.


    Why does it care if you get discovered?


    Maybe it wasn''t sure that I would save him at all if there was a chance I was?


    I know it can''t read you but¡­ Maybe? Also, why does it want you to save Rhonan?


    That¡­ is also a good question.


    Felix could hear the citizens in his Mind City, the ones that were trustworthy enough to watch, all throwing out theories and discussing. Their conversation grew heated at times as they argued, theorized and debated but Felix just listened along as he flew back to his and Melody''s room.


    As he opened the door, he saw Melody stretching out in bed and groaning, obviously having just woken up.


    "I''m staaaaaaarving." She sat up and sprung out of bed, "Wanna go get something to eat?"


    Felix nodded slowly, "That¡­ sounds nice."


    She smiled at him then led him out to another brand new restaurant.


    The normalcy of their meal was nice and it gave Felix time to think things over. He even fully engaged himself in her banter every once in a while, to distract and reground himself a little.


    With just one day left in their recruitment, Felix fell back into his old routine, with some small Melody sized modifications. They trained and gained levels but skipped the sparring. Felix then worked with his Spirits and constructs on constructs. He and Melody ate and they even spent some time figuring out Mana Attunements for her bakery, something he had been somewhat putting off with the rest of his rigorous schedule.


    He could tell she noticed him being more engaged generally but she didn''t mention it.


    He appreciated that, considering half the reason was so he could try and fly under the radar. He didn''t want to make it seem like he knew anything had happened and acting completely normal, was the best way he could think of to minimize suspicion.


    Then, around the time she normally dragged him to dinner, Melody instead insisted on dragging Felix to a party with a number of the other students and recruits, something he really didn''t want to do.


    Ultimately though he caved and found the party they went to, wasn''t quite the party he was expecting. It was, in a way, the cool kids party.


    Inevitably he knew there would be a massive party involving the majority of the recruits and students. The party Melody brought him to though was more of a large gathering with less students than he expected. Instead, Tam and Ameryl were there along with other Elites he had sparred with. There were even a few Gods sprinkled amongst the attendants.


    Ayred was there too, despite not having a recruitment with Rhonan.


    It seemed it was the party of people Melody approved of though he was pretty sure she hadn''t organized and arranged it.


    Felix was a little worried Rhonan or Elrena would show up and he only really relaxed a few hours into the general festivities.


    He didn''t really like people. He didn''t really like interacting with them. He much preferred just training and being alone. Crowds especially, he despised.


    Despite that, he didn''t hate the party entirely because he talked about how he had progressed and areas of improvement with Ameryl and Tam. Talking about Tam''s time in the Spirit Realm and their accounts of The Realms of Annihilation from when they had done them, was insightful.


    The only other topic that came up, more than once, was Melody bringing up The Tournament of the Abyss, "It suuuucks that it isn''t a thing anymore. I''ve watched a bunch of memory crystals and you would have loved it, Felix."


    He shrugged, "Oh well."


    She grumbled and Tam giggled a little, "She''s right. It''s a bummer it was put on indefinite hold. Sure there are all the normal competitions, Caster''s Duels, Sword Fights, Strength Matches, Beast Taming and all that."


    "The Abyss is what really matters though." Melody smiled devilishly.


    Ameryl nodded, reluctantly, and seemed like she really didn''t want to be there in that conversation.


    Melody grabbed Felix''s shoulder with a slap, "Imagine this, you and three of your best buds walk into an ancient door that no one really knows much about. At the same time, thousands of other groups from all over step into doors of their own. We arrive on some kind of vast floor filled to the brim with monsters."


    "Do I need a group? Can I just go in there alone?"


    Melody looked hurt, "What? Of course you can''t"


    Tam giggled.


    Felix sighed, "Do I at least get to keep the levels I gain in there?"


    She nodded, "Oh yeah. We run through, killing the monsters of the floor. Then, there''s another floor."


    Felix nodded along to her obviously drunken account of an old tournament that doesn''t even exist anymore.


    "Get this though¡­ once you clear enough floors, there''s a boss."


    "Okay. What happens when you kill it?"


    "You get loot and you are allowed to leave and come back before continuing on¡­ to the next series of floors."


    "When does it end?"


    "When you don''t go back in." She shrugged like it was the simplest thing in the world, "Or _die."


    "I see. So a number of floors then a boss. Then a number of floors and a boss. That''s it? It just repeats like that?"


    She nodded, "That''s it? Infinite monsters, levels, loot and floors that progress further and further into the past. Creatures that don''t exist anymore. Loot from forgotten eras."


    "Why would I want old shit? Wouldn''t new stuff just be better?"


    Ameryl shook her head lightly, "For some reason, the older the item the stronger it tends to be."


    Felix frowned, "Huh."


    "Anyways, so one time, there was a series of floors, right? And so the series was based on like, water creatures¡­"


    Felix listened along to Melody''s drunken ramblings, mostly for the insights Tam and Ameryl provided as he mentally reviewed what he had accomplished on his recruitments, and what he still wanted to do.


    In terms of levels alone, he had managed to gain 425 levels in his Profession and 531 in his Class. Everyone, including the Elites, claimed that was a ridiculous pace and lauded him and his generation but Felix couldn''t help but feel like it was just slow. He had spent 100 days, one hour each, leveling. That meant he had gained an average of just 5 levels in his class per day.


    Somehow, it just felt like it wasn''t enough.


    Name:Felix Kade (The True Wizard)FREE0Innate:Ascendant Prodigy: Mana (Wizard)STR3,398Class:[C - Ancient] Reaper (Lvl 1,837)DEX9,829Race:[C - Unique] Wanderer (Lvl 1,785)AGI6,458Profession:[C - Ancient] Lifebinder (Lvl 1,734)PER5,016Health:54,567,590 / 54,567,590VIT5,456Mana:2B / 2B + 6B / 6BINT16,631Resistance:97.95%END4,786


    I take it you updated my Mana, Nucleus?


    Yeah and stabilized the stats. I factored in your Reaper''s skills but not your Mana Skin or Soul Layer for Resistance.


    Well, good job either way.


    Thank you. Speaking of¡­ you, while I have your attention¡­


    What?


    How attached are you to your class?


    Not overly. It has skills that I want to learn and using it like training wheels has been pretty useful. Why?


    I don''t want to promise something that ends up being impossible but¡­ I think we might be able to work you towards a Custom Class.


    No thanks. I was offered one in D grade actually. It sounded like it would just let me take any skill which to me, meant it wouldn''t bring interesting skills and abilities to my attention. All the other classes had some innate things to them, like Wizard being able to move spells in and out of their Spell List.


    Yes, that version of Custom Class is not what I mean.


    Oh? Felix raised a brow.


    I mean an actually Custom Class. Like Reaper.


    Felix''s was suddenly very interested, Just class?


    Not necessarily. It might be hard to do both though.


    What do I need to do?


    I''m not entirely certain. There is no set and defined criteria. However, I think I can guide you on some things, then probe this System chunk for what to do next.


    Gotcha. So what''s first?


    First, you need to figure out what specifically you want out of the class. It will also be easier and become more clear the closer you get to the B grade.


    Okay, we''ll talk more about this soon then.


    I''ll see if I can pinpoint any specifics in the meantime.


    The biggest and most drastic increase, were his ability to use Reaper''s Skills constantly, which buffed all his stats massively and his Mana Pool.


    He knew looking through everything, seeing other students he recognized and Elites walking around. He knew the gap between them had either widened or closed depending on whether or not they were weaker or stronger than him respectively. He knew he was progressing faster than almost everyone, at least faster than everyone he had been able to compare too.


    Still, he wanted more.

 Chapter 228 - Book 1

    Knock Knock Knock


    "Felix! Felix! Felix!"


    Felix sighed from the center of his dorm room then he stood, walked over and opened the door.


    He recognized the voice and already knew who was on the other side so he greeted them even before the door fully opened, "Melody, Melody, Melod-"


    She didn''t even fully hear him out before shoving past him into his room and spinning on her heels in excitement, "You''re never gonna believe it but, I think I might control the universe. You remember a couple days ago at the party, I was talking about The Tournament of the Abyss? How I was complaining about how much fun it would have been if it hadn''t been on hiatus?"


    Felix cocked a brow, "By control the universe, you talked to Rhonan or got your dad to convince him into bringing it back?"


    "What? No, I just mean I was just complaining about it and now it''s back! Wait, why''d you say Rhonan? Did someone already tell you?" She looked around at his empty room, "I could have sworn you wouldn''t have talked to anyone else about gossip but, I guess it is a big dea-"


    Whoops.


    "No, sorry. I just assumed."


    "Oh." She frowned at him for a moment then shook her head quickly and brushed past his slip up, "Well anyways, yeah so The Tournament is back. Also, remember we were talking last epoch about rumors?"


    He nodded along.


    "Right well, turns out, Rhonan was injured." She paused for dramatic effect but clearly, Felix wasn''t reacting the way she was hoping he would.


    "Was?"


    "Right, yeah. Not anymore. So apparently, he was infected by a curse deep in his soul. Hunger, actually but somehow, he kicked it."


    "How''d he do that? Sounds like that would more or less amount to a death sentence."


    She nodded, "That''s what everyone is wondering. Some say, he has access to some Exotic or Ancient Relic. Others claim he made a deal with the Primordials."


    "The Primordials have that kind of power?"


    She scoffed, "Nope. It''s just a stupid rumor."


    Felix nodded, "Well, that''s good then."


    "Right¡­" She frowned a little, "How did you know¡­ about the tournament? I mean that Rhonan is the one bringing it back?"


    Because that''s what I''d do if I wanted to get the gods to start paying more attention to and working with this generation. It also gives him an event where he can advertise to the rebels and everyone else in the multiverse that the rumors mean nothing and that he''s as strong as ever.


    "I don''t know, just figured Rhonan was the one who organized it considering he''s the battle god and all that."


    She nodded in understanding, "Normally, no. It''s more of a collective effort but this time, he pushed for it to happen now and he''s whipping everyone else into shape to make sure it gets done."


    "That''s¡­ good, I guess."


    "Great for us. The signups aren''t open- I mean, the tournament hasn''t even been announced yet¡­ I only know about it because¡­" She looked around then leaned in, "Let''s just say I shouldn''t, but I do." She looked at him conspiratorially and Felix just snorted.


    He took a deep breath, half sighing, "So what''s this tournament involve?"


    "Oh tons, you''ll be hearing about it a lot over the next few days. It''s more than just a single event but¡­ well, there''s a main event. That''s what I''ll sign us up for. You, me, Peace and Adaline."


    "I see. I take it you gave them the same respect your giving me by asking for permission?"


    She waved him off, "Oh shut up. You''ll love it, just trust me."


    "Uh huh." Felix shook his head lightly before changing the subject, "Did you manage to make anything with those first few crystals we made?"


    "Nah. It''s only been a couple days. I spent the last day working with my bakers just to see if we could get anything useful out of them but they were still just setting things up when I left. Speaking of, what''d you need all those credits for the other day?"


    "You''ll just have to wait and see."


    She frowned but didn''t push him on it.


    He nodded, "Anything else I should know?"


    She shrugged, "Not that I can think of. They''ll announce The Tournament tomorrow probably, in Group Combat." Suddenly she squinted her eyes and leaned in, "You did sign up for Group Combat this term, right?"


    Felix was about to answer but she clearly didn''t believe whatever he was going to say because she leapt backwards and snatched his schedule from the table in front of the couch.


    Reading through it she quickly nodded then leapt back to her feet, "What¡­ Did you sign up for every class at the school?"


    "Of course not. I believe there was a class about microbiologies and brewing alcohol to affect gods. I didn''t take that."


    She looked at him with an appropriately you-know-what-I-meant look, "How did they let you¡­" She quickly scanned through the list, "sign up for 86 classes?"


    Felix shrugged, "I don''t know. No one stopped me."


    "Right but, you can''t be interested in all of these? There are 12 history classes here alone. Do you even like history?"


    He shook his head, "Not really at all, no."


    "So then, why? Also, how are you planning on attending all of these? You realize each class will take at least a day, right?"


    Felix grinned, "That''s the trick¡­ I''m not."


    She just stared at him while he met her gaze.


    "Anyways, you seen Peace recently?"


    "I¡­" She stared at him blankly for a few seconds before shaking her head to clear it, "No. I haven''t. What do yo-"


    "Sorry, I gotta go now. I''ve got a lot to do before the 13 different classes I have scheduled tomorrow." Felix shrugged and offered her an apologetic look then stepped to the left, through what looked like a hole in reality, the moment it appeared.


    On the other end, Felix arrived right in the middle of Ked''s lab which hadn''t changed much for the most part except for the fact that there were now hundreds of constructs zipping around and working.


    Last epoch, when Felix had arrived and left, the workshop had been relatively void of functioning constructs. For the most part, constructs in the lab were worked on and tested but then sent elsewhere for use. There were some constructs that helped out in the lab, but not many. At least, not nearly as many as Felix and his Mind were utilizing to put everything together.


    The day before, He had sent Rewdan into Telviras to Chiseled Free, the Body Broker Thezan had recommend that Aros had liked.


    Realistically, he only needed a handful of corpses but they ended up buying over 400 by request. For these corpses, they actually went with slightly more expensive, higher grade bodies. They weren''t entirely necessary, in most classes, but some of them were physically demanding classes that would require higher grade bodies.


    At that point, he started to wonder if a lack of high grade eyes and other senses would hinder the non-physical classes and-considering he was using Melody''s wallet to fund everything-he splurged and settled on C grade Special corpses for everything.


    Art, Eni, Rewdan and Nova had already worked together to make some of the basic modifications they had planned and the upgrades they could. Unfortunately, they couldn''t do everything and they needed Felix and his Mana Control and Anima Control to fully finalize and validate them for final possession. Not to mention, he was the one that had to actually put the souls in the bodies.


    In reality, they weren''t really souls. What they were actually embedding into the bodies were essentially soul puppets that could be controlled from his mind. Then, the residents of his Mind City would simply have to head over to the respective building and take control of their avatar.


    In essence, Felix really felt like he was creating a reverse video-game where the video game characters controlled people in the real world, not that his Mind Residents were any less real or NPC like at all. The whole idea just struck him as a little odd when he had first come up with it way back at the start of his recruitment.


    He hadn''t known then exactly which classes his Mind Residents would have interest in so, he decided to request everything he wanted knowledge from then all the other basic courses. Then, though it was a bit rude, he would simply drop any classes he didn''t have Mind Residents to fill in for. Luckily, that wasn''t an issue. With nearly a hundred thousand residents of his Mind City, he ended up not only having interested parties for every class, but he actually had more than one in many cases.


    His own interests seemed to influence the population and therefore the three Spell Theory courses along with Mana Systems Design, and all the other Spell, Ritual, Ward and Enchanting classes were by far the most popular. After that though, were the more mundane courses like Cooking, Baking, Botany and History.


    Somewhere in the middle were the combat classes of Somatic Martial Arts, influenced by Felix''s memories of Peace fighting, and Crafting courses.


    The least popular was Stealth, interestingly enough. Though that still meant he had two mind residents interested.


    They didn''t specialize the corpses as much as Felix would have liked given their time constraints but they did what they could. For example the attendants of Stealth class wouldn''t have the most Dextrous and Agile bodies possible but, they would be generic Rhunar, Elf, Frostmyre, Human or Drakene with a suitable class.


    At least, whatever class they wanted.


    All the Mind Residents who would be attending classes had spent time in his mental library, in the public section, going through all the Class and Professions they had knowledge of. They had all picked a few options, some that were Uncommon or Common, then a few higher rarities just in case Felix managed to upgrade the skill.


    Which brought him to his first task, using a few test corpses to see if he couldn''t manually push his skill.


    Worst case, he could kill the first Residents and bind the same Mind Resident to a brand new corpse with a new puppet soul if he upgraded it halfway through.


    In theory it wouldn''t be a problem because he knew exactly how to upgrade the skill. In essence, the skill was imbuing knowledge and experience from his own Body and Soul into the creation. So all he had to do, was specifically offer and push the necessary knowledge and experience into the Soul upon binding it.


    He wasn''t entirely certain how it would all work with puppet souls so, they all agreed it made more sense for him to use dummies to try and upgrade his skill first.


    They wouldn''t be entirely wasted but would likely end up as nothing more than helpers for Rewdan and the other''s in the lab.


    Starting with knowledge and experience of his own, Felix took a simple Frostmyre body and crafted one of the most basic Souls he could. Then, he carefully copied over all the experience he had that they deemed applicable to enchanting. He didn''t aspire for Mana Engineer because he thought that Profession might require his absurd Mana Control but instead, just a higher rarity version of Enchanter, Arcane Enchanter or Arcane Tinkerer.


    He started by focusing on Arcane Enchanter directly, the D grade Special Profession he had been offered, and made sure the necessary knowledge was also embedded within the Mana Computer brain they implanted. The process itself wasn''t difficult at all. The issue was knowing what the construct needed to know and have for The System to qualify it.


    At first, he went with his best guess. That didn''t work at all though and he was left with Uncommon Enchanter.


    Then, he tried again, this time imbuing everything with the intention of killing the construct as soon as it was awake. Having all his knowledge and experience was too dangerous after all.


    Ding You have upgraded the Profession skill: [Special] Imbue Creation (Journeyman XXI) => Profession: [Epic] Imbue Creation (Journeyman I)


    Profession: [Imbue Creation (Epic) Imbue a specific ability or skill into the spirit of a creation when binding. When binding a spirit to a creation, choose a Class or Profession to imbue into the creation. Classes and Professions that are Common, Uncommon or Rare may be freely imbued. The creation''s physical form and mental capacity must be sufficient for this skill to succeed. A Class or Profession of Special or higher rarity may be imbued if you imbue the necessary experience and knowledge for the construct to qualify for the Class or Profession. Constructs imbued in this way have a limit of 5 skills. The success of this skill is highly dependent on the spirit strength of the minion. This skill has an anima cost that scales based on the grade and rarity of the imbued Class or Professions. This skill can be upgraded.]


    With his hand still on the corpse, Felix used his already prepped tendrils to reach inside of it and harvest its Soul immediately. Then, he used his Replicate Construct skill and waited for it to complete as he read through the skill.


    Okay, that works for me. Total skills they can have up to 5 is nice. Looks like we''re going to have to test and create packets of Experience and Knowledge for specific classes. Mark, Grim can you guys put together a bunch of test packets for me to try?


    Affirmative.


    Yup, no problem. I''ll get the mental experts to put together knowledge packets as well for classes you don''t have experience or knowledge of yourself.


    Perfect. If this all goes well, we should end up with packets for every Class and Profession that anyone wants.


    Looking back down at the newly replicated corpse, Felix started with the next test, removing knowledge and experience they didn''t think necessary until it stopped working. By cutting the knowledge and experience in half each time, they were able to find the optimal packet relatively quickly.


    From there, they moved on to the other corpses.


    All Felix had to do was cast Mold Corpse to replace missing limbs or other matter, because having Nova do the same thing, would have been far too taxing, then imbue a Puppet Soul.


    They started with a class packet they already knew worked but nothing happened at first.


    They expected this though and so began the experimentation to find how tightly the avatar needed to be bound to his mind for it to count as its own soul. They had to add some connections but the biggest difference maker was actually having the Mind Resident controlling the Puppet Soul when he used the skill.


    He wasn''t sure if they were tricking The System into not knowing there wasn''t an actual Soul in the body but he doubted it. Felix''s and his Mind Resident''s best guess was that they were satisfying some preset condition in The System around granting Classes and Professions.


    Overall though, everything else went as smoothly as it could have. It definitely helped that Grim and his Mind Residents along with The Nucleus and Grim had planned and tested everything they could before hand. Even going so far as planning out the amount of Mana and Anima Felix would have to spend.


    The majority of the cost went to Replicate Construct which allowed him to double the number of corpses they had started with.


    In the end, after losing a few testing bodies, they ended up with 772 Mind Residents puppeteering bodies in the real world.


    That meant there were an average of just over 9 attendants to each of the 85 classes they would be attending.


    Heading back out of the lab, Felix let the procession of newly resurrected corpses out first to congregate outside so they could clean up the lab. As soon as the last of the Residents left, someone who had clearly been waiting to get in stepped through the door.


    "Uh¡­ Felix¡­ Good to see you¡­ What?" Ked looked back through the door at all the Residents outside.


    "Hey Ked. I hope its okay I let myself in and started working while you were gone."


    He nodded, "That''s not a problem. Who are they?"


    "Those are the residents of my brain puppeteering bodies." Felix turned and led Ked over to Rewdan, Eni, Art and the Residents that would be staying with them, "You remember Art?"


    Ked nodded.


    "This is Rewdan, he''s a Spirit from The Spirit Realm I summoned and offered a corpse to. This is Eni. Technically Rewdan''s apprentice or student or something like that. Also a Spirit. They''re both in Spirit Contracts with me so it isn''t possible for them to go crazy and attack you or anything."


    Ked nodded slowly, "They''re what?"


    Felix didn''t bother repeating himself because he knew Ked had heard him.


    Instead, Rewdan stepped forwards, "I''m Rewdan. It is a pleasure to meet you Professor Ked. I was told you own this lab and will be allowing us to utilize it for the epoch?"


    Ked nodded, "That''s¡­ sure¡­ I think?"


    "Then I am grateful. I suspect we will be working alongside each-other, if not potentially together?"


    He nodded, "Maybe¡­ So¡­ You''re a Spirit?"


    "I am."


    "How did you¡­ get here?"


    Rewdan thumbed over in Felix''s direction, "He has a skill to summon us."


    Ked nodded slowly and looked over at Felix, "You do now¡­ do you?"


    Felix nodded, "Got it during the recruitment."


    "I see¡­" Ked looked back towards the door that remained open and at the Residents just outside of it then snickered, "Let me guess, you''re going to send them to classes in your stead?"


    Felix nodded, "That''s the idea."


    "With that many¡­"


    "I''m registered for 86 classes currently."


    He chuckled again, "Well, good luck with that. You aren''t the first one to have tried something like this you know."


    He nodded, "Necromancer?"


    "Yup."


    "How''d it go for them?"


    Ked shrugged, "Professors got really mad at them and refused to teach minions."


    "I see¡­"


    "On the other hand¡­" Ked smirked, "There have been quite a few students in the past who have had familiars attend lectures for them so¡­"


    Felix, recognizing what Ked was doing, nodded, "I''ll keep that in mind, thanks."


    "Anyways, I take it you won''t be skipping the class we arranged specifically to mentor you, right?" He leaned in accusatorily.


    Felix shrugged, "I''ll attend about as much as I did last term, if not more. I just won''t be alone."


    He nodded, "I figured you''d have Art with you no matter what. I guess more aren''t really a problem, assuming they aren''t getting in our or the Adepts way."


    Felix nodded, "They won''t."


    "Good. In that case, do you have any specific ideas on what you want to get done this term?"


    "Lots."


    He chuckled, "I mean. In the class. Sal and I have decided we''ll be working alongside you this term to create something. We''ve got some ideas but ideally it is something we''re all interested in and it''s reasonably challenging."


    Felix nodded, "What did you have in mind?"


    Ked guiltily rubbed the back of his neck, "Sal doesn''t think it''s possible but I was hoping we could work towards the ultimate goal of any Construct maker or Animancer¡­ A System recognized being."


    "What does that mean? Just a Class?"


    He shook his head, "There are Skills to imbue Classes and Professions. They''re rare but¡­ they exist. No, I mean being recognized such that the construct makes their own Class choice."


    Felix nodded, "Gotcha. Did that last term, in the event."


    Ked''s eyes bugged out, "You what? Who? Which one?" He began looking around rapidly.


    "Zero. No idea where they are now. They stepped through a portal with no defined exit so¡­ somewhere random I think?"


    "I¡­" He shook his head, "Are you sure?"


    "Yeah. They bonded with a Sentient Cursed Demonic Sword and chose a Class."


    "Okay then¡­" He didn''t seem entirely convinced but he also wasn''t completely dismissing what Felix was saying, "In that case¡­ Maybe we should strive for something¡­ more?" He scratched his head a little then looked at Felix, "That was a long shot from me. You have any ideas?"


    "What about making a Construct Factory."


    "That''s been done before but¡­ Whatever you''re thinking is probably more complicated and vastly more interesting than what I''m thinking."


    "In essence, I want a Construct that is a Construct Factory. Plus, we have it do everything. Brains, Souls, the whole deal."


    "So the factory itself is¡­ a Construct?"


    Felix nodded, "The idea is that I could send it a design or a specific desire for a Construct then, it could build it from scratch. No templates or predefined output."


    "Uh¡­" Ked smiled as he squinted and thought through the idea, "Is that¡­ possible?"


    Felix shrugged, "I think so. Pretty sure I have all the hard parts more or less figured out. Or at least, I''ve proven they can be done."


    "In that case¡­ I guess I''ll bring it up with Sal. I suspect you''re going to have to offer some proof of concepts to convince her, at least showing the whole automated Brain and Soul bit."


    Felix nodded, "I''ll get to work on that. Now though, I have a bunch of Minions to organize."


    Ked laughed and nodded then stepped aside to give Felix room to walk to the door.


    Using an Aether Tunnel, he moved all his Residents to the center of campus and most of them split off to head towards their respective classes.


    16 of them remained though and headed with Felix to Group Combat.


    They arrived in the class a little early and Felix had the Residents stand at the back, just in case, as he took his regular seat.


    Standing directly behind him, was what looked to be an elf child. A girl of just 10 or so epochs old, judging from old earth human standards. She leaned forwards, right at Felix''s ear height, and whispered loud enough that no one would not hear her, "This is so exciting."


    Felix looked back slightly, "How''d you know I would be able to get you a Mythic Class?"


    She giggled, "Just a feeling."


    He cocked a brow incredulously, "I doubt that. You managed to get it on the first try and Grim tells me the packet you created was the most efficient by far."


    She smiled wide, "That''s cause the packet I gave you to imbue was basically empty."


    He thought back but hadn''t been paying much attention so the memory was a little hard to locate. Before he even found it, she explained, "I was pretty sure I had all the necessary knowledge and experience already so all I had to do, was puppet the body."


    "How did you think you had all the necessary knowledge and experience?"


    "It''s simple." She smirked, "I watched every one of your memories leading up to when you were offered it."


    Felix turned in his chair, "You what? I thought some of those memories were restricted?"


    She smiled guiltily, "Yeah¡­ I may or may not have convinced some Librarians who owed me a favor to¡­ Show me some things¡­"


    "And you''re openly telling me this after I tested on and killed dozens of constructs because they knew too much?"


    She shrugged, "I get to watch a lot of what you do as the foremost expert on most things arcane. Those constructs weren''t puppets. I am literally in your head. My knowing too much isn''t really a risk¡­ if you think about it."


    He cocked a brow at her audacity, "You seem very confident in your assessment and predictions of my actions."


    She looked at him like he was being ridiculous and knew it, "I''m literally in your head right now. I can see all your emotions. I sometimes see your thoughts directly. Plus, do you really think no one knew what I was up to?"


    Felix smirked a little, "I don''t pay attention to everything going on inside my head, that would be ridiculous."


    "I don''t mean you I mean Grim. I''d bet my puppet he gave the Librarians permission to show me the memories."


    Grim?


    I did.


    Felix sighed, "Well, use them wisely I guess. Oh, an-"


    Don''t bother. If she even tries to reveal anything sensitive, Mark can shut down her brain before the thought occurs.


    Good.


    She smiled knowingly and he just shook his head.


    "Who''s this?" A nearly bald man in black robes who was inexplicably, slightly transparent, hopped over Felix''s head into the seat next to him.


    "Hi! I''m Mera." The little girl waved.


    Peace nodded, "She come out of your head?"


    Felix sighed, "Something like that."


    "If she''s going to be participating in this class, you should probably consider getting them weapons and equipment."


    "Yeah¡­ Working on it. Outfitting them all would cost me way too much so, I''m hoping the ones in smithing classes and such can work with Nova to make equipment from scratch."


    Peace snickered, "Can''t wait to see how the professors react."


    Felix shrugged just as Melody came barreling into the classroom just ahead of the Professors themselves, Haris and Auren.


    She leapt over Peace''s head and landed in the seat next to him a lot faster than necessary considering the normal pace the Professors were walking at.


    She immediately spun to Peace and nodded, "Do you know?"


    Peace nodded, "About the Tournament?"


    She nodded quickly then spun her head towards the line of people standing behind her, only just noticing them for the first time, "Who¡­ are these people?" She squinted a little and through Melody''s rather unique talents, managed to come to a conclusion all on her own, "Are these¡­ from your head?"


    Felix nodded.


    Her smile grew in a mischievous way as she giggled and excitedly shuffled in her seat.


    Finally reaching the front of the class, the two professors spun around to face the students. Auren immediately noticed and looked at the Residents standing behind Felix but Haris just nodded and went into his prepared speech, "Welcome back students. I trust you all spent your breaks productively. At least, I hope you did given that this epoch, things are going to work a little differently. Normally in second year, we create groups for the first half of the epoch and you choose them for the second. Then, we send you out on adventures. Sometimes from the Adventurer''s Guild, sometimes from request."


    A number of students in the class just nodded along, not convinced that whatever was changing would matter to them. They clearly already knew what to expect. Not everyone looked bored though.


    Melody and Fyrden specifically, along with a number of Residents-all of whom were inside Felix''s head and already knew-looked on with brimming anticipation.


    Haris continued, "Anyways, this epoch, things are going to be quite different. I''m sure many of you will be ecstatic to he-" For the first time since she had raced into the class room, Haris seemed to finally notice Melody, despite her constant shifting and fidgeting in her seat. He sighed deeply, "So apparently, Melody can read minds now because I know her father doesn''t know and it looks like she knows¡­"


    He looked over at Fyrden as the rest of the class began perking up, finally engaged in what the professor was saying, "And she told her brother?" He shook his head, "I literally learned about this like-" He looked over at Auren who held up 5 then 3 fingers.


    "15 minutes ago, how the-" He suddenly realized there were a number of people he didn''t recognize standing behind her and fell back a step, "Who in the¡­ Who are you people?"


    "Hi! I''m Mer-"


    Felix stood and interrupted Mera, "These are constructs of mine. They asked if they could join the class and I couldn''t really find any rules against it so¡­"


    Haris stared at Felix with a completely dumbfounded look for a few seconds then shook his head, "You what?"


    "Uh, excuse me." One of the students near the front stood in their seat, "You were saying something about class being different this epoch?"


    Haris looked over at them, angry for a moment that they were interrupting him then he snapped out of it and sighed, "Right. Deal with that later. Uh¡­ Well, I guess th-"


    The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.


    "The Tournament of the Abyss is back." Melody blurted out, cutting off the fumbling professor.


    Suddenly just about every single student in the class either spun in their seat or leapt out of it in a few cases as they burst into loud chattering and exclamations.


    Haris sighed loudly then spent over a minute calming the class down, "Alright. Enough. Yes, thanks. Tournament is back. Cal made sure it happened this epoch, otherwise it wouldn''t be happening on such short notice. We will be running normal classes for those that do not participate or are eliminated. Which means, if you''re interested, The Abyss Event can count as your Group Combat class this epoch."


    The class immediately erupted into conversation, not only because of what Haris had said, but because they saw it as their chance to finally speak.


    Haris wasn''t done though and after trying for a few seconds to calm them down again, Auren took a step forwards and released an Crushing Aura that, to Felix, was rivaled only by Aro Zaki.


    That shut them up almost immediately and Haris nodded in thanks to Auren then continued, "As I was saying, this epoch things will be different in addition to the tournament. You will, of course, be able to choose your team as you please. Teams of no more than 5 are permitted to enter into The Abyss. As some of you know, The Abyss is not just a tournament for this school. It is a tournament open to anyone. There will be specific events outside of The Abyss that will be limited to qualifiers or students but The Abyss itself, is open to anyone." sea??h th§× N?vel(F)ire.¦Çet website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    He quickly continued to make sure there was no room for the class to speak up again, "This means you are allowed to select team members from outside the school."


    The class began murmuring but didn''t erupt like before so Haris was able to easily talk over them and continue, "We will be grading you though so¡­"


    He sighed, "Not that any of you care about your grades anymore¡­" After a few moments of silence from Haris, trying to figure out if he had anything else to say, he finally sighed and shooed at the students with his hands, "The Gates will appear next dekad. Go. We''re done for today."


    The students in the class excitedly leapt out of their seats as they immediately began gossiping about everything Haris had just said.


    As they passed, and Felix waited for the class to empty, he heard quite a few odd rumors now that he was paying attention to them for the first time ever.


    "¡­I heard he decided not to die and, that was that."


    "That''s stupid and you know it."


    "I mean¡­ it is Rhonan we''re talking about."


    "My creds are on an exotic artifact."


    "It was The System, obviously. He''s way too important to just die."


    "You can''t be serious. There''s no way any of it is true. I bet the whole thing is made up to scare Edras and the dissenters. No one recovers from that let alone lives as long as he''s claiming he did."


    "It''s not him claiming these things."


    "You know what I mean. His¡­ entourage or whatever."


    "His possy."


    "Did you just call The Archons his possy?"


    Felix decided he had heard enough and tuned out the rest of the idiocy as the students filtered out of the class. The only other thing he looked for, were Zeraxes and Romar both of which were curiously absent. He had wanted to identify them, just to see but it seemed that would have to wait.


    Haris followed behind the stream of students heading up and out of the class and stopped next to Felix''s seat once they had and sighed, "Normally¡­ I''d say you can fuck right off with your minions."


    "They aren''t minions. I''m not a Necromancer. Technically speaking."


    Haris waved him off, "Whatever, I don''t care. Point is it''s not my decision¡­ this epoch. Not really anyways. I can''t stop them from signing up for The Abyss. I can refuse to teach them shit though so." He shrugged.


    "No problem." Felix nodded, "Thought class would be more involved this epoch."


    He shrugged, "No point. No body would attend. In second epoch, most students stop caring about their grades in general and start focusing on their future. Usually, the God''s that recruited them make them listen." He yawned, "This epoch though, with The Abyss happening, everyone''ll be trying to push as far as they can and no one''s going to be wasting their time in class."


    "I see. How does this tournament work exactly? You said there were events and The Abyss?"


    Haris nodded, "I don''t care about the events. Just The Abyss for this class. Why don''t you ask Melody" He glared at her, "Since she seems to be more in the know than I am anyways."


    He sighed one final time then walked out of the room, Auren having already left, leaving Felix, Peace, Melody and The Residents behind.


    Leaning forwards, Felix turned to Melody, "So, from what I gather this is a tournament with a bunch of events but all of them are kind of side shows or added on to the main event. What is The Abyss?"


    She scooted forwards in her chair to the point where she was barely on it anymore and leaned forwards in excitement, "Okay so¡­ No one knows."


    Felix winced a little, "What?"


    "Like¡­ We know¡­ What happens in there, there''s a very specific formula and structure for everyone that''s gone in there. We can even watch the people inside."


    He nodded, "But no one knows what it actually is."


    She nodded, "Exactly."


    Mera lifted herself up on the backrest of Felix''s chair and leaned forwards, "What''s inside?"


    Melody looked over at her and her face immediately fell into a combination of confusion and amusement, "You''re one of Felix''s¡­ brain people?"


    She nodded.


    Melody then looked down the line of 16 Mind Residents and frowned, "Why are you all just standing around-" She gestured at the rest of the class full of empty seats, "-take a seat."


    Mera squealed excitedly then hopped over Felix''s chair, landing and sitting on the backrest of the one in front of him. A few of the other Residents jumped over chairs but some walked around normally to sit around in the seats. A few of them didn''t bother though and remained standing though, they didn''t look like they wanted to be standing there at all.


    Felix turned to them, "You can watch this memory back later or ask the others. If you want to leave and do something else¡­"


    They looked at each-other, some more timid than others, then nodded and left the room.


    Melody looked back at Felix and the Residents that were now awkwardly turned around in their seats and she frowned, "Actually¡­"


    Hopping out of her seat, Melody jumped over the back of her chair and walked around towards the front of the room. Taking the position of the Professor, she nodded to them, "Okay so, The Abyss. Basically, there are a bunch of¡­ entrances. They look like metal doorways. No one knows how many there are and they only appear when The Abyss is open. Some appear in the same spot, some in the same general area and some just randomly appear all over the place."


    One of the Residents raised their hand, "I take it we have access to a permanent door?"


    She nodded, "There''s one on Eramith, The Planet."


    Another one of the Residents leaned forwards and half stood in a eureka kind of moment, "Wait wait wait. If a bunch of them appear at random¡­ and most of the multiverse is in the D grade¡­ Like that ocean planet¡­"


    Melody nodded then finished the thought for them, "The happenings inside The Abyss will be projected to everyone outside. You will see a number of random people wandering in, unsure what they''re doing. Some races we''ve never seen before."


    "How much of the multiverse is known by the core society of Telviras, Rhonan, Archons, Rebels and so on?"


    "Good question. Also, a hard question. Not all the planets in the purview of the Gods, especially the big three, even know about Telviras or the other Gods. It all depends on how they were integrated or if they just¡­ grew without being found. Every once in a while some random B grade appears thinking they''re the strongest person to have ever graced the universe because they grew up on one of these planets. Sometimes it ends poorly but most of the time, they get recruited because they usually have weird Classes, Races, Professions and Skills."


    Mera leaned forwards, pushing herself up and out of her chair in excitement, her feet dangling in the air, "Okay but in The Abyss. What''s it like?"


    Melody giggled a little, "Okay, so. You enter either solo or with a group. If you enter with more than 5 people, you will be randomly split up into groups of 5 or less."


    "Woah, wait. If some randoms that don''t know any of this walk in with an army or somethin-"


    Melody nodded quickly, "Yes. You will see on the projections, people walking in then suddenly looking around like they expected to have more people with them. Especially at the start, on the first few floors. The Projections can''t show everything so, they focus on the most exciting events. Us super people who are stronger than most B and even some A grades blasting through a floor in a second, is not interesting."


    One of the Residents nodded, "So we''ll end up seeing a lot of brave souls, ignorant minds and unlucky bodies who just wandered in. Unbeknownst to them, the fate held beyond the door."


    She sighed, "Yeah. It''s¡­ a bit depressing." She shrugged, "Nothing we can really do about it though."


    Mera leaned forwards a little more, completely impatient in her excitement and building anticipation, "So floors, what are floors?"


    Felix on the other hand, was quite content just sitting back and letting his Residents ask every question he could think of, and many he hadn''t. Even if they asked a few he really didn''t care much about.


    "Okay so, a floor is essentially just a massive horde of beasts. Each floor has slightly harder beasts than the last and as you descend, they also get¡­ weirder. More¡­ monster like. And older."


    "That''s it? We just slaughter massive hordes of enemies?" One of the Residents sounded rather excited by the prospect.


    "Mostly." Melody stepped back to the large board behind her and began writing stuff out, "So, each floor is harder than the last. First things first, you don''t actually have to kill everything on a floor to move on. At first, you just have to find the exit. Once you go deeper though, you''ll have to find a key and the exit. Then there will be multiple keys then a number of areas you have to capture and hold and so on. The basic structure is, kill shit and find the exit to the next floor."


    "How complicated do the doors get?"


    Before Melody could answer the Resident''s question, another spoke up, "Wait! Is there an end?"


    Melody smirked and pointed at the first Resident, "No one knows and precisely because-" She pointed at the other, "No one knows."


    She began drawing out a diagram on the board, "In the past, everyone has left before the end. It gets¡­ a little too hard even for the elites. Especially because you can only enter the first time, if you''re level 2500 or lower."


    "The Realms of Annihilation are limited to 2000, right?"


    She nodded.


    The Resident continued, following up from their last question, "Does that mean we should be in the B grade to enter?"


    She shook her head quickly, "The first few floors will start at the bottom of the D grade."


    A few of the Residents sat back in relief as Melody turned to her diagram on the board that looked like a curved funnel then split that into a layers, "The floors are structured in one of three ways, first you start on a small floor and each one gets progressively bigger." She ran her finger up the diagram.


    "The other, you start big and they get smaller." She ran her finger down the diagram.


    "Lastly, they''re all the same or close enough that it doesn''t matter." She turned back to her audience, "These come in groups of 5 though, at first. They''ll shift to 10 then 15 later on. You know it''s a group though because each floor within a group will look and behave very similarly. The beasts then monsters on the floors will be the same, but slightly stronger. The architecture, landscape, biome, weather will all typically be similar. Sometimes one of them will change a bit but¡­ Well, you''ll see. It doesn''t really matter right now."


    "What does matter is that at the end of a group, before moving on to the next group, there is almost always a¡­ final challenge kind of thing. Sometimes it''s a big boss based on the beasts and monsters on the previous floors. Actually, the majority of the time it''s a boss. Not always though. Once you beat it, two doors appear. One, leads to the next floor. The other, leads back outside."


    "So you can''t leave until you beat a group?"


    She nodded, "Exactly. Once you do leave though, you aren''t quitting. You can simply go back through the entrance and continue on beating another group."


    "What if you go back in without the party you started with?"


    "Once you enter the first time, that''s your party for the rest of it. You can''t switch out members. But, if you go in by yourself and beat a group of floors solo, the rest of your group doesn''t have to beat those floors. They are considered beaten or completed for the party as a whole."


    Felix spoke up for the first time since Melody started her lecture, "I take it Zeraxes, Romar and many of the others who could beat a D grade floor in their sleep will do that?"


    She nodded, "They''ll probably rotate through their members. No point wasting everyone''s time."


    Mera raised her hand, really playing into the fact that she even looked like a child in school, "How long does it normally take to beat a group?"


    "Depends. At first, it won''t take too long for us but later on, it will vary a lot. Sometimes the late C grade early B grade floors will take a couple hours. Sometimes they will each take dekads. Especially if the keys are hard to find or whatever else unlocks the door is annoying."


    Felix waited a few minutes while some of the Residents asked their final few questions before asking his one final question for the moment, "You mentioned people walking in and not knowing about the party limit of 5. Dungeons have all had a screen asking if I wanted to enter with some stipulations on them." She smiled a little noticing where he was going, "The Abyss isn''t a System thing at all, is it?"


    She shook her head, "Probably not. Again, no one really knows what it is but¡­ maybe some of the Primordials¡­ I''m sure some of them were around when it¡­ probably The World Tree but, it isn''t very talkative and¡­" She shook her head, "Anyways, no one knows but most people agree with you. The System can still affect what''s inside but it gets¡­ glitchy? on the later floors."


    "How?"


    "Nothing too bad just delayed levels and kill notifications. Skills seem to work fine as far as anyone has ever gotten. Some items just¡­ stop working but no one really knows why. Zeraxes Divine Bolt will definitely be fine but some other items like batteries and stuff with them start to wig out. Basically, don''t worry too much about someone getting carried by their items. We''re also kind of at the point where even giving a crazy item to someone won''t make them invincible. They''ll help but, you need to be pretty strong yourself anyways. Well, except maybe an Echo but¡­"


    "A Primordial Echo? How strong are they? If you gave one to a D grade, would they get as far as we will?"


    She tilted her head back and forth a few times as she thought it through, "Maybe. There are really not very many though and I haven''t even seen one myself except¡­ maybe Arthur¡­ I think¡­ maybe they''d get that far¡­ I don''t know how hard they are to wield though¡­ rumor has it they put huge requirements on the user."


    "Wait-" Felix got to his feet in shock, "Did you say Arthur?"


    She nodded, "It''s just a rumor but¡­ There''s an Echo many people know about, Axe of the Crimson River or Crimson Tide¡­ no one really knows. Most rumors say it''s a greataxe. Lots of people thought Rhonan had and wielded it but¡­ he personally shut those rumors down. Some think it''s in his vault, again, no one really knows anything. Recently, some people have started claiming Arthur might have it. With his whole blood thing and Great Axe."


    Felix sat back down, "I see."


    Melody looked across the room, "Is there anything else?"


    No one else spoke up so she nodded and stepped off the front stage. As she did, Mera leapt out of her seat and ran to the front where she pulled Melody''s head lower and whispered into her ear.


    Felix didn''t bother listening not out of respect, but out of indifference as he turned to Peace, "There''s something I want to ask you."


    He nodded, "Shoot."


    "Soul Reap. I know I can change it myself but is there anything particularly¡­ standout in it''s upgrade path?"


    Peace''s eyes rolled upwards in thought, "I don''t¡­ think so. I don''t know everything about the Class because we don''t use The System but¡­ I think it''s just Reaping Souls from a distance. I don''t remember anything else."


    Felix nodded, "My ring can already do that and I''m pretty sure I can do what the skill does myself. So, if I drop the skill for Reaper''s Presence?"


    "The Aura skill I told you about? Yeah, that seems like a reasonable idea."


    "Okay. Is there anything else I should look for in the Class?"


    "There''s a dedicated stealth skill that can make you nearly invisible¡­ There''s a Telekinesis like skill¡­ There''s a skill to imbue and make weapons¡­ There''s a defensive skill that honestly sounds similar to the new soul shit you created in Amatara''s¡­ There''s a flight ability¡­ One that empowers you when you kill for a short time at the cost of the Soul you would have harvested¡­"


    "Okay so, sounds like nothing better than the skills I have now. I could probably swap out Reaper''s Bond at this point though, right?"


    He nodded, "More than likely Nova doesn''t need the skill anymore. As you''ve figured out, the entire Class is designed to teach you to do things and provide¡­"


    "Training wheels?"


    "What?"


    "Nevermind. Thanks."


    Peace nodded, "Sure thing."


    Felix stood and looked over where Melody was now surrounded by a number of Residents and they were all chatting about something. Seeing as he didn''t seem to be needed for anything, Felix left and headed back over to Ked''s lab through an Aether Tunnel.


    Inside, he found Ked and Rewdan deep in conversation while Art, Eni and Nova were working according to the plan, making basic equipment for his combat Residents.


    Eventually, they wanted to make equipment for everyone. Robes and enchanted, high quality clothes for the non combat classes but for the time being, they focused on the Residents in combat classes.


    They took requests, if the Residents wanted a specific material or weapon or equipment but didn''t spend more than few hours on everything. Later on, they would slowly swap out the basic equipment for better, more specialized equipment when they had time but it was a process.


    Looking at the table next to them, there was already some basic equipment finished. They had simple shapes and used high quality materials with basic enchantments. Nothing exotic or arcane like Demitium or Spatial Enchantments.


    Ignoring Rewdan and Ked on the other side of the lab, Felix joined the group in creating the equipment. Once they were done with that, they could all move on to the next part of their plan, constructs and the factory.


    As they worked though, Felix got messages every few minutes from Mark about some of the Residents not needing equipment. He wasn''t complaining about the shrinking work but, he was also a little confused until he realized all the Residents that were removed from the list, were in class and had been talking to Melody.


    Once Mera was removed from the list, he was pretty certain some of his Residents had talked Melody into a shopping trip, not that she would have needed much convincing.


    As a whole, Felix''s schedule was very open, despite having 86 classes on his class list. In reality, there were only three classes he was planning on attending. Now that Group Combat was basically cancelled, or accounted for by The Abyss, he only had two classes to attend. Advanced Animancy, Constructs & Elementals wasn''t really a scheduled class though and just something where he would head to Ked''s lab and do some work when he had time.


    The only scheduled class he had was a mentorship with Fin in Mana Control on the 4th and 9th of every dekad. He wasn''t entirely sure how long a scheduled time would last now that The Abyss was a thing but it didn''t matter much. Felix''s goal had been to learn as much as he could this term while also having as much free time outside of class as he could.


    In theory, an impossible situation, for anyone except Felix. He didn''t have clones or simulacrums or anything, but he could split his mind up and be in multiple places in once, in a sense.


    He also knew there would be some professors he would have to convince to teach his Residents but overall, he was quite satisfied with everything.


    They finished up working on the equipment relatively quickly. It wasn''t hard in general when Nova was creating the equipment entirely. Full breastplates, swords, bows and every component they needed, shaped and forged in minutes. Then, Felix and Art had put together simple stencils for the basic enchantments and all they had to do, was imprint them onto each piece.


    After that, they moved on to creating more engineering constructs that could help them with the factory they were trying to create. Things like forge constructs for when Nova wasn''t around and even mining constructs to shrink their costs in the long run.


    They would still be buying some things and using Nova for others but they still intended on automating and streamlining as much as they could.


    Rewdan and Ked joined in at that point and helped with the constructs.


    Apparently they had been in a heated discussion over the plans for their epoch long project, the factory, and their viability.


    Ked was more conservative and wasn''t entirely aware of Mark and everything else Felix had going on while Rewdan kept claiming the impossible, not just with relation to Felix''s capabilities. He kept mentioning things he knew were possible from his experience as a Spirit and from the last time he walked the material realm.


    The Professor was also skeptical of the Souls Felix was putting into the constructs at first, overall not happy about the puppet souls but he was quickly convinced of how effective they were as their workforce grew.


    They spent a couple days putting in place the basics and prototyping various aspects of their designs at which point Felix had to head to his Mana Control Mentorship and Ked had another student to mentor. Sal still hadn''t shown up but apparently all her mentorships outside of Felix''s rather unique one, were scheduled for the first four days of the dekad. Whereas, Ked''s were on the first, fourth, sixth and 10th.


    Felix used an Aether Tunnel to head directly to the center of campus, not bothering with more specific coordinates because of how much more work they were to maintain when compared to TFP coordinates. As soon as he appeared though, he saw a red haired rocket of a woman racing towards him.


    He stepped to the side to avoid having to catch her but she anticipated that and redirected herself immediately to barrel directly into him. Noticing that, Felix braced himself at the last moment and managed to catch her without falling, even though his feet slid back a dozen meters through the soft earth of the grassy campus field.


    "Woah. You are way stronger than¡­ What is your Strength?" Melody showed no signs of wanting to right herself out of his arms.


    "Just over 7 and a half million."


    She immediately recoiled, jumping out of his arms, "Oh my System what are you you monster person."


    He just cocked a brow at her.


    "No. Seriously that''s almost as high as my highest stat and we''re basically the same level."


    [C] Melody (Lvl 1892)


    "Right but, you don''t really need stats to fight and be dangerous."


    She fully stood now and struck a pose, flicking her hair back, "You aren''t wrong. It''s my ravishing good looks and irresistible charm that make me lethal."


    He snorted, "Uh huh. Did you have a particular reason for barreling into me at full speed?"


    "I wanted to see if you could catch me. I didn''t actually expect you to."


    "Right, I mean did you ha-"


    "OH! Yeah, so." She walked alongside him as he headed towards Fin''s class and attached office, "About the events other than The Abyss. Have you thought about which ones you''re going to participate in?"


    Felix shook his head at the stupid question, "I don''t even know what the events are. I have no intention of participating in them though. I take it the reward is mostly glory?"


    She half shrugged, "No, there''s also the potential of sponsorships and¡­ getting recruited by¡­ Gods and companies."


    "Right so, no chance."


    She sighed, "Oh come on." She excitedly skipped forwards a couple steps, "There''s a Caster''s Duel, you know."


    "That''s probably the one I''m least likely to enter."


    She frowned suddenly, "What? Why not?"


    "Is it limited to B grades?"


    She nodded.


    "I''d win. Trivially."


    She opened her mouth to retort but Felix kept going, "The rules of a Caster''s Duel are basically designed for me to win."


    "I mean¡­ You''re not wrong but, it could also get our team a good sponsorship and considering we all wear robes, and half of us use Mage equipment, it would be a great sponsorship to have."


    "It would also draw a lot of attention. Not interested."


    "Even though it was unofficial, you beat my brother. I mean, he wasn''t a pro or anything but he was being scouted for pro teams. I mean, still is but¡­"


    Felix nodded, "Yup. Thought Caster''s Duel would be more interesting, got a slicer and some books out of it. I''m satisfied."


    She grumbled and groaned a little, "Fine. Whatever. I told Ayred you''d say no. He told me to try convincing you anyways. He''s been really getting into it lately. Both watching the professional scene and picking up wands and stuff."


    Felix nodded slightly then switched tracks a bit, to satisfy his curiosity, "Do you think you could convince me if you had to?"


    "If I said I needed you to, would you do it?"


    "Probably." I guess that kind of answers my question¡­


    "There you go." In a tone devoid of teasing, Melody leaned in a little, "Because you care about me or because you feel like you owe me?"


    Felix thought about it for a few steps, "I don''t know."


    She nodded, "Anyways¡­ Ooohh! What about Battle of the Auras?"


    Felix hesitated a step and looked over at her, "Is that what I think it is? Duels or everyone in a ring and last one standing?"


    "The latter."


    "Auras can be strong enough to knock someone out? Either way, no. Same reason. I might not be able to put them down with my Aura, but I don''t need to eat, drink or sleep so¡­"


    "Oh really, you''re that confident? Also, you use your Aura to protect yourself from this Relic, not knock other people out and it''s more about how taxing resisting one is."


    "Hmm." Actually¡­ maybe. The attention might be a problem but a relic sounds interesting.


    "Okay, well¡­ there are some sports and some spell competitio-"


    Felix sighed, "Not interested."


    She pouted at him with wide eyes, somewhat getting in the way of him walking but he just walked through her a few times, more than strong and heavy enough to do so.


    "Seriously? You aren''t going to participate in anything?"


    He shrugged, "I''ll enter The Abyss. That sounds interesting. Seeing who is actually stronger is not interesting to me. I want to learn things and get stronger. Proving that strength is boring. Especially in a fight- Are they System protected?"


    She shook her head.


    "-That isn''t to the death."


    "UUUUGGGH! You are so annooyyiinng."


    "Uh huh. A straight duel wouldn''t be too bad but¡­ It''s not worth the time and effort when I could be focusing on The Abyss, The Realms and everything else I want to do this term."


    She nodded, "Alright. Fine. That seems fair enough. Any thoughts on when you''ll go hit The Realms?"


    "As late as I can probably. Hard limit is level 1999, right?"


    She skipped along beside him, despite where he was going, "Yeah. We''re not that far off now."


    "Are you going to try too?"


    She shrugged, "I''ll enter probably. Not going to push myself very far but¡­ seems like it could be fun."


    He nodded, "I take it we''ll go together then?"


    "Like a date?" She stared him down with a mischievous little grin.


    "Sure."


    Her eyes widened, "Ha! Don''t tease me like that. You know I''m sensitive and fragile. I can''t handle th-"


    He sped up a few steps and turned the corner into the outer hallway of the building that held his classes.


    She skipped and ran to catch back up and was about to either chastise him or continue when she stopped, seeing who was approaching them.


    "There you are. I''ve been looking for you." Fyrden walked towards them from the front.


    He was looking mostly at Melody but he politely met Felix''s gaze and acknowledged his presence as well.


    Melody groaned, "No."


    Fyrden ran his hand through his long, dirty blonde hair, "Oh come on Melody, we''re family."


    "So? Does that somehow give you the right to have me on your team?"


    He squirmed a little, "Well¡­ no I just think¡­ we''d do a lot better¡­ with you on¡­ my team¡­"


    Felix didn''t show his reaction but his opinion of Fyrden was drastically falling from what he assumed was classism. Not that he had much of an opinion about him at all.


    Melody stepped forwards with a challenging demeanor, "What, you don''t think Felix will be as strong? You think just cause he isn''t hitched to a God or the spawn of one, he can''t compete?"


    Fyrden sighed and stood a little taller, "Melody stop teasing. Everyone here is here for a reason" He turned to look at Felix and looked like he was being genuine, "born of a God or not." He turned back to Melody, his face shifting towards disgust just a little, "You know I believe that, why even say something like that?


    She backed off completely and shrugged, "Cause Felix thought you were being classist."


    He sighed and turned to Felix, "You beat Tan in a Caster''s Duel. I didn''t think you were any lesser before, I definitely don''t think that afterwards. Unlike some of my siblings, I trust Melody''s judgement. A lot. I promise, I want her on my team because she''s she''s great at what she doe- the best even, and she''s family and¡­" He turned to look at Melody again, "I want to fight with my big sis."


    Felix nodded, really just wanting to get to class, "You can have her." He lightly pushed her on the shoulder towards Fyrden, "She''s all yours."


    Melody gasped in shock and feigned offense, "You would just throw me away so quickly? Toss me out like yesterday''s garbage? After all we''ve been through? After I dedicated my life to you?" She tried to hang off his shoulder like she were actually pleading, "After I let you do all those¡­ nasty things to me? You''d just leave me? I acquiesced to your every perverted fantasy because you convinced me it was true love eternal and here I sit, all alone. Oh the despair. I''ve been used like a cheap whore. How wi-"


    Felix was already walking away and with his his speed, easily managed to outpace her and close the door to Fin''s classroom behind him as she yelled out down the hall after him.


    Felix sighed then walked down to Fin''s office and knocked.


    "Come in."


    Opening the door, Felix saw Fin laying the middle of the air-appropriately-like a cat, staring at a spell on the board that he was clearly trying to cast. It wasn''t a complicated spell, around 15 levels, but he was only barely managing to make it relatively clean. Felix wasn''t even sure if he could have cast it as it appeared.


    Fin dropped the spell as Felix approached and stood up, still floating in the air as if there were solid ground beneath him, "How were your recruitments?"


    "Productive."


    "Excellent." Fin nodded then walked down a set of invisible steps towards his desk, "To be honest, I was not certain you would accept my offer of mentorship on your available class list. Is there anything in specific you wish for us to work towards?"


    Felix shook his head, "Not really. There are a few things I''d like to improve with respect to my Mana Control though. Firstly, I''m using crystals to Attune Mana to ultimately simplify my spells."


    "How long does it take you to manually Attune Mana?"


    "Not quite 15 minutes like during my exam. I can attune that much in less than a minute now but any worthwhile amount, takes an hour or more depending how much."


    "What else?"


    "I''d like my Mana Control to become more second nature. I''ve started playing around with something I''ve been calling Mage Hand, which is really just a hand formed from Mana."


    He smirked, "Something literally only you could do. Maybe Khidell but, he would never be quite as proficient as he is with his real hands. I suspect you''ve gotten close?"


    "I have." Felix nodded, "I can move a number of them too but it takes effort in a way my hands don''t."


    "Anything else?"


    "Mana Skin is a defensive shell of Mana I''ve been using. Works somewhat well but it could definitely be better. Lastly, I need a better way to regenerate Mana."


    Fin nodded thoughtfully, "What have you tried so far?"


    "Not much. I''ve been pretty focused on other things. Back in my integration days though, I created something I called a Mana Engine. It basically amounted to a pump that simply collected Mana. That was pretty good but I can definitely do better now."


    "What''s your effective Mana Control Range now? Any big increases?"


    Felix snorted a little, "Yes."


    Fin smirked, "Okay. First things first, lets take some measurements."


    Felix nodded and they quickly ran through the same measurements they had started his first epoch at Eramith with, and used to evaluate him for his exam.


    Throughout the entire test, Fin was floored by how far he needed to go with Felix''s new range, how much more Mana he could control at once, the precision with which he could control it, the force, the speed and how much faster his cast time was.


    Mana Control Range16m40m217mMana Control Limit11,327,92142,012,3687.2 BMana Control Precision1E-52.1E-88.5E-12Mana Control Speed14.1 m/s53.4 m/s647 m/sMana Control Force8 N135 N4875 NSpell Construction (Lvl 20)0.9 s0.4 s0.027 s


    Looking back over the results in his office, Fin just stood there staring at them for a while, "I¡­ how?"


    "I spent a recruitment at Amatara''s strengthening my Soul and thereby, will power. That was most of the increase. As in, almost all of it."


    Fin shook his head, "Your answer is logical if I take it at face value but¡­ how did you strengthen your soul so rapidly?"


    "Curses. I became a Spirit Sage, if that means anything to you. Do you know about my Class?"


    He nodded, "I am awar- or rather, I have suspicions and am¡­ confident in them."


    Felix nodded, "Sure so, I got my hands on a bunch of Anima basically. I spent Amatara''s recruitment climbing and integrating more Anima into my Soul."


    "I¡­ still didn''t think this was possible so¡­ quickly."


    Felix shrugged.


    Another minute of reading through the numbers later, Fin nodded, "First, let''s talk about Mana Regeneration because I think it will be the easiest. Manual Attunements will just take time training. Mage Hand as well."


    "Okay. My current regeneration seems to be completely limited to about a million per hour. It goes above that with a high Aether density but, those are pretty rare and it doesn''t go up by much."


    "You''ve essentially hit the limit of how much you can draw in one place. It''s the Mana Fluidity that''s largely limiting you."


    Felix nodded, "I''ve never heard that term but I''ve noticed the Aether being more or less fluid in some places."


    He cocked a brow, "I guess I shouldn''t be surprised¡­ It is¡­ rare to actually notice it. We know it exists experimentally. This is besides the point. Do you know why this limit seems to exist in most places, even where the Mana is more fluid?"


    He shook his head, "Not really. I noticed improvements in high density and high fluidity places¡­ I guess I never quite realized that the increase in density was not proportional to the increase in my regeneration rate but now that you mention it¡­"


    "Essentially, there seems to be some kind of limit or breaking point where Mana ceases to exert pressure on itself. Or at least, that''s what we thought for a long time. Through some more extreme experiments carried out by Khidell over the last few centuries, the consensus has largely shifted that it is not a breaking point but rather, the pressure Mana exerts upon itself is a curve that sharply drops off around this point you''ve reached."


    "You''re saying that even if the Aether is more fluid or much higher density, my Mana regeneration won''t increase proportionally because there is a limit to how much and how quickly the void of Mana I create gets replenished?"


    He nodded.


    "So even with my Mana Control range now being much higher, I can take in more Mana right away but any large increases I see will be largely because of the increased surface area of my Mana Control range?"


    "Yes. In essence. Even then, it will not be proportional to the increase in surface area."


    "So¡­ what''s the solution?"


    He smirked, "Multiple Mana collection points is the only real solution anyone has proposed. Matter Fission is another option but¡­ not exactly viable for many reasons."


    Felix leaned in a little, "By fission you mean taking Matter and breaking it down into Energy then breaking that down into Mana?"


    "Yes."


    "And by not viable you mean¡­ violent?"


    "The reaction being violent is the least of the issues. The most important one is the how. How do you break down Energy into Mana. It is theoretically possible and some have done it but only accidentally. Never has anyone done it consistently or made it reproducible."


    "I see. So I''m going to have to stick Mana Engines all over the place like satellites then siphon from them if I want higher Mana regeneration."


    "Yes. Most people actually solve this with Credits. They buy batteries and siphon from them when they rest. Although, a batter would simply multiply the size of your pool, wouldn''t it?"


    Felix nodded, "I can just pull right out of them for the most part."


    "Given the absurd size of your Mana Pool however, you have surpassed the point where you can just use batteries. Batteries simply begin breaking down around 100 million Mana. You could start collecting batteries and simply having a hoard of them, while not possible for anyone else, even for you it is less than ideal."


    "I''d rather not have to resort to that."


    "Have you considered storing Mana in an extra-dimensional space?"


    "I have. The biggest issue with that is separation of space. For a long time I wondered by the Mana Engine in my Pocket Home just kept running. I thought it would eventually run out of Mana. I spent some of my recruitment on how space works and I know understand, it isn''t really possible to contain Mana spatially."


    He nodded, "Not for any extended period, no. It must be bound to something or actively held."


    "If I manually focus on my Mana Regeneration, I can increase it multiple times over¡­ if there''s a limit, how does that work?"


    "In essence, Mana reacts to observers. Not really but, imagine it this way, when you are actively pulling on Mana, Mana other than that which you are puling on, is attracted to the pull."


    "It''s like¡­ it wants to be bound to something?"


    "Yes. It does seem that way."


    "At the same time though, the Mana Battery limit is a limit of how much can be bound to an object right?"


    "Yes."


    "So it wants to be bound¡­ but will also fight being bound¡­ once bound?"


    "Creating batteries of that caliber is hard enough that no one has been able to thoroughly test this, that I am aware of."


    "If I can supply batteries for this, would you be willing to participate in the research to figure this out?"


    Fin cocked a brow, "I am aware of your friendship with the daughter of Kjarne and The Child of the Reaper¡­ Credits alone will not solve the issue of these batteries being too scarce. Even if we had every single one of them in the multiverse, we wouldn''t have enough."


    Felix nodded, "No problem. We''ll make them."


    Fin looked at him blankly.


    "Just to be clear, I''m pretty sure the solution to bigger batteries is Anima with enough will power. What I don''t know is how to use this weird property of Mana to create more efficient Mana Engines. Is basic Animancy enough? Do we need to dive into Anima Spells?"


    Fin nodded slowly, "I¡­ Even if you have the Remnant of a Primordial lying around, you need some kind of material, ideally with a crystalline structure, that is both flawless and stable enough to sustain the binding."


    "Have I introduced you to my familiar yet?"


    Knock Knock Knock


    Both Fin and Felix turned to the door and Fin went to open it but Felix already knew who was on the other side due to his various senses.


    "I''m looking for Felix Kade? His schedule says he should be here?"


    Fin nodded and opened the door wider for Kairune and the Professor standing behind him.


    Kairune spotted Felix and walked over to him, the seething Professor following behind him along with one of his Residents.


    "Felix." Kairune nodded once, "This is Quinefremore, Professor of Culinary Arts and the Science of Tas-"


    "IS THIS A JOKE!" The enraged Professor, a nearly 8 foot tall man with a white-from-flour braided beard and tied back black hair trembled as he shoved forwards, stopped by Kairune''s shoulder.


    Felix met his bulging-eye-gaze, "I take it you''re not happy about teaching a Resident?"


    "YOU THINK I WOULD BE HAPPY ABOUT TEACHING A MINION?"


    Felix calmly pushed back, "Thoross is not a minion. He just didn''t have a body until now."


    "I DON''T GIVE A SHIT ABOUT YOUR NECROMANTIC DELUSIONS. I''M NOT TEACHING A MINION ABOUT TASTE."


    Felix sighed and Kairune raised a hand to stop the Professor''s tirade, "I can''t help but agree. You cannot send minions to take classes for you." Kairune looked over at Fin, "When you vouched for him taking as many classes as he signed up for, you assured me nothing like this would happen."


    Felix mentally took note of the fact that Fin had vouched for him then began playing through the conversation he and his entire Mind had already planned through, "My apologies. Just so I''m clear because I did check the rules ahead of time, what is it that is required for someone to attend a class here?"


    "THAT THEY''RE A STUDENT YOU MORON."


    Kairune winced as Felix nodded, "I see. I believe there was a stipulation to this, something about familiars attending classes, if I am not mistaken?"


    The raging baker snapped his head down toward Kairune as he nodded in confirmation.


    "In that case, there must be something else? Some other specific requirement?"


    Kairune sighed, "That provision is specifically for the case where a student cannot attend a class."


    "As you can see," Felix gestured towards Fin who smiled in bemusement and waved, "I currently have my mentorship with Professor Fin scheduled meaning, I am unable to attend Culinary Arts and the Science of Taste. I have sent Thoross in my place."


    The culinary professor opened his mouth but Kairune lifted a hand to stop him, "That applies to individual classes. You cannot have one attend every one of your clas-"


    "Actually, Chancellor," Fin stepped forwards on the air so he was head height with Felix and Kairune, "I believe it was 5102 cycles ago that we had Zyrek attend-"


    Kairune''s face contorted even further in anger as Fin continued, "If you recall, they were already a Lich at the time of their second epoch and I believe they had multiple bodies attending classes while their phylactery remained in their dorm room."


    Kairune closed his eyes and took a breath as Quinefremore seethed and looked from Kairune to Fin in complete disbelief.


    Finally Kairune nodded, "Are you then claiming that Felix here is in control of Thoross? That Thoross is simply an extension of Felix himself?"


    Felix nodded, "That is¡­ mostly true."


    "YOU CAN''T BE SERIOUS. THIS IS OBVIOUSLY A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT SOUL."


    Felix nodded again, "That is also true."


    Kairune''s anger was replaced entirely by confusion, "Explain."


    Felix pointed at Thoros, "His brain and Soul are contained within my soul. He is simply controlling the body."


    "SO THEN HE IS HIS OWN PERSON."


    "In a way. Considering he utilizes my Brain and my Soul to function though, it''s debatable."


    Fin slightly raised his hand, "I believe there was also a situation where two brother''s inhabited the same bod-"


    Kairune lifted a hand to stop Fin then turned to Felix, "Can you prove this?"


    Felix turned to Fin, "How much trust can I put in Kairune?"


    Fin nodded immediately, "Kairune is bound by many thoroughly tested contracts to maintain the secrets of his students."


    Felix nodded then offered both Kairune and Fin one of his hands.


    Fin placed his paw on Felix''s hand immediately but Kairune hesitated a moment before taking the hand.


    As soon as he had physical contact with the both of them, Felix pulled them into the center of his Mind City directly.


    With outstretched arms, Felix smiled to the two of them, "Welcome to Arkade."

 Chapter 229 - Book 2

    The city of Arkade, the first city within Felix''s Mind, looked drastically different than the last time Felix had visited directly. It wasn''t just the city itself that had changed though, it was everything. The landscape was now varied all the way into the distance with no horizon because the entire land was a projection, so there was no need for planet curvature.


    There were mountains, trees and deserts all visible from the city along with massive islands the size of countries floating around in the sky above, so distant their shadow was obscured by the source-less light of the sky and the refraction through the clouds beneath them. The weather was no longer completely tied to Felix''s emotions and so the floating islands drifted through a sea of clouds and though not visible, Felix could tell there was a vast network just below their feet as well.


    All of this, was just in Arkade. Felix could feel there wasn''t just the desert city of Rakyt anymore, there were thousands of settlements, not all big enough to be a city and none as expansive as Arkade. Some of them were simply a few nomadic Souls deciding to live by themselves, others were small towns and villages that had dedicated themselves to Alchemy or the care of beasts, which also now roamed his mental world.


    Within the city itself, the number of buildings alone had multiplied, like thousands of epochs had passed. In a way, that was exactly what had happened. The perception of time within his Mind was drastically different from outside. Luckily, his Mind Residents didn''t really age or die at the moment unless they decided to split their Soul or asked to die, which some had. They weren''t suicidal, they simply felt satisfied and wanted their Souls dispersed, like they knew their time had come. With death as rare as it was, meant there were still some original residents, keeping everything in check and making it effectively, a never ending empire.


    Kairune looked around in confusion, unsure what he was looking at and where he was.


    Fin however, had more context and was somewhat aware of Felix''s mind, "Is¡­ This is¡­ in your head?"


    Felix nodded to him, "It is."


    He felt a little odd standing in front of the massive statue of himself within a fountain that had grown into a massive architectural statement but, he also wasn''t going to just tear it down. Plus, this was the center of the city as he knew it so when he brought people in, this was where he brought them. No where else really made sense to him.


    Felix gestured for the two of them to follow and headed down one of the streets, through some of the weirdest buildings he had ever seen. Some of them were architectural marvels like cathedrals and monuments. Others weren''t even physically possible, they either floated or were split down the middle as if space was torn. In reality, all the buildings were made from an Anima projection and could essentially be anything.


    Without any physical constraints and the freedom to build without having to put in much work to do so, the buildings became odd and disjointed. There was no cohesion to the city. Felix didn''t mind it at all though. He was more than happy to have a building that looked like one of the ancient wonders of the world next to a building that looked to be partially made of light and constantly disintegrated towards the top.


    Fin, who understood where they were, was mostly experiencing shock and wonder as he looked around. Kairune on the other hand, was deeply confused as it didn''t seem he had figured out where they were, or seemed to believe Fin''s words.


    Felix led them into one of the newer buildings, a structure that visually split itself into strips near the top, like pasta, that then looped back around to rejoin the bottom. Inside though, the building looked nothing like the outside. Instead, it had a small lobby along with various halls and walkways littering the height of the building.


    He didn''t bother heading to the reception and simply willed them to move up a few levels, thoroughly confusing Kairune even more, then led them to a specific room.


    After knocking to announce his presence, Felix opened the door to reveal a large bird with navy feathers and large talons wearing gold jewelry.


    Felix smiled and gestured to the bird as they bowed, "Professor, Chancellor, meet Thoross."


    Fin smiled and waved then quickly looked up so he could watch Kairune''s face as he finally realized what was happening.


    Kairune, did not disappoint. He looked at the bird for a few seconds, emotions blank. Then, all the pieces began to fit together and his emotions roiled. Felix was slightly astounded at how many emotions he was feeling at once and seriously wondered how anyone went on with their daily lives being so emotional.


    It wasn''t unique to Kairune, he knew that from everyone living in his head, he just rarely paid much attention to the emotions of others.


    Kairune''s jaw dropped a little, not out of shock but out of desire to say something but not being able to say anything. He looked at Fin then at Felix then at Thoross who stood back up and nodded, "It has been a dream of mine for hundreds of epochs now to learn the Culinary Arts in the outside worl-"


    "You''re Thoross?" He looked back at Felix before Thoross could answer, "This is in your head?" He turned to Fin before Felix could answer, "You knew about this?"


    Fin shook his head immediately, "No. Not really."


    "Head and Soul. It''s mostly an Anima projection but the logical consistency is entirely because of my Brain." And Mark.


    Kairune looked at Thoross, "So what are you?"


    "He''s a construct. Mostly. He''s a Soul and a Brain contained within my Soul."


    "Then¡­ the body outside¡­ in the real world."


    Felix gestured into the room with his head, "He''s controlling it like a puppet."


    Thoross stepped to the side a little and gestured behind him towards what appeared to be a completely black room. Like the void of space lay behind him, "When the door is closed, this room completely overrides my senses and everything I do, get''s forwarded to the body. I can''t even tell the difference."


    Kairune looked at him incredulously so Felix, in the physical world, activated his Replicate Construct Skill on Thoross, creating a second body then he placed a puppet soul within it, using his tendrils.


    Then, he gestured for Kairune to follow and led him to an empty room, gesturing for him to enter. Kairune didn''t hesitate, his feet carried by his confusion.


    Felix closed the door behind him and released Fin so he could watch from the real world.


    Looking over at the new body next to Thoross, the body Quinefremore was recoiling from, the one Kairune was controlling, Felix watched him look down at his hands. He stared at them for a moment then looked over at Thoross'' body then over at his own, real body. He walked over and examined his body, currently motionless and still grasping Felix''s hand, then he poked it.


    Felix could tell he felt it and Kairune moved his limbs a little more before looking around once more and finally leaving the body.


    Felix released him from his Mind City and pulled the leftover puppet into his Soul Space as Kairune opened his eyes, released Felix''s hand and turned to Quinefremore, "Sorry."


    The Professor''s eyes widened even further as he began shouting nonsensically.


    Kairune raised his hand to stop him and when that didn''t work, Felix felt the most oppressive Aura he had ever felt coming from Kairune. His own Aura instinctually to protect himself and Kairune immediately glanced at him before turning back to the raging Professor and trying to reason with him, "What Felix is doing is within the rules. I cannot stop him. I also cannot force you to teach Thoross here, if you do not want to."


    "DAMN RIGHT I DON''T WANT TO. WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YO-"


    "Enough" Kairune walked forwards and took hold of the Culinary Professors wrist, dragging him out the door of the office and essentially throwing him into the classroom, "If you are this angry, then simply leave. You have no other students to teach so if you will not teach Thoross, you are not needed at Eramith."


    Kairune closed the door to the office with more force than necessary then sighed, "I cannot force them to teach your Mind¡­ Constructs¡­ People. Unfortunately though, the rules protect you and so, I am obliged to deal with all the complaints myself."


    Felix nodded, "Thanks. I appreciate it."


    "I do not." He grumbled a little then offered a genuinely apologetic look to Thoross, "I''m sorry about your dream."


    He nodded, "We all knew this was a possibility. It also isn''t over quite yet."


    Kairune cocked a brow and Thoross smiled as he turned to Felix, "Grim suggested I talk to Melody." Thoross looked back at Kairune, "She can probably convince him to teach me."


    He snorted and shook his head, "This entire generation¡­"


    Thoross smiled and nodded to them in farewell then cautiously opened the door and left when he saw that the Culinary Professor had vanished.


    Kairune looked back at Felix as he stepped towards the exit, "I take it some of them are entering The Abyss?"


    Felix just nodded.


    "See that they do well in the first dekad at least. It will likely convince a number of the Professors and quell their complaints."


    "I will."


    Kairune nodded to them both then walked out.


    Once they were alone, Fin turned to Felix, his eyes now wide with excitement and anticipation, "You mentioned introducing me to your familiar?"


    Felix nodded and opened an Aether Tunnel to Ked''s lab that they both stepped through.


    After a slightly awkward period of Nova taking Ked''s slightly more humanoid feline form, Felix had Nova use the materials from the tree in his Pocket Home to make a completely flawless crystal.


    Then, he manually prepped it to become a battery and handed it to Fin.


    They spent the rest of the day just experimenting with batteries and Felix was mostly correct. He could produce larger batteries with Anima but it introduced other problems. Mainly, the Anima cost and the fact that the Anima often bound itself to the Mana such that pulling the Mana out of the battery, pulled out the Anima as well.


    It made them less usable in general, despite their larger capacity.


    However, they used their discoveries to fuel other research.


    Once they were mostly certain what was happening with the batteries, Felix turned to Fin, "So, hear me out. I have an idea. It''s¡­ absurd."


    Fin nodded, "I''m listening."


    "On my planet, we had these things we called Particle Accelerators¡­"


    After spending almost a day talking through the theory, the plan and the logistics of everything, Fin readily agreed to spend his epoch outside of Felix''s mentorship and his other classes working on their research. Felix on the other hand, would split his free time between his project with Ked and Sal, The Abyss and Fin depending on where he was needed most.


    Fin would also have the support of Rewdan and the other constructs when he needed it. The first issue they had to overcome though, was finding the space to build what they were planning.


    Professor Fin said he would deal with it though so Felix didn''t worry about it and instead moved on to the other things he had on his plate.


    The first of which, was messing with his Class skills.


    The first thing he did was completely drop Soul Reap. There was simply no point in him having the skill at all. It didn''t do anything he couldn''t do himself at this point. The whole passively running thing had even stopped working-except within his ring-when he had strengthened his Soul but, it didn''t matter because he never harvested anything automatically anymore. It was all manual because he either preserved the Soul and stuck them in his Mind City or saved the Anima to pay for a Skill.


    Reaper''s Aura on the other hand, did help him. Mostly because he was still learning about Auras and how to properly use them.


    Class: [Reaper''s Aura (Legendary) Project the Aura of the Reaper in an area around you. Project your will and intent around you in an attempt to control Anima within an area. The effect of the aura is entirely dependent on the Soul and intent of the user. Some Aura effects may be impossible for certain user''s to wield. Strength of the Aura is highly dependent on the strength of the user''s Soul and their ability to wield that strength, their will power. This skill incurs a cost in terms of exhausted will power.]


    Reaper''s Presence was the upgraded version and he was hoping to get it before he had to enter The Realms of Annihilation.


    There was also an upgrade to Body and Movement which he wanted to test out but otherwise, despite Reaper''s Bond not being useful to him anymore, he didn''t bother with anything else. He was already so close to the next grade, he figured he might as well just focus on how he was going to get a truly custom Class.


    The Nucleus'' only instructions so far, were that he would need to perform as many title worthy feats as he could manage.


    He wasn''t entirely certain how he would achieve more of those but, he decided to figure it out at a later date.


    The next few days were spent partially convincing Sal of what they wanted to do but mostly working on various prototypes for the more complicated portions, like the Soul Forge or the Computer Farm. Which, helped massively in convincing Sal.


    The only reason Felix left the lab at all, was that one of the Residents in his mind had delivered him a message from Melody that she needed to see him.


    He immediately doubted the necessity of her request but he returned to campus anyways where he only had to wait a few minutes.


    Instead of flying into him at top speed this time, Melody skipped along through the grass to join him in the center of campus, "Hiya! I haven''t seen you in a while."


    "What''s up?"


    She pouted, "Grump." Then, she dropped the facade and her demeanor completely changed in an instant, "Follow me."


    He sighed and flew along beside her. Despite her constant attempts to out pace him, he never once left her side even a little. She even tried to mess with his perception using some Soul Magic shenanigans but nothing worked. He remained directly beside her the entire time.


    As they began circling the planet, cresting over a mountain range, Felix realized what she was leading him towards.


    Ahead of them now stood the biggest arena Felix had ever seen. It was a building rivaled only by the Mega Structures in Telviras and Osgard itself. Looking at the stands alone, Felix estimated it could hold high tens to low hundreds of millions. Even then though, that was just counting the arena seats themselves.


    The entire arena was built into a building around it, like someone had dug an arena out of an existing building. Considering how massive the arena itself was, the building around it seemed completely impossible.


    Neither the building nor the Arena looked complete yet. They were both structurally complete but they looked like a brand new house without any paint or tiles. It was completely void of decoration and entirely bland.


    As Melody led Felix down to the ground outside then into the outer building, the sameness of the entire thing exacerbated the feeling of confusion Felix had. All the halls and rooms and doors looked identical. If it weren''t for his brain and The System map keeping track of where they were, he was certain he could have gotten lost in the building.


    The lobby they had passed through was void of furniture or directions of any kind so Felix had no idea how Melody had any idea where they were going but, he followed anyways.


    As they headed down a number of halls, staying on the ground level, the building around them went from feeling like am empty construction site, to a slightly less empty construction site. Instead of deafening silence interrupted by the pitter-patter of their steps, Felix began to hear loud but distant sounds. Like massive explosions from kilometers away. They got slightly louder as they walked, but not by much.


    Turning a corner and walking down a new hall, their surroundings finally changed and after walking through endless blank halls, they finally had a window. A long stretch of clear material completely replacing the left wall as they walked.


    Through the window though, was the real show.


    The distant noises Felix had been hearing, weren''t distant at all. They were just significantly dampened and muffled by the building. Just on the other side of the window, was a large muscle-bound woman. She wasn''t nearly as big as Felix was expecting, as the daughter of a Giant but she was still larger than Rhonan by a noticeable amount.


    Otherwise, she had greyish skin, black hair and some kind of black warpaint on her face. Everything else about her was largely humanoid, just like the Giant they had killed.


    [B - Legendary] Uphi (Lvl 2453)


    She was in the process of launching herself at a normal sized humanoid that looked to be made of the brightest fire Felix had ever seen.


    [B - Ancient] Romar (Lvl 2386)


    Manually adjusting his eye sight and using a simple Spell to block out the majority of the light, Felix saw Romar''s body legitimately looked like the surface of a star. It was a hot red liquid with spots, flares and prominences across the surface.


    "I guess he hit his evolution?"


    Melody nodded, "He won''t go through any other evolutions but he''s not done yet. He''s red now but as he levels, he''ll start shifting towards blue."


    Felix nodded as he squinted and turned up his light blocking spell in response to Romar being thrown against the wall in front of them and blasting out even more light in the process.


    "I take it they''ve both already done the Realms then?"


    She nodded, "Remember we were talking about how generous Rhonan''s offer of using his leveling worlds for an hour a day was?"


    Felix sighed, "And how expensive it would be just to have it so I could level non stop? I take it their parents could afford that?"


    "Yup. Zeraxes too."


    Felix groaned a little, "Did you bring me here just to show me how far behind we are?"


    She smiled wide and nodded, "Yup."


    "This is where you''re going to tell me we need sponsors and you need me to participate in events?"


    "Oh." She looked upwards thoughtfully for a couple moments, "No, actually. I wanted to give you context and convince you we need to go on a shopping trip. I didn''t really think you''d need much convincing in that department but I did want to get you thinking about what we need to buy."


    "I don''t know about you, but I definitely need new robes. These are only C grade and I''ll be outgrowing them pretty soon."


    She nodded, "Yeah, Adaline at least will need new armor soon too. Peace¡­ I don''t really know. Start thinking about other equipment too though."


    "I guess I could swap out my bracelets, rings, earrings, amulet and hat in combat." Felix''s head started heating up suddenly, "Not hat. Sorry¡­ geez. It''s not like you really do anything for me anyways."


    Melody looked at him like he was crazy and he just shook his head indicating she shouldn''t ask, "Issue is, I haven''t found much that would be beneficial to me. Batteries are small and don''t need to be equipment anymore now that I can''t use charms and my last one inspired my new Mana Core. Most magical effects I can replicate with my own Mana so¡­"


    "Yeah, unfortunately, despite your obstinance we will get sponsors and they will gift us equipment. Most of it will be useless to you."


    Felix mentally adjusted his plan as he watched Romar and Uphi fight.


    He had really been hoping to put off upgrading his equipment until his Mind Residents became experienced enough that they could create something unique and tailored. Unfortunately, it seemed that would have to wait.


    In the large training room in front of him, Uphi leapt at Romar''s tiny molten form and laughed as she slammed both her feet into him, shaking the room and crushing him against a wall. He took the attack and seemed largely unharmed as he gripped her ankles and began slowly cooking her flesh.


    As to why the star man wasn''t slicing through her limbs, Felix seriously couldn''t tell if he just wasn''t very hot, or she was ridiculously durable. Considering her lineage, he was assuming the latter.


    She used the entirety of her body to drive her dual warpicks into Romar''s wrists but he didn''t bleed. He didn''t even seem to care much as he lifted her up then slammed her entire body into the ground repeatedly.


    Felix could barely follow her swinging body and he wasn''t sure she had a way out but a few smacks later, Romar simply tossed her across the room into the wall. She smashed into it with a collateral boom as Romar started to brighten himself.


    Melody immediately cowered into Felix''s side and it took him a moment to realize she was cowering behind his Spell.


    With a burst of light, Romar released a targeted explosion in Uphi''s direction that looked like a sun flare and completely covered the other end of the room. Felix had no way to know how hot the flare was or how much damage it would have done because he had no frame of reference. He was pretty confident, given Romar had mastered the Concept of Fire though, that it would have probably killed him.


    Uphi on the other hand, was smoking and looked a little singed but otherwise, was smiling wildly.


    They continued to wrestle in the most super human way possible for a few more minutes as Felix continued to think.


    He was interrupted not but the fight itself, that showed no signs of slowing down, but by the casual steps of another, walking down the hall towards them. He looked almost exactly the same, even after his evolution. The only changes were that his eyes now appeared brighter and his body looked to be cracked all over, the cracks themselves made of faint blue and white light.


    Melody mostly righted herself and waved in Zeraxes direction, causing him to flash over next to them in an arc of Lightning.


    [B - Divine] Zeraxes (Lvl 2310)


    When he reappeared, he was already looking through the window, down at the fight, "You come to scout what you''re up against?"


    Melody smirked, "Something like that."


    He nodded, "Well. I have no issue with you guys watching us train. It''s good for you."


    Felix''s immediate reaction was to ask how but he held himself back and didn''t bother. It wasn''t worth his time.


    "Definitely." Melody nodded along, just a little exaggerated. Felix could tell she was being sarcastic but it seemed as though Zeraxes was too full of himself to realize anything.


    "I take it neither of you have tried your hands at the Realms just yet?


    "Nope. Not yet." Melody answered with a perfectly kind and unassuming demeanor.


    "Well, good luck. I suspect the both of you will do well. Melody with the social situations and Felix, you''re quite the combatant yourself."


    Felix grunted a little in acknowledgement at the pseudo-complement. On the one hand he was pointing out their strengths explicitly. On the other, he was pointing out their weakness implicitly, through omission and comparison. At least, what he perceived as their weaknesses.


    In a fight between Zeraxes and Melody, Felix assumed Zeraxes had more raw combat ability but he also wasn''t entirely sure Melody would lose. He still wasn''t sure she couldn''t cook his brain or distort his perception enough for him to kill himself. He was pretty sure his own Soul strength made that impossible against him but, Zeraxes didn''t have nearly the same Soul Strength. Especially once Felix noticed the Aura he was giving off.


    At first, he hadn''t noticed it at all. It was decently impressive with three solid convictions in place. It was relatively strong.


    Felix also only barely felt it.


    Zeraxes pressed on, with his facade of friendship, "You know Uphi here made it all the way to the 1200th realm."


    Okay?


    Melody nodded with slightly wide eyes, "Impressive. I hear Romar reached the 1600th."


    Zeraxes nodded, "He did, 1634 to be exact. I made it to 1640 before I left, so more or less the same."


    "Ah." Melody sighed a little forlornly, "I really figured one of you would reach the Dragon."


    Dragon?


    Zeraxes twitched a little at that, "I¡­ was hoping to. It seems I was little too eager in entering though. I definitely could have shored up-"


    "Yourself?" Melody nodded quickly, "You probably should have."


    "Well, there was a lot going on. What with The Tournament coming up and all that. I couldn''t very well spend hundreds of years in seclusion."


    Felix almost let his emotions show, Don''t act like you knew about The Tournament during your recruitment. Judging from the timeline, Rhonan didn''t even start putting this together until he was healed.


    Melody shrugged, "I guess¡­ or maybe, you just aren''t quite as strong as Tam, Ameryl, Kotia, your father, I mean even Nyrrasil made it to the Dragon."


    Zeraxes twitched again, a couple times, when she mentioned his father, "Maybe. Luckily, I have a second chance to prove myself in the Abyss."


    She nodded, "Yeah damn, you must be soooo thankful for that."


    He gritted his teeth and nodded then turned to them and smiled politely, "Speaking of, I have some training to do. Please, enjoy watching us."


    Zeraxes nodded to the two of them then, the moment Felix was waiting for. He felt a surge of Mana within Zeraxes'' body and he flashed his own Reaper''s Aura. It wasn''t impressive by any means. In fact, Zeraxes Aura was tighter, more controlled and more purposeful with his convictions.


    By comparison, Felix''s Aura was still a bit of a mess. He didn''t have full control of it and he was still figuring out the whole alignment thing. However, it was dense and more than enough to make Zeraxes flinch and nearly trip as he faltered in trying to zip out on a bolt of Lightning. Felix immediately deactivated it and didn''t react at all, as if it wasn''t him.


    Zeraxes quickly righted himself and vanished a moment later.


    Melody giggled just after he left, "Your Aura''s definitely coming along."


    Felix sighed, "It needs a lot of work."


    She shrugged, "It''s still pretty effective as is."


    "Sure. Imagine how much more useful it would be if I mastered it."


    "Or added in another two convictions."


    He nodded, "About the Realms. There''s a dragon?"


    She nodded, "Yeah. The Realms are¡­ kind of like The Abyss but less¡­ straight combat. Basically, each floor will have a number of ways to beat them, combat or social. Each one has an intended solution though and if you have the skill for it, then you''ll have a much easier time getting through. The realms also get harder and harder as you move through them."


    "How do people know there''s a Dragon?"


    "When someone leaves the Realms, there''s like an¡­ explosion of¡­ light or¡­ an Aura of magic? That appears behind them. We just measure how big it is and we can get a pretty good idea of what floor they got to. Within a couple floors. The color though, indicates the type of floor, or the intended solution, and those follow a pattern."


    "So you know the approximate floor by the size and the color lets you nail it down exactly?"


    "Yeah."


    "Who''s killed The Dragon before?"


    She shook her head, "No one."


    "Then¡­?"


    "At first, you''ll have no idea what''s on the next floor. As you get further though, you''ll get more hints from the residents of the floors. You''ll also start to get a¡­ vibe, from the door until you''re pretty much just told outright what''s on the next floor."


    "No one we know of has gotten through the Dragon then? Everyone who''s lived, that we know of, stopped before it?"


    She nodded, "Exactly. We know it''s on floor 2000 though."


    "That''s¡­ quite a bit further than Zeraxes and Romar then."


    "Yeah. I was just teasing Zeraxes though because he''s an ass. It''s nearly impossible to reach the Dragon and getting as far as they got is super impressive especially considering they probably both just focused on combat alone."


    "You mean they ignored the optimal or intended solution?"


    "Yeah. Political mysteries, botany, resource gathering quests, logistics, economics¡­ you really think either of them have some hidden talent in an academic field?"


    Felix nodded along, "Gotcha. Seems odd, doesn''t it?"


    She tilted her head, "What do you mean?"


    "The Realms seem like¡­ from what you''ve told me and what I''ve read¡­ like they''re trying to teach us something."


    "Like they''re trying to make people well rounded individuals?"


    "Yeah. Something like that. If Romar and Zeraxes had spent time to study all of those other fields, how far do you think they could have gone?"


    She scoffed, "Pretty close to 2000 if not there."


    "I take it Ameryl and Tam were well rounded enough then, even if they were¡­ as strong as Romar and Zeraxes combat wise when they entered?"


    If you come across this story on Amazon, it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it.


    Melody tilted her head back and forth, "Ameryl was stronger, Tam a fair bit weaker. Zerathus, Zeraxes dad, was a lot stronger so he probably just blasted right through the floors."


    "Right. Just seems a little¡­ odd. Why would it do that? What''s the point? It isn''t System based so is it from another Universe and it just found its way here?"


    She shrugged, "No one really knows."


    "I know. I''m just thinking aloud."


    "Why? Don''t you have tons of people to talk to in your head?"


    Felix just cocked a brow as he stepped back, done watching Romar and Uphi endlessly smack each-other. He already had a pretty good idea of where they stood in relation to each-other and knew he had a lot of work to do, even if his stats were already considered monstrous.


    "Did you want to go shopping now?"


    Melody spun to look at him, "Uh¡­ Sure, I don''t see why not. We just need to go and grab the other two."


    Felix gestured for Melody to lead the way because he had no idea where to go and she curtsied to him in response.


    She first led them to the same building they had previously gone to to get an amulet from Adaline. While it was a professors office, it looked more like a wooden shack in the middle of the woods. Like a cottage, and not the kind with plumbing or functioning bathrooms.


    Melody walked up the front steps to the door and knocked. Nothing happened though.


    She waited a moment then knocked again. No one responded.


    "Are you sure there''s anyone inside?"


    She groaned and tilted her head back a little, "I can feel them in there."


    He nodded then stepped forwards towards the door. He wasn''t sure if there was anything he could do without Adaline''s amulet. The entire hut was heavily spatially enchanted. Not only had he seen the effects of that the last time he was there but he could feel it now. The mana coursing through enchantments that were amongst the finest work he had ever witnessed.


    He still after dissecting Adaline''s research for dekads, along with his Mind Residents doing the same constantly, didn''t have the requisite knowledge to break in.


    However, he had the requisite Mana Senses and Mana Control to feel out the enchantment on the door itself. He also finally had the theoretical knowledge and experience from his time with Rathelius and it was enough for him to be able to sift through at least some of the enchantment.


    Felix could only safely disregard three quarters of the enchantment, all of it performing a similar function to the spell he used to calculate coordinates. It was all dedicated to slightly adjusting and modifying itself to its surroundings, the state of the Aether, Anima, and thousands of other minuscule factors that had to be considered.


    At that point, with just a quarter of the enchantment left to consider, he began carefully eliminating things not based on their nodes, but based on their location and proximity. He considered common patterns he knew, followed the channels and was able to sift through most of what remained until he was left with just a few small areas.


    With nothing left he could confidently eliminate, he began manually pushing Mana into all of the sections. At first, he pushed into them one by one, following the flow of Mana. He started with a tiny amount then slowly increased it as he blocked off the necessary sections of the enchantment.


    What he was doing was technically dangerous, messing with a spatial enchantment. However, he was using so little Mana and was isolating so much of the enchantment that he wasn''t too worried.


    However, he wasn''t confident he was going to get anywhere, he just wanted to try.


    Within a half minute since stepping up to the door though, he surprised even himself when it unlocked and creaked ever slightly open.


    Gripping the handle, he swung it the rest of the way and made a bit of a show for Melody who merely curtsied once again then turned to enter and stopped herself.


    Looking in himself, Felix realized why.


    Even with his Mana Control being what it was, he wasn''t sure he felt entirely safe walking into the office.


    Inside, where before there had been many desks and every flat surface covered in research, now there was one of the most complicated and unstable looking rituals Felix had ever seen. There was somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 to 100 billion Mana being channeled through it and Felix estimated half of that was leaking back out into the air.


    It wasn''t being put to waste though because they had surrounded the unstable center ritual with Mana Collection rituals to reabsorb and pump the Mana back into the main ritual. In a way, it was idiotic. In another, it was genius.


    All they really had to do was make the center ritual more stable. Felix assumed, both the Professor and Adaline being very Intelligent people, that that wasn''t possible. So instead, they were working around that.


    Even with the Mana recycling design though, they were losing billions of Mana a second as all the rituals in the room had some amount of loss. On top of that, Felix could immediately feel the Mana Collection rituals were all nearly overloaded as the entire system tried to approach some kind of equilibrium before it catastrophically exploded.


    As with the door Felix really wouldn''t call himself an expert with any of this. This was magic that still remained beyond him. It was completely possible all this was accounted for. Still, he was certain he didn''t want to walk into that room.


    With the door now open, Adaline and the Professor inside instantly noticed them. The Professor looked back to the ritual almost immediately, uncaring towards anything other than his research. Adaline on the other hand spent enough time thinking about what she was seeing to look at them questioningly then, realize who they were.


    With the deafening whirring noise of the ritual system pumping Mana around in circles, Adaline had to yell but still, Felix heard her, "Felix! Pump as much Mana as you can into this ritual, get out your Pocket Home too."


    The Professor yelled back, "It won''t be enough. We need at least 25 billion more."


    A part of him didn''t want to listen to her. A much larger part of him was fascinated by whatever they were doing and so, he opened his Pocket Home against the outer wall of the hut and siphoned Mana from the Engine atop his tower, directly into the ritual on the floor.


    With his newly expanded Mana Control range too, he didn''t have to run back and forth and simply had to stand between the two. Given the angles though and his precaution of opening his Pocket Home on the outside of the hut, he couldn''t actually see what was happening.


    He could feel it though and he figured that was enough, given how likely he thought it was that the entire thing exploded.


    The Professor yelled out, "Adaline, it isn''t stable enough. We need to shut it down."


    "NO! Keep going. It will work. It has to."


    Felix almost laughed at her determination but his general excitement was dampened when Melody walked into his Pocket Home and walked over to him, "Felix. Can you make it stable?"


    He looked at her for a moment, "I don''t know."


    She nodded, her expression more serious than Felix ever expected from her, "Can you dismantle it without exploding?"


    "Probably."


    "Do it."


    He looked at her with confusion, "Why? You don''t trust Adaline?"


    "No, I don''t. That''s besides the point though, I''m all for dangerous risks. Right now though, she doesn''t think it''s going to work. She''s certain it''s going to explode."


    Felix slowed the flow of Mana he was directing into the ritual, "Why''d she say to keep going then?"


    Melody leaned in a little closer, not actually worried they would be overheard over the sound in the room already, "She feels like she''s running out of time and that this is her last chance."


    "I don''t even know what this does but, running out of time for what?"


    "I can''t tell you that. It''s not for me to share."


    He nodded, "Fine. I''ll see if I can stabilize it. Worst case, stay in here, I''ll close the portal if it seems like I need to."


    She nodded to him then stepped back towards the tower.


    Felix, refocused his attention entirely on the ritual now and instead of just funneling Mana into it and trusting that Adaline knew what she was doing, he instead started to pay attention to the ritual. His first step was figuring out if what he perceived as problems, were actually problems. He didn''t want to ruin things because he was too inexperienced with what they were doing.


    He didn''t exactly have a ton of time though so as he scanned it and modeled it in his head, recruiting anyone he could from his Mind City, he also tried to identify the biggest problems.


    Though they didn''t spend a lot of time examining things, both his Mind Residents and he agreed, everything he identified was very likely a real problem and not something they simply didn''t understand. As for which was the worst, he had no idea. They all seemed equal. Choosing one at random though was not an option because plugging a leak in one section would increase the pressure everywhere else.


    He was getting very close to just manually dismantling the entire thing but he decided he would try just once to actually stabilize it.


    The best attempt he could make was to carefully control the entire thing at once. He didn''t outright plug any leaks or completely fix any areas but he made small improvements to as wide and general an area as he could.


    It helped, at least it seemed to at first. The Mana staying in the spell was going up and it was rapidly approaching the equilibrium point. Felix did what he could to both stabilize the ritual and fuel it with more Mana because it still didn''t have enough but as he did so, he realized it was impossible. Even he couldn''t manually stabilize the ritual even if he dedicated the entirety of his focus to it.


    Once he realized that, he began carefully dismantling it by pushing the Mana safely out of the ritual. The massive outpouring completely overwhelmed the collection rituals around the outside and they all fell apart one after another with a loud pop. Once they had, all the Mana in the room quickly began to dissipate as the center ritual began to wind down.


    Felix funneled a bunch of the Mana back into his Pocket Home where the excess would feed the ocean and his World Tree Sapling, which was less sapling and more small tree at this point.


    That only took a few moment after which he stepped back out of his Pocket Home and closed it, just in time to catch the majority of Adaline''s meltdown.


    "DAMNIT! IT SHOULD HAVE WORKED!" She smacked the wall of the hut to no avail as she screamed.


    Luckily, it seemed neither her nor the Professor realized it was Felix that had manually dismantled the ritual. He didn''t mind if they did, but it was easier if they didn''t which was why he dismantled things in the way he had.


    Felix looked at Melody, wanting to question both of them but well aware she was much better equipped to handle Adaline''s emotional state. She nodded to Felix in understanding then walked over to comfort Adaline, both physically and Spiritually.


    "I¡­ Melody¡­ I''m out out o-"


    "You''re not. You have time."


    "Constructing this the ritual alone took dekads. Now we have to go over the design again, try and stabilize it. That could take epochs. Then we have to collect the Mana all over again. Why the fuck is the fourth time going to be any different?"


    Melody nodded and spoke softly, "You can always ask for help."


    "Who could I poss- Sorry." Adaline took a deep breath, "You''re right. I have time. I''ll make time."


    Melody smiled, "Good. In the meantime, our team for The Abyss needs new gear."


    Adaline took a moment to completely switch tracks in her mind then she looked at Melody in completely confusion, "Our what for The what?"


    Oh lovely. She didn''t even know about the Abyss let alone that we''re on a team?


    Adaline and Melody stepped out of the office as the Professor rambled on like a crazy person, sifting through the research all over the place. It seemed they didn''t have the same deadline as Adaline.


    As they approached, Adaline made eye contact with Felix and just nodded, the gesture communicating more than enough for him, then she looked away and continued walking alongside Melody. Felix followed along as they flew back to campus and Melody explained The Abyss to Adaline. On campus, Melody managed to locate Peace in a matter of minutes, using her unique talents.


    He readily agreed to go shopping with them and so the four of them headed over to the portal and into Telviras. As they walked out of the Teleportation Hub, stopping on one of the balconies in the air, Melody turned to them, "First things first," She looked right at Felix, "we need to visit Raidran''s."


    Felix nodded, "We do."


    She looked at the other two then back at Felix, "Wanna drive us?"


    He nodded and walked over the ledge, summoning Erevos and hopping into the front seat. Erevos was a two seat vehicle and Melody hopped into the seat next to him. Neither Peace nor Adaline seemed to mind sitting on the back and simply holding on though.


    Looking back to make sure everyone had secured themselves, Felix cautiously accelerated and made sure no one was going to fall off but found his caution was misplaced.


    Both of them were easily able to hold on no matter how fast he dared to go. He wasn''t trying to kick them off and avoided hard stops, quick acceleration and tight turns but he was also flying as fast as he normally would.


    Flying that fast, they reached the garage to Raidran''s which, was completely empty. Felix took note of that but didn''t worry about it too much since it was just as empty the first time he had entered through the garage. When he tried to get into the building itself though, he began to wonder if something was wrong.


    The door was closed and despite the fact that Felix was supposed to have access to the building, he simply couldn''t get in.


    He needed their permission to buy new equipment though and mostly from his other senses, was beginning to suspect something was wrong. At least, that was how he justified the Aether Tunnel into the building. Luckily, the garage and the building itself were under the same spatial enchantment, and he knew that because of the enchantments around the door.


    Stepping through, the rest of his party in tow, Felix arrived in the same open store he was familiar with. The furniture was still there, if a little dusty and that was it. That''s all he expected in the main room though.


    Walking through and checking the hidden rooms with his Matter Senses, his frown deepened with each step.


    They were completely empty.


    The only other person who recognized something was wrong, was Melody, "No one''s been here in¡­ half an epoch?"


    Felix spun to look at her, "You can tell that?"


    She nodded, "Not¡­ super accurately but¡­ it''s been at least half an epoch."


    He gestured to the blank wall next to him, where Melody knew there were rooms, "It''s been completely cleared out."


    "Huh."


    "So¡­ is my contract void now?"


    She shrugged, "You can check which contracts you''re still under."


    He saw Adaline frown a little then flinch, for whatever reason while Peace was having fun pushing a few inches of his hand through a wall by becoming more transparent. Felix ignored his shock for the moment.


    "It''s still here."


    Melody''s face dropped a little as she fell into thought, "You could always offer to end it¡­"


    "Yeah. First, let''s go talk to Aldahn and see if he knows where Krinitor is. We''re getting ahead of ourselves, maybe they just moved locations."


    She nodded and they both looked to the other two. Peace was distracted and didn''t seem to care and Adaline just met both of their gazes.


    Taking Erevos to Inscripticae was overkill in many ways. It took them barely a minute to get there, now that Felix was less cautious with his flying.


    Heading into the lobby, they were greeted by a young looking blonde woman with a smile so wide, her eyes were closed, "Hi!" She waved vigorously, "Welcome to Inscripticae." She stretched her arms out and gestured all around her, like she was watching it snow for the first time in her life.


    Felix nodded to her, "Aldahn in?"


    Her smile dropped just a little, "I think so¡­ I''ll go to his office and check if you could just wai-"


    Felix waved her off, "Don''t worry about it. I''ll check myself."


    "Wai-"


    He was already all the way down the hall before she finished a single word and knocking on the door.


    "Just one second."


    A moment later, the door opened to reveal an initially very confused Aldahn. As soon as he saw Felix though, his face lit up in realization and joy, "Ah, I was wondering who would be knocking on my office from this side."


    "Good to see you."


    "You too." He looked over Felix''s shoulder, "And you, Melody."


    Melody smiled and he looked down the hall, "You brought others?"


    "Yeah. We''re going shopping before we head into The Abyss but we couldn''t find Rainoth or Kordran. Have you seen Krinitor?"


    Aldahn frowned a little, "He disappeared¡­ two terms ago now?"


    Felix looked back at Melody, impressed she had been so accurate with her assessment then looked back at Aldahn to nod, "I take it by ''disappeared'', you have no idea where they went?"


    He shook his head, "Not a clue. His personal clients have been harassing me about it ever since."


    "I see." Felix immediately sent the offer to terminate his contract with them then turned back to Aldahn when he realized he wasn''t going to get an instant response, "How''s the shop going?"


    He nodded, "It''s been good, all things considered."


    Felix nodded in understanding and Aldahn walked out of his office, closed the door behind himself then led them into the shop itself.


    Melody followed closely behind with Adaline and Peace a bit further back.


    The shop itself, looked exactly as Felix remembered it. A large open space, multiple desks, the design room with specifications and notes written all over them. The only difference were the people behind the desks.


    The overly jovial blonde woman who had greeted them stood off to the side and watched them, her face friendly and welcoming with a wide smile but Felix could tell from her poor Soul Control she was dying to know who they were. He let her wonder though as he followed Aldahn up into the design room which was empty save for a couple of items left in there to be assessed and commented on before being handed off to the client.


    Felix took a seat across from Aldahn and Melody sat on the table next to him. Peace took a seat at the end and began playing with the solidity of his hand again using the table while Adaline, walked into the room and wandered over to the boards on the wall which she examined.


    "You say, The Abyss?"


    Felix nodded, "Should be opening next dekad."


    He nodded, "I take it you already went through the Realms?"


    "No. Not yet. Melody and I will go soon." He looked over at Peace.


    "I''ll go but I might not be able to get in given my whole level bouncing around thing."


    He looked over at Adaline next but she didn''t look away from the board either purposefully ignoring him or simply not aware of his attention.


    Aldahn waited a moment until he was sure Adaline wouldn''t answer, "Are you all students at Eramith?"


    Felix nodded.


    "Do you have any idea how you compare against the other students?"


    Melody smirked and tilted her head back over her shoulder to look at Aldahn, "We''ll win."


    Felix cocked a brow at her confidence and Peace chuckled, though Felix wasn''t sure if it was in response to Melody or not.


    Aldahn smiled just a little and nodded, "Which is why you need to find Rainoth or Kordran."


    Felix nodded.


    "I wish I could help you but I suspect¡­" Aldahn looked over to the left at Adaline who had finally turned away from the board and items in disgust, "You''ve long since surpassed my enchanting capabilities."


    "I was just hoping you knew where Krinitor was." Felix looked between him and Melody, "Can we check if they still rent their store front?"


    Aldahn shook his head, "That informa-"


    Melody nodded, "I know a guy."


    Felix stood and nodded to her then turned to Aldahn, "Before I go, mind if I review the items going out?" He gestured towards the board with his head.


    Aldahn nodded vigorously, "You are the most senior employee here now, unless you count me. Even then¡­"


    "You still consider me an employee? I haven''t done any work for you in epochs."


    Aldahn snorted, "Of course I do. It would be-"


    Felix nodded and interrupted him because he didn''t need to hear it then stepped over and took the items in hand to examine them. In truth, he had already passively scanned and examined them when they stepped into the room. What he didn''t have, were Adaline''s thoughts.


    It seemed she either needed a distraction or was so disgusted by the enchantments themselves that it wasn''t difficult for Felix to convince her to write out her thoughts.


    As she did, he sifted through and mentally combined all the changes from his list and hers then used his Mana Control and Matter Control to manually modify the item itself. Felix had been expecting Adaline''s list to be completely overkill, detailed to the extreme and necessitate a complete rework of the item but that wasn''t the case. Instead, she seemed to be perfectly capable of balancing feasibility and necessity.


    These items didn''t need to have complex enchantments and using them would increase the grade and rarity of the items too much.


    Felix handed them both to Aldahn when he finished, "I don''t have time to walk anyone through, mostly the changes she suggested, so I just modified the items myself."


    Aldahn took them like he was accepting a fragile treasure and gawked at the Sword and the box which essentially amounted to a megaphone with some somewhat complex effects, "You changed them?"


    "Yup."


    "You never did seem to need all the tools but¡­"


    "I''m going to send some enchanters your way to do some work. Consider them an extension of me and feel free to consider them a single entity when it comes to splitting credits. Or don''t pay them at all, they happen to have found themselves a¡­ beneficiary." Felix subtle glared at Melody with his eyes alone.


    She smiled and shrugged sheepishly.


    Aldahn nodded, still examining the Sword in his hands, "How will I know¡­"


    "Ask them something only I would know."


    He frowned in confusion and finally looked up at Felix, "Anything?"


    Felix nodded, "Yup."


    He left Aldahn in his confused state as he walked out of the Design Room, the rest of his party in tow. As they walked through the workshop-the blonde receptionist staring them down the entire way and hurrying off to talk to Aldahn after they passed-Felix spoke to those behind him without turning his head, "Sorry about the detours. Just one more."


    Peace waved him off and Adaline grunted, it seemed neither of them minded much.


    It turned out, Melody''s contact that could get them information was an attendant in the administration building she had previously ''helped'' in the same way she had Ayred. They waited in the lobby as they disappeared to check for them.


    While they waited though, their need for the attendant vanished.


    Contract Cancellation Accepted


    "Huh¡­"


    I feel like I used them. They made me an impressive and expensive set of equipment free of charge as an investment into my future. In the hopes I would bring them great materials. All I gave them were young Dragon Scales though.


    Adaline and Peace looked at him with confusion but Melody, being who she was, picked up on what was happening immediately, "They cancelled it?"


    Felix nodded.


    "Huh¡­" Melody squinted in thought for a moment, "I guess let''s wait and see if they still rent it anyways, now that we''re here."


    Felix nodded again and the other two went back to waiting.


    It didn''t take much longer for the attendant to return and confirm to them, that Rainoth and Kordran still paid for that unit in the building, nothing had changed.


    As they flew off to a store of Melody''s choosing, she turned to Felix, "I guess¡­ they ran away then¡­"


    "They couldn''t have been kidnapped or something?" Felix questioned.


    Melody shook her head, "Not likely. Payment in Telviras is System managed. It comes right out of their credit inventory. It''s¡­ possible if their kidnappers had someone high up in administration hiding things for them but they''d¡­ I''m not even sure if that''s possible. They have everything verified by multiple accountants that are selected at random." S~ea??h the N?vel(F)ire.n§×t website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    Felix nodded, "So even a God would have trouble."


    "Yeah. I really doubt they were taken."


    "So they ran away and don''t want anyone to realize for as long as possible?"


    She nodded, "Any idea why?"


    Rainoth knew about Arthur¡­ maybe she''s scared of the rumors?


    "No idea." Felix lied.


    It only took them a few minutes to reach the first store, a massive store that was actually spread throughout an entire building in Telviras. They used the various units to split up the store into departments.


    With Erevos'' unique enchantments, Felix didn''t have to find parking and they simply walked in through the front entrance into what reminded Felix fairly heavily of a massive department store. There were sections on the first floor for all the generic forms of equipment. Generic Plate, Robes, Leather, Scale, Chain, Profession Clothing and more mundane clothes.


    Then, there were various portals that were all labeled with the departments reachable from them.


    On display was mostly D grade equipment with some low rarity C grade equipment mostly for show on the mannequins.


    Melody turned to them once they were all inside, "Okay, so. You''re definitely not going to find perfect equipment here. We came here first though, so you could see what''s out there. Try to narrow down the style and maybe get some ideas for what you''re looking for. Don''t just focus on armor, consider jewelry too. Even if you can''t find what you want, we can basically advertise what we''re looking for and sponsors will try to fulfill that, often making completely custom items to show off their abilities."


    They all nodded with various degrees of seriousness and smiles on their faces.


    "Normally, I''d say we should split up but I, one, don''t trust you all to search seriously and, two, think it''s better if we all see everything so we get more ideas. I think we should start with Adaline, because she mostly wears Medium Armor. The rest of us wear Robes and Cloth."


    They nodded again in agreement or acceptance then followed Melody through a serious of portals into the more boutique, custom and higher level equipment sections.


    Those sections contained Epic C grade equipment and everything from Common to Rare B grade, but nothing higher than that. That meant the materials and the effects were nothing extraordinary and Felix was certain his own robes, would have been worth an entire department, or more.


    Melody squinted in thought as she examined Adaline, "So, Adaline. You don''t seem to heavily enchant your armor much¡­"


    She nodded once, "I try to only enchant my cloak and my jewelry. It minimizes interference and makes it so I''m not reliant on enchantments. I also have a lot of experience with failing enchantments and I''m not nearly crazy enough to have anything complicated pressed up against my body."


    Adaline side eyed Felix and Melody smirked, "So if the enchantments do fail catastrophically, your armor will protect you at least somewhat?"


    Adaline nodded and looked down at her chest, fingering the various scars across the leather on her chest and metal plates on her shoulders. Stretching the scars with her fingers, Felix noticed the glint of metal beneath the leather on her chest and he noted that she was wearing something closer to medium and approaching heavy armor, not leather with some metal plates like he had initially suspected.


    Melody nodded and began to lead them towards a specific boutique, "That makes things pretty simple. I think we can definitely also get you something that repairs itself too."


    Peace snickered a little and for the first time since meeting her, Felix saw Adaline show something other than Frustration and Annoyance on her face, she was ever slightly bashful with barely pink cheeks.


    Reaching over to a nearby mannequin as they walked through, Melody cocked her head a little, "Where''s your preference on armor hindering your movement?"


    She shrugged a little, "If it protects me more, I''m okay with it being heavier, making it harder to move and bend my limbs."


    Melody nodded, "What about this one?" The one she was pointing at looked to be entirely metal and some kind of scale mail.


    Adaline''s cheeks grew every slightly redder as she quietly said, "Metal on skin''s too¡­ uncomfortable¡­"


    Melody nodded without judgement then twirled towards a few others and narrowed down her requirements until she finally stopped and thought out it for a moment, "How do you feel about Bone?"


    She shrugged in response, "Never really considered it but¡­ doesn''t seem as strong as metal to me¡­"


    Melody smiled, "Alright, I think I''ve got yours figured out. Let''s see about Robes then we''ll go over jewelry and accessories."


    They followed Melody along through the store, like a mother with her children shopping in preparation for the school year.


    The Robe and Clothes department was by far the most diverse and was spread out over multiple floors. Not only were there traditional robes, like the ones Felix wore and more Martial Artist style robes, like Peace wore, but there were also dresses and various normal clothing outfits. They were made with higher grade materials, enchanted with defensive and mobility enchantments but they were still, clothes.


    They focused on Felix first, because his requirements were the easiest. Peace was a Spirit now, though Felix still hadn''t told him yet, and he needed robes that wouldn''t hinder him. Ideally they helped him in some way too, but they weren''t entirely sure if that was possible. Felix had Mark ask and coordinate with Rewdan just in case though. He didn''t tell anyone else immediately, and wouldn''t unless they managed to come up with something.


    Melody already knew what she wanted and needed and didn''t need ideas.


    So, that left Felix, despite his not having any idea what he wanted.


    "What about this one?"


    "Too much fabric."


    "Okay¡­. what about this?"


    "That would restrict my movement too much."


    Melody sighed, "These are nice, basically just simple clothes."


    "That looks too much like a suit from Earth. I''m not wearing that in a fight."


    "Fine, what about this?"


    Felix responded despite knowing she wasn''t serious, "Too little fabric. Way too little fabric."


    "Really?" She teased a little more before half sighing-half screaming and dragging him through most of the sections.


    His opposition quickly morphed from real complaints to, "That doesn''t feel right."


    Which was perfectly valid, just not helpful to Melody. Eventually though, she just gave up and began looking for clothes for herself, using the others as sounding boards for every outfit she tried on.


    "What do you think of this one?"


    Felix frowned, "That seems¡­ excessive."


    "Looks like a ball gown." Peace chuckled.


    "Okay, fine fine. What about this?"


    Peace guffawed, "Way too skimpy."


    Felix just shrugged, "If you think that outfit represents who you are, you should get it."


    She stuck her tongue out at him and Adaline actually giggled, exactly once.


    After trying on a number of others and teasing the entire group, Felix a little more than the others, they finally checked out some of the jewelry.


    For Felix, it was mostly useless. He could cast any of the spells they contained himself and preferred to most of the time. He did see value in automatic shields on earrings and belts but every one he saw, he could have easily created and enchanted himself to be vastly stronger.


    Adaline was in a similar boat but, they both looked around just in case there was something they hadn''t thought of.


    Peace couldn''t really use most jewelry but Melody claimed she had a solution at the next store they were heading to.


    Melody herself, seemed to just be trying on pieces that she thought were cute.


    Once they wrapped up there, Melody trying on a number of items again, they headed over to a store Felix could only describe as a taxidermist''s heaven crossed with an equipment store.


    There were armor and cloaks made from hide and bone along with jewelry and weapons. Felix didn''t understand how that was going to help with Peace''s spiritual nature but first, they were shopping for Adaline.


    Melody knew exactly where she was going and picked out what looked like tailored plate mail made from treated leather, and bone. It was also seemingly the only item in the entire store that didn''t look to Felix like a cannibal cult had made it. The leather formed multiple plates, like plate armor. Then the bone, added protection in specific places on top of and between the other plates.


    Once Adaline had it on, Melody smirked, "What do you think?"


    Adaline was at a loss of words, "This is¡­ awesome."


    [B - Epic] Beast Plate


    [Regenerative]


    Equipment created from the corpse of a high B grade, slain beast. It retains some of their massive Endurance, making it tougher and massive Vitality, allowing it to regenerate.


    Melody''s smile grew, "Thought so. So, we could get this, or we could wait and ask for something even better from sponsors."


    Adaline shook her head, "If you think this is strong enough, let''s get it. I''m going to complete that ritual then The Realms. I don''t have time to wait on sponsors."


    "Okay. I''m going to request some basic modifications then we''ll pick up a cloak for you in the cloth stores."


    She nodded and Melody disappeared to find the owner of the store while Adaline removed the armor for the time being.


    As she returned, she held a few pieces of jewelry in her hands and handed them to Peace, "Try these."


    Peace looked at her curiously then approached and equipped the bones that looked like they were slices of a rib turned into a ring and amulets that were large fangs and tiny skulls.


    "What are these?"


    Melody smirked, "The big advantage to using beast materials, is they can come bound with some amount of Anima. Pieces of the Soul from the original Beast or even something entirely new. They bind very well. These, have the entire spirit of the animals they had once been, but the Soul is now dead. Some people wear them as trophies that enhance their auras. For you¡­"


    Peace looked at her questioningly but she didn''t finish. Once he realized she wasn''t going to, he began testing things which visually looked like he was just staring at the rings. With his Anima senses though, Felix watched Peace poke, prod and pull on the Souls within.


    It took him a few minutes but once he more or less knew the limits of the rings and how far he could push them, instead of pulling the Soul out of the rings, he pushing part of his own Soul into the ring. As soon as he did, the hand wielding the ring transformed into a much larger claw with fur and everything.


    Peace''s eyes widened dramatically, "Oh yeah."


    [B - Epic] Kargora''s Fang


    [Spirit]


    An amulet made from the fang of Kargora, containing their spirit. Some say, the fang still salivates in battle.


    Gross.


    After screwing around for a little bit with the items, Peace handed them back to Melody, "Thank you. I''m going to see if The Cult can give me anything similar."


    She smiled and nodded then returned the items where she had found them.


    Felix debated taking a look at them himself, but even from a distance, he was almost certain the best he could get out of them, was to harvest the Souls within.


    After that, they headed to more clothing oriented stores where Melody tried on a number of other items and Felix came to the conclusion that he wasn''t going to find anything. Peace was in a similar boat but Rewdan had already thought of something special for him.


    All Felix had to do, was stop by a specific store on the way back and pick up an extraordinarily expensive material. Luckily, Melody didn''t ask too many questions and her father seemed to like handing her money.


    Even though he didn''t end up getting anything, Felix was rather satisfied with the whole trip. He had gotten a number of ideas for items he wanted to create for himself.


    Melody ended up with the most out of everyone but, she didn''t buy anything she would wear into The Abyss, at least not on any of the later floors.


    Back on campus, she stopped them before they all split off, "Try to come up with something you want that I can tell the sponsors. The more specific, the better. They will get us things, you''re better off asking for something you want or need so you don''t end up with random garbage. Even more importantly though, a good wish list attracts specific sponsors. For example, if we ask for specific robes for you two-" She pointed at Felix and Peace, "We''ll end up with a Clothier who focuses on Soulful Robes."


    They nodded in understanding.


    "Alright then. See you all in a few days, if not sooner but I suspect¡­ you two are going to isolate yourselves to enchant things and you''re going back to see The Cult. So, do not miss opening ceremony or I will kill you." She looked at them very seriously and they all nodded once again.


    Her serious expression immediately shifted to jovial as she smiled wide and waved to them then skipped off.


    Adaline opened a portal with her gun and headed back to her mentor''s lab and even though Felix was immensely curious about the ritual they were performing, he had something else to deal with so he turned to Peace, "Come with me before you go."


    Peace shrugged and followed Felix through an Aether Tunnel to Ked''s lab.


    Walking inside, Peace was mostly confused as he looked around, unsure what was happening and Felix, shared his sentiment. He had picked up the necessary material but he wasn''t sure entirely why he had done so. Rewdan hadn''t explained himself in the slightest.


    The small rock he held was mostly stone with a bit of glinting metal shining through. The metal Felix saw was little more than a sparkle though, meaning there likely wasn''t much within the stone itself.


    [S - Ancient] Essence Vein Ore


    [Unprocessed]


    Ore extracted from an Essence Vein. A rare material that is nearly impossible to work with due to its incredibly hard nature and with little use, due to its incredible weight. It was once one of the most valued crafting materials, but the methods to utilize it properly have long since been lost. It however, remains valuable due to some unique properties and its extreme rarity.


    Felix grumbled a little and used Arcane Identify more intentionally, which had consumed his Identify Arcane Material skill.


    [S - Ancient] Essence Vein Ore


    [Unprocessed]


    Ore extracted from an Essence Vein. Considered to be a metal impossible to forge by traditional means, excels as armor if used correctly. Very few in the history of the multiverse can properly work with his material. It is often considered to be the original Soul Steel.


    Wait¡­ this is Star Metal?


    Rewdan stepped forward and snatched the stone out of Felix''s hand before he examined it thoroughly with his other senses and tossed it to Nova who leapt into the air and caught it in her mouth.


    It took hours for Nova to produce what they needed, mostly because it was exhausting and took a ton of material for her to consume and transmute. It was still cheaper than buying a pile of the stuff though. What helped quite a bit, was Rewdan insisting Nova didn''t have to shape it at all. So, they ended up with a large pile of marble sized metal chunks of various shapes.


    Once it was out of the stone and roughly processed, Felix noticed it had a very dark Navy color, almost Black.


    Peace had stuck around patiently with no idea what was happening but once they had enough, Rewdan stepped forwards, "I hear you''ve gone through a change recently."


    Peace nodded, "I did. Still figuring everything out though."


    Rewdan nodded then looked at Felix, Can I tell him what he is?


    Felix nodded, having fully intended on telling Peace himself at some point, he just hadn''t gotten around to it.


    Rewdan smiled, "Do you know what I am?"


    "You''re one of Felix''s brain people?"


    Rewdan smiled wider, "No. In fact, I am not. I am a Spirit Felix summoned from The Spirit Realm."


    Peace''s eyes grew wide, "Woah¡­ cool. Reaper''s told me about it but¡­ I''ve always wanted to visit."


    "You should. Especially considering you are one now."


    Peace cocked his head a little and opened his mouth as if to say something, then closed it, "Huh."


    "Let me guess, that explains a lot?"


    "No." Peace shook his head, "Not really. I don''t really know anything about Spirits so¡­"


    Rewdan coughed, "Oh. Well, allow me to teach you something."


    Peace nodded eagerly and approached Rewdan who held out a piece of processed Essence Vein, which Felix''s identification called, Asphellum.


    Rewdan handed it to Peace who happily took the small piece of metal and waited for instruction, "This metal is¡­ rather unique and quite rare nowadays."


    Peace nodded, "Considering how much Melody paid for a tiny piece of it, I know. Why though?"


    "Push some of your Spirit into it."


    Peace looked down at the piece and contorted his face in concentration for a few moments, his teeth clenched, "Now. What."


    "Keep going with the rest of the pile."


    Peace released his Spirit from the chunk and guffawed, "What?"


    "You''ll need to do it a number of times but¡­ it shouldn''t take you more than a few days¡­ 30 or so¡­"


    "I have to do this for 30 days? Why."


    Rewdan gestured to the pile, "This is your new robe."


    Peace looked down at the pile with a frown then over at Felix to see if this was a joke.


    Felix shrugged, "He''s not wrong. You know of Soul Steel? Star Metal?"


    Peace nodded, "Of course. We use it all over the place in The Cult."


    "That''s what this is. This is the rarer, higher grade version of it."


    Peace looked down at the rock with much more appreciation and less hate, "But¡­ first, why have I never heard of it?"


    Rewdan grumbled a little, "It seems to be nearly impossible to find in any large quantities. Last time I had a body, it was rare but not this rare."


    "Okay¡­" Peace didn''t seem entirely convinced but moved on anyways, "Second question, Soul Steel isn''t that flexible. We use it for utensils and other hard objects but it''s always hard."


    Rewdan smirked, "I don''t know what Soul Steel is, but have you used any of it since your transformation?"


    Peace cocked a brow, "No. I guess I haven''t."


    "Either way, this becomes much more¡­ malleable? Obedient."


    "Okay. Fine. I''ll trust you for now¡­ funny Spirit man."


    Rewdan looked at Peace with a weird look as he vacuumed the pile into a spatial storage then had Felix Aether Tunnel him back to campus so he could visit The Cult.


    Once he was gone, Rewdan turned to Felix, "I''m not sure why Asphellum is so rare nowadays¡­ but your familiar is-"


    Felix nodded and held up a hand, "I know. I got some very good advice early on. As for the Asphellum, is there any reason I shouldn''t use it for my own robes?"


    "You should." Rewdan nodded, "For you though, you probably don''t want a Robe of just Asphellum. It''s a solid material, you could handle the weight. The issue is it doesn''t handle energy attacks well. Spells, temperature, electricity."


    "Won''t Peace suffer from that too?"


    "Spirits have a great time against energy attacks."


    "Oh. I see."


    Rewdan grew a little more serious, "It''s a little too complicated for him to manage, but for you¡­ you want to weave the Asphellum with other materials."


    "Why?"


    "You can weave in about three, as long as they''re similar quality, without losing anything."


    Felix cocked his head, "How does that work?"


    Rewdan shrugged, "Look at your robes now. They weren''t woven perfectly but the total is still more than the sum of its parts."


    "What should I be looking for then, to weave in?"


    "Definitely something regenerative."


    Felix nodded, "That makes sense. Something else to handle energy based attacks then?"


    "That sounds reasonable. You''ll have to experiment to find the right weave."


    "Why''s that too complicated for Peace?"


    "Because when you''re morphing your robes, you have to maintain the weave the entire time. You don''t just weave the robes then forget about them. For him-" Rewdan gestured towards the door with his head, "Who fights mostly on instinct, he''s better off just having it naturally move and morph with him."


    Felix nodded, satisfied with Rewdan''s judgement, "I appreciate your help. I understand this was outside the realm of our contract."


    Rewdan waved him off, "This is easily just as fun."


    "When did you previously walk the material realm?"


    Rewdan shrugged, "I don''t know. Things are vastly different now. I remember a System but this one¡­ feels a little different. It might be the same one though. Everything else has¡­ changed though. A lot."


    "Do you remember an Integration?"


    Rewdan nodded, "I do¡­ Multiple¡­ I don''t remember any numbers though¡­ Sorry, Spirit memory isn''t quite as impressive as computer memory."


    Felix snorted, "Uh huh. So anyways, how are things coming along?"


    "Wonderfully, I just finished up the initial designs for the Mana Accelerator."

 Chapter 230 - Book 3

    Felix spent a couple days just jumping between The Construct Factory, the Mana Accelerator and working on some designs for items entirely for himself. He wasn''t needed anywhere as they hadn''t really gotten to that point yet with any of the projects but he was still a big part of them and he wanted to manually review the designs and help with the construction.


    He then took a brief break from the lab for his Mana Control Mentorship with Fin, where they began testing various training methods.


    Felix also made sure to have Grim and Mark coordinate the enchanting focused Mind Residents to go and work for Aldahn at Inscripticae. While they had more knowledge than he had had when he was working there full time two epochs ago, they had little to no actual experience. Even Felix had had some experience when he had started there, albeit limited from the Integration.


    His Mind Residents only experience, was limited to the simulations in his Mind City. Having them work for Aldahn, helped Inscripticae and the Residents out now and in the future, Felix, once he had his own personal fleet of experienced enchanters.


    After that, both Felix and Fin returned to the lab but Felix was only there for a few hours before Melody dragged him back out. The only reason he went with her, was that her reason for interrupting him was reasonable. Everyone had started arriving for The Abyss and the entrance would be appearing soon.


    As they flew, Felix right next to Melody despite her trying to outpace him, he used a spell to make it easier for them to speak, "So when''s the door actually open?"


    She spun herself around to face him with her entire body, flying along on her side, "Sometime in the next day¡­ maybe two. Nobody has an exact time. Basically, Rhonan did everything he needs to to activate it now, we just wait till it¡­ opens."


    "So there''s like¡­ a boot up time?"


    "A what?"


    "Uh¡­ Old world tech thing. It''s doing some kind of setup before it can actually open?"


    "Could be. Or it''s just really old." She shrugged, "Who knows."


    "So is everyone just¡­ waiting around then?"


    She nodded, "Well, yeah. More or less. No one wants to be caught on the other side of the planet when it actually opens."


    Felix nodded, "I take it that''s what the building around the arena is for? All the rooms inside of it?"


    She nodded again, "Yes. Exactly. Those who are¡­"


    "Important?"


    "Sure. Important enough, can get a room in the building. All the teams with at least one student at Eramith get a room." She offered an apologetic look, "I tried getting Mera and the other Residents a room too but¡­"


    He nodded, "Don''t worry about it. I mean¡­ if every Eramith student gets a room, couldn''t we just say we''re all on a team with them, get the rooms then just say we changed our minds on the teams right before we go in?"


    "You could¡­ try. They aren''t just going to let everyone enter at once though. They''re going to have the teams from the school walk out one by one to enter."


    Felix cringed, "And make a whole show of it?"


    She tapped the tip of her nose indicating he was spot on.


    "Nevermind then. Are they even going to be let in through that door?"


    She nodded, "They''ll just have to wait for all our teams to go through. By the way, have you thought about what you want from potential sponsors?"


    "Yeah. Rare raw materials, corpses, spells and magic items."


    Her face dropped into a you-can''t-be-serious-I-knew-you-were-going-to-do-this expression as she half sighed and half groaned, "Seriously?"


    He shrugged defensively, "What? You think it''s better if I ask for something that''s useful and that I can''t do myself?"


    "Of course not. Then you''d have to list out everything you can do."


    "Right so, what the hell do I ask for?"


    She groaned again, "Ugh. You must have been a real blast to buy gifts for. I assume you had holidays before the Integration?"


    He nodded, "A couple big ones. My city in the Integration actually tried to create a new holiday but¡­ I don''t remember if it¡­ happened again the next epoch¡­"


    "Let me guess, you were too cool for school and spent all your time in your tower talking to the voices in your head?" She smirked and cocked a brow.


    Felix snorted, "Yeah. Pretty much. Speaking of, are there major holidays in the multiverse?"


    She tilted her head a little, "Nothing universal but like you saw with Ascension day, major religions, cultures and sometimes races have their own."


    He nodded, "I figured. I just thought there would be at least one universal one."


    "Not really. There is Loran Hallowguard."


    "What? Who''s that? What do they have to do with anything?"


    "Loran. The party god. Well¡­" She spun around once in the air, "Not really. They''re an actual god, not of parties specifically it''s just¡­ most people know them as the party god."


    "They throw big parties?"


    "Yeah. Completely inconsistently. They''re¡­ friends? I guess? with The World Tree and host the parties in it. Those are the biggest parties in the multiverse."


    "I see. You consider that a holiday?"


    She snickered, "As big as The World Tree is, they only invite a few hundred thousand people. Everyone else who isn''t invited, throw their own parties, take the day off, basically whatever they want."


    "That''s¡­ odd."


    "Meh." She shrugged, "I think everyone just wants to have fun and be a part of it."


    "I¡­ guess. It kind of sounds like it''s just an excuse and that everyone really just needs a day off."


    "Maybe." Melody dropped below Felix and rubbed at her chin thoughtfully, "Who would mandate it though? If you have employees and run a restaurant, people want to go out, why would you let your employees take the day off?"


    "I guess¡­ we had governments that did that for us. Couldn''t the Telviras council do that?"


    "Not in the way you mean. They don''t really control wages and can''t stop someone from firing their employee."


    "How is it that employees aren''t abused everywhere?"


    She shrugged a little in resignation, "They are, sometimes. The only reason society doesn''t completely fall apart, are the gods keeping things in check and the fact that the multiverse is massive."


    Felix nodded along, "We had monopolies. I take it that doesn''t ever really happen in the multiverse?"


    She frowned, "Whatever word you just used¡­ was translated¡­. oddly. No, not really. Not for more than a few epochs at least. It''s not that hard to just reverse engineer something. There aren''t any truly unique materials or creatures¡­"


    "No copyright laws either¡­"


    "What?"


    "Nothing. I guess you do have Professions and Classes unique to some Gods though."


    "That''s true. There''s a balancing act with that too. If you have a Rare Class but you don''t ever give it to anyone, it wouldn''t be Rare anymore it would be Legendary or Unique so¡­ The System will create a Class that''s so similar, they''re essentially the same then give that out until the Rarity fits."


    Felix''s eyes widened, "Really? What happens to the original Class then?"


    "It gets renamed."


    "Holy shit. So you can''t really hoard a Class then?"


    She scoffed, "Of course you can. You can just only give it out to those who sign a System Contract with you."


    "Oh. There are enough people that would sign just to get the Class that it doesn''t really end up being an issue then?"


    "Yeah. The System''s only stepped in a few times that I know of."


    "The more I learn about The System¡­"


    She didn''t guess what he was going to say and simply waited for him to answer.


    "The weirder it gets."


    "I don''t disagree that it''s weird but¡­ How so?" She slightly cocked her head.


    "It''s like it''s constantly trying to do multiple things¡­ like it doesn''t have a purpose or a goal but it''s like¡­"


    "A whole bunch of people arguing and compromising over things?" She smiled.


    "Something like that."


    "Who knows. Maybe it is and all this is just one big simulation." Melody smirked.


    "You''ve been reading too much sci-fi."


    She punched him to no avail and in response, he sped up past her, much to her annoyance.


    Flying towards the Mountain Range that separated them from the arena and the building around it, Felix began hearing the murmuring sound of a massive grouping of people. It was almost entirely deafened by the building, the material it was made of and the enchantments put upon it, but not entirely. He still heard the slight hum, the pitch lowered by the building, even over the mountain.


    As he crested over it, the once unfinished looking building looked almost exactly the same, but felt completely different.


    Now, there were thousands of people flying, walking, driving and teleporting in next to it. Some came in groups, others in pairs and others alone. There were no massive ships like he had seen dropping off students when he first arrived but it seemed that was a logistical restriction. Instead, there were portals siphoning hundreds through them and into the building.


    As a result, the Aether was not only fluid and malleable, it was like it was statically charged. It felt energetic.


    He and Melody flew down and entered through one of the doors instantly shifting from the quiet, base level of conversation from those outside, to the cacophonous sound of millions of people talking all at once. The once empty lobby, was packed, not only on the ground level but even flying through the room, Felix was bumping into people, weaving and shoving people aside.


    Despite the construction and lack of decoration not having changed in the slightest, having people packed into the building made it feel lived in.


    It also helped that everyone in the lobby was feeling some amount of excitement, nervousness and anticipation. That feeling, common amongst nearly everyone present, saturated the Ambient Anima. At least to Felix, it felt like it was impossible for anyone to feel anything besides excitement as the Ambient Anima seeped into their Souls. At least, for everyone except for Felix.


    That excitement was instantly quelled though as one of the hundreds of doors into the lobby opened.


    The Ambient Anima, previously rife with excitement felt like it was instantly replaced. In its place, was something akin to bloodlust, but not quite. It wasn''t a desire to kill, it was a complex mix of a desire to fight, a certainty of victory and a feeling of conviction. Of having faith in their beliefs and goals.


    It was also the strongest Aura Felix had ever felt, bar none. Even, from half a kilometer away.


    While Felix definitely felt the Aura, he was largely unaffected in the sense that it didn''t hinder him, it just surprised him. Not a single other person in the room though, seemed to feel the same way. Even Melody seemed to almost trip on the air next to him as they flew and likely would have plummeted to the ground, like the rest of everyone that had been flying in the room, had he not caught her.


    It made them stand out quite a bit, being the only ones left still flying in the room, luckily no one was paying attention to them, instead, everyone was either bowing, prostrating themselves or desperately trying to move aside as Rhonan walked into the room.


    No longer in the white silk robes that Felix now associated with a hospital gown, no longer with white streaks in his hair and no longer sporting a cavernous hole in his side, Rhonan looked exactly as Felix had once expected him to.


    His Aura contributed greatly to his presence but his posture, the slight crackling and glowing of the arcane symbols across his body that seemed impossible to grasp and the echoing thumps of his steps also contributed. His gait and completely blank expression, his piercing gaze and complete disregard for everyone in the room also contributed. He even wore a nicer set of pants though remained without shoes or top to accompany it.


    Felix knew this was only the start but, he had to admit Rhonan had definitely succeeded in announcing, he was back and as strong as ever.


    At least, that''s what he wanted everyone to think. Felix wasn''t sure how anyone would doubt that fact, except him, who knew Rhonan still had some recovery to do.


    As Rhonan walked through the middle of the room, the low level sentients on the ground desperately crawling out of his way to make room, they all slowly began to adjust and come to their senses and, they began to murmur. Felix could hear all of them, but even if he hadn''t, he knew exactly what they were all whispering about. The one addition to Rhonan''s look, the only one in millions of years as far as Felix could tell. A single hand print on his chest with fingers that looked like beams of light and twisting tendrils reaching out of it from every other direction.


    That¡­ didn''t quite heal the way I hoped it would.


    Without saying a single thing, Rhonan passed through the room and disappeared down one of the halls. An entire procession had followed him too, but Felix wasn''t sure how many had even noticed them. No one seemed to have even noticed him and Melody still in the air. He had remained perfectly still just in case, but he honestly didn''t think it was necessary in hindsight.


    Though he didn''t know where he was going, Felix carried Melody down a random hallway just to get out of the room as it erupted behind them in gossip, the Ambient Anima slowly restoring itself to something close to its previous state.


    "I¡­ Thanks¡­" Melody shook her head and winced, as if in pain.


    Felix just nodded once and kept flying, hoping to distance himself from the entrance and the crowd.


    "Did that¡­ not affect you¡­ at all?"


    Felix shook his head, "Spirit Sage. Remember?"


    She nodded, "Yeah¡­ still."


    "I didn''t expect him to do something like that."


    She looked up at him, "Like what?"


    "Oppress so many people like that just to make an entrance."


    "That''s not really what that was. Yes he was making an entrance but it''s not like he would have stepped on anyone if they didn''t crawl away. You notice him specifically step around a few ankles so he didn''t crush them?"


    Felix nodded, "Yeah. Still, the Aura."


    "He could have killed most people in that room with his Aura alone, or at least driven them irrecoverably insane. That wasn''t oppression at least not purposeful. That was just him projecting his presence."


    Felix looked at her curiously.


    "His presence, his Aura, his being¡­ is just strong enough that it affects all the Souls around him if he doesn''t suppress it."


    "Wait¡­ Could you literally change someone''s personality like that?"


    "Yes. It would take you bathing in an Aura like that for days but you definitely could. It also depends heavily on your Soul strength. It wouldn''t ever really work on me but¡­"


    Felix nodded in understanding as he followed the hall in essentially a straight line until he was forced to take a few turns and ended up back outside, in the arena.


    He looked to the side and picked the nearest seat then carefully placed Melody down in it and sat next to her.


    "Thanks." She whispered as she slid into the seat.


    Felix nodded again as he looked around.


    There were others in the arena who had wandered in to check it out, possibly even hundreds of thousands. They were spread all throughout the arena though and it was nearly impossible to tell due to its size, and the fact that it still felt completely empty.


    Looking down at the center of the arena, which could have housed entire university campuses within it, a part of him marveled at the size but no part of him wondered why they needed it. Even a single Caster''s Duel in the tiny cylinder he had fought in had felt constrained back when he was so much weaker. Now, especially after seeing Romar and Uphi fighting, Zeraxes on the battlefield not to mention the domain skills and the massive metal monstrosity from the followers of Thraverick the Forge God, he knew the arena was the right size.


    What made it all possible compared to earth, above all else, was the fact that the average viewer''s Perception stat let them see what was happening. Everything else just involved better materials, more engineering and a sentient planet to help construct it.


    "Any chance looking down there, you feel some burning desire to compete and a desperate need for glory?"


    Felix snorted, "No."


    Melody sighed, "A girl can dream." She stopped pretending and perked up just a moment later, "On the other hand, we aren''t exactly the underdogs but we definitely aren''t the favorites."


    "If I showed everyone what I can do in a Caster''s Duel tournament, an Aura contest, it would ruin that."


    "Uh huh. I mean yes but don''t make it seem like that''s why you aren''t participating."


    He smirked, "Guess that means none of can compete in the tournament."


    She slumped down a little further in her chair, "The others already said no too¡­"


    Felix laughed, "What about Zeraxes, Romar and all of them. Are they signed up for any events in the tournament?"


    She scoffed, "No. You think they''d waste time they could be spending in The Abyss on some random tournament event?"


    He laughed again and she chuckled a little.


    Once they had both calmed down a little, he looked over at her, "You good now?"


    "Yeah. Let''s go to our rooms."


    Felix nodded and they both rose from the stands.


    She led him through the halls and to one of the generic looking rooms with an identical door and, he suspected, layout to every other one in the hall.


    It wasn''t very big. In fact, it had four beds and just enough room to walk around them and store some equipment. That was it.


    Not that it mattered much considering most people would be spending their time in the training hall Romar and Uphi had been using or getting food, socializing, visiting Gods and friends. In general, no one was expected to spend much time in the rooms.


    Once inside, Melody dropped a number of items from a spatial storage item onto a couple of the beds. On one, she dropped a set of armor. It looked similar to the one Adaline had tried on but it was evidently completely different, and much higher quality, even had Felix not identified it.


    [B - Legendary] Leather Plate of the Unkillable Calamity


    [Regenerative][Sapient]


    A set of armor fashioned from the treated leather of a once fearsome monster that held dominion over an entire planet. Though their attacks were devastating, the real strength of the beast was the ridiculous resilience of their hide. Skinning the beast alone required the use of S grade tools and fashioning armor from the hide, required very specific and specialized crafting methods.


    The result, is armor that is even more resilient than the creature it was created from and that is nearly indestructible within the B Grade. Bones were utilized where possible to enhance protection without sacrificing significant mobility. The remnant of the beast, once defeated, was also carefully imbued throughout the armor giving it a strong regenerative property and retaining some of its unyielding will, adding to the overall defensive properties.


    The armor was darker, making the bones look that much brighter, but even more than that the entire thing was more elegant. The plates were smaller and more shaped, the torso was tighter and better fitting and the entire thing looked less like a barbarian''s armor and more like a ranger or an assassin''s armor.


    "Woah. How much did that cost?"


    She shrugged without looking at him, "More that it should have, given the timing¡­ less than you''d expect though."


    Looking over at the other bed, she had placed a single ring on the bed. It was effectively made up of four identically shaped pieces, each of a different material looping over into the next like a wave, endlessly around the ring.


    [B - Ancient] Ring of Natural Disasters


    [Regenerative][Sapient][Dark]


    A ring imbued over time with the Ambient Anima within natural disasters. The ring itself is split into four and each section contains the essence of a single disaster. The original use of this ring was lost to time and it has been mainly used for its effect of enhancing Auras.


    "That''s¡­ cool."


    She nodded, "It was my father''s. He was actually pretty happy to be rid of it. He never did find a great use for it."


    "So what now? We just wait around for the entrance to appear?"


    "Well, people will start taking seats in the arena pretty soon to watch the whole opening and entry ceremony. We also need to collect the rest of our team and at least make some kind of appearance."


    "Appearance?" Felix cocked his head and his brow.


    "Most of the gods in the entire multiverse are either here or arriving shortly."


    "I was kind of hopi-"


    She shook her head, grabbed his wrist and started dragging him out of the room, "Nope. I won''t make you compete but I want the Gods to at least be aware of us."


    "You''re just gonna leave those on the beds?"


    "We''re on Eramith, remember? No one can get into the rooms except Gods, even they would have a hard time and even then, why would they?"


    "Where are we going?"


    "We''re going to break into the upper floors and walk around bumping into people and pretending it''s a coincidence."


    Felix groaned, "Of course we are. What if Adaline or Peace show up?"


    "The building will lead them to the room."


    Heading down the hallway they had previously used, just a few minutes later, and it was already noticeably more full. Where it had been nearly empty before, now there was at least a person every few meters all the way to the arena. They didn''t follow the crowd though into the stands to find seats, instead they followed the massive circular hallway around the outside of the arena where the various shop stands were setting up.


    She led him over to one of the large open columns on the side and they flew up a few floors to the top of the column, where there was a small landing.


    All the other floors they had passed through, here and before, had been completely open for anyone to wander through. On the landing before them though, there was a completely blank wall that Felix could tell was about a meter thick.


    Approaching it, Melody leaned forwards as if she were listening though it then began whispering, "Hey. Open up for an old friend?"


    A silent moment passed then the wall split down the middle and slid open, curiously without any Mana as far as Felix could tell.


    She smiled and skipped through, still grasping Felix''s wrist to prevent him from escaping.


    "Why did we have to break in and once again, how are you such good friends with the planet?"


    "This is the floor with the all the booths for the Gods and large organizations." She completely ignored the second half of his question.


    "Isn''t your dad going to be here? Couldn''t you have gotten an invitation from him?"


    She looked back at him with a disgusted expression, "Of course I could, but then I''d have to listen to him chastise me about my choice of team."


    "He doesn''t approve?"


    "He knows little to nothing about any of you. He just wants me on Fyrden''s team."


    "Is Fyrden being trained to replace your father the same way Zeraxes and Romar are?"


    She half shook her head, "Not quite. He won''t replace my father. He''d become a god alongside him."


    "Come to think of it, why don''t Romar and Zeraxes fathers stick around once they become gods too?"


    "They will. They''ll just hand over their current holdings and domains."


    Felix''s face fell a little, "Are you telling me they just want to pawn off the responsibility so they can do whatever they want?"


    She smiled wide, "Something like that."


    Where the other corridors around the arena held various shops, currently being set up, the top corridor held none. It was almost entirely empty, even from viewers wandering around ahead of the crowd. Instead, Felix saw a few processions of staff following some Gods and a few Demigods and A grade elites in the hall, but they weren''t wandering. They all moved quickly and with purpose.


    As to what they were doing, he had no idea and no foundation to guess from.


    Though he had no way of knowing when someone was coming, Melody did. Her Anima senses, being as naturally talented as she was, allowed her to sense especially gods from nearly halfway around the arena.


    He followed along with her, flying at her top speed, until they were just close by then they slowed and pretended they were just walking down the hall as a pair of Gods walked across and towards a booth. One was a woman, a beautiful looking woman with overwhelming confidence and grace. The other essentially looked like a punk. He had wild hair that was blue, green and every shade between.


    The man, with his hands clasped behind his head as he walked, noticed them and very casually saluted to Felix as they walked.


    The woman maintained her composure but from the way her Aura tightened, Felix knew disapproved of something her brother had done.


    As soon as they entered their booth, Melody spun on her heels to face Felix, "Why did it look like Nyrrasil knew you?"


    Felix winced and shrugged a little defensively, "Let''s just say I ran into him in Osgard."


    She gawked at him, completely offended he hadn''t told her but whatever arguments she had were cut short as the feeling of another God approaching washed over the both of them.


    Instead of running towards them though, Melody''s eyes widened slightly in fear and she tried to lead them away. She was far too slow though as the god appeared just a few moments after they both sensed them.


    A tall and muscular Rhunar man with vibrant red horns sitting amongst long flowing blonde hair suddenly appeared from one of the floor entrances. He wore a fitted set of completely white robes that somewhat looked like a long, tailored suit for a butler.


    [SS - Divine] Cassius (Lvl 5697)


    Despite being at least a few hundred meters away and clearly moving away from the God, Cassius almost immediately noticed the two of them and transformed into a crimson liquid. The liquid moved like a laser beam and reformed his body just in front of them with a wide toothy smile.


    "Why hello there¡­ young ones."


    Melody forcibly washed away most of her aversion and smiled, "Cassius."


    "It is quite the pleasure to finally be able to meet you, Melody."


    She smiled a little wider in response.


    "And you," Cassius turned his head to look at Felix, "While I have heard much less about you, I must say meeting you in person, I am quite intrigued."


    "Why''s that?"


    Cassius looked Felix''s body up and down, "You seem to be quite competent in areas most are lacking. That alone is enough for me to¡­ pay attention. For it leads me to wonder, what other aspects might there be, that make you¡­ unique."


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    Felix wasn''t entirely sure what to say but that didn''t seem to matter. Cassius was more than happy to just continue talking.


    "Now I must contend with my own curiosity. I am however, not a very patient being and whether or not I can wait to observe your descent in the Abyss is yet to be determined."


    "Well, you''ll just have to." Melody smiled, "We''ll do o-"


    Suddenly, a voice Felix didn''t recognized called out his name from down the hall, "Felix!"


    All three of them immediately looked over and judging from their Auras and facial expressions, Melody was relieved and Cassius was annoyed by the interruption. Felix however, was just curious who the hell it was. Looking over a 4 foot tall man with a lithe build wearing thick furs approached, riding a large Icy Dire Wolf. He was some kind of race Felix didn''t recognized with thick white hair tied into a braid, pale-nearly translucent-skin with a blue tint to it and vibrant blue tattoos all over his face.


    [S - Legendary] Thorin (Lvl 6249)


    [S - Legendary] Blizz (Lvl 6247)


    Luckily, it didn''t take them more than a second or so to reach them, Blizz the Dire Wolf, skidding to a stop just a meter short of their feet.


    "Hey! Where''s Nova?"


    Felix slightly cocked his head, "You¡­ recognize me?"


    "Course I do. You rejected my recruitment."


    "I¡­" Felix shook his head a little, "did."


    Thorin hopped off Blizz, patting their head as he did so, "Well, of course we recognize you. We picked you two out personally after all."


    Felix mentally noted the fact that Cassius was essentially scared off and slipped out without saying anything. In response to Thorin, he winced a little, "Sorry about rejecting you."


    The god quickly waved him off, "Oh, don''t worry about it. I totally get you had other priorities. You seem much stronger now than when we last scouted you so, something must have worked out, huh?"


    "Yeah, I''m pretty happy overall with my recruitment. If I had another slot, I would have taken you both up on your offer."


    He shook his head and waved him off, indicating there were no harsh feelings, "Where is Nova by the way?"


    "I left her at a Professor''s lab. She is currently sleeping."


    "I see." Thorin looked over at Blizz and began scratching behind his ears, "The familiar bond is one of the most fulfilling and unique experiences in the entirety of the multiverse." He looked at Felix, eyes serious while he smiled sincerely, "Treasure it."


    Felix nodded, "I do. Nova and I are just fairly independent beings."


    Thorin smiled a little wider, like a concern of his had been assuaged, "Good. I can understand that. With Blizz and I-" He looked over and the two Gods met each-others gaze, "-I know it sounds corny but, I just knew. This was my partner for the rest of my life."


    He turned back to Felix, "We were so interested in you because you chose an exceedingly unpopular option in a Sprite but, you''ve made it work. The both of you seem to have thrived from your bond. Speaking of, why a Matter Sprite?"


    Felix''s reasons were much less noble than Thorin''s so he tried his best to sugar coat things, "I got some advice that it would work out well and¡­ help fill in my gaps."


    He smiled wide, "There''s nothing wrong with picking a familiar based on pragmatic reasons." He gripped Blizz''s fur and hopped back onto their back, "I look forward to watching you in The Abyss and seeing your dynamic with Nova."


    He then looked at Melody with a smile and nodded before Blizz bounded off and they vanished into one of the booths off the hall.


    Turning back to Melody, Felix smirked a little, "I can see why you said you love those guys."


    She smirked as well, "I''m impressed how quickly they noticed the situation and how quickly Cassius disappeared when they approached."


    "I''m impressed they scared him off so easily."


    "Anyways, on to the next!"


    "Really? Even after¡­"


    "Yeah. Not all the Gods are nice people. Some are just weird. A lot of them actually. You just gotta expect it." She shrugged.


    They ran around for a few minutes before running into Zerathus. Although they didn''t really interact, they just saw him arrive. Still, Felix was surprised by how young he looked.


    With evolutions, people had a lot more control over their looks and there really was no reason they had to look their age at all. Still, seeing a man that barely looked 20 and realizing they were a God, was a little jarring. He had white hair, a young face and wore a vest that was open, exposing the majority of his chest and stomach.


    Felix didn''t catch much else though as he only appeared for a moment before disappearing again in a bolt of Lightning. His entourage following along a few minutes behind him.


    They managed to sense a few other Gods but didn''t catch up to any of them. Melody did manage to identify and avoid a few she didn''t want to see without Felix ever even figuring out who they were avoiding too. After Cassius, Thorin and Blizz, it felt a lot to Felix like they were just scrambling around the floor.


    Once she was done and ready to leave, Felix was surprised how satisfied Melody seemed when they finally started heading back despite having talked to just two Gods in total, "Why do you seem so happy? We met three gods, one of them was Cassius and the other two are essentially one entity."


    She smiled, "For one thing, I didn''t need to talk to anyone, being seen is enough. Even more than that, Cassius being interested and Thorin chasing him off¡­"


    Felix nodded, "Is going to at least create some kind of rumor amongst staffers."


    "Exactly. The point of that was just to have our names be a little more prevalent in their thoughts and conversations."


    "I guess we''ll see if this pays off."


    "It will."


    To head back down towards their room, they followed the hall back towards the same empty column they had used to ascend to the floor in the first place because it was closest to their room on the floors below. As she approached the door and whispered to the planet to open it however, another God appeared just on the other side, in the process of coming up.


    [SS - Ancient] Akaroth (Lvl 7847)


    While Felix knew very little about the God, what he saw was drastically different from what he had expected.


    Akaroth looked a bit like a child. A lithe man, shorter than Felix by a hand or two with perfectly black hair and pointed ears that curved upwards. His skin was perfect and his cheeks slightly plump, despite his thin body, making it look like he still carried around excess baby fat and exacerbating how young he looked. His flickering red irises, intense glare and frown however, somewhat broke the illusion.


    Flying behind him, barely fitting within the vertical corridor, was a massive humanoid demon with claws, wings, horns and an appropriately inhuman, demonic visage that looked like a helmet.


    [S - Divine] Ruetherak (Lvl 6301)


    The God being right there clearly surprised Melody, somehow and she froze for a moment as he just glared at her.


    Felix lightly grabbed her robe and pulled her to the side to make room and Akaroth along with Ruetherak stepped out of the vertical hall. The entire time, his brow was deeply furrowed but Felix got the sense he wasn''t angry or contemptuous, it was simply his natural facial expression.


    Once clear of the two of them, Akaroth turned, his hands clasped behind his back, and nodded to Felix in recognition, "Do you have my sword?"


    "Your¡­ sword?"


    "Mecada."


    "Oh. That sword. I actually have no idea where it is."


    He nodded seriously then turned his head slightly to look at Melody, "Adaline''s research."


    She still seemed somewhat frozen so Akaroth turned to Felix a moment later.


    "Going well¡­ I think. Why?" Felix responded.


    He nodded then turned and walked away, heading to his booth.


    Huh. Seems¡­ a little serious but¡­ not outright mean or condescending.


    Turning back to Melody, she still seemed a little shell shocked so Felix grabbed and dragged her back down through the vertical hall towards their room so they didn''t accidentally run into anyone else.


    "Sorry. Thanks." Melody pulled herself free of Felix''s grasp and flew alongside him.


    Felix nodded as they flew down the hall, "I know he harvests Souls with Blood Rituals and all that but¡­ he doesn''t seem as bad as Cassius for example. Why didn''t you feel him coming?"


    She sighed a little, "I did. He''s so hard to pin down though because of the way he¡­ You know that Blood Ritual with the Rakyt you tried to stop?"


    He nodded.


    "Most gods use afterlives and attract people by offering a paradise. He doesn''t really have an afterlife it''s more like a¡­ prison."


    "So he has people send him souls then imprisons them?"


    "Yeah, kind of. That''s at least part of it."


    "So someone Adaline cared about was imprisoned or something? What does her research have to do with this?"


    Melody just hung her head a little further, "You have to ask her. As for why I didn''t sense him, it''s because Akaroth feels like thousands of people at once. To me at least, he feels like a crowd. I thought he was just some God''s staff coming up."


    "I see¡­ Couldn''t you just¡­ recognize his specific crowd?"


    "It''s different every time. In size, strength, personality and everything. It''s something about the way his¡­ well, Soul Prison, I guess¡­ works. He''s not completely transparent about it but¡­"


    "Why were you so frozen?"


    "I just¡­ I was focused. I haven''t been face to face with him ever. Across a room but, not like that. I was trying to see if I could sense anything¡­"


    "To help Adaline?"


    "Yeah. More or less. Don''t mention we ran into him to her. It''ll just ruin her mood."


    "Shouldn''t we at least mention he''s here at the tournament?"


    "She''s a big girl. She knows he''ll be here."


    Felix shrugged and they flew the rest of the way back to their room.


    Opening the door, the rest of their team had already arrived. Peace was in the process of shifting his hand and forearm from a vortex of wind to a solid cloud rife with Lightning while Adaline was stretching and walking back and forth, adjusting her new armor as she did so.


    "Melody." Adaline looked at her very seriously, "Thank you."


    "Of course. I fully intend on us winning this thing."


    Peace smirked, "This is¡­ way cooler than what I managed to find at home."


    From a cursory sense of the new jewelry Peace was wearing, mostly metal and gems containing what felt like S grade beast Souls, Felix doubted that statement. Although, there was a certain level of cool factor to transforming into a hurricane that was different from transforming into really any beast.


    "We should go grab ourselves seats before all the good ones are taken." Melody gestured towards the arena with her head.


    Peace rose from the bed and Adaline nodded, following Melody, along with Felix, towards the arena.


    Even though Melody had said they should go early to find their seats, they didn''t have much trouble finding seats from which everything was visible, at least with Felix''s Perception.


    There were millions of people filing into the arena but for the most part, they were on the other levels. The bottom level was completely packed with people, nearly every seat full. On the two levels above that, the seats were filling quickly but he spotted a few empty spots here and there.


    The level Felix and his party were on was another three floors up and while they grew progressively less packed the higher the level was, their level was nearly empty in comparison to the level below them.


    Above them, there were a few levels that were nearly entirely empty and on top of that were the booths. Some of them were simple balconies, others had massive windows tilted downwards to overlook the arena blow.


    Felix chuckled once as he looked over the floors and how packed they were, "You were lying, weren''t you?" He turned to Melody sitting next to him.


    She mocked offense, "Me? I would never lie. What in th-"


    "This floor is reserved for participants, isn''t it?"


    She shrugged a little, "Well¡­ yes but that doesn''t mean the good seats wouldn''t be taken."


    Felix looked around at the plethora of empty seats all around them then down at their own seats, which seemed to be just random seats in the stands with no significance.


    Melody obviously noticed but he didn''t bother calling her out and just turned his attention to the center of the field where the entrance would eventually appear.


    In reality though, he wasn''t just staring at the empty ground. Instead, he shifted his attention into his own mind where he created a room and brought up screens so he could watch what his constructs were doing through Mark. He was mostly just observing Art, Rewdan, Eni and the construction bots at work. Ked and Fin had both left, likely to attend the opening ceremony of the tournament.


    At times, he took direct control of the construct swarm when finer grained control was required. That was rare though and so for the most part, he had his mental copies of their plans in his mind and he ran simulations on and adjusted them as needed.


    With the time dilation he experienced in his mind, not real dilation just his Perception moving faster when he disconnected his body, he spent a long time working through their plans. He surprised even himself though when he completely lost track of time and had to be pulled out by Melody tapping his shoulder.


    He thought he would have definitely run out of adjustments to make and simulations to run but the plans were complicated enough and he had his Soul Space to fall back on when he couldn''t just mentally simulate something.


    Coming back to his physical senses, he didn''t think it had been very long but looking around, the arena was nearly packed now. Around him, were all his Residents. Mera was sitting in the seat in front of him, or more accurately on the back rest facing them and chatting with Melody next to him. The other Residents had taken the seats all around them.


    Mera immediately noticed his eyes open and turned to him, "Finally. We talked to Kairune and he said we should go down with you."


    Felix nodded, "Because you''re technically part of me? Kind of?"


    She nodded quickly, "Yup."


    "I don''t think the other participants will be happy about that one."


    She nodded quickly, "Which is what I was talking to Melody about."


    "Gotcha." Finally taking everything in, Felix noticed Mera''s clothes looked like a cross between wizard''s robes and a little girl''s sundress with a matching hat and everything. More interestingly though, was her Spell Book and wand. The wand looked simple, a wooden stick with white metal inlaid in runic patterns along its length, it felt however like it was a little more complex than that, though not much more. Her Tome also felt a bit lacking and looked like a normal book with little to nothing special about it at all.


    Looking around him, all the Residents seemed to be geared out in rather impressive looking equipment which, was no doubt extremely expensive. He saw polished plate, fine leather and magical swords and bows. Each one at least Epic or higher.


    Felix turned to Mera, "What''s with your wand and Spell Book?"


    She smiled wide and looked at Melody, "Told you he''d notice."


    Melody sighed and handed her a ring. Mera snatched it out of her hands and immediately equipped it then turned back to Felix, "I was hoping you could make me some."


    "You want me to make you a Wand and a Spell Book?"


    "And a familiar. Well, summon one actually."


    Felix cocked a brow, "That seems presumptive."


    "Maybe¡­ I was hoping you could summon me an Elemental, something you were already going to test after this ceremony anyways."


    He nodded, "Okay. Fair enough."


    "As for the Spell Book, Rewdan was telling me there are Knowledge Spirits¡­"


    Felix sighed, "What about the wand?"


    She smiled wider, knowing she was getting what she wanted, "The crystals and a tiny piece of your Soul and also¡­ make it a battery."


    "Ugh¡­" He sighed, "You are way too similar to Melody."


    She giggled a little.


    He felt a little weird about making equipment for her and not the others but for the time being, everything she had just mentioned were things he was planning on experimenting with anyways. It cost him little to nothing in terms of time and materials to slightly adjust his plans and add a little polish to everything he did. The others, unfortunately would just have to wait because their Classes were too dissimilar from his own.


    Eventually, he was hoping to have Residents that were talented smiths and tailors and tanners to make them equipment too but he didn''t have the knowledge or time to do anything himself right away.


    "So those are loaners you''re going to just go in with for now then?"


    Mera nodded, "First hundred floors or so should be bottom of the D grade so¡­ pretty easy anyways."


    Melody nodded, "All the students will get through at least a few hundred just to make a good showing while everyone is here."


    "How long before the opening ceremony?"


    Melody pointed down at the center of the arena, "Should start any minute now. The entrance just appeared so it won''t open for another hour or so."


    Following her finger, in the very center of the arena which had previously been a perfectly flat stretch of unmarred stone, now held a large doorway.


    There was no door within it so it was really just a frame but it seemed out of place to Felix. Most things in the multiverse he had seen were stone or metal and looked ancient or forged. The doorway to The Abyss though, looked almost technological and futuristic.


    It was made of some kind of polished metal in a perfect square, almost as if it had been assembled. All over it too, were flashing lights and what looked like wires with signals racing down them and giving off byproduct light. The pattern reminded Felix of a circuit board, more than anything else in the multiverse ever had.


    From his distance he couldn''t be certain, but he was pretty sure it was just Mana in a complex enchantment.


    Felix¡­ Grim prodded him mentally to get his attention.


    What?


    Now that the arena is full, do you notice anything?


    Felix looked around at the people in the arena but didn''t notice anything particularly wrong with them, No.


    I didn''t either. Don''t look for what is there, look for what''s not there.


    Felix looked around again and had trouble figuring out what Grim was talking about. The arena was nearly packed. The average level was high D grade to low C grade because of where they were. Some of them were wearing combat equipment. There were advertisements ranging from subtle to not-so-subtle. There were men, women and children. There were Humans, Elves, Rhunar, Frostmyre, Goblins¡­


    He frowned when he finally realized what Grim was talking about, Where are all the Drakene?


    It''s not just that. Look up at the booths.


    Felix glanced upwards and noticed a number of them were empty.


    "Hey Melody, all those empty booths¡­ where are the Dragon Gods? And where are the Drakene?"


    She frowned at him like he was crazy then looked up at the booths. Then she looked down at the crowd, "Huh¡­ That''s¡­ a great question."


    One of the Residents watching from here noticed it while you were working on the Mana Accelerator and Factory plans.


    You think it''s the same reason Rainoth, Kordran and Krinitor are missing?


    I suspect their related.


    Melody was squinting now, looking all around her, "They should be here. I mean¡­ I heard about Arthur but¡­"


    Felix cocked a brow, "What about him?"


    She sighed a little and leaned in, "Rumor has it he''s been hunting down Drakene Elites and he''s starting to scare the gods."


    Felix snorted, "He''s scaring the Gods?"


    "Not him by himself. Rumor has it he''s got someone¡­ scary backing him."


    "Someone scary enough to scare off Tekragoraxius and 30 other Dragon Gods along with every single other Drakene?"


    "I know. I don''t know who is backing him. I looked into it a bit after Raidran''s and I just heard a rumor that the Dragons were scared. They''ve been spending fortunes on equipment and supplies recently and a huge number of Drakene have started to go missing."


    Felix shook his head a little, "Even then though, they still feel threatened here? Rhonan is here along with the planet, right?"


    She shrugged, "You''re right. Which is why I said I had heard about the rumor but¡­"


    Though he wasn''t worried for the Dragons, knowing there was no one hunting them, at least not Arthur, Felix was a little worried for himself. His Persona was all of a sudden enemies with a large portion of the Gods and numerous Elites not to mention an entire race. He had already debated consuming his rings now that they weren''t as useful as they had been but the fact that Tekragoraxius might need his Persona to appear somewhere had stopped him.


    Now though, he wasn''t sure he ever wanted to use his Persona again.


    Suddenly, a giant explosion of fireworks in the center of the arena appeared along with a massive cloud of multicolored smoke. The smoke completely obscured everything, like a solid cloud, for just a moment before being sucked down and vanishing in a vortex into a man''s mouth.


    The man smiled and threw his arms out, "WELCOME ONE, WELCOME ALL TO¡­ THE TOURNAMENT OF THE ABYYYYYYSS!"


    His voice was obviously projected through magic or some kind of skill and was perfectly audible, even a little louder than necessary.


    [SS - Exotic] Loran Hallowguard (Lvl 6734)


    "Thankfully for you, I will be your host, Loraaaaaan Hallowguard."


    There were cheers around the stadium as the God announced their presence. He let them go on for a few moments before continuing, "It is only right to begin today''s ceremony by acknowledging the only reason this is happening¡­" He swung his arm wildly to the side to gesture to one of the booths, an open balcony, "Rhonan!"


    The cheers were even louder this time and he spoke over them, "Who I must say, is looking quite fine if I do say so myself, especially after the affliction he had to deal with."


    The crowd got a little louder at that and he waited for them to quiet down before continuing, "As for today''s event, as many of you already know, this-" He swung his arm back to gesture towards the entrance to The Abyss, "is the entrance to¡­ The Abysssss¡­ It will open exactly one hour from now at which point the contestant teams from the school of Eramith, our gracious hosts will be introduced and enter inside. After they all enter, the rest of the teams who have shown up will be permitted to enter."


    He looked around for a moment to make sure everyone internalized what he had said then nodded, "But enough of that. Let''s get to the show!"


    Loran spun around and flew way up into the sky in a burst of speed that made him nearly impossible to follow.


    In his place, the entire arena floor flashed to life with lights and sound revealing a performative dance taking place throughout the arena. It was largely what Felix would have expected to see on earth except that they moved fast sometimes, utilizing the entire massive arena floor and the effects were vastly more extravagant.


    He didn''t get much out of it himself but Melody and most of the Residents seemed to be enjoying themselves.


    At the end of the dance, Loran returned and called out the troupe by name, mentioning they were available for hire and that he had personally hired them many times before. After that, there was a concert like performance followed by a number of other events Felix didn''t pay the slightest bit of attention to.


    He had better things to do than gawk at various performances and so he spent his time observing the work in Ked''s lab and working on his Instinct Casts. None of them were instinctual just yet, but he was noticeably faster with every one he practiced and they required less focus from him as they were more deeply ingrained into him.


    His attention shifted back to the arena a few times periodically and he managed to catch a number of advertisements. Shows where armor was put through extreme circumstances, somehow protecting a low D grade wearing it. A weapon that cut through a massive A grade beast like it was nothing and a other various items and materials from various crafters.


    Checking in periodically he thankfully managed to miss most of the show, despite how much Mera, the other Residents, Melody and the crowd seemed to be enjoying it. It did however mean, he had didn''t really have any idea what was happening when he checked in and saw Rhonan along with an ancient looking woman in the middle of the arena.


    He immediately looked towards the doorway to The Abyss but it hadn''t opened yet.


    [B - Special] The Oracle of Existence: Estrea (Lvl 2047)


    Ah, I was kind of expecting him to wait a bit for this.


    "-reason this event had to happen now. Many of you speculated that it was my recovery that prompted this event. It was not." Rhonan looked over at Estrea then took a step back.


    Estra nodded to him then took a step forward that was so shaky, it looked like her bones were on the verge of falling apart. Then, her entire body began to glow, the light rapidly increasing until the entire arena was nearly blinded as she rose up into the air.


    A voice that sounded like a thousand individuals speaking in perfect unison sounded out, deep and rumbling throughout the arena, "The universe is doomed¡­ It is inevitable¡­ Salvation lies in the Ascendants¡­ Shepherd of the people¡­ Conqueror of the Ancient¡­ Chosen of the Gods¡­ Sovereign Ruler of Destiny¡­"


    The glow within her quickly dissipated in rays of light leaving behind, a young girl in Estrea''s place. He identified her just to make sure she was the same person.


    [B - Special] The Oracle of Existence: Estrea (Lvl 2047)


    I wonder if they completely made that up or if they just modified an actual prophecy.


    Looking around, Felix and his Residents weren''t nearly as surprised as everyone else. Not only had the crowd erupted but Melody was on the edge of her seat, he eyes bugged out and mouth agape. Even Peace looked surprised, though less expressive than Melody.


    Felix had suspected something like this would happen. After his conversation with Rhonan, he and his Mind Residents had run through various scenarios and plans. They essentially just thought through what they would do if they were running under the assumptions Rhonan was. It was why Felix was pretty sure there would be some kind of event that brought all the students together, The Abyss was top of his mind, but only because Melody had mentioned it so many times.


    He did wonder if that was a coincidence or an unconscious reading of hers.


    After that, although they had predicted it happening in the middle of the tournament, one of the events they thought was most likely, was to fake a prophecy or just create rumors if that wasn''t possible. None of them knew the logistics of prophecies and it didn''t seem anyone had a very clear idea when they read about them.


    The prophecy, in Felix''s grand plan, forced the Gods to properly sponsor and help whichever participant they thought was the chosen one. All Rhonan had to do, was obscure things and make it seem like anyone was possible. Then, the Gods would simply compete with each-other and would accelerate their sponsorships instead of waiting millennia to make sure they had the right person picked.


    With The Abyss ongoing, they would want their sponsorship to push their candidate as far as possible. That would net them more gains in The Abyss and other sponsors. Then if they did turn out to be the chosen one, their original sponsors would have gained a lot of favor.


    "Do you know what this means?" Melody almost had to yell to be heard over the crowd as she leaned all the way out of her seat and halfway into Felix''s.


    "One of our generation is going to save us? Who do you think it will be?"


    She looked at him without moving for a moment then shook her head, "No. You''re confused. That''s not how prophecies work."


    "What do you mean?"


    "There is no chosen one right now. In fact, the prophecy isn''t about anyone in specific."


    "What?"


    "The prophecy will come true but the person that fulfills it, doesn''t matter. If Zeraxes gets the farthest in The Abyss, it will be him. If Romar does, it will be him."


    "Why The Abyss?"


    She shook her head, "It''s just an example."


    "So¡­ Whoever it ends up being, is just the person that becomes the strongest?"


    "Yeah, probably."


    That makes this even more effective than we thought.


    "Is it possible to fake a prophecy?"


    She looked at him like he was insane, "What? No. I mean¡­ it''s been so long so¡­ no one really knows what they look like¡­ Maybe? Why? You think it was faked?"


    He shook his head quickly, "No no. Just a random thought."


    "Uhm. Okay then. So, I was being serious before about us winning. But now I''m even more serious. Can you even imagine what a universe would look like under Zeraxes rule?"


    Felix chuckled a little, "I''m supposed to want to live under your rule instead?"


    She scoffed, "It would be better than that. Anything would. Even the hellscape-" Melody leaned back and thumbed at Adaline, "-Adaline would create."


    She looked back with a smirk to show she was teasing but Adaline wasn''t paying attention at all. Her face contorted deep in a contemplative frown.


    Melody reached over and snapped her fingers in front of Adaline, "You okay?"


    Adaline came too, looking like her Soul had just returned to her body, "Yes."


    Enough


    Rhonan''s single word was more than loud enough to instantly and completely quiet the crowd, carrying with it a whole bundle of intent that Felix could visibly see through his Anima senses.


    "Now you know why I deemed it important to share. This is bigger than any one of us." He looked around, mostly at the booths above, meeting the gaze of the Gods within, "May whomever it be, be successful. To everyone, and especially the participants today, good luck."


    Just as Rhonan finished speaking, the empty doorway behind him whirred to life as the flashing lights and lines all across it''s surface became faster and more active until finally, the center of the doorway opened. It looked like the popping of a bubble as space distorted into the center before popping with an appropriate accompanying sound.


    Rhonan didn''t even look back and simply grabbed Estrea, placed her standing on one of his hands, then leapt back into his booth from the center of the arena.


    Loran quickly replaced him and looked out at the crowd, "What a turn of events! Well, let''s not delay any longer. Our first team to enter is comprised of students many of you will recognize, despite their young age¡­ Elias."


    Elias walked out from one side of the arena.


    "Thomaex."


    Thomaex from another.


    "Korxik."


    A small looking individual walked out next.


    "And Nephraaaaroooos."


    A Rhunar woman walked out of the last side of the arena.


    Instead of just walking, each of them did something interesting as they walked towards the center, showing off a little. Thomaex somehow crafted or summoned an entirely metal horse and rode it. Elias vanished, going completely invisible. Korxik began leaping towards the center with impressive leaps and Nephraros hovered above the ground, her feet dangling just above it with her arms out to either side, growing flowers beneath her.


    Felix leaned over towards Melody, "What''s the order?"


    "Average order of acceptance."


    He frowned, "So we have Adaline and I who were the last two accepted last dragging us down?"


    "Yes but Peace and I were some of the first."


    "So on average, right in the middle. What about Uphi and those outside of the school?"


    "They are counted as the exact middle."


    "How do we know when it''s our turn?"


    "We should probably head down soon." She gestured down to the center of the arena where the first team was still making their way to the entrance. Not that it was so far away, but just that they all seemed to feel the need to show off as much as possible, "This might take a while though."


    Felix sighed and rose to his feet, "Let''s just go now." He turned to the rest of them, "Unless you really want to watch this?"


    Melody smirked and leapt to her feet. Peace and Adaline both scoffed a little and stood.


    "Are you coming with us?" Felix turned to Mera.


    She shook her head, "Nope. Have fun." She waved at him.


    He didn''t question her and simply walked back into the corridor, his party behind him and a number of others going in the same direction in front of them.


    "Why isn''t she just entering with us?" Felix looked over at Melody.


    "Think about it. Now with the prophecy, they want to separate themselves from you as much as possible."


    Felix frowned, "They think they''ll get sponsors of their own? Doesn''t everyone already know they''re¡­ constructs of mine?"


    She smirked, "Some do, some don''t. Most importantly though, if they do well in The Abyss, people will begin to doubt that."


    "I guess¡­ Really? Someone is going to doubt that?"


    She cocked a brow and looked at him like he was stupid, "You don''t realize how impressive your constructs are, do you?"


    Felix shrugged, "They aren''t that interesting."


    "Take it from someone who can pick out individual Souls from across a room. They all seem like real individual¡­ beings."


    He cocked his head slightly, "They are. They just live in my head."


    "Yeah¡­ Unless you tell someone tha- Actually, unless you prove that to someone, no one is going to assume that, let alone believe that."


    "Alright. I guess there''s a chance." He shrugged.


    Heading down the vertical halls, they were called out to not only from all the various stands offering to perform quick maintenance on their equipment for free, but also by spectators waiting on the lower floors and trying to get any information they could.


    They weren''t quite celebrities in that no one really knew them but they were treated almost like them.


    Felix also took note of a few Elites, standing in the back and just observing.


    On the bottom floor, Felix followed some of the other teams heading in the same direction through the halls and finally through a doorway that the planet controlled into a room around the arena. Inside, he could see a bunch of teams standing around waiting and nearest the arena, Ellie the librarian.


    She was directing and letting the teams through in order, calling them out when it was their turn.


    "I take it we don''t have to walk out of separate entrances?" Felix leaned over to Melody.


    "No." She pointed just behind Ellie, "There are portals there if you want to but we can just walk out together."


    Felix nodded then walked over to a relatively empty spot, his party following behind him.


    Looking around the room, he recognized a number of people, including Zeraxes, Romar, Uphi, Fyrden, Lemi, Aedur, Ayred and Strig along with just about every other student at the school. He didn''t have a list of names but he would be surprised if more than just a few of them were missing. Judging from the number too, about two thirds of the room consisted of non-students.


    Ayred noticed them almost immediately and walked over as soon as they stopped, Strig following along behind him.


    "Melody, Felix!" He smiled and waved as he walked over, "Peace. Adaline. Nice to see you all."


    They all responded with various levels of enthusiasm. Ayred barely seemed to notice though as he mostly wanted to talk to Felix, "Melody said you won''t compete? In the Caster''s Duels?" Sear?h the Nov§×l?ire.n(e)t website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    He shook his head, "Not interested in competing if I know I''d win."


    Ayred looked over at Strig with an amused smile, "Oh come on, you can''t know that."


    Felix sighed, "I have enough Mana now to maintain the Omni-Shield for a stupid amount of time and enough focus to cast so many spells, I could just force anyone to maintain their own. It is literally impossible for me to lose."


    "If you''re that arrogant, prove it."


    Felix shook his head again, "Don''t need to."


    Ayred sighed and dropped the act, "Damn. I was really hoping to see you blast through the entire professional scene like it was nothing."


    Strig nodded, "The creds we could have made betting on you¡­"


    Felix snorted, "That''s what this is about?"


    "Kinda. It''s a little¡­ weird watching the professional scene now and knowing you could probably obliterate multiple A grades in a Caster''s duel. At once."


    Felix nodded, "Kind of cheapens my victories if I don''t even have to try for them."


    "Yeah." Ayred sighed, "I guess. Doesn''t matter though, how many floors you guys going to clear today?"


    Felix looked over at Melody, unsure how to answer the question.


    "Probably stop at C grade?" She looked at Felix for confirmation but he just shrugged.


    "He means before we stop and take a break. We can leave whenever we want and for the first while, we''re just going to be blasting through D grade floors." She explained.


    Felix nodded, "How long do you think that will take?"


    She shrugged, "Most of the day, probably. 20 hours or so."


    "Why not keep going? Low C grade is kind of a joke for most of us."


    She chuckled a little, "You have to stop somewhere, eat, sleep, maintain your equipment, talk to sponsors, go to class."


    "I guess. If your goal is to get as far as possible though, why waste the time?"


    "Time is less important in this than your strength. Realistically, if we started a dekad late, we could catch up in a few dekads." Ayred responded.


    Melody nodded along and Strig crossed his arms, "Once the floors get hard enough, you need to start preparing for them. Resting between. You won''t just be blasting through the high B grade floors without expending anything."


    "Exactly." Melody gestured towards Zeraxes and Romar with her head, "Even they''ll need to recharge between floors. Once that starts happening though, we''ll be able to see what the floors are ahead of time from watching them."


    Felix''s eyes widened, "The order is the same for everyone? What about key and door locations?"


    "Doors and keys are placed randomly." Strig shook his head.


    "But you''ll know how to open the door. Whether it''s a key or some kind of switch or something else." Peace cut in.


    "Which is a huge time saver on the later floors." Melody nodded along.


    "I see. So we just blast through the D grade now then leave and come back later?" Felix looked around at everyone.


    Melody shrugged, "If you want to keep going at that point, feel free. Most teams will have one person stay in and rotate them out to get through as much of the C grade done as they can as fast as possible. The B grade floors are where things become harder and more time consuming."


    "Gotcha."


    "Ayred! Strig!" Ellie called out.


    They both looked back and nodded to her then Ayred turned back to them, "Good luck." He turned to specifically Melody, "It goes without saying, I fully support your being the Sacred Super Sovereign Conqueror Queen Empress of the Universe or whatever. If you need anything just ask."


    She nodded, "Thank you. I''m not sure I''m the right person but, I appreciate it."


    He nodded, "I think you are." Then turned and left to join his team in preparing their entrance.


    Felix mostly just reverted back to practicing his Instinct Cast spells as he waited their turn.


    A few others walked over to speak to Melody, none of them students and all of them trying to gain favor with her or her dad but Felix didn''t totally understand why her and not any of the other God''s children in the room. They were also being approached but Melody was being approached way more than anyone else. Just like when he first arrived on campus and was walking around with her except then, it was the students.


    Their party was called up as the exact middle team based on Felix''s count and they walked over to stand in front of Ellie as the team before them made a show of things in the middle of the arena.


    "Are you going to all go in from here?" She addressed them as a group.


    Felix looked at the others and they all nodded.


    Ellie nodded once, "That makes things easy. You have a limit of 15 minutes-"


    15 minutes? No wonder this took so loooong.


    "-so make sure whatever you have planed fits in that. If you go over, someone will remove you from the arena and you''ll have to wait to enter with the non-students."


    They all nodded in understanding then Ellie looked back to see if the other team was nearly done.


    Felix turned to Melody and the others, "I take it we''re not going to pu-"


    He noticed for the first time, Melody had completely changed her outfit in the last few seconds, "That''s¡­ a little¡­ revealing, no?"


    She looked down at her new robes that were blue with gold patterns on it. It was tied in such a way to reveal about as much cleavage as possible and the bottom had slits running all the way up her legs. If she had tied it a little differently and the slits were slightly shorter, he would have said it was elegant. Frowning a little, she turned around, as if trying to determine if Felix was right but in reality, he knew she was just showing off.


    "You think so?"


    He gave her a look calling her bluff and she smirked, placing a hand on her hip, "Maybe it is. Is there something wrong with that?"


    Felix shrugged, "I just didn''t think this was a tactic you''d use."


    She cocked a brow, "Well someone''s gotta try and attract sponsors." She thumbed at Peace and Adaline over her shoulder, "It isn''t going to be the transparent baldy who''s already hard to see or grumpy face and you''ve already made it clear you don''t want to show off."


    He shook his head and changed the subject, "What''s the logo on your back mean?"


    She turned to reveal the logo, imprinted with what looked like real gold, in the shape of an octagon with an ornamental design within it. In the very center of the logo, was a perfect circle containing an iridescent vortex moving towards the center.


    She smiled as she looked back at him, showing off the logo, "Our first sponsor!"


    Felix frowned, Peace snorted and even Adaline woke up, walking around to see the logo for herself.


    "We have a sponsor? Who?" He looked over at Peace who just shrugged.


    Melody looked at all of them, "Sublime Spirit Sweets."


    Felix''s expression relaxed completely, "Your bakery. Gotcha."


    "Peace, Melody, Adaline, Felix. You''re up." Ellie interrupted them.


    She stepped aside and Melody led them out into the arena, Felix behind her, Adaline behind him and Peace at the back.


    As soon as Melody stepped around the corridor and out into the arena, the crowd erupted in a way Felix didn''t think it had for anyone of the other parties. The rest of them stepping out didn''t seem to have much of an effect and it was impossible to tell from right next to her but it seemed to Felix like everyone was looking at her. Her outfit wasn''t nearly revealing enough to warrant that though. He had even seen others in way more provocative outfits in the room that had left before them.


    Once they were all in the arena proper, their line shifted and they all stepped up to walk next to Melody as she looked around and waved at the crowd, a wide smile on her face.


    Though he hadn''t felt or seen anything suspicious with his Anima Senses, Felix still tuned into them and completely dedicated his focus as they walked to try and understand what was happening. He eventually found it but only barely because it was subtle. Melody was somehow embodying and projecting the Curse of Desire, or something close to it, throughout the arena.


    He had no idea how she was doing it though but looking over, he noticed Peace smirk at him, aware of what was happening while Adaline, was unable to take her eyes off of Melody as her face grew slightly pinker every second.


    The effect was subtle to the point that it was almost impossible to detect, even for Felix, and despite that, it was strong enough to affect the majority of the crowd. The way she did it too was fascinating to him because the Anima was almost woven within itself so it seemed like it was completely natural. It wasn''t consumed and transformed the way a curse would but it was just subtly affected.


    Luckily for Adaline, it didn''t really take them more than a few minutes to make it to the center of the arena, at which point her cheeks had thoroughly reddened. Reaching the door, Melody stepped through first, offering a bow to the crowd as she did. Once she was gone, Adaline came to and jumped in to escape her embarrassment. Peace snorted and finally released a chuckle he had been holding back as he stepped through a moment later alongside Felix who didn''t want to waste anymore time.

 Chapter 231 - Book 4

    Traveling through the portal was unlike any other portal Felix had traveled through before. He was certain most people, in fact nearly everyone but him, wouldn''t have even noticed anything. He knew he was the weird one that examined and paid attention to the inner mechanics of portals. It didn''t even really tell him anything but still, it was different and that piqued his curiosity.


    System portals were the cleanest and felt the most like wormholes. Like he moved from one place to another, instantly. Just like the physical environment, the Aether on the other side of a System Portal under the TFP seemed like it had been cut. Unlike the atmosphere and air, which was slowed but still melded across the portal, the Aether remained separate and so he sensed the immediate shift stepping through them. The farther he traveled, the more apparent the shift.


    His Aether tunnels weren''t instant. They seemed almost instant but even if they were close in the physical world, even if he left and re-entered the universe at the same instant, he still came out the other side with experiences. His Soul was aware of his literally traveling through the Aether. Doing so, there was no sudden shift, instead he literally felt the movement as if he were simply moving really fast. It wasn''t quite like the wind blowing on his face when flying, but it was very similar.


    The portal into The Abyss, was something else entirely. It wasn''t instantaneous like the TFP and the Aether was merging from one side to the other, like the atmosphere did. On top of that, Felix immediately noticed an experience he didn''t have an associated memory for. Instead of traveling through the Aether with barely any sense of speed, it felt like he had traveled not quite through the Ambient Anima, but almost. He felt as though the Ambient Anima had rapidly shifted then there was a jolt, like he had passed through a barrier or popped a bubble, then it shifted some more and finally, he landed on solid ground.


    As soon as he did, Grim prodded him, The connection to your Residents on the outside is being hindered.


    So they''re having trouble controlling their puppets''?


    Not that they can''t at all, it''s like it''s being slowed, the connection is noisy and¡­ like¡­ bad wifi? What is that? Why did that pop into your head?


    I understand, don''t worry about it. Let me know once one of them makes it in here..


    Understood.


    Looking around, it was nothing new, exciting or even interesting. It was a flat, grassy field on which a number of boars roamed around.


    [D - Common] Field Boar (Lvl 102)


    Hah! I knew they would be at the bottom of the D grade but¡­ Field Boards were the first enemy I ever fought. It''s almost¡­ fitting.


    "Hey! You coming or what?" Melody called out from way out ahead of him.


    Looking around, Felix realized he was alone as Peace and Adaline had already gotten ahead of even Melody.


    Also, there was a boar that had charged into his side but, he had barely noticed or felt it. His Mind Residents hadn''t even activated his Mana Skin, it was just too weak. Looking at the boar, it was bigger and leaner than the ones he had fought in the tutorial. Its horns were sharper but otherwise, it was very similar. It definitely could have been the result of one of those boars evolving into the D grade.


    He lightly pushed the boar back then launched himself towards them, catching up to Melody at least, very quickly.


    The other two in their party had gotten much further ahead and had forked off, Peace to the left and Adaline to the right, to search for the exit. There was no reason for them to fight the boars at all since the early floors wouldn''t require keys or anything. There was just a door to find.


    "Found it!" Peace yelled out then zipped off, a little to the left from where he had been.


    The rest of them followed and Felix used a Force Spell to push Melody along so they wouldn''t be waiting for her. She was surprised at first but squealing with glee just a moment later.


    The doorway to the next floor looked exactly like the one they had passed through to enter the abyss but this time, Felix didn''t feel the same jolt, just a quick pass through something like Anima, but not quite the same.


    On the other side of the portal, Felix actually had to do a double take to make sure they had actually gone through a portal at all. It looked almost exactly the same. The Board were slightly stronger on average but, otherwise he couldn''t spot any other differences.


    [D - Common] Field Boar (Lvl 104)


    This time, they all split off in four separate directions, since the portal had dropped them in the middle of the field. There wasn''t even a doorway on the other side to arrive through, they just appeared at an empty spot within the field.


    The field was big and looking out at the seemingly endless horizon, not curved like a planet. It was not however, perfectly flat and instead, the field was made up of rolling hills. It wasn''t too difficult to just fly up a little and out though to spot the door.


    On the second floor, the door was quite a bit further but they still managed to find and jump through it in just a couple minutes.


    The next floor was even bigger, or the door was just further, Felix couldn''t actually tell because he didn''t see any edge to the floor. It took them over twice as long, just over 5 minutes, to find the door that time. Then, it took them nearly 11 minutes which, Felix wouldn''t have thought was too bad, if it weren''t for how fast he, Adaline and Peace could fly. Even Melody, who wasn''t as fast was still covering a massive area in 11 minutes. The boars were now Uncommon though on top of their level marginally increasing which, didn''t matter to them in the slightest at the moment.


    On later floors where the enemies were actually challenging though, it would and so Felix took note of that fact.


    Luckily, the 5th floor was the first boss. Heading into the room, Felix found pretty much exactly what he expected.


    [D - Unommon] Alpha Field Boar (Lvl 110)


    The first through the portal was Adaline, because she was the one that had found it and there was no restriction saying they all had to go through at once. Once Felix had stepped through, the Alpha Boar was already dead and Adaline had already stepped through the next door.


    They found themselves on a Frozen Tundra next, although the temperature was only slightly below freezing so, not very cold at all for any of them, even Melody in her fairly revealing clothes.


    The enemies averaged around 108 on that floor, so lower than the last two floors of the last group but higher than the first floors. It was also, thankfully smaller again, like the very first floor meaning they found the door in just under a couple minutes.


    The same pattern repeated itself with the floors growing larger, or the exit being further away, all the way up until the boss. Whoever found the last door usually killed the boss instantly and moved on.


    Seeing as Melody was the slowest and Felix didn''t want her to get left behind as they didn''t bother waiting for each-other, he lent her Erevos.


    Once she was driving, she became easily the fastest amongst them and they even blew through floors just a little faster.


    Even though the first floor of a group was most often the smallest, by the time they had blown through around 20 groups, Felix was certain the smallest floor was bigger than the biggest one on the first group. So even though the floor sizes mostly reset with each group, they were still increasing in size overall.


    Roughly estimating how much they were growing, Felix was a little worried for the later floors, especially when it became impossible for them to split up.


    Increasing from smallest to largest wasn''t the only group layout though, there were also groups where the floors got smaller and some where they were all the same. The average time it took them to find the door though, completely ignoring the enemies on them, continued to increase.


    They had also started to need keys for some of the doors, though they looked more like puzzle pieces that they had to slot into the frame, but even those weren''t as bad as Felix was expecting. At least on the D grade floors, the door was much closer and easier to find and the keys weren''t inside any of the enemies, they were instead on pedestals scattered around. On average, it took them about the same amount of time to find all the keys and open the door as it would have taken to just find the door, if Felix''s math was accurate.


    Mera''s group just entered, connection to Mark seems normal now.


    I see. So it''s something about the separation between this and the outside world. You talked to her right? How bad were the connection issues? Will the Residents outside be able to do anything while I''m in here?


    They''ll survive but we should look into replicating Mark for when you''re in here.


    Then create a more solid and stable connection between this Mark and that one for the Residents to piggyback off of, that makes sense.


    To say blasting through the floors all the way up to the C grade was boring, was a complete understatement. Felix was a little annoyed at first that they had to waste so much time when they were already in the C grade but there was nothing he could really do about it. He could have left and let his team progress through without him but that would have been slower and realistically, he didn''t have anything pressing to do outside of The Abyss. He also didn''t want to fall behind compared to his classmates.


    Instead, he occupied his time mostly just training his Instinct Casts. Those were the most important thing to him at the moment and he wanted to ingrain as many spells as he could into his Soul.


    He also started manually removing limbs and other large chunks of his body as he flew around. It, once again, didn''t matter on the floors they were on and wouldn''t for a while but, storing them in The Blood Ring allowed him to heal much faster. In the D grade floors, he could easily afford to regenerate an arm as he flew. On the later floors, he was assuming he wouldn''t have that luxury.


    Right near the end, when the enemies were around level 750, they encountered some floors where there were switches, instead of keys, that they had to flip. It changed nothing though in terms of the amount of time it took them.


    In total, it took Felix''s party 35 hours to reach the first C grade boss where they had agreed to stop. At that point, Melody was exhausted and Adaline looked completely drained. Peace, who was a Spirit, looked a little tired but overall not too bad. Felix, hadn''t had to expend anything and had long since abolished his need to sleep to recover so he was fine, although quite bored.


    [C - Special] Sea Wyvern (Lvl 1024)


    Being the first into the room, Felix had free reign over the boss and so, he flew out over the sea and snatched it out of the air as it tried to jump up and grab him. Although it was a few times bigger than he was, his stats were higher than the vast majority of people at his same level. This thing, was a joke.


    He didn''t even have to try against its struggling as he bear hugged its neck and continued flying towards the door.


    He could have beheaded it with a blade spell, he knew that, but this resulted in less damage to the body and he already had a Resident lined up to puppet it.


    Hey Grim, how''s Mera and the other Resident''s descent going?


    Mera is just a couple dozen floors behind you. The others are behind that. No one''s died, or even really struggled in a fight much, it''s just that none of them are nearly as fast as you.


    Felix nodded, How long until Mera is done?


    It will probably take her team another 10 hours or so.


    Will they manage if I leave?


    They should be fine. I''ll warn them. They''ll just have to plan things accordingly. It might take longer though.


    Luckily, the entrance to The Abyss was just large enough that he could squeeze the Wyvern''s corpse through it without anything more damaging than dislocating a few joints.


    Nevermind. Grim seemed confused, For some reason, the connection in this direction is barely hindered at all.


    That''s¡­ convenient.


    Also odd.


    Does this mean The Abyss is designed to contain something and protect the outside from whatever that is? Instead of protecting what''s inside from the outside?


    Possibly.


    On the other side, Felix saw the arena was pretty much exactly the same as when he had left except that the stands were much less full. Some of them had obviously entered The Abyss after his party and so, some of them could have still been inside. It had also been 35 hours so Felix expected many of the crowd were sleeping. In fact, he was surprised the stands were still almost 60% full but, it was the first day so he suspected the excitement was keeping many of them up and watching.


    As he walked across the arena, dragging the wyvern''s corpse behind him, a larger portion of the crowd than he expected cheered for him. Looking up at them, he saw that all around the arena, were what looked like screens. They were much like the screen in Rhonan''s room though with nothing behind them and no obvious spell creating them. There were hundreds of thousands, if not millions of them within the arena though.


    The main visible screens were set up in a cylinder around the perimeter of the arena floor and spun around to show the crowd what was happening. Those screens moved around and shuffled themselves with even more screens inside the cylinder though to try and capture the most interesting scenes within The Abyss.


    His eyes darted across a number of the screens as he walked and they did, he winced multiple times.


    The screens focused on the most exciting situations which meant, they weren''t showing the other Eramith and Elite teams much. Instead, they were showing almost exclusively the participants that were still in the low end of the D grade. Many of them probably wandered in accidentally, though Felix had no way of identifying them. Instead, he just saw participants in with shoddy looking equipment desperately struggling against Snake creatures, Undead, Cloud Tigers and other various enemies he remembered fighting.


    In fact, he could identify exactly which floor group each screen was showing from the beasts and environment alone.


    He looked around for any that he didn''t recognize but he didn''t spot any during his walk out of the arena.


    Back in the room where Ellie had coordinated their entry, Felix opened an Aether Gate back to Ked''s lab and stepped through, completely avoiding the crowd he could hear just outside of the room.


    In the lab, he found Rewdan, Art, Eni, Ked and a few Residents. Sal had a class so he wasn''t expecting to see her and Fin was still busy coordinating the land they needed for the Mana Accelerator so he wasn''t in the lab often.


    "How are things coming along?"


    Rewdan and Ked both looked up from whatever they were working on and Ked''s eyes brightened, "You''re back. How far did you get?"


    "We stopped on floor 170, the start of the C grade it seems."


    Ked nodded appreciatively, "Not a bad time at all."


    "What are you two working on?"


    Rewdan stepped back a bit and gestured towards the table which held a large diagram of a machine. Stepping a little closer, Felix saw it was their current plans for a Soul Forge. It was the machine designed to replace him, as much as possible.


    He really didn''t want to have to create and bind Souls himself and this was the solution they had come up with to solve the former. It used a large amount of Asphellum to create what was effectively a large press and pressure chamber within which they could forge Souls.


    They had already tested the theory a little bit with prototypes but they all had issues that couldn''t be solved without expensive materials. At that point, they figured they would just create the final product and modify it if need be.


    In the absolute worst case scenario, Nova could just consume the whole thing and so they would only really be wasting their time.


    Felix had checked all the math and run simulations multiple times over and the plans before him were already as close to the final form as they were going to get.


    "We were just figuring out how to split up the work."


    Felix nodded then turned to Rewdan, "I''m also planning on doing some more summoning and would appreciate your input."


    "Of course. What kind of Spirit are you going to summon?"


    "Mera wants a Knowledge Spirit, which I suspect you suggested to her. I''ll need Nova to make a good body for that first though. I also want to experiment with Elementals. Mera also wants one as her familiar."


    Rewdan nodded, "Don'' worry about the body, she''s already handled that. As for Elementals, they are fairly simple but less intelligent than most Spirits. To summon one, you often need to use a massive amount of whatever it is as the bait."


    Felix nodded, "Like a massive fire for a Fire Elemental?"


    "Exactly."


    "How do I do that when there are Stars and Planets to compete against?"


    "Well, for one thing Stars and Planets aren''t sending out a beacon into the Spirit Realm. They aren''t looking for hosts. They still affect things though and so, you ideally need to use a Concept within the bait."


    "A Concept? Well shit."


    "If you can''t refine one yourself, you could always steal one."


    "Steal one? How?"


    "Go walk up to a Star and rip out some Anima."


    Felix groaned a little, "Gotcha. I take it I can choose something less dangerous?"


    Rewdan snickered, "Of course. Refining a Concept isn''t really that hard though. Creating one is much harder."


    "What do you mean?"


    "Your friend Tam has essentially memorized- or rather ingrained in herself a specific version of the Concept of Fire and she creates it from base Anima, imbuing the Concept into Anima, from scratch. That''s impressive. All you need to do though is take Anima in and around large Fires then refine that down. Start stripping out the unnecessary experiences and incorporating new experiences from other sources."


    "Gotcha, so even if I don''t start from a literal star, I can refine and enhance much weaker Anima to approach the same result."


    "You could easily surpass the Ambient Anima within a star. The Ambient Anima there is undirected and mostly random. There''s no will. The issue, is that if you start from a source that isn''t very pure, or don''t refine it properly-"


    Felix nodded, "When I go to strengthen it, I''ll end up with a garbage result."


    Rewdan nodded, "Most of the time, it will simply fall apart. Additionally, there are experiences you can''t get outside of a star, but they aren''t that important to you for the time being."


    Felix looked over at Ked, who had just been standing there listening along, "What do you think? You''re the Elementals professor."


    Ked smirked, "Yes but usually we create the Souls ourselves. Summoning a Spirit is a much better option but, not possible for more people. There are rituals but¡­ it get''s very complicated very quickly. Usually just with compatibility issues between the body and the Spirit."


    "Likely because the body you provided isn''t pure enough." Rewdan crossed his arms.


    Ked nodded, "Yes, that is usually the problem."


    "Concepts allow you to circumvent that issue, a bit." Rewdan looked back over at Felix, "If you give enough strength to the binding and a Concept to keep it around, it will refine its body overtime, naturally."


    "So it''s like bait to keep it around?"


    "More like fuel for the fire, but sure."


    Felix nodded, "Okay. I guess I can try it out before Mera gets back."


    In the meantime, did she submit designs for her wand?


    She called in some favors and had some talented Residents put one together.


    Do you need anything from me then or do I just need to give Nova access to the tree?


    We need you to create the handle.


    Handle? For a wand?


    Well, you''ll see. I take it you have no problems with crafting a shaft from your bone?


    Uh¡­ I guess not. I mean I am removing my limbs every so often anyways to fill up the ring. I can just change how it grows back and use that I guess. Why though?


    It will bind better to your Soul. She has a whole plan set up. You''ll see.


    Alright. Next time I feed The Blood Ring, remind me.


    Nova was still asleep but Felix opened the portal to his Pocket Home anyways and tossed her inside, over the Giant Corpse that had yet to even begin decaying. Once she was done, she would whine and someone would notice, probably.


    While he waited for her and Mera, he got to work on refining some Anima to extract a Concept.


    He didn''t have anything around with a strong affinity to anything in specific but that didn''t matter for the moment. All he wanted to do at first, was identify a unique experience then isolate it. So, he started with specific metals in the warehouse within his Pocket Home.


    At first, he just reached out and sensed the Anima within the metals, comparing them against each-other. It ended up being so beneficial once he got the hang of it, that he was still just sitting there comparing various objects when Mera finally left The Abyss. She had to sleep though and she decided to take Felix''s bed in the building around the arena.


    He was more than happy to continue comparing the Anima within various objects though.


    In metals, he was able to not quite isolate but identify a specific experience related to elasticity, plastic deformation, conductivity and density. All it really was was the experience associated with having that property. He had an experience of how his skin felt and how hurt it would be. Every time he then upgraded that, there was an adjustment period. He suspected the same thing applied to those with corrective lenses, having an experience of how they saw things and having that change.


    The issue was, much like in humans and how quickly Felix adjusted, the experience wasn''t very strong and didn''t affect the world outwardly. The experiences were just a reading of the outside world. To make a Concept, he would have to push and strengthen the experience to the point where it wasn''t trivially overwritten.


    Before that though, the experiences he was identifying, weren''t Concepts, not really. He could likely have isolated and strengthened them to the point where he could imbue the experience into a material and alter its physical properties, and he suspected he would in the future, but it wasn''t enough to be self sustaining. That also required him to strengthen the experience to a ridiculous degree.


    A Concept, like Fire, was so much more complicated. He would instead have to balance the various constituent experiences of heat and destruction and transformation and light. However, it was much stronger as a result and, especially if he imbued it into a physical representation of that Concept, he wouldn''t have to strengthen it nearly as much to have it last. Not only would it last though, theoretically it would be self sustaining, at least, that was the theory and his goal before he started summoning Elementals.


    The most useful Elemental to him would be some form of Metal Golem. With his absurd Mana pool, he could deal a lot of damage but his burst damage was somewhat lacking. At least, he knew that was going to be his biggest problem very soon. For the time being, he could cast spells with massive amounts of Mana and obliterate anything even close to normal at his level in strength.


    Sparring with Tam and Ameryl in Osgard, and even seeing Zeraxes, Romar and the other Prodigies of his generation in Bastorus One, he knew he couldn''t do as much damage as fast though. Tam and Ameryl both had something above and beyond just normal attacks. Tam used a tightly tuned Concept to enhance her Fire and make it deadly even to Gods and Ameryl was not only fast and skilled enough to strike nearly anything, but she had a sword, Convictions and Skills to inflict massive damage.


    Zeraxes'' Divine Bolt allowed him to channel an absurd amount of energy and seemed to empower his attacks, to make them stronger along with having three solid convictions.


    Romar also had a Concept at his disposal, not to mention his ridiculous skill with Fire, his race and his raw stats.


    On top of that, both of them had Domains they could use to channel their damage.


    Felix on the other hand, was just breaking into being able to use a fraction of his Mana through his Attuned Cores. Even then, he was limited by his ability to control that much Mana.


    He very much wanted to alleviate that problem but he didn''t have any fast way of doing so so instead, he would utilize as many stalling mechanisms as he could. Nova was extraordinarily durable and effective but there was only one of her and he realized he didn''t love the idea of forcing her into protecting him and stalling his enemies.


    Felix wasn''t sure if that was because he cared about her or because of her massive utility but it didn''t matter.


    For the time being, he focused his efforts on Metal Elementals.


    Nova was busy napping, still, but luckily he had a warehouse at his disposal. He didn''t have enough of any specific metal or even material to create something he would be happy with but he had more than enough tiny chunks to at least test things out.


    Starting with a small softball sized chunk of metal, Felix held it in his hands then closed his eyes and let himself fall into one of his first forms of Meditation, Soul Space Meditation, from before his Soul Garden. He isolated his senses to just the chunk of material in his hands and fell into a void where it was him, and the material.


    This time he had access to more senses and they were vastly more precise. He didn''t just see the metal. He felt it''s structure with his Matter Senses and the Anima loosely bound to it through his Anima Senses. He even felt the faint bit of Mana that permeated the material but he didn''t focus on that much.


    Instead, he compared the experiences he had witnessed, within and common between various metals. He used his memory and his Matter Senses to isolate the experiences he thought were unique to the metal itself and slowly began to remove the excess.


    It wasn''t like harvesting a Soul though where he tore and peeled off the outer layers. Instead, it felt like he was chiseling at marble or sanding wood to reveal something already within the Anima. What was left, didn''t really feel at all like a sculpture or art, but it felt pure and that, was exactly what he was looking for.


    Taking the remaining Anima, Felix used his own will to protect and strengthen those experiences then compress down the Anima. He then supplied some Anima of his own and slowly wove it into the material, matching the experiences and strengthening them even further.


    Once he was satisfied, which given the size of the metal chunk was relatively quick, Felix took the Anima and carefully set it aside.


    Then, he quickly prepared the Spirit Summoning Ritual. Once it was complete, he simply held the Concept he had refined in one hand along with the chunk of metal and used the two of them as the bait in the Ritual.


    Felix really had no idea what to expect. Some of his summonings had been almost instantaneous, some had taken much longer to get any kind of answer. As far as he could tell though, there wasn''t much of a pattern there.


    For his first Elemental summoning though, he got a response the instant he activated the Ritual.


    He quickly accepted and didn''t bother with a contract or anything because he really just wanted to see what was possible and didn''t feel it was necessary. Taking the Concept and the chunk of metal, he wrangled with the Spirit to bind it. It really did feel to him like he was trying to catch a slippery, overexcited animal or child.


    The process wasn''t hard though and in nearly no time at all, the metal chunk he had been examining began moving on its own. At first, it just rolled around, smacking itself into various tables, machines and walls in the lab. Then, it began to jump and bounce around a little.


    Within a minute of that though, it no longer looked like just a chunk of metal and had taken on a new form with something like a face.


    It had features that looked almost animal like though not with any eyes. Instead, it just had something that was almost snout like, or possibly even fish like. Either way, he could more or less tell where it was looking, at least he thought he could.


    Once it had a shape, it didn''t stop bouncing around at all. In fact, it became even more energetic, bouncing around the rest of the lab and into the heads of a few Adepts working on personal projects. None of them seem too bothered though, some of them just slapped it away and some of them didn''t even notice it hit them.


    "Well, that was a lot easier than I expected."


    Rewdan shrugged, "For you maybe. I''m impressed you managed to create a satisfactory Concept so quickly. Especially from just a piece of metal."


    "I mean, I just compared the metals against each-other. That made the differences pretty obvious."


    "Your ability to Sense Anima is¡­ impressive."


    Ked quickly nodded, "Elementals are usually much more complicated than that. I often find myself wishing I could easily create and harness Concepts."


    Felix snorted, "You should talk to Melody about some of things she can do. Anyways, I''m impressed it answered my summoning so quickly."


    Rewdan shook his head, "I''m not. Elementals by nature, don''t want to exist in the Spirit Realm. Most of them aren''t strong enough to exist within The System though. So, they float around the Spirit Realm, lost. You offering them a body, a Concept and offering to bind them, it''s a dream come true."


    "I see. So it should be relatively easy to summon Elementals then?"


    Rewdan nodded confidently, "Definitely. They are quite picky and you need their specific material and Concept to summon them, but there are so many that are essentially stranded in the Spirit Realm, you should never have trouble finding one."


    Felix''s eyes widened a little, "So what you''re saying is, with the right material and Concept, I should be able to summon something strong."


    "Yes. Definitely."


    Felix spent nearly a dozen hours summoning Elementals until he finally ran out of materials he wanted to use for them. At that point, there were hundreds of little Elementals bouncing around the lab.


    [C - Rare] Tiny Steel Elemental (Lvl 1427)


    Ked didn''t seem to mind at all and was happy to have Elementals that were essentially harmless for demonstration purposes for his other classes. They also weren''t quite as fast as the first Spirit he summoned and so not quite so difficult to catch.


    While he had run out of materials in his warehouse, he could have sourced more but by that point, Nova had started seriously working on Mera''s wand and his Resident Wizard was on her way over from the arena. With that in mind, he started reviewing the plans she had created for her wand. She wanted it to be a surprise so he only had the core mechanics of the wand at his disposal but even with just that, he had to admit, he was impressed.


    It utilized a concept he had tested and really liked but had ultimately dismissed for his Attuned Cores because it was slightly too complex for a Mana Core. For a wand though, it seemed quite suitable.


    He even briefly considered making something of his own. Possibly a wand but definitely with a different design. The issue was, he wasn''t sure what he could put in a wand at the moment that would actually help him in any way other than a battery or an Attuned Crystal. Theoretically he could swap out wands for complex Attunements he didn''t have in his Cores but that seemed like a lot of work to him for something he was hoping would become obsolete in the near future.


    The first part of her wand, was an Attuned crystal shaft Nova had already created that would act as the core. It was surrounded and woven with a special alloy she had hand picked and communicated to Nova and just holding it, Felix got a little excited about the wand. It seemed perfectly normal from every sense except for his Mana Senses. Even without pushing any Mana through the core, it felt almost like it was vibrating.


    Taking the shaft, Felix began to apply the latest revision of his Mana Battery technique to prepare the shaft for channeling Mana. It wouldn''t actually be used as a battery at all though and instead, the process was just designed so that it would be better at channeling Mana and in doing so, would amplify it in a way.


    He finished that part of the wand just as the door to the lab opened to reveal Melody and Mera.


    Noticing what he was holding, Mera''s eyes bugged out and she jumped straight up a meter into the air then scurried over as soon as she landed, snatching it out of his hand.


    She carefully examined it for about a minute or two while Melody held back a giggle at her child like excitement and Felix held out his hand, waiting for her to return it to him. Once she did, he grabbed hold of his left arm, detached his Soul and pulled it free from his body, manually minimizing the damage from bleeding out.


    He already had The Blood Ring active and it was more than happy to consume his arm as soon as it was free. Then, he began manually regrowing the arm just a bit before carefully placing the shaft where his bone was. Then, he began growing bone around the shaft to complete the handle.


    It was a little tricky because he had to essentially layer the bone, like having a smaller straw within a larger straw because between them, went the marrow required to grow both of them. Once it was done though, which didn''t take more than an hour or so, he would simply remove the wand and the excess bone and marrow to reveal a completed shaft.


    Despite the horror on her face, less than the first time she had seem him do the same thing, Melody pushed through to reveal the important gossip she had brought to him, "You know you could have waited for us."


    "Would it have changed anything? I take it you and Adaline went right to sleep?"


    She shrugged a little defensively, "Yeah but¡­ it''s the gentlemanly thing to do."


    This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.


    "You think I care about being a gentleman?"


    "I¡­ shut up."


    "What''s Peace up to then?"


    "He was solo clearing floors last I checked. Or¡­ mostly just messing around with his new equipment and seeing how far he can push his transformations. Adaline''s already headed to The Realms of Annihilation so, she should be much stronger next we see her."


    "Really? You can''t gain levels in The Realms."


    "True. You of all people should know though, there''s more to strength than levels."


    "Of course¡­ I guess we''ll see. She was already pretty strong though."


    "Yeah but, look at Zeraxes and Romar. Not only did they both surpass her in combat ability, you noticed Zeraxes'' Aura."


    "Yeah, it was kind of a joke."


    She snickered, "Maybe to you but, he didn''t even have one before going in. I''m not even sure he had fully ingrained his three convictions."


    "So it''s mostly about Soul Strength then?"


    She scoffed, "No. I know you''re a complete freak who experiments with his own body but most of us don''t. In The Realms, it''s not unheard of for people to come out almost unrecognizable physically from when they went in."


    "What happens in there?"


    She shrugged, "It''s like¡­ visiting another universe. Many other universes. You meet people, cultures and civilizations with knowledge and abilities we don''t really have."


    "How much time did Zeraxes and Romar spend there?"


    "No one knows but them. Our time is not attached to Realm time at all. Going in, no matter how many floors you clear or how much time you spend in there, you come out anywhere from a minute to an hour later. No more and no less."


    Wait¡­ holy shit. That''s¡­ Is it literally another universe?


    "Anyways, you''ll see sooner or later."


    Felix nodded, "As for The Abyss, how far has everyone else gotten?"


    Her expression shifted to one of partial satisfaction, "Based on how far we got and how much time it took us, we''re in the top third ish of the class. Zeraxes and Romar both took less than 20 hours. A few others had similar times."


    "Did they get any further than us?"


    "They both stopped around 180, so just 10 floors past us."


    "Okay. Not too bad. How about you Mera, how was it?"


    She shrugged a little, hung her head and kicked a table leg a few times, "It wasn''t bad I mean it was fun. I need at least a wand though."


    Felix nodded, "I was experimenting with Elementals as-" He gestured around him, "-you can see. Do you know what kind of Elemental you want? I can probably start on that while my arm grows back."


    She nodded quickly, the excitement washing away the disappointment, "Yup. I know exactly what I want. Here." She handed him a handful of small crystals.


    "What are these?"


    "Take a look." Mera smiled wide, like she was proud to show her teacher something for show and tell.


    Reaching his senses into the various crystals, Felix was a little surprised he recognized at least one of the contents. It contained Anima that had been attuned from Peace''s new ring. Looking through the others, the intention was clear, she was targeting some kind of Storm Elemental.


    Felix furrowed his brow a little, "How does this work? We can''t really provide it a solid body¡­"


    She smiled wickedly, "That''s why I had Grim instruct Nova to make a Core."


    Felix cocked a brow, "Consisting of what?"


    "Well, first we took Mana Computer from the farm so it has Intelligence then I had Nova coat that in Attuned Crystal for Wind, Force, Lightning, Sound and a few other things. Lastly, she coated the entire thing in a thick layer of Asphellum with some Demitium between the layers attached to some Energy Conductive grounding lines to absorb attacks and keep the core safe."


    "Huh. That''s¡­ well thought out. I take it the Asphellum is supposed to act the same way Peace''s new robes will? They''ll merge with its body?"


    She nodded quickly, "That''s the idea."


    "Okay, you want to retrieve the Core for me so I can prepare it to be a battery then?"


    She nodded and darted off into his open Pocket Home as Melody turned to him, "I take it Asphellum is the weird ore I bought you in Telviras?"


    He nodded.


    "What is it?"


    "You''ll see."


    She groaned then moved on, "You know, your familiars ability to duplicate basically any material is kind of absurd, right?"


    He shrugged, "Yeah, I mean I''m surprised other people don''t use Material Sprites more often."


    She shook her head immediately, "Yours is not like any other. Every other one I''ve ever heard of took forever to break things down, let alone transmute them into something new. Not to mention, she''s a daemon. Most Sprites turn into Elementals or Spirits and don''t get any further than Greater Elemental or Spirit."


    "Yeah, that''s fair I guess. On the other hand, the best materials seem to all have some amount of Anima infused within them. It also takes her a while to transmute anything complicated, like Asphellum, Demitium, Dragon Scales and so on."


    "Dragon Scales?"


    "Tekragoraxius gave her permission."


    "I¡­ what?"


    He waved her off, "Don''t worry about it. Is there anything I need to know or do before my next delve into The Abyss?"


    She shrugged, "You should watch some of the tournament events and talk to sponsors but, not really. Take a look at the recordings of Zeraxes'' and Romar''s descents so far so you can speed through the floors they''ve done."


    "Where do I do that?"


    "In the building around the arena. Ask the building and it''ll lead you to the record room."


    Felix nodded, "Perfect. Thanks."


    He took the core from Mera who had been poking him non stop since she returned and held it in his remaining hand as he began to drill into it with Mana to prepare it as a battery. He had to pay a little more attention to it than normal because he had to target the crystal and avoid the Mana Computer within but, it wasn''t so much that he couldn''t also manually regenerate his arm at the same time.


    Examining the core as he prepared it, Felix was impressed not just with her selection of materials and the thought she had put into that but with the structure of the Core. It wasn''t just simple layers, the various materials were carefully structured and woven together. It allowed the Demitium to discharge into the crystal layer and also eject out of the Core, avoiding the sensitive innards. It allowed external stress to compress a softer material and push the energy into the Demitium, which absorbed it. It allowed the crystal to supply Mana to the computer and the Computer to communicate with the crystal. The crystal wasn''t just a battery either but also contained crystal specifically for binding the Elemental''s Spirit to it.


    The entire thing looked like a masterpiece that someone had worked on with a team of experts for generations, which was completely possible in with his Mind City''s dilation assuming she had been thinking about this for some time.


    He completed preparing the Core around the same time the wand handle was done so he handed the Core to Mera who held it like it was a fragile egg as he carefully peeled back his flesh and snapped off the bone he had grown beneath. With his remaining hand, he pulled a chunk of raw meat from his Soul Space and devoured it, using his Matter Control to dissolve the meat instead of chewing it.


    At the same time, he used his Matter Control to hold the wand shaft before him and remove the outer layers of marrow that were no longer needed. Then, he cleaned up the ends so they weren''t snapped and fractured bone then handed the shaft to Mera as she handed the Core to Melody to hold for the time being.


    Holding the bone shaft in her hand, she waved it around and laughed maniacally.


    Felix sighed and turned his attention to the crystals she had given him and began to carefully replicate, combine and refine the Concept within. Just as he was beginning to refine them though, Mera ran over, "No, not like that. More of this one and less of this."


    He looked up at her and cocked a brow but she was adamant so, he listened. She continued to pester and micromanage his work, paying attention within his Mind City to his senses so she sensed what he did. Melody found the entire thing very amusing at first but it took Mera just a few minutes to rope Melody into the process as well.


    She had Felix pull Melody into his Mind City then use her Soul Senses to augment his own and the instant she did, Felix was completely overwhelmed. For just a moment, it was like he could see everything. Not only could he sense other people, but he could literally watch the experiences that made up their Souls from multiple kilometers away. It was so completely absurd, he was too shocked to really appreciate any of it before Mera yanked on Melody''s robes in his Soul Garden and told her to focus on the crystals.


    Once she did, everything else vanished and he was left with the Anima within the crystals alone. With her Soul Senses though, he could not only get a sense of what the experiences were but he could dissect individual experiences. He could separate and feel individual parts of experiences, instead of the experiences as a whole. He didn''t need the experience of the cold and specific gases in a cloud of a storm, he just needed the absurd Force it carried.


    Mera wasn''t done there though, she roped in a number of others from Felix''s Mind City and set up a facility where they could all work through their combined abilities to analyze, dissect, reconstruct and refine the Concept she was targeting. She directed the entire process and Felix felt a bit like a puppet. Were it not for the fact that he was learning so much and knowing how much it would help him in the future when he created other Concepts, he would have been annoyed.


    As for how or even where Mera had learned all this, Felix had no idea but he made a note to look into it later, it couldn''t have all come from Rewdan.


    What they ended up with when they were finished refining was nothing like what they had started from. It was a single experience, not many stitched together. It was carefully balanced as per Mera''s specific specifications and it put all the Concepts Felix had created on his own, to shame.


    All that was left was for him to carefully empower it, which he didn''t need any help with, so Mera dragged Melody off into his Mind City while he worked.


    Once he had added enough Anima to the equation, Felix prepared the ritual then found Mera and Melody in his head watching back some of his memories from The Integration. He yanked the both of them out, forcing Mera into her puppet and Melody back into her body then held out the refined and empowered Concept along with the Core.


    Felix filled the ritual with his Mana then nodded to Mera.


    She immediately looked at him with confusion, "What?"


    "This is your Elemental. You need to provide the offering. I''ll make it a bit louder if need be, but I think you should call it so we can maximize compatibility."


    She nodded, "Okay. Let''s do it." Then reached forwards and took the Core in her hands. Felix held the Concept with his Soul Tendrils and lowered it to the ground as she got on her knees and looked upwards, like she was worshiping a God.


    Felix immediately felt a response and began to reach for it but Mera rejected it before he could accept it. Then, there was another and she rejected it again. There were thousands of responses and Mera continued to reject or ignore them for minutes. Then it was dozens of minutes. His Mana began to drain past the halfway point, which was absurd given his pool but she continued to wait.


    "Mera, I don''t know what you''re waiting for but, it might not be be listening." or exist.


    "It''s out there, can you amplify my offering?"


    He sighed and nodded then reached forwards and amplified it a little. He was more cautious doing so now than he had been after Rewdan had chewed Eni out for yelling into the Spirit Realm.


    "More."


    He pushed a little more, convinced this was going nowhere.


    "Felix, MORE!"


    He sighed and pushed her offering out, not quite with everything he had but definitely loud enough that a lot of Spirits would be mad at him. He even noticed out of the corner of his eye, Eni and Rewdan wincing from across the lab.


    Then, they got a response. This one was obviously different from the rest and Mera immediately pulled on it. She wasn''t nearly strong enough though so Felix reached out and grabbed hold, yanking the Spirit to them. The process of summoning it from wherever it had been was much tougher than any other summoning he had done, in his limited experience. It was a summoning he had to work for instead of one that traveled to him.


    He had more than enough Soul Strength to pull it to them but it took quite a bit of effort.


    What appeared before them on top of the ritual was a massive sphere of Anima three or four meters wide that looked like a tornado or hurricane shaped into a ball to his Anima Senses. It was dense and just his periphery sense of it was that it was ancient and contained unknowable secrets he didn''t even know existed within Storms.


    The Sphere of Anima brightened and spun a little faster, the golden cloud and winds growing slightly silver as it did so then it flashed and an echoing boom reverberated through the entire lab. At the same time, the air in the lab began to move and form strong winds that circled around the sphere.


    Felix tried to listen and communicate but he was getting nothing real back from it and he was reluctant to give it a real body so he looked over at Rewdan who was cowering behind a table along with Eni and Ked.


    Rewdan met Felix''s gaze but didn''t understand what he wanted, Can you communicate with this thing?


    Communicate with it? Banish that monstrosity. It''s probably not even conscious. S~ea??h the ¦Çov§×lFire .net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    Can. You. Communicate. With. It.


    I¡­ maybe.


    Try.


    Rewdan looked at him reluctantly then grumbled and fought his way through the winds towards the Spirit. He grabbed onto Felix''s robes and cowered behind him to protect himself from the wind as he peered around his body and echoed out a message into the Anima.


    The Storm Sphere seemed to hear and respond to him as it flashed a few more times, looking a lot like Lightning as it did so.


    It wants the Core and the Concept.


    Can it guarantee not to kill us?


    It just keeps yelling to give it the Core and the Concept.


    If I do that, how strong will this thing be?


    Uh¡­ I don''t know.


    Can I stop it if it decides to try and kill us?


    Maybe¡­ It will take a while for it to adjust to the body so¡­


    Felix sighed, I guess Rhonan is on planet¡­


    Using his Soul Tendrils, Felix snatched the Core and shoved the Concept into it, he carefully bound that in the correct locations then reached forwards for the Storm Sphere. Before he even touched it though, it swirled down like a vortex and entered the Core all on its own.


    As it did, the wind completely abated then vanished as the Core lay still and dormant on the ground.


    Felix looked over at Ked to apologize but he wasn''t paying attention, instead he had run over and was crouched down, examining the Core from a few meters away.


    It seemed prudent to maintain distance and everyone else in the lab seemed to agree but Felix, stepped forwards and grabbed the Core with his hands. Then, he surrounded it with his Soul Tendrils and readied himself to act, if need be.


    Theoretically it could be stronger than him physically but he was pretty sure he could take it Soul on Soul.


    "Release me at once, Wanderer."


    "Wanderer?"


    "Release me."


    "Are you going to try and kill us? Will you form a contract with me to ensure you won''t?"


    "What purpose would I have in fighting you?"


    "Contract or I end this."


    "Fine. Contract of peace with everyone present until the sun sets."


    "Deal."


    Felix offered the contract himself and the Elemental accepted a moment later. It was definitely strong and Felix was certain it could kill him. At the same time, his Soul Strength was much higher but much less aligned. It didn''t have convictions but the entirety of the Anima that formed it nonetheless was entirely synchronized in a way his wasn''t.


    "Now, provide me quintessence."


    "The what? You mean this?" Felix offered it a trickle of Mana.


    "Yes! Quintessence. I am not accustomed to drawing from the fundamental planes."


    Aether?


    He sighed and began funneling Mana into the Core, providing millions of Mana a second until he was down to just a quarter of his pool and stopped the flow, unwilling to provide any more.


    The Core then pulled against Felix''s Soul Tendrils and he released it, now that they were in a Soul Contract. It flew up, hovered in the air then shot itself straight at Nova, stopping just an inch short of her. She looked at it, smelled it and pawed at it, unsure what to make of it.


    "Daemon. I require material to form my body. Create this for me."


    Nova meowed at it in confusion as it created a tiny ball of Matter in front of it. Nova looked at Felix and he gave her permission after realizing the Matter was almost entirely water. She meowed once again then spewed out a massive stream of water at the Core which happily took control of the water and began to spin it around itself.


    After hundreds of gallons had been taken and somewhat consumed somewhere, a shell of water had formed around the Core. It quickly zipped back over to where the ritual had been cast and began to spin.


    The water shell accelerated until it began to shift from water to vapor and that vapor slowly compressed itself into a dark grey cloud. That cloud was compressed until it looked almost like a solid and once all the water had been transformed, the cloud shifted and a burst of steam was released.


    The steam dissipated a moment later to reveal, a humanoid man, sitting on the floor. He sat in a meditative stance with long blue robes of flowing water. He had nearly perfect looking smooth skin that was so dense, it was impossible to tell visually it was made of clouds. His long beard and hair however, were more obviously made from clouds. Lastly, his eyes were just bright blue shapes made of a constant stream of coursing Lightning.


    "I am Okotama Thunder, Prime Sage of the Storm."


    [Ancient] Okotama Thunder, Prime Sage of the Storm


    In Felix''s mind, especially with his meditative posture, Okotama looked every part Sage. He looked like an old Guru that had spent his life meditating on top of a mountain in solitude.


    Rewdan, what''s a Prime Sage?


    It''s¡­ Rewdan stared in disbelief at what they had summoned, He''s¡­ the highest form of Elemental¡­ the living embodiment of a Concept that has grown a consciousness.


    Felix nodded and stepped forwards, "Okotama, it-"


    Mera ran forwards, "You''re perfect."


    "It was you who summoned me. You appear young and yet, you contain a deceptive quantity of experiences."


    She held out her hand, "I''m Mera."


    Okotama bowed his head slightly and gently lifted his hand to grasp hers, "What is it, I am perfect for, may I ask?"


    "My familiar." She smiled wide.


    "I am not aware of, familiar."


    She pointed at Felix and Nova simultaneously, "Like them."


    "You would have me be your servant?"


    "I would have you be my friend."


    "And what does a being a friend of Mera entail?"


    "Talking and fighting and traveling and having fun and¡­ you know, friend stuff."


    "What if I did not want to be friend of Mera, now or in the future?"


    "Not possible. Everyone likes me." She put both her hands on her hips and puffed out her chest.


    "I see. Then hypothetically?"


    That''s a big word for someone who just started using language. Rewdan took longer than that and he''s been in the material realm before¡­


    She pouted a little, "I''d be sad¡­"


    "I see. In that case, I accept. From, this day forth, I Okotama Thunder, Prime Sage of the Storm shall also be known as Okotama Thunder, friend of Mera."


    She absolutely beamed then leapt forwards and wrapped her arms around his neck, squeezing him in a hug.


    That¡­ worked out surprisingly well.


    Have you thought about how you''re going to have them bond?


    Felix sighed, I assume she''s thought this one through?


    She has. She knows.


    Do the other Residents in puppets know?


    They do. They''re mostly curious to see how it goes. No one else is ready.


    Noticing Okotama looking at him, Felix met his gaze.


    "This Core you provided me is curious. Am I permitted to modify it?"


    Felix shrugged, "I guess. What are you going to change?"


    "May I perform the modifications then permit you to examine the Core for yourself?"


    "Sure."


    Okotama nodded then his body vanished into the Core. It lit up brightly for a few moments then hopped into the air and into Felix''s hand. He then reached out and sensed it over with his Matter Senses and gawked at the result. The Mana Computer at the very center of the Core was gone and in its place, was a storm of electrical synapses that seemed to exist completely independently of a body, using just the vapor of a dense cloud to move.


    The rest of the Core had also changed but not quite as drastically. The crystal largely remained the same but the Demitium was restructured and the Asphellum had been melted away into the Cloud body.


    Huh¡­ I wonder if I could do something similar with my computers or brain.


    You''d lose all the benefits you have from your Control over Mana though.


    Sure, this has to be faster.


    I doubt it''s worth it for you. Not to say Mana Computers are the be all and end all.


    Alright, fair enough. Guess I can wait until I can control and read microscopic electrical arcs to test the theory.


    "Are you satisfied with your examination?"


    Felix nodded and tossed the Core into the air where Okotama reformed his body, standing this time. Felix also noticed the Asphellum from the core was dissolved into the water robes to give them a bit more structure.


    Mera excitedly darted around the Storm Spirit, looking up at him like he was a celebrity.


    "Wand or Tome?" Felix said, trying to move things along.


    She jumped up and turned to Felix in excitement, "Wand now. You don''t have enough Mana for another summoning just yet."


    He nodded, "You''re right. Do you need anything from me for that, or can I recharge?"


    She quickly shook her head, "Just need you at the end." Looking up and over her shoulder at Okotama, she grabbed his hand and dragged him over towards the table she had been using before, "Come see Oko."


    He nodded and let himself be dragged, his feet floating off the ground, like he was an intricately shaped balloon being dragged along.


    Heading over towards his Pocket Home, Felix grabbed Nova from the ground and carried her in, tossing her at the foot of the warehouse. She yawned then meowed at him curiously, as if asking what he needed.


    Felix smirked, "Well, I happen to have a lot of junk to sort through and I thought you might be interested in some of it."


    She meowed and he began ejecting all the random loot he had gotten from The Abyss. None of it was worth mentioning, only a few items were even Special and all of them were D grade. There were weapons, armor, jewelry, consumables, potions, poisons, materials, books and scrolls. He had already scanned everything he could and not even the information they contained was useful in the slightest.


    He held out high hopes for the later floors but he couldn''t help but feel a little disappointed.


    As the pile grew, Nova happily dove into the sharp weapons and dangerous consumables, vacuuming up anything she was even slightly interested in, along with everything around it.


    Once it became obvious there were certain items she was avoiding, Felix began collecting those as he simultaneously regrew his arm and forged a Soul. The arm grew back relatively quickly as he began to place the items into his warehouse, as per Grim''s instruction and his Mind Resident''s organization.


    Then, before leaving, he quickly topped up his Mana pool from the Mana Engine at the top of his tower.


    With his body and Mana restored, Felix left his Pocket Home to find a very happy Mera skipping around in circles waving her nearly completed wand about.


    While it wasn''t quite done yet, Felix was already impressed. First, there was the bone white shaft she had engraved with very specific channel patterns to better channel and normalize Mana. Within them, she had inlaid an iridescent material for Mana conductivity. That was only the handle though and at the end of it, there were 7 serpentine and draconic heads.


    Each one was made of Attuned Crystal from Felix''s tree that Nova had shaped and each one was a distinct color. They all split out and twisted forwards where the heads all met and pointed in the same direction, as if they breathed out the magic she was casting.


    They were how the entire wand worked, based on a concept he had considered for his own Mana Core at one point. Mana flowing down the shaft was amplified as much as possible, the noise normalize to the point where the Mana contained all Attunements as equally as possible. The ultimate form of chaos. Then, instead of imbuing an enchantment, the heads would each filter out everything but a single Attunement, effectively producing the perfect Attunement for 7 different spells.


    Walking up to her, he snatched the wand out of her hand before she could react and began the process of preparing the crystal heads in a similar fashion as he had the crystal core. For the heads though, they just had to have high Mana conductivity. Eventually, she had also planned them around each head having it''s own Concept imbued within it but that part of the wand would wait until he was more proficient with Concepts and they knew more about them.


    The final step, was to imbue a small part of his own soul into the bone shaft, along with a small part of Mera''s. His Soul was there to improve the Mana Control and Mera''s was to bind it to her. The tiny fragment of his own Soul he specifically tuned for that purpose but for Mera''s, he simply took a piece with her permission.


    As he did, he was astonished by how complex her Soul was. When he initially created her Soul and all the other Souls of his Mind Residents, except the Rakyt he had adopted, they had been simple. He had added Core Soul Experiences of his own choosing and randomized some things and then finally imbued the Spark of Life. He had known the Spark allowed them to shift and change but he hadn''t expected her to feel so real.


    It made the final part of Mera''s whole plan a little more reasonable, at least to Felix.


    Once he was finished with all 7 heads and imbuing the Souls, he identified the wand, mostly out of curiosity.


    [C - Arcane] Hydra Wand of the True Wizard''s Apprentice


    [Wand][Spirit][Growth][Soul Bound][Currently Bound]


    A wand created from the bones of The True Wizard with a core of specially treated Soul Imbued Attunement Crystal with a tip of seven heads, each specializing in a specific Attunement. This wand only responds to one master and her deity with whom she crafted it. This wand substantially improves the Mana Control, Speed and Force of the Caster. This wand substantially improves any spell cast using at least one of the 7 specific Attunements of the heads. This wand will grow along with the Bound user. This wand cannot be unbound as it was bound when crafted.


    Cast Speed +5028%


    Mana Discharge Rate +502956%


    Spell Power Normalized to within 5% of 5.9M


    Mana Attunement Precision +92.4%


    Concurrent Casts: 7


    Spell Stability: 914M%


    Mana Turbulence: 0%


    Attunement Filtering Efficiency: 58241%


    Mana Power Scaling Factor: N/A


    Mana Instability Sensitivity: 0.1%


    Added Mana Instability: -99.8%


    Energy Level Conversion Rate: 9814%


    Mana Control Limit: 1.2B


    External Fluctuation Sensitivity: 0%


    Mana Isolation Limit: 422B


    Maximum Flow Rate: 436 m/s


    Cocking a brow and looking up at Mera, "Since when were you my apprentice?"


    She was pulled out of her reverie, staring up at Okotama and immediately dove past his midsection, snatching the wand as she did so. She landed with a somersault and rolled into a cross legged sitting position where she stared down at the wand, her eyes filled with greed.


    He sighed a little then began setting up the Spirit Summoning Ritual for the Knowledge Spirit. This summoning was much simpler and the offering Felix provided, was simply a massive repository of Spells and other knowledge. They focused primarily on Spells then secondarily on Enchantments, Rituals and Wards and then lastly and definitely least, on the entire repository of knowledge in Felix''s head.


    Mera provided her own Soul as well, so they could ensure at least some compatibility and finally, the body.


    Instead of a tome though, Mera provided a rectangular slate of metal with a number of colorful metals embedded within it. They weren''t visible at all but they were close to the surface and the idea was that the Spirit would use the colored metals to create images on the surface, like Grim did with ink. Felix was reminded immediately of a tablet and considering she had been raised in his head, he was pretty sure he knew where she had gotten the idea from.


    The summoning for the Knowledge Spirit was much faster than the summoning for Okotama and went fairly quickly. The Spirit readily agreed to a temporary contract with Felix provided he feed it a small tidbit of knowledge. After that, he bound it to the slate and handed it to Mera.


    She happily bounded around the room talking to the Spirit that, to Felix, seemed like a baby. The more she talked, the more he realized it didn''t understand her in the slightest.


    The last step of everything, was to bind Mera to Okotama and her Tome so that she could take them with her into The Abyss and so that they would be hers. The wand wasn''t sentient and had no Spirit so Felix had simply crafted it using a piece of her Soul.


    Her Spell Book, or rather Spell Tablet, and especially Okotama, had much stronger Souls. If he were to simply enter them into a contract with her, there was a good chance either of them could overpower her. On top of that, she was essentially isolated in his mind so there was a decent chance the contract wouldn''t work at all.


    To remedy these issues, Felix knew they would have to actually move Mera into a body of her own. The body she was currently using was a temporary one at best and so, Nova was already working on a new one, using a small piece of the Giant corpse in his Pocket Home.


    Due to the similarities between him and Mera, they planned on simply giving her a copy of his own body, with all the modifications he had made, just in a different overall shape. She was more than happy with that and the only big change that had to be made was for her to choose a body and face.


    As she did that, Felix checked in on Art, Rewdan and Eni who weren''t actually working at all. Instead, they were gossiping with Melody and glancing off to the side, at Okotama.


    Approaching them, Melody grabbed his robes and pulled him over, "Felix."


    "Melody."


    "How did you manage to summon that?"


    Felix shrugged, "I don''t know. Just followed Mera''s instructions."


    "Okay but, I''ve never even heard of Prime Sage Spirits." She thumbed Rewdan, "From what Rewdan here tells me, their like¡­ some of the strongest Spirits in the Spirit Realm."


    Felix looked over at him and Rewdan nodded, "At least now. This one isn''t quite as strong or old as¡­ some of the others but Okotama is still a Prime Sage."


    "So?"


    Eni rolled forwards, "You do not understand. Prime Sages are candidates for the Spirit Council."


    Felix sighed, "I don''t know what that is. I have no concept of what any of this means." Felix looked back, "He seems strong. Physically, I''m pretty sure I can handle him Spiritually though."


    Rewdan scoffed, "Yeah but you''re¡­ unique."


    Melody looked between them, still not entirely aware of the true extent of Felix''s Soul, despite her talents.


    Before she could ask though, Felix sighed, "I just don''t know if I can make Mera strong enough to handle a Spirit Contract with him."


    Rewdan nodded thoughtfully, "You''re going to move her into her own body?"


    "Wait¡­ She''s not in that body?" Melody looked around in confusion.


    Felix nodded to Rewdan''s question, ignoring Melody, "I''ll strengthen her Soul as best I can but I can''t just make her as strong as I am."


    Rewdan shrugged a little, "Easy, just enter them into an Arbited contract. Assuming Okotama agrees to that."


    Eni nodded along and Felix cocked his head, "Is that what it sounds like? It''s a contract between them but my Soul is the one keeping both sides in check?"


    They both nodded and Rewdan smiled, "Exactly."


    Melody cocked her head, "I''ve never heard of an Arbited Soul Contract¡­ I guess we just use The System as the Arbiter in those situations¡­ How do you¡­ do that?"


    "Basically, Felix just gives both of them a small part of his own Soul and they exchange a larger part with each-other. They don''t need to give anything to you because it''s about you-" Rewdan fingered Felix''s chest, "-keeping them in check."


    He nodded, "Okay. That works. Any other tips?"


    Rewdan shook his head and Eni shrugged.


    "How much longer until Nova is done?" Melody gestured towards Nova.


    "A half hour probably. My body is¡­ complicated."


    "You''re replicating your own body?"


    "Not an exact copy, she''s choosing how it looks, but more or less."


    Melody laughed, "Mera is a construct¡­ she''s about to have the single strongest wand I have ever seen along with a Spirit that rivals A grade Elites, at least as her familiar along with a body that has stats easily falling into the B grade."


    Felix nodded, "Not quite. She won''t have access to my Mana Core or channels and won''t be able to use the Reaper''s skills right away."


    She shook her head, "Remember when we decided not to have Mera enter The Abyss at the same time as us to create a separation?"


    "Yeah."


    "That was a great idea. You''re welcome."


    Felix snorted, "Uh huh."


    "Speaking of, why in Rhonan''s name don''t you have a wand like that? Or even make your own robes for that matter?"


    Felix nodded, "I will. Eventually. I haven''t found a wand that''s¡­ perfect yet. Same with the robes, I need the right materials and weave." He nodded once to Rewdan in recognition of his advice on the weave part.


    Melody smacked Felix as hard as she could, which wasn''t much considering her Strength, "Just choose something for now you dolt."


    He recoiled a little, though not out of pain, "Not worth it. It needs to¡­" actually work for my very unique situation.


    "be perfect?" Melody finished his sentence for him incorrectly then continued to smack him to no avail, "Seriously, what is wrong with you?"


    "Whatever. Don''t you have sponsors to shmooze or something?"


    "I don''t shmooze you schmuck."


    Rewdan giggled and Eni just looked at them in genuine confusion, not understanding the interaction of beings from the material realm.


    Felix lightly shook his head, "Are you heading back into The Abyss? How many classes do you have?"


    Melody sighed, "Just a couple I took for fun so doesn''t really matter if I miss them. I had more but dropped them when I learned about The Abyss. Besides, Adaline is heading to The Realms, should be back any time now and Peace is still in there, experimenting with his¡­ weirdness. Who else am I supposed to bug?"


    "Literally anyone."


    She scoffed, "You love me. Don''t try to deny it."


    Felix sighed and looked back to check if Nova was done yet and unfortunately, it didn''t look like it. Mera had stopped skipping but she was still talking to her Spell Tablet while Ked and Okotama were talking, a number of Adept crowded around as well.


    With nothing else to visibly distract himself with, Felix turned to the work Rewdan, Eni and Art had been working on, Art still working despite the commotion. Melody continued to pester him and the rest of them though. Rewdan didn''t seem to mind at all and was more than happy to answer her questions which did nothing towards Felix''s goal of losing her.


    Eventually, he just got fed up enough that he just turned around, grabbed her, and swung her over his shoulder, simultaneously yanking her Soul into his Mind City. The elatement he felt from her as soon as he did confirmed these had been her intentions all along.


    Sighing, he ripped off his legs and stuck them into The Blood Ring, floating around with his Matter Control in their place.


    Rewdan mostly worked on the construct factory while Felix ran some tests and began prototyping the Mana Accelerator. Where particles were accelerated by an electric field and controlled with magnets in a particle accelerator, his Mana Accelerator was going to have to use Anima to bend the beam and Spells to accelerate it. The hard part, was actively targeting the Mana within the system when it was so small and moving so fast.


    He didn''t make much progress in a half hour though at which point Nova spat out the body of a small girl, wrapped in cloth for modesty''s sake. Felix had already prepared everything on his end so all that was left, was for him to manually strengthen Mera''s Soul then bind it to the body.


    He mentally nudged Mera and she looked at him from across the room, "Are you ready?"


    Her usual childlike glee and seemingly endless excitement was immediately replaced by a serious look as she looked over at Felix and the body at his feet. She nodded, "I''m ready."


    Okotama floated over along with Ked to watch while a number of Adept stood a little further away to observe.


    The first step, was for Felix to remove her Soul from the planet she lived within in his Soul. Doing so, he held her in his Soul Space and replicated the very same thing The System had tried to do to him during his first evolution. She wasn''t nearly as strong as him and so Mera was completely knocked out. Then, he had to carefully dismantle her Soul part of the way to remove the Mana Computer that was her brain.


    Following that, he carefully stitched things back together, adding in a second, third and even fourth layer to her Soul. First he upgraded her Core Soul, increasing its size with Anima he had wiped clean then added in some Spark of Life. He also compressed it down as much as he could. Next, he added in a layer that was tightly integrated with her Core Soul that contained almost entirely pieces of his own Mana Control and Matter Control, as much as he could isolate them to create a Control Layer. Then, he added a protective layer, just in case, using the same lattice techniques he used on his own Soul.


    On top of that, was what was traditionally the Second Layer, the one that controlled her body. That one he constructed from pieces of his own Second Layer he could easily regenerate along with pieces from various Souls he had harvested, including Hollow Claw and the Giant.


    On top of that, was another protective layer that served to simply dampen attacks, mostly Soul but also Energy and Physical to a certain degree. It would never do what his did, she didn''t have the will power for that, but it was something.


    While he had been constructing her Soul, Mark had already begun downloading her Memories and restructuring the Mana Computer in her head to match the computer she had used previously through Felix''s Mana Control. That didn''t take much longer than Felix did and so, once he was done he walked over to her body and placed his hand on the body''s stomach.


    Reaching in with his Soul Tendrils, Felix carefully placed the Soul within the body then began manually stretching and shaping it. As he did, he bound the body, not just to the core bindings Erolan had kindly demonstrated for him, but all throughout the body. He couldn''t bind every cell, but he could bind the Soul in enough locations that it would maintain its shape and over time, her Soul would bind to her cells all by themselves.


    The most complicated part was her brain because it had to be bound to the Control layer he had created without being physically located next to it. She could have done that herself but him doing it minimized potential problems because she would have to do it without a brain at all.


    The whole process was carefully observed by Ked, Okotama, the Spell Tablet that was hovering near her along with a small gathering of Adepts that Felix was pretty sure had no idea the significance of what was happening. So, as he removed his hand, he made sure to fold the cloth over her again to hide the hand mark he had left behind.


    It looked far too similar to Rhonan''s and he wanted to avoid that association as much as possible for the time being. Nova''s was similar too but her fur and shape shifting made it look like a blob or a scar, not like a hand. Using his Anima and Matter Senses, Felix could tell Mera''s, looked almost exactly like Rhonan''s.


    Before he woke her, he floated her puppet body to his hand using his Matter Control then pulled it into his Soul Space, only squishing it a little bit to do so. There, he removed the robes she had purchased with Melody''s wallet and placed them over her body so she had something to wear when she woke up.


    Then finally, he reached in with a Soul Tendril and prodded her Soul to wake her.


    Warning: Your Race has been Downgraded


    Your race, Wanderer, is no longer unique within the multiverse. It has been downgraded from [C - Unique] Wanderer to [C - Ancient] Wanderer to reflect this.


    No stat, racial ability or other changes have occurred.


    That''s¡­ actually great news.


    Ding You have upgraded the General skill: [Epic] Mind City (Skilled XIV) => General: [Legendary] Mental Metropolis (Apprentice II)


    General: [Mental Metropolis (Legendary) Using a combination of Mental and Soul Projections, you have crafted a metropolis within your mind. The buildings in the metropolis dictate the connections, automations and functions this skill provides. The consciousnesses of the various citizens allow functions to be automated and run in parallel to your mind''s main functions. These residents are capable of reproducing so long as they are provided sufficient Anima and Mana Computers and in doing so, the population of your Mental Metropolis is growing exponentially. This skill can be upgraded. The functions and capacity of the settlement are determined by the buildings within it. Some functions can be lost should the building dedicated to it become damaged.]


    That''s¡­ not the upgrade I was expe-


    Ding You have become more proficient with the General skill: [Legendary] Mental Metropolis (Apprentice II => Skilled IXX)


    Ding You have upgraded the General skill: [Legendary] Mental Metropolis (Skilled IXX) => General: [Divine] Mental World (Skilled I)


    General: [Mental World (Divine) Through a combination of Mental Simulations and Constructed Anima Experiences, you have crafted a world within your mind. This world contains multiple biomes, cities, races and cultures along with diverse flora and fauna. Some building and Residents of the core city, Arkade, automate functions of your body and skills. These residents are capable of reproducing so long as they are provided sufficient Anima and Mana Computers and in doing so, the population of your Mental World is growing exponentially. Through the deep interconnection with your Soul, you have enabled a level of automation over your own will power, enabling skills most would need to dedicate their own focus to. Through the interconnection of multiple cities within your Mental World, the citizens have grown diverse and varied. This skill can be upgraded. Automated skills and abilities are determined by the buildings within the world. Some functions can be lost should the building dedicated to it become damaged.]


    What is happ- Divine!? Ugh, Melody. I''ll deal with her in a minute.


    Felix would have dealt with her immediately but he had more pressing concerns, namely, Mera''s eyes had shot open as she leapt into an upright position, the only thing keeping the cloth and robes around her was Felix''s Matter Control.


    He glared at her and physically prodded her with the robes so she got the hint but she was far too distracted.


    He was less worried about her being naked, everyone in the lab had dealt with constructs and corpses before. It was nothing new.


    He was very worried about the mark on her stomach however.


    She wasn''t even aware yet as far as he knew and instead, she walked around, smacked her feet on the ground and wiggled her fingers as she adjusted to her body.


    [C - Ancient] Mera (Lvl 1262)


    He had Grim pull up her Status Screen for him while he manually held the cloth and robes around her to keep her modest, and hidden.


    Name:MeraFREE0Deity:The True WizardSTR462Class:[C - Mythic] Wizard (Lvl 1,000)DEX982Race:[C - Ancient] Wanderer (Lvl 1,785)AGI645Profession:[C - Arcane] Mana Engineer (Lvl 1,000)PER522Health:6,863,850 / 6,863,850VIT686Mana:13,044,070 / 13,044,070INT1,304END602


    Stupid Deity thing again. Does that mean if she dies, she ends up in my Mental¡­ World now? Does that mean Zero is still out there?


    Having gotten the downgrade notification, Felix had been hoping for a lot and still, he was pleasantly surprised.


    She got the same Race level as I have but her Class and Profession are reset. That''s about the best we could have hoped for.


    He stepped forwards in a flash once he was done examining things and grabbed her arm to stop her, "Get dressed so we can bind you to your familiar and Spell Tablet."


    Her eyes widened in excitement and she quickly scrambled to get her robes on while Felix held the cloth Nova had created around her like a circular curtain changing room with his Matter Control.


    She was finished in just a moment then rushed out to stand in front of Okotama. Felix stood beside them, "I will be acting as Arbiter over this familiar bond to ensure fairness."


    Mera nodded impatiently as soon as he looked at her and Okotama hesitated a moment but nodded in the end.


    "In addition to the standard familiar contract, we will be adding a clause-" Mera stared daggers into him but he ignored her, "-in your travels together, you, Okotama, might come across some secrets of Mera''s or mine. In addition to being partners with her, you will agree to safe guard these secrets and not to share them without my permission, as determined by the piece of my Soul going into this bond. Do you agree?"


    "Your intentions are clear and despite the deceitful nature of your request, you seem to have genuine intentions. I accept."


    Mera relaxed.


    "You Mera, already have knowledge of many of my-"


    She nodded quickly and impatiently, "I accept. I won''t say anything." She had already pulled out a, much larger than necessary in her excitement, chunk of her Soul.


    Felix sighed and took out pieces of his own and waited for Okotama to do the same. The Prime Sage, noticing the unnecessarily large piece Mera had extracted, offered up a piece at least equal in size to hers. Felix swapped the two chunks and added in the pieces of his own then the two of them filled the holes in their Souls with the chunk from the other.


    Once the process was complete, Mera leapt forwards onto Okotama and climbed up onto his back where she remained for the entirety of the very same process with the Knowledge Spirit in the Spell Tablet. For that, she offered a much more reasonably sized piece as per Felix''s insistence and the process went just as smoothly.


    Then, he finally tossed her her wand he had been holding onto.


    She caught it then pointed towards the door, "Onwards Oko, we''ve got floors to conquer, sponsors to woo and glory to win!"


    Her familiar accelerated along out the door and off into the sky, with Mera on his back.


    It was only then that Ked approached, and the Adepts burst into whispers.


    "As a Professor, I feel it is my duty to confirm-" He pointed at Melody''s seemingly lifeless body draped over Felix''s shoulders with one of his elongated fingers, "-that she is¡­ alive?"


    Felix shook his head in exasperation, "She''s alive and in my head willingly. She''s just annoying about everything."


    Ked nodded slowly, "Seeing as the Planet didn''t protect her, I will assume you are being truthful. As for what just happened, Mera came from your head?"


    Felix nodded, "She did. At least, her Soul did. I added a Mana Computer to act as her brain."


    He nodded, "I see. How exactly did she come to be in your head?"


    Ah shit, either I lie and claim I brought someone back from the dead or I say she was born there and I claim I literally created life¡­


    "I crafted her Soul from a combination of other Souls. She''s been living up there for a while now."


    "I see¡­ I am curious what led to you doing so much for her, offering her one of the best bodies I have ever seen dedicated to a construct along with that wand and that Spirit as her familiar¡­"


    Felix shrugged, "I want to see what she''s capable of I guess, and in turn, what I can do. You know she''s entered into The Abyss?"


    He nodded, "I am very curious to see how far your constructs can get however, I am beginning to wonder if our ideas of what this epoch long project will accomplish, are vastly divergent."


    Felix smirked, "Probably. I mean you have the plans."


    The Professor nodded, "I do. Still, the capabilities of your constructs seem to vastly outpace what I expect from¡­ myself and Sal working together, let alone any of my students. Even the Spirits you''ve summoned are nearly incomprehensible and you managed to summon hundreds of Elementals in just hours of even beginning to broach the subject."


    Felix shrugged and dismissed his praise, "Lots of luck. Anyways, I want to spend a bit more time here before I head back into The Abyss. Before that though, let me deal with this nuisance." He gestured to Melody then walked over to the table while he entered his now Mental World.

 Chapter 232 - Book 5

    Moving his consciousness into his Mental World, while just a negligible fraction of it controlled his body in the real world, Felix appeared in his Soul garden. Grim appeared next to him in his ominous form a moment later.


    "What did she do?"


    Grim gave him a conflicted look, "At first, it was mostly¡­ good¡­ things."


    Felix groaned, "Where is she?"


    As an answer, Grim moved the two of them instantly into what appeared to be a palace. The walls were dark marble and hosted many murals with perfectly even gaps between each of them. The ceiling was missing however and instead, Felix looked up at various climates ranging from sunny to snowing to thunder storms to the bottom of the ocean. As they walked along the massive corridor, the climates above shifted from just skies, to mountains, deserts, beaches, tundra''s and plains warped and wrapped around above them.


    "Finally!" Felix was dragged out of his reverie by a familiar voice. His gaze snapped ahead of him onto Melody''s projected form, bolting across the hall towards him. Instead of the clothes she had worn, she was wearing something that looked like a child''s design made real in a fantasy movie. It wasn''t discordant, but it was extravagant with a set of glistening armor and a billowing cape of shadow that appeared to distort reality behind her.


    She leapt onto him, latching her arms around his neck, "I thought you''d forgotten about me."


    "Forgotten about you? Your body is still draped over my shoulders and you''re in my head."


    She jumped back onto her feet, "Yeah, that''s why I thought you had forgotten about me. It took me a while to figure out what was going on but¡­ I think I''ve figured it out."


    He cocked a brow and his head in confusion, What is there to figure out?


    Grim responded without looking, Hear her out.


    Melody, not privy to Felix''s thoughts, assumed he was waiting for her to continue and so, she did, "In your Integration, you found something ancient."


    "Like what?"


    She quickly shook her head, "I don''t know but from what I can tell, it seems to match everything I''ve heard about The Realms." She looked upwards at the missing ceiling and various landscapes above them.


    "The Realms of Annihilation?"


    "Yeah. This must be like, a prototype or just another realm like it. Somehow, it latched onto your Soul. This is what you use as a Soul Space, right? No one''s ever found anything like The Realms but, your an integrated. There''s always weird shit being unearthed from the past in Integrations."


    Felix nodded slowly, "Like a realm?"


    She shrugged defensively, "Well, I mean this is one of the most¡­ insane things I''ve heard of but, I mean I''ve seen it now, I''ve felt it. Not much point in denying it."


    "You said you thought I had forgotten about you?"


    Her eyes widened as he jogged her memory, "Well, I spent a bit of time exploring. Visiting buildings, shops and just walking around. Then a few hours had passed and I was certain you''d have grabbed me by then. Then a few days passed and I realized you''d forgotten about me. So¡­ I may have started¡­ messing with things a little."


    "What did you do?"


    She held up her hands, "Nothing that bad, I just wanted to find the limits, you know? I talked to people and probed them. Tried to find the edges and the seams but¡­ there was nothing to be found. That''s when I realized, this is like The Realms, the time I spend in here must not even be attached to the real world at all."


    "I see. How long have you been in here, in your time?"


    "Almost 200 days. How long has it actually been?"


    "Just over 15 minutes."


    She gawked, "Oh man I can''t wait for The Real Realms if they''re anything like this."


    "So you spent 200 days here. What did you do?"


    "Oh right, so. At first I was just exploring, walking around and talking to people. I was convinced there had to be cracks somewhere, where something would give. By the way, it all makes sense now, about Mera and all that. Don''t get me wrong, it''s still super impressive you managed to move her outside of this Realm but she''s not a construct."


    Felix just offered her a blank expression, giving nothing away.


    "Anyways, once I realized this was like The Realms, I figured I''d have some fun with it. Kind of like¡­ practice. So, I started gaining favor, standing."


    "Why?"


    She threw her arms up in the air, "I don''t know what else was I supposed to do? Moving on, I pretty quickly managed to weed my way into Arkade''s political system and¡­ well, one thing led to another and I helped Orion get reelected as Emperor."


    "Reelected? Emperor?"


    She looked at him like he was an idiot, "Yeah, it''s an elective monarchy. Do you spend any time in here?"


    Felix shrugged, "How am I supposed to track everything happening when time is completely detached? I have shit to do in the real world."


    "Alright alright, fair enough. Yeah so, Orion was the one who set up the entire governing system of Arkade in the first place. He ruled as the fairly elected emperor for quite a while at which point, as would happen to any politician, people got unhappy. They blamed him and decided they wanted change."


    Felix sighed a little but just kept listening.


    "So, Samuel was elected in his place and they completely changed a bunch of things right out of the gate. As you can imagine, it was a disaster. He was ousted almost immediately but the people weren''t ready to welcome Orion back just yet, they still blamed him for¡­ well, basically everything."


    Felix interrupted her story, "How do you know all this?"


    Melody gave him a isn''t-it-obvious look, "I just downloaded the history in the library. Anyways, they rotated through a bunch of Emperors until people finally realized how good they had had things with Orion so, he became Emperor again. This exact same thing happened again a little while later and once again, it was a disaster. That was when the library started letting people download history directly, so they could be better informed. At that point, it was too late though and Orion was disillusioned and tired of trying so hard."


    Holy shit, things in here are way more complicated than I imagined. Also, Orion became Emporer?


    Grim responded without giving any indication to Melody that they were having an internal conversation, Yeah, he set up the system of government and did such a good job that he just kind of stayed there for a while. It really did seem like his calling at the time.


    "I was trying to solve a much smaller political problem at the time I downloaded all the history, by the way, download is a weird word, anyways¡­ I learned about Orion and basically dropped everything. I ventured out to find him in the middle of nowhere where he had become a farmer with very well trained cattle."


    "It took me a few days but eventually I managed to convince him to come back and try again but this time, I was going to help him make sure people were happy and stayed happy, you know with my¡­ talents."


    Huh. That sounds like an oddly perfect use of her abilities, manipulating entire civilizations, if a little dystopian.


    "Well anyways, he was elected again in no time and I helped him out for a bit."


    Felix nodded, "Sounds productive."


    "Yeah well, that was my first 50 days or so."


    That was just 50 days?


    "After that, I traveled the Realm for a bit and eventually ended up at Alo''Ward where I helped Arysha transition from Founder and Dean to a more research position by finding her people she could trust to delegate to."


    "Wait¡­ what? What is Alo''Ward?"


    "Alo''Ward?" She looked at him with a mix of confusion and shock, "Head Polytechnic Ward of the Alo Ward Network?"


    "The what?"


    "Schools, Felix. They''re schools." Melody sighed, "Arysha founded one a while ago, Alo''Ward, but it was so popular she ended up founding hundreds more for all different levels and subjects all over. She set up a standard curriculum template for various subjects and helped with their founding so students could easily transfer between them. Anyways, she''d been running the show and traveling and founding new Wards all over the place but she was a little burnt out and all she really wanted to do was get back to her research. Those under her began to notice she was unhappy but didn''t know why, I sensed why and helped smooth everything over."


    "I see. Well, thanks¡­ I guess."


    She shrugged, "What can I say, I''m¡­ a woman of the people. I mean when you''re this adora¡­"


    None of that really explains why my skill upgraded though. I guess having Orion re-elected could have gotten me to Mental Metropolis¡­


    "¡­it''s not like I can help it, it''s really just who I am."


    "Yeah yeah, gotcha. Did you do anything else? Anything that¡­ affected the Realm as a whole?"


    She shrugged, "After Arysha, I mostly just set out and created a palace and anything I could dream of, just to see what it would be like."


    "No, before that. What else did you do?"


    She shrugged, "I got some food, did some shopping, talked to some people, attended a birthing ceremony-which is a little weird by the way-got into politics, got Orion elected, facilitated an alliance between other cities, visited some of the other continents¡­"


    Must be the alliance then. Based on the changes in the skill descriptions. Why did it then become Divine though? Divine usually means it has to do with a God¡­ or maybe it finally reached a threshold and Mera is the reason it became Divine because this counts as he afterlife? What about Zero though? Why is he different? Or did I just need more than one?


    "¡­visited some brothels, did some dancing, became a courtesan for a while-"


    "Yeah yeah. Did you do any- Wait, what?"


    She smirked knowingly, "Just checking if you''re listening."


    He groaned, "What else did you do for Orion?"


    "For Orion? It was for the people but, I don''t know. I helped him negotiate with other cities then mostly just helped him establish ways to keep the people happy."


    "What are those ways?"


    She shrugged a little, "It seemed to me like most people seemed kind of purposeless. They were bored and that resulted in a few wars being fought, not out of boredom but, that was the initial seed, if you will. Arysha and some others had dedicated themselves to creating schools and education, others to religion and some to their jobs- Oh, by the way, some of the jobs in here make no sense. Anyways¡­"


    "You helped the people find purpose?"


    "I just shifted the core religion around a little then helped to spread it."


    Oh¡­ yeah. That''s probably it.


    "What exactly did you do with what religion?"


    She put her hands up defensively, "Nothing bad, I didn''t incite war or anything. Jeez, chill out." She relaxed a little, "For the most part, everyone I met who was religious worshiped a single being. Some kind of Wizard looking guy. The issue was, that was the extent of the religion. They didn''t have any¡­ proverbs or¡­ teachings? It was just, this is the God, he''s the best."


    The fact that she didn''t immediately recognize the deity as him struck Felix as odd, especially considering the statue in the center of Arkade so he mentally checked it and found the face had been replaced by a cloud of arcane lines. It reminded him of the Curses, where looking into one had a weird effect on the Mind and Soul. Instead of Desire or Fear though, it was like the cloud consisted of knowledge well beyond anyone''s grasp, secrets and arcane formulas that were unknowable.


    Grim noticed his thought process and explained, That was me. After your last visit, we slowly began altering things because you didn''t want to be the head of a religion and so that you wouldn''t be recognized anymore. So, we detached the religions from you.


    Huh. Thanks.


    "I listened to those that were more religious and how they felt and created a doctrine of sorts. Just like, basic rules to live by, simple morality stuff. That was good enough for some people but others wanted different things, like the Rakyt mostly worship arcane knowledge. So, their doctrine and morality is different. They see the god as all powerful but more importantly, all knowing. Anyways, it varies in different continents and probably eventually they''ll all forget it''s the same person. Then they''ll argue and maybe there will be problems then but for now, it seems to be working."


    Felix nodded, "Well, it sounds like you had fun."


    She shrugged and nodded a little, like she was surprising herself by saying so, "Yeah, I did. Now," She stabbed his chest with her finger, "are you done interrogating me?"


    "Yeah. Let''s go back."


    Melody smiled and shimmied a little in excitement, "How''d everything go wit-"


    Felix moved himself back into his body first then put Melody''s body down before releasing her Soul from his Mental World.


    "-Mera¡­" Melody looked around in confusion, "Where is she?"


    Felix gestured towards the door, "She''s gone. Headed back to The Abyss."


    Melody''s jaw dropped a little, "Uh¡­ You didn''t wake me? You kept me in your head the entire time?"


    Felix shrugged, "Body was done, wanted to get the whole thing finished with."


    "And you didn''t think for a second I would want to be here for that?"


    "Honestly, I didn''t think about it at all."


    "Uuuughh."


    Felix ignored her miniature meltdown, "I''m gonna finish some stuff up here then head to The Record Room then back into The Abyss."


    She waved him off then walked out the door, "I''m gonna see if I can''t find Mera in the arena."


    Turning back to the work in the lab, Felix spent some time with Rewdan, Eni, Ked and Art working through all the aspects of the Soul Forge they couldn''t do without him. Those mostly consisted of things that needed Nova, since he was planning on bringing her, and Felix''s will power. They already had most of the parts finished so it didn''t take him more than half a day or so.


    After that, he-with Nova on his shoulder-headed back to the building surrounding the arena where he headed into the lobby. He was greeted by a large crowd, not quite as big as the day Rhonan had arrived, but it was still packed. Flying over most of them and selecting the most empty looking hall, Felix projected his goal into the room and let the building guide him to The Record Room.


    The planet only let him in because he was a participant which he only knew because he noticed a spectators just outside who weren''t being let in at all.


    The Record Room was not at all what Felix had expected. Instead of a library or a room with shelves or desks he could request from, the room was split up into a number of sections. They were each open but separated from each-other by distance. Looking from left to right, he saw each section showed off one floor grouping, starting from the Boars in the plains, all the way up to floors he hadn''t even reached yet.


    He didn''t really know where Peace had stopped but he walked towards the first floors he didn''t recognize anyways and simply memorized everything he could.


    On the screens in the section, was all of the information they had on the floor groupings. For the floors he was looking at, there wasn''t much. Glancing back to compare though, the earlier sections had statistical analyses on where the door and keys had been displayed as heat maps. It had patterns and in depth overviews of the enemies on the floors and more.


    The only thing all the floors had, were screens displaying the previous contestants runs through the floors.


    On the previous floors, there were enough views to run the analyses. On the floors Felix was looking at, there were just a few recordings of a few teams.


    Still, it was useful for him to know that just two groups from where he had left, the keys would be inside of the enemies, not on pedestals. That information alone would save him a few minutes.


    Continuing on through the groups, Felix saw that Romar and Zeraxes were both currently inside of The Abyss and were both neck in neck, on floors 196 and 197 respectively. Without looking, he noticed he wasn''t the only one watching them from The Records Room and noticed a number of others around him. Despite that, even if he wasn''t identifying them, Felix was pretty sure they weren''t even close to the 200th floor. Which meant, they were watching not to research the floors, but for some other reason.


    The only person he noticed that piqued his interest strength wise, was a Drakene with milky white, pearlescent scales. He wore a set of simple pants and a shirt that was long, almost robe like but seemed more casual than anything. In fact, they seemed oddly familiar. Turning around, Felix immediately recognized them even before he identified them.


    [C - Legendary] Herald of the Holy Mother: Il Doras (Lvl 2406)


    Noticing his gaze, Il Doras nodded to Felix then stepped forwards a few steps to stand next to him.


    "I am Il Doras, it is a pleasure to make your acquaintance."


    Felix nodded, knowing he wouldn''t recognize him because he wasn''t in his Persona, "Felix."


    Nova meowed and Felix quickly shot her a bundle of thoughts to make sure she understood and behaved herself, even if she knew of Il Doras as a friend.


    "Which floor are you on now?"


    "I stopped at 170 a little bit ago but one of my party members kept going. I''m honestly not quite sure where we are."


    The Paladin nodded appreciatively, "Most impressive. I have been in twice now and am about to head back in to floor 185. It is a wonderful blessing to have friends you can count on in The Abyss." He looked at Nova with a smile.


    He continued to stare for a few moments then his smile fell away and his brow furrowed in slight confusion, "Is this your familiar?"


    Felix nodded, "This is Nova."


    The Drakene bowed his head slightly, "It is an honor to meet you Nova. How long has Nova been your familiar, if it is not too personal a question?"


    "Since I was in the E grade technically."


    He nodded, "I see. She reminds me greatly of a being I once knew."


    Felix nodded, "Do you have a familiar or companion?"


    He smiled, "I do not. I have been searching for quite some time for the perfect being but alas, I have not found one as of yet."


    "I see. Well, good luck in locating one." Felix nodded and stepped back a few steps to leave.


    Il Doras, noticing this, turned and stepped alongside him, apparently also done with the screens, "Do you mind if I walk with you?"


    Felix shrugged, "Not at all. You heading into The Abyss as well?"


    He nodded, "I am."


    Together, they walked out of The Records Room and towards the entrance to the arena.


    Il Doras spoke first, once they were walking down the halls, "You are a student here, on this planet, correct?"


    Felix nodded, "I am."


    "How does that work? You have classes, do you not? How do you find the time to enter The Abyss?"


    "I''m only actually attending two classes and only one of them, has a scheduled time. Even then though, I know the Professor well and if I needed to shuffle the class around, it wouldn''t be an issue."


    He nodded, "Is this how it works for the other students as well?"


    Felix shrugged a little, "I can only really speak to my other party members and I''m pretty sure all of them are only taking one or two classes."


    "I see. In my case, my mentor has paused my lessons as I delve deeper into The Abyss. They will resume once I reach a floor I struggle with and they will help me prepare as best I can for them."


    "What about your party members?"


    "They are also Herald''s of The Holy Mother and in a similar situation."


    Felix nodded, "Slightly off topic and I hope you aren''t offended but, you''re a Drakene. Have you noticed-"


    "There are very few of us in the stands and all the Drakene Gods are curiously missing?" He nodded, "I have."


    "Do you know why?"


    He shrugged slightly, "I''ve heard of this rumor, about this Arthur hunting us down. I had actually previously met this man, a few epochs ago and I find these rumors hard to believe myself. He was not a God then and far from one, I doubt it is he alone that is the source of this mystery."


    "I heard he has a¡­ powerful backer."


    Il Doras shrugged a little, "That seems likely. I know not of who they might be and see no reason to be afraid myself. My understanding is that he has threatened the Dragons for reasons unknown, not the Drakene as a whole. This is why the Drakene are not entirely missing¡­"


    Felix nodded in understanding, "Just the ones that worship The Dragons. Which, is almost all of them. Huh."


    "At least, that is how it seems to be to me. It does however, seem like there is something else at play here."


    "Yeah. That seems likely."


    After muscling their way through the ever growing crowd of sycophants in the halls just outside the arena, the two of them stepped through the preparation room then around the door into the arena. Instead of a large open floor though, Felix was surprised to find a tunnel of sorts.


    The once perfectly flat plane of the arena floor had shifted. Where Felix stood, there were two perfectly straight walls of the same material on either side of him, perfectly matching the floor. Above him, was a sheet of glass covering the entirety of the way from where he stood, down the perfectly straight and uniform tunnel to The Abyss'' entrance in the middle of the arena.


    Felix immediately understood what had happened.


    The arena had shifted so that events could take place in the arena while participants could still head into and out of The Abyss unhindered while the crowd could see who was going in and coming out through the ceiling.


    As they walked, Nova tried her best to lick away part of the walls and ceiling while Il Doras donned his armor, which had been substantially upgraded based on Felix''s Matter and Mana Senses. The Enchantment alone was impressive but nothing novel to him and the material, was a metal that seemed to be at least a B grade material.


    No one exited The Abyss as they walked so they had no trouble walking side by side all the way there, despite Il Doras'' massive muscle bound frame, right up to the entrance.


    Around The Entrance, there was a small circular room to somewhat manage traffic where they stopped and Il Doras turned and nodded to Felix, "Good luck."


    Felix nodded in thanks, "You too."


    Then, they both stepped into The Abyss.


    Having memorized the landscape and creatures of each floor from 170 to 197, Felix immediately recognized he was on one of the floors from 176 to 179, meaning Peace had beaten one of the bosses on his own. The landscape was one of an infinite rocky mountain range that stretched out like a spiderweb in every direction. The enemies on the floor, were exactly what Felix expected, Leriff''s, birds with scaled bodies, massive feathered wingspans and dragon like claws.


    [C - Special] Leriff (Lvl 1094)


    As soon as he appeared on the side of a mountain, out of the entrance portal, a handful of Leriff''s took notice and began circling around him to protect their territory. Reaching into his Force Attuned core, Felix pulled a few million Mana out and split it into two. One part he very carefully manipulated into a precise shape while the other, was looser and more raw.


    It took him 4 to 5 Blade Spells-depending where he hit them-to kill just one Leriff which, was more than he had expected to need to take down just a single enemy at their level. Hitting them on the wings did minimal damage but disabled them. Hitting their core bodies was slightly more damaging, but would have been vastly more effective if they didn''t have thick scaled skin covering that area.


    These seem¡­ weirdly strong. Far stronger than they should be given their level and grade¡­ I''ll have to ask Melody about it afterwards.


    He had initially pulled out what he thought was enough Mana to hold onto for a while, as he flew around, but now that he knew how oddly tough the Leriff''s were, he took out much more.


    Leaping into the air, he flew between the mountain tops and managed to spot a couple of keys, which was convenient but he still hadn''t spotted Peace yet. It took him a total of nearly 15 minutes and over 30 Leriffs he couldn''t avoid and was forced to kill, until he finally spotted what he thought was Peace.


    Coming around a particularly tall mountain, Felix caught sight of a creature that wasn''t a Leriff at all. It was a massive storm cloud shaped like a flying serpent. It had wings and Lighting coursing through its cloud like body. As it flew, thunderous claps of wind smacked against the rock face and obliterated a pack of Leriffs followed closely by an explosion of Lightning that tickled everything nearby.


    The Lightning was much less effective but still, caused the Leriffs to seize and fall to the ground.


    Seeing Felix floating in the air, the massive Storm Serpent slithered through the air towards him, vanishing at the last moment only to be replaced by a legless Peace. In place of his bottom half, there was a dense looking storm cloud that held him aloft.


    He waved, "Yo, you find any keys?"


    Felix nodded, "I have two."


    "Perfect. I have the other four. Door''s this way, follow me."


    Flying alongside him, Felix turned to Peace, "Looks like you''re having fun."


    Peace chuckled, "Yeah, definitely. It took me a while to figure it out but, as you saw, I can combine this ring-" He held up the finger holding the ring Melody had gifted him, "-with all the other animals I have parts and pieces of."


    "That''s¡­ awesome."


    Peace laughed loudly, "That''s what I was thinking. Anyways, sorry about taking so long, I probably could have cleared a whole other group if I had focused."


    Felix waved him off, "Don''t worry about it. We aren''t that far behind that it matters. If it did, I would be in here too."


    "How far behind are we?"


    "Last I checked, Zeraxes and Romar were the furthest on floors 196 and 197."


    Peace shrugged a little, "That''s not too much further. These floors have gotten annoying though."


    "How so?"


    He sighed, "They''re getting big and the enemies are too strong and fast for me to ignore them all. So, the size of the floor and being forced to fight¡­ Not to mention the number of keys and switches we have to find, is getting tedious. At least there weren''t any hidden inside the fish on the last floor."


    If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    Felix nodded in understanding, "Unfortunately, I know of at least 4 floors where''s that''s the case."


    Peace groaned, "I take it you watched Zer and Rom''s runs?"


    He nodded.


    "Alright, I''ll follow you then. Is Adaline still not back yet?"


    Felix shrugged, "Who knows."


    He chuckled before speeding up a little and leading Felix to the exit where they inserted the keys they had found and stepped through into the boss chamber.


    Just like most of the floors, the boss was based on the enemies of the floor and so, they were up against a massive Leriff.


    [C - Special] Leriff (Lvl 1110)


    As with all the bosses before, it was deceptively strong. Much like the World Bosses Felix had fought in his Integration. The level and rarity of the boss did not match how annoying it was to kill, not even close. It definitely had some kind of boss buff that made it stronger.


    It still didn''t overly matter as Felix could release 25 Blade Spells in very quick succession so even if it was much more durable, it took about the same amount of time to kill. The arena they had to fight it was so big though, that it still took them a while to even find and get to the door. Luckily, there were no other Leriffs to deal with other than the boss.


    The next floor held a vast desert with no enemies in sight but, Felix already knew about the worms beneath the surface. He also knew they held keys within them and he would be forced to kill them to make his way out of the room. So, before he had even stepped into the room, he already had a new spell ready.


    It combined Attunements of Force and Sound with some very specific Spell Fractals.


    Kneeling down, he placed a hand on the surface of the hot sand and began casting the spell. He didn''t need his hand touching the sand to cast the spell, but he wanted to feel it working, and not just through his Matter Senses. As it turned out, he didn''t need to feel anything because just looking around him, the sand began to vibrate and ripple out from where he had cast the Spell.


    In just a few short moments, the sand all around them shifted from a still sea of waves frozen in time, to a completely flat, vibrating plane.


    As the vibrations grew and spread outwards, the enemies began to show themselves, leaping out of the sand to attack the source of the disturbance. Before he could even cast the Spell he had prepared though, Nova had leapt out, in a chrome skinned version of her panther form, latching onto it as if she were catching a leaping fish.


    Peace jumped off to another side, transforming into a fish like creature made of rapidly spinning wind. A few moments after he dove below the surface, sand in a few hundred meter radius exploded outwards into a massive tornado as Peace zipped around snatching worms out of the air.


    The two of them dealt with the majority of the enemies but there were a few in between them and Felix dealt with them easily. He fell back to using simple Blade Spells because he both wanted to refine the Spell itself, making it sharper and more effective, as well as turn it into an instinct cast.


    It took them all working together almost an hour on each floor as they had to move to a fresh patch of desert every few minutes and the floors were massive to get through the group. The floors also held 4 to 6 keys each.


    Luckily, Felix already knew they weren''t getting bigger as the floor group was one of the ones where each floor was roughly the same size.


    The final boss was much easier to deal with and only took them a few minutes of concentrated effort before they could move on.


    After that it was a group of ice floors with switches instead of keys followed by a group of ocean floors filled with fish and luckily, nothing but a door to find and step through.


    The three of them continued on like that, all the way through to floor 215 where they found themselves on a floor much like the mountainous one Felix had first found Peace on except instead of mountains, they were volcanoes. The entire landscape was covered in either flowing magma or igneous rock.


    Everywhere there was a stream of magma, there was a lounge of Lava Lizards slurping up the molten rock.


    [C - Special] Lava Lizard (Lvl 1220)


    The levels have slowed down significantly. These things are way more than just 10% stronger than those Leriff''s though.


    Felix quickly ducked past one globule of magma flying at him then diverted a couple others as the Lizard''s began to notice him standing there.


    Peace and Nova dove right in. Neither of them complained but Felix was starting to feel the pressure as each floor they cleared, took longer than the last. Each enemy, dealing and taking more damage to kill.


    Felix could and did ramp up his spells to keep up and kill everything relatively quickly but, it began to drain his Mana faster as he did so. He rotated between his Attuned Cores, relying on Sound, Lightning and Cold to allow his Force core to regenerate but even then, his main core was rapidly decreasing and there wasn''t anything he could do about it.


    He estimated he could get through another couple floor groups before he would have to leave and recharge.


    Peace was the first to find a switch in the mouth of a volcano and once they knew where to look, it only took them a half hour to find the rest and step onto the next floor. There, the volcanoes were more like geysers and pools and less like mountains, the magma flows were thicker and the ground between them was thinner. Not to mention, it was hotter.


    It took them an hour, once Nova found the first switch in an underground cave, and Felix was starting to doubt his initial estimation.


    Even if he ignored the Lizards because there was no need to kill them, he had to defend himself from their magma projectiles and he had to stay low to the ground to detect the caves. At that point, it was more efficient for him to just kill the nearby Lizards so they couldn''t attack him.


    The next floor was even worse as the caves were even deeper underground and often below Felix''s Matter Sense range.


    Nova did the best she could, swimming through the rock at breakneck pace but, the floor was just too big for her to search on her own. Peace was doing his best with his Spirit form and he had even figured out how to shift his body through the rock but, he wasn''t fast at all and so it took them nearly four hours just to clear the floor and they still had one more before the boss.


    Before he even passed through to the fourth floor of the group, Felix had already decided he would leave after the next floor and find a way to better regenerate his Mana. He thought about just draining his Pocket Home or Erevos but, that was a temporary solution and he would rather save that for later, when he really needed a large infusion of Mana.


    They searched for a couple of hours on the fourth floor and had found nothing when Felix suddenly saw a number of bright lights appear one by one in the sky above. He had no idea what they were, or even if they were in the sky at all, as he couldn''t actually see very far through the blackened smog completely surrounding him.


    As he watched though, the lights continued to appear and he realized there was a pattern to them.


    Once they had stretched out in every direction for multiple kilometers, bright lines began to appear, connecting them together in a massive web. Then, the web descended from the sky and into the ground, Felix jumping to the side so it didn''t touch him.


    A moment later, a number of lights reappeared from beneath the ground, but there were only 6 of them this time.


    The nearest one was just a couple kilometers away so Felix shot over towards it and looked around before shrugging and opening a hole straight downwards. Sure enough, just a few hundred meters down, was a switch.


    He activated it then looked up and the light that had guided him had vanished.


    Looking around, he found the next that was still lit and activated the switch there then headed to the last one which, was the door.


    Standing just outside the door frame, fending off Nova as she tried to eat her and talked to Peace, was Adaline.


    [B - Ancient] Adaline (Lvl 2002)


    Even from a distance, through the smog, she looked like a completely different person. She was slightly taller, and seemed less dense to Felix''s Matter Senses. Even her armor was the same armor Melody had commissioned but it had clearly been upgraded. As he approached, he realized it was even more Soulful than it had been and Felix could tell it was on the verge of becoming sentient. Her two guns were also completely different. They maintained the shape of revolvers and one was still black and the other white but they were much sleeker.


    The revolvers were not only smaller, they were each visibly giving off an Aura in Felix''s Anima Senses that looked like rising smoke.


    Lastly, she had a cloak that was a dark green, nearly black, and looked to be made from a couple of massive leaves.


    Noticing Felix walking over, she met his gaze then nodded to Peace and slipped through the open portal behind her, not even acknowledging his presence in any meaningful way.


    I guess we''re back to this then.


    Peace followed behind her along with Nova and Felix who headed through a moment later.


    On the other side, Adaline was already gone and the lights already spread out so Felix simply headed towards one of them, taking note of the fact that the group consisted of more floors than before. Halfway there though, it vanished and he redirected himself to another. That one too was gone before he got there and looking around, there weren''t any left.


    Cranking up his flying speed as much as he could, Felix raced towards and through the door to the Boss floor where he just barely caught the beginning and end of the fight as the massive Lava Golem popped like a bubble, spraying Magma in every direction. Before he could summon a barrier to protect Nova, Peace, Adaline and himself who were all next to him, Adaline created a hollow rectangle of blue lines that somehow protected them.


    From close up, Felix knew the predominant Mana Attunement was a spatial Attunement but he couldn''t tell exactly what it did or how. Her Spells had become, in a matter of a day, equally as complex as anything he had ever felt, including Kryptos'' enchantments, building spatial enchantments and the door beneath the Teleportation hub.


    As soon as she could, Adaline dropped the barrier and flashed through the door to the next floor.


    She''s even faster than me now. Last I remember my Agility was at least a few times hers and she barely gained levels. Sure she went up in grade but¡­ The Realms of Annihilation seem a little¡­ too ridiculous.


    Peace turned to him as they moved towards the doors, "You heading back now?"


    Felix nodded, "Need to regenerate my Mana."


    He nodded, "What about Nova?"


    Felix looked down at his familiar and shrugged, "It''s up to her."


    Nova meowed at him then leapt through the door to the next floor.


    Peace chuckled, "Guess that''s decided then. I''m gonna go work on that pile of Asphellum and maybe take a nap. I don''t really feel the need but, might as well try."


    Heading back out of The Abyss, the two of them found themselves in the corridor that had been carved out for the door but looking up, the glass ceiling was covered in sand. As they floated through, they saw and felt various slams into the glass but the sand obscured everything.


    "Any idea what event is going on?"


    Peace shrugged, "Not a clue."


    Felix already had his Aether Tunnel Spell ready as they walked into the preparation room but dropped it, reabsorbing the Mana when he saw Melody inside talking to a tall, muscle bound Rhunar man.


    [S - Legendary] Kudraac (Lvl 4822)


    As soon as they stepped into the room, she quickly nodded to the man then leapt over and grabbed his and Peace''s robes, "Guys, was she as awesome up close as she looked on the screens?"


    Peace nodded quickly, "How is she doing that?"


    "Who was that you were talking to?" Felix asked as he looked over her shoulder and saw the man step out of the room.


    Melody looked back, "Who? Kudraac? He''s a potential sponsor."


    "What does he do?"


    "He''s a very well regarded combat trainer. He''s specifically interested in training Peace and Adaline."


    "Not you or I?"


    "I don''t need it and you''re¡­ too weird." She looked at Peace, "Not that Peace needs it either but, Kudraac specializes in weird forms of combat and thinks he can help with the whole shifting in and out of beast forms and shape shifting."


    Peace nodded along, "Sounds good to me."


    "It''s an Organic Spell. Uses Spatially Attuned Mana projected into an area then reads the reflections to scan through materials."


    "The what?" Melody looked completely lost.


    "You mean Adaline scanning the floors?" Peace cocked his head sligthly.


    "Yeah."


    "Ah¡­ Can you do that?" Melody poked him somewhat teasingly.


    "Possibly¡­ I don''t fully understand how she''s doing it but if I had the spell, probably?"


    "Can''t you just map her spell out?" Peace asked.


    "Yes, if I get close enough to any spell I can map it out. Her''s are engraved into bullets she keeps in a spatial pocket though."


    Peace nodded, "Gotcha."


    "How far did she get in The Realms?" Felix gestured towards Melody, knowing she was the only one who could answer his question.


    She smirked, "1804."


    Felix snorted, "She beat Romar and Zeraxes."


    Melody nodded knowingly with a wide smile, "Oh yeah, she did. She''s the talk of the Gods right now."


    "Has anyone declared her as their Champion yet?" Peace took out a small piece of Asphellum and began affinizing it.


    Melody shook her head, "There''s talk, there''s always talk but the gods want to at least meet her first. She isn''t exactly the most¡­ friendly person though."


    Felix shook his head, "They want to know if she''s controllable and amenable to their interests."


    Melody threw her hands up, "Well duh. No one''s going to invest their fortune into a B grade without some assurances that they''ll fall in line. I heard you were talking to Il Doras?"


    He nodded, "Yeah. What about him?"


    "It''s sounding very likely that he''ll become The Holy Mother''s Champion, chosen for the prophecy and all that."


    "What does that entail?"


    "Once it''s official, she''ll give him items, knowledge and training beyond our wildest dreams."


    "Sounds like it''s a sure thing then." Felix stated.


    She nodded in confirmation, "He''s technically competing with the rest of his party but¡­ he''s the obvious choice. He''s strong and completely loyal, even dedicated to her."


    "Anyone else locked in?" Peace asked.


    She shook her head, "No one else that would surprise you. Anyways, you guys want to go watch Adaline''s run while you recharge in the Records Room?"


    Felix scoffed, "No, why would I bother? I-"


    She grabbed his arm then dragged him towards the door, which was only possible because he didn''t fight her, "Come on, don''t you at least want to see if she has any other new tricks up her sleeve?"


    He sighed, "Yes but I can just come back and watch that later, skip through and save myself time."


    "Just shut up and come with me. You owe me, remember?"


    Felix let himself be dragged, "For what?"


    She craned her head forwards like it was obvious, "Mera?"


    "Oh. Did you manage to catch her on the screens?"


    Melody rolled her eyes, "Yeah but now I have more questions than answers and I know you aren''t gonna be any help."


    Peace snickered and followed along as they all headed up into the Records Room together. Inside, there were even more participants than the last time Felix had visited, just a short time ago. They walked together towards the end of the room, towards the records of the higher floors. They weren''t in the lead, not even close. In fact, they were even further behind than they had been the last time Felix had checked.


    Adaline was in the process of clearing the 228th floor while Romar had made it all the way to the 260th before leaving. Zeraxes was still on the 258th but would probably leave soon as well considering how drained he looked.


    Standing just outside the massive booth for the 225th through 230th floor group, the three of them watched as Adaline blasted through the floors, using Spatial Spells for the most part and clearing them in a fraction of the time Felix and Peace had alone. They occasionally caught sight of Nova though, she was mostly gorging herself on her surroundings rather than helping in any meaningful way.


    Despite the speed with which Adaline cleared the floors, glancing off to the right, Felix noticed Zeraxes was moving just as fast as she was, on a higher floor. That meant that even though she was faster, they were still falling further behind every minute.


    It wasn''t just Zeraxes and Romar though, Felix also caught sight of Il Doras and his party on the 251st floor, Fyrden''s party on the 256th along with a few others he recognized from the World Event. As he could have predicted, the parties ahead of him were almost entirely teams with either Domain skills or some other godly ability, like Fyrden''s shifting into his Dad and various other Elites.


    Adaline managed to pass a few of them, including the Druid Domain user, the Justice Domain user and a Forge Family team but those were just the weakest.


    If they wanted to even be in the running, let alone win, they needed to do something to be faster.


    A sneaking suspicion wormed its way into Felix''s head as he leaned over and half whispered to Melody, "So why are we really here?"


    She didn''t bother turning her head and held up two fingers, "Two reasons. One, which I suspect you''ve already guessed, I wanted you to see how far behind we are and how it doesn''t look like we''ll be catching up any time soon. Impossible odds seem to motivate you. Two, it''s good for people to see us together, as a team."


    As she said the last part, she gestured around slightly which was apparently enough for one of the participants who had been standing behind them to feel like they were invited to step forwards, "Uhm. Excuse me, Miss Melody?"


    She swung her head around along with Felix and Peace to see a tall man that was clearly strong but had enough fat on him that they couldn''t see any real definition. He had a large beard that was braided into his long hair and a rather intense glare.


    [B - Legendary] Sigaro (Lvl 2404)


    "I''m a huge fan. I practiced 10 hours every day for 10 epochs in the hopes I could one day play the Soulfury Symphony in its entirety. I dreamt about unsealing that instrument for more than half my life. The day you came along and played it so perfectly, I knew I never stood a chance. Since then, I''ve listened to a memory of your playing that Symphony countless times."


    She frowned, "Where did you get your hands on a memory crystal? All of them were destroyed and the memory sealed."


    He squirmed a little and quickly bowed, "I''m sorry, I¡­ had to know what it sounded like played correctly. I spent so much of my life-"


    "Where. Did. You. Get. It."


    The memory was sealed? What''s the big deal?


    "I¡­ I¡­ My¡­" He stammered for a few more moments before a sigh finally broke through, "I can''t say."


    She scoffed in response.


    He looked up from his bow, "If¡­ Could I just¡­ I was wondering, why don''t you use it?"


    She glared at him.


    "The Instrument¡­ In¡­ The Abyss?"


    Melody, looking and giving off the coldest anger Felix had ever felt from her, just stared at the man.


    He crumpled beneath her glare and rushed to apologize and gain as much distance from her as possible. As she turned back to her party members, Felix could feel Peace''s amusement which was enough for her to glare at the two of them together, despite Felix''s completely blank expression, "What?"


    Peace gestured towards the now a little apprehensive crowd, "He makes a good point¡­ Forget the instrument, why aren''t you participating much in The Abyss?"


    She cocked a brow and Peace quickly raised both his hands, "Not that any of us mind, I''m sure, just¡­ curious if there was a grand plan or something."


    Melody glared at him for a few moments then looked at Felix to gauge his reaction but he just shrugged, "I''ve been wondering for a long time why you don''t use that thing to its full strength."


    She scoffed again, "You don''t know what that means."


    Felix cocked his head, "And you do? Have you ever used it fully?"


    Her head fell and she looked at the floor, "No."


    Peace leaned forwards a little, "Forget that thing, why are you spending so much time shmoozing sponsors? Wouldn''t it be better to just smash through the floors and show them how great we are?"


    Her head shot back up, "You''re not wrong, at least¡­ not entirely."


    She offered her hand to Felix who immediately understood, took both her''s and Peace''s, and pulled them into his Soul Space. He ignored the reactions of those behind him as Peace vanished and moved the majority of his consciousness into his Soul Garden as well.


    Placing her fists on her hips, Melody turned to the two of them, "First of all, do either of you really care how much I do in there?"


    Peace shrugged indicating not really and Felix shrugged as well, "I want to win and if it comes down to you doing something, I''d rather you do."


    She nodded quickly, "If it comes down to that¡­ we''ll see. It''s not like I''m just sitting around doing nothing, by the way. There are a few reasons I haven''t done much yet, inside and outside The Abyss. Firstly, everyone loves an underdog story. If we were in last place, the crowd would be mad we weren''t trying but¡­ we''re in the perfect spot right now where people are paying attention but we aren''t the favorites¡­"


    Peace snickered.


    Felix felt her Soul within his Soul Garden and it was the only reason he could read even the surface level of her emotional state, "Your parents."


    She looked at him slightly surprised as he explained, mostly for Peace''s sake, "Us being behind Fyrden is what they expect and you''re riding out their criticisms because it will be that much more of a hit to their world view if we do pull out ahead and win."


    She nodded along, "If we were winning from the start, they would just be mad I didn''t team up with him. This way, is a little¡­ better for me."


    "It''s more than that though, isn''t it? They''re also the second reason." Felix squinted a little, as if he were actually reading her.


    Her eyes opened a bit wider, "Yeah, they''re another reason."


    "Why?"


    She sighed, "It''s¡­ complicated."


    He nodded, satisfied for the time being because he trusted her but she shook her head, "If I offer it, can you play one of my memories?"


    Felix nodded and a moment later, felt a memory offered to him which he accepted and played for all of them in his Soul Garden.


    "Finally." Melody whispered under her breath as she stepped out from her hiding place behind a stand in the arena and flew over the crowd and into the vertical shaft leading up to the top floor of the arena.


    Fephiane was still on the bottom floor, Melody could feel her, and figured it would take at least a few minutes for her to realize Melody wasn''t anywhere nearby. It didn''t matter though, now that Adaline was on her way back, Melody was finally ready to meet with her father.


    Walking through the top floor corridor, she passed by numerous booths and made her way over to the one she had been avoiding, until the timing was right. She was invited and so she didn''t need to knock or ask permission to enter and instead just walked right up to the blank wall, trusting it would open in time for her to walk through.


    The booth itself wasn''t really that extravagant all things considered but, it was a fully functioning estate. There were many bedrooms, training rooms, viewing rooms, kitchens and a number of empty chambers which, along with the layout, could be tailored exactly how the God wanted them.


    On the highest level, the one with the door and therefore the one Melody was on, there were a number of what she would call nests. They were effectively couches and pillows but were easily big enough to be beds for multiple people. On one of them, sat Fyrden along with a handful of young and very naked women.


    That top floor took up most of the space in the booth and the only chunk of the footprint it didn''t occupy, was a level right at the front, in front of a large angled window. The level was large and just a half meter lower than the main level but in comparison to the rest of the room, it looked tiny. All it held, was Kjarne sitting atop his throne and a few chairs next to and around him, one of which held Melody''s mother.


    Kjarne was occupied staring at the various screens both through the window and at the custom ones all Gods had access to in their booths.


    Fyrden noticed her enter immediately, met her gaze, smirked knowingly and waved silently, saying nothing as he was happy to simply watch events unfold.


    She rolled her eyes at his company and stepped in with the most confident gait and posture she could muster, which she had trained her entire life to the point where it was indistinguishable to anyone from real confidence.


    Her mother also knew she had entered the room, with similar talents to Melody albeit much weaker. She didn''t react in the slightest though. Sear?h the N??elFir§×.net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    Kjarne, could have noticed her if he were paying attention but most often, he simply didn''t bother. Her footsteps though, produced enough sound and were distinct enough from Fyrden''s companions that he grunted, without turning in his throne at all, "I thought you ran away."


    Melody scoffed, "No you didn''t."


    He just grunted.


    She stopped a few meters behind his throne, forcing him to move if he wanted to face her instead of walking to him, "You summoned me."


    "Days ago."


    She shrugged slightly, "I had matters to attend to. I am quite busy you know."


    His grunt this time was notably more exasperated.


    "Well, if there''s nothing else I have a few sponsors looking to meet¡­"


    He groaned and rose from his chair, in a way that looked like he was old and decrepit despite his completely perfect physical form. Even through the thick layer of ruffled fur, he had the same rippling muscles that had been fashionable ever since Rhonan, which meant essentially forever.


    Standing on the lower level and turning to face her, Melody''s father was still taller than her by a large margin but she had carefully chosen the distance with which she stood so she wasn''t looking upwards too much.


    "Be done with this game. You cannot win."


    She shrugged, "I think we have a decent shot."


    His expression fell a little as he sighed, "You did well on the first day but you''re only falling behind."


    "Really?" Melody gestured towards one of the screens behind Kjarne, silently proud of herself for her impeccable timing. On the screen, Felix was in the process of flying through the smog looking for switches when suddenly an array of lights appeared in the sky.


    Those lights spread out in a pattern then connected themselves all throughout the sky before diving into the ground and identifying the locations of the remaining switches.


    Kjarne watched silently for a few minutes as they activated the switches then raced through the next room, the view shifting to Adaline as she obliterated the next two floors.


    He grunted then turned back to Melody, "You''ve always had a knack for finding hidden talent." Then he shook his head and gestured with his snout towards a number of other screens, "It''s not enough."


    On the screens he had gestured to, Melody already knew what they held. Romar completely destroying massive castles like he was an unstoppable cannonball. Zeraxes throwing his Divine Bolt into the air, teleporting to it then striking the ground with Lightning, wiping out everything in sight then teleporting himself 8 times quickly to collect the keys that had dropped. Il Doras and his party projecting massive auras of warmth and comfort as they smited their enemies without even looking.


    Shadelle using an army of Shadow Summons to single handedly search and clear the floor at once. Novren shooting an arrow through a boss then flying straight through the hole it left behind. Hyd, Lumeris, and a few elites not from Eramith were also displayed, all of them clearing floors far faster than Felix had been and even matching or slightly faster than Adaline was currently.


    "I don''t know what game you''re playing, letting them fight for you but you must realize you can''t win. You''re falling behind and even if you did help, you aren''t enough to make up all the difference."


    She shrugged, "I guess we''ll just have to wait and see."


    He spun quickly in anger, "No. You''ve already wasted so much for these people."


    "I''m not wasti-"


    "I had three planets ready and dedicated just for you. You could have cleared them and The Realms in just half of your recruitment. Instead you opened a bakery and you refused to gain levels. I can only presume it was so you''d remain a similar level to the rest of your party."


    "Just because I dedicated my time to something other than your grand plan for me, doesn''t mean I''ve wasted it."


    "You''ve been attached to others like this before, but never to your own detriment. We gave you leeway after The Shadow Dealer and the others but this is too far. You aren''t just helping them, you''re ruining yourself for them."


    "No, I''m not. I just don''t agree with your whole life plan for me. I don''t want to be at some God''s beck and call as their personal support bitch."


    Kjarne snapped, "Enough!"


    He sighed and scratched at his temple with his claws, "With the prophecy in place, time is quickly approaching where I need to either back another champion or declare my own. You will support them."


    "Of course I''ll support Fyrden if you declare him, he''s my brother and he''s not a complete tool like Talrain was, but I will not dropping everything for him."


    "Dad," Fyrden sat up and scooted to the edge of the nest, "We all know it''s not gonna be me. Don''t waste your resources. As for Melody, when has she ever been wrong about people? They may not be the ones mentioned in the prophecy, but you know as well as I to never doubt her ability to read people."


    Melody looked over and met her sibling''s gaze for a moment, offering him an expression of gratitude before turning back to her father.


    Kjarne looked at Fyrden with a cacophony of emotions mostly consisting of anger as his Aura began to spread, like smoke rolling out from his body and filling the room. As it did, the pressure it gave off increased until it was almost suffocating. Melody and Fyrden both managed to remain standing, because they had experienced it before, they both had Soul training and their Souls were created from his.


    Fyrden''s guests however, did not fare nearly as well. All of them looked like they were drowning in a matter of seconds.


    Before they did however, a quiet whistling tune echoed throughout the room, in perfect harmony carrying an incredibly potent calming effect.


    Just like that, the Aura vanished as Kjarne''s emotions were calmed and he regained control of himself. As he closed his eyes and mentally reined in his emotional turmoil, Melody''s mother gracefully rose from her seat and drifted over next to him, placing a gentle hand on his massive shoulder.


    No one dared interrupt the silence for nearly a minute, even Fyrden''s guests contained and suppressed their coughing and gasping as much as they could.


    Finally, Kjarne sighed, "This prophecy¡­ you''re playing a dangerous game daughter." Then, he stepped forward and walked right past her, out of the room, "Fyrden. Enough play. It''s time to train."


    Fyrden quickly nodded, and hopped to his feet, equipping his armor from a spatial storage. He nodded to Melody then hurried along and followed his father out of the room.


    With him gone, Fyrden''s guests looked at each-other then scurried out of the room into one of the bedrooms as Melody''s mother drifted over from the lower level to stand in front of her daughter.


    She smiled warmly as she stood close enough that Melody could feel her body heat, and was completely enveloped by the core of her calming Aura, "You know your father can be as stubborn as a bear."


    Melody snorted involuntarily and immediately regretted it, considering how awful the joke was.


    Her mother leaned in, "Win this thing. Show him."


    Melody wanted desperately to just accept what her Mom was saying at face value but her unique talents made it so she couldn''t. She knew the real reason her mother wanted her to win, "Mom, I''m going to win for me."


    She nodded as if she didn''t have any ulterior motives in supporting her daughter, "Of course."


    Melody pushed her mom away with both her hands, not aggressively, but forcefully, "Mom. Seriously, I''m not doing this to impress some other champion or God so they protect me. Why can''t you just want me to win for me, why can''t you ever want me to be my own person? Just because you spent your entire life dreaming about supporting a God doesn''t mean I-"


    "Melody."


    Melody stopped and calmed herself with a quick breath. She knew what that tone meant. It was something they had come up with when she was much younger and much more obstinate. In fact, it made raising Melody a breeze in her Mother''s eyes.


    So, Melody reached out and felt her Mother''s Soul. She felt everything and she understood what her mother was saying in its entirety, all the implicit meaning and context. She understood her emotional state and everything that went into why she was saying what she was saying. Why she felt the way she did.


    Her mother genuinely believed it was the best way to protect her. Which also meant she genuinely didn''t believe Melody could be her own person.


    It wasn''t anything Melody didn''t expect. It wasn''t anything she hadn''t felt before. It was completely unsurprising and it was completely disappointing.


    As much as Melody respected her Mother''s position and beliefs that having someone protect her was the best way for her to survive and be happy, she just didn''t agree. Especially not with her Mother''s ideal candidates.


    The memory ended and Melody turned to Peace and Felix, offering an expression of acceptance towards her situation.


    "So you want to win, but you also don''t because that''s what your mother wants and you disagree with her reason." Peace cocked his head slightly, unsure of his own statement.


    She sighed, "Not exactly¡­"


    Felix nodded, "The only way to engineer this favorably is for us to be the underdogs then completely win, not just by a little."


    Peace quickly nodded in understanding, "We need to make it irrefutable that we won because of all of us, not just because Melody started supporting us. Otherwise, your father would be right and it would have been better for Melody to support someone else."


    Melody nodded, "He basically thinks of me like a multiplier, which isn''t¡­ wrong it''s just¡­ not the whole picture. If I''m a multiplier, we need to prove you''re the highest baseline to multiply."


    Felix slightly cringed, "Or we prove that you''re more than just a multiplier, a support for other people. That way¡­ Look, I don''t care what other people think. I don''t want them to know about me."


    Melody dropped her head to the side, "You know this is the end of staying under the radar. Not just if we win but even just competing. You must have already accepted that."


    He sighed, "Of course. Still, why does it matter if we''re the ones that are stronger than them?"


    She shrugged, "If all I wanted to prove was my father wrong, it could be anyone. That''s not what this is about though, not entirely, at least. You guys are better than them."


    Peace slightly curtsied, "While I appreciate the vote of confidence-"


    She shook her head, "Seriously, you guys are way different than the other students. I''ve told you this before but, Felix you genuinely enjoy what you''re doing and have no ulterior motives. Peace is literally just having fun and trying to figure out who he is. Adaline is¡­ more normal but¡­ I can at least respect her motivations."


    Felix shrugged, "Thanks¡­ I guess."


    Melody sighed, "Another reason¡­ I grew up surrounded by Gods. Not just my father and his dealings, but he was visited, there were parties, and I was introduced. Do you know how many people at those party''s were there just to have fun and see people? Do you know how many of them weren''t scheming to ingratiate themselves with someone, plant a seed or even just spy on someone?"


    "I''m guessing not a lot."


    She shook her head, "Not one. Maybe at one time at a specific party but everyone who''s gotten to where they are, have very specific personalities. For whatever reason, you and Peace are close to all these others who have trained or shmoozed their entire lives and so, it''s a chance to go against the Gods. Show them that the way they do things is¡­ not the only way."


    Felix tilted his head a few degrees, "They can''t all be that bad, right? Thorin and Blizz seem normal. Amatara?"


    "Thorin and Blizz are focused on their own relationship and sharing that with others, sure. They still focus on who can most benefit them and their power though. If you weren''t as strong as you are, they wouldn''t have offered you a recruitment. If they didn''t think it would benefit their futures, they wouldn''t have bothered. It''s not like they take in anyone. Amatara¡­ I can''t really read her and I''ve only met her once, you might be right. You know who stands out to me as being better?"


    They both shook their heads.


    "Akaroth. As awful as he is, he''s perfectly clear about what''s happening and¡­ I can respect that. He doesn''t go around and manipulate anything. He''s completely up front. It''s why I don''t use my shifter abilities."


    Felix''s eyes widened, "Your what?"


    She cocked her head, surprised by his confusion, "You know, how all my siblings shift something about them? Talrain is a personality shifter, Fyrden is a build shifter, Tanryel is a brain shifter-"


    Peace shook his head and squinted, "What does a brain shifter mean?"


    "He can shift his brain to be better at certain tasks. Honestly, kind of boring." She shrugged, "Anyways, I''m a desire shifter."


    Felix''s jaw dropped in realization, "You''re a succubus¡­"


    She nodded, "Yeah. It''s basically just an Aura thing and the main reason I''m so good at reading people. I need to know someone''s desires to reflect them. I just learned to tune into the whole reading thing which, I was just always really good at. I usually suppress the whole aura thing as much as possible because it becomes¡­ problematic. Even still, the number of people that approach me¡­" She smirked, "You never wondered why?"


    He shrugged, "I thought you were just famous."


    "I am somewhat but, not that famous."


    Felix slowly nodded, "So¡­ when we walked into the arena? That was-"


    "Yeah, exactly." She grinned with the side of her mouth, "You know, I was kind of hoping for some kind of reaction from you there. I knew Peace would be able to contain himself but¡­"


    Felix shrugged, "Uh¡­ Sorry?"


    She released a long drawn out and exaggerated sigh, "A girl can dream."


    "Are we done with this then, can we get back to figuring out how to win?"


    Melody and Peace both nodded.


    "First things first," Felix pulled up a number of screens from the outside and his own memories of The Abyss, "Why are these things so strong? Every enemy I''ve fought in there, is way stronger than I expect for their level."


    She nodded, "It''s because your descending further into the past with each floor. It''s less noticeable now but later on, you''ll fight things at your level and they''ll seem like they''re at least a grade above you."


    He nodded, "At the party in Osgard, you mentioned this. I thought it would be mostly items and be way more gradual."


    She shook her head, "Around floor 450, you''ll be fighting almost entirely Ancient enemies. They won''t identify like that though."


    "Wait¡­ what?"


    Peace nodded, "Some people think it''s because the floor is in the past and so, there, they aren''t Ancient."


    Melody nodded like that was a perfectly logical explanation, "Yeah, exactly. Point is though, they''ll be way strong. Like, you remember the Ashound, right?"


    He nodded, "Yeah. Took me a while to finally kill that thing."


    "Right, that''s not just because it was higher level than you. Abilities and strengths will start to become weird, like being able to duplicate yourself from ash."


    Felix looked to Peace, "Why do they get stronger the further back it goes?"


    Peace shrugged a little, "This is one of the secrets The Reaper hasn''t shared. From what I''ve seen though, it''s mostly Anima density. Will power and Soul Strength was just better. For example, that Ashound couldn''t split itself unless it had enough Anima to literally split its Soul."


    "Is that why items get better too?"


    Peace cocked his head a bit, "There are also some materials that just don''t seem to exist anymore. I''ve asked The Reaper many times but this is probably the one secret he wants to share the least."


    "Does Rhonan know? He''s been around since the first integration?"


    Melody shrugged and Peace shook his head, "No, I doubt it. Maybe he''s learned why on his¡­ adventures but, I''m pretty sure this all started before The System."


    Felix just looked at the two of them, "I don''t understand why neither of you aren''t more worried, interested, curious about this."


    They looked at each-other and shrugged.


    "What am I supposed to do? Who do I go to to ask what is happening and why?"


    Peace nodded in agreement, "I''ve asked The Reaper a bunch of times about it. What else am I supposed to do?"


    Grim, Mark, ask Rewdan about this.


    On it.


    "So, just to be clear. When I''m fighting a Lava Lizard and it seems way too strong, that''s because it''s from the early integrations?"


    Peace nodded, "Pretty much."


    "Some people think this is why Rhonan is so much stronger than everyone else." Melody nodded along.


    Felix looked at them both for a moment then shook his head, "I guess¡­ we''ll just keep descending and maybe we''ll find out more."


    "You could try asking in The Realms but, you might have to get to floor 2000 or pretty close to it to get a real answer." Melody shrugged.


    "Wait¡­ is that delving into the past too?"


    She shrugged, "Not as explicitly but¡­ the people in it are strong and knowledgeable in ways people now aren''t so, it seems likely."


    "Why floor 2000?"


    "Well¡­ From what I''ve heard, the residents become more aware the further you go. Early on, they won''t even know about other cities on their continent. Later on, they know about the multiverse apparently¡­ Well, maybe. They''ve said some weird things that may or may not come from implanted memories."


    "Okay, I guess I''ll just get to floor 2000 then."


    She nodded, "Oh really? You''re jus-"


    Before she could harp on him any further, he dropped both her and Peace out of his Soul Garden at the same moment as he stepped through an Aether Tunnel, vanishing from The Records Room and leaving the two of them behind.

 Chapter 233 - Book 6

    Back in Ked''s lab, Felix ignored Ked, Art, Eni and Rewdan who were still in the early stages of assembling the Soul Forge and instead made his way to Fin, who was waiting for him.


    As he approached, Fin nodded, "Ready for our mentorship?"


    "I am. I was hoping we could focus today on figuring out a more efficient way for me to regenerate my Mana."


    "Isn''t that the whole point of the Mana Accelerator?"


    "It is. Unless you happen to be a lot further along than I thought, that isn''t going to help me anytime soon."


    Fin nodded in understanding, "In that case, as we''ve discussed, the only real viable option is having multiple Mana collection rituals, enchantments or otherwise."


    "Is there a better solution to keeping myself mobile other than simply setting it up and letting it run when I need Mana?"


    He shrugged, "Not really. Not at the levels of regeneration you''d be looking for."


    Felix grumbled a little even though he had been expecting that to be the case, "In that case, I was wondering¡­ would it be possible to push my collection devices into the Aether directly?"


    Fin immediately shook his head, "No. Nothing more than temporarily. You''ve been traveling through the Aether recently, have you not?"


    He nodded.


    "You haven''t tried to stay there though, have you?"


    "No. Haven''t had any reason to try I guess."


    "Good. I''m surprised this wasn''t explained to you by whoever taught you to travel in this way. If you wanted to step into the Ambient Anima, what would the risks be?"


    "Losing myself in time and space. You need a tether or an anchor point to let you return to the right¡­ spot."


    Fin nodded, "Right. The Aether is the same in that sense, however¡­ there''s another risk to consider. Traveling into the Ambient Anima is not a huge risk because a realm entirely of Anima is ordered. It is made of memories and experiences. It enjoys structure and so it actively attempts to keep things whole."


    Felix winced as he saw where Fin was going.


    "Aether on the other hand, is the opposite. It is chaos incarnate. Traveling into the Aether for any extended period of time is¡­ Imagine The Aether itself is a fast acting universal solvent. Spending any significant time there, will dissolve anything ans break it down completely, into Mana."


    "In that case¡­" Felix cocked his head, "Couldn''t you use that attribute for fission?"


    "How would you possibly collect the resultant Mana. You''d have to travel hundreds of kilometers into The Aether-not that space is a meaningful form of measurement but¡­ far. Far enough that you can''t simply hold some rock in The Aether at the edge of your absurd Mana Control range, even if we multiplied it a hundred fold. Using any physical tether would dissolve as well. Even Anima and Soulful materials are prone to disintegrating."


    "So even if I manged to create some super material with a very strong Soul, it would essentially need to be so far away from me that I couldn''t tether to it. What about connecting to it spatially?"


    He shrugged, "With your Mana Control, who knows. Theoretically though, The Aether can break down Matter into Mana¡­ just imagine what it would do to a spell or ritual as sensitive as a spatial one."


    "I¡­ Yeah¡­ So I would literally need to get to the point where my Mana Control was strong enough to rip the constituent Mana out of Matter itself before I could consider that?"


    "More or less. You could simply not go very far into the Aether, remain close to the Material¡­ plane. The issue is that you wouldn''t be restoring your Mana significantly faster than simply remaining here. So, what would be the point?"


    Felix half sighed half groaned, "So basically, I make a whole bunch of collection constructs, send them out then have them return to me to drain them at some point¡­"


    He shrugged, "Yeah. That''s the best I can do for you right now. Hopefully the Mana Accelerator lets us figure out a way to fix that though."


    "Yeah. How are things coming along by the way, I haven''t heard from or seen you in a while and last I heard, you were looking for enough land."


    Fin smiled, "Would you like to see?"


    "Sure."


    Fin nodded then walked forwards, on the air so his height matched Felix''s, then turned and somehow opened a portal directly in front of him without making any move whatsoever to do so. Felix noted it was a TFP portal though and stepped through to follow his professor and mentor.


    On the other side, Felix had been expecting to see some kind of large barren planet. Instead, he saw a large planet that had once been barren. To call it barren any longer would be incorrect as tens of thousands of people had built up a semi-permanent camp of solid framed tents. Most of them were big enough to be comfortable homes but one of them in the middle was big enough to house all of the buildings Felix had ever seen on Eramith-except for the arena-multiple times over.


    Mouth slightly agape, Felix followed Fin into the camp, past a number of workers, then into the massive center tent. Inside, there was a massive metal box with two open sides, a large square pipe that was ever slightly curved along one side. A small section of what would one day become a massive circle.


    Felix stared up at it as the workers spent the two of them no mind, "How¡­ Who are all these people?"


    "Workers I hired."


    "How much do they know about what we''re trying to do?"


    "Little to nothing and they''re all bound by System contracts anyways."


    He nodded in satisfaction, "This is way more than I was expecting."


    "We''re still ramping up production but our initial timeline says that we''ll be finished before the end of the epoch."


    "Really? That''s¡­" Felix frowned, "How much is all of this going to cost?"


    Fin waved him off, "Don''t worry about that. My research budget more than covers it."


    Either his research budget is massive or¡­ maybe all professors at Eramith have huge budgets? I expected us to need to find sponsors or something.


    "I guess I''ll leave this to you then."


    Fin nodded, "Unless there''s anything else, I believe we were going to focus on your Mana Regeneration for today."


    Felix nodded, "Sure. So, I told you about the Mana Engine I had created some time ago, I''m thinking I make a bunch more of those then embed them into some constructs."


    "Would you be willing to show me this design?"


    Felix offered his hand to Fin then pulled him into his Soul Garden where he constructed a blown up representation of the Mana Engine in front of him.


    They spent hours and hours of Soul Garden time analyzing, simulating and iterating on Felix''s original Mana Engine design until it was completely unrecognizable from where he had started. Much of that change had to do with his understanding that Mana did not necessarily abide by the laws of space as it was not Matter or Energy at all, something he hadn''t known the last time.


    By the end of it, once they were both satisfied with what they ended up with, the both of them decided they were done for the day, despite it only having been less than an hour of real world time. At that point, Felix left the planet, after making sure to record its teleportation coordinates just in case, and began constructing the Mana Engine in his dorm room.


    As much as he would never really be alone with all his Residents in his head and Grim''s body in his Soul Space, he wanted to minimize distractions as much as possible. After that, he began putting together simple construct bodies who''s sole purpose was to contain the Mana Engines and generate Mana for him.


    After that, he manually constructed relay nodes for Mark. In reality what that amounted to was a perfect copy of Mark that was connected to Mark with a much stronger connection than the Residents had to their puppets.


    Felix connected the two through the Anima as strongly as he could. He also used a variant of the same machine he had used to expand Mark''s capabilities in Edras'' recruitment to essentially entangle the two together. Finally, he constructed the most complex designs he and his Mind Residents had ever created which used Spatially Attuned Mana to transmit a signal from one space to another.


    It was complex not just in that it was sending a signal across space but in the fact that it was essentially intrinsically connecting two computers, across spaces, effectively making them one whole. Theoretically, the two didn''t have to be in the same universe for it to work. Testing that was nearly impossible without Felix leaving the universe and he would go into The Abyss soon enough but for the time being, he relied on his Soul Space, Kryptos Repository and Pocket Home in which he purposefully tried to block the signal.


    Once the complicated part of the process was complete, Felix created a simple body to house the new extension of Mark along with a pool of Anima. His goal was that he could move the Resident''s bodies temporarily into the pool of Anima and have them run off of the Mark clone if he were to have overlooked something or if The Realms of Annihilation blocked the signal more thoroughly.


    For the time being, he copied the Souls and Minds of the Residents in puppets as accurately as he could and placed them into the pool in a dormant state. From then on, Mark would make sure the Residents in both the pool and within Felix were synced as accurately as possible then if the connection broke, they would put the ones inside Felix to sleep temporarily.


    With all of that complete, Felix opened his Pocket Home and completely filled his Mana Pool from the old Mana Engine inside before replacing it with one of his new and improved ones. The best part of doing so in Felix''s eyes, was how much smaller the new one was while also being more efficient.


    As soon as it was running though, he noticed the Aether density in his Pocket Home drop dramatically as the new engine was more efficient at draining it and keeping it drained. It wasn''t a huge deal for him at the moment because he was funneling most of the Mana back into the rainbow ocean, much of which was then sucked up into the tree.


    Looking at it, Felix was a little disappointed that the tree was still rather small and young looking. It was a tree but its trunk was small, its bark was soft if he avoided the crystals and it wasn''t particularly bushy. Despite that, it had already consumed tens of millions of Mana every day it had been in his Pocket Home.


    He still held out hope that it would produce full, usable crystals one day or have another grand purpose but for the time being, he was at least satisfied with the tiny crystal shards that amounted to little more than sand, even if he had to manually process it.


    There was nothing left for him to do there so he left his Pocket Home and Aether Tunneled back to the arena, completely ignored the fight within and flew straight through the entrance to The Abyss. He didn''t need to head into the Record Room at all because he already had a Resident in there just over an hour ago and he had them take a look at all the rooms, not the just ones they were up against themselves.


    The first thing he did was test the relay connection and was happy to find it worked as well as he could have hoped. After that, he looked around at his surroundings and got to work.


    Adaline had made it through 45 floors and was still pushing which put them just 18 floors behind Zeraxes and 19 behind Romar, from the last time Felix had checked. She had managed to catch up to them somewhat but much of that was due to them knowing the floors from watching Zeraxes, Romar and Il Doras. While Adaline had remained in The Abyss the entire time, Felix had been relaying information to Nova who was helping where she could, whether or not Adaline noticed. It wasn''t much but finding a key within an enemy and showing that to her, at least pointed her in the right direction.


    Even with her ability to scan a large part of the floors, the mechanisms for opening doors were getting more complex, almost as if The Abyss itself was pushing back against her ability. Sometimes the switches were disguised, sometimes they were puzzles and worst of all for Adaline, was when the keys were inside of enemies.


    As expansive and wide reaching as her scanning ability was, from what Felix had seen through the excited experiences Nova sent him and the screens in the arena, her attacks were not. She seemed to have mostly moved to some kind of spatial based attacks and although Felix didn''t understood exactly how her attacks worked, he at least understood how expensive it would have to be.


    That fact seemed to be supported by her almost entirely relying on laser beam like attacks with only the occasional, small explosion here and there. The only time he had seen a larger spatial based attack was when he had supplied billions of Mana to kill the Giant.


    When she had to kill millions of enemies to find the keys within them, her precise attacks struggled, no matter how many of them she managed to line up. Even when she set up massive Spells that reached outwards and killed thousands at once, she was slower than Romar who simply toasted everything around him while flying faster than even Felix could sustain. She couldn''t keep up with Zeraxes who flashed around the battlefield, flashy Lightning obliterating his surroundings.


    Even if she managed to match their speed or even gain some ground on some floors, she was falling behind on others and so ultimately, they were falling behind once again.


    Felix''s hope, was to supplement her abilities and fill in where she was struggling by helping her slaughter as many enemies as possible, as fast as possible.


    Reviewing what the current room was in his mind, Felix couldn''t help but feel a little giddy when he realized the lush and verdant landscape around him of sparse trees and colorful flowers, was completely infested with Hydras.


    [C - Legendary] Baby Hydra (Lvl 1416)


    While their levels were much lower than the one had previously fought, Felix found they were curiously, only marginally weaker. They were physically smaller but nearly just as fast and definitely just as hard to kill as they were capable of healing themselves even faster, likely due to their size alone.


    There were no floating lights in the sky to follow but Felix could feel Nova''s location and could communicate with her and so he coordinated his own search based on that.


    Finally meeting once they used their keys on the door together, Adaline just looked at him and lightly grunted before moving on to the next floor.


    They continued like that, with no real change in their dynamic, for two more floor groups until Peace joined them and slightly sped up how quickly they managed to clear the floors. At that point, Melody finally joined in as well and slightly slowed down their progress as she used Erevos to fly from party member to party member, pestering them as if she were an interviewer.


    Whether or not it benefited them, Felix didn''t really care and he mostly just found it annoying, especially since she seemed to focus on him and Adaline for the most part. She interviewed Peace and Nova in between to ease the tension and put on a show, something she seemed to be quite proficient at. While Felix didn''t hear Adaline''s interviews himself, he got some of them from his Residents who were watching from the outside.


    She didn''t answer much and tried her best to avoid all the questions but Melody was Melody and she knew exactly how to best to get her talking. Peace answered completely honestly for the most part but given the questions she was asking him, it didn''t seem like it was ever an issue for him.


    Felix, was more similar to Adaline and mostly avoided questions or answered them more curtly than Melody would have liked, but he was far more willing to give exciting answers to the crowd especially when they satisfied Melody and got rid of her faster.


    Flying along next to him in Erevos, the only reason she could keep up, Melody leaned over the side of the vehicle, "Felix, many have been wondering, how did you beat my brother exactly?"


    "Easily."


    She widened her eyes in surprise, playing it up for the camera, "Easily you say, Tanryel is still considered to be one of the best Caster''s Duelists outside of the professional league, one of the up and coming. Are you saying you''re better than he is?"


    "Seems that way."


    She smiled wide, "I''m loving the confidence. If you had to point to one specific ability of yours that allowed you to win, what would it be?"


    "Nothing in specific. As I said, it wasn''t very difficult."


    "Well, I''m sure many of those watching are eager to see how you fare against some of the other opponents. Taking a look at the registrations for the tournament, you aren''t signed up for a single event at all though, why is that?"


    "Not interested."


    "That''s unfortunate. Hopefully something changes your mind before it''s too late. As for the tournament, your party is currently falling behind the top teams. How do you see yourself placing in The Abyss?"


    "Well, I was hoping to win but one of my party members keeps insisting on bothering the rest of us instead of parti-"


    "OKAY! I think that''s enough folks. Let''s go see how the others are doing." Melody raced off and vanished through a series of trees as Felix smirked.


    Once she was gone, he turned his attention back to himself and activated his Aura once more, without his Reaper''s Aura Skill. He had been practicing with it as much as he could in The Abyss comparing the Skill to doing it manually and making sure he didn''t need the Skill. The results however, were frankly disappointing. His Aura managed to put the giant snake creatures he was fighting on edge but it didn''t seem to hinder them in any noticeable way.


    He had previously used the Aura from his Soul Ring to throw people off, activating it for just a moment to surprise them in the middle of an attack or movement to try and trip them up. That didn''t seem to work anymore, at least not against the creatures he was fighting.


    Zeraxes would probably still have trouble not flinching but he wasn''t Felix''s target and far too weak Spiritually for Felix to use as a gauge.


    Ideally, he wanted to reach the same level he had seen from Rhonan, where he could completely suppress everyone in a room at will, and beyond. For the time being though, he worked on increasing the strength and range as much as he could. He was gaining proficiency in the skill so he knew he was doing something right but as with most of his other Reaper''s Skills, he realized he wasn''t sure he wanted to keep following it.


    Now that he could do what Reaper''s Aura was teaching him without the Skill, he just had to practice until he upgraded the skill to Reaper''s Presence.


    The issue, was that the Skill focused on areas he cared less about like disguising his Aura and masking it. He knew that was useful but it wasn''t what he wanted to focus on.


    With the other skills, like Reaper''s Movement, Instinct, and Body, he had already started to deviate from the Skills.


    All that meant to him, was that he was getting closer to dropping the Class as a whole.


    After grinding their way through a number of floor groups together, Melody eventually left to do more networking, Adaline finally went to sleep and Peace went to work on affinizing his pile of metal in the hopes it would become a set of robes.


    Felix, with his new constructs, didn''t need to leave theoretically ever. He communicated with the outside world through his new relay node as needed, even going so far as having his mentorship with Fin remotely. For the most part the mentorship was Fin providing his expertise and broad knowledge of what others knew and had tried anyways so it didn''t change much for them doing it remotely.


    The hardest part was finding a spot to practice without getting distracted by some random creatures but even then, he could pretty efficiently clear an area for himself and use his constructs to regenerate his Mana.


    So, he stood still in the middle of a bloodless massacre, thanks to his Blood Ring, and began practicing his Mana Control as 16 balls larger than his chest rolled out in every direction. They were coated in Demitium and used that to absorb energy from incoming attacks then funneled it into propelling themselves further. They could also fly using the Mana they collected but, they avoided it all costs.


    Once they were full, they would simply return and he would manually drain them.


    The trick, was that they didn''t have batteries in them at all which ironically let them hold much more Mana than if they did. The new Mana Engines he had created which were inside each of them simply gathered the Mana and that was it. They didn''t try to contain it at all. There was an equilibrium point where the Mana leaking out would equal the Mana being sucked in by the engines and that was the maximum amount they could contain.


    For each of his constructs, that point was around 100 million Mana each. While he could have created his own batteries, this system was actually more robust because there were less points of failure for him to worry about.


    He wasn''t sure if that was exactly true because he hadn''t tested both designs but over the course of a few dekads, he ended up sending out his constructs over a hundred times. He had to perform maintenance and minor repairs a couple dozen times and had to completely recreate one of them twice when a particularly nasty clawed invertebrate chewed through them. That was still far less than he was expecting and the time gained where he didn''t have to wait around regenerating his Mana was well worth it.


    In the arena, there were mostly only preliminary events, nothing major like one on one combat, group combat, point capture, Caster''s Dueling or anything like that. The Abyss itself was still in the preliminary phases and wasn''t particularly interesting for most as Zeraxes, Romar, Il Doras and all the other top teams didn''t even appear on the screens very often at all. It would still take a few dekads for them to begin struggling at which point, Melody claimed they would dominate the screen time, partially because at that point most other teams will have either quit or died off.


    Unsurprisingly, Zerathus declared Zeraxes as his champion, the one he would be sponsoring as the "chosen one" from the prophecy. Tau Cygnus quickly followed, declaring his son Romar as his champion. A number of other Gods without decent candidates of their own joined in, some of which were more surprising than others.


    Even though Romar was dating Uphi, her father, the giant god Utazz declaring his support for Romar was quite the upset but according to Melody, Uphi had been crumbling under the pressure up until that point.


    As for others, The Holy Mother declared Il Doras, to no one''s surprise. Sha''Alin Zadik the Shadow God, Sal-Khi the War God, MoonBranch the Druid God and Ramoriel the Justice God all declared their Domain wielding followers as their champions.


    Thraverick the Forge God remained neutral for profit sake, according to Melody along with Radleus Idridor the Merchant God Ayred didn''t like.


    As for standouts, Kjarne still had yet to declare anyone which caused quite a bit of speculation. Rhonan hadn''t declared anyone but that wasn''t a surprise at all. Other than a stupid rumor that Arthur was his long lost son, there wasn''t really anyone for him to declare. Felix also knew there was no chance he would declare anyone as he wanted to keep things as even as possible. If anything, he would probably start secretly sponsoring the weaker looking members of Felix''s generation to keep things competitive.


    In Felix''s estimation of the political meaning behind the God''s actions, which Melody agreed with, the stronger Gods felt it was possible for them to sponsor someone to become the chosen ones almost entirely by themselves. Whether or not their candidate was the best, didn''t matter. As long as they were remotely competitive, they were arrogant enough to assume they could pull it off.


    The weaker gods were then left to decide between the already declared champions, essentially forced to choose which one they wanted to support. That decision was dependent on who they thought they could help the most and who they thought would be the most favorable towards them.


    The Champion declaration as a whole were mostly just annoying to Felix. The parading of the candidate, the advertisements, the fans and everything else was mildly irritating when they got in his way or were particularly loud, the odd times he left The Abyss, but it didn''t affect him that much.


    The annoying part, was that the gap between where he and his party was in The Abyss compared to the top teams, just kept widening. The sponsorships just seemed like excuses to Felix for the Gods to pour their wealth into one individual. Romar and Zeraxes got access to some artifacts but for the most part, it was elite trainers that made the difference.


    Not just A grade Elites either, but Zeraxes was personally trained by multiple Gods to the point where his Aura was starting to visibly affect the creatures he was fighting on his floors.


    The others, like Il Doras, ended up with items. The Drakene Paladin specifically got a whole new set of Armor that looked like a set of ancient looking runic plates. Felix didn''t pay much attention to it largely because he couldn''t judge them for himself but the crowd seemed to immediately recognize it.


    The artifacts, training and equipment they got made it that much harder for Felix to directly compete.


    When he was clearing the 300th floor, Zeraxes and Romar were neck and neck on the 370th. When he was on the 320th, they were clearing the low 400s and fast approaching the point where the enemies would reach the B grade. At that point, Felix had a Resident post up in the Records Room so he could pay very close attention to them and for every floor he cleared, they cleared one too.


    Considering how much bigger and harder the floors became, he very quickly realized he didn''t stand a chance without some kind of major increase in power.


    Unfortunately, his best hope at the moment was to just keep pushing until he got close to level 2000 and could finally head into The Realms. He could have gone early but he wanted the best chance.


    The only other somewhat notable change for Felix, was that Adaline was growing mildly less irritated by his presence every time he saw her. She still clearly had something against him but Felix only cared that whatever it was, didn''t hinder their progress through The Abyss.


    On the outside, Ked, Rewdan, Eni and Art were making massive progress. Though they didn''t help that much, a number of the Adepts who were in the lab that epoch also decided to drop their personal projects for the time being to help. Still, most of the work was done by the Professor, Spirits and Felix''s Construct Construction Constructs.


    Heading back into the arena one day, after putting in place the 7th node in Mark''s network out in the real world and the 19th overall, Felix managed to avoid the crowd of people eager to meet any of the participants they could. He avoided the sponsors, looking to harass participants into using whatever it was they were selling, and inevitably advertise it to the world in the process. He even managed to avoid the other participants, as the ones who were far behind were begging the better teams for advice.


    Unfortunately, he couldn''t avoid a God as he was cut off suddenly in his flight down the hall by a beautiful woman with overwhelming confidence and grace. Moving as fast as he was and cutting him off as suddenly as she did, he almost ran into her but just barely managed to stop himself.


    [SS - Mythic] Kotia (Lvl 5823)


    Felix had no delusions that he had accidentally ran into her and knew full well she had stopped him on purpose so he didn''t bother feigning regret and apologizing.


    "You were looking for me?"


    She huffed slightly then tightened her composure even further, "I was. Please, follow me."


    Felix sighed but didn''t argue with her as she glided through the halls and he flew along behind her.


    As they flew into one of the large ring hallway around the outside of the arena, she slowed slightly and looked over at him, "Aren''t you curious where I''m taking you?"


    He shrugged, "Yeah."


    She just looked at him blankly for a moment then cocked her head, "Are you attracted to me?"


    "No." Felix responded instantly, slightly surprised by the question.


    She frowned, "Why not?"


    "I¡­ You''re not my type."


    The Goddess looked completely taken aback, "I''m everyone''s type. I''m the Goddess of Beauty."


    Felix just cocked a brow.


    "I¡­" She shook her head, huffed, then flew ahead.


    Felix followed her all the way up to the top level of the halls outside the arena, the God''s level, and finally over to a God''s booth.


    As he stepped inside, what he saw was much different from the layout of Kjarne''s booth from Melody''s memory. The entire booth looked to be a single room with a long table at the center. On one end of the table, sat a massive man with a bushy brown beard and a matching mane of hair that was tied up cleanly.


    Rhonan (Lvl 18975)


    Sitting in the many seats on either side of the table, there was Romar and Uphi, Zeraxes, Il Doras and a few other champions, though definitely not all of them. Not even half of them. There were also others who weren''t champions, curiously enough.


    Fyrden and Melody also sat at the table along with Mera and her familiar, Okotama.


    Leaning against the wall behind Romar, was Nyrrasil and on the other side, Elrena.


    Everyone noticed him enter, though most only barely glanced over at him. Zeraxes was trying to make himself seem more important, Romar smiled and nodded then turned back to his girlfriened, Mera was trying to avoid suspicion so she only looked at him for a bare minimum amount of time. Fyrden waved politely in stark contrast to Melody, who had been seated beside him until she leapt out of her chair and scurried over to him.


    "Felix."


    He leaned in upon hearing her angered whisper, "Yes?"


    She immediately looked back at the rest of the group then groaned through gritted teeth, "We''ll talk after."


    He nodded then followed her over to the table where he stood a few meters away from it and looked over at Rhonan, "You summoned me?"


    By Felix''s estimation, there was no one else who could order Kotia around, especially getting her to do something as mundane as fetch him. Not if she was arrogant as she seemed.


    He nodded as he swallowed, the only one in the room eating, "Heard you were back."


    "I intended on heading back in as soon as I could, but then I was summoned."


    Rhonan grunted then took another bite of his food. Zeraxes, who had been trying to hide the fact that he was watching Rhonan, then laughed, just a moment later than would be natural, "I for one, am very impressed with just how far and how fast you''ve managed to push yourselves in The Abyss. It''s nice seeing a team of supports and a Reaper''s Child doing so well."


    A team of supports?


    Romar rolled his eyes, which was almost impossible to see given his form, and a few of the others hid smirks.


    Zeraxes continued after a moment, emboldened by the various smirks in the room, "Have you all decided which champions you intend on supporting? I know at least I would be more than hap-"


    Felix flashed his Aura for just a moment, more than enough to cause Zeraxes to flinch, and choke on his own tongue a little, "I''m sorry, you were saying something?"


    Melody sighed longingly, "If only we had someone on our team who had gotten even nearly as far as you had in The Realms. I mean floor 1640, that''s quite impressive."


    He choked again, just a moment before collecting himself, Melody knowing exactly where to poke.


    Romar, apparently not at all in agreement with Zeraxes'' treatment of them nodded along, "I seem to recall someone reaching floor 1804. Now, if you could have gotten them on your team¡­ Who was that again?"


    Melody rubbed her chin, as if she didn''t know.


    Zeraxes clenched his jaw, as he noticed he had lost the crowd and quickly pushed himself to his feet, "Right, well. I''ve got floors to clear."


    Then, he was gone in a burst of Lightning.


    No one spoke for a couple of moments then Romar shook his head and looked at Melody and Felix, "Seriously, he''s an ass. Don''t listen to him."


    Uphi nodded emphatically and Melody sighed, "Thanks."


    Seeing as Zeraxes left and broken the social seal on the room, Melody also rose to her feet and walked over to join Felix, who had kept one foot in the direction of the door. He briefly glanced over at Mera who was happily whispering to Okotama next to her as the two of them drank from tiny cups and had their own personal tea party.


    "Well, that was fun. Glad I came." Felix nodded, waved then turned and walked out of the room.


    I get Rhonan is trying to build some kind of connection, in the hopes we all become friends and one day fight together but¡­ fuck that.


    "Felix."


    He didn''t even turn his head as Melody flew to catch up, "What?"


    "When did you meet Rhonan?"


    "What do you mean?"


    "He knew you. He had already met you. Not to mention both Nyrrasil and Kotia, who know you better than I thought."


    Felix sighed, "You remember that massive door we found in Osgard?"


    She frowned in confusion, "There were a lot."


    "You know which one."


    She huffed, "Fine. Yes. What about it?"


    "I went back. On the second to last day, I got through it."


    She leaned in, her eyes widened in complete shock, "You what? What was on the other side?"


    Felix gestured backwards with his head, "Rhonan, Kotia, Elrena, Nyrrasil."


    "What happened? What were they doing? Were they just standing in the hall?"


    "No, of course not. Rhonan was injured, he was eating. Elrena was watching over him. Nyrrasil and Kotia were fighting, providing entertainment."


    "Wait, he was injured? Was it¡­"


    Felix nodded, "Hunger Curse, embedded within his Soul. He seemed pretty hopeless at that point, like he''d accepted things. Seems fine now though."


    "Yeah, he¡­ Now¡­" She shook her head, "Wait, stop distracting me. How did you get through the door?"


    "Uh¡­ Spatial stuff¡­" Noticing she was completely unsatisfied by that answer, he added, "a spell."


    "Felix. Why didn''t you bring me? Or even just tell me?"


    He didn''t even really think about it and just shrugged.


    "You still don''t trust me."


    If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.


    He sighed then seriously considered her statement for a moment before responding. While the Spell was experimental and he wasn''t even sure at the time if it would work, he could have found a way. Even if he didn''t, he could have told her right afterwards but, he didn''t.


    Felix offered a slightly apologetic look, "I guess I don''t. Not fully."


    She looked at him for a moment, her face showcasing her disappointment as she slowly nodded in resignation.


    Uncharacteristically, she was so completely distracted she didn''t notice the party of five walking towards them. Felix''s novice reading of their intentions, which relied heavily on their body language, was that they fully intended on walking through them.


    Felix had no interest in proving them wrong by remaining completely unmoving due to his massive stats as it was a waste of time so instead, he grabbed Melody''s arm and pulled her aside and out of the way.


    [B - Legendary] Istra (Lvl 2106)


    [B - Epic] Aossas (Lvl 2183)


    [B - Divine] Rosluk (Lvl 2141)


    [B - Legendary] Mimon (Lvl 2087)


    [B - Exotic] Engelom (Lvl 2129)


    They puffed their chests out a little more as he did, as if they had won the game of chicken they had been playing but not one of them looked back as they continued walking towards Rhonan''s booth.


    Felix furrowed his brow as he watched them pass, "I recognize them¡­"


    Melody groaned.


    "Weren''t they the team that was pretty far behind, like a few hundred floors, then they suddenly started sky rocketing through just a couple dekads ago? Now they''re just three groups behind us, right?"


    She shook her head in disapproval, not contradiction, "Yes. That''s exactly who they are."


    "How''d that happen? Were they pretending?"


    She quickly shook her head then gestured towards the halls and dragged Felix back to their room, which he hadn''t used at all. He immediately noticed all 4 beds looked used though so at least someone was making use of it.


    "So, what''s up with that team and why''d you need to drag me here?"


    "They made a deal with Akaroth. That''s why they suddenly got really strong and started racing through the floors."


    "A deal? Like¡­ For their Souls?"


    She nodded, "Yeah. The only deals Akaroth really makes."


    "When is their Soul due?"


    She shrugged, "Not as soon as you''d hope. They probably also believe they can pay off the debt before it comes to that point by collecting up enough Souls."


    "How does he just give them power?"


    "It depends on the person. Some people he gives artifacts, items, equipment. Others he gives them pets, guards. Some people he just tells them secrets, teaches them a Spell, gives them a Class, Profession, teaches them a Skill. He''s very good at knowing exactly what will help you most."


    "So Adali-"


    She shook her head and interrupted him, "Not my place to say."


    He nodded, "Alright. I''m heading back in. I take it you''ve got a bakery to run and sponsors to shmooze?"


    She looked conflicted for a moment before finally sighing, "No. I''m coming."


    Felix nodded, not exactly happy she would be interrogating him throughout but it didn''t affect him enough to push back.


    As they headed into The Abyss, picking up where he had left off on the 355th, Felix was surprised however when Melody didn''t just follow him around on Erevos. Instead, she finally seemed to be participating. She didn''t venture off too far from him but she wasn''t just following him around and supporting him either.


    Instead, she flew around, barely tapping at the instrument Felix was wary of and grouping the enemies together for him. She enraged them and pulled them towards him, making them much easier for him to hit with a large Spell but she was also reading them.


    As she grouped enemies and subtly manipulated their actions around him, she identified which ones were hiding keys, somehow and pointed them out. Once Felix had collected the key, she repelled the enemies, causing them to scurry away and they moved on to a new section.


    Even when the keys weren''t inside of the creatures they were fighting, she somehow read their minds and managed to locate buildings, altars, puzzles, switches or anything else that stood out.


    With her help, Felix was clearing floor groups in 5 hours instead of the nearly 10 it would have taken him for a normal 5 floor group. The 10 floor groups were infinitely more annoying when they began to appear because the floors within them were allowed to grow even bigger. To counteract that though, each key, switch or puzzle they found pointed them in the rough direction of the others.


    Without that, it would have taken multiple days. In fact, Felix was pretty sure that was the intention because if you weren''t using a one of a kind Sky Slicer or flying at absurd speeds, it would have taken days to travel from one to the other. Thinking back to even the strongest people in his integration, even if they had become much stronger, each floor group would have been a massive venture.


    That fact made it a little odd to him that the whole thing only lasted 200 to 400 days, each one in the past falling randomly within that range.


    It either meant it was meant for elites, which didn''t make sense considering how quickly and effortlessly he tore through the floors, less on the later floors but still relatively safely or, it was meant to last longer. There was no way for him to really know why though so he just kept that fact in the back of his mind.


    Unfortunately, he was hoping he would be able to figure something out but The Abyss felt to Felix at least, like it was half finished. Nothing inside of it varied much, the loot was disappointing and felt generic, like they were place holders. While the creatures were getting closer to Ancient creatures, their Souls were stronger, he still hadn''t found anything truly Ancient and weird, like the Ashound.


    It was the same thing, over and over, every floor. The creatures were stronger and harder to kill. Felix and Melody both recognized many of the creatures from stories and bestiaries as creatures that were more prevalent in the early integrations. They were still just boring though. It was still massive floors of the exact same environment with hordes of creatures. There was simply nothing else to it.


    At least, that was Felix''s impression. The further back they went, the more agitated Melody seemed. When he asked her why though, she just waved him off.


    "I don''t even really know what it is myself. It''s just¡­ this¡­ feeling like¡­ I don''t know how to describe it. Dread? Not for any particular reason it just¡­ exists."


    Reaching out himself, Felix tried his best but his Anima Senses just weren''t even close to Melody''s and he felt nothing.


    The boss on the 380th floor was annoyingly tough.


    [C - Legendary] Oroju (Lvl 1794)


    A massive gorilla like creature that leapt around the battlefield and took a thorough beating before even slowing down in the slightest. It was incredibly strong but paid for that in speed. For the most part, Felix just flew around and rained spells down upon it. The hardest thing about the fight was avoiding the massive boulders it ripped out of the ground and threw at him.


    It seemed to have sacrificed all its mental stats though so its Perception was so bad, it often missed all on its own and had trouble most of the time just following Felix around the battlefield.


    Melody helped somewhat, or she tried to, there wasn''t really anything for her to do though.


    So, after nearly 500 Blade Spells at 300k Mana each, the creature finally roared one last time before dying. Felix absorbed the body and Soul, which was a lot of Anima he was more than happy to harvest. Then, loot appeared, a chest that didn''t exist a few moments before in the direction of the exit.


    Opening it, Felix disappointingly threw the Bracers of Oroju which artificially increased Strength through a series of complex enchantments, into his Kryptos Repository along with the various materials and other mundane items.


    They didn''t even discuss splitting them because they were so disappointing, to them. Felix would end up handing them off to either Melody or one of his Residents that had become a merchant. In the rare situations where the loot was valuable, they handed it off to Ayred but, that only happened when it was some rare material that no longer existed or was harder to find now than it had been in the past.


    Even the levels were disappointing. He had entered on floor 355 at level 1845 and left on floor 380, at 1850. He was still fighting abysmally low level enemies, he knew that. Still, knowing he was pushing for level 2000 to reach The Realms, the slow leveling began to irritate him. It was still the best source of levels around though so, there was nothing to really be done.


    On the other hand, his Profession was pushing dangerously close to the next grade and he''d been avoiding touching anything directly for the past few dekads so he didn''t push it much further than 1974.


    As they left, walking through the corridor beneath the arena, both Felix and Melody immediately noticed the crowd was uncharacteristically silent.


    They hurried along to see what was happening and took the quickest path into the arena itself.


    Standing amongst the stands that were completely full around them, the two of them looked up and saw, for the first time since it had opened, Zeraxes and Romar on the screens in the arena.


    As soon as they did, Melody quietly gasped.


    Felix leaned over, "What''s the big deal?"


    "They''re on floor 435." Melody answered, as if that meant anything to Felix.


    "Only?"


    She quickly shook her head, "They''re fighting the boss on 435. It''s the first B grade enemy in The Abyss."


    "How do you know that?"


    "While the layout isn''t identical for everyone, this is more a structural thing. It''s the exact same, every time The Abyss appears. Floor 410 is the start of the longest group to date, by far. It''s not much different than any other floor group. It''s red and fiery¡­"


    Having seen the floor from the Resident watching in the Records Room, Felix nodded, "Looks like hell."


    "Ye- Like what?"


    "Don''t worry about it. Ask me another time."


    She nodded, "It''s when the enemies get particularly annoying. It''s usually when things become a real challenge for most. Most of the times The Abyss has appeared, people haven''t gotten much further than floor 450 or so. I think the record was 525 but¡­ that was one time."


    "I take it this, floor 435, is when we reach actually Ancient enemies? Pre integration enemies?"


    She nodded, "Yeah. This is the breaking point."


    Looking at the screen, Felix''s eyes darted between Romar, Zeraxes and Il Doras''s screens. Il Doras was still a few floors behind but he looked to be struggling just as much as the other two, with a normal floor.


    [B - Ancient] Thakrogan (Lvl 2004)


    The boss was a a massive winged humanoid with three sets of horns all pointing in different directions, wings, claws and no facial features other than a fang toothed maw. It''s flesh wasn''t red though, instead it was almost entirely white, reddened only by the environment surrounding it.


    It was an abomination of a creature and judging from how easily it was handling Romar and his ridiculous Strength, it had stats to match its physical appearance.


    Just as Felix and Melody started watching, Thakrogan snatched Romar out of the air completely oblivious to his superheated form, then slammed him into the ground as if he were trying to see how high he would bounce. Being essentially a walking star though, Romar exploded outwards in a wave of Fire that sent his entire party, including the massive Uphi, flying back or running away if they were fast enough.


    After the explosion, Romar was noticeably dimmer as much of the heat he had built up was lost.


    Zeraxes on the other hand, was having a much easier time as a localized Storm Cloud roiled above the Demon''s head, flashes of light pulsing through it as the energy within built up.


    Lightning Bolts, crashed down into ground all around the Demon as Zeraxes flashed from one end of the cloud to the other, throwing a Lightning Bolt every time he appeared. Where Romar''s body and its super-heated and energized combat state didn''t seem to bother Thakrogan, the Lightning Bolts Zeraxes was throwing definitely had an effect. Each and every one had it seizing and yelling out.


    Contrary to every other enemy Felix had seen in the entirety of The Abyss, this one didn''t seem mindless. As it yelled, it actually yelled its own name quite often.


    Recovering from his downed state in his own fight, Romar pushed himself up, off the ground and into the air then exploded. This time, the wave of Fire pouring out of him soaked the landscape for kilometers in every direction. The environment had already been fiery and hell like but now it looked like it was the inside of a volcano or like they were fighting on patches of stone that floated across the surface of a star.


    With his Domain active, Romar exploded Fire behind him and launched himself into Thakrogan, grabbing hold of his shoulder and driving a massive spear of pure flame right through it.


    "THAKROGAN!"


    The Demon yelled out then spun its body, launching Romar off to the side. In doing so, it exposed its back and Uphi leapt forwards, driving her warpicks into its upper back then pulling on them. The Demon immediately jumped backwards to try and squash her as the rest of their party used the opening to attack its exposed stomach.


    In Zeraxes fight, he also activated his Domain but Thakrogan seemed mad and somehow, was pushing through the minor paralysis and pain of Zeraxes Lightning Strikes.


    As the Demon leapt forwards and slammed down into the ground, just barely missing Zeraxes, the rest of his party peppered the Demon to try and distract it but it didn''t work. The Demon was smart enough that it knew what the crowd and everyone else did, that Zeraxes was the real star of the show and the rest of his party were just there to support and help him.


    Seeing the Demon racing towards him once more, Zeraxes gritted his teeth in rage then took his Divine Bolt and drove it into his own chest.


    The pain drove him to his knees as his eyes exploded in beams of light for a moment or two. Then, Lightning began to race along his body until he was completely coated, not even an inch of his skin showing through. Finally, the Lightning expanded outwards into a large humanoid being of pure Lightning that was honestly harder to look at than Romar.


    He stepped forwards and met the Demon''s charge, his Lightning Avatar even larger than the Demon, wrestled with it. He grabbed hold and punched, each strike overflowing with power and exploded in a burst of Lightning that arced out into the ground around them.


    Melody gaped at the scene, "When did he Master an Avatar Skill?"


    "Avatar? Is that a Skill line?"


    She nodded, "A rare one because they''re¡­ hard to control. Not rare like Domains which are impressive to use but, rare in that most people don''t bother with them because they take too long to become useful."


    "I know Peace doesn''t actually use The System, but that''s basically what he did in Group Combat last epoch, no?"


    She nodded, "Yeah. Kind of. Just surprised is all. Zeraxes is a hard worker and all that but¡­ not quite as adventurous or ambitious as Romar. Up until now he''s pretty much just followed the exact plan his father laid out for him."


    "Is this the first time he''s deviated?"


    She shrugged, "First time I know of. I guess¡­ I guess it makes sense considering the prophecy and all that. I mean, if- when they beat this floor¡­"


    Felix stared at her from the side and waited.


    She looked at him, a little confused he didn''t already know what she was going to say, "They''re going to get massive gifts."


    His mouth opened a little in realization, "Oh. After this, they''ve proven themselves and people just want to see how far they can go. Now that it''s actually hard-"


    "Yeah. Now they get the real shit so they can prove they''re the one the prophecy is talking about."


    "Compared to previous years, are they doing particularly well?"


    She tilted her head a little, "Very well but, they definitely are not the fastest. By this time in the past, 150 days into The Abyss or so¡­ It''s not perfectly comparable because the floors are shuffled around but¡­ I think there was someone at 475 almost two hundred integrations ago? I don''t totally remember where everyone was on what day though."


    He nodded, "In terms of ''real shit'', how big are we talking? Echo big?"


    She nodded, "If they have em, yes. Up until now, Gods that have Echos usually keep them a secret so they can pull them out when they need to. If they don''t have one themselves, their father''s will be looking to make a deal with someone to get one. If the one they have isn''t a good fit, they''ll look to trade it."


    Felix sighed, "How soon after they win?"


    "Not right away¡­ probably but¡­ not long after. At this point, the groups will start to take a really long time. Like multiple dekads each. So, the sooner they get them¡­"


    Watching Romar''s fight with that in mind, Felix watched Romar leap into the air and raised both his hands up to either side of himself as thousands of spears made of pure Fire began to appear around him. Thakrogan saw him and roared, "Thakrogan. Thakrogan!"


    Like it was taunting him.


    Then, Romar smirked, "Judgement of the Stars."


    The spears began to launch themselves at Thakrogan one by one, each one either ramming itself through its body or burrowing a massive hole into the ground. As they accelerated, more and more spears firing every second, the ones that had already hit began to explode.


    First, Thakrogan''s arm vanished as three spears exploded and left behind a blackened mess of glowing embers. Then, his foot as a spear in the ground next to him obliterated the ground. S~ea??h the Nov§×l?ire.n(e)t website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    Thakrogan''s body was slowly torn apart, piece by piece as he roared into the air one last time before his head popped.


    Zeraxes, still wrestling with his Avatar, suddenly pushed the Demon back then reverted to his normal form.


    Teleporting away to gain space, he leapt into the air, a trail of Lightning along his path. High up in the sky, the screen''s view zoomed out, he raised his Divine Bolt into the sky as it began drawing energy seemingly from the atmosphere. It grew brighter and brighter as the Demon yelled from the ground, then leapt into the air to chase him.


    His party knew better and were all spreading out, running far away as Zeraxes smirked, "Storm God''s Wrath."


    With both hands, he threw his Divine Bolt straight down creating a massive pillar of bright blue light that completely encased the Demon.


    When it finally vanished, so had the Demon.


    "Why did both of them say their skill names?"


    She gestured around herself, "Audience. Many of them won''t recognize the Skills but giving them names makes it easier for viewers to get excited and talk about them."


    Felix sighed at the idiotic reasoning and waited as both Romar and Zeraxes opened their respective chests, both revealing the top half of Thakrogan''s skull that formed a helm.


    The both of them raised them into the air and the crowd roared as their party''s rejoined them.


    Looking back over at Il Doras, Felix saw he was still at least a floor away from fighting Thakrogan himself so he turned away from the screens and began to leave the arena.


    Melody skipped along beside him, "Did you know, that statistically you''ve spent the most time out of anyone this iteration in The Abyss so far?"


    Felix frowned, "That can''t be true."


    "What do you mean? You don''t sleep or eat or rest¡­ at all. How could it not be true? You can check in the Records Room if you still don''t believe me."


    "Alright. Say I do, what''s your point?"


    She shrugged, "Nothing really, just that that''s what most of the God''s are paying attention to."


    "What?"


    "Most of the talk around you from what I''ve seen has been about that."


    "Why does that matter that much? Why wouldn''t they be more interested in my Mana Pool or something?"


    "Because, Zeraxes has a massive Mana Pool, not as big but still, that isn''t as uncommon as not needing to rest at all. Even some of the Gods need to sleep and almost all of them need to eat."


    "I need to eat too if I want to heal myself."


    "Not really though."


    "I guess not, it would just take forever." Reaching down, Felix took hold of his left arm, "Speaking of which¡­" Pulling, he tore the arm free then activated his Blood Ring, storing the cells for later, just in case.


    Her face contorted in disgust, "Gross. You couldn''t have waited till I made it to our room?"


    He shrugged, "Could have."


    "Okay, jeez." She backed off a few steps mockingly then waved, "See ya."


    He nodded then opened an Aether Tunnel to Ked''s lab as he consumed raw meat he had stored in his Soul Space for just such occasions.


    From the day Zeraxes and Romar beat Thakrogan, and later Il Doras, it took Felix 26 days to finally reach the 410th floor with his party. He was in The Abyss almost constantly followed by Peace, who still hadn''t attuned the Asphellum then Melody and Adaline, who each had side projects of their own they were working on on top of needing to sleep.


    In that time, Felix had gained just 7 levels in his Class, about a fifth of the Mana Accelerator was physically finished, half of The Construct Forge and thankfully just a couple of Profession levels.


    Romar and Zeraxes had both taken a bit of time off after the boss, parading themselves before fans, sponsors and Gods in the hopes that they would support them as the champion. They had each cleared up to floor 470 or so but those massive gifts still hadn''t appeared yet. Melody''s theory was that their parent''s were either still working on making deals to get them or they had a larger plan in mind as to the timing.


    All that mattered to Felix at the moment though, was getting through Thakrogan.


    His entire party, including Nova, stood with him and entered The Abyss together, on the 410th floor.


    As soon as they landed in the middle of the fiery hellscape they had all been expecting, a horde of demons leapt at them from every direction.


    [C - Ancient] Minor Fiend (Lvl 1895)


    It took them a few minutes to clear through the initial onslaught of a few hundred and after that, though the demons were ceaseless, they managed to actually move from their initial position.


    "Well that was fun." Melody smirked as she skipped along between them.


    Peace smiled, "This one is switches, right?"


    Felix nodded, "Yeah. This one and the next two, then its protect the flag for five, keys for four, trivial puzzles for eight, keys for the last four."


    Melody smiled and turned her head dramatically, "Adaline?"


    She nodded then began preparing her Spell to locate the switches. As this was the first time she had cast it anywhere near him, Felix paid very close attention to what she was doing and how. First, she pulled out a bullet from a spatial storage and opened a portal in her other hand. She tossed the bullet through the portal and instead of being moved to another portal, it came out the other side.


    Except, what came out the other side, wasn''t exactly what she had thrown in. On the other side, she caught the very same bullet except now, it was the size of a basket ball.


    That¡­ makes a lot of sense. That''s how her enchantments are so precise.


    She peeled back a few layers of the bullet and grumbled about the environment for a few minutes while making small adjustments here and there. Once she was done, she placed it back through the portal and on the other side, she had a normal sized bullet once again.


    Finally, she placed the bullet in her white revolver and pointed it straight up into the air. She didn''t fire though, instead, she hesitated. After a few moments of silent deliberation, in which Felix thought something was wrong, she gritted her teeth and offered the revolver to Felix, "You fire it."


    "You want¡­" He stopped himself in realiztion, "Mana?"


    She nodded and he carefully gripped her weapon before stretching his hand above himself and pointing it upwards. As he did, he examined the revolver with his every sense. It wasn''t by any means the most complicated item he had ever seen. It barely had any enchantments on it at all. The material structure wasn''t overly complex either, it just used expensive materials to direct Mana into the bullets. That was discounting the spatially expanded chamber.


    Instead, the item starkly contrasted Adaline''s strengths, and effectively complemented them. The most impressive part of the revolver, was how much Anima she had stuffed into it and how energetic and obsessed the Anima was. It was right on the verge of being a Curse, something between Desire and Creation along with something else. The whole thing seemed like an item that was pushed right to the edge of being stable.


    "Do I push Mana into it or will it pull from me?"


    "Push. Don''t use more than a billion."


    He nodded then pumped a billion Mana into the revolver, marveling at how easily it channeled that into a tiny bullet. As soon as it was full, he straightened his arm as best he could then pulled the trigger.


    The very same light show Felix had seen a number of times played out in the sky above them, except this time, it was so much bigger. On some floors, especially the first one with the smog, his vision into the distance was limited. On the hellscape he found himself on, there were no obstructions. The sky was a perfectly clear, dull grey color.


    Felix handed her revolver back to her as she used the black one to kill off a few Demon''s scrambling towards them.


    For hundreds of kilometers in every direction, the network of lights grew. It took a few minutes, multiple times longer than any other time she had cast it before.


    Once it was finally done, there were 11 lights floating in the sky, which was more than a little annoying. They already knew there were 16 switches on the floor which meant 5 were outside of the area they scanned.


    Adaline immediately flew off in one direction and Melody used Erevos to follow and assist her because she could still kill the Demons the fastest. Felix could kill them, but it took an annoying number of spells or a lot of Mana.


    Though they weren''t necessarily going to be fighting alongside each-other, Peace and Felix flew off in the same direction so they could help each-other if needed, Nova following Felix.


    As they flew, Felix turned to Peace and admired his brand new robes. They were both Navy and Black, shifting colors as if they were alive as they fluttered in the wind, "You finally affinized the Asphellum?"


    He groaned in response, "Yes. Your stupid Spirit man told me it would take 30 days. I thought that was long. Do you know how long it actually took me?"


    Felix snickered, "Considering it''s been about 175 days since then¡­"


    He rolled his eyes, "6 times as long."


    "Considering you didn''t give up, I take it it was worth it?"


    Peace''s smile widened dramatically, "Oh yeah it was. You see this thing? Not only does it look awesome, but watch this."


    The robes, wrapped around Peace''s body shifted from robes, to plate armor, into a suit then finally into a spiky ball, like he had transformed into a puffer fish.


    "That''s way more control than I was expecting." Felix marveled at the robes.


    Peace smirked, "I''m still figuring out the whole, merge it with my body thing, like I can do it but, it''s rough. Anyways, yeah this stuff is awesome."


    Definitely going to consider that for my robes.


    The two of them ended up just working together as soon as they saw the first switch and realized it was completely overrun with Demons. There was an obviously denser pack surrounding it from all sides that had to be cleared out before they could activate the switch.


    Together, they blasted through the horde, Felix focusing on Lightning and Cold Spells because of how ineffective Romar''s Fire and physical damage had seemed on Thakrogan.


    The amount of Mana Felix had to blow through just to wipe out a single horde boggled his mind as it took him 5 Lightning Bolts with over 2 million Mana each, to kill just one Minor Fiend. As soon as he realized that, he switched from Lightning Bolts which were efficient but single target, to massive Blizzards of Cold and Force.


    Peace joined in, transforming into a giant Water and Ice serpent that circled through the horde and swallowed Minor Fiends whole.


    The instant they were done with the horde, Felix released his Mana Regeneration Spheres and had them fly around instead of rolling. It was less efficient as they used up more Mana that way but he was worried about the Fiends damaging or destroying them and he hadn''t noticed any flying demons on the lower floors when Romar and Zeraxes had gone through.


    As his Mana Collection Constructs flew around, Felix let Nova and Peace cover for him as they traveled to the next switch.


    It took his party just under a day to clear the first floor. They already knew the floors got bigger and took longer as they descended further but luckily, this floor group didn''t expand as dramatically or as quickly as some of the others had.


    The switches were annoying but they were just the introduction. After that, there were these altars they had to activate. Once they did, they began charging and as they charged, the Demons all around them ravenously tried to stop them. The time for each altar varied but they were incredibly exhausting and Felix didn''t have enough Mana to handle even a single one on his own. It eventually got so bad, that they had to stay as a single group on the last two protect-the-point floors.


    After that, they were back to keys except now, they were locked away inside structures that were durable enough to be annoying to destroy. That meant they had to delve into each one, map and clear them out, in order to find the final room containing the key.


    Some of them even had mini bosses guarding the keys in the form of normal Fiends.


    Felix actually preferred those dungeons like areas because he could space out his slaughter and regenerate his Mana in between. They also provided a decent spot for Adaline, Nova and Melody to rest while Felix and Peace guarded them with relative ease.


    The puzzles would have been annoying, if they didn''t already have a decent idea of how to solve each one from watching Romar and Zeraxes. It definitely didn''t seem like that was the intention though which Felix noted as something to think about later.


    For the most part, they were basic logic puzzles or questions about Fiends and the environment they were in. They were all definitely doable and even without having watched the previous runs, Felix could have solved them nearly instantly with his Mind Residents. That wasn''t the case for everyone but even then, Felix couldn''t help but feel like they were place holders for something else.


    By the time they got to the last four floors, the key floors with keys hidden inside enemies, they had spent over 24 consecutive days in The Abyss. Romar and Zeraxes had taken half that amount of time to get to the same place.


    The last four floors were the longest, but they weren''t as annoying as they could have been and Felix''s exhausted and drained party took solace in that fact. The keys weren''t just in any random enemies, like they had been on previous floors. Instead, they were located in Mini Bosses scattered all over the floor. In addition, unlike previous floors, there was a kind of structure to the floors and from the landscape alone, they could locate the Greater Fiends.


    Each one had a camp of sorts in a valley or on a mountain, they had territories that the Minor Fiends kept to for the most part.


    The party didn''t dare split up, even Adaline traveling with them because even though they were sleeping and eating provisions, many of them were still mentally and emotionally drained. Felix was doing all right but he knew he wasn''t the norm and even just feeling Nova''s emotions, he knew what everyone else was experiencing.


    Unfortunately, they needed all of them for each floor, the first two with keys inside enemies taking almost two days then three and finally, the last floor before Thakrogan taking them an arduous five and a half days to finally get through.


    "Holy. Shit. This. Suuuuuuuccccckksss." Melody flopped onto her back just outside the door to the final floor.


    Peace stretched and groaned as he did so, out of habit more than anything now that he was a Spirit, "We made it. Just one lousy boss to bonk and we can all go home."


    Adaline grunted as she fervently inscribed into bullets, having run out almost halfway through the floor group.


    "I don''t even know if I care enough about winning this stupid thing to do another fucking floor after this." Melody screamed cathartically, "Not to mention this¡­" She shivered, "Dread¡­ Doom¡­ Inevitability¡­ It''s¡­ I''ve never felt Anima like this, let alone just¡­ ambient¡­"


    Felix once again reached out, for what felt like the thousandth time but felt nothing himself, "I think it''s finally time we hit The Realms after this."


    Melody perked up into a sitting position, "Aren''t you worried you''ll gain too many levels fighting Thakrogan?"


    Felix sighed as he looked at his status screen.


    Name:Felix Kade (The True Wizard)FREE0Innate:Ascendant Prodigy: Mana (Wizard)STR7,704Class:[C - Ancient] Reaper (Lvl 1,948)DEX14,054Race:[C - Ancient] Wanderer (Lvl 1,962)AGI14,404Profession:[C - Ancient] Lifebinder (Lvl 1,976)PER5,217Health:76,128,210 / 76,128,210VIT7,612Mana:2B / 2B + 6B / 6BINT17,936Resistance:98.53%END6,689


    It was something he, Grim and Mark along with a number of Mind Residents had been thinking about for a while. They had done all the calculations they could on the subject to determine whether or not he should even participate in the fight.


    "It should be fine." Felix answered, "Judging from how many levels Zeraxes, Romar, Il Doras and their party''s got from the fight¡­ At most I should get 40 to 45 levels."


    She snickered, "You know as well as I do how complicated experience calculations are. You''re really going to bet on that?"


    He sighed, "It should be fine."


    She shrugged indicating it was entirely up to him.


    "Even if I wasn''t willing to risk it, I can''t just leave it all up to Adaline and Peace."


    She scoffed, "Excuse me. Are you doubting my value?"


    Felix shrugged, "I mean¡­ You''re definitely not useless¡­"


    She opened her mouth, mockingly gaping.


    "All I''m saying¡­ is you could definitely be more useful¡­"


    Her expression immediately hardened, "I''m not using the instrument''s abilities."


    Felix was baiting her, as he had a few times before and he expected her answer. He wasn''t focused on listening to her words though and he once again tried to feel out her Soul, now that she was exhausted and drained.


    He didn''t get much more than he got every other time but he did feel an underlying feeling of fear and disgust towards the instrument. She hated whatever it was, whatever it did and she feared it and what it could do. She saw it as something completely disgusting and she didn''t think she could completely control it.


    "Well, we''ve got a few hours until my constructs come back and my Mana is full, are you all going to be ready by then?"


    Peace nodded and Melody grunted while Adaline, didn''t respond but seemed to move just a little faster in her inscribing.


    While they waited, Felix began working on using Reaper''s Aura. Shifting and transforming it using the skill, controlling its range and strength and effect as much as he could.


    He had already been using it as much as he could because it supplemented his other skills and gave him something to do when he ran out of Mana.


    Ding You have upgraded the Class skill: [Legendary] Reaper''s Aura (Skilled XXII) => Class: [Ancient] Reaper''s Presence (Proficient I)


    General: [Reaper''s Presence (Ancient) Control the Presence of the Reaper. Presence is more than just the effect and power of an Aura. This skill focuses on gaining complete control over the wielder''s aura. Both altering the Perception of the user from other''s eyes, controlling the range, effect and strength of the aura as well as enabling multiple other abilities using it. The effect and abilities of the Presence is entirely dependent on the Soul and intent of the user. Some Presence Abilities may be impossible for a certain user to wield. Strength of the abilities is highly dependent on the strength of the user''s Soul and their ability to wield that strength, their will power. This skill incurs a cost in terms of exhausted will power.]


    Finally.


    He took a few minutes to test it out then sighed, Just as useless as I thought. Alright, looks like I''m ready to drop this Class. You gotten anything new from the sub-System Chunk about a custom Class?


    The Nucleus seemed almost reluctant to respond, Nothing specific or really¡­ useful. I think it lacks information.


    What kind of information. How much. Give me options.


    Well¡­ Mostly populace information. Information about what people want, think about, do, that kind of thing. We could have Mark pump everything he knows into it¡­


    You''re hesitating, just say it.


    The Nucleus rushed through its words, What if I integrate it into myself and I become The System for your Mental World?


    Felix nodded slowly, I''ve thought about that. I''m open to it. First things first, integrate the chunk then we''ll see, make sure it doesn''t alter you.


    Yeah¡­ so¡­ I already did.


    You¡­ Of course you did. Mark, Grim, have you assessed Nucleus, did anything notable change?


    Grim answered immediately as he was already listening in, Yes and no. With as many relay nodes as Mark has, we can probably set it up so everything going in and out of the Nucleus is filtered and approved. At least for a while.


    How many Mark Nodes do we need to dedicate to that?


    To have comfortable headroom, 3.


    Huh. Okay. Let''s do it. I should probably move Nucleus into orbit, right?


    Yeah, the connection will be too slow otherwise.


    Felix nodded then quickly moved the Nucleus from his Soul Space, into his Core Soular System where it became another object in orbit around his Core Soul.


    His constructs returned an hour later at which point he drained and stowed them then walked over to the entrance and inserted the last key, opening the entrance to the final floor.


    The rest of his party rose to their feet, not quickly or with much energy, but more recharged than they had been and they all stepped through onto the final floor.


    "THAKROGAN!"


    [B - Ancient] Thakrogan (Lvl 2004)


    The large Demon they had all been expecting stood there waiting for them as it roared its name and slammed its fists into the ground. As soon as they saw it, a sense of being on edge washed over all of them and Felix immediately recognized it as an Aura, of a sort.


    It was obvious to Felix that the Aura wasn''t actually intentional or controlled, it was more like its Presence. It was a natural Aura the creature exuded that it didn''t have any control over. The effect, was minor but enough to just slightly affect them and throw them off, at least Adaline who had a weaker Soul compared to the rest of them.


    No words were shared as they all immediately sprung into action.


    Judging from the Fiends, Peace immediately transformed into another Water and Ice serpent but this time, he rushed forwards and wrapped himself around Thakrogan to try and restrict its movements. At the same time, Felix and Nova rushed to either side of it to flank it and began blasting it with the most annoying attacks they could think of.


    That meant Felix focused on hitting it with Lightning Bolts in and around its eyes, Sonic Bombs in its ears and Force Blasts to turn its head and help trip it. Nova used similar Spells intermixed with physical attacks as it mounted Thakrogan, clawing and biting at its vulnerable spots.


    Adaline wasted no time in firing off hundreds of Spells from her Black Revolver, using the White one for self mobility, utility and support. She almost entirely focused on Spatial Spells which amounted to Blue Laser Beams from every direction. As they hit, they instantly bore tiny holes right through its body and into the ground on the either side, her precision far too high for her to ever hit Peace, Nova or Felix.


    Finally Melody flew around and supported them wherever she was needed. Sometimes she buffed Felix''s speed for a moment or Peace''s strength. Sometimes she switched to distracting and confusing Thakrogan''s senses or helping counter its Aura.


    As much as they planned and structured the fight, it didn''t go quite like they were hoping, which was exactly what they expected. As soon as Adaline blasted holes through its body, they almost instantly healed. Even though Nova and Peace were effectively limiting its movement, it was still breathing streams of Fire at Felix. His Mana Skin managed to mitigate a lot of it but he was still being burned, his flesh charred.


    Luckily, he had extra cells stored in his Blood Ring and so he instantly healed himself as soon as he was injured.


    Their plan was to simply wear it down until it finally died but it became obvious that wasn''t going to work when Peace backed off and Adaline severed its entire left half with a Spell of spinning lasers, then it immediately regenerated it. With Peace backed off of its entire left half, it had enough freedom of movement to tear Nova free and toss her aside then reach out and snatch Felix''s leg from the air.


    "Tha. Kro. Gan!"


    Felix immediately cast an Instinct Blade Spell at his own leg and removed it before Thakrogan could smash him into the ground. As he careened towards it, Felix regenerated his leg with his Blood Ring then caught himself just before he hit.


    This is why I filled The Blood Ring.


    Felix flew a little further away for a few moments while Peace wrapped himself back around the Demon before diving back in to distract it.


    A few moments later though, it managed to grab Felix once again, his arm this time. Severing it with an Instinct Blade Spell, Felix looked back and noticed Peace was struggling. Not only was the Demon stronger than any of them by a large margin, but Peace was exhausted and it managed to slip partially free.


    "Sorry!" Peace gargled out as he wrapped himself back around the arm it had freed.


    That happened again and again, with less time between each occurrence until Peace was so exhausted and drained, he had to revert and back off.


    "THAKROGAN!"


    Nova couldn''t hold it on her own and without a distraction, it could have done real damage to her so Felix mentally told her to back off as he flew around it like a fly. As with the Hydra, he did his best to overcome the difference in their speed by predicting Thakrogan''s moves before he made them.


    Thakrogran was more Intelligent and aware though and so it was harder to predict.


    Whenever he did get caught, by a blast of Fire breath or by its claws, he did his best to mitigate and minimize the damage before healing himself with the Blood RIng.


    It was a losing battle though considering how often Felix was taking damage because he couldn''t heal himself forever. Although, his Mana Skin was helping tremendously and blocked easily four fifths of the damage he would have been taking, if not more. It was just so much damage at once, his Mana Skin was being completely overwhelmed.


    Melody did her best to buff Felix and distract it but it wasn''t enough.


    Even with Felix''s monstrous base stats, buffed both by his Mana Channels which were pumping as much Mana as fast as they could and his Reaper''s Movement, Body and Instinct pushed to their limit, it wasn''t enough to overcome the Demon''s stats. He was just happy it didn''t seem to have any other weird abilities from being an Ancient creature, like the Ashound had.


    To buy himself some time, he began completely focusing on Instinct Casting Force Blasts to move himself and its limbs as much as possible.


    Then, Adaline yelled out from somewhere way off behind him, "Felix, here!"


    He knocked its hand aside with an Instinct Force Blast and spun his head to look, immediately understanding what was happening. Turning back to Thakrogan, he began swerving and annoying it as much as possible while everyone else backed off. He slowly made his way in the direction Adaline had indicated as he funneled almost all the Mana he had left into preparing a single Spell. Everything he didn''t need for that Spell, went into keeping its attention on him, even if that meant taking damage and healing it back afterwards.


    Once he was close enough, Felix almost chuckled at the massive mine she had planted in the ground and the fact that they were all at least a kilometer away by that point. He led it ever closer until it was nearly on top of it but Felix refused to leave anything to chance so, he cast two spells at the very same instant. One Instinct Force Blast to activate the mine and the other, the Spell he had spent the majority of his Mana preparing.


    From a few kilometers away, Felix instantly spun around and saw the same general explosion they had used to take down the Giant except this one, was much bigger and used much less Mana. It left nothing behind.


    Ding You have slain [B - Ancient] Thakrogan (Lvl 2004)


    Ding You have gained 38 levels in [C - Ancient] Reaper (1948 => 1986)


    Phew.


    Melody appeared next to him, having been the closest to his destination, "The fact that you can just vanish and appear somewhere else like that is nuts by the way. Have I ever told you that?"


    "I call it Translocation. Yes. Many times in Osgard." He turned to Melody, his joy that the fight was finally over leaking through into a smirk on his face.


    Adaline and Peace flew over and joined them as Melody nodded, "That''s one way to kill something. Not as flashy as a Judgement Skill."


    "Like Romar''s Judgement of the Stars? Is that a Skill line like Domain and Strike?"


    Peace nodded, "It''s a line off finishers. Big finishers."


    "We did it!" Melody jumped up and down, unable to contain herself while the rest of them mostly just watched.


    "You doubted us?" Felix cocked a brow.


    "Well, it was pretty impressive killing that thing with just four of us." Peace smirked, "Including Nova."


    Melody immediately stopped jumping and smacked Peace, "Not you too."


    He chuckled as they all flew over to the chest and opened it.


    [B - Ancient] Crown of the Arch Fiend


    [Ancient][Dark][Demonic][Soulful][Spirit]


    A helm fashioned from the skull of Thakrogan, the Arch Fiend, Ruler of the Fiends. It contains a portion of his endless rage and imbues the wearer with the ability to gain massive Strength at the cost of going into an uncontrollable rage. It additionally emits the same Aura Thakrogan once did when he was alive.


    "I see the tags are just as useless as always. Thanks System." Peace snorted.


    This thing is¡­ subtly weird. Its fashioned from Thakrogran''s body and Soul but, Zeraxes, Romar and Il Doras all got the same thing. Even The System can''t replicate a Soul, how do these things exist? How is The Abyss recreating the enemy and this over and over again? Also, I can feel this uncontrollable rage thing is like an infection on the wearer''s Soul. It''s so different from most System equipment.


    Peace was mildly interested in trying the Crown so they all agreed to give it to him, Felix only agreeing because he trusted Peace''s Soul strength and senses.


    With the two doorways open in front of them, not one of them moved on to the next floor as they all walked out in a line back into the arena.


    As much as they weren''t the favorites, Felix was expecting cheering and applause. They were still amongst the fastest and they had dedicated fans that annoyed him constantly. On top of that, their personal fanbase had been growing ever since Adaline popped out of The Realms and started cruising through floors.


    The raucous applause he heard though as he stepped back into the arena was far more than he was expecting. Looking up at the crowd through the glass ceiling of the tunnel though, he realized no one was actually looking at them. A few moments later, he heard a massive boom echo out from the arena as the entire ground shook.


    The others in his party all looked around, except Nova who was asleep on Felix''s shoulder and could care less, to see if the others knew what was happening.


    Seeing as they were all confused, they sped up and rushed out of the arena and into the stands where they saw two individuals were fighting each-other in the arena.


    One of them, looked to be made of metal. His entire body made up of tiny strips of metal that interlocked to form a complete, humanoid body. As they rose from the ground where there was a crater behind them, they began glowing as the interlocked plates shifted open and bright rays of yellow-white starlight poured out from the gaps.


    [B - Ancient] Romar (Lvl 2402)


    The other individual was recognizably Zeraxes who now wore a set of brilliant blue, sleeveless robes that hung down to his ankles. It otherwise seemed rather non descript.


    [B - Divine] Zeraxes (Lvl 2326)


    Leaping off the ground, Romar snatched Zeraxes out of the air and threw him downwards, blasting him with a beam of Fire before he even hit the ground.


    "Looks like they got their Echos." Melody said in a rather dejected tone.


    Felix groaned, "You know what they do?"


    Melody shrugged.


    "I do." Peace pointed towards Romar, "That thing was meant to be a prison. It''s supposed to reflect all the Energy you put out back into you. It was supposed to be inescapable torture. Mirror Cell."


    Which, for a Star, effectively just multiplies its energy. Great.


    He moved his arm and pointed at Zeraxes, "Those robes are inexplicably connected to a number of other robes in other universes. It regenerates his Mana from those universes, not to mention the fact that it''s a 50 billion Mana battery. Transcendent River."


    That''s¡­ I wonder how hard that would be to steal¡­


    Felix scoffed, "I get the first name I guess but, how are you supposed to know they''re robes with a name like ''Transcendent River''?"


    He chuckled, "I wondered the exact same thing when I read about it in The Reaper''s Archive."


    "Alright. I think its time I find a way to get stronger myself." He turned to Melody and Peace, "You guys coming?"


    They both nodded and all three of them headed straight to The Realms of Annihilation, while Adaline, headed off to sleep.

 Chapter 234 - Book 7

    "This is the entrance to The Realms of Annihilation?" Felix looked around in disbelief at the completely normal looking flat and barren dry land field before him. Where they stood, there was nothing to indicate there was an entrance to another Realm at all.


    "One of them." Peace answered as he stepped forwards and vanished.


    Huh, guess he is allowed in.


    "This is probably the least popular entrance." Melody added before stepping forwards and vanishing as well.


    Nova bounded in after her, excited about disappearing into thin air. For the last few hours, she had been incessantly pestering Felix about how he Spatially Translocated himself in the fight against Thakrogan. She wanted Felix to teach her and kept insisting no matter how many times he tried to convey the complexity of what he had done and how she didn''t have enough Mana.


    That didn''t seem to deter her in the slightest though.


    Felix followed a moment later, stepping forwards where the three of them had vanished and instantly felt a very similar bubble to the one he passed through when entering and leaving The Abyss except this one, was much stronger. Passing through it felt physical to Felix, like he was literally stepping through a thick bubble of some viscous liquid.


    On the other side, everything was different.


    Not only was it filled with flora and fauna forming a colorful and dense forest, but the Aether and Anima were completely different as well. Not only were they denser, which Felix expected, but they felt completely different.


    The Aether was active and fluid but even more than that, it was like it was almost structured. Where normally he could identify flows in the Aether, groupings of specific Attunements, like dye poured into a liquid, here he could sense much more complex structures. It wasn''t just groupings of similar Mana but almost fragments of Spells and echoes of Rituals from long ago.


    The Anima was similar. It was denser and more lively, on the same scale as his Spark of Life but on top of that, it felt much richer. Like it contained more experiences and the experiences themselves were clearer. Like the difference between a significant memory and the memory of a dream from years ago.


    Melody, Peace and Nova were already weaving their way through the jungle before them and Felix quickly caught up and followed them through.


    "This is why it isn''t the most popular entrance. Especially for those that can''t fly." Melody said as she gestured around them.


    It took almost a half hour for them to clear the forest which meant the entire Realm, was much bigger than Felix had expected.


    When he saw what was on the other side of the jungle, that feeling was only exacerbated as he flew out into a full blown city. There were tall towers in the distance, large flat buildings and architectural marvels all interspersed amongst each-other. In the middle of the buildings, was a large bubble that towered above everything else. It was just the top half of the bubble and it was white with prismatic patterns that shifted like life forms all over it. It looked to Felix like a video trying to show something specific happening that had been screwed up in processing to the point of being just completely unrecognizable rainbow patterns.


    "Was this city just¡­ always here?" Felix asked as he marveled at the buildings around him.


    "Nope." Melody skipped along just a step ahead of him, "This city shifts and changes all the time as new people pop in."


    "Are you saying people hang out here? Is there a limit to how long you can stay in this outer area?"


    Peace shook his head, "Only once you''ve actually entered The Realms. You can prepare as long as you''d like here then once you leave, you have about a day before you''re kicked out entirely."


    "So some people just come in here and¡­ stall?"


    Peace nodded but Melody shook her head, "Some people are hiding from the real world and anyone stronger than them. You can only get in if you''re C grade or below, right?"


    Felix nodded slowly in understanding, "So someone who''s top shit of their grade comes here and is basically a God with no one to stand against them."


    "Yeah, pretty much."


    Felix turned to look at Peace, finally voicing a question he had been wondering for a little while, "So it just didn''t care about you then?"


    Peace shrugged, "Spirit things?"


    Looking at Melody, she shrugged too.


    "Lucky I guess. You going to push The Realms then?"


    Peace shrugged half heartedly, "Meh. I''ll go in and see what''s going on but I don''t see myself pushing very hard. I think¡­"


    Melody slowed a step to listen and Felix patiently waited for Peace to continue.


    "I think I don''t really care about being strong."


    Felix nodded, "Makes sense if you don''t have a reason to be strong."


    Melody nodded, "I''ve been trying to get people to enjoy life since I was born and realized I could feel how stuck up they all were."


    Peace chuckled, "Yeah. I''ve just never needed strength for anything really. I''m having fun experiencing what a beast feels or what a storm feels like¡­ what a weird statement."


    Felix smirked, "Still sounds awesome."


    He nodded quickly, "It is. I don''t know that I want to remember, like The Reaper does, but I do want to experience¡­ things. Maybe even everything¡­" He turned to Felix, "Since you''re the only one that seems to really care about being strong, why do you care?"


    Melody scoffed, "Isn''t it obvious? He''s just trying to start a har-"


    As soon as Felix realized what she was about to say, he surrounded her mouth with a Force Bubble Spell and interrupted her, "I care about knowledge. I want to learn everything about¡­ well everything but Mana and Magic are the most interesting right now. I want to know how the universe works, why it works the way it does. I want to understand how Mana interacts with the universe, how Spells work. I want to uncover every arcane secret there is to uncover."


    Peace smirked, "Figured it was something like that."


    Melody put a fist on her hip and Felix dropped the Force Bubble, causing her to mockingly gasp before speaking, "Not quite as noble as being strong to protect your friends and loved ones or even to pursue freedom¡­"


    Felix scoffed, "Who cares about being noble? What a monumental waste of energy. Just do what makes you the happiest and deal with the consequences."


    She laughed and shook her head in disapproval but Felix sped up a few steps and was already gone by the time she looked up.


    "Okay so, is there anything to this city or is it just a vanity project from people clinging onto their sense of power in the C grade?"


    "Well, even though you only have a day or so in here after coming out, plenty of people sell their shit here. The economy here is actually booming, if you think about it, this is the last place you can buy something before heading into The Realms."


    "So there''s plenty of annoying sales tactics around urgency, instilling fear and exaggerating the contents of The Realms?"


    Peace smirked, "Yeah. Pretty much."


    Melody gasped for a breath as she caught up, "It''s not all bad, there''s also plenty of people just selling items they found in The Realms."


    Peace nodded along, "As you can imagine, there''s a very different economy in here. Consumables and items that can save you in a pinch are worth way more in here."


    "Yeah, those standout but everything is marked up in here." Melody pointed over at the front display of a shop to their right showing off suits of armor that looked particularly flashy.


    Felix didn''t see a price on display, but he got the idea, "So you''re saying it isn''t worth looking for last minute equipment in here?"


    "Unless you''ve got an in with Lilian, not really."


    Felix''s eyes widened a little, "Who?"


    "Lilian The Twisted Trinity." Peace answered, "A C grade who stepped in here then never stepped back out."


    "She was a prodigy and she''s set up a kind of¡­ syndicate in here."


    Felix cocked a brow, "I kind of assumed that would never happen but I guess in here¡­ Why don''t Zeraxes or Romar just take her out?"


    "She''s not weak." Melody responded.


    "In fact, I think she was considered one of the strongest people ever in the C grade." Peace looked at Melody for confirmation.


    She nodded, "Yeah, think Zeraxes, Romar when they were C grade but¡­ smarter and stronger."


    "Is she going to try and tax me on the way out or something? Should I worry?"


    "I don''t think so¡­ Probably not?" Melody looked at Peace.


    Peace shrugged, "Not that I''ve heard. She mostly just taxes trade and buys up the best treasures to hoard for herself."


    "So¡­ can we just head in then?" Felix looked at both of them for confirmation.


    "Seriously? We can literally never come back in here and you want to just skip right to the main event?"


    Felix rolled his eyes, "Fine. What do you want to do before heading in?"


    She shrugged, "Shopping of course. There isn''t much to do here anyways."


    "Wouldn''t we be better off waiting till we''re through The Realms so we can barter everything we get?"


    Peace nodded along.


    "I mean¡­ yeah, you shouldn''t buy anything unless you really need it, like new robes or a wand or any equipment at all in your case but-" She spun around with her arms outstretched, gesturing to the city around them, "-look at how massive this place is. We''ve got to at least find out where the good stuff is in advance."


    As it turned out, there wasn''t nearly as much ''good stuff'' as Felix was expecting.


    For some reason he had thought things would be a little different in the city outside The Realms, with more equipment and items but as they walked through the city, entering various buildings along the way, he was inundated with consumables. It wasn''t just most of the items they saw, but almost every single one of the items they saw.


    Luckily, that wasn''t the only thing they found in the city. As they explored over a period of 4 days or so, they stayed in some pretty lavish accommodations and visited a new restaurant for every meal, and a few times between.


    They still hadn''t explored the entire Realm city at that point but they didn''t intend to. Melody had used her talents to direct them exactly where they needed to go and so there was no where else worth exploring except for the Allinus Idridor Auction. An auction started by and named after Radleus, the Merchant God''s, first child.


    It''s been handed down from child to child and is seen as somewhat of a right of passage for them. They run the auction up until the next child finally enters The Realms and takes it over from them at which point they can finally attempt The Realms themselves and leave.


    The child currently running the auction was one of his daughters, Carilla Idridor, a real bitch according to Melody.


    On the morning of the auction, Felix, Melody and Peace headed out towards the building itself, bought tickets, then quickly found a restaurant nearby to serve them breakfast while they waited.


    "Should I expect anything interesting at this auction? I know you said it would be worth waiting for but our interests don''t always¡­ align."


    She rolled her eyes, "When have I ever dragged you to do something that you didn''t end up enjoying or benefit from?"


    "Sa-"


    "Don''t answer that." She immediately cut him off.


    "Well, there will be equipment and loot from The Realms, the auction is where most of the good stuff ends up." Peace answered before biting into his multiple foot tall pastry.


    "The issue is whether or not you''ll be able to actually buy anything." Melody stabbed the air with her fork.


    Felix cocked a brow, "If you aren''t the one paying, then I can''t afford shit."


    She shook her head, "Not that. I mean that everything good will probably be bought by Lilian." Melody swallowed her bite then dabbed at her mouth with a cloth, "Remember we said she taxes everything going through here?"


    "So she''s got a lot of creds?"


    Melody waited a moment before speaking, "and¡­"


    Felix almost slapped himself, "She''s taxing the auction house so anything she buys, is at a huge discount. How much?"


    "50% I think." Melody looked at Peace.


    He shrugged, "Last I heard it was 40 but you''re probably right."


    She shrugged, "Yeah so, something like that."


    Felix nodded, "I''ve been thinkin-"


    "Excuse me?" An small elvish man stood a bit away from their table, far enough to be polite but close enough that it was obvious who he was talking to.


    Peace spun in his chair and frowned at the man then turned back to his massive pastry a moment later when he decided he didn''t really care.


    "Another?" Felix sighed and looked at Melody.


    She smiled politely, "What can I do for you?"


    "Oh¡­ actually, I was looking for Felix Kade?"


    Felix''s eyes widened and his brows furrowed simultaneously as he suddenly spun towards the man, "You what?"


    He took that as permission to approach and stepped forwards next to their table, "My name is Cobalt, most people just call me Cob."


    Melody snickered as Felix resisted the urge to be too abrasive, "What''s up?"


    "Well, I¡­" The man fidgeted with the ends of his robe''s sleeves, evidently a habit considering the fraying in the area. He took a moment to find his resolve, took a breath then nodded, "I want you to teach me."


    "No." Felix turned back to the table.


    "I¡­" His jaw hung slack as he looked around at Peace and Melody for any salvation whatsoever.


    Peace was happily eating his pastry through a smirk and Melody was having the time of her life as she subtly used her body language to invite him in and give him enough confidence not to run away.


    Cob stepped a little closer to the table, now impossible to ignore and looked slightly down at Felix from the height of his short stature, "I''ve been following you ever since you beat Tanryel in a Duel. I''m a Caster you see and for a long time, I thought Caster''s Duels were the pinnacle of a Caster''s power. That those competing were the fastest, most strategic, most intelligent, had the biggest Spell Lists and the best wands."


    Melody continued to use her body language, and her ability as a succubus to egg him on, leaning in slightly and opening her shoulders towards him to signal comfort and interest.


    He didn''t seem to realize he was being manipulated but his confidence clearly grew as his chest puffed out slightly and he continued, "Then, you came along and destroyed Tanryel. You showed me how wrong I was. What was truly important as a Caster."


    Felix sighed, "What''s that?"


    "Magic."


    Not a bad answer.


    "Since then, you were almost entirely quiet and most people lost interest when you didn''t seem to do much in Bastorus One or really make a big name for yourself in your recruitments. As much as I was inspired by you¡­ Anyways, as soon as I saw you were signed up for The Abyss alongside Melody, I didn''t think for even a second it was just because you were trying to sleep with her."


    Implying someone thought that. Felix side eyed Melody without physically moving and saw her snickering.


    "At first, I was just happy to watch. To continue taking inspiration from you and to find my own way. I kept watching and you kept climbing and now you''re in contention to beat everyone. The more I saw, the more I realized I didn''t know so¡­ I decided I would come find you."


    "How long have you been waiting here?"


    He looked around slightly embarrassed, "Ah¡­ a few dekads¡­ I had to be sure I didn''t miss you."


    "Well, sorry you wasted your time. I can''t exactly just teach you anything outright. My Spells are custom and won''t work for anyone else, my Mana Pool is massive but that''s a part of me, there really isn''t anything I can outright teach you."


    He shook his head quickly, "That''s not true at all. You taught Mera."


    Felix looked at Melody, unsure how to respond to that. Peace also looked up in slight surprise but didn''t say anything.


    "Mera''s a little different. She''s got a lot of the same uniqueness as Felix because she''s his daughter." Melody offered.


    Not¡­ really at all, more like a clone physically and a construct spiritually¡­ kind of but¡­ I guess that''s not the worst lie.


    Cob''s shoulders slumped a little, "I didn''t even¡­ I didn''t even consider she could¡­ It makes so much sense now." He looked up a moment later and dropped to one knee, "Please. I''ll do anything. I just want the chance to learn. I''ll dedicate everything I have to you. My life, all my possessions, anything you want. I''ll do whatever you say, I''ll¡­"


    Divine Disciple


    Cobalt has offered to worship you as his Deity. This will cause his Soul to enter Mental World upon death. This is a binding Soul contract. Up until death, Cobalt has decided to serve you in whatever manner you decide in the hopes you teach him something.


    Do you accept this offer?


    Yes.


    No.


    NO! Please don''t tell me he saw something on his end too¡­


    Looking down at the man, considering his lack of reaction in any way, Felix assumed he hadn''t seen anything. Looking over at Melody, because she was being annoying, he saw her leaning in and pressuring him to respond.


    "I don''t want you to serve me and I''ve already told you, there''s nothing I can teach you."


    He shot to his feet, "What about how you instantly moved from one place to another in the fight against Thakrogan?"


    Nova meowed in agreement.


    Not you too.


    "That wasn''t instant at all. I had been preparing that Spell for minutes before that."


    "I don''t care. Teach me that. Teach me how you prepare Spells. What does that mean? How do you cast so many at once? How big is your Spell List?"


    Felix cocked a brow.


    "Because I''ve been counting and so far, I''ve personally seen you cast somewhere in the neighborhood of-"


    "Look, I''m sorry to have wasted your time but I can''t teach you any of the things I do."


    He shook his head, "How about this, just let me follow you around. Even if you''re right, let me see if I can pick anything up on my own."


    Felix opened his mouth to refuse but the sheer resolve on Cobalt''s face stopped him, "Fine. I''m not slowing down for you though and I''m not answering a thousand questions. Also, we aren''t staying in here very long and we''ll be heading right back to Eramith-"


    He shook his head, "I''m also a contestant but¡­ I haven''t made it quite as far as you have. Thank you." He bowed all the way down.


    Felix sighed then looked at his friends who were both smirking.


    "So anyways, you were saying something Felix?" Melody said half serious.


    "Right. Is any reason I couldn''t just make myself equipment in The Realms? Would anything stop me from doing so? Also, how hard is the first floor¡­ realm, whatever?"


    "First one is about level 2000 and they climb by about a level every realm."


    Felix''s eyes widened, "So the Dragon is level 4000?"


    "Yes. He made Mera''s equipment." Melody explained.


    Felix looked at her in confusion for a moment before he realized she was answering the question Cob had swallowed and obediently not asked.


    "Summoned her familiar too." She quickly added to give Cob even more questions and ultimately tease Felix.


    "They aren''t all combat floors though, right?"


    Peace shook his head, "None of them are combat floors. You''re thinking of things from a System point of view. The Realms are more like entire¡­ well, Realms. Each one has an entire world within it with cities, countries, continents sometimes even planets."


    "The goal, the thing you have to do to move on, isn''t always clear either. The System gives quests to guide you but they''ll start to get¡­ weird, from what I''ve heard." Melody added.


    Felix didn''t even need an explanation as he already had a pretty good idea of what that meant.


    People began to quickly stand and move around them.


    "Looks like it''s auction time." Melody rose to her feet and quickly downed the rest of her pastry.


    Peace, amazingly, had already finished his massive pastry and he wiped his hands before standing as well.


    Felix simply floated out of his seat to avoid the crowd and Melody and Peace joined him a moment later in the air. Looking down, he saw Cob hurrying his way through the crowd to try and keep up with them.


    Flying through the large open doorway of the auction house, they flew all the way over to the booth Melody had paid for and found seats within. While it was nice, it was a much smaller venue than the only other auction Felix had ever been to, after the World Event. Though, the fact that C grades had made this place without help from anyone outside The Realms was impressive in its own right.


    It took Cob a few minutes to finally make his way to their booth, though Felix had no idea how he knew where they were only suspecting Melody had something to do with it. He politely took a seat in the booth a few meters behind them and sat there silently waiting along with the rest of them for the auction to begin.


    People filtered in and found their seats, the noise floor of the auction rising as they did until finally every seat in sight was filled by a body. Even then, they had to wait a few minutes for the auction to begin as everyone was early because seats outside of the booths were not guaranteed.


    A blonde woman with hair that drifted in the wind, despite the complete lack of wind, and a suit like dress robe stepped out into the middle of the stage then bowed deeply to the crowd, her arms stretched out to either side of her.


    "Good afternoon and welcome to my auction." Carilla said in a slow and arrogant voice, like listening to her voice was the greatest privilege anyone could ask for.


    "Today we have many items on offer from The Realms. Items you will have a great deal of difficulty finding anywhere else."


    She closed her eyes and lifted her chin to the sky as hundreds of people synchronously rolled podiums onto the stage, each one holding an item, "Let the auction begin."


    The auction was nothing like what Felix expected. He had been expecting an auctioneer to stand at the front and let people bid one by one on each item. Instead, the attendees simply verbally bid on an item and The System seemed to handle the rest. Despite the fact that there was no need to speak any louder than a whisper, the entire building instantly exploded in noise as everyone yelled out their bids in the hopes of snagging something.


    It was chaos.


    Above each item, the current bid along with the time until it was sold was displayed as hovering text and each item had just 2 seconds until it was sold when a bid was placed.


    Given there wasn''t really any time to examine the items and discuss, Felix grabbed both Melody and Peace''s arms and pulled them into his Soul Garden. Grim had already created projections of the items themselves and Felix filled in their information from his own Identifications.


    Melody snickered a little before walking forward and slowly walking amongst the pedestals, like she was in a museum, examining art or artifacts. Peace did the same except he was more childlike and spent much less time examining everything.


    Given the fact that Felix had identified them all, he already knew which ones stood out to him.


    [A - Ancient] Skull of the Enigma


    [Ancient][Dark][Soulful][Spirit]


    The skull of someone long dead that seems to contain a secret so tightly guarded, it never moved on. Some say it is the memory of a tragedy, others say it is the secret to the universe itself.


    This item has no known uses although it is nearly indestructible. Any damage it does experience is quickly healed by the Soul embedded within.


    Ignoring the weird secret thing, I can integrate strong bones into my body.


    [B - Ancient] Mirage


    Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.


    [Ancient][Dark][Amulet][Soulful][Spirit]


    Sometimes referred to as The Amulet of Infinite disguises, this amulet allows the wielder to completely disguise their presence, replicating the presence of anyone that has ever been in range of the amulet for sufficient time. This disguise is nearly perfect but relies on the user''s will power as it will not strengthen or weaken the users presence.


    A weird item but I could totally just rip this thing apart and integrate it into my Soul to augment my Aura.


    [S - Ancient] Cometfall


    [Ancient][Dark][Wand][Soulful][Spirit]


    A wand that is said to have been once used to pull a comet from space to destroy a nation.


    This wand excels at the manipulation and control of Matter as well as the weaving of Spells into that control. With a strong enough bond and high enough will power, this wand can grant the wielder telekinesis strong enough to rival most magic.


    Annoying I wasn''t close enough to get anything more on it. These stupid System descriptions are nearly useless without my manual additions. For example, these tags are all really similar¡­


    Felix turned to Melody who was examining a set of dangly earrings, "Why are the tags so similar on these items? That''s just what comes out of The Realms?"


    She nodded, "Yeah. As with The Abyss, mostly Ancient stuff from the past. The further back you go, the stronger the Souls and so, the more Soulful items you end up with. As for Dark, most of this stuff is so old, no one now could recreate them if they wanted to."


    "Magic and crafting methods are lost or forgotten so, Dark." Peace added as he picked up a scale, the item Felix expected him to want.


    He gave them a few moments to make up their minds but he already knew what they were most interested in, both because he knew them and because he could feel their emotions.


    [A - Ancient] Dragon Scale


    [Ancient][Spirit][Scale][Organic]


    The scale of a Dragon.


    Simple and potentially awesome if he can use it to transform.


    [B - Ancient] Robes of the Silent Symphony


    [Ancient][Dark][Spirit][Growth]


    A set of robes said to have been crafted from sound itself. These robes grant the wearer control over sound. The robes can also store and later transmit any noise.


    Classy, elegant and provocative. Seems perfect for Melody.


    Once they had both decided on the exact items Felix had expected them to, he released them from his Soul Garden and Melody began bidding on the items they wanted.


    For the Dragon Scale and the Robes, Melody placed very high bids right out of the gate but for the three items Felix had been looking at, she was more conservative. He had told her to see if she could get any of them but specifically the wand.


    The bids on all the items had been increasing multiple times a second from the instant the auction opened but as soon as Melody had placed her massive bids, the bidding on those items nearly ceased. Felix had thought they had stopped until right at the last moment, she was beaten, by just a few credits.


    She immediately bid again, increasing the price by 50% to try and scare off the other person but then it happened again.


    Simultaneously, the bidding on the items Felix had been looking at was beginning to slow but they weren''t secured yet. There were still clearly a large number of people looking at those items as well.


    Melody grunted through gritted teeth as she raised her bids once again.


    "Lilian?" Felix asked.


    "Who else." She responded without looking away from the items at the front.


    Peace nodded, "How much higher can you go?"


    "Not much."


    "I''d offer to help but I don''t keep many credits on me." Peace shrugged.


    Felix nodded, "Me neither. Sorry."


    She shook her head, "We knew this might happen. I just didn''t¡­" She sighed, "I didn''t think I would find something so perfect."


    There wasn''t anything for Felix to say so he just nodded. He suddenly remembered Cob was in the booth with them and turned around to look at him.


    He looked like he was almost in pain, trying to figure out if he should speak or not but when he saw Felix looking at him, he raised his hands in surrender, "Don''t look at me. I''m broke."


    "You wanted to ask something?"


    "You said not to ask questions¡­"


    Felix rolled his eyes, "What?"


    "Where did Peace just go?"


    "Invisible." Felix lied easily, "Anything else?"


    He shook his head, "Could I¡­ Offer some advice?"


    Peace smirked and Felix sighed, "You don''t have to ask permission, I just don''t want to be pestered with questions every other second."


    He nodded, "Right. Don''t bother bidding."


    Felix looked at him in confusion, along with Peace and even Melody spun to look at him, "What do you mean?"


    "Lilian, she doesn''t get a 50% discount here anymore but instead, some of the items she doesn''t even have to pay for."


    "What?" Felix leaned out of his chair in surprise.


    "Carilla made a deal with Lilian to lower the taxes on her auction to 15% but in return, Lilian can bid on up to 5 items every auction and no matter how much she bids, she gets them for free."


    Melody''s mouth gaped open, "That bitch."


    "Out of everything on offer though, she picked those five items? It''s not like we picked the best items by any means¡­"


    Cob shook his head, "No point in my explaining now."


    Felix looked at him in confusion and was about to ask but Melody''s angered groaning interrupted him as the bidding on the Robes of the Silent Symphony ended. She watched, with clenched fists, as the bidding on the Dragon Scale and all the items Felix was interested in ended as well shortly thereafter.


    They were the items with the highest final bids by far but not the last items to be bid on. Some of the others simply hadn''t risen as quickly so it took almost a minute for those to finally end before Carilla walked back out onto the stage.


    "Wonderful. The auction is concluded." Then she bowed deeply once again.


    Felix turned back to Cob, "What do you mean ''there''s no poi''-"


    At that moment, the door to their booth opened and a tall stick of a man stepped inside, "Good afternoon. It is my pleasure to escort you all to The Triplex Palace."


    Escort not invite?


    "No thanks." Felix said immediately to clarify that he was being forced.


    The man closed his eyes for a moment and sighed, "Unfortunately¡­"


    That seemed to be the signal because at that moment, a couple dozen people stepped out into the hall, in view through the door. It wasn''t that bad of a threat because Felix was actually fairly confident he and Peace could either escape or kill them all but he had fully intended on following them anyways from the start.


    "I see." Felix stood.


    "I take it you serve at the behest of The Trinity?" Melody spoke with annoyance and exasperation evident.


    He bowed his head, "I do."


    Peace hopped out of his seat, "Well then, let''s go."


    The man nodded then stepped aside to allow them to walk through the door.


    The three of them, along with Cobalt, all stepped out into the hall where they were surrounded by nearly three dozen guards which formed an unwieldy crowd. As they were escorted through the city, the group of guards made room when there wasn''t enough, sometimes by force, but despite that, they were still a crowd and so they still moved far slower than Felix would have liked.


    Triplex Palace was one of the buildings closest to the bubble at the center of the outer realm and by far the biggest and most lavish building. It was an entire complex with gardens and parks contained within, all neatly manicured below a floating palace in the sky.


    In the center of the garden, they were led to an arcane circle that Felix quickly scanned and realized was nothing more than a fanciful elevator as there was nothing more than Force and Light nodes within it. It wasn''t complicated at all and considering how carefully everything else had been laid out and attended to to advertise a specific look, the elevator stood out to him.


    To most people it would have looked fine, fitting even. To him, it was little more than garbage who''s value was measured by the Mana it contained alone.


    The group of guards who had escorted Felix''s group to the elevator all carefully surrounded it and beckoned them towards it. Once they were all on top of it, squishing in against each-other as it clearly wasn''t meant for so many people, it began to rise.


    Looking up, Felix saw a hole open up in the bottom of the palace as they ascended.


    Once they were above the floor, the hole vanished and they were all standing inside a massive hall with pillars on either side. Beyond the pillars though, there was no wall. It was simply completely open to the outside offering panoramic views of the outer realm, the city and the bubble containing the real Realms along with anyone who entered and exited from this half of it.


    At the end of the carpet, was a large couch that curved around and given the number of pillows, looked more like a nest.


    On it, sat Liilian. A normal looking human woman with light chestnut hair who appeared to be no more than twenty years old. She had large eyes and soft features that only added to her youthful appearance.


    "Welcome. I have met one of you before, the rest of you I have heard so much about." She smiled slightly and cocked her head from the edge of the nest couch, her knees pressed together and her hands on her knees.


    Felix looked at Peace and Melody who both looked equally confused before he finally turned to Cob who, was clearly the one she was talking about.


    Son of a¡­ Is he working for her?


    Cob nodded, "I was just¡­ the-"


    "I don''t particularly care." She interrupted, "As for the rest of you, it has come to my attention that there were specific items in the auction you were interested in. Items that suit you. Items that perhaps, would help with your pushing through The Realms?"


    Felix rolled his eyes a little and Melody just stared at the woman but Peace nodded.


    She casually twirled her fingers around and produced a wand between her fingers, Cometfall.


    "I would be happy to gift these items to you. To help you push further than you otherwise could within The Realms¡­"


    Even if this was the best deal of my life, she talks so slowly I''m inclined to say no just based on how annoyed I am.


    "Don''t do it." Cobalt leaned forwards and whispered.


    "Quiet!" Lilian rose to her feet in an instant and projected an Aura that rivaled Aro Zaki''s in strength which was shocking to Felix.


    He countered with his own Aura, suppressing and pushing hers back around his group but the damage was already done as Cob was on one knee and seemed to be slowly recovering from excruciating pain.


    "As I was saying¡­" Lilian''s dainty and noble posture returned as she held and pretended to examine a massive Dragon Scale.


    "In exchange, you will give me one item of my choosing when you leave The Realms."


    What a shit deal. Not only does she get to look through our items but she gets to take whatever she wants? Even if I needed that wand, I wouldn''t take this garbage deal.


    Melody seemed to be completely on board with and in agreement with Felix''s thoughts but Peace was slowly nodding, "I see. So we get the item we wanted and you get something for yourself afterwards¡­."


    She smiled slightly as she stowed the scale, "Exactly. I''m glad you see that this is actually quite the generous offer."


    System Contract


    A contract between Lilian and Felix Kade.


    Lilian''s Terms:


    Lilian is permitted to select one item from amongst the items you receive within The Realms of Annihilation.


    Lilian''s terms will be enforced by The System. Any attempt to circumvent them will result in Lilian receiving all of your possessions.


    Felix Kade''s Terms:


    Felix receives Cometfall before he enters The Realms of Annihilation.


    Felix Kade''s terms will be enforced by The System.


    Felix mentally gaped at the contract, Holy shit, she even made the contract blatantly favor her.


    Peace nodded, "Alright, I''m in but¡­ is there any chance you could show me what else you have? I''m not that into that scale but if there''s something else that would suit me better and let me really push a few more realms, I-"


    "Quiet, child of The Reaper. This is item I have deemed to be best suited to you."


    "Agh, well. That''s too bad." Peace shrugged dramatically.


    "Yeah¡­ not interested." Melody smiled widely.


    She finally looked at Felix who was almost surprised she thought there was any chance he was accepting that deal, "Uh, No. Definitely not." He frowned and allowed a bit of disgust to show on his face.


    She sighed ever slightly through her nose, "Hmmmm. That is unfortunate. Well, I am eager to see how you all perform within The Realms. I take it you all intend on entering soon?"


    Can we leave yet¡­


    "Yeah, just after the auction." Peace nodded.


    "And how have your preparations gone?" She turned her head off to the side to look out at the bubble next to them.


    "I''m ready." Peace shrugged.


    "I recently hosted the sons of Gods, Romar and Zeraxes?"


    Peace nodded in recognition, "Our classmates."


    "While both strong, neither were quite as prepared as they could have been. For example, there is a flower that is said to be capable of curing nearly any known biological illness through its ability to encapsulate and consume harmful material. It is commonly referenced somewhere between the 100th and 150th floors."


    Gernamum''s Rose, a red flower with 17 petals arranged in a spiral that grows at the top of stalks ranging between 80 to 100 meters. Typically grows upon mountains, often in the soil deposits between large stones. Wade, a botanist in Felix''s Mind Palace answered.


    "Or what about The Ethereal Conservatory, a building famous for the music that seems to exist within it, despite all it''s residents being dead. It is a common occurrence beyond the 700th floor, are you able to identify out of tune instruments within a symphony? If not, I hear the ghosts are particularly bothersome."


    Yes, trivially. It is something I do on a daily basis with the Royal Orchestra. Fugal, the Conductor of the Rakyt Royal Orchestra responded.


    "Given a vein of Serene Hapomessene, can you extract it without it forming a single beyreen on its surface?"


    Felix''s personal memories were completely blank and not even sure those were real words but the knowledge was in his library and there was a Geologist and Chemist named Beven who immediately responded, Beyreen are only formed if you give the ore a catalyst to begin the crystallization. The best way to extract it is to just remove the rock surrounding it then heat the entire thing in a forge, letting the rock melt away under the heat.


    She sighed and smiled, "Hopefully your preparations are adequate, or you are simply strong enough that it does not matter. I wish you all luck and Cobalt, if you don''t enter The Realms proper and leave the outer realm within the day, I will personally extend your punishment to include your life."


    He nodded, "Of course. I''ll head right in."


    She slightly nodded then began walking back over to her nest as a hole appeared in the floor below them. No elevator appeared though so she simply let them fall from the palace.


    Felix caught himself and had Nova retrieve Cob while the other two caught themselves and they all flew out of the palace grounds and towards the bubble. Around it, there was a large open area around the entire perimeter of the bubble where various people stood and watched or waited.


    On the ground outside the bubble, Melody turned to Cob as soon as they landed, "What did you do?"


    He hung his head slightly, "I tried to break into her¡­ The Soul Vault. I was caught and she took everything I owned as punishment. Well," He held up the frayed sleeves of his robe, "Almost everything."


    Melody squinted, "You''re lying." She turned to Felix, "He''s lying."


    Felix erected a Force Bubble to block sound and light then filled the bubble with his Aura and manually fuzzed the System Static. As he did, he realized it was much easier to do so in the outer realm for some reason.


    Cobalt, seeing Felix cast a Spell without moving at all, marveled at him but he was interrupted by Melody who poked him in the chest, "Talk."


    "I¡­ None of that was a lie."


    "Yes it was. You didn''t fail at all."


    He raised his hands to protect himself, "I never said I did."


    "You implied it. Whatever you did, whatever actually happened, you got exactly what you wanted. Not only that," She squinted, "Everything went exactly as you planned it¡­"


    He shrugged innocently, "Your reputation precedes you. I uh¡­ thought if I didn''t technically lie¡­" He turned to Felix, "You sure no one can see or hear us in here?"


    "No." Felix answered.


    Cob nodded, apparently satisfied with Felix''s uncertainty, "Alright." He turned to Melody, "You''re right. I broke in with the intention of stealing some¡­ books."


    Felix''s eyes widened a little and Cob continued, "I didn''t need to steal them though, I just needed the information inside of them so¡­ I broke in, copied them, then let myself get caught."


    Melody smirked, "You hid your real gear, equipped something believable and let her take that."


    He nodded, "Yeah, pretty much. It was the only way for me to get out safely once I had already used the Vendale Door to get in."


    She nodded, "So you made it seem like you hadn''t stolen anything yet and gambled on her not killing you outright?"


    "Something¡­ like that."


    "What books?" Felix finally asked.


    "Records, of others who had gone through The Realms."


    "Wait¡­" Felix frowned, "Let me guess, Lilian confiscates those somehow?"


    Cob nodded, "She doesn''t get everything but she has some items and Skills that make it hard to slip anything past her."


    "What did you manage to steal? How did she not realize?" Melody asked.


    He fidgeted a little and looked at the ground, "All of it. I managed to copy all of it."


    "All¡­ You got everything?" Felix''s eyes widened with greed.


    He nodded, "I copied them into my Grimoire." He reached into his robe and pulled a large tome out of his chest, "A Class Profession thing, I have a¡­ combo Class and Profession." He rushed to explain.


    "What about your equipment? Where''d you stash it?" Peace smirked, thoroughly entertained. S§×ar?h the N?vel?ire.net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    "My real equipment is in my Grimoire. It''s also a Spatial Storage item." He held the purplish leather bound book in his hand.


    Peace smiled, "Then, in The Realms, you swap back into your real gear and you''re good to go."


    He nodded.


    "So you got, everything¡­" Felix looked at him seriously, "Any chance I could get access to those records and everything?"


    He quickly nodded, "My Grimoire isn''t¡­ it''s useful but¡­ it''s kind of like a child? So¡­ It''s not exactly organized just yet."


    Felix nodded, "Not a problem. Just have it display all the information in any way. I''ll do the rest."


    Cob nodded quickly and opened his Grimoire to one of the middle pages where a torrent of ink began to shift around the page so fast, it looked like a blur.


    Cobalt stammered, "Sorry, like I said, it''s not really intelligent so it doesn''t realize we ca-"


    Felix shook his head and held up his hand but didn''t dare look away, "No, this is good."


    Cob''s jaw hung slightly open but he nodded and otherwise remained perfectly still as Felix and his mind copied down all of the information being displayed.


    It took a few minutes for the Grimoire to get through all of it but once it did, Grim estimated they had something in the neighborhood of a few hundred thousand books worth of information, much of it journals.


    "Cobalt, how does your Grimoire work?" Felix looked up at him for the first time since he had opened the book.


    "I¡­ it''s part of my Class and Profession. It''s kind of like my familiar, actually it is my familiar. Our¡­ Well, it doesn''t have a mind but we''re linked and the information it stores are kind of like memories to me but not quite as clear, more like dreams?"


    "How do you upgrade it?"


    Cobalt hurried to answer, realizing he hadn''t answered Felix''s question fully, "It gets stronger as I do through our link and sometimes information I give it and¡­ yeah."


    "Have you ever fed it anything other than knowledge?"


    He nodded quickly and closed it, running his hand along the purple leather cover, "I feed it materials to upgrade it too. This is Wyvern leather for example."


    Felix nodded and produced a palm sized orb in his hand from his Soul Space, "Feed it this."


    Cobalt hesitated, not quite willing to just do whatever he said, especially when it came to something so personal to him, "What¡­ is that?"


    "It''s a Mana Computer bound to some Anima."


    His eyes widened, "You mean a Soul?"


    "Nope. Not this one. This one is just Anima imbued with the instinct and experiences required to run the computer."


    "I¡­ You want me to feed this to my Grimoire?" He looked surprised and confused.


    "Yes. Hopefully it can use it as a brain and hopefully it becomes a little smarter."


    "That''s¡­ You don''t think that''s a waste o-"


    Felix cut him off, "No."


    Cobalt just stared at him incredulously then nodded and opened his Grimoire, holding out the blank pages towards him.


    Felix unceremoniously tossed the orb towards the book and watched it fall into the pages.


    Then, Felix produced another object, this one much smaller and surrounded by an icosahedron, "This one, don''t lose it and don''t feed it. Just keep it safe."


    Cobalt frowned, "What. What is it? Why? What are y-"


    Felix tossed it to Cobalt then produced two more and handed them to Peace and Melody, "Same goes for you two. Neither of you have Soul Spaces yet but keep these safe."


    Melody cocked a brow, "I recognize the housing but¡­ I take it you had Nova replicate it?"


    He nodded.


    "What is it?" Peace looked at it strangely.


    "All the knowledge I managed to collect to get through The Realms."


    Peace nodded then wrapped it with a knuckle, "How do I get at it?"


    Felix produced six tiny orbs, each one no bigger than a ball bearing, "Put these in your ears. If you lose them, just press the computer against a solid and flat surface."


    Melody squinted at Felix for a second mockingly then shrugged and popped two of the balls in her ears. Once they were in, she jumped back, "Woah. Uh¡­ Hi?"


    Peace smirked and grabbed two himself, placing them in his ears.


    "They''re Asphellum, you should be able to keep them in when you transform." Felix said to Peace specifically.


    Peace nodded and smiled wide, "What''s 9,872 times 4,893¡­. squared¡­ factorial¡­ wait, that number''s way too big."


    Felix shook his head then looked at Cob who was still hesitant, "Why¡­"


    It didn''t seem like he was going to finish so Felix responded best he could, "I was going to give these to them anyways. I was wrong about you. You are competent. I might not be able to directly teach you but I can at least help you now and I have some ideas for things you can do in the future, if you''re still willing?"


    He nodded quickly then took the balls and placed them in his ears, "So wh- Oh, hello."


    "I updated all of them with the information you stole-" Felix pointed to Cobalt, "They also let us communicate with each-other but I have a feeling that won''t work in The Realms."


    I''m blocking out everything she just tried to send you. Grim sighed.


    Thanks.


    Felix nodded to them, "So, I guess there''s nothing left for us to do here then?" He dropped his bubble and turned towards the bubble in front of them.


    It was massive standing a few kilometers in radius. As he looked towards it, Felix saw a number of people walk into it, various levels of resolve and confidence as well as a few people walk out of the bubble.


    Each person that stepped out of it, was announced by a burst of color and light on the bubble before they stepped through it. They ranged from red to purple to blue to green to yellow, a dozen colors or shades in total.


    Almost everyone who stepped out had a burst of light just a few meters tall, barely surrounding them.


    There were a few however with much larger bursts of light, dozens of meters tall behind them who had clearly made it much further through The Realms than the others.


    "Who wants to go first?" Melody smiled and looked around at them.


    Felix shrugged uncaring and Cob looked nervous.


    Peace raised his hand, "Me. Pick me!" Then he ran towards the bubble.


    Just before he got there though, a man jumped in front of him and grabbed Peace''s robes on both sleeves, "Please, I beg you, spare the lives. I know many believe them to be projections, puppets but I assure you, the lives in the realms are just as real as yours and mine. Spare them. LET THEM LIVE."


    Peace tugged himself free but the man ran at him again, "Listen to me! They don''t deserve to be treated lik-"


    Having enough of it, Peace grabbed the man and easily lifted him over his head then tossed him back a few meters into a pile on the ground. Before the man could recover, Peace shook his head, turned back to them and winked then vanished into the bubble.


    "You want to wait a minute to see if he pops out?" Melody offered.


    "No point. Then he''d have to wait even longer for us." Felix answered.


    "Do you think¡­ they''re really alive?" Cobalt asked, clearly more disturbed by the zealot than Felix or Melody were.


    "No one really knows." Melody shrugged.


    "I''d have to meet one to find out." Felix answered.


    Cobalt looked up at him, his eyes showing he took a lot more meaning out of that than Felix had intended.


    He took a breath then turned and walked right into the bubble, the zealot having moved on to someone else off to their left.


    Melody stepped towards the bubble as well and raised her hand in a half salute half wave, "See you on the other side."


    Then she vanished.


    Now that he was alone, as he had intended, Felix turned around and walked away from the bubble.


    Alright. Time to cause some mayhem.


    While they had been shopping over the last few days, Felix had also been scouting out the area around him and he had identified several fairly secluded locations. He approached the one closest his target then shifted into his Persona and drew Eretheas from his Soul Space.


    Then, he walked down the street in broad daylight, with a posture that stated he was willing to fight anyone who dared challenge him, and he was confident he would win.


    There were only a few blocks between him and his destination and he wasn''t actually stopped a single time, though many of the people who saw him gasped, screamed or asked someone nearby who he was. No one challenged him, though quite a few ran away most though, were just curious so, by the time he stood outside the gate to The Triplex Palace, there was a small crowd behind him.


    Reaching forwards, he grabbed the gate and tore it open with what looked like raw Strength. In a body with more muscle, thicker bones and longer limbs, Felix''s Mana Channels, Reaper Buffs and Soul Suffusal all did even more for him, pushing his Strength much higher than was possible in his real body.


    His use of Force Spells through his Attuned Cores and the fact that they were so much simpler without Attunement Nodes, meant he could liberally and instinctively cast Spells that helped augment each and every movement of his limbs.


    Even then though, with all of that, he wasn''t strong enough to rip the gate open all on his own. Luckily, he trivially disabled the enchantment and reversed it, softening instead of hardening the gate. He was pretty sure no one would be able to tell the difference and even though he could have easily leapt over the gate, it was worth his time for the effect it had on the crowd, and the rumors it started.


    Once it was open, he casually walked inside and panned his head around to see hundreds of guards Lilian had either enslaved or promised some item rushing towards him.


    He continued to walk casually forwards, letting them approach so he could make a scene. Once a few were in range, he summoned two Shades mid swing and flashed forwards, beheading four people at once. Then he swapped positions with a Shade and grabbed a Caster''s neck before they could finish casting a Spell. He snapped their neck then tossed their body at a sword wielder who was rushing him, covering their face and stopping them in their tracks.


    He played with the guards a little longer, making sure the crowd outside saw how indiscriminate and merciless he was before he finally leapt straight up into the air. He couldn''t play with them too long because he didn''t want to give her time to prepare for his arrival.


    While Arthur''s Strength was monstrous, it wasn''t nearly enough for him to jump from the ground straight into The Palace in the air but he didn''t need it to be. He just needed to make it look like it was which was trivial with a simple Force Spell, he just had to match the acceleration of a real jump and make sure he didn''t seem to float.


    Once he was just a few meters from colliding with the bottom of the palace, Felix used his Matter Control and Mana Senses to summon a Shade within the palace and immediately swapped with it.


    He didn''t have to look around because he knew the exact room he was targeting already and looking across the long carpet towards a nest like couch, he was happy to find his target exactly where he expected her to be.


    [C - Arcane] Lillian The Twisted Trinity (Lvl 1997)


    Fighting Lilian outright, was idiotic. Felix knew that. Whether or not he was stronger than her didn''t really matter and even that was up for debate. She was a prodigy amongst prodigies and apparently stronger than Romar and Zeraxes. On top of that, she had a whole vault full of items Felix couldn''t really expect or counter easily because they broke all the norms he was used to with normal System items.


    However, Lilian was the exact kind of person Arthur would fight and in a realm that was restricted to those in the C grade, there was a much lower risk when he showed himself.


    Worst case scenario, he could run away into the bubble.


    Best case scenario, he managed to loot a vault full of items from The Realms.


    Using his Persona also meant that when he left The Realms, he didn''t have to worry about what floor he ended up on and what kind of attention that brought. Instead, he could pop out and whatever scene he made, benefited Tekragoraxius in whatever she was doing. All he really needed to do for that though was to leave in his Persona, making a scene before entering, was just to create a believable story.


    "I was not expecting you."


    Arthur grunted and summoned a Shade next to her but she immediately snapped her fingers causing an explosion to appear right on top of it and the Shade to instantly vanish.


    "I have heard about you. The rumors are nearly unbelievable."


    Felix Grunted and threw Eretheas at her but she summoned a dark blue shield in front of her without even moving, something he hadn''t seen anyone but him do without a Skill. It was definitely a Spell though given the Mana and Spell Structure she had used.


    Eretheas bounced off of it harmlessly.


    "Is it true. Are you Rhonan''s son?"


    Teleporting himself to the axe, Felix summoned two shades on either side of the shield and swapped with one of them at random then threw out a thick Blade Spell as he swung his axe.


    This time, it actually hit her, almost entirely severing her right arm except for a small inch of skin and a few strands of muscle that hung on.


    "I guess not."


    She looked down at her arm and as she did, the severed portion folded upwards and the severed muscle fibers snaked themselves back together, her arm healing over completely a moment later.


    "I hear your backer is scaring The Dragons." She casually stepped towards him, without even an ounce of fear, "Here, you must be alone. So, should I fear you?"


    The way she asked it made it sound like a genuine question but Arthur didn''t respond. Instead, he leapt towards her, summoning a Shade behind her simultaneously.


    She casually stepped backwards and summoned an explosion on Felix''s position so he swapped with the Shade but it didn''t work. He was struck by the explosion and thrown backwards, forced to plant Eretheas into a pillar to stop himself from flying out of the room.


    Once he was sure he wouldn''t, he activated The Blood Ring to heal himself, replacing his arm, half his leg, a chunk of his torso and most of his flesh. The explosion was also hot enough that it burned and charred all the resulting blood so there was none for him to make armor out of. It also meant his Crimson Rage, while functional, wasn''t giving him nearly as much Strength as it normally would have given the amount of damage he had taken.


    "You''re alive." She stated in slight surprise.


    She killed the Shade the instant I tried to switch with it. Her timing is either unbelievable or she can cast her explosions faster than I can switch, which already feels instant.


    Swapping with a Shade, he put himself back in the center of the room but Lilian deftly maintained her distance.


    He activated his Devouring Aura and his Soul Cloak, just in case she had some Soul Attack, likely through an item. As his Aura of Bloodlust spread out and surrounded Lilian, she happily let it wash over her then responded in kind with her own Aura.


    When she had used it to silence Cobalt earlier, she had clearly been holding back because her Aura was much stronger now. It was stronger and bigger than Aro Zaki''s though much less controlled. It was more similar to his own Devouring Aura, a sea of uncontrolled Anima washing out of her.


    Where his was mostly Bloodlust, hers was a combination of Dominion, Destruction and Impermeability.


    Neither of their Auras affected the other but Felix was hoping it would exhaust her faster than it would him as he leapt towards her and threw his axe. She summoned a blue barrier in its path but Felix had already swapped with a Shade and was breathing a solid beam of Fire in her direction from behind the shield.


    She didn''t see it coming until it was too late, or so Felix thought.


    As he closed his mouth, it took him a minute to adjust as he realized there were now three Lilians.


    [C - Arcane] Lillian The Twisted Trinity (Lvl 1997)


    [C - Arcane] Lillian The Twisted Trinity (Lvl 1997)


    [C - Arcane] Lillian The Twisted Trinity (Lvl 1997)


    They all seemed identical in every way, the only difference being the amount of charring on their skin but before they even landed, the two with the charring had healed and they became completely indistinguishable.


    He teleported back to Eretheas that was still fluttering through the air then immediately swapped with a Shade to avoid another explosion at the destination of his entirely predictable movement.


    Choosing the one closest to the nest couch, Felix swapped with a Shade to close the distance and slammed Eretheas into the ground, destroying a huge chunk of the floor and releasing a wave of Force in every direction. He leapt out of the hole he had created and back into the palace and noticed another barrier had been cast, but not for the one he had been targeting.


    She had instead taken the hit and was rotating her arm back into its socket and realigning all her joints, simply healing the damage.


    He tried to stop her but she was fast and a barrier surrounded him before he made it there as this time, it was cupped around him instead of around her. He realized it wasn''t perfectly aligned though, with either him or his target. Instead it was aligned with the Liilian that had previously cast a barrier.


    To prove his theory, he leapt at the other one, the one that wasn''t healing and hadn''t cast the barriers and began pressuring her as much as he could. As he expected, she retaliated solely with spontaneous detonations while the other two healed and shielded her.


    The Twisted Trinity. There are three of them. One shields things, one explodes things, and one heals things. A Tank, Damage and Healer. I wonder if¡­


    To prove another theory, Felix leapt at the most defenseless one, the healer, and pressured her as far from the other two as he could. His only goal to gain distance. As soon as he was far enough, which ended up being outside and half way to the ground below the palace, he immediately felt the difference in her Aura. One of the reasons it was so strong, was that there were three of them.


    He wasn''t sure if they were entirely separate beings or not, but judging solely from their will power, they seemed to be.


    He still had a Shade up in the palace hiding behind a pillar so he swapped with it and left the Healing Lilian to plummet the rest of the way to the ground as he threw his axe at the Detonation Lilian and ran at the Barrier Lilian.


    When he inevitably found a barrier right in front of him, he was already ready and immediately tore through it with his bare hands, at least visually. Most of the work was really from his Mana Control destroying and consuming the Spell. That trick shocked the barrier Lilian, her eyes widening as her face expressed more than he had ever seen up to that moment.


    It was enough for him to finally close the distance and as he did, he teleported Eretheas into his hands, buffed his own swing with a Force Spell, Resisted her movements with another and held her in place with one final Force Spell. Then, he sunk Eretheas into her neck and nearly all the way through it.


    Her resisting the Force Spells and the detonation on his body was enough for her to slip out and move with the axe, causing her head to remain attached by quarter of her neck. Without attention though, there was a chance she would die.


    "NOOOO!"


    The detonation Lilian launched herself towards them with an explosion and simultaneously cast a dozen explosions between them. Felix was launched back and so was the Barrier Lilian who began plummeting over the edge of the palace. The Detonating Lilian was satisfied with that and immediately turned to deal with Arthur but he used her launching him back to fly back towards the hole he had created in the floor earlier.


    Looking through it, he spotted the Barrier Lilian falling and the Healing Lilian looking up at her and cast Crimson Slaughter, summoning hundreds of spikes from Barrier Lilian''s blood, finishing her off.


    Ding You have slain [C - Arcane] Lillian The Twisted Trinity (Lvl 1997)


    The Detonation Lilian screeched out into the air and summoned hundreds of explosions all around her.


    Felix didn''t even try to dodge them as he knew it wasn''t possible and just coated himself in his Mana Skin, not willing to take the damage without any form of protection. As he did, he navigated himself with Shades as much as he could onto a specific side of the Lilian and towards the nest couch.


    Using the explosions as thrust, he rocketed towards the couch and beyond it, towards the empty wall at the back of the room.


    She wasn''t really trying to hide the location of the Soul Vault, it was obvious to anyone where it was and apparently she had shown it on multiple occasions to guests, usually to entice them into accepting her deals. Still, she didn''t make it too obvious and so it wasn''t on display.


    Luckily, something as powerful as The Soul Vault was easy enough to sense and so Felix released over a billion Mana worth of Force Spells into the wall and exploded it in every direction. Using a Shade, he moved himself instantly to the weird looking grey cube, stowed it in his Soul Space, then dove downwards.


    Healing Lilian had clearly spotted him because Detonation Lilian suddenly stopped raging out and used her explosions to simultaneously launch herself towards him and destroy half of her body.


    She was far too late though as Felix turned back towards her and smirked before vanishing into the bubble of The Realms of Annihilation.

 Chapter 235 - Book 8

    Passing through the barrier of The Realms wasn''t like passing through a bubble at all. Felix was somewhat distracted by what had happened as he passed through it but it immediately grabbed his attention and he focused every sense he had. This time, he didn''t move through the Aether, Ambient Anima or space, he moved from one space to another. Not a true sub space, a whole separate universe with its own space-time.


    He expected that, considering the nonsensical time dilation where there was seemingly no relation between the time of The Realms and the real world. Melody had said people leave no less than 1 minute and no more than 1 hour from when they entered. Felix had no idea how that worked even with his knowledge of space but he did know enough that he was almost certain it had to be its own universe.


    Passing through it though was not what he expected at all. The first thing that happened was that he felt a strong force pulling on him from every direction. It wasn''t painful but it was a weird feeling as the matter of his body was disassociated from his original space and essentially left orphaned in the void. Without an anchor or way to get back, he would effectively be lost.


    As soon as that happened, the passage of time for him, the matter in his body, his brain and so on were no longer tied to anything. Up until that point in his memory, he had never experienced a no time place. Now though, he knew what that meant and how much he had been relying on that. His body and brain were suddenly jumping forwards then remaining completely still as they tried to move but didn''t have a concept of when or how.


    That only lasted for a few moments as he then felt his entire body being pulled once again and this time, he was entangled with a new space, attached and pulled into its space-time.


    Then, it was over and Felix was left standing in the middle of a small grassy field just a few meters away from a packed dirt road.


    Okay, definitely need to figure that out. Rhonan clearly did considering he was fighting outside of time.


    Communication with other Mark nodes is impossible, communication relies on time. We''ve detached the puppeteer souls and put them in stasis.


    Yeah, that makes sense. I didn''t even consider the lack of synchronized time. What about Melody, Peace and Cob''s nodes?


    Those are actually blocked. Mark can signal the nodes outside but it''s all a jumbled mess. The others in here are completely hidden from him, he can''t even detect them.


    Okay. Mark, we''ll look into time independent communication later. How long until we need to attach new nodes to the network?


    Mark responded immediately, 486 days with a standard deviation of 14 days.


    Okay, we have everything to do that so we should be fine. Felix pulled Nova from his Soul Space now that he had landed and tossed her to the side where she floated in the air next to him, still asleep.


    Felix quickly surveyed his surroundings and checked in on everything he had planned to. First, he couldn''t see any bubble or edge to The Realm but he fully planned on checking for one soon. The Aether and Ambient Anima were just like they were in the outer realm, dense, active and structured in way he had never experienced anywhere else.


    Lastly, there was The Soul Vault. He quickly poked it physically and spiritually but it didn''t give in the slightest. Then, he spent a brief moment examining it before he was interrupted.


    Realm 1


    Welcome to The Realms.


    (1/?) Explore the realm


    That was delayed.


    Just a short distance down the dirt road, he could see a fairly large looking city with a wall around the outside hosting guards and enchantments. He figured that was where he was supposed to head but this was his first realm and as far as he could tell, there was no time limit so instead, he flew off in a random direction to find the edge of the realm.


    It took him just a few minutes to find the edge which was more like the edge of his Pocket Home than the edge of the World Event on Trenus.


    On the way back towards the city he had seen, he also killed a small herd of grazing animals and consumed their bodies and Souls so he could find out how real they were. As soon as he did though, there was no doubt in his mind they were as real as any other person. They''re bodies were biologically similar and their Souls were denser, more aligned, more will full and more complex than what he expected.


    He hadn''t seen enough that he could say definitively they had stronger Souls, especially since he had never seen a Quomoussow ever outside of that realm. What he really needed was to examine sapient''s Souls but he wasn''t going to just slaughter any sapients just yet.


    For the first Realm, he had already decided to participate and play the game to the best of his abilities. He would do everything it wanted him to do, the way it wanted him to do it. Then, he would be able to evaluate what kind of rewards he got and whether or not it was worth it in the future.


    From what he had been told, he could have just wiped out the city but he wasn''t exactly sure how that made any sense.


    Approaching the city, Felix maintained his Persona so he could explore the city then, if he had to, he could come back in his real body if he accidentally missed some specific custom or traditional greeting. He didn''t want to approach as a nearly naked barbarian though so, he used his Class Innate, Reaper''s Mantle to provide a cloak and exsanguinated himself at various locations to provide himself a full set of crimson plate armor.


    Walking up to the gate, there was already a long line of people waiting to get in. Most of them were farmers, traders and normal citizens but scattered amongst them were more than a few armored warriors and robed casters which meant he didn''t look entirely out of place.


    Though he had to wait in line for over an hour to finally get in, Felix had no issues walking into the city. The guards simply asked if he was immigrating or visiting and when he said visiting, they let him in without issue. Those that said immigrating, had to provide papers and those with goods, provided permits and had their goods inspected which was why the line had moved so slowly.


    Inside the city wall, Felix stepped along a cobblestone road and looked around at a city that was like a spritzed up medieval city. The buildings were solid and made of evenly cut bricks, the roads and alleys were clean and maintained and in general, the overall hygiene was very good. There was no persistent smell of shit and death like he expected of a medieval city. It reminded him very much of the ruins he had turned into Tripeak-Valley, especially when he laid his eyes upon the large stone castle that lay in the center of the city.


    In the line up outside of the city, Felix had spotted just a few sapients that looked like adventurers making him feel a little more comfortable in his full blood plate and cloak of shadow. Inside the city though, he didn''t worry about standing out at all as he passed by multiple squads of armored soldiers scurrying around along with hundreds of adventurers on every street.


    The only way he could differentiate them, was the fact that the soldiers wore mostly consistent armor emblazoned with the flag of the city and painted in their colors. The adventurers, had more varied equipment.


    "Oi! You! Big man in the red armor!"


    Felix frowned and looked over at the source of the voice calling out to, he assumed, him.


    [C - Epic] Androlir Hammerchest (Lvl 1019)


    A real dwarf? Felix stared at the short and burly man with a massive bushy beard hauling a massive pile of crates into his shop.


    "If ye help me haul all this into me smithy ''fore some bald chinned thief comes round, I''ll sharpen yer weapon fer free."


    The only other dwarf I''ve ever even heard of was Brannock, part of The Hand that had fought Erolan¡­


    "Oi, urry up er git. Yer muscles just fer show?"


    Felix nodded and walked over, grabbing a crate in one arm then using the other to stack more crates on top of that. He didn''t use his Matter Control or any Spells to hover the crates in though he did use a subtle Force Spell to help make the crates lighter for the dwarf.


    Once Felix started helping, they managed to move almost a hundred crates into the large smithy that was now, quite cramped, in a matter of minutes.


    The dwarf, relieved to have the crates off the main road, where many of them had begun to fall off the pile and further from his shop, stretched his back as he groaned, "Thanks."


    Felix nodded, "No problem."


    The dwarf held out his hand, "Ye''ant me to sharpen yer weapon?"


    Felix shook his head, "No need."


    The dwarf grunted then reached behind his counter and pulled out a small pouch and handed it to Felix, "Ere, ye were more elp an I spected."


    Gold coins? Really? Not credits¡­ Does that mean¡­ no System?


    Felix shook his head and held up his hand, "How bout instead, you answer some questions of mine?"


    The dwarf shrugged and tossed the pouch onto the table then walked over to one of the crates, "All do my best but I need to get moving on this order fore the King seizes my smithy."


    "Start there, I take it the order is to supply the army? Is there a war?"


    "Ai. The Asgaris to the north are running low on food er since the trade pact fell through."


    "What trade pact?"


    He furrowed his brow and looked up from the ingots he was unpacking, "Ere in the bloody mountain are you from?"


    "Far."


    The dwarf squinted at him for a few moments then grunted, "Ye want the entire istory of the continent, you gotta elp me unpack these crates."


    Felix nodded and began helping as Androlir began to heat up the forge, "There''s Asgarin to the north. City built yond the icy mountains. Cold and dreadful. Harbath is to the east, Krannar to the south west. The mountain range makes it difficult to move from any of those countries, to any other cept, ight here, the kingdom of Redan."


    The dwarven blacksmith walked over and grabbed a couple of ingots and tossed them into the forge then kept stoking it, "Asgarin''s got scholar''s ''nd metal. Harbath''s got fish ''nd fruit. Krannar''s got livestock ''nd wood. Redan''s right in the middle of em all."


    The dwarf seemed happy with the temperature because he began tossing in ingots by the dozen until the forge was packed in tight, "Trade pact had Redan buy and resell from and to all the other countries. We also guard and maintain the roads and whatnot."


    "What happened?"


    "Harbath used their ships to sail around and attack Krannar''s crops then cut off the food to try and starve us out. Now we don''t have enough food to eat which means we definitely don''t have enough to supply Androlir. They have no other option but to migrate south and what better place to settle than the captured ruins of a kingdom."


    That seems¡­ silly.


    Sounds like a naive interpretation of political affairs.


    Probably.


    Boom.


    Felix looked over at the forge and Androlir who was crouched down to avoid the spew of molten metal from the forge.


    "Son of a¡­" Androlir got to his feet and hopped around the puddles of molten metal on the floor over to the forge where he began to clean it out.


    "What was that?"


    "Damn ingots are defective."


    "All of them?" Felix looked over at over a hundred crates piled up in the smithy.


    "Nah, just enough to be annoying."


    "How many?"


    "One in every¡­ ten or twelve or so?"


    Felix reached over towards the pile of ingots and ran his hand along the top of them, reaching out with his Matter and Mana Senses. As he suspected, he found small enchantments embedded within a few of the ingots designed to explode when heated.


    Picking them out of the pile, Felix began placing them aside, "Let me guess, these defective ingots started appearing a few years ago?"


    "Ai. 4 years er so. They weren''t so bad at first, un in every hundred or more."


    "Not enough to be a real issue and require any kind of infrastructure to deal with. Then they became progressively more common as soon as you got used to them?"


    "Ai. The King''s Mages ave been pulling as many as they can but they''re overworked and miss too many of them. It was only in the last year or so that they became so common that they make it hard for me to work."


    "You get your ingots from Asgarin?"


    "Ai." The dwarf walked over and examined one of the ingots Felix had put aside, frowning at it, "Are ye sure-"


    "Yes."


    "I¡­" He grunted and carefully returned the potentially exploding ingot to the pile then retrieved a few from the pile Felix had sorted through and carried them over to the forge.


    This seems¡­ I guess it''s the first floor. This isn''t that complicated. Either Harbath is acting on their own or they found a way to sail to Asgarin. They''ve been trading directly for some time and Asgarin''s been planning this for a while. They''ve undermined the metal their trading, using exploding ingots to distract from the fact that they''ve softened the metal through enchantments and mixed in a number of other, less robust materials.


    Grabbing one of the exploding ingots, Felix sucked out the Mana and used his Matter Control to shape it into a rod. Then, he used it to engrave a series of enchantments into the wand. It was efficient enough to not need anything more than the Ambient Mana, especially given how dense the Aether was in The Realms. S§×arch* The ¦ÇovelFire.¦Çet website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    It took him less than a minute to finish the wand which he then tossed to a wary and confused Androlir. He scrambled to either catch or avoid the rod, he couldn''t seem to decide which until it finally landed in his arms and he relaxed when it didn''t explode.


    "Point it at an ingot. I''m gonna go talk to the King about the other ingots."


    Androlir looked at the pile he had thought was safe and frowned, "The other ingots? Why?"


    I wonder if there''s some block on their intelligence or ingenuity because it''s the first floor. A normal C or even D grade should have figured this out by now.


    Ducking through the door to the smithy, Felix stepped out into the street and approached the castle in the center of the city.


    Felix hadn''t expected to be in the first Realm for over 3 years. He had wanted to fully engage with the floor and complete the quest to the fullest but his quest screen had never gotten any more descriptive. So, he did what he thought would be most appreciated and began helping not just the kingdom of Redan but the entire continent.


    Firstly, Asgarin had been preparing for war and he had to thwart that which, he managed to do without a single drop of blood. Then, Redan was too reliant on trade and not self sufficient enough so he helped them setup farms which, they had seemingly never thought of though he suspected that was due to restrictions of the realm.


    After that, he helped establish new alliances between the countries as well as new infrastructure, after usurping a few problematic authoritarian governments and replacing them with less problematic authoritarian governments.


    The fact that time passed weirdly in the Realm comforted him a little bit but at the same time, he wasn''t sure if it made a difference to the Endless Hunger outside their universe which, wasn''t attached to any time.


    For the time being though, he was more than ready to move on to the next realm, especially considering how many he had to get through. He definitely thought that even if he had infinite time, there was no way he was fully engaging with every scenario unless he got some kind of ridiculous loot.


    Luckily, he was about to find out what that reward could be as he stood in the throne room before The King of Redan.


    "Felix. You have helped not just this kingdom, but this continent achieve heights I couldn''t even have dreamed of. Not only are we more well equipped but you have helped us forge alliances and taught each and every one of us. I cannot speak for everyone but you have inspired me to be a better ruler," He looked over at his daughter who was standing next to his throne, "a better father," He looked back at Felix, "A better person."


    The king stood and stepped down the small set of stairs to the stage that held his throne, "The day the Hero Knight Arthur, died, I thought us doomed. You have lifted me and this kingdom, from the darkest of times."


    He walked forwards until he was just a few meters from Felix, "I will never be able to rule this nation with the honor and intellect you have displayed over the last couple of years. So, it is my honor, to offer you the kingdom of Redan."


    Felix couldn''t help but let his eyes dart to the King''s daughter given what the King was offering. Her face was frozen, eyes wide and reddening by the second.


    "I appreciate the offer but I must decline. I wish to travel the rest of the world and visit lands beyond the ocean and I firmly believe, despite your confidence in my abilities, there is another more suited to lead this kingdom than I." Felix turned his head to the king''s daughter and the king looked back at her almost as if he hadn''t realized she was there.


    Looking at her, his face shifted, like he hadn''t really considered the idea ever before but the more he thought about it, the more he agreed.


    As part of Felix engaging with the scenario to the best of his ability, he had forged alliances and built out farms and supply routes to ensure the future of the kingdom. He had also trained and taught the king''s daughter, Ellamine, preparing her to succeed her father and making sure she didn''t completely ruin the kingdom in doing so.


    Then, he subtly began implanting the idea of women being competent rulers into the king''s mind by engineering scenarios where female soldiers were forced into commanding positions, helped them purchase land and so on. Finally, he made sure the kind was aware of his daughter''s accomplishments and knowledge, though never directly through himself.


    He was sure the king wouldn''t notice as no one on the first floor seemed remotely capable but he was betting the floors would become less easy the further he delved and so he was treating it like practice.


    "I think¡­" The king nodded to himself then turned back to Felix, "Your wisdom humbles me once again." The king actually bowed, causing about half the packed room to gasp.


    When he rose, he nodded mostly to himself then walked back over to the throne, "In that case." He sat down, "Allow me to offer you something to aid you in your travels across the world."


    [B - Special] Boots of the Whispering Wind


    [Soulful][Spirit]


    Step through the wind itself, silencing your steps and moving without resistance across any terrain, with haste.


    The boots were short and made of a light blue and grey leather and despite the effect being essentially useless to him, it was one of the most exciting items he had seen in a long time. As far as he could tell, there was no enchantment on the boots and instead, the effect was entirely created through the Anima embedded within them.


    "In addition to this, I hereby pronounce Felix Kade, The Guardian of Posterity"


    One of the nobles from the side of the room stepped forwards, seeming almost reluctant to do so, "Sire, but you can''t. As much as I appreciate everything this man has done for us, this title is reserved for nobles."


    The king smiled, "In that case, I hereby grant Felix Kade a patch of land within my own garden, making him not just a noble, but a royal noble."


    "But sire, he is not of noble birth."


    The King frowned at the man, his frustration leaking out onto his face.


    Another of the nobles stepped forwards, "Sire, if I may. If Felix were to be named a knight, he has already accomplished the necessary feats to overcome the limit of his unknown bloodline."


    The King smiled once again, "An excellent idea Andrasoth. I hereby pronounce Felix Kade, The Knight of Hope, Royal Noble of the Garden and Guardian of Posterity."


    Congratulations!


    You have received 3 new titles.


    The Knight of Hope, Royal Noble of the Garden, Guardian of Posterity


    No descriptions of the titles¡­ interesting.


    Felix took a knee respectfully and as he stood, everyone in the room except for the king this time, bowed to him. Even the princess bowed her head in his direction.


    With his new boots in hand, he walked out of the throne room and headed back to Androlir''s smithy to pick up his familiar.


    Being where he was, Felix generally avoided using his speed, strength, flight or magic to not surprise people too much and so he fit in a little easier. Only moving at the pace of normal C grades though made it quite easy for Ellamine to catch up to him.


    "Felix! Wait!"


    He turned and pretended he was somewhat surprised to see her then waited for her to catch up.


    "Are you really leaving? Now?"


    He nodded, "I''ve spent quite some time here. There''s much of this world still out there for me to explore."


    "Take me with you."


    "You know I can''t do that. Your kingdom needs you."


    "My father can keep the kingdom. I want to go with you."


    He smiled warmly and put on the best act he could, "I cannot stop you if you decide to leave but you would be failing your people. You know that. Your father is a good man and a good king. You will be a great queen. Can you really leave when you know how much you could help each every Redanian?"


    She sulked a little, "Stay. You don''t have to marry me if you don''t want to- I mean you could if you¡­ you''d have to you know, court me¡­ at least a little bu-"


    "One day, I will return." Felix placed his hand on her shoulder, "I think I would very much like to settle down in a place like this." He looked wistfully off into the distance, "But for now, the undiscovered wonders of the world are calling to me."


    She opened her mouth to speak but before she could, Felix activated his Spatial Translocation spell and vanished. He really didn''t mind completely lying to her but he didn''t want to waste any more time than necessary.


    Hurrying through the streets, moving faster than he ever had in the Realm while others could see him, Felix made his way to the smithy. A massive building that took up an entire block on the main road of the city. Despite that, it wasn''t a pretty building. It was industrial and functional. Stepping inside, the interior was much of the same with forges and ingots everywhere, a few weapons and suits of armor strewn about but none of them ready for sale.


    It was a forge for a blacksmith to make things with not a single other use-case taken into account in its design.


    Walking over to the back corner of the shop, Felix found Androlir and Nova exactly where he expected them to be, at the single largest forge in the shop. It completed dwarfed the other forges both in size and in the amount of heat it was producing and subsequently dumping into the room.


    Noticing him approach, Nova meowed then hopped out of the forge and shook herself off, spraying molten metal and heat in every direction before leaping over and landing on Felix''s shoulder with only a slight warmth to her.


    "Are ye sure ye have to go lad?"


    "Yes. There''s a whole world out there to discover."


    He solemnly nodded as he finished whatever he was doing with the forge and turned to nod at him, "Well, if you''re ever back in Redan, make sure you come see ol'' Androlir, yeah?"


    "Of course."


    Felix could sense Androlir watching him leave with a lot more emotion than he felt himself in doing so.


    From the smithy, he traveled down the road towards the wall but just a block from the wall, he turned down a side street and slipped into a non descript building that could have been someone''s house or an abandoned shop. The inside, reflected its outward appearance perfectly with a thick layer of dust settled on every surface and creating a mist in the air.


    Over in a corner, where two legs of a table had long since broken off littering the floor in clutter, Felix stepped right into the pile of clutter and fell completely through it. It wasn''t an illusion, that would have been far more complicated. Instead, the area was phased out of space briefly so he could pass through.


    Underneath the building, he fell hundreds of meters into the ground then followed a branching tunnel off towards the largest room at the end. There, he found dozens of individuals all wearing some amount of plate armor. Some of them had removed their helms so they could speak. Others, had removed their breastplates and gauntlets so they could handle their cards easier.


    Walking across the large room, Felix collected his things and placed them into his Soul Space. He collected books, machines, armor and weapon prototypes, clothing, ritual diagrams and everything else he had been working on.


    If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    No one stopped or questioned him at all. By the time he had everything collected, no one was really paying any attention to him anymore.


    He left the room, walked back down the hall but didn''t get more than a dozen meters before he was stopped.


    [B - Epic] Fiona (Lvl 2103)


    She stood in the middle of the hall, without any plate armor, and blocked his path.


    "You didn''t really think you could just leave without saying goodbye, did you?"


    "You seem so busy nowadays, I wasn''t sure you''d notice." He teased.


    Her mouth opened in response but nothing came out then, she closed her mouth and looked almost embarrassed.


    Felix felt a pang of longing for Melody''s quick wit, "You''ve got a lot going on as the new head of The Order."


    She nodded, "Yeah¡­ I do. I still could have spent more time¡­ I could be more attentive."


    He placed his hand on her shoulder, "You worry too much. I chose you for a reason."


    "I know." She hung her head.


    He directed her back into her open office and closed the door behind him.


    She slumped down into the chair behind her desk and groaned, "How am I supposed to manage an entire secret order without you?"


    "You already are. I haven''t really done anything in the last epoch."


    "Yeah I- I mean¡­ you were still here. And what about when Medaric almost outed us to try and justify his murder in front of the king, you stepped i-"


    "Fiona. You''re twice as strong, knowledgeable and capable as you were when I first met you and that was when I chose you for this role."


    She opened her mouth then closed it again.


    "You may not deal with things the same way I would but that''s okay. You have your own way of dealing with things and I trust you."


    She nodded, "When you founded The Crimson Knights¡­ did you feel just as lost I do now?"


    He nodded, "Of course." Lying instantly, "I knew what I wanted done and had a goal in mind but I didn''t know how to make people work together. How to make sure they stayed hidden and remained honorable. How to ensure their cause was just."


    In reality, it was a trivial plan to execute. It was one his Mind Residents had come up with and another one of the ways he was trying to leave the realm a better place than when he entered. It was one of the ways he was trying to get the best possible grade in the realm, not that he was being graded but that was how he was treating it.


    As part of that goal, there was just one last thing he had to do.


    Stepping towards her desk, Felix produced a longsword in his hand from his Soul Space. It had a simple shape with a long straight blade, a simple cross guard and a basic leather handle. It was perfectly balanced and the blade was covered in an intricate enchantment so fine and dense, it looked like it was part of the metal itself.


    "Is that¡­"


    She rose from her seat in a trance as she walked around the desk and approached him, her widened eyes never leaving the blade.


    "It''s yours."


    "I-" She stammered.


    He reached out and lifted her hand to hold the blade then let go of it himself and stepped back.


    "But this¡­ this is¡­"


    Felix only heard her voice with his Perception from halfway up the vertical shaft back into the building above.


    It wasn''t a very special sword in the sense that it was one of the worst enchanted items Felix had made since arriving but that made sense considering it was the first one. It was a very special sword in the sense that it was one of the most significant weapons to the people of Redan. It was the sword he had wielded as Arthur, the founder of The Order and the original Crimson Knight.


    He had improved it since the day he had had Nova create it for him and had since modified it to live up to the legends and rumors that had spread, adding new abilities and enchantments along the way.


    Now, there wasn''t much more iterating he could do without recreating the entire thing because he had reached the limit of the material without imbuing a significant amount of Anima into it. He had little attachment to the sword and knew he was giving it away though so he didn''t bother.


    Back in the city, he headed through the outer wall and walked down the dirt road, gradually increasing his speed back to his normal levels until he arrived at a completely out of place, roadside inn.


    Stepping inside, he ignored the front desk and headed directly to a specific room, the Crimson Knights sitting around the door remaining where they were. They didn''t stop him as they would anyone else as he stepped inside towards the iridescent bubble floating in the air.


    Without hesitation, he stepped forwards and touched the bubble, instantly vanishing from the room and the first realm.


    The next was a much shorter venture, even though he continued to fully engage with the floor scenario. It was a combat focused floor and all he really had to do was help a small village deal with a local herd of Dire Wolves. On average, the village was around level 1900 and the Dire Wolves were around level 2200 but they just saw the wolves as a threat they couldn''t overcome.


    Not because of the levels though, Felix had quickly realized on the last floor, that the people inside The Realms, didn''t know anything about The System. It didn''t give them a Class or Profession or Skills. They couldn''t identify creatures or items and they simply increased in strength the normal way, through training.


    They weren''t as useless as Earth humans though, they seemed to still gain stats as they trained but their strength wasn''t tied to how many monsters they had killed at all.


    If they just had better skills, they would be considered some of the strongest people in the multiverse for their levels. Not nearly Romar or Zeraxes level but stronger than Shade''s Wrath or any of the other more impressive adventurers in the guild.


    The skills they did have, were entirely based around either enchantments or effects they could create and direct with their Souls. It was rare and Felix only saw a couple simple strike abilities but they were definitely something akin to skills.


    With the village, he helped them train. Not to increase the level The System displayed to him when he identified them but to teach them how to protect themselves.


    He taught them strategy, which somehow broke through their mental block, taught them how to use basic weapons and helped them build palisades. He provided them with material and blueprints so they could bolster their homes and continue to grow in the future, beyond the problem of the wolves.


    Then, he fought with them. Helping them kill the wolves and making sure none of them were gravely injured or died.


    In total, it only took him a 60 days, much less than the first floor had taken him but he still managed to collect two titles and a village heirloom, a Soulful Cooking Pan.


    Nucleus, I take it these titles are working?


    Yes, definitely. For now, just keep collecting them. The more you get, the closer you''ll be to getting a custom Class and the clearer the next steps will become.


    Felix nodded and touched the iridescent bubble that had appeared and moved on to the next realm.


    That was a resource realm, a realm where he had to find a way to gather a specific resource. Even though it was just the third realm, Felix leaned on his Mind Residents to try and maximize his rewards. He continued to lean on them in the fourth realm about a local herd of animals, the fifth realm about a minor dispute between the blacksmiths and the restaurants of a town, the sixth realm in an ancient ruin filled with puzzles.


    After that he led an army into a new land, outlining and executing a strategic plan he had rigorously tested and simulated. Then there was a wide spread disease he completely fell back on his Mind Residents for because as much as he was familiar with his own body, healing people and creating drugs was completely outside of his personal knowledge. Then he taught some kids to read, arranged trade deals and finally helped a professor at a magical college with his thesis on methods of layering enchantment to minimize interference and maximize efficiency and efficacy.


    Then, he was back to a political scenario, 12 realms later.


    Out of the at least 2000 he was planning on completing, 12 realms was barely anything. It was however, a very noticeably different realm from the first realm.


    The average level was higher, slightly but the average person was still only level 1350 or so with some of the elites as high as 2400. They were just estimates based on their bodies and skills but they were still a decent measure, especially when used in measuring average overall strength of the realm residents. That part wasn''t that noticeable though because even the highest level residents of the thirteenth realm were much weaker than Felix.


    The noticeable part, was the lightening of the mental block he had noticed on the first floor. They were still obviously hindered but noticeably less so. The political issue he had to deal with was more complicated and people were more aware, sharper.


    It made it harder for him to just do whatever he wanted but not enough that he struggled with the scenario. It wasn''t even enough to make it particularly challenging, but it was enough to make it more fun. In fact, Felix would have found the whole thing quite entertaining, if it didn''t take so long for events he set in motion to play out.


    If he were smarter, more politically oriented or even just more in tune with people, like Melody, he knew he could have finished the floors, especially the political ones, much faster.


    He didn''t totally mind how long it was taking though because he was able to train uninterrupted for quite some time.


    In the first epoch of the first floor, he had already shifted all of his most common Spells into instinct casts. After that, he began developing new Spells which was a long and slow process. At the same time, he got back into enchanting now that he had more time and began rapidly progressing on that front. Then, he explored rituals and wards which he hadn''t spent nearly as much time with.


    All of that gave him knowledge and experience that he applied back to his Spells. It helped but it still wasn''t enough for him to achieve what he really wanted which seemed almost out of reach.


    The fact that he had so much time made him more willing to explore other avenues and fields in the meantime.


    His time wasn''t infinite though. In the 44th realm, he had waited before doing anything in the hopes of getting more information but he quickly realized that was wrong. If he waited too long, the scenario still played out before him. The army would still engage and fight the other army. If he waited, he wouldn''t be able to do or change anything and he wasn''t even sure how he would then get to the next realm.


    On all the previous realms, he had done something towards the scenario of the realm and a bubble had appeared. It then remained where it was until he used it.


    If he simply did nothing and the city he was supposed to help was wiped out, he wasn''t sure that he wouldn''t be stuck forever in the realms.


    Upon realizing that, he began to wonder if that was how The Realms had actually gotten their name. If participants weren''t actually being annihilated, but they were instead stuck in a realm indefinitely because they had failed. If that was the case, it made it much scarier moving on to the next realm because even if he was confident he wasn''t going to die, he had to be certain he could do enough for the exit to appear at all.


    Laying still on the hard and flat stone altar below him, Felix leaned his head back and breathed in euphorically, or at least made it seem like he was. He also made his body tremble and sweat a little, like he was slightly nervous but determined to see things through.


    Standing above him, a man in dark blue robes held a large knife pointed over Felix''s heart.


    "Are you ready, to be reborn?"


    "I''m ready." Felix said with conviction.


    The man stretched upwards, then sunk the dagger into Felix''s chest with all the force he could muster, "We will see you soon, brother."


    Felix manually stopped the heart on the left side of his chest and paled his skin, pulling his circulatory system further from his flesh and making it impossible to find.


    As he feigned his death, the man who had supposedly killed him removed the dagger from his heart then checked his pulse multiple times to verify he was dead. Once he was certain, he backed up a step from the altar and knelt in prayer along with all the acolytes around the outside of the room.


    A few seconds passed. Then a few minutes passed. Felix began to wonder if anything was going to happen when suddenly, he felt a new presence approach.


    A being unlike the others in the room. A being with no warm blood. A being without flesh or organs at all. A being far more powerful than every other person in the room.


    Felix waited patiently, dead, as the being approached the body, "You have done well, Cornelius. This one is strong."


    "Thank you master."


    Reaching down, master laid a bony hand on Felix''s chest, right over his fatal wound and began reaching inwards for his Soul.


    Felix let him reach inwards, inching further and further until finally, he opened his eyes and grasped the being''s spine directly.


    [B - Legendary] Nascent Lich (Lvl 2712)


    "Gotcha."


    The Lich''s eye sockets didn''t move, but Felix could feel his utter shock that Felix was still alive as he manually healed the wound in his chest and reactivated his main heart, shifting his circulatory system back into place.


    "You''re alive!?"


    The Lich began preparing a Spell but Felix immediately cut him off, "Stop, I don''t want to kill you."


    "That would be quite the feat sin-"


    Opening the Aether Tunnel next to him, Felix reached through and grasped the small glass cube containing a bright crystal and pulled it out, holding it before the Lich.


    "MY-" He reached forwards and snatched at the phylactery but Felix was expecting that and he avoided the Lich''s grasp.


    He opened his Kryptos Repository then dropped it inside, "Now, can we talk?"


    "Foolish mortal, I will simply kill you an-"


    "That pocket I just placed it in, is one of a trillion pockets. Only I know the correct sequence of runes to get to it. You know, considering all the necromancy you''ve done, that a memory as detailed as this would be lost if you killed me."


    "You''re lying."


    "I''m not. You might as well just hear me out though."


    The Lich physically relaxed his body as his Aura grew tenser, due to his emotional state, "Mortal arrogance¡­" He mumbled.


    "This religion you''ve been creating, you need to stop."


    "Let me guess¡­ I killed one of your f-"


    "Shut up and listen. You''re going about this all wrong. You''ve angered multiple cities by kidnapping, killing and changing their citizens. As we speak, King Notor is meeting with Emperor Endregar and Matriarch Adenna to form a coalition to hunt you down. Do you know how long it''s b-"


    "Impossible, Notor is and Adenna are mortal enemies ever since the divorce and Endregar has been trying to invade their territories every over month for the last three centuries."


    "You''ve managed to steal hundreds of people from each city and if you targeted randomly, it might not be an issue." Felix gestured around him, "Instead, you went for the strongest bodies."


    "Of course, they make for the strongest followers."


    "You''re not wrong. They also bring the most unwanted attention."


    The Lich had somewhat relaxed over the course of the conversation, "You said I was going about this all wrong?"


    "I did. You''re thinking about this all backwards. Instead of killing people and bringing them back to make them follow you, what if you simply brought back people who died and didn''t force them to follow you."


    "What would be the point? I bring them back to empower them, to make them stronger so they can serve m-"


    "If you bring back a loved one, the entire family will dedicate their lives to you completely. If it''s their choice, the rulers can''t do anything about it."


    "This would take too lo-"


    "How much time do you think you have until someone stops you? The way you''re going, you''ll only encounter more resistance every day. My way, you grow exponentially until all three cities fall to ruin because all their citizens have immigrated to the land where they can be immortal. Where they will never die. Where their parents will never die. Their spouses, children and friends."


    "I need them to die close to me, to be within¡­"


    Felix just cocked a brow as he knew the mental block the realms had on the Lich had been broken. He waited and the Lich''s Intelligence began to kick in, "They would be forced to remain near me. I simply need to tell them the truth¡­"


    "Exactly. I don''t know if you''re doing all this because you want to rule over people or because you''re lonely or because you hate the monarchs and it doesn''t really matter."


    The Lich slowly nodded, "The people of Mobessa see me as a monster. How do I change the views of an entire continent?"


    "I''ll help you and in turn, you''ll help me."


    The Lich cocked his head, about the extent of his ability to express his emotions, "What do you want me to help you with?"


    "We''re going to save the people of Mobessa."


    And you''re going to teach me everything you know about Souls and Magic.


    The 211th realm was one Felix had expected to spend multiple epochs in because he didn''t see any other way to put the Lich in charge as the ruler of the entire continent peacefully. It was the best option in his mind, if a little out the box at first.


    The scenario had started as a cult kidnapping citizens from a city then them returning, changed and significantly more powerful. From there, he learned it wasn''t just one city. He also learned that the citizens of all the cities were fairly miserable, although not much more miserable than any other medieval city with poor hygiene and dirty streets.


    Once he figured out what was going on with the cult, the best solution became obvious. Especially once he had one of his Mind Residents infiltrate the cult by possessing one of the acolytes. The Lich, though misguided, wasn''t mean or abusive to his followers and seemed to overall be the best choice of ruler.


    Luckily, relying heavily on his Mind Residents, Felix was able to slowly migrate people from each of the three cities into the Lich''s new city. He had to engineer a few famines and plagues but he made sure they were minor and only increased discomfort, not kill anyone.


    At the end of just a single epoch, the exit to the Realm appeared and Felix was gifted the Lich''s cloak from when he had been alive. It was a Soulful item that moved to protect him, using the concept of hardness as it did. That wasn''t the most exciting reward for Felix though.


    Congratulations!


    You have received 3 new titles.


    Guardian Angel, Herald of the Fallen, Protector of the Undead


    Congratulations!


    You have earned a Prime Title.


    Wisdom of Undeath


    A Prime Title? Grim, Nucleus?


    No idea. Grim mentally shrugged.


    Nucleus responded excitedly, I don''t know much but I know that helped a lot towards your custom Class.


    When you say a lot¡­


    If you manage to get just a few more of those, I can almost guarantee you''d get the Class.


    What if I can get many more?


    You''d get to create a phenomenal Class. Be careful though, the Prime Titles seem to be affecting the Class more than anything else.


    What do you mean?


    If you evolved now, you would probably be offered at least two Necromantic Classes and probably be offered multiple Lich races.


    Oh shit, so I need to get Prime Titles that fit what I want the Class to look like?


    Yeah.


    Or¡­


    Grim chuckled mentally, You get so many that it doesn''t matter.


    Exactly.


    Yes¡­ The Nucleus hesitated, It''s risky though. Even if you have 100 Prime Titles, having just 4 or 5 that are undeath based will influence things a lot.


    They''re also going to be harder to obtain as the realms become more difficult. Felix thought about it for a moment or two then smirked, Fuck it. I go for it on every floor. We''ll figure it out as we go. Nucleus, keep me up to date as things change. If you could let me know where my Custom Class is leaning, that would be great.


    Will do. Unrelated but¡­ I''m going to need a few more nodes in the next dekad.


    What are you at now? 800?


    1284 actually.


    I think we need to find a way to make better nodes. First things first though, Nova, you finished with those crystals?


    Meow!


    Perfect. Is the new stencil finished?


    Yes. Arysha replied.


    Alright. Any changes to the designs?


    Not since you last saw them. Much arguing. Nothing significant.


    Alright. Well, hopefully I won''t need any of this by the time I leave these Realms so, should be good enough for now.


    Felix sat down in the massive room the Lich had insisted on in its castle and began preparing all the crystals Nova had created using the stencil. He could have prepared them without the stencil and if he were preparing normal crystals, it would be better if he did.


    These crystals were completely perfect though. Flawless in every way and he had even reached 100% efficiency which wasn''t entirely due to Mark. Mark had done everything he could calculating configurations but at a certain point, he was limited by the crystals from the tree.


    Luckily, it had grown just as Felix had and began producing larger crystals.


    At that point, there was no art in feeling out the crystal so instead, the more precise he was, the better. The stencil allowed him to be very precise in location, force and timing. More accurate than he could ever be without it, even with his Mind Residents measuring the timing in his Soul Garden through the dilation it provided.


    Once all the crystals were prepared, Felix moved them over towards his Mana Core one by one. Then, he placed hundreds of crystals into precisely calculated locations forming three concentric spheres around his Mana Core, replacing the old inefficient crystals.


    Then, the hardest step, he began forming pathways between all of the various crystals, each one with carefully calculated lengths and routes out of solid and dense Anima, which was relatively abundant in the Realms. Even with as little killing as he was doing, he had more than enough for just about any minor project he wanted. That abundance was also fueling his Mental World and allowing it to rapidly expand both in population and size.


    Once everything was connected and inspected thousands of times by his Mind Residents and himself, Felix sat down and pulled a trickle of Mana through a dozen different crystals, producing a nuanced Fire Attunement.


    It was natural and precise. Instead of just Fire it was Light, Heat, Oxygen, Fire, Force all tuned and carefully combined to create something that he found quite beautiful. Even without the Concept of Fire, this Fire seemed more real to him than his old Spells, even though he knew that was ridiculous. It was something about its complexity and the relative simplicity of his old Fire that made his old Fire seem fake in comparison.


    Overall, the 211th realm was by far the most rewarding for Felix. Not only had he learned about and earned a Prime Title, but he had also massively improved his Mana Core and upgraded his Imbue Creation and evolved his Mold Corpse skills both to Legendary with the Lich''s help. His Replicate Construct Skill had also gained multiple tiers of proficiency from the knowledge he had gained and applied to it.


    Happy with the results, Felix didn''t bother bidding the Lich farewell and simply touched the iridescent bubble to move on to the next realm.


    Hunched over in rags that barely covered his groin and did nothing to keep the sand out, Felix continued walking along with thousands of others through the desert. On the horizon, he saw their destination, a rocky plateau that towered over the dunes of the desert, a royal perch.


    The heat used to bother him but having as much control over his body as he had these days, he could regulate his internal body temperature easily within normal temperature ranges. Where he was, his regulation couldn''t ever be enough because even if his body could produce no heat, he would be too warm. Luckily, he simply placed a Spell within his body at multiple locations and kept them supplied with Cold Mana, allowing his blood to distribute the temperature throughout.


    The people around him, his traveling companions, weren''t faring nearly as well. They were faring better than he would have without the Spell, they had grown up in the desert after all. Still, no amount of adaptation could save them from the desert sun.


    Hopefully, they could fix that. It was that hope that moved their feet to take each and every next step. The hope that they could be free, done with the desert sun.


    First, they had to greet the gatekeeper though.


    Felix knew based on the pattern of the realms that this was a combat realm. He knew there would be a fight and if he avoided it, it would be hard and result in a lesser reward. The rest of the people traveling with him, an entire city in fact, had hoped they could avoid a fight.


    Over the past few dekads, Felix had slowly convinced them that not only was it not possible to avoid a fight, but he gave them hope that it was possible they could win.


    The combat realms were the hardest in Felix''s opinion. The goal was unclear, even the very first one had been hard to figure out. They were deceptively simple, combat meant fight. Usually that meant kill a thing or some things. In reality though, just flying over to the enemy and wiping them out only netted him minor rewards for the floor.


    Training the people to fight and staying out of it offered better rewards, but only slightly. The middle ground, fighting with them and helping them also wasn''t the goal. His best guess by the 578th realm, was that he didn''t have to teach them to fight, but he had to find a synergy between him and the residents of the realm. On top of that, he realized around the low 100s, there was always a harder fight to be had.


    He wasn''t sure what it had been with the Dire Wolves on the second floor but on the 578th, the city could have fought a swarm of scorpions led by a queen to escape through a small crevasse in the cliffs around the desert. He had managed to convince them though that even if they did escape from there, the Lord of the Desert would inevitably hunt them down. Either sending swarms of desert creatures after them or even worse, chasing them down herself.


    "Can you believe we are doing this?" The man walking next to Felix leaned over and whispered hoarsely.


    "We don''t have any other choice."


    "I know." He coughed then lifted the cloth scraps he had wrapped around his face to protect his mouth from the sand, "Do you think we''ll survive?"


    "Some of us will." Felix intentionally looked over at a group of younger realm residents, "Those that do will live a better life than us."


    He nodded, "We fight for them."


    "We fight for us." Felix corrected him, "We fight for our future. We fight because we shouldn''t have to."


    The man progressively grew taller as Felix spoke, his posture improving as his resolve was bolstered.


    A few others around them had heard Felix, which was his intention and they nodded along.


    "Here." Felix offered the man his Adventurous Flask.


    His eyes widened dramatically, "Where did you hide this? How did you keep this out of the offerings?"


    "I buried it in the sand a long time ago. We only just passed over the same dune a few days ago."


    The man didn''t question the nonsense explanation and greedily drank from the flask. Then, he slapped it to the chest of the man next to him who excitedly randomized the contents then gulped down whatever it was. The next man in the chain did the same, promptly gagging up whatever it was immediately which caused a number of them to laugh at him.


    They rotated the flask around the group for a few hours, quenching everyone''s thirst as best they could and raising their morales.


    Finally, after two dekads of traveling through the desert, they arrived at the edge of the cliff face. Looking up to the top of the cliff, sat a massive creature with the body of a lion, large feathered wings and the face of a sapient. The face wasn''t humanoid at all though, it was a distinctly alien face of sharp protruding bones, multi-faceted eyes and a jaw that opened in two directions. To top it all off, she wore a crown atop her head that flowed back and formed the semblance of a mane on her shoulders.


    [A - Ancient] Sphinx (Lvl 3021)


    Her booming voice echoed out, actually rather pleasant sounding despite her face, "Welcome children of the desert. You have come to provide me with your offerings. Present them to me now."


    Though everyone saw Felix as just a random slave, part of their group, he had managed to manipulate things so he was one of the first to provide his offering. The second in fact.


    The person before him approached and knelt down, reaching their hands above their head and presenting a slightly damaged scimitar that still held much of its enchantment. The Sphinx looked down from her perch far up in the sky and caused the scimitar to slowly float up from the slave''s hand, disappearing over the cliff.


    Then, the slave scurried away and Felix stepped forwards. Except, he didn''t. Instead, he tripped on his first step, intentionally. Falling all the way onto his face. Then, he slowly picked himself back up, making it seem like he struggled desperately to do so. Then he stepped forwards a few times before tripping again, this time causing his foot to slip out to the side.


    The sphinx was growing annoyed and by the third time he tripped, when he made it seem like he could no longer get back up, she arrogantly rose up to her feet and leapt off the cliff.


    The slaves all scattered, to avoid being landed on.


    "It seems you are too weak to continue as one of my scavengers. No matter, you will make up for this failing and provide me with a less than satisfactory snack." She said as she reached towards him with her paw.


    There was no plan to attack. There was no signal and no set up. At least, nothing anyone but Felix and his Mind Residents knew about. Even then, the most concrete part of their plan was to get the sphinx to the ground and using her arrogance seemed the obvious choice. Felix was the strongest so he was most likely to live after acting as bait.


    He had enough Mind Residents disguised and scattered throughout the slaves to start a movement and provide the crowd with momentum so before the sphinx could touch him with her claws, they sprung into action.


    Hundreds of explosions sounded out around the sphinx as the remote mines they had planted went off, scattering sand in every direction and completely obscuring the sphinx.


    "Aargh! What is this?"


    The sand was more helpful in a fight for the sphinx than it was for them, both because she could control sand somewhat and because simply flailing around blindly as a massive sphinx without hitting any allies was easier without allies. It did however, buy them some time which, they had ultimately decided was worth it considering she had an infinite amount of sand at her disposal anyways.


    As the sand obscured her vision, Felix''s Mind Residents quickly disseminated weapons and armor to the slaves around them. They were specifically located throughout the crowd for this and each one of them had special senses so they could see through the sand.


    Before the sphinx made any real moves, Felix was already darting between her legs for the second part of their plan, at least the current branch of it.


    Finally, the sand began to swirl before it was pushed away by the sphinx''s control revealing thousands of armed slaves racing towards her.


    "INSOLENT!"


    She smashed her paw in one direction, sending sand and slaves flying in every direction. Simultaneously, the slaves on her other side leapt towards her, driving their spears, scimitars and picks into her massive body. She roared out and shook her body to get rid of them slightly shifting her feet in the sand.


    From behind, some of his Mind Residents funneled all the Mana they had into a massive cannon with a ballista arrow in it and fired it into her backside. It sank in a meter then the barbs opened and the Mind Residents began anchoring the chain as best they could.


    The goal wasn''t to hold it down, there was nothing significant to anchor it to.


    As the sphinx pulled and resisted against it though, it shimmied and planted its feet to get the right footing which was exactly what they were hoping for.


    The Spells were already prepared and everyone was already in position so they immediately cast everything. From all around the sphinx, a dozen jets of flame began to roast her feet, or rather the sand around her feet while simultaneously, Felix maintained a dozen streams of his own.


    Not only did he target her feet but he also targeted all the sand beneath her, melting and fusing all of it together.


    She roared, either in pain or in realization of what they were doing. As she did, clearly distracted by their actions, the slaves all screamed in response and charged her. They slashed and stabbed at her, leapt and climbed her and caused as much damage as they could.


    Even though the glass wasn''t solid, it still slowed her movements drastically so even as she ripped her front paw free, they had more than enough time to dodge and avoid her attack.


    As she responded to the pests on her back, Felix and the Residents switched to Cold Spells to quickly chill the glass and hopefully solidify it.


    Noticing her other paws being frozen in place, she roared once again and the sand that hadn''t turned to glass exploded upwards and began to swirl up into a storm.


    From beneath her stomach, Felix began unleashing a torrent of Spells into her underside. Now that they were all instinct casts, Felix cast hundreds of Spells simultaneously, making certain he cycled through various elements to minimize the time Mana spend Attuning itself when his cores refilled themselves.


    She tried to attack him but with just one paw, her best hope was to use the sand and that wasn''t particularly effective when Felix could trivially surround himself in a Force Bubble Spell.


    She was annoyingly durable though and even with his improved Spells from his nuanced Attunements, he didn''t seem to be affecting her much with each Spell. The damage was adding up, but slowly.


    If The Dragon is 1000 levels up on this thing, I need to massively improve my everything even more than I already have.


    Felix heard yelling, barely over the sound of the storm around him, and through his Mind Residents he knew the slaves were remounting their attack. Now that the sphinx''s legs were restrained, they had free reign to do as much damage as they could through the storm.


    "YOU SERVE ME! I AM THE LORD OF THE SAND! BOW! ARGH! STOP THAT!"


    No one listened as they continued to whittle their way through her thick hide.


    "Please, no more. I- ARGH! It hurts- I don''t want- I- ARGH! I DON''T WANT TO DIE!"


    Huh¡­ I think that''s the first monster I''ve fought that''s begged for their life.


    No. Grim responded, On floor 173 there was that forest of Tree monsters.


    Oh right, I forgot because I didn''t understand them at the time.


    Ding You have slain [A - Ancient] Sphinx (Lvl 3021)


    Well, should get a couple normal titles at least. That definitely wasn''t-


    Congratulations!


    You have received 3 new titles.


    Freedom of the Sand, Tyrant Disposal, Sphinx Vanquisher


    3? I''ll take it. Although they do keep getting less¡­ title like.


    With the sphinx dead, the sand quickly began to settle and without a kill notification from a System, the slaves only then began to realize they had succeeded. Many of them were still stabbing and slashing at the corpse, their faces filled with rage right up until they could see again, at which point many of them began to cry, despite the scarcity of water.


    As the slaves cheered and hugged each-other, Felix and his Mind Residents got to work searching the body and the surroundings as discreetly as they could.


    Eventually one of them found a small square based pyramid on a chain and could immediately tell it was important. They brought it over to Felix who began tinkering with the item until, he accidentally activated it. Doing so, the pyramid grew quickly until it was a massive structure that weirdly, wasn''t pyramid shaped at all. It had instead morphed into a massive temple like structure easily big enough for the massive sphinx to walk into and roam around.


    There were large openings where the walls should have been all around it and through the pillars, Felix saw the contents of the offerings the slaves had donated over the epochs.


    The slaves, seeing this, quickly began to hurry inside and equip themselves with various treasures they had uncovered from the desert and sacrificed to the sphinx.


    Damn it. What a stupid activation mechanism. Orientation detected by Anima is inaccurate and prone to accidental activations.


    Felix sighed as he watched the pile of treasures rapidly shrink.


    At least I got this amulet which, is honestly better than anything contained in it.


    Once almost all of the treasure from within the amulet were gone, the slaves began to group up and discuss their next steps.


    Congratulations!


    You have earned a Prime Title.


    Benevolence of the Sand


    Forget whatever I just said. I totally intended on giving all that back. Yup. Definitely.


    Felix waited for the slaves to finally leave at which point he and his Mind Residents moved the sphinx''s body into the amulet along with the giant corpse from his Pocket Home. The sphinx corpse was pretty beat up but with his recent skill evolution from Mold Corpse to Corpse Art, there was a lot he could do with it.


    Then, the Mind Residents all gathered up in the large temple and Felix returned it to an amulet. He then touched the Iridescent bubble floating at the top of the cliff where the sphinx had sat and moved into the next realm.

 Chapter 236 - Book 9

    Getting the Sphinx''s Vault as a reward was almost as massive a reward as the Prime Title he had gotten. It gave him more storage for Mind Residents because his Pocket Home was already starting to get rather full. Now, he could happily use the Giant and Sphinx corpses as he saw fit because he had more than enough room to move them from realm to realm. Before, he had been worried he would have to carve them up to save space.


    Even though he hadn''t reached the limit of how much he could stretch his Pocket Home just yet, he knew he was getting close. It was slowly growing more difficult to stretch the sub-space every time he did and he was almost at the point where stretching it any further made him feel like it would break.


    [D - Mythic] Pocket Home


    [Empty]


    This orb contains a limited size pocket dimension within. Once filled, the user may channel mana into the orb then touch it to a surface to open a portal to the contents. Once inside, simply repeat the process to open a portal back to the location you originally left from. When inside, the portal will not exist in the outside world. This pocket dimension is completely isolated from the outside universe. Once filled, the pocket dimension will need to be manually emptied and filled to replace the contents. If the object within the space grows, it is possible for the pocket dimension to be pierced and collapse. The orb will glow red when the bounds of the pocket dimension are being pushed.


    Note: To initially fill the pocket dimension, simply channel mana into the orb and press it against the object you wish to move.


    The orb itself wasn''t red yet, but Felix was expecting it to glow red any day now.


    He had been holding out hope that the Soul Vault could fill that need for him but every time he fiddled with it, which was less and less often every realm, he came to the same conclusion. He didn''t have the key and he wasn''t strong enough to just break into it. Whether or not he would ever be strong enough, he wasn''t sure but he really didn''t want to have to resort to using a Curse for fear of damaging its contents. He was hoping he could preserve as many of the contents as possible, even if he cared more about the puzzle of opening it more than he did the treasure inside.


    Every time he held the grey cube with intricate and flowing lines embossed onto its surface and poked it, it responded. It wasn''t that it was impossible for him to get into, it wasn''t a big vault with a thick door he couldn''t punch through. It was more like a machine made of Anima that responded to his actions.


    Felix''s senses led him to picture it as a series of shifting geometric shapes. They weren''t like hexagons or triangles though, they were more like geometric puzzle pieces or tiles that all fit together. As he poked it with tendrils, the plates shifted and responded, more appearing from within it to prevent him from moving any further.


    He had tried to break a plate but even if he could break one, which he wasn''t convinced he could, there was no way to isolate one plate. Each plate was always supported by an array of others making it so he either had to break all of them, or none of them.


    On top of that, he had no idea what he was supposed to do about the mechanisms inside the vault. Assuming he became strong enough to just smash through the plates, would that damage the universe or sub space contained within it? Was it based on Spatial expansion instead and would the contents explode back out of it?


    His inability to make any progress, discover anything new and lack of answers led him to put the Soul Vault on the back-burner for the time being.


    Now that he had the Sphinx''s Vault, he was much less worried about getting into the Soul Vault any time soon.


    He spent some time in the next realm, a resource based scenario about rare plants that grew in very specific conditions, organizing his various Spatial Storages. Luckily, he had a number of Mind Resident controlled Constructs and puppets to help him.


    He completely removed the warehouse from his Pocket Home, moving everything that was left inside of it, into the Sphinx''s Vault which became his new storage space for materials and constructs. In his Pocket Home, he removed the warehouse building and expanded his tower to better fit his needs and the expanded sub-space around it.


    Without the warehouse, his Pocket Home became somewhat serene and dream like. The tower was the same flat sided, octagonal tower made of a grey stone with marble strips on the corners that had first appeared behind the castle in Tripeak-Valley.


    Now though, the stone was obviously flatter and denser, made of a higher grade material along with the marble that had a more intricate structure. It was also more than four times as wide at 250 meters and proportionally taller giving him an absurd amount of space within it.


    It rose from the back side of the mostly circular island bordered entirely by cliff faces on every side that gave way to a multicolored rainbow sea that was thick and opaque due to the crystal shards and Mana suffusing it.


    By far the most fantastical part of the sub-space, was the tree in the middle of the island. It now looked like a proper tree, though Felix suspected it still had some growing to do. It was tall enough now that he could not only walk under it freely, but he couldn''t actually reach the leaves without leaving the ground.


    The leaves themselves looked mostly normal, until inspected closely. They were each made of a dark green crystal with facets and cracks forming the veins and structure of the leaf. They were intricate enough to not be completely transparent and the light from above scattered through them, making them each appear as though they were glowing.


    Growing from the branches, embedded within the bark, like sap leaking out of the tree, were Attunement Crystals of every color and Attunement. They each reflected the light around and occasionally fell from the tree, littering the ground beneath it. They didn''t just collect on the ground though, instead they seemed to be seeds of some kind because all around the base of the tree, were multicolored flowers, ferns and grasses.


    As pretty as it may have been though, what really mattered was how much room Felix had in his tower. His workshop floor was expanded, both literally wider in area and he connected the floors above and below it making the entire set of floors into one massive workshop. That wasn''t the only one though because there was a lot he, and his Mind Residents, had to work on.


    The biggest work shops were for Constructs and Enchanting where Felix spent most of his time. He also fashioned Alchemical workshops, Botanist''s labs, Biological labs, Forges and everything else he had needed within the realms so far. He had mostly been relying on making necessary tools on the spot but very soon that wasn''t going to be enough so he was preparing ahead of time.


    Now that he had more room, he could bring more bodies with him which meant more Mind Residents controlling puppets around him. Some of them were temporary, using corpses from the realm to fit in. Others, were permanent. Remaining in his Pocket Home to work in the labs as needed.


    With the Sphinx''s Vault, he had more of both.


    He was still a little disappointed in how little he was managing to progress his own power, even if all the Mind Residents contributed and benefited him.


    Felix trained to have more instinct casts, but he hadn''t upgraded his Spells much so the effect was minimal. He manually modified his own body a number of times but he had long since reached a point where further modifications were more about trade-offs than obvious benefits. For the most part, modifications weren''t worth it because he was sacrificing the synergy that had come from his last evolution. Now, all the modifications he made were minor tweaks and optimizations.


    His Mana Control was getting better, but it was hard to tell unless he directly measured it the way Fin did because otherwise, it didn''t have any effect on the things he was doing. He had also pushed most of his Skills to either Expert or Skilled but it felt a bit pointless to him to push for Master proficiency if he was planning on getting rid of a lot of them anyways.


    Even the ones he would keep, he wasn''t sure if there was any point in keeping them on his Status Screen. If he dropped the Mental World Skill, it wasn''t like everything he had created would disappear.


    He had gotten much faster at Spatial Translocation and Aether Tunnels but only managed to reduce both to cast times of minutes which wasn''t enough to use in combat.


    The one thing he had managed to noticeably progress was his Aura but even with that, he felt a bit lost. He could keep making it stronger and bigger which was just a slow grind but he felt like he was missing something. As strong as it was, it felt hollow to him, purposeless.


    Felix, being who he was, needed to be doing something though so he instead focused on creating better constructs and automating the process as much as possible. Outside the Realms they were already working on the construct factory but he needed something to do while he waited for inspiration to progress everything else. So, he tested individual components of the factory. Iterating and experimenting with his Mind Residents.


    He had to remember he was progressing, it was just slow.


    Every once in a while though, something happened that caused him to realize how much progress he had made.


    On the 683rd floor, Felix found himself in a massive city on the coast of a continent. It wasn''t the biggest city on the continent in terms of population but it was the largest economically. The city had always been a trade city, with ships sailing in and out of the port every day.


    At the time Felix had been placed in the realm, the city was ruled by a trading company, the Coastal Trade Association, which had once been a number of individual companies that had since merged and retained the name.


    The issue was that now that it was a single company, instead of multiple, they were essentially oppressing the other trade companies through tariffs, scheduling, applications and other bureaucracy. Then, when the smaller trade companies would inevitably suffer, they would buy the company and acquire all of their assets.


    It was the result of unchecked capitalism allowed to get reach the point where they became the government.


    The scenario was vastly more complex than the early realms Felix had had to deal with. His and his Mind Residents assessment of the best outcome was that they needed to slowly whittle down the CTA economically, replace corrupt individuals and implement institutions that could keep the government in check in the future.


    In order to do that, they had to very carefully maneuver things.


    That led to Felix walking through the city streets in full formal wear with a pompous posture. He didn''t just act like he had somewhere to be, he actually did as the president of a Trade Company in the area he had an appointment. His walk though, was specifically planned so that he could walk amongst a very specific crowd.


    As he did, he had hundreds of Mage Hands appearing and disappearing all around him, none of them visible, casually picking the pockets of very specific individuals. In some cases, he didn''t steal anything physical and simply used his Mage Hand to take a copy of some information through a mold. In others, he simply removed a few coins, just enough to make it so his victim didn''t have enough for where they were going.


    It was a small thing but that frustration would build and then he and his Mind Residents would leverage it so they made very specific decisions.


    Mage Hand is definitely one of my favorite skills I''ve developed.


    You''re very quickly approaching the necessary level of proficiency with them.


    Yes, but I''m not there yet. I need more practice and more varied practice.


    You''ll definitely be there by the time you reach floor 2000.


    Likely. The issue is, will it be worth it then? I have a lot more work to do figuring out Concepts, Convictions and improving my Mana Control and focus.


    True. Well, you have plenty of time.


    Quite a bit richer in knowledge and slightly richer in his wallet, Felix finished his walk through the highest echelon of the city and arrived at the most important building, The Trade Hall.


    The building had once been the largest casino in the city and to this day, still held multiple rooms for hosting private card games or confidential meetings, due to the enchantments in the room to prevent cheating. Other than the occasional private card game though, the rest of the building had been transformed into a hub of bureaucracy.


    He had been invited to a very specific meeting and because of that, he simply walked right past the front desk, even though they definitely would have preferred he announce his arrival. He knew they had security watching him though, he picked out multiple people who were admittedly excellent at hiding their actions physically, but with less than adequate control over their Auras and Souls.


    No one stopped him though so it didn''t really matter. There was no reason to sneak his way into this meeting in particular.


    Slowly walking up many flights of stairs, specifically to play up the arrogance of the character he was playing, Felix made his way towards the highest room in the building. A circular room surrounded by a mosaic glass dome that allowed those inside to look out over their city as they discussed the best ways to exploit anyone and everything for profit.


    Ascending the circular stairs into the room, Felix arrived almost a half hour earlier than his meeting was supposed to start but he was the last one there.


    He took his seat at the table, the only one left empty for him and as he did, the longest standing member of the CTA, a tall man with a large white beard and scars across his face, stood. He looked every bit the part of a pirate who shifted from sailing the seas to plundering the citizens of a city.


    "Welcome, fellow members of the Coastal Trade Association," He even retained a rather pirate like accent as he spoke, "to a special meeting for us to formally introduce our newest member."


    The man gestured towards Felix who stood with a bow, holding his jacket as he did so. He simply half nodded half bowed to the group then sat back down.


    "Given this is the second formal meeting this dekad, most of us have already dealt with our own matters so, we''ll start with you, Mr. Throne." The once pirate continued, "I''m sure there are many alliances, trades and deals you''ve been waiting until just this moment to propose. So please."


    Felix smiled again and stood, "Thank you Tharnes. There is in fact, only one matter I would like to bring forward to the association."


    Most of the association''s 23 other members were disinterested but a few of them perked up hearing he only had a single matter to discuss.


    "As an official member of the Coastal Trade Association, as my first act, I am hereby calling a vote, to remove Tharnes."


    The large pirate slammed his hands on the table and jumped to his feet, "You''ve got some balls coming in here like that." He smiled, "Well, you are permitted to call one vote per 10 epochs. To officially oust me though," He looked around the room confidently, "You''d need a majority of the council''s votes, and there are currently 3,099,909 votes in play."


    He calmly sat back down, "All in favor of removing me, please raise your hands."


    Despite his threatening tone of voice, 16 people raised their hands almost immediately, completely shocking Tharnes, "I¡­"


    A woman across from Felix stood, "Tharnes votes are hereby split amongst the 11 members with the least votes."


    The next newest member, other than Felix stood, a male named Flame who was teetering the line between boy and man, "I would like to call a vote, with my shiny new votes, to remove Galireed."


    The woman who had declared Tharnes'' votes split nodded, "All those in favor?"


    Felix raised his hand and happily collected his votes.


    There was no anxiety as to whether or not people would vote his way. They had made sure they had more than enough votes to chain together votes and excise the corruption. Felix was the last member because as much as he was decent enough in social situations, he wasn''t the best actor by any means. He was the least capable of selling his role and making himself seem trustworthy. So, all his residents on the Association had joined well before him.


    They built trust and cemented their positions as Felix''s group all together slowly whittled down individual trade empires. Capturing ships, bribing sailors, robbing warehouses and plundering wallets. Even if Tharnes wanted to resist or fight back, which he definitley did, he couldn''t do anything more than start a physical fight.


    His empire was almost completely in Felix and his Mind Resident''s control.


    By the end of it, over the course of half an epoch, there were only 18 members left on the association. 10 of them were Felix''s Mind Residents that had implanted themselves and the rest, were the only members they could trust who weren''t so corrupt they had to be removed. They were also open to the idea of a governing body separate from the trade association.


    Unfortunately that was only the first step, or the first domino rather. After that, they had to deal with the blowback from Tharnes and the others, even if they had minimized their influence. They helped put in place a governing body and ensured they had power and nothing like the CTA would happen again. They also made sure the CTA remained along with a few other organizations that all formed a balance and kept each-other in check.


    Congratulations!


    You have received 3 new titles.


    Trade of the Governing, Herald of the Institutions, Dictator of the Future


    Congratulations!


    You have earned a Prime Title.


    Piratical Economics


    These titles keep getting weirder. Oh well, I''m just glad all that work wasn''t for nothing. How many residents did we have in play this time?


    417 participating as of now.


    Felix nodded, Well, I think it''s time to head out. Can you round up the Residents? I''ll set up the Sphinx''s Vault south west of the city.


    Before you head there, Flame wants to talk.


    Where is he?


    Back in the CTA building.


    Alright. I''ll head there now.


    Felix found Flame sitting at the large table in the middle of the glass dome from which they had taken down the government. He was alone this time and seemed to be using the table as his own personal desk.


    "Grim mentioned you wanted to talk?"


    Flame steeled his expression, "I''m not going with you."


    Felix cocked his head, "You want to stay here?"


    He nodded, "I know you don''t know what will happen to me and that I may be st-"


    "Sure." Felix shrugged, "We''ll need to implant a brain and I''ll need to shore up your Soul. You aren''t getting the full Mera but you know that. I assume you''re fine with the body you have then?"


    His eyes were wide in surprise at how easy it was to convince him, "Yeah. Thanks."


    "Alright. Let''s get started then, I want to get to the next realm as soon as possible."


    It took Felix a few more hours than he would have liked but it didn''t end up affecting him at all as he still had to wait for some of his Residents to return from all over the city. They had planned it so none of them were on any voyages at sea but the city was still vast.


    Standing just outside the Sphinx''s vault as his Mind Residents poured in, Grim spoke directly to Felix in his mind.


    What do you think will happen to him?


    Not a clue. I assume these realms must stick around, it would be too expensive to harvest then recreate them for each scenario¡­ I think.


    This whole thing is pretty expensive. Each scenario is its own realm? Each one is unique to each participant?


    Yeah¡­ Well, unfortunately we''ll probably never know since we won''t be able to contact him once we move on.


    Probably not¡­


    Though he could have completed the realms himself and likely gotten 3 titles on each one, possibly even a few Prime Titles, Felix relied heavily on his Mind Residents to maximize the rewards. It helped that he could essentially fully trust them because he had Mark literally auditing their thoughts and their Souls were stuck inside of him. On top of that, with the exploding population in his Mental World due to the massive influx of Anima from the Realms, he was able to carefully pick the best Mind Residents for the specific job at hand.


    He entirely used corpses he or Nova created and avoided using sapients from the realms unless he absolutely had to. He didn''t care about killing Realm Residents and possessing their corpses, he was just worried it would be seen as cheating or frowned upon in the realms.


    All the Prime TItles he''d gotten, the unclear quests from The System and the goals of each scenario he encountered all fell under traditional morals. It was about the good of the population, helping individuals and putting people in better situations than they had been previously. It was honestly, a little surprising to Felix.


    He was certain most people didn''t think about it at all but to him, there was no reason for the realms to follow traditional moral values. In the multiverse, The System and all the sapients in it seemed to do their own thing. There was no reward for helping people and often it was more beneficial to just kill and rob someone than it was to help them.


    For whatever reason though, the realms seemed to heavily favor helping people and being morally upstanding.


    So, it was with great annoyance and only through a massive amount of frustration and complete lack of other options that Felix beheaded the small frostmyre man in front of him with a Blade Spell.


    Grumbling, he bent down and immediately cast Mold Corpse, guiding the process with his own Matter Control and modifying the body as necessary. He completely skipped most of his normal modifications though, leaving the brain in tact and only repairing the wounds to the best of his ability.


    Once he had, he took the man''s Soul that he had been holding on to and carefully placed it back into the body, adding some more permanent bindings to make sure it stayed in place. Then, he took a Mind Resident''s Soul, bolstered it with additional Anima and his will, then placed it into the body, right next to the, now less dead, man''s Core Soul.


    Standing back up, he observed passively with his Anima Senses as the Mind Resident Felix had implanted fought with the man''s Core Soul for control of the body and Soul. It wasn''t a long fight. In fact, it was over before Felix had even finished his part, considering how much stronger he made his Mind Resident''s Soul.


    Instead of putting him out of his misery though, they tormented the man. Trapping his Core Soul within himself, completely out of control. It was one of the worst forms of torture and Felix even felt a little bad for the man. Unfortunately, it was necessary to retain access to his memories.


    Felix had learned, through a fair bit of trial and error, that memories from the brain alone weren''t enough. He knew the Soul contained experiences and the mind more factual information. What he didn''t realize was that simply recalling information, required the original Soul because that was how the memory was interpreted.


    Without it, he effectively had a storage medium he couldn''t connect to anything, like a flash drive with an unknown connector.


    With a Mind Resident possessing and controlling the original Soul though, he, Mark and therefore his entire Mental World could have access to those memories.


    Felix used his Matter Control to lift the body to its feet then nodded in their direction, "You good?"


    They nodded, "I''ve been practicing." Then, they shimmied their shoulders, dropped into a hunch, and began speaking with a low and bored tone, "Shaaaaaaaall weeee?"


    Felix smirked, "Uncanny."


    Opening the door of the small apartment Felix had managed to lead the man into, the both of them left and headed back to the competition hall.


    They split off a few blocks away so they didn''t appear to be moving together and Felix entered through the contestants entrance into a massive smoldering room. It was warm but not nearly as hot as it should have been thanks entirely to the large ritual at the center of the room that was sucking air in and ejecting it out through the ceiling.


    Back to his large black forge, Felix continued the process of slowly molding his slag of metal into usable shape. At least, he pretended to. In reality, his unique forge with a large blue scar on it was doing all the work.


    He wasn''t sure he''d win. He didn''t even hope to win. He was there just in case.


    His Mind Residents, 4 of them, all around him were the real candidates for winning. Thankfully, Felix already knew the Realms gave him the titles even if he wasn''t the one doing the work, something about being the contestant in the realm or something.


    The residents were all competing against the others there, but also themselves. If it became obvious that they weren''t going to win or it was looking too close, Felix would step in and have Nova shape him a perfect weapon. He didn''t want to have to resort to cheating though and luckily, it didn''t seem like he would have to.


    There was just the one judge that realized what he was doing and noticed him talking with his Mind Residents. Now that he had access to his memories from Mark, Felix knew he hadn''t completely put things together, that would have been a miracle, but he wasn''t far off. He had known there was some association and he had connected Felix to three of his Mind Residents.


    He had been careful and cunning, observing and giving nothing away until he had uncovered everything. Which was impressive and admirable in one sense but it had also allowed Felix to realize he knew and deal with him before it became an issue.


    This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.


    Now, he just had to wait and his Mind Resident possessing the judge would simply vote for the Mind Resident who was the closest to winning.


    While he would have certainly preferred not to have to kill the judge and possess their body, now that he was doing it, he was more than happy to find out how much The Realms cared.


    He was pretty sure he''d get a Prime Title considering all the other set up work he had done to create the competition, build excitement and with the rewards being split amongst charity for the military and the winning smith. He also made sure the winning smith would have to walk through their creation with the others, sharing the knowledge.


    The Realms seemed to appreciate that kind of thing. At least, it seemed that way. Felix was beginning to confuse himself a bit the way he kept personifying the Realms in his head.


    The question was whether or not he would get a Prime Title as a smith, or as the person that had set it up.


    With no more judges to murder, Felix patiently waited for the rest of the scenario to play itself out. One of his Mind Residents won with a very impressive alloy that was nearly impossible to create. Felix attended the showcase of how they did it, even though he already knew, and was still impressed by the sheer skill and precision required to create the alloy.


    The Mind Resident had to be extraordinarily careful with contaminates in the metals they started with, the size and shape and most importantly, the temperature. The fact that Felix himself with his growing Matter Control could have done the same thing trivially or handed it to his familiar, didn''t detract at all from his appreciation.


    Congratulations!


    You have received 2 new titles.


    Forged Philanthropist, Educationist


    Congratulations!


    You have earned a Prime Title.


    Forge Heart


    Stupid Prime TItles and their completely unclear name. It doesn''t even have a description. There''s no way to know if that was for winning the competition or creating the competition considering it''s literally called Forge Heart. That''s a coincidence¡­ right?


    Maybe. We didn''t choose the name for the competition. That was the city. Grim shrugged mentally.


    Yeah¡­ Huh.


    After dealing with a rather annoying logistical plumbing issue for a city embedded within a volcano in the 1038th realm, Felix reached out to touch the iridescent bubble but stopped himself short.


    He realized he felt the next realm without being there. He knew that''s how people knew about The Dragon but up to that point, he hadn''t felt the realms himself. Now though, he got a slight feeling from his Anima Senses that the next realm was abandoned. He felt like there had once been sapients but no longer. He got nothing more than that though no matter how hard he tried.


    Possibly if he had been Melody, he could have known more but it didn''t really matter. There was no way he wasn''t moving the next realm. Though, in the future it might let him prepare himself better.


    Appearing in the middle of a dark blue room with angular glowing lines adorning every visible surface though, Felix didn''t need to prepare anything. The first thing he did was open The Sphinx''s Vault which grew to barely a tenth of its normal size due to the size of the room. It didn''t seem to matter though because the entrance was more than big enough at that size for his Mind Residents to move through.


    Then, he began exploring.


    Felix didn''t expect to spend nearly 8 epochs in the ruins. He would have scoffed at the idea before he had arrived. As it was though, there was so much to do.


    The ruins themselves were a machine, or rather a massive ritual or enchantment. While it didn''t have any specific overarching purpose, individual rooms and areas could work together to accomplish specific tasks. At the same time, all the different components communicated with each-other.


    Even before arriving, due to the pattern of the realms, Felix knew it would be a puzzle realm. Some kind of logical puzzle he had to solve.


    This one in particular though was much more fascinating than solving some mathematical proof or choosing the right material for a bridge. It was complex and applicable.


    Along with his Mind Residents, Felix had solved the realm on the first day. The puzzle was simply getting into a specific room which acted as a vault and contained a number of items. He had even gotten two Prime Titles, which he didn''t even know was possible in a single realm.


    However, whether intentionally or not, the realm included everything. To solve the puzzle and open the vault room, Felix hadn''t even needed a tenth of a percent of the ruins. As it was, after 8 epochs, they hadn''t found the edge of the realm. The ruins just kept going.


    It didn''t seem like they were intended to spend too much time there though because food was scarce. Luckily Nova and Felix''s Matter Control helped them deal with that issue until they had set up various farms. It was a little annoying without any source organic material in the ruins but it wasn''t difficult.


    As complicated and vast as the ruins were, Felix had gotten bored of mapping out the functions of every individual room on the third day because it just really wasn''t difficult.


    He had worked on Enchantments, Spells and even began exploring specific weaves so he could make his own robes soon. None of that was difficult either.


    What was difficult, and took Felix nearly the entirety of the 8 epochs though, was wrapping his head around higher dimensional fractals.


    He hadn''t even started using three dimensional Spells before entering the ruins and still generally avoided them due to their exponential complexity. Jumping straight into four and higher dimensional Spells and throwing in fractals along with Living or Shifting Spell forms was extraordinarily difficult.


    Even after 8 epochs, Felix wasn''t sure he could wrap his mind around it. He had even tried removing his brain from the equation entirely and using just his Soul but it felt impossible. He could do the math and simulate the geometry but actually understanding and visualizing everything, felt impossible.


    Luckily, he didn''t need to. Eventually he should, otherwise he could end up in a very dangerous situation but for the time being, it wasn''t necessary. He was hoping that he could come back for the understanding later.


    They had already tested everything and used the math and simulations he could do, to repurpose the ruins themselves. Now, it was a massive machine for building computers.


    Felix stood outside the completely spherical chamber with glass windows they had created, with Nova''s help, alongside Arysha''s puppet.


    "The batteries are all full?"


    She nodded, "We have 100 times the capacity we calculate we need, considering what happen time before."


    "Good call. Is everything else ready?"


    "Yes. We have confirm everything and Mark Diagnostic Drones are all in place to monitor."


    "How much bigger is this going to be?"


    "Only twice the radius but nearly 10,000 times the density."


    Felix snorted and glanced over at her, "This is your last chance to tell me this is stupid and we should start smaller."


    She shrugged, "If you die here, we all die. This risk is acceptable. The reward is too much to ignore."


    "Alright. I''ll start preparing my Spatial Translocation, Mark will coordinate the timing."


    "We begin?" She seemed almost hesitant.


    "We begin." Felix confirmed.


    Neither of them had to push a button or pull a lever. Mark was controlling everything now and his Mind Residents were placed strategically to spring into action where they were needed. As soon as Felix finished speaking, Mana and Anima began to course through the ruins from every direction.


    Felix had, throughout the realms, increased the size of his Mana Core. They were mostly gradual changes but they added up and on the 1039th floor, he had a Mana Core of 12.5 Billion total Mana, including the Attuned Cores. He considered that to be a lot of Mana. Judging from his conversation with Fin, everyone would consider that a lot of Mana.


    All around him, an order of magnitude more Mana coursed through the ruins and into the room in front of him along with Anima which, he couldn''t measure but was equally as frightening in quantity.


    In the center of the room, Felix was reminded of the Spell Bomb Arysha had used to wipe out her own city back in the Integration Event, Bastorus One.


    The Mana and Anima was slowly woven into what looked like a spell but was really a computer. It started as a pea sized ball made of channels without distinct shape or form. Slowly, it grew as lines of Mana coalesced from every direction, like laser beams, on the center of the room. The Mana poured into the computer as it grew, carefully forming a shape in the middle of the room.


    Unlike the Spell Bomb though, this wasn''t inherently unstable right from the get go. Instead, it was carefully woven together and calculated, down to tiny fractions of Mana points.


    It was, thankfully, an uneventful process. They had already done the very same thing for Mark already and created a node that was equivalent to roughly 1,000 of their previous Mark nodes. Then, they created more. Each time, the process became smoother and smoother. Now, their failure rate was near 0 which was the only reason they were finally pushing to replace Felix''s brain.


    While they definitely should have slowly increased the size of the computers they were creating and worked up to the size they wanted for Felix''s brain-Felix knew that-he also didn''t want to spend forever in the ruins.


    8 epochs was already far longer than he had wanted to be there.


    The walls though were already set up to handle massive amounts of Mana and direct it with ease so, there was no way he was wasting this opportunity. The only downside was, there was no way he could bring the ruins with him, without somehow taking the entire realm. The only other option was to remain there, slowly iterating on the computers, replacing the brains of all his Mind Residents over the course of hundreds of epochs.


    Even that though, might not have been possible. They were running low on Anima considering how the ruins were completely barren. Keeping the new computers stable required a massive force of will and Mana Control. They managed to get around the issue somewhat with Mark by carefully inscribing Anima spells into the housing they used for him. They could likely have done the same for the Mind Resident puppets but it was expensive.


    The size of the computer for Felix''s brain though, required exponentially more force of will and Mana Control. There was no good way to calculate if Felix could actually handle this computer but he had pushed everyone to make the computer as big as they thought he could handle then double that and just trust that he would find a way.


    He had a couple of thoughts on how he was going to handle the computer but he kept those entirely to himself, not even sharing them with Grim.


    Once the computer had grown to the size they had been waiting for and the Mana and Anima from their batteries had decreased by 1 percent, Mark created a ping in Felix''s mind.


    It''s time.


    Not yet. We have more Anima and Mana. Keep going.


    Affirmative.


    Felix. Grim cut in, We aren''t even sure if you can handle this one, don''t push it.


    Keep going.


    Felix was the authority and so they kept going. Grim watched and waited, knowing he wasn''t going to listen to him, his nerves growing within Felix''s mind.


    He ignored that though and watched as the computer kept going until it used twice the Mana they had planned for it. Then, he cast his Spatial Translocation Spell and appeared near the center of the room, floating a few meters beneath the sphere and slightly off to the side. They had calculated his position very precisely so that as the Mana lasers instantly pierced his body as if it wasn''t there at all, he only took minimal damage and none of it to his brain.


    Reaching out with his Anima Control, Felix reached for the impossible object in the middle of the room. It was still completely incomprehensible and beyond his understanding, despite how hard he had tried. He understood the math. He felt the computer. Even that wasn''t enough though.


    It didn''t matter if he could understand it, what mattered was whether or not he could control it. So, he began to take hold of the computer.


    Shutting down the machines in 3 seconds. Mark mentally warned everyone.


    Don''t. Keep going. I can control this.


    Feli- Grim tried to caution him.


    Affirmative.


    Felix couldn''t control it. He could feel that. What he could do though, was contain it.


    As he did, he poured the entirety of his will power into the Fractal Mana Form, feeling it out and helping compress it down.


    He couldn''t describe what it was but he felt something as he did so, an inkling of a feeling. Like a tiny pin prick of light in total darkness. He didn''t know what it was exactly but all he knew was that he was getting closer to it as Mana and Anima poured into the computer and he desperately needed to get to whatever it was.


    Unlike his experiences of The Endless Hunger though, the feeling felt nearly euphoric, like the false promises the Curse of Desire showed him but, this wasn''t a curse at all. It felt to him like infinite knowledge. Something he desperately craved.


    It wasn''t a concept or a conviction or a curse. He had no idea what it was but he just knew he needed to reach it. It was some kind of breaking point he had to achieve.


    So, as Grim yelled into his mind, he overrode him entirely.


    Mark, you need to shut it down. It''s already using 10 times more Mana than w-


    Don''t. Use all of it. Empty the batteries. Have the Resident fill them. Pour everything in.


    Affirmative.


    Grim didn''t feel what Felix did. He couldn''t. Felix could show him later but for now, the feeling and experience he was having was so deeply ingrained into him and so fundamental, Grim couldn''t observe it. Neither could any of his Residents.


    Mana and Anima continued to pour into the room, weaving into the Fractal but it didn''t grow in size. Instead, Felix kept it compressed, finding within him will power he didn''t even know he had. Whatever he was chasing, he wanted it so much that his entire Soul was pushing along with him, helping him. It became temporarily far more aligned that Felix had ever felt it. It was how Felix imagined it felt to have three perfectly balanced convictions.


    Which, with the sheer amount of Anima in his Soul, had a massive effect.


    They hadn''t been sure if Felix would even be capable of holding the computer they had originally planned to make stable. Now, Felix was certain he could hold all of it stable. He had to.


    The batteries are down to 20% capacity.


    That''s enou-


    Open the room. The only way to get more is through Fission.


    Understood. Coordinating the Residents.


    FELIX! You can''t possibly be serious. You need to st-


    Grim. I''ll explain later.


    I- Felix felt Grim sifting through Felix''s recent memories and experiences, trying to understand. Felix knew he wouldn''t find anything.


    Fin still hadn''t finished the Mana Accelerator outside but the theory was that pushing enough Mana fast enough, forming a beam with it and shooting that beam through solid matter should theoretically allow them to break down the matter. Mana and the Anima they were accelerating along with it had a very minor attractive effect on other Mana, not quite like gravity or magnetism but there was some kind of force there.


    Moving enough Mana and Anima fast enough, the force would eventually become so great, it overcame the matter itself and broke it down.


    It wasn''t a theory any longer though. Felix had been paying attention to the beams that tore through his body and he already knew it worked. He knew the lasers had provided a burst of Mana as soon as they passed through him.


    His 800 meter Matter Control range was more than enough for him to feel his Mind Residents obediently tossing objects into the room. They didn''t need to do more as his Matter Control latched onto the various objects, items, plants and garbage as it didn''t matter what it was. All matter was equal as all that mattered was the total mass.


    Each object, Felix began to rapidly spin around the computer at the center of the room in three dimensional orbits as they were torn apart by the various lasers. Each time an item was cut, a burst of Mana was created and carried along with the laser.


    Mark, Arysha and the rest of the team who had helped him design the machine worked as fast as they could to the influx of Mana and luckily, it wasn''t as chaotic as they had been worried about. Instead, the lasers were so fine, they only tore away tiny slivers of the objects as Felix spun them around and through the lasers.


    Even then, a large chunk of the Mana was being lost to the room from the violent process of tearing matter apart. It wasn''t anything like an atomic bomb because the mass wasn''t turned to energy, it skipped that step entirely. Instead, it became a burst of Mana.


    How much longer?


    Mark knew what Felix was talking about without asking, 2 minutes to total battery depletion.


    Deploy the Mana Collection Constructs, recycle the extra in the room. Turn off lasers as necessary but keep them balanced and running as long as possible.


    Affirmative.


    From outside the room, hundreds of Mana Collection Constructs began to pour in, like a swarm of creatures. Some were tiny, others were larger. None of them were the ones Felix had used in The Abyss though. He had long since deconstructed those and repurposed them. He had new constructs that were much larger as well but they couldn''t fit between the lasers in the room.


    The constructs charted routes around the outside of the room, collecting Mana then pouring back out of the room, instantly replaced with another a moment later.


    Battery depletion rate has been reduced. New estimate for total depletion, 24 minutes.


    Just 24 minutes wasn''t enough. Felix pulled all the matter he had been orbiting through the lasers in towards the core where the lasers were more dense and allowed them to be completely obliterated by the dense array of lasers. That massive burst of Mana right near the Fractal Mana Form strained Felix''s control to the limit as his Residents accommodated and began tossing matter into the room at a faster rate.


    He was getting closer to that breaking point he felt, whatever it was, but it was still just out of reach. He didn''t feel like he needed vast amounts more though. It began to feel like he could reach it. Like he could get there.


    20 minutes later, the lasers began to disappear one by one in a specific pattern to ensure they remained balanced and that was when it started to become much harder for Felix to contain the computer.


    Without the lasers actively weaving the computer, a force trying to contain it vanished and Felix had to make up for that loss himself.


    The breaking point he was chasing was just out of reach, but now it felt like he could almost just reach out and touch it. Like it was right there. He was just missing density. He had enough Mana but it wasn''t compressed enough so, he began to squeeze down as hard as he could.


    He channeled everything he had into the computer. All of his will power and his Soul and he felt it gradually shrinking ever slightly. With each millimeter he compressed it, the will power required to keep going felt like it doubled.


    Time to try something stupid. Felix said entirely to himself.


    The first thing he tried, was to sense a feeling of density from anywhere. He started with the Fractal Mana Form but it was too new to the universe. He tried his own Soul but that was too rife with other experiences for him to extract an individual concept. Then, he reached into the walls of the room around him.


    It wasn''t so dense he ever would have tried to extract the Concept of density from them before but it was all he had left. There wasn''t anything better in his Soul Space and at least the relative age of the walls in the room should help. No matter how hard he tried though, the Concept of density remained elusive. It wasn''t even that he found a sliver and it wasn''t enough. He found nothing and began to doubt the Concept of density existed outside of Black Holes and Stars. If it did, it was beyond him in his current state.


    Plan B.


    Instead of reaching outwards, Felix reached inside of himself this time and began to reach into his own Core Soul. There, he searched for something that should have been much easier to find. Another Conviction.


    He knew they were there. He knew they were already inside of him and he just had to find them. He even knew at least one of them would definitely help with his current situation. There was a conviction within him that felt to him like control or authority.


    Felix had already explored the convictions within himself before but he hadn''t managed to get a good enough grasp on them before to actually actualize them. Now though, given how aligned his Soul had become in pursuit of compressing the Fractal Mana Form further, he was hoping.


    Finding the rough edges of the conviction within himself, the whispers of it all throughout his Soul, he began to pull on them. Bringing them forwards from the depths of the experiences within his Soul. He brought forth the forgotten and ancient parts of him, the parts from before he was him, from his Soul before he had been born.


    The conviction slowly began to materialize within him and he felt it becoming clearer. He continued to pull on it and felt like it was right there, just missing a slight push.


    So, he pushed but¡­ nothing happened. No matter how hard he pulled on it, he wasn''t ready and he couldn''t do it. He failed.


    Okay. Plan C I guess. Which isn''t really a plan at all.


    With no other option, Felix grabbed the Fractal Mana Form and shoved it into his chest, the same way he had the System Chunk. This time though, he pushed it much further and less dangerously. He didn''t need to bore a hole in his Soul, he simply pulled it into his Core Soular Space. There, he had much more control and his will power was easier to channel so he continued to compress it.


    The Fractal Mana Form continued to shrink and Felix continued to push it towards his Core Soul, the center of his internal universe. The basis of who he was.


    Then, ignoring the warnings and screams within his head and all around him, he pushed it into his Core Soul.


    It still wasn''t enough. He felt it. He was so close. He had nothing else to give it though. It sat there, right on the edge of something, teetering on the edge of a cliff. He had nothing else to give though and so it sat there. Then, he lost consciousness.


    Felix didn''t know how long he had been unconscious. When he gained awareness, it wasn''t like the last time he had shoved an object beyond his understanding into his Soul. This time, there was no pain. There was something much worse.


    His Core Soul felt unstable.


    It hadn''t shattered, considering he still existed but the fact that he was worried about that at all was not good.


    It didn''t look to him like his Core Soul was on the verge of exploding, but it was pulsing and distorting itself as it tried to contain the Fractal Mana Form contained within it. Reaching inside himself, he tried to help but there was nothing more he could do.


    His Core Soul was already as strong, aligned and focused as it ever been. There was more will power going into containing the Fractal Mana Form than he had ever used himself. It was doing more for aligning and compressing his Soul than all the Curses orbiting it ever did.


    Sitting up, Felix immediately felt the problem though.


    All of his will power was being consumed by the Fractal Mana Form. There was nothing left and so, his Reaper''s Skills that he had worked so hard to maintain at all times, were impossible to use. The film like layer he had created over his skin, was no longer film like and dense, it instead grew sparse and did little to nothing for his defenses. His Mana channels too, were no longer functional, the Mana within them dormant and quickly dissipating.


    Carefully reaching into his Mana Core, he could draw out some Mana but he couldn''t shape it all. Using any of his will power, even the slightest sliver of it, caused his Core Soul to lurch and became far too unstable for him to risk it.


    This may¡­ have been a mistake.


    Checking his Status Screen for any amount of salvation, Felix saw all his stats were drastically lower than they had been with his Reaper''s Skills. Every single one was significantly lower except for one. Astonishingly, his intelligence, was more than double what it had been.


    Curious, Felix just felt out his own body but realized the Fractal Mana Form wasn''t being used at all. Instead, it was still the computer he had replaced his brain with long ago but somehow, it had been upgraded. It was denser and faster, the internal structure optimized.


    Finally tuning into his own Mental World and surroundings, Felix addressed whoever was listening, What happened?


    You''re an idiot. Grim grumbled.


    On a scale o-


    This was by far the stupidest thing you''ve done. You''ve redefined the scale.


    Felix snorted, Well. I''m not dead so¡­


    You should be. I don''t care about your stupid Soul. We accounted for that when we calculated exactly how much you could handle. Then, we agreed to double that.


    Yeah. Felix didn''t want to keep arguing. He still felt like he wanted to go further and if he could do it all over again, he would have just pushed harder. What happened to my brain though?


    Grim mentally frowned in confusion in Felix''s mind as he felt a number of Mind Residents scurry around, What do you mean?


    It''s upgraded somehow.


    Yes. Grim started paying very close attention to Felix, You upgraded it?


    When?


    A few minutes after you went into focus mode.


    I went into what?


    You blocked everything out and dropped to the ground. You looked unconscious but you were actively upgrading your body and brain so we realized you just had a spark of inspiration.


    Right¡­ Guess my memories are just a bit out of sync. We''ll do a memory diagnostic when I''m feeling better.


    Are you su-


    Affirmative.


    Lifting himself into a sitting position, Felix began to meditate and went over the changes to his body and mind that he had apparently done to himself somehow. The fact that he remembered none of it, in his Soul or memories, was more than a little worrisome.


    Taking stock of everything was even more worrisome. He no longer understood what was happening within his own body. His skin had been modified and was tougher but he didn''t understand what had happened. His muscles, bones organs and brain were all better but he had no idea how. It wasn''t like The System upgrade either during his evolution. That felt like his own body. These changes were beyond him and made him feel like he was being possessed.


    If it was just upgrades, there would be no problem. As far as he could tell, they were just upgrades. The issue was he didn''t understand what had changed and so there was no way for him to know if they were just upgrades, or if something else was now hiding within his own body.


    He had a few Mind Residents with their own bodies, like Arysha, specifically for the purpose of helping him if something had gone wrong with the upgrade. If he suspected something, Nova could replicate his body and they would help him move his Soul. That plan was a little less relevant now that he had embedded the new computer in his Core Soul but he could still swap bodies if he wanted.


    The issue was, even with the upgrades, he still felt like he had aged just shy of death. His body was sluggish, his skin felt frail without his Mana Skin and his healing rate had plummeted. The only salvation in his mind, was that he had already felt out the next realm and knew from the pattern, it was a strategic realm which often meant he wouldn''t have to fight at all.


    With that in mind, Felix reached down and pet Nova, who had been napping at his side less out of concern and more out of a sense of protection. S~ea??h the n?vel_Fire.¦Çet website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    He had her carefully craft him a full set of plate armor and, along with Arysha and a number of constructs, they enchanted it. Then, he embedded some batteries he had into it and activated his Persona. Finally, he equipped the armor and headed into the next realm, his residents already having cleaned up and moved back into the Sphinx''s Vault while he was out.


    Luckily, he was right. He was able to completely avoid any fighting himself on the next realm and managed to get three Prime Titles with his upgraded mind.


    That wasn''t always the case though and without his Spells, Felix struggled in combat. Luckily, he had a portable army he was carrying around with him but the issue was, he no longer had the will power to bring them back if they died and so, he had to be careful with each one.


    They focused heavily on equipment, Nova and the crafter Residents working double time to equip everyone in the best equipment they had, either creating something new or modifying something old.


    Felix''s personal participation in the realms plummeted as he let his Mind Residents do almost everything. He provided input through Mark and his massive increase in Intelligence helped but it wasn''t enough for him to get involved directly most of the time. He couldn''t cast Spells, he wasn''t coordinated enough to be stealthy and he was inherently fragile.


    As much as he might have wanted to participate, the number of Prime Titles he was getting began to slightly increase when he wasn''t involved. Not by a ton but by enough that it became obvious he was holding them back in most situations. The realm scenarios were just so diverse and to excel in them, the required skill set and expertise was so specific and unique, there was no way for one person to farm Prime Titles in every realm.


    Felix had planned for that though and was quite happy with how things were progressing. He was happy, but he was also bored.


    While he wasn''t participating, Felix spent all his time desperately trying to regain any amount of his will power he could.


    By the 1293rd floor, Felix had regained just enough that he could either cast a single simple Spell, use his Matter Control in a small area or modify some Souls. Though he could only do one at once, the will power he had regained felt much stronger, like it was more focused. Instead of a giant axe, he now had a scalpel. He could do less with it but it was much more capable.


    Luckily, it was just enough that he could help Nova and the team of Alchemical Mind Residents in developing a cure for the diseases plaguing the realm.


    It was the first time Felix had ever seen a disease or illness affect a high level sentient before but whatever it was, was nasty. It completely deteriorated the body in a way that seemed physical, not biological. Slowly, the infected creature began to dissolve until they became entirely a viscous liquid.


    His Alchemists had been hard at work for a few dekads, testing on creatures and every time they did, Felix and Nova used their Matter Senses to confirm whether or not they had succeeded. They checked both whether or not the disease was completely dealt with and whether or not the creature''s body was damaged in the process.


    Their checking, ended up saving Felix his Prime Title he was pretty sure since the initial cure, based on a recipe the residents of the realm had already developed, was flawed. It was similar to the combat floor where there were two possible enemies to fight. They could either make the recipe given to them, which was a challenge in itself, or they could develop their own.


    With their Matter Control and a full team of Alchemists working in a lab they had custom built, developing a new recipe was much easier than it should have been and in the end, netted Felix two Prime Titles.


    The actual titles themselves were almost less interesting to Felix though, than the woman with completely black hair and makeup, red irises and a child like appearance.


    [A - Ancient] Edira (Lvl 3571)


    "You completely ignored the recipe I gave you."


    Felix nodded, "It was flawed. Even executed perfectly, it didn''t completely remove the disease, just weaken it significantly."


    With a completely blank expression, she slightly cocked her head, "If it is so weak it doesn''t affect them anymore, are they not cured?"


    "It would have affected their children. Anyone they came in contact with. You know how contagious it is."


    "I know."


    "Then why not say so?"


    She shrugged, "It was the best I could come up with."


    He let his disappointment show on his face for clearly too long because she immediately picked up on it, "Medicine isn''t my specialty."


    He opened his mouth to respond then stopped himself as he processed what she said, "What is your specialty?"


    "Elixirs and draughts." She casually stroked the head of a completely black, lizard bird that looked like a Drakeling or a tiny pterodactyl.


    "As in the kind of elixirs that permanently change your body?"


    She nodded, "Sometimes. Sometimes for the better. Other times not."


    "Do you happen to sell your elixirs?"


    She shook her head, "No point. Each one is custom."


    "Are you¡­ accepting clients?"


    "No."


    "I see. Would you sell me any reci-"


    "I''ll make you whatever you want. For saving my village where I couldn''t."


    Felix smiled, "Great. What do you need from me?"


    "Part of your body to test on. The more you give me, the more tests I can do."


    Felix smirked widely, "Actually, I can do you one better."


    Opening his Kryptos Repository, Felix ejected a corpse. A perfect replica of his body, a spare.


    She looked down at the body curiously, "Who''s that?"


    "That''s me. I just wear this body like armor to disguise myself." He explained from his Persona. Now that the realm was complete and considering she needed his real body to experiment on, he felt it was pretty low risk for him to reveal that particular secret.


    "Curious."


    "I can provide you with as many bodies as you need, up to a few hundred a day. Do you need¡­ other materials?"


    She crouched down and poked at the corpse, causing it to vanish in puff of black smoke, "If you have something special in mind, I''ll see if I can use it."


    "I actually had nothing in mind. I take it you have your own lab, right?"


    "Of course."


    "Let me introduce you to my familiar and, if you''d like, a team of alchemists who would be eager to learn from and help you."


    While Edira had her own cauldron in an old church, she ended up spending more time in Felix''s tower than at he cauldron over the course of a few dekads.


    Nova provided her with Felix corpses and any material she could imagine while the team of Felix''s Mind Resident Alchemists followed her every direction. Felix was a little worried at first, considering how many of his test corpses exploded, melted or shriveled out of existence but that became less common as the days passed. Her success rate was never perfect but she became more manic and seemingly insane as she delved deeper and deeper into whatever elixir she was making.


    She didn''t let Felix provide any specifications or specific Stats he wanted buffed, she just did her own thing. Even his Mind Residents were confused because she had some of them working on one elixir and others working on something completely different with no overlap.


    Whether or not he ended up with an elixir at all though, Felix took solace in the knowledge she was imparting onto his Mind Residents. Even without her, they would probably be able to create him something useful.


    The elixirs themselves weren''t what he had found in the multiverse. They didn''t just increase his body''s energy density or something else he had already done to his own body. Instead, he had no better way of describing them than as nanobots. She engineered bacteria and organisms to modify the body itself. They didn''t last forever and constantly heal the target or anything but they did permanently modified the bodies she used them on.


    Sitting at the top of his tower, beneath the sun like light above him, Felix meditated each and every day. Focusing and honing his will power, desperately attempting to increase how much he could use, both to recover some of what he was using to keep the Fractal Mana Form stable, but even more so to push it that last little bit. If he could just increase his will power, he was convinced he could compress the Fractal Mana Form one last step and reach whatever it was he was feeling.


    Sensing a presence near him, Felix pulled his attention back to his surroundings and saw Edira sitting on the edge of the parapet in front of him, playing with her black lizard bird familiar.


    "Edira."


    "I don''t have an elixir for you."


    He nodded, "That''s okay. Take your time."


    "I know you want to leave."


    "I can wait."


    "Don''t. I''m coming with you." She stated.


    "You can''t."


    "Of course I can. I''ll stay in here and keep working while you deal with the realms."


    Felix''s jaw dropped, "You know about the realms?"


    She cocked her head and looked at him with her signature blank expression, "Of course. I''m not as young as I look."

 Chapter 237 - Book 10

    "Are you a previous¡­ participant?" S§×arch* The Novel?ire(.)ne*t website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    "No. I was born and raised here."


    "I''ve already tried to take a realm native with me."


    She answered with a completely blank tone, "You can only leave if you know about the realms. Most don''t. You can''t just tell someone. They won''t hear you. Don''t ask. I don''t know."


    "How do you know about them?"


    "There are signs. Once I found them, a voice in my mind explained. Now I''m free to travel between the realms if I unlock the realm. Or if I have a guide."


    "So you were stuck here until someone showed up?"


    "No. I unlocked the realm a long time ago."


    "Uh¡­ Okay. Why not leave before?"


    "No reason to leave."


    "Now you do have a reason?"


    She simply didn''t answer.


    Guess that''s a yes.


    "Alright. Just to be clear, the alchemists have been helping you because you''re making an elixir for me. I''m not forcing them to now and I won''t in the future. They are free to leave you whenever."


    She remained silent for a moment, seemingly thinking about it then she cocked her head, "Some will stay. Some will go."


    "Alright. Do we need to do anything special then? Last time, touching the exit did nothing with a native in my Pocket Home."


    "No."


    "Okay then. I guess we can leave now then." Mark, notify the Residents we''ll be leaving as soon as possible.


    Affirmative.


    Edira only managed to keep her full team of alchemists for just a few days after they left the realm. Then, the number of Residents willing to put up with her elusive sanity dwindled until there were just a few left willing to help her, mostly in the hopes of learning something from her ever changing demands.


    Luckily, Felix had enough Residents that he didn''t suffer from having a few alchemists dedicating all their time to research.


    He was also beginning to see why Romar and Zeraxes hadn''t gotten much further than where he was. They had likely worried about getting trapped in a realm if they hadn''t been able to complete the realm. Felix didn''t have issues with any of the realms except for combat. Those, he had lost all hope of getting multiple Prime Titles and even doubted he would get one or two. The others, he had multiple experts for.


    Zeraxes and Romar had started struggling with forcing the floors through combat every time.


    Even if Felix hadn''t made it nearly impossible for himself to fight anything properly by occupying all his will power, he knew he would have struggled with just forcing each floor with combat prowess. Zeraxes and Romar were stronger than him, but the natives average level was already in the low A grade and increasing on every floor.


    If Felix had to threaten, intimidate and assassinate on every floor from here on out, he definitely wouldn''t have lasted as long as they had.


    The fact that Adaline had gotten as far as she had when her only non combat skill seemed to be a very specific enchanting niche, was even more impressive.


    By the time Felix and his Residents made it to the 1464th floor, Felix had thankfully managed to regain a small fraction of his previous will power, at least in terms of capacity. He was able to cast just 20 or so levels worth of Spells, instead of his previous 800 or so. He hadn''t actually measured in a while because he had been making steady progress and he hadn''t felt the need to quantify that.


    The last time he had actually measured had been just before entering the realms in his Mana Control Mentorship under Fin.


    Now that he had lost so much, he really wished he had quantified his abilities more recently so he knew what he was working to get back to.


    On the other hand, the will power he had gained was so much more potent than it had been. He could only cast 20 levels worth of Spells, but it was easier to do so. Pushing himself against the Curses orbiting his Core Soul felt trivial instead of being a struggle. Most importantly, when he wasn''t casting anything or otherwise using his will power, his Core Soul was noticeably more stable. It still contorted itself to contain the Fractal Mana Form, but it no longer looked like it was on the verge of falling apart.


    He still had a ways to go though because with the will power he had, he could either cast a couple Blade Spells, wrap himself in his Mana Skin, or maintain a single Reaper Skill.


    Using any more than one of those abilities at once, put his Core Soul at risk.


    For the most part, he maintained his Mana Skin because even though Reaper''s Instinct raised his Intelligence to eye watering numbers, he didn''t find it was ever necessary. If he were alone, he definitely could have used it to supplement his lack of knowledge in specific fields because it did help but, he had his Residents anyways.


    That meant he was almost entirely focused on meditating and exercising his will power. He even got through a number of floors without doing anything more than touching the exit.


    The 1464th realm was the first one he had to get directly involved in, or rather wanted to and should.


    It was surprisingly, not a medically themed floor as Edira''s had been but according to the pattern, rather a magical crafting themed floor. They usually involved a fair bit of magic and some kind of complex crafting or invention for a specific task.


    Felix had intended to leave the floor to his Residents, as he had many floors before but he was interrupted in his meditation by Arysha, who wore her favorite puppet, an elderly elven woman.


    "Felix. You want to come see."


    He was skeptical, "Can''t you just tell me whatever it is later? Show me the memory?"


    "Of course. You will want to see."


    "Okay." He did ultimately trust her though.


    She led him into a small village at the foot of a mountain that seemed to be sick. It wasn''t so small that a cold would quickly spread to everyone living there but it was small enough that the entire atmosphere of the village was altered. There were a few people out and around but those that were, didn''t look like they wanted to be. They didn''t look happy and they moved from destination to destination without letting anything distract them in between, like they wanted to get whatever they needed to do done as fast as possible.


    Even if he couldn''t see the way they looked, ill and in pain, Felix immediately knew they were sick through his Mana Senses.


    Every single person he saw, and didn''t see, were filled with Attuned Mana with a high Energy Level coursing through their systems. He felt entire bodies through walls and using his Mana Senses, not his Matter Senses. The Mana suffused their flesh and bones, coursed through their veins bound to their blood and everywhere it went, cells died. They burst and fused with one another, morphed and decayed completely at random sending their bodies into a constant state of fighting something it couldn''t touch.


    As he walked into the city, he felt a number of sapients in the buildings around him deep in concentration, meditating to try and excise the Mana from their bodies. While none of them seemed to be completely successful, they did manage to remove much of the Mana. The issue was, the Mana was so diffused throughout their bodies that no matter how hard they seemed to try, some remained.


    The amount that was left behind wasn''t enough to make them as sick as they were though, just enough to give them a mild illness. Considering how many were ill though, Felix assumed there was something causing the affliction to recur and he didn''t have to assume for very long. As soon as he began paying attention to his surroundings to try and find the source, he fond it.


    All throughout every source of water Felix could find in the vicinity of his Matter Senses, including the water within juices and other beverages, even in the crops, was the diffused Mana.


    So they try to remove it, cleanse their bodies. Then, they drink, eat or swim and it comes back. They must know what''s causing the issue, if they can sense and move the Mana within their bodies¡­


    Instead of Grim, a Resident responded to him, Uh¡­ Hi. Uh¡­ Mark the fifteenth, gave me¡­ permission. Uh¡­ It''s easier to detect Mana in your own body¡­ right? That''s how you discovered Mana?


    Right. Back in the Puzzle Dungeon in the tutorial. Huh. It''s interesting because it''s a decent amount of Mana it''s just so¡­ it''s almost dissolved. I can sense it but¡­ maybe there''s even some I''m missing?


    Felix turned his head and nodded to Arysha, "You were right, thank you for notifying me."


    She smiled and nodded.


    "What have you all found so far?"


    "We know not at first what causes the illness. We spend much time in village, talk to people. Examine when they permit. Once we know Mana, we come to you."


    "Have you figured out the source of the illness yet?"


    "We are not certain yet."


    He nodded, "It''s the water. That seems to have spread it to everything, food, plants and so on. Doesn''t seem to be in the air though."


    She nodded quickly, "This is fast. We can fix this." She turned to him, "How you want us to fix?"


    He smirked a little at the fact that she was asking him at all, "I''m sure you all have ideas now that you know. Let''s meet with the other Residents, I want to hear them,"


    "Okay. I will have Mark organize meeting."


    He nodded to her and she ran off into the village. In the meantime, Felix headed through the village and towards the stream could hear from the village entrance. There, he collected some of the water and began to experiment with it, hidden from Mark, Grim and his Mind Residents because he wanted to see what they would come up with.


    As he wandered the village, he wrestled with the water from the stream. He was pretty sure he could have removed all the Mana before he had destroyed his own will power. Now that he had, he was having a lot of difficulty. He could feel and move the Mana but doing so also moved the water it was bound to. To actually separate the two, he had to somehow grab hold of the tiny bits of Mana.


    No matter how hard he tried, he just couldn''t seem to grab hold of them with his Mana Control.


    He began to doubt if he would have ever been capable of doing so as they were just so small and his will power was limited. Even as strong as it was in a concentrated area, he felt like if he had more will power available to him, he would have been able to.


    By the time he had to head to the meeting, he had pretty much completely decided it would be impossible for him unless they spent multiple epochs in that particular realm.


    "I know Mark has already informed all of you that the cause of the illness is Mana dissolved and suffused throughout the water supply. Solutions?"


    An older looking Rhunar man jumped up out of his seat and raised his hand like he was a child, "You could remove it, right?"


    "I could." Felix nodded and lied, "But a one time solution isn''t going to get us a Prime Title, let alone two or three. We need to come up with a permanent solution and something that helps the village grow."


    "So building a filter and dam alone isn''t going to be enough?" A Rakyt with long and scruffy facial hair said as he began to scratch and pull at his facial hair in thought.


    "What if we trained them to have Mana Control like yours?" A woman with a devilish smirk asked.


    "No. This would be much time." Arysha shook her head, "Maybe not possible even."


    "Why haven''t their bodies acclimated yet? One of the villagers I was talking to said this illness had plagued them for thousands of rotations, their version of an epoch which seems to be even longer, 582 days to be exact." A Resident who wore glasses for fashion''s sake asked, looking around the room for anyone to answer.


    "There''s a faction that''s been attempting to replicate Felix''s bodies Mana processing, right?" An old man with a scarred face frowned, "How far have they gotten?"


    "Even with vaccines based on Felix''s stem cells from Nova-" One of the Residents with a mechanical, enchanted arm responded, shaking his head, "-we''ve only had minor success. There seems to be something unique to him outside of his biology, which¡­ makes sense considering all the evolutions and modifications he''s gone through."


    "Has anyone spoken to Edira?" A Rakyt next to Arysha looked around.


    The Resident with the scarred face responded, "She''s still not making any sense."


    "Since this illness doesn''t seem urgent, considering this has been on going for thousands of years¡­ I think we figure out how to clean their water first." The glasses wearing Resident looked to the rest of the group for support.


    "Or¡­ figure out what''s causing this in the first place¡­" The devilishly smirking Resident chimed in.


    That was exactly what Felix intended on doing.


    They discussed for a while longer but Felix didn''t stick around for all of it. Instead, he left and headed back to the stream he had originally taken water from.


    First, while still in range of the village, Felix reached down and dipped his hand in the water. Unlike the villagers though, as the Mana seeped into his flesh, his cells greedily devoured the Mana and became energized. Even more so than when his Mana Channels had been active. The effects varied and in its raw form, the Mana wasn''t completely usable.


    It caused his cells to go into an undirected frenzy to some extent. If he could just alter the Mana slightly though, he realized he could massively upgrade his Mana Channels.


    Once he knew that, Felix used his Reaper''s Mantle Skill to instantly strip himself then he stepped into the stream and completely submerged his body. He held on to the edge of the stream so he didn''t get pulled along and allowed his body to drink up as much of the Mana as it could.


    I took a few hours to fully saturate his body and by that point he was confident it wasn''t going to harm him so, he stepped out of the stream, used his Matter Control to instantly dry himself, then Reaper''s Mantle to dress. Finally, he began the hike along the edge of the stream.


    While he could have flown, it would have required him dropping his Mana Skin which seemed more important to him than the wasted time he spent walking. He also had Erevos on his wrist but for the time being, he walked and ran, feeling out his body and the effect the Mana had on him.


    The stream wound its way through a small forest where it gradually grew wider and more rapid. He followed it up a waterfall over a cliff then up the side of a mountain.


    As he did, the Mana in the water beside him gradually increased as he approached the source.


    Climbing all the way up the side of a mountain with his own two feet was a bit refreshing, after having been sitting and meditating his way through hundreds of realms. Especially the part where he experimented with the new Mana from the stream.


    It wasn''t just a wild and unpredictable set of Attunements with a High Energy level. It felt more to Felix like Mana that had been sent through a Universal Blender.


    Normal Mana Attunements were like the frequencies of a wave, at least that was how Felix saw them. Differing Attunements ranges like Spatial, Elemental, Material and so on were split up amongst polarities, the waves rotated around at specific intervals.


    The Mana in the stream, had none of that. It was complete chaos. There were no distinct polarities. There was no defined frequency or combination of frequencies. It was pure noise.


    Following the stream, Felix made his way up the majority of the mountain before finding a cave from which the stream flowed. Heading inside, he didn''t have to travel far at all to find a cavernous lake of bright blue water.


    In the very center of the cave, sat something Felix couldn''t explain even if he tried. He couldn''t even see it, let alone feel it, at least not entirely.


    There were already a number of Residents inside the cave measuring the water and running scans on the thing in the middle of the room.


    He headed over to the man with the scarred face who had been in the meeting with the Residents, Sezaron or as he preferred, Sez.


    "What is it?" Felix asked curiously.


    "No idea. Only got here a bit before you. Meeting went long." He gestured over to the vehicles lying dormant on one side of the cave.


    "Gotcha. Have you figured anything out so far?"


    He shook his head, "Nothing useful. Threw some shit into it and more Mana poured out but no one knows anything more than that."


    Felix nodded and stepped away from the man, towards the edge of the lake.


    The thing at the center of the lake, just a few inches above the water line, looked like nothing and felt like something. It was a small warping in the air above the lake with a single black point right at its center. Like a dead pixel in reality itself.


    To his Mana Senses though, Felix felt pure chaos pouring out of it. There was no doubt in his mind that this was the source of the Mana suffusing the lake and stream infecting the village.


    As per what Sez had said, Felix picked up a small stone from next to his foot and tossed it into the thing from the edge of the lake. His aim was perfect and the stone sailed through the air until it reached the thing, and instantly vanished.


    Picking up another stone, Felix used his Matter control to shape the stone, add a number of runes to it, then he imbued those and the stone itself with Anima. Finally, he tossed the stone into the thing and watched as it vanished, then felt it on the other side for just a brief moment before it was completely gone.


    That moment, though incredibly brief, was enough for Felix to know mostly what was happening and gain a good idea of what the thing was.


    He kept this from his Residents and everyone else in his head though and simply sat down at the edge of the lake, placing his bare feet in the water as he began meditating.


    To some extent, he was testing his Residents. He also simply didn''t want to leave yet and if they figured it out, he knew a number of Residents would be eager to move on. Hiding the information gave him an excuse to keep everyone there, not that he needed an excuse but there was value in keeping them happy and he recognized that.


    He didn''t want to stall forever, just long enough that he could figure out how to take the hole in space with him.


    It took a few dekads for his Residents to realize what the hole was. Not just a hole in space, that much was relatively easy to figure out. The harder part, was figuring out where it led. Felix had recognized that as soon as he had thrown the second stone into the hole and lost connection with it in a very specific way.


    The stone wasn''t too far or blocked. It was literally dissolved. The hole in space, led to somewhere deep in the Aether.


    It was the exact thing he and Fin had talked about as a possible way for him to regenerate his Mana. Though somehow, the hole was completely stable. As far as Felix knew, it was a wormhole but from what he had managed to figure out in his mediation, he was pretty sure it wasn''t connecting space at all.


    Which made sense to him considering space didn''t exist in the Aether. Instead, it felt more like someone had fired a gun through the wall of a space ship. It was like a literal hole in existence. On top of that, the other side was putting into question everything Felix knew about Mana.


    By the end of the realm, Felix''s Residents had figured out an efficient way of isolating the hole in space from the lake. They also used Nova to relocate part of the lake, forming basins deep in the mountain to keep the water away from the hole. That allowed the water to slowly become completely clean, along with the filtering mechanism they had come up with which worked by using an Anima spell to imbue will into the Mana, forcing it to act like a solid. Then, they used an machine to boil the water and remove the particulates, creating something akin to Mana sand, much like sea salt.


    The only issue was, Felix still had no idea how to move the hole. Conceptually, moving a tear in space through space made no sense, he knew that. Still, he desperately wanted to try. Even being willing to move the hole into his Soul Space if he had to.


    Nothing he tried from Aether Tunnels to Sub Spaces worked though. He had even tried binding the hole to Anima but all that did was move the Anima deep into the Aether, where it was lost forever.


    So, it was with great reluctance that Felix listened to his Residents telling him that they would find a way to create a stable hole in reality in the future, and left the hole behind.


    Heading back down into the village, Edira was standing by as a custom medicine she had helped create was handed out to the various villagers, the final step of the realm.


    "You''re out of your lab for the first time in over a hundred realms." Felix noted as he approached Edira.


    "It is done."


    "Wha-" Felix''s eyes widened, "You mean¡­"


    "The elixir. Your elixir. It is done."


    She flicked her wrist towards him and twirled her fingers, a small vial appearing between them.


    Plucking it from her, Felix lifted the vial up and peered into it. Inside, it didn''t look anything like a liquid and yet, he felt a strong concentration of the very same Chaotic Mana that had once permeated the water supply, imbued in the elixir. Instead of a liquid, it looks like a roiling purple and blue cloud made of sparkles.


    To his Mana Sense, Matter Sense, Anima Sense and sight, it was more complex than he could realistically dissect, despite having some knowledge of the recipe.


    The final product was a start to finish creation of Edira''s that she hadn''t seemed to have tested on a replica corpse of his at all. She had however, worked with many of his Residents during the iteration and experimentation process so he had some knowledge of what she was trying to do.


    [? - Mythic] True Wizard''s Elixir


    [Elixir][?]


    This elixir was created for The True Wizard.


    Huh. My Arcane Identify is failing me¡­ Is this just beyond my senses? Or is The System too weak here?


    Before he could even ask, Nucleus responded, Me and my chunk''ve got nothing.


    Was that supposed to be a contraction?


    Yeah¡­ I''ve been learning more of your language fr-


    Nevermind. How are we looking in terms of Prime Titles and my Custom Class?


    Well¡­ Your class is leaning towards some¡­ pacifist, Profession combo all about research and politics since those are the most common titles you have right now.


    Damn. Any more direction on things I need to do?


    Yes and no. I can tell you there''s another step, something else that must happen¡­ I can''t tell you what it is though. I haven''t been able to figure that out yet. Best I can offer is it''s something to do with your identity.


    Congratulations!


    You have received 1 new title.


    Village Mage


    Congratulations!


    You have earned 2 Prime Titles.


    Introduced to Chaos


    Mana Doctor


    Oh, sweet. How about now?


    Well¡­ It got worse. It''s even more pacifistic now.


    Damnit. So what, I''m supposed to wipe out the village? How would Zeraxes or Romar have even completed his realm if they had it? Knowing Adaline, she might have been able to close the hole but them¡­ Would they pass if they just wiped out the entire village? Or if they threatened the village into moving away from the stream?


    I''m not sure if you''re still talking to me but¡­ I doubt it? Nucleus offered.


    Me too. Even with how strong they are¡­ Felix looked around at the villagers whose levels sat firmly in the middle of the A grade. And I''m just talking to myself. I don''t care who responds.


    Felix didn''t mind Nucleus responding. Part of him had wished Grim had responded though, and broken his streak of silence that had started just after the Fractal Mana Form incident.


    "Well." Felix looked back at Edira, "Thanks."


    Before she could stop him, he moved the contents of the liquid through his Soul Space and directly into his body, distributed throughout his blood stream.


    His body reacted instantly and over the course of a few hours, Felix''s body was slowly morphed. It wasn''t overwhelmingly painful but the process itself was disturbing as his cells shifted and moved between themselves. They rearranged themselves then died and were replaced by three more only to shift and rearrange once again.


    At the end of three hours of his body moving on its own, Felix rose to his feet and felt like his body was simultaneously three times lighter and three times denser. He didn''t look very different, his skin a little smoother than before but otherwise, the same.


    Internally though, he had multiple times more cells in his body than before he had taken the elixir, despite his body taking up the same overall volume.


    Edira stood next to him and as soon as he began to rise, she grabbed his arm, ripped his sleeve back and began peering into his flesh, "Hmmm"


    Felix looked at her and her tiny dinosaur bird familiar squawked at him.


    "Were these the results you were¡­ expecting?"


    She shook her head, "Hardly."


    "Uh¡­" He frowned, "Shall we¡­ move on? Or¡­ are you staying here?"


    She looked up at him with a blank expression then cocked her head like he was a curiously stupid person, "We can leave now."


    Mark?


    Residents are ready.


    The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.


    Felix nodded then made his way to the exit, touching the bubble and moving on to the next realm.


    With a large increase in his physical stats, Felix was hoping he might be able to do something. That thought was immediately proven folly in the very next realm when he realized, even if his stats were double those of others at his level, he was still far weaker than the Realm natives who were in the mid A grade.


    Luckily, it never really became an issue of safety because no one specifically threatened him, almost entirely because he rarely interacted with them.


    Even in combat dungeons, he remained completely out of the fight, mostly by request from his Residents. After all, if he died they would as well.


    The combat dungeons mostly involved them enchanting and upgrading equipment along with coordinating realm natives. Luckily, the realms seemed to recognize that some people were focused on support and so they needed someone in the realms to support.


    Support wasn''t necessarily easier, it was just safer for his Residents, which he now had a limited number of.


    He was losing more and more every realm though and it was quickly looking like they might have to give up on some Prime Titles just to survive long enough, especially when Felix''s Soul was still struggling to do anything.


    It wasn''t completely useless though, as Felix found out in the 1689th realm.


    He had felt so useless for so many realms and the feeling of having lost something he had had was weighing on him, whether he believed it was or not. In the 1689th realm, a medically focused realm, he had long since started participating in the realms, or at least wandering around as he was growing increasingly frustrated with his lack of progress.


    Walking through the city of tall sky scrapers, in the dark shaded alleys, Felix knocked on a dingy and beaten metal door.


    A moment later, a smaller rhunar man in a tight and tailored suit, reminiscent of a butler, opened the door and welcomed Felix in.


    Inside, the man who had opened the door looked completely out of place, at least with respect to the other people. The inside of the building itself was rather nice with artwork and well arranged furniture. It looked like a building that would have a butler within it.


    The others in the building though, completely altered the vibe. While none of them were unkempt or smelled bad, they were all obviously high. Addicts, completely consumed by the new drug that had run rampant through the city just a dozen epochs prior.


    Initially, the drug had been introduced to the elites, the richest and most influential people. Somehow, they had been convinced to try it and slowly, it began to spread from there. That direction made it so the drug wasn''t looked down upon by as many as it would have been, had it originated in back alleys.


    The fact that it was so addictive, only made the spread worse.


    Walking into the building, Felix made his way up to the top floor where he waited in a line of addicts, waiting to make their purchases.


    No one''s transactions took very long and so it was Felix''s turn barely a minute after he stepped into line.


    Stepping forwards, he casually walked into the office, the door magically closing behind him.


    The office itself looked exactly like what Felix expected from an office in a rich person''s mansion with a large wooden desk, a table in the back with expensive bottles and glasses along with a bookcase and various collected artifacts on display. Sitting behind the desk, was the owner of the house.


    Felix walked right up to the desk and held out a hefty bag of gemstones he had had Nova create.


    The man behind the desk smirked as he took the bag, peered inside and roughly weighed it with one hand, "This is quite the haul. How much are you looking for?"


    "Just one hit." Felix responded.


    He cocked a brow, "This is more than enough for a single hit¡­"


    "Maybe. Not much more than enough for what I''m looking for though."


    The man stared at Felix, making him voice his desire.


    "A Dream Hit."


    The man nodded, having expected that answer, "You''re a new customer. I have a policy of not handing out Dream Hits to new customers."


    "Hence," Felix gestured towards the bag, "the excess I have provided in currency."


    He shook his head and sighed, "It isn''t about that. It''s a safety concern. Even those who have been Experiencing their entire lives can barely handle a Dream Hit"


    "You mean you don''t want to drive potential customers insane when they could live to keep paying you again. I know. That''s just an excuse though, you want to make sure I don''t try and replicate it. I''m willing to take the hit right here and now."


    The man''s smirk returned, "Are you now?"


    "Yes."


    "I wonder." The man began to tap his desk as his head turned to the window, staring out in thought at the vast city below him. A minute later, he turned back to Felix, "You seem confident you can take a Dream Hit, you''ve taken something similar in the past?"


    "Something like that."


    The man leaned forwards, hands clasped on his desk, "Would you be willing to try something stronger then?"


    Felix cocked a brow in surprise, his Residents current intel said Dream Hits were the strongest and most recent development.


    "Depends. What''s in it?"


    "I call it the Paradise." His smile grew, "Or the Heaven, I haven''t quite decided yet. It''s something my lab managed to cook up when they were creating the latest batch of Dream Hits. I haven''t found anyone willing to try it."


    Felix nodded, "Sure."


    "I''ll even let you pick the name¡­ if you survive."


    "Of course." Felix nodded confidently.


    "First things first, I need to know you can handle it. I''ll give you a Dream Hit. If you can handle that, then we''ll talk."


    Felix reached out his hand and the man placed a small marble sized gem stone into it, "Please," He gestured towards the couch at the side of his room, "Take a seat so I can observe."


    "No need." Felix confidently absorbed the Anima from within the gem stone, despite Grim''s voiceless apprehension in his mind.


    The Anima washed through his Soul, a beautiful series of experiences that felt almost richer and more real than reality itself. It''s like he had been watching a sitcom his entire life and this experience, the Dream Hit, was a perfect reality.


    It lasted for barely a second though, Felix''s eyes only glazing over for a moment before he returned to his body and looked at the man before him, "You confident I''ll survive now?"


    The man''s smile grew wide, covering his entire face in a sense of greed, "I''m Karis, Kairs Toral by the way."


    "Felix. Now, can we get a move on?"


    The man nodded and got up, walking over to his bookshelf where he opened a safe.


    Mark. I assume you''re keeping the Residents informed?


    Affirmative. They are adjusting their plans as we speak.


    Technically Felix wasn''t supposed to be participating. He wasn''t supposed to be doing something so reckless as actually taking the drugs.


    No one actually knew what would happen to him because not only was his will power significantly weaker, but the will power and Soul strength of the user didn''t seem to matter at all. There was some other property of Souls that they hadn''t figured out yet that dictated how much the drug would affect the given user.


    The Dream Hit doing almost nothing to Felix helped quell many of their worries, especially Grim''s but putting some experimental drug no one had ever done before into his Soul was something else entirely. Felix ignored their worries though because a part of him needed to know that he wasn''t useless. He needed to know that he hadn''t completely ruined himself.


    So, when Karis handed him a blindingly bright silver gemstone, Felix grabbed it without hesitation, threw himself back onto the couch to the side of the room and happily drew the Anima into his Soul.


    The Dream Hit had been a beautifully crafted experience. It felt more real than reality.


    The Paradise Hit-Felix had already decided on the name-was so much more. It did a similar thing to the Dream Hit, flooding every sense he had and didn''t have with an experience, or at least circumventing them through his Soul. The Dream Hit had been interpreted by his Soul to be something akin to a beautiful sunny day, the rays of sunshine warm on his skin, multicolored and intricate flowers before his eyes along with a fresh smell and a sweet taste.


    Everyone experienced the drug differently though the Dream Hit was supposed to be a truly transformative experience, using your nostalgia and history against you.


    To Felix, it was nothing more than a particularly sunny day.


    The Paradise Hit, was much closer to what he had been hoping the Dream Hit would be. It was something he didn''t remember.


    Walking through the streets of Onkora, Thotan carefully wove his way through the crowd of the morning market, picking up a breakfast of flatbread filled with fruit and spiced meat for breakfast from his favorite vendor, Siretta. Taking a bite of the sweet, savory and spicy dish, Thotan leapt over a few heads, off the side of a few buildings and finally over the gate separating the inner city from the market.


    The guards ignored him because his colorful apparel was recognizable to anyone, considering the drab clothes the citizens typically wore.


    He hurried along so he wouldn''t be late for his meeting. He jogged into the cathedral then slipped through the outer rim into a hall that led directly downwards, into the meeting chambers of the Nealian Soul Cult.


    "You''re late."


    Eyes shooting open, Felix looked around and found himself restrained in what looked like a large laboratory.


    DAMMIT!


    His senses slowly coming back to him, Felix became aware of the large hole that had been physically bored into his chest. Not only was his physical body wide open though, his Soul had been torn open all the way down to his Core Soular System.


    The lattice barrier had held but, it was evidently damaged and given more time, it certainly would have failed.


    Looking around him though, Felix saw a number of Residents, including Arysha, who had been participating in the realm.


    Congratulations!


    You have received 1 new title.


    Undercover High


    Congratulations!


    You have earned 2 Prime Titles.


    Dream Addict


    Disappointment of Paradise


    Manually repairing his chest and his Soul, Felix began to sit up causing Arysha to hurry over and help him.


    "I take it Karis kidnapped me?"


    She nodded.


    "Well, considering I just got two Prime Titles, looks like everything worked out."


    "We find the source tracking you. Now, process is given to city."


    "And you already established a government body with oversight to manufacture and distribute the drug safely?"


    "Yes."


    "Any chance there''s any more of the experimental one Karis gave me?"


    She shook her head but an emotionless voice responded from behind Felix, "We have the process now. We can make more."


    Felix turned to Edira behind him, "As soon as possible."


    "What did it show you?"


    "My past." Felix responded.


    Unfortunately, while the process for creating the experimental drug was simple, it wasn''t easy. The one hit Felix had taken was actually produced by accident when they were harvesting materials and found a particularly active chunk of Anima within a creature''s Soul. Harvesting and refining that into the drug, had produced something that seemed to be unique.


    Edira and his Residents still hadn''t managed to replicate it by the time they reached the 1850th floor.


    They were spending more time in each realm they passed through, not just completing the scenario which took slightly longer, but also producing weapons, equipment and machines to help them.


    Just because none of them were in the A grade, didn''t mean they couldn''t kill an A grade with a 10 meter cannon or rail gun.


    Those machines and equipment that were the only reason they were able to complete the 1850th realm.


    The realm was a combat realm through and through. There was a city on the top of a large hill that was surrounded by a wall. For whatever reason, Felix wasn''t really paying attention himself, the city was being attacked by an army or rather, a horde of large men with red skin and tusks riding giant rodents and massive rhinoceroses. The army was unfathomably big.


    It was so massive, Felix and many of his Residents questioned the logistics of an army that numbered in the hundreds of millions. Even those that understood how the cities were laid out, how they had come together to siege the city, didn''t fully understand how they were possibly coordinating and traveling together.


    Standing at the top of the wall and looking out over the endless sea of screaming enemies though, there was no denying what they would have to fight.


    By that realm, Felix had managed to work his way back up to about a hundred Spell Levels which was a huge improvement but, even if he had his old will power with all his Spell Levels and Focus, he knew he wouldn''t have been as effective as he would have liked.


    His Spells, while impressive, weren''t as impressive as the fortitude of the average enemy in the realms near the S grade. At least, not the Spells he could cast himself.


    Astonishingly, the walls held firm for three dekads of the siege, taking hits and showing damage but never quite completely falling. Then, it finally broke for the first time on the south east of the city and the orc army poured through.


    Luckily, they were just finishing up the project that Felix had spent nearly the entire time working on, along with Arysha, other Residents and the City itself.


    Felix himself was one of the most knowledgeable and proficient enchanters, even amongst those that had spent their entire lives in his Mind researching and training their enchanting because he absorbed everything they learned. Even their experiences were filtered and transferred making him just as capable, if not more, than all of them. His stats and Skills, especially Quill Precision which he still had, pushed his abilities even further.


    He only absorbed the knowledge and experience of enchanters and casters though because he didn''t believe he could absorb everything and he didn''t have time to build his own foundation for those disciplines. Just absorbing one of his Resident''s baking skills wouldn''t translate or work because he had no foundation of his own to build off of.


    With Enchanting and Casting, he had a solid foundation and he practiced the fields often, so he was able to alter and adjust the knowledge and experience to himself constantly.


    Still, even being arguably the best enchanter in the entirety of his Mental World, Felix still felt a bit useless with his Spells being completely ineffective.


    Pouring trillions of points of Mana into the large machine at the top of the highest tower in the city, Arysha and Felix continuously adjusted the aim of the device according to a constant flow of measurements. It took hours for the weapon to charge all the way up. Hours of Orcs pouring into the city and destroying buildings all around them.


    As he watched, every minute that passed, Felix lost a little hope, Whelp. I guess no Prime Titles for me this realm.


    The wall broke simultaneously at the north and west as the weapon was finally ready. Felix and Arysha made the last modifications necessary then, Arysha let Felix do the honors and activate it.


    On the walls, they used magical cannons, rail guns, plain old catapults with high grade ammunition along with armor and vehicles and alchemical bombs courtesy of Edira.


    Those weapons were collectively wiping out millions of Orcs.


    They also supplied armor and weapons to the city''s army and they managed to wipe out millions more.


    Despite all of that, Felix knew there were always multiple ways to complete a realm scenario. In the Sphinx''s realm, he could have fought enemies throughout the desert and escaped without confronting the Sphinx at all. Here, he and his Residents were confident the harder and more rewarding enemies, were the leaders of the army.


    64 lines of white appeared from the weapon in an instant. They didn''t move or travel, they appeared. They connected the weapon''s head to the army in 64 different places, 58 of them targeting leaders of the Orc army, the other 6 strategically placed to do as much damage as possible.


    Everywhere the white lines connected, a completely opaque white bubble grew until they had each swallowed a massive area of the battlefield, each one nearly 8 kilometers in diameter.


    Then, they all vanished and left behind nothing, at least most of them.


    A few of them left behind tiny black specs, like dead pixels floating in the air.


    From Felix and Arysha''s distance, they couldn''t actually see them, even the warping of the light around them was minimal. They had scouts specifically for that reason, mostly to help them target the leaders of the army but also to tell them if they had succeeded.


    "Three holes confirmed."


    Felix looked at Arysha excitedly, "I''m glad we waited till a combat realm to test this thing."


    She laughed, "Is as effective as we think."


    "In terms of damage but, 3 out of 64 is pre-"


    "Two have just closed. Damage appears to be minimal from the aftershock. None dead." The scout nearest them interrupted.


    "Okay so¡­ we can open them. How do we make them stable? Also¡­ I can''t blow a trillion Mana to open a hole to regenerate my Mana."


    "Last one is closed. None were stable."


    Felix sighed and looked out at the army surrounding the city that had suddenly been cut down to less than half of its size just a moment ago, "At least it makes for a good weapon."


    Then, he heard a loud groaning noise from behind him and felt something rather disconcerting with his Mana Senses. He immediately grabbed Arysha and the scout nearest him then used a series of instinct casts to throw everyone else off the top of the tower.


    A moment later, the top of the tower was gone as a much smaller and much less stable spatial bubble appeared, wiping the top of the tower out of existence.


    Lowering himself to the ground slowly, Felix sighed as he placed Arysha and the scout down, "Looks like we''re not quite ready to use it on the Dragon just yet."


    It took them another dekad to clear out the rest of the Orcs with the City''s army as they were unbelievably persistent, to the point that they were essentially suiciding themselves into the city.


    Congratulations!


    You have received 1 new title.


    City Defender


    Congratulations!


    You have earned 2 Prime Titles.


    Horde Slayer


    Plague Bearer


    Plague Bearer? Mark, did we use any weapon that could be considered a plague?


    The aftermath of the Spatial Boring Anomaly Generator opened unstable holes in the spatial fabric. This allowed chaotic Mana to leak from deep within the Aether and infect a large portion of the remaining army.


    SBAG? Who came up with that name. They''re even worse than I am at naming¡­


    Grim didn''t take the bait, remaining just as silent as he had been ever since Felix had taken the Fractal Mana Form into his Core Soul.


    There was nothing left for Felix and the Residents to do in that realm so, they spent some time repairing, iterating and inventing new weapons, enchantments, armor and machines they could use in future realms before Felix finally touched the iridescent bubble.


    The realms took longer and longer as they progressed as they were pushed harder and learned more. The situations themselves became more complicated both in terms of the scenario and in terms of how they had to navigate their relative strength compared to the realm natives.


    They picked up a few realm natives as they progressed but as Edira had said, they could only bring people who already knew about the realms. It turned out, those were exceedingly rare.


    Though he hadn''t gotten even close to restoring his will power, Felix began shifting his focus within. Instead of practicing and training his will power to grow it as fast as he could, he began internally searching his own Soul. They didn''t manage to recreate the Paradise Drug he had taken but he was still getting closer every day.


    It was a weird process for him because he was very good at focusing on a specific task, it was in his nature. What he wasn''t good at was focusing on nothing and just listening. He didn''t see any better way though and he didn''t feel like asking his Residents. So instead, he sat every day and banged his head against the problem, making slow and arduous progress.


    By the time he had reached the 1932nd realm, he was right on the verge of what he had been working towards, mostly because of the sheer amount of time they had spent in each of the later realms.


    Felix and his Residents could all feel the next realms and so, they prepared for them based on what they felt. The natives, who mostly didn''t know they were in a realm or what the realms were, also knew what was in the next realm. Instead of knowing there was a realm and what was in it, they had rumors and legends that all seemed to coincide with what Felix and his Residents felt from the next realm.


    The realm and the scenario itself was incredibly simple which usually meant, whatever they had to deal with would be extraordinarily hard.


    For most people, it would have been. For Felix, curing someone from the Curse of Oblivion, wasn''t quite as hard as it should have been.


    In the largest bedroom of the castle in the middle of the Realm, Felix floated in the air, his body horizontal and just a few inches from the sleeping princess below him. His Soul Tendrils, just 4 of them, moved faster than he could physically and extracted tiny pieces of Oblivion from her Soul while taking little to none of her Soul in the process.


    It took a half hour in total to remove all the Oblivion since she had been hit with a spray all over her body making the entire realm the shortest realm they had completed to date.


    Congratulations!


    You have earned 3 Prime Titles.


    Surgical Exorcist


    Exponential Speed


    Gratitude of the Accursed


    The Prime Titles were a very welcome surprise, considering how fast and relatively easy the realm had been.


    Once that was dealt with, even before they began to prepare for the next Realm, his Residents began exploring. Their logic was that there had to be some way to complete the Realm if a participant wasn''t Felix so, they wanted to figure out what that was.


    In the meantime, Felix went back to meditating where he turned his attention inside himself. No longer was he listening though. He had decided it was finally time for him to actualize more convictions, and he planned on doing both at once to finally bring himself to three.


    Reaching into his Soul, he used his will power to slowly draw forth the essence of the convictions. Not one, but both of the convictions he knew were lying dormant within him. He made sure to keep them separate as he was drawing them to the surface and he began replaying various experiences in his Soul, defining what the convictions meant to him.


    Two closely related convictions with slightly different applications. That allowed him to use both at once and in a fight where his life was on the line, all three.


    Dominion. Control.


    Where they differed for him, was in application. Dominion was about dominating a fight, dominating other people and winning completely. Control was about controlling Mana, Matter and his surroundings.


    Both would ideally help him determine the outcome of situations, and shift them in his favor.


    The entire process was simple and uneventful. He had spent so much time listening to his own Soul that it had become more trivial than he had realized, otherwise he would have done it much sooner.


    As he manually reactivated his Mana Channels, his Mana Skin, his Reaper''s Skills and finally his Aura, he felt like a god.


    His stats immediately sky rocketed to surpass most A grades. His flesh was nearly impenetrable and he moved faster than he had ever seen anyone in the realms move.


    On top of that, he had his Focus back and it was significantly improved which meant he could once again cast spells as he desired although, they still wouldn''t do much damage. Luckily, he already had a path to rectify that.


    Opening the Sphinx''s Vault behind him along with his Pocket Home, Felix began collecting the various pieces of loot he had obtained through the realms. Taking them, he sat down beneath the Attunement Crystal World Tree, a favorite meditation spot of his over the past few realms.


    Before touching any of the loot, he quickly tested to see if he could break into the Soul Vault he had stolen from Trinity yet but frustratingly found he couldn''t. He didn''t let that sour his mood though and stowed it for the time being, shifting his attention to various pieces of loot.


    Starting, with the Boots of the Whispering Wind, his first piece of loot in the Realms and, he destroyed them.


    Then, with the mundane leather that was quickly aging without a Soul attached to it in one hand and the Spirit from the boots in the other, he tossed the leather to Nova and began dissecting the Spirit. From it, he removed the Concept of Wind and placed it in his Concept Treasury, a planet of Anima orbiting his Core Soul that had segmented and designed to preserve Concepts.


    The next item offered him a Concept of Fire followed by a Concept of Sharp and a Concept of Durability. He had specifically picked interesting ones but he was moving relatively quickly so he knew he was definitely going to get through them all in the next 68 realms.


    The last step in his plan was making sure he could apply those Concepts to his Spells which, he should have more than enough time for. For the time being though, he simply extracted Concepts for him to play with later.


    All throughout the following floors up to the Dragon, Felix felt a huge sense of satisfaction with having regained his lost strength and some. He figured out how to integrate Concepts into his Spells though he avoided doing so when he didn''t have to because it cost him Anima. With his stats, he began to participate in the scenarios along with his Residents and he even restored their numbers, creating an entire army to fight the Dragon with.


    Felix had once been arrogant enough to do everything on his own and a part of him still wanted to fight the dragon by himself but he ignored that part of himself. His convictions were about never giving up, having absolute control and winning completely. Not about fighting by himself or taking stupid fights.


    In the last realm before the Dragon, Felix had already built up an army. He, Nova and his Residents had created some of the finest equipment they had collectively ever seen, all of it enchanted and imbued with Concepts and Spirits. They had vastly improved the Spatial Boring Anomaly Generator and it no longer exploded after a single use, although they would only get one use out of it considering it took trillions of points of Mana to use even once.


    They had cannons, rail guns, flame throwers, bows, swords, daggers, axes, wands and staves and they had been practicing their coordination through Mark who saw everything.


    Still, the feeling they got from the next Realm, was dreadful. The legends and myths from the Realm had been odd and incongruous for the first time, something about a complex war based on a trade agreement. What they felt from the iridescent bubble before them though, was something else entirely.


    It was a Dragon. There was no doubt about what was in the next realm. It was massive, terrifying and it looked completely unstoppable. Felix knew it was a Realm though so it had to be beatable. There might even be armies he could leverage in the fight, considering the legends and the fact that it was a strategic realm.


    He didn''t feel any of that though which was a little concerning and none of his Residents did either. They all felt the exact same thing, a sense of dread and a massive threat, blood lust, imminent death. It was so much stronger than the feelings they got in the other realms, even more than the last realm. There was a huge jump in the predictive feelings they had but they all seemed to agree it was likely to do with it being the 2000th realm.


    The best theory they had, was that the Dragon was the final boss of the realms which excited most of them.


    Felix could feel everyone around him, so there was no reason to, but he looked to his right anyways. All his Residents were already in the Sphinx''s vault, which had gotten quite cramped even after they used the Giant and Sphinx bodies to fashion super soldier Residents.


    The person standing beside him, the 10 foot tall behemoth in full Spiritual plate armor, with a long sword and cloak of shadow was someone else. Someone who had been with Felix from the start, even before Nova who was sitting on his shoulder on the other side.


    "So, you can feel the next realm too. You think we have a shot?"


    Grim just grunted.


    Felix nodded and turned back to the bubble, "On a scale of everything I''ve done, how stupid?"


    A minute of silence passed before Felix realized Grim wasn''t going to answer him so, he reached out and gently pulled Grim''s new body into his Soul Space. Grim allowed it and Felix did the same with Nova before touching the iridescent bubble and moving himself into the 2000th realm.


    The instant he appeared, Felix released Grim and Nova then dropped the Sphinx''s Vault and opened his Pocket Home to allow his army to roll out.


    Then, he looked around at the realm. It wasn''t quite what he expected. Instead of a large mountain with a massive cave housing a Dragon, it looked like a complete wasteland. Whatever had once lived there, had been wiped out. There were mountains, or what was once mountains, what was once a forest and a lake. Now, there was just charred ground, severed mountains and piles of ash.


    It was immediately clear the Dragon had been the one to wipe everything out but Felix and even his Residents weren''t quite sure why. The Realms had crafted scenarios around its natives for every other realm so far. The only, now less acceptable explanation, was that this was the final boss of the realms.


    As for where that final boss was, Felix looked around but saw nothing. He didn''t rush ahead though to scout and made sure everyone was ready. He adjusted his new jewelry and armor, having switched to flame resistant plate for this particular fight and held his new wand in hand, something that had taken them a few realms to perfect but something that he felt satisfied with. It didn''t feel perfect, but it was much better than nothing, especially since it helped him imbue the Concept of Oblivion into his Spells.


    The Concept was a particularly proud achievement of his, having circumvented the Curse itself to create it.


    "Scouts?"


    Already deployed. Mark responded.


    "Where do you want me?" Felix nodded, speaking out loud to build morale and ensure his Residents of the plan.


    Where you are. Please retrieve your Pocket Home and the Sphinx''s Vault in 1 minute 7 seconds.


    Felix nodded and waited a little beyond the precise time Mark had given him before retrieving his items and stowing them.


    Dragon sighted. 329 kilometers 83 degrees from North.


    Felix nodded and by the time he floated off the ground, his army was already in motion. They didn''t move in perfect synchronicity, that would have been stupid when they could instead, be perfectly coordinated. They were all different sizes and speeds but as they moved, no one trampled anyone else, everyone moved with specific purpose and direction.


    Grim floated a few hundred meters to Felix''s right and they all collectively headed mostly East, towards the Dragon.


    Traveling there was rather easy. Easier than it should have been. They were traveling into a mountain range but the mountains themselves had been completely obliterated by what appeared to be Dragon''s breath long ago. So instead of scaling a mountain or moving around it, they simply walked through the massive hole that had been bored through it.


    It hadn''t been long enough that the sharp edges at the top of the hole had been worn down though so Felix''s Residents that were more experienced with erosion had concluded it must not have happened very long ago. Curiously, that seemed to be the case for everything which, considering how much time seemed to pass in realms, was odd.


    Despite his desire to be a team player, Felix couldn''t help himself and flew a bit ahead of the group, not too far but enough that he was the first other than the Scouts to spot it.


    [S - Ancient] Creation of )$*#@!&%: Dragon (Lvl 4004)


    Creation of what?


    The Dragon itself was smaller than Tekragoraxius but only slightly. It lay in the crux of a mountain it had melted into a nest, on its back, with its legs all in the air, stomach exposed. The ridiculous pose which, was admittedly adorable, did nothing to quell Felix''s sense of foreboding though.


    Despite being a mountain away, Felix could feel the Dragon. Its Aura was unintentional at the moment and completely consumed the area in a whole smattering of emotions. Hunger, bloodlust, boredom. The Aura alone was enough for Felix to wonder whether the Dragon he was looking at, was actually stronger than Tekragoraxius, despite her being a god. It was a ridiculous thought, Felix knew that but he couldn''t quite dismiss it.


    He patiently waited, watching the sleeping Dragon as his army set themselves up all around it. Machines, weapons and cannons anchored and targeted, the army readied and in position.


    Seeing as it was still sleeping after all of that, they began charging up the Spatial Boring Anomaly Generator. It was the most damage they could deal in a short period.


    The SBAG charged, hundreds of thousands of Mana, millions of Mana, billions of Mana. The Dragon slept the entire time. It charged up into the trillions and Felix felt the excitement from his Residents as it seemed actually possible for them to do this.


    Just a couple seconds short of it being fully charged, The Dragon began to rouse. It didn''t immediately spring to its feet though so it didn''t seem like it would matter. It slowly stretched and rolled over, looking around it as the SBAG was activated and one singular line of pure white formed from its tip.


    A massive bubble of blinding white, which was actually 256 bubbles all directly on top of each-other grew out of the Dragon and completely engulfed it.


    A moment passed. Then two. Finally, the bubbles receded and left behind, a spec of black. A hole deep into the Aether.


    "I¡­" Felix stared in disbelief, "Holy shit. We did it."


    He looked up at the mountain where Arysha, her team of enchanters and the new and improved SBAG sat and smiled wide, waving to her.


    She didn''t notice him though as she was still staring at the hole in disbelief.


    Then, she was gone. The entire top of the mountain she had stood on was gone. In its place, a beam of deep blue flames with flecks of purple hundreds of meters in diameter.


    It was Felix''s turn to stare in disbelief for a moment before flicking his head to the side, towards the source of the beam. There sat The Dragon, or at least its head. The rest of it seemed to still be on the other side of the hole. Its head though, was floating in the air and casually wiping out the top half of a mountain.


    Felix''s jaw dropped as the Dragon''s jaw shut and it casually pulled its arms, body, wings, legs and finally its tail through the hole. Then it turned back towards the hole and sniffed at it before releasing another beam of pure death at the hole. Its fire wasn''t consumed though, at least not enough of it as a tenth of Felix''s army that sat beyond the mountain were gone. Dead in an instant. Their bodies and all the equipment and weapons they had made, gone.


    The rest of the army was already moving according to Mark''s instructions and began releasing their best long ranged attacks, after the SBAG.


    They showered the Dragon in Spells, Arrows and various other projectiles but it just lifted a wing to protect itself before growling at them. Then, it released another beam of deep blue fire and swung its head to the side, wiping out over half of the army.


    Felix''s eyes went wide and he stopped flying towards The Dragon. He felt Grim a hundred meters to his right also stopped.


    We can''t kill this thing.


    No. You can''t. Grim responded in Felix''s mind, the first thing he had communicated to him in almost a thousand realms.


    So¡­ we''re just stuck here until we find a way? I have to just run and cower until then?


    You have to survive first. Grim responded, All these Residents dying is tragic, but their Souls are in you. You need to go.


    Felix nodded, You''re right. I know you''re also still in me but¡­ come with me.


    Grim stared at him through his helm, no actual eyes beneath them then he nodded once.


    The two of them quickly darted off, flying away from the terror that was that Dragon.


    They didn''t get more than a few kilometers away before the entire army was wiped out. Then, the Dragon looked in their direction.


    Felix immediately hit himself and Grim with an instinct cast the moment he felt the Dragon''s attention fall onto them through its Aura. He flew back but not fast enough as his arm was consumed and instantly gone. Flying out of the way, his arm was still burning so he reached over and ripped it off from the shoulder, tossing the stub away. It frighteningly burned up just a second after he released it, the Concept of Fire and Destruction coursing through the flames.


    Well¡­ there goes two rings, a wand and a brac-


    SHUT UP. Grim interrupted him, RUN.


    Felix acknowledged what Grim was saying by flying as fast as he could away from the Dragon. He did risk a glance over and took relief in the fact that Grim''s body seemed unharmed, which for some reason seemed to annoy Grim even more judging from what Felix felt in his mind.


    He didn''t have time to figure that out though and literally no focus to spare on it as he flew as fast as he could towards the piles of ash that had once been a forest.


    Grim flew off in another direction entirely but the Dragon was solely focused on Felix. It dove towards him, multiple times faster than he was no matter how hard he tried. Seeing it barreling towards him, Felix activated the other two rings he had crafted forming a barrier of Force imbued with a Concept of Impermeability and Spatially Translocating himself dozens of kilometers to the side.


    Looking back, The Dragon shattered the barrier without even seeming to notice it was there and Felix''s ring that had created it cracked, as it had been supplying it with Mana. Even though they had engineered in specific fail safes to prevent that situation, it was useless.


    He still had the other ring though and he began flooding it with Mana as the Dragon looked over and saw him.


    It used its wings and a single flap to stop itself and switch direction but as it did so, Felix saw a Lightning Bolt smack into the Dragon''s back. It turned to the source of the pain and all Felix could do was thank his savior.


    Don''t. Run.


    He didn''t and he kept running, moving as far as he could as fast as he could in a desperate bid to hide and survive long enough to try again.


    It didn''t seem possible considering the complete lack of cover the ruined realm offered but he had to try, he wasn''t just going to give up. He darted through the piles of ash, dragging them into the air in his wake and completely visually obscuring him. He wove through mountains, some less melted than others. Finally he found a large chasm in the ground and felt the Aura of The Dragon growing behind him.


    With no where else to hide, he dove deep into the canyon and flew right along the cliff face, a few inches above the stone ground.


    Daring a look behind him, Felix saw The Dragon just peeking its head over the top of the canyon and Felix pushed everything he had into flying faster, tearing the Mana back out of his Translocation ring to repurpose it and shattering it in the process.


    He felt a surge of blood lust in the Dragon''s Aura and knew the breath was coming but didn''t have any way to avoid it.


    Then, he saw it. In front of him, at the end of the canyon. An iridescent bubble floating just inside the mouth of a cave.


    What?


    Shoving all his Mana into an instinct cast Force Spell, Felix launched himself in a wild and uncontrollable flight, like he himself was the cannon ball. His body spun and contorted from his Spell as the breath destroyed the ground behind him and began following his path.


    Then, he was gone.

 Chapter 238 - Book 11

    What¡­ just happened? Why was there an exit? I definitely didn''t complete that realm and¡­ it wasn''t the final boss?.


    Felix was wary of his surroundings but if the realm pattern continued beyond the Dragon, then the realm he was in was a medical themed realm. On top of that, he had never been under direct threat the moment he entered a realm and looking around, the realm looked even more barren than the last.


    Where the Dragon''s Realm had been evidently ravaged recently, the 2001st realm looked to have been abandoned long ago. It was barren and everything that had ever lived there, had long since died and been forgotten. The ground was hard and unforgiving, the sky grey with a permanent fog and the wind carried dust from every direction, leaving an even coat over the entire landscape.


    If it was a medically themed realm, there should have been sapients, or at least sentients.


    Now that Felix was thinking about it, he realized all the realms had had sapients in them up until the Dragon and even that realm, he didn''t really know if the Dragon was sapient or sentient.


    Before he explored though, he decided he was relatively safe so he pulled Nova out of his Soul Space and looked her over. Despite essentially experiencing her death, she seemed fine and meowed at Felix before looking around at the barren landscape around them.


    You okay?


    She meowed at him again then slipped free of his grasp and began wandering around, the only thing he felt from their bond was mild annoyance that he hadn''t let her fight the Dragon herself.


    Grim on the other hand, was less nonchalant about dying, If Arysha hadn''t convinced you to have Nova puppet a body from your Soul like the rest of us, she would have died.


    That was you, wasn''t it? You had Arysha convince me because you didn''t want to talk to me yourself.


    Grim didn''t answer but Felix already knew the answer.


    If you knew I was going to lose, why didn''t you stop me?


    I didn''t know. Even if I did, could I have possibly convinced you?


    Probably.


    Grim seethed a little, Did you even think there was a chance you could lose?


    Of course I did.


    Then why didn''t you come up with backups and fail-safes to keep everyone alive. You could have moved them out of your Soul, backed everything up and left them in the last Realm or in your Pocket Home with Edira.


    If I had done that, they''d be in a really shitty spot without me.


    They would be alive.


    They''re alive right now. Felix countered.


    His emotional state finally boiling over, Grim began yelling in Felix''s Mind, They''re alive because you are and you''re only alive through dumb luck.


    So?


    You have MILLIONS of Souls living their lives in your mind. You can''t just throw yourself into stupid situations with no regard for you life when you have others that need you.


    I don''t understand. I''ve been doing stupid life risking shit since we first met. Why are you suddenly not okay with it now?


    I''ve never been okay with you taking ridiculous risks with your life but at least then, it was just your life.


    That''s not true. I risked Peace''s life messing with his Soul, which was arrogant and stupid but worked out. I risked your life when I fought Erolan. I risked everyone in my mind every time I fought something I shouldn''t have for the last two epochs. What changed?


    I CHANGED.


    Felix sat in silence for some time before Grim continued.


    I care about them. Nova, Arysha, Orion, all the Residents. Even Mark. I know you don''t but you can''t just risk everything. You can''t just treat their lives like they mean nothing.


    I don''t actually know if I don''t. Felix sighed, I don''t know.


    I know. I''m in your brain. None of us are sure if you care about anyone.


    So what? You want me to move everyone out of my brain then? My Soul is kind of necessary for all this to work. I don''t even think it would be possible to move the Mental World Anima Planet outside of me.


    I know. Grim sighed, Me neither.


    So what, you want me to sit in a bunker for the rest of my life so everyone in there is safe?


    I DON''T KNOW. You didn''t even try though. You didn''t even think about protecting them once. Then with that thing you made and stuck in your Soul¡­ In most cases you''d be fine, maybe even against The Dragon, your Soul would live on as a remnant. With that thing you knew it could have destroyed everything and that just made you want it more.


    Yeah but, I can''t change that about me. They exist because I am who I am. I am who I am because of whatever I happened to me in the past and almost none of it from what''s happened to me since. Judging from my Soul, I''ll probably never really change or grow. So what do you want me to do?


    Just¡­ figure out what the fuck is going on here and I¡­ I need some time.


    Fine. Felix located Nova through their bond so he could travel in a different direction, to cover more ground.


    They ended up searching the Realm for almost a dekad, though Felix and a number of small flying robotic constructs were doing all of the searching. Nova had gotten bored of the completely empty and barren Realm after just a few hours. Felix was leaving Grim alone and his Residents, while not as upset as Grim, were still more subdued in general after the fight with the Dragon.


    Losing so completely when they had thought they had a chance had soured everyone''s mood. Roaming a boring grey wasteland didn''t help in the slightest.


    The next realm though, was even worse. Instead of a barren landscape, it was covered in small grass, ferns and trees. The grass was thin though, the ferns yellowish and the trees small. Like it was difficult for anything to even try to grow there. It was depressing in a completely different way.


    The only one that seemed unaffected by the atmosphere of the realms and recent events was Felix, which seemed to almost make it worse for some of the others.


    He traveled through 17 completely empty realms save for some vegetation here and there that was barely holding on.


    Felix''s working theory was that the Dragon had actually come from a higher Realm and worked its way downwards but even he wasn''t convinced by his own theory. The Dragon''s realm, the 2000th, was completely melted into slag but all the realms he had traveled through after that had shown no signs of the Dragon''s breath at all.


    The issue was, he didn''t have a better theory.


    On the 2018th realm, Felix appeared from through the iridescent bubble in a realm that looked very similar to the realms he had traveled through before. It was lifeless and empty but there were pillars of stone covering the ground forming something akin to a forest so, it wasn''t exactly the same. Still, it was just as boring as the last ones, at least according to Nova who remained asleep in Felix''s robes which he had long since swapped back to for comfort.


    Lazily, Felix drifted through the pillars of stone, allowing the Residents observing his vision to let him know if he passed by the iridescent bubble.


    As he did, he casually created and destroyed Spell forms all around him which was useful but his heart wasn''t really in it. It was more something to do to pass the time. Once Nova woke up from her nap, he''d coax her into playing their new favorite game again, Matter Control Tug of War.


    The Soul Vault remained as impenetrable and frustrating as ever and even the Fractal Mana Spell Form remained beyond his grasp, even with his two new convictions.


    All in all, it made Felix feel a bit hollow about his progress. Not that he didn''t appreciate it all but more so he felt like he was missing something fundamental and no matter how much he thought about it, nothing came to mind. So, he didn''t think about it much.


    His eyes were almost entirely glazed over as he felt like a leaf drifting on the wind, or a plastic bag floating in the ocean.


    Due to his lack of attention, even though his Perception was high enough to see them, Felix didn''t notice anything himself.


    Mr Felix sir¡­


    Felix blinked a few times as his consciousness fully returned, Huh?


    There''s something¡­ there.


    Felix could feel where the Resident was indicating and he looked over in that direction but saw nothing. He immediately knew what the Resident was talking about though, there was a difference in the Ambient Anima. Felix didn''t have much practice with spotting minute difference in the Ambient Anima but having a computer for a brain helped tremendously in identifying patterns and recognizing when something was off.


    Once he knew in his mind that there was something wrong, Felix''s Soul began to perk up and slowly, he began to see.


    Flashes of movement, barely audible noises and even a slight increase in the temperature gradient in a specific direction, which he could only feel through his Matter Control, were more than enough to grow his excitement.


    Rocketing forwards, Felix obliterated a few pillars like he was a wrecking ball and scattered dust and shrapnel in every direction. Whatever was hiding from him wasn''t immediately revealed, whatever it was was far too skilled to be caught by a simple trick like that. What it did do, was make it harder for it to focus on everything and Felix''s hope was that it would cause it to slip up.


    Sure enough, he felt a brief flash of the Ambient Anima going rigid and unmoving. Like someone was using their Aura to simulate the Ambient Anima and for a moment, they slipped up on keeping their Aura in sync with their surroundings.


    With his Matter Control, Felix forced all the dust and shrapnel aside then stared at the seemingly empty point in space.


    He stared, certain he was right about there being something there, despite their renewed dedication to keeping their Aura hidden. When they were stopped and focused on it, Felix had to admit they were almost perfect at hiding their presence.


    Finally, after nearly 10 minutes of just staring, Felix heard a sigh as a man suddenly appeared in the exact spot Felix had been staring. He had medium length black hair that was drawn back, a short graying beard and a permanent looking scowl judging from how comfortably it sat on his face.


    "I was here first." The man spoke with a gruff and grumbly voice that quite suited his scowl.


    Felix shook his head in surprise, "Uhm¡­ okay?"


    The man stared for a moment, his lips pursed, "What do you want."


    "Uh¡­ directions¡­ I guess?"


    The man''s scowl deepened, "You want what?"


    "Directions." Felix restated as he had nothing better to ask for.


    "Directions to what there''s nothing here."


    Felix looked around, "You''re here¡­ there must be something here?"


    The man grumbled in annoyance, "If you''re here, you know as well as I do why I''m here."


    "I do?"


    "Are you always this much of a pain?"


    "Are you always this much of a grump?"


    He groaned, "You gonna let me go or we gonna fight?"


    Felix quickly did the mental math to determine the realm wasn''t supposed to be a combat realm, "Wait, what? I don''t want to fight you."


    "The hell do you want? I got shit to do."


    "I take it directions is a bad answer?"


    The man sighed, "The hell do you mean directions? This zone''s been good and dead for millions of epochs. Since you''re here, yo-"


    "Zone? What is a zone?"


    "The fuck do you call it? This giant fucking bubble we''re in now."


    "Wait, stop. You mean realm? You know about the realms?"


    The man''s brow furrowed, "What do you mean? Of course I know¡­" His eyes widened but his scowl somehow remained, "You''re a challenger¡­"


    "A what?" Felix cocked his head, "I''m not a native, no."


    "Wait¡­ How''d you make it through the Dragon?"


    "I didn''t." Felix sighed, "Brought an entire army with me and in the end, they were all wiped out and I barely made it to the exit."


    He stared at Felix for a few seconds, evaluating something about him, "Lucky kid."


    Felix nodded, "I''ve been told. Anyways, are you the only one here, in this zone?"


    "Yeah. This one. Only come this far every hundredth scout."


    "Scout? What are you scouting for?" Felix looked around, "Didn''t you say these Realms have been dead for millions of epochs?"


    He nodded, "You really a challenger?"


    Felix nodded, "Not sure how to prove it. You natives don''t seem to be aware of The System so it''s not like I can show you all my titles and whatnot."


    "The what? Your titles? What are you, a noble or something?"


    "Never mind."


    [?] Varex (Lvl 4721)


    The man sniffed a little, "Come on. I''ll bring you back to my party. Aela can decide if your lying."


    "What are you looking for in these zones? Is there a chance they aren''t all dead and barren? Are you expecting something to just¡­ spontaneously appear?"


    Varex cocked his head over his shoulder, "I''m done scoutin anyways. I''ll show you on the way back."


    Felix nodded then began following Varex as he turned and began running through the pillars of stone.


    He moved fast enough that Felix had to use Force Spells to keep up, not just his Matter Control, but he wasn''t so fast Felix couldn''t keep up. Varex kept looking back though and every time he saw Felix just a few meters behind him, he sped up.


    Eventually Felix had to either bulldoze through the pillars or fly over them and he opted for the latter.


    Varex didn''t veer in any particular direction over the course of a few hours. He seemed to have the location of the exit and the path to get there memorized. When they arrived, Varex didn''t even look back at Felix and just ran right into the bubble. Felix dropped down a moment later and slapped it, reappearing in the next realm that seemed just as barren as the last one.


    Felix had maintained some momentum when moving but it was still disorienting and he didn''t know if he would end up in a building or something on the other side so he was always careful traveling between realms. Varex hadn''t stopped at all and had just maintained pace, running along the desert sand just as he had the stone pillar forest floor.


    Flying into the air and catching up, Felix continued following him for hours as they traversed from realm to realm.


    On the 2023rd realm, Varex finally stopped and fell to his knees, sitting on his heels with perfect posture.


    Felix lowered himself down in front of Varex and looked at him curiously.


    "You were asking what we''re looking for." He pointed at the ground in front of him, "That."


    Then, Varex closed his eyes and entered a meditation.


    Felix stepped forwards and inspected the ground where Varex had pointed and his eyes widened as he felt a tight concentration of Anima a few meters below the ground. It was more dense than the average Core Soul and by Felix''s estimation the amount of Anima was equivalent to about a hundred Souls at the average level of the realm natives he had seen most recently.


    As Varex sat there, he drew in the Anima as a stream into his Soul. Slowly incorporating it into himself in some process that was invisible to Felix.


    He didn''t touch the Anima himself as he didn''t want Varex to ditch him so, he simply waited for the couple of hours it took him to harvest the Anima. Once he was done, there was nothing left and Varex rose to his feet, "That''s the only one we''ll hit on our way back."


    Felix nodded, unsure why Varex was telling him that then continued following him.


    It was only on the 2087th realm that any amount of healthy life began to appear but even then, it was just a couple of mice looking creatures that The System estimated were around level 2000. After that, the vegetation began to gradually look healthier and healthier until finally, they arrived in the 2142nd realm.


    The realm looked just like the other realms in that it was empty of life save for some grass and, a single stone house in the distance with a pillar of smoke rising from the chimney.


    Varex ran over to it and waited for Felix to land behind him before opening the door and stepping inside.


    "You''re back." A soft feminine voice called out.


    He nodded in her direction then continued stepping in, looking over in the other direction before addressing the group, "I found a stray."


    "A stray? In the one''s?" Another feminine voice asked in confusion.


    "0''s." Varex corrected.


    "You brought them back with you?" A masculine voice asked.


    "Claims he''s a challenger."


    Everyone went silent at that and Varex turned and gestured Felix inside.


    Felix nodded and walked in, fully aware he probably should have been more cautious but just happy that he was no longer wandering dead realms.


    Inside the small cottage, there were three others in total. To the right, the woman who had spoken with a soft voice and announced Varex''s welcome was a small, young woman with two short and rounded horns on her forehead, dark tanned skin and long messy brown hair.


    [?] Amerela (Lvl 4901)


    On the other side of the door, to Felix and Varex''s left, was a man and a woman. The man was about average height, with messy brown curls, stubble, a number of scars and he was slightly overweight.


    [?] Kether (Lvl 4838)


    Finally the woman, was striking in every way. She had white hair, dark skin, light green eyes and wore a massive robe or dress that somehow spewed fabric in every direction, despite barely covering any of her body up at all.


    [?] Aela (Lvl 5317)


    As soon as he stepped into the room, all three of them stared at him but Aela was the only one who approached. She immediately drifted over and brushed her fingers against his cheek, "Does he now¡­"


    Felix recoiled causing Kether to chuckle, "So what do you think, Aela?"


    She cocked her head and looked at Felix curiously, "I don''t¡­ know."


    "What do you mean you don''t know?" Kether leaned forwards, half out of his seat, "You touched him."


    She shrugged, "He''s hard to read."


    Kether frowned, "His Aura''s not that strong."


    "Are you suppressing it?" Varex frowned.


    "I''m not suppressing it. Just not¡­ projecting it?" Felix answered.


    Varex''s ever present scowl deepened, "This is your natural state though?"


    Felix nodded.


    "Project it for us. Don''t hold back." Kether rose to his feet and walked over to stand a few meters in front of him, crossing his arms and waiting.


    Felix looked around and everyone else was in agreement so Felix projected his Aura outwards. It was much stronger than it had been with his new convictions. Now, it was denser, more aligned and further reaching than it ever had been. It was strong enough that Felix was confident in his ability to knock out most normal people with his Aura alone.


    That confidence led him to not project his Aura out with full strength right away. Looking around, no one in the room seemed the slightest bit bothered though, in fact, they all seemed rather disappointed.


    Noticing that, Felix pushed harder and harder until he was projecting his Aura with as much force as he could, all focused within the cottage.


    No one in the room seemed the slightest bit bothered and all of them were protecting themselves with their own auras in some way or another.


    Felix released his Aura and Kether nodded with a mildly impressed expression, "Not bad for an outsider."


    "His control is much better than the other challengers." Aela nodded.


    Varex''s brow furrowed further, "Not strong enough to block Aela though."


    Kether nodded in agreement, "Weird that his Aura''s natural state is so¡­"


    "Shy." Aela finished with a mischievous grin.


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    "You said challengers. There are others?" Felix looked around at the rest of the room.


    "Sure." Aela nodded, "The last challenger was¡­"


    "Godovan." Amerela added, the first thing she''d said since announcing Varex''s return.


    "No." Aela shook her head in disbelief, "He arrived¡­ what? 8 million epochs ago?"


    Kether nodded, "Sounds about right."


    "Was he really the last one?" Aela''s eyes rolled back as she thought.


    Varex nodded, "Rel''s right. Ever since that thing found its way into the 2000th."


    "That was really that long ago?" She looked around at her friends.


    They all nodded.


    "Any idea how many epochs that would be on the outside?" Felix looked around.


    Kether shook his head, "Don''t even try to think about it. The time in here is so completely separate from time outside. The only thing that stays consistent, is that you challengers always leave shortly after you came in. Sometimes, we''ve had challengers arrive in here before people who entered before them."


    "Never by that much though. Just a few epochs." Aela waved him off.


    Varex nodded, "He''s right. Don''t think about it."


    "So¡­" Felix looked around again, "No more zone quests? You guys just hang out here and harvest realms? Is there anything beyond this?"


    The natives all looked at each-other and began laughing. Aela giggled, Varex chuckled once, Amerela giggled quietly and Kether boomed, "You think we just sit here in this cottage and harvest Spirit Anomalies all day?"


    Felix shrugged, "How would I know."


    "There''s no zone where I could last off Aela''s cooking for more than a dekad."


    She glared at him in response but the others laughed harder at that.


    "So¡­ If you don''t live here?"


    Aela glided over and brushed his neck with the backs of her fingers, "We all live in Azura. The Ephemeral City."


    Felix stepped away from her one step, "Where''s that?"


    Amarela stared at her hands as if she were embarrassed to offer, "If¡­ you''d like, we could bring you back with us."


    Felix looked at the rest of them, "That would be great actually."


    They all nodded that they were okay with that and Varex added, "We have to harvest first. It''ll take five dekads or so."


    "You¡­ want me to stay here?" Felix offered to be polite.


    Aela smirked, "You can come with us, but only because you''re so¡­" She stepped forwards and whispered past his ear, "Interesting¡­"


    Kether rolled his eyes and turned to Varex, "How much this time?"


    "20 pheros, give or take."


    Kether whistled, "Not a bad haul."


    "That''s more than we can store." Amerela added hopefully.


    Aela shrugged, "Barely. And he could have taken some of my share."


    "I''m happy to just follow you all around. Also¡­ what''s a pheros?"


    "You know that thing I stopped at on the way?" Varex crossed his arms and the others in the room looked at him curiously.


    "Yeah." Felix nodded, "Chunk of Anima."


    "What you call Anima, we call ros. That was about 100 sinros."


    The others in the room relaxed upon hearing that apparently paltry sum.


    "A sinros is how many pheros?"


    "One pheros is 100,000 sinros. One sinros is 100,000 muros. One muros is 100,000 ros."


    "So ros is the unit of measurement?"


    "Yup." Kether nodded, "It''s a stupid system but it''s the best we''ve got."


    Aela twirled around towards the door, brushing her nearly naked body against Felix as she did so, "Shall we?"


    Kether nodded and walked to the door but was too big to walk by Felix so he backed out to give them room.


    The other two joined them a moment later and they headed out back into the lesser realms.


    This time, they didn''t travel straight from bubble to bubble though to get through the Realms as fast as possible but Varex still knew exactly where they were going so they moved in a straight line from anomaly to anomaly. The first Spirit Anomaly Varex had mapped out was bigger than the one he had stopped at with Felix initially by many orders of magnitude. At the anomaly, they sat around it and absorbed as much of the Anima as they could which, was the entire first anomaly.


    Felix stood behind them and watched as they did, noticing that each one of them drew in the Anima slightly differently.


    There was nothing too surprising though. Varex drew in a single strand, Aela thousands of tiny strands, Kether one giant slow moving strand. Amerela drew out a strand and split that it into many strands, only one of which was drawn into her while all the others, she put back.


    Once they were done, all of them at about the same time and, despite their varying techniques, they all seemed to have gotten about the same amount.


    Heading out, Kether and Varex ran while Amerela flew off to the right and Felix to the left. Aela joined Felix and walked on the air, easily keeping up with their speed despite how slowly her legs were moving.


    "So. Challenger. Tell me about you."


    Felix turned his head towards her, "What do you want to know?"


    "Well, how about you start with your name?"


    Felix snorted, I forgot, no System. I''d gotten so used to not having to introduce myself., "I''m Felix."


    She nodded, "I''m Aela."


    "I know all your names. I guess you don''t know about The System either?"


    She cocked her head, "I''ve heard about something like that, from other challengers. Something about Skills?"


    Felix nodded, "Among other things. One of those Skills lets me identify people around me. Assess their strength. See their name."


    "Seems a little invasive." She frowned playfully.


    "Yeah." Felix shrugged, "If it makes you feel any better, it''s not very good at gauging the strength of someone with a strong Soul."


    She nodded, "Would you say we have strong Souls?"


    Felix nodded quickly, "My Aura alone would knock out most people on the outside."


    She frowned in genuine disgust, "Really?"


    He nodded, "Pretty sure."


    "Do you use it to fight?"


    "Not much. I''m still pretty new to the whole Aura thing."


    She nodded, "That makes more sense to me. So then, do you cast spells or do you just wear those robes to look pretty?"


    "Why can''t it be a bit of both?" He smirked, "I usually fight with spells."


    She snickered, "You should talk to Rel. She''s our resident expert at making things go boom. Plus-" Aela leaned in, completely uncaring of the speeds they were moving at, "-I think she likes you." S§×arch* The ¦Çov§×lFire .net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    Felix nodded, "I''d love to see what kind of Spells she casts and how."


    "What about on the outside? Anyone out there worrying about you?"


    He shrugged, "I arrived with two other people, both of which went into the Realm. I doubt either of them are worried about me."


    "Do they care about you?"


    "I think so." Felix nodded.


    "Considering you got past the Dragon and given how¡­ your Aura, I take it you are not particularly cautious?"


    He shrugged, "Depends. I take quite a number of stupid risks though. Yeah."


    She nodded with confidence, "They''re worried about you."


    "I¡­ if you say so."


    She smiled and waved then walked across the air and down towards Kether and Varex. Felix on the other hand, flew over towards Amerela who seemed to be completely in her own world.


    "Hi. Aela w-"


    "EEEEP!" Kaboom!


    Felix was suddenly sent flying hundreds of meters away and buried in the soft dirt ground. He lost a sizable chunk of his health but nothing too dangerous.


    Pulling himself out of the hole, he found Kether laughing his ass of and Varex offering him a hand.


    Felix took it and let him help him out of the hole then caught sight of Amerala rushing towards him, "I am so sorry. I just¡­ You surprised me. Are you okay?"


    Felix nodded, "I''m good. I''ll be fine."


    Kether nodded and turned away, Varex a moment later and Aela shook her head from a distance, like she had expected that to happen.


    Getting himself back up into the air, Felix flew back towards the others and Amerela remained by his side, making sure he was okay and apologizing quite a few times.


    Interrupting one of her unnecessary apologies, "So I hear you cast spells?"


    She was caught off guard for a moment but nodded, "I¡­ yeah. Kind of like¡­ the one I hit you with. Not that that was on purpose. Not that I can''t control it I just¡­ you surprised me."


    Felix nodded, "Don''t worry about it. I was hoping you could show me some spells? If you''re willing?"


    Her eyes widened and she nodded, "Sure. I can show you all my spells but¡­ I''m an incaster so¡­"


    "Incaster? What does that mean?"


    "I was born with talent. I¡­ you probably won''t be able to cast the spells I cast, the way I cast them."


    Felix shrugged, "I''m just hoping to learn something."


    "Okay." She nodded.


    "Maybe let''s start with something less¡­ violent?"


    She winced, "Well¡­ My talent is¡­"


    Over the course of the first three dekads they traveled, Felix ended up spending nearly every free moment with Amerela, who preferred Rel. She was an incaster, short for intrinsic or inherent, which Felix learned was just another word for what he would consider sorcerer. She cast Spells through her talent and will power alone. It was what Felix had started to do, but taken to the extreme.


    She cast without any Spell forms at all. There was no outer ring, no nodes, no channels, no patterns, nothing. She harnessed raw Mana and simply shaped it into Spells.


    Felix tried to replicate what she was doing but when he did it, it was nothing like her Spells.


    She could simply will a ball of Fire to fly out and explode. Felix doing the same thing, felt about equivalent to a juiced up Fire Bolt.


    Her talent, the one that allowed her to cast the way she did, came with a limitation though. She wasn''t limited to just specific Spells but any Spell that didn''t involve Fire or Force, was so weak they were essentially useless. As she explained it, inborn abilities varied in more than just Attunement too.


    She claimed she was lucky because her talent focused in such a way that allowed her to branch it over to Lightning almost perfectly though, Felix didn''t understand that at all. Fire and Force were so far from Lightning in Attunement and in the physics that he just couldn''t wrap his head around it.


    Rel''s complete lack of understanding about what she was doing didn''t help at all either. She just did things by feel so she couldn''t really explain them. It was completely natural for her.


    He also asked about her method of cultivation and she told him that she specifically filtered out the Anima that was far from her talent so she didn''t dilute it. Aela did something similar in splitting the incoming Anima but she sorted it within her Soul and kept it organized.


    Felix more or less gave up on casting Spells the way Rel did after a dekad but he kept flying alongside her and having her cast Spells for him to observe because there was more than just how she manipulated the Mana. He showed her his own methods of casting, with Spell Forms and she was interested, but less in the Spells and more in him it seemed like.


    Despite the differences, Felix was still fascinated by her Spells because each one was an extension of herself, in a way.


    They had Concepts imbued within them but the Concept of Fire she used in her Fire Spells was significantly weaker and less pure than Tam''s grasp of the same Concept, and yet, Rel''s Spell was stronger. Along with the Concept- or rather as a part of the Concept- or more accurately, the Concept was a part of the Anima she imbued into the Spell.


    That Anima she imbued, felt like a part of herself, including everything which happened to include some Concepts.


    As for why that was stronger, Felix had no explanation. He understood Concepts helped channel the energy appropriately, balance and shape it. It made sense to him that there was an experience of high heat and that made a Fire Spell hotter.


    She was imbuing everything though. All the experiences that made her who she was. There was a grasp of the Concept of Fire in there somewhere, which Felix wasn''t sure if she was born with or developed due to her affinity for Fire. There was also her generally meek nature, her experiences as a child, growing up.


    It took him till the end of the third dekad to finally realize what she was doing seemed terribly inefficient. Out of everything she shoved into the Anima in the Spell, he was pretty sure 99% of it was dormant while only the relevant parts of her experiences were active.


    On the other hand, he tried casting Spells in the same way without those other experiences, he even tried stripping them out of her Spell but for whatever reason, they were necessary. All of them.


    It was at the beginning of the fourth dekad when Aela, Varex, Kether and Rel had drawn in as much Anima as they could for the time being. Any more and they''d risk losing themselves. After the harvest, they would take time off and let the Anima acclimate to their bodies and then, they''d go on another harvest. In that time, new anomalies would appear, for some reason. That complete lack of information as to why the anomalies existed haunted Felix but he had no way of figuring it out.


    The Anima within the anomalies felt just like the Ambient Anima in the realms, just denser.


    He hadn''t really gotten any chance to examine the Anima in an anomaly himself as they had been harvesting up until then. The rest, they planned on bottling up somehow, which was something Felix was told he''d have to just wait and see about.


    "Rest of us are filled up. This one''s yours." Varex gestured towards it with his head.


    "You ever done something like this before?" Kether looked at him seriously, his arms crossed.


    "Something like it." Felix nodded.


    Aela nodded, uncharacteristically serious, "Be careful. Don''t take too much or you could lose yourself."


    "We''ll bottle whatever''s left and refine it just outside Azura." Varex nodded.


    "Don''t be greedy." Kether said, "I''ve seen too many people take on more than they should. Their Soul falls apart within their body leaving behind a husk. A corpse that just doesn''t die. It''s not pretty."


    Felix nodded, "I''ll be fine." He looked mostly at Amerela as despite her complete lack of voice, she seemed the most worried out of all of them for Felix.


    Stepping towards the cluster, Felix stepped right on top of it, on a hard earthen ground. Then, he fell right down towards it as he used his Matter Control to dig a hole beneath his feet.


    The cluster was just a few dozen meters below the surface and once he reached it, Felix used his tendrils to grab hold of the Anima and tear it apart. Each piece, he pulled into his Soul where it went to various layers. Now that he had two more convictions forming a full trifecta, there was more compressing of his Soul he could do. He found it was less than he''d hoped, much less than his time fighting curses in Amatara''s recruitment but, it was still something.


    Then, just a few moments after dropping down into the hole, Felix flew back up, and closed the hole behind him leaving little trace he had been there at all.


    "Did you¡­" Kether stepped forwards, staring at Felix, "Just take the whole thing?"


    "I thought¡­ you were going to bottle whatever was left. I didn''t realize you wanted me to save some." Felix took a step back.


    "You okay?" Varex scowled.


    Felix nodded and shrugged, "I''m good. You guys can bottle up all the rest."


    "No¡­" Aela smirked suggestively, "How much more can you take?"


    He shrugged, "All of it."


    She raised a brow, "You seem so sure."


    Felix just stared back at her confidently. She turned back to Varex, "Let''s get to the next one, then we''ll rest."


    He nodded and began leading while everyone else followed, despite some protests.


    The next cluster was even bigger, thrice the size of the last but Felix consumed it just as quickly as the last. This time, Kether seemed annoyed but didn''t say anything. All of them seemed exhausted and not really willing to talk.


    Instead, Varex pitched a tent that was only really barely big enough for 4 people then stepped inside. The rest of the party followed with Felix last. Felix was completely expecting to find the tent was spatially expanded on the inside, but it wasn''t. Instead, Aela sat at the center, with the others around her in their preferred meditative pose.


    Felix took a seat where there was an opening around Aela and she reached out to touch him.


    His hand shot forward to prevent her rather vulgar trajectory and as soon as his hand touched hers, he felt a slight tug on his Soul. He realized what was happening but stared at her for a moment. She met his gaze and smirked, then pulled harder. He continued to resist and her smile grew wider and her expression, even more enticed.


    Finally, Felix let her pull a small portion of his Soul into her Constructed Memory, remaining connected to his real Soul in his body through her hand.


    It was harder for her to maintain than holding any of the others, but it would be easier than having her try and house his actual Soul.


    Inside, Felix immediately appeared inside what appeared to be either a strip club or a brothel. He was on a circular couch along with Kether, Varex and Rel. In the center of the booth, were nearly naked men and women serving them drinks and food from platters. All of them, were Aela. The women and men serving them, somehow.


    "This is how you all rest every night?"


    Rel''s cheeks immediately reddened and Varex snorted, "No. She''s just doing this cause you''re new."


    One of the waitress'' placed her platter down then sat next to Felix, almost on top of him and spoke into his ear, "In here¡­ I can do to you everything you''ve ever dreamed."


    "I''m good." Felix pushed her away as politely as he could.


    She sighed, "I''ll figure you out soon, challenger."


    "Hmm." Felix turned his attention away from Aela and shifted it towards her Constructed Memory. It was definitely impressive but Felix immediately noticed flaws and issues with it. It relied heavily on manipulating Soul experiences and the experiences that lay within them.


    For things Felix hadn''t experienced, they simply didn''t exist or fell flat. For the most part that was smells and sounds which he smelt and heard but they were single noted and empty. His Mental World used simulations and the experiences of millions to fuel it. Even if someone there hadn''t ever experienced something before, he could show it to them. He could create new experiences.


    Her''s on the other hand, could be more meaningful and nostalgic. Most importantly though for the moment, it was less taxing and essentially amounted to sleep, for those that needed it.


    Felix mentally noted some of the differences and his various observations then returned his consciousness to his body, much to Aela''s disappointment.


    There, he waited for the others to sleep, within their essentially shared dream, while he began practicing Spell Forms, with slightly renewed vigor after speaking with Rel over the past few dekads.


    It took them a grand total of two more dekads, just as Varex had said it would to reach every anomaly. Felix only harvested one and half more because Kether was growing increasingly bothered by Felix taking them. He''d rather be on good terms and have them lead him to the city than be on bad terms and get abandoned. He knew he definitely could have kept going, even if it meant creating new planets instead of funneling everything into his Soul''s structure.


    Varex had somewhat planned a loop, as well as he could which just meant when there were two clusters in one realm, he would lead them to one on the way down and the other as they headed back. Most realms only had one anomaly though so most of the time they were heading back, there was no harvesting.


    They rested every few days in the tent and in Aela''s Constructed Memory while Felix patiently waited for them.


    They passed through the 2142nd realm and only stopped for a single night at the cottage to rest outside of the tent. Aela cooked and it tastes awful but Felix simply turned off his sense of taste which made him Aela''s favorite for the time being.


    Once Felix was finished eating, no one else had finished eating as they were taking the smallest bites they could and talking as much as possible to procrastinate each and ever bite.


    "I was worried for a bit there that we weren''t going to have any ros to bottle up." Kether smirked in Felix''s direction.


    "Sorry." Felix shrugged, "What do you do with it? You mentioned refining it?"


    Varex nodded, "Needs to be refined ''fore we can use it."


    "What is it refined into?"


    "Ros." Kether answered.


    "I thought¡­ It was- is ros right now?" Felix looked around.


    Aela sighed and shook her head, "We use ros as currency in Azura. Refining is a bit of a silly word to use. We just hand over what we''ve collected to the mints and they exchange it for ros taking a small fee."


    Felix nodded, "Gotcha. So you hand over ros and they package it up into specific quantities to keep everything normalized?"


    Kether nodded, "Yup."


    "How do they package it?"


    Varex reached into a pocket and tossed a small handful of coins made from gemstones onto the table. There were three varieties there, a small green coin, a slightly larger yellow one and an orange one that was thicker but otherwise the same size as the yellow one. With his Matter Senses, Felix could tell each coin was completely flawless in structure, despite the designs they had on each side. There were no faces or other recognizable imagery, just some abstract patterns on each.


    With his Anima senses, he could more or less gauge himself that the green coin was one Muros. The yellow one had 100,000 times more Anima than the green one making it one Sinros. Finally the orange coin had 100,000 times more Anima in it than the yellow one, making it one Pheros.


    Felix nodded in understanding, "How big do the coins get?"


    Kether chuckled, "You''ll probably never see anything bigger than a Pheros."


    "After Pheros is a Biiros, they''re red." Aela answered, "Then there''s Emros which are purple and Xyros which are blue."


    "I assume the scale is linear? 100,000 times bigger each time?"


    Aela nodded, "To that point. After that, everything is specialty and the scale breaks."


    Kether pointed his fork at Felix, "I''ve heard the Zephtide Clan head has a Zytros on his desk. That''s 20 factors more than a Xyros."


    "By 20 factors¡­ you mean 10 to the 20 times bigger¡­ than a Xyros?"


    Aela nodded in response, "Yes. There aren''t even many Xyros in the city as a whole though. You''d never be able to use that thing to buy anything or harvest."


    "Why not?" Felix looked around at them, "Couldn''t you just slowly drain it forever?"


    Varex shook his head, "To get that much ros in one damn coin¡­ taking even a little bit out, the whole thing would explode."


    "You have to be very skilled to extract anything from a Pheros. Let alone anything denser than that." Aela smiled.


    Felix nodded quickly, "Which means you end up trading in larger coins for smaller ones at the mint to harvest. There are fees on both ends and those are adjusted to keep everything balanced."


    "Smart kid." Varex took a minuscule bite of his food.


    "So not everyone is harvesting, right?" Felix looked around, "I take it there are normal jobs too?"


    "Sure." Kether nodded, "Most people have multiple jobs. We hunt, delve and harvest."


    "Most of us have other jobs too." Varex nodded.


    "Hunting? Delving? There''s nothing here¡­" Felix said hopefully.


    "Closer to the city, the zones are less dead." Varex explained.


    "They''re also kind of fucking ginormous." Kether added with a smirk.


    "Any ideas what the zones are? Why they exist and why there are connections between them?"


    Kether shrugged, "The big families, clans and companies might know but¡­ not sure anyone really knows."


    "Maybe if you ascend¡­" Rel quietly added.


    "What''s ascending?"


    Aela shook her head and waved him off, "Azura is on the second to last zone. The one after Azura is a traditional zone. You enter and can''t leave until it''s complete."


    "What''s¡­ in it?"


    Varex responded "The Acharaya."


    "The what?"


    "Don''t worry about it." Varex shook his head.


    "What if I wanted to leave?"


    "Gotta go through the Acharaya." Aela shrugged and offered an expression of pity.


    "Or the Dragon." Kether pointed his fork at Aela.


    "All the zones between the Dragon and Azura are¡­ broken." Aela explained, "They were broken open a long time ago and all remain connected to this day. You have to complete a zone to leave."


    "There''s an exit on the 2000th though?" Felix frowned.


    "Yes but the challenge is still there." Kether nodded with a smirk.


    "Which is more likely for me to get through?"


    Aela shrugged, "We all know the Dragon. We don''t know much about The Acharaya. Some kind of Spirit Guru. No one comes back to Azura from that zone but challengers have legends of other challengers that have made it through."


    "So there isn''t anyone in Azura strong enough to kill The Dragon?"


    Kether cocked his head to the side, "Some of the big Clans and Companies might be able to¡­"


    Varex shook his head, "They''ve tried in the past. Never works out."


    "Who''s the strongest in the city and how strong are they?"


    Kether shrugged and looked at Varex who shrugged and looked at Aela. She shrugged as well, "No idea. Not strong enough to kill The Dragon?"


    Right, they don''t have levels¡­ It''s not easy to just compare people. Damn.


    "So what do people do in Azura? I take it you aren''t all struggling to buy food?"


    "No." Varex shook his head.


    "Everyone''s strong enough that they could just drop a few zones and hang out there even if they were completely broke. You can usually get a place for dirt cheap in the city too." Kether nodded, "No need to worry about that. We''ll hit a few hunts on the way back and¡­" Kether looked at Aela.


    She nodded, "We''ll give you a small cut of everything we''ve harvested, 5%?" She looked around at the rest of her party who all nodded.


    Aela leaned over the table and poked Felix in the head, "Just remember who helped you out. Plus, we expect you to pay us all back, 5% each."


    Felix cocked a brow, "You want me to pay you back 4 times? In how long?"


    "An epoch?" She smirked.


    There was no financial reason for him to accept the offer and it made more sense for him to just hand in some Anima to the mint himself. Socially though, being in debt to all of them, was a connection and in their minds, he would be an investment to each of them. It gave them a reason to help him out in the future.


    "Sure." Felix shrugged, "That seems reasonable. Where I should go to make ros?"


    "You could get a job." Varex offered.


    "Or¡­" Kether leaned in over the table, "You could gamble what we give you at The House of Promises."


    "Casino?" Felix asked.


    Rel nodded and rolled her eyes, Varex nodded as well but Kether and Aela shook their heads.


    "It''s not just some casino." Kether seemed offended, "It''s got that kind of gambling too, sure. It''s also got all kinds of fights."


    Felix perked up when he heard that, "What kind of fights?"


    "Duels, Spirit Fights, Mana War¡­" Aela listed off.


    Felix''s eyes went wide at that. Varex on the other hand, rolled his eyes and leaned back, "Don''t bother kid. It''s not worth it. Just find something you''re good at and you''ll make plenty of ros."


    Rel nodded in agreement.


    "Anyways." Kether stretched his arms upwards, "I''m gonna go sleep for real."


    Varex nodded and rose from his seat as well.


    Looking around, Felix realized their food had magically vanished somehow, from barely having been touched a moment ago. Rel still had hers in front of her and looked at it with disappointment.


    The party slept for almost an entire day while Felix waited for them. Instead of practicing anything to do with his Spells though, he spent the time refining and compressing his own Soul. He also spent a bit of time trying to figure out if he could integrate Concepts into his current Soul structure. Mostly, Concepts aligned with defense into his Mana Skin layer.


    He didn''t get very far with that though in just one day.


    After that, they continued traveling through the realms though, there were no more anomalies to harvest. As they ascended through the 2''s, which Felix learned was slang for the realms in the 2200s, they began to see other people.


    They never stopped or had any trouble, but there were individuals and other parties in the realms. Felix couldn''t tell what they were doing at first. Then, in the 3''s, there were monsters and beasts roaming the lands and some of the individuals and parties they saw were fighting and hunting those beasts.


    The 4''s were where it started to get really busy because the fauna was much denser and more present along with, what Felix interpreted as dungeons. They were really ruins of old realms that were all spliced into the 4''s for some reason but the way the party described heading into them and exploring them, getting around traps to open vaults and find treasure, sounded like what he would consider a System dungeon.


    Azura, as it turned out, was on the 2499th realm. Which meant the last realm would be the 2500th.


    The dozen or so realms leading up to The Ephemeral City, were all packed. Not just with hunters and dungeon delvers, but more so with villages and cities. Some of them had farms that Felix could tell were more than just simple farms, with tall fences all around the crops and a dense Aura covering the fields.


    There were also small villages off in nature, for those that simply didn''t want to live in the city and for those that wanted to be closer to the lower realms. Varex pointed out a few guilds and Dungeon Management Offices, as Felix was calling them, on those realms and in and around them, lived many of those who delved into dungeons full time.


    The mint where they traded in the large crystals of Anima they had collected from the anomalies, was on the 2498th realm. It was a massive facility that was entirely embedded within the ground for some reason. The only part of it that was above ground, was the building where they exchanged currency which simply held a number of booths with clerks side by side.


    Behind that building, there was simply a large flat area of blue and grey that marked the top of the facility, flush with the grassy field all around it. The footprint of the facility alone, was so large it eclipsed the footprint of multiple mountains behind it.


    Walking up to one of the booths, Aela placed the crystals they had collected onto the desk and the clerk began measuring them. It took a few minutes and once she was done, the clerk nodded to them, "23 Pheros, 4% fee."


    Aela nodded and Kether groaned.


    Felix looked at him curiously.


    "4% my ass. We bottled that ros up as good as ever."


    "I thought it was based on balancing how much people are swapping currency?"


    Aela turned slightly stretching out her chest as she did so, still leaning one arm against the counter, "The base rate is currently 2%. The rest of the fee is based on how well you can transport it. Good gems, pure Anima, how densely it''s packed in all play a role."


    A few minutes later, the clerk returned with a small stack of 22 pheros.


    "The other 8000 Sinros were deposited in your account Ms Aela."


    She nodded and thanked the clerk then turned back to the rest of them.


    Aela handed Felix one Pheros and the rest of them 5, pocketing her 6 at the end.


    "You can have the 10,400 Sinros anytime you''d like, just come and as-"


    "Can I have them right now?"


    She looked at him like he was insane, a thought the rest of the party seemed to share, "You want to try and carry 10,000 coins out of here?"


    "Is Spatial Storage rare in here?" Felix looked at the rest of them.


    Varex nodded appreciatively, "Yes. Everyone has a Soul Space but you can''t carry much in those. I assume you''ve opened yours?"


    Felix nodded, "Am I in danger showing off my Spatial Storage items?"


    Kether shrugged, "Depends. can you kill anyone who might notice you?"


    "Probably not."


    "Then maybe."


    Aela shook her head, "You are unlikely to be robbed for it. I wouldn''t worry."


    "So, can I get those Sinros now?"


    Aela shrugged and turned back to the clerk, "10,400 Sinros from my account please."


    She nodded and darted off to retrieve the currency.


    It took the clerk much longer this time and when she returned, Felix took all the Sinros and began funneling them into his Kryptos Repository temporarily. He didn''t want to show off the fact that his Soul Space was as big as it was considering what Varex had said about their limited size.


    After they left the mint, Felix moved his Kryptos Repository into his Soul Space where he emptied it out and left the bracelet for the time being.


    Finally, they headed for the exit to the realm which, was an iridescent bubble floating in the air just like it had been on every other realm except this time, there was a massive line heading into the bubble and there was a building built around it.


    The building was really just a large tube with a wall in the middle. In the middle of the wall at the center, was the iridescent bubble. Everyone coming out of the bubble came out one side of the tube and everyone going in, went in the other.


    They didn''t have to wait more than an hour, despite the length of the line, to get through the bubble due to the well planned logistics. On the other side, there was another tube like building around the bubble to ensure everyone went in and out on the correct sides and as soon as they left, they had to rush to clear the area and make room for those behind them.


    Once they were clear of the crowd though, Felix was free to look around and appreciate the fact that he was standing on a cloud. Looking around, the city was massive and stretched out in every direction across multiple clouds. There was a massive dark grey and angry storm cloud that housed a number of large glass sky scrapers. There was a fluffy white cloud that was anything but flat housing a number of colorful buildings. There was a grouping of small clouds, each one holding a single building and all floating around each-other.


    Dozens of individual sections all spread across various clouds formed a single massive city.


    "Why is it called The Ephemeral City?" Felix asked a question he had been wondering for a while as they headed into one of the larger sections of the city.


    "Building a city on clouds is idiotic." Varex grumbled.


    "Doesn''t make any logistical sense, even if it is possible." Kether nodded.


    "Only reason it exists is because the zone does all the hard work." Aela smiled.


    "Right but ephemeral¡­"


    She shrugged, "It''s a bit of a joke because everyone knows it shouldn''t exist and used to be worried about everything falling through the clouds."


    "That''s ancient history though." Kether yawned.


    Rel nodded along as they spoke.


    Aela turned to her, "Don''t you have a shift in less than an hour?"


    Her eyes shot open and she leapt into the air, creating an explosion behind her and launching herself into the distance.


    Kether chuckled and Varex waved to the others, "See you guys tomorrow."


    Aela and Kether nodded and waved back as Varex left.


    Turning to Felix, Kether smiled wickedly, "You''re coming with us, right?"


    He shrugged, "Where are you going?"


    "House of Promises."

 Chapter 239 - Book 12

    The House of Promises was located on one of the three largest clouds that made up Azura. It was a large fluffy white cloud and closest to the iridescent bubble Felix had come through.


    Amongst the massive towers that formed the majority of the Ephemeral City, sat a building that was shaped like a pyramid, just upside down. It had no pillars to hold it aloft and seemed to have been constructed for the sole purpose of showing off to all those who bore witness to its gravity defying majesty.


    Pouring down from the pyramid from all sides were a number of thin streams of water that exploded into mist, joining the cloud it sat upon and creating a mystical atmosphere around it. Within that mist, sat a number of Rituals that allowed anyone that approached and supplied Mana to be lifted into the pyramid itself.


    Felix had no need to use the ritual but he did anyways, both because Kether had to and because he was curious about the ritual itself. Unfortunately, it seemed to be nothing particularly special or outstanding, not that an elevator had to be, he had just been holding out hope.


    Aela flew herself up ahead of them and disappeared into the building just before Felix and Kether arrived.


    Instead of a hole or door for Felix to step through, there was a slit that spanned the entire perimeter of the pyramid, as if the top was completely detached from the base. It let some light through but as Felix was lifted up to it, he realized it didn''t let him see straight through the pyramid. Instead, there was a short set of stairs that blocked the main floor of the casino from being visible from the outside.


    Felix waited a moment then followed Kether into the casino because Aela was nowhere to be found. At the top of the short set of stairs, lay what was obviously a casino. Everything about it was different and yet it was completely recognizable.


    None of the games were ones Felix recognized as no one played cards or dice or pulled levers on machines. Those would be too easy for someone to cheat at. Instead, he saw tables that held glass orbs in their center surrounded by a half dozen people. He saw tables with large grids of pillars, tables with a number of open portals, all shuffled around and pointing in various directions.


    While the various games and tables reminded Felix of a casino, along with the drinks being served, he also felt like he had walked into the highest end strip club he had ever seen.


    Some of the waitresses and waiters were nearly naked and the way they were overtly flirting with patrons was a little more than he had expected. On top of that, almost half the main floor was dedicated to tables and booths that didn''t have games but hosted both clientele and staff. It wasn''t all the staff that were dressed provocatively though, just a small portion of them.


    The rest wore everything from formal suits to robes to rags to full armor.


    Kether led Felix straight across the floor to one of the booths in particular and gestured for him to take a seat before waving down a waitress in a long and flowing gown.


    "Keth! You''re back!" She leapt over and gently placed a kiss on his forehead, "The usual I take it?"


    He nodded once and she spun towards Felix, "And who''s your new friend?"


    Kether gestured towards Felix, "Ari, this is Felix."


    Felix nodded.


    She leapt over the table and squeezed her arms around him, "It is sooo nice to meet you."


    Felix looked over at Kether with confusion but he just smiled and blushed slightly. Once Ari released Felix, she pushed herself up from the table, her feet in the air behind her and her nose just a few inches from Felix''s, "What can I get you?"


    "I''m good." Felix shook his head.


    The waitress stared into his eyes and began pouting with her face, "Are you sure?"


    "Yeah." Felix smiled politely and hid how off put he was.


    Her expression changed in an instant and she shrugged, "Okay." Then she skipped off.


    Felix looked over at Kether who was still watching Ari leave in a somewhat dream like state, "You come here often?"


    Kether''s gaze snapped away from the skipping waitress and over to Felix, "Basically live here, kid."


    "I see¡­" Felix looked around, "Do you¡­ gamble often or¡­ are you here for other reasons?"


    The slightly overweight man bellowed out a hearty laugh, "Gambling makes me almost as much ros as anything else I do. As for the other reasons, they''re definitely a factor."


    "Wait, you make that much gambling?"


    Kether nodded proudly, "Sure do." He leaned in a little, "All these games you see in here," He gestured out at the various tables, "are good fun and nothing more. They''re entirely up to chance."


    The man paused for a moment before continuing in a slight whisper, "The real ros is all made on the fights."


    Felix nodded quickly, "Duel, Spirit Fight and Mana War, right?"


    He nodded, "Those are the most popular ones, yeah." Kether sat back in his booth, "If you do your research on each fight, you can make a lot o'' ros."


    "Then you consume that ros?"


    Kether shrugged, "Yup. Or you buy yourself land in a realm or you gamble it all away."


    Felix nodded.


    "Realistically¡­." Kether continued, "I make more than I could consume. Don''t have any fancy connections myself."


    Felix frowned, "What does that have to do with anything?"


    Kether made a face that he had forgotten Felix was a challenger for a second before explaining, "Basically, the big companies and clans have machines and techniques so they can consume much more much faster."


    "Really? I thought it was all dependent on how strong your will power is?"


    "Sure." The man nodded, "Mostly. You can also suppress the will in the ros you consume before you consume it. Then, you can also increase the strength of your Soul with various techniques."


    "Like Convictions?"


    Kether nodded, "Exactly."


    Ari skipped and twirled her way over to their table placing a tall glass of some kind of bluish liquor at their table, winked and waved at Kether then skipped off again.


    Kether took a long sip of the drink then dropped it back to the table and sighed as if he had been dying of thirst.


    "So, anyone catch your eye yet?" A sultry feminine voice asked from right next to Felix''s ear.


    Felix pushed himself a few feet away from Aela, "No thanks."


    "Oh come on. I''ll introduce you to some of our favorites then we can narrow it down from there." She leaned in, closing much of the distance Felix had created.


    He waved her off, "No."


    She grumbled then rose back to her feet, "When you do find someone, just let them know. It is their job."


    Felix nodded politely, "Any chance Godovan is in here?"


    She shook her head quickly, "What? No. Why-"


    "Never mind."


    Aela squinted at him, as if trying to figure something out.


    "What?" He asked.


    "You really don''t feel anything towards any of us?"


    Felix shrugged, "Nope."


    She hummed in thought for a moment then quickly danced her way through the crowd to someone across the room that Felix couldn''t see. A moment later though, she came back with a muscular man covered in white and black tattoos with glowing blue eyes, dark hair and wings constructed from Anima that made him look like an angel.


    "Felix, meet Areks."


    Felix nodded politely to the man.


    Aela nodded to Areks and his wings began to glow.


    Felix just stared at them, unsure if he should have been preparing himself to dodge an attack.


    A minute passed and Felix slowly realized what was happening as nearly every other Soul in the building began to stare and wander towards Areks in trances.


    Finally, Areks'' glow dimmed and he looked at Aela and shrugged.


    She groaned and waved him off, "You really felt nothing?"


    "Nope. I can feel what he''s doing but only if I reach out and try to feel the Anima around me."


    "Hmmm."


    "Do all the staff in here have that ability?"


    She frowned, "It''s not one ability. It''s a trained skill." She plopped herself down next to Felix in the booth, "Physical attraction is easy, any fool can modify their body. Only children care about what someone looks like physically. Everyone else, looks for traits and personalities that they''re attracted to."


    "So you each represent a different personality, set of traits?" Felix gestured around the room towards the various staff.


    "No. We do, but that''s not the point. Our job is to read the client and adapt to their desires."


    Felix gasped in realization then asked anyways, just to confirm, "Do you do that consciously?"


    "Some of us." She gestured over towards Ari, "She''s probably the worst at reading and adapting but her Soul is attractive to a lot of people." She glared at Kether in an accusatory way. He just shrugged unashamedly.


    She gestured back to Areks who was now surrounded by a small crowd of sycophants, "He''s by far the best at reading and adapting but he doesn''t do it consciously."


    "You do." Felix stated as he was catching on.


    She nodded, "Not many work to develop the skill consciously, most are just born with the talent."


    "You couldn''t feel anything from me so you didn''t know how to adapt. You used Areks to make sure you weren''t missing something."


    "Pretty much."


    "Satisfied now?"


    She scoffed, "No." She leaned in uncomfortably close, "I will figure you out."


    Felix just leaned away for almost a minute until she sighed and stood back up, "You going to watch the fight?"


    "Now?" Felix looked at her then Kether.


    Kether nodded, "In a few minutes. I''m heading there too."


    Aela nodded and waved, "See you there."


    Felix turned to Kether as she left, "If it''s in a few minutes, why not head there now?"


    He leaned in closer to Felix then pointed under the table off into the crowd. Felix followed his finger and knew who he was looking at, their Perception and Dexterity too high to be imprecise with a pointed finger.


    The man Kether was pointing at was standing at a table with a handful of women surrounding him, only some of them staff. He looked to be quite far from sober and whatever game he was playing, he was not winning.


    "Is that one of the fighters?"


    Kether nodded.


    "What fight is it?"


    "Spirit Fight."


    "Getting drunk shouldn''t matter then, right?"


    "It doesn''t. What matters is his confidence."


    Felix nodded, unsure if he agreed.


    They continued watching for a few minutes before Kether finally rose to his feet and led Felix up a few floors onto the roof. There, the top of the upside down pyramid was covered in a single massive fighting ring that was fenced in by large pillars. Surrounding the ring, was a dense crowd who were drinking, placing bets and arguing with each-other.


    On their way around, Kether found who he was looking for and placed a last minute bet, then led Felix over to an area they could watch from.


    A few minutes later, the fighters arrived. The first fighter was a woman in a dress or robe that was clean and perfect, covered in a pattern of blossoming flowers.


    [?] Mist Ryko (Lvl ?)


    Then, a few minutes later and judging from the crowd''s reaction, late, was the man Kether had been watching.


    [?] Mortalbane: Saru (Lvl ?)


    Felix leaned over towards Kether, "What''s Mortalbane?"


    A few people around them looked at him like he was insane but Kether ignored them, "It''s the biggest company in Azura. They made a name for themselves hunting down beasts throughout the realms and processing their spoils into products they sell. While it''s the biggest company it''s still not quite as big as some of the families, at least in terms of total power. One of those, is the Ryko family."


    Felix nodded, "So this fight is a big deal?"


    "Sort of." Kether shrugged a little then pointed at Mist, "She''s not of the main branch of the family and he''s not a very high ranking hunter in the company." He then gestured around them, at the roof of the pyramid, "Any fight up here though, is considered a big deal."


    Felix nodded then held back any more questions he had as the fight was starting.


    The two fighters stood at opposite ends of the ring, Saru taking a breath and almost completely sobering himself and Mist bowing to her opponent.


    Then, their Souls appeared. More accurately, they both projected out Avatars from their bodies made of Anima. Felix could tell they still had their Souls in their bodies. The Avatars were closer to what Peace had done in their Group Combat class. These Avatars though were much denser and as a result, more opaque and vastly more powerful.


    Mist''s Avatar was a projection of herself in more combat oriented clothes with hair that moved as if she were underwater. Saru''s on the other hand, wasn''t human at all. It was a wingless and thick dragon-lizard-turtle thing. Felix had no name for it but it was detailed enough that he could tell it was scaled and its skin wrinkled as it moved. That kind of detail wasn''t present on Peace''s projection and even that had been impressive and seemed impossible for everyone outside of the Realms.


    They sized each-other up for a moment then leapt into action.


    Saru''s Avatar immediately jumped to bite down on Mist''s Avatar''s midsection but her''s leapt into the air and kicked off of it''s head, rising for a moment before completely disappearing.


    It reappeared in the same instant behind Saru''s Avatar and grabbed hold of it in a bear hug, struggling to lift it from the ground. Saru''s Avatar''s tail swung back and forth rapidly trying to free itself but it didn''t seem like it was going to matter because Mist''s just couldn''t lift it.


    She changed course and her Avatar instead twisted herself around and forced Saru''s onto it''s back then, she began pummeling it from underneath.


    "So¡­ whoever is the best with martial arts and combat has a huge advantage, right?"


    Kether shook his head immediately, "You''d think so but not really. You can do things with a Spirit Avatar that you just can''t with a body."


    As if to prove his point to Felix, Saru''s Avatar shifted in a matter of a second into a mouse, scurried away, then transformed into a lion like creature except instead of fur and hair, it was covered in spikes of some kind.


    It leapt back at Mist just as Aela arrived with a platter holding one of Kether''s favorite blue drinks.


    "So, what do you think?" She gestured towards the fight while looking at Felix.


    "It''s cool."


    She seemed unhappy with that response, "Come on, knowing where you''re from, have you ever even heard of a Spirit Avatar before?"


    Felix nodded, "One of the people I hang out with most often used one of these in our first epoch of school."


    She stared at him, trying to figure out if he was being serious then grunted and turned back to the fight.


    "If it makes you feel any better, another one of them also reads people. She''s the best at it. She can''t read anything from me either."


    Aela rolled her eyes, "I may not be the best at reading people, but I''d bet my bank account I could run circles around any challenger."


    Kether cocked his head slightly, "Careful Aela, Felix here proves we don''t know as much about the outside as we thought."


    She waved him off, "He''s just a freak with no emotions."


    Saru shifted through another 5 creatures before Mist finally managed to lock his Avatar down in a choke hold. Then, she used her other arm to slowly push her hand into its chest. Before she got to its center though, Saru''s avatar vanished and the crowd erupted in sound.


    Looking over at Kether, Felix didn''t even need to ask, he already knew he had lost.


    Betting based on the confidence of the fighters seemed like a bad idea. Wonder if he was lying when he said his betting was profitable.


    "So what about Mana War?" Felix turned to Kether just as he was downing the rest of his drink.


    "Mana War? All those happen on the lower floors." Kether waved him off like they were unimportant.


    "Mana War never happens on this floor?"


    He shrugged, "Nah. Not really. It''s not important enough. No one really cares. This floor is almost always just the big Spirit Fights."


    "Do you bet on Mana War matches ever?"


    Kether shrugged, "Not really. Don''t have time to research everything." He handed his empty glass to a waiter as they walked by then gestured with his head back to the shaft they had taken to get up to the roof, "Come on, I''ll show you where I spend most of my time."


    Felix nodded and followed Kether. The shaft wasn''t nearly as busy as Felix was expecting because the majority of the crowd around the fight on the top floor simply flew off the side and back in through the slit around the Pyramid.


    The two of them headed down just a few levels below the main casino floor where there were a number of much smaller rings set up. Within almost all of them, there were Avatar''s fighting it out, just as Mist and Saru had on the roof. Staff also walked around serving food and drink while the crowd placed bets.


    The entire floor though was much darker and seemed almost like it was supposed to be hidden, instead of presented to the world as the fights on the roof were.


    Kether made the rounds and placed a number of bets on about half the fights.


    Felix tried to find some kind of pattern as to which fights Kether was picking but as far as he could tell, the contestants seemed perfectly even. In some cases one fighter''s Aura was stronger than the other but then they fought and their Avatar looked weaker. Other times, an Avatar looked unstoppable but their opponent was flexible and their Avatar''s form was almost liquid allowing them to win rather easily.


    He also began to truly understand what Kether had meant about combat skill not overly mattering. Soul Strength mattered more than anything and allowed some fighters to roll over their opponent like they didn''t even exist. On top of that, martial arts were largely irrelevant when your opponent''s Avatar might literally act like a fluid.


    After almost an hour of observing, Kether nodded, "Alright well, that''s all the ros I lost on the Mortal v Ryko fight, and some." He sighed, "You want me to show you the Mana War now?"


    Felix nodded quickly.


    He sighed again, "Alright. Just to warn you though, it isn''t nearly as interesting as this."


    Felix nodded again in understanding then followed Kether down a number of floors again to the even smaller floors in the bottom tip of the upside down pyramid.


    There, instead of rings, Felix saw small discs a few meters in diameter. At each end, sat a person and in the middle, a war.


    They approached the largest disc close to the middle of the room and Felix leaned in close to watch. Within the disc, the two contestants had their Mana projected out and were fighting each-other with it. Instead of Avatar''s though, they fought with literal armies, clouds, vehicles and anything else they could come up with. The inside of the disc wasn''t open either, instead there were landscapes and labyrinths and obstacles, each disc slightly different.


    In the main disc near the center of the room, the war was held through a number of floating bubbles that formed obstacles as they shifted around.


    On one side, they had projected their Mana into spider like creatures that leapt from bubble to bubble. The other, had flying snakes of some kind. The two sets of projections battled it out through the bubbles, some taking direct fights and others trying to worm their way around the opposing side to make it to whatever the goal was.


    Felix watched and the battle slowly progressed, the little Mana creatures desperately trying to occupy each-other.


    Once some Mana made it the opposite side of the disc, it entered a small circle and the opponents overall Mana was reduced, in the case of the fight near the center, one of the spider was creatures suddenly cut in half.


    Then, the side with the flying snakes had more overall Mana and was able to press their lead even further.


    Though he had many questions, Felix didn''t bother asking Kether, who looked like he was so bored, he was at risk of falling asleep. Kether didn''t say anything though and respectfully waited for the fight to finish, the spiders winning out in the end by suddenly splitting up into a horde of smaller spiders that rushed the goal circle causing the disc to glow green.


    "So, you seen enough?"


    Felix nodded to Kether, "How do I register for one of these?"


    Kether''s bored expression vanished, "You want to fight in a Mana War?"


    Felix nodded.


    Kether shook his head then led Felix over to one of the waiters walking around, "This kid is new here. He isn''t even registered. He wants to try a Mana War."


    The waiter nodded, "The only arenas we have free are Dynasty and The Forests."


    Kether was about to say something but Felix nodded, "Anything is fine. Whoever the strongest opponent who''s free is good."


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    The waiter nodded, "Dynasty it is then."


    Felix nodded and followed the waiter over to an arena near the edge of the floor that already had someone waiting. They were a man of just a few feet in height with a neatly trimmed beard and an intense glare.


    [?] Tarobor (Lvl ?)


    Felix nodded to the man then sat down on the other side. Looking back up at the waiter who had led him there, "So how do I play? What are the rules?"


    The waiter chuckled as Tarobor scowled and he pointed at the Arena, "You agree to how much Mana you''re allowed to use up front. Most people use the Arena default. You aren''t allowed to control your opponents Mana, if you do, your half of the Arena will glow red and you are disqualified. Other than that, you just have to push enough Mana into the opposing side''s circle before they do the same to you. Any questions?"


    Felix nodded, "Is it possible to bet on myself?"


    The waiter smirked and Tarobor rolled his eyes, "The odds for this fight will be even and since you aren''t registered, a max bet will be put in place of a thousand Sinros."


    Felix shrugged, "Sure. I''ll bet that."


    The waiter nodded, "The odds are equal for all unregistered contestants."


    Felix nodded and held out a bag of Sinros but the waiter looked at him like he was insane. Kether stepped forward, "Put his bet on my tab."


    The waiter nodded then stepped away.


    Kether leaned in towards Felix, "You don''t just hand out bags of coins. You transfer ros to the casino then use credit on your account. How would you have handed over 10,000 Sinros if you had to?"


    Felix shrugged, "A bigger bag."


    Kether snorted then stood back up, watching the arena with much more interest than he had the last.


    Felix looked over at his opponent who stared at him with disgust, "Standard amount for this arena, how much is that?"


    The man scowled and scoffed, "The default amount for this arena is five standard." He held up a handful of orbs in his hand that Felix could tell were each about a hundred Mana.


    Felix instantly created a single orb of an identical amount of Mana to Tarobor''s 5, then nodded, "Shall we?"


    Tarobor nodded then opened a hatch on his side of the arena, pushing his standard orbs through. Felix did the same except he opened his hatch with his Matter Control and moved his Mana in a stream.


    He mimicked Tarobor as he condensed all his Mana into the circle on his side then Felix nodded, "When do we start."


    Tarobor''s nostrils flared for a moment before the Arena flashed blue and his Mana raced out of his circle. Then, it flashed green and Tarobor released his Mana in shock. His circle was already full.


    "Well that was easy." Felix looked over at Kether, "How do I get registered?"


    Tarobor shot to his feet, "The Arena is broken. Something''s gone wrong."


    Felix shrugged, "We can do it again if you want."


    He nodded quickly and Felix reset his Mana then, the Arena flashed blue then almost instantly green again as Felix''s Mana moved from his circle to Tarobors in nearly an instant. It was moving so fast, the hills, mountains and even the fortresses constructed around each circle didn''t even matter.


    "I¡­" Tarobor stared at the arena.


    "Again?" Felix asked.


    Tarobor nodded again instantly and they reset the arena. This time, it flashed blue and Felix simply waited. As he waited, Tarobor''s Mana streamed out and formed an impressive looking army across the battlefield with armor, weapons, shields and mounts. It rode up through the center of the arena. Felix, didn''t bother with fancy constructs. He could have but there was no reason to.


    Instead, his Mana split from his starting point into thousands of needles that bent at ninety degree angles and stretched all the way across the field, piercing each and every one of Tarobor''s constructs before pouring into the circle on the other side.


    Tarobor''s army had moved quickly but in comparison, Felix''s needles moved in an instant, like they were lasers. S§×arch* The N?velFire.n§×t website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    Kether guffawed and Tarobor stared in disbelief.


    "Let''s get you registered." Kether slapped Felix on the back and led him back up to the main casino floor.


    After he opened up an account and deposited nearly all of his ros, Felix''s win was registered and he was given a preliminary skill assessment based on his own fight. After that, he and a much more interested Kether went back down to the Mana War floor where Felix took any fight he could and bet right up to the betting limit, which was just 5,000 once he was registered.


    His first 16 matches, including the one against Tarobor, were considered preliminary matches and were used to assess his skill. Felix beat everyone he was put up against relatively easily. Not all of them were as easy as Tarobor. Some of them were nearly as fast as Felix and others, held their Mana around their circle like a wall and Felix simply had to wait them out.


    He quickly learned from those to not agree to too much Mana for the fight lest they completely block off their circle and wait.


    After his first 16 provisional matches were done, the betting limit was lifted to the house standard of 10 Phenros which was 20 times higher than the betting limit for each of his preliminary matches. With his actual skill level evaluated though, the odds on the bets were so far in his favor, even if he bet at the limit, he made less than he did in all of his provisional matches.


    There were opponents who were much stronger in Azura but none of them just hung around in that room all day every day.


    It got so bad that people refused to take Felix on at all and so he began taking on multiple opponents, which lasted for exactly one match before no one was willing to bet against him again.


    Once they realized there was no more ros to be made, Felix looked over at Kether and sighed, "I take it Duels are just straight up fights?"


    He nodded, "Not even worth betting on."


    "Well, I guess I have enough to pay you all back now."


    Kether nodded, "Don''t pay me back yet. Keep it for now, you''ve still got plenty of time."


    Felix nodded, "While I could gamble it or bet it on Spirit Fights, I think I need a more stable income first. Any ideas?"


    "Well, you''ve more than enough Mana Control and skill for Ward and Ritual work if you want to do that. It¡­ doesn''t pay very well though."


    Felix nodded, "I take it it''s not a very hard job then, considering everyone in this room is likely more than qualified."


    He nodded in agreement, "Also relatively safe. Could try your hand at ros refinement but it''s tedious, boring and everyone wants to do it meaning¡­"


    "It doesn''t pay well."


    "Exactly."


    "Everyone wants to do it because?"


    "Because you get to train your will power all day."


    "Ah. That makes sense. Okay then, what are the highest paying jobs?"


    "Spirit Engineering, Medicinal Spirit Alchemy and Dungeon Delving though, that last one isn''t worth it as a full time job."


    "Better off waiting for good dungeons?"


    "Yup. Spot on."


    "So Spirit Engineering and Spirit Alchemy, what are those?"


    Kether waved Ari down to refill his drink then explained, "Basically, remember I told you about how the big families and clans have machines that make it so they can consume ros faster?"


    "Spirit engineering is making those machines."


    "Yes. Spirit Alchemy is making the pills and other consumables that help you consume ros faster."


    "So that must mean the demand for consuming ros is high. Is everyone in the city just consuming ros to get stronger then? Is there a particular goal or is it just for the sake of getting stronger?"


    "Yes and no. If you asked most people, they''d probably tell you when they get strong enough they want to move on to the last realm with The Acharaya or fight The Dragon. Realistically though, no one is doing that."


    "So no one moves on to the next realm?"


    "Crazy people and those in the main branch of the big families, highest ranking hunters and clan elites. Plus, those lucky few that find something spectacular in one of the dungeons."


    Felix nodded, "So how do I get into Spirit Engineering? Alchemy is less interesting to me."


    "You spend a few hundred epochs getting an education in it first."


    Felix sighed, "Okay¡­ What''s the highest paying job I can do right now."


    "Well¡­ I mean¡­" Kether took a long sip of his blue drink, "If you''ve got the will¡­"


    Felix nodded which seemed to make Kether just comfortable enough to finish his sentence, "You could sign up to be a Damned with one of the big families. The longer you last, the more you make."


    "What does that mean?"


    "Means you test items to see if their cursed." A familiar male voice explained from over Felix''s shoulder.


    Varex sat down at the booth and nodded to Kether.


    "That sounds perfect. Where do I sign up for that?"


    Kether laughed, "You really shouldn''t be excited about this."


    "If you want to actually make a decent income, you have to be skilled at detecting anything." Varex explained, "It''s not just about putting it on and seeing if you die."


    "Though¡­" Kether leaned in, "Depending on what you can survive, you can make a hefty sum doing that too."


    Felix nodded, "I''m not very good at sensing things. Aela''s got me beat by a decent margin, I take it that''s not enough?"


    Varex shook his head.


    "Well, in that case, how much shit can you take before going down?" Kether smirked.


    "That is actually one of my strengths. Especially Spiritually. Where do I sign up?"


    "That depends." Kether squinted, "You sound confident but how confident are you?"


    "I''d put my Soul up against anything without much thought."


    Varex nodded, "If you''re that sure, you should sign up with one of the larger companies, but not the largest. Then, make a name for yourself and either accept an offer from the biggest companies or oldest families, or strike it out on your own and take contract work."


    Felix nodded, "I think contract work is more up my alley. Any downside to that?"


    "You won''t be trusted enough by specific family or company to test the strongest items." Varex crossed his arms.


    "Unless, you''re so good they have no other choice." Kether added.


    "Alright. Where do I sign up for this? You said a larger company?"


    Varex nodded, "There''s always demand because most Damned die. I''ve got a few contacts in Cumulo Tech."


    Felix snorted, "Like the cloud?"


    He nodded in agreement at the ridiculousness of the name.


    "Speaking of, you want me to pay you back now?" Felix looked at Varex.


    He shrugged, "Sure."


    Felix handed him the ros.


    "How''d you make so much so fast?"


    "Mana War." Felix answered simply.


    Kether went on to tell Varex about the matches and how much they made while they ate. Once they were done, Varex headed off to talk with his contacts and Felix managed to find himself a few Mana Wars though, no one would take his bets on the matches anymore.


    He wasn''t willing to try his hand at Spirit Fight just yet because even though he had tendrils he often used outside of his body, he had never even tried to project an entire Avatar and he realized it was a lot harder than it seemed. Even if he wanted to use the tendrils, they didn''t reach far enough. It was going to take him quite a bit of practice just to become proficient with it and even then, he would need a lot more Anima so he could dedicate it to the Avatar. That way he wouldn''t be pulling Anima out of his Soul or Soular System.


    He also asked Varex and Kether about how he could find Godovan but neither of them had any idea. Even Aela didn''t have a clue and after asking around, no one seemed to really know how to find him or even places he frequented.


    Varex''s contact came through relatively quickly and Felix met with them in one of the tallest buildings on the main cloud, the same one that housed The House of Promises. It was a tall and block like building with just a few small windows on the top floor.


    Stepping inside, Felix realized why that was. The building was essentially a series of vaults and since they couldn''t build underground, they were stuck with a building that towered up into the sky.


    "Varex tells me yer lookin for a job?"


    Felix nodded as he took a seat in the man''s office.


    "You know what the work is?"


    Felix nodded again.


    "Yer okay with the risks?"


    "Yup."


    The man nodded then leaned back in his chair, "You gonna try and detect the traps or tough em out?"


    "I''m not very talented at detecting anything. I won''t be able to tell you for certain if an item is trapped. What I can do though, is tell you if it will immediately kill you."


    He nodded, "Plenty of work doing that around here." He leaned forwards on his desk, "Not a big deal if you can''t sniff out the issues. We''ve got others that can do that, if you can screen the items before it reaches them though to make sure they don''t explode or have a Curse embedded within em."


    "What do you do with those items?"


    "Dispose of em."


    "Can I have them?"


    The man snorted, "That''d be a conflict of interest now, wouldn''t it?"


    Felix shrugged, "Yeah but if you''re disposing of them anyways."


    "You got a fair point. Issue is, if you come across something and claim it''ll kill anything around it, we can''t exactly verify that, now can we?"


    "You must have some way of verifying that?"


    He nodded, "We have multiple Damned look at each item."


    "Ah." Felix nodded, "If they disagree, you know."


    "We can talk about you getting yer hands on some of them items once you''ve survived at least a few dekads."


    Felix nodded, "Good enough for me. How''s this work?"


    "The items are stored in various vaults all throughout the building. You''ll have a record keeper who''ll follow you around and open all the doors. You just gotta head in, try the item out and give yer keeper the scoop."


    "Okay. When can I start?"


    The man shook his head, "Gotta test ye first."


    He reached into a desk drawer and handed Felix a ring. He took it and immediately equipped it onto his finger. As soon as he did, his finger turned black followed by his hand. At the same time as it rotted his physical body, it also reached in to his Soul and tried to do the same there but, it didn''t get anywhere on that front.


    Felix removed the ring and offered it back to Woodruff, his interviewer. With the ring off, Felix''s body quickly healed, replacing everything that had been ruined.


    Woodruff seemed hesitant but nodded, "Yer body ain''t as strong as we''d like."


    "Any chance you could point me to the more Spiritual stuff?"


    The man nodded quickly, "Everyone''s got there own specialty. We can do that. It''s not always possible though since you gotta be the first sometimes."


    Felix nodded, "I can manage. I take it my keeper can tell me if I''m the first?"


    He nodded, "They can. Can''t tell you much else though."


    "That''s fine."


    "You know. Most people want the opposite. They want the stuff that''ll poison em and fuck up their bodies."


    "So what your saying is I''ll make more ros than they will?"


    He laughed, "Yeah, guess that is what I''m saying. S''long as you survive."


    "Sounds good to me. When can I start?"


    He stood from his chair with a sigh of effort, "Come on, I''ll take yer to meet yer keeper."


    Felix followed Woodruff through the building to one of the few rooms with a window which seemed to be a break room of some kind. Inside, he introduced Felix to a woman who went by the nickname of Ruks, for some reason she was unwilling to explain.


    She seemed a little nervous and a little bored at the same time as they headed to their first vault. There, she opened the first door and Felix stepped inside, then she closed that door and opened the next door, much like an airlock.


    Given the security, Felix was expecting to be bombarded as soon as he was inside the room but instead, he felt little to nothing, even when he reached out and looked for it. In the center of the room, was an ancient looking coffin.


    Walking over to the coffin, Felix immediately realized why the coffin was there. The coffin itself was completely covered in inscriptions that formed a complex array of Anima Wards. It wasn''t completely new to Felix in terms of the actual patterns but the full system was rather impressive and so Felix spent some time fully inspecting and memorizing it.


    Then, when he was done, he finally opened the coffin and found it was completely full of shiny metal and gemstones that felt completely mundane. Just to be sure, he rifled his hand through them but didn''t feel anything.


    Once he was done, he closed the coffin and used the activation array on the inside of the room to open the inner door. His keeper then opened the outer and he gave her his report.


    She nodded, recorded the information then led him to the next vault.


    They continued on like that through hundreds of vaults before Ruks decided she needed a break so, Felix had Woodruff swap her out with a new keeper.


    Felix moved from vault to vault with the new keeper, reaching just over a hundred before he dropped dead.


    Seeing him on the ground and feeling his Soul completely obliterated, Felix was worried he had missed something at first. When the walls in the hall outside the vault immediately boxed him in with a blaring alarm, he was even more worried.


    After a few hours of sorting through the mess, Woodruff concluded that the item in the room, an Amulet, had ignored Felix for some reason and made its way out of the room. Apparently it happened often enough that Woodruff wasn''t worried. He assured Felix that he had done nothing wrong then assigned him a new keeper.


    Felix was more bothered by the time that was wasted from the investigation than he was by the keeper''s death. The wasted time was enough of a bother that he was even more careful and he spent at least a minute in the air lock each time, making sure it was cleared out.


    That helped tremendously because he managed to make it through swapping out his keeper thrice before another one dropped dead. That one, was because of a poisonous gas though and Felix had warned him about it. He insisted he would be fine because Felix was completely unaffected and opened the door anyways.


    Woodruff shook his head at the explanation and sighed, "We get idiots like this a lot more than I''d like. I''ll get''ya another keeper."


    Felix ended up spending a few days examining items in vaults and even then, he''d only visited one twentieth of all the floors in the building.


    Then, he finally took a break and headed back to The House of Promises to see if anyone else would take him on in a Mana War. He had made about a Pheros a day on average which, over five days, was only just over half of what he''d made in a few hours of betting on himself in Mana War. It was more than he could make now that the betting odds were so unfavorable but it still felt like a paltry sum.


    It felt even worse when he even considered consuming the ros he had earned. If he consumed the entirety of his net worth, it would still be less than a tenth of that first Spirit Anomaly Varex, Aela, Rel and Kether had let him consume.


    He knew that was only because Varex had spent half an epoch scouting and mapping them out so it wasn''t like he could just consume those freely.


    Either way, he needed a way to make more ros fast, and a lot of it if he was ever going to stand a chance against The Dragon.


    He met up with Kether and Varex in The House of Promises, Aela was also there but she was working and wearing a skimpy swimsuit. Rel also joined them briefly but she spent the entire time worrying about Felix.


    Varex told Felix that Woodruff was quite happy with him, which was good because Felix wasn''t entirely sure considering how many keepers he''d gotten killed. Felix insisted on paying them all back because he felt like they were already invested enough into helping him and he had gotten most of what he had hoped for out of them. After eating, he failed to find anyone to fight him in a Mana War and so, he headed back to Cumulo Tech and Woodruff assigned him a fresh keeper.


    It took a few dekads for Woodruff to gain enough confidence in Felix to start giving him more dangerous items to inspect. With those, he got more competent keepers but they still died almost as often, which Woodruff claimed was a good thing. With the stronger items, even with better keepers, he had expected them die more often, not the same amount.


    Felix continued to take on anyone that accepted a Mana War but he wasn''t really getting anywhere and had essentially given up on it, only checking in once a dekad on the busy nights.


    Otherwise, he patiently waited for Woodruff to trust him more. Each day, his pay was going up gradually. After 5 dekads of work though, he had still only made around 175 pheros. It was a decent amount but that first larger Anomaly was around 100 pheros.


    One day, Woodruff finally called Felix into his office but it wasn''t for the reason he was expecting. Stepping into the office, Felix found not just Woodruff sitting at his desk, but also a tall man in perfect and clean, flowered robes.


    [?] Renson Ryko (Lvl ?)


    The man looked to be older, middle aged, which was evidently a choice given his overall strength.


    Renson bowed as Felix entered the office and Woodruff sighed gesturing towards him, "Felix, this man''s been looking for you."


    Felix nodded and turned to Renson, "Nice to meet you."


    He nodded, "Likewise. I am here to extend to you, a formal invitation."


    Finally.


    "An invitation to?"


    "The Ryko Itsu House for a match of Mana War with Mist Ryko."


    Oh. Not at all what i was expecting.


    "That sounds great. When? Also, I''m new to the city so¡­ where?"


    The man smiled, "Of course. If you would like," He turned to Woodruff who just nodded and waved him off, "We could depart right now. I will guide you there."


    Felix nodded quickly, "Works for me."


    "Excellent." Renson bowed to Woodruff then led Felix out of the room and building.


    Felix followed him all the way across the large white cloud he had spent all of his time so far on and over to a large and angry looking storm cloud with lightning coursing through it constantly.


    Walking across the cloud though didn''t seem to bother anyone and standing on it, Felix felt nothing despite being able to feel the lightning with his other senses. It seemed as though the Realm protected them, just like it supported the city for whatever reason.


    All the buildings on the storm cloud were shorter with a larger footprint. They also looked more classical and less modern with painted wood beams and sloped roofs. Within some of the buildings, there were even gardens housing some greenery and ponds.


    Renson led Felix into one of the buildings and down a series of hallways into a large, nearly empty room, made of wood paneling. The only thing in the room, was a large disc near the center that was four to five times large in diameter than the arenas Felix was used to in The House of Promises.


    Felix looked back at Renson and he bowed slightly, "Mist will join us shortly. Please, take a seat."


    He headed over and knelt on the ground at one end of the arena and waited. He only had to wait a few minutes for the same woman he had seen fighting in the Spirit Fight a few days before arrived. She bowed slightly to Renson then to Felix, then walked over to the other end of the disc.


    "I am pleased to finally meet you."


    Felix nodded, "Happy to be here."


    She smirked, "I have heard you are quite gifted at this."


    "Yes." There was no point in being humble, it was the truth.


    "The Atman Struggle is an old and underappreciated art." She lowered herself to her knees at the disc, "It is something few continue to take pride in."


    "I take it you don''t bother with The House of Promises then? You have others you¡­ Struggle against?"


    She nodded, "My family is one of the oldest in Azura. Some of us have moved on and embraced modernity. Some of us, have not."


    Mist moved one hundred standard into the disc, ten times more than Felix had ever fought with. Normally, he would never have agreed to a Mana War with that much Mana but, the Arena they were using wasn''t just bigger than those in The House of Promises. It was also vastly more complex and each of them had 28 goal circles to target and protect.


    The landscape within the arena was odd too, it was like someone had shattered glass then frozen time a second later. There were floating shards, triangles and two dimensional shapes at every angle. They helped obscure the Mana and made it harder to detect, though not by much at all. The main goal of the landscape seemed to be to give too many sides to block everything.


    If it were completely open, he could have just copied where her Mana was exactly. With the disc in the way, she could fake him out and move to a new point of attack with a more direct route than he could.


    Whether or not any of that would make a difference though, Felix wasn''t convinced.


    Even before they started though, Felix was impressed she had split her Mana 28 ways and put some in each circle. Felix did the same then nodded to her.


    She smiled back and a moment later, the disc glowed blue.


    Felix immediately shot his Mana out of each of his 28 circles and then further split each of those hundreds of times, weaving them all over the disc. Mist though, wasn''t just idle. Felix''s Mana Control was definitely faster than hers but she was nowhere near as slow as those he had beat in The House of Promises.


    She moved all the Mana out of the circles closest to her and used them to bolster the her circles closest to Felix. She formed walls and barriers wherever she could but she didn''t have enough Mana to build anything truly robust. Instead, she made small mobile shields she could deploy and move around freely.


    Felix''s beams of Mana twisted their way through the disc, except for a few he had kept around to deal with the sneak attack she was trying to slip through without him noticing. As they did, she moved her shields to block as many as she could but Felix completely surrounded her circles and was attacking from every angle.


    Just a few moments from Felix''s victory, she shot the Mana she had been trying to slip by at full force and Felix created a barrier that was so thin, it completely blocked out a fifth of the disc with just a trickle of Mana. She pushed her Mana faster to try and punch through but Felix''s barrier didn''t even flinch. At the same time, his Mana touched one of her circles and the disc glowed green.


    "That''s it?" Felix looked over at her.


    She nodded, "These discs are much more sensitive. You need very little Mana for a victory."


    Felix nodded in understanding, "That''s why you tried to send so little through, you didn''t need any more and the more you use, the easier it is for me to detect it."


    "It is difficult to manipulate such a small amount."


    "Well, I appreciate the match." Felix smiled.


    "Would you like to go again?"


    Felix nodded, "Sure. You''re easily the most interesting opponent I''ve fought."


    She smiled, "You are nice. I am still far below your skill."


    Mist set up her Mana again in the circles, Felix''s was already in place.


    "You remind me of my father, playing with complete aggression to dominate your opponent."


    Felix shrugged, "There hasn''t been a point in doing anything complicated yet."


    She giggled and shook her head, "You two are so much alike."


    They fought over a hundred times that first day. They changed the amount of Mana they used, the layout of the arena and the number of circles with each match and every single time, Felix won. Mist was still quite impressive though and judging from the way she spoke about her father, Felix wasn''t sure he could win with certainty against him.


    He had briefly brushed against the idea of playing him but she essentially ignored the question and he didn''t bring it up again.


    After the first match, she played with almost equal offense and defense which seemed to be her comfort zone. Felix varied his play style to make things interesting, jumping from full offense, to just a trickle of Mana racing through her defenses. Each and every time they played, she got better. All of it was through the strategies she employed though and none of it was enough to overcome Felix''s Mana Control.


    Eventually she got tired and rose to her feet. Felix did as well and bid her farewell then Renson escorted him back to the entrance of the building, "If you have the time, you are welcome to return at this same time, one dekad from now."


    Felix nodded, "I''ll be here. Thanks."


    The man bowed again and Felix flew back to Cumulo Tech where he assured Woodruff he wasn''t being poached, at least not yet.


    He and Mist continued their dekadly sessions as he worked in Cumulo''s Vaults and had the occasional dinner with Varex, Kether, Aela and sometimes Rel, when she was free.


    Nothing really changed in Felix''s day to day. He made little to no ros, though he wasn''t spending any either. His keepers died nearly daily and he won at Mana War against Mist. He no longer bothered with The House of Promises either as no one would play him.


    The only downside to that being he couldn''t bet on his matches either. He jokingly mentioned that fact to Mist and she nodded, "I am not willing to bet on my victory. Your time has been quite valuable to me however and you are deserved a reward."


    Felix hesitated a moment, trying to decide what was appropriate to ask for. He avoided asking to play against her father because he suspected he wouldn''t need to ask for that and if he did, it might not go over well. Items didn''t seem appropriate either because he didn''t feel like the reward was big enough that the item would be of any value.


    Finally though, something came to mind that he thought was perfect to ask for, "I''d like you to set up a meeting for me."


    She cocked her head slightly, "With whom?"


    "Godovan. I''ve had trouble getting in contact with him myself."


    She looked over at Renson for a moment then nodded to Felix, "That is something that can be arranged. In return," She smirked, "This time, you may only use half of the Mana for our matches today."


    I thought the meeting was in return for all the other matches we''ve already fought.


    "Sure."


    She nodded, her smirk still present for all of a few seconds. Then, she started lowering how much Mana he was allowed to use until he was stuck with just a single point. At that point, he was forced to push his Mana Control speed to the limit of what he could achieve and even then, she managed to win a few matches.


    Neither he nor she counted those victories but she did take pride in finally having beat him.


    He didn''t mind, especially since she was doing him such a huge favor.


    It turned out the Ryko family were exactly the right people to ask because Felix had a meeting scheduled with Godovan just over a dekad after mentioning it to Mist.


    She set up the meeting in one of the rooms in the Ryko Itsu House where they had been having their dekadly matches. Felix suspected it was so that they could listen in on their conversation but Felix didn''t mind in the slightest. Everything he wanted to talk to Godovan about had to do with the outside world and the realm natives seemed to be completely unaware of it.


    On the day of the meeting, Renson led Felix into a room that held two couches and a table between them. On the table, there were a number of drinks ranging from tea to a liquor equivalent and an assortment of snacks. Other than that, the room was entirely empty and rather minimal.


    Felix took a seat on the furthest couch and waited patiently.


    He had to wait for nearly two hours, Renson assuring Felix, unprompted, that he was confident Godovan was coming, multiple times.


    Finally, a man with copper colored irises, dark skin, a neatly trimmed beard and hair tied back into a bun stepped into the room. He looked almost entirely human, except for the horns on his head. He lacked other distinguishing Rhunar features though so Felix assumed he was something else, whatever that may be.


    He sauntered into the room and fell back onto the couch opposite Felix sighed for a moment, then reached forwards and began stuffing one of everything into his mouth.


    "You''re Godovan?"


    "The one and only." He managed to get out with food stuffed in each cheek.


    "I heard you were the last challenger in Azura."


    He nodded, "That''s me."


    "Do you know about The System?"


    "Course I do." He looked taken aback. He took a swig straight from one of the bottles then cocked his head, "Why are you asking bout The System?"


    "I want to know what''s changed since you left."


    It took him much longer than it should have to catch on but once he did, Godovan''s eyes went wide, "Wait. Are you a challenger?"


    Felix nodded, "Yes."


    He leaned forwards, suddenly engaged in the conversation, "What integration did you leave from?"


    "256. You?"


    He shook his head and frowned, "Wait¡­ what? I know time''s fucked here, it ain''t that fucked."


    "When did you leave?"


    "1420."


    Felix just stared at him for a moment.


    "I don''t even think I know a single thing that''s happened before the 500th integration."


    "Well, first there was Rhonan, then Eramith, Dragons appeared, Archons, Dracopurge, System Credits, Telviras, a skipped integration. Do any of those sound familiar?"


    Godovan shook his head, "No. I''d never even heard of a thing like a Dragon until it stuck itself in the 2000th."


    Never even heard of Dragons?


    "What currency do you use?"


    He shrugged, "Whatever the person I''m buying from uses?"


    "So not System Credits?"


    "No, what''re those?"


    He has to be from a different universe, right?


    "What about your System? What''s your Race, Class and Profession?"


    "My what?"


    "You don''t have¡­ Any of those?"


    "No." He shook his head, "I got skills, an inventory, a display and a whole lot of menus."


    "Menus? Like what?"


    "Crafting Menus, Quests, Maps, Messages, Parties, Guilds, all kinds of shit. Don''t you?"


    "No. Not all those I don''t. What''s your level?"


    "6023, why?"


    "Okay, at least that''s normal. It''s¡­ high. What level were you when you entered?"


    "3824 I think? It''s been a while."


    It has to be another universe¡­ So The Realms are connected to multiple universes and his universe has a System in it too?


    "Does yours translate everything for you?"


    Godovan nodded, "Yeah but, it didn''t always do that. Once upon a time people had to mime nearly everything because there were way too many languages."


    "Mine''s done it always as far as I know¡­ Last one, have you heard of The Abyss?"


    "The what?"


    "Nevermind. So, it would seem we come from different universes then."


    "You think? And we both just have Systems?"


    "I mean, the concept of a System isn''t so original that this is surprising."


    "I guess¡­"


    Felix scooted forwards a little, "Here, let''s try something. System, show Godovan my Profession Skills."


    Godovan stared at Felix for a moment.


    "Anything?"


    He shook his head, "Let me try. System, show Felix my Inventory."


    Felix waited a moment but nothing appeared, "I got nothing."


    Godovan leaned back on his couch, "Huh. Guess we are from different universes." He stared off into the distance, which meant at a blank wall, for a moment before continuing, "So what''s a Class?"


    "A set of skills and abilities basically. Class is mostly about combat, Profession is about crafting or some other kind of work. Race is¡­ your race. Then we have General Skills. 5 of each for 15 total Skills. How many do you have?"


    "Currently I have¡­ 708? I''ve done a lot of combining since arriving in Azura though. Used to be a lot higher."


    "Holy shit. Do you have a Skill for everything you do?"


    "Pretty much. Most of them are just level 1 or 2 though. You know, you work a forge one time and get Blacksmithing Skill level 1."


    "Yeah, definitely not how my System works."


    They spoke a bit more after that but Godovan was clearly less interested once he was convinced Felix was from a different universe and Felix didn''t really have any other questions.


    Godovan left first and as soon as he did, Mist entered the room with Renson, "Did the meeting go as you hoped it would?"


    Felix shrugged, "Not sure I was hoping for anything. Actually¡­ learning about the past of my universe maybe so, I guess it didn''t."


    She nodded solemnly, "I am sorry to hear that."


    He shrugged, "Thanks for setting it up for me."


    "Of course. I will see you next dekad for our game?"


    Felix nodded, "Of course. I look forward to it."


    She smiled and Renson escorted him out of the building.

 Chapter 240 - Book 13

    While the conversation with Godovan was interesting in a certain sense, it wasn''t what Felix had hoped. He continued to examine items and his keepers continued to die. It was boring and slow and he felt like he was getting nowhere.


    Woodruff kept assuring him he was doing a great job and Varex and Kether were convinced he would be recruited by some large faction soon enough, even if it was for a one off job. That wasn''t enough for Felix though.


    His matches against Mist continued every dekad but she wasn''t a challenge and whenever Felix brought up the prospect of playing against anyone in her family other than her, she immediately changed the subject.


    He''d been in the city for almost an epoch and he felt like he was making no progress towards any of his own goals.


    He wasn''t getting any stronger. He wasn''t learning anything about anything. He wasn''t any closer to beating The Dragon.


    He felt completely stagnant.


    The fact that Grim and some of the Residents remained dour and rather silent, didn''t help either. Even Edira, who had migrated into his head, was either focused or depressed.


    However they felt though, Felix couldn''t keep going on and getting nothing done. Before he started looking for things himself though, he figured he would ask the residents of Azura that he talked to regularly.


    "Is there anything else I can do on the side? To make more ros or maybe even a school or something?"


    "One of those eh?" Kether nodded, his arms crossed.


    "There haven''t been any interesting dungeons?" He looked at Varex hopefully.


    He shook his head, "Takes longer than a single epoch. Dungeons are a big event. You''ll know."


    Felix sighed, "Alright. I''ll look for something on my own then."


    Kether nodded slowly and Varex looked at Kether. They had some kind of silent conversation with their eyes alone that Felix wasn''t privy to and he didn''t bother paying much attention to it.


    "Felix, how do would you feel about¡­" Kether started.


    "Taking some big risks." Varex continued.


    "To get even bigger rewards." Kether finished.


    Felix looked up at the two of them and shrugged, "Gambling is stupid. The risk to reward ratio is not worth it."


    "Not that." Varex shook his head.


    "More like¡­ life threatening, make a lot of enemies, kind of danger." Kether smiled.


    "Are there some really hard dungeons or something?" Felix was starting to become interested.


    "No. Well, yes but,-" Kether shook his head, "-that''s not what we''re talking about."


    Varex nodded, "Meet us at the cottage tomorrow night."


    Felix didn''t press further, aware that they seemed unwilling to continue in their current venue, "Alright but¡­ tomorrow night? Is there a faster way to get there that I don''t know about?"


    Kether smiled and nodded, "A long time ago, shortly after the realms were connected, a whole lot of people had this same issue. They want to travel the realms, delve into dungeons and all that but getting through a realm is a pain in the ass."


    "We''ve since managed to open rifts across multiple realms." Varex cut off Kether''s long winded story.


    Felix''s eyes widened a little, "Why didn''t we take one of those on our way here?"


    "Can only go through once you''ve been to a realm. Otherwise the zone stops you from going through." Kether shrugged.


    "So you were just escorting me then?"


    The both of them nodded and Kether shrugged.


    "Okay, where do I find these rifts? How do I know which one to take?"


    "There''s a registry of the well known rifts. Use those tomorrow and we''ll show you some lesser known rifts once you get there." Kether offered.


    Felix looked at the both of them but neither of them seemed willing to share more at the moment so he just nodded, "Alright then."


    They finished their meal in the casino and Felix stuck around for a little while before leaving. From the casino, he found his way to the registry in the city and mapped out his route back to the cottage in the 2142nd realm. From what he could tell, he figured it would take him a couple hours of travel time in total, which was a marked improvement but also left him with almost a day in the city. Luckily, that meant he didn''t have to cancel his match with Mist Ryko the next day.


    From The House of Promises, he headed over to work at Cumulo Tech where he met up with his current keeper, a woman who had lasted nearly a dekad up to that point, multiple times longer than any other keepers assigned to him.


    Together, they headed to a floor Felix hadn''t been on yet that looked just like the others. They opened a few vaults, took some notes and nothing was different from his every day of work before that.


    A slight improvement to his boredom was when they reached a particularly powerful item in one of the vaults. As soon as the door on the airlock had opened, Felix could feel the item was cursed.


    It looked like a full height mirror and the curse Felix felt was the Curse of Desire. It was fitting for a mirror except it was different from what Felix knew of the Curse. When he had encountered the curse before, it had shown him things he wanted in an attempt to draw him into it. The secrets of the universe, power and the origin of The System.


    Somehow though, the mirror was not only containing the Curse and not getting consumed by it but it was also altering and channeling its effects. The mirror didn''t blast Felix''s Soul with offerings of his every desire, instead it was much more subtle. The mirror showed him his happiest memories.


    For Felix, they were almost entirely centered around fights and breakthroughs. When he finally beat the Griffin, woke up after beating the Kraken, when Erolan told him he was going to fight his Soul directly, when he first overcame the Hunger and touched it without being infected.


    The memories were pleasant but, Felix suspected the mirror would have been more effective on someone else.


    Especially since he could feel the mirror trying to worm its way into his Soul, trying to draw him in. It was subtle and directed compared to the raw Curse. It was also much weaker and completely ineffective on Felix.


    Stepping back into the airlock, he headed back out into the hall after clearing the airlock of any residual Curse in the ambient Anima. He gave his report to the keeper and she diligently and silently copied down what he was saying, as she always did.


    In fact, she had talked to him a total of 3 times since he''d met her. When they first met she gave him her name and since then she had had 2 clarifying questions about items over the last dekad.


    So, when she spoke, it actually caught him by surprise, "The mirror is Cursed?"


    Felix nodded, "Curse of Desire."


    "Are you certain?"


    Felix shrugged, "I have a lot of experience with Curses. I''m certain."


    She stared down at her clipboard in thought for a moment then finally nodded after a minute, "Come with me."


    Felix raised a brow but followed, since he had nowhere else to go.


    Instead of a vault or outside the building though, she led him back to Woodruff''s office. If she hadn''t been weird about the mirror being cursed, he would have assumed she was asking about switching away from being his keeper. He still wondered if that was the case despite his doubts as they walked.


    Opening the door to Woodruff''s office, Felix''s keeper stepped forwards and stood with a confident posture Felix hadn''t seen out of her ever before.


    "Looks like yev come to a conclusion then?" Woodruff looked at the keeper.


    She nodded once, "I need your permission to verify the most recent vault first."


    He nodded then looked at Felix, "What was in it?"


    "A big mirror. Curse of Desire. Shows memories."


    Woodruff frowned, "Curse¡­ ye certain?"


    Felix nodded, "Yes."


    "Which vault?"


    "842-933-A" The keeper answered immediately.


    Woodruff pulled over a large binder from the corner of his desk and began flipping through it, face contorted in a frown. He spotted the entry he was looking for and nodded down at it, "Rift artifact¡­ huh."


    Felix stepped forwards, "A what?"


    "Rift artifact." Woodruff shut the binder and stood, "Means it popped out''tuv a rift."


    "Like¡­ the rifts that move you between realms?" Felix frowned in confusion. S~ea??h the nov§×lF~ire.net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    He nodded, "Not all the rifts move from one realm to another. A good number of em go nowhere."


    His keeper turned towards the door and walked right past him, "They aren''t listed on the registry and are usually guarded and hidden."


    Woodruff followed her, "Fer this reason. Sometimes shit comes out of em. We keep a vault around em, when something comes out, we swap the vault and send er here."


    "So no one''s actually seen that thing then." Felix nodded in understanding.


    "Yer the first. If it''s what you say it is, we need to deal with it sooner rather en later."


    Felix followed the two of them back to the vault he had come from and waited outside as the keeper turned to Woodruff, seemingly unsure of what to do.


    Woodruff nodded to Felix, "Ssuming it''s what you say¡­ can I survive it?"


    Felix shrugged, "How am I supposed to answer that for you?"


    He chuckled, "I was a Damned long ago. S''been a while but I can''t afford to send in others when they''re guaranteed to die."


    "You ever dealt with Curses before?" Felix cocked his head.


    "A few." Woodruff shrugged, "Always avoided em. I should be able to recognize and confirm what yer sayin though."


    Felix nodded, "All I can say is the effect was subtle and don''t look at the mirror for too long."


    Woodruff nodded, taking a deep breath. Then, he turned to the keeper and she opened the first door for them. The two of them stepped in and Woodruff turned to Felix, "Pull me out in one second if I''m not responding."


    Felix nodded and they opened the door in front of them.


    As it slid open, nothing seemed to happen at first. Woodruff seemed completely normal. Once it was open far enough that he could see the mirror, he was instantly transfixed.


    Felix listened to his instructions and waited but just a fifth of a second past and he leapt forwards towards the mirror.


    Felix leapt after him and managed to grab his ankle, pulling him to the ground a few meters short of him touching the mirror. Woodruff looked back, his face filled with rage as he kicked at Felix''s hands and face.


    His strength was enough that he did damage but not enough that he broke free of Felix''s grasp.


    Felix didn''t have a good way of shielding Woodruff from the mirror but, he could do the opposite so, he began pulling and climbing his way up Woodruff''s body. Woodruff fought back but once Felix used Force Spells on the both of them, he managed to slowly move himself in front of Woodruff.


    Placing himself between Woodruff and the mirror, Felix reached out and grabbed the mirror, forcing it into his Soul Space. The mirror was a little big but he managed to do it and as soon as it was there, Woodruff went limp.


    Felix sighed in relief then carried Woodruff back to the airlock, sealing him in there for the time being. Then, he hit the button for the keeper to let them out and replaced the mirror. A few minutes passed before Felix was allowed to leave the room as well while the airlock reset.


    Back on the outside, Felix nodded to Woodruff who was hunched over, "You okay?"


    He groaned, "I don''t ''member what happened¡­."


    "You tried to leap into the mirror."


    "I¡­ I did?"


    "Yup."


    "How''d you¡­. stop me?"


    "I hid the mirror in a spatial pocket, moved you into the airlock then put it back."


    He nodded and slowly corrected his posture, "You touched it?"


    Felix nodded.


    The keeper who had been with them nodded to Woodruff, "I''ve come to a decision."


    "Damn right you did."


    "What''s happening?" Felix looked at both of them in turn.


    She turned to Felix, "My name is Maclethil, please call me Mac. I am one of the Procurement Specialists for the Storm Sect."


    "I thought your name was Asil?"


    She shook her head, "No. I was evaluating you. We have need of a specialized Damned to examine a few particularly¡­ troublesome items we have recently acquired."


    "I see. Spiritual in nature then?"


    Mac nodded, "Precisely. If you are interested, we need you to join us in a dekad at the Storm Sect Vault Facility B5. I will present you with the specifics then and if acceptable, we will employ your services for a period of 4 dekads. Should your services be deemed acceptable, there is opportunity for future cooperation as well."


    Felix nodded, "Sure. See you then."


    She looked at Woodruff with a look of slight pity for a moment then walked off, presumably out of the building.


    "That isn''t an issue for you? That I leave for a while?"


    Woodruff snorted, "I get a finder''s fee for pointing her in yer direction. From the Storm Sect, it ain''t a pittance."


    "Speaking of, what is the Storm Sect? I didn''t want to seem rude by asking her."


    He chuckled, "Good call. Storm Sect is the biggest¡­ group? After Ano. Old as the families but without just a single lineage."


    "Ano?"


    "Bunch of old families that were shrinking and dying out. They instead decided to all become one entity."


    Felix nodded, "So there''s Ryko which is an old family. Ano is a number of old families that is now one entity. Then there''s Mortalbane which is a hunting company and finally the Storm Sect which is a sect, not a family?"


    "There''s also the Gera family, old as the Ryko''s but less traditional and more split up across branches."


    "Gotcha. And those are all the big players in the city?"


    "Yeah, side from Rokrunor which''s been round long as the families."


    Felix groaned, "Who''s that?"


    Woodruff waved him off, "Ye already know bout em. They''re the bank in the city?"


    "Oh. The ros refinery and all that?"


    Woodruff nodded, "Yup. They also manage a few vaults and some such but mostly they just oversee the currency."


    "Gotcha. Speaking of families¡­ I have a match soon and the last time I was late she made me play with a single point of Mana the whole time. Mind if I head out?"


    Woodruff nodded, "Course."


    "Are you gonna be okay?"


    He straightened up and stretched, "I''ll be fine. Just a lil rusty is all."


    Felix watched him for a few moments before concluding he was fine and leaving.


    Sitting across the arena from Mist, Felix used just 5 points of Mana to her 500 and deftly moved his Mana from one side of the field to the other in an instant to repel her advances.


    Every time they played, much to Mist''s dismay, Felix was getting better and by comparison, she wasn''t improving a noticeable amount at all.


    "Once again I have been defeated." She sighed and chuckled slightly.


    "Am I down to 4 points now?"


    "This point measurement you use is still new to me. How much were you using this time?"


    "5."


    She nodded, "It seems this effort is wasted. You are improving faster than I am. I will never catch you."


    Felix nodded, "Yes but I still enjoy playing you more than I enjoy playing anyone else. It''s still fun."


    "You would have more fun against my father." She looked over at Renson who always stood at the entrance to the room and he nodded.


    "I believe it is time you meet the rest of my family." She addressed Felix.


    Felix bowed quickly, trying to be as respectful as possible, "I would be honored."


    She giggled, "Do not fear your composure. My family is more interested in what you can offer them than your manners."


    "All I have to offer is a match of Mana War¡­"


    "That will be enough." She smirked, "Assuming you do not lose shamefully."


    "I''ll do my best." Felix nodded, "When?"


    "My father is not in the city. I will have him join us when he returns. He will determine if you are to meet the rest of our family."


    Felix bowed again, "Thank you. I''m looking forward to it."


    "I appreciate your dedication to playing with me. I can tell your enjoyment is minimal, despite what you might say. Your persistence however, is commendable."


    Felix shrugged, "I''ve been told. As is yours, playing me every dekad."


    She smirked, "Yes well. I believe you were to play with 4 points, was it?"


    He sighed, "Fine."


    They continued playing for the rest of the day before Felix finally left and headed immediately towards the nearest rift.


    He didn''t know what was so secret that they needed him at the cottage to tell him but it was like all of a sudden, everything was happening at once for Felix. He was finally scouted by a larger organization from Cumulo Tech, as Varex had assured him would happen. Playing Mist was finally paying off exactly as he had hoped and possibly there would even be a secret dungeon or something he was being let in on.


    The rift was about what Felix expected. Rift was the most appropriate name for what looked and felt like a tear in space. He was hesitant at first to head through it but the traffic passing through it was enough to assuage his concerns.


    The tear was nearly 20 meters tall and wide enough for 6 lanes of people to be heading through it, 3 down and 3 up.


    After that first rift, each rift afterwards was smaller with less traffic until he was finally forced to travel through a few dozen empty realms with no connecting rift. As he got further and further away, he began to wonder why they had and needed the cottage at all.


    If it were just for when they harvested anomalies on the lower realms, they could have used rifts to get closer.


    Instead, the cottage seemed to be in the hardest possible realm to reach with the closest rifts being as far away as possible.


    Entering the familiar small stone building, Felix saw everyone was already there. Rel and Varex were at the table, talking in hushed tones while Aela and Kether were lazily throwing cards at a table in between the couches.


    "Felix!" Rel smiled and waved.


    He nodded to her and closed the door behind him, "What was so secretive that we could only talk about it in the hardest possible realm to reach?"


    Kether sat up a little and smirked, "You noticed that?"


    "I didn''t think about it until I learned about the rifts and read through the registry but, yes."


    Varex nodded once, "Smart kid."


    Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.


    Aela squinted at him, "Are you sure Var?"


    Varex nodded, "We need a Damned. He''s the best option."


    She sighed, "Fine."


    Smirking, Kether rose from the couch and crossed his arms, "As for what''s so secretive¡­ we''ve got an offer for you."


    "Something morally ambiguous judging from our last conversation?" Felix cocked a brow.


    "Not morally ambiguous at all. Just plain wrong." Varex offered plainly.


    Kether leaned in, "How do you feel about theft?"


    Felix didn''t immediately answer and just looked at each of them who were all looking at him as everything began to click together in his mind, "You''re a crew. You guys all work together to steal shit. Aela is the personal distraction, Rel is on explosions and fire power, Varex is stealthy and Kether fights. Judging from the size of the crew and the fact that you have this cottage, I take it your aren''t just committing petty theft. You aren''t big enough to be infiltrating any of the big families or corporations though."


    "Mostly small companies. We target ros for the most part, easier to transport." Varex offered.


    "Thing is¡­" Kether smiled, standing back up straight, "We recently got a¡­ unique opportunity."


    "You need a Damned to transport something?" Felix nodded, "What''s the item?"


    "Not quite. We wouldn''t be stealing it if it were that dangerous." Kether shook his head, "Thing is, Damned that survive long as you have are rare. Rare enough that vaults are often sealed and protected by Spiritual wards and dangerous items. They make it so only a select few can even think about getting near them."


    "We''re going after an set of weapons that''re being transported into Azura." Varex answered.


    "From where? How do you know about them?"


    "Adventuring party in a dungeon is sponsored by Ryko. Contract says they give up the 5 best items they find. Contract is Soul binding. Nothing stops em from getting us to steal them back." Varex gestured towards Kether, "This one is his old friend."


    Felix let his shoulders drop in slight disappointment, "I was kind of hoping you''d say you were going after a mirror."


    "A mirror?" Kether looked at the rest of his crew, "Why?"


    Felix shrugged, "It''s sitting in Cumulo Tech, cursed and almost drove Woodruff insane."


    Kether looked at Varex and Aela looked up, "So, are you in?" She stood and glided across the room, getting uncomfortably close to Felix, "If not¡­ we''ll need you to make a Soul Oath right now that you won''t tell¡­"


    Felix didn''t answer immediately. On the one hand he didn''t have any moral objections to stealing and he wanted to make ros faster. He was sick of just sitting around doing nothing. On the other hand, if he was caught he would either be killed or fired and there was no way Mist Ryko would introduce him to her family. There wasn''t a ton of benefit there, but he wanted to play her father who she was certain would be a good match for him. If there were other family members who were as good or better, he didn''t want to lose that chance.


    Ultimately he didn''t think about it for very long though, "I take it this is a small job intended as a trial run?"


    "Something like that." Kether shrugged.


    "Alright, when is it?"


    "We have to leave in 26 minutes." Varex answered immediately.


    Felix cocked a brow, "What if I hadn''t made it by then?"


    "We''d have figured out a way to do it without you." Kether shrugged.


    "Usually that means Rel blows shit up and we pick through the wreckage." Aela teased.


    Rel''s cheeks immediately reddened.


    "Is there a plan then?"


    Varex nodded, "Yes. Kether and Aela are too arrogant to listen to it though."


    Felix walked over to the table and took the seat across from Varex and next to Rel, "So what''s the plan?"


    Varex nodded appreciatively as Kether and Aela went back to playing cards.


    The plan itself was rather simple, the weapons were being transported from a dungeon in the low 4''s. They weren''t just carted straight into Azura though, instead they had to sit in a vault in the same realm as the dungeon while a Damned reviewed them to ensure they weren''t too dangerous to transport.


    Once the Damned had reviewed them, the weapon''s deemed safe would be moved to a transportation container which would contain them during transport. According to Varex, some items from dungeons in the past had reacted weirdly to being transported through realms and across spaces so they used durable containers and they would be inspected by a Damned on the other side.


    They also wouldn''t be stored in anyone''s Soul Space because apparently some people had been possessed in the past by items.


    The transport containers were surrounded by a contingent of guards. 4 guards with the container and a series of 32 guards all positioned along the path of the container. They would start with the guards near the container then spread themselves out slowly as the container moved.


    It was a complicated process but it ensured that there were 36 guards within 5 realms of the transport at all times and 18 within 2 realms. It also let the guards ahead of the container look out for potential ambushes ahead of time.


    As Varex explained all this to Felix, he was expecting the plan to be complex. Instead, they were going to have Rel create a big distraction while Aela distracted some guards in the adjacent realms and Kether dealt with the others. Varex was escorting Felix who had to open the container because the container itself, was too easy to track.


    They had their own container that Varex would be carrying but Felix intended on simply carrying them within his Soul Space. He didn''t tell Varex that though because he seemed to believe it was way too risky.


    Felix, didn''t exactly share his worries.


    Once the time came, Varex led them through a rift that wasn''t listed on the registry and was hidden within a cave on either side followed by a few other secret rifts. They avoided the registry listed rifts because the path they were taking there was also their escape route. Taking the same route on the way there meant they all knew how to get back.


    Aela split off from the rest of them a few realms away and she headed off to distract the guards in the adjacent realms.


    Kether, Varex, Rel and Felix all arrived just a few minutes before the weapons were being transported. If they arrived any earlier, the guards would assume they were there to do exactly what they were trying to do.


    The vault building in the realm was boring and unexciting, much like the building Felix worked in.


    Outside of it, stood a contingent of 24 guards. They weren''t planning on engaging just yet so they simply watched as a large metal crate a few meters wide was floated out of the building and the guards surrounded it. Then, they moved it along towards the next realm.


    Felix, Varex, Kether and Rel all left before it and used a rift to skip a few realms, then they laid in wait as it made its way towards them.


    They couldn''t remain anywhere near the cache''s path as the guards in the Realm would find them in their scouting but, Varex had an item to solve that exact problem that would let them teleport a long distance within a single realm without an anchor at the destination. The no anchor part was important because it was something the guards specifically looked for.


    Apparently items like that were very rare in the realms so Felix didn''t mention he could do that himself relatively easily and kept that secret for the time being.


    They timed things nearly perfectly and teleported just a few hundred meters from the cache. There were a dozen guards at that point and as soon as they arrived, they were all sent flying, along with their target.


    Felix stared in amazement at the destruction Rel had managed to cause with a single Spell and Varex grabbed his arm, "Let''s go."


    He nodded and followed, having to push his speed to keep up with Varex as Rel and Kether rushed in to finish off the guards that had seen them.


    The configuration the guards maintained meant they had about 10 seconds before more guards from the adjacent realms joined them. Aela was keeping the next wave after that back and they would take about 30 seconds to arrive.


    Varex leapt through the air, grabbed the cache that was still airborne and tossed it down to the ground, along with the empty container he had brought along with him. Felix ignored that though, shoving it into his Soul Space then grabbed the cache they were stealing.


    It was a large metal crate, as he had previously seen except there was no obvious way to open it. His Matter Senses told him it was a few inches thick all the way around and completely solid. There were also some of the strongest Anima wards Felix had ever seen inscribed into the container to contain the items within.


    Felix didn''t really have a better option so, despite Varex''s previous warning, he punched a hole in the Aether, forming an Aether Tunnel through the box and reached through to grab the items. He immediately felt the effects of the container itself trying to suppress his Soul and knock him unconscious but he completely ignored it. He didn''t pull the items through the Aether Tunnel so he wasn''t moving them across spaces technically. Instead, he pulled them directly into his Soul Space.


    At least, he pulled the first few. Then, he lost a few fingers followed by his entire hand to the next few. He pushed on, pressing his stump and using his Tendrils to grab everything else before finally pulling his mangled arm back out and tossing the crate aside.


    "Where''s the crate?" Varex rushed over.


    "I''ve got it. Let''s go."


    Varex''s eyes filled with anger, "I told you not to-"


    "I didn''t, now let''s go."


    He grumbled then ran off, towards the rift they were escaping through, Kether and Rel following closely behind. Looking back, Felix couldn''t spot a single guard that was still alive. Almost all of them, were in pieces scattered all over by Rel''s explosions which left him wondering what Kether had done.


    They reached the rift without issue and before the other guards arrived, moving from rift to rift before finally arriving back at the cottage.


    As soon as they were there, Varex turned on Felix, "I told you exactly what to do. You ignored the plan."


    "I have the items?"


    "I don''t care." Varex gritted his teeth, "You can''t just do whatever you want because you think you''re right."


    Felix sighed, "You''re worried about me being possessed or something, right?"


    "Not really. I care that you follow the plan."


    Felix shrugged, "Look, I''m sorry I didn''t use your crate. It''s just easier to use my Soul Space."


    "Your Soul Space?" Varex looked at him like he was insane, "Our intel says that crate was full."


    Felix walked over to the table and started lining up the items one by one, "Yeah, my Soul Space is a lot bigger than what seems to be normal here."


    Kether walked over excitedly and started examining the weapons, "These all of em?"


    "No. The last three removed half my arm as I was moving them so I didn''t put them on the table."


    Kether chuckled, "Good call." He looked over at Varex, "You''re right, he should have followed the plan. If he really does have a Soul Space as big as he claims and he can handle the items being in there though¡­"


    Rel didn''t say anything but it was clear she didn''t feel the same way as Varex based on her look.


    "If it helps convince you not to kick me,-" Felix added after a moment of Varex being completely silent, "-that item you used today to teleport us? I can do that without the item, given 8 seconds or so of wind up."


    Kether coughed, "You can what?"


    Felix took a step, opened an Aether Tunnel across the room as he did, then closed it as soon as he had stepped through it, "I haven''t gotten it to be instant yet and the portaless version still takes even longer but, you said that item was pretty rare, right?"


    "Cost us half the fucking haul." Kether blurted out.


    Varex still didn''t seem happy, his jaw clenched as the door opened and Aela stepped into the cottage, "Looks like everything went swimmingly then, yeah? No remnants left behind this time?" She asked Kether as she stepped over towards the table, noticing Varex''s expression, "Kid didn''t follow the plan to the letter?"


    Kether chuckled, "Ignored a large chunk of it."


    She shrugged, "Looks like it worked out though."


    "Not only that." Kether excitedly put the weapon back down, "This kid''s a fucking walking ros anomaly. That job we talked about a few dekads ago? We can definitely do it."


    "What happened?" Aela frowned and looked around for an answer.


    Varex grumbled and Kether explained, "Kid stored all the weapons in his Soul Space,-" He cut himself off and looked over at Felix, "How big is your Soul Space?"


    Felix shrugged, "Could hold a few thousand of these cottages if we stacked em right."


    Everyone in the room stared at him like he was completely insane.


    "Technically I adopted a true sub space."


    "A what now?" Kether looked at the others, hoping they knew what Felix was talking about.


    It seems¡­ teleportation is super rare and spatial shit is almost non existent¡­ I guess they haven''t reached that point yet? They don''t have Kryptos or Rathelius but still, I didn''t think it was that arcane.


    "Nevermind. What''s this job you were going on about?"


    Kether''s eyes lit up, "Right, so¡­ There''s a relatively new company in the city that''s been producing items and tech that were nearly impossible to get before." Kether gestured towards Varex, "It''s how he got his hands on a teleportation item."


    "We figure, since it''s a new company, only showed up in the last dekad, their security won''t be quite as good as some of the other companies." Aela shrugged.


    "Also, we do this job, we could get our hands on everything we need to hit some of the bigger targets we''ve always dreamed of hitting." Kether excitedly continued.


    Felix groaned, "What''s the company called?"


    "Wanderer''s Lab." Kether excitedly said.


    Felix sighed, "You can''t rob Wanderer''s Lab."


    Varex, chiming in for the first time since his outburst, "Why not?"


    "Well, as of right now they know you want to hit them." Felix started and continued before anyone could ask, "Plus, there''s no need. I kind of have an in there."


    Aela frowned and looked at Kether who shrugged, "You have an in with them? What''s that mean?"


    "We heading back into the city soon? I can show you."


    "First," Kether began collecting the items, "We gotta hand these off to the client and get paid."


    Varex sighed, "I really wish you had used the crate. Those thing are expensive."


    Kether was about to defend Felix but he simply dropped the crate next to him, "I didn''t leave it there."


    Varex was speechless, Aela giggled and Kether snorted, "Your Soul Space really is fucking huge, huh?"


    "That''s going to take some getting used to." Rel quietly added.


    Kether nodded and walked over, placing the items into individual slots within the crate. Once he was done, Felix added the last three items from his Soul Space then closed the crate and pulled it back into his Soul Space, "I can carry it until we get about a Realm away, make things easy."


    Kether shrugged, "Works for me. Usually I''m the one that has to carry them."


    "You guys ever keep the items you steal or you always sell them?"


    "Not against it." Varex grumbled, "Just not usually worth it. Items are too hot."


    "What''s the client going to do with them?"


    "They''ll be in dungeons for the next few epochs, no one will remember by then and they can claim they found similar items in the same dungeon." Kether explained, "They''re Necro-Delvers, they delve into dead dungeons hoping to find something someone missed."


    "Was there¡­ something here you had your eye on?" Rel asked.


    "No. Not any of these. Axes and swords aren''t really my thing."


    She nodded, "What''s your preferred weapon?"


    "Don''t have one." Felix shrugged, "I''m open to anything I can cast Spells through. I just haven''t found anything worth using. You don''t use a weapon either, any reason for that?"


    She looked down in embarrassment and Kether chuckled, "She likes wands, we just haven''t found one that didn''t explode on her."


    Aela offered her a sympathetic look.


    The dropoff was relatively uneventful and mostly involved Kether catching up with an old friend. From there, they headed right back into the city and over to one of the clouds furthest from the center of the Ephemeral City where Wanderer''s Lab was located.


    The building was not as nice as the buildings in the city center and it was obviously not a new building but the repairs had gone quite far into making it not seem like it had once been a dump.


    Felix walked right up to the door, opened it, and walked inside while Varex, Rel, Aela and Kether all hesitated, unsure if they should be following him. He didn''t bother approaching the front desk as he knew the layout and simply walked right over to one of the empty shafts, flying up to one of the higher floors.


    The further they went, the more confused and hesitant the others were until Felix found a conference room and waited for them to finish following him.


    "When you said you had a connection¡­" Aela looked around, trying to determine something from her surroundings.


    "He essentially owns the company." Arysha said through her puppet as she walked into the conference room.


    "Not really." Felix shook his head, "I haven''t ever stepped foot in here before today."


    A black cat came running around the hall outside and through the door, leaping at Felix''s face and excitedly crawling all over his head.


    "I somehow¡­ find that hard to believe¡­" Kether frowned.


    Felix extracted his familiar from his face and sighed, "It''s not something I want to fully explain right now." He turned to Arysha, "I know this isn''t exactly what you were planning but-"


    She shook her head, "Not all of us feel the same as Grim. I would still like to see it killed."


    Felix nodded, "I''m a little sick of slowly waiting around. I know this is riskier but, what were the odds we ever got our hands on everything we needed?"


    "Near 100% but it would have taken hundreds, if not thousands of epochs."


    Felix sighed, "Yeah. Anyone particularly opposed to accelerating things?"


    She smirked, "Some are. Populations are diverse."


    I am. Not just with accelerating things¡­


    Arysha offered Felix a pitiful smile and let Felix talk to Grim as she addressed the others.


    I''m sorry I didn''t tell you but, some of the Residents weren''t as traumatized as y-


    You think I care about this? I care that the Residents have agency, can make their own decisions. If some of them choose to return to puppets, so be it.


    Then wh-


    You can''t seriously be considering going back to fight the Dragon?


    Why not? I know what it''s like now. I can plan and prepare. I know how strong I need to be. I-


    I don''t care if you think you have a chance. Not every Resident worships you to the point they are willing to just die.


    I know. Not much I can do about that. Unless you''ve come up with a way to free them?


    You know I haven''t. We both know that''s impossible. Your Soul is the only thing that can contain and keep this many connected Souls stable.


    So I just don''t-


    I am aware of the problems with what I am saying. We''ve had this argument before.


    Look, think about whatever you want but, I''m doing these heists and collecting whatever I can from them. If we can make weapons and equipment and I can get strong enough that I feel like I can fight that thing, I''m doing it. If you can figure out what you want me to do by then, I''m happy to hear it.


    Grim was angry but didn''t continue the argument so Felix turned back to the others in the room who were being shown various items the company were working on.


    "How long to shift things towards a heist?"


    "Depends on how certain of success we must to be." Arysha answered immediately.


    "What are we at now?"


    "If we execute properly over an epoch, 85%." She offered.


    "That''s higher than I expected."


    "Not all of us are here in this company." She smirked, "Since you created us here, we have created more puppets through your familiar and the Soul Forge."


    "You repurposed the Soul Forge to create puppets?"


    She nodded, "One of our first tasks."


    "How many Residents are there in Azura now?"


    "Not just Azura," She corrected, "There are some in dungeons and mapping anomalies. There are currently 3894 Residents beyond the 2000th Realm."


    "I¡­" Felix shook his head, "Holy shit. That''s like¡­ a few Residents a day."


    "No. Most of them here for most of the epoch. The Realmwalker licensing system very strict."


    "The what?"


    "System we have to allow Residents to puppet."


    "Gotcha. Where are most of them?"


    "Companies and Families. We have 4 in Ryko, 11 in Ano, 2 in Gera, 18 Mortalbane, 2 in Storm and 1 in Rokrunor."


    "I''m sorry, what are Residents and puppets? What do you mean you have 4 in Ryko¡­" Varex interrupted.


    Felix gestured to Arysha''s puppet, "These people live in my head but puppet bodies outside of me."


    "So¡­ When you said you have an in here¡­ you have an in¡­ everywhere?"


    Felix shrugged, "Seems like it. I wasn''t tracking them on purpose for the last epoch because of some things that happened before I met you but, yeah. I guess so."


    "So¡­" Kether looked around at everyone, "What''s the first target?"


    Varex was normally the one who came up with a plan for the crew but with Felix''s Residents, there wasn''t any point. They were more people who were overall smarter, had more information and were perfectly coordinated with a network of super computers backing them.


    The Residents were better than Felix at recognizing emotions and caring about others though so, they included him in the planning process.


    Kether spent that time drooling over various items they had created and asking them about others they could make. From what Felix and his Residents could tell, it was like the entire Realm was behind on enchantment technology. They didn''t have any concept of how spatial enchantments worked and how to create them, just artifacts and remnants from the past. As the Residents talked through some enchantments with Kether, he was constantly astonished by the things they could do with just Mana.


    They were still refining the process of using Concepts though, which was something the Realm was much better at.


    No one could come up with a decent theory as to why they were behind other than that they just didn''t seem to have bothered or cared in the past.


    They decided the best first target for them was the Earth Branch of the Ano family. They weren''t the easiest target, but they weren''t as likely as some of the other targets to aggressively hunt down the perpetrators. They were also currently in the midst of a minor dispute with the Water Branch which meant, they would likely assume they were the thieves.


    Their vault was also one of the oldest and while it was considered very secure, it was secured almost entirely physically. With Felix''s Aether Tunnels and Spatial Translocation, along with the items the Wanderer''s Lab could make, they could easily circumvent most of the defenses.


    They didn''t waste any time with the first heist and set out that very same day, since they had everything they needed.


    The main compound of the Earth Branch was where they kept their personal vault and also one of the branches they had the most Residents inside of. It wasn''t a big stone block of a building like Felix expected from a branch called the Earth Branch but rather, it consisted of many towers with intricate supports and pillars holding up bridges that spanned across them.


    There was a wall around the outside of the compound and walking up to the front door, they were let right in.


    "This almost feel too easy." Kether whispered with a loud and excited tone.


    "They can get us in to the compound and give us the layout, they can''t unlock the safes in the vault for us." Felix tried to adjust his expectations.


    "Still." He shook his head, "This is pretty great."


    From the wall, they walked across the grounds over to a specific tower they had mapped out as their entry point. It was close to the vault, but also commonly used enough that no one would look twice at them entering through there.


    Then, Aela split off along with the Resident that had let them in and went off to meet a minor member of the branch. While she was there, they were acting as her guards and would break into and empty the vault.


    Once Aela had been delivered to her meeting, the Resident returned and escorted them to a waiting room where they were supposed to wait for her to finish. It wasn''t the nearest waiting room, but it was slightly bigger than the nearest one so, it wasn''t entirely suspect that she led them there.


    Inside the break room, Kether kept watch while Felix open an Aether Tunnel a very specific, measured distance through the west wall, three and a half meters from the south wall.


    10 seconds later, Varex, Rel and Felix stepped through the Aether Tunnel and right into a vault room.


    The room itself was just a large metal box. Within it, were a number of safes along all the walls. While the room itself wasn''t warded in any way, each of the safes were in multiple different ways. The contents were constantly weighed, their temperature was measured and control and there were light sensors throughout. All of them were enchantments though and relatively easy to disable.


    Varex seemed slightly hesitant, as if unsure it would actually work, as he placed the item the Wanderer''s Lab had given him in the center of the room.


    Then, he activated it and nodded to Rel.


    She took one side of the room while Felix took the other. They weren''t exactly quiet but they had some time and Felix''s other Residents in the compound had made sure there wouldn''t be anyone near the walls adjacent the vault because even if they could block sound, there were also vibrations they couldn''t block.


    One by one, Rel proceeded to blow open the safe doors with very controlled explosions before moving on to the next one. Felix did the same as best he could but he wasn''t nearly as capable as she was at controlled explosions. Instead, he used his Matter Control to manipulate the doors themselves.


    He also pulled Nova out of his Soul Space and had her help him and she managed to open far more than he did.


    The entire process took a total of ten minutes. Then, Felix moved from vault to vault and moved the contents of each one into his Soul Space using his tendrils.


    Finally, he opened an Aether Tunnel, the exact opposite of the one they had used to enter, and they all stepped back into the room.


    "You''re done?" Kether looked at them incredulously.


    "Yup." Varex nodded, "How much longer will the enchantment disabling device last?"


    Felix shrugged, "A couple hours. I charged it just before we left to be sure."


    He nodded and took a seat.


    "So¡­ we just wait?" Rel looked around, in a similar amount of disbelief as Kether, "¡­and walk out?"


    "Pretty much. Help yourself to the refreshments in the room. They are for us."


    She nodded slowly then took a seat while Kether began excitedly pacing across the room.


    Aela''s meeting took a total of a couple hours during which Felix could tell Varex was getting progressively more nervous. Felix wasn''t nervous though because what he wasn''t telling them, was that his Mana Control let him reach into the vault, nearly a kilometer away, and so he was keeping the device charged the entire time.


    The Resident that had escorted them to the room then led them back out where they met up with Aela and simply walked off the compound and back to The Wanderer''s Lab building.


    There, Felix dumped the contents of his Soul Space onto the table so they could all search through the loot.


    The building itself was warded to the point where it would be impossible to spy on them so, they didn''t have to worry or go all the way back to the cottage.


    "Holy shit." Kether dug his hands into the massive pile that mostly consisted of ros, "This is more ros than we''ve ever made in¡­ on all of our other jobs combined."


    Rel giggled and held a few Emros in her fingers, seemingly checking if they were real or not.


    "Any interest in the items?" Felix said picking up some kind of hat that was warded against something he couldn''t decipher.


    Kether picked up a fold-able fan that was enchanted to push air and produce a melody as it did so and snorted, "Nah. I''m good with just the ros."


    Felix nodded and used his Matter Control to quickly split the pile into chunks. He pushed ten percent towards all of them then the other fifty to Arysha. She took that money into her own Soul Space, the result of another project of their''s using the Soul Forge.


    "How long until the next one?" Kether said as he greedily shoveled ros into a bag.


    "Not long. We''re going to play it off as retaliation and hit the Water Branch soon. Then, we''ll wait a little while and likely try to hit Mortalbane before hitting the other branches." Felix answered.


    Kether shrugged, "Sounds good to me."


    They nailed down the specifics of the job as the Residents got to work with the set up that needed to happen in the meantime.


    While they did that, Felix went back to work at Cumulo Tech and brought Nova with him. It was a bit annoying at first telling her she couldn''t eat every single item in each of the vaults, but after a while Felix began to find it charming and somewhat humorous.


    "Y''eve been doin a good job kid." Woodruff sighed as he slouched down into his chair, "Yer more resilient en I am, in some cases."


    "Thanks. You didn''t just call me in here to tell me I''m doing a good job though. Is it about my familiar?"


    He waved him off, "Nah. Don''t care bout that." He took a long sip of some kind of crimson liquid that looked a bit like translucent blood, "Not sure if you know but, we get pretty much all our items from delvers."


    Felix shrugged, "I assumed. Wasn''t sure where else potentially dangerous, unknown items would come from."


    "Right." Woodruff scratched at his chin, "Well, most the time we transport the items from the dungeons back here. It''s a dangerous job and in some cases, not feasible. So, we send Damned down there to figure out if we can safely transport them back here."


    "Okay¡­"


    "Any interest in going down there and doing that?"


    Normally yes but¡­


    "No. I have things to do in the city and can''t be too far way right now. I appreciate you thinking about me though."


    Woodruff nodded, "Gotcha. No worries then."


    "See you tomorrow." Felix waved politely then left and headed over to the Wanderer''s Lab building.


    He was using the empty rooms in the building as a quiet place to catch up on things he had been neglecting for too long.


    First, he started by harvesting all the ros he had collected up to that point. Everything he had made from his job at Cumulo Tech though, amounted to a miniscule fraction of his share of the Earth Branch job. Just one tenth of that job amounted to around 50 emros which was 10,000 biiros, which was 10,000 pheros, which was ten times more than he had made at Cumulo tech in total.


    It was also, more Anima than he had ever had in one place at one time except, for the System Chunk. That was uncontrolled though, this was Anima he could take his time with.


    He started by filling and compressing each and every aspect of his Soul. Then, he took a pass over every structure in his Soul, starting with the lattice barrier that surrounded and contained his Core Soular System. He kept the same overall structure but made the entire thing finer and denser. The lattice used more and smaller connections to fill the same volume and ultimately, it was much stronger.


    Then, he expanded and filled out more planets within his Soular System as he still had so much Anima.


    After that, he didn''t really have anything else to do with the rest of the Anima so, he turned his attention inside himself. First, he poked the Fractal Mana Spell Form within his Core Soul. It shifted slightly but was otherwise unresponsive to his every action. He had really been hoping he would get any kind of direction from it but there he was getting nothing.


    Then, he banked as much Anima as he could within himself, just in case, and yet, he still had more.


    The last thing he did, was begin to craft an Avatar.


    From what he and his Residents had gathered, most people projected their Soul outwards and that was their Avatar. It was literally part of their Soul. Felix had found over the last epoch, that that seemed to be impossible for him. He could slightly shape the outer layers of his Soul to his body but in general, his Soul was rather rigid and unwilling to be projected.


    So instead, he resolved himself to craft an Avatar, even if it was temporary and just for the Realm so he could participate in the Spirit Fights.


    He ran out of Anima before he could finish it but even just the proof of concept, was much more promising than anything else he had tried thus far.


    Finally, Felix began working on Spells again. He crafted and refined Concepts then imbued them in Spells but every time he did, he felt like he was missing something. The Spells were stronger but they weren''t nearly what Rel was capable of and they just felt lacking. Even if he were able to match Rel though, it wouldn''t be enough. Not if he wanted to fight the Dragon, even with a weapon to cast through, if he ever managed to find one that worked for him.


    He kept working at it though between work as the Residents prepared the next job in the hopes that he would have some kind of breakthrough, anything to indicate that it was at all possible for him to kill The Dragon.

 Chapter 241 - Book 14

    While the next couple of days were as normal as almost every other day Felix had spent in Azura, they felt different.


    He went to work at Cumulo Tech, his keepers died often and he had dinner with Aela, Varex and Kether.


    At the same time, he was tuned in and aware of everything happening with his Residents from the Wanderer''s Lab. They didn''t need him to do anything, in fact it was better if he didn''t for many reasons. Not only were they better than him at everything they were doing, infiltrating the factions, scouting the vaults, planning the heists and remaining unseen while doing so, but it was also better if Felix stayed far away from their targets.


    So long as he remained visible and had a solid alibi, it would make it far less likely that anyone suspected him as one of the thieves. It was already suspect that he was relatively new in the city and relatively well known and successful as a Damned. Especially when the Water Branch vault seemed to be protected almost entirely by Soul wards and Concepts that teetered the right on the edge of becoming Curses.


    The threat wasn''t that he would be arrested, the real issue was that if they suspected him, he would simply be hunted down and killed, even if there wasn''t any proof.


    The families didn''t care about being fair or just, it mattered far more that there was a scorched earth policy in place so that, future thieves deemed it not worth it to try and steal from them.


    It made it even more crucial that they pinned the blame on another family so that they didn''t even start looking for individuals. The Residents had a whole plan on how they were going to do that where it seemed like the Earth Branch was retaliating but they also planted clues that there was a larger plot at play by the Fire Branch which were being puppeteered by The Gera Family in the background.


    More than likely, no one would ever track those clues and follow them all the way through but they were there in case someone did.


    As for the heist itself, the Residents had planned it to coincide with a large gala that had been scheduled for years. It was one of the reasons they had chosen the Earth Branch in the first place. The Water Branch was a good target but by hitting the Earth Branch first, it became more likely to be a part of their feud and much less likely the actions of a third party.


    On the night of the heist, Felix walked arm in arm with Rel, Kether and Aela just behind them, into the massive palace that housed the core of the Water Branch of the Ano family.


    The palace itself was mostly made of marble and the entire thing looked like a large fountain, with various spouts, falls and flows covered the outside and forming a mosaic of constantly flowing water. On the inside, there were falls on some of the walls and water beneath glass panels in the floor.


    The lobby of the palace was large enough that nearly a thousand people stood around and there were still large and clear open areas between them, making it feel anything but cramped.


    Everyone wore what amounted to high fashion at the gala. In Azura, that meant rather simple clothing that accentuated Soul Projected accessories in every way imaginable. For most, that meant Anima jewelry and buttons for those with less Soul strength, Wings and Capes for those with more and for the true elites, entire wardrobes with various colors through Concepts.


    At least, that was what Felix had been told.


    He, Rel, Kether and Aela sported simple Anima accessories of necklaces and earrings for the women and simple bracers for the men.


    They were unassuming and fit in perfectly with everyone else there, exactly as they had wanted to. Anything more or less would have been noticeable and for the heist to work, they needed Felix to walk into their vault which meant they needed him to be able to slip out unnoticed.


    Inside, they split up slightly but both pairs still ended up in the same general area, off to the side of the main lobby as they waited for the elites to make an appearance.


    "That robe really suits you¡­" Rel almost whispered.


    Felix looked down at the sleeveless robe Aela had picked out for him that accentuated the Anima bracers adorning his forearms. It was red and white and he thought it made him looks like he was bleeding or like the robe was blood stained. He much preferred his own robes.


    "Thanks. Your dress is quite flattering as well." Felix returned the compliment to be polite and keep up appearances.


    She blushed and swayed her hips a little in joy.


    Felix looked away from her and picked up a small plate of some hors d''oeuvre that was being brought around and slowly ate it, completely ignoring the food itself and his surroundings in general. Instead, he was tapped into the senses of a few of his Residents, one of which was with Varex and in the process of stealthily setting things up around the building.


    His brain was more than capable of paying attention to all of them and his own senses but he had no interest in the party so he mostly blocked his own senses out.


    He didn''t have to wait long for the elites to finally show up though and when they did, his focus was immediately pulled back to the party.


    There were no stairs for the elites to descend, instead they floated down from the upper floors in a pretentious and grandiose way. Where everyone else had jewelry or wings, Felix''s focus was immediately drawn to the Matriarch of the Ano Family who wore a dress adorned with interlocking golden plates making her entire outfit quite close to plate armor.


    The dress appeared to be actual physical cloth but it was completely infused with Anima, in a completely different way from Felix''s robes. Felix''s robes were affinized to him, they allowed his Anima to flow through them more easily and they listened to his commands more readily.


    Her''s felt more like they were not quite made of Anima, but nearly. The cloth itself-or rather the threads-were like physical threads and Anima twisted or braided together and made solid. It was an impressive piece of clothing that had Felix''s mind, along with a number of like minded Residents, whirring with curiosity.


    The dress, while fascinating to Felix, wasn''t part of her Soul projection though, her Soul projection made up the plates that looked nearly real. They were barely translucent, almost like opaque glass and not quite solid as they shifted and moved slightly, as if made of a liquid. They were however, the closest to a real physical solid Felix had ever seen Anima get. Even more impressive than the plates existing though, was the detail work adorning them.


    It wasn''t just the intricacy which wasn''t as hard as it seemed. Theoretically, with enough Anima and a strong enough will power and enough focus, anyone could shape Anima into anything they imagined. Having that much Anima, a strong enough will and enough focus wasn''t as rare in Azura as it was in the system-verse.


    The impressive part, was that the intricate detail was crafted from various Concepts and Convictions. Each one was woven together to form a tapestry on each plate and even though Felix was likely the only one who had Anima transcoded into visual stimuli, the Concepts almost begged the viewer to see them as colors.


    All in all, the outfit and presentation, with all the Concepts and Convictions she displayed, formed a picture of who she was, or rather, how she wanted everyone else to see her.


    Following her, there were 4 men, each one the head of a different branch of the family, then a number of younger and less impressively adorned individuals. The direct descendants and family of the Branch heads.


    There was no big speech as they descended, as if their arrival was more than enough.


    As soon as they landed, they were approached by various people and groups in the crowd and Felix watched for just a bit longer, taking in each and every one of them but more importantly, what they were wearing and how they projected.


    Aela and Kether are approaching now. Varex is in position.


    Alright, guess it''s my turn then.


    Turning away from the centers of attention at the gala, Felix turned towards the door and stopped.


    "Is something wrong?" Rel nudged him in the side and stared in concern.


    Felix was completely transfixed.


    Walking straight from the front door towards the Matriarch of the Ano family, was a man with slightly pointed ears, messy black hair, an unshaven face and violet eyes. He wore a dark purple robe and looked to be completely average in proportions and build. He didn''t even have a projection of any kind.


    That lack of Soul projection caused quite a few to immediately dismiss him but they took a second look when others, who apparently recognized him, began whispering, pointing and in some cases, greeting him.


    It wasn''t who they were that fixated Felix though, it was something else entirely.


    Despite having no Soul projection or Aura of any kind, Felix could still feel his Soul from across the room easily, as he could anyone else. What he found though, was nothing like anyone else in the room. His Soul, was completely void of Convictions at all. He didn''t even have Concepts like Rel did that formed her attunement to Fire and Explosions.


    He had nothing Felix thought was necessary to progress his Soul and yet his Soul was by far the strongest in the room. It was like Felix''s own Soul. Not as insular and hard as Felix''s, but his felt just as dense and vastly more aligned, along with being quite a bit larger.


    Even without any Convictions whatsoever, his entire Soul seemed to be one unified whole. All the Anima was aligned and purposeful in a way nothing else Felix had ever encountered was, except for literal Curses. Not only that, but it stood out amongst the Ambient Anima in a way no other Soul Felix had ever seen did. It was like his Soul had transcended reality and looking at it, it was no longer a bundle of Anima containing experiences and forming a Soul, it was something completely new. It was it''s own thing entirely.


    "¡­Felix." Rel jabbed him in the side.


    Who is that? Felix asked Mark as he would know exactly who to direct the question to.


    Your senses caught his name a few seconds ago. Kerix Ryko.


    "Felix, we have to go now." Rel insisted.


    She is relatively correct. The plan has been adjusted but you will nee-


    "Sorry. Let''s go."


    Mark, have Wanderer''s Lab or whoever else is in Azura find out as much as they can about Kerix Ryko.


    Just as he was about to pull his gaze away from the man, he turned, made eye contact with Felix for a moment and tilted his head just slightly, as if acknowledging his presence with a nod then, he turned back to the Matriarch as if nothing had happened. Luckily, he was looking around and nodding to quite a few people so his looking over at Felix didn''t cause him to stand out.


    Felix stared for just a second longer then finally left with Rel, heading towards the door to leave. Instead of leaving though, they exited the palace and turned off to the left. They didn''t turn too abruptly though and made it seem like they were just leaving in that direction where, the Residents had already planned a logical route they could use as an excuse if needed.


    As they walked through the garden which, was nothing like a garden at all considering the lack of soil on the cloud they stood upon, Felix began coalescing and attuning the Mana he needed. It was a little earlier than necessary, but he was more than capable of just holding it as they made their way through the cloud maze and sculptures.


    They stopped at a specific spot behind a cloud sculpture of a roaring beast where Felix opened an Aether Tunnel and stepped through, followed shortly afterwards by Rel.


    On the other side, Felix floated down the opulent hall at the back of the palace as he charged another Aether Tunnel, opening it as soon as it was ready. Rel, who was right behind him, quickly looked through before he closed it, immediately hearing and feeling a massive explosion just a few rooms down from where they were.


    Then, he turned off to the left suddenly and walked right at what appeared to be a blank wall, just to the right of some artwork and a small table that held a plant.


    The wall felt physical but as Felix pushed on it, both physically and spiritually, it began to give until it felt almost like a liquid and he pushed himself through.


    Man, I feel useless. Felix heard Kether in his mind.


    I do feel a little¡­ disregarded¡­ not something I feel often and definitely not something I enjoy¡­ Aela added.


    How''s it going on your end Varex? Kether asked.


    Shut up. Don''t distract us. Why are you useless?


    We were supposed to distract some of the branch heads but even the guy I know is ignoring me so he can look pretty in front of this guy. Kether answered with an annoyed tone.


    I''ve never met this man before but he does seem rather¡­ captivating. Aela added.


    That''s a good thing for us but not something we needed to know right now. Please only use Felix''s communication network in emergencies. Varex cut them off.


    Fine. Kether mentally sighed to indicate his annoyance.


    Yes, sir. Aela added in an uncomfortably sultry tone.


    Felix ignored the chatter and continued on, into a room of mirrors. He ignored the pull from the various mirrors and shattered them all at once with his Tendrils before floating through one of the frames in particular. As he did so, Rel stayed behind, only entering the room after Felix had shattered the mirrors, and waited patiently there.


    Continuing on into a long hall with various rooms on either side, Felix stretched out his Tendrils, that had recently grown longer through his consumption of vast fortunes of ros.


    Each one punched through some kind of defense in the form of an Anima film, a Concept or a trap that tried to worm its way inside of him. He ignored all of them and brushed the end of the tendril against the contents of each cell, pulling them into his Soul Space.


    There were almost half a thousand cells in total which meant it took Felix just a few minutes to soar down the hall and empty everything. Once he was done, he began charging up and attuning Mana as he rejoined Rel in the room with the mirrors.


    He found Rel in the room, along with the shattered mirrors, that were now partially melted and scorched all over. Felix used his Soul tendrils to smash and shatter them even further then placed the device Wanderer''s Lab had created in the middle of the room and opened an Aether Tunnel for him and Rel to leave through.


    With the device activated, he closed the Aether Tunnel then walked with Rel back towards the entrance to the palace where they were supposed to meet up with Kether and Aela.


    They arrived there before Kether and Aela had left, even though they didn''t have anything to do and so they walked towards the manicured path that led up to the palace to wait. They stood off to the side of the path so they weren''t in the way as they watched the entrance of the palace and waited for their companions they had arrived with.


    Before Kether or Aela arrived though, someone else exited the palace, Kerix Ryko.


    Felix had been too transfixed before to do anything, and slightly worried he might alert someone but outside, he decided to risk an identification.


    [Titan] Kerix Ryko


    Wait¡­ What?


    Before Felix could even consider what that meant, Kerix turned and noticed him, made eye contact, then began walking towards him.


    "You Felix?"


    Felix was slightly taken aback by the overly casual tone but nodded nonetheless, "I am."


    He gestured off to his right, "Mist''s been talking about you a lot. Renson too."


    Looking over in the direction he gestured, Felix noticed Mist standing next to him for what felt like the first time that night.


    Yes. She has been with him the entire time. Mark answered the question before Felix could even ask it.


    Mist looked almost embarrassed as she smiled and bowed deeply towards Felix, a stark contrast to the typical shallow bows she offered him.


    "You''re her father?"


    He scoffed, "No."


    Mist looked even more embarrassed as she moved her mouth and jaw as if she wanted to say something but didn''t know what.


    "I''m her¡­" He looked over at her for help but she didn''t even notice Kerix looking over at her, "Ancient ancestor?" He shrugged and turned back to Felix.


    "Oh, apologies." Felix bowed slightly.


    "Kerix is the progenitor of the Ryko family¡­" Mist spoke softly, finally finding something to say.


    Kerix, the evidently very old man, nodded, "Anyways. Nice to meet you. Good luck with your¡­" His eyes darted upwards in a very human expression of thought, "Adventures? Both tonight''s and in the future." Making it very obvious he knew what Felix was doing at the gala that night.


    Mist looked at him with a slightly confused glance but didn''t move anything more than her eyes, making it seem like this was both normal for him and she didn''t want to judge him given who he was.


    Kerix raised his hand and lazily waved as he began walking away, "See you soon, challenger."


    Felix wanted to ask what that meant but didn''t stop the man.


    After watching him walk down the path and away, Felix heard footsteps hurriedly walk over to them from the palace. He already knew who it was though so he turned to look at Rel who had been completely silent and she was as he expected, nearly catatonic.


    "What did he say to you?" Kether asked.


    "Who is he?" Aela added before he even had a chance to answer.


    "He¡­ said hello, I guess." Felix shrugged.


    Aela stared at him then poked Rel a moment later when he didn''t answer her question satisfactorily.


    Rel didn''t seem to have returned to reality just yet but she managed to answer anyways, "Progenitor¡­ Ryko¡­"


    "He''s what?" Kether stepped forwards and loudly whispered.


    "You can''t be serious." Aela added.


    She finally managed to shake herself free of her stupor and looked at them innocently, "It''s what he said."


    "Technically Mist said that." Felix added.


    "That''s the chick you play every dekad, right?" Kether asked.


    "Yeah." Felix nodded.


    Move. Now. Varex cut in.


    All of them returned to reality from their tangent and began walking down the path, away from the palace and back to their designated meeting spot in an abandoned building in Azura that Mortalbane had recently acquired.


    They didn''t head back to Wanderer''s Lab in case they were followed and knew about the building through one of Felix''s Residents in Mortalbane. It was close by and nothing had been done with it yet, making it the perfect place to regroup.


    The four of them arrived just slightly after Varex and the Residents with him did, according to Mark. Despite that, Varex immediately approached them seeming almost angry, "What happened? Why are you late?"


    Aela sighed and looked at Kether who just shrugged. Varex, seemingly in disbelief he had to do so, looked at Rel who slightly jumped where she was standing, "Kerix said hi to us¡­"


    "Who is Kerix?"


    "Apparently,-" Kether shrugged, still in disbelief, "-he''s the Ryko progenitor."


    Varex frowned deeply and looked at Aela to see if he was serious. She just shrugged and nodded.


    "Given the life spans of everyone in Azura, that can''t really be that surprising that he''s still around¡­ right?" Felix looked around for an explanation.


    "That he''s alive, no. Not at all." Kether shook his head.


    "That he''s still here on the other hand¡­" Aela added with a sigh.


    "We thought all the progenitors had left¡­" Rel added, "I think¡­ everyone thought that."


    "What''s the big deal if he hasn''t?"


    "It''s not a big deal really it''s just¡­" Kether shrugged, "No one really knows anything about anyone from that long ago. It''s all so ancient that¡­"


    "I thought they had all left, met the Acharaya long ago." Aela sat down at one of the chairs that had been left behind by the building''s original owners.


    "Why do you think he''s still here?" Rel asked.


    "Who knows." Kether shrugged, "Like I said, we know nothing about that time so¡­"


    "You guys ever heard the term ''Titan'' anywhere?" Felix asked.


    Kether and Aela both shook their heads and shrugged.


    "No, why?" Varex answered.


    "No reason." Felix shook his head, "Anyways, job went pretty much how we hoped."


    "Better." Aela added, "We were never going to be much of a distraction but that Kerix guy¡­"


    Kether chuckled, "Did you see Matriarch Rheka''s face when she heard the first distraction explosion?"


    Aela smiled, "But she wasn''t willing to turn away from Kerix?" She nodded quickly, "Did you notice the way her eye started to twitch?"


    "And her Spirit Armor stared to shiver?" Kether added excitedly.


    "What about the planted evidence?" Felix asked one of the Residents in the room, a short woman wearing a tight black outfit with a hood covering most of her face, who had been with Varex.


    She nodded, "All in place. No issues."


    They have just discovered their vault was emptied. Mark added.


    Perfect. Reaction?


    The Matriarch is trying to calm her children. They are fighting with each-other. Everything is as expected.


    "Perfect." Felix nodded, "I''ll split everything up through Wanderer''s Lab. Make sure you head there at some point in the next few dekads to see if there''s anything you want."


    "You sure about trying to compete with Rokrunor?" Aela seemed slightly nervous.


    "If you want to withdraw and open an account elsewhere, you''re more than welcome to." Felix answered, "For the time being, this is easier though."


    Kether shook his head, "Works for me. Less suspicious this way too than if we suddenly deposited massive amounts of ros."


    Aela sighed, "Yeah, I guess. How can I be sure it''ll be safe though? Rokrunor''s had eons to build a reputation¡­"


    "Safe from what, thieves?" Kether teased.


    This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.


    "First of all, your ros is stored in a sub space." Felix answered, "It''s not even in this¡­ universe. How many people in this realm do you think know how to access it?"


    She opened her mouth to retort but nothing came out. Kether smirked and nudged her with his elbow, "Kid''s the entire reason we have this much ros anyways. What would you even do with it anyways?"


    Aela shook her head and shrugged, "Nothing. It''s fine."


    Varex nodded, "Alright. Let''s get out of here."


    Felix nodded and opened an Aether Tunnel for him, Rel, Kether and Aela, and his Residents and himself.


    Each one of them went somewhere different, Rel''s off into the back of Azura, Varex''s to the center, Kether and Aela''s back to The House of Promises and Felix and his Residents to Wanderer''s Lab.


    Felix was the last to step through as he closed the Aether Tunnels behind everyone then left with his Residents to sort through and store the contents of their haul. Mark would keep track of how much each person had in their accounts which made them much closer to a real bank, from back on earth, with computerized systems to track everything.


    They had other big plans in that department too but for the time being, they just stored and sorted through the items.


    None of them were particularly interesting, though some did go to the Lab in Wanderer''s Lab to be dissected and researched, with everyone''s permission granted through the communication network first.


    Once everything was stored away and sorted, which required Felix in case anything was trapped, he took his share of the ros and an empty room in the building. He didn''t take any more as every extra ros they collected, went into building up their bank and using it to compete with Rokrunor. Given all the plans his Residents had, they needed the ros now and it seemed like the best possible investment he could make.


    Felix''s share of everything they had stolen went right into his Soul Avatar but the entire time he spent crafting and building it out, he was distracted. He looked inwards and compared his own Soul to Kerix and wondered about the gap between them.


    A couple more rather normal days passed where the only slightly different thing that happened, was his new keeper pestering him about all the gossip surrounding the Ano Water Branch gala.


    "Did you hear? The Earth Branch stole from the Water Branch and blew up half the place."


    "I don''t think it was half." Felix responded.


    "Well, close enough. I heard the Water Branch actually stole from the Earth Branch first. This was just retaliation."


    "Is that so?" Felix answered in the most uninterested tone he could muster.


    "Yeah. Matriarch Rheka is just trying to keep them from starting an all out internal war."


    "Is she now?"


    "Yup. Not only that, but the Fire and Air branches look like they''re going to get involved too."


    "Cool."


    "From what I''ve hear, the Air Branch is leaning towards siding with the Water Branch, which, I guess makes sense. Those Air Branch members are pretty against destruction and stuff so all those explosions the Earth Branch used probably made the decision for them¡­"


    Felix only barely paid attention, and only for the sake of Mark and his Residents hearing what the current rumors were.


    Luckily for him, that keeper lasted just as long as the rest and he was assigned someone completely new the very next day.


    That keeper got to live, at least while they were with Felix, because the day after that, he had to head off to meet the Storm Sect in Vault Facility B5. His residents helped him locate exactly where that was on the large Storm Cloud that housed the Sect and Felix made sure to arrive early in the day, just in case they cared about that kind of thing.


    The very same woman that had shadowed him as a keeper and invited him to the facility greeted him almost as soon as he arrived and led him into the building and towards a room with two chairs and a table. She sat across from him and gestured for him to take the other seat.


    "Welcome to the Storm Sect Vault Facility B5. This is where we keep the first of the dangerous items that are indirectly and unintentionally potentially lethal."


    "Meaning not weapons. Items that are potentially lethal to the user, even when handled with care?"


    "Correct. We have a number of Damned on staff but as you are likely aware, finding and managing Damned such that they last longer than a few epochs is an art. This is one of the reasons we are always seeking new Damned with potential."


    "I appreciate the interest."


    She nodded, "Today we will begin with some simple items with known dangers to determine your capabilities. Should you be deemed capable and trustworthy enough, you will be moved through the facilities all the way up to A1 should you prove yourself trustworthy."


    "So each Vault Facility is numbered and lettered then? A1 stores all the most dangerous and valuable things?"


    She nodded, "Precisely. For the extent of your time here with us, I will act as your keeper."


    "Sounds good to me. Can we get started then or is there something else you need from me?"


    "You will need to form a Soul Oath agreeing to protect our secrets. Do you agree to these terms?" Mac asked.


    "Sure." Felix shrugged, "How exactly do I do that?"


    "Of course, challenger. I can act as the witness to the oath. You must declare a binding oath with your Soul and present that oath to me. Do you know how to do that?"


    Before Felix could answer, Mark spoke directly to him, Some Residents have had to already. It is essentially a contract with yourself.


    "I think so. Let me give it a try."


    She nodded and he looked inwards where he created a binding of Anima dedicated to keeping their secrets. Given the structure of his Soul though, he didn''t make it actually binding to himself and kept it outside of his Core Soular Space. He was hoping she would either be fooled or worst case, think he was just green and unaware.


    Once it was done, he presented it to her by projecting that part of his Soul outwards and she immediately nodded very seriously, "We appreciate your dedication."


    Felix nodded.


    What was that about?


    The strength of the Oath. Yours is relative to your Soul Strength so it seemed like a very serious Oath to her.


    Ah. Gotcha.


    She immediately headed out of the room, wasting no time, and led Felix over to the first vault.


    The vault itself was similar to the vaults in the Cumulo Tech building except that they seemed more durable. The doors that sealed each vault weren''t just thick and strong in material, but they were also warded much more thoroughly and intricately. The wards were even strong enough to completely block out Felix''s ability to feel anything through them, a noticeable improvement over the wards on the vaults in Cumulo Tech.


    Stepping into the space between the two subsequent doors, Felix immediately noticed there was more than just the doors sealing the room, there was also a series of barriers created from a combination Mana and Anima Spell.


    While the Mana parts were there, they weren''t particularly impressive, which was what Felix expected from the Realm. The Anima Spell that had been woven into it though was much more impressive. The way the two had been woven together was as good as Felix and his Residents could have accomplished, if they were limited to the same Mana Spell.


    That made it so there was something there for him and his Residents to learn from, the Anima Spell, but it was being held back to the point where it was almost frustrating to see.


    Stepping through the final physical door, Felix was a little disappointed by the first vault.


    Inside was a simple long sword. He walked over and picked it up, already aware it was going to try and possess him as soon as he did. He swung it around a bit then placed it back on the small pedestal that had held it then turned back to his keeper who was still within the space between doors, behind the Anima-Mana barriers.


    "It tries to possess the wielder."


    She nodded quickly, "How does it do this?"


    Felix almost shrugged but stopped himself before doing so, "It tried to worm its way into my Soul?"


    She nodded again, "How would you rate the strength with which it did so?"


    Felix didn''t even know what unit of measure he was supposed to use to judge that on top of being so beyond the capabilities of its possession, that it was essentially impossible for him to judge it, "I''m sorry. I have no idea."


    She seemed a little disappointed but still nodded, once again, then led him to the next vault.


    The next few vaults were equally as disappointing for Felix and seemingly Mac as well. They were either subtle or weak in how they tried to infect him and so, he didn''t have a great answer for her on how dangerous they were.


    After those first few though, where Felix was seriously starting to wonder when she was going to kick him out, the power of the items began to rise. Within just a couple of those vaults, Mac stopped stepping into the vault at all and simply waited outside. He still wasn''t a great judge of their danger levels, but it was easier for him to make an assessment of them.


    Then, they started to become more dangerous, exponentially. None were quite as bad as the Cursed mirror Mac had seen him assess at Cumulo Tech but they were noticeably stronger.


    At the end of the day, Felix sat across from Mac in the same room he had first been led to and she smiled as she looked over the list of vaults they had visited, "I will submit these assessments tonight."


    Felix nodded.


    She looked up at him, "I will see you tomorrow."


    "I passed then?"


    She cocked her head, "This was not a test. It was an assessment. I did shadow you at Cumulo but I am still required to submit an assessment for the Vault Managers to form their own judgement. I was well aware you are largely incapable of assessing the strength of an item however, your ability to remain¡­"


    "Living?" Felix offered.


    "Yes, living is valuable in its own right. An initial assessment on strength, even an incredibly vague one is very valuable. It allows us to make a judgement as to which Damned to assign it to next. If we do not have to worry about your life or sanity, it saves us quite a bit of time."


    "Perfect. I was a bit worried after those first few vaults."


    She smiled, "What you did today was the standard assessment. It is a tree and depending on how you do in each one, the next vault is decided. The only way to properly fail, which is highly unlikely after having been scouted, is to consistently be incapable of surviving or assessing."


    "So people die then?"


    "As I said, it is highly unlikely after being scouted. On top of that, the sword from the first vault is rather innocuous. It will cause you to laugh hysterically for about a day after which it wears off."


    "So you''re a recruiter then? A recruiter of Damned?"


    "I am, and quite a good one at that, I believe." She smirked slightly.


    Felix smiled and nodded, "Well, I''ll see you tomorrow then."


    She smiled and nodded then led Felix back to the lobby where he left the building and headed off to Wanderer''s Lab.


    He spent the entirety of the night working with some of his specialized Residents in a lab dedicated to Spell research trying desperately to increase the damage of his Spells.


    While he had the focus and Mana Pool to simply pump more Mana into his Spells, even using much more capable nodes and complex Spells he had found in the Dragon''s Library and throughout the system-verse, his Spells felt weak. They were strong enough that he would obliterate most of The Abyss when he returned, trivially surpassing both Romar and Zeraxes but he had seen Rel''s Spells and he knew about The Dragon.


    They weren''t even close to either and therefore, they weren''t enough.


    Even if he could just pump Mana into his Spells and possibly equal the overall destruction of Rel''s Spells, it wasn''t the same because hers had an aspect of penetrating defenses. The Concepts she used allowed her Spells to actually be effective in situation where Felix''s, even with multiple billions of points of Mana, wouldn''t.


    Just a Concept alone weren''t enough either. It made his Spells stronger, but not quite in the same way even Tam''s Spells were. Her and Rel''s were integrated and woven together. He wasn''t even sure they knew what they were doing as both of them seemed to do so naturally. It was talent, not fundamental understanding, that led to their abilities.


    Felix, right from the beginning, always focused on understanding and knowledge. So, he either had to figure it out or find someone to ask. The latter seemed impossible considering the level of knowledge around Mana and Spell work in the Realm, despite their significantly better Mana Control on average compared to the system-verse.


    The next few days, Mac slowly introduced Felix to progressively stronger items in vaults and he continued to work with his Residents.


    They managed to learn more about Spells and Mana forms each and every day as they dove into the intricate world of multidimensional Spells, living Spells and more, slowly discovering where each technique excelled and how best to combine them. They also began, partly out of frustration with what they were seeing, began to explore weaving Anima Spells, channels, nodes and patterns into traditional Mana Spells.


    Just a few days later, he headed over to the Ryko residence he had been meeting Mist in every dekad for their regularly scheduled match. Except, it wasn''t just Mist waiting for him.


    When he arrived at the residence, Renson Ryko greeted him at the door and led him in, as he always did. Instead of leading Felix to the same room though, he led him to more of a lounge room in the building with a table and two couches.


    Sitting on the couch opposite the door, was Mist along with an older looking man with a very serious face and a permanently, wrinkle engraved frown.


    [?] River Ryko (Lvl ?)


    Felix took a seat on the couch opposite him and met his gaze, unsure if he was supposed to say something.


    Mist, seemingly uncomfortable in the silence, addressed Felix, "Felix, this is my father, River."


    Felix bowed slightly from his seated position, "River. I am honored to meet you."


    He nodded slightly, "You have been playing my daughter for quite some time now. She often compares your play style to mine."


    The frown made it seem to Felix like he didn''t approve. His control over his Aura was also impressive meaning he wasn''t leaking anything, at least nothing Felix could detect.


    Mist seemed almost embarrassed or guilty too but a moment later, River Ryko nodded once, "You will play me today."


    "I would be honored." Felix answered.


    River Ryko nodded then stood, leading Renson, Mist and Felix to a room Felix hadn''t seen before. It was almost identical to the one he and Mist had been using every dekad except that it was almost 4 times as wide in every direction. That made the arena in the center, truly massive.


    Felix flew over to his side of the arena, opposite River, and stood there. River made no move to kneel or sit so Felix matched him and remained standing. He didn''t say anything and just stared Felix down but Felix immediately felt the Mana he pulled into the arena on his side.


    Mirroring his input Mana in position and amount, Felix maintained the eye contact for as long as River would.


    A moment passed before a blue light flashed from the ceiling, instead of the arena, and both of their Mana raced outwards from their starting locations.


    The way Mist had spoken about her father''s abilities and playstyle, Felix had been excited to play him. Most of that came from the hopes that he would be a real challenge for Felix.


    Luckily for him, Mist was right. Her father was far better than her and Felix was immediately thrown when he moved his Mana nearly as fast as Felix could.


    The arena was rather simple, with pillars randomly placed throughout and River''s opening move was to split his Mana into four and weave each piece around the pillars as fast as he could towards Felix''s side. S§×arch* The N??elFir§×.net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    Felix on the other hand, split his Mana into 16, trusting his will power would overcome River''s quantity.


    They met right at the middle of the arena where River began splitting merging and smashing his Mana up against Felix''s in one of the most aggressive matches he had ever played. He didn''t try to sneak by or loop around or really form any complex strategy, he just smashed his Mana against Felix''s repeatedly.


    Having split his Mana into 16, Felix created barriers with a quarter of his total Mana and used the rest to race towards River''s side where the goals were.


    Once Felix was just a quarter of the arena away from winning, River immediately switched tactics and grouped all his Mana together then launched it forwards with more speed than he had shown so far. In fact, his Mana Control was faster than Felix''s at that speed.


    Seeing where he was going, Felix wasn''t sure if he was trying to fake Felix out or something because he was heading straight for a pillar.


    Mist''s father didn''t deviate from his path at all though and just kept pushing it until it smashed into the pillar and astonishingly to Felix, through it. On the other side Felix mounted a defense with a barrier and slowed it down but the Mana River was controlling wasn''t just Mana anymore, he had infused it with something between a Concept and a Conviction of pure power.


    It kept accelerating, due to the Concept of Speed he had imbued into the back side of his Mana creation and Felix retaliated by grouping as much Mana as he could together and pushing plain, raw Anima into it. He didn''t have the control or practice to imbue a Concept or Conviction as quickly as he would need to so, he didn''t.


    Felix didn''t just control his Mana, he braced the barrier against nearby pillars with Mana creating something that looked like a trampoline or a cloth held on with a spider web.


    He continued staring into River''s eyes as his Mana creation raced towards Felix''s, the both of them desperate to see what would happen when they hit.


    Right as they were about to though, the light above Felix''s side of the arena flashed green and River released his control on his Mana, letting it splash harmlessly against Felix''s barrier.


    He clenched his jaw at the loss and bowed, "You are as capable as my daughter claims."


    Felix returned the bow, "Thank you. I was very much looking forward to this match. You did not disappoint."


    Despite looking like he was angry, he nodded quickly, "Again?"


    Felix returned the nod and his Mana to his side as the arena reconfigured itself slightly though, it just relocated and replaced the pillars, it didn''t fundamentally change the layout.


    This time, River doubled the amount of Mana he had in the arena and Felix matched it.


    They played similarly to their first match except this time, when River''s Mana began smashing itself against Felix''s at the center of the arena, Felix felt a weird pull on his Mana right before a red light flashed above River''s side of the arena.


    River immediately released his Mana, "Stupid arena-", and turned on his daughter angrily, "When did you increase the sensitivity on this thing?"


    She seemed unable to form words as she held up her hands innocently. Felix wasn''t entirely sure what was happening but Renson''s giggling from off to the side of the room drew his attention.


    Renson noticed him looking, "River is a dirty cheater."


    River glared at the man.


    Renson held his hands up in defense, "He''s very good at Mana War. He''s also a cheat that will try to get away with anything."


    River scoffed and turned back to the arena, "What''s the point. Why do we call it war if you aren''t willing to do anything to win."


    "I''m okay with turning off the cheat detection if you want." Felix offered.


    River''s eyes widened and he offered the first smile since Felix had met the man, though it was just a slight smile, "You continue to impress."


    Mist sighed and walked over to the side of the arena where she configured something then stood back up to watch.


    What followed were hours of Felix and River trying desperately to out cheat each-other. River was far more experienced with cheating at Mana War though and he managed to win quite a few matches. The first was when he slipped a small piece of his own Soul into the Mana he started with. That Anima poured into Felix''s Mana and hindered his control over it.


    Felix managed to win by pulling Mana into the arena from directly within one of River''s goals, the furthest one, which seemed to impress the man given the range.


    They both seemed to have some kind of unspoken agreement though where they didn''t reuse the same method of cheating that either one of them had used so they had to continually come up with more creative methods every match.


    Despite his initially sour expression and demeanor, by the end of the day River was yelling and screaming obscenities in every match, which Renson found hilarious and Mist embarrassing. It didn''t bother Felix in the slightest especially since none of it seemed to be directed at him and River kept insisting that they play again.


    Finally though, hours beyond when Mist and Felix usually stopped playing, Renson had to cut them off, "Felix. We appreciate your time."


    Felix nodded and stepped away from the arena, "I appreciate the matches. I had a lot of fun."


    River grumbled before collecting himself and nodding to Felix, "We will have to play again soon."


    "I would like that."


    As Renson led him out of the building, Mist offered Felix a look that seemed to be apologetic and grateful at the same time.


    There was little time left before he had to head back to the Storm Vault facility so Felix headed straight there and simply waited in the lobby. As he did, he began to practice replicating what River had done with Concepts of Speed and Power imbued into his Mana to move it faster. It wasn''t a completely novel concept to Felix but it wasn''t something he had practiced much as he had been more focused on weaving the Concept into the output of the Spell rather than the Spell itself.


    With a Fireball, he tried to imbue the Concept of Fire into the bead that launched out of the Spell. What River was doing was more akin to imbuing the Concept into the channels, patterns and nodes.


    Felix wasn''t sure it would have much practical use in Spell work but he practiced anyways, if only to play and beat River the next time.


    Everyday he slowly progressed his reputation within the Storm Sect Vaults and worked with Wanderer''s Lab to experiment with his Spells as they worked to prepare the next heist. For the time being though, they were mostly letting things play out between the Earth Branch and Water Branch of the Ano family.


    They also needed to be ready for the next heist.


    No matter who they hit, even if they hit the Water or Earth Branches again, everyone would know there was a thief or group of thieves at play. That meant they needed to be completely ready to hit everyone they needed to hit, despite the new defenses they were going to be putting into place.


    On top of that, if there wasn''t someone to blame or a thorough trail of clues to follow, they would be caught immediately since everyone would be looking for them.


    That meant they were all lying low for the time being.


    The next dekad came and went with Felix going from work to the Lab until he had another scheduled match with Mist.


    Arriving at the residence, he was disappointed when Renson led him to the original room with Mist instead of the larger room, which mean River wasn''t there. He hid his disappointment well, he assumed, since Mist didn''t seem to notice or mention it and her Aura Control was rather unimpressive.


    After a few matches in near silence, Mist finally started a conversation, "We did not have a chance to discuss the gala last dekad when my father was here."


    Felix looked up at her and nodded, "What about it?" Unsure what she meant.


    "You encountering me with¡­" She seemed reluctant to use his name, "Kerix."


    He looked at her for a moment with confusion, unsure what she was trying to get at.


    "It''s just¡­ I am not normally¡­ I do not often spend time with Kerix. Not even not often, that was the first time in fact I¡­"


    Felix nodded, "Okay."


    She sighed, "He was simply curious about my interest in Mana War and¡­"


    "I think I''m missing something."


    "You¡­" She looked at him curiously, "¡­ are a challenger. I understand. Apologies. Please disregard what I was saying."


    She seemed almost relieved but now Felix was more curious than anything, "What were you trying to say."


    She looked up at him then sighed, "It''s just¡­ Kerix''s presence here is not very well known at least, not as the progenitor but¡­ those that know of him¡­ he has a reputation as a¡­ man of many women."


    "Ah." Felix nodded, "Understood. He''s the progenitor of your family right? Doesn''t that just mean he keeps the family growing?"


    She shook her head, "He hasn''t sired a child in eons, ever since he started the Ano family."


    Felix snorted mostly in surprise, "That''s why he was visiting the matriarch at the gala. Catching up?"


    Mist shrugged, "I do not presume the progenitor''s intentions."


    He nodded.


    "Largely because they are unpredictable and always nonsensical." She added under her breath causing Felix to chuckle.


    She smiled and they continued playing for the rest of the day as she probed him with small talk.


    It took just over 3 dekads from the gala for the Residents to have everything for the next heist prepared. Over that time, the Water and Earth branches of the Ano family began publicly messing with each-other in the most petty ways possible because anything more serious would anger Matriarch Rheka.


    So, they began essentially playing pranks on each-other. Spraying each-other with water in public, stealing small things from each-other, poisoning food, salting drinks and starting rumors.


    At the same time, Felix''s Residents were setting up an elaborate plot throughout the city.


    The next heist was against Mortalbane, the hunter''s company.


    Their head quarters encompassed one of the smaller clouds in the city which, was still massive, it was just relatively smaller than the others. On it, there was a headquarter building along with a number of branch offices which, according to the Residents that had infiltrated them, were closer to lounges and guild halls than offices.


    The complexity of the heist, was that they needed to hit multiple vaults at once. Each branch office had its own vault in addition to a central vault in the main office.


    There was no chance they could hit them each one by one so, they had to hit them all at once.


    In order to hit all the vaults at once, there was a fair bit of preparation to be done. Mainly, Felix needed to both open and maintain 74 simultaneous Aether Tunnels. As much as Felix had grown over the course of his time in the Realms, he had neither the focus nor the Mana to do that, or even the Mana Control to manipulate that much Mana at once.


    What they could do however, was create a machine that would do it for him. Then, all he had to do, was Tunnel the machine into the correct location and reach through it with his Soul Tendrils.


    On the day of the heist, Felix had already prepared himself by lengthening and multiplying his Tendrils until he had many more. The machine was finished by his Residents and everyone was where they needed to be.


    In some ways, it was the most complicated heist so far with all the moving pieces and Residents behind the scenes. In other ways, it was the simplest. All Felix had to do was open an Aether Tunnel then stand perfectly still.


    Stepping through to the other side, Felix''s Residents moved the machine through and set it up while Felix began preparing another Aether Tunnel of his own. They set the machine up in the middle of the Mortalbane district of the city to minimize the length of the Aether Tunnels which made them more stable.


    Normally, that wasn''t a problem because Felix was the one opening it. This time though, it was a machine and the Mana they were using, was less than stable.


    As he waited, Felix''s attention was drawn in a seemingly random direction. He couldn''t tell how far they were as they were well beyond the range of his senses but, Felix could feel Kerix''s attention on him.


    What''s going on? You aren''t moving. Varex asked through the communication network facilitated by Mark.


    It''s Kerix. He''s watching us.


    What? What do you mean ''he''s watching''? Kether asked.


    I don''t know where he is but he''s paying attention to us right now.


    Shit. Alright, how long to take the Machine apart? Varex asked without letting any of his anger leak into his question.


    No. We can keep going. I don''t think he cares. He''s just¡­ curious. Felix understood the oddity of what he was saying.


    You sure? Kether asked.


    Yeah. He knew about the gala too.


    Wait- Kether started.


    We don''t have time for this. Later. Varex cut him off.


    The Residents managed to set everything up in a matter of minutes, which was faster than they had hoped. Then, Felix got into the machine which looked like a large sphere made of rings and opened the Aether Tunnel he had been preparing. The Tunnel opened up to a location on the farthest end of the realm and through it, Felix began pulling a massive stream of Mana.


    It was where the Residents had finally managed to open a mostly stable hole into the Aether, similar to the one they had tried to use on The Dragon.


    All Felix had to do, was stabilize the Mana and pump it into the machine which was something he had more than enough focus and control for.


    It took a few minutes for the machine to charge up, which meant collecting enough Mana to open 74 Aether Tunnels at once. For stability reasons though, it didn''t open 74 at once, instead it staggered the openings slightly to reduce the transient load on the entire system.


    So, Aether Tunnels began to open one by one around Felix and each time one did, he reached through with a tendril, smashed through whatever Spiritual defenses there were in the vaults, and sucked up everything he could find. Then he closed the tunnel manually as soon as he was finished.


    The process made it so they weren''t actually hitting them all simultaneously but, it was still the safest option. Sending in 74 individual thieves was too complicated and error prone given all the potential points of failure and moving parts. Plus, Felix thought using a machine to Aether Tunnel into 74 vaults was far more interesting.


    As much as it was safer though, it still had a lot of moving parts and so, it was likely something would fail.


    Felix was just happy it wasn''t the machine they had created to maintain the Tunnels. Instead, it was something much easier to solve.


    One by one, the various Tunnels closed. Once there was only one left, Felix manually detached the Spell from the machine and adopted it himself. Then, he opened an Aether Tunnel back to the empty building they had designated and his Residents began to dismantle and move the machine.


    As they did so, he used his Devourer''s Rings to morph into Arthur then, he hopped through the last Tunnel, the one that had given him problems.


    Just a few moments later, he closed both the remaining Tunnels as his Residents had fully moved the machine.


    Then, he used his connection to Nova to target her and summon her from an Aether Tunnel. She was more than excited to help and even more excited, when he communicated to her that he needed her to get through the vault door.


    Initially, the plan had been for the Aether Tunnel to simply open inside the vault. When it hadn''t done that, Felix fully intended on reopening it himself but before he did, he felt something else at play. The Aether Tunnel hadn''t missed, it was blocked.


    The vault wasn''t the main branch vault but rather a vault in one of the various offices of Mortalbane.


    Either an item inside it, or the vault itself, was somehow warded against them getting in. Since Felix and his Residents were nearly certain no one in Azura could do anything related to Spatial magic, he knew it had to be an item they had stored inside. There was no chance Felix was letting an item like that get away from him so, he and Nova began burrowing through the thick vault door.


    Nova focused on the physical door while Felix overwhelmed and dismantled wards and protections one by one.


    They spent minutes breaking through the door and given they had already hit every other vault, Felix knew Mortalbane was aware of him which was why, he was using his Persona as a disguise.


    Just as they were left with less than an inch left, Felix felt a number of presences quickly approaching. He smashed through the last of the Spiritual defenses of the vault then turned around and rushed to meet them.


    Flying down the stairs were 6 individuals, 2 men, 3 women and a beast of some kind.


    While Felix was much stronger than he had been, he wasn''t even sure how he''d hold up in a fight against one citizen of Azura, let alone 6 at once.


    So, he didn''t fight them.


    The beast reached him first and Felix grabbed it with his Soul Tendrils and smacked it into the wall, which only worked because the beast was a Soul Projected Avatar.


    Then, he dropped a quick Force Spell to push everyone away, including himself, and ran back towards the vault that Nova had finally gotten through.


    Reaching in with his Soul Tendrils, Felix scooped up the contents that were left behind along with Nova, now that she had grabbed whatever had been blocking him before, and stuck everything in his Soul Space.


    Turning back to the entrance to the room, Felix just waved at the guards as they charged him.


    Before any of them could reach him, Felix vanished from the room, using one of the first Spatial Translocations he had used in a long time.


    As soon as he reappeared, Felix pulled Nova back out of his Soul Space and had her spit up everything she had managed to grab, just in case.


    For the most part, the items were what Felix had expected. There were less mundane items because more of it was from dungeon loot and the company was a hunting company. Overall though, the items weren''t much more interesting than those from the Water or Earth Branch Vaults except, for the item that had blocking Felix from Tunneling into the vault directly.


    He immediately picked the ring out of the pile and inspected it.


    [?] ?


    [Ring]


    ???


    Lovely.


    While the ring had a similar identification as Grim had had, the ring felt different to Felix. It felt less like some alien object from another universe but rather, it felt more like the System couldn''t identify the ring. At least, that was his assumption based on what he could and couldn''t do with the ring.


    Being the Damned he was, Felix dutifully placed the ring on his finger to see what it did.


    As soon as it was on his finger, Felix almost panicked.


    He could still hear, see, smell and feel the air around him. At the same time, it didn''t feel like he was still where he was a moment ago. The Aether and Ambient Anima all around him was completely different.


    To get a better sense of it''s purpose, Felix stuck the ring on Nova''s paw, after having her shrink down a bit. As soon as it was on, he couldn''t feel her anymore. Their connection was still there and he could feel her through that but no longer could he feel her presence in front of him.


    So the ring is¡­ messing with the Ambient Anima and Aether to hide the wearer''s presence completely? Felix smirked, Peace is going to be shocked when I return and instead of having the loudest presence in the room, my presence no longer exists. Anyways, not the most useful thing but, better than nothing.


    If it had blocked all Spatial effects, it would have far more useful but once he had a better idea of how it worked, Felix knew that instead, it was just messing with the Aether directly around it which made Aether Tunneling specifically impossible. Wearing the ring, he could still Spatially Translocate himself, just not Aether Tunnel.


    What the ring did do however, was get Felix''s hopes up for what he was going to find in the other vaults.

 Chapter 242 - Book 15

    Despite sticking around well beyond when he should have, Felix was the first one to arrive back at the designated meeting spot, an abandoned building well beyond the outskirts of Azura, on a distant solitary cloud. Each one of them, except for Felix who didn''t need one, had a device to open an Aether Tunnel for them.


    Still, they didn''t want to use them anywhere close to the buildings they had just robbed so all of them had scurried outward before using them.


    The first to arrive after Felix, was Varex. As soon as Felix felt the opening of the Aether Tunnel with his Mana Senses, he stowed the ring he had found in his Soul Space.


    "What the fuck is happening?"


    Felix lifted his hands innocently, "I know about as much as you do."


    Varex growled a little then began pacing back and forth as the others appeared one by one. None of them immediately said anything but, many of them looked like they wanted to. Kether and Aela both stopped themselves from speaking though as soon as they noticed Varex angrily pacing.


    Rel was the last to arrive because she couldn''t propel herself with explosions in the city as that would have been too recognizable. Instead, she was forced to walk away from the scene of the crime before activating her device.


    As soon as she arrived, Varex stopped and turned on his heel in Felix''s direction, "You need to tell us what''s going on right now."


    Felix cocked a brow, "In reference to what exactly?"


    He growled as if Felix should have known, "Kerix. You stopped in the middle of the job and then just dropped that bomb on us. What do you mean he''s watching and he''s just curious?"


    Felix shrugged, "I know about as much as you do. Probably less. Some guy showed up at the gala, seemed important. He was with Mist, he said hello. He''s apparently the progenitor of the Ryko family."


    "No. Today, what happened?"


    "I was standing there and just felt his attention on me and what we were doing. That''s all." Felix shrugged again.


    Aela cocked her head, "What do you mean, felt his attention?"


    Felix thought about it for a moment then closed his mouth and looked at the rest of them. His Aura control was still weak in comparison to others but, it was enough that he could show them what he was talking about. Using his Aura, he focused his intent and projected it outwards, his intent of watching them.


    Rel immediately shivered and Aela uncharacteristically tugged on her skimpy outfit to make it less revealing.


    "So then¡­ where was he?" Kether asked.


    "No idea." Felix shrugged again for what felt like the umpteenth time in the conversation, "I just felt that, more or less."


    "So then he knows everything?" Varex looked very serious.


    "Pretty sure. Also, I don''t think he cares." Felix answered, unsure.


    "Okay¡­" Varex sighed, "What exactly happened when you disappeared?"


    "One of the vaults was being troublesome so I hopped through and dealt with it."


    Aela smirked and Kether placed his palm on his forehead.


    Varex groaned, "At first, I thought you had a plan. You had all these people running around in every part of the city, you could get us into places and I was even excited." He gritted his teeth, "Now I know you''re just making it up as you go."


    Felix shrugged, "Not ex-"


    "You just love to wing it. This is just who you are? You get off on things going to shit?"


    "I don''t know that I love it but, it happens." Felix nodded.


    "To be fair, nothing''s gone to shit-" Kether started.


    Varex ignored him, "I thought you had some grand plan that let you survive The Dragon''s Zone. You didn''t did you? It was all just dumb luck, wasn''t it?"


    "More or less." Felix nodded again.


    "Fucking challenger. I should have known." Varex turned away from Felix and stormed towards the door, "I''m out."


    Aela winced as Varex left the building, though Felix wasn''t exactly sure how he would get back from the floating cloud they were on.


    "Do we have to worry about him telling anyone what we''re doing?" Felix addressed the others.


    Aela shrugged with little confidence, "Probably not¡­"


    "He just hates it when anyone deviates from the plan." Kether waved them off, "He ain''t gonna leak anything. He''s just mad and needs to cool down."


    We need to be sure. Follow and observe.


    Affirmative.


    "Anyways," Kether licked his lips and rubbed his hands greedily, "How''d we make out?"


    "A few hundred Xeros, a few hundred thousand Emros and hundreds of items, just shy of a thousand."


    Aela whistled, "That''s¡­"


    Kether''s eyes lit up, "Enough ros to open my own casino."


    "As for the items," Felix started, "We''re going to take a few and experiment on them. You are free to look through the rest back at the Lab."


    Aela, Kether and Rel all nodded, none of them minding in the slightest that Felix and the Lab took the first pick of the spoils.


    There was nothing else to go over all together so Felix opened them all Aether Tunnels to their desired destinations then headed back to the Wanderer''s Lab himself. There, he began experimenting with the ring, with his Residents help this time.


    What they managed to discover about the ring in the first night, was that it wasn''t actually erasing anyone''s presence, even if it felt like that. Rather that seemed to be a side effect of the ring.


    Felix left it with his Residents to continue experimenting while he headed back to work at the Storm Sect vault.


    He arrived and met with Mac, his keeper at the Storm Sect and the woman that had recruited him, then began analyzing items in vaults, as he did every day.


    That lasted for a grand total of just a few vaults before Felix sensed some kind of commotion in the building on the lower floors. He didn''t hear anything or feel the building shaking as the floors were too thick and the walls too sturdy but he definitely felt the Auras in the building below him rampaging around.


    Mac felt it just after he did and frowned in confusion before running down the hall. Felix followed as they dropped all the way to the ground floor to find out what was going on.


    On the ground floor, where the lobby was, were just over a dozen Spirit Avatars fighting. Three quarters of them were either bestial in nature or were some kind of hunters, the other quarter were obviously security for the building.


    Giant Spirit Beasts wrestled with more humanoid avatars, clawing, biting and tearing at them until they were completely overpowered.


    Luckily for Felix, they arrived on the other side of the floor from the core of the fighting because he was pretty sure being in the middle of the fight would have actually hurt him. He looked at Mac to figure out what to do next but she seemed completely frozen.


    Grabbing her before they were noticed, Felix dragged her back over to the shaft they had descended and dragged her back up a few floors, "Is there any way to lock the building down?"


    She quickly nodded and managed to collect herself before leading him up a floor and down a couple halls where she activated some mechanism that slammed all the shafts shut and locked down each floor.


    "Do you know who''s attacking the vault?" Felix asked when she was done.


    She shook her head, clearly still somewhat in shock, "I don''t know them but¡­ their Avatar''s, they''re Mortalbane."


    Ah, shit.


    "Any idea why they would be attacking this vault?"


    "I¡­ no. Not really. I know there was a rumor that the Storm Sect was making a play to¡­. That we were behind the thefts but Mortalbane wasn''t hit."


    Well¡­ I guess last night''s news hasn''t reached her yet. Sounds like there isn''t anything special about this vault though so, all of them are being hit at the same time then. Did we know this would happen?


    No. Our best estimates were that Mortalbane would be angry and possibly irresponsible. Their actions today were a probabilistic outlier.


    Is it just Storm Sect they''re hitting?


    Correct. From what''s been gathered so far, it seems as though they are not working alone. Ano Earth Branch along with Fire Branch are here as well though not at this particular vault.


    Mortalbane is much bigger¡­ they probably concentrated their best resources on the higher tier vaults then. When were we going to hit Storm Sect?


    The planned series of events before today was to steal from the Gera family next. Rel requested we avoid them as long as possible. Kerix Ryko''s presence makes it unrealistic to steal from the Ryko''s without leaving the Realm immediately afterwards which leaves the Storm Sect as the next logical target. However, the plan at this point has changed many times and we were in the process of revising it to acc-


    That''s fine. Given there are- How many vaults for Storm Sect?


    There are nearly 70 vault facilities within the Storm Sect.


    Holy shit, all of them like this one?


    Similar in size, yes.


    How the hell were we going to make that work?


    All iterations of the plan so far have ignored the lower tier vault facilities lettered C and below.


    How many does that leave?


    8 facilities.


    That''s much more manageable. Do we have access to a list of vault contents?


    We do not. The Storm Sect is relatively insular and you are the closest to that information of all the Residents that have infiltrated the Sect.


    Felix turned to Mac who didn''t seem to have even noticed he was having a conversation in his head as she was still completely shell shocked, "Is there a registry of the vaults and where the really dangerous stuff is?"


    She looked at him for a moment, silent, then nodded, "I- Yes, there is."


    "Where?"


    "I cannot tell you." She shook her head, "You have not reached the-"


    "Mac. Right now, there are Mortalbane goons tearing their way through the bottom floor of the building. Do you really think they''re hitting just this one vault in particular?"


    She shook her head quickly and Felix continued, "If you don''t want to tell me, who do we need to tell about what''s happening?"


    "With the building locked down, we could not reach them even if we tried. I am certain they are already awa-"


    "Is there not a way to override the lock down? And this person does exist, right?"


    She began to nod but as she did, Felix reached forwards and grabbed her both physically and spiritually. He used his Soul Tendrils to begin tearing at the inside of her Soul, injuring it just enough before he implanted a Puppet Soul and attached a Resident to it.


    Injured, her Soul didn''t stand a chance of fighting the possession as the Resident began sifting through her recent memories to find what they needed. She only lasted for a few seconds before her Soul gave out and fell apart at which point Felix pulled the Puppet Soul back out of the body and stuck the corpse in his Soul Space.


    There was no point in leaving it there without her Soul and there was no way to preserve that indefinitely. Having a Puppet in the corpse wouldn''t fool anyone in Azura, considering how spiritual everyone was, so they didn''t bother.


    Third from the top floor is records. Floor above that are offices for the overseers of the facility.


    What about the top floor?


    Intake for item shipments that are flown in onto the roof.


    Oh, that makes sense.


    Standing in front of the console, Felix overrode the lockout sequence for a few of the shafts and all of the vaults between him and the top floor. Then, he ran out of the room and began grabbing everything inside each of the vaults. He wasn''t alone on the floors though so he used his Persona to disguise himself.


    He managed to get through a single floor before he encountered a group of three Damned and their keepers along with two guards. Rushing onto the floor, they all spotted him and he quickly rushed over to them, "Thank fucking god. Mortalbane is on the ground floor and is trying to make their way up here. My keeper said they were retaliating because they were hit last night. They got her and forced her to override the vault doors a-"


    "Your keeper, who are they?"


    "Mac- Sorry, Maclethil. She''s dead now."


    The guard, realizing he wasn''t lying about being a Damned, relaxed his expression and nodded, "We''ll head down there and see if we can''t lock down these vaults again."


    "Be careful, they''re already on the floor I just came from."


    The guard nodded confidently, "I''ll notify the other guards. Can you Damned make sure none of the items escape, confirm their contents are still there and manually lock down each vault?"


    The keepers nodded quickly, "We''ll get on it."


    As the guards left, the three keepers looked to their Damned, "We''ll coordinate with our Damned," One of them said before turning to Felix, "You can follow us and we''ll help you close the vaults as we go."


    Felix nodded, despite his definitely not wanting to do that. The three groups then split up, the keepers coordinating which Damned was dealing with which vault, given their strengths. The more vaults were sealed by the keepers, the less loot Felix got access to because as he learned on the way to the first vault, the vaults would be sealed until the entire place was opened back up by someone higher up in the Storm Sect later.


    The first vault they hit, Felix paid close attention to how it was being sealed. The second, he entered to ensure the item was still there and not trying to escape because the other Damned in his trio was physically focused. Once he was done, he pretended to not be paying attention while his Matter Senses confirmed the method of sealing the vault was identical to the previous vault so he knew it wouldn''t change with each vault.


    On the third vault, he made his move. The other Damned took that vault and as soon as they stepped into it, Felix forced the keeper inside then sealed the door with the same method as the other vaults before it.


    Rushing back the way they had come, he quickly reached into a bunch of vaults and grabbed their contents before turning the corner into the hall where the other two keeper and Damned pairs were located. Only one of the Damned was in a vault and before the other three could react, he ran forward and began tossing various dangerous items from vaults he had grabbed.


    The three immediately realized what was happening and turned to run but one was impaled by a sword that sought out her heart specifically before draining her corpse of blood. The other fell to his knees and grasped the sides of his head as an amulet landed next to him.


    The Damned were harder to deal with in every way. Even if they were physically focused, their Souls were strong enough to resist some Spiritual dangers. That also meant Felix couldn''t kill them as easily because they could defend themselves.


    Popping out of the vault, the Damned looked around to try and figure out what was happening while the other surrounded himself in a massive armored Spirit Avatar. It had a long curved sword and plate armor covering its entire body. It was also not something Felix wanted to deal with so, he turned and ran as fast as he could.


    At the end of the hall, he turned and vanished from thin air.


    On the other side of the floor, where he had Spatially Translocated, he began emptying every vault around him in hopes he would find something useful.


    With his lengthened Soul Tendrils, he didn''t even have to enter the vaults and all he had to do was run by them.


    Then, by the time the Damned he had run from found him again, he immediately tossed a handful more items in their direction. The first looked like a lantern with a string attached to it that spewed out poisonous gas in every direction that his Residents claimed was a thurible.


    Another was a single boot that desperately tried to eat Felix as he handled it. After that there were three Spiritual items that seemed relatively dangerous. One tried to possess anyone around it and another was a bag that tried to consume Souls right from their bodies. The third was an empty bucket and Felix had no idea what it was supposed to do but it was so unstable already, all he had to do was slash at it once with his Soul Tendrils before throwing it.


    After a fraction of a second in the air, it exploded and took a good chunk of the floor with it, along with completely wiping out Felix''s health, forcing him back into his real body. Luckily it wasn''t quite enough to push through the ceiling or floor, which were ridiculously thick but, it was more than enough to shatter the Spirit Avatar and open the Damned up to be possessed by the rod Felix had thrown near him. The other Damned was barely hit by the explosion but they were clearly a physically focused Damned because as the bag closed in on them, they were completely defenseless.


    As they perished horrible and painful deaths, Felix cleared out the rest of the vaults in the hall before cleaning up the mess he had made and taking back the boot, bag, sword and rod.


    The next three floors above that one were completely empty but he realized why when he reached the next floor and a keeper greeted him, "I recognize you, you''re that new Damned Mac brought in, right?"


    Felix nodded quickly.


    "Where is she by the way?"


    "She needed to check something with records so I was waiting for her to return when the whole building was suddenly locked down."


    They nodded, "Well, come on. We''re all grouping up on the top floor to get as far from the threat as we can."


    Shit.


    "Perfect, lead the way?"


    They nodded then led Felix over to one of the shafts. As much as Felix wanted to keep looting the place, this was the best way for him to make it to the Records room for the time being and he didn''t have his Persona to disguise himself anymore.


    Together, they flew up past all the floors in vault building B5 until finally, they passed by a floor Felix hadn''t ever been near before. The Records floor.


    Just passing by it, Felix could read a number of the Records near the shaft with his Matter Senses as the Records were sealed and Warded from Anima Senses, but not Matter Senses which were far more uncommon.


    He would never be in range from two floors away which meant he had to get onto the office floor somehow.


    As they passed by it, he made a bad excuse, "We should check this floor and make sure no one is still there, right? Get everyone to the top floor in case we need to escape that way?"


    The keeper waved him off, "Those are just offices. Plus it''s the second highest floor."


    "We should still make sure they know. It''s the right thing to do." Felix feigned nobility.


    The keeper sighed and shrugged, "Alright, we can check I guess."


    Honestly surprised his lie had worked, Felix nodded and landed on the office floor where he began walking down the various halls and looking into offices. Instead of looking to see if anyone was still in the offices though, he wasn''t paying attention to that floor at all.


    He tried his best to look like he was really looking for people and the keeper didn''t seem to suspect anything but after Felix was forced to walk into a couple of the offices to scan everything on the records floor, the keeper started to get annoyed.


    "Come on, there''s no one here."


    "It takes no time for us to be sure. What if someone is taking a nap or something?"


    The keeper groaned and followed along as Felix continued down the next hall where an office worker was just leaving their office. Spotting him, they yelled, "Hey! What are you doing here?"


    Acting like he was glad to have found him, Felix hurriedly explained, "The building is under attack. Mortalbane tore through the lobby and is working their way up the floors, they''ve overridden the lockdown somehow. You need to get to the top floor in case we need to escape."


    They shook their head like Felix was deranged, "Course I know that. Everyone else''s left already, not that there are many people here normally. I was just finishing something up, I''m done now though. Head up to the top floor."


    Felix rushed past him and into a couple of the offices, "We should at least check to make sure, y-"


    "Hey! Stop it. Let''s go."


    Ignoring the man, Felix stepped into a couple more offices before he angrily stepped over and grabbed Felix''s shoulder.


    "I just need to be sure." Felix attempted, "What if we don''t and someone dies because we didn''t check? I wouldn''t be able to live with myself."


    "We''re already on the second highest floor. They can get out if they need to."


    Felix couldn''t think of a believable retort so he just nodded and followed the man. They walked back down the corridor to meet up with the keeper Felix had been with and as soon as they saw them and the office worker was distracted, Felix dropped a tiny ball bearing into one of the offices.


    He was pretty confident the floor was empty so there was little risk in his leaving Nova there to finish scouting the floor. He had thought about sticking a construct on that floor but they couldn''t scan through the sealed containers and there was no way for him to quickly get a Construct there as the main shaft wasn''t even attached to that floor so that it remained isolated from the items.


    The offices were for the Storm Sect Vault Facility B5''s equivalents of Woodruff who, sometimes needed to deal with the items directly and manage the keepers. That meant the records room was the only separated room.


    Finally on the top floor, Felix sat with the others that were all nervously gossiping and chatting while he paid attention to Nova who was remotely scanning the rest of the records floor for him.


    Going through the scanned records, Felix found way more than he had been hoping for.


    There weren''t only records for the B5 facility but there were also replicas of records for a number of the other facilities, though not all of them. It meant that losing an entire records room they wouldn''t lose any records, as they had backups in other facilities but also, no one record room held all the information about all the facilities.


    However, they did have records of the item transfers in and out of the facility they were in as well as a few of the other facilities they had backup records for.


    Analyzing and plotting a number of them, Felix, along with a number of Residents, grew increasingly annoyed with the state of disarray of the records. They weren''t awful but there were missing records where items left one facility with another facility as their destination but there was no intake record on the other end.


    Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.


    He didn''t have access to every facility so he couldn''t be sure they weren''t redirected, but it was annoying to him that there were no records in the origin facility indicating that.


    Then, one of his Residents had the brilliant idea, "What if they aren''t missing?"


    Upon hearing it, Felix immediately realized they were right. The items weren''t missing at all, they were heading to a facility they didn''t know about and that was kept off the records. It made perfect sense when he realized all of the items that went missing, were either very dangerous or were otherwise valuable and useful.


    It was entirely possible someone was stealing the valuable and useful ones but there was no way for him to know that.


    What he could do, was map the missing item''s intended destination on a map. Drawing lines from the origin facility to their intended destinations, all the missing items headed in a particular direction, likely to make it seem less obvious. When they left from the vault, they were still heading in the correct general direction.


    There wasn''t anything significant or stand out listed on the map there but the pattern was too apparent to ignore.


    Unfortunately, Felix didn''t see a way to safely rob all of the Storm Sect facilities but one single vault facility that was hidden and stored the best of the best loot, he wasn''t going to ignore. For the rest of them, he had his Residents help Mortalbane as subtly as they could. Then, they would simply steal everything back from Mortalbane later on, who''s primitive security relied mostly on guards and didn''t split things up into thousands of individual vaults.


    Nova finished scanning the records floor, with Felix and Mark tapped into her senses through the former''s connection, in a few minutes. After that, she made her escape by burrowing through one of the outer walls over the course of another few minutes.


    At that point Felix was fairly bored and was only spared by his Residents outside the building keeping him updated.


    Mortalbane didn''t make it much further than the second floor, where the guards had fallen back to and made their stand. There, there was a stalemate for nearly a half hour until hundreds of members of Mortalbane suddenly joined their comrades.


    From what his Residents had seen and heard, they had already finished clearing out the lower, less secure vaults. Once they had cleared out a vault, every member that had participated, save for a few Damned designated to cart the loot back to their base, joined the next vault up.


    The easier vaults were cleared out quickly which meant the members snowballed upwards into the higher vaults.


    As hundreds of members of Mortalbane poured into Vault Facility B5, the guards that had made their stand were quickly overwhelmed. Pouring into the vault unimpeded, they began tearing through the vaults with little regard for their own lives.


    One of Felix''s Residents was amongst the company and what Felix saw from their senses, were people running into vaults, then running out screaming as the others laughed at them. For the most part, they rarely died though as they were rather resilient on the whole which made sense considering they were a hunting and dungeon delving company.


    By the way, if they''re just designating a couple people to run all the loot back¡­


    We''ve already hit every group running back. There is little coordination or communication so they have not noticed anything as of yet.


    Perfect. In that case, we just need to make sure we clear out the last vault before they send everyone there. Then, we get everything.


    We have yet to locate this hidden vault facility as of yet so we are unable to form a concrete plan.


    Yeah, no worries. Nothing concrete but if we send the entirety of Mortalbane there, they''d provide a pretty great distraction.


    We have Residents in Mortalbane, shall we leak the information?


    Not yet. See what the planning Residents think but we need to time Mortalbane''s arrival. We don''t want them skipping the rest of the vaults in their excitement to hit the secret one.


    The Residents in question believe we should begin planting the seed but avoid disclosing any specific information.


    Sure, they know better than me anyways. Do it.


    Affirmative.


    In the meantime¡­


    Felix turned to the keeper near him, the one that had recognized him, "Mortalbane just started pouring past the second floor."


    He frowned, "What? What do you mean?"


    One of the office workers near him turned towards them when he heard that, "How do you know?"


    "I can hear them." Felix lied. It was slightly more believable than feeling their presence through the dozens of thick floors designed and warded specifically against Anima.


    The two of them looked rather skeptical but Felix played up his being nervous, "Look, you can sit here if you want but there are hundreds of them down there. Where''s the exit? I''m outta here."


    Another of the office worked turned to him, "You cannot leave. We need to ensure the contents of the vaults are all accounted for. If and when we are certain Mortalbane has-"


    Before he could finish, Felix really did hear Mortalbane just a couple floors below them and evidently, most everyone else in the room did to. He didn''t even need to say anything as the office worker who was telling him he couldn''t leave just a moment ago, suddenly shifted gears, "Exit is this way, everyone please leave in an orderly fashion and follow us to vault facility B2."


    Everyone in the room followed along and headed for the shaft to the roof where they began to leave in a flock. That didn''t work for Felix who was needed elsewhere so, he had his Residents help him out.


    Just as they got into the air but before they were too far, a small contingent of Mortalbane appeared on the roof and projected out their Spirit Avatars and attacked them. They weren''t seriously trying to kill them but they were more trying to mess with them, like drunk frat boys messing with a competing school.


    It was enough to scatter the group though which was exactly the cover Felix needed to fly off in another direction entirely.


    He obfuscated the direction he was going in just in case, picking up Nova on the way, and used a couple of Aether Tunnels to readjust before finally arriving at the location of the Storm Sect''s Secret Vault, at least theoretically.


    Standing there in a completely normal part of the city, Felix understood why his Residents were having a hard time finding the place. He was, and they already were, looking for any buildings with industrial sized doors where a portable vault might be flown through.


    Looking around though, there was nothing he could immediately see.


    He tried looping around a few of the buildings but none of them stood out for any particular reason.


    Mortalbane is moving on to B2.


    B2? I thought they just got through B5?


    The teams at B3 and B4 broke through on their own.


    Shit. How many vault facilities left until this one?


    4 including B1 before this facility.


    We haven''t told them about this one yet though, right?


    We have not. We will have to before they reach A2 however or more of Mortalbane will likely begin to head back and will realize what has happened. We must tell them while their excitement levels are raised.


    Shit shit shit. We have to actually find the damn pla-


    Before he finished the thought, Felix felt a familiar feeling, one he had felt on the last job they had done. Kerix Ryko was watching him.


    This time though, it wasn''t just curiosity Felix felt. He also felt Kerix''s observation trying to tell him something. As he walked around, it began to indicate his proximity to something, telling him when he was getting hotter and colder. He assumed it was the building he was looking for, though he had no idea why Kerix would be helping him.


    Once he found the building, Kerix''s attention vanished so Felix figured he had the right place. He quickly circled the building but found nothing off about it at all.


    Walking up to the entrance, it looked like a standard office building. Even the lobby he stepped into looked completely normal with a person standing at the front desk and everything. They didn''t seem to pay much attention to Felix just standing there and looking around either.


    His Residents joined him a few moments later though not all of them walked into the lobby as that would have stood out. Instead, many of them observed from afar and some of them tracked down whatever information they could about the specific building.


    How do we get in? I''m open to ideas.


    Aether Tunnel? A Resident responded.


    Where though? I could just open it randomly I guess¡­


    Right in the middle of the building. Center of Mass. Another answered.


    It will at least get you past the front desk. One of the smarter ones added.


    That''s true. The building could be crawling with guards though, we have no idea.


    Use the ring. Another answered matter-of-factly.


    The ring?


    It does not hide your presence, we believe it acts as a shield from The Aether and Ambient Anima. It is however, strong enough that it should help against most Spirit Avatars. They added.


    Great. Who has it? Felix asked as he left the building.


    No one answered him but a Resident walked right up to him and handed him the ring just a moment later. He nodded in thanks then slipped the ring onto his finger, adjusting to the sensation of being removed from reality briefly before letting Mark lead him to a specified location.


    There, he opened an Aether Tunnel to the direct center of the building which, was inside a wall. Using his Matter Senses he found an empty location nearby then regenerated his Mana then tried again a moment later.


    This time, he knew the destination was empty but instead of just jumping through, they tossed a number of Seeing Eye Constructs which were completely unrecognizable from what they had been. Even though Felix had the schematics and knowledge in his head to create them, he hadn''t been supervising their creation and so, he still marveled at how tiny they had become.


    Instead of orbs the size of softballs, the Constructs were now like tiny bugs. They weren''t completely invisible from a distance but they were barely fruit fly sized.


    As they spread out through the building, scanning everything around them, Felix''s Residents also set themselves and more Constructs up everywhere in a multiple block radius around them.


    Just a few seconds past before the Constructs were finished scanning the room. Somehow, there was nobody in the massive room they had opened a tunnel into.


    Stepping inside himself, once he knew it was clear, Felix took a look for himself and found his Constructs hadn''t missed anything really. The room was a massive cylinder with a thick pillar in the middle, that he had initially opened an Aether Tunnel into.


    Otherwise, the walls were thick and warded, though not in a way that stood out in an office building. They were also thick, not surprisingly so but on the thicker side of normal.


    The room was essentially just barely within the range of normalcy of an office building. Other than its shape which was odd.


    The pillar in the middle of the room that Felix had tried to Tunnel into previously, didn''t reach from the floor to the ceiling, instead, it ended at about the midpoint.


    Flying up to the top of it, Felix smirked as he found the first thing his Constructs had missed.


    The reason the vault was so hard to find and the reason the room wasn''t warded and defended to every extreme, was that the vault or the facility containing the vaults, were in a True Sub Space. Right at the top of the pillar, floating right in the middle of it, was nothing visible nor perceptible by any normal senses.


    Felix, with his training in Spatial Anomalies from Rathelius, immediately recognized the pinpoint in Space that was bound to a tiny orb, floating just a few inches in the Aether. Were it not for his Matter Senses or training, he never would have known it existed.


    The challenge was that, the orb wasn''t a physical thing. Instead, it was created and maintained by the room around them. Felix began to piece things together, his Residents having already figured it out but not spoiling anything because they knew he enjoyed doing so.


    The room was shaped the way it was because the wards on the walls weren''t just warding the room, they were also normalizing the Mana inside. The pillar, contained a complex circuit of spell work that had been adapted to fit their needs. It clearly wasn''t something they had made otherwise the contrast between the complex spell work and the rest of the room it was attached to wouldn''t have been so stark.


    Not being a physical object, meant Felix couldn''t just grab the orb and run. It only existed because the spell work below his feet conjured and maintained it. If it were to be cut off for any reason, the entire vault or facility within the True Sub Space would vanish.


    While it was a feature the Storm Sect probably wanted, it was definitely not something Felix did so, his Residents began to pour through the Aether Tunnel he had kept open and flying up around him. The ones that specialized in Spatial devices got right to work along with Nova, who Felix tossed out of his Soul Space.


    Incoming. One of the Residents who had remained in the lobby of the building spoke into Felix''s head.


    Shit. How long until Mortalbane gets here?


    They are at least a minute out at full speed and they have yet to break through A2.


    Okay, start a rumor that the Storm Sect is emptying this vault just in case so they hurry up.


    Affirmative.


    Felix turned back to the Residents that were now surrounding the seemingly empty center of the pedestal, "How long?"


    "A few minutes."


    "Alright. Guess I''ll stall then." He nodded and turned to the door before leaving them to work.


    There was no one immediately on the other side of the door but Felix knew someone was coming so, he quickly made his way away from the central chamber, to try and hide his origin. He didn''t stray too far though because he needed to make sure no one else showed up and checked on that room. He also didn''t stop moving so he could map as much of his surroundings as possible for when he inevitably fought the guards.


    It took a few seconds for them to wander towards the central chamber as it didn''t seem to Felix like they were specifically checking on that room or like they were alerted. Rather, they looked more like they were just making the rounds through the building.


    He was spotted almost instantly at which point the guard didn''t even question his presence. They instantly projected their Spirit Avatar and leapt at him twice as fast as Felix could move, even with every one of his buffs active.


    Felix had planned for this though and immediately instinct cast a Force Bomb between them intermingled with a Sound Explosion. The Sound was unnecessary as the Force Bomb created its own sound but by amplifying and building off of it, he was trying to notify anyone else nearby so they went after him instead of checking on the vault room.


    They weren''t worried about the Storm Sect detaching the True Sub Space as they had already adopted the Mana Circuitry holding it in place. The Storm Sect no longer had any control over it but, his Residents were drawing power from the building while it was still providing it, with batteries and automatic fail-over mechanisms in place.


    The Force Bomb hit both Felix and the guard, creating space between them for Felix to start running away.


    Catching himself, the guard sprung off the ground and followed as Felix led him back through the halls, never leaving the proximity of the central chamber.


    Another guard joined them a moment later and Felix could feel the presence of others nearby.


    How far is Mortalbane now?


    A minute out. They have begun heading in your direction.


    Great. Wanderer''s Lab is already clearing out, right? My identity is blown and I''ve been seen in and around the company.


    They have. All resources and personal have been diverted to previously created dummy corporations. Future plans have only been minimally hindered.


    Great.


    Felix ducked quickly, avoiding a massive Spirit Avatar spear that extended itself as it was thrust, blowing a cannon ball sized hole in the opposite wall.


    Too close.


    The other guard swung a glaive in Felix''s direction that he leapt over before flying off down the hall.


    Before he reached the end of the hall though, another guard appeared, rushing around the corner with his Spirit Avatar poised to vertically bisect Felix with a massive axe.


    Shit.


    His Soul Tendrils sprung into action but it turned out, they were unnecessary. Just a few inches from Felix''s head, the axe made a grating noise before bouncing off of seemingly nothing.


    A spear was thrust into Felix''s back and the same thing happened, causing Felix to smile maniacally at the guards, taunting them further. sea??h th§× novel(F~)ire.net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    So this ring¡­


    The glaive wielder angrily leapt into the air to deliver a full force strike that bounced off the barrier the ring created, just a few inches from Felix''s skin.


    is awesome. I take it the barrier conforms to the wearer''s body?


    Correct.


    So when it was just in the vault, it wasn''t conforming to anything and just expanded out to fill the vault instead?


    Possibly. The other possibility is that was its maximum size.


    Ducking and dodging through as many attacks as he could, while the ring handled everything he couldn''t handle, Felix distracted the guards for nearly a minute. At that point though, the guards got sick of trying to hit him and 2 of the 5 that had shown up split off and headed back towards the central chamber.


    Seeing that, Felix rushed forwards and finally hit back.


    Felix''s Spells were still far weaker than he''d like them to be. Forcing a Concept into his Fire Ball though, it didn''t do nothing as the flames engulfed the two guards and slightly sunburned the two of them. That was only where the flames made it through their Avatars though, everywhere else his Fire Ball was useless.


    They turned back angrily but neither of them stopped moving, which wasn''t good enough.


    Without Spells that could effectively hurt them, Felix had to turn to other means which meant, he began lobbing various items, he had looted from the vaults in the B5 facility, at the guards.


    The entire hall instantly became pure chaos as sentient weapons, armor and mundane objects flew around the room and attacked everyone they could find. A few flew after Felix but he swatted them with his Soul Tendrils when needed. The only reason the guards couldn''t do the same, was that the items were simultaneously attacking their Spirits with Aura''s and Concepts.


    Their Spirit Avatar''s began to falter as they desperately tried to fend off the items, for the most part unsuccessfully.


    They were doing better than the Damned in the B5 facility had but not well enough that they didn''t have to worry about the items attacking them.


    How much longer until Mortalbane arrives?


    Seconds.


    How much longer until we''re done with the vault?


    A just under a minute.


    Have they disconnected the vault yet?


    Affirmative.


    No issues there? We have enough Mana to keep it running?


    All calculations indicate success.


    Running past the guards that were distracted from Felix, he began littering dangerous items all over the halls outside the central chamber just as he heard a number of explosions from the lobby.


    With all of the people from Mortalbane that had participated from every vault heading towards them, there were thousands of people pouring in. Mortalbane also wasn''t a company known for the manners, restraint or sanity of its members so it was completely expected when they began tearing through the building itself in search of treasure.


    It wouldn''t take them long at all to get to the vault room so, Felix created a diversion.


    Choosing a random room on the floor, he threw up the fastest wards and enchantment he could on the walls before dropping his new ring into the middle of the room. Then, his Resident in Mortalbane drew their attention to the room where, their Spirit Avatars were completely ineffective and the walls were stronger than usual.


    Their excitement was literally palpable as they began smashing the walls to try and get through them while Felix just hoped he had bought enough time and lamented the loss of the ring.


    There was a chance Felix could get the ring back later, if his Resident could somehow sneak out with it or locate it so that Felix could Aether Tunnel directly to it but that was a small chance. He knew the ring was probably lost and he just hoped it was enough because if it was, it would be well worth the sacrifice.


    With nothing else he could really do, Felix ran back to the central chamber where his Residents were just finishing up. As they did, he and Nova fortified the door with enchantments, wards and added material after which they began creating a bomb.


    They attached the bomb to the door then ran back to the Residents, "How much longer?"


    "Just a few seconds."


    "They''re on the other side of that door now, I can feel them." Felix gritted his teeth.


    "Shit. Well, we can''t really go any faster so, hope you did enough."


    Felix grumbled and began charging an Aether Tunnel as the entire room shook along with the door as it was battered.


    The bomb was set to go off when the door was breached but it also wasn''t the most stable thing Felix had ever made, considering it was put together in a rush and didn''t need to survive much longer than a few hours. As he charged the Tunnel, he could feel the bomb slowly deteriorating behind him.


    "You''ve got about 2 seconds before that thing goes off."


    "We need at least 5." His Residents responded.


    Without a better option at his disposal, Felix quickly redirected his Aether Tunnel to the other side of the door and kicked the bomb he had made through it, instantly closing the Tunnel behind it.


    As soon as he did, the door and everything around it exploded. The entire side of the room vanished as the Spatial Mana and patterns Felix had thrown together in the bomb tore Matter apart and blew right through the wards on the room.


    The bomb easily took out a hundred from Mortalbane and Felix shielded the Residents behind him but, it also completely wiped out the door and left Felix without an Aether Tunnel to escape. His only saving grace was that in a couple seconds he could stick the entire vault in his Soul Space, once it was anchored to the crystal Nova had created, and it would be inaccessible to Mortalbanne, even if they captured him.


    Making eye contact with the raiders who stepped forwards after the explosion, Felix just stared them down.


    It took a moment for them to try and sift through what was happening before they began rushing forwards but it wasn''t nearly enough of a pause for his Residents to be done.


    Then, the rest of the room exploded.


    From Felix''s left, a massive Dragon head appeared and tore through the room just in front of him, missing him and the pillar by a meter at most. The head alone was wider than the building they were in and the body behind it, was serpent like rather than lizard like. It didn''t have wings but it had four legs, claws and furry white scales.


    The building immediately started collapsing but the Dragon had missed Felix and the pillar so they were safe for the couple of seconds they needed to wrap things up and anchor the vault facility to the crystal. As soon as his Residents were done, Felix stuck everyone and everything into his Soul Space before leaping forwards and grappling on to the Dragon''s body.


    Riding it out of the building, Felix got a better view for things and saw the Dragon''s body was about as long as Azura was wide. It''s body was as wide as the entire building and flying by, it simply crashed through buildings as if they were frozen blades of grass.


    Though it looked completely solid and real, Felix recognized the Dragon immediately upon seeing it, though only because it wanted him to recognize it. Felix suspected no one else had or would.


    Felix rode the Dragon, letting it take him wherever it wanted as it tore through the entire Storm Cloud District belonging to the Storm Sect, leaving half a building standing here and there, at most.


    Mortalbane, being a hunting company, began trying to catch and kill it but they stood no chance as the Dragon didn''t even seem to notice them. A few of the hunters gave up, some immediately, others after seeing they couldn''t even hurt it but most of them stuck around. Most of those, died as the Dragon wove its way into another building and crushed them with its tail, seemingly accidentally.


    The rampage lasted for a total of a minute or so before the Dragon spun in a circle and flew off into the sky above the cloud city, vanishing from sight.


    Felix remained on its back the entire time because he had a lot of questions for the Dragon that needed answering. Once they were out of sight, the Dragon shrunk down until it was just big enough to support Felix then went from white and furry scaled to completely translucent.


    It flew through the upper sky for a bit before diving back down into the city, to an area Felix had been to every dekad for the last epoch.


    Landing outside a different building from the one Felix was used to, Kerix Ryko dropped his Soul Projection reverting his form from a Dragon to a relatively normal looking human or elf.


    He stretched as soon as he was back in his human body and yawned before walking into the building in front of him, without even once looking back at Felix.


    Felix followed, unsure what else to do, and found himself in what looked like a completely normal house.


    Kerix flopped down onto one of the couches, lying down and sighing as his arm draped itself over his eyes, "You get it?"


    "The vault?"


    Kerix grunted in affirmation.


    "Yeah. I got it. Do you¡­ want it?"


    "Nah."


    "Uh¡­" Felix looked around then sat down on the couch opposite Kerix, "Thanks. Also, why?"


    "Hmm?"


    "Why''d you save me?"


    "Need your help."


    "My help? With what?"


    Kerix sighed, "I want out."


    "Of¡­ The Realms?"


    "The¡­ ya."


    "You need me to leave?"


    "Nah."


    "Then¡­ why can''t you just leave?"


    "I can. S''been a while though."


    Felix remained silent, unsure what he was saying and unsure what to say next.


    Kerix groaned as he spun himself around to sit up, which was ridiculous considering his physical condition and the minimal effort it would have taken, "I entered the Ladder in the 9th Era. What are we on now, 11th?"


    "Era?" Felix cocked his head, "What are you talking about?"


    "See." Kerix nodded, "This is why I need your help. I don''t want to leave and end up lost in a universe I know nothing about anymore. I need a guide."


    "A guide?" Felix shook his head, "What do you mean? How do you know we''re from the same universe?"


    Kerix cocked his head, "The Ladder is only in one universe¡­ unless that changed?"


    "The Ladder? Your referring to The Realms of Annihilation by a different name? A series of realms that contain simulated challenges?"


    Kerix closed his eyes and rubbed them, "Ladder of Ascension. Probably the same thing but, that''s not the point of it. Doesn''t matter, you willing to help me out?"


    "I¡­ yeah. Sure."


    "Cool. I can wait till you hit Titan." Kerix spun and laid back down on the couch, "Just don''t go doing any other stupid things beforehand. I''d rather not have to come and save you."


    "I¡­" Felix shook his head. Then he shook it again, "What?"


    Kerix turned his head to look at Felix, "What?"


    "What is Titan? What''s the point of the Ladder of Ascension? Do you know what The System is?"


    "Titan is¡­ the end of the beginning?" He seemed unsure of his own answer, "Ladder is designed to get you to Titan, it''s a¡­ specifically designed replacement universe. Yes, heard about it in passing."


    "Okay¡­ I need more than that."


    Kerix looked confused, "What do you know?"


    "In my universe, where I come from, The System oversees everything. It helps us grow and get stronger and all that. The Realms of Annihilation are¡­ something, no one really knows. They''re a challenge or something that you go through and get stronger. Seem to be from another universe or from before The System."


    "Definitely same universe. Not really before but, yeah."


    "Uh¡­ okay, we''ll get back to that. I''ve never even heard the word Titan outside of mythology from my planet or in a dictionary before I identified you at the gala. What am I missing?"


    "Kinda¡­ everything?" Kerix sighed, "I don''t really want to explain everything to you but¡­ there really isn''t anyone else¡­ Actually, you could ask The Acharaya."


    "Right. Cool. Who are they?"


    "They oversee the last few realms beyond this one."


    "Few? How many more are there?"


    "20 I think?" Kerix shrugged, "They''re all the same from here on out though. They''re just refinement realms. Basically just one big realm. Don''t worry about them too much. Just finish up what you''re doing in the city, rob whoever you need to then let me know and move on to the next realm."


    "Not yet. Also, can''t you just answer my questions?"


    Kerix groaned, "Yeah¡­ I could. I don''t really want to."


    "Okay, different question. What do you know about The Dragon on the 2000th realm?"


    "Not much. I know it''s there and it would probably kick my ass if I tried to fight it."


    Felix cocked a brow incredulously but didn''t retort. Kerix knew his own strength better than Felix did.


    "Okay, Titan. You''re Titan. How do I get to Titan? What does that mean?"


    "It''s¡­ the final form and the first step?" Kerix didn''t seem like he was trying to be cryptic and mystical but rather it seemed like he was just stumbling through his own thoughts.


    "Which means¡­"


    Kerix sighed, "It''s when¡­ you stop being a Body, Mind and Soul and become just¡­ you? It means you''ve kinda¡­ realized who you are and become that? Like¡­ your truest form."


    "You said it was the first step, that sounds like the last step to me."


    "You aren''t the same person now as you were before you entered the ladder, right? Everyone changes, evolves. You can also still grow stronger, learn things and all that as a Titan. It just means you''ve taken the first step to¡­ being able to do all that."


    "I learn and grow now."


    "Sure sure. I just¡­ You have limits now that don''t need to exist I guess is the right way to put it."


    "So how many Titans are there?"


    "Like¡­ gazillions? Basically the entire universe and every other universe. Everyone in them that isn''t a child. Some are famous like The Wanderer some are normal."


    "The what?"


    "Wanderer? A Titan that does a lot of traveling, universe hopping, has a name I just can''t remember it."


    Holy shit¡­


    "Okay so how do I get to Titan then? How do I know if I''ve reached it?"


    "You''ll know."


    "Okay. That wasn''t helpful at all. You told me to reach it then come back and talk to you. So I need to know how to reach it now, right?"


    "Nah. The Acharaya will help you. It''s their job anyways."


    "Fine. Whatever, back to The System, you''d heard about it in passing?"


    "Yeah, kind of surprised it''s still around. It''s¡­ a long story. We can talk about it some other time."


    Felix''s frustrations mounted as Kerix seemed unwilling to answer out of sheer laziness.


    "Okay well, I was planning on robbing your family too but-"


    Kerix waved him off, "No need. Everything worth anything is in my Soul Space and you can have whatever else you want. Just hurry up so we can get out of here. Don''t take more than a few thousand epochs, okay?"


    Fucking nearly eternal beings. Of course I''m not going to take a few thousand fucking epochs.


    "You said I could take whatever I wanted¡­"


    "Sure. What are you looking for?"


    "Ros would be good. I''m also looking for any kind of equipment or materials. I need new gear to fight The Dragon. Also any Spells would be good or tips on Spell work if you have any."


    "No tips on Spells, I don''t use em. Forget about The Dragon, you''re just gonna end up killing yourself and I need a guide, not a corpse."


    Felix shook his head, "Here." He tossed him a small sphere, "That''s a Mana Computer that knows everything I know. It''ll be your guide if I die."


    Kerix looked at it for a moment then shrugged and stowed it in his Soul Space, "Cool. I can show you my Soul Space and the vaults here but don''t bother with ros yet until you get rid of those Convictions. Your Soul isn''t stable enough."


    Felix closed his eyes and sighed, "What?"


    "What?"


    "What do you mean ''get rid of those Convictions''? Why would I do that?"


    The Titan turned his head to the side to look at Felix, "What do you think Convictions are?"


    "A way to align Anima to a specific objective or belief. Three synergistic Convictions is what''s recommended to make your Soul as aligned and therefore, strong, as possible."


    "Right. For a child. Three Convictions is a good stepping stone while you make your way up to Titan but you shouldn''t keep em around. They''re too limiting in too many ways. They also put a ceiling on the strength of your Soul. Also, your Convictions suck."


    "I¡­ really?" Considering I didn''t create this combination but discovered it from whatever I was¡­ I expected it to be an ideal combination.


    "Sure. Why do you have two Convictions that are nearly identical along with another that has that much overlap. It''s not necessarily bad on it''s own but you''re also excluding like¡­ a lot of your Soul. You could fix them but honestly, you''re so close to Titan anyways, I wouldn''t bother."


    "Okay, I''ll get back to that later. For now, stuff. What do you have in your Soul Space?"


    Kerix sighed and projected out an image of a jug. While it was just a Soul Projection, it both looked completely real, felt real and Felix could even sense and analyze it as if it were real. He had perfectly recreated the jug along with its spiritual and physical properties to the point where Felix doubted whether or not it wasn''t real.


    As far as he could tell though, it was a spatial jug filled with something. He didn''t need it.


    "Next."


    Kerix flipped through hundreds of mundane items and seemed almost asleep as he did so. Felix saw a couple he was interested in and Kerix summoned and dropped those onto the table as soon as Felix said he wanted them. Nothing had particularly stood out, but some were just interesting enough for Felix to want them.


    That was until Kerix projected out one of the oldest and gnarliest looking pieces of wood Felix had ever seen. It was almost as tall as Felix was and mostly straight. On one end, the branch twisted and branched out and on the other, it was rounded off where it had been cut. The entire length of it consisted of twisting and woven roots or branches that formed an intricate shape.


    A stick wasn''t interesting by itself. What was interesting was that it projected the experiences of countless Souls over countless lifetimes. The stick was somehow an infinite well of wisdom and experience.


    "What is that?"


    Kerix looked over, as if he didn''t even know what he was projecting, "Stick from the World Tree''s Ancestor. I was trying to figure out what to do with this. Sword handle or something, never really got around to it though."


    Maybe we are from the same universe.


    "I want that."


    Kerix didn''t even nod and just summoned and dropped the stick onto the table next to him while he moved on to show the next item.


    Picking it up, Kerix''s projection didn''t do the branch justice in the slightest. Holding it, Felix felt like he was literally holding all the knowledge and collective experience of a thousand universes. It was like the stick knew everything but not in a Curse of Desire way but more in a Hollow Claw''s Soul kind of way. It contained so many experiences, there was no way Felix could ever sift through them all.


    He stowed it for the time being and turned back to the items Kerix was showing him.


    There were a few other interesting items he took but not many overall. Many of the items Kerix had were swords, which Felix could have dissected but he didn''t bother out of respect and appreciation for what Kerix was doing. The branch though, he had plans for.


    Once that was done with, Felix turned his attention inwards, to the entire vault facility he had stolen while Kerix, seemed to be napping.

 Chapter 243 - Book 16

    Being a true sub space bound to a physical object, the vault space was separate from Felix''s Soul Space such that he didn''t have direct control over it. What he did have however, was complete control over everything entering and exiting the vault space. Considering the lack of spatial knowledge in Azura as a whole, Felix was fairly confident it was the only way to get into the vault space too.


    While nothing Felix had encountered during his time as a Damned had been much of a threat to him at all, the vault he had stolen from the Storm Sect theoretically held the most dangerous items. So, he started by sending in a swarm of his Seeing Eye Constructs.


    His connection to them was hindered through the subspace barrier containing the space but, they didn''t need a connection anymore. Each one of them had a small capacity of storage space within them along with some amount of computational capability. Connected all together, they could do all the tasks Mark was doing for them, at least for a short period of time.


    They still needed to return and Mark was still needed to stitch together everything they had scanned into a single cohesive picture but, it was still an improvement. Especially now that Felix was encountering actual Anima wards which, given their tiny size, was often enough to distort the weak signal the constructs sent and received.


    With only minimal memory and compute, even collectively, the constructs shouldn''t have spent more than a few minutes in the vault facility mapping out the entrance. So, when 5 minuted passed, Felix began wondering what had happened. When 15 passed, he knew something had gone wrong.


    Pulling the bound crystal out of his Soul Space, Felix placed it on the table in front of him and activated his Persona. Kerix had already been watching him during the heists so he was already aware of Felix''s Persona and, he seemed to be asleep.


    In his Persona, Felix activated his Soul Cloak which provided him with an additional layer of spiritual protection while his Persona''s body and health pool provided him with an additional layer of physical protection.


    Then, he took one last look at Kerix and the room around him before deciding no one was going to walk in on him, or more specifically Kerix and even if they did, there was no chance they knew what the crystal was. He left a few constructs attached to the network of Mark nodes throughout the city, just in case, but he also realized how pointless that was as he entered the vault facility.


    The vault space was both exactly what Felix expected and nothing like he expected.


    It looked like someone had taken any of the other vault facilities with their thick concrete like walls and floors forming a grid of vaults and shoved it into a sub space. The vaults were slightly bigger on average but not by much. The wards looked more complex but, it was hard to tell.


    While the vault facility architecturally and structurally was completely recognizable, it had since been warped and taken over.


    The first thing Felix noticed, was the Ambient Anima which was completely infested by something that immediately tried to take control of his body and infect his mind and drive him insane and make him laugh and make him experience immeasurable pain and countless other things.


    It was both a huge array of different wisps of will trying to do influence him in different ways and at the same time, it was like it was a single entity somehow.


    The lobby seemed to be largely unaffected by what had happened but the effect was more than enough that all of Felix''s Seeing Eye Constructs would have been affected. He wasn''t exactly sure how, until a swarm of black flew at his face.


    His Seeing Eye Constructs were never meant for combat so their bodies were weak and they flew slowly and yet, somehow whatever was controlling them, had made them an actual threat. Not only were they flying far faster than they should have been capable of, but Felix immediately realized with his Matter Senses that their bodies were far stronger.


    He Instinct Cast a Mana Barrier to protect himself and prepared a Force Spell to crush them but as soon as the Mana Barrier appeared, it began to deteriorate. Much like in his matches against River Ryko when he was cheating, Felix''s Mana forming the barrier was infected by willful Anima to the point where he began losing control over it.


    The core of the barrier, a small area in the middle lasted long enough to block a large portion of the swarm but Felix was still forced to leap to the side to avoid the rest.


    As he did so, he used the Devouring Aura of his Persona to push back the pervasive effect of the Ambient Anima and simultaneously cast multiple Fire Balls to destroy the swarm.


    That took way more effort than it should have¡­ I have a feeling that''s going to be a common theme in here.


    Proceeding through the lobby, Felix made his way towards one of the shafts at the back of the building and looked upwards. The first floor and the shaft leading up to it looked untouched but beyond that, the building had warped and without somehow punching through it, he had no way of getting to the upper floors. He also wasn''t willing to risk pulling Nova or any of his Residents out of his Soul Space because even her upgraded Soul didn''t stand a chance in the building.


    At most, she could have survived the lobby for a short period.


    Flying up to the first floor above the lobby, Felix looked down the hallway and found that not a single one of the vaults that he could see, were shut.


    Well, that explains some things.


    As soon as he landed on the floor, as he was taking in the hall and all the open vaults, a mummified hand raced its way across the ground towards him. It used its fingers as legs and moved faster than Felix expected possible given how short the fingers were.


    The hand moving by itself wasn''t particularly scary or worrisome. The worrisome part of the hand racing towards him, was the Aura it surrounding it. The hand exuded an Aura that would have driven most people insane as it yanked and tore at Felix''s Soul from every side simultaneously. Promising him power to try and sway the Anima of his Soul and simultaneously pulling on it more literally.


    Though it wasn''t quite enough to harm Felix, at least in the first few seconds of him encountering it. The Aura was strong enough that given time, it would have an effect on him. It wouldn''t penetrate his Core Soular System or affect his Core Soul but it would slowly erode everything else around it.


    As the hand leapt into the air and reached for Felix''s face, he grabbed hold of it with his Soul Tendrils, catching it before it reached him. Then he began to pull and tear at its Soul but he wasn''t strong enough, even with all his Soul Tendrils working together.


    While he could just shove the hand into his Core Soul and it might have died there even with the body protecting the Soul, that wasn''t a viable solution for everything he encountered. It was also a strong possibility he encountered something on the higher floors, considering the strength of the pervasive Aura in the building, that he couldn''t just kill with his Core Soul, even if he managed to extract its Soul.


    That meant, he needed some other kind of weapon to fight them with.


    Luckily, he had spent multiple dekads slowly crafting himself a Spirit Avatar from Anima harvested from the ros he was stealing. Felix still wanted to work on it and add a bit of polish but it was his best option and good enough for the time being.


    For the first time outside of practice and training, Felix projected out his Spirit Avatar.


    It completely surrounded his body in Anima and formed a perfect, indistinct sphere, pushing the hand back a few meters. Then, two other spheres appeared and rotated around in a perfect arc, smashing the hand between them and shattering the bound Soul within.


    Felix immediately absorbed the remnants of the Hand''s Spirit into the core of his Spirit Avatar then continued on down the hall way.


    There were just a couple other items on the entirety of the first floor, a bag and a pipe of some kind. Felix dispatched them in a similar manner to the hand, by crushing them between two free floating spheres, before moving on. He quickly found a corner of the first floor where the ceiling had degraded enough that he could make it through due to a particularly strong acid that was nearly sentient.


    His Spirit Avatar protected him long enough for him to get through at which point he ignored the Acid because it was too annoying chasing down a liquid.


    The second floor of the vault facility had deteriorated even more than the first and many of the walls between the vaults had been broken open and in some of them, lay the remains of whatever had once been held within.


    All that remained, were the items that had managed to survive.


    Turning the corner and leaving the Acid behind, a large eye ball the size of Felix''s head with a triangular pupil floated in the middle of the next hall while a spear with a red hot tip flipped upwards as he appeared.


    The spear immediately launched itself at Felix while the eye focused in on him with a rotating pupil before it released a massive beam of necrotic energy. A light blue-grey planet spun around Felix''s core body and smashed the spear into the ground before it reached him while a hole opened up in the Core of Felix''s Avatar revealing a window of Oblivion.


    The similar necrotic energy was completely absorbed by the Oblivion just before the window closed and a red planet swung around, subsuming the eyeball before shrinking itself down slowly.


    Lifting up off the sphere, the light blue-grey planet gave it just a moment to move, which wasn''t enough for it to escape, before it smashed down again and again repeatedly until the shaft of the spear finally snapped in two. At the same time, the floating eye ball was crushed as goop poured out and was released by the planet. It finally gave in and burst, the useless matter trickling to the ground as the Spirit that had been bound within was absorbed.


    The light blue-grey planet along with the red one faded slightly from existence as they fell back into their orbits around the Core of Felix''s Avatar.


    The Residents in Azura had collected and sifted through all the information they could find on Spirit Avatar''s which, was more than Felix was expecting. Some of the Residents that had infiltrated the families and sects weren''t just waiters and waitresses but rather, some of them were recruits.


    Much of the information the families and sects kept for their own was his to peruse and though there were some secret techniques to do with crafting bestial Avatars or coordinating their martial arts, Felix wasn''t interested in any of them. Rather, a few patterns emerged from all the information they had gathered.


    The most credible advice all centered around being true to the self. If the Avatar was something that didn''t represent the person using it, they wouldn''t be able to fully harness it. There seemed to be some variance but it was much like a Conviction, the more connected the Soul was to the Avatar, the more powerful and easier to control it would be.


    For Felix, the information was useful but also confusing. He didn''t really know what represented him best. He had many questions about his past, though he didn''t think not knowing his past affected his ability to know who he was too much. He knew how he and his Soul reacted to various events and he was pretty sure that was enough.


    What he didn''t know, was what form to pick.


    He still considered himself human. Most of the experiences he remembered and many of his instincts were still based on his being a human. He also could have completely changed his body long ago, like Erolan, but he had avoided doing so as he still felt some kind of attachment to being a human.


    At the same time, a humanoid Avatar felt wrong to Felix for some reason. While he didn''t want to change his body to appear or function any differently, he was more than just human. His Mind, Body and Soul had been altered well beyond that point.


    He had thought about a comical Wizard form, a Book, a black cloaked Grim Reaper and even just a mass of Soul Tendrils.


    Ultimately, he settled on projecting out the contents of his Core Soular System, or at least a representation of it because, he couldn''t think of anything else that better represented him. When Kerix was talking about Titan though, he mentioned something similar: ''realize who you are and become that.'' Ever since then, Felix had begun to doubt his Spirit Avatar because realistically, he didn''t want to become a star system.


    It just didn''t feel right. For the time being though, he was happy with what he had landed on, even if he was confident he hadn''t found its final form.


    Smashing his way through floors, planets of Anima each formed from heavily refined concepts orbited around him, smashing into and obliterating various objects as he moved.


    The first floor resembled the vault facility he had been working in for the last few dekads.


    The second floor was similar but slowly falling apart.


    The third was completely torn asunder with chunks of the wall floating in the middle of the hall.


    By the fifth floor, the chunks of wall floating throughout the room were being split apart and reassembled before Felix''s very eyes, right before they launched themselves at him. Not all of them though, some of them attacked, others actually defended him. Many of the pieces of the building didn''t care either way and a few were just curious, approaching and brushing up against him.


    Two more floors and the crumbled remains of the walls, floor and ceiling formed beasts and creatures, some possible and others not.


    By that point, the floors and ceilings no longer existed and all the floors were connected into one open chamber. The ruined remains of the building however, were reconfigured. At first they formed simple rooms, that floated through the air with nothing attached to them. Then, they began to form the corners of entire buildings, though never what Felix was expecting.


    There were bars with drinks and stools and even patrons, formed from the warded stone of the facility. There were stores with glass window fronts and mannequins, posed in various outfits. There were offices, schools, kitchens, alchemy labs and even server rooms, with stone computers.


    Considering he hadn''t seen anything with that level of technology in the multiverse or even in the realms, he knew that the memory had to have come from somewhere else.


    Despite all the floors being connected into one massive chamber there was still a gradual progression as he ascended. He couldn''t just fly straight up as the pieces of rooms and buildings grew larger until they subsumed almost half the footprint of the building and he was forced to walk through them.


    They weren''t just dioramas of places either as the people formed from stone within them began to move, acting out common and repetitive actions. At a bar, a stone man took the last sip of his beer then placed his glass back on the bar. Then, he took the last sip of his beer again, and placed the glass on the bar.


    A mother rocked her child in a way that seemed sweet at first but grew creepy when she didn''t vary her movement in the slightest over the course of a minute.


    Felix was glad there was nothing attacking him anymore and his Spirit Avatar remained in its mostly inactive state, with the orbiting planets close to his body and the entire thing transparent and phased slightly out of existence. At the same time though, moving through the vault facility was getting eery and he was starting to miss random items just attacking him. That was simpler and easier to understand.


    This, even feeling out the Ambient Anima around him, was just odd. The collection of willful Anima moving around and possessing objects with various personalities were still there but now, they were coordinated. In the school, he felt everything he would expect from a classroom of children. Joy, laughter, annoyance, confusion, embarrassment and a whole slurry of other uncontrolled emotions.


    None of the willful wisps of Anima acted out though. The stone pencils didn''t float through the air, the chalk brushes didn''t attack anyone and even the people who did move, followed the script.


    Finally finding the exit from the shadowbox of a grade school, a door that opened when the recess bell rang, Felix flew up another floor and suddenly what he was seeing began to click.


    The room was a simple bedroom with a large bed in one corner, a desk and dresser on the opposite wall, a closet and a fan hanging from the ceiling. There weren''t any posters or much of anything lying around, other than a small pile of clothes that Felix often didn''t clean up in his childhood.


    Though he didn''t immediately recognize it because it wasn''t any of the schools he had attended, the school he had walked through was from a television show he had seen a long time ago. The bar was the same, along with everyone in it.


    Climbing out the window of the bedroom, Felix passed through hundreds of his memories. Houses he had lived in, parks he had played in, his schools, dorms and entire neighborhoods. Even obscure and unimportant memories like his own visualizations of books he had read, places from television shows and movies.


    Then, as the shadowboxes of memories began to span the entire footprint of the building, he stopped recognizing places. He flew out the top of his Wizard''s Tower in his Pocket Home into what looked like a large clearing in a forest. In the center of the clearing was a mostly grey mask with gold leaves along the top edge, despite being made entirely from the same stone as everything else.


    It wasn''t a special item in that it wasn''t real but it was special in that it was important to the memory and so it was given more attention for whatever reason.


    The memory though, wasn''t Felix''s as far as he could tell.


    On the opposite side of the clearing, a thin and young looking man stood next to a fully armored person and were clearly discussing something. They weren''t just repeating the same actions over and over again either, they were playing out a full conversation without words. Then, after a minute of discussion, the armored man stepped into the clearing and the mask began to rise from the ground.


    Before anything happened though, the memory shattered and all the stone forming it returned to dust.


    As it did, it revealed another scene, this time Felix was standing in a throne room with a king, a queen, a prince, a number of guards, a man with a quill and a book, a jester, musicians and some man in a robe, bowing before the king.


    Almost everyone in the room remained motionless, though breathing, as the man bowing before the king spoke. Felix caught none of it as the lips didn''t move in any language he knew and he wasn''t sure they moved in any language at all. The man wasn''t even human or humanoid but it was hard to discern anything when he was made of a single colored stone.


    The scene around him shifted a dozen more times, some of them seemingly significant and others rather mundane.


    Felix assumed he was witnessing the memories of someone or some Soul trapped in the vault facility until, he found himself in a room he recognized. The meeting chambers of the Nealian Soul Cult, the room he had walked into when he had recklessly taken dreamer drugs in the realms.


    The memories he was seeing were his. Or they belonged to whoever he had been before. The Wanderer, he suspected.


    Inside the room, now that Felix could see more of it, there were exactly 16 individuals all wearing robes that completely obscured their bodies and faces. They all stood around a table on which lay a young girl, bound and unconscious.


    Felix wasn''t exactly sure what he was watching but he was patient as they all began silently chanting and circling the body. Then, one of them carefully began shallowly carving runes all over her body. Finally, they all reached out and grabbed the air next to her body, then struggled to lift up and into the air.


    Nothing happened with the stone but all of them seemed elated from their body language so he assumed whatever they had done was successful.


    Then, the scene shattered and Felix instantly flew upwards as much as he could before another scene appeared around him.


    This time, he was in a bar once more and he watched as two men, both human this time, talked over their drinks in a booth. The scene shifted almost immediately to them standing in a field, then shortly thereafter to the same two men standing in a massive chamber that was filled with hundreds of boards, all covered in equations.


    For whatever reason, Felix was shown the entire relationship of the two men until finally, one of them left.


    The scenes continued to follow that person as they moved from place to place with no apparent pattern to their actions. Finally, much of what he was seeing began to click when the man flew off a planet into space, then through space and into The Endless Hunger.


    With a barrier that wasn''t represented by the stone completely blocking out The Endless Hunger that also wasn''t represented by the stone, the man soared through the space around the universe.


    Then, something went wrong. He was attacked. The stone didn''t show what it was but Felix could feel it, as he could the Endless Hunger, a facsimile of the real thing on the Ambient Anima. It was a Creature of the Hunger though Felix had no idea how strong.


    All he saw, was the man he had been following struggling in the fight and getting injured before running away at which point, the entire scene dissolved.


    Instead of another scene though, Felix was placed on a completely flat platform that spanned the entire width of the building. In the center of the floor, there was a pedestal holding a promise that if he just gave in, he would be able to see it all.


    Physically, the pedestal held a ring that looked to be made of thousands of glass strands braided together, like completely translucent hairs that were frozen in time.


    Walking over to it, Felix took the ring and slipped it onto his finger without hesitation.


    As soon as he did, the building began to crumble as items, remnants, spirits and willful shreds of Anima that had once been held in check, forced to play out memories, were suddenly freed. S~ea??h the ¦ÇovelFire.¦Çet website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    The single massive chamber the top of the facility had become was no longer blocked by any rooms or floors the ring had created leaving open space for giant stone six eyed devil cat beasts to roam.


    Felix fully manifested his Spirit Avatar and took on the pair of stone creatures first, smashing into each of them with different effects before returning the planets to orbit and rotating in other planets.


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    The beasts were oddly resilient though and managed to free themselves after the first hits, leaping towards the core of his Avatar from either side.


    Both of them were immediately knocked out of the air by more orbiting planets as Felix dropped down deeper into the fray.


    Recovering from being hit, the cat thing to Felix''s left sunk its claws into one of the only walls remaining, the outer wall, and began skittering downwards, using the leverage the solid surface provided to dodge out of the way. Just before it closed the distance enough to leap again, it was smacked in the head by a broom that was flying the opposite orientation than Felix expected a flying broom to fly.


    The broom began to vigorously clean the beast''s face and slowly tear away the stone from its body.


    The beast on the other side never recovered after Felix hit it because it was immediately thrown into a suit of armor that closed around it with a crunching noise.


    A large twisting and knotted horn sounded out, vibrating the Anima instead of the air and a massive fish made almost entirely of whiskers flew by. Before it made it across the room, a jug smacked it over the head and shattered, only to reveal and even larger jug, somehow. It continued to smash the fish but Felix didn''t stick around to find out how big the jug could become.


    He had already wasted enough time in the vault and talking with Kerix.


    Now that people had seen him, now that everyone knew what was happening and that it wasn''t a family or sect robbing everyone important in the city, they had to move fast.


    The only reason he took the time to go through the vault facility they had stolen, was that he was hoping to find something he could use to gain power quickly. The ring on his finger had shown him his own memories and tried to use them to draw him in to put the ring on. He hadn''t known what it would do once he had but he was most confident in his Soul and Mind so he didn''t expect it would be able to do much.


    Once it was on his finger, it stopped enticing him and seemed to lay dormant, just after fixing itself in place and making it impossible to remove.


    Popping back out of the vault facility and leaving behind a massive mess he would deal with later, Felix stowed the crystal bound with the vault and found the room was exactly the way he had left it.


    Oh oh oh ah yes. Keep goi-


    Was that the ring?


    Affirmative. Though the thoughts have all been source-less, it is not a stretch to assume their source in this case.


    Felix looked over at a sleeping, and apparently dreaming, Kerix and sighed before leaving the room.


    Filter all the thoughts from the ring and organize them. Surface them when useful.


    Affirmative.


    Just before flying off, Felix turned back around and poked Kerix awake.


    "Uh¡­ What? What''s going on?"


    "Could you t-"


    "Why do you look like a¡­ star system?"


    Felix looked down at himself then completely deactivated his Spirit Avatar, "Sorry, Spirit Avatar."


    "You decided to¡­ make your Spirit Avatar a star system?" Kerix looked at him with a funny look before snorting and shaking his head, "Not the weirdest I''ve seen in the realms."


    "It''s supposed to be something that represents me, is close to who I am, right?"


    "Uh¡­ yeah, kind of. Ask the Acharaya."


    "Right. I''ll add it to the list." Felix rolled his eyes and held out the orb, "Can you look at this?"


    "What is it?"


    "Soul Vault is what they were calling it on the outside. It came from in here and I haven''t been able to open it."


    Kerix took the Soul Vault from Felix''s hand and scrutinized it for a moment, turning it over in his hand before he nodded and handed it back, "Spirit Vault is close enough. This is an early version of something Rokrunor developed a long time ago, before the big lizard split the realms in two. It''s one of the things that''s made them famous but, no one carries them around anymore. Each one has a specific pattern you need to use to unlock it¡­" Kerix shrugged, "Or something like that. Without it, it''d be a real pain in the ass to open."


    Felix sighed, "Alright, thanks. I''ve got a few more things to deal with in the city then we can leave."


    Kerix nodded slowly then rolled back into a sleeping position, "You mean more places to rob? Just be careful, I''m not always watching and I don''t want to have to save your ass again."


    You didn''t say wouldn''t. Although, definitely not going to count on him considering how wrapped up he seems to be in his dreams.


    As Kerix returned to his dreams, Felix flew off towards the Gera Family facility.


    Initially, Felix had been worried about being recognized as people had seen him in and around the Storm Sect when it was hit. Whether or not they knew it was him, he was on the list of suspects.


    His Residents had assured him though that it didn''t matter and he should fly out over the city anyways to their meeting point. As soon as he left the quiet and tranquil Ryko estate, he knew why they had assured him.


    The entire city had been plunged into chaos.


    Buildings had holes in them, people were running and screaming while others fought openly in the streets. It was like the entire place had boiled over and with no one to police the city, there was nothing stopping them from doing whatever they wanted.


    Felix was honestly surprised it hadn''t happened before but one of his Residents, through Mark, corrected him as he had the thought. It had happened before, many times throughout Azura''s history, it just hadn''t happened in a while.


    Flying over the Gera Family Compound, he saw another bastion of peace in the city, like the Ryko family compound. The Gera Family Compound was a series of large estates, like mansions all sharing a common front yard. It was also surrounded by a wall which, was keeping out the chaos in the city.


    Landing on the far side, outside the wall of the compound, Felix met with a small collection of his Residents and a massive crowd of Mortalbane, Storm Sect and Ano Family.


    As soon as he landed, someone in the crowd stepped forwards and pointed at him, cocking their head, "Hey, weren''t you there, in the vault facility when it was being attacked?"


    Or did I meet him in one of the delves? Her voice sounded out in Felix''s mind.


    "No. I recognize you from a delve a while back though." Felix responded as casually as possible.


    She nodded immediately, "Ah, my bad."


    I assume, given how it seems to have affixed itself to my finger, the ring isn''t helping me, is it?


    Affirmative. That was one of about a million thoughts you''ve received since landing.


    How did you know that was her thought?


    We are organizing them by clarity and intonation, cross referencing that against your Anima Senses and distance to various surrounding minds.


    Cool. Keep doing that.


    Affirmative.


    Turning to his Residents next to the crowd, Felix turned to the wall of the Gera family building and knelt down, perfectly replicating the choreography his Residents had designed. Synchronously, they all moved and danced, adding Mana and drawing out a ritual on the ground and wall.


    As they did, a group of Gera family guards noticed them and began mounting a defense on the wall.


    Ballistae with Anima infused bolts targeted them but Felix''s Residents mentally told him to stand down.


    He trusted them and continued the ritual as the bolt was loaded and fired directly at him. Before it reached him though, a handful of Storm Sect members from the crowd leapt next to him, careful not to interfere with the ritual, and protected him with their Spirit Avatars.


    Motalbane joined in and began retaliating as much as they could given the warded wall between them and the guards.


    How much longer?


    Just a half minute more.


    Felix sighed, already having long since prepared the necessary Mana and Spell Form for the Aether Tunnel. He continued putting on the performance though as the two groups fought above and around him, protecting him from everything as he pretended to be doing something.


    Once the choreography was complete, Felix finally opened the Aether Tunnel from the center of their fake ritual deep into the core of the Gera family compound.


    As soon as it was open, Felix was almost knocked over by the crowd that poured through.


    He managed to pull himself free from the onslaught of eager people and stand aside as the guards atop the wall watched in shock.


    It took them a few seconds to finally mobilize and rush back into the compound to try and stop the people but the damage was done. They were smart enough to know it was futile, at least most of them according to their thoughts.


    Felix only had to keep the Aether Tunnel open for a few minutes before the warded wall flickered out. It was the first task they had given the crowd, lying and telling them they couldn''t keep the Aether Tunnel open forever.


    Once the wall was just a useless physical wall, Felix closed the Tunnel and the crowd simply leapt over, the second half of them pouring in in an instant.


    Alone, Felix and some of the Residents he had been working with moved around the wall and opened another Aether Tunnel, this one pointed somewhere else entirely. Stepping through and closing it behind them, Felix and his Residents split up.


    The vault was only a few seconds flight from where they landed and Felix began tearing down the wards on the door. The Gera Family vault was one of the few in the city that had Spatial Warding on it as well as Anima and physical wards. It wasn''t that they were secretly great enchanters either, it was the result of an old and secret alliance with Rokrunor who specialized in vaults which, was the reason they were the last on the heist list.


    The wards on the vault were more annoying than Felix had anticipated. Not only were they redundant but there were both Anima and Mana wards covering everything. They relied on having a surface to exist though so, Felix pulled his Secret weapon out of his Soul Space, his very bored familiar.


    Nova happily dove at the wall and began burrowing through faster than Felix ever could have and in less than a minute, she had poked a small hole through the wall. As soon as she did, chaotic Aether and Anima rushed towards the hole and out of the vault. Felix used his Aura and will power to hold it back then, directed Nova through her senses to manually dismantle all the wards within the vault and the vault door.


    Thankfully, he didn''t have to worry about the Gera Family or the guards at all because his Residents had specifically planned things so they wouldn''t be near the vault, a scheduling mixup. If and when they got an alarm or notification that the vault was breached, there was a crowd of thousands that had been directed between him and them that they would have to get through.


    Finally breaking the seal, Felix opened the door and pulled Nova back into his Soul Space, despite her complaints.


    He was immediately glad he did and instantly activated his Persona, despite the dangers of having it recognized, along with its Soul Cloak as the entire estate around him, dissolved in an instant. Suddenly there was nothing between him and the outside world except a cloud of pure death as his body was slowly torn apart, atom by atom.


    Activating his Spirit Avatar to provide a bit more protection, Felix pushed himself forwards one step at a time until finally, he reached the two thick bands in the room and grabbed hold of them.


    They were each a few inches thick, made of some unknown material. One was a bright white gold that glowed and the other, a dark purple and blue. As soon as he pushed his arms inside of them, the two bands cinched down on his wrists, fusing themselves to his body.


    The cloud of pure death around him began to fade as instead of the room, the deep Aether and Anima poured directly into his body.


    He didn''t have the time or free willpower to stabilize what was coming out of the bracers so he simply directed them both back into the Kryptos Respository in his Soul Space for the time being. With an outlet for the bands, they were much easier to deal with but, they still tore through his arms as they moved through his Soul.


    On one side, the chaotic Mana, as dense as matter, from deep in the Aether tore through his physical body, destroying most of his arm before he directed it into his Soul Space and the open Kryptos Repository within. With it directed, he was only missing the inside half of his arm, hollowing it out, as he, with the Blood Ring''s help, repaired it just as fast as the bracer destroyed it.


    On the other side, the wisps of intent from deep within the Anima poured into his Soul, re-configuring the matter of his arm into complete randomness while also poking holes throughout his Soul. Once it was directed, he pieced his Soul Barrier back together over his skin and just contained everything else within it for the time being.


    Then, he pulled an item out of his Soul Space and activated it to open an Aether Tunnel back out of the building, as he didn''t have the focus to open one himself.


    The bands weren''t the only treasure hidden on the estate but they were the most significant and the only ones Felix really cared about. Everything else of import that belonged to the family, were hidden away in the vaults of Rokrunor, due to their familial connection. The bands were used to power much of the facility though, which was why they were there instead.


    The last place in the city worth robbing was Rokrunor.


    There was also the House of Promises but they just held massive amounts of ros which, still paled in comparison to Rokrunor. If Felix had more time and if the heists had gone according to plan, they would have hit the House too, much to Aela and Kether''s chagrin. As it was though, they decided to cut it out of the plan and skip right to the most important target.


    Despite the complete chaos that had consumed the city, the Rokrunor facilities were largely ignored. Not only were they generally respected and held much of the cities wealth within their vaults, meaning everyone had something to lose by messing with them, but they were also by far the most secure.


    They had created the wards on the Gera Family vault and were one of the few factions in the city that had any knowledge of anything Spatial. They had also, long ago, created the Soul Vault which Felix still had yet to open.


    Assuming they still had a similar level of knowledge and skill as when they had created the Soul Vault, there was no chance Felix could break into the vaults. The vaults were larger, permanent structures which meant they would completely eclipse the Soul Vault in level of protection.


    Initially, they had planned on slowly draining their wealth with a competing bank that the Wanderer''s Lab had already started on. Now, there was no time for that and they were going to have to come up with something else entirely.


    With his Residents all working together within his heavily time dilated mind, it wasn''t like he was completely winging it but, there were still many unknowns, like where any of the vaults actually were.


    What they did know, was that the ros refinery was the core of the Rokrunor operations.


    They also had managerial offices throughout the city but his Residents were confident those were nothing more than they seemed. Given their knowledge and the Soul Vault though, there was no guarantee.


    Luckily, with the way the city had devolved into looting, the Rokrunor security protocols kicked in which mandated all employees above a certain level seek refuge within the refinery. Given that, Felix and his Residents were comfortable making the gamble that there was nothing important in the empty managerial buildings that had been abandoned.


    He had a number of Residents poring through them anyways in case there was something interesting amongst the records that had been left behind but they weren''t expecting much.


    Not everyone was on board with the fighting and looting in the city and a large portion of the population escaped which meant all the known rifts leading out of the city and back into other realms were packed. Felix''s Residents had found a few that weren''t registered and so he took one of those which led back three realms. Then, he flew his way back up to the 2498th realm, the realm before Azura and the one housing the Rokrunor ros mint.


    The realm he had arrived on was almost completely empty and remained unaffected by the events within the city. Moving up to the 2498th though, Felix was expecting the fighting to leak out. Instead, the realms other than the 2499th with Azura, were completely untouched.


    There were people moving through them but there was no chaotic fighting and looting like in the streets of Azura.


    Given that, it made sense to Felix why Rokrunor was happy being so close to the city when chaos broke out within.


    Despite the people migrating away from the city, the Rokrunor mint was completely quiet as whether or not someone wanted to withdraw their wealth, the building was closed for security reasons. Unfortunately, that meant it was going to make it nearly impossible for Felix to sneak in.


    While Felix nor his Residents had known about the ring in the Storm Sect vault facility, they had known about the bands he had just stolen from the Gera Family.


    It would have taken Nova hours, if not days, to get through the ceiling of the Rokrunor mint embedded within the ground. His new bands however, were a lot more destructive.


    Standing on top of the massive flattened area of the realm, the ceiling of the Rokrunor mint, Felix reached down and redirected the band on his right wrist, letting it obliterate his hand in the process. He healed himself and fought back just enough so that it wouldn''t stop as the Aether poured onto the building below him.


    It wasn''t quite as fast as the Gera Estate that had simple vanished as there wasn''t a huge buildup of Aether but it was far faster than if he and Nova had worked together. The material of the ceiling simply began to dissolve, changing state from matter to Mana like it was made of ice and he was pouring boiling water onto it.


    He specifically didn''t use the Aether he had built up in the Kryptos Repository because he was saving that for later when he needed to be faster. As it was, he wasn''t even sure if they knew he was there yet.


    Once he had gotten through nearly a meter of material, Felix let his other hand dissolve in the Aether and tore apart the Soul in his hand so that the other band could pour into the material beneath him as well. As they mixed, the Mana became less like a cloud of Acid as the Anima shaped and manipulated the Aether and Mana from the building dissolving.


    The Mana formed tiny creatures, thousands of bugs that ate at the building, Fire, Lightning, Force and every form of energy Mana could produce. It also formed tiny fragments of Spells, most of which Felix had never seen before. It felt a bit like he was looking into the Curse of Desire and it was showing him knowledge he could have if he just gave in.


    It was less purposeful though and the fragments weren''t nearly big enough for Felix to get anything from them.


    The interaction between the two didn''t affect their ability to tear through the building though and in seconds, he was through the ceiling, both material and wards, Mana Enchantments and Anima Enchantments.


    Dropping into the building, the flashing lights and loud alarm noise immediately told him that they knew he was there so, he chose a random direction and started flying, handless. He didn''t bother redirecting the band and repairing his hands so as he ran, a trail of chaotic Anima and Aether poured out into the hall, slowly dissolving everything around him.


    It wasn''t concentrated enough to destroy everything or anything quickly but it was enough to strip the walls and some of the wards on and within them.


    As he ran and the wall dissolved behind him, the layout of the building slowly revealed itself to him as his senses began penetrating the damaging walls and floors. He still didn''t have the spare focus or will power to open any Aether Tunnels himself but, he had a few items to make up for that in the meantime. Those items were limited though so he didn''t use any immediately.


    Felix only managed to map out a tiny section of one floor of the massive facility when he first encountered a guard. It wasn''t a human guard though and instead, a Metal Elemental rolled towards him in the shape of a ball.


    Lifting his arms up towards it, Felix poured Aether and Anima onto the floor before leaping out of the way at the last moment.


    As the Elemental rolled through the hall where he had been standing, it began to dissolve, its outer layer slowly disappearing, like it was being boiled away invisibly.


    It stretched itself out of its ball form and stood with four arms and legs, appearing more like a Construct than a creature as it slammed and jabbed in Felix''s direction. It''s spiked arm was far faster than he was though so he used one of his Tunneling items to open a Tunnel behind him and let the arm push him through it.


    It penetrated halfway through his chest before launching him through at which point he closed the Tunnel and continued running. He didn''t have the regeneration necessary to fix his chest at the moment as all of it was going to wards his hands but he had enough focus to manually seal the area for the time being.


    Whatever damage he took to his Persona would simply disappear when he reverted back to his original body at which point the bands would also fall off. He could put them back on immediately but he wasn''t sure he could handle them on his real body without the Blood Ring healing him constantly.


    So, he had to destroy as much of the building as he could while he still had his Persona active.


    He had 20 total Aether Tunnel items and used ten of them escaping various swathes of Elementals. Surprisingly, it was just Elementals he was dealing with and he hadn''t encountered a real person anywhere inside the building.


    He also had no idea what he was looking for as the layout was endlessly confusing. He only had bits and pieces revealed all over the map and his brain, Mark and the Residents were all working as fast as they could to try and find some kind of pattern but there just didn''t seem to be one.


    Every time he tunneled, he made sure he was opening it somewhere he knew there wasn''t a wall so he didn''t waste the item and, he pointed them as far downwards as he could.


    In his frantic dash through the building, teleporting from end to end, he only once found an existing path from the floor he was on to a lower floor. Given he had to be able to sense the destination first, he was only moving down one floor at a time so, by the time he had run through half of his items, he hadn''t made it nearly as far into the building as he would have liked.


    He didn''t want to waste the items and the Elementals were too frequent for him to stop and just burrow downwards so, he pulled the Kryptos Repository out of his inventory, activated his Spirit Avatar outside of his body along with the Soul Cloak, and opened the Repository to the combined pockets he had used to siphon from the bands.


    Felix was instantly reverted from his Persona to his real body and as his senses adjusted, he realized he was falling, and the sky was bright. The two bands he had stolen from the Gera family along with the ring that read minds were falling next to him and he grabbed both bands, shoving them into the Kryptos repository without equipping them for the time being. The Mind reading ring, he immediately equipped onto his real body, given the value he had already gotten from it.


    His Spirit Avatar was also gone and as he tried to reactivate it, he realized it wasn''t just gone, it was gone. It had been completely wiped out and looking down at the Devourer Rings he had equipped long ago, both of them were cracked. They seemed somewhat functional in that Felix was able to drain both but they were damaged enough that he wasn''t going to risk using them again so he removed them from his fingers and placed them in the Kryptos Repository as well, to be safe.


    Looking around, not only was the sky revealed above him but multiple kilometers of the building in every direction was just gone.


    If I had known it would be that bad, I wouldn''t have stuck around¡­ Why was that so much worse than opening the Gera vault?


    Pressure. Mark answered simply.


    Right¡­ The Gera Vault was limited in size, like a submarine with a hole poked in it. Only so much water is going to fill it. Combining a bunch of pockets in the Kryptos Repository is like the biggest submarine ever¡­ Well, hopefully nothing is too badly damaged.


    Finally taking control over his trajectory, Felix soared downwards into the refinery, past hundreds of floors that made him glad he had used the Kryptos Repository stored Aether and Anima.


    Below him, he finally saw something that made sense, a massive open area filled with machines. On one side, the machines were rather small and there were many of them. On the other, there was a single massive machine and in between them, a gradient of size and quantity.


    He and his Residents were confident the smaller machines were for refining smaller denominations of ros while the machines on the other side, were for larger denominations that were used far less frequently.


    He also saw the first people he had encountered in the entire building, staring up at him in shock as half of the massive building above them had simply vanished.


    Without a Spirit Avatar to protect him, a Persona to give him a second chance at life, Spells capable of doing much to anyone and any knowledge of the building itself, Felix felt an inkling of understanding as to what Grim meant. At the same time, he wouldn''t have done anything differently even if he could because the amount of joy and exhilaration he experienced diving into the unknown with no plan, was unmatched.


    Just before he landed in the refinery, a map appeared in Felix''s vision of the building around them.


    The ring has gathered enough memories from the people on this floor.


    Felix chuckled at the incredible boon the ring that was trying to drive him insane was as he used an Aether Tunnel item to move himself across the building without landing at all. On the other side of the Tunnel, his map immediately began to fill out as more people fell within the range of his ring and he started running, saving the Tunnels to escape or save himself time when necessary.


    With all the memories pouring in, do we have any idea why the building is laid out like a labyrinth?


    None yet. It appears none of them know what the building is or why it is the way it is as many of them often ponder similar questions.


    Damn. What about the vaults?


    They do not appear to be on this level and no one here seems to know where they are.


    Are there floors below us?


    There are. Their contents are largely unknown.


    Without any better direction to go in, Felix chose a path that wasn''t revealed and just headed in that direction. He continued to follow that pattern, revealing more of the map as his ring read the memories of those in the area until he found a path that no one seemed to know anything about.


    Heading down the hall, there were no other nearby rooms and the hall was completely straight, a stark contrast to the rest of the labyrinthine building.


    Felix was both expecting and hoping to find a vault as he wasn''t sure what else would be at the end of the hall but he realized he was wrong as the hall began to shift. Instead of the solid and nearly black material that made up the rest of the facility, the hall transitioned into a silvery metal with Mana filled channels running through them.


    It reminded him of the realm where he had created the Fractal Mana Form embedded within his Core Soul and looked completely out of place.


    The hall finally ended in a large open room made of the same silvery metal lined with Mana channels. There was nothing else to the room, no other entrances or exits Felix could see.


    Any ideas?


    We are working on mapping the channels however initial assessments indicate their structure extends far beyond the range of your senses. We are only aware of a small portion of the channels.


    It took a few minutes for Mark and Felix''s mind to map things out far enough that a small portion of the building lit up in his vision.


    Walking over to it, Felix pushed a small amount of Mana into the area causing the wall in front of him to split and slide open. On the other side of it, lay a hallway with rooms on either side. Flying down the hall, Felix saw workshops and labs on either side, all entirely empty save for the tools that were built into the rooms.


    Some of them had tables, some had vices others had articulating arms to hold things in place.


    It looked to Felix like either the building was abandoned or more like it was new and had never been used before.


    As he moved, more of the building entered the range of his senses and the Mana circuitry began filling out. As it did though, the mechanics of what was happening in the building didn''t get any clearer. Opening more doors and moving through the new area though, they began to realize it was confusing, because it was all controlled elsewhere via a computer, a person or some other control mechanism.


    They tried to follow the Mana circuitry to the source but they couldn''t exactly pick where the doorways were and the walls were annoying even for Nova to punch through.


    Felix spent nearly an hour in the new area, far longer than he wanted to especially once he realized there was nothing there. Eventually he gave up and used an Aether Tunnel to return to the Rokrunor ros refinery because the longer he waited, the more time they had to mount a defense.


    Luckily an hour wasn''t long enough to deal with half of the refinery vanishing so, Felix was able to run down another hall that remained unknown on his map.


    That one led to a slimy cave that winded and branched out in every direction.


    Mr. Felix. One of the Residents in his mind grabbed his attention.


    What?


    I believe this slimy cave is one of the dungeons in the 2474th realm. At least, it matches the description perfectly.


    Wait¡­ That can''t be¡­ right?


    I just¡­ it¡­ seems like it might be.


    How can you be sure this isn''t just some other slimy green tunnel?


    The layout perfectly matches the maps I''ve seen made of the area, minus the connection to the ros refinery.


    That¡­ seems like an unlikely coincidence¡­ So that means¡­ the ros refinery is attached to a bunch of dungeons¡­ Why? Also¡­ where are the vaults?


    Knowing the slimy green caves were a dungeon that had been mapped and explored, Felix turned around fast enough that he didn''t feel it was necessary to use an Aether Tunnel. Heading back into the refinery, there were no guards grouped up at the dungeon entrance so he happily flew back into the winding halls.


    Finally, after discovering another 5 dungeons, he found a way to the next floor down where, he found even more dungeons. Instead of being at the end of halls though, each dungeon was simply another door in the hall, like they simply replaced the offices that had been there.


    He looked into them all but didn''t step into them at first until, he found one that stood out from the others.


    The dungeon looked like it was located in the desert with sandstone walls and looked identical to all the others except, that Felix could feel immediately, it had been modified to have much stronger Anima wards.


    Are they using the dungeons as vaults then? How does that make any sense if dungeon delvers are actively searching dungeons, especially necro-delvers? Also¡­ What is this place that''s connected to dungeons on other realms?


    The Residents are entertaining the idea that it is not that this facility is connected to dungeons on other realms but rather that the other realms are connected to dungeons that originate in this facility.


    Okay, what does that mean though? What does it change?


    The current theory, though with low confidence, is that this facility, either once or currently, creates realms and the dungeons are unfinished realms.


    That¡­ huh.

 Chapter 244 - Book 17

    Heading into the sandstone dungeon, Felix knew he didn''t have time to wander around, although he was seriously wondering why he hadn''t been tracked down yet. Still, he didn''t want to make it easier for them. So, he followed the wards as much as he could which meant tracing them far enough along the outside wall, that he could find the center of the dungeon.


    The issue, was that the dungeon was a complete mess. It wasn''t labyrinthine but more like it was built to be confusing and ridiculous.


    By the time he had mapped enough of the outside ward to form an arc, an hour had passed.


    Judging by the arc''s radius, it would take him days to reach the center so, he headed back to the Rokrunor facility.


    He had the coordinates for the dungeon mapped and knew based on the dungeon registry which realm it was in so he wasn''t worried about getting back there. What he was worried about, was a whole facility worth of guards chasing him down.


    Back outside of the sandstone dungeon, Felix was honestly shocked to find no one around chasing him. He cautiously but quickly moved through the facility back the way he came and the entire way, he didn''t find a living soul anywhere.


    It was only once he reached the precipice of the next floor where he finally saw a guard, and not just one of them but what realistically looked like it could have been all of them. He sensed their presences though and didn''t just rush headlong into them. Instead, he cautiously approached and got as close to them as he dared.


    Felix was never very good at being stealthy, especially given the loudness of his Soul. He knew that and knew that they would notice him eventually, if they weren''t already aware of where he was at all times.


    At the same time, they never approached. Never even took a single step onto the floor he was on.


    Are they¡­ not allowed on this floor? Is that what''s happening?


    While he didn''t want to approach them, he had to confirm his suspicions because it heavily changed his behavior going forward so, he stepped out into the hall leading to the stairs. At the top, he made eye contact with a number of very angry looking guards but none of them even tried to attack him with anything.


    Well, that''s convenient I guess.


    The residents are wary that this will not last.


    Yeah, good call. I''ll leave some constructs behind, keep me updated.


    Affirmative.


    With that out of the way and Felix suddenly having much more time than he had expected, he headed back towards the sandstone dungeon and in towards the center. His progress was almost entirely gated by how often he could Aether Tunnel as the walls and halls were completely illogical.


    As far as Felix could tell, the dungeon was either a work in progress or just used as a vault as it was completely void of traps or enemies though, it was laid out in a way where he expected there to be traps.


    Finally reaching the center of the dungeon, he sighed when he found it empty and didn''t sense anything nearby. He searched around for a few hours before finally heading back.


    Well, that was a complete waste of time.


    He searched just a few more dungeons briefly before deciding to ignore all the ones on his current floor for the time being. With no one chasing him directly, Felix was able to fly around, map the floor, examine the dungeons and memorize the wards within them.


    When he finally found the shaft leading downwards, he was happy to see that it led not just to the floor below him, but all the way down tens of floors.


    So, he immediately dropped down to the lowest floor, or wanted to but couldn''t. At the bottom of the shaft, there was an orb.


    It was entirely black and screamed Oblivion into the Ambient Anima.


    Dropping a disposable construct down, Felix wasn''t surprised to find it was immediately cutoff from Mark even before it fell into the orb and vanished, without a trace. Cautiously approaching it himself, making sure he didn''t get sucked in, Felix was rather surprised to find the orb didn''t actually pull him in at all. It pulled on him but so weakly even a normal human wouldn''t have had much trouble pulling themselves free.


    The rest of the room was completely empty which was a bit disappointing but Felix was starting to get the idea. The shaft was effectively a disposal shoot where each floor would dump their hazardous garbage, not a shaft meant to fly through.


    In fact, if there had been anyone working on any of the floors, it likely would have been extraordinarily dangerous to fly through the shaft as Felix had, especially if anything hazardous was tossed down.


    After a bit of experimentation, Felix concluded that the orb obliterated anything falling into it and then ejected Mana and Anima back into the atmosphere, keeping some of the Anima for itself. It wasn''t efficient enough to to be a method of Mana Regeneration as it was slow and inefficient with all the released Mana being chaotic and tainted, bound to the Curse of Oblivion.


    What it did do however, was somehow contain and control the Curse of Oblivion, which was something Felix didn''t even really know was possible.


    He left the orb where it was for the time being and headed up to the next floor where he found empty workshops and labs, much like the dungeon he had found earlier.


    Picking one of them at random, Felix opened his Pocket Home and the Sphinx''s Vault allowing his Residents to pour through. He also had everyone from Wanderer''s Lab join him through an Aether Tunnel and finally let Nova out of his Soul Space but insisted she remain on the current floor no matter what.


    Speaking to all of them at once, despite some of them being on the other end of the floor from him, I think it''s time I upgrade my gear.


    Felix didn''t need to say any more than that as the Residents spread out and got to work. They moved through the floors, used constructs to scout and began experimenting with materials they found and techniques they knew.


    Most important to Felix at the moment, were new robes because his were providing him essentially nothing. They were made to be peak C grade robes and Felix was mostly fighting mid to high A grade enemies or, in the case of The Dragon, low S grade Ancient enemies.


    While he hadn''t actually evolved at all, Felix knew he was much closer to at least the peak of the B grade due to everything that had happened to him in the Realms. As soon as he left, he knew his Class and Profession would upgrade while his Race would either evolve as well or just display as at least B grade on his Status Screen.


    He wasn''t entirely sure what he wanted his new Robes to be so, he let his Residents experiment with that while he, focused on the second most important upgrade, a weapon.


    Before The Realms, Felix had been convinced he would end up creating a wand like Mera''s for himself. He would likely use better materials and more Anima but something in the same vein, possibly with Concepts. Moving through the Realms though, he grew less and less sure of himself.


    A wand that just helped him Attune Mana or weave Concepts into his Spells felt like a shortcut. It was something he felt he should be able to do and using a wand to do it for him, would just stunt his own progress and ability to do the same. At most he wanted a weapon to enhance something he was already doing, not do it for him. The issue was, he didn''t know what else to do with a weapon, or rather, what a weapon could do for him so he didn''t have any direction.


    The branch Kerix had given him changed things though. At least, Felix hoped it would.


    Pulling it out of his Soul Space, Felix began poking, prodding and examining it. Using his Identify revealed nothing, as he had expected, initially. It relied on his own ability to examine something and he knew barely any more than Kerix had told him. It was a stick from an Ancestor of the World Tree. Other than that, it contained a massive amount of Anima, all of it rich with experience.


    While extracting the Anima was an option, Felix wasn''t sure it was worth the effort at the moment. Not only would it be difficult but the wood of the stick was easily the strongest material he had ever encountered and he didn''t think Nova would be able to reproduce it easily, if she could at all. On top of that, Felix wasn''t confident he could properly utilize the Anima within the stick as even with Hollow Claw''s Soul, he hadn''t really done much with the experience in there.


    It had gone into improving the simulation accuracy of his Mental World but apart from that, he hadn''t really used it for much.


    The stick on the other hand felt too important, too significant for him to not have a use for it and he was worried even if he did extract everything, he wouldn''t be able to store it within his own Soul. The sheer richness of experience and Anima within the stick was easily greater than the Sub-System Chunk he had harvested and without actually breaking it open, he couldn''t accurately judge its contents.


    So, instead of breaking it open and harvesting it for parts, Felix began experimenting with it. The obvious use for it was a staff, considering its form factor so, he started by casting Spells through it.


    It took him a few hours to nail down exactly how he should be doing that because he could run the Mana through the stick then form a Spell, form the Spell around the stick, form the Spell within the stick, or store Mana within it and draw from it to create a Spell.


    Each method had its advantages and disadvantages but none of them really wowed him in terms of effectiveness. Running Mana through the staff seemed to imbue it with a small amount of the wisdom and experience from the stick but that didn''t change his Spells much. Casting a Spell on or within the stick caused them to shift slightly but it was an improvement of less than a percent in terms of Spell stability and it didn''t change the actual form.


    The biggest issue was that he didn''t know anything about the stick, not really. He also didn''t have any control over it, in terms of manipulating how it affected his Spells.


    To remedy that, he decided to at least bind the stick to his Soul by embedding a small piece of his Soul within it. Much like he had the Star Metal long ago, Felix moved a piece of his Soul into his hand then pushed it into one end of the staff, pulling on it from the other end where his other hand was.


    Except this time, his Anima didn''t go anywhere. The stick didn''t want it and wouldn''t let it in.


    He tried to slow down and pushed slowly and carefully with more Force and more intent but yet again, he could not push his Soul into the stick. He tried again and again but constantly felt like he was trying to cut a brick with not just a butter knife, but a knife made of butter.


    Okay then¡­


    While it didn''t necessarily mean the stick was stronger than his Soul, it could. His Soul was also almost entirely defensive so it wasn''t a great way to compare but, it did cause Felix to wonder.


    If the Spirit in the stick was solid enough that it could resist him completely, just how strong was it?


    His first test, was to start hitting it with his Soul. He didn''t completely reassemble his Spirit Avatar as he didn''t have the spare Anima to do so but he did recreate a few planets. Once again, no matter how hard he hit it, the stick didn''t seem fazed in the slightest.


    Being protected by having a bound, physical body, meant he couldn''t just push it up against his Core Soul because with a physical body, anything stronger than the A grade wouldn''t really be affected at all. He already knew it was stronger than that.


    A Curse on the other hand, was a much better test. It was a little extreme as he went from smacking something with a fraction of his nascent Spirit Avatar to touching it to a Curse but he didn''t really have anything else in between. It also came with a significant risk of destroying the stick which was a worry but at the same time, Felix decided if it couldn''t survive a Curse, it wasn''t worth his time.


    So, he took the stick and very carefully pushed one end of it into each and every one of the Curses he kept orbiting his Core Soul. Not a single one seemed to damage or even affect it in any way.


    This stick is¡­ seems way too impressive. Why did Kerix just give it to me so easily? Is it not as awesome as it seems?


    He continued testing it for a few hours before realizing nothing he had done affected it in any way. At that point, he just stared at it, thinking, for quite some time.


    If this stick really is this strong¡­


    Kerix had already mentioned that Felix likely wasn''t getting into the Soul Vault without the pattern to open it but, given how strong the stick was, he felt he had to try anyways. So, he placed the Soul Vault on the ground then, stuck one end of the stick in between the various Soul Plates of the vault and began using it like a giant pry-bar.


    At first he was getting no where then, slowly, the plate began to give until finally he fell over and the plates that moved on the outside of the Soul Vault expanded out and formed a massive sphere. He excitedly looked towards the center but, found more plates there. As soon as he did, the layer he had expanded shrunk back down, undamaged.


    It wasn''t that he had opened anything, it was that the Soul Vault had adjusted and accommodated. Realizing he hadn''t gotten any closer, he gave up on that for the time being and realized there might have been another use for the stick.


    There was no way for him to be certain but, it seemed like the stick was stronger than his Soul was, or at least it was more stable and rigid. Meaning, it was more capable of containing something than his Soul was.


    Hey, Grim¡­ I know you might still need some time but there''s something I need you to do for me.


    What?


    I guess you aren''t watching my thoughts anymore-


    You started hiding them.


    Oh, right. I thought I stopped doing that but I guess it just became instinctual. This stick from the World Tree''s Ancestor is stronger than my Soul, more rigid and unmoving¡­


    You want to use it to-


    Yes.


    Grim sighed, And I''m the only one that can¡­


    Because Nova isn''t intelligent enough and any of the Residents would be compromised, yeah.


    As much as I thought it was idiotic for you to put that thing in your Soul, taking it back out might be even stupider.


    Yeah, maybe. If it works though¡­


    Grim sighed once again, Okay.


    Really?


    Yes. I have conditions though.


    You''ve figured out what you want me to do?


    Yeah, I think so. There aren''t any good solutions, none I can think of.


    So what do you want me to do?


    3 things. Actually, 4. First, you need to listen to me, and potentially others. Use us to gauge things. You need to ask before you do something that affects others.


    I can''t possibly ask eve-


    You know what I mean. You probably don''t actually care about anybody which means you should never make decisions that affect anybody. Given how strong you are, that''s inevitable so, we need a different way.


    Fine. I can ask you, I won''t always ask and I won''t always listen though.


    Of course. I''ll also stop you if I feel the need.


    Okay, what else?


    Second, you need to help Nova.


    What? What do you mean?


    You haven''t been paying any attention to her, which is fine you''ve been busy and she''s old enough but you also haven''t noticed. Ever since you told her she couldn''t do what you did, Spatial Translocation, she''s spent every spare minute pushing herself, trying to get stronger.


    That''s a good thing.


    Kind of. She''s smart enough that she thinks you''re testing her. That you telling her she couldn''t do it, was you saying she had all the tools necessary to get there herself already. She''s too stupid or immature to realize that really, you''re just too busy and occupied to help her. You also need to do a better job of communicating the reasoning behind your intent when you communicate with her, that would have avoided all of this.


    Okay, this is something I should have done anyways. You could have told me.


    Yes. Some introspection is good, this has just gone on long enough now.


    Stowing the stick in his Soul Space, Felix followed his Soul Bond to his familiar who, was eagerly helping his Residents. They weren''t actually getting her to do anything, but she was watching and trying to learn Spell Forms from them.


    She wasn''t very good with them, she didn''t have the Intelligence to be even if Felix gave her a new brain. She just used her brain in a different way so no matter how big it was, unless he forcefully preprogrammed the brain he gave her, she wouldn''t ever be capable of complex Spell Forms.


    On the other hand, her ability to Instinct Cast, considering she was closer to a beast, should have been much better than Felix''s.


    As soon as he entered the room, Nova meowed at him and her tail began quickly wagging back and forth, pulling her whole bottom half along with each wag, as she turned back to what the Resident''s were doing.


    Nova, come on.


    She leapt across the floor and flew around his body and face, excitedly following him down the hall to an empty room. When they arrived, Felix grabbed her body and Spatially Translocated them both across the room. She was instantly in awe and wasn''t paying any attention as Felix sent her the entire experience of him casting the Spell, as detailed as he could muster, through their Soul Bond.


    It took her a few seconds but once she realized what he was communicating to her, she went very still as she focused and examined the experience.


    A few minutes later, Felix sensed the Mana within her building up, saturating her body and Attuning itself to a Spatial Location. She didn''t have the instinct required to pick a specific destination like Felix did, after building it up with Rathelius, and she didn''t understand that aspect of the Spell so, she used the same coordinates Felix had.


    Nova''s Mana Control wasn''t where it needed to be though and so as she attuned the Mana to a location across the room, Felix felt the Mana was off. Each part of her current body was targeting a different point and none of them were in the same room. Some of them were even all the way across the Realm because of how precise she needed to be, and wasn''t.


    Reaching into her body, Felix grabbed hold of her Mana and tore it free from her control, causing her to look up at him confused and slightly fearful.


    He gently soothed her through their bond then directed her to create a small ball made of the same material as her body, to make things simple.


    She did so, placing it in front of her, then he told her to do the same thing on the ball this time.


    Attuning and infusing the Mana into the ball, she immediately complained how much harder it was but Felix insisted she keep at it. He monitored and gave her tips but she quickly got frustrated with the balls completely vanishing, instead of appearing across the room from her.


    Felix knew the balls were being translocated randomly into the Realm but she didn''t really understand what or why it was happening.


    While practice and training could build her instinct to measure locations and cast faster, her Mana Control was severely limited by her Soul which meant Felix would either have to teach her to cultivate and improve it herself, or do it for her.


    Should I teach her-


    Grim cut him off, No. Just do it for her.


    Thank god.


    Reaching out, Felix grabbed Nova and reached into her Soul with his Soul Tendrils. She immediately let him in and he started by compressing her Soul down until it was a tiny dense little marble. He added Anima and reignited the Spark of Life within her Core Soul before implanting a number of experiences of his own along with a few Concepts and a sizable chunk of his own Soul.


    Finally, he constructed a whole new set of Soul Layers around her Core Soul including a new second layer to control her body, fashioned from the remnants of her old one, since Felix didn''t have much to improve there. There were also a number of defensive layers including a replica film layer, like the one he maintained around his own body and an Aura on the outside.


    She was unconscious for the entire process, as Felix had made sure, and when he was done he woke her back up with a prod and a nudge.


    Nova startled back awake and immediately melted into a puddle before reassembling herself and staggered around the room while she got used to the new connection between her body and Soul. It took her a few minutes and even then she still looked drunk but, she didn''t even seem to notice as she asked Felix if she could try again.


    He encouraged her to and this time, there was a marked improvement. Instead of somewhere random, because the sphere had different coordinates embedded throughout it, the entire sphere had the same coordinates. She didn''t however, know how to get those coordinates yet though so she was only capable of moving something to the exact same place over and over again.


    She didn''t realize that at all that and as soon as she sensed the sphere on the other side of the room, she switched to moving herself.


    When she moved across the room herself, which was much easier than moving an inanimate object, she bounded out of the room in excitement. A moment later, she reappeared on the exact same spot before bounding back out of the room.


    A few seconds passed before she returned, to the exact same spot, and repeated that in her excitement, showing off to Residents on the floor and unable to control herself, literally and figuratively.


    The twentieth time she reappeared, Felix grabbed her and told her to move herself to the other side of the room. She nodded then reappeared, just beneath his hand. As soon as she realized that, it was like a light had flipped in her head and she whined to Felix about telling her why she could only go to one spot.


    It took almost a dekad, which was far faster than Felix was expecting, for Nova to build up the instinct to measure coordinates. He had embedded his own experience within her which helped a lot but she still had to learn from and adapt it. Even then, she needed practice and needed to make it second nature.


    Being nearly a beast though, she was almost completely driven by instinct and so, it was much easier for her to ingrain something within her in that way.


    The biggest contributing factor though, by far, was Reaper''s Bond.


    While Felix could push experiences to Nova himself and even embedded some within her Soul, he realized a few days in what the point of the Skill actually was. It didn''t just let her tap into his experience and use his Skills, it acted as a translation layer adapting the experience to her so she could use it immediately.


    Once he realized that, he began using it to its full potential and even though he shouldn''t have been upgrading anything, due to the weakness of The System in The Realms, the Nucleus'' trickery showed him what had happened anyways.


    Ding You have upgraded the Class skill: [Legendary] Reaper''s Bond (Expert IX) => Class: [Ancient] Experience Nexus (Proficient XIV)


    Profession: [Experience Nexus (Ancient) Adapt the experiences from one creature to another, making it indistinguishable from a native experience. Your level of familiarity with the host and destination creature as well as the familiarity with the experience itself dictates the effectiveness of the adaptation. Related experiences and Anima from the host or destination can serve as an effective proxy. This skill is passively enabled for all directly bonded creatures, allowing them to access all of your experiences, and you to access theirs so long as neither actively blocks the other.]


    Huh. That''s-


    Before Felix could finish his thought, Nova began instinct casting each and every Spell Felix had actively trained to be instinctive. She didn''t pour enough Mana into them to harm anything or anyone, but it was more than enough to be annoying, especially when she sent multiple explosions down the halls.


    Felix sighed, Anything else I should do for her?


    Not now. She needs to get used to everything that''s changed first.


    Okay, what''s your next requirement?


    I need you to remake my body.


    Okay, easy enough. I probably would have done that anyways. You want a real biological body or-


    No. Armor and a Construct, something like Zero.


    Show me what you were thinking and we can start working on the plans right now. Then, we can start work on the body as soon as Nova is done casting Fire Balls all over the place.


    Grim''s new body was similar to his old one and from the outside, he looked like a ten foot tall man in matte black plate armor. In reality, inside the armor, was a complex set of Construct engineering that combined robotics and Construct making with Soulful materials allowing him both better control over the body and granting him the ability to regenerate.


    On top of that, even without touching his Soul, which Felix still couldn''t do anything about given the complexity of the False Convictions binding him, Grim could now cast Spells, due to Felix''s Experience Nexus.


    They didn''t just make him a body either, they made him the strongest form Felix had ever created. The armor was fashioned from a Hunger Cursed set of plate armor that consumed the bodies of those the wearer killed, along with the wearer''s body itself. In Grim''s case though, there was no biological body for it to consume so it was a perfect fit.


    It was then further strengthened by Felix destroying The Blood Devouring Ring and fusing its Anima into the armor along with the Soul Devouring Ring which was embedded within the body. He managed to preserve both ring''s functionality somewhat and although Grim wouldn''t have a Persona, he would have a set of Skills much like his Persona had had through the rings.


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    The Construct body within used Asphellum and charged Demitium along with other alloys to create something nearly indestructible with multiple ways to move each limb. The different ways all had differing amounts of leverage allowing Grim to maximize either his strength or his speed.


    On top of all that, Felix embedded the entire thing with a Soul, using the Anima from the ros Wanderer''s Lab had collected. It was a puppet Soul but it was stronger than nearly every Soul Felix had encountered outside of The Realms, and most of the ones he had encountered in it. The most important part, other than the defensive layers, was that it allowed Grim to use Reaper''s Movement through Experience Nexus.


    Okay, you said you had 4 conditions, that was 3. I take it the last one is your main request? The one that addresses the Residents lives?


    Yes. Grim sat, curled up due to the size of the room, staring at Felix from his new body, I know we can''t move everyone out of your Soul, your Soul is what makes everything work.


    Right.


    You could make everyone bodies but that''s not realistic. It took me some time to figure out what my biggest problem with this whole situation is and I realized it''s not that you risk their lives, it''s that they didn''t choose this.


    Okay, how do I remedy that then?


    You give them a choice. You need to tell them, all of them, that they live inside you and if you die, they die. Then, give them the option to leave on their own if they want to. Everyone that agrees to leave, you provide them with a body and a way out of this Realm.


    No matter how stupid and reckless I may be¡­ they almost definitely have a better chance of living inside my Soul than outside of it.


    Yes. I agree. You need to give them the choice though.


    Okay. Felix sighed, I''ll tell them.


    Grim nodded and followed Felix into his Mental World, specifically his Soul Garden, where he began changing his appearance. He still didn''t want to be recognized if he ever decided to wander around and hated the idea of being worshiped as a God, at least directly, so he took on the appearance of the statue in Arkade''s main square.


    He switched out his Robes for robes that looked almost like rags, like no clothes could ever do anything for him and he only wore them to appease the masses. He also swapped his head for a mass of arcane lines which, was actually just a projection of the Fractal Mana Form within his Soul, unknowable knowledge, undiscoverable truths and the most arcane of secrets.


    Lastly, he made himself taller, lankier and extended the length of his limbs, pushing his body right to the edge of human.


    Then, he projected himself across the entirety of his Mental World and spoke to every Resident inside, his voice echoing out within their minds.


    I am The True Wizard, the creator of this universe. I am the one who has given you life. Your universe exists within me. S§×ar?h the ¦Çov§×lFire .net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    No matter where they were in the Mental World, every Resident saw Felix''s form projected up in the sky, directly above each and every one of them. He wasn''t actually there and each Resident only saw him once, but every single one of them saw him.


    I am here to offer you a choice. If you so choose, you may continue to live within my Realm. Doing so, you are subject to my whims and your fate is bound to my own. If I fall, so will you. However, if you choose to leave, I will grant you a body in the universe I live within and your fate will be unraveled from my own.


    He paused for a moment to let things sink in then finished his speech.


    Those of you that wish to leave, I will meet with you personally and we will begin creating your body on the outside immediately. Everyone else, I cannot guarantee I will have time to entertain this choice in the future.


    Felix removed the projection of his form from every Resident''s mind and turned to Grim, "How was that?"


    He nodded, "Much less biased than I was expecting. I wouldn''t have minded you making the option of staying seem more attractive, I think it''s the better choice."


    "I agree but I want to be fair to what you''re asking so I tried to be as objective as possible. Now, they have the agency to make whatever decision they want. I''m surprised you didn''t make me tell them I was going to fight The Dragon again."


    Grim sighed, "You''re still planning on fighting that thing? You really think you''ll be strong enough?"


    "I have no idea. I don''t think I can not fight it though."


    "Just¡­ make sure you have a proper escape plan this time."


    Felix nodded, "That''s a good idea."


    "Either way, they don''t need to know about and approve of every decision you make. They just need to have the choice to say no if they want to."


    Logically, Felix could understand what Grim was getting at. At the same time, he didn''t care that he was essentially subjugating and trapping his Residents within his mind so, he listened to Grim and followed his suggestions so long as they were reasonable.


    After his speech, Felix wasn''t exactly sure how many would agree to his proposal. As it turned out, far more than he had expected had agreed and so, he began meeting with each and every one of them.


    He was able to split his consciousness and project himself to multiple of them at once, which made all the difference. Especially when he realized his mistake.


    In a city that consisted entirely of large, single floor buildings that looked like churches or cathedrals, all connected into a single network, Felix had a few thousand people that had accepted his offer. When he arrived in the center of the city, an open park, the entire city stood before him.


    "Procreator, it is our pleasure to welcome you to our city."


    "You wish for me to grant you a body so you may leave this Realm."


    "Er¡­ No."


    Felix looked at the woman with confusion, though it didn''t show on the sphere of pulsating arcane spell work that had replaced his head.


    After a few moments of silence, she continued, "Ever since The Prophet Melody introduced us to your reverence, our Orgion has dreamed of the day we might share our worship with you."


    Felix sighed internally, not outwardly showing his disappointment, "Does anyone here actually want a body to leave?"


    Not a single soul in the Orgion raised their hand or otherwise made their presence known.


    The woman he had been talking to smiled, "Would you prefer we demonstrate our worship with real bodies in your universe?"


    "No."


    "Excellent, let us begin."


    What followed was about what Felix expected from a city where the founding religion had been started by a bored Melody. He refused to participate but that didn''t seem to bother them much as they believed the orgy that followed, was somehow showing their dedication to and worshiping him.


    He left, moving his projection of consciousness over to the next Resident that had requested his presence.


    Out of the millions of Residents that had accepted his offer, a fraction of a percent of them actually wanted to leave. Some of them just wanted to meet him, others asked him to destroy their enemies, grant them power, give them arcane secrets. Others, just wanted to talk, wanted him to justify their moral decisions, reinforce their beliefs, argue with him that he wasn''t real or even complain about reality.


    Once he was finally done meeting with everybody and ignoring everyone who didn''t actually want to leave, Felix recollected his projections and reverted his appearance in his Soul Garden.


    "Did you know that would happen?"


    Grim actually chuckled, "No. I thought about having you regularly meet with anyone who requests your presence but that''s not reasonable."


    "Thanks. How about, we put something in place so anyone can leave at any time."


    "What did you have in mind?"


    "We put a gateway, at the top of a mountain or deep in a forest or something. Make it hard to get there so anyone going through is absolutely certain of what they''re doing. When they go through, Mark pauses them and their Soul enters a queue to leave that some Residents on the outside will manage."


    Grim nodded, "That''s a great idea."


    "Okay, it''s done." Felix smirked, "Now, let''s get this thing out of me."


    Returning to their bodies, Felix and Grim left the small room they had chosen and moved a few floors up, to a larger room where Grim could actually stand. Felix summoned Nova who happily roamed the relatively empty floor, testing her new Spells while Felix and Grim prepared themselves as best they could while waiting.


    Once all the Residents who had requested to leave had bodies and were sent off into the Realms, they got started.


    Felix handed Grim the stick then laid down in the middle of the room. Then, he began rearranging his Soul temporarily to expose his Core Soul by moving the planets out of the way and readying himself to open the outer layers.


    Grim positioned himself above Felix, kneeling over his stomach with the stick pointed down into his chest.


    "Ready?" Felix asked.


    Grim sighed, "I still think this is stupid."


    "I clearly can''t control whatever this is right now and containing it is consuming a massive portion of my will power and focus. Taking it out of me will make me a lot stronger."


    "Yes but this thing almost killed you when you put it in there now, it''s mostly stable. Poking it just seems like a bad idea." He shook his head, "Ready."


    Felix took a breath then closed his eyes and disconnected himself from his body, paralyzing himself temporarily so he didn''t move. Then, Grim took a large knife and stabbed it down through Felix''s chest, pulling it back and splitting him open before tilting it to the side and prying open his chest cavity.


    Using a few metal bars Nova had created, Grim placed them to hold the chest cavity open then placed both his hands on the stick and began lowering it.


    As soon as Felix felt the stick poke at his outer Soul Layers, he broke them open, damaging his Soul for the time being. First the film he maintained over his skin that facilitated his Mana Skin all the way through to the lattice layer that surrounded his Core Soular System. As soon as it was opened, Mark put all the Residents to sleep and Felix knocked out their Souls then Mark gave Grim the signal to continue.


    The end of the stick poking into his Core Soular System was a weird feeling, it wasn''t painful but it was uncomfortable in an indescribable way. As it touched his Core Soul, there wasn''t any pain initially but Felix knew the stick had to pierce his Core Soul, not all the way in but just enough that the Fractal Mana Form wouldn''t escape.


    He relaxed and slowly pulled back on his Core Soul, letting the stick slowly pierce it. The only way he could do that was to convince his Core Soul that the stick wasn''t an attack. As it began to pierce it though, the intense pain he experienced, that completely eclipsed the pain he had felt from pushing the Sub-System Chunk, made it nearly impossible.


    It wasn''t really harming him, he knew that. Penetrating his Core Soul was completely antithetical to its nature though. He was letting it in, pushing things aside so it could sink into it. It was also the worst pain he had ever felt both in intensity and in the way it pulsated through his Core Soul directly.


    Once the stick had pierced just below the surface of his Core Soul, he focused his consciousness and began pushing the Fractal Mana Form out of his Core Soul. It resisted at first, unwilling to leave but then slowly, it began to move towards the edge of his Core Soul.


    Felix kept pushing on it until finally, the very edge of the higher dimensional Spell Form touched the stick. The instant they made contact, the Fractal Mana Form vanished, sinking into the stick and Felix pushed it back out of his Core Soul.


    Grim immediately pulled the Staff back out and Felix closed his body and Soul in a matter of seconds with his renewed will power.


    He felt instantly better as his Core Soul snapped down to an even smaller, denser mass now that the Fractal Mana Form wasn''t pushing outwards on it. His will power was no longer occupied and he felt like a massive weight had been lifted from his Soul.


    Using his Matter Control, Felix lifted himself to his feet and took a deep breath, unable to contain the smile on his face.


    He looked over at Grim who had dropped the Staff but instead of falling to the ground, it simply floated next to him. Nova sat in one corner of the room, worried and scared initially, until Felix looked at her and she experienced a wave of relief.


    "Are you okay?" Grim looked at him seriously.


    "So much better than okay." Felix said as he snapped the Staff into his hand.


    He didn''t even have to use his Matter Control to move it as he felt an intrinsic connection to the Staff, likely due to how long the Fractal Mana Form had spent within his Core Soul.


    The Staff had morphed the stick. It was straighter, slightly longer and the small branches on the end had shifted and grown small leaves, making the entire staff look like like a bonsai tree with a really long trunk. It still seemed to be made from a weave of roots or branches instead of a solid stick but now, the branches and roots forming it twisted and moved slowly. Finally, in between the shifting grain of the Staff, a slight blue glow pulsated and crackled outwards every once in a while.


    "Well, that w-"


    Before Felix could finish, the staff interrupted him, asking for Mana and Anima through their bond. Felix obliged, providing it with both from his reserves, waiting for it to be satisfied or full but it never was. He ran out of Mana first at which point he cut off both streams. He could feel that the Staff wasn''t any more sated than it had been, he wasn''t filling some battery or pool. Instead, it was growing stronger as he fed it. He would never get that Mana or Anima back but, the Staff was stronger than it had been a moment ago.


    It can''t just grow infinitely¡­ can it?


    There was no way for him to verify that at the moment so he looked to Grim, who just nodded to him, before he rushed out of the room to test the Staff.


    Nova followed him eagerly to one of the more open dungeons they had found that seemed empty. He released the Staff which remained floating next to him and let Nova sniff, bite, lick, chew and otherwise examine it while he explored the extent of his bond with the Staff.


    Their Soul''s were bonded, just like Felix''s Soul was bound to Grim and Nova but it felt different. It wasn''t quite the same way his Soul was bound to Mark''s Soul, in that Mark was created from his Soul. In some ways it felt like a stronger, more fundamental connection, if that was even possible, and in others it felt like a weaker connection. The Staff was alien to him in a way Mark wasn''t but at the same time, it felt like it was a part of himself or just an active extension of his own Soul, while Mark and the Residents didn''t.


    Trying to communicate with it was a bit like communicating with Nova, if they were talking through cans connected by a string. It was like they didn''t speak the same language or even existed in the same universe on top of the connection between them also being spotty. They couldn''t have a conversation and sometimes Felix would say or ask things and it just didn''t react, other times it responded instantly. As if some of what he was trying to communicate just never arrived.


    Even when he did get responses, they were cryptic and confusing. The Staff communicated through intent but sometimes, Felix just didn''t understand what it was responding to him with.


    Beyond communication though, Felix knew he could summon the Staff at will, seemingly from anywhere. He teased Nova quite a few times with that. He could also send it Mana and Anima through their connection, or more accurately, he could feed it from anywhere.


    He had Nova create him a training dummy and whacked it a few times but the Staff didn''t do anything special, nothing an ordinary stick wouldn''t have done.


    Finally, Felix tested the most important thing, casting a Spell.


    Before the Fractal Mana Form had merged with the Staff, Felix had tried casting spells through the stick with mixed results. He not only wasn''t sure how he was supposed to cast through it but also, none of the ways he tried seemed to do much.


    Holding the Staff now, Felix instinctively knew what to do.


    He pushed the Spell Form into the Staff through their connection, which was orders of magnitude easier than creating it outside of his body, then he pushed Mana into the Staff.


    Cautiously, Felix started with a simple Fire Bolt which was one of the Spells he was the most familiar with.


    Casting it through the Staff with just 10 Mana, the blue crackles and pulses quickened for just a moment before a small bullet of Fire appeared within the leaves at the top of the Staff. The bullet raced out of the leaves without touching a single one or diverting from its path then shot out and smacked against the far wall.


    The Fire Bolt cast through the Staff didn''t seem to have any special effect. It looked just like the Fire Bolt Felix could cast without the Staff. It felt completely different but Felix couldn''t even begin to compare them. It was like the two weren''t even made from the same thing, like his was cast with Fire and the Staff had cast with something else entirely.


    Huh. That''s a bit disappointing.


    Next, he moved on to instinct casts before he ran through every Spell he knew. He wasn''t entirely sure what he expected out of the Staff considering an Instinct Cast was essentially his Soul tapping into his raw experience of casting a Spell.


    Still, if it was possible he wanted to know.


    He didn''t have an instinctive understanding of what to do the same way he had with the traditionally cast Fire Bolt so, he started by just casting an Instinct Cast Spell. Using a Force Burst to move himself across the room, the result was exactly what Felix expected but the actual process was weird.


    The Staff had essentially done something through their Bond to somehow affect the Cast but, Felix couldn''t tell what it had done at all.


    Mostly confused, Felix began running through every Spell he could think of along with every one he could cast as an Instinct Cast. By the end, though none of them seemed too different, he felt a bit less disheartened. The Spells he cast were ever slightly more accurate in their output but it was hard to tell because Felix''s Spells were already nearly perfect in terms of accuracy.


    If he Instinct Cast a Force Burst, he never cast it with too much Force or too much Mana.


    His Spells just being more accurate would have been disappointing but, Felix had also started to get the sense that the Staff wasn''t doing anything because he didn''t need it to. There was no need for him to hit the dummy across the room with a Fire Bolt that could obliterate it.


    The Staff wasn''t listening to what he wanted it to do, it was determining what he needed it to instead.


    He would have to test it in real combat if that was the case and he wasn''t ready to do that at the moment. Instead, he turned his attention to other things.


    Firstly, now that his will power had been freed up and subsequently strengthened, he took a look at his Mana Core and began experimenting.


    Before, it had taken Felix a few seconds to Attune Mana which was a massive improvement from when he had first created his Attuned Cores but was still far too long to be usable in combat. Testing it after creating the Staff though, he couldn''t help but smile as he pulled raw, unattuned Mana from his central core and attuned it at will, instantly.


    Well, looks like it''s time to do some cleanup then.


    Since he didn''t need the Attuned Cores anymore, Felix completely removed them from his body, tossing them to Nova who was sitting and begging for them.


    Then, he was just left with one singular Core of 10 billion Mana.


    With the Fractal Mana Form now extracted, there was something he had been thinking about trying along the same vein but he asked Grim first, just to be sure.


    Moving my Mana Core into my Core Soul. Bad idea?


    Don''t know. That seems safe to test though.


    Cool. Thanks.


    Taking half the Mana in his Mana Core, Felix siphoned the Mana towards his Core Soul where it resisted at first. Felix had plenty of recent experience letting things into his Core Soul though and so he slowly relaxed it and let the Mana in.


    Once a small portion of it had made it inside, it was like his Core Soul had realized Mana wasn''t a threat because suddenly there was no more resistance at all. 5 billion Mana poured into his Core Soul forming a tiny bead at the very center.


    Then, Felix pulled Mana back out of his Core Soul and used it to cast a simple Fire Bolt.


    It was, significantly slower than pulling out of his normal Mana Core. When he pulled the Mana out and through the Staff though, it was even faster than his normal Mana Core because the Staff was connected to his Core Soul.


    While he wasn''t willing to completely rely on the Staff, Felix decided to move his Mana Core to his Core Soul because there were too many benefits to doing so. At the same time though, he created a planet of pure Mana, the size of his old Mana Core, orbiting his Core Soul that he could use as a backup, just in case.


    Once the backup was in place, he began channeling Mana into his Core Soul, filling up the new Core which wasn''t any different than the old one except that it was now in his Core Soul and therefore it was easier for him to compress it down.


    He managed to get 5 times as much Mana into his Core Soul as he had had in his last Core before it seemed like anymore would start negatively affecting him. He was pretty satisfied with that.


    Then, the Staff reached in and began moving and shifting the Mana.


    Felix desperately reached inside himself to tear apart the connection between them as the Mana in his Core Soul shifted from a bead of highly compressed Mana to a three, or even potentially higher, dimensional fractal of Mana. If it cloned itself within him, he would lose all the will power he had just freed up.


    Before Felix could take any action though, it was already done. The Mana within his Core Soul, his new Mana Core, was a higher dimensional fractal that he couldn''t completely sense, let alone understand.


    It didn''t however, affect him at all. In fact, he felt just as good as he had.


    He calmed himself down, realizing it wasn''t trying to clone itself then took an objective look at what had happened. Even though he couldn''t grasp what was inside of him, it was stable and required little to no will power for him to maintain. Either it was just stable, or the Staff was maintaining it itself.


    On top of that, it no longer felt full. It was simultaneously less volume, more mass and significantly less dense. It shouldn''t have been physically possible except that Mana wasn''t matter and didn''t abide by physical laws.


    He didn''t have the Mana on hand to keep filling it so he instead took a look at the backup Core he had created and began morphing it to match the core the Staff had created.


    While he didn''t understand it, he could replicate it because he had a perfect template. He knew he never could have created it from scratch but just replicating it was much easier. It took him may tries but eventually he succeeded and proved that it wasn''t the Staff doing anything actively. The shape was simply stable entirely on its own.


    Huh. What else can you do?


    Next on his list, especially now that he needed Mana to fill his new Cores, was finding a way to equip the bracers he had stolen without constantly losing his arms. He pulled the two bracers out of the Kryptos Repsitory with only minor damage to the room as he had learned from last time and had placed them in the smallest possible space.


    They immediately started pouring Rich Anima and Chaotic Mana into the room so he cast a Mana barrier to try and contain it. If he could find a way to create a barrier that could, he could use that to protect his own body while he siphoned the Mana and Anima into himself.


    The barrier that came out though, was nothing like the barrier Felix had intended. He had intended to cast a simple Mana Barrier so he could examine how it degraded.


    What instead appeared, was a barrier of woven Mana and Anima producing a wall of tiny shapes all interlocked together, like a giant puzzle. The barrier that appeared, wasn''t degrading at all and contained the Anima and Mana in the room perfectly.


    Looking down at his left arm, Felix lowered the staff towards it and as it approached, his Mana Skin shifted. Within a small area around the staff, his Mana Skin was no longer a thin film of Mana, instead it looked almost like the barrier he had just cast. They were smaller though and the shape was different, they were closer to scales or leaves but tiny, almost imperceptible.


    Once the area he had touched had shifted, the change began to spread, transforming the Mana Skin next to it and accelerating out across his body until his Mana Skin was completely gone, replaced. In its place, was a skill Felix was dubbing Mana Scales, due to their visual similarities.


    He didn''t immediately test them though, first he destroyed the barrier he had cast and stepped into the room, the Chaotic Mana and Rich Anima no longer affecting him, before he equipped both of the bracers.


    They cinched themselves down onto his body but his Mana Scales still lay between them and him so his arms were completely unaffected.


    That also meant he wasn''t siphoning anything from them just yet though so, he let one of them through, sinking beneath his Mana Scales, which reformed above the Aether Bracer. As soon as it was through, Felix''s arm began to deteriorate faster than he could ever hope to heal it. Instead of trying to create some kind of channel though, he let the Staff guide him.


    He moved the Staff towards the bracer and focused on his Soul in his arm. It didn''t directly change anything but through their connection, Felix knew what to do. He followed the instructions accurately and created a path down his arm and into his Mana Core where his Core Soul easily handled it.


    Then, he did the same with the Anima Bracer.


    Since both of them were really just stable portals into a higher pressure area, Felix could only pull so much from them before the pressure equalized but, the Staff had thought of that. The path the Staff had directed him to create somehow maintained a virtual vacuum around the bracers to constantly pull from them, before pumping everything through his body.


    That meant he had an unlimited supply of both, restricted only by how quickly he could pull from the bracers which, was far better than any manual regeneration relying on the weak Aether around him.


    He allowed his new Mana Core and his Backup Mana Core to fill up before directing the excess into the Staff that happily fed on the streams. That way, the Staff would constantly be growing stronger as it fed on the Anima and Mana and he wouldn''t be wasting anything. When he needed to regenerate Mana or Anima, he could and when he was full, the Staff would consume the rest.


    With his Mana Regeneration solved, Felix began practicing his Spells. He wanted to get used to the Staff and casting through it as well as using his own will power to attune Mana instead of his Cores.


    Specifically, he wanted to make Spatial Translocation an Instinct Cast, now that he wasn''t reliant on Attuned Cores and had much more Mana at his disposal.


    It took him nearly 3 terms to finally get to a point he was satisfied with. He had managed to make Spatial Translocation an Instinct Cast in a matter of days. That wasn''t enough though, he wanted to be able to cast the Spell instantly, including the time it took him to gather and Attune the Mana so, he kept practicing.


    Once he had finally mastered it, the Spell was no longer a Spatial Translocation. He had mastered it to the point where it was officially, Blink.


    The only downside to the Spell once he had mastered it, was that he couldn''t use it too many times in succession. The more he used it, the more detached his physical body became from physical reality. It took time for him to reconnect and so if he Blinked any more than 5 times in a minute, his body would fall out of reality and into the Aether which, would likely kill him since even if he could find his way back, he had no way of reattaching himself. At that point his body would just slowly degrade until it was nothing more than a disperse cloud of Mana in the Aether.


    With his training complete, and given how long it had taken, Felix Blinked down to the main floor his Residents were using to check on their progress.


    "We have many iterations. None have been deemed acceptable." Arysha informed him.


    Felix nodded and looked at one of them, "This a recent prototype?"


    She nodded, "Realtively."


    He reached over and touched the end of his Staff to the cloth, expecting something magical to happen. Instead, nothing happened at all. The cloth remained exactly as it was.


    "Huh. Thought that would do something. Alright, I''m going to see if I can raid some vaults or dungeons for materials then."


    She nodded, "Have you attempted to open the Soul Vault with your renewed will?"


    His eyes widened, "No. I have not."


    Felix Blinked out of the room without another word and excitedly pulled the Soul Vault from his Soul Space. He didn''t even bother trying to open it with his own will as he was pretty sure breaking into it was nearly impossible. Instead, he held it in one hand and touched the Staff to it with his other.


    The Soul Vault brightened and suddenly the plates that formed the protective outer layer began to shift and rearrange themselves. The outer layer retiled itself and produced a hole the size of Felix''s finger then, the layer beneath that began to shift. One by one, the layers were rearranged and solved until the hole that had formed on the outer layer went all the way through the protective shell of the vault.


    Then, the layers all spun around the hole in various directions and the vault began to grow until it was big enough that Felix could fly through the hole.


    He smiled widely as he floated into the vault, noticed it was much bigger on the inside and it was completely full of items and artifacts.


    Felix and his Residents tore through the vault, examining and cataloging everything. The vast majority of it went to either Nova or the Residents to break down because they were too weak to bother with. There were some standouts though.


    Only one of those Felix took for himself. It was an amulet, a black chain with a disc hanging from it, like a coin with a hole drilled in the middle. The disc was completely black with runes carved around the outside that Felix didn''t recognize. It didn''t look or feel like anything particularly special but his Staff had pointed to it directly so, he took it.


    Having it equipped, didn''t seem to change anything and he tried poking and prodding it in various ways but it didn''t seem to react at all. At the very least, it was durable enough that it wasn''t going to melt the second he got in a fight though so, he had time to figure it out.


    The last thing left before Felix left to fight the Dragon then, were his robes.


    His Residents were still working on them though so, Felix went and raided the dungeons all throughout the facility. With his new Blink ability, raiding the dungeons became rather trivial. His increase in will power had come with the usual increase in Matter and Mana Sense range so he was able to Blink anywhere he knew was empty with his Senses.


    Nova happily followed along with him but kept getting frustrated that she wasn''t as fast as he was.


    She had the Matter Sense range she just didn''t have the same training he did and even with Experience Nexus translating everything for her, she didn''t have the same will power as Felix did. He could have manually modified her Soul but, his Staff once again, provided him with a different solution that honestly, made him feel a little stupid for not thinking of it.


    Nova. Don''t just move across the room. Shrink your body down as small as you can first, then move, then grow again.


    She meowed at him then tried it, moving nearly instantly. As soon as she appeared she insisted on a race which Felix accepted. Her overall movement time was way faster than it had been, nearly instant but, there was now a delay where she had to shrink her body and regrow it. Nova could do that nearly instantly, but nearly instantly and instantly were two completely different things.


    Felix slowed himself down a little so he didn''t win by too much which made Nova mad, but determined.


    It didn''t take more than dekad for the two of them to raid all the dungeons and vaults, biting quite a few of them along the way. They found some interesting materials and items but nothing Felix equipped for the time being.


    Instead, he handed all of it off to Arysha and the Residents who sent them off to where they needed to be.


    "You figure out the Amulet I see?" Arysha asked as he finished handing her the loot.


    Felix frowned, "What? No, I haven''t looked at th-" As he looked down at the Amulet, he realized it had changed. No longer was it just a black disc. Now, all of the 16 runes on its face were glowing white.


    "Huh." Felix said as he reached down and poked at it with his finger.


    The weirdest part was that he hadn''t noticed it change with his Matter, Mana or Anima Senses and even now, it seemed exactly the same.


    He looked up to respond to Arysha but realized he was in a completely different room. He was in one of the dungeons he had just finished raiding somehow, in the exact spot he had left the dungeon from. He looked around curiously and Blinked back into the Rokrunor facility just a short distance away.


    Picking another rune on the amulet, he touched it and was instantly transported to another dungeon.


    Holy shit.


    To confirm his suspicions, Felix tapped through all of the runes on the amulet. It drew massive amounts of Mana from him but he had such an absurd amount now, it barely put a dent in his Core.


    It records the last 16 universes or spaces or something I''ve been to? Hey Grim, how''s this as an escape plan?


    See if you can make it so you don''t need to touch it with your finger.


    Right. Good call.


    The amulet required he touch it with something physical, as neither a Tendril nor his Matter Control worked but, turning it around and using his bodily control to touch it with his chest was easy enough. All he had to do was fasten it tight. The other side of the disc looked identical except that the runes there were different and weren''t glowing.


    They either did something else, as Felix had visited more than 32 spaces since equipping it, or they didn''t mean anything.


    Either way, he was very happy with the Amulet.


    Using the Anima regeneration from the Anima Bracer, Felix recreated his Spirit Avatar then finally headed to see if he could help the Residents.


    He had long since accepted that they were more capable than he was at most things. He tried his best to simply not get in their way and only help when asked.


    "How are the robes going?"


    "We test many threads and weaves. None are sufficient."


    "Show me the best candidates."


    Arysha nodded and walked him through a few hundred cloth prototypes. By the end of it he was simultaneously very impressed and slightly disappointed. The amount of knowledge and experience that had gone into their work was astounding. All of the prototypes he had seen would be more than sufficient for anyone in the A grade.


    The issue, was that he was planning on fighting The Dragon next which, was an S grade that was stronger than it should have been.


    While Felix didn''t have nearly the same knowledge and experience as his Residents had, he did have full access to his own brain and all of their knowledge so, he sat down and tried to process through everything. He quickly realized there was no point though because Mark had done the same. The Staff still didn''t seem interested in helping with that specifically so, there wasn''t really anything he could do.


    "What if we just have Nova create some Asphellum and I make robes like Peace''s? They should be a decent temporary set."


    She nodded, "That is something we consider many times."


    "You''ve already tried recreating the robes the Ano Matriarch was wearing, right?"


    "We try many ways to weave Anima into solid."


    "Okay, we''re not there yet then. I take it it wasn''t an issue of will power then?"


    "No." She answered simply.


    "What if we do some kind of hybrid approach? We infuse a material with Anima and make threads from that?"


    "We also try this."


    At that moment, Felix finally felt something from the Staff. A pull on their connection.


    He had no idea what it wanted but just assumed it had something to do with the conversation they were having so, he summoned Nova, who blinked directly to him, and had her create a small ingot of Asphellum. Then, he took some Anima from some ros they had lying around and stacked them on top of each-other.


    Finally, he touched his staff to the both of them but, nothing happened.


    It pulled again on their connection with no clarifying information, no information whatsoever in fact. He tried again a hundred different ways by first turning the Asphellum to thread, weaving them himself, running the Staff along them, holding the Staff against them and even hitting them.


    Each and every time he got the same pull from the Staff until finally, he threaded the Asphellum thread into the leaves of the Staff. Then, it pulled on him again but this time, on the Mana and Anima he was supplying through their connection.


    Felix pushed and let it draw from him as much as it needed and finally, the thread appeared on the other side where it looked, completely different.


    Instead of Black and Navy, like Peace''s Robes, the thread was completely bright white with an ethereal glow.


    It better damn well glow considering how much Mana and Anima I just had to pour in to make a single damn inch of this stuff.


    The expense was both annoying and exciting, given what it implied. Felix had a source of both Anima and Mana that were, as far as he knew, infinite so all it was going to take was time.


    As the staff created the thread, somehow, his Residents spooled it up and began experimenting with different weaves of cloth. It didn''t matter too much what they decided on because Felix, too excited to just sit and wait, had done some experimenting and found it was trivial for him to rearrange the threads at any time.


    That meant theoretically, he could have different weaves for different situations.


    For the time being though, they settled on just creating one while some of his other Residents, created sample robes for him to try from other materials so he could evaluate the fit and feel. Given his ability to rearrange the threads, that also wasn''t a huge deal but he wanted to at least have a favorite of some kind.


    It took multiple terms for them to create enough thread to create a full set of robes which, was a bit annoying to Felix. The time was irrelevant but the fact that he was once again limited by his regeneration, even after just upgrading it, was a bit annoying.


    At the same time, he could hardly complain considering just how much Anima and Mana had gone into the robes themselves.


    In terms of weave and fit, he settled on a thinner weave for the time being because it felt less restrictive. The trade off was that there was more material because the thread needed somewhere to go. The robes were similar to his previous robes with multiple layers, large sleeves and a hood. He even changed the color of the layers, which he could also do at will, so that they weren''t all white because he felt too much like a priest.


    Instead, he made the top layer black, the next layer blue and the last white. It wasn''t particularly fashionable, as a number of his Residents had pointed out numerous times but he didn''t care for the time being.


    Once they were done, there was nothing left for him to do in the 2499th Realm except test his Spells before he fought The Dragon.

 Chapter 245 - Book 18

    The way the Staff worked, or the way Felix assumed it worked, was that it would only affect his Spells as much as was needed in the moment. That meant that while Felix could just fly up a few floors and wipe out droves of innocent guards, his Spells would only be minimally upgraded which meant it wouldn''t be a real test of how it would work against The Dragon.


    So, he needed to find an opponent that was on a similar level to The Dragon. There was only one being he was aware of that was even remotely close that he had access to, Kerix.


    That also meant he could get Kerix''s assessment of his readiness and The Dragon itself, in case he was missing something.


    Opening an Aether Tunnel, Felix stepped through into the Ryko family facility where he had previously left Kerix.


    Even though it had been nearly an Epoch, Kerix was still there, napping on the couch. Whether or not he had moved at all or had simply been napping the entire time, Felix wasn''t entirely certain.


    Felix used his staff to whack Kerix on the head, not nearly hard enough to even hurt.


    He jumped up from the couch and rubbed at his head, "Ow." Kerix looked Felix over then nodded, "You ready to go then?"


    "Gotta kill The Dragon first."


    "Ugh. You still on about that?"


    "I told you, I''m not moving on until I do. It''s not like I can come back, right?"


    "From the next realm? Nah. Acharaya controls everything there, keeps it locked down."


    Felix squinted, "You mean this Acharaya, whoever they are, can let me into previous realms?"


    Kerix shrugged, "Probably. Can do all kinds of things."


    "I can''t count on that, they won''t just let me go back if I ask, right?"


    "No. Acharaya does whatever''s best for you, regardless of what you want."


    "Okay, sounds like I can''t count on it then. Which brings me back to the reason I came here¡­"


    Kerix sighed, "You want to fight?"


    "Yes. I need to make sure I''m ready and test some things. You''re the only real opponent I can think of to do that against."


    "One condition."


    Felix''s eyes widened hopefully as he had expected more resistance, "Yeah?"


    "I''ll give you one dekad, ten days of sparring. Then, you have 10 days to fight The Dragon. Assuming you aren''t dead at that point, we''re leaving."


    "So I have 10 days to fight you and if I don''t kill it within the next 20 days, I have to give up?"


    "Yup. That or you can figure it out on your own."


    So either I get to spar and test things or¡­ I can take as long as I want.


    Do you think if you had waited and been more patient, you could have been more ready before sparring with him?


    Maybe but, I don''t want to wait any longer. I want to fight it now.


    Then do it.


    What?


    I mean, take Kerix up on his offer and spar him. Upgrade and practice whatever you need to but, if you want to fight The Dragon soon, you should.


    I didn''t expect such a complete turn around on your stance. You don''t care about me killing myself with stupid decisions anymore?


    I definitely do and this is definitely stupid but, I don''t think you''re going to outright kill yourself.


    You think I have a chance?


    No. Grim chuckled, I would bet against you every time.


    So you''re just trying to be nicer or something? If this is from some misguided notion to make up for something, I really-


    No. I''m not. Your amulet.


    OHHH! You''re right, I should be able to get out before it can kill me as long as I''m careful.


    Exactly. I think you should optimize and practice so you can get out as quickly as possible but realistically¡­


    This isn''t like I only have one shot. I can keep trying over and over again. Felix nodded as the plan began to materialize in his mind, I really wish we could test whether the amulet would work in the Acharaya''s realms or not. Being able to get to Titan first would make this a lot less risky¡­ I think.


    You could try and keep probing Kerix or try to bargain with him on that but¡­ I don''t think that''s going to get you anywhere.


    The Residents haven''t found anything have they?


    No.


    "So about Titan-"


    "No." Kerix said in no uncertain terms, "You don''t know what you''re asking. Trust me, you do not want me to get you there. The Acharaya is waaaayy more qualified."


    "That may be but my reaching Titan¡­ that''s the right terminiology, right? Reaching it?"


    He shrugged.


    Felix continued, "I''ll be a lot stronger, right?"


    Kerix nodded.


    "Strong enough to kill The Dragon."


    Kerix squinted for a moment, seemingly evaluating Felix, before shrugging again, "Likely."


    "Okay, so¡­ you don''t want me to die¡­ It wou-"


    "No. You got this far so you aren''t actually stupid or suicidal, you aren''t going to just kill yourself."


    Felix sighed, "Fine. I''ll take you up on your offer then. Let''s spar."


    Kerix nodded, "Let''s move down a few realms then."


    "Huh." Felix shrugged as he followed Kerix to the door, "I didn''t think you cared."


    "Not¡­ I don''t care that much. Enough to spend a couple hours flying though."


    "More than that."


    "Yeah, sure. I''ve been here for like¡­ ever. Your 2 dekads won''t start until we start sparring if that''s what you''re worried about."


    "Perfect."


    In reality, it took them just a few hours to get to the 2050th realm, using rifts and Aether Tunnels, which was one of the barren realms. All the realms closer to the 2000th, were barren but kind of gross. The 2050th was relatively normal with forests of long dead trees and mountains.


    "I take it you want me in my Spirit Avatar?"


    Felix nodded, "I assume that''s the best analog, right? You seemed pretty solid and physical last time so¡­"


    Kerix nodded, "Yup. One of the benefits of Titan. Mind, Body and Spirit, all the same thing." He said as his body exploded, thick streams of Anima pouring out in every direction. Those streams grew and expanded rapidly into the form of a massive serpentine Dragon. It didn''t take more than a second but Felix was completely focused on him and took in everything.


    He didn''t learn anything useful from the transformation because it happened exactly as he expected it to. Anima formed the dragon around, or from, his body. How exactly that was also physical was unclear to Felix because it didn''t seem like his Anima changed, instead it was more like the Anima of his Spirit was fundamentally different from normal Anima.


    Once his form had fully shifted, Kerix waited a moment then, flew right at Felix.


    Felix had chosen Kerix because he was the only being even close to The Dragon that he could spar with and even then, he didn''t think Kerix was as strong as The Dragon.


    When Kerix''s form lunged at him, Felix was at least expecting to be able to react and respond. He was wrong.


    Kerix was far faster than he had been when he tore through Azura. Now, Felix realized, he wasn''t holding back.


    Felix moved but he literally couldn''t move his body fast enough to leap out of the way. He could use an Instinct Cast Force Burst to move himself but, he just couldn''t move his body in accordance and was essentially stuck treating his body as a ragdoll or a corpse.


    At the same time, he cast a shield through the Staff. He didn''t trust the shield to completely stop Kerix which was why he also dodged but he needed to know how effective it would be.


    As Felix had expected, the shield he cast was nothing like the shield that appeared before him. It wasn''t a simple barrier of Mana, naively thrown together with a Concept of Durability. Instead, it was structured and formed from interlocking hexagons of Mana while within the Spell, his Concept of Durability was gone and in its place lay a weave of Concepts Felix hadn''t supplied.


    Kerix''s Dragon Maw was as wide as most buildings and given how fast it was moving, nearly impossible to avoid. The barrier that the Staff provided though slowed him down just enough that Felix''s body managed to clear the edge of his teeth, before shattering.


    His feet still clipped the scales on the side of Kerix''s head though, sending his body careening through the air with an uncontrolled trajectory.


    Felix caught his body as soon as he could with his Matter Control and righted himself, before beginning to heal the bruising and fracturing in his legs as Kerix stood off to the side, staring and waiting for him to be ready.


    Felix had managed to avoid getting swallowed but, in a real fight, he would have died. Getting launched through the air the way he had and being completely out of control of his body was a death sentence as Kerix, had he wanted to, could have easily spun around and killed him.


    Once Felix was ready, Kerix immediately shot towards him once again and Felix, without any better options, tried the exact same thing again, desperately pushing himself to move faster.


    He died, theoretically, once again.


    As stubborn as Felix was, he wasn''t stupid so, when he failed a second time, he had Kerix wait a moment while he reassessed.


    Then, he had Kerix go again.


    This time, instead of trying to stop Kerix, he simply tried to shift him to the side and redirect him with a Force Burst.


    Once again, the Staff interpreted and translated his Spell, producing something with the same intent but wholly different from what Felix had cast himself. Instead of a massive Force Burst, what came out of the Staff, was subtle, targeted, calculated and refined. It didn''t just push Kerix''s head aside with a blast, it redirected his head and twisted it slightly.


    It was just barely enough for Felix to move out of the way and subsequently get slammed into the ground from Kerix flicking his neck outwards a moment later.


    He tried again, pushing himself with the Staff which managed to move Felix completely clear of Kerix but also made it nearly impossible for him to control his own trajectory.


    Then, Felix tried a barrier of Force, an explosion between them, a cage around himself and everything else he could think of.


    What about an elastic barrier? Like something that gives a little before pushing back.


    How are you going to create that as a Spell?


    Actually, I might not have to. This is the perfect time to test things anyways.


    As Kerix shot towards him once again, this time Felix didn''t cast any Spell at all. Instead he pushed his intent into the Staff followed by Mana, in the hopes it would craft a Spell for him.


    The Staff proceeded to do absolutely nothing.


    He then tried specifying his intent with the most basic possible barrier Spell and also added his intent into the mix, followed by Mana. That did produce a result but the barrier it produced wasn''t any better than Felix could have cast himself, had he used a more complicated Spell.


    So my intent is irrelevant but the actual Spell I provide matters. It upgrades whatever Spell I give it so the better the Spell I provide, the better the Spell the Staff casts.


    It''s like it''s trying to teach you. Improving your Spells but not doing anything for you. Showing you the next level of progression for your Spell without completely removing you from the equation.


    Yeah¡­ that''s exactly what it''s like. In which case¡­


    This time, Kerix shot towards Felix and he cast the most complicated Barrier he could, a layered combination of Force and Mana. The Spell that the Staff cast took that concept, and completely reworked the Spell. Instead of just layering them, it created interlocked nodes that reminded Felix of the enchantment he had inscribed into his robes at Inscripticae.


    The Staff was either too fast or not creating a Spell Form at all though so Felix was forced to try and figure out the Spell Form to create the same thing himself.


    Moving his consciousness internally, he summoned the relevant Residents and began dissecting the Spell to determine how he could cast it with a form. The Perceptual Time Dilation in his Mental World made it seem like an instant when in reality, it had been anything but that. In the end, they ended up using a Three Dimensional Chaining Fractal Spell Form. It was one Spell that created one shield tile that then chained and cast itself again to create the next node.


    The hardest part was specifying when it should stop instead of just chain casting forever in every direction until it ran out of Mana which would result in a misshapen barrier.


    The solution, was to provide a framework for the chaining to determine when it should chain and when it should stop chaining which, was possibly the most complicated spell work Felix had ever done. The result, was a Fractal Chaining Spell contained within a Three Dimensional Spell that wrapped and modified the inner Spell. It allowed one Spell to Cast and manipulate the contained Spell in what essentially amounted to a Meta Spell Formation.


    Returning his consciousness to his body, Felix indicated to Kerix he was ready then formed and cast the Spell through the Staff. It was a multiple thousand level Spell which, Felix had the focus for, but would have taken much longer had he not created and scrutinized the Form so thoroughly. It was familiar and known to him, even if he had started creating it literal seconds in the past.


    So, when the resulting barrier that the Staff cast was so completely foreign to him, he knew he had been right about how the Staff worked.


    The barrier that was produced took everything about the barrier he had intended to cast, and improved it. The hexagons were lost and in their place, was a three dimensional shape Felix didn''t recognize that tiled perfectly, without repeating itself, throughout the barrier. It wasn''t just tiles of Mana anymore either, the surface of the tiles were Spells all by themselves.


    They looked like each and every one of them were constructed from a Spell Form folded onto itself into a three dimensional shape.


    This time, Kerix bounced off the barrier and Felix was completely unharmed.


    He recoiled in surprise then indicated Felix should step aside. When he did, Kerix shot himself multiple times faster and shattered the barrier.


    He was still holding back¡­ Fuck.


    After that, Felix tried a basic Force Barrier which was transformed into a barrier consisting of no Force at all. Instead, it was a reactive barrier that consumed itself when struck to produce a counter Force. Felix dissected and replicated that Spell to the best of his ability then cast it through the Staff producing a Spell shaped like a net that morphed to encompass Kerix''s head and push it aside.


    That wasn''t enough either though as Kerix pushed against it more intentionally and the net snapped, as if made of rope.


    After that, Felix moved on as even though dissecting and replicating the Spell was possible, he knew it would be easier and he would learn more if he moved on to a different Spell. So this time, he tried to move himself out of the way with an Instinct Cast Force Burst.


    Felix examined the actual output of the Spell and found it wasn''t just a burst of force in a direction, it was an explosion of Force followed by a consistent push, both distributed across his body based on mass and designed to keep him mostly upright.


    He replicated that fairly easily, showing just how simple his Force Burst had been, and the Staff turned that into something wholly different once again. This time it surrounded him in a Shell of Force that made it so he didn''t even feel the inertia at all. Felix didn''t have any idea how it did that so, he moved on once again.


    Once he had gone through all the Spells that were remotely relevant to his situation, he went through them again. This time, upgrading them once more using the Staff as a guide for how he should be upgrading his Spells.


    At that point, there was nothing more he could do but, he had successfully survived Kerix''s opening move and, he had options for doing so.


    Then, he worked towards having options against Kerix''s second move. Then his third.


    Felix made progress exponentially quickly as he didn''t need to upgrade his Spells with every move Kerix made, he just had to upgrade each Spell once. He began to see the holes in his abilities, or rather the Staff began to point out the holes in his Spells. No matter what the Staff pointed out though, Felix realized it would never tell him what the correct solution was, just what the next step of progression was for the exact Spell he used.


    Even using ever slightly different Spells, the Staff produced completely different results.


    It became even more obvious though when he began to try and hit back. Using a complex barrier Spell to defend himself was one thing but significantly hurting Kerix or even The Dragon, was another. Felix was pretty sure a Spell alone wasn''t going to cut it as they were both ridiculously durable so, unless Felix was going to pump his entire Mana pool into every Spell he cast, he had to find another way.


    He was already convinced that that other way was to weave Concepts into his Spells. No matter how complex the Spell Form got though, the Staff refused to fill in the gaps for him. When he threw a Concept into a Spell with his admittedly awful weaving, he ended up with a weave of Concepts barely a step up from what he had put in himself.


    When he cast a barrier, the Spell produced was a work of art. A series of three dimensional shapes where the surface, edges and volume within were all individual Spells interacting with each-other. That barrier had just a simple pair of basic Concepts thrown into the mix and barely integrated into the Spell. It was better than Felix had done, but paled in comparison to the Spell Form and output of the Spell that had been cast.


    So, even if Felix could cast one of the most impressive looking Fire Balls ever, it didn''t really do much of anything.


    He continued to focus entirely on survivability for half a day of their sparring before gesturing for Kerix to take a break. Kerix, shifted back to his humanoid form and laid back on the grass, his hands interlocking behind his head.


    "Okay, so. I''m starting to get a hang of surviving, so n-"


    "Against me."


    Felix nodded, "Right, yes. You''re the best facsimile of The Dragon I''ve got."


    "Sure but¡­ When that thing first showed up, I tried to fight it¡­ a few times." Kerix sighed, "It''s probably about¡­ 3 times faster than I am? Just physically. It''s also more than twice as strong and way more durable than I am."


    Felix gaped at him for a moment, "I mean¡­ I fought it¡­ kind of. I mostly just ran away but¡­ 3 times faster? Really?"


    Kerix nodded, "At least."


    "When you say way more durable¡­"


    "Like¡­ I couldn''t significantly hurt it in our fights. Nothing more than scratches and bruises."


    "What did you hit it with?"


    "Admittedly not that much. I don''t have some super weapon like its stupid breath. I just¡­ you know, bit and wrestled and clawed it."


    "So¡­ You''re saying even if I could hurt you¡­ I would need to be doing a lot of damage to be ready to kill that thing?"


    "Yup."


    "Okay. That brings me to what I was hoping to ask anyways." Felix lifted his hand before him and formed the shape of a simple Fire Ball Spell, "I''ve been trying to weave Concepts and Anima into my Spells for¡­ a while now."


    Kerix looked over and smirked, "Hey, you''re almost as bad as I am at Spirit Weaving."


    "Shit. I was hoping you could teach me."


    "Yeah¡­ I mean, I can tell you what I know, the theory mostly. I was always really bad at this shit so¡­ I kind of just ignored it."


    "Oh¡­ Well shit."


    "You know who''s basically an expert at this shit?"


    Felix''s eyes almost brightened but, he caught himself when he realized what Kerix was going to say even before he finished.


    "The Acharaya." He finished predictably.


    "Doesn''t really help me right now, does it?"


    "Nope but, you could also just forget about that stupid thing and learn whatever you want from them."


    "I can''t. I need to fight it again."


    "Whatever you say kid."


    "So Spirit Weaving?"


    "Right. Basically, you weave a Concept or Conviction into a thing."


    "What about a Curse?"


    "In some cases you might be able to but most of the time, it''ll just fight you for control the whole time instead of doing anything you want it to."


    "Okay so, how does it work? What do I do?"


    Kerix sighed and sat up into a meditative stance, "Alright so, I was taught to¡­" He squinted for a moment as if he was looking for something then a simple looking sword appeared in his hand, "Right so, basically you just run your Soul through the sword- Spell for you I guess? I was taught with a sword."


    "Same way you would affiinize Asphellum or Star Metal?"


    "Yeah, kind of. You''re trying to constantly cycle it in and out of the sword in a loop."


    "Okay but, your Soul and a Concept are very different."


    "Yeah, so the next step, once you can do that well, is to refine your Soul. All that means is you adjust what''s going in to amplify a specific Concept."


    "Why not just take a pure Concept and shove it into the sword?"


    "Well, Concepts are not exactly stable. At least, not in a sword. You''d need not only a Sword Concept but the Concept of the specific Sword you were imbuing for it to be truly stable and remotely worth it."


    "So instead we imbue our entire Souls and that''s better?"


    "Yes. Way better because your Soul stabilizes the Concept and empowers it."


    "Okay so then what is the ideal? The ultimate goal here?"


    "To put your Soul into something and empower a Concept to the point where your Soul is there to support the Concept, not direct it in any way."


    "That doesn''t sound that hard."


    "It''s harder than it seems because the nature of a living Soul is to experience and control. You basically need to go against your Soul''s nature and let the Concept lead."


    "Oh." I''m not even sure that would be¡­ possible for me. "Is that the only way?"


    Kerix shrugged, "No. It''s the only way I know. As I said, this is a question you want to ask the Acharaya, not me."


    "Shit."


    Felix had Nova produce a simple sword in his Soul Space, like the one Kerix had, then began moving his Soul in and out of the sword. That part was relatively easy for Felix.


    After that, he began emphasizing a Concept of Sharpness within his Soul as he pushed it through the sword but the results were pretty much what he had expected. The Sword seemed sharper and more dangerous but no more than it would have been had he simply imbued the Concept by itself, directly.


    He tried to do as Kerix said, to have his Soul flowing through the weapon to take a backseat to the Concept but no matter what he did, his Soul refused to budge.


    He even tried doing the same with a Spell then casting that through the Staff to see if it would provide him with some direction but that didn''t get him anywhere either.


    "Is there any chance you know anything about any other techniques for doing this?"


    Kerix shook his head, "Nope. I don''t even remember the names of other techniques. I was¡­ not the most attentive student."


    "Student?"


    Kerix waved him off, "Not literally just tutors that were hired by my family."


    Okay well¡­ I need some way to at least damage Kerix, let alone The Dragon. Since it doesn''t seem like this is going to work¡­


    "Is it possible for a Spell or Weapon with no Spirit Weaving to even hurt you?"


    "Of course. It''s not like I could just fly through a Star."


    Felix sighed, "Right¡­ I was kind of hoping for something a little less expensive than a Star."


    "I don''t know where the line is but yeah. There are definitely Spiritless weapons that can do damage. I do remember they were popular amongst assassins because they''re harder to sense."


    Latching on to that ray of hope, Felix and Kerix began sparring again and this time, Felix kept pushing his Spells with the guidance of his Staff. He wasn''t sure how far they could go because ultimately, how complicated could a Fire Ball get?


    The answer was way more complex than Felix had imagined. He went from a simple Spell form disc, that he had initially designed long ago, to something closer to a Pocket Star. That required multiple layers of Spells that were nested within each-other, one on the inside to generate flame and heat and one surrounding that to maintain stability within another, on the outside to control trajectory and launch the thing.


    He was ultimately pretty happy with that, considering the massive destruction they caused to the landscape and the complexity of the Spell but, disappointed as soon as he hit Kerix with one.


    This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.


    Then, things got far more complicated and Felix was no longer capable of designing a Spell Form to replicate the Staff''s effect in a single pass. Instead, he was forced to replicate small parts of it one at a time and slowly progress, approaching his goal.


    After a Pocket Star like Fire Ball, there was a fusion based Fire Ball that didn''t rely on his own Mana for energy and instead, fused atoms to create energy, just like a real star. That was exponentially more complicated as he had to contain, time and control the reaction to produce energy at the right time.


    Then, the Staff kept going. Instead of just containing and timing the reaction, controlling it to explode in the right place at the right time, it pushed him to directly control the fusion reaction using a Spell Fractal to manipulate things on a much smaller scale. sea??h th§× n?vel_Fire.¦Çet website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    At that point, the Staff adjusted his Spell in ways he couldn''t even comprehend for the moment so he didn''t bother. Luckily, it wasn''t necessary as at the very least, he was hurting Kerix.


    Launching himself to the side, Felix controlled his trajectory and spun the staff around his body, casting two spells at once behind his back. Kerix''s massive Dragon form careened past and a moment later, his tail, just behind his back legs, was hit by a small bead of Fire from an Aether Tunnel that instantly grew to just a few meters across as a ring of Force and Fire shot out of it in every direction.


    The ring was absorbed and blocked by Kerix''s body, leaving Felix completely out of reach of the effect but on the other side, the ring shot out into the landscape, scarring the mountain range behind them.


    Kerix reverted to his humanoid form and gestured for Felix to stop as he regenerated the blackened scar along his butt and thigh.


    "How much damage was that?"


    "I don''t know but it fucking hurt."


    "Right. No System. How many more of those before you were dead do you think?"


    "Uh¡­" Kerix poked at the charred flesh, picking away the blackness to reveal new flesh growing beneath, "50 maybe?"


    "That is¡­ doable."


    Kerix sighed and shrugged, "If you say so."


    Once he had regenerated, they began sparring once again and Felix began to upgrade each and every one of his offensive Spells one by one. He had started with Fire and upgraded Fire Ball followed by Flame Thrower then even created a few new, more exotic Spells, such as a persistent ball of Fire that spewed out Fire Bolts in every direction for nearly a minute.


    After that, he went through his Cold Spells which, went from being one of the least efficient, to one of the most as the Staff guided him through extracting energy from matter and then harnessing it in the Spell. Instead of just freezing an area, the Spell persisted and grew, chaining itself and growing wider and colder over time.


    Then, there were his Lightning Spells. From a Lightning Bolt, the Staff taught him to create a highly conductive path through the Aether, instead of the air. That resulted in a weird laser like Lightning Bolt that didn''t deviate at all. Then, it pushed him further, to create a Spell that didn''t carve a path, but found one, making it look like a normal Lightning Bolt once again. He also created variations that connected multiple targets together and persistent spheres that hit everything around them.


    He never quite managed to create Chain Lightning though, no matter how much he wanted to. He didn''t spend too much time on that though as he was preparing to fight a single target, not multiple.


    The last offensive Spells he upgraded were his Force Spells. Force Bomb, Force Blast and Force Beam were useful but, paled in comparison to Force Blade.


    Felix had previously struggled with making Force Blade efficient. Keeping it sharp and maintaining its shape throughout the flight of the Spell was complicated as the sharper it was, the more stable the Spell had to be, exponentially.


    The Staff however, kept throwing out Blades that were better in every way from Felix''s own Blade Spells. It took him over a day to finally figure it out but once he did, it was like a dam had broken open in his mind. The Spell wasn''t perfectly stable when cast, it was infinitely chaining itself, taking a Blade and making it sharper and sharper as it traveled.


    That opened up new doors to Blade Storms and other persistent Spells.


    Finally, with only a couple days of sparring left, Felix began upgrading each and every one of his defensive spells again. They were less exciting than offensive spells but now that Felix was pretty sure he could actually hurt The Dragon, he needed to be able to create openings for himself.


    He always had Blink to fall back on but he didn''t want to ever rely on it in any situation and only use it when he absolutely had to.


    Then, with just one day of sparring left, Kerix reluctantly agreed to let Felix save their last day of sparring in case he needed a refresher and so, they traveled to the 2001st realm.


    Standing before the Iridescent Bubble to The Dragon''s realm, Felix took Nova out of his Soul Space and handed her to Kerix, who agreed to watch over her, then commanded her to stay in that realm. Felix then quickly checked everything, just to be sure.


    His Robes were equipped and bound to his Reaper''s Mantle Skill.


    [S - Arcane] Aether Woven Asphellum Spirit Robes


    [Regenerative][Spirit][Bound]


    Robes crafted from an intricate weave of Asphellum, Mana and Anima in equal quantities creating a heavy and highly flexible fabric. The Anima within is bound to The True Wizard which, along with the woven Mana, allows for the weave of the fabric, along with the color and other properties, to be changed and manipulated at will. These robes render the wearer impervious to nearly any attack within the A grade.


    He had his Staff in hand and all his upgraded spells memorized.


    [?] Staff of Arcane Wisdom


    [?]


    A Staff crafted from the branch of a tree containing vast wisdom, bound to a living Spell. Spells cast through the Staff will be upgraded. Other properties of the Staff remain unknown.


    He had the Amulet equipped and slightly embedded into his chest.


    [? - Mythic] Amulet of the Realms


    [?]


    An amulet of unknown origin bound to the universes themselves. Upon entering a universe, this amulet binds itself to the universe up to 16 times. At any point, one of the 16 bound universes may be selected transporting the physical entity that touched the amulet to the bound universe, at the last location of the amulet within the bound universe.


    He even still had the hat that he often forgot about, stuck on his head and providing him no real benefit from existing.


    [? - Mythic] Mysterious Hat


    [Hat]


    The appearance of the hat changes based on the person wearing it.


    Weren''t you D grade last time I checked?


    Finally, his body and mind were as strong as he could reasonably make them at the moment. The Fractal Mana Form had upgraded his Mind beyond his understanding while the elixir had upgraded his body beyond what he could have done himself. All the ros his Residents had collected along with the Anima he had sucked from his bracer left his Soul as strong as he could currently make it.


    Name:Felix Kade (The True Wizard)FREE0Innate:Ascendant Prodigy: Mana (Wizard)STR433,500Class:[C - Ancient] Reaper (Lvl 1,948)DEX1,915,916Race:[C - Ancient] Wanderer (Lvl 1,962)AGI873,059Profession:[C - Ancient] Lifebinder (Lvl 1,976)PER1,084,958Health:15B / 15BVIT1,532,893Mana:500B / 500BINT4,483,262Resistance:99.985%END664,373


    This whole no leveling in here thing seems ridiculous. Am I going to gain a bunch of levels as soon as I step outside?


    The Nucleus answered, Yes and no. You won''t immediately get levels but The System might recognize a bunch of your upgrades. There are restrictions so you can''t gain levels without killing something or in a few other specific situations.


    Okay so, as long as I avoid killing anything, I can still head into The Abyss?


    We are unsure how The Abyss evaluates entrants but, assuming it somehow knows about levels, yes.


    Right. If you had to estimate my level right now, what would it be?


    Mid 3000s. I can''t get more accurate than that as level approximation is one of the most complex parts of The System.


    Thanks. I guess I''m as ready as I could be in two dekads.


    Grim mentally nodded, Even though I recommended it, I''m still a little surprised you took Kerix''s offer honestly.


    Limiting myself to just a dekad of this?


    Yeah. There''s a lot more you could have done.


    Yeah for sure. I don''t want to spend any more time here though. I feel like I''m missing out on so much not visiting The Acharaya and I don''t want to wait any longer. I want to fight this thing and I want to talk to someone who actually knows things. Get real answers.


    What happens if you don''t manage to kill this thing in time?


    Felix clenched his jaw, If it doesn''t happen¡­ He silently hoped the Amulet would let him return and try again but he knew he couldn''t count on that. He mentally sighed, If it doesn''t happen now, I probably couldn''t have killed it no matter how long I spent here. I''ll just have to hope The Acharaya lets me out or the amulet works.


    Then, he reached out and brushed his hand across the Iridescent Bubble, instantly transporting himself into The Dragon''s realm.


    As soon as he arrived, Felix was confused. The Iridescent Bubble he had used to leave was located in a canyon and he had been chased by The Dragon right to it. He was still in that canyon and, The Dragon was still right above him, as if barely any time had passed at all.


    There was a hole and molten slag surrounding him, as if The Dragon''s breath had just hit the ground around the bubble a few minutes ago. Luckily, Felix was already flying instinctively so he wasn''t falling into the molten slag. Looking around, he realized some time had passed, but not much. The Dragon was still flying overhead and had melted most of the canyon around him, seemingly in a rage that he had barely escaped.


    It was still thrashing around and didn''t even notice Felix appear again as its breath carved a whole new canyon into the ground a kilometer in front of him.


    There was no good way to measure how long it had been since Felix had left the realm but he guessed it couldn''t have been more than a few hours, a day at most. The black clouds above from the ash and dust The Dragon kicked up made it impossible to tell what time of day it was and everything else was long since dead or destroyed.


    Maximizing the opportunity presented to Felix by being unnoticed, he quickly flew up towards the top of the canyon so he wasn''t boxed in.


    He didn''t get further than a few meters before The Dragon noticed him though and excitedly breathed a beam of blue and purple death in his direction.


    Felix blinked a kilometer straight up as the beam filled the canyon leaving him nowhere to run because he wasn''t willing to test a Shield Spell when failure meant death. The Dragon immediately followed him, its gaze snapping onto his position nearly the instant he arrived.


    It ended its breath, leaving a hole beneath the canyon large enough to build a small city within then roared in his direction.


    Its roar, especially when angry, was easily strong enough to be considered a Sonic Attack. Felix''s Mana Scales vibrated in tune with the attack, or rather at the same frequency but a half period off, canceling the attack before it even reached his body.


    The Dragon flew towards him at a ridiculous speed.


    He had trained against Kerix and had been expecting The Dragon to be at least 3 times faster than that but being in front of it, witnessing The Dragon''s maw approaching him, was completely different. It was easily more than 3 times as fast as Kerix was when he wasn''t holding back.


    Even from half a kilometer away, Felix barely managed to move his own body out of the way. Not only did he have to avoid its head as he did with Kerix but, with Kerix''s Dragon form, his head was the widest part of him. This Dragon had a massive body behind it along with massive wings it tried to slice through him with.


    So, even though he managed to get clear of its head, he had to immediately Blink just to avoid its wingspan as it spun to try and snag him with it.


    Appearing in an instant two kilometers off to the side, Felix poured Mana into The Staff of Arcane Wisdom and released a bead of Fire that moved nearly as fast as The Dragon did. It wasn''t just a bead of Fire though, it was a bead of Fire surrounded by a gyroscope of glowing blue arcane lines.


    It hit the dragon right on the side of its stomach as it was spinning and exploded into a huge inferno, created a horizontal shock wave that incinerated the air as it snapped over Felix''s head and off into the distance.


    The Dragon though, didn''t look harmed at all. Its light brown and yellow scales were slightly blackened but even from 2 kilometers away, Felix could tell that was just from the dirt and grime that had built up on its body. Felix had merely managed to clean it with his Spell.


    Okay, no fire. That''s fine, we expected that.


    The Dragon spun and snapped its wings back, launching itself through the air towards Felix once again as he fired off a beam of arcane blue lines that struck The Dragon on the side of its mouth and trailed down its body as he dodged to the side.


    The impact point of Felix''s Spell hardened and creaked as The Dragon''s flesh began to freeze, the inherent heat of its body being sucked out along the entire line Felix had drawn, empowering the Spell. The line of white and blue along its body began to grow and spread slowly as it turned towards Felix then, it opened its mouth and breathed fire in his direction.


    Its breath started as a beam of blue with flecks of purple then it slowly graduated as the flecks of purple grew and engulfed the beam until it was entirely purple with flecks of white.


    The Dragon was completely distracted by its breath which barely gave Felix enough time to dodge to the side but as he turned back to hit its side in the same spot and accelerate the freezing, there was nothing there. The Dragon''s breath was hot enough to course through its body and completely overwhelm the Creeping Cold effect of his Spell.


    Its head snapped to the side, its breath trailing through the sky towards Felix forcing him to Blink towards the Dragon, a dozen meters behind its head where it couldn''t easily track him.


    He prepared a Propulsion Spell for once The Dragon tried to bite him as he cast an Arcane Blade right into the back of its neck. His Spell no longer looked like a thin, barely visible, blade in the air. Instead, Arcane Blade looked like a perpendicular line of arcane blue spellwork that dug into its neck.


    As he preemptively pushed himself away from The Dragon, Felix smelled the blood before he saw it begin to leak out between The Dragon''s scales.


    Its fire breath was cut short suddenly and it swung its body around its head to retarget the tiny fly of a man that had inexplicably hurt it. Instead of flying right at him, The Dragon flapped its wings twice in quick succession, once behind itself then forwards, creating horizontal burst of air, a shockwave that shot towards Felix.


    He was once again forced to Blink as the shockwave that started as a horizontal line spread out into a massive cone that was impossible to dodge. He had debated trying to block it but he still hadn''t found an opportunity to test his Shield Spells against anything so, he couldn''t risk it.


    Knowing the Arcane Blade was capable of hurting it though, Felix refocused himself on hitting back.


    It breathed fire in his direction again, tracking his flight as Felix flew towards and behind The Dragon, trailing Arcane Blade Globes in his wake as he flew dangerously close to The Dragon.


    The Dragon tried to track him with its breath but that became impossible as he got close to it. As soon as the first globe began spewing Arcane Blades into The Dragon''s side, it cut its breath off and snapped at it, crushing the Spell in its teeth. It repeatedly snapped at all the Globes, crushing them before they could leave any more than a few dozen shallow cuts along its body.


    Then, it swung its body back the other direction, swinging its tail in Felix''s direction. He shot himself upwards and left a Spell Shield behind. The tail not only shattered the Shield but it was only barely slowed, flicking itself upwards and forcing Felix to Blink once again.


    As much as he wanted to keep fighting, he had already Blinked 5 times in the last minute and Felix wasn''t stupid. He touched the Amulet embedded in his chest using his bodily control and reappeared in the 2001st realm, sighing and falling back a few meters from the Iridescent Bubble.


    He looked over and saw Kerix laying on the ground and Nova running in circles around the Bubble.


    Felix flew over to and reassured his familiar, something he was trying to get better at, then he poked Kerix awake, "How long has it been?"


    "A few minutes maybe?" Kerix responded without opening his eyes or moving.


    "Really? In that realm, it was like only a few hours had past since I ran away from it¡­ epochs ago."


    He shrugged, "I take it you didn''t kill it?"


    Felix grumbled his response then began flying around the realm in circles as he mentally ran through his Spells, trying to find any upgrade he could while he waited for his atoms to fully reattach to reality. He and his Residents had theorized that moving around might help and it cost him nothing to do so. He was willing to do almost anything to shorten the nearly hour of wait it took as well.


    It was also probably more efficient to return after just 3 or 4 Blinks as each one increased the time it took his atoms to reattach exponentially.


    His first attempt though, he had to see how close he could get.


    After reviewing all his Spells, Felix also spent some time simulating the battle in his Soul Garden, slowing himself so his projection of The Dragon was appropriately fast.


    Then, after an hour of time in the 2001st realm, he shot back towards the Iridescent Bubble and into the 2000th realm.


    He could have used The Amulet of the Realms but it would have brought him back to the point he left from which meant, The Dragon was probably still right there. If it was, he would have to immediately Blink, wasting his most valuable resource in the fights.


    Flying up and out of the canyon, and now massive cave beneath it, Felix found The Dragon circling around in the sky near where he had left from. As he approached, he annoyingly realized it had completely healed itself.


    One part of him was happy he wasn''t going to slowly whittle it down by jumping between the realms. To win, he would have to fight it start to finish.


    Another part of him was a bit annoyed as he was much less likely to be able to kill it if he had to kill it in one fight.


    Flying up towards it, Felix began setting up Arcane Blade Globes hundreds of meters apart in the hopes he could lead The Dragon into them but before he had even finished casting the first one, it began diving towards him.


    Felix had more than enough time to fly off to the side and avoid it as he shot a series of Arcane Blades into The Dragon following him.


    It was so much faster than him though that it forced him to Blink eventually.


    He moved himself as far as he could while staying in range and continued showering Arcane Blades behind him while flying off to the side so The Dragon couldn''t build up too much speed in a straight line.


    Blinking again, Felix cast a massive sphere in the sky using an enormous 10 billion Mana, a sphere of Ice and Wind and Lighting. A vastly stronger blizzard Spell he had dubbed Thundersnow Hurricane, after the real things.


    It wasn''t meant to obscure Felix as he knew The Dragon could somehow sense him, instead it was meant to slow it down.


    Felix felt it fly into the storm and the Thundersnow Hurricane latched onto it as it flew, the outside of the storm being ripped away by the incredible speeds. He used that time to lay a minefield of Arcane Blade Globes behind himself before Blinking back behind The Dragon just as it reached him and the Thundersnow Hurricane had completely fallen apart.


    Now visible, Felix saw its body covered in ice and snow as Arcane Blades showered it from every direction.


    The Dragon, as much as it was a beast with a bestial intelligence and nature, it wasn''t stupid. Opening its mouth it roared for a moment before releasing its fire breath into one of the Arcane Blade Globes. It then spun around rapidly, destroying each and every one of them before swinging its head back in Felix''s direction where, he had left behind a sequence of 5 Spell Shields before launching himself towards The Dragon.


    It tracked him with its breath which, shattered each and every one of the Spell Shields before shooting off into the sky above.


    Got it. No defending against the breath. Dodge only.


    The Dragon cut its breath and spun to the side, using its wings to knock Felix off course and cause minor damage before flipping its body over its head and resuming its breath.


    Felix immediately Blinked behind it then activated his Amulet as he had Blinked 4 times, returning to the 2001st realm where, nothing had notably changed.


    He pet and reassured Nova once again before running through the battle simulation in his head while he waited just a half hour for his atoms to fully reattach to reality.


    As he fought The Dragon in his mind, he compared the first fight to the second and realized they were different. The Dragon in the second fight had used its wings to throw Felix off course before flipping around as he flew by its body. In the first fight, Felix had simply flown by its body unimpeded and hit it multiple times.


    It''s learning.


    Felix had silently held out hope that when he returned, The Dragon would retain some of its injuries but, even having been gone for half the time, it appeared to be completely healed.


    Felix dodged past the Dragon''s breath with a Blink and cast another massive Thundersnow Hurricane between them. He began to setup a wholly different trap he had thought of but didn''t manage to cast a single Spell before The Dragon roared.


    As it did, the Thundersnow Hurricane was disrupted, though it wasn''t dispersed until, it flapped its wings and accelerated through it. The sheer force of The Dragon''s massive body tearing through the air was enough to get rid of the rest of it, forcing Felix to cut his plans short.


    Felix fought it nearly a hundred times before it taught itself to keep its mouth closed as it breathed fire for a moment, creating a massive explosion around itself when it finally released the pressure. That destroyed all of Felix''s Arcane Blades and the Globes spawning them in an instant.


    He fought it another couple hundred times, and it learned to swallow rocks between their fights, creating a storm of meteorites whenever it wanted to.


    Felix didn''t even bother with his last day of sparring with Kerix as using his Mental World and Soul Garden to simulate the battle seemed more effective.


    Given he had just 10 days to fight it, 11 considering the sparring he was giving up, and the fact that he had to wait a half hour between each fight, Felix knew he had just over 500 tries, given the fights themselves took 2 minutes at most. Often, he had to leave just a few seconds in.


    As time went on, as he fought it again and again, he lasted longer and longer though never more than 2 minutes.


    He learned The Dragon''s habits and it never strategized enough to feint or change its behavior but, it learned. It taught itself new tricks and abilities making it harder and harder for Felix to dodge everything, let alone hit it. He learned what he needed to dodge and what he didn''t. Although, it was slow as every time he put his Spell Shields to the test, he was risking his own life.


    The end of the timeline he had agreed to approached as Felix headed back in for his 503rd try.


    He used the Amulet of the Realms to appear where he had left and immediately dropped an Spell he had already begun casting before he activated the amulet, in the shape of beam, rivaling The Dragon''s breath in girth.


    The Spell enveloped the core of The Dragon''s body, only its wings and legs sticking outwards and as soon as it did, the Spell latched onto its flesh and crystallized it in white and azure, forming a massive glacier around it.


    The Dragon''s body began careening downwards into the ground as Felix used an Aether Tunnel, also prepared before he activated the Amulet, to move himself beneath it. The massive falling glacier began to glow red, then orange, then yellow as Felix gripped the Staff of Arcane Wisdom before him, spell spheres appearing around him in a spiral.


    He then dropped himself a hundred meters with a Propulsion Spell where concentric rings of different spell spheres appeared, each one a few meters before the last, forming a cup facing upwards.


    The winged glacier finally glowed a blinding white before exploding into a thousand shards and a ball of mist containing The Dragon.


    Surrounding himself in a series of Spell Shields, Felix flew down and away, making sure the Dragon would keep heading downwards if it wanted to follow him.


    The first spiral of spell spheres was perfectly placed so The Dragon didn''t have a choice but to get entangled in the Spell Net that sprung out of the spheres. Thin cylindrical tubes of spell work connected the spheres together and completely encompassed the sphere of mist as soon as it appeared.


    The Dragon spun and slammed its wings outwards, dispersing the mist and sending icicles shooting out in every direction, smashing against the Spell Shield surrounding Felix.


    The Spell Net squeezed down on The Dragon as its weight pulled it downwards, into the concentric ring cup of spell spheres. As it fell into them, each sphere formed an Arcane Blade connected to the next. The entire circular Arcane Blade, once formed spun around before collapsing inwards into The Dragon.


    The rings sawed into The Dragon''s flesh as it struggled against the Spell Net.


    Then, it pulled its wings inwards to surround its body and curled up into a ball, not in defense though. Felix knew it well enough to know what was coming and to fly as far away as he could.


    The ball that was The Dragon quickly expanded as it took a quick breath then began glowing a bright white.


    A moment later, a sphere of flame exploded out of The Dragon, obliterating Felix''s spells and shooting outwards at impossible speeds.


    Felix, despite being over a hundred kilometers away, turned to face the oncoming wall of flame as it approached him then Blinked towards it, past it. Inside, the air was superheated but his Mana Scales bristled as they absorbed the excess energy in the air and protected him from the heat.


    The ground beneath them though, was gone. The sea of magma that had developed over the course of their fights was split, revealing more stone multiple kilometers below the previous surface. That too melted and was blown away as the effects of The Dragon''s ridiculous ability actively terraformed the planet beneath them.


    As soon as Felix appeared, The Dragon shot itself towards him, only flying a tiny distance to build speed before launching another explosion of meteorites from the stone it had swallowed before their fight.


    Initially, the meteorites were more like a spray of magma as its breath melted them instantly. Over time, The Dragon had learned to preserve the stone or somehow found more resilient stone as now, they were actual stones covered in flame and magma giving them far more penetrative power against Felix''s Shields.


    He was forced to Blink behind The Dragon to avoid them and it knew that, flipping its body over its head and launching itself towards him in an instant.


    Holding his Staff before him, it began to glow blue as the arcane lines peeking through its surface multiplied and grew. Finally, they shot out of the Staff and formed a massive lance of arcane lines that shot forward to meet The Dragon as Felix flew off to the side and towards The Dragon at a diagonal.


    The Dragon used its wings flapping in opposite directions to quickly spin as the lance exploded, the first stage at the back propelling the rest of it forwards and slightly redirecting it to follow The Dragon.


    The Dragon flapped its wings towards the lance and pushed itself back and towards Felix, reaching out and snapping at him, crushing him in its teeth. Felix, on the other side of The Dragon, smiled as he finally managed to fool The Dragon with one of his illusions by adding a huge amount of Anima to it.


    He couldn''t do that more than once as he didn''t have time to prepare any more Illusory Souls but, he was happy with how he had used it.


    The lance still followed The Dragon, another two phases having been activated to redirect it before the lance split into 6 separate lances that all spiraled towards The Dragon, redirecting themselves one final time to each target a different soft spot.


    The Arcane Lances dug into The Dragon''s body at 6 different places, 2 in its wing joint, one in its arm pit, two in its neck and one in its eye. Then, they all exploded into a shower of Arcane Blades within its body.


    The Dragon roared out in pain.


    That roar turned into fire breath that poured out of every hole Felix had just drilled in its body, engulfing itself in flame as it tracked Felix''s flight with its breath.


    He flew as fast as he could and prepared a Spell before finally Blinking at the last minute below The Dragon, swinging his Staff of Arcane Wisdom over his head with two hands, releasing an Arcane Blade from the end of it.


    The Blade shot upwards as Felix flew downwards to avoid the ball of flame that was building up around The Dragon.


    It wasn''t enough though as it flapped its wings and launched the flame in every direction. Felix surrounded himself in a sequence of Spell Shields but as soon as the first shattered, he activated The Amulet instead of a Blink, due to the time the rest of the Shields bought him.


    He had only used three Blinks so he only needed to wait 9 minutes to be completely sure, as The Amulet didn''t seem to affect how detached his atoms were, before heading back in. Even then though, he already knew The Dragon would be completely healed because he had seen it use flames to heal itself before.


    "How close were you this time?"


    "Closer." Felix snapped back at Kerix.


    Kerix sighed, "By my estimation you''ve go-"


    "Less than an hour left. I know."


    "He was closer this time." Grim said from his massive armored form, sitting on the throne like chair built especially for him.


    "I feel he closer on 405." Arysha responded from her lounge chair on the sandy beach.


    "Definitely." Another Resident nodded from his hammock stretched across two of the trees.


    Kerix finally sighed, "If I thought you could do it in the next day or so, I''d wait and let you keep going¡­"


    Felix growled as he flew in circled through the completely reformed 2001st realm.


    His Residents had slowly begun to migrate from the Rokrunor facility, to the 2001st realm. Not all of them, but many of them wanted to wait and watch. As such, the desolate and barren realm was slowly replaced, in large part by Nova, to accommodate everyone.


    Instead of a hard and unforgiving ground, they had replaced it with a white cobble stone separating parks and beaches and patches of snow. Instead of a permanent fog above, The Residents had come up with and cast a ritual all on their own to shape and influence the weather in the area.


    From his nest of pillows beneath one of the larger trees they had relocated into the realm, Kerix shook his head, "Sorry kid."


    Felix didn''t respond as he was already lost in his own mind, fighting a simulation of The Dragon.


    Then, he jumped back in.


    Just under a minute later, he popped back out in front of the bubble and Grim nodded again, "Even closer this time."


    "By closer you mean¡­" Kerix asked.


    "He got maybe 10% of its health this time."


    Kerix hummed in acknowledgment as Felix flew around in circles.


    A half hour later, he went back in.


    Then, almost 2 whole minutes passed before he reappeared.


    "Not quite as close that time."


    Kerix looked over at Grim who''s head fell to the side a little, "He didn''t even draw blood this time."


    "So what, one more try?" Kerix said solemnly, like he wanted to let Felix keep going but couldn''t.


    "Only if I have to wait this long between them." Felix snapped back before immediately diving back into the realm.


    Kerix looked worriedly at Grim who just shook his head, "He''s only Blinking once or twice at most to maximize how many more tries he has. It''s leaving him with less openings though so he''s barely hitting it back."


    The Titan sighed as he stood up and approached the bubble where Felix would appear any moment. When he did, Kerix began, "Felix. Come on."


    His jaw clenched, Felix slapped the Iridescent Bubble and disappeared for all of a few seconds.


    "You got closer than anyone to killing-"


    Felix disappeared again, this time using the Amulet. He reappeared about 20 seconds later.


    "-that thing since it appeared."


    He vanished again. Kerix knew he wasn''t over the time limit but he was minutes from it. Realistically he could keep going another dozen times or so before running out of time but given how quickly he was backing out, there was no chance he was going to be able to kill it in time, even if he managed to accumulate damage between fights.


    Kerix waited a couple minutes then reached his hand out, laying it on Felix''s shoulder just as he appeared.


    Felix looked at him angrily, jaw clenched as if he were going to go back in again then he sighed, all the tension releasing from his face.


    Leaping upwards with his own legs, Felix shot up into the air, leaving the Staff floating on the ground in front of Kerix. Grim, The Residents and Kerix all looked up and watched as Felix''s body pierced a cloud with enough speed to disperse it, before he roared outwards.


    Having gotten so familiar with Spells and moving everything he could to an Instinct Cast, Felix often cast Spells without even necessarily thinking about it consciously. As he roared, screaming in anger and defeat, Mana poured into a Spell empowering his roar and causing his voice to echo outwards.


    At the same time, in his anger, a burst of Force that looked like a shockwave from an explosion appeared, completely clearing the clouds in the weather ritual''s influence. The shockwave, along with the roar, shook Kerix''s and all the Resident''s bodies then it kept going, clearing the fog in every direction for hundreds of kilometers.


    Blinking back to the ground and grabbing his Staff, Felix didn''t even notice the trees he had snapped, the cobblestone he had cracked or the people he had knocked over. He just activated the furthest realm on his Amulet of the Realms, vanishing.


    A few moments passed as everyone in the 2001st began getting to their feet and cleaning up before Felix reappeared for just an instant before leaving again. No one was surprised, everyone knew he was reordering his Amulet to keep the 2001st within the most recent 16. Once he had traveled 15 realms, he would appear again, reordering the 2001st realm to be the second rune, then he would keep going.


    It only took a few minutes for The Residents, along with Kerix and Nova, to move themselves into a combination of Felix''s Pocket Home, the Sphinx''s Vault and the Soul Vault.


    Once they had, the next time Felix appeared, he shut and collected all of them before activating his Amulet and returning to the 2498th realm in the Rokrunor facility. There, he opened just his Pocket Home, letting Grim, Nova and Kerix out. Everyone else remained inside so they didn''t slow him down.


    They had appeared on the floor his Residents had used previously and Felix''s three companions waited on the floor, surrounding the large hole in the middle, as he flew down towards The Oblivion Orb.


    Angrily and without caution, Felix''s arm shot out as if he were punching the orb, grabbing it with an open hand, unharmed, before shoving it in his Soul Space.


    Then, he opened an Aether Tunnel and stepped through, his three companions jumping down and following behind him.


    "Where is it?" Felix asked without turning.


    Kerix already knew the question was directed at him, "Middle of Azura. Straight up."


    Felix stepped forwards, walking past the line leading into the Iridescent Bubble and right to the front. There, instead of people walking freely in and out of the 2499th, Felix saw a group of four guards.


    "Halt." One of them held up their hand to stop Felix as the others turned and craned their necks to see what was happening.


    Felix didn''t stop.


    "Azura is now under the control of Mortalbane. Even if you lived there previously, all-"


    Felix didn''t even hear the man. Whatever he was saying didn''t matter. He kept moving.


    Then, all the guards and everyone near the front of the line were suddenly sent flying outwards as a tunnel of spell work connected Felix to the Iridescent Bubble.


    He and his companions stepped through to the next realm as the guards and some of those waiting in line slammed down on and tried to break through the tunnel to no avail.


    On the other side, Azura was recognizable but completely different. There were no more crowds wandering the streets and pouring in and out of the bubble they had past through. Many of the buildings were still damaged, some of them a pile of rubble, others missing just corners or sporting holes in their walls.


    Felix didn''t register any of it as he flew through the streets in, nearly, a perfectly straight line towards the center of the city.


    He didn''t make it all the way though as when he past by The House of Promises, someone recognized him.


    "Felix?" He heard a feminine voice call out from the top of the pyramid where there was a Spirit Fight happening.


    He looked over mostly in surprise at recognizing the voice as Rel flew over, with a series of explosions, towards him.


    Felix slowed and created a Disc of Force beneath him and his companions, marked by arcane lines and spell work. She landed on the edge of it and stepped towards him, "Where have you been?"


    "Out." He responded coldly, still annoyed from having failed to kill The Dragon within his timeline.


    Rel frowned and looked at Grim then Kerix, taking a step back when she saw him, "You- you''re with Kerix?"


    "He was teaching me some things."


    She nodded slowly, her gaze falling thoughtfully downwards, "Well, now that you''re here¡­ With Kerix even¡­" She lifted her head quickly and spoke fast and excitedly, "Look, I know all this was probably your fault- I mean, I don''t blame you- we- me and Aela and Kether get this wasn''t planned but Varex¡­ Just that if the heists hadn''t¡­ If we hadn''t¡­"


    Rel shook her head and took another step forwards, "But now, we could take back the city. We can stop Mortalbane and Ano from doing whatever they want." She spoke quickly and excitedly, "We''ll need to find people to help but I know the Ryko family was left untouched and I know ther-"


    "No." Felix said before turning back towards the center of the city.


    Rel''s face, hopeful and excited, fell as any vestiges of faith she had in Felix were shattered, "This wasn''t just a terrible accident, was it? Varex is right, you could have stopped all this. Maybe you even did it all on purpose? Knowingly? You just don''t care."


    She looked over at Kerix, hesitant for a moment to continue but then quickly found her resolve, "You weren''t out their learning and training so you could come back and help, you don''t care about any of us-" She gestured around her. "Any of this."


    "I know you''re a challenger and all that but do you care about anyone or do you just do whatever you want, wherever you go, destroying everything you touch?" She finished.


    Felix sighed and deactivated the Force Disc they were standing on causing Rel to fall as the rest of them followed Felix towards the center of the city.


    "I hope you''re happy when you finally get rid of everyone that''s ever cared about you!" Rel yelled out as she caught herself and flew back towards the House of Promises.


    Too harsh? Felix asked Grim, keeping true to their agreement.


    Yes but, there''s nothing we can do here now. Or¡­ it''s not worth it. We''ll just do things differently in the future.


    The way the Realms were trying to teach me to?


    Yeah.


    Felix hummed in acknowledgement then flew right into the Iridescent Bubble above the city, without a moment''s hesitation.

 Chapter 246 - Book 19

    Every single realm Felix had traveled through to get to the 2500th was either inside, like the realm where he created the Fractal Mana Form, or more commonly, resembled the surface of a planet to some degree. Azura deviated from that trend by being on a cloud which was different but still believable and within an atmosphere.


    The 2500th realm on the other hand completely shattered the pattern.


    On the other side of the bubble, Felix found himself essentially floating in space.


    He saw stars and nebula he didn''t recognize all around him along with a distinct lack of atmosphere, indicating to Felix it wasn''t just an illusion.


    There was no one and nothing around, other than Felix, Grim, Nova and Kerix so Felix wasn''t sure exactly what he was supposed to do. He started by creating a bubble around his group that provided an atmosphere both to breathe-even if he could have held his breath-trap heat and most importantly, to let them speak to each-other.


    "So¡­ What now?" Felix asked, clearly addressing Kerix without looking back at him.


    "Just give it a minute." Kerix sighed, "He likes to make an entrance."


    Felix nodded and patiently waited while looking out at the stars around him to try and see if he could figure out if they were real or not. A few silent minutes past without any of them really moving before a being appeared before them.


    Where they were in space, there was barely any light at all from the stars and nebula around them, not nearly enough to make out finer details. Felix''s Matter Senses completely made up for that, despite the being having appeared nearly a kilometer away from them.


    Not only was Felix unsure if the being was a man or woman, he wasn''t even sure they had ever been a traditionally living creature. They appeared mostly humanoid, with a distinct head and torso, to an extent. They had four arms though, then six, then four again. They didn''t really have a chest, most of the time, due to the additional arms that sprouted out from the front of their torso.


    In the middle of where their chest would have been, lay a glowing ring that seemed to emanate truth and introspection.


    Instead of legs they had an undefined yet shapely black mist, giving them the appearance of a wraith from the waist down. They also, had no face, although their head was otherwise shaped similarly to that of a human''s.


    On top of the shape of their body, Felix''s Matter Senses also provided more information about the material composition of their body than his eyes ever could. So, despite the fact that their white and grey flesh looked like flesh and stone at the same time, Felix knew it was neither.


    It was smooth and without pores like a statue and had detail and definition, as if to reveal the musculature of the underlying body. Felix''s senses though, told him it was nothing more than a shape. The entire composition and structure of their body was that of matter.


    There was no distinct material or even prevalent atomic configuration. The being''s body was that of a random arrangement of fundamental particles. Just matter.


    "Acharaya." Kerix said aloud, despite the fact that Felix''s bubble didn''t reach the being meaning, they wouldn''t hear him.


    You have finally decided to take the next step on your path. Felix heard a reverberating voice in his mind and assumed all of them had.


    Felix looked back at Kerix who just sighed before speaking aloud, "Yeah well¡­ I''m here now."


    "You two know each-other?" Felix asked.


    "He was my Acharaya before I¡­ uh¡­ ran away. Then I snuck into the Ladder¡­"


    You wished to show me you didn''t need me.


    "Yeah. Something like that. Prove you wrong I guess¡­"


    And what have you learned?


    "That you can''t really be wrong when there is no right answer. Or everyone is wrong¡­"


    You feel you are lost and yet I sense your path has never been more clear.


    "I''m still just a little¡­ confused."


    As many of us are.


    "Right. Anyways, this is Felix."


    I am aware.


    Felix nodded to The Acharaya, "So¡­ what now?"


    I find it is easier to begin by providing perspective.


    Felix looked around, "That why we started here? So you could provide me with perspective?"


    Not you. You are the most confident of your path and where it leads.


    Felix looked at Kerix.


    Not him. He is aware as well.


    He didn''t need to turn to his other companions because they were the only other ones The Acharaya could be referring to.


    This is the universe outside of the Ladder of Ascension. Although I suspect this projection is slightly less applicable now.


    As he spoke into their minds, the universe around them began to move. At first, it was just growing and shifting as if they were watching the fastest time lapse of all time. Then, it began to move as if they were moving across the universe faster than would ever really be possible.


    Stars moved past them before being pulled into orbit or swallowed by black holes.


    Nebulas swirled and shifted as if alive.


    Galaxies formed and collided, creating stunning light shows.


    Finally, the galaxies and nebulas around them began to shrink as the entire scene zoomed out. Nebulas became distant clouds, galaxies became tiny discs no bigger than a coin before shrinking down into pinpricks of light. Some of those pin pricks were close enough to each-other to create a structure amongst themselves. Each one of those vanished as well until finally, the entire universe they were seeing, was rendered down to a single bubble.


    Felix was excited and expecting it to go further but the realm stopped moving at that point, a bubble of nearly pure darkness before them. Only visible through the slight contrast between it, and the even darker darkness around them.


    This universe is one of countless others.


    "How do these universes get created? Where or in what¡­ structure do they all exist?" Felix couldn''t help himself but ask.


    These are not questions I can answer.


    Felix''s shoulders dropped in slight disappointment.


    I show this to you to help you answer one question. What is your place in this universe?


    The Acaharaya held out the universe orb in front of him.


    Some of you, have decided to ignore this question in the past.


    Though he didn''t have eyes to look and his head didn''t move, Felix somehow knew The Acharaya was looking at and referring to Kerix.


    Some of you have had an answer since the beginning of your path.


    This time, he was referring to Felix though, Felix wasn''t entirely sure he did have an answer.


    As Kerix has wisely pointed out, there are no right answers. Having one is unnecessary. However any answer provides direction.


    "You said I know my place in the universe. I''m not sure I do." Felix asked.


    No one knows. You have simply decided.


    "Is that necessary to reach Titan?"


    It is not. The orb The Acharaya was holding of the universe suddenly grew too fast for Felix to follow anything specific with his eyes until they were left standing on a white disc that stretched out seemingly infinitely in every direction.


    Around them, were 20 doors.


    However, a decision is always the first step towards action.


    Then, The Acharaya was gone, leaving them alone on the disc with the doors.


    The doors themselves weren''t actually doors but just empty doorways, each one identical to each other.


    "I take it that means he wants us to pick a door?" Felix turned to Kerix.


    Kerix shrugged, "Meh. Who knows. Just pick one and get settled in. Don''t let his weirdness make you think too hard."


    Felix nodded and walked to one of the doorways which suddenly opened, a portal filling the empty doorway, to reveal what appeared to be the inside of a storm. It was grey and purple with giant rocks floating and flying around, colliding into each-other and adding to the cacophony the storm produced.


    He had no interest in settling there so, he floated over to the next doorway which revealed a tropical looking island in the middle of an ocean.


    The next revealed a snowy valley between massive mountains also covered in snow, leaving nothing of the raw landscape uncovered.


    He looked through a few more before finally deciding on one that seemed to be filled with the ruins of a once massive city. It wasn''t quite ancient as Felix sensed some fairly advanced enchanting on some of the buildings but it also wasn''t modern as everything was made of stone that had since been grown over by moss and other verdant flora.


    Taking Kerix''s suggestion to heart, Felix didn''t think about it any more and stepped through the portal.


    He somewhat expected a trial to begin and the portal to close behind him but instead, it remained opened and nothing really happened at all.


    Felix looked back and saw the white disc he had come from and his companions through the door. Kerix was looking through a few of the others while Nova just floated where she had been, motionless. Grim was in a similar state but not quite motionless, just slow and lost in thought.


    He let them be and opened his Pocket Home, Soul Vault and Sphinx''s Vault to let his Residents free then began wandering through the ruins.


    The ruins were massive and stretched out both across the landscape in every direction, as well as vertically. The landscape was that of tall stone pillars with a shallow ocean beneath them. The ruins were built both on top of the pillars but also down and through them. It was hard to tell from the top of a pillar just how massive the city would have been.


    Whoever had created the city originally had been gone for a very long time as even though most of the ruins had been grown over, the stone had just started to decay in some places. The stone used in the vast majority of the ruins construction was easily an S grade material though so for it to have even started decaying, the ruins had to have been abandoned an unfathomable number of epochs ago.


    Despite that, the enchanting on the buildings, flying carts, lights throughout the streets, lifts and throughout every building and path, weren''t anything ground breaking. They were advanced, as Felix expected from such an advanced civilization but, they weren''t any better than what Felix could do now.


    The enchantments had a different style and were generally structured with the Mana flowing into the center and working its way outwards to the nodes instead of the other way around but, they weren''t Kryptos level or anything. They were fun to look through and many of his Residents began documenting and experimenting but they didn''t teach any of them or Felix anything fundamentally new. They were just a different way of doing the same thing.


    At least, that''s what Felix thought. As his Residents began powering them on, they found the enchantments were slightly stronger than they should have been and slightly more stable. It was so minor, that it was nearly impossible to detect and they weren''t sure it wasn''t the materials being used but, it did seem something was different.


    The minor increase in potency wasn''t particularly interesting to Felix so he mostly just wandered around for a few hours.


    He felt through his connection that Nova, Grim and even Kerix had joined him through the doorway he had chosen though only Nova had left the general area around the doorway to explore.


    A few hours in, as Felix flew down into one of the calmer chasms where the water was still and reflective, he immediately realized he wasn''t alone.


    Sitting on the edge of a ruined floor, with one leg hanging over the edge, was a bald man with grey skin, large black horns and black eyes. He wore a set of black leather plate armor and held a large, double edged, curved sword in one hand.


    [Titan] Arassagul


    Felix''s identification, powered by The Nucleus, along with every one of his senses told him the man was a Titan. His body and Soul were one in the same way Kerix''s and The Acharaya''s was and yet, he almost didn''t believe his senses.


    Arassagul noticed Felix immediately and stared him down with a hateful scowl but Felix had clearly floated there for a moment too long, trying to figure the man out, because he growled then leapt up off the floor of the ruins at Felix.


    The reason Felix had floated there, still, for more than a moment and the reason he didn''t believe his own senses, was that the man was weak. Jumping up at him from the ruins, Arassagul was slower than Zeraxes and Peace. He was almost as slow as Melody, who''s bodily stats had fallen behind most others.


    His sword was impressively Spiritual but Felix had more than enough time to examine it as Arassagul swung it down towards him.


    It wasn''t cursed or obscenely powerful but, it was full of Anima.


    It was like a novice had gotten their hands on an obscene amount of Anima then shoved it all into the sword. If they had more will power, better control over Convictions or Concepts, were better at spirit weaving, had more knowledge of Anima Spells or any more skill, the sword would have been frightening.


    As it was though, Felix snapped his arm up at the last moment and caught massive, leaping, double-handed overhead strike with one hand, holding the blade in his palm without any fear it would hurt him in the slightest.


    Arassagul held himself up with the sword in the air and roared in rage as his body and the entire blade were engulfed in black flame that poured outwards in every direction.


    It wasn''t a Curse though, or anything nearly that impressive. Instead it was something else entirely, a Spell possibly though Felix wasn''t sure exactly. It definitely didn''t hurt him in the slightest though.


    I guess not all Titans are super strong. I kind of thought¡­


    With a light toss, Felix threw the man back into the ruins then turned around and started to fly away.


    Arassagul recovered as quickly as he could from his body rattling against the stone of the ruins then used more black flame to propel himself into the air and after Felix.


    The man screamed something Felix didn''t understand as he flew through the air wildly. After a few seconds of dodging him, his brain, Mark and Grim, with the help of some books he was carrying, managed to mostly translate his language.


    "The righteous flames of the Sagul will sear your flesh, cursed one!"


    Can I kill him?


    No. Grim responded immediately, Normally, someone attacks you I would say definitely. In this case, The Acharaya might not approve.


    I guess.


    "What makes me a cursed one?" Felix asked in his language, perfectly imitating his accent.


    The man stopped suddenly, his black flame propelling him past Felix as his eyes went wide, "You speak with the tongue of the Sagul."


    Felix just stared at the man with nothing useful to say.


    His face hardened into an expression of further hate and disgust, his nostrils flared, "You will die for your transgressions against the order."


    Flying in the other direction, tens of times faster than Arassagul moved, Felix decided there was no point sticking around. He could feel and see the Titan still following him from a few kilometers away but he ignored him and just kept moving since he wasn''t nearly fast enough to catch up to him.


    As he was flying away, he noticed another presence, directly in front of him and he stopped.


    The black mist that made up the lower body of The Acharaya formed the rough silhouette of a man with his legs crossed making it seem like he was sitting on the air in front of him.


    "Acharaya."


    You have met one of the other students.


    "Arassagul?"


    He is an angry man who questions his own rage.


    "Yeah, got the angry part. He''s a Titan."


    Becoming one''s true self is a part of the initiation of the Sagul Order.


    "He''s so weak."


    Now.


    "I thought all Titans were strong. I thought getting to Titan made someone strong. Like Kerix."


    You thought it would make you strong.


    "Yeah."


    It will. Considerably.


    "But not everyone?"


    Everyone''s path is their own. The journey of one should not be compared to the journey of others.


    "That''s a nice sentiment and all but some comparison is a good thing. It can help you decide what to do next. I wouldn''t have even known about Titan if I hadn''t met Kerix."


    Inspiration garnered from a variety of sources can illuminate one''s path. It can also obscure it.


    "Are you trying to say I shouldn''t be aiming for Titan? Right now or ever?"


    Your path is for you to decide. That is what makes it your path.


    "Right. I want Titan."


    Then I will assist you in getting there. Is Titan what you truly desire? Or is Titan a means to an end?


    "I guess I''m curious but really, I want to be stronger. I want to kill The Dragon. I want to¡­ learn¡­ everything. I want to see everything, know everything."


    A path most wouldn''t even dream of actually pursuing.


    Felix nodded, "That''s what you meant when you said I had perspective and had already made my decision. About my place in the universe. I know I want to know everything and the only way to do that is to be strong enough to do anything, go anywhere."


    Your place lies not in the universe. Searching for it there will only lead to confusion.


    "Can''t settle for just one universe if I plan on learning everything. So, Titan, or is there a better path to get stronger?"


    I will guide you to the best of my ability. You are not ready for the transition between paths. You are incomplete and cannot see what is right before you, sometimes within your grasp.


    "What does that mean?"


    I do not speak to be unclear. I speak to say what must be said.


    "So you can''t tell me now because it ''must not be said'' then?"


    I aim to guide those on their paths. Not carve them a new one.


    "Is this one of those, I''ll understand one day and thank you later situations?"


    I cannot foretell a path unwalked.


    "Sure. What''s the first step?"


    You must agree to my terms.


    "Okay. What do you want."


    You misunderstand. My place in the universe is to guide others on their path. That is my path.


    "So then what are your terms?"


    I will illuminate your path and assist you in traveling down it. I will do this however I deem to be the best way.


    "Sure. I''ll do my best to keep an open mind I guess."


    An open mind is-


    "Yes, it helps one discover one''s path and keeps them from straying or something. What''s the first step?"


    Your path is one of the most confusing. However, one thing is clear, you cannot walk it alone.


    Felix cringed a little, "I get the value of frie-"


    I am not referring to allies.


    "Oh."


    So long as I will be guiding you down your path, I will also be guiding another.


    "If not a friend, an enemy then? Arassagul?" Felix frowned in confusion.


    His path will never cross yours. He is stuck near the beginning of the beginning. You are rapidly approaching the end of the beginning.


    "Then there''s another student?"


    I will not influence their paths. Your path is already intertwined with another.


    This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.


    "Enemies that I''m¡­ The Dragon?" Felix''s eyes went wide.


    An enemy you have sought to destroy. An enemy who''s departure from your path has left you empty. Unfulfilled.


    "You can make that thing stronger?"


    You walked your respective paths in tandem throughout your encounters. You are already aware of how much of its path remains unwalked.


    "So I have to not only catch up to that thing, but I have to outpace it fast enough that I catch it and overtake it. Will The Dragon reach Titan?"


    I canno-


    "Cannot foretell a path unwalked. Yeah, I know. Is it possible?"


    In some ways, your enemy is closer than you are to the end of the beginning.


    "Just in some? How close am I?"


    You are the closest of anyone who seeks what you seek.


    "What does that mean?"


    You are here. For you, Titan is the end of your path. Yet, you are here. You have reached the end and Titan is the beginning of your path.


    For some part of what The Acharaya was saying, Felix got the sense he wasn''t looking at or referring to him but there was no gaze to follow and he had no idea what else he could be looking at, "You are a confusing being."


    As are you.


    "Are you talking about my Soul? I came from The Wanderer, right? Do you know them?"


    What remains within you from any other is not significant to your path.


    "How could it not be? I have these Convictions that I didn''t work to cultivate. I just kind of found them inside of me."


    And yet what you have discovered lies beyond the path of The Wanderer.


    "What?" Just as Felix asked, a man covered in black flame leapt up from the ruins behind him and slashed outwards.


    Felix sighed and moved himself slightly to the side then grabbed Arassagul by the chest and threw him off into the ruins with the assistance of an Instinct Cast Force Burst. He flew multiple kilometers into the distance and Felix feared The Acharaya''s reaction but he didn''t even flinch.


    The next step on your path is to abandon the power you have borrowed from others.


    "You mean my Convictions?"


    They are not the only power you have borrowed.


    "My Class."


    The Acharaya didn''t nod or communicate anything but Felix knew he was right.


    "Okay. What then? I don''t just want to lose two of the biggest increases to my strength without having a plan."


    You are already aware of the steps beyond the first. I will simply help you walk them.


    "Just because I know how I wanted to change my Reaper''s Skills and adapt them into a custom Class, doesn''t mean I know yet how to do that."


    A step taken is often better than no step taken at all.


    "Not if it sends you off a cliff."


    And yet, falling is one of the best ways to learn to fly. The Acharaya responded as one of his arms vanished into a portal next to him, black flame pouring through as soon as it opened. A moment later his arm retreated back out and the portal closed.


    "Okay. I''ll get rid of what I can. Can you tell me anything else?"


    I have answers to many of the questions you wonder.


    "I take it now is not the time?"


    As part of your path, you must encounter your enemy many times.


    "So work to get stronger now and ask questions later. Fine."


    Without another word, The Acharaya was gone and Felix flew off into the distance, as far as he could in a short period, before falling into the ruins crawling up the side of a mountain to find some peace.


    There, he sat down and Felix began analyzing himself, figuring out the best way to strip out most of his power.


    While he was a Caster, a Wizard in fact, and most of how he fought revolved around Spells and casting, especially with his Staff now, his physical stats were just as essential. The Staff made his Spells hurt and his Instinct Casts helped him bridge the gap between his mobility and those who focused on their physical stats, his Reaper''s Skills were the reason that was possible though.


    His stats alone, if he accumulated them all together which he knew didn''t mean much, were increased by nearly 775% through his Reaper''s Skills alone.


    They weren''t just improving his body slightly or adding some stats here and there, they allowed his Soul to multiply the effectiveness of his movement, power, thought and durability. The effectiveness of the Skills increased with each and every stat point he gained.


    On top of that, their effect got even stronger as he increased his will power.


    His Convictions changed everything back when he was failing to kill the griffin. The effect was subtle but it made it every aspect of Casting a Spell easier and more streamlined. It was faster, he could put more Mana into his Spells. They were more precise. They required less focus.


    Then, after the griffin, his will power let him survive Curses on multiple occasions, it let him create things he wouldn''t have otherwise been capable of and finally, they helped him control the Fractal Mana Spell Form.


    When he finally actualized those last two convictions, giving himself enough will power to control the Fractal Mana Spell Form and use all his other abilities at the same time, he had felt like a god. It felt like the single biggest, or rather the single most notable difference in his power, going from feeling weak and incapable, limited, to being stronger than he had ever been.


    He had plans to replace his Reaper''s Skills, or rather evolve them.


    Currently, the Skills seemed to tap into and channel the experiences of harvested Souls. It felt like tapping into the universe itself and asking it what he wanted it to do. In reality it was just the experiences in the Anima of his Soul affecting his body and movement.


    Hollow Claw fully actualized that and the experiences in his Soul showed Felix how far he could take the Skills.


    Tapping into vast experiences though, while cool, didn''t feel right to Felix. It felt like it wasn''t the best fit for him. It was the entire theme of The Reaper, knowing and channeling the experiences of Souls. Using their experiences and letting them live on through him.


    Felix wasn''t that person though. He didn''t have the same convictions and didn''t have the same ideals.


    So in reality, he had more of a direction or notion that he wanted to explore other methods of using his Soul and Anima in general to augment his mind, body, movements and durability.


    It was nothing more than a notion though because he didn''t know yet what he wanted to do with them. Removing them felt premature but, it wasn''t like he couldn''t go back. He already knew how to use his Reaper''s Skills and it would take some practice, but he could almost definitely use them again in the future.


    Even though it wasn''t a one way decision, Felix was hesitant to do anything without knowing what he would be replacing them with. Giving up power and strength felt wrong.


    The Acharaya seemed to have a plan though and he had knowledge Felix needed. His advice seemed wise as far as Felix could tell and the prospect of The Dragon getting stronger was deeply satisfying to Felix.


    Still, there was only really one being he trusted enough to ask if this was the right decision.


    Grabbing his Staff that floated along and followed either next to or behind him at all times, Felix held it in front of him with two hands.


    Can I trust The Acharaya? Should I follow his advice?


    He wasn''t expecting an answer. He knew the Staff didn''t do that. He was ho-


    Felix felt a resounding sense of affirmation in his Soul. Like everything was right in the world. Then, it past a moment later.


    Though he couldn''t explain why, Felix trusted the Staff implicitly. It had helped him and seemed to be teaching him but that wasn''t enough to explain how much he trusted it. There was something about their bond, the way they were connected that he just knew he could.


    So, reaching inside of himself, Felix first manually dismantled each and every one of his Reaper''s Skills. Reaper''s Body was first, followed by Reaper''s Instinct and Reaper''s Movement. Then, he debated whether or not the other two were necessary and decided to remove Reaper''s Presence but leave Experience Nexus, his evolution of Reaper''s Bond.


    Dismantling them was more akin to slowly breaking down a habit as his Soul passively maintained them at all times. So, he began relaxing his Soul and manually holding it back. Slowly, it learned and adapted and as it did, he felt his Soul relaxing.


    It wasn''t softening or becoming weaker, but it felt like a small strain was removed with each one.


    The issue, was that Felix wasn''t sure if it had been a good strain that was strengthening him, or a bad one that was just taxing him.


    Then, he looked inwards at his Convictions. Starting with the most recent and easiest to remove, he began peeling back at his own Soul. Convictions were simply a belief or ideal his Soul attached itself to. Removing it made his Soul feel a bit lost but at the same time, free.


    It was a uniquely different feeling from removing his Reaper''s Skills but it was similar. He felt his Soul relaxing once again but this time, he instinctively felt like it was a good thing. The strain that was relieved was like a massive weight he had been carrying around that suddenly vanished. Like he had been bound by chains and now, he was finally free.


    At the same time, he felt directionless and somehow, loose. Like his muscles had been flexed for eons and now, they had relaxed.


    His new Mana Core didn''t flinch in the slightest as its Fractal Form was what kept it stable, not his Soul and will power any longer.


    The Curses he kept within his Soular System were more oppressive but only slightly and all Felix had to do was push them out, increasing the radius of their orbit a little until he no longer felt them anymore.


    With everything that changed so suddenly, Felix felt so much more human than he had. He felt weak.


    In reality his base stats were so absurdly high, he was still multiple times faster than the Peace and Zeraxes he had left outside of the Realms, who were stat monsters in their own right.


    Still, it was something more than the weakness of his physical body that left him with that feeling, he just couldn''t quite pin down what it was.


    Felix was hoping the next step would either become clear as he followed The Acharaya''s advice or, that The Acharaya would suddenly appear when he was done. Neither were the case though, and Felix was left alone, in the middle of the ruins.


    Using his bond with Grim, he located and headed in the direction of the center of the ruins as that was where the exit to the realms lay. It took him longer to get back than it had taken him to fly out but not by much. On the way back he was more focused and was exploring much less.


    He was flying noticeably slower though, both due to the reduction in his will power and therefore his ability to push himself with his Matter Control and the reduction to his reaction speed making him less comfortable with high speeds.


    Flying back to the center of the ruins, his Residents along with Grim had already started settling in. Though Nova was out exploring so she wasn''t around to transmute or repair anything, they had still managed to breathe life back into a large portion of the center of the ruined city.


    Much of the verdant wildlife still remained but many of the enchantments had been reactivated and renewed. Felix saw buildings with lights, platforms that carried materials flying through the air, streets that moved themselves and water, being pumped through the streets.


    The area around the portal from the weird realm The Acharaya had controlled wasn''t anything special. In fact, the portal wasn''t even in the middle of the street but off to the side, which was visually quite annoying. The Residents had left it be and placed stone around it, to make sure no one accidentally wandered in or anything. Everywhere around that though, the city was booming.


    Dropping down into the city center, Felix landed next to Grim''s massive armored form who was sitting at a table with a woman he didn''t recognize. He knew it wasn''t a Resident both because he would have sensed them and due to the way their physical form stood out.


    [Titan] Velerena


    She looked human with ashen hair except, that she was about the same size as Grim was at nearly 10 feet tall. On top of that, she had a set of massive antlers sprouting out from the top of her head. She wore a full set of dark plate armor all wrapped in a red cloak.


    As soon as Felix landed, she looked directly at him, "It is you."


    "Me what?"


    "You are the new student."


    "I''m Felix. How''d you know?"


    "Velerena. You are the closest one has been to the Ascension."


    "I assume Ascension means reaching Titan? How can I be the closest if you''re already there?"


    She gestured to one of the empty seats and Felix took it, joining them.


    "I have reached my Ascension. Moved beyond it. You are right on the cusp."


    "I''ve been told. Doesn''t really feel that way."


    She shrugged, "Sometimes it is difficult to know where you are without an outside perspective."


    "How long have you been here?"


    "A long time. We the Endless have remained in this realm under the guidance of The Acharaya since the Ladder was created. Some of us have Ascended the Ladder, others were students of The Acharaya and followed him in."


    "I take it Endless refers to the other students here? I think I met one of them, Arassagul."


    She nodded.


    Felix continued, "I know time in each realm is a little different¡­ but it still must have been¡­ basically an eternity."


    "Yes."


    "You''ve reached Titan, are you not bored? Why do you stay?"


    "The reason is different for each. Arassagul cannot release his faith though knows he must. Sarros fears his own weakness will become visible on the outside."


    Felix glanced at Grim who just barely nodded permission before he asked, "Why are you here?"


    "My Soul is broken. I was bound to a companion of mine who was torn from me. The Acharaya has been aiding me in repairing my Soul. I do not wish to let go. Why have you not Ascended yet?"


    "I didn''t know it was a thing until¡­ a short while ago."


    "What stops you now?"


    "Direction. Knowledge. I''ve been following The Acharaya''s advice. I was just looking for him to get the next steps."


    Grim looked at Felix, "Is that where you''ve been?"


    Felix cocked a brow, "What do you mean? You''re in my head, you must have known."


    "Kinda, you were doing Soul shit which isn''t always obvious to me. I just wasn''t sure you didn''t do anything else."


    Felix shook his head in confusion, "What else would I have done?"


    Grim threw his arms up, "I don''t know, it''s been like half an epoch."


    "Wait¡­" Felix''s eyes went wide, "Seriously?"


    Grim nodded, "Yeah. You were unreachable the whole time."


    "Did something happen?"


    The armored tome shook his head, "Nothing urgent. Other Endless have visited. I''ll catch you up later."


    Felix nodded and Velerena cut in, "He did not come to you? The Acharaya? When you finished?"


    "Nope. Wouldn''t be here if he had."


    "That is unusual for him. He always appears when he is needed, even when he is not but you believe he is."


    "So what, he''s busy?" Felix asked.


    "I do not know. He can appear in many places at once so this is not normally an issue for him."


    "Anywhere in particular I should wait for him?" Felix asked.


    "The nexus of the realms." She gestured towards the portal with her eyes.


    Felix nodded, "Alright, thanks." He stood from his seat, "It was nice meeting you."


    "We will meet again. I am quite fond of this pseudo civilization after being alone for so long. It is nice."


    Looking around at the ruins around him and The Residents moving throughout the city, he nodded, "As long as you don''t try and kill anyone, you''re more than welcome here."


    She nodded and he headed through the portal, back to the white disc. There, Felix flew away from the portals before sitting down and entering a meditation, examining and assessing himself.


    With all the changes to his Soul, he took the time to try and figure out what had changed, where he had found the Convictions if they hadn''t come from The original Wanderer and what his next steps were.


    He had no idea how much time he spent meditating but he wasn''t any closer to answers than he had been when he had sat down. He only stopped because he felt a presence moving towards him, quickly.


    [Titan] Sarros


    Sarros looked like a statue made from porcelain, gold and obsidian strands. He wasn''t shaped like a human at first but all the strands of his body tightened and shifted to form something vaguely humanoid once he was just a few meters away.


    "You. Are. New."


    An robotic voice that seemed almost like hundreds of voices all speaking in perfect unison echoed into the atmosphere Felix maintained.


    "I''m Felix."


    "You. Are. Weak."


    "Uh¡­ Yeah¡­ Working on that."


    "You. Are. Slow."


    "Physically and literally or metaphorically I''m taking a long time or¡­"


    "All."


    Felix suddenly got a bad feeling that he didn''t know the source of. Either it was from his instincts or from the confusing Aura Sarros was giving off.


    "Sarros. Don''t" A familiar voice suddenly called out.


    Hearing it made Felix aware of another presence, one he recognized but not the one he was hoping for.


    "Kerix. The. Prodigal."


    Kerix just stared the Endless down, "Sarros."


    Sarros remained almost entirely still in the same position but his body was rife with movement, the strands of his form moving, twisting and squirming. He remained like that for almost a minute before his body morphed back into the rough shape of an arrow and he flew back towards one of the portals.


    "Thanks." Felix said once the Endless was gone.


    Kerix nodded, "He''s¡­ Don''t worry about it. He''s one of the old ones that followed The Acharaya in here."


    "Gotcha. Is he gonna seek me out?"


    Kerix sighed, "Maybe. I''ll chill here until The Acharaya is back. I''ve got some shit to figure out anyways."


    Felix nodded in appreciation and Kerix sat down across from him, falling into a meditation of his own.


    Some amount of time later, The Acharaya returned.


    You have taken a step.


    "I have." Felix responded, "What''s the next step."


    I cannot determine your path for you.


    "I don''t know¡­ I have no Convictions, my will power is weak and I feel so slow."


    Often the best way to travel down a path, is to take a step.


    "What is that supposed to mean."


    "Spar with him." Kerix said.


    Felix looked over at him, "With The Acharaya?"


    Kerix just nodded.


    Looking at the Acharaya, they didn''t nod or confirm they were okay with that but they also didn''t object.


    "Can we do that?"


    Yes.


    Felix nodded and Kerix backed up to give them room then, The Acharaya vanished. He reappeared with one of his arms already moving to strike Felix''s head.


    Pushing himself both physically and with his Matter Control to the limit, Felix barely managed to avoid the strike, by an inch or so. The Acharaya followed up with another strike right afterwards and this time Felix used his Instinct Casts and once again, he barely managed to avoid the strike.


    Each and every strike he avoided, The Acharaya got a little closer with the next. Inching towards him and pushing him just a little bit more every time.


    Then, one of his many arms struck Felix in the side.


    He expected the force to be minimal, the strike to be a sparring strike. It was not. The strike hurt and broke all of his ribs on that side along with most of his internal organs.


    The Acharaya didn''t stop either, he kept going. Appearing in front of Felix and striking at him the very next moment.


    This is so stupid.


    Felix dodged three more strikes then The Acharaya broke his right leg.


    He can''t just keep getting faster.


    He managed to dodge a couple more before his collar bone was shattered.


    I''m running out of health.


    Next was his pelvis.


    Is he going to kill me?


    Finally, The Acharaya broke Felix''s arm and simultaneously struck him in the face, leaving him with just under 5% health before stopping entirely.


    Heal then we will continue.


    Felix dropped to the ground and began manually repairing his body. Lying there, staring up at the stars, Kerix walked over and looked down at him, "You okay?"


    "Fine."


    "If it makes you feel any better, this was how he trained me."


    "Does he do this to everyone?"


    "No. I was the only one before you. Guess we''re just special."


    "Both stubborn enough to actually make a breakthrough by getting beat into the ground."


    "Something like that."


    It didn''t take Felix longer than a few minutes to heal back up and start sparring once more.


    In between sparring sessions, as Felix was repairing his body, he began meditating. Looking into his Soul to try and find an answer, the next step, inspiration, direction, anything that would let him get stronger, faster.


    Every time he sparred, he had to push back on his Soul instinctively trying to fall back to the Reaper''s Skills. If he just tapped into them, used them once, he could avoid a strike. He didn''t though. He knew he had to get rid of that instinct.


    The issue was he kept finding nothing else. He tried dissecting The Reaper''s Skills to see if he could find some kind of essence of truth in the method but there was nothing there. The Reaper used the collective experiences of billions of people to show his body, his Soul and the ambient Anima how he was supposed to move.


    It was like he was showing his worth to reality itself and asking permission to move faster, stronger, be smarter.


    Felix didn''t want to ask anything for anything. He wanted to do everything himself. With his will power feeling as weak as it was though, how was he supposed to compete with collective experience?


    Thinking through everything, with his building frustration fueling him, Felix finally had a breakthrough in one of the spars.


    As The Acharaya''s arm swung around towards his head, struck him, and shattered half of his skull even through his Mana Scales, largely due to his decrease in will power, he came to a realization.


    I don''t want to ask anything. I want to tell reality what I''m doing and make it obey.


    Felix stopped moving, even with half of his health left and The Acharaya immediately stopped.


    "I think I know what I need to do."


    Where to plant your foot is a decision that must be made before taking a step.


    "My old Skills used collective experience to guide my body and ask the ambient Anima around it for help. I don''t want to ask anything. I want to command it. Command reality to obey me."


    Kerix snorted but didn''t say anything.


    Ambition worthy of the path you have decided to walk.


    "Is that even possible?"


    I cannot foretell a path unwalked.


    "Everyone does things a little differently. Your Reaper Skills were the most efficient version of using Anima and a Soul to move a body I''ve ever seen." Kerix added, actually helpfully, "Anything is possible. The question is how effective will it be." sea??h th§× N?vel?ire.net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    "So how effective will it be?" Felix asked.


    Kerix shrugged, "Won''t know until you do it. Then you have to practice and master it."


    "What''s the limiting factor here? How much ambient Anima there is to command?"


    "No. Same way you have convictions to align your Soul, it''s about how much Anima you can get to obey you. Both in your Soul and the ambient."


    Felix nodded once, "So there''s no way to know if it''s even worth it until I both figure it out and master it?"


    Following one''s own path will always lead to a superior destination than following another''s.


    With that vote of approval backing his decision, Felix sparred with The Acharaya a few hundred more times before taking a break to meditate for an extended period.


    He was going to replace his Reaper''s Skills with a command instead of a question and reliance on experience. It felt right. He had also been hoping to figure out how to replace his Convictions with anything else. He had been hoping that one would lead to inspiration for the other but, he had no idea how to apply the concept of a command to his Soul.


    He tried commanding his Soul to obey, to follow him but just as every time he tried to do what The Reaper''s Skills did when he was sparring, nothing happened.


    Felix began to doubt himself when he wasn''t making progress and asked The Staff of Arcane Wisdom if he was on the right path. It didn''t respond to him in any way.


    Then, during one of his break, Felix asked Grim in one of the cafes his Residents had set up, "You know me. What do you think?"


    "That may be but¡­ what would The Acharaya say, something like only you can see if you are straying from your path, or something."


    "Yeah but¡­"


    Grim shook his head, "Why are you doubting yourself? I don''t know if you''ve ever doubted yourself like this. You were convinced you could fight the World Bosses alone and did it. All the way through to The Dragon, you just do shit even if it seems impossible."


    "I don''t know if I''m actually doubting myself or just¡­ maybe it''s my Convictions being gone. I feel weak and I don''t want to feel weak."


    Velerena leaned in over the table, "In order to make an effective command, you must have authority and confidence. There is no place for Doubt in an effective command."


    Authority¡­ What authority do I have?


    "You should speak with Nura." Velerena added.


    "Who?"


    "Another of the Endless. She is often within The Storm. Just be careful."


    "Why?"


    "You will see."


    Felix took her advice and headed back out of the ruins and into The Storm realm.


    The only issue, was that he had no idea how to navigate in The Storm. Everywhere, was a cloud. Each and every floating rock looked the same as any other. Every Lightning strike and thunderous boom shook the entire realm. Everything was moving constantly.


    Felix wasn''t even sure he would be able to navigate back to the portal, given he had no way to measure position or direction. It wasn''t like he had a compass or even anything he could base compass directions on.


    If there was someone in the storm that could help him though, he was willing to risk it. Worst case he could always get Nova or Grim to stand just inside the portal and use them to navigate towards it.


    Even if he had a way out though there was no way for Felix to find who he was looking for.


    At least, that''s what he thought at first.


    Flying aimlessly into the storm, avoiding the flying meteorites and just trying to point himself in the same rough direction, Felix finally felt something he could use to point himself. Somewhere, in the storm, Felix felt the Curse of Oblivion.


    As soon as he felt it, Felix latched on to the feeling and flew towards it.


    He assumed it was close as even though the feeling was weak, it was still a Curse. It couldn''t have been too strong if it was in an item. He kept flying towards it though and it just kept getting stronger until he was certain it wasn''t just bound to an item or an echo of the Curse but the actual Curse. Then it kept getting stronger.


    Without his Convictions, Felix was wary of getting too close but he did get close enough that, under the light of the constantly sparking lightning around him, he saw it.


    Obliterating its way through the storm, massive tendrils of pure black writhed and twisted out in every direction. Some of the tendrils were over a kilometer in length and everywhere they went, the storm and the massive chunks of stone they passed through were destroyed.


    Felix stared for a few minutes as the tendrils grew more active, they writhed and trembled. Finally, they began shaking then, they retreated over the course of a single second, revealing a girl at the center.


    [Titan] Nura


    She sat on the air, face contorted in deep focus for a few seconds before she opened her eyes and yelled out.


    "Who are you and what do you want?"


    "Advice I guess? Inspiration? I''m Felix. Velerena told me to talk to you."


    She nodded once then slowly flew over towards Felix who channeled a Force Bubble around them, mostly to block out the noise of the Storm.


    "Woah. That''s really nice¡­"


    "What?" Felix asked warily.


    "The silence. I''ve been here for¡­ I don''t know how long." She just sat there, lost in her enjoyment of the newfound peace.


    "So¡­ Velerena told me I should talk to you?"


    She opened her eyes and cocked her head, "About what? I don''t really do much other than sit here and fight the Curse."


    "Fight the Curse?"


    She nodded and suddenly the obsidian flames of Oblivion began to seep out of her body. Her hair was formed from it, it ran over her skin forming tattoos, it creeped out in every direction for a moment before receding back within her, "I''ve gotten better at it but I can''t totally control it for too long. That''s why I stay in here."


    "I see. I''ve been trying to make a breakthrough. I think I know what I want to do but I just don''t really know if it''s possible, let alone how."


    She waited patiently for him to continue.


    "She was saying that to make an effective command, I need to have authority and confidence?"


    Nura immediately nodded, having caught on, "I don''t know much about commands but authority definitely. It was one of the most important things I had to figure out."


    "How do I have authority over anything?"


    "Authority can come from lots of places. It can be inherited, this Curse is in my body and a part of me, I have authority over myself therefore I have authority over it."


    "I guess that helps somewhat."


    "That''s not the only way. Experience, power, structure, knowledge can all lead to you having authority."


    "Knowledge¡­ ?"


    "Yeah, sure. If you''re the subject expert on apples, you have authority over all things apples. Kind of."


    "How much knowledge would I need to have though? Wouldn''t I need to know basically everything?"


    "To have authority, you just have to know more than the thing you''re commanding, right? About the thing you''re commanding¡­ to be done? Does that make sense?"


    "Right¡­ That does makes sense. I guess the same applies to power and experience too."


    "Yeah, everything really."


    "I think that helps. Thanks."


    "Sure. Good luck!" She waved and smiled as he left.


    After some more meditation and soul searching, Felix sparred with The Acharaya again.


    This time, he tried to command some kind of authority over his body, his Soul and most importantly, the ambient Anima.


    Ambient Anima was disperse Anima that existed everywhere. Realistically, commanding it shouldn''t have provided him with much of anything. Felix was beginning to realize though, since the Reaper''s Skills had used it heavily and to great effect, that there was something else there.


    He had been trying to feel it, sense it with his Soul for a long time but now, after talking with Nura, he was using all the knowledge and experience he had instead.


    Felix also came to the realization that even if he wasn''t the expert on space and Anima, he knew a lot more than the average person and therefore more than the collective unconscious, on average. So, if he tried to command it with his authority, provided by his knowledge, he would theoretically be able to make 99% of the ambient Anima obey him because he knew more than 99% of beings.


    It wasn''t just knowledge of space and time either, through his Residents, Felix had knowledge of almost every subject overshadowed only by the masters of any domain.


    He may not know more about alchemical elixirs than Edira, but that was one person and she probably knew more than almost everyone else in existence.


    So, as The Acharaya swung one of his many arms for Felix''s head, he pushed everything in him to move and for reality to obey him.


    He got smacked again. A lot.


    Though his answers were cryptic and often useless, Felix tried asking The Acharaya while he was regenerating, "I''m missing something. Any ideas?"


    One must often be provided a reason to shift from their path.


    "You mean I have to demonstrate my knowledge? I guess the Reaper Skills did show the collective experience to the ambient Anima¡­ How the hell do I show knowledge though? And what knowledge do I show?"


    Felix continued to lose his health to The Acharaya, getting beat down constantly as he desperately tried to replicate a similar effect to his Reaper''s Skills.


    To replace his Convictions and align the Anima of his Soul, he began to apply the same concepts internally, commanding and forcing his own Soul to obey. That was much easier which was to say, nearly impossible but he was actually making progress. It was his own Soul though so he had more authority over it than he did the ambient Anima.


    Slowly, over the course of their sparring sessions, various factors began to click for Felix.


    He realized ambient Anima wasn''t just a disperse collection of Anima that existed everywhere, it was naturally bound to space within a universe. Commanding it was like commanding space itself.


    As his Soul slowly grew more aligned, he began to find it was much easier to control the Anima around him.


    Most importantly though, if it was easier for him to command his own Soul, why not make everything his own Soul. So, he began to spread his Aura, adopt the ambient Anima around him into his own Soul.


    Then, at the peak of his frustration, Felix finally did it exactly once.


    As The Acharaya''s hand swung out to strike Felix''s head, he pulled his body downwards and begged reality to obey his command. For once, it did.


    His head was going to be struck by The Acharaya, then it wasn''t.


    Felix could feel his head moving so it didn''t teleport or anything but it felt weird.


    He didn''t manage to reproduce the same thing for what felt like ever. Still, having done it once completely renewed his motivation.


    On a blank white disc with unmoving stars above, Felix didn''t know how long he spent sparring with The Acharaya. All he knew was that he had finally done it.


    He could move nearly as fast as The Acharaya himself, when he wasn''t abusing his Realm control, and he was no longer struck at all.


    Moving his arm with the effect active, Felix marveled at how his arm looked almost like it was teleporting. He could feel it moving so he knew it wasn''t but it was like reality, light, sound, the air and everything else was catching up to his arm being moved. Like his moving was breaking the laws of reality and they were trying to accommodate after the fact.


    What really mattered though, was whether or not it would make any difference against The Dragon who, had also been training with The Acharaya.

 Chapter 247 - Book 20

    Felix didn''t need to tell The Acharaya that he wanted to fight The Dragon, as soon as he failed to activate his Amulet of the Realms, The Acharaya knew.


    Next to the other 20 doorways that were already there, a new one appeared.


    Felix flew right over to the new doorway which, opened a portal as he approached, to reveal exactly what he was hoping for, the 2001st realm that his companions had previously spruced up.


    Stepping through the portal, the area was the same as they had left it. The fog was still parted in the area, providing an oasis from the weather. The stone brick ground still split up the various parks and other environments. Some of the furniture had even been left behind.


    Felix didn''t even register any of that though as he flew through the realm and straight into the Iridescent Bubble.


    He then immediately activated his Amulet to reappear in the 2001st, just to make sure it worked, before heading back in to the 2000th.


    It had been long enough since Felix had last fought The Dragon that it should have essentially forgotten about him. However the heat and completely molten planet surface told Felix that it hadn''t been as long as he had thought. He knew time was weird in the realms but it seemed as though a couple epochs in The Acharaya''s Realms had amounted to at most an hour or so in The Dragon''s.


    Despite that, The Dragon seemed calm instead of on edge as Felix had expected.


    He found it standing on the top of a stone pillar that stuck out from the sea of magma below. It looked the same, identical even, to Felix''s memory. It''s posture though, it''s Aura or possibly just the vibe it was giving off seemed subtly different to Felix in some way. He wasn''t sure he wasn''t imagining it or it wasn''t a side effect of his losing his Convictions but it seemed stronger or possibly more confident.


    Using his Staff of Arcane Wisdom, Felix empowered his Instinct Casts to rush The Dragon as fast as he dared.


    He was about as fast as he had been with his Reaper''s Skills but Felix had only just managed to make his new ability consistent. He could feel that he still had a long way to go with them. He was only just scratching the surface. The ability felt incomplete, he could tell he wasn''t using them to nearly their full potential and they felt loose in a way.


    They did not however, feel foreign.


    The first thing Felix noticed as he started to make the new ability more consistent, was that the ability felt far more natural for him. Though he was still getting used to things and they were far from tight and practiced, they felt natural. Like he had been contorting himself to use The Reaper''s versions but now he was moving the way he was meant to.


    Filled with an excitement that came from the untapped potential and the catharsis of finally using an ability that suited him, so perfectly, Felix rushed forwards and got right in The Dragon''s face. It recoiled a little in surprise before snapping forwards at Felix.


    With an Instinct Cast to help him, Felix barely dodged out of the way of its teeth, his face shifting into a wide smile. As he rose up past its head, he took his Staff in both hands and with all the physical force he could muster and no Spell to help him, Felix delivered a satisfying bonk onto its head.


    THUNK


    The Dragon was smart enough to have an idea of how Felix fought, his habits and tendencies. It was smart enough to associate those with him. That meant it was smart enough to be completely thrown off. It didn''t take any real damage at all, that wasn''t Felix''s intention. It was stunned though from the divergence in Felix''s behavior for a moment, which also wasn''t Felix''s intention.


    It didn''t hesitate for more than an instant before recklessly whipping its entire body in Felix''s direction.


    He responded by activating the blink he had preemptively charged up because he knew what he was doing was stupid. He just wanted to.


    The Dragon pursued, as Felix expected and he let it approach.


    Felix very specifically didn''t seriously attack The Dragon once. He very specifically didn''t want to kill it yet. He still had so much to work on, upgrade, improve and, so did The Dragon.


    He couldn''t yet but, even if he somehow had a chance through improving his new ability to kill it in a battle of attrition, he wouldn''t have dared.


    A few seconds later, he activated his Amulet and reappeared on the landscaped area, his face plastered with a wide smile.


    "You are a psychopath. You know that?" Kerix''s voice sounded out just as Felix appeared.


    He fell down to a meditative position and just shrugged in response.


    A few minutes later, he flew back into the realm for another few seconds. Then again and again he entered the realm, wrestled with The Dragon and slowly learned how to use his abilities. He learned how his new abilities worked and what its limits were. Then he learned more and pushed those limits.


    Most of all though, Felix realized how right The Acharaya was.


    As much as he learned and refined his ability while sparring with The Acharaya, fighting The Dragon was completely different. It was nothing more than his desire to conquer The Dragon motivating him. A feeling he couldn''t reproduce in a sparring match or against a being that wasn''t truly his enemy.


    It seemed The Dragon felt similarly too because for every stride Felix made, so did The Dragon.


    He got faster, The Dragon got stronger. He got stronger, The Dragon got faster. They both got smarter.


    The push and pull as they fought both fueled Felix''s motivation and taught him things about himself that he wasn''t sure he would have easily realized otherwise.


    Even when Felix had his Convictions and was at the peak of his will power, his Aura was weaker than The Dragon''s. Though he couldn''t directly test his will power against its, he was pretty sure The Dragon''s was stronger. His Soul was stronger defensively but, that was about it.


    Now, without his Convictions, the gap between them widened and Felix realized he enjoyed that. There was something primal within him that fed on the challenge.


    He also found commanding his body and the Ambient Anima easier when The Dragon''s Aura pushed down on him.


    At first he thought it was his Soul rising to meet the challenge but he realized that wasn''t it exactly, at least not entirely. Instead it was more along the lines of him enjoying the defiance. He enjoyed pushing back and resisting. He enjoyed fighting against the odds.


    Once he realized that, Felix started to tap into the feeling of controlling the universe and reality through his movements. It was the ultimate defiance, to move faster than he should or with more power, and it exhilarated him. The challenge it posed on top of that, made it so Felix started to feel like everything was coming together.


    He still had a lot of training to do and his abilities were far from refined but, by the time he decided he was satisfied and returned to The Acharaya''s realms, he was at least as fast as The Dragon in most cases.


    Finding the Titan on the endless white platform beneath the stars above, Felix eagerly asked, "What''s next?"


    What is the next step you wish to take?


    "I don''t want to completely shift gears yet. I still have a lot of work to do. I also still don''t really understand how I''m supposed to replace my Convictions."


    Where do you believe your path leads?


    "What I know so far is that Convictions help you align the Anima of your Soul. In order to do anything with my Soul, I make a decision and essentially try to do a thing. Some of my Soul is aligned and agrees with what I''m doing and helps me do that thing. The rest either disagrees or isn''t motivated enough to follow along. Convictions are like Curses, they are powerful enough beliefs that they can basically inspire my Soul into being aligned."


    That is where your path has led up to now. Where does it lead beyond the now?


    "If I don''t have Convictions, then I either need some other way to align my Soul which¡­ feels wrong, like another shortcut or stopgap, or I need my Soul to be aligned naturally. If it was just all on board all the time, that would be the ideal."


    That is the destination, what is the path that leads there?


    "I know commanding my Soul to follow kind of works. It doesn''t even fully replace Convictions yet but it feels wrong. I don''t want to live the rest of my existence constantly commanding myself just so I listen. Kerix seems almost completely aligned which was one of the reasons I wanted Titan. His¡­ lack of focus made it hard for me to believe his entire Soul would just follow along with whatever he did which made me think it had to be Titan."


    You speak of the already trodden path.


    "You mean past tense? Yeah, I don''t believe that anymore. I think there''s something else I''m missing. How he got there, I can only imagine involved countless epochs of meditation, refinement and effort."


    That is a path many follow to reach this destination.


    "It''s not the only one though? Is it?"


    There is never only a single path. The path you speak of is often the shortest, for most. For you, I do not believe this to be the case.


    "But you don''t know what that other path would be?"


    I do not. It is merely a feeling.


    "In that case, how do you suggest I find it?"


    You are more aware of your path and the paths that must not be followed than most.


    "Right, competition and challenge, defiance of odds seems to work well for me."


    I do not only guide those who seek the end of their beginning. I often help those with more spiritual matters as well.


    "You have something specific in mind?"


    Suddenly, a forest appeared on the endless white platform with trees so thick, they had to be taller than any mountain Felix had ever seen. Looking up, he couldn''t actually see the tops at all. In between the absurd trunks, were bushes and more trunks. There was no space between them. There was path through them. They formed a solid wall on either side of him.


    The trees didn''t surround him though, instead there was a path before him that he could only see a few meters of for some inexplicable reason.


    What he was seeing wasn''t physical though, or maybe it was. It was Spirit, Anima. It was The Acharaya''s Aura manifested. The way Titans worked though, Anima was physical or was one with the physical in their bodies and here, it seemed to be the same.


    On top of the manifestation, Felix felt the Aura itself. It felt like self discovery and the pursuit of insight and understanding into one''s self.


    "Is this your Aura?" Felix called out.


    An Aura manifested is referred to by most as a Domain.


    "Domain? This feels nothing like Romar''s Domain or¡­ There were Domains outside, System Skills. This feels different."


    I cannot speak to that which I have no insight.


    "Can Kerix do this?"


    His path has led here. It was the area he struggled with the most. It was the source of his anger.


    "So this isn''t essential to becoming Titan, it''s something else entirely?"


    Many reach the beginning. A Domain however is not a destination many are aware of.


    "So I could do this?"


    The path that leads to the beginning for most is much shorter than the path that has led you here. You already travel a similar path.


    "So I''m not really that far off?"


    The path you must travel to this destination is indeed shorter than most.


    "Okay, what advice do you have, what can you tell me?"


    The Acharaya didn''t respond, instead he dropped his Domain then reached off to the side into a portal that just appeared and pulled a confused looking Kerix through. The rudely summoned Titan quickly swallowed the half eaten sandwich hanging out of his mouth then shoved the other one, in his hand, down his gullet as well.


    He swallowed, then nodded to Felix, "Yo." Then, turned to The Acharaya, "What?"


    What steps have you taken towards a Domain?


    "Ugh. I''m working on it, alright? Just because I came back doesn''t mean I have everything figured out."


    The one you used as an excuse to return seeks to travel the same path as you. Guide him.


    Then, The Acharaya vanished.


    Kerix grumbled at the air for a moment then turned to Felix with a sigh, "So, Domain huh?"


    "Makes the most sense as a next step to me. I need to figure out my Soul Shit so¡­"


    Kerix waved him off then sighed again, "Show me where you''re at with your Aura, all out."


    Felix nodded then released his Aura which, even he knew was pathetic. Kerix didn''t comment on that though and just nodded.


    "First things first, your Aura is a weird combination between being a part of your Soul and not. Pick one and stick with it. Do you want your Aura and your surroundings to be a part of your Soul or not?"


    "I did that because it was easier to use my other abilities, the one that helps me move, when my Aura was a part of my Soul."


    "Okay. Then commit to that."


    "What does that mean?"


    "Adopt your surroundings completely."


    Felix winced, "Not only do I not think that''s the right path for me, but I''m not even sure that would be possible with my Soul."


    "Then stop trying. It''s not worth it."


    "Fine. I can cut it off. Isn''t everyone''s Aura a part of their Soul though?"


    "No." Kerix fell into a cross legged sit in front of Felix, "Either, you adopt your surroundings. This is typically for people that are really open and welcoming and trusting and all that shit. The other option, much more popular, is that you just influence and control your surroundings."


    "That second option sounds way better suited to me."


    "I agree." Kerix nodded, "The Acharaya is the only being I know that is truly suited to the first method."


    "Is his Domain stronger because of it?"


    "The method, no. The suitability, yes."


    "Okay so, The Acharaya''s Domain is a path through a forest."


    "Forest?" The Titan shook his head, "It''s just a path. I see a city street with impassable buildings. Others see labyrinths, mansions, caves or some other shit that''s meaningful to them."


    "Really? It seemed¡­ real. Physical even. How is that possible if everyone sees it differently?"


    "What was the forest like? The one you saw?"


    "Trees were absurdly big and pressed right up against each-other."


    "So big their outside was almost completely flat?"


    "Yeah¡­"


    "Right, so if I see buildings and you see the trees that are flat, that''s just visual. The actual physicality is the same."


    "I see. How do I get there?"


    Kerix snorted, "Meditate on who you are for a few eternities and hope."


    Felix hung his head in disappointment at Kerix, "Come on. You know what I mean."


    He sighed, "Yeah, yeah. Alright, just¡­ First things first, you''re thinking of your Aura wrong."


    "What do you mean? How can you tell what I''m thinking?"


    "The way you use it. Your Aura isn''t just push your Soul out and see what happens. Your Aura is the area of influence of your will power."


    "So you''re saying The Acharaya and¡­ everyone else actively creates that path and those trees and stuff?"


    "Yes and no. You''re being completely passive right now. You don''t want to manually design everything but you do need to take more control. You don''t have to think about what you''re doing, though you can tune things when you need, your Soul is doing all the work. You''re just letting it fall into its natural state¡­ kind of."


    Felix nodded quickly, "So you''re saying, The Acharaya''s Soul, when he just lets it go on some Anima, creates that. His Soul naturally tries to create a path."


    "Yeah¡­ kind of. It''s a little more complicated than that with him. He isn''t creating a path, he''s showing you your path. Kind of. Like, he''s creating the environment but¡­"


    "I get it. I think. How do I know what I''m going to create."


    Kerix''s expression darkened for a moment, "You don''t." It vanished a moment later, "Just work at it and you''ll find out."


    Felix nodded then went through the manual process of dismantling what he had done to his Aura recently. It wasn''t meant to be a part of him. It had felt unnatural when he was doing it in the first place but he had just decided that was his getting used to things.


    Controlling the Anima around him made much more sense to Felix. His Soul, being as hard and insular as it was, didn''t like stretching outwards. Controlling everything around him though, was much more natural.


    Once his Aura had been completely dismantled then stripped clean from his body, leaving his Mana Scales as the outer most layer of his Soul, Felix began reaching out to control the Anima around him.


    It wasn''t hard to control the ambient Anima in the slightest. Controlling it to the degree that The Acharaya had with his Domain though, that wasn''t just control.


    Even though Felix was going about it a different way, he was convinced he could reach a similar point with his Aura.


    Just controlling the Anima directly around him, Felix began stretching out his control little by little. It was a slow process of manual pushing then relaxing and letting his Soul naturally control things. Then he took over and manually spread it outwards again before relaxing and letting everything essentially just fall into place.


    He had no idea what his Aura, and then Domain, would become but he was very curious to find out.


    Unfortunately, his control and Aura didn''t come with any manifestation. Instead, he ended up growing an Aura that was similar to before. It was stronger but not massively. It was just an area around him that felt different.


    "I know it feels like you aren''t getting anywhere with this because you don''t see massive trees. This is way better than where you were though."


    Felix sighed, "I don''t know. It feels mostly the same to me."


    "A proper Domain will come with time. Just keep expanding it. Keep it up as much as you can too. Although¡­"


    "What?"


    "Maybe not around anyone who isn''t aware of what you''re doing. Your Aura is¡­ hard to mistake as friendly."


    "You mean someone feeling it is going to think I''m trying to attack them?"


    "Uh¡­ Kind of? It''s like you''re begging everyone around you to challenge your authority. Like you want them to fight you so you can prove to them how¡­ superior you are."


    "Huh¡­ Thanks for the tip."


    He nodded and Felix chose a realm at random to get some privacy. There, he meditated and worked on his Aura. He also spent time working on his new ability that replaced his Reaper''s Skills.


    While he had thought of a number of names already, he wasn''t ready to commit to a name just yet because he was still figuring out the ability and it was still changing.


    In growing his Aura and learning more about how Domains worked, Felix also slowly began to grasp the edges of an understanding of what he needed to do with his Soul to replace Convictions. It wasn''t anything actionable but he felt himself making progress.


    Most of all though, he wanted to fight The Dragon. Not actually fight it but pit his Aura against it. The issue, was that without adopting the Anima around him, his replacement for the Reaper''s Skills was inconsistent meaning, he wasn''t ready. He could always blink and use his Amulet to escape but if he couldn''t stay in range of his Aura for an extended period, there wasn''t really any point because he wouldn''t be able to test much of anything.


    If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.


    Kerix, had a solution though, "Back before I¡­ left, there was a student¡­ I wonder if they''re still here¡­"


    "Who?"


    "Lea."


    "We could always ask Velerena?"


    Kerix shrugged, "Sure."


    "Is it worth it? What made you think of her?"


    "Well, the reason she came to The Acharaya in the first place, was that she couldn''t control her Aura."


    Felix''s eyes widened a little, "As in?"


    "It''s too strong for her to control."


    "It''s her aura? How could it be too strong for her to control?"


    "You''ll see." Kerix smirked, "Just¡­ Ah," He shook his head, "You''ll be fine."


    "What?"


    "Some people have accidentally died from her Aura alone."


    That alone didn''t mean much considering the massive range of Soul strengths that existed. Still, Felix was rather excited.


    They found Velerena in the ruins and she directed them to one of the other realms The Acharaya connected and maintained, an infinite cavernous expanse. The two of them followed the winding caves for hours and hours before Kerix finally latched on to her Aura.


    Then, it took them days to make the rest of the journey.


    While Nura had an Aura of some kind from the Curse that had infected her, her Aura was more of an effect she naturally had on the ambient Anima around her. The Aura Felix and Kerix followed, was wholly different.


    It wasn''t a Domain, there was a distinct lack of control but, it was the strongest pure Aura Felix had ever felt. It was also the most chaotic in every sense. There were patches of Aura that were so strong, Felix felt like he was being physically crushed. Like he had swam to the bottom of the ocean.


    Then, there were patches of nothing. Some of them so faint, they completely lost track of where they were going at times.


    The further they got, the stronger the strongest sections were and the less common the completely empty sections were until physical manifestations began to appear.


    Unlike The Acharaya''s Domain though, there weren''t physical structures like trees or anything that distinct. She wasn''t controlling and creating anything, the physical manifestations appeared naturally from the raw strength of her completely uncontrolled Aura.


    The manifestations were just streaks and flares. Like pure red fire was just appearing then dissipating a moment later without any heat.


    The closer they got, the redder Felix''s vision became until finally, they arrived at an open central chamber where Felix felt like he had somehow wandered inside of a red star. There was still no heat but the Aura alone was so oppressive, Felix could feel his physical body deforming and shrinking, even beneath his Mana Scales.


    As the flares and streaks appeared, they tore into the stone around them, like claws scraping dust and sand into the air before vanishing. With his Matter Senses, Felix could tell the room was slowly expanding every minute.


    At the center of the Aura, was a lithe woman with black hair loosely tied behind her head and completely white, clouded eyes.


    [?] Lea (Lvl ?)


    Huh. The first non Titan I''ve met in here.


    Despite the lack of identification from The System, Felix judged her physical body to be around the mid to high B grade. Her Spirit though, especially considering her Aura, made him doubt whether or not that was accurate. There was no way a mid or even high B grade body wouldn''t be crushed by that Aura.


    "Hey Lea, been a while."


    She turned to them and smiled, "Kerix. I wasn''t sure I''d ever see you again. And who is this?"


    "This is Felix."


    Felix waved and she smiled wide, "It is a pleasure to meet you Felix."


    The genuine excitement in her voice confused Felix for a moment, which Kerix noticed, "Her Aura makes it hard for anyone to come and see her. Sarros never cared which meant it was pretty much just me and The Acharaya that ever visited her."


    "Your Aura is surprisingly weak." She looked at Kerix, "Are you quite certain he won''t¡­ perish?"


    Kerix snorted, "Oh yeah. He''ll be fine."


    She nodded, "Then I appreciate the introduction. Knowing you though, you aren''t here just to be nice?"


    "Hey¡­" Kerix''s shoulder''s dropped a little, "Okay, fair enough. Felix here is working on his Aura. He works best when he can push back against something. Competition, an enemy, that kind of thing."


    "I seem to remember you were quite the rebel and made most of your breakthroughs in similar situations, if my memory serves." She smirked as she teased him.


    "There''s nothing wrong with a little competition." Kerix pushed back.


    "There is not. However you are not much competition when you still insist on suppressing your Aura the way you do."


    He waved her off, "Not looking to be competition right now. Just helping him out so he can help me when we finally leave."


    "I see. You remain in denial."


    "I''m not in denial I just¡­"


    They continued to bicker and catch up as Kerix sat down across from her while Felix zoned the two of them out for the time being. All his attention, went to his own Aura which he desperately tried to do anything significant with.


    He got absolutely nowhere though, her Aura was far too strong. It was an aura of immense wrath but, not the Curse. The Curse would have tried to make him angry but this, was more like she was in an eternal state of being angry at everything else and it was oppressive. It also exuded power and regality in equal amounts but they were less obvious.


    So, as Kerix caught up with her, Felix flew back out of the cave, towards the exit. There, he manifested his Aura then slowly flew back into the cave, inch by inch.


    As he did, he began to strengthen his Aura against Lea''s, temper it in hers.


    By the time he finally made it to the center of the room, Kerix and Lea were still bickering but Felix''s Aura, felt far more real to him. It was however, tiny. Growing out his Aura next to Lea though felt far more productive than before. He was growing its radius at a slower rate but he could feel its strength increasing much faster.


    Kerix wasn''t there the whole time either, he left after a while and returned every once in a while. Felix however, didn''t move from his spot just a meter to Lea''s side.


    "You are improving faster than I imagined possible."


    "Thanks."


    "Your Aura is concerningly similar to my own."


    "How is that concerning?"


    "The nature of my Aura is¡­ complicated."


    "Kerix mentioned you can''t control it. How is that possible?"


    She reached down and pulled on the neckline of her shirt, revealing a circle of pure red embedded in the center of her chest.


    Felix hadn''t realized it before, he couldn''t pinpoint it within her already overwhelming Aura, but having seen it, he could immediately tell the orb was the source of everything. It contained her Aura somehow. It imbued her with it. It created their surroundings.


    Everything about the way it felt was identical to the Aura around them except solid. It was like someone had taken her Aura, compressed it down into a small ball, then multiplied it by many orders of magnitude.


    "What is that?"


    "This is a core of Novis. The King of the Elementals, or so he likes to believe."


    "It''s¡­ you''re a warlock?"


    "I am. In a sense. I borrow power from Novis through this core. It is difficult to control however so, here I am."


    "You ever thought of getting rid of it?"


    "I cannot. It is entangled with my Soul in a way that makes it permanent. It is both a part of me and not while also being a part of Novis."


    "You can''t really go anywhere or do anything until you get it under control either, huh?"


    "No. I cannot. It is far too risky as I have killed others in the past."


    "I actually¡­ Can I try something?"


    She shrugged and he floated over until he was right next to her then he offered her his hand. She cocked her head then took it and Felix pulled her into his Soul Garden.


    There, she looked the same except her Aura was contained. Instead of reaching out in every direction and potentially killing those around her, the deep red formed a long dress that slowly faded out of existence towards the end.


    "What is this?" She asked in wonder as she looked around.


    Felix largely ignored her question as he checked her over to make sure her Aura wasn''t dangerous in his Mental World. Then, once he was sure, he moved the two of them into the center of Arkade.


    "Welcome to my head." Felix said aloud but made it so only she could hear him.


    "This is¡­ in your head?"


    "Yup. In my Soul kind of but¡­ yeah, you get the idea."


    She nodded, "Are these people¡­ real?"


    "They have Souls and brains, just not physical bodies. At least, most of them don''t."


    "Some do?" She craned her neck forwards in disbelief.


    "Yeah. Don''t worry about them though. Maybe if you get control of your Aura one day, you can meet them."


    She nodded slowly, "I''ll add it to the list."


    "If you''d like, you can hang out here for a while."


    Lea marveled at the mountains and the distant landscape then shook her head, "As much as I appreciate this, I cannot afford to waste time frivolously like this."


    "You can''t even spare a few seconds?"


    "It''s already been a few seconds."


    "Actually, no. Time here is very different from out there."


    She squinted at him, unsure if he was being truthful.


    "How about this, I''ll pull you out in 1, 2 seconds?"


    "One." She nodded.


    Felix nodded in confirmation then vanished, leaving her to fend for herself. Meanwhile, he pushed on his Aura for a grand total of one second before releasing her from his Mental World and back into her body, releasing her hand then floating back again.


    "Has it only been a single second? Truly?"


    "Yup."


    "I was in there for nearly 6 days!"


    "Yup."


    Her jaw hung agape for a moment before she smiled, "Thank you. I very much needed that."


    Felix shrugged, "It costs me nothing so, don''t mind at all. As long as I get to sit here and work on my Aura."


    "You are more than welcome to sit here with me. I appreciate the company, even if you are drastically less talkative than Kerix."


    He shrugged again then, as if to prove her point, silently turned his attention back towards his Aura.


    Felix didn''t spend all his time with Lea but he did spend a lot of it in the cave, bathing in her Aura. He took breaks to talk with The Acharaya and Kerix but, he never quite reached his goal of a Domain. His Aura was strong enough that he could suppress a small section of the cave around Lea, not quite half as his Aura wasn''t as strong as hers was but a section nonetheless.


    More importantly though, his work on his Aura pushed his Reaper''s Skills replacement until it was both consistent, and stronger.


    He even settled on a name for it, Spirit Command. It was a literal name but so were the names of the Reaper''s Skills it had replaced. He didn''t think the name was perfect but he didn''t think the ability was either. There was something specifically he knew he was missing, some way to further grow the ability, he just couldn''t pin it down just yet. Until then, he was satisfied with its current name.


    With his Aura and Spirit Command having improved so drastically, Felix was excited to fight The Dragon once more so, he headed straight to its realm.


    Surprisingly, he found The Acharaya floating in the 2001st realm, just outside the bubble. sea??h th§× NovelFire.net* website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    "Were you just about to go in?"


    I walk the path in the other direction.


    "You just came out. Can I go in?"


    Where has your path led thus far?


    Felix smirked a little then fully released his Aura around him. In the sparse ambient Anima of the 2001st realm, it stretched out for nearly a hundred kilometers easily and everywhere within it, tiny sparks of blue and white appeared for just a moment. The manifestations were much smaller and less significant than Lea''s but, they were there. Felix just wished he knew what they were.


    You have traveled far, quickly.


    "I just wish I had gotten to a Domain."


    I believe your path is not entirely clear.


    "Yeah, I don''t actually know what the blue and white sparks¡­ flashes¡­ whatever, are. I think if I did I''d have more direction. Any idea?"


    Curious. Your path is one of the most clear and yet, it is one of the most difficult to perceive. I cannot say with any certainty¡­ you will know soon enough.


    "Alright. Can I go in then?"


    Is this the only path you have traveled?


    "My Spirit Command is better." Felix waved his hand as fast as he could which, made it essentially disappear, "A bit at least."


    You have traveled further than many do their entire lives and yet you do not believe this to be far enough.


    "Well, given where I think my path leads, ambition is kind of necessary, no?"


    It is.


    "Can I go in now?"


    Be wary of those who could move you from your path. The Acharaya said before floating off to the side and giving Felix room to touch the bubble. Before he did though, he heeded The Acharaya''s warning and readied himself fully to use The Amulet if necessary.


    As soon as he touched the bubble, he activated the Amulet.


    "Shit."


    The Acharaya just floated there but Felix could tell they were relieved he was alive.


    "I guess as fast as I''m progressing, it''s not fast enough."


    The weave that is your paths is winding.


    Felix growled a little in frustration as he realized there was no point going back in. The Dragon had reached Titan and become way too dangerous for Felix to deal with at the moment.


    On the other side of the bubble, The Dragon tore through reality and reached its head through space to snap at Felix. Even if he Blinked, it could just crawl through once again and it was so much faster than it had been.


    Your enemy seeks a path beyond its prison.


    "It''s trying to get out of the 2000th?"


    It has sought this path since it has arrived.


    "And you just gave it a way to get out?"


    Its path is as hidden to it as it is to us.


    "How long till it finds it?"


    I cannot foretell how its path will intersect with others.


    "Who could possibly stop that thing now but you?"


    My path is not one of combat. There is another, the warden of your enemy''s prison.


    "The warden? Of¡­ The Realms?"


    I am unable to see their path.


    "So you don''t even know if they''re still alive? Well¡­ shit. Okay, I can''t exactly fight that thing right now so, what''s next?"


    Your path leads where it leads. Where does your path lead?


    "Let''s say I want to be able to tank one of its hits, what''s the best path to get there?"


    Reaching the end of the beginning may lead you to this destination. There are however, other paths.


    Felix followed as The Acharaya vanished and reappeared in succession from the 2001st all the way back through the portal and into one of the 20 doorways. The realm he led him into was the smallest of the 20 realms Felix had seen. It consisted of a single room that was barely 10 meters in any direction.


    The walls and floor were entirely black and there was a large block in the middle of the room the size of a table, also black.


    "What''s this? What''s the point of this realm?"


    This realm is a forge.


    "A forge?" Felix looked around in confusion, "Forge for what?"


    Ry Mallus.


    "Wait¡­ I thought¡­ That was a myth? An indestructible material?"


    Many paths are unclear to those that have not walked them.


    "You''re saying it''s not indestructible? That''s just something some uninformed people say?"


    Even an unclear path, can be followed for direction alone.


    "Okay so, they aren''t entirely wrong. Based in truth and all that so¡­ it''s nearly indestructible?"


    The Acharaya didn''t respond and instead walked over to one of the walls where he reached through the solid material and withdrew a dagger with a white blade. It didn''t glow or otherwise exude indestructibility but, the blade was completely and perfectly white.


    He held the dagger out for Felix who took it in his hand and examined it.


    The Dagger had a normal handle of some high grade leather wrapping but that was uninteresting. The blade however, wasn''t a solid material. Felix had somewhat expected what he found but it was also completely surprising at the same time.


    It was, like The Acharaya, Kerix and all other Titan''s bodies, made from Anima. It was a physical object made from Anima. It was also denser than any of them and perfectly contained. There was no Anima leakage. The blade didn''t have an Aura or will power or give anything away. It was solid Anima, perfected.


    "I didn''t even think this was possible¡­ This is so much denser than anything else I have ever seen. How does it keep all the Anima so well contained? It doesn''t glow, it doesn''t have an Aura, it''s just¡­ perfect."


    This is why a forge is necessary.


    "So if I want to survive a hit, I should forge a full suit of Ry Mallus?"


    While that path would lead to the destination you seek, it is a much longer path than you realize.


    Felix handed the dagger back to The Acharaya, "How long is that path?"


    Taking that path would unravel yours from your enemy''s and this universes.


    "Alright shit, never mind then. Why are we here?"


    Sometimes knowing something exists, is enough to illuminate a path forwards.


    "I mean¡­ it''s interesting but I''m not sure how I can use this knowledge to do anything. You don''t happen to have a giant shield hiding in there, would you?"


    Your path does not intertwine with any of the items in this room.


    "Okay, can you at least show me how to use the forge?"


    Your path might however, end the path of one of the items in this room. The Acharaya handed the dagger back to Felix.


    He took it once again and slowly nodded, placing it on the large block at the center of the room, "I take it you aren''t going to walk me through this?"


    Our time is limited but the value gained from walking a path on your own is worth taking the time.


    "Fine."


    I will seal this realm as you work. It will open again in 10 days. The forge will remain functional so long as the realm is sealed.


    "Wait¡­ just 10 days? My Spirit Command and Aura took like¡­ two epochs in total. Can''t you give me more than a single dekad?"


    I could. Your enemy would escape by then.


    "Yeah but, surely not in two dekads?"


    Is this the final step you wish to take on your path within my realms?


    "No¡­ Alright, fine. See you in 10 days I guess."


    With that said, The Acharaya vanished as did the portal to enter the realm. As soon as it did, the forge activated. It didn''t heat up or glow or anything like that but rather, the entire room began to almost oppressively turn off.


    Felix quickly realized the room was made of some material, made of Anima, that resisted Anima, almost entirely.


    Looking at the dagger, he thought about where and how to start as he also just started trying anything. He tried smacking the dagger against the block that functioned as an anvil. He tried bending it, he tried moving it with his will power, he even tried placing it in his Core Soular System to see how it would react.


    He didn''t learn anything from that at all.


    Then, he decided to try something completely risky. The dagger was the strongest thing he had ever known. However, he wasn''t entirely certain about that because he had another material in his possession that was completely indestructible as far as he knew.


    Reaching back, Felix grabbed his Staff that he no longer thought about as it simply floated near him at all times. If it was ever further than that, he could simply reach for it and summon it from wherever it was. He carefully placed it down on the anvil then lowered the dagger towards a corner.


    His plan was to just see if it could scratch the surface, even just a little nick. He just wanted to know which was stronger and by how much.


    Felix never got to the point where he might damage his Staff though because instead, it did something completely against everything Felix knew about The Staff.


    As the dagger was lowered towards it, just before he actually made contact with it, The Staff of Arcane Wisdom projected out an image of the dagger into the air.


    It never just¡­ shows me things.


    Even when upgrading his Spells, The Staff showed him the result, but never the actual Spell form. The projection of the dagger though was a complete diagram and showed him things he didn''t even know about the dagger himself. It was its composition and structure in perfect detail.


    He quickly flipped things around, placing the dagger down on the anvil then lowering The Staff towards it to the same effect. Then, he zoomed in on the dagger and what he saw, wasn''t a material item made of Anima. It was a Spell form, or at least it looked like one.


    It was more Anima Spell than Mana Spell but it was also neither of them. It had the shape of the dagger, or rather the shape of tiny parts of it and the composition within the Anima.


    Using the projected blueprint, Felix began to mentally dissect it, breaking it down so he could understand it.


    As he did, he realized so many things about Spells and materials he didn''t know. He realized the enchantments he used to harden and soften materials were inefficient and formulated completely new variations on the spot. He realized how Mana and Anima played a part in all material objects as it broke down the leather of the handle.


    It was something he knew but not something he knew how. Now, he felt like a whole new world had opened up to him.


    The blade itself though, was the most interesting part and by far the most complicated part.


    Trying to dissect it felt impossible mostly because Felix didn''t know what any of the diagram did or meant. By the fifth day, he realized he wasn''t making any progress and he decided he needed a reference point. So, he took his Staff and reached towards one of the walls.


    His Staff seemed to agree because it let him reach through the wall by casting a spell he didn''t even know how to begin casting, allowing his arm to phase through the wall.


    With blueprints for a bracer, helm, gauntlet, arrow, pauldron, hatchet and a sickle, he had a much better idea of what the blueprints meant. He cross referenced common aspects between them and found parts that described the sharp edge. He found parts that described the durability and hardness, elasticity and rigidity.


    He put the objects other than the dagger back where they belonged once he was done with them then focused his full attention on the dagger''s blueprint which he somewhat understood.


    From there, he began looking for weakpoints and flaws in the design.


    He didn''t find any weak links at all.


    Instead, he was forced into trying to find a way to dismantle the dagger all at once. A way to destabilize the blueprint in its entirety.


    With just two days left, he began formulating a plan. He had no idea if it would work yet because he still didn''t see the connection between the blueprint, which resembled a Spell form, and the actual object he could hold. He understood the blueprint represented the object but he didn''t understand how the blueprint would let him dismantle the dagger just yet.


    He put his faith in the Staff though and just kept going.


    Then, on the last day in the sealed forge, Felix finally reached down towards the dagger and began destabilizing it.


    He very quickly saw the connection between the blueprint and the real item once he actually began working on it. The blueprint didn''t actually show its composition and how it was made but it was more like a diagram of how the materials and components, in the case of the dagger, Anima, interacted. It was a language to describe the object.


    In creating a plan against the blueprint, he was quickly able to identify where the blueprint corresponded to the real item.


    I''ve never even thought of trying to represent a physical object- or in this case Spirit object, with a Spell form¡­ I mean why would I? Now though¡­ I want to do this for everything.


    Slowly, over the course of his last day, the dagger began to glow. Then, it began to vibrate a little. Finally, it exploded.


    All of the Anima that made up the blade was released and it was a colossal amount. The Anima in the dagger was multiple orders of magnitude more than the sub System chunk. It was more Anima then Felix expected to find if he killed off all of Telviras and harvested their Souls. It was an absurd amount he wasn''t expecting at all, and didn''t have anything to do with it.


    As the time was running out before The Acharaya unsealed the forge, Felix quickly began sucking it all into his Soul Space where he just left it for the time being.


    His Soul still wasn''t strong enough just yet to incorporate any of the Anima but, based on his progress so far, he was hoping to get there soon.


    You have taken a step.


    "I know what step I want to take next."


    Wisdom often comes from walking the path.


    "Spirit Weaving. Teach me."


    This is not a step, this is a direction.


    "Spells specifically. I think I can figure everything else out myself."


    Your path here, in my realms, will end in 40 days. This is the step you wish to take?


    "Shit, Dragon is getting out? Yes. I need to be able to hurt it."


    This is a path many walk and yet you are joining this path further along than most people ever reach.


    "Is it possible? Despite the complexity then? In 40 days?"


    I am surprised you reached your destination in just 10 days, dismantling the work of the Qal''Dari.


    "So you don''t think so but I''ve surprised you before. Who are the Qal''Dari? You''re talking about the dagger?"


    Their path converged to create that which you call, The System.


    "Wait- WHAT? The race that created The System is called the Qal''Dari? And they created that dagger?"


    Both originate from their collective path.


    "What else can you tell me about them? Do they still exist, somewhere? Do you have any other relics from them? Books maybe?"


    I can tell you much as it is where Kerix and my path intertwined. Is this where your path leads now?


    "No." Felix gritted his teeth, "Dammit. Later. First, Spirit Weaving in Spells."


    I am not an expert in Spells so I cannot guide you down that path. You have an expert in Spells at your disposal however. What I can do, is begin you on the path.


    Felix looked over at his Staff that floated next to him and nodded, "The basics should be enough to get me started."


    What steps have you taken on this path?


    "Kerix told me that Spirit Weaving uses your Soul because a Concept by itself is not stable. A Concept of sharpness will break down in a sword because there are more than just sharp edges. There''s also the flat of the blade, the pommel, guard, handle and the material making up the weapon."


    Wisdom often comes from walking the path.


    "Moving my Soul out of my Soul though is not something my Soul likes though. I was hoping there would be another way?"


    There are many paths to most destinations.


    "Perfect. How do I do it."


    Your destination is confused with Kerix''s destination. A Concept is one aspect however it is a crutch, just as a Conviction and Curses are.


    "All of them are Crutches? Does that mean it''s possible to destroy a Curse?"


    Some paths very few walk. That does not mean it does not exist.


    "Huh¡­ You''re saying I don''t need my Soul to stabilize a Concept because I don''t need Concepts at all. Instead, I can just imbue Anima into a Spell and command it myself?"


    This is a path you may choose.


    "That seems too simple though."


    Often complexity lies beyond simplicity. You wisely seek the basics and they will let you take the first step.


    Felix left the forge as The Acharaya vanished once more and began casting a simple Spell, a Fire Bolt. This time, he imbued some Anima into the Spell and imposed his will power on the Anima to make the Spell curve a little to the side.


    He cast the Spell without The Staff and saw the effect was minimal. It was something he could do but didn''t see any point in doing. It was much more efficient and easier and less costly for him to simply modify the Spell form to curve the bolt. It didn''t even seem to do more damage as far as he could tell.


    Then, he cast it through the Staff and instead of curving, the Fire Bolt cork screwed through the air.


    This time, unlike every other time he had cast through The Staff, a Spell form appeared on top of it to cast the Fire Bolt. The Spell form was his Fire Bolt Spell form with a slight modification. Instead of loose Anima infused into the Spell, the Anima was contained loosely within the Spell form.


    Felix tried that and found it definitely worked better.


    Then, he cast through The Staff and this time, it showed him the same Mana Spell Form, with shaped Anima. The shape was a simple polyhedron.


    Once again, the Spell was even better.


    Then, the Spell form that appeared completely twisted Felix''s perception and made him feel quite stupid.


    Instead of just a Mana Spell form, the Spell form for the Fire Bolt contained a small Anima Spell form as well.


    Felix skipped a few steps and tried to craft a more complicated Anima Spell form but found it was much harder than he had anticipated to craft an Anima Spell free floating outside of his Soul. He gradually got the hang of it though and once he did, The Staff quickly ramped up the complexity until the Fire Bolt Mana Spell form and the Anima Spell form were equally as complex.


    Then, it twisted his perception again by weaving the two into one. It wasn''t a Mana Spell or an Anima Spell or a combination of the two. It was a Spell made of both, a distinct entity that couldn''t exist without both Anima and Mana spell forms.


    Felix had combined Mana and Anima Spells before, when he was creating the communication protocol between his Soul and Mark. That was an Anima Spell that activated an integrated Mana Spell, a form that could be distinctly split into Mana and Anima. This was a single weave that couldn''t be split at all as the Mana and Anima were completely intertwined and integrated into one form.


    It was like learning Spell craft for the first time except accelerated because he already knew so much about Mana Spells. He also knew the fundamentals and quite a bit about Anima Spells. Combining them and the way The Staff directed him to create Anima Spells was completely different though.


    Instead of creating an effect, the Spells worked the same way Mana Spells did. They used Anima as fuel and Attuned that to a specific desire. In the case of his Spells, that often mapped to Concepts, though not quite Concepts. What the Spells created were something else. It was like engineered Fire. It wasn''t unstable the way a Concept was but it was even more potent, especially once the complexity of the Spell form ramped up.


    It was like he had dissected a Concept and recreated it from scratch, creating each underlying component then targeting them specifically throughout his Spell. Not every part of it needed to be hot, such as the Force propelling the projectile so, a Concept would be wasted there. Felix''s version, as the Staff had taught him, was able to direct the components.


    The integration of Anima and Mana didn''t just empower the damage of his Spells either, they also allowed him to finally cast Spells he had only dreamed of casting before. He used dummies to test them as much as he could but he very quickly grew excited for using them for real, both on The Dragon and otherwise.


    The most important result of his learning Spirit Weaving though, was that Felix began to realize something he had been missing before with his Soul and Spirit Command.


    The blueprints of the Ry Mallus items, the Spirit Weaving in Spells dissecting and recreating a Concept from components, both of them were using the language of Spell Forms to describe or direct reality.


    A properly crafted Spell was the ultimate form of command, it was a command on the universe itself in its own language and Felix, was a Caster first and foremost.

 Chapter 248 - Book 21

    Through a combination of his Soul Garden to design Spell Forms and the endless white platform in Space to test them, Felix completely reworked each and every Spell he had ever used. After and in between, he also came up with entirely new Spells that incorporated everything he had learned.


    The only reason he didn''t keep going, was that he was interrupted.


    It is time.


    Felix cocked a brow in confusion as he turned to The Acharaya, "Time for Titan?"


    Only you will know when you are ready to take the final step, of the beginning.


    "Then¡­"


    Your enemy has taken the next step on their path, faster than we had expected.


    "Wait, The Dragon is out?"


    Yes.


    "I¡­ don''t want to fight it yet."


    Your hesitation is unexpected.


    "I just don''t want to fight it now. I still have so many ideas for Spells I want to make, I want to hit Titan, I want to upgrade my body using this new skill my Staff taught me. I want to be as strong as I can be first."


    Often, in waiting for the perfect time, we miss the best time.


    "Yeah but, can''t The Realm Warden deal with it? Or¡­ anyone else?"


    The Realm Warden is the only one capable and they must not. Can not.


    "What happens if I wait? It rampages through a bunch of Realms? Most of the Realms beyond that one are abandoned."


    Do not underestimate your enemy''s intelligence. Now that they have taken a step on this path, they are much better equipped to continue travelling it.


    "You mean they know how to move through the realms now¡­ So, it invades and wipes out Azura¡­ Is that all?"


    Felix y- Grim started in his mind.


    I''m not, I just need to know. Felix assured him.


    Often the path you believe to be the worst, is far from reality.


    "So¡­ more than that?"


    Your enemy, in reaching the end of the beginning, has begun to tear through the realms themselves. Should it take too many steps on this path, the realms will collapse and cease to exist.


    "Ah¡­ shit. I guess it would also make it here eventually, right? That would be too late I take it?"


    Yes.


    "How many realms before it all collapses? Also, what happens if it does collapse? Couldn''t you all just leave first?"


    That is a path we could take however, it does not lead where you might believe. Should these realms collapse, not only will every soul within them be lost, but much of the space containing this one would be as well.


    "Right¡­ universe collapse not good for the multiverse outside. Big explosion?"


    While not an explosion, much of the containing universe would be lost. Somewhere between 40 and 80%, depending on how The System manages the fallout.


    "Yeah alright, not ready to let the universe die just yet. Where is it now?"


    2084.


    "Can you get me to the 2100th?"


    Without moving in any way, The Acharaya opened a portal between the two of them, Once you step through and continue on your path, you will be unable to return here as I must seal this realm to prevent damage to those who remain here.


    Felix stepped towards it then stopped before entering, turning to the teacher, "Any last words of wisdom?"


    It is possible, I was overzealous in aiding your enemy.


    Felix snorted, completely thrown off by The Acharaya''s contrition, "Well, I obviously don''t love the idea of the realms collapsing but¡­ I''m glad you did." Then, he stepped through the portal into the mostly empty 2100th realm, the portal closing behind him as soon as he was through.


    As he was moving up through the realms towards The Dragon, Felix had begun to feel what was in the next realm on the ambient Anima.


    In the 1999th, Felix could feel The Dragon''s Aura leaking through the realm wall and he knew what he was up against in the 2000th. sea??h th§× ¦ÇovelFire.¦Çet website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    Felix felt the same thing in the 2100th except this time, it was stronger. As it tore through the realms and approached him, it continued to grow. The Aura was both bigger and stronger. It was chilling and exciting at the same time as it felt like an entirely new enemy.


    Having reached Titan, The Dragon was stronger in every way. Felix wasn''t sure he was strong enough to fight it at all but, there was no way he wasn''t going to try.


    Given the way it was tearing through the realms though, Felix didn''t have any way of escaping it. His Amulet wouldn''t bring him back to The Acharaya''s sealed realm and all the realms in between, would soon be one in the same.


    All in all though, Felix didn''t have any regrets. He would have liked to have spent more time working on his Spells, upgrading his body, learning and getting stronger but The Acharaya was right, he didn''t have the time. He couldn''t let The Dragon destroy the realms which would certainly kill his friends that were either inside or just outside, waiting for him, along with half the universe.


    There was still so much out there he had yet to see, yet to learn.


    Out of everything though, Felix just wished he could have reached Titan. He entered The Acharaya''s realms with that goal in mind and in a way, he had failed to reach it. He knew he would eventually get there but the fact that he hadn''t yet and The Dragon had, annoyed him. Especially since everyone told him he was so close.


    No matter what he did though, he didn''t know how to take that final step. He didn''t know if he was ready. He didn''t know how to get there. If he knew what he wanted to be, would it just happen? Based on everything he had managed to squeeze out of Kerix and The Acharaya, that''s how it seemed to be but Felix wanted something more concrete and actionable.


    He knew it would have something to do with Spells as every time he released his Aura, he saw hints of a Spell Form appearing within it. It having to do with a Spell made sense to him, it felt right. He also wasn''t quite there yet. His Aura wasn''t anything more than flashes and a feeling.


    As The Dragon''s Aura strengthened and grew in Felix''s realm, his excitement grew along with it. His Aura grew outwards and pushed back against The Dragon''s. He shifted his robes to have thinner fabric to maximize his mobility and surrounded himself with a Spell Shield. He gripped his Staff of Arcane Wisdom in his hand and began setting up a ritual on the ground around him.


    Solid threads of woven Anima and Mana raced around him in every direction, embedding themselves within the ground he had flattened in an instant with his Matter Control.


    A Spell Form consisting of Fractals that seemed to defy the two dimensional plane of the flat ground formed a ritual a kilometer in radius centered around Felix.


    Finally, he felt space around him shuddering as The Dragon tore through the 2098th realm, just one away from him, and Felix pulled up his Status Screen, updated and maintained by The Nucleus within him.


    Name:Felix Kade (The True Wizard)FREE0Innate:Ascendant Prodigy: Mana (Wizard)STR774,108Class:[C - Ancient] Reaper (Lvl 1,948)DEX4,789,791Race:[C - Ancient] Wanderer (Lvl 1,962)AGI1,559,034Profession:[C - Ancient] Lifebinder (Lvl 1,976)PER2,169,917Health:22B / 22BVIT2,189,847Mana:500B / 500BINT7,970,244Resistance:99.989%END1,898,210


    Sitting in an empty building that had been allocated to him against his will, a place Grim spent far more time in than he expected, Grim stared at a wall. He spent a lot of time in Felix''s Mental World but recently, he had been spending more time puppeting the body they had made for him.


    While the time dilation in the Mental World gave him more time than controlling his puppet, Grim wasn''t sure if time was what he needed most. He was somewhat lost and ever since arriving in The Acharaya''s domain, even before that, he had been questioning his reality and his position in the universe.


    Then, The Acharaya looked directly at him, or rather it felt like it somehow looked into him, even though his Soul was hidden deep within Felix''s. The Acharaya showed him the universe and it was something he knew, something he had seen before. Somehow, it was different when The Acharaya showed it to him.


    There was something more to the presentation than just the visual spectacle and whatever it was, it affected him deeply.


    Felix, being who he was, felt nothing. Grim didn''t know though if that was because Felix was sure of who he was and what his place was in the universe, or because of the rigidity and protective nature of his monster Soul.


    Grim didn''t have a Soul that seemed invincible and he wasn''t sure of who he was so for him, the presentation was far more meaningful.


    In the Mental World, Grim had read all the books Felix had scanned. He had consumed nearly all the information. That was what he was designed to do, hold and contain information, keep secrets and guard knowledge that shouldn''t ever be shared with anyone.


    There was no method of getting that information out, he wasn''t designed for that. For the longest time, that was his purpose.


    Now, whether a product of his experiences in a whole new universe or as a product of having his Soul bound to Felix''s which, inevitably changed him given the disparity in their strengths, he wasn''t sure if he was still attached to that same purpose.


    Everything he felt about who he was and what he wanted to do had been warped and now, instead of preserving and guarding the information he had, he wanted to gain more. He also didn''t feel as attached to guarding information but it was hard for him to abandon that notion entirely while he remained bound by the artificial convictions within him. They had loosened over time and his bond helped, but the Convictions remained and so did their influence.


    The reason he ended up spending increasingly more time every day outside of the Mental World, was that he wasn''t sure how Felix was influencing him and who he wanted to be. He also didn''t know whether or not the influence was a good thing.


    Standing there in his building, with complex enchantments adorning the walls, Grim didn''t expect anyone to interrupt him. The only interruptions he ever got were Mark and rarely Felix. Most of the time though, he passively paid attention to Felix''s mind and Mark''s reports. He was left pretty much entirely alone, if he wanted to be.


    You are near the end of your path and yet I sense the final steps remain anything but clear.


    Grim leapt back in alarm as a many armed being appeared in the room with him, "It''s you."


    What is your place in this universe?


    "If I keep following Felix, isn''t the question less about one universe?"


    The question need not be limited by or tied to anyone but you.


    "Without him¡­ I''m can''t just go visit another universe."


    And yet, that is a step you have already taken.


    "Not intentionally. My universe died, it collapsed. I don''t even know how I got out."


    You were there. Now you are here. How that step was taken is not relevant to the fact that you have already taken it.


    "It''s very relevant to whether or not I can take another step, in the same direction."


    Not in the way you believe it to be. Should you wish, you may abandon those you have traveled with thus far and forge your own path, across universes.


    "So I can do it? Or you mean metaphorically."


    The former. You are more than capable. You are simply lost.


    "I don''t even know if that''s what I want though. Where would I even be without him?"


    Where you would be had you taken a different step is a question a fool asks. Where you will be when you take the next step is the question everyone wishes to know.


    "How can anyone know anything then?"


    Where you are now is often the best guide.


    "Right now, I''m following Felix and I''m helping the Residents and I manage things in his Mental World."


    I sense you have recently overcome turmoil?


    "I realized I didn''t like his disregard for his Residents lives. And his own, I guess."


    Why?


    "I¡­ care about them. In a way, it feels like I raised them and him¡­ I care about him. He''s my friend and even if he doesn''t care about me, I care about him."


    Then the question of what steps you could take on your own, are not questions of your path.


    "But they''ll help me figure out who I am without him."


    That question does not guide your path. You have already claimed your path is intertwined with his. What path you could take without him, means nothing.


    "That makes the question so much more complicated because now I need to know what he''s going to do."


    No. Although your paths are intertwined, they may both lead to different destinations. The only effect this has, is to change the route you use to get there.


    "Yeah but I don''t know what that is. Where I''m going."


    Any step, is better than no step.


    "Even on the wrong path?"


    There are no wrong paths. Just different paths. Many of which, lead to the same destination.


    "I want to be more self sufficient. Felix gives me tools and a body but¡­ I have no experience¡­ using it."


    Then let''s take a step.


    Grim had the knowledge not only for The Dragon''s Dance of Death, but for many other techniques and abilities that were banned in his universe. He didn''t have full access to them because he was built to contain the information, not access it. With The Acharaya''s assistance though, he didn''t loosen his Convictions so much as find ways to slip beyond them, sometimes.


    Most importantly though, he came to a decision of who he wanted to be.


    Your path was already clear. Seeing the scale of the universe only showed you more of the same path.


    "Meow."


    Now, you must simply take the first step.


    "Meow meow, meow meow meow meow."


    Running down one''s path is not often advised as it often leads you astray.


    "Meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow."


    Yes, I did say that. Your path is one of the most clear so it is unlikely you will lose your way.


    "Meow meow meow meow?"


    I sense you must simply acclimate to the potential you have been gifted.


    "Meow meow meow meow."


    I will help you. First, you must decide what step you wish to take first.


    "Meow meow meow meow."


    While-


    "Meow meow meow."


    Yes, you are correct. Howe-


    "Meow. Meow. Meow."


    If you insist. The Acharaya didn''t sigh but even his robotic voice echoed a sense of exasperation into Nova''s mind. She didn''t mind though. She was getting what she wanted.


    The Acharaya opened a portal but before it even appeared, Nova was gone. He reappeared on the white disc beneath the endless expanse of the universe just outside one of the doorways and Nova, who was already there, instantly vanished and reappeared within the realm.


    He vanished and reappeared in the small black room as well where, Nova had just jumped onto the shapely block in the middle that acted as an anvil. It was a complicated shape that provided facets for all kinds of forging. It allowed a talented smith to create almost any shape by forging a material around it.


    The familiar took one looked at the table then reached down and took a bite out of the all black material. She seemed to be evaluating it for a moment then, she took another.


    Don''t-


    She had already consumed the entire top half of the table.


    At least leave a flat surface. Please.


    "Meow."


    Nova finished, completely flattening off the top of the table then looked at The Acharaya expectantly.


    He didn''t sigh, once again, as he floated over to the wall, sealed the realm, and began removing various items from the walls. There were entire sets of plate armor, swords, great-axes, tower shields, compound bows, pauldrons, gauntlets, bracers and a few dozen other items.


    As they were removed, they floated in the air before Nova and she looked at them, analyzing each and every one of them.


    Finally, she turned to The Acharaya, "Meow meow meow meow meow."


    You cannot si-


    "Meow meow meow."


    Yes but-


    "Meow meow meow meow meow."


    These are some of the greatest works of the ancient Qal''Dari Spirit Smiths, I cannot sim-


    "Meow meow meow."


    I cannot foretell a path u-


    "Meow. Meow meow."


    Yes, your path doe-


    "Meow meow meow."


    Yes, that is wha-


    "Meow, meow meow meow."


    The Acharaya finally sighed, audibly, Fine. You may not have all of them. You must leave at least a few.


    "Meow meow."


    3. Fine. I suspect the path you are bound to will lead into this room.


    Upon hearing that, Nova didn''t swallow all of the items. She swallowed most of them but left an entire 8 behind, which, The Acharaya thought was a miracle. He just wished she had left behind a pair instead of eating a single pauldron, gauntlet and bracer. Then, she vanished from the room and The Acharaya sensed her reappear in the cave she had dug deep beneath the ruins Felix''s Residents had reawakened.


    "He''s gone, isn''t he?" Grim asked.


    You are bound to his path. You are aware of the steps he takes.


    "Not in this case, not right now. The connection is fine because of whatever his Staff did to his mind but¡­ Sometimes, when he gets too focused or excited, his Soul kind of shuts things down. It''s not intentional, I know but¡­"


    A path bound is not the same as a path shared.


    "Meow."


    "Yes, he''s fighting The Dragon."


    "Meow? Meow meow me-"


    "No. Not this time."


    "Meow meow meow meo-"


    "I know." Grim looked over the new Nova and used his connection to Mark and The Nucleus to identify her.


    [Titan] Nova: Celestial of Matter and Space


    She was right, she would be able to help Felix against The Dragon. In some ways, she was stronger than he was. With the Ry Mallus claws and fangs she could definitely hurt it. With whatever unique material she had come up with to form her body now, along with the Ry Mallus streaks throughout her fur that shifted and moved across her body, she was much more durable than Felix was, "I think, that makes it worse for him though."


    "Meow. Meow meow meow meow."


    You are aware this is his path. This step, he must take alone.


    "Meow meow meow meow."


    "No, it doesn''t matter how much you want to fight it. This is something he has to do himself."


    "Meow meow meow."


    "Yes, I have. I know. This is different. I''m different. I''ve realized some things, changed."


    A path walked.


    "Yeah. I just hope Felix isn''t too disappointed when he realizes we both reached Titan when he didn''t¡­"


    Disappointment is not a step I believe he will take.


    "Yeah, you''re right. He''ll just be more motivated, excited he can read our experiences and try to learn from them."


    "Meow meow meow."


    Inspiration can help illuminate ones own path. It can also obscure it.


    "Yeah. I have faith. He''ll be fine." Grim looked over at Nova, "I''m still surprised you let her have all that Ry Mallus. Isn''t that stuff like¡­ super valuable?"


    The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.


    In speaking with the Souls that live within his mind, I have come to appreciate just how valuable they are. The Qal''Dari are no more. These may be some of the final relics of their kind, of their time. Those items are irreplaceable.


    "Right, so¡­ why let her have them? Surely another student or someone else could have used them in the future?"


    The Acharaya sighed audibly, once again.


    Felix was worried the anticipation of The Dragon arriving might be greater than the actual moment. That wasn''t the case.


    Right before his eyes, space was sundered as a beam of white and purple and blue death tore a rift in reality. The beam swept to the side and everywhere it traveled, the barrier between the realms burned away like paper. Beyond it, lay a wasteland of a hundred realms torn open.


    They weren''t just chained together, but being torn open the way they were, the realms tried to occupy the same space as each-other and when that didn''t work, entire mountains were launched into the air. Gravity was also failing, as that function of the realms was victim to The Dragon''s wanton destruction.


    The realm beneath Felix was much the same but it didn''t happen all at once, he found out. Instead, he felt the realms pushing against each-other. Like islands that were pushed together and in the middle, the two of them began to shatter.


    He couldn''t marvel at the destruction of the realms for more than a moment though as The Dragon immediately sensed him.


    It shot directly towards him without a moment''s hesitation and Felix waited patiently for a fraction of a second as it flew over the outer edge of his ritual. Then, he activated it.


    The ritual was already full of Mana so its effect was instant. The Dragon, that had been moving across the realm in a tiny fraction of a second, suddenly stopped. It wasn''t completely stationary though, just really slow. It struggled, slowly, against the effect with its Aura doing most of the work to try and eat away at the ritual. Felix''s Aura on the other hand, constantly repaired it as it was destroyed.


    The Dragon''s Aura, like Felix''s, wasn''t a Domain. At the same time, it was just as strong as Lea''s and so, evenly matched with Felix''s in strength. The Dragon''s though, was much larger and spread throughout the entire sundered realms, as far as Felix could tell.


    While slowed, with his Aura passively repairing the ritual beneath his feet, Felix gripped his Staff before him and channeled a Spell of 50 billion Mana through it.


    A Spell Form appeared around the Staff, not the Spell itself, but rather a part of it. The Spell form slowly grew to nearly a hundred meters wide before hovering out of the Staff, turning to the side, and racing towards The Dragon.


    The massive Blade shot towards The Dragon''s head and it wasn''t stupid. It might not have been able to interpret the Spell Form, but it knew enough to know it was bad. It struggled and pulled against Felix''s Ritual and on the outer edges of the realm, the ground began rise as if the planet itself was being lifted.


    Instead of producing the Force to resist The Dragon''s movements, Felix had simply tied all its movements to the realm itself. Instead of flapping its wings against the air to move its body, it had to flap its wings against the ground to move a large chunk of a planet.


    It quickly realized it was fruitless and its mouth was already agape from the massive roar it had thrown in Felix''s direction upon its arrival.


    The Spell Blade tore through the air between them as something much worse than simple Fire cascaded out of its throat.


    Wherever the white and purple and blue beam traveled, reality tore. Finally, it hit the ground and destroyed Felix''s Ritual, burning it just like everything else along with the reality barrier in the area.


    As soon as a small section of the ritual was burned away, The Dragon managed to break part of its body free and it shifted to the side as much as it could, causing the Spell Blade to sever its front leg just below the shoulder, instead of removing its head.


    The breath, as deadly as it was, tore through more than just the ritual and as The Dragon''s leg was severed, Felix activated his Blink to move himself free of the breath''s path but it didn''t do anything. He realized his mistake too late and panic cast an Instinct Force Burst, launching himself off to the side just in time to save his own life.


    Not all of him made it though as his left leg below the knee was gone. In its place, lay a burning stump that Felix couldn''t easily put out and even if he did, that wasn''t the worst problem anyways.


    He didn''t have time to sever the leg properly though as The Dragon was already moving towards him and he was forced to push himself out of the way, Space too torn where he was to Blink.


    Once he was out of the torn line in reality of The Dragon''s breath, he felt Space stabilize enough for him to Blink free of The Dragon''s Tail.


    Appearing far behind it, Felix decided to ignore his leg for the time being as it was burning slowly, due to his Mana Scales. His Spell Shield was already regenerating and though it couldn''t block The Dragon''s breath, it just might be enough for him to survive a physical attack.


    As The Dragon leapt off from the ground where Felix had been, he held out his Staff once again and poured Mana into it, causing the air to thicken and dark grey clouds to coalesce above him. The clouds expanded outwards as Felix dodged to the side of The Dragon with a Force Propel and redirected its body with a Spell Wall.


    It snapped at him and Felix moved his body from one place to another as reality seemed to almost lag behind him, a product of his new Spirit Command.


    Finally, the clouds had gathered into a storm big enough to cover the sky and then it began to hail massive ice spikes, propelled by more than just gravity. Each one was as tall as Felix was and dug into The Dragon''s body from above.


    Felix wasn''t immune to the effects either but his Spell Shield entirely mitigated them, redirecting the Pillars of Ice around him at the cost of some Mana.


    The ice was only doing slight damage to The Dragon but it couldn''t just block them and there were hundreds of them hitting it every second.


    Then, came the Lightning.


    The only warning it was coming, were flashes of light within the clouds above. The Dragon noticed them, Felix saw it realize what they were and either decide to ignore them, or realize it couldn''t do anything about them.


    The first Arcane Thundersnow Strike hit The Dragon on the wing and fulgurated a hole right through it.


    It roared in pain then swung its head around and used its breath to tear a rift into the 2101st realm before flying through to where the storm didn''t exist.


    Felix chased and severed the rest of his leg, removing the entire thing to slow the burning. It wasn''t enough though because The Dragon''s burning had somehow attached itself to his blood and traveled throughout his body nearly instantly, causing him to slowly burn from the inside out. It was slow though as the flames were weak and sparse so, he had time.


    He obviously couldn''t deal with the flames in his blood until the fight was done so, he resolved to end it quickly.


    The space between the realms was torn apart so Felix couldn''t Blink to pursue, instead, he fell backwards into an Aether Tunnel that used the Aether rather than Space itself to move.


    The Dragon instantly turned to face him and Felix shot towards it, daring it to approach.


    It met the challenge and raced towards him as well, certain it would win in a physical fight. Felix knew that though and as soon as it was close enough, he released hundreds of Spell Orbs in every direction before he dove down below The Dragon, avoiding its bite and claws.


    The orbs all moved into position around The Dragon, surrounding it in three concentric rings. Each orb then released a barrage of Arcane Spell Blades at The Dragon from all sides.


    It snapped its head back, saw it was surrounded, then used its breath to tear a hole in the realm barrier once again, diving through to the next realm to avoid getting hit.


    Felix reabsorbed the Mana and Anima from the orbs then continued chasing it down into the next Realm.


    It flicked its wings forwards and launched blades of air towards Felix who dashed to the side then released a Spell Form in the shape of a crescent moon that shot out past The Dragon.


    The Dragon ignored the missed Spell and snapped at Felix who dashed to the side then cast another. It clawed at him and he was forced to Blink then, he cast another crescent moon.


    By the time Felix had cast 4 of them, The Dragon finally realized he hadn''t missed at all as the Arcane Crescent Blades whipped back around and sliced along the side of its body. They didn''t cut deep but the four of them zipped through the air around it rapidly, carving shallow cuts all up and down its body.


    The Titan snapped at them but they were too fast and it was clearly hesitant to let one into its mouth, trying to only get them between its teeth. As it did, Felix cast a few more and the pressure on The Dragon increased until it finally gave up.


    Using its breath to tear a rift, The Dragon crawled into another realm to avoid the blades. Felix immediately moved to follow but looking through the rift it had opened, there was no realm on the other side. He quickly created a Seeing Eye Construct from Spell Forms alone and tossed it in but it didn''t see The Dragon anywhere.


    Felix looked around for a moment and tried to follow its Aura but it was completely uniform in every direction.


    Every second he looked around, Felix could feel his body burning up. His entire circulatory system was gone and the flames were accelerating their way through his muscles and skeleton. No matter how hard he tried to manually repair his body, he couldn''t keep up. The Blood Ring might have been able to but his manual attention alone, wasn''t enough.


    He knew how to fix it, it just involved removing and replacing individual parts of his body one by one until the entire thing was replaced but the issue was that, that took time.


    He almost committed to start replacing his body but then, a beam of white and purple and blue tore through reality right next to him.


    Felix Blinked to the side to avoid it just barely in time and looking back to see where The Dragon was, he just saw a tunnel through the realm that had torn through a dozen realms in either direction. A thick line that traced a path through the realms, the echo of The Dragon''s breath, slowly burned outward.


    A few more Arcane Seeing Eye Constructs poured through the rift but The Dragon was no where to be found.


    Then, another beam of white and purple and blue tore through reality next to Felix, this one almost perpendicular to the last.


    Felix managed to shove himself out of the way with an Instinct Force Propel because he was expecting it and he also managed to spot The Dragon, crawling between the realms.


    While Felix was burning, The Dragon was bleeding out and slowly detaching itself from Space, the same way Felix couldn''t Blink more than 5 times in a minute or so. That meant, it was just a battle of attrition. Either Felix burned from the inside out or The Dragon fell out of reality.


    Felix didn''t have enough experience to know which would actually happen first but The Dragon was clearly betting on Felix burning up first. With its breath distracting him, Felix didn''t have time to slow the burning down or even think about replacing his body on the spot.


    Though he may not have liked the idea of a battle of attrition and thought it was lame, Felix couldn''t fault The Dragon because it was definitely a smart move. It was also not something The Dragon ever would have thought of in their first fights.


    Since chasing it between realms was more annoying then it was worth, Felix decided to take a different approach. Opening an Aether Tunnel to the Iridescent Bubble in the realm, Felix immediately jumped through a rift into the next, ultimately moving him a half dozen realms ahead of The Dragon.


    There, he began to assess the damage to his body while The Dragon slowly crawled its way back into the realms and tracked him down.


    The flames had attached themselves to his blood when he was hit and was almost instantly transported throughout his body. Then, they began to burn away at his blood vessels then, everything beyond them.


    It hadn''t gotten much further than his circulatory system though but, the flames were accelerating.


    Starting with his missing leg, Felix first tried to find a way to isolate his leg from the rest of his body so it didn''t burn, while he kept it attached to him. In the second or so he spent on it, the best he managed to do was slow it down by extending his Mana Scales into his body.


    Since he couldn''t stop it though, he wasn''t ready to spend the time and energy to regenerate his leg, since it would just be burned away eventually anyways. Instead, he quickly threw together a leg made of Mana to replace his. He didn''t need his leg to kick or walk or jump since he could fly at will with his Matter Control. His replacement leg though wasn''t just a prop, on the inside, it connected to his circulatory system and began trying to wash out the flames from The Dragon''s breath.


    It was a slow process and caused him to pour burning Mana out the bottom of his new foot slightly faster than he was regenerating Mana but it was better than burning alive.


    Once it was done, Felix dove down to the ground and began weaving a new ritual into the land. This one, instead of a large circle, looked like thousands of smaller rituals all connected together and arranged in a pattern. They weren''t all the same but, there was a pattern to their layout.


    The ritual was technically infinite but Felix only managed to spread it out a few hundred meters in every direction by the time The Dragon finally pulled itself through the realm barrier and launched itself towards him.


    Felix used an Aether Tunnel to move himself high up into the sky causing The Dragon to veer upwards then around the ritual, not wanting to be slowed again.


    It was a different ritual this time though and The Dragon didn''t need to be anywhere near it. As soon as it was within a hundred meters or so, the ritual activated and stone javelins began to grow out of the ground before being launched into it from below.


    The Dragon roared in pain and immediately released its breath, just blue and purple this time, weaker, so it didn''t tear through the realm barrier.


    The breath ripped through the ritual but the ritual wasn''t tied together. The rest of the ritual just kept pelting The Dragon''s underside with javelins of compressed stone from the ground beneath.


    While The Dragon was occupied, Felix released the orbs he had previously absorbed all throughout the sky around them.


    Before it had even finished dealing with the ritual on the ground, the orbs each began drawing in Mana from around them. Once one was charged up, a Arcane Spell Blade in the shape of a crescent moon was released. Each one of the Arcane Spell Blades orbited around The Dragon rapidly, diving in occasionally to slice through its flesh.


    It roared once again before curling up into a ball and wrapping itself in its wings.


    Felix had experience with that move so he immediately used an Aether Tunnel to move all the way to a rift he knew of in the realm which brought him to the 2189th, 10 realms away.


    Tapping into the senses of a Seeing Eye Spell Construct he had left behind, Felix saw The Dragon glowing a slight white as he began constructing another ritual around him.


    The white glow continued to grow as the Arcane Spell Blades dug tiny gashes into its wings from the outside. Then, it began to burn the air around it, making it looked like The Dragon itself was on fire, like a star. Behind it, the Arcane Thundersnow Storm grew towards it in the sky, spreading out in every direction.


    The Dragon was stuck because of how much time it had spent outside of the realms, trying to wait out Felix burning from the inside out. It couldn''t tear through too many more realms because the more time it spent in broken space, the more detached it became. It seemed to know it too which was why it wasn''t trying to run away.


    Once the entire outside of The Dragon was engulfed in white flame, the Arcane Spell Blades began to burn up when they approached.


    It kept going though, the flames growing and arcing out of its body through the air. They weren''t targeted and arced out randomly but every once in a while, one of them hit and destroyed one of the Spell Orbs around him.


    That wasn''t The Dragon''s goal though and just a few seconds past before it finally released the energy it had been building up.


    Felix''s Seeing Eye Spell Construct was immediately destroyed, along with everything else in the realm, he presumed. Back in his own body though, he realized he didn''t need the Seeing Eye Spell Construct at all as he felt the blast obliterating the realms between The Dragon and him.


    Realizing he wasn''t far enough away, Felix checked his Spell Shield to make sure it was solid then prepared the only Spell he could think of to survive the blast.


    Timing the blast wasn''t as difficult as he had imagined as even though the blast was moving absurdly fast, it had to travel through entire realms and each one, he felt.


    When the realm adjacent Felix''s was finally hit, he opened an Aether Tunnel and stepped inside, closing it behind him.


    The Aether Tunnel didn''t lead anywhere though and simply formed a pocket in the Aether where he remained for a few moments before reopening it and returning to reality.


    Back in the realm, Felix wasn''t sure what to make of what he saw.


    The blast had completely torn through hundreds of realm barriers and while most of the land had been turned to dust from the blast, the rest of it was fighting to occupy the same space. The connected and sundered realms were no longer recognizable in the slightest and it looked to Felix like the Eternal Storm realm where he had met Nura. The only difference, was that instead of a storm with chunks of land floating around, it was a massive cloud of dust with entire mountains flying fast enough to ignite as they tore through the atmosphere all with a backdrop of undefined space in every direction.


    The Arcane Thundersnow Storm along with all of his other Spells were gone so Felix had no idea where The Dragon was.


    Through his Staff, he created a swarm of Seeing Eye Spell Constructs that were just as small as the physical Constructs except they were blue and white, from the Mana and Anima that formed their Spell Form.


    They spread out in every direction and mapped out the surroundings. Most of them were destroyed, due to the mountains and bedrock the size of sky scrapers flying around, but Felix kept creating them, the swarm continuing to pour out of his Staff as they spread out in every direction. Even more of them were lost to the undefined space but those helped him map out where he shouldn''t go.


    Finally, he found The Dragon, spinning around while flapping its wings to create a wind storm to clear the dust and push away any giant flying rocks.


    It had already cleared out a few kilometer area by the time it noticed Felix''s Seeing Eye Construct and stopped to breath a blue and purple beam to destroy it. More Constructs poured in from every direction to replace the first and The Dragon desperately destroyed each one by swinging its head around in every direction.


    While it was occupied, the wind storm began to die down and once it was safe enough, Felix opened an Aether Tunnel under The Dragon where he released another Spell Blade like the one that had severed The Dragon''s front leg.


    The Dragon screeched when it saw the Spell and turned its breath downwards to destroy it.


    While it was distracted with that, Felix dove back into the dust around them and began casting a different Spell Orb.


    The Titan pursued, flying into the dust where Felix had disappeared and using its wings to clear out the area but Felix was already moving.


    Whether through its Aura or smell or some other sense, The Dragon continued to pinpoint Felix almost perfectly and chase him down.


    Within the dust, Felix was forced to replace his other leg and his left arm with Mana Constructs as even though the leg was working, it wasn''t working fast enough and the dust all around him, carried even more flame. It was also too far from his upper torso to be effective there.


    The filtering limbs ended up draining his Mana Pool far faster than he could regenerate it meaning he needed to end the fight within the next minute or so. Any more limbs and he was worried he wouldn''t have enough time or Mana to finish things and any less and he was worried he would lose the rest of his body.


    So, Felix zipped through the dust, avoiding The Dragon as he hid Spell Orbs all over the place. They didn''t stay stationary and instead, they each flew into the storm on their own.


    It didn''t take long for The Dragon to realize what was happening and swing its head around with its weaker breath to try and destroy them. It wasn''t very accurate because it couldn''t see them but it wasn''t missing them all either.


    I need to distract it.


    Throwing his Staff out into the dust, Felix flew by himself into the center of the cleared area and, as he had hoped, The Dragon followed.


    Without his Staff, Felix had to rely on his own Instinct Casts and physical movements, enhanced by Spirit Command.


    The Dragon thrust its head forwards and snapped at him as he used a Force Propel to push himself aside, just barely in time. It then swung its head to the side, smacking Felix''s Spell Shield and sending him careening off to the side.


    He caught himself quickly as The Dragon swung its body around to whip him with its tail. The tail flicked against his Spell Shield and sent him flying, cracking the top of it from the force of the blow. Felix''s Aura began to repair the Spell Shield his Staff had cast but it wasn''t instantaneous and in the mean time, The Dragon shot a beam of blue and purple at him as it closed the distance.


    The space around them was too unstable for Felix to Blink so he was forced to just push his body, completely losing control of himself and his trajectory.


    The Dragon then landed on a flying chunk of ground and spun its body around, launching the chunk towards Felix then hitting it with its breath to turn it into a spray of flaming shrapnel.


    The shrapnel was everywhere and Felix had no way to dodge it at the moment as an Aether Tunnel or Aether pocket was too slow to dodge all of it. The flaming shrapnel dug into his Spell Shield, each one producing a new spider web of cracks until finally, they started to penetrate both the Shield, and his body behind it.


    Shrapnel tore through his shoulder, arm, stomach and dug into his chest without making it all the way through. Felix immediately ejected the shrapnel with his Matter Control then finally slipped into an Aether Pocket for just long enough for the rest of the shrapnel to pass.


    The biggest issue wasn''t the holes in his body but rather the flames which were from The Dragon''s breath and only accelerated the burning of his body. Now, not only was his body burning from the inside out, but it was also burning from the outside and throughout a bunch of holes.


    Wherever the shrapnel pierced his replaced Mana limbs, he was largely unaffected because all he had to do, was eject the burning Mana and replace it.


    Other than the fear of it not working, the only other reason Felix hadn''t replaced his body before and the reason he hesitated to replace the rest of it before returning from the Aether, was his mind. His Mind, which was a Mana Computer, was still located in his head. There was no real reason it had to be there other than the fact that it was still connected to his body and all of its senses.


    His spinal cord still connected his mind to his body and flesh. His eyes, nose, mouth and ears were still all connected as well meaning, if he moved it and replaced them, he would lose access to those senses unless he found another way to replace them.


    No miraculous solution came to him in the moment but, he didn''t think he had any other option so, he disconnected his mind and pulled it into his Soul Space then, tossed it into his Core Soular System.


    He still had his Matter, Mana and Anima senses active which was enough to move him back into the realm where, he felt The Dragon racing towards him with its mouth agape.


    Moving his Mana hand outwards to the side, Felix pulled his body out of the way and just as he did, he felt exactly what he had been waiting for in his Core Soul.


    The Dragon reached Felix just as his Staff reappeared in his Mana Hand and snapped its jaw shut, filling it with its breath to destroy his body on the spot.


    The Mana hand holding The Staff of Arcane Wisdom that had managed to escape The Dragon''s bite soared away from The Dragon as the Staff filled with half of his total Mana Pool. The arcane blue and white lines throughout the wood of the staff multiplied until the entire staff glowed white and blue.


    Then, a Lightning Bolt connected the Staff to The Dragon in an instant.


    The Lightning then forked and shot out of The Dragon into the dust around them. Then, four more Lightning Bolts appeared from all over the dust and arced into The Dragon. More and more arcs of Lightning appeared from all around them, forming a three dimensional web of Chain Lightning that kept growing and, had Felix had eyes, would have been completely blinding.


    Though he didn''t hear it, Felix felt the Dragon''s stuttering and seizing roar vibrate the air around him as, from the Mana hand holding his Staff, the rest of his body began to reform.


    There was no notification, as there was no System. There were no streams of white and crimson, as he had no Devourer rings. All there was, was The Dragon''s corpse.


    Felix raced over and grabbed the body which, was too big for his Soul Space, by a lot so, he simply carried it along with him, using a Force Spell to suspend it.


    Lifting his Staff high into the air, Spell Orbs began to spiral out of the head of the Staff in every direction. Each one, flying deep into the dust then slowing and stabilizing all the flying debris before sucking up and disposing of the dust itself.


    Over the course of a few minutes, the dust vanished and the sky stilled as Mountains went from comets to slowly drifting islands.


    Once enough of it had been cleared, Felix identified the realms based on the land masses flying around him then located an Iridescent Bubble that led onward.


    There, he realized the realm was slowly degrading as the force of the collapsed realms behind him were eating into each realm progressively meaning, although he had killed The Dragon, the realms were still collapsing, albeit slowly.


    He moved from bubble to bubble directly with Aether Tunnels massive enough to move The Dragon until he finally arrived in the 2498th realm, the one before Azura.


    Though many people in the realms had seen, stared, watched, yelled, screamed and tried to attack Felix, he had mostly ignored them.


    In the 2498th though, there were guards at the bubble along with a line, just like the last time he had been there. This time, he didn''t even bother speaking with anyone and with a simple thought, opened an Aether Tunnel and shoved everyone near the bubble through it.


    He then turned the structure around the bubble, intended to direct traffic, to dust with his Matter Control before touching the bubble and moving him and his prize into Azura. There, he used another Aether Tunnel to move to the bubble in the center of the Realm, above the city.


    With no guards around the exit, Felix touched the bubble but, nothing happened.


    He tapped it a few more times with his finger, made entirely of Mana, before tapping it with his Staff to see if that could break through.


    Something was happening, he could feel through his bond with the Staff but before it actually did anything, he vanished and reappeared on the infinite white platform beneath the stars above.


    You have conquered your enemy and taken another step.


    Felix dropped the corpse off to the side and nodded to The Acharaya, "I''ve been holding back. Afraid or just unsure¡­ I don''t really know. I could have done-" Felix gestured to his body, "-this a so much sooner. I don''t know why I hesitated."


    Some steps are harder to take than others. Steps of great change, are likely candidates.


    "I''m just glad I finally got there." Felix took a breath out of habit which, did nothing, "What now? You said this is the end of the beginning?"


    You have taken another step on your path. Behind you, lies your path and ahead of you, your path. You have not, however, reached the end of the beginning, of your path.


    "What? What do you mean?" Felix looked down at his entirely Mana body, suffused with his Soul and surrounded in his Mana Scales.


    Somehow, you stood on the precipice, at the edge of a cliff. You have taken a step and yet, you do not fall.


    "What, like a cartoon? I stepped off the cliff and didn''t fall so I''m just floating there?"


    This analogy is not perfect however, this seems to be the case. You are closer and yet, it seemed impossible for that to be the case as you were already as close as anyone has ever gotten.


    Felix grumbled and reached inwards for confirmation from The Nucleus. As soon as he did, he felt a pull on multiple of his bonds and Nova suddenly appeared before him. She stared up at him excitedly then froze, vanished, then reappeared, this time with Grim in tow.


    "You did it." Grim said.


    Felix nodded, "Yeah. I killed that thing but apparently, I didn''t actually reach Titan."


    Grim winced, "Yeah¡­ I can tell."


    Felix looked him up and down then Nova, who was crawling all over his body and face, "You both reached Titan and somehow, you did the same with your puppet? And I still can''t figure it out?"


    A chuckle sounded out from behind The Acharaya as Kerix landed next to him, "You''ll get there. You are closer, if that helps."


    "Not really." Felix grumbled.


    As soon as she had finished expressing her excitement and relief and annoyance to Felix, Nova noticed the corpse next to him and leapt towards it. She landed on top then hesitated and looked over at him.


    "Not yet. There''s something I need to check first. You can have it once I''m done though."


    This step you take, you may wish to-


    "Hurry up." Kerix cut in.


    "Why?" Felix looked at them.


    Though the realms are collapsing slowly, the time difference here means slowly is not quite as slow as you might be expecting.


    "Can''t The Realm Warden fix things now?"


    I suspect if that were something in their power, they would have begun to do so by now.


    "So we gotta leave then?"


    That is the smart step. Given you are a native, you should leave first to ensure our exit.


    Felix nodded, "Alright, I''ll just deal with this first. I''ll be fast."


    "Before you leave, you might want to do something about your¡­" Kerix looked him up and down looking for the words.


    "You''re blue." Grim finished.


    "And bald." Kerix shrugged.


    "Oh. Whoops." With a thought, Felix recreated hair and shifted the color of the Mana forming his body to match how he had looked before then, repaired his robes which were burnt and damaged, singed all over.


    Finally, he took The Dragon''s Soul and instead of implanting a Resident''s Soul, which wouldn''t be able to fight it for control at all, he reached into the body and Soul of The Dragon with his own Soul.


    Then, he began to watch its memories.


    He saw them in reverse order, fighting Felix, training with The Acharaya, fighting Felix many times, fighting Felix once, killing off a bunch of realm natives that dared to approach it, fighting Kerix. Those memories were ones he knew about so he skipped through them quickly.


    What he was looking for, was everything before that and maybe even, the name of whoever had created The Dragon, based on its identification.


    He saw The Dragon find a shimmering bubble on a planet before flying through. On the other side, it flew over a small patch of jungle before spotting the surface of a large bubble and flying through it, ending up in the 2000th realm which, it promptly decimated.


    Before that, it was sent into a universe with no real goal, traveling through undefined space along with other Dragons before finally ending up in Felix''s universe, where it found The Realms.


    The only memory Felix could find before that, was one where The Dragon was small and young. It lay on someone''s lap and they pet it but, it''s eyes weren''t open and it wasn''t looking at them. The only thing Felix could sense from the memory, was their Aura which was clearly toned down and altered, to be warm and comforting to The Dragon.


    Beneath that, he couldn''t really feel anything because The Dragon didn''t feel anything other than warmth and comfort.


    Felix searched around a little more before finally giving up and tearing out The Dragon''s Core Soul. The rest of its Soul remained within the body as it was a Titan but, the Core Soul, along with the chunk of its body it was bound to, Felix consumed for himself.


    The rest, he gave Nova permission to consume.


    "How do I leave?" Felix looked up at The Acharaya with his useless eyes.


    In response, a doorway appeared behind Felix and he turned without hesitation and stepped through. Grim and his Residents could follow him on their own and didn''t need him to taxi them, what they all needed was for him to ensure they could all leave without causing a mass panic.


    As strong as he was, Felix still wanted to remain stealthy as long as he could because if people knew, it would only make it harder for him to do everything.


    The other side of the doorway though, was not what Felix expected.


    He didn''t arrive back in the bubble that surrounded the realm where he had fought Lilian The Twisted Trinity. Instead, he found himself in a completely empty space. There was a floor below him but it was like the floor was somehow made of space itself. It was distinctly different from the realm he had left where he knew there were stars above so, he created Seeing Eye Spell Constructs that he used to replace his senses.


    All around him, was completely uniform white. Nothing.


    "Hello?"


    "Congratulations on being the first to ascend in nearly an eternity."


    Felix spun around to face the small triangular pyramid that floated in the air near him, "Where am I? I thought there were only 2520 realms?"


    "This is not a realm." The triangular pyramid began unfolding itself into something that looked like a head with no features and an elongated skull.


    Felix nodded, his theory confirmed, "You''re The Realm Warden."


    "And you, have not quite ascended."


    "I''m working on it." Felix grumbled.


    "In doing so, my realms are collapsing."


    "Yeah, sorry about that. Wasn''t exactly my idea though, to train The Dragon to Titan so it could escape."


    "It would have happened eventually."


    "Why am I here? Can I leave?"


    "This Ladder of Ascension was initially created to provide a safe and structured way for young Qal''Dari to progress and grow."


    "Those guys again, the race that created The System?"


    "Yes, The System alongside the Ladder and The Archives."


    "Archives? Like a library?"


    "No."


    "Oh." Felix nodded slowly, "The realms collapsing, how urgent is that?"


    "I have slowed them as much as I can. Perceptually, you may remain here for an hour safely."


    "Okay, perfect. Tell me about them, Archives, Ladder, System. How did they do all that? Do they still exist?"


    "You may either, question me for an hour or, I can answer your questions as you please."


    "Uh, didn''t you just say we only have an hour?"


    "When that beast first appeared, I was only made aware of it when it entered the Ladder. I didn''t have more than a moment to react and the only way to prevent it from destroying everything, was to contain it."


    "So you combined whatever realms you could and basically sealed them? Shoved it inside?"


    "Yes. I gathered nearby realms and the weakest ones that could support it, were the 2000s. The structure of the ladder places alternate realms near each-other and so, all the 2000th realm alternates were merged to contain it."


    "Okay, what does this have to do with anything?"


    "The realms are collapsing, slowly. The only way for me to stop it, is to contain the destruction."


    "So you need to combine a bunch of realms again? Great?"


    "Yes. I will need to combine all realms from 2000 to 2500."


    "What happens to all the extra land though? It''s all colliding right now."


    "I can simply relocate it. This is not the issue."


    "What is the issue?"


    "The destabilization of the realms here have caused enough ripples to destabilize our attachment to the universe."


    "You need me to reconnect you to the outside universe? How do I do that?"


    "I do not know how that can be done. You would have to find and ask Qal''Dari Universe Engineers."


    "So¡­ what? The Ladder is doomed?"


    "Though I do not know how to stabilize the connection from the Ladder to the universe beyond, there is another way. We can replace the connection from the universe, to something else."


    "Like a crystal or something?"


    "No material object is strong enough to bind the Ladder."


    Felix''s eyes widened as he realized what it was asking him, "Why not Kerix? The Acharaya? They''re Titans."


    "And yet, your Soul remains more rigid and unmoving. Ideal for the binding."


    He hesitated for just a fraction of a second before nodding, "Okay, what do you need me to do?"


    "Simply place me, within your Core Soul."


    Felix reached forwards as The Realm Warden folded back down into its triangular pyramid shape and pulled it into his Soul Space and into his Core Soul. As soon as he did, the empty white space around him vanished.

 Chapter 249 - Book 22

    Two things happened as Felix pulled the Realm Warden into his Core Soul, the white space around him along with the entirety of The Ladder of Ascension vanished and, Felix felt an immense burst of pain. That pain lasted for just a fraction of a second though as his Staff reconfigured the Mana Core in his Core Soul to somehow apply enough pressure to contain The Realm Warden.


    As the pain faded, Felix regained awareness of his surroundings and realized that only the inner bubble had vanished, leaving the small city Lilian had attempted to rule over, in tact. Especially after fighting The Dragon who tore through Space constantly, Felix immediately realized the containing bubble was in the process of collapsing. It was a feeling he had through his Matter Senses and trained instincts for Space so, not something anyone else would notice just yet.


    Due to the pain, and because Felix was still new to his Mana Body, his Soul had instinctively drawn himself inwards into a ball of Mana surrounding his Core Soul. That pain also scared his familiar, who began harassing Felix to let her out, assuming he was being attacked in some way.


    Realizing both of these things, Felix got an idea and began shifting his body. At the same time, he had Nova shift into a ball as well before dropping her at his feet.


    In a fraction of a second, Felix shifted his body from a ball of Mana, causing it to grow bigger and bigger until finally, it popped to reveal the body of his Persona, Arthur, beneath. Felix modified the appearance of his Persona to be stronger and denser, for his flesh to be made from small greyish scales, for his eyes to glow slightly red and for two large horns to sprout from his head.


    Beneath him, Nova was also transforming and her transformation, was much scarier for everyone else in the realm.


    Based on the body of The Dragon Titan she had just consumed recently, Nova transformed into a massive Dragon. The only difference between her and it, were the lack of Aura, and she was dark grey with a light grey scar across her chest.


    For the Aura, though Felix couldn''t perfectly match The Dragon''s Aura, he could simulate it and no one outside of The Realms, would know the difference anyways.


    Lastly, he moved his Staff into his Soul Space and pulled out Eretheas which, looked and felt a little different in Felix''s hand. It was less of a green blue and more of a dark and rich azure color, more importantly though, it felt more aligned and attached to Felix.


    He suspected that had happened a while ago, he just hadn''t used the axe in a while.


    Ding You have manually-


    Ding You have manually-


    Ding You have manually-


    Huh? Did those just stop themselves?


    I''m preventing them for the time being. The Nucleus answered immediately.


    Ah, thanks.


    Looking around, the city was similar to how he had left it. There were buildings and trees, a floating palace and people standing around where the bubble had been. Even accounting for the bubble though, that constant crowd that stood around the Ladder were much further back than he remembered except, for a pair of identical women.


    [C - Arcane] Lillian The Twisted Trinity (Lvl 1997)


    [C - Arcane] Lillian The Twisted Trinity (Lvl 1997)


    Detonation Lilian had been completely restored, after having destroyed half her body to propel herself towards Felix, likely by Healing Lilian next to her.


    Looking at them, both Lilian''s rage seemed just as hot as when he had left and seeing him, reignited it in the both of them.


    Unfortunately for the Lilian''s though, they weren''t nearly strong enough to not be crushed by Felix''s simulated Dragon''s Aura.


    Both Lilians, along with everyone else around them, collapsed. Not just to their knees either, but all the way until their chests slammed into the ground.


    Realizing a number of them were about to die, Felix patted Nova on the neck and lightened up on the Aura himself until he was certain everyone he could sense would live. That was enough for the Lilian''s to get to their feet, as they were quite a bit stronger than even the weakest amongst the outer realm.


    The Lilian''s weren''t so stupid that they didn''t hesitate, seeing Arthur and the massive Dragon beneath him and feeling his Aura completely disable them but, they were apparently stupid enough to still charge towards him.


    Detonation Lilian created an explosion behind her to launch herself towards Felix and his familiar while Healing Lilian, who seemed more hesitant, steeled her will and cast some kind of support spell on Detonation Lilian.


    Felix really didn''t want to accidentally level a thousand times as The System caught up to his current power level so, he didn''t kill them. Instead, he had Nova take a step forwards and swallow Detonation Lilian then a couple more steps forwards to swallow Healing Lilian, storing them safely inside of her for the time being.


    To everyone else in the crowd though, they were dead.


    Seeing the strongest person in the outer realm, the one who had ruled over and oppressed everyone for so long, die in an instant, faster than most of them could follow, was more than enough for the screaming to start.


    Felix, where are you? You see what''s happening right? We have to get out of here, now!


    Hearing Melody''s voice in his head, through Mark and the nodes he had left with them, was a bit of a wake up call for Felix and he immediately looked around for her, Peace and Cobalt.


    All of them were together, apparently waiting for him, just off to the side from Lilian.


    Felix, along with Nova''s massive Dragon head, immediately turned to them, causing Cobalt to literally jump. Felix could sense Melody''s heart skip a beat slightly but she wasn''t as nervous as Cobalt. Peace, was at peace for whatever reason.


    At Felix''s command, Nova raced over and swallowed all three of them whole then stomped through the realm, crashing through buildings like they were made of cards and crushing trees as if they were blades of grass.


    She swung her head around and Felix created a Spell within her mouth to simulate The Dragon''s breath but he made sure she didn''t look at anyone in specific so he didn''t kill anyone.


    Then, after igniting the majority of the outer realm, Nova roared, empowered by a Spell, then leapt off the ground and soared directly upwards and out of the realm.


    Passing through the outer realm bubble, Felix had no idea where they were. They weren''t on the planet he had entered the outer realm from but rather, inside of some kind of completely rocky, barren planet that was made almost entirely of dense metals.


    While it would have been trivial for Nova to bore through the metal, they didn''t know how thick it was so, Felix didn''t bother. Instead, he opened an Aether Tunnel to a planet he was pretty sure remained abandoned.


    Nova stepped through the massive tunnel and Felix hopped off her back, clearing out the snow around them with his Matter Control so no one sank through it. Then, he had Nova spit Melody, Peace, Cobalt and both Lilians back out before letting her revert to her cat form and he, reverted to his normal body.


    Lilian was the first to react and her rage was tainted with quite a bit of confusion at that point.


    Felix didn''t bother letting her figure anything out though and faster than she could react, slapped the both of them on the shoulder, pulling them into The Ladder of Ascension so he didn''t have to kill them.


    "You''re¡­" Cobalt started.


    With a wide smile, Peace stepped forwards and grabbed Felix, pulling him into a big hug.


    Felix looked at him with confusion but only Melody and Cobalt saw the glance and the two of them were far too distracted to react.


    Pulling back out of the hug, after much longer than Felix expected, Peace clapped him on the shoulder, "I don''t know how long its been for you but, for me its been a long time." Peace looked him up and down, "Judging from¡­ all this, I''m guessing its probably been just as long for you."


    "It''s been a while." Felix confirmed with a nod.


    Peace''s smile shifted slightly into a smirk, "So, The Dragon?"


    Felix sighed, "I fought that stupid thing¡­ a few thousand times in total I think?"


    Peace laughed heartily, "Of course you did. You managed to kill it though, didn''t you? That''s what Nova was showing off?"


    "Yeah. Eventually. That stupid thing almost took the whole Ladder with it."


    "The what?" Cobalt cut in.


    "Ladder of Ascension. It''s the¡­ original name of The Realms of Annihilation."


    "So-" Cobalt shook his head, "How''d you figure that out?"


    Felix shrugged, "Long story. Basically, all the Realms past The Dragon are joined together. There''s this Spirit Guru guy and I met the Realm Warden, being that oversees everything."


    Peace nodded, "That tracks."


    "What¡­ happened to the¡­ Ladder? I guess?" Cobalt frowned in confusion.


    "Oh, yeah. I said The Dragon was taking the whole Ladder with it, basically it was unstable after our fight so¡­ we moved it."


    "Moved it? We?" Cobalt looked to the others to try and see if they were as lost as he was.


    Peace just shrugged, completely satisfied with the explanation.


    "What did you do with the Lilians?" Melody finally asked.


    "They''re in The Ladder." Felix answered.


    "Why?"


    Felix shrugged, "Didn''t want to kill them and have The System give me too many levels all at once to try and catch me up to my current power level."


    She nodded, "So, this Arthur¡­ Was that just to get us out of there unnoticed? Is he still in there?"


    From her tone, Felix knew she suspected the real answer, she just didn''t seem to want to believe it, "Mostly get us out of there unnoticed. I don''t have the item anymore that let me switch to Arthur but, I don''t really need them anymore either."


    "So you are The Dragon Slayer? You''re Arthur? And you have been ever since-"


    "Ever since the first world event in my tutorial." Felix nodded.


    She frowned, "You''re¡­ a mass murderer? You slaughtered millions of Drakene along with a number of Dragons¡­ Why?"


    Cobalt backed up a step, partly out of fear of Felix and partly out of fear of Melody and mostly out of fear of getting in the middle of a conflict between them.


    Peace''s smirk grew, on the other hand.


    "Nope. I''ve killed exactly one Dragon and¡­ Some number of Drakene that is likely in the single or double digits? I haven''t exactly counted."


    She opened her mouth to retort but Felix continued before she could, "A little while ago you asked me if you signed a Soul Contract, would I tell you everything. Are you still willing to do that?"


    Melody hesitated, her face contorted with a confusing mix of emotions, "I don''t¡­ know."


    Felix nodded, "I''m trying to learn to trust and consider others more so, I won''t make you." He turned to Cobalt, "You on the other hand, I just don''t know you well enough t-"


    He stepped forwards and held out his hand, "Yup. Hit me with it."


    Felix nodded and created and Soul Contract between the two of them then, turned back to Melody and completely obscured the area around them so there was no chance of being spied on, even by The System, "Back in my tutorial, I ran into a baby Dragon. It was terrorizing a city and I helped relocate it to its own island. When I first left the Tutorial, I just used Arthur to stay anonymous while I completed contracts for The Adventurer''s Guild. I ended up in a contract with that Drakene clothing shop we visited and they were the only ones that knew because I asked them to make me something using some of the Dragon Scales the Baby Dragon had shed."


    She frowned deeply in confusion.


    "Shortly thereafter, Tekragoraxius set up a meeting with me and told me she knew I was Arthur and asked me for my help. She needed someone who was strong and had just the right history, none. I suspect she also didn''t want to completely ruin someone''s real identity which, made Arthur an attractive choice. After that, I used Arthur in Bastorus One and that was about it. Everything else, was all Tekragoraxius'' plan."


    She shook her head, "The Baby Dragon¡­ What¡­" Her eyes widened a little, "It''s Tekragoraxius''¡­ isn''t it?"


    Felix nodded, "Yeah. One of a few."


    Melody nodded slowly, "My brother then¡­ You killed him?"


    "Kind of. He wasn''t exactly¡­ healthy, when I fought him."


    "What does that mean?"


    "Even if I didn''t show up at all, he would have died. He was¡­ infected."


    "You''re sure? There was no way to save him?"


    Felix shrugged, "No. I''m sure someone out there could have. In that moment, I couldn''t. Even now, I''m not sure I could."


    She nodded, "Okay." Then, she sighed and stepped forwards, "You need to put me in a contract too. Tekragoraxius wouldn''t be happy with your telling me all this otherwise."


    Felix nodded and stepped forwards but stopped before reaching her, "I don''t care if she''s happy. She trusts me and I''ve decided to trust you."


    Melody shook her head, "Just do it."


    Felix clasped her hand but she stopped him before he could offer the contract, "A Contract is too formal."


    He cocked his head in confusion.


    She looked over at Peace for support before continuing, "I¡­ I''ll explain more later but¡­ my time in The Ladder¡­ changed some things. Instead of a Contract, we should bond our Souls."


    Felix cocked a brow, "Like how Nova and I are bonded?"


    She nodded, "More or less."


    He shrugged and looked at Peace, "I don''t see why not."


    Peace nodded, "Cool with me. Your Soul is more than strong enough to ensure we can''t give anything away too."


    Felix nodded, "Yeah. I''m not worried about that."


    The actual Soul Bonding process was fast and easy without any complications Felix was worried might occur. Once it was done, Felix opened an Aether Tunnel all the way back to Eramith. Instead of the Arena, which would be packed, or Ked''s lab, which he didn''t want to deal with yet, Felix brought them to the A-SAM facility which, remained mostly empty due to his lack of attention and the ongoing tournament.


    "I guess we have an Abyss to finish." Melody nodded seriously then, a smile slowly broke out on her face, "You killed The Dragon, right?"


    Felix nodded, "We just went over this. Did your time in The Ladder destroy your memory?"


    "What does that mean by the way? Why is it called The Ladder of Ascension?" Melody completely ignored his teasing for the moment, distracted by her own confusion.


    "Long story." Felix shook his head, "Basically it was set up to get people to Ascend which¡­ We can go over some other time."


    She nodded slowly, "And my memory is fine thank you very much. I just meant, that if you''re that strong after your time in the Realms- Ladder, the Abyss is going to a breeze, right?"


    Peace crossed his arms and smirked, "Assuming it still lets him in."


    Melody frowned, "Wait¡­ I mean¡­ Your level is still low enough but¡­ You think it might¡­ not?"


    Felix shrugged, "Does anyone really know?"


    She sneered a little in annoyance, "Not really. No one''s gotten this far out of sync with their level I don''t think. Why isn''t it catching up by the way?"


    "Uh¡­ Another long story but¡­ Basically, the thing that your brother was trying to hook himself into and the reason he died, I activated it and empowered it and now it''s stopping The System from updating anything for the moment."


    Her expression was completely blank as she stared at him for a moment. Then, her head fell slightly to the side, "You''re serious? You have something that''s blocking The System?"


    "Not in the way you''re thinking, blocking isn''t the right word. More like it''s interfering with its ability to read me."


    She shook her head, "Still."


    Felix shrugged, "It''s not as complicated as you''d think."


    "Okay well¡­ Assuming it lets you in¡­ Is there any point in doing it anymore? Are the items even worth it?"


    "Not for the items." Felix stepped back to give them space then finally released Kerix, who had been knocking at his Soul to get out.


    The Titan appeared in front of Felix then stepped off to the side and looked around, "Huh. Not what I was expecting¡­"


    "Did the Warden fill you in?"


    Kerix spun to look at Felix and shrugged, indicating his ignorance.


    "Realm is stable now. No need to leave."


    "Oh. Cool." Kerix nodded then continued looking around, like he was searching for something. Off hand, he mentioned, "You should probably let The Acharaya know."


    "Good call." Felix responded before following his advice.


    A path altered to avert fate and yet, the destination seems clear.


    You want to stay in there or you want out?


    My path is intertwined with those who remain lost.


    Yeah but your students will be fine for a little while without you if you wanted to take a break.


    I will consider this step.


    "Is this¡­" Kerix frowned in confusion, "You sure we''re from the same universe?"


    Felix shrugged, "No. I thought you were."


    He waved him off, "Yeah, The Ladder doesn''t spread across universes or anything it''s just¡­ so different."


    "Speaking of." Felix


    I think it''s time I had a conversation with the Warden. Mark, can you patch The Warden in to everyone else here?


    Affirmative.


    Felix looked at the others in the room and finally introduced them, "Cobalt, Melody, Peace, this is Kerix."


    He waved casually.


    "And this is The Realm Warden." Felix said as The Realm Warden was patched into their conversation through the Mark nodes in each of their ears.


    I am The Realm Warden.


    "Uh¡­ Hi?" Cobalt responded in confusion.


    Felix ignored him and got right to the meat of what he was looking for, "So, The Qal''Dari are the race that created The System. They also created The Ladder?"


    Yes. Not race. Civilization. Empire.


    "What about The Abyss? Do you know anything about that?"


    Not by that name.


    Felix had Mark communicate a number of his memories to the Warden, running under the assumption that their name for it wasn''t the original name.


    The Evolutionary Archives. The Ladder, Archives and System were all attempts to achieve the same common goal. The System was the most ambitious. The Archives the least. No one thought The System Project would actually succeed. Something changed and at that point, The Archives and Ladder were abandoned. They never left their beta phase.


    "What was the goal of creating all of these?"


    To distribute knowledge and power throughout the empire.


    "All of these¡­ The System especially seem a little¡­ extreme for just¡­ that?" Melody asked as she slowly got over the sheer shock of what she was hearing.


    The Qal''Dari were a race. They expanded and eventually integrated or destroyed every other race in the entire universe. Consisting of all races that were willing, their empire spanned across the entire universe. They needed something to manage that. The Ladder was intended to replace most of the universe and provide a safe place to grow and discover. Archives already existed to keep a record of the past, creatures, realms and planets that no longer existed. It was adapted to let people in both to help cull the population of creatures and for them to grow.


    "The Ladder was intended to replace the universe and you said The System was the most ambitious?" Cobalt shook his head in confusion.


    Yes. For an empire to span a universe, they must have some mastery of Space. The Qal''Dari had more than some.


    "What changed to make The System work?" Felix asked.


    I don''t know. Everyone thought it was a pipe dream. It was kept entirely secret and I only knew about it because I was consulted briefly. Even then, no one working on it thought it could work.


    "Okay, moving on then. You said The Evolutionary Archives keeps a record of past realms, creatures and planets. How far back does it go?"


    The Archives existed long before these projects began. It was merely adapted to allow entrants. That adaptation was never finalized but its collection of history is completely automated. It will even grow to accommodate as it does.


    "So I could descend far enough in The Archives and go far enough back to see creatures and places from the era of the Qal''Dari?"


    From before.


    "In that case, I think we keep going with The Archives. Descend as far as we can." Felix sighed then looked over at Melody for ideas, "Unfortunately, I don''t know how to do that without standing out."


    She shrugged, "Don''t try to hide."


    Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.


    "I know you like to prance about and show off to anyone who will glance your way but, I would like to remain unknown as long as possible."


    She snorted, "Best you can do is probably to shift the attention off of yourself. Adaline isn''t the worst choice, considering her affinities."


    "That¡­" Felix nodded slowly, "¡­is not the worst idea."


    "So we keep going?" Melody asked excitedly.


    "Yeah." Felix nodded, "Let''s do that." He looked over at Kerix, "What are you going to do?"


    He shrugged, "I''ll watch for now if that''s cool. We''re in some kind of arena right?"


    "Yeah."


    "I''ve got¡­ some things I want to look into and I''ll need you for that but, they can wait."


    Felix nodded, "Sure." sea??h th§× N??elFir§×.net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    "Uh¡­" Cobalt winced, "He''s not exactly the most¡­ inconspicuous¡­ person¡­ being."


    "You can tell he''s not¡­ normal?"


    Melody snorted again, "Yes. You really think any of the Gods aren''t going to notice?"


    Felix groaned, "So, as soon as I stop obscuring us, a bunch of Gods are going to notice us?"


    "I was surprised no one had come to see who he was already." Melody shrugged.


    "Kerix, can you do what I''m doing now? Obscure your surroundings?"


    He shook his head, "Nope."


    "I actually¡­" Melody smiled, "Might have the answer. It won''t fool everyone but¡­ most."


    Before following Melody, Felix moved Kerix back into The Ladder in his Soul then toned down everything he could to make himself less conspicuous.


    Cobalt flew back to the arena by himself while Felix opened an Aether Tunnel to the arena for the members of his own team. There, they flew into the arena and Felix paid very close attention to everyone around him.


    He got a few glances here and there but the crowd in the arena seemed far more interested in the ongoing event and whatever they were doing at the time than him so, he felt fairly satisfied with his relative anonymity.


    Melody led them up to the top floor where the Gods had their booths then around to a curiously blank wall where a booth should have been. There was no door but, Felix could feel with his Matter Senses that there was a booth on the other side.


    She gestured towards the wall with her head, "Can you get us in?"


    Felix nodded, "Yes but, do we-"


    "Just do it before someone walks by."


    He opened a tunnel and they all stepped through before he closed it. On the other side of the wall, the booth with no door was about as plain as he could have expected. It looked like the other booths he had seen except, it wasn''t customized at all. The layout was generic and there was nothing there except some basic furniture.


    "Who''s is this?" Felix asked as he scanned the booth and those around it.


    "Edras." Melody answered as she lounged on the couch, "Most people think he just portals in when he wants. He keeps the booth obscured so no one can see in but¡­ being as awesome as I am, I know he hasn''t shown up once."


    "So it just sits here empty¡­"


    "That and-" Melody smirked, "The booths are laid out so that the major factions are split up. This booth is the furthest one we can get from Rhonan and The Holy Mother."


    "Convenient." Peace smiled.


    "This is as good as anything I guess." Felix pulled Kerix back out then tuned into his senses to see if anyone twitched in their direction.


    His senses were all good enough that he could completely cover the arena and the only one that did was Rhonan but, he just twitched slightly and frowned. Felix kept a tab on him but it seemed like he was more curious than anything.


    "Not bad." Kerix nodded as he walked around.


    "This is one of the three big God''s booths."


    Kerix nodded and gestured towards the wall, Felix with his senses knew where he was gesturing but the others were lost, "That one of the others I take it?"


    Felix nodded, "That''s Rhonan."


    Kerix looked around then frowned, "Are they¡­ your gods are the people on this floor?"


    Peace nodded, "Yup. Other than Rhonan, the only beings stronger than the gods are the Primordials who have been around since before The System."


    "I see¡­" Kerix shrugged then laid down on the couch and promptly closed his eyes, "Well, have fun I guess."


    "You have a Mark node if you need anything."


    Kerix waved them off, "I''ll be fine."


    Felix nodded to him then tunneled them back to their room in the Arena which he knew was empty for the moment.


    "You two also just came out of The Realms so, it wouldn''t be too surprising if you got stronger."


    "I did." Melody nodded.


    Peace smirked, "Not in the way he means."


    Felix nodded in agreement with Peace, "No but, tell me anyways."


    Melody pouted a little then sighed, "Well, I spent most of my time in 1500s. Got better at using my talents in a fight, reading everyone and keeping track of things. Learning to disrupt people just enough. I also started learning¡­ some other things."


    Felix nodded, "Your body seems the same but your Spirit is definitely more refined."


    She moved to make a vulgar comment about her body but Felix cut her off and turned to Peace, "You?"


    He shrugged, "Spirit shit. Got better at shifting but realized that wasn''t best use of being a Spirit. Elemental stuff is more my style. I also don''t want to give up martial arts. They''re just too¡­ fun. I only realized I wanted to combine the two near the end though."


    "The end? Why''d you leave?"


    Peace shrugged, "Things were getting stagnant in there and I didn''t think I could beat The Dragon."


    "You were on the 1999th?"


    He nodded, "Yeah, stalled for a while there before leaving."


    Felix snorted, "So you beat Adaline, Zeraxes and Romar then?"


    "Hey," Melody cut in, "So did I."


    "What realm did you make it to?"


    "1986th." She said proudly.


    Felix''s jaw dropped, "How?"


    She punched him on the shoulder, "Don''t be so surprised. I''m not as strong as you guys in a fight but there are always other options."


    "Did you use your instrument thing?"


    She shook her head, "Not in the way you mean. I just mean even in the combat trials, there are always allies you can recruit and support."


    "Plus, we had the collective knowledge of Mark in our ears." Peace shrugged.


    "That¡­ helped." Melody admitted.


    "Okay well, would you have kept going if you could make it through The Dragon? Or the 1987th?" Felix looked at them both.


    "I''m game." Peace nodded.


    Melody shrugged, "Probably?" Then looked at Peace in confusion as Felix stepped forwards and moved them both into The Ladder, directly into The Acharaya''s realms.


    The Time Dilation in the Realms was different than before as they couldn''t loop things in the same way but, there was still so much time dilation, that it wouldn''t take more than a few minutes for them to have spent many epochs in there.


    In the meantime, Felix Aether Tunneled himself back to Ked''s Lab where, he met Rewdan, Eni and Art.


    "It''s been a while."


    "Not for us." Rewdan shrugged.


    "Fair enough. A lot has changed and most importantly, I have a new lab for you. If you''re interested?"


    Rewdan finally stopped tinkering with whatever he was doing and cocked a brow, "You have a lab for me?"


    Warden, the building on the 2498th, what is it?


    Was designed to keep The Realms growing and expanding once it was out of its testing phase. Never ended up being fully staffed though and we don''t have the resources to keep creating realms.


    Mind if I co-opt it for something else?


    No.


    "Yeah. There are already a bunch of my Mental World Residents in there now."


    Rewdan nodded slow, hesitantly, "Let me see. I''ll have to assess things¡­"


    Felix nodded and moved him, Art and Eni, ignoring his surprised and hesitant expression, into the 2498th. He gave him a second or two, which was more like a large fraction of an epoch, then asked, How''s the new lab? Up to snuff?


    You can pry my cold dead corpse out of here.


    Felix snorted, You''re a Spirit and I made your body. That wouldn''t be enough to get you out.


    Exactly. I''m never leaving.


    Trying to do a better job of paying attention to others and their needs, Felix asked Art, Art, you good there?


    I am happy here.


    Okay. Let Mark know if you need anything.


    Thank you.


    Warden, can we talk System?


    What of it?


    The System exists in The Realms? I used it.


    It does.


    How does that work? How did that happen?


    The System is designed to spread and fragment itself into spaces. It managed to do so before the last testing phase was closed.


    It doesn''t seem to work though. The further into The Ladder you go, the more it starts to fail.


    Some fragments haven''t been updated since the beginning.


    How would you feel about removing The System entirely from The Realms?


    I would like that. It is impossible to work with.


    Awesome. I have something that could use those fragments. We jus-


    I can remove them.


    In that case, Nucleus, can you overpower a System Fragment?


    No but, I don''t think I need to. I think I can simulate a technician.


    Okay well, take your time with the first few at least. Felix said as he moved The Nucleus into The Realms.


    With all that taken care of, Felix wanted to start working on some items for Peace and Melody when they returned but, he felt Space opening in the lab and turned towards it as Fin stepped out.


    "You''re back."


    "I am."


    Fin walked over and looked him up and down, shaking his head, "Is your body made of Mana now?"


    Felix nodded, "It is."


    "I guess I should have seen that one coming." He shook his head, "The Realms were productive for you then?"


    "Very."


    Fin walked around Felix and nodded to himself, "This should definitely be enough."


    "Enough for what?" Felix looked over his shoulder at the Feline behind him.


    "Not something I can talk about here." Fin said as he opened a portal and indicated Felix should follow.


    Felix had other things he wanted to do but, Fin had been helpful to him in the past and he was curious so, he followed.


    The other side of the portal didn''t seem particularly significant and Felix realized that was the point when Fin then opened another portal from there. He then led Felix to a more permanent fixture, a single solitary box of a building as far as Felix could see. Inside of it, with his Matter Senses, there was nothing. Or rather, the entire box was warded in every way imaginable with spell work and enchantments that were almost impressive enough to rival Kryptos'' work.


    Felix could still feel enough though that he knew the inside of the building was empty. Instead, the space inside the building had been warped and twisted.


    Despite that, Fin stepped in without hesitation and Felix followed behind him.


    As Felix expected, stepping into the building teleported him from wherever they were, to somewhere else entirely. Instead of a planet though, Felix felt very much like he ended up in a realm or some other separate space. There was the distinct feeling of being moved but also passing through a spatial barrier.


    On the other side, there was a circular room with non-descript, dark grey walls and concentric, glowing rings in the floor providing light.


    Fin led Felix down the singular hall that led into the room and through what seemed to be the most polymathic and eclectic facility Felix had ever seen. His Mental World was completely diverse in environment and interests of the people within but, it was huge.


    The facility Fin led him to was a building, a relatively normal sized compound at that. Each room they passed by though was a completely different. Some were alchemy labs, others were elixir labs, some were libraries, ritual rooms, warehouses, forges, bakeries, enchanting workshops and hundreds of others further down other adjacent halls.


    Each one of the rooms, both the ones Felix had experience with and those he didn''t, he could tell were far more advanced than typical. It wasn''t just more advanced though, they seemed like more than that but Felix couldn''t quite figure out what it was.


    "What is this place?"


    "This, is The Wizard''s Sanctum."


    Felix looked at him curiously as they flew down the hall, "I¡­ the what?"


    "You heard me." He responded without turning around.


    Felix didn''t bother continuing the line of questioning and just followed Fin to a large auditorium style room where there were already a dozen people standing behind the bench.


    Fin joined Felix in front of the desk rather than behind it and Felix very much expected to be judged.


    "Finley. You have called this meeting to present a candidate for the order."


    "I have." Fin nodded as he hovered into the air and forwards, into the center of the half circle desk, "Well, kind of. I believe Felix more than qualifies for the order and has for some time but, his age prohibited him. Now that he''s spent an exorbitant amount of time in the Realms of Annihilation, this is no longer an issue."


    One of the people behind the desk, a woman with blonde hair sighed, "We''ve discussed whether or not time dilated areas should affect the age restriction before. We still haven''t come to a consensus."


    "I''m hoping the potential of this candidate will push us to do so. On that note, not only am I presenting him as a candidate for the order, but also as our Champion."


    Felix raised his brows in surprise which, seemed to be one of the tamer reactions in the room. Most of the people behind the desk guffawed or gasped while the rest all reacted in some way, showing their surprise.


    The blonde woman, once again, "We have yet to determine whether we are going to sponsor a champion at all."


    "Yes well, I suspect he hopes his candidates potential will overcome our indecision?" An older looking, tired, man offered.


    Fin nodded, "Precisely."


    "Well, what have you to show with regards to his potential?" The older man asked.


    Fin smiled and stepped to the side, gesturing back towards Felix, "I take it you have yet to inspect the candidate. Might I point out, his body is not quite as organic as it might appear at first glance?"


    The people behind the desk leaned forwards and inspected Felix.


    While Felix didn''t want his every secret revealed to random people, a few things kept him there instead of walking away. First, he generally trusted Fin enough to give him the benefit of the doubt and they still had a contract that prevented Fin from revealing anything directly without his permission. Additionally, given how they got there, Felix was reasonably certain this was a secret society of some kind so, revealing something to them was far from revealing something to everyone.


    Lastly, he was enticed by all the rooms in the building and how they had somehow managed to create enchantments and wards that were approaching the level of Kryptos'' work.


    Behind the desk, the people judging Felix looked confused. It took a few seconds for even a few of them to catch on and at that point, it was still only just a few,


    The blonde woman frowned deeply, "Is your body made of Mana or are you simply coated in it?"


    Felix, in response, reabsorbed the Mana from his arm to reveal nothing.


    She, along with a number of others, gasped.


    "Boy, what is your race?" A rather angry looking bearded man leaned over the desk.


    Felix shrugged, "No idea. I can''t check now but once I do, I can get back to you."


    "What do you mean, you don''t know and can''t check?"


    "I changed my race in The Realms and The System hasn''t updated and figured everything out yet." Felix pointed at his necklace, using it as a simple lie knowing they couldn''t really sense anything through his tight obscuring Aura, "This necklace is hiding me for now. I''m worried that if I let The System update, I won''t be able to get into The Abyss."


    Felix wasn''t actually worried about that because he knew The Abyss had existed long before The System so tying the entry requirements to a System number didn''t make any sense unless, The Abyss wasn''t doing anything. It was entirely possible The System was preventing people from entering all on its own, for whatever reason.


    If it wasn''t The System though, he wasn''t sure what would be stopping him from getting in and he was just hoping he could find a way through anyways which, he some plans for.


    The angry looking man fell back into his chair and grumbled, accepting the answer.


    "In that case, I believe we should start with the main requirement. Please present to us your Skill."


    Felix looked at Fin for an explanation and he leaned in a little, "You need to present a Wizard level proficiency Skill."


    "I don''t have one."


    "You don''t have Mana Manipulation at Wizard proficiency?" The blonde asked in confusion.


    "I don''t have the Skill at all." Felix shrugged.


    "That is not entirely true." Fin said, "You do have something at the Wizard proficiency level."


    Felix frowned, "How do you know that?"


    "I have a Skill that allows me to see the highest proficiency of someone I inspect." The blonde woman leaned forwards, "You do not have to present to us your Skill. I will vouch for your proficiency level."


    "She saw me at the tournament I take it?" Felix asked Fin.


    Fin nodded, "I suspected but she came to me on her own and asked if I knew you, considering my position and your status as a student."


    "As for the candidate''s potential role as the Champion of the Order, I do not believe there is a better candidate." The blonde said, looking to her colleagues for any disagreements.


    The older man leaned forwards a little, "There is the other we discussed."


    The angry man crossed his arms, "It is very clear he is the better candidate."


    No one disagreed with him.


    "Have we need for a Champion? We have previously discussed this and we generally do not involve ourselves in matters of Divine Politics."


    "This affects the entire universe though. If we don''t, things could end¡­ unfavorably."


    "If we do they could end unfavorably."


    "If we let any of the other declared Champions Ascend as the Prophecy has described, we may lose everything we have worked towards."


    "And you believe this candidate will be better?"


    "You believe doing nothing will improve our odds?"


    The blonde woman turned to Fin, "Is the candidate amenable to our goals?"


    Fin turned to look at Felix as he answered, "His desires are similar to our own."


    Felix looked at him questioningly but Fin just nodded.


    "In that case, we should take this to a vote. All those in favor of the candidate as champion?"


    A number of hand raised, the majority but not all.


    "Any who are not in favor?"


    This time, just a couple hands raised but, everyone in the room, other than Felix, gasped as one of them, was Felix''s hand.


    "As much as I appreciate the confidence, I''m not interested."


    Fin looked back at him with a slack jaw, "You understand this position would simply result in our helping and assisting you to become more powerful?"


    "It would also make me beholden to you. I have no interest in that."


    The blonde woman smiled ever slightly, "In that case, I believe the results of the last vote can be taken for his candidacy to the order. Does anyone have any objections?"


    Whether still too stunned or they just didn''t object, no one said anything.


    "Finley, you will act as the member''s liaison?"


    Fin nodded, "Thank you for your time."


    With the vote over, Felix followed Fin back out of the room and down a few halls into what he assumed, was Fin''s personal workshop.


    It was a combination of a ritual room and just a plain office. There was room for rituals on the ground with material to craft permanent version with conductive threads. There were also massive Mana Boards, like the ones in Fin''s classroom and office at Eramith and each one, was covered in complex Spell work that Felix didn''t even know Fin was even capable of.


    "I must say I am rather shocked you denied Championship." Fin shook his head in surprise.


    "What are your goals here?"


    "With regards to a Champion and the universe, to keep everything as it is." Fin stated, "We fear all other candidates exist to bring one specific God into power. Rhonan has no champion himself so any other choice will shake the balance. This has always resulted in massive loss in the past."


    "So you don''t want things to ever change?"


    "No." Fin shook his head quickly, "We have orchestrated change throughout history however, gradual change from the shadows has always turned out better than a large shake up."


    "So you''re an order of people with at least one Wizard Proficiency Skill that tries to better society from the shadows?"


    "No." He responded immediately, "The first part is correct but we exist simply to aid each-other. Provide resources and knowledge. You would be surprised, or perhaps you wouldn''t, how much overlap there is between high level concepts and sometimes even techniques between disparate disciplines."


    "So what changes have you orchestrated then?"


    "Nothing you have been around for and nothing grand. Simple things like easing the rise of a specific empire over another or helping to prevent catastrophe here and there. No major historical events."


    "How many members are there?"


    "A few hundred."


    "Anyone else I know that''s a member?"


    "Rhonan. My wife, Fen."


    "What''s Rhonan''s Skill at Wizard level proficiency?"


    Fin shrugged, "I don''t know. As with you, you do not have to present your Skill. If I may ask though¡­ What is the Skill you have at Wizard level proficiency? I believed you didn''t have Mana Manipulation so I was surprised when Tithesh mentioned you did have an ability at Wizard."


    "You''re still bound by that contract?"


    Fin nodded.


    "My innate."


    Fin''s jaw dropped, "I''ve never even heard of an innate at a high proficiency at¡­ all."


    Felix shrugged, "System identified it back in the Tutorial."


    "I guess¡­ given your new race, it would be essential."


    "It''s also not really something I trained up a ton. I mean I did but, not to the point where anyone who did the same training would end up where I am."


    "Of course not. You still have practiced more than most practice anything, from my understanding."


    "Maybe. I don''t feel like I spend that much time on it but¡­ Melody''s mentioned before that I never really stop practicing something, even if it''s just Spells behind my back during a conversation."


    "Are you training something now?"


    "Yeah. It''s just not behind my back anymore. That caused problems with triggering Danger Sense Skills. Now I have a Soul Space and other places to practice things. Even if it''s not one to one, it''s better than nothing."


    Fin nodded, "And now that you''ve spent as long as you have in The Realms, you have practiced your Mana Manipulation, whether or not you realize it, far more than nearly everyone."


    Felix shrugged in response, "I guess."


    "Well, as a new member, allow me to show you the facility."


    Felix nodded and followed along as Fin showed him the offices of a number of members of the order. That was less interesting to him. The library and other repositories of materials were more interesting. Even more interesting than that, was learning that the order was designed so that if someone who was a Wizard Proficiency Baker needed some exotic ingredient, an Wizard Proficiency Merchant could help them acquire it.


    There was also a portal hub with a massive list of locations throughout the universe with subtly hidden portals they could travel to and from. There were portal destinations outside of the Portal Hub in Telviras, portals to Osgard and many other Divine facilities along with millions of locations Felix didn''t know anything about.


    Finally, Fin showed Felix to an empty room, "This, is your workshop. You are free to do with it, anything you please."


    Felix nodded, "Thank you."


    Fin nodded in response then left. As soon as he did, Felix began altering his plans around the facility.


    The best way for him to stay under the radar an unnoticed, was to make himself seem less interesting. While he could try and avoid doing anything interesting, someone would inevitably see or realize something eventually so instead, he was opting to make everything else around him more interesting.


    Melody had the right idea by using Adaline to make it look like she was the reason they were progressing so quickly but just her, wasn''t enough.


    Using Nova and his own Matter Control, Felix created a permanent ritual in his workshop in The Wizard''s Order which created an odd looking glowing, vertical ovoid in the air.


    Then, Felix opened an Aether Tunnel and moved himself directly to his team''s shared bedroom in the Arena on Eramith. From there, he used his Matter and Anima Senses to locate Ayred who, was conveniently not in The Abyss, and Blinked to him.


    Ayred jumped back, "What the fuck¡­ Oh, Felix. Hey. Uh, could you maybe not do that in the future? Or at least¡­ warn me somehow?"


    Felix reached his hand out and offered Ayred a tiny object, "Sure, put this in your ear."


    "The fuck is that?"


    "It''s Mark. A node in my distributed Mana Computer System. Let''s me communicate with you and anyone else on the network so, Melody, Peace, Cobalt and so on. Also has access to everything I know."


    "Uh¡­ Melody has one?"


    "Yes. I gave it to her before she went into The Realms so the knowledge inside could help her."


    Ayred nodded then took it and tilted his head to the side, dropping it into his ear. Righting his head again he shook it to see if it would stay then shrugged when it did, "What now?"


    I need a favor.


    Ayred flinched a little as the voice appeared in his mind, Can you¡­ hear me?


    Yes.


    Uh¡­ Okay¡­ What do you need?


    How attached are you to your alias?


    Pretty attached I guess. I like it, it has a lot of value for what I do.


    I want to co opt it to make you seem like one of the most powerful organizations in the multiverse.


    You want to what?


    Felix explained what he needed Ayred to do and, by the end of it, Ayred fully agreed.


    Before implementing the first part of that plan though, Felix created a puppet of Mana within The Acharaya''s Realm. He didn''t find The Acharaya in the main nexus but rather the first Realm he checked, the one with the once ruined city.


    Now though, many of his Residents still occupied the city and they had restored every part of it he could sense.


    The Acharaya had a building that seemed to be dedicated to him and within it, Felix conveniently found Melody and Peace along with Arassagul and Velerena.


    Entering the building, Felix found all of them sitting around a table, everyone except The Acharaya eating a meal.


    The first thing he took notice of, other than Arassagul being rather calm, was that both Melody and Peace''s Spirit were now actually significant. They had clearly spent time to grow their Spirit and now, it eclipsed everyone''s other than the big three Gods in strength and Felix''s in the Systemverse, and now Kerix.


    The second thing he took notice of, was that it wasn''t just Arassagul that seemed calmer. Velerena also seemed more jovial than when he had last seen her. Felix didn''t normally notice those kinds of things, or rather he pointedly ignored them but, the difference was too obvious not to notice.


    Melody noticed him immediately but was wrapped up in a conversation with Arassagul.


    He walked over and took a seat, Peace slapping him on the shoulder and nodding to him before getting back to his conversation with Velerena. Felix left him be and turned to The Acharaya, "How are they doing?"


    It is rare that the path of a universe itself is altered and yet, I see no other conclusion.


    "I agree. I wasn''t even around back then but everything I''ve seen about the past leads me to that conclusion. At first I thought our universe was just old. Now, I know it was either drained or is being drained by The System or something else."


    It is not impossible that the universe is simply old however, this is not the path an old universe takes.


    "Really? What happens?"


    The Qal''Dari discovered most universes follow a path that leads them to expand then collapse back, elastically. The collapse results in an explosion and the contents are spread throughout the void between, some elements ending up on other paths.


    "So maybe this one just hasn''t started collapsing yet? Snapping back to a smaller size?"


    It had already begun before I entered The Ladder.


    "Oh. Well that''s concerning."


    It is not a path I wish to observe further.


    "Because that basically narrows it down to something or someone is messing with the universe. Yeah, I can definitely see not wanting to be here anymore."


    You however, walk a different path.


    "I am curious. I''m not at that level for sure but¡­ I will at least look into it."


    A fool takes a blind step. A coward takes no step. A wise man takes a cautious step.


    "I know. I''ll move The Ladder before I do anything too suicidal."


    Felix turned to look at Melody now that her conversation was done, "How are things going?"


    She smiled, "It''s great." Then, through Mark in his mind, I need a break.


    You''ve made lots of progress.


    Yeah¡­ I feel a little weird about¡­ knowing how stunted everyone else in our universe is but¡­ It''s not like they can all do this.


    No. We don''t have the Anima for that.


    I still have a ways to go but, I need a break from here.


    Peace, you want to stay or take a break?


    Either. If she needs a break, I can return with you guys.


    Felix then turned back to The Acharaya, "I need Peace and Melody for something outside."


    He nodded, Your paths are woven.


    Felix took that as confirmation that he didn''t need them to stay then pulled the two of them directly out into the real world.


    Melody, I''m trying to be better about asking and considering other people''s opinions as I''m not the best at caring.


    Okay, that seems like a good idea.


    Any issues with my wiping out The Ravens?


    You''re going to what?


    I need them gone.


    Ayred''s going to like that¡­


    He did.


    You told him?


    This is part of a greater plan.


    She sighed, It''s not like they''re all bad and you really shouldn''t just go around wiping out entire organizations but¡­ I guess if your going to get rid of any of them¡­


    Is that a yes?


    Is it necessary?


    No.


    Do you have to kill them?


    Not necessarily.


    She sighed again and shook her head, Yeah. It''s a yes. Avoid killing them if you can. They cause enough trouble.


    Good. you want to come with or you going to stay here?


    She shook her head, I''m a lot stronger but I would just hold you back.


    Felix looked at Peace who just shrugged, Same.


    He nodded to the two of them then Blinked back to the Wizard''s Order facility and used one of the discrete portals to arrive on the same planet as The Raven''s Nest. He quickly flew over to the building then, began casting Spells that created what looked like tall, completely black, lanky humans with a scythe in each hand. Shadow beings that were really just a manipulation of light and some Arcane Blades.


    Dozens of the Shadow Reapers appeared, each one moving around the outside of The Raven''s Nest to a different point.


    Once Felix had created over a hundred of them, the assault began.


    Each one moved through the wall with ease and on the inside, they tracked down and kidnapped the Ravens and customers within, where possible. If they had to fight back and kill, they did. Otherwise, the Reapers each opened an Aether Tunnel for Felix to reach through and pull the person into The Realms.


    Then, they took the items which, weren''t all that valuable to Felix anymore but it was essential that he took them for what he had planned next, to work.


    In total, Felix''s raid took a total of a few minutes to clear out the entire building then, he opened an Aether Tunnel off the planet. Everything else was already in place so all Felix had to do, was use Aether Tunnels to deliver some packages then, he waited.


    It didn''t take long for his packages to be received at which point, things started to get a little hectic.


    Felix joined Melody and Peace in the participants area of the stands so he could watch as the show began. There were no events currently happening but the ever present screens that showed the events within The Abyss were more than enough entertainment to keep a massive crowd in the stadium.


    Then, participants started to flood into the arena and towards The Abyss. The crowd began to notice and murmur amongst themselves but no one really knew what was going on. Even Peace and Melody were in the dark and looked at Felix for an explanation.


    He just ignored them and kept watching though.


    The participants flooding into The Abyss began to appear on the screens and as they did, it became painfully obvious something had changed. Specifically, they were all much stronger than the last time they had left and it wasn''t always obvious it was because of an item but, most of the time it was.


    Once the crowd was properly riled up, questioning everyone around them about what was happening and some of them panicking, due to bets they had placed or for some other reason, a loud silence washed over the crowd.


    All sound was consumed in a wave out from the center of the arena and immediately drew everyone''s attention towards the man at the center. He wore a billowing black cloak along with black smoke that began to spread and grow throughout the arena.


    "I am The Deraav''n Shadow Dealer and welcome, to my gauntlet."


    The crowd''s murmuring visually escalated as they stood, their mouths opened wider and moved faster but no noise was produced whatsoever.


    "I have already distributed items my Shade''s have collected to worthy candidates. Those who rise quickly will be rewarded with even better relics. Now watch, as my relics forge a new path for this universe. The Gods aren''t the only ones that can influence our path."


    Then, the man was gone in a flash of light and with him, so was the deafening silence that had drowned the arena.


    "Really?"


    Felix looked over at Melody who was frowning in disgust, "That was the best speech you could come up with?"


    Felix shrugged, "I left most of it up to Ayred."


    She scoffed, "There''s a reason he''s a Shadow Dealer and stays out of the limelight."


    "Fair enough. I think it got the point across though."


    "What did you give them?"


    "Mostly weapons and armor that kill things and make them move fast. Need them to move through The Realms as fast as possible."


    She nodded, "What about Adaline?"


    "She hasn''t gotten back yet but I have something specific for her."


    Melody nodded, "And what about little old me? You did get me something, right?"


    Felix sighed and shook his head then handed her a folded up set of clothes and Peace, an orb, "Here. I set Adaline''s things somewhere she''ll find them. Let''s head into The Abyss too so we get washed out in the crowd."


    Melody excitedly took the clothes and flicked them outwards. The clothes weren''t made of Asphellum, which was too heavy, but instead made from fibers of the crystalline World Tree in Felix''s Pocket Home woven together with some custom engineered silks. It was elegant and stylish and beautiful all at once, not something Felix had contributed to, but definitely something he could appreciate.


    Her excited and giddy smile immediately soured upon seeing it though, "Gross. What the fuck is this?" She held it out to Felix''s face, "You expect me to wear this? It doesn''t even let me show off any of my best assets!"

 Chapter 250 - Book 23

    Despite Melody''s teasing, semi-serious complaints, she ran off to


    equip the new set immediately. Peace on the other hand, had no idea what


    to do with the orb.


    "What¡­ is this?"


    "This-" Felix pointed at the orb in Peace''s hand, "Is¡­ I don''t really


    have a name for it. What is does though, is provide you with a


    nearly limitless source of any element you can imagine, to draw


    from. I say nearly because there''s hundreds of billions of


    points of Mana in that thing and it regenerates Mana faster than you


    should reasonably be able to use it."


    He looked excited as Felix was explaining but then confused as he


    frowned down at the orb, "How do I draw something from it? How do I


    change the element?"


    "Simple, you embed it in your Soul."


    "And I¡­"


    "Bond with it, the same way Melody and I did. It''s a little weird to


    bond your and my Soul due to you being a Spirit and my not,


    but¡­ I think this solves that."


    He looked at it curiously then shrugged, "Alright¡­"


    Taking the orb in one hand Peace pulled open his robes with the other


    then pressed the orb against his chest. Despite his body being physical,


    the orb slipped right through, as if it wasn''t there at all. That wasn''t


    to say there was no resistance as he had to push through his Soul but,


    it was far less than if Felix had tried the same thing,


    considering he was a Spirit.


    Once it was in place in Peace''s Soul, he bound himself to it and the


    orb began to dissolve into him, as Felix had intended.


    The orb itself was just a vehicle to transport its contents anyways.


    Inside of the orb, was not quite a computer but a Spell that took


    Peace''s requests as input and produced an elemental output, along with a


    massive Fractal Mana Core. In order to keep the Mana levels within high,


    there was also a stable Spatial Anomaly connected deep into the Aether,


    based on the SBAG and the Oblivion Sphere.


    "So now I just¡­ what?"


    "Try to summon Fire in your hand and make sure you communicate your


    intent to it. You should be able to control and move the element, being


    a Spirit. It''s really just a generator."


    Peace nodded slightly then reached his hand out and on his palm, a


    small flame appeared.


    His head snapped to the side to look at Felix with wide, excited eyes


    and a contagious, childlike smile, "So, can we head in now


    or¡­"


    "Yeah, let''s go."


    Felix followed as the two of them excitedly flew through the arena


    and into The Abyss, arriving about where Felix had left before heading


    into the The Realms, on the 436th floor.


    The 435th had supposedly been the breaking point where enemies


    suddenly hit the B grade and became much more difficult to deal


    with. Watching Melody and Peace though, it was hard to tell that was the


    case.


    Melody was only rarely killing anything but she was flying directly


    to the switches that needed to be pressed. She knew exactly


    which creature needed to be killed to drop a specific key and killed


    them quickly and efficiently, without worrying about anything else.


    It was like she was following a guide or something which, should have


    been impossible.


    Peace on the other hand, looked like a combination of Elementals all


    blended together, performing martial arts.


    He punched Fire, kicked Water, flipped with a burst of Air, trailed


    Lightning and broke the Earth beneath his feet. Everywhere he went, a


    maelstrom of Elements tore through the enemies and the landscape.


    With just the two of them, instead of taking hundreds of hours like


    they expected, it took them a couple hours at most to clear a floor


    which, was mostly due to them needing to fly around.


    Felix wasn''t completely idle though. He had also created an item for


    himself which, didn''t actually do anything except produce some flashy


    lights and sounds.


    Holding the box in his hand, Felix began tapping at the side of it


    causing the box to produce flashy lights and sounds, almost as if he


    were programming it. Then, he placed the box on the ground and the top


    opened, tiny filtering birds made of Fire pouring out in every


    direction.


    Everywhere they flew, the tiny little birds killed creatures, flipped


    switches and picked up keys. Whenever Peace or Melody needed to get


    somewhere, one of them would explode into a fiery vortex that turned


    into a portal.


    With the little fiery birds, instead of a couple of hours, it took


    them less than an hour per floor and, they weren''t even the fastest


    party.


    Once they killed the boss, easily, Felix popped out of The Abyss to


    update himself and check on things before heading right back in. Doing


    so, he knew that many of the teams that had once slowed down or


    struggled against the floor group starting at 410, were suddenly


    cruising through almost effortlessly.


    Most impressive, was Il Doras'' team who was all of a sudden moving


    from floor to floor beyond Thakrogran on the 435th, like they were


    children''s playgrounds.


    Felix hadn''t even given them an item either, instead The Holy Mother


    had responded to The Shadow Dealer''s move by giving Il Doras and his


    team even more items, beyond what she had already provided.


    Just a few hours later, Felix found the very same thing had happened


    with Romar and Zeraxes.


    Zeraxes, on top of his Primordial Echo robes and Divine Bolt, now had


    jewelry adorning his neck and fingers along with with bracers, boots and


    a seemingly endless supply of consumable items.


    Romar on the other hand, was relying less on consumables and more on


    a new weapon which looked like a multiple meter long hammer. It was less


    like a hammer though and more like a portable nuclear reactor. When he


    swung it, and inevitably pancaked whatever he was targeting, the weapon


    would swallow the remains and burn even brighter.


    In both cases though, it didn''t seem like Romar or Zeraxes were fully


    in control and practiced with the items they had been given.


    Even Transcendent River and Mirror Cell, their respective Primordial


    Echos, were still new to them so even more items on top of those, were


    completely throwing them off.


    In the end, the items they had were more powerful than the ones Felix


    had handed out but, Felix''s were completely self sufficient and required


    no training or skill to use whatsoever.


    So, Romar and Zeraxes were moving faster than they had been but, they


    hadn''t accelerated nearly as much as all the other teams in The


    Abyss. Then, on top of them being slower than everyone else, the other


    teams were stomping Thakrogan and clearing the floor group


    multiple times faster than they had causing the crowd to doubt the once


    favorites.


    The Holy Mother had seemingly foreseen this though as everything she


    had given Il Doras and his team, they had either already trained with or


    they were much easier to use.


    Felix, Peace and Melody only managed to get through one boss on the


    450th by the time a somewhat frazzled and exhausted looking Adaline


    rushed in to join them.


    Melody snorted when she saw her, "You don''t have to join us right now


    you know. You can sleep for more than an hour at a time?"


    Adaline grunted in response then completely changed topics, "What


    happened?"


    "Shadow Dealer dumped a bunch of items into the mix." Peace


    shrugged.


    "I heard he took out The Ravens recently too so¡­" Melody nodded


    along.


    She grunted again, "Isn''t that Ayred?"


    "Yeah," Melody responded, "But, he''s clearly working with someone or


    some organization."


    "Have you talked to him?"


    "No idea where he is." Melody threw her hands up in the air, "Also,


    why would we waste this time. We all just got out of


    The Realms. It''s the perfect time to make a great


    impression."


    She grunted again, "What Realm did you get to?" Seeming more like she


    was asking out of social obligation than out of genuine interest.


    "Ah, not that far." Melody humbly lied.


    Peace just nodded and Felix didn''t even answer her.


    She accepted that answer as she didn''t seem to really care then


    looked to the floor around them before pulling out an item of her


    own.


    "What''s that?" Melody leaned in.


    She held up the nearly foot long, slightly tapered stick in her hand,


    "A wand." Then, under her breath she added, "I think."


    The three of them watched in anticipation as Adaline inspected the


    wand, unsure of what to do with it. Eventually she got the idea and


    pointed it up into the air and, cast a spell through it.


    After coming out of The Realms of Annihilation, Adaline had cast


    impressive spells that stretched out across the sky in a grid pattern to


    locate the keys and switches where she could.


    The Spell she cast through the wand was similar, in fact she had


    tried to cast the very same Spell. The wand wasn''t really listening to


    her at all though and instead, an angular line shot out of the wand like


    a laser, into the sky before splitting up and shooting out in every


    direction. Those lines then split, branched and bent to locate the


    switches and when they did, portals opened all around them so all they


    had to do was reach through and flip the switch, kill the enemy, solve


    the puzzle or activate the mechanism.


    It was much faster and far more efficient than what Adaline


    had been casting on her own, requiring just a fraction of the Mana.


    Peace clapped her on the back in praise and Melody put on the show of


    a giddy and excited little girl as Adaline, looked down at the wand in


    complete disbelief.


    From then on, Felix''s team was by far the fastest. They were


    originally behind Il Doras by a couple floor groupings but that gap


    closed in a matter of hours.


    While everyone was excitedly pushing through the floors, both Felix''s


    team and the others, Felix began to notice something was off. He didn''t


    sense anything with his Anima Senses or his Matter Senses or his Mana


    Senses instead, he noticed Melody would occasionally shiver or twitch.


    It was minor and the fact that he noticed at all meant she either wanted


    him to notice, or she really couldn''t control it.


    Melody. Felix reached out through the Mark node still


    implanted in her ear, What''s wrong?


    What do you mean? She responded innocently.


    Something is wrong and whatever it is, It''s getting


    worse.


    She hesitated for a moment then smiled to the rest of them, "I''m


    going to take a break for now, since you don''t really seem to need me


    anyways. Felix, I''ve got a few sponsors who want to meet you."


    He nodded tersely then followed her out of The Abyss, letting Peace


    and Adaline go on by themselves.


    Outside, Melody led him back through the arena with no real


    destination in mind. Once they were far enough from everything else,


    You know I said I learned some things in The Ladder?


    Yes.


    I uh¡­ Most of the time I spent in there I spent¡­ With a specific


    person.


    Okay.


    She said she had been waiting for me.


    She knew about The Ladder? Felix asked curiously.


    She knew about The Ladder, where she was and that I was coming.


    She said she had been waiting for me for a very long


    time.


    That''s not really possible though, unless she means time dilated


    time.


    That''s what I thought too. If she was just crazy though, I


    wouldn''t have spent so much time there.


    So she wasn''t crazy? She somehow knew you were coming?


    Kind of¡­ You remember Estrea and The Prophecy at the start of the


    tournament?


    Of course.


    Right well¡­ Kind of like that.


    Felix looked over at her with a cocked brow, You spent time with


    a prophet? A seer?


    Yeah¡­ So¡­ I used to be a skeptic.


    Now you are a seer? You can see the future?


    No. Not see¡­ exactly. Uh¡­ It''s more like I can sense-


    The future? Felix asked incredulously.


    No. Not really. It''s more like¡­ She mentally sighed through


    their connection, I can sense what might happen?


    Uh¡­ You''re going to need to give me more than that.


    You know how¡­ If I throw a ball at you, you could catch


    it?


    Yeah¡­


    Right but, you aren''t tracking the wind or calculating trajectory


    or anything.


    Yeah but I don''t need to because I can visually follow the


    trajectory and extend it.


    Yeah uh¡­ bad example. What I''m trying to say is when you get


    really good at something that you don''t really need to think about. When


    something complex becomes second nature, what causes that?


    Experience I guess?


    Right, exactly. Anima is or¡­ kind of is


    experiences. So, if Anima has all the experiences ever, it would be the


    best at predicting what might happen¡­ Does that make sense?


    So you tap into Anima to predict the future?


    Eh¡­ It''s more like deja vu. The Ambient Anima takes the current


    situation around us and that triggers previous experiences in it. If you


    listen, they''re the most prominent experiences.


    So you just listen to that? How accurate is it?


    That''s a great question. Normally, very


    accurate. The further ahead you look, the less predictable things are


    except they are way more predictable


    the bigger the event is because those leave big impressions on the


    Anima.


    Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.


    Uh¡­ okay¡­ so you can tell what people around you are going to do


    in the next few seconds or you can predict when the universe will


    collapse but everything in between is hard to predict?


    Bingo. Mostly. The thing is¡­ there are some¡­ exceptions?


    Like what?


    You.


    Me?


    Yeah. Some people and some things are so¡­ not unpredictable but¡­


    have a big enough impact to change things. It''s like¡­ I''m reading


    ripples on the surface of a lake. I can predict how bugs floating on the


    top will be moved. I can see big waves on the horizon and predict their


    effect. You''re like an invisible meteorite. Not invisible in that I


    can''t see you but¡­ more like you react differently from the vast


    majority of¡­ everything and you have a big impact. Like a meteor


    teleporting at random. Does that make sense?


    Yes. That was a better analogy. What are you sensing in there


    that''s worrying you?


    Uh¡­ I don''t really know. Before The Ladder, there was this¡­ sense


    of dread or something. Now¡­ it''s more clear and more¡­ confusing. It''s


    kind of like you where I can''t really tell because the Ambient Anima


    doesn''t even really know. I know it''s my Soul filling in the dread part¡­


    what I''m actually feeling is¡­ something is¡­ going to


    happen and¡­ it''s happened before and whatever it is¡­ I can''t really see


    past it. Everything around it is¡­ emptiness.


    That''s confusing.


    Yeah¡­ for me too.


    So you have no idea what it is but the emptiness is scary,


    basically?


    Something like that.


    Okay well, ke-


    "Melody." A voice that was intentionally sing-song to the point of


    being irritating, echoed down the hall causing Melody to groan.


    She corrected her expression in an instant, "Mom."


    Melody''s mother was on them in a moment, "We haven''t seen you since


    you returned."


    "Been busy." She shrugged with a faked smile, "And maybe I got a


    little too excited."


    Her mother smiled wide, not noticing her daughter was acting, "I can


    see why. You''ve made wonderful progress. Your father is very


    excited. Speaking of, we would very much like it if you could join


    us."


    "Of course mom. I was planning on seeing you both soon but, don''t you


    think I should maximize my time in the The Abyss right now? Especially


    with everything going on?"


    "Yes of course, you''re right. With everything going on though, it is


    even more important we talk. Soon."


    "I promise."


    Melody''s mother nodded then looked at Felix for a moment, then turned


    and floated off into the distance.


    Can we go back in so I don''t have to deal with that again?


    Melody asked without looking.


    Yeah. Felix responded, his mind having completely synced


    with the Mark nodes on the outside. Most importantly though, he wanted


    to be in the same universe just in case something went wrong with his


    Resident''s latest project. Now that they had fired up their version of


    the Mana Accelerator though and nothing had gone wrong, he was ready to


    head back in.


    Over the course of a day, the entire Abyss had been completely


    trivialized for almost everyone.


    For the spectators, there was no more tension or suspense from


    whether or not a team would complete a floor or how far they would get.


    Instead, that was completely replaced with the tension of who would be


    the fastest and what would be on the next floor.


    Melody had previously told Felix that floor 450 was about the point


    where people slowed down but in just a couple days, after anonymously


    gifting even more items to the other parties at the arena, the vast


    majority of the teams using that entrance were past the 450th.


    Felix and his team made it to the 500th by that point which, was just


    25 floors shy of the record.


    Romar and Zeraxes didn''t fall too far behind though because their


    sponsors quickly realized, no matter how powerful their items made them,


    they were limited by the size of the map. Felix handing out portal items


    like candy made it so that no matter how quickly they killed enemies,


    they were slower than almost every other team.


    So, they bought items from other teams.


    Felix expected that would happen and realistically, he could disable


    the items they bought. That would ruin the facade though and make it


    seem like The Shadow Dealer had control over the items instead of just


    having found and stolen them. He also, didn''t care if Zeraxes and Romar


    caught up.


    All he cared about, was seeing what was on the lowest levels and


    learning about the past.


    The further Zeraxes and Romar got, the less he stood out as being


    ahead of them.


    Il Doras and his team obscured Felix the most though as they were


    comfortably ahead of his team by a few floors, by design, leading him to


    seem like the most interesting candidate. Then, for the contrarians in


    the audience, there was Adaline who, was incredibly impressive with her


    extraordinarily complicated abilities and raw skill. Finally, anyone


    looking at Felix, saw him doing everything through some sort of


    box he seemed to be configuring which meant, it was just an item and not


    him.


    Everything was going exactly as Felix hoped it would right up until


    the 560th floor.


    Il Doras was still ahead by a single floor group and had already


    killed the boss Felix and his team were fighting. It was the first A


    grade enemy anyone had ever seen in The Realms, a Molten Elemental that


    was about the size of a mountain.


    Felix made sure they didn''t kill it too quickly because


    realistically, it was strong but not even close to the level of The


    Dragon. It was much closer to the level of the A grades in Azura and


    Felix figured even a small hunting party from Mortalbane could have


    beaten it. It did look impressive though.


    Drawing on the orb within his Spirit, Peace summoned a massive tidal Sear?h the n??el Fire.n§×t website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.


    wave worth of frosty wind to cool and harden one of its legs while it


    slapped down at Melody who was floating in the air near it.


    It''s hand passed right through her, creating a hole in it as a ripple


    in the air around her shielded her from any damage whatsoever.


    Then, Adaline used her revolvers to open a dozen portals all around


    it and through each one, she fired a spell with her new wand.


    Each portal transported a small ball through that looked relatively


    harmless as they sunk into the molten body of the elemental before


    exploding outwards, then imploding, taking massive chunks with them.


    The Elemental readjusted its body and shrank, getting faster but also


    less hot. They repeated the process a few times while Felix just sat


    back and made pretty Lightning Butterflies to make it seem like he was


    doing something.


    In reality, all he was doing was wasting Mana, coordinating Adaline''s


    Wand and containing Nova who kept trying to Blink out of The Ladder so


    she could help. The only issue with that, was that it would be


    way too obvious how strong she was when she swallowed the


    Elemental whole.


    Killing a massive A grade Elemental was already mind boggling for the


    crowd and seemed to be even more impressive than the Giant had been, not


    that many of them even knew about that.


    With the Elemental dead, Adaline collected the loot while Felix


    didn''t even bother paying attention to it.


    They were getting closer and he could feel it with the Auras and


    Souls of every enemy they killed. On top of that, each floor was


    becoming more complex. It was like they were just shy of breaking


    through or were right on the edge of a specific point in history where


    things were shifting.


    Instead of massive open floors with nothing of note, there were


    suddenly ruins that were too far decayed to get anything from.


    So, as Felix flew through the portal to the next floor, following the


    rest of his team, he had high expectations for what they would find.


    As soon as he made it through though, he saw Melody curled up on the


    ground as if in pain. He didn''t sense anything himself with his Aura or


    otherwise but he used his own Aura to shield the area anyways.


    Once he had, she clearly relaxed a little and Peace managed to help


    her up to a sitting position.


    "What''s wrong?" Felix squatted down as he asked.


    Melody, with wide eyes, met his gaze, "She''s coming. The Empress will


    return."


    "The w-"


    Before Felix could finish his question, the floor they were on began


    to collapse. Not physically but the literal space around them began to


    split and tear at the seams.


    In the instant before everything collapsed, Felix created a bubble


    around his team and moved them directly into The Aether, beyond the


    collapsing space around them. There, he navigated back to the


    Systemverse causing them to reappear just inside the arena, off to the


    side from the entrance to The Abyss.


    Next to them as they appeared, were Il Doras and a couple members of


    his team along with Romar who, were all completely stunned, staring up


    into the sky.


    Felix still didn''t have eyes but he had Seeing Eye Constructs


    embedded into his Mana Body so he could at least somewhat see if he


    needed to.


    Still, he wasn''t sure he believed what he was seeing through them as


    above him, was a Dragon. Another Dragon.


    This one was black and slimmer but had the same general structure of


    four legs, a tail and two wings. It was also multiple times as big as


    The Dragon Felix had killed in The Realms and completely black, almost


    impossibly so. As if its scales were swallowing light as it hit


    them.


    Ding You have received a message fr-


    Not now. Felix dismissed the notification without paying any


    attention to it as he summoned his Staff into his hand and created a


    shield above him, his team, Romar, Il Doras and his team. The shield


    completely blocked out the Fire Breath which, wasn''t nearly as


    destructive as Felix had expected.


    It wasn''t anything like The Dragon he had killed which could


    literally tear and burn Space. Instead it was hot enough to melt the


    arena around him and melt a small ditch into the ground but that was


    about it.


    As the breath tore through the arena around them, melting people, the


    building and the landscape alike, a large man with glowing and smoking


    runic tattoos leapt from the top floor of the arena towards the Dragon


    flying overhead.


    Impossibly, given the difference in their size, he latched on to The


    Black Dragon and pulled it down to the ground just outside of the


    arena.


    A moment later, another stream of Fire swung across the horizon and


    cut off a large chunk of the arena from above which, began to slide down


    due to the molten lubricant of the melting arena beneath it.


    More Gods jumped out after Rhonan to see if they could help in some


    way but not all of them. A good number of them fled, which was the smart


    move. The Holy Mother was one of the only ones that began helping those


    in the audience flee, mass healing everyone that still lived and


    bringing many of them back from the brink of death.


    Finally, there was someone who was not a God at all who, leapt from


    their balcony and landed just in front of Felix.


    "Should I help him?" Kerix asked, gesturing towards Rhonan''s


    fight.


    Felix sighed quickly, "Ye-"


    "NO!" Melody cut him off, "Just trust me, don''t."


    "Uh¡­" Felix looked at her with confusion, along with everyone else


    there with them though, for slightly different reasons.


    "Who are you?" Romar asked, taking a brave step forwards


    then looked over at Felix, "And why are you asking him for


    permission?"


    Then Romar looked at Melody but she ignored and cut him off, "Felix,


    let''s get out of here."


    "Sure. Where to?"


    Is there anywhere Tekragoraxius told you to go if you needed


    something?


    No.


    She grumbled in his head, Anywhere you can go where she might


    be?


    I don''t think so. What''s going on?


    Don''t you recognize that Dragon?


    No? Why would I recognize it?


    I know you''ve seen that memory.


    Felix frowned in confusion, That Dragon''s dead. Rhonan killed


    it.


    She shook her head, I thought so too but not anymore. A


    lot of things are starting to make sense all of a


    sudden.


    Why?


    That Black Dragon. It''s Rathelius.


    Felix didn''t question her further and instantly reacted. He opened an


    Aether Tunnel to a random point in Space then conjured a wall of solid


    Mana and opened his Pocket Home against it.


    Peace, Melody and Kerix stepped through instantly followed shortly


    after by Adaline and finally Felix. Just before closing the Tunnel, he


    looked back, "Go find your Dad, Romar. Il Doras, you going to be okay by


    yourself?"


    Il Doras nodded quickly, "I can get my team out of here safely."


    Romar stepped forwards, "Wait. What about Zeraxes and everyone else


    who was i-"


    Felix closed the Tunnel behind him. His Pocket Home though, he kept


    open and simply sealed the entrance with a Spell so it wouldn''t leak the


    air, Aether or Anima within, out into Space.


    Then, he opened a portal into Tekgragoraxius'' personal library which,


    looked exactly as it had the last time he had been there. There were a


    few Resident''s puppets, who were usually inactive, creepily laying on


    one of the tables but otherwise, it was nearly identical.


    Felix didn''t immediately sense anyone else inside but, he did sense a


    single thing that seemed out of place. A sheet of paper on one of the


    tables. It wasn''t actually there though. Looking at the table with his


    Seeing Eye Constructs, there was nothing there.


    His Matter Senses though knew it was there, slightly outside of Space


    so, he reached out and grabbed it.


    As he suspected, it was a note.


    I managed to convince Tekragoraxius to leave this library behind.


    An oddly difficult argument, considering it was originally mine. I


    apologize for not explaining anything to you or preparing you though I


    have faith that you will survive the show. As for why we have left,


    although we may have been able to protect our children from being


    hunted, I cannot protect us from my mother.


    You have the tools and the knowledge to escape as we did, should


    you choose to do so. She will return. Now that I have left, she will


    return even sooner. This may be in an epoch, it may be a few. She will


    return. I recommend leaving before she does.


    Should you decide to stay, I have marked a shelf that will be of


    particular interest to you. On it, you will find my personal research as


    well as my journals. You are not prepared to deal with her. These


    journals will hopefully sway you to realize this and leave. You will not


    be prepared. You will never be prepared. Use what is here to


    leave.


    Even if you decide to leave, hopefully before it is too late, we


    will never see each-other again. This is not by design, it is simply


    statistically unlikely. So unlikely, it is impossible. You will know why


    once you peruse my journals.


    Do not kill yourself.


    -R


    Felix stowed the note in his Soul Space as Peace, Melody, Kerix and


    Adaline stepped into the library. Kerix looked around with minimal


    curiosity at his surroundings but Melody walked over, "What''s that?"


    "A note from Rathelius."


    "Did he explain why he just murdered millions of people in the


    audience?"


    "No but, I think I can guess why."


    She winced a little, "Yeah¡­ me too. I don''t think it was entirely


    necessary but¡­ I know what''s happened in the past so¡­ I get it. Also,


    now that I know about her¡­ children-"


    "What. The. Fuck. is going on?" Adaline interrupted


    them.


    Both of them spun to look at her and Melody spoke first, "Rathelius


    is Tekragoraxius'' partner. Hid himself as a Drakene for a long time but¡­


    seems he was a Primordial. They had kids and now they left."


    Felix wasn''t sure about trusting her but Melody was a much


    better judge of character than he was so, he added, "Along with nearly


    all the Drakene it seems."


    She shook her head, "How do you know that?"


    Felix shrugged, "I kind of helped them, as Arthur."


    Her jaw hung open, not in surprise but just unsure what to say, "How


    did you just¡­ You opened a portal, I thought you were banned from those?


    Where is this? How did you just shield us from The Dragon Fire so


    easily? You moved faster than I could follow? I thought Arthur destroyed


    The Realms, that was you?"


    Melody shrugged innocently then leaned in as if she were sharing a


    secret, "He really hates attention."


    Adaline shook her head, "So this whole time¡­ Have you always


    been this strong? You''ve just been hiding it?"


    "Not this strong." Peace added, "He''s almost always keeping


    some kind of secret though."


    She frowned suddenly and looked down at her hands, "The Wizards¡­ one


    of them mentioned¡­ I overheard them¡­ I was their second choice." She


    looked up at him, "You were their first choice."


    Felix nodded, "Yeah."


    She seemed a lot angrier than Felix expected, "Why did you say


    no?"


    "Didn''t want to have to listen abide by their commands. Not that I''d


    be forced to jus-"


    Adaline grew even angrier at that, "What do you mean? The


    resources they would have provided¡­ I¡­ You''re an


    idiot."


    Melody snorted and Felix just shrugged, "Maybe."


    Adaline''s anger boiled and she began yelling, "So all this time, we


    could have gotten so much further through The Abyss, we could have¡­ you


    could have¡­"


    Felix avoided outwardly reacting but asked Melody through Mark,


    What''s wrong with her?


    Not my place. Give her a bit. She''ll be fine.


    Uh. Okay then.


    To give her space, Felix blinked a few shelves over then turned his


    attention to the System notification he had gotten at possibly the worst


    time.


    Ding You have received a message from Alan.


    I¡­ didn''t even know you could send messages


    through The System.


    You can''t. Melody responded, apparently tuned into his


    thoughts, Not that I''ve ever heard of.


    Huh.


    Felix,


    Trenus is finally being integrated. Added to the multiverse.


    Right now it''s invite only to get in but that''s only for a few


    days.


    Help. Please. Soon.


    Alan.


    Attached to the message was another message, of a sort.


    Ding You have been invited to Trenus. Would you like to


    travel there now?


    Before Felix could even answer though, he felt a pulse of some kind


    rippling through space around them. A moment later, there was another.


    Then another. Then there was a pause. Then there were three more


    pulses.


    It was a pattern of so-


    Is someone knocking? Melody asked.


    That''s¡­ somehow¡­ less ridiculous than I was thinking.


    Felix Blinked towards the exit then opened it and stepped back into


    his Pocket Home where the entrance was still open and just on the other


    side, floated a large man with glowing and smoking runic tattoos.


    They stared at each-other for a moment before Rhonan floated in


    through the barrier and into Felix''s Pocket Home, "There was man."


    "A man?" Felix cocked his head.


    "There was a man with you. He jumped out of Edras'' booth and landed


    next to you. You spoke."


    "Oh. That man."


    Rhonan looked at Felix seriously, "Who was that?"


    Felix opened the entrance to Tekragoraxius'' library then stepped in,


    Rhonan in tow.


    On the other side, Adaline''s jaw dropped then she literally fell to


    the floor. Melody snorted, for some reason and Peace just waved, to


    which Rhonan nodded in response.


    "Rhonan, this is Kerix. Kerix Ryko."


    Kerix stepped forwards and offered his hand, "Nice to meet you."


    Rhonan looked at his hand for a moment then slowly took it, "Who are


    you?"


    "Kerix. Ryko¡­ Kerix Ryko."


    Rhonan frowned, "You''re not from this universe."


    "Actually¡­ I am."


    Rhonan looked like he was about to say something but Kerix continued


    first, "I''m from a long time ago. Was¡­ in The La- The Realms


    for a while."


    The God frowned slightly, "Why are you here?"


    "I uh¡­ got bored, I guess?"


    Rhonan was about to say something but Kerix continued again, before


    he could, "That''s not¡­ I was stalling and hiding."


    "You''re from the past?"


    "Yeah."


    "How far back?"


    Kerix shrugged, "Sometime before The System."


    "And you''re here¡­ because¡­"


    "I didn''t want to be in there anymore so¡­ I left."


    "What are your intentions now?"


    "I don''t know, go back to the city I came from. See if anything''s


    left. Probably just explore other universes."


    He nodded slowly then his serious and dire expression shifted


    slightly, "What city would that be?"


    "New Cirrus."


    His expression softened slightly more, "Any idea how you plan on


    getting there?"


    Kerix shrugged and looked over at Felix, "Was hoping my guide could


    open portals for me."


    Rhonan finally let go of Kerix''s hand and turned to look at Felix,


    "You have the coordinates?"


    Felix shrugged, "Unless he does, no."


    Kerix shook his head in response.


    "Excellent. I will join you."


    "Sure." Felix nodded, "Sounds good to me. You have a way of getting


    there then?"


    "I do." Rhonan nodded. Then, he looked at Melody and Peace, "I take


    it you are both joining?"


    Peace nodded immediately and Melody nodded, after a moment of shocked


    hesitation.


    Then, Rhonan looked at Adaline, "Will you join us."


    She only managed to nod a little.


    "Excellent. We have a few stops to make along the way though. Child


    of the Reaper, The Reaper asked me to tell you the time is now."


    Peace''s expression went from jovial and teasing to very


    serious in an instant and he just nodded.


    "I also got a message from my integration world. They asked for my


    help sometime soon so I''ll have to go do that as well."


    Rhonan nodded, "Of course. Anything else?"


    The rest of them shook their heads then Rhonan nodded and led them


    back out of the library and Pocket Home into the middle of space. Felix


    created a bubble for those that couldn''t breathe and, after a moment, a


    massive ship materialized in front of them.


    It was long and sleek but significantly smaller than the ships Felix


    had seen dropping students off when he first arrived on Eramith.


    A door opened on the side and Rhonan led them inside, the door


    closing behind them.


    "Is this¡­ your¡­ ship?" Melody asked in amazement.


    "This is Galestar."


    "This is¡­ the¡­ it''s your personal ship."


    He grunted in response.


    "This ship is in so many books I''ve read." Melody fawned


    over everything as they walked through.


    After walking through a completely empty ship, they finally arrived


    in the control room and Rhonan turned to Felix, "Where to first?"